32 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Drea swarms were never more efficient than droid swarms are now.

Dunno, Mux + Drea w/Han+ 2 x Gunrunners +2 was a thing.

49 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Palob was nerfed before everyone switched to force users or swarms. He’s not really a problem now.

Drea swarms were never more efficient than droid swarms are now.

Both true, but I think that says more about Vultures than Drea. 47 is a little too much, but 40 would certainly be too cheap. Drealoks were quite, quite meta. That had as much to do with VTG as Drea (and once again, FFG over-nerfed both slightly), but Drea is certainly worth at least as much as Howl, who is probably underpriced just a little.

I would like to see more HWKs without the title. A different title would be a cool thing to shake it up. I'm not convinced that all of the pilots are much too expensive though.

@Wazat Not that I was defensive about my opinion, per se. Just not looking to get into a case of reading post after post of quoted texts and then a passive aggressive/pedantic lecture. I just too often see the discussion go south fast with people's talking past each other for four pages plus of nonsense. So if it's a disagreement opinion, state that and we can acknowledge the disparity and all move on. But since your being constructive and seem to be with me in the hypothetical realm, well sure, let's chat some hypotheticals and whatnot! 😄

Mostly yeah that's about the gist of it, especially on Force users. It's already a free action economy, so when it comes to how you generate it I felt it should follow some of the same foundational rules of other actions generation. Other alternatives abound as well, like if instead of changing focus results, you rerolled. Or for a Force you can take an action, but you never use it as a mod itself. In which case you have to spend Force to buy specific mods and your not just carrying floating ones. And I'm sure many more are fan thought up out there. I don't think it would take much, and I agree that there would likely be a huge negative feedback initially, were it ever changed. But I guess I'm just of the opinion that if your complaining that your crutches get taken away, maybe it's time for you to learn a new walk?

If I was being perfectly honest, I've never felt that Tractors belonged in the game in the first place, as they never are used in dogfight combat on screen, as far as anyone can tell overtly. When tractors are used in combat, they seem to end the fight, or get escaped from. There are plenty of combat capable ships out there that are equipped with them to be certain, but their viability as a combat offensive weapon system is extremely questionable for a good number of reasons. That said... Game Mechanic wise I suppose for growth and variety they were bound to have some interpretation eventually. And definitely were stuck with them now.

To me the biggest glaring thing in this games mechanical structure is the difference between Ion, and Tractor. Like if you only read the two effects back in first edition side by side, you would have noticed the drastic different views in how control mechanics should be made and how they function. They retain these drastic differences, albeit slightly adjusted in second edition. And funnily enough their timing is almost reversed from what the source material would suggest.

Source material says that ion happens arguably faster than tractors, crippling a ship right away, but the game delays ion effects a whole turn. Tractors in contrast in source media take a moment to do their thing, but in game strike immediately.

Other bizarre asymmetries exist. Tractors reduce agility in game, and prevent too much resisting them with out some serious stress on the craft by moving around, though you can control your craft normally right after your blown around. But Ion, again the reverse, your whole ship shuts down and literally lists along for all intent temporarily dead in the water in source, but as far as the games concerned you still have your full agility. Somehow?

It's all very... Discombobulated?

I also think it's interesting in the last interview Brooks and Alex (?) danced around with a few questions related to both, and seemed to be aware of those two mechanics, Ion and Tractors, being very difficult to design with, let alone cost. Even gave some insight into how the discussion seems to have gone behind the scenes going into second ed. The problem is, for all the levers they gave themselves to adjust things, they still seem to lag behind on doing a core change over point changes. And the more they try to design around the existing effects, it's only going to get harder to change the core effect as we can all imagine. So I really wish they would rip this band aid off early, and address it now.

