We think gas clouds and their fewer consequences are probably bad for the health of the game. Check out our thoughts here. Do you agree or disagree?

I AGREE!

...seriously if gas clouds aren't going to have consequences, please make full execute not count if a ship moved through an obstacle...

1. Gas clouds do need more of a consequence in my opinion.

2. Unkar Crew does not require the maneuver to be fully executed, just executed. He's block insurance for Scum large bases costing hp for their action.

I agree

Also, of course Reddit thinks that gas clouds are good design- Gas clouds are effectively an in-between from rocks and just not having obstacles. They minimize negative consequences for poor dial choices.

Bad players don't want consequences.

I AGREE

Exceptional agree.

Too low impact.

It is bad for the game when the obstacles do not matter.

Flying should matter more.

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Gas Clouds should also make you lose your attack while on them. That or pass you a strain and a deplete when you go through them.

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In fact, I would argue that debris clouds are where we should draw the line on bad for game. Debris are still bad to hit, but they made 2 ship turret wing combo a big thing.

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ALL OBSTACLES WITHOUT EXCEPTION SHOULD MAKE YOU LOSE YOUR DEFAULT ACTION EXPLICITLY, AND BE ERRATA'D SO THAT YOU MAY NOT TRIGGER ABILITIES THAT TRIGGER FROM "AFTER FULLY EXECUTING A MANEUVER"

I love me my Fined Tuned Jedi and Afteburner Tie Ds and stuff, but this is ridiculous and and should never have been changed from the Tie D errata from 1.0. At this point it has to be errata'd, but they should have been printed as "After fully executing a maneuver and if you did not overlap an obstacles this round, <ability>."

Fine Tuning off a rock with a Jedi is just gross even as the one doing it. Read: I use this mechanic. I hate it.

9 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

I agree

Also, of course Reddit thinks that gas clouds are good design- Gas clouds are effectively an in-between from rocks and just not having obstacles. They minimize negative consequences for poor dial choices.

Bad players don't want consequences.

I've gotta be honest, the Reddit response was much more vehement than I would have expected. I understand if people disagree, but there's zero need to be insulting about it.

Can I start a poll?

Just now, Blail Blerg said:

Can I start a poll?

Sure.

I like them. There are certain lists that are available now because such low-impact options are around. I think debris is worse because anything that’s 1/8 is just an odd choice.

14 minutes ago, MidWestScrub said:

the Reddit response was much more vehement

It's Reddit, they use the location as an excuse to be asses.

I agree.

TIE swarms have become a lot less fun for both players due to gas clouds in my opinion, and obviously the aces running to time aspect is a big problem for the health of the game.

Agree. They really just make for dull games. My personal preference would be to make environment cards mandatory if you didn't want to use the default 6 obstacles from the core set, though.

Also, could you edit the OP to the correct spelling? Or is,"Space Fasts" deliberate to avoid upsetting the mods?

Ok done , please vote

Agreed. Gas clouds need more penalty. Such as maybe they completely obscure a shot through them, meaning you can't see any ships in them or through them when tracing line of sight.

They could be used as defensive purposes this way.

Or perhaps when passing through them or landing in them the pilot is blinded for the round and cannot take a shot

I personally like the idea of losing line of sight altogether. It represents more about what it's like for pilots in the real world today when entering cloud. You lose all visual reference

I agree. The defensive part of their ability I think works, but going over them needs to have more of a consequence. If you were already stressed, going through a gas cloud does nothing. I’m okay with it not offering a damage as the other obstacles do, but a Strain, Ion, the new Deplete, or whatever. Something to make me seriously consider going over a cloud.

Do gas clouds need more penalty for overlap? Yes, especially with that strong a defensive bonus.

I think that some people who complain about them may be going overboard though. In my area, they’re not the default obstacle by any stretch. In fact, in 5 rounds of Swiss at a Hyperspace trial, I saw a single gas cloud. Single, not the guy brought 3 clouds.

At first when looking at gas clouds I thought they were going to give out an Ion Token upon impact (but no damage).

Now to say there is no consequence that isn't the case because there is still skipping the action step. Also depending on when you land you may be blinding yourself if your arc is covered by the gas.

So there is consequence to these gas clouds, but for those that say X-wing always had consequences with Obstacles may I remind you of Super Dash and Debris Clouds in 1st Edition. That was the truly no consequence, Gas Clouds do a bit more than that. Not so much more, but enough. Could they be given some extra (ion/strain/tractor/jam tokens)? Sure, but I do like that there are different types of terrain in effect. I got tired of always playing in an asteroid field.

