Okay, I want to be open about my bias before we begin. My least favorite play styles are (1) swarms, and (2) those abominable Jedi that shoot and fly away.

This post is not about swarms...

This post is not necessarily a complaint about fairness/balance. I think Jedi are in the right ballpark for points.

This post might be categorized as the hated (and nebulous) term “Negative Play Experience”.

My gripe: simply, after I have “scored” points, they can be “taken away” by regen. I know that, technically, I don’t score points until the end of the game, but you all know what I mean.

It reminds me of the Early Days. I’m talking the first release of the Falcon. There was a huge problem: there was an arc dodging ace with 13 HP that could kite, engage from any direction, and could not be killed in 1:15. It could be nearly 3/4 of your list, too. Massive points fortress, and prior to the half points rule. So much so that I remember reading articles on how to fight Fat Han and it was always, “kill the other ship.”

With the release of 2.0 we saw the 1/2 points rule extend to ALL ships, not just large base. Good decision, there are many small base point fortresses.

I would like a tournament rule that states once half points are scored on a ship, they cannot be taken away. I’ve talked about this with amigos, so I’m not claiming to be an original thinker.

I also think this is better than jacking up regen pricing. And let’s be honest ye Jedi lovers, if Jedi continue taking tournaments FFG is coming in with the heavy handed 230 point increases...

Which I also disagree with, but neither here nor there...

Thoughts?

Vote Heart for Yes, Confused for No!

Is regen / repairing really such a big problem in your local community?

First off, price regen appropriately ™.

Second, if the damage doesn't stick, it doesn't make sense to count it. I'm roughly okay with half points being a reasonable compromise between lore/experience feel and actual tournament playability with real world constraints.

Shields regenerate in X Wing. If you shoot a ship's shields and they regenerate you haven't damaged the ship in a meaningful 'I won this space battle' way. If an astromech or crew fixes it, you haven't scored a victory because you didn't damage or destroy the enemy. This isn't point karate, this is a Star War.

Price regen appropriately to its impact on the game and victory, and keep goofy game balance points in their own metagame world, but it doesn't make sense to have a barely damaged ship count toward victory.

I dont think regen belongs in the game. There are so many good astromechs now, but regen trumps them all in tournaments. The cost of two shields for 6pts is just easy decisions as well. Taking a disarm is not a negative as no ship shoots every round in the game.

Making r2 more expensive just increases the points fortress ship even more.

I think the correct solution is to errata R2 to have at least 1 damage card before regening shields (same trigger as r2d2 crew). This would stop the running after losing just two shields on an opening engagement, etc. And if the enemy can get dmg on the ship before regen, it could be a crit like panic pilot making it hard to flee, or direct hit, preventing regen above half points. A lot more risk for the regen ship this way.

Jedi aren't particularly strong defensively. Can't you just, you know, kill them? Obi-Wan, Plo, Mace and Luminara are all I4-5, so if you don't want to swarm them, bring Fenn Rau, Soontir Fel, Poe Dameron or Quickdraw and smack them in the face. ****, even Midnight can shut down a jedi completely. 7B R2 Anakin is strong, but he's also as expensive as a Defender ace, while being less tough and not hitting any harder.

If CLT R2 Aethersprites are popular in your meta, try Proton Bombs. Deathrain works, and a couple of Barrage Rocket/Proton Bomb Scimitars will make jedi scramble. If people are running 7Bs (or other agility 2 aces like Poe and Wedge), I can't stress this enough: Ion Torpedoes are amazing . Take a couple of Gunboats with Passive Sensors, or (if you're a republican yourself) Bravos. Passive Sensor/Ion Missile SFs are also decent if slightly less reliable.

4 hours ago, itsJALbert said:

First off, price regen appropriately ™.

Second, if the damage doesn't stick, it doesn't make sense to count it. I'm roughly okay with half points being a reasonable compromise between lore/experience feel and actual tournament playability with real world constraints.

Shields regenerate in X Wing. If you shoot a ship's shields and they regenerate you haven't damaged the ship in a meaningful 'I won this space battle' way. If an astromech or crew fixes it, you haven't scored a victory because you didn't damage or destroy the enemy. This isn't point karate, this is a Star War.

Price regen appropriately to its impact on the game and victory, and keep goofy game balance points in their own metagame world, but it doesn't make sense to have a barely damaged ship count toward victory.

Agreed.

No small based ship gets unlimited shield regeneration; all astromechs providing shield regeneration burn non-recurring charges. If you considered an R2 Astromech to just say "adds 2 shields", it's not regeneration, and in practice it's a lot easier to kill than that because they don't actually get those shields unless they manage to run away and recharge.

That's not saying you couldn't increase their cost, but limited regen is certainly not a fundamental mechanical problem.

