Activation cap?

This thread is SOOO 2018. lol

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I'd say the bonus in deployment is the biggest advantage gained from high activation. Pisses me off a lot (plays clones mostly atm).

Would be happy to see a pass mechanic during deployment, or just something. But can accept that it's probably just a ***** to write into the game, and just ANOTHER thing to remember for players.

Flat cap on activations per turn but not on units in lists could be interesting.

What about taking the passing a turn and just put it to the deployment phase. This would solve the issue of the opponent getting to place key units. I know it doesnt solve the in game parts, but seems to work well with the start of the game. Will not change any speed to deployment either.

4 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Flat cap on activations per turn but not on units in lists could be interesting.

Let me first say that I don't think a limit on activations is necessary at all. However, I think that is an interesting idea. Especially if, say, after issuing orders (up to the maximum activations per turn), players would randomly select order tokens up to the maximum activations to put in their bag. So if the max was 10, and a player issued 3 order tokens, they would then randomly select 7 order tokens out of their remaining order tokens to put in their bag/shuffle. That could be an interesting wrinkle, and would somewhat disincentivize having more than 10 (or whatever the max would be) activations.

9 hours ago, Lochlan said:

Yes, but several people have flat-out stated that large numbers of activations is a strength of CIS, which is currently completely false.

Agree 100% on currently, but the "foreseeable future" was also mentioned, which to me includes future likely releases based on what exists for GCW factions, namely Strike Teams.

8 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Activation cap?

This thread is SOOO 2018. lol

...

I'd say the bonus in deployment is the biggest advantage gained from high activation. Pisses me off a lot (plays clones mostly atm).

Would be happy to see a pass mechanic during deployment, or just something. But can accept that it's probably just a ***** to write into the game, and just ANOTHER thing to remember for players.

I think it would be interesting to have a deployment variation (maybe a card?) where deployment order is semi-randomized. It's relatively easy to implement, just mix all the activation tokens in a single bag and blind draw, the side dra n HAS to d ploy a unit of that type.. But would require the usage of the exact same style of tokens, and making sure they were identifiable for mirror matches. Still it's something I might try casually some time.

21 hours ago, shuntley said:

anyone saying GAR isnt viable hasnt played a competent player then. ive seen someone play obi, rex, 6 clones and destroy a 13 activation rebel list, you just have to play smart and know when to strike. activation cap is such a dumb concept. if someone wants to max out at 15 activations but be useless in a fight when someone wants to take 8 hard hitting power houses its part of the choice you need to make. I personally love going against a high activation count army when i play droids it makes me think more tactically than i would if it was completely even.

Can you show me the data? Show me the tournaments where GAR has won?

Don't spread fake news...

On another note, it seems like your post is plagued with favoritism with little actual knowledge of how the game plays out at a competitive level.

21 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Personally I think the main reason the GAR is unviable is the utter lack of unit options. The lists for Droids and GAR all look similar to the same by virtue of having next to no options, so it is a bit easier to "counter" those armies.

I don't think the pass mechanic actually removes anything. The main advantages of multiple activations are having more unit leaders for claiming objectives, more sources of suppression, and more chaff units for deployment. A pass mechanic does nothing for the other advantages. Point adjustments or limitations placed on specifically "abused" units would be more effective.

Their underwhelming performance is probably a variety of reasons. As you stated, the separatists are having similar issues and activation count isn't the issue with them.

The only thing that the pass mechanic fixes is it gives more control to players with smaller activation #. It doesn't fix the other problems you address, but maybe we don't need to? I don't know what exactly is needed to fix this issue, but I figured a pass mechanic may be an easy fix. See how it affects the meta and make adjustments accordingly.

19 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I mean, yes and no.

You are correct that there is no data with the pass ruling, specifically because it doesn't exist, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have no reason to think it may cause power creep.

Activation mechanics are almost always tricky and from my limited experience often become abused in competitive metas to compound with powerful units. From my experience with Star Wars Armada, which eventually implemented pass rulings, I can say there was an effect to larger more powerful ships after the pass mechanics were added. Considering the similarities between systems using activation padding, I think there's at least some reason to think that power creep could become an issue.

