Don't be Captain Canady and wish you had included Squadrons in your list "5 minutes ago" when the bombers show up.

Hey every body Happy May 4th!

I haven't been here or posted for a while and I wanted to see what was going...

Oh, wait.

Again?

50 minutes ago, BiggsIRL said:

Don't be Captain Canady and wish you had included Squadrons in your list "5 minutes ago" when the bombers show up.

The FO TIE Fighters arrived on time to shred all the bombers, except for the one that miraculously got through. The problem is that he should have invested in Linked Turbolaser Towers, which would have really helped against that pesky Resistance X-Wing ace that took away the Dreadnought's ability to flak.

3 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

The FO TIE Fighters arrived on time to shred all the bombers, except for the one that miraculously got through. The problem is that he should have invested in Linked Turbolaser Towers, which would have really helped against that pesky Resistance X-Wing ace that took away the Dreadnought's ability to flak.

He wanted even deployments, and that's what got him.

Not sure why this quote suddenly comes to mind.

18 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

I haven't played X-Wing, so enlighten me. Could you please show me a data sheet for X-Wing that is the functional equivalent of the Armada data sheet we keep quoting? I'd like to see the evidence of X-Wing's diversity at the tournament level.

https://meta.listfortress.com/ship_combos?

This is probably one of the more accessible sources. Again, one has to understand how the data collection is incomplete, what it _could_ represent. Same issue comes up for Armada.

21 hours ago, Gilarius said:

This is where you started, Blail. An assertion that MSU is dead. Utterly dead. Your description. Not a discussion about precise balance with one archetype being a bit/significantly more powerful.

MSU wins quite a large percentage of its games, but (in my limited experience) doesn't tend to win by a large enough margin to win large tournaments reliably. So people who intend to try to win large tournaments generally take heavy squadrons.

I'd be pretty worried if an archetype has no chance of winning any major tournaments you know.

Counter example to your thought: Tie Swarm in Xwing is horrifically difficult and taxing especially in whole-day events. Yet, historically they won over and over again. So difficulty did not simply destroy them like it did MSU. Another counter example: Cheesing AND only late-game macro play in SC2 has won players entire tournaments too.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'd be pretty worried if an archetype has no chance of winning any major tournaments you know.

Counter example to your thought: Tie Swarm in Xwing is horrifically difficult and taxing especially in whole-day events. Yet, historically they won over and over again. So difficulty did not simply destroy them like it did MSU.

This isn't an answer or reply to what I wrote. MSU doesn't tend to be used because winning games isn't enough to win tournaments in Armada, not because it's more difficult to play - it's no harder or taxing than the alternatives. In x-wing, just winning all your games is sufficient to win tournaments. A high MOV is useful (which Tie Swarms can achieve fairly reliably) in case you do lose a game, but not essential. However, in Armada you need big wins - and losing a game doesn't prevent you winning the tournament if you get a high enough score overall.

My point was, your whole starting position was that MSU is 'utterly dead'. We've been pointing out that it isn't, whereupon you changed your goalposts and have been going on about balance. A simple acknowledgement that your initial position was wrong would really help your new position that balance could do with a bit of a tweak - which a lot of us agree with - rather than make this thread feel utterly pointless by making it become what feels like a series of 'gotcha' moments.

Winning big with MSU is really hard believe it or not. Just simply winning a game in a tournament isn't enough to get in the top 25%. MSUs can win, just not consistently enough to get top places. At least most players don't have that kinda skill. Rieekan could help though.

I'd also not worry about what Starcraft is doing, personally. I dont hear professional Starcraft players talking about how their game isnt as good as actual Chess or the simplicity of Checkers or what have you.

On 5/3/2020 at 12:40 PM, shmitty said:

The fleet you have the most practice with is the fleet you will likely do the best with.

Wise words. Play what you want, and play it a lot. Some fleet types won't be good fits for a player's play style. Don't look at metadata because this is a **** game, and I agree that the data is really a trap.

Above all, this is a game, and if you spend three+ years complaining about the same stuff, then, honestly, maybe this isn't for you.

The community has set up a trade thread :

9 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

Winning big with MSU is really hard believe it or not. Just simply winning a game in a tournament isn't enough to get in the top 25%. MSUs can win, just not consistently enough to get top places. At least most players don't have that kinda skill. Rieekan could help though.