Sadly, when it comes to their playtest record, and I mean this in no way as an offense AT ALL, but I don't really trust their playtest process whatever it is. I can't emphasize that as any more than a constructive criticism. I did do some testing for them in a unrelated game in the past and will tell you they do honestly try very VERY hard to catch issues, and it's a very considerable amount of work those testers pour out. But proof is in the pudding as it were, and their only human after all. And whatever system Xwing uses for testing, if we're going to be very honest here, is also the one that slipped us the Jumpma-pocolypse in first Ed(and all that came before it). Even In second Ed is still letting through things that we see discussion on everyday on this very forum like we are doing right now. Like the insanity that was supernatural reflexes and now ensnare-tex. That last one even, rumor has it, Paul Heaver himself was adamant against in the play test. And he's just one of many very skilled players they have listed in their testers credits. Like the Berling brothers are in there from Ohio I know locally. Having some experience with Jeff he's a pretty darn good analyst I feel. So I don't think it's the people.

My point here is really that when your system produces that many faults, repeatedly over such a large time frame, despite the resources it has at it's disposal, it may not be the designers or testers that's at fault, it's whatever process your using to draw your findings and make your changes according to. I would define it as this: I would suspect there's something poorly designed in their experimental process. Not the people on either end of it. The only other conclusion I could draw is that it's intentional despite feedback for whatever reason, and then we're asking a very different question: Why make it that way?

And for just points issues, that would be fine. They now have a way to fix that, so cool. We deal with it for a few months, the super computer that is the masses online crunches all the data, and then it gets priced to Oblivion. Everyone's a bit bruised but the show goes on. Great! But when it comes to basic play experience items, well, I guess that's where I don't have faith in the testing process based on their record. Please don't read that too negatively. I swear to Obi Wan it's just my ever so humble personal opinion. Share your own and let's all be friends!

If possible redesigns were up to a fan based submissions thing? Well, that's an interesting thought. I don't know what they would think. Again, looking at their track record, sadly I doubt it. They never adopted a fan idea that I personally can think of? They've spun their own versions of some fan idea things like gas clouds, objectives, and maybe a ship or two? It's possible the fan feedback about the Shadowcaster in first Ed was the basis for all turrets in second. But it's also just as likely that the first Ed 'Caster was a test bed for planned second ed concepts. I don't know man, that's a great question. Put something together, test the bajeezus out of it, collect a crap ton of feedback, keep it all public, and see what they do I guess?

I'll look forward to what happens! 🤔 ☺️

@ForceSensitive I think it's far from malicious or negligent.

The main problem testing runs into is similar to what software engineers face when trying to secure their software against hackers and bugs. I'm reminded of the Dilbert comic where he's trying to create a filter to block out naughty pictures on teens' computers, and Alice says "So you're pitting your intellect against the combined hornyness of the world's youth?". It didn't go well.

Yes, you want to have a robust testing process, but ultimately there's nothing a team of testers can do that quite competes with the collective brainpower of the rest of the world. If there's something hidden there to exploit, the testers may not find it, but people in the larger community likely will. You do your best, and watch for problems.

And keep in mind that competitive video games go through this process too, but they have much more immediate and intimate feedback. X-Wing is a smaller community and slower-moving game, both at the micro- and macro-levels. It's not malicious on FFG's part, it's just that their tools are limited by the nature of the game. We'd all like them to be more responsive, but they're also trying to not be over-reactive.

Also, sometimes things that seem like a disaster to a few people can turn out to not be a big deal, because the meta just adjusts and strong counters appear, and suddenly the supposed emergency is pretty-well managed. We went through this with Fang Fighters, for example, and while strong they didn't turn out to be game-breaking. People had to learn how to fight them -- and how to not fight them. Same deal with swarms.

FFG struggled with Jumpmasters in 1E because of their limited tools. And I think they were shocked that ever time they nerfed the ship and the community howled and raged about how they'd gone too far, someone always found a new broken combo. They finally over-nerfed them in 2E and they're only carefully letting their foot off the brake. It's really hard to balance this stuff, and if you've ever done balancing work yourself, you'll be able to relate with the challenge and exasperation that comes with it.

So it's not negligent or malicious, I assure you! I'm personally wishing they'd spend more time on Scum, and I joke about it, but in all seriousness I think they're just not able to balance everything all at once because that's too many changes, too fast. Sharply altering how a core feature works would be even more serious, so they'd take that one slow too.

As for testing homebrew rules, it's pretty hard to get buy-in. People who like the old rules are automatically going to opt out, and people who want to try the new rules may not push hard enough to see where it breaks. And there's only so many people who are open to homebrew anyway. It's the same problems as above, but with a far smaller test bed, so the results can be pretty bad sometimes.