1 minute ago, Marinealver said:

So there is consequence to these gas clouds, but for those that say X-wing always had consequences with Obstacles may I remind you of Super Dash and Debris Clouds in 1st Edition. That was the truly no consequence, Gas Clouds do a bit more than that. Not so much more, but enough. Could they be given some extra (ion/strain/tractor/jam tokens)? Sure, but I do like that there are different types of terrain in effect. I got tired of always playing in an asteroid field.

Dash imo was the height of truly awful gameplay and design in 1.0. This is exactly the thing I want to avoid the most in 2.0. It combines almost everything I thought that made the game silly.

(Still kind of is, he's just very expensive now)

Yeah, I just think Gas Clouds need something more. I'd prefer lose attack while on it. But something like strain and deplete would be fine too

As a casual, I'm undecided on the matter. I think that it partly depends on how you see the purpose of obstacles in the first place: Are they there to punish bad flying, or are they there to add contour and context to otherwise empty void of outer space?

It seems to me that obstacle choice and placement hadn't previously been that important in the game. Part of that was due to 360 turrets and infinite repositioning, but part of it was because there was very little variety in the choice. Debris vs Asteroids are significant, but the way you fly around them is pretty similar (unless you're Dash or have struts). Now Gas Clouds add a different choice: Do you want to focus on your ship's maneuverability in avoiding the obstacles entirely, or do you want to focus on your positioning in hiding behind them when you can't shoot?

Armada has an obstacle with a strictly beneficial effect (the station that repairs your ship while you're on it). It's still something that effects the way you fly. The idea of "Obstacles have to be bad for you" is kind of arbitrary. The point is that good play is rewarded and bad play is punished, and what that looks like can mean different things to different lists and that's okay.

Part of me doesn't want to get into it over Dash again, but I kind of feel obligated to. Does he majorly change the way obstacles work? Yes. Does he remove the enemy player's agency? Not at all . Does he minimize counterplay? Not at all! It doesn't take thinking too hard to realize that what normally is good (hiding behind obstacles) is bad in some cases (vs Dash or trick shot Han). Similarly, what is normally stupid (flying over obstacles) is essential to your very survival in some cases (if you're Dash or Vulture/Hyena droids). Is that a bad thing? I don't see why it should be. It changes the context of the game and means you have to know how to fly well against a wider variety of opponents, which tends to be good for the game in the sense of creating a more diverse meta etc. Dash is easy to beat. Without Countermeasures, Glitterstim, Lone Wolf, Push the Limit, etc, he's a huge points fortress that you can trivially kill if you can close to the simple R1, which he can't avoid without going tokenless anyway. He should be worth just a little more than Han, maybe (if you disagree, try him; I won't listen to you if you haven't).

Regarding gas clouds, I guess the main thing I wonder about is specifically which lists does it favor? I've heard people say it's great for aces, but aces are the ones who really don't want to lose their actions and they have a really easy time weaving around rocks anyway. Wouldn't they want to punish their less-maneuverable opponents with damaging obstacles? Maybe it's good for beef or swarm lists? It's extra defense and they have action economy out the smokestack anyway because they've got enough ships on the table, so one missed isn't a big loss, and it allows them to stay in formation and still shoot. This is definitely a fair objection, though you can't say it's not the correct choice for a beef/swarm player to bring gas clouds if that is in fact the case (which it may or may not be; I don't claim to know).

I think their biggest offense is that they don't do all that much to change the contour of the space in general. Running over them is... maybe trivial? Sometimes missing a perform action step is a pretty big deal (if you're Vader and could have taken 3 or something). Most of the time it's really not, definitely less bad than taking damage or stress. The defensive bonus is really interesting, but nothing insane.

What I suspect the real problem is is that, well... they're kind of boring. It's not like they give a major advantage to one player over the other, any more than open space gives the advantage to one player over the other. Okay, it's harder to flank and dodge in open space than with obstacles to skirt around, but it's no less a game of positioning than it would have been otherwise. Obstacles inherently only punish new players who are more likely to misjudge distances due to inexperience. And if you get upset because you don't have as much of an advantage over new players, then maybe you have something else to worry about.