In Armada, an army would bid for first player, have one (rarely two) powerful ship(s) and pad activations to out-deploy and out-activate the enemy army (usually with a cheap 18 point "floatilla" and squadrons). Then, over the course of a round, they'd use their activation padding until the enemy ships had all activated and activate the power unit getting it in the perfect position. Finally they'd activate the power unit first at the beginning of the next round to deliver a powerful hit and escape threat range. It seems to me Legion's issue with activation padding (specifically around rebels at them moment?) centers around 3-6 bare troopers, 2-3 snipers as padding for 3x tuan tuans to move in late and hit hard. Very similar in most regards. While it may not be the solution for Legion, Armada did put a hard cap on the units being abused, and they also implemented unique pass mechanic upgrades to avoid copious pass spam in the place of copious floatilla spam while still allowing larger more powerful units to gain some benefit of a pass mechanic.

All of that to say, I have seen what adding even a limited amount of pass mechanics can do to a game under similar circumstances, and it did empower larger more expensive units quite a bit. Not to say it makes me certain it'll cause creep here by any means, but it does make me wary of simply adding passes en masse.

I will agree that it appears there's an issue with list building. I'm not sure if it's because of the inherent power of high activation lists or the effectiveness of the power units they seem to be padding for.

This is good insight, but Armada is a much different game than legion. I played armada for a month before selling out of it (not my game). I don't remember any missions requiring large scale capping (something that wouldn't work in lists with a very small activation count that exploits a pass mechanic).

The bold is another good point. We don't have direct evidence that is it high activation # or high unit quality. This is something that requires more testing.

19 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

On a side note, rumor around the block is that Tuans and Mortars are getting a nerf.

I had made a thread about Tauns being overpowered a couple months ago and received huge backlash from this community. I remember typing this quote, "It will take time for the rest of the community to catch up." Looks like they're finally catching up.

Just now, R3dReVenge said:

I had made a thread about Tauns being overpowered a couple months ago and received huge backlash from this community.

Yeah it seemed pretty obvious to me they'd be OP. I haven't even bought mine yet. As soon as I saw the stat card I said "I'll wait for the nerf to see how many I should get".

6 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Yeah it seemed pretty obvious to me they'd be OP. I haven't even bought mine yet. As soon as I saw the stat card I said "I'll wait for the nerf to see how many I should get".

It's this action count which is way over the top. I believe they do 6 or 7 actions per Tauntaun activation. No unit in the game comes close to this action economy.

5 minutes ago, R3dReVenge said:

It's this action count which is way over the top. I believe they do 6 or 7 actions per Tauntaun activation. No unit in the game comes close to this action economy.

I've been saying this since legion started, but I just don't understand how units like this are making the production cut. I get that a faster release schedule means less time to play test, but how do they miss something like this being as good as it is? Or how does the T47, a unit available since the very beginning go a year without getting a cost cut?

I'm hoping as things move forward they spend more time play testing before releasing units, or at least have a better point balancing schedule.

31 minutes ago, R3dReVenge said:

I had made a thread about Tauns being overpowered a couple months ago and received huge backlash from this community. I remember typing this quote, "It will take time for the rest of the community to catch up." Looks like they're finally catching up.

Tauntauns are majestic and perfect and if anything overpriced and underpowered. I say this with zero emotional bias.

39 minutes ago, R3dReVenge said:

The bold is another good point. We don't have direct evidence that is it high activation # or high unit quality. This is something that requires more testing.

Activation count is inherently unbalancing. It's incredibly hard to account for, even with a band aid like Pass tokens. In theory Legion's attempt is to randomize activation via orders, but its a solution that's very easy to break with homogeneous builds that punish varied builds more than you'd normally see just due to the strength of min-max spam. That's long been one of the game's big challenges. Even if it was priced better, the Airspeeder would likely be bad simply because of how it impairs your ability to have complete control of when your models activate.