I like the idea of exploring new ideas for how to change existing mechanics, but I don't have as strong a reaction to force, ion, and tractor as you do. I view them as neat parts of the game that occasionally need rebalancing. I don't want to fire-sale core features. That actually makes me more hesitant to view Force as something that needs to change... I don't want to start treating the game as fundamentally broken, not when I'm having a great time with it. Were we in a 1E scenario again where it just feels bad to play every week, then yea. But I'm not there, even with the force.

5 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Both true, but I think that says more about Vultures than Drea. 47 is a little too much, but 40 would certainly be too cheap. Drealoks were quite, quite meta. That had as much to do with VTG as Drea (and once again, FFG over-nerfed both slightly), but Drea is certainly worth at least as much as Howl, who is probably underpriced just a little.

I would like to see more HWKs without the title. A different title would be a cool thing to shake it up. I'm not convinced that all of the pilots are much too expensive though.

I'm curious, and I'd like to run a thought experiment on Drea.

With VTG so expensive now (thank heaven, imo), would a 43-point Drea or something similar be good with more conventional swarms? Scum have Kiraxz, M3-As, Fang Fighters, Mining TIEs, Quadrijets, Starvipers, and Z-95s, to name a few. And Drea doesn't have to fly in a tight swarm like Howlrunner, you just need to have arcs on the same target (and any of your arcs will do, so a turret is great here). If we run YASB with Kavil taking the place of Drea, what swarms could we make (assuming no other point changes for now, for the sake of argument).

Here are some ideas:

Drea + Dorsal and 5 Z-95s with Cluster Missiles gives 9 more points to spend on Kavil. But the free rerolls don't work well with the locks the zeds are getting anyway.

Drea + Dorsal and 6 Z-95s, with 10 points to spare

Drea + Dorsal and 3 Fangs (skull squadron for init 4) with a talent like Crack Shot

Drea + Dorsal and 4 Cartel Marauders. That's mean firepower and a solid 5-ship swarm, and 2 points left (so it would work with drea at 45 points).

Drea + Dorsal and 5 Autoblaster M3-As

Drea + Dorsal with 6 Mining Guild TIEs, 5 of which can have Crack Shot

Drea + Crack Shot and 6 Mining Guild TIEs, all with Crack Shot

Drea + Dorsal and 3 Black Sun Assassins, with 10 points to spend on your starvipers or y-wing

Drea and 1 Jakku Gunrunner, 2 Z-95s, 2 Cartel Marauders

Drea + Dorsal + Seismic Charges, 4x Y-Wing + Dorsal + Proton Bombs (maybe a good list for jousting or running away)

edit:

Drea + Dorsal and 3x Lok Revenant, 19 points to spend on upgrades

Drea + Dorsal and 2x Lok Revenant + Dorsal + VTG, and 1 Cartel Marauder. 4 points left.

I'm curious how well the fleets above with a 43-point Drea would hold up in the meta. Would these (or other) lists be a big deal, or strong at best with no actually-broken results?

For context, right now you can run:

Drea + Dorsal with 6 Z-95s and 4 points left

Drea + Dorsal + Crack Shot with 3 Crack Shot Black Sun Assassins

Drea + Dorsal and 3 Black Sun Enforcers + FCS, with 4 points left to spend on whatever. This one amuses me, since I've seen starviper swarms discussed before. With FCS + Drea Reroll the vipers have quite well-modified dice. Especially on later rounds when you keep the lock, you can focus too for attack or defense.

Drea + Dorsal with 3 Zealous Recruits, and 16 points left to spend on your fangs or y-wing

Drea + Dorsal with 3 Cartel Marauders and 1 Z-95, and 10 points to spend. (can't quite fit in that 4th kihraxz)

Drea + Dorsal with 2 Jakku Gunrunners, 2 Cartel Marauders, and 8 points left.

Drea + Dorsal and 6 Mining Guild TIES, 4 points left

Drea + Dorsal and 4 Autoblaster M-3As and a Z-95, with 4 points left

Drea and 4x Y-Wing + Dorsal + Proton Bombs (Drea has to give up turret and bombs, or else someone else does)

Running any of those might give us some insight into what cheaper versions of those fleets could do. I imagine someone's tested some of these...? I'm curious about the results.