R2D2 and GNK do let you recover shields on large based ships, but that's slightly different. R2 can only add a single shield (although he can do it multiple times) whilst GNK takes forever to do anything.

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed.

No small based ship gets unlimited shield regeneration; all astromechs providing shield regeneration burn non-recurring charges.

Chopper Astromech plus Elusive (on Porkins) says 'Hello there!'

I think 2.0 regen is so small that it’s not an NPE.

21 minutes ago, Gilarius said:

Chopper Astromech plus Elusive (on Porkins) says 'Hello there!'

Before taking on average as much damage as it fixes. But I will concede the point.

3 hours ago, Okapi said:

Jedi aren't particularly strong defensively.

I'm sorry but... WHAT? Evade, double force charge seems pretty good.

On top of that defense is more than just rolling a lot of dice and using green dice mods. Their ability to disengage hard, running over obstacles and using fined-tuned controls is good. As is the ability to run into an offensive threat, yes losing the action step, but having force to mod defense against the other enemy ships.

Jedi players can also choose to not participate in your joust.

27 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

I think 2.0 regen is so small that it’s not an NPE.

Basically

FFG's done a fair job of making regen not dumb

Remember, even the vaunted r2 is two use only AND slaps weapons disabled on a very pricey ship

In fact, the reason you don't see much else on jedi is because they're SO SODDIN' EXPENSIVE (albeit for good reason). Maybe CLT will change things

Only possible abusive thing could be (but isn't guaranteed to be) Miranda, though even she can only regen up to one shield and cannot stack any past that. Plus, a one die shot is close to a weapon disabled

We'll see how Mag pulse changes things for her

16 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

In fact, the reason you don't see much else on jedi is because they're SO SODDIN' EXPENSIVE (albeit for good reason).

Indeed. @Polda 's comment about evade/force/force is a fair one, but:

• Only applies to a 3-force Jedi
• Still can't get you more evades than you have dice - meaning Calibrated Laser Targeting in preference to Delta-7b to retain that third point of agility, which comes with problems of its own (the fact that your firepower is heavily dependent on focus or force, and requires a bullseye further tempting you to blow force charge on Fine-Tuned Controls).

42 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

I think 2.0 regen is so small that it’s not an NPE.

I'd agree with this.

To the extent that fleeing strategies are bad, regen is only a small part of that.

9 hours ago, JBFancourt said:

I would like a tournament rule that states once half points are scored on a ship, they cannot be taken away. I’ve talked about this with amigos, so I’m not claiming to be an original thinker.

I also think this is better than jacking up regen pricing.

This is also probably fair. A ship going up past half-points is kind of a FeelsBadMan. Even if it doesn't restore MOV, regen still would keep a ship alive and ideally attacking and contributing for longer, so I think it'd still be worthwhile. But I guess it comes down to "are the points right?" I think basic R2 Astromechs are probably fairly priced on most stuff. Regen E-Wings are almost surely fine at 6 points for an R2. X-Wings and such? Totally fine. N-1s? A little iffier, but still not too bad... Jedi however... is this just a Jedi issue?

More broadly, even though points changes are easy, I think there's potentially other ways to improve things that aren't points adjustments. In casual play, regen certainly isn't an NPE. It's too limited. Perhaps tournament problems--if they're big enough problems to address--should be addressed in tournament rules.

23 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Indeed. @Polda 's comment about evade/force/force is a fair one, but:

• Only applies to a 3-force Jedi
• Still can't get you more evades than you have dice - meaning Calibrated Laser Targeting in preference to Delta-7b to retain that third point of agility, which comes with problems of its own (the fact that your firepower is heavily dependent on focus or force, and requires a bullseye further tempting you to blow force charge on Fine-Tuned Controls).

Uhm

Now fine, this is one example of a very good player taking trip aces into the finals and winning.
But this archetype of Anakin with Delta, another 3 force Jedi with delta or CLT and possibly Ric is common enough not to be dismissed by saying CTL is too punishing to use.

Also, read the rest of my post. Defense in X-Wing is more than dice . Intentional bumps, arc dodging, running away to avoid shots are all key parts of it.
If you on top of that can recover a significant amount of lost points, going as far as denying your opponent from scoring ANY points you have a problem.

1 minute ago, Polda said:

Uhm

GenCon had all 7 factions within Top11 of the cut so using it as an argument for any faction and/or archetype to be dominant is sorta kinda bollocks. After all someone had to win this tournament, you could always argue it's due to overpowered list. Couple more instances of a similar jedi-centric list placed ~40-60 at day 1A, so it definitely is only as good of a tool as the person handling it.