7 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

Activation count is inherently unbalancing. It's incredibly hard to account for, even with a band aid like Pass tokens.

Some games have done it by putting in mechanics to make larger armies more unwieldly. I think Legion is saddled with weirdness forever, due to using a what boils down to a Napoleonic Wars activation system in a Vietnam wargame.

To get the feel of the movies and the background universe, Star Wars games really benefit from simultaneous actions and giving players a high degree of control over their models. Legion is fun but it doesn't feel much like the films. For a non-activation example, boldly ignoring an AT-ST or somehow destroying it with pistols, is un-Star Warsy.

2 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I've been saying this since legion started, but I just don't understand how units like this are making the production cut. I get that a faster release schedule means less time to play test, but how do they miss something like this being as good as it is? Or how does the T47, a unit available since the very beginning go a year without getting a cost cut?

I'm hoping as things move forward they spend more time play testing before releasing units, or at least have a better point balancing schedule.

Well, "good"(?) news! It seems that production might slow down. Potentially related to whatever is going on internally that led to the layoffs in the RPG department and shutting down the video game focused Fantasy Flight Interactive. (Source is some former FFG employees on Reddit, with some speculation so grains of salt here people).

40 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Well, "good"(?) news! It seems that production might slow down. Potentially related to whatever is going on internally that led to the layoffs in the RPG department and shutting down the video game focused Fantasy Flight Interactive. (Source is some former FFG employees on Reddit, with some speculation so grains of salt here people).

Yeah I saw that, and I am hopeful that the layoffs were a culling to provide better services to their successful IP lines, but part of me, mostly the neglected starving Armada fan, has doubts that FFG has the capability to properly organize and reign in the business side of their job.

Fingers crossed that OP gets sorted this year. After Armada losing 80% of OP support despite willing and successful stores applying for kits, I'm hoping to see some support.

From what I've seen and heard its not an FFG specific thing; it seems like its happening across the entire Asmodee line.

I'm very worried that we'll return to bidding wars, especially when the new Battle Cards are released. With new Battle cards, decks will probably be VERY focused for their list, and will be a significant factor in determining how well you do in a game, thus leading to bidding wars. There's nothing worse than participating in a bidding war (which may become necessary) and losing by a small # of points. That gives the winning bidder two bonuses, winning the bid and the opponent's list missing a significant # of build points with no payoff. Not good, and something I hope doesn't happen to this game. In many games with bids the bids end up being so large it's ridiculous. Armada has often seen bids of 5-10% of list max (40-80 points in Legion) because of it's importantce, which is just stupid.

In short, I'm also a huge proponent of activations determining Blue option. That way you can just build a list and not worry about finding that sweet bid spot and still losing the bid rvern though you forfoeted many points. Bleh

15 minutes ago, Thraug said:

I'm very worried that we'll return to bidding wars, especially when the new Battle Cards are released. With new Battle cards, decks will probably be VERY focused for their list, and will be a significant factor in determining how well you do in a game, thus leading to bidding wars. There's nothing worse than participating in a bidding war (which may become necessary) and losing by a small # of points. That gives the winning bidder two bonuses, winning the bid and the opponent's list missing a significant # of build points with no payoff. Not good, and something I hope doesn't happen to this game. In many games with bids the bids end up being so large it's ridiculous. Armada has often seen bids of 5-10% of list max (40-80 points in Legion) because of it's importantce, which is just stupid.

In short, I'm also a huge proponent of activations determining Blue option. That way you can just build a list and not worry about finding that sweet bid spot and still losing the bid rvern though you forfoeted many points. Bleh

Something else I've been thinking about regarding this, is that for most objectives, having more activations is an advantage. And it is very possible to have more activations AND have a larger point bid than one's opponent. 1 point is 0.125% of a list, but can be enough to secure blue player. 1 activation on the other hand is huge. I think granting initiative to the player with fewer activations is the way to go, since they could easily still be disadvantaged in the objective.

Plus, making initiative activation dependent means points can be a tie breaker, instead of immediately moving to a die roll like it does now.