I don't really see a problem with these.

Drea was a problem when she was 40 points and lok revenants were 40 points, so you could run Drea + 4 scurrgs.

14 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

But it would also bring back the problems with Y-Wings and TIE Bombers that we're so happy to have balanced out now. Each could go down maybe a point, certainly not more. Other changes would have to happen on the aggressor platform itself.

Really though, the main problem is the lack of gunner and turret options, and more so that the other missiles aren't viable on non-PS platforms. Homing, ion, cluster, concussion, they all need a point or two off. Then raise Passive Sensors. This would help out most of the suffering chassis; Z-95, Scyk, Kimogila, RZ-1, Punisher, named Torrents, etc. Currently missiles are only viable with passive sensors or high initiative, and most ships that have those have other ways of getting more dice or passive mods anyway.

Was that really a problem though? Nowadays you don't see Ys or Tie Bombers either. Instead of balancing them out, it took them out of the meta. And I actually like VTG being a PART of ships as it makes that thematic look of a ship's guns shooting one way and the guy in the turret fending off someone attacking from the rear. You see in art of even real world aircraft so I have no problem with the idea at least. You're already factoring in points for the 'slot' to even have a turret and/or gunner. I'd also say leave passive sensors alone, it's the only thing keeping low I ships alive to use ordinance. But I wouldn't say no to a discount on ordinance across the board. Proton Torpedoes for example were arguably cheap at the launch, but they swung way to far the last few times.

The addition of more 'focus use' missiles might also help stuff like Zs and A-wings. Something like a 4 die 2-3 range rocket. But to represent it being dumb fire, the target gets a green reroll? Course that could be too wordy. But the concept is there for some non-lock weapons at least.

23 hours ago, Estarriol said:

Palob was nerfed before everyone switched to force users or swarms. He’s not really a problem for force users or swarms now.

Fixed. If somebody's not flying swarms or Force-users, he's still just as much a problem as he ever was.

My idea of a healthy meta doesn't involve everyone switching to force or swarms. I'd love a much broader base to be viable and played.

Given how frequently used and strong force is right now, I'd say it could use a few counters in the meta so it's not hard-countered, but also not always the safe bet. Pilots like Kestal could certainly help, but Kestal would need a lot of help to become even remotely meta...

12 minutes ago, Wazat said:

My idea of a healthy meta doesn't involve everyone switching to force or swarms. I'd love a much broader base to be viable and played.

Given how frequently used and strong force is right now, I'd say it could use a few counters in the meta so it's not hard-countered, but also not always the safe bet. Pilots like Kestal could certainly help, but Kestal would need a lot of help to become even remotely meta...

The sad part is that to make aggressors viable would be pretty hard. They’re either pseudo 3 dice or have to be super cheap.

They really relied on lightweight frame. This is a ship that really could have added an extra hull.

With only 5 hp. This ship is basically a torrent at 25 points. It’s at least 3-4 overcosted. ESP since torrents are buffered up by sinker.

I've tried multiple times to make Kestal work. When she does work it's fantastic (haha, sorry Luke but no mods for you), but she's weighed down so heavily by her ship that it's very hard to put her to proper use consistently. Overcosted, nonsense action bar, too delicate. And wedged in a rough spot where any buff to the TIE/ag will affect other ships too (making the ag irrelevant again), or make the ag too strong and swarmy, so nothing happens.

And that's really too bad, because Kestal is both a really fun pilot to fly and build around, and an interesting ability given the current meta.

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Fixed. If somebody's not flying swarms or Force-users, he's still just as much a problem as he ever was.

Maybe in your mind. Just have a wee look at the worlds cut. Every ship in the winning list was a force user. He faced a mini swarm. Neither would have suffered much from Palob. Force using pilots probably represented about a quarter of the ships in the cut (this is an estimate!)

You’re allowed to disagree with something I say rather than rather rudely misquoting me and saying you’ve fixed it, you know 😛

9 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Just have a wee look at the worlds cut. Every ship in the winning list was a force user. He faced a mini swarm. Neither would have suffered much from Palob.

