Our thoughts on the best and the worst of this most recent points change. Check it out here, and let us know what your best, worst, and most interesting is.

Best change was removing targeted power pieces and auto includes from Hyperspace. 7B Config (power), Afterburners(Vader), Trick Shot(Han). It really seems like FFG looked at each upgrade and said "is there a ship that will automatically take this upgrade to the point where you might as well bake it into the cost?" and I think that the result is some of the most interesting squad building we've had to date. One of my initial gripes was the removal of R2A6, but if my guess is correct, then whatever CLT ace Republic settles on would always take that astro.

Worst change is totally selfish: the removal of Anakin Aethersprite. I celebrate the removal of 7b from Hyperspace because CLT is much more rewarding to play as and play against, but not having a way to battle Fenn and Poe on the I6 playing field has me concerned.

Most surprising change was the removal of all upsilons. Tavson and Starkiller I could see, but it would have been interesting to see what people do with some of the other ones. FO was already struggling, and I don't really think the new BA is going to be enough.

6 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

Best change was removing targeted power pieces and auto includes from Hyperspace. 7B Config (power), Afterburners(Vader), Trick Shot(Han). It really seems like FFG looked at each upgrade and said "is there a ship that will automatically take this upgrade to the point where you might as well bake it into the cost?" and I think that the result is some of the most interesting squad building we've had to date. One of my initial gripes was the removal of R2A6, but if my guess is correct, then whatever CLT ace Republic settles on would always take that astro.

Worst change is totally selfish: the removal of Anakin Aethersprite. I celebrate the removal of 7b from Hyperspace because CLT is much more rewarding to play as and play against, but not having a way to battle Fenn and Poe on the I6 playing field has me concerned.

Most surprising change was the removal of all upsilons. Tavson and Starkiller I could see, but it would have been interesting to see what people do with some of the other ones. FO was already struggling, and I don't really think the new BA is going to be enough.

The Upsilon was cut because FFG seems to want hyperspace to be exclusively made up of rereleased content again, which I support in principle. I just hope they get to rereleasing some things that had to be cut because of this soon. I'm not crazy about Wave VII having 0 rereleased ships.

1 minute ago, Squark said:

The Upsilon was cut because FFG seems to want hyperspace to be exclusively made up of rereleased content again, which I support in principle.

Worth noting: this is the first point in the history of 2nd edition that this is entirely the case; Hyperspace will be more noob-friendly than ever, especially with the removal of the most powerful/potentially NPE pieces.

Even I might have to give it a try!

Regarding the lack of nerfs, I made a comment on another thread that I'd rather not repost in its entirety so here's a link:

Tl;Dr: Maybe nerfing the top stuff doesn't always work? The game has been dominated by I5-6 aces since the very start, and every adjustment has done very little to change that. The only major exceptions have been Vulture Swarms, Torrents, and Rebel Beef, each of which peaked a little above the power curve, and none of which typically went totally ace-less (except some certain Vulture builds).

The devs are balancing around what we actually have data on, rather than on some imaginary benchmark whose performance we really can't assess due to paucity of data.

My biggest disappointment was the nerf to cannons. I get it for the 2-primaries, but now I really believe they should be scaled by primary weapon.

Also possibly changing my mind about missiles; it almost seems like they're not as bad as I've repeatedly said (to the point of embarrassment). 7x Concussion Z-95s seems like a scary list to me...

1 hour ago, Squark said:

Most surprising change was the removal of all upsilons. Tavson and Starkiller I could see, but it would have been interesting to see what people do with some of the other ones. FO was already struggling, and I don't really think the new BA is going to be enough.

The two reason for this are that it hasn't been re-released and that they have a crew carrier coming down the pipe April-ish.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Also possibly changing my mind about missiles; it almost seems like they're not as bad as I've repeatedly said (to the point of embarrassment). 7x Concussion Z-95s seems like a scary list to me...

Well, is it that your opinion on missiles prices changed or that the fact you can spam more of them because of Z95 prices? Are ion missiles good now?

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Also possibly changing my mind about missiles; it almost seems like they're not as bad as I've repeatedly said (to the point of embarrassment). 7x Concussion Z-95s seems like a scary list to me...

FFG before the points update: Can't tell if missiles are bad, if all the missile carriers are bad.

Just now, 5050Saint said:

Well, is it that your opinion on missiles prices changed or that the fact you can spam more of them because of Z95 prices? Are ion missiles good now?

Specifically Concussion and maybe Homing. Ion and Clusters still need to go down at least a point.

But concussion looks good on TIE Bombers, TIE Aggressors, Torrents, etc.

I could still see them going down one without hurting anything, but Jendon and PS need to go up one too.

Either way, this is the first time I feel like FFG has a better handle on what they're doing than I would in their place...

vis a vis power creep, y'all using that term wrong. It's not power creep to buff unplayed things to the level of played things. It's only power creep if you buff things PAST the level of played things.

1 hour ago, jagsba said:

vis a vis power creep, y'all using that term wrong. It's not power creep to buff unplayed things to the level of played things. It's only power creep if you buff things PAST the level of played things.

Well then, neither of are right then, since we don't know if things have been buffed past the level of played things or not. It's Schroedinger's Power Creep, in a quantum state of OP and Not OP until proven.

16 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Well then, neither of are right then, since we don't know if things have been buffed past the level of played things or not. It's Schroedinger's Power Creep, in a quantum state of OP and Not OP until proven.

Basically the devs have conceded that the current power level is the one that they are going to accept. It might be called "Power Creep" since it seems to be above the power level that was expected earlier, but if it was decided for a good reason, maybe it should be called "Resetting the Standard" instead?

The idea of Aces > Mid-I named > Swarms > Aces never really worked out because that last comparison was never true, and nerfs to aces never made it more true. It worked more like Aces > Mid-I named < Swarms < Aces. Now they're trying to balance around the aces instead of balancing around the stuff that's not getting played anyway. Kind of makes sense to me.

34 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Basically the devs have conceded that the current power level is the one that they are going to accept. It might be called "Power Creep" since it seems to be above the power level that was expected earlier, but if it was decided for a good reason, maybe it should be called "Resetting the Standard" instead?

The idea of Aces > Mid-I named > Swarms > Aces never really worked out because that last comparison was never true, and nerfs to aces never made it more true. It worked more like Aces > Mid-I named < Swarms < Aces. Now they're trying to balance around the aces instead of balancing around the stuff that's not getting played anyway. Kind of makes sense to me.

A part of me wonders how much of the leaving stuff alone was because they are already trying a huge shakeup with Hyperspace, and the Extended meta at worlds was (mostly) fine.