hi everyone, not trying to start anything about "Boba Fett is OP, nerf it now" or something, I understand faction balance is a bigger deal than most other forms of balance to a lot of people and there's also a lot of scum players here so scum having a top-tier list is a happy thing in many people's eyes.

What I'm here to say is that I just don't enjoy Boba Fett's design in this game, I think it's boring.

I like how popular Boba is, he's the only scum pilot who actually flies a ship in the Original Trilogy. I just don't like that he appears to be a ship with zero downsides, and thus no counterplay options other than just praying to the dice gods.

Let's start with maneuvering. The combination of Slave 1 (which only costs 1 point btw) and boost makes him an extremely effective arc dodger, and due to the back arc this also makes him essentially a turret. Here's Boba with a 1 hard dialed in. "fun" indeed. So trying to build a killbox or range control him isn't super useful.

Now let's get into blocking. Slave 1 already makes him difficult to block but due to Maul and his ability, he has passive double mods on every die roll even if you do block him. So that's not going to work.

Additionally, his ability happens way too often. Getting a single enemy ship at range 1 isn't that hard, and that's really all he needs.

He usually runs at i5 with a huge bid too, so only i6 pilots or mirror matches have a chance of him not being able to play reactively to them.

Basically my point is that you actually can't get outplayed with Boba. It's definitely possible to screw up but if you actually know what you're doing your opponent has zero recourse. Single-player games aren't fun, this was the main complaint with Ghost/Fenn or triple torpscouts in first edition. Ships that do everything well are boring for the person playing against them, and I would hope, for the person playing them as well.

What are our options then? Personally I'd like to see a different Boba with a different ability in a card pack. And then the old one rotates out of hyperspace. Star Wars Destiny essentially did this with problematic characters like Rey. Personally I think the subtitles are an underutilized design space and this seems like a fitting use of them. So you can view this as a petition, please, FFG, give us a fun Boba. As scum's most iconic character, he deserves better than this.

16 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

As scum's most iconic character, he deserves better than this.

I agree.

You should really stop saying mean things about him.

That other Mandalorian dude getting all the attention right now has got him pretty upset as it is.

Every other faction has way more irksome BS than Boba Fett, who is fine. Personally I'm bored with 7 years of Imperial Aces: Initiative Wars, but hey. what can you do

the entire point of Firesprays is that they're always good but never the best thing you could buy for the points. theyre simple and fun to fly, naked or decked out. and thats kinda scums whole faction trait. you dont get rebel synergy, Imperial swarms or Ace dominance, you dont get jedi or droid swarm shenanagins. you get Migs

Scums is the faction to fly if you dont want MTG style upgrade spam or wombo combos, and Fett provides that. you take that away and another large group of players leave

35 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

SAME TEAM

10 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

Every other faction has way more irksome BS than Boba Fett, who is fine. Personally I'm bored with 7 years of Imperial Aces: Initiative Wars, but hey. what can you do

the entire point of Firesprays is that they're always good but never the best thing you could buy for the points. theyre simple and fun to fly, naked or decked out. and thats kinda scums whole faction trait. you dont get rebel synergy, Imperial swarms or Ace dominance, you dont get jedi or droid swarm shenanagins. you get Migs

Scums is the faction to fly if you dont want MTG style upgrade spam or wombo combos, and Fett provides that. you take that away and another large group of players leave

like I said. I'm not saying Boba is more powerful than other things, I'm saying he's more boring.

Simple and fun to fly doesn't mean i5 ace with a zillion health that can joust, turret, and arc dodge in my books.

Also I think your last sentence is a typo? You mean scum IS the MTG-style upgrade-spam wombo combo faction right? I understand some people like that, but uh, come on, give it some downsides and counterplay options. Nobody wants black lotus.

I disagree here. I like Boba. I love that they melded his Imperial and Scum 1.0 abilities.

As a TIE Defender enthusiast, Boba is very similar in list building frustrations. He’s at that awkward points cost where you have to decide to throw him in with nothing else or “deck him out”. Which is correct. You get a lot with him but you pay for it too.

His repositioning is not oppressive when you count blocking, asteroids, etc and I’ve always just in my mind treated him as a 3 agility ship. It keeps me from being salty about that GUARANTEED evade on the reroll. Lol.

I also find his play fun, tho I’m not a big scum player. Yes, I groan inside when I’m flying against him but no more than facing any other irritating list. I mean things are pretty balanced right now so....

Besides, what’s your new “fun” Boba ideas?? Curious about that.

I'm led to believe that Boba Firespray is the T65 of Scum:

Always good

Always Competitive

Always playable

Always an easy entry for new players.

____

It might be "boring", but I'd like to suggest that's the point. The game needs good, easy, "boring" ships.

______

My recommendation?

Fly Starvipers and Fangs or loaded Khiraxz s if you want to shake things up.