Here's the thing, though: points adjustments affect more than just those who make the Worlds cut. True, Palob wouldn't affect those lists much, but then again, someone planning to play against those lists probably wouldn't be bringing Palob in the first place, regardless of his price, because he wouldn't affect them.

In fact, the results would be a horrible justification for reducing his price, as they tell us nothing about how a cheaper Palob would affect the older factions. Unless something has changed since the early days, I think it safe to assume that the lessons learned then still stand.

I do apologize if you feel misquoted, however. I thought my declaration that I had fixed your statement should be enough of an indication that I had altered the bolded words, and that they were not yours. If this is not the case, I'm sorry.

7 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Here's the thing, though: points adjustments affect more than just those who make the Worlds cut. True, Palob wouldn't affect those lists much, but then again, someone planning to play against those lists probably wouldn't be bringing Palob in the first place, regardless of his price, because he wouldn't affect them.

In fact, the results would be a horrible justification for reducing his price, as they tell us nothing about how a cheaper Palob would affect the older factions. Unless something has changed since the early days, I think it safe to assume that the lessons learned then still stand.

I do apologize if you feel misquoted, however. I thought my declaration that I had fixed your statement should be enough of an indication that I had altered the bolded words, and that they were not yours. If this is not the case, I'm sorry.

I’d take your point if we didn’t see copying of ‘top lists’ being a thing in the tournament circuit.

5 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

I’d take your point if we didn’t see copying of ‘top lists’ being a thing in the tournament circuit.

Well, it affects more than tournament players, too.

And if it's true that everyone is playing Jedi and swarms, then what good would dropping Palob do, anyway? He wouldn't be able to use his ability, so why wouldn't you go with the I4 or I2 option, both of which are cheaper anyway? Or are you suggesting a drastic decrease to Palob without decreasing the others? Because allowing him to be too annoying to the non-meta folks is just going to make them embrace Jedi and swarms as hard counters, anyway.

4 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Well, it affects more than tournament players, too.

And if it's true that everyone is playing Jedi and swarms, then what good would dropping Palob do, anyway? He wouldn't be able to use his ability, so why wouldn't you go with the I4 or I2 option, both of which are cheaper anyway? Or are you suggesting a drastic decrease to Palob without decreasing the others? Because allowing him to be too annoying to the non-meta folks is just going to make them embrace Jedi and swarms as hard counters, anyway.

I’m suggesting that dropping Palob would not break the meta, which is a perfect reason for doing so IMO because it’ll upset no one, yet make some of the old list builds actually possible again. It would be a nice thing for us long term casual players as we can get back to where we were, and give a chance to evolve some of those concepts.

Palob’s punitive double points hike was an overreaction then, and completely irrelevant now. And he would not be annoying now, just another concept to learn to fly against, rather than just being completely absent from the meta.

9 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

I’m suggesting that dropping Palob would not break the meta, which is a perfect reason for doing so IMO because it’ll upset no one, yet make some of the old list builds actually possible again. It would be a nice thing for us long term casual players as we can get back to where we were, and give a chance to evolve some of those concepts.

Palob’s punitive double points hike was an overreaction then, and completely irrelevant now. And he would not be annoying now, just another concept to learn to fly against, rather than just being completely absent from the meta.

But if, as you say, everyone is flying Jedi or swarms, why would anyone fly Palob over Dace or Torkil?

5 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

But if, as you say, everyone is flying Jedi or swarms, why would anyone fly Palob over Dace or Torkil?

‘Cos I like him? The same as I fly Gunboats, the scum Falcon, and wacky 2 ace builds even though people say they’re not very good.

@Wazat just to be clear, my only personal problem is with tractors. Ion I think is(and was) fine. And Force is something my local scene seems to have a collective problem with, so I only suggest changes for their sake. Sure I think it's strong but I don't have much issue with it myself as it stands. I only brought up ion as a comparison/contrast to tractors for explanation. I would like tractors, to be changed to be more like Ion. Hope that clarifies that.