So in the end I don't really know. I'm always in favor of elements that make you rethink the basic mechanics of the game, as long as they don't reduce player agency or deny counterplay (the universal definition of NPE). I'm not in favor of elements that don't do anything though; for example, there's a reason you have to bring 3 obstacles and not 0-3 obstacles. What I'd prefer to see is that instead of bringing 3 obstacles, each player brought an environment card and all its components, and the 1st player got to choose the environment. That definitely plays more into the idea of making the field something you have to be aware of and consciously interact with, and it seems to me that it would objectively improve the game, especially with regard to the bid wars (making 1st player something truly desirable in many cases, or at least less of a loss if you're stuck with it).

Quick note: Dee won a Hyperspace Trial in Cheyenne, not Denver

Now to add in my two cents, I'd like to see Gas Clouds have a consequence for landing on them, and use that as the punish. Not having much trouble moving through is fine, but no punish for landing and not much trouble for moving through is what reaches the feel bad for me. IDK what that consequence would be, but I'd like it. Overall though, I do agree that gas clouds are too consequence free at the current juncture.

I consider myself a competitive player and I don’t have a problem with gas clouds. It’s just another dimension of the game to consider during squad selection and play.

Gas clouds benefit some squad archetypes over others just as asteroids and debris impact different squad archetypes over others.

Obstacle selection and placement is a relatively simple part of the game with equally simple rules during play, but a deceptively broad amount of pre-game complexity. I consider that to be good game design.

We’ve all heard the phrase “when you joust, one of you is wrong.” While it is more applicable to squad archetypes (swarm, beef, aces, etc.), it could also be said “if you are bringing the same obstacles as your opponent, one of you is wrong.”

13 minutes ago, markrivett said:

We’ve all heard the phrase “when you joust, one of you is wrong.” While it is more applicable to squad archetypes (swarm, beef, aces, etc.), it could also be said “if you are bringing the same obstacles as your opponent, one of you is wrong.”

Something feels wrong about this. You might as well say "If you bring the same squad as your opponent, one of you is wrong." The whole point about jousting is that you see your opponent's list and then decide what to do with it, and one of the two teams always has a mathematical jousting superiority to the other. But you can't change the obstacles you're bringing based on your opponent's list, so the idea doesn't really make sense.

Perhaps it would be better to say "If you're both trying to use the obstacles the same way, one of you is wrong," but even this seems disingenuous. If you both have ace lists, of course you both want to force your opponent to come to you through the rocks. If you both have formation lists, of course you want as much wide open space as possible.

21 minutes ago, markrivett said:

We’ve all heard the phrase “when you joust, one of you is wrong.” While it is more applicable to squad archetypes (swarm, beef, aces, etc.), it could also be said “if you are bringing the same obstacles as your opponent, one of you is wrong.”

This is wrong. This is about side-boarding, and both your lists could want to mitigate a similar bad matchup. Also I take big rocks because I believe I'm better at not hitting rocks than the typical player. Therefore its basically always in my favor.

57 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Part of me doesn't want to get into it over Dash again, but I kind of feel obligated to. Does he majorly change the way obstacles work? Yes. Does he remove the enemy player's agency? Not at all . Does he minimize counterplay? Not at all!

Dash absolutely minimizes opposing agency and counterplea. There's plenty of examples from Heaver and other top competitive videos and blogs and posts on the versatility of Dash. No. This stated given is wrong.

And to top it off, I still think that Dash / rest of the 2 ship fat turret wing combo was one fo the worst things about 1.0 with plenty of reasons and data why that was so.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

As a casual, I'm undecided on the matter. I think that it partly depends on how you see the purpose of obstacles in the first place: Are they there to punish bad flying, or are they there to add contour and context to otherwise empty void of outer space?

Your point about the purpose of obstacles is fair. However, one must note that I've tried many many games (table experience) without rocks. The game is much better with some pathing choices, and not simple pure flat space. Both for gameplay and for diversity.
One must also remember that reducing number of rocks is also a choice. For casual play, its choosing between even having obstacles, and which obstacles. For new players, I generally pick 4 rocks spread somewhat randomly. As it helps improve gameplay and teaches them to avoid them, without generally coming up often.

I'm also going to argue that Armada, while it has some nice features, has some really terrible game design choices also. The space to rock ratio in that game is much higher to the point of nearly not impacting ships. It does impact squadrons, but it also impacts them in a way that doesn't really create more difficult choices, its more about using and abusing them for cover and positioning. Its been my belief that Armada should have more rocks, maybe add a little more space in between, and that squadrons should take damage from voluntarily landing on them.