.....and then pretend one of them is Boba in the pilot seat until ffg gives you a new pilot version of him that you like better.

There a couple ships that didnt evolve enough in their way out of 1.0. Boba, Dash, Defenders, Rebel Fenn, a few others all kinda ended up less interesting than they could have been. Maybe we will get new versions with a little more nuance to them down the line.

51 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

That other Mandalorian dude getting all the attention right now has got him pretty upset as it is.

That's because Din Djarin is actually competent . It takes Vader wagging his finger in Boba's face to get him to understand basic mission parameters.

1 hour ago, Kieransi said:

Basically my point is that you actually can't get outplayed with Boba.

Oh, believe me, I can.

I get your points, even if I don't exactly agree. Likewise, I don't think I use the term "boring" in the same way as you.

But having more and varied versions of iconic pilots seems very good . Wicked easy example: what if Darth Vader had the text from the Aethersprite/Y-Wing Anakin? That'd be pretty cool, and it'd shake up a limited Hyperspace format if the original Vader was taken out. Maybe that'd mean Afterburners could come back, etc etc.

This makes me really want to try boba again. I wasn’t that enamored with i5 vs i6. Maybe good to try again now with boba Fenn.

He still drops like a sunk rock just like dash does when you get too much incoming firepower. Say 5x. But I can see using his maneuverability to make that difficult

1 minute ago, Bucknife said:

I'm led to believe that Boba Firespray is the T65 of Scum:

Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

T-65s are very much emblematic of core X-Wing gameplay. Front arc, small base, single reposition that costs your dice mods, only linked action lowers your dice output, takes damage when shot at. X-Wings are about setting good dials, and getting punished when you don't or have to reposition to fix them.

Boba, meanwhile: dial changing, consistent passive dice modification on all rolls, mine/bomb carrier, full-firepower always-on rear arc. If Boba sets a bad dial, he can change it, and he can boost too, and he'll probably have force + rerolls at the end of it and maybe a solid payload drop for good measure.

It's not like Boba is unbeatable! This isn't a cry to nerf Boba. A more expensive Boba would have all the same flaws.

X-Wing is just, a worse game for having his current incarnation in it. Hyperspace banishes so much of the other stuff that's also true for which makes Boba particularly glaring.

41 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

like I said. I'm not saying Boba is more powerful than other things, I'm saying he's more boring.

Simple and fun to fly doesn't mean i5 ace with a zillion health that can joust, turret, and arc dodge in my books.

Also I think your last sentence is a typo? You mean scum IS the MTG-style upgrade-spam wombo combo faction right? I understand some people like that, but uh, come on, give it some downsides and counterplay options. Nobody wants black lotus.

no, i mean what I said. at least where I play (and from the boards and posts) scum is the faction of 5 khiraxz, cannon scyks, and the simple fun and goofy stuff. The other factions are the ones with upgrade spam that actually gets used. Scum players arent ussually running anything like a loaded ghost combo train or whatever.

and black lotus analogy is high ps arc dodging aces with force shenanagins, not a 90 point ship thats easily crushed by most of the meta. currently Boba is scums best answer to that Ace archetype

Boba is harder to play than some think he is. Yes his reroll ability and customizabilty are great but you can quickly get into trouble with him if he isnt flown well. Firespray wasmy fav ship in 1.0 and im really happy the 2.0 version of Boba is as good as it is. Fenn+Boba in hyperspace is probably tier 1. each faction needs a squad to represent it. firespray will most likely rotate out of hyperspace soon so ride the ship while you can.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

He still drops like a sunk rock just like dash does when you get too much incoming firepower. Say 5x. But I can see using his maneuverability to make that difficult

Oddly, that doesn't sound like a shortcoming of any given pilot, but more like how the game is played.

Scum has been down and out since the very first days of 2.0 when Boba and his pal Han gunner where lighting the place up (and still only dominant in combination with other undercosted ship combos). He (and his friends like Palob) were nerfed back to their hole where they’ve been since.

Now Boba creeps into Hyperspace because again, there are some cheap and/or powerful options that have emerged (Maul, Fenn, fangs) and brought Boba back to the top tier. Please don’t nerf the entire scum faction off the board again!

Boba is the king of scum. He’s the most iconic, his ability is filthy, and he’s intimidating. He still dies quite often and is expensive. I think he should always be an option for competitive scum lists. He’ll get rotated out, don’t worry. Like Wedge and Vader, Boba will always be just hanging in space with his engines idling waiting for the card prices around him to shift just enough to let him back into the top tier.

I know this is a very unpopular opinion, especially on this forum, but unfortunately I actually enjoy the existence of Dash, Fett, SNR, Precog, and AS Guri (though not necessarily Ensnare). But not for the reasons most would assume I do.