Also I'm in no way assuming negligence or malicious intent either. Not sure how you got that far but let me clarify. My thinking was that if FFG was intentionally letting these things into the wild, it was part of some experience design they were after. In the same way that way Magic might push control decks for a few months, then agro decks for a few, then combo, only to then cycle the whole year out as formats roll over. X-wing can do that now with say a push for one type of meta, a different type with a wave release mid year, then a reset with a point change. All as part of an effort to 'keep it fresh'. The only way question there would be 'why this particular direction'

And finally I don't see the game as fundamentally being broken on a whole either. I too am enjoying it. Hence why I'm here 😄 But just because something is good doesn't mean I'll not ask it to be better. I don't like having to turn down a game on game nights just because someone else came with a tractors piece, that individually I think is un-fun enough to justify that choice, y'know?

As much as force users are under costed and dominating the meta, along with swarms. I've been having quite a lot of success locally against imperial 3 and 4 ship ace/force lists, with scum jank. Running roughshod over it with some lists. Green dice are fickle, especially when confronted with 5 hits/crits. Also all the force in the world isn't going to save you against autodamage(proton bombs, deadman's switch, proximity mines, etc). It's also hilarious to put a fragile ace on a rock/debris cloud with a quadjumper.

I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying maybe the meta isn't as busted as some think.

That said I'd really like to see more things become viable, and see more variety on the table. I like experimenting with a lot of non-meta stuff, and well, it's not meta for good reason. Not just ships/pilots, most upgrades are too expensive, and by that I mean like 90% of them.

meta really isn't quite that busted. like, id say its only a 45-55% differential from tier1 to tier2. Not even 60-40.

Most of xwing 1.0 was easily 60-40 or even 75-25.

15 hours ago, Cerebrawl said:

As much as force users are under costed and dominating the meta, along with swarms. I've been having quite a lot of success locally against imperial 3 and 4 ship ace/force lists, with scum jank. Running roughshod over it with some lists. Green dice are fickle, especially when confronted with 5 hits/crits. Also all the force in the world isn't going to save you against autodamage(proton bombs, deadman's switch, proximity mines, etc). It's also hilarious to put a fragile ace on a rock/debris cloud with a quadjumper.

I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying maybe the meta isn't as busted as some think.

That said I'd really like to see more things become viable, and see more variety on the table. I like experimenting with a lot of non-meta stuff, and well, it's not meta for good reason. Not just ships/pilots, most upgrades are too expensive, and by that I mean like 90% of them.

Were the aces flown cagey (emphasis on running away, only engaging when they have the perfect opportunity), or more normal? I don't know that quadrijets and bombs are all that strong against aces being flown cagey, and that's the more common way to use them in tournaments. IMO you're better off with raw firepower from a kihraxz swarm.

edit: I'm saying if they were flown cagey, then it's fantastic that you're ripping them apart. It's really tough to get a quadrijet and bombs positioned; they usually evade my traps.

5 hours ago, Wazat said:

Were the aces flown cagey (emphasis on running away, only engaging when they have the perfect opportunity), or more normal? I don't know that quadrijets and bombs are all that strong against aces being flown cagey, and that's the more common way to use them in tournaments. IMO you're better off with raw firepower from a kihraxz swarm.

edit: I'm saying if they were flown cagey, then it's fantastic that you're ripping them apart. It's really tough to get a quadrijet and bombs positioned; they usually evade my traps.

Oh agree, cagey aces are tough to trap, but I've put a few on rocks, and have hit some with proximity mines(particularly with Sol Sixxa), and the odd bomb, but that's tough if you can't tractor/ion them first, or saturation bomb by putting 2-3 bombs out at the same time. That said I flew against a list with Boba, Old T, and Seevor list, and my Unkar Plutt killed Seevor by shooting, and got Old T on half points by tractoring him on rocks, almost tractored Boba off the board too.

I've run roughshod over them with damage lists like Fenn, Talonbane, Serissu, Tansarii (marksman+autoblasters on both scyks), or 4 ship disruption lists like Old T, 4-LOM, Seevor, BSA.

Okay. Does anyone want to compile the changes to pilots that most of us (most vocal of us) seem to agree with? 😃

Epic will keep me busy for a little bit, but its really time to have a shake up at least for the un-used ships.