1 minute ago, Ryfterek said:

GenCon had all 7 factions within Top11 of the cut so using it as an argument for any faction and/or archetype to be dominant is sorta kinda bollocks. After all someone had to win this tournament, you could always argue it's due to overpowered list. Couple more instances of a similar jedi-centric list placed ~40-60 at day 1A, so it definitely is only as good of a tool as the person handling it.

Yes, see the additional comments added below.


At this point however, maybe we should not have this conversation? Last time we did we ended up with about 150+ offensive upgrades in the game which removed all ships but the ones they were supposed to be used against from the game.

8 minutes ago, Polda said:

Yes, see the additional comments added below.


At this point however, maybe we should not have this conversation? Last time we did we ended up with about 150+ offensive upgrades in the game which removed all ships but the ones they were supposed to be used against from the game.

Ok, quoted you before you've extended your reasoning.

Myself I'm fine with the game playing more like a football match than a game of chess. Is not about erasing the opponent's board treating anything but your king/ace as a sacrificial lamb. It's now more of taking the right shots while it counts while simultaneously taking away the best opportunities from your opponent. For me, it's great one can win the game by outstanding game of defence, not only by having more double mods stacked on top of their reds.

Mind that we now witness a lot of skill- dependent defence. Mindless defence of sort the Rebel Salad from the dawn of 1.0 was was no fun. But this is why Rebels no longer cancel damage as their trait, they only shuffle it around, keeping the squadron operational until the very last moment it all goes down the drain.

3 minutes ago, Ryfterek said:

It's  now more of taking the right shots while it counts while simultaneously taking away the best opportunities from your opponent. For me, it's  great one can win the game by outstanding game of defence, not only by having more double mods stacked on top of their reds  .

all these ships with regen are also the ships with the most consistently double modded reds...

Thorny.

I do find run-regen-you-have-no-points-now Jedi to be a frustrating thing.

But now the points have gone up, those lists aren't as good as they once were, so I think it still remains to be seen how genuinely influential it can be. A list winning one tournament does not make for certain conclusions.

Scoring points on a ship that is no longer halved is kinda unthematic. An Astro fixing a ship up to be unhalved is thematic. And I put a fair bit of stock in theme keeping the game engaging, off the table.

As much as I find it somewhat NPE and a lot plain BS, I'm coming round to the idea that it is not an actual problem .

If they're running and regenning, well, they're not shooting at you. So there is a window to shift the game in your favour.

Ultimately, you know what's coming, so there is no excuse for falling into that trap. Like a lot of mechanics in the game, strategizing against it requires more than just point and shoot.

I don't hate things that require me to think ahead.

1 hour ago, Polda said:

I'm sorry but... WHAT? Evade, double force charge seems pretty good.

On top of that defense is more than just rolling a lot of dice and using green dice mods. Their ability to disengage hard, running over obstacles and using fined-tuned controls is good. As is the ability to run into an offensive threat, yes losing the action step, but having force to mod defense against the other enemy ships.

Jedi players can also choose to not participate in your joust.

Yes? An evading jedi with an evade and two force does not reposition, has no lock or focus, and is completely spent the next turn. It also either has 4 HP, or agility 2. Soontir, Defenders, Phantoms and Inquisitors can play the token stacking game much better without completely deflating and having to run away afterwards. The strength of the jedi lies in the ability to double repo with an offensive mod. They certainly can't tank particularly well.

So, obviously, that's where you hit them. Either meet them at R3 with Passive Sensors and an Ion Torpedo, block them, or bomb them. Don't try to knife fight them on their own terms, because you'll just lose.

I've been running all-Jedi list since they dropped, and not a fan of regen. Its not fun to play and not fun to get beat by R2 MoV recovery.

With the new points, R2 doesn't feel that undercosted, its really just a matter of other options being so bad. R4 is solid for 2 but there's nothing good to put in the force power slot after the 1`st copy of Sense, so if the pilots you want don't fill out your list you are left needing to run R2 to achieve critical mass.

If foresight/preflexes are good, that could help the issue go away.

I do think that having to deal 5 damage to what is effectively an 8 health ship to get half points is a bit of a problem.

Also people seriously underestimate the durability of a ship that can boost/roll off of a gas cloud or out to range 3 and still have defensive mods. They don't just sit inside your killbox, and because they never have to stress to use FTC their maneuvers are way less predictable than something like an Interceptor or Silencer.

7 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

R2D2 and GNK do let you recover shields on large based ships, but that's slightly different.

The wookies say hello...

39 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

I do think that having to deal 5 damage to what is effectively an 8 health ship to get half points is a bit of a problem.

Also people seriously underestimate the durability of a ship that can boost/roll off of a gas cloud or out to range 3 and still have defensive mods. They don't just sit inside your killbox, and because they never have to stress to use FTC their maneuvers are way less predictable than something like an Interceptor or Silencer.

This.