As a game designer, it's really easy to create a kind of "closed-system" game: This is how it works, this is how you get better, this is what you do to win, go have fun. Pushing a design envelope in certain areas is really interesting because it makes the players re-think some basic concepts of the game. Rocks are mostly bad to run over (unless you're Dash or Vultures or MG TIEs or have CD). Second player is usually better (unless you're PS Vader with Mag-Pulse or have Intimidation I1s). Blocking is usually an effective ace counter (unless they're Nantexes). Generally speaking, the exception is more interesting to me than the rule, as long as those exceptions are rare enough, which is an important part of this discussion.

As long as they're priced appropriately, I enjoy the way they make players think outside the box, both in list-building (What does it do against Boba? Fangs? Nantexes? Swarms? So on) and in actual play (Block vs snipe, killbox vs spread arcs, range control vs formation, etc). Incidentally, they also make high-ship-count-lists both more viable in the meta and more necessary with certain pilots as that's the only way to punish arc-dodging aces effectively. Now that taking a high-ship-count list is a viable option in every faction, I doubt AS Guri and SNR Kylo will be nearly as pervasive or NPE (still NPE vs certain lists, but those lists will make up a much smaller percentage of what's played – I5-dependent lists used to be disproportionately high).

Boba Fett's a case where it can potentially be NPE, but it usually won't be and is more often just an interesting challenge. Perhaps not as much fun for the Fett player as it's easier to know what the correct option is at any given point in time, but as a primarily 5-ship player, I enjoy setting up bad options and watching ace players number-crunch which is the least punishing. Extremely challenging but extremely rewarding ace-hunting with generics is one of my favorite things to do in this game.

But that's just me and my admittedly minority opinion.

yeah others put it better than I did, but Boba belongs in the game as is. maybe he should be a few more points, but thematically and mechanically hes an archetype the game needs.

6 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

maybe he should be a few more points, but thematically and mechanically hes an archetype the game needs.

Personally I don't know if I'd go that far. I certainly wouldn't argue that he's necessary, but I would argue that he is acceptable and enjoyable within the context of balanced pricings, which we're probably closer to than ever before.

Not sure if he belongs in Hyperspace, but that call is on the Devs and it seems they deemed him fit, so ... maybe?

I think Boba is one of the most entertaining pilots in the game, on either side.

39 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I think Boba is one of the most entertaining pilots in the game, on either side.

He certainly makes me feel, "uhoh. That guy is bad news. How am I going to deal with THAT SHIP?"

I feel like that's what centerpiece ships are supposed to make us think.

They are match-defining, meta-defining, and game-defining.

_____

Again, I'm not saying anyone who is bored by a certain chassis or pilot is wrong.

I would just say that if someone really hates playing against a specific part of the game, maybe they should try their best not to and fall back to casual/epic for a season or two.

There's nothing wrong with that... And just wait until you've got a few kids - sometimes you'll be skipping whole seasons of play anyway!

15 hours ago, Bucknife said:

I'm led to The game needs good, easy, "boring" ships.

Spot on.

8 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Personally I don't know if I'd go that far. I certainly wouldn't argue that he's necessary, but I would argue that he is acceptable and enjoyable within the context of balanced pricings, which we're probably closer to than ever before.

Not sure if he belongs in Hyperspace, but that call is on the Devs and it seems they deemed him fit, so ... maybe?

thats why i said "maybe". i think hes fine as is, but if he dominates hyperspace I can see him going up a few points. thats kinda the point of recosting

9 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

yeah others put it better than I did, but Boba belongs in the game as is. maybe he should be a few more points, but thematically and mechanically hes an archetype the game needs.

At very least, Slave 1 should be more expensive. A single point for that kind of dial-switching is pretty excessive. Should be, like, Initiative points. I think Boba is probably fine (although he might have been a bit more balanced if he didn't reroll 1 die per ship at Range 0-1, but just 1 die). Leaving Slave 1 at a single point, and cranking Boba is possible, but my preference is for nearly all upgrades to be correctly priced.

9 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Personally I don't know if I'd go that far. I certainly wouldn't argue that he's necessary, but I would argue that he is acceptable and enjoyable within the context of balanced pricings, which we're probably closer to than ever before.

Not sure if he belongs in Hyperspace, but that call is on the Devs and it seems they deemed him fit, so ... maybe?

At very least, Maul shouldn't be in Hyperspace. Perceptive Copilot is still good, but gets thwarted by being blocked or taking a red move. 0-0-0 is still great, but has a limited range bubble, and an opponent can deny the calculate. Force crew, however, are just so much *easier* than other options. PerCo and 0-0-0 are far less autopilot than Maul.

Slave-1 not being Hyperspace legal would probably have been a good call, and as some have mentioned it’s cost should probably scale with initiative.

I don’t mind Boba, but he is very, very good and I don’t want him to warp list building too much (as I found Adv Sens Guri did in the first few months of 2e).