I'm going to query this. Why do most players not have the skill required in your view? As we saw with two ship nothing in Armada is remotely close to an autowin. The players regularly finishing highly in tournaments tend to fly similar lists all the time, which comes back to the point of others that the skill required for tournament winning is perseverance.

MSU can win tournamemts because it has something fundamental in its favour. Losing any individual ship has marginal impact on MOV.

I picked up MSU for the first time in a long time before christmas and immediately downed an SSD. I think I finished 3rd in a ten player tourmament that day with zero practice. I made quite a few mistakes and if I had the dedication could improve quite a bit. However I lack the perserverance required.

Please note my MSU included Tycho in addition to small ships. Bite me.

4 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

I'm going to query this. Why do most players not have the skill required in your view? As we saw with two ship nothing in Armada is remotely close to an autowin. The players regularly finishing highly in tournaments tend to fly similar lists all the time, which comes back to the point of others that the skill required for tournament winning is perseverance.

MSU can win tournaments because it has something fundamental in its favor. Losing any individual ship has marginal impact on MOV.

I picked up MSU for the first time in a long time before Christmas and immediately downed an SSD. I think I finished 3rd in a ten player tournament that day with zero practice. I made quite a few mistakes and if I had the dedication could improve quite a bit. However I lack the perseverance required.

Please note my MSU included Tycho in addition to small ships. Bite me.

Yes two ship is not even close to an auto win. It takes practice to run efficiently and knowledge of when to engage targets. MSU is a bit less forgiving (Though mismanaging Pryce is also really terrible in two ship) in that your mistakes can compound to less MOV easier.

It all comes down to practice honestly and the skill to perceive when the right opportunities to engage are. Obviously knowing when the best time to engage is key. I am not sure the SSD is the best example for the purpose of the argument. It is easy to get all your ships in position to hit all together along with what ships you bring. A double arc MC-30 is gonna hurt, even for a SSD. **** I managed to down one with a Vader Cymoon, 2 Arquitens, and a Demo with no practice too without taking any loses.

Don't care that you brought Tycho as the data says you can bring some squads in a 'pure' MSU build.

3 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

I'm going to query this. Why do most players not have the skill required in your view? As we saw with two ship nothing in Armada is remotely close to an autowin. The players regularly finishing highly in tournaments tend to fly similar lists all the time, which comes back to the point of others that the skill required for tournament winning is perseverance.

MSU can win tournamemts because it has something fundamental in its favour. Losing any individual ship has marginal impact on MOV.

I picked up MSU for the first time in a long time before christmas and immediately downed an SSD. I think I finished 3rd in a ten player tourmament that day with zero practice. I made quite a few mistakes and if I had the dedication could improve quite a bit. However I lack the perserverance required.

Please note my MSU included Tycho in addition to small ships. Bite me.

3 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

Yes two ship is not even close to an auto win. It takes practice to run efficiently and knowledge of when to engage targets. MSU is a bit less forgiving (Though mismanaging Pryce is also really terrible in two ship) in that your mistakes can compound to less MOV easier.

It all comes down to practice honestly and the skill to perceive when the right opportunities to engage are. Obviously knowing when the best time to engage is key. I am not sure the SSD is the best example for the purpose of the argument. It is easy to get all your ships in position to hit all together along with what ships you bring. A double arc MC-30 is gonna hurt, even for a SSD. **** I managed to down one with a Vader Cymoon, 2 Arquitens, and a Demo with no practice too without taking any loses.

Don't care that you brought Tycho as the data says you can bring some squads in a 'pure' MSU build.

MSU can win big. Particularly vs an SSD (my record is two turns to drop one, so far), so that's not a good example and being matched against one might have had a big say in your final position?
But winning big isn't something you can rely on making happen, particularly if your opponent has had more practice/is better than you - instead you often end up trading ships, which can be in your favour overall without leading to a large final score.

But fleets with heavy squads tend to have the edge in both winning big, and winning often. There are exceptions, and they almost always need both practice and a very clear idea of what you intend your fleet to do.

On 5/5/2020 at 6:43 PM, Ginkapo said:

I'm going to query this. Why do most players not have the skill required in your view? As we saw with two ship nothing in Armada is remotely close to an autowin. The players regularly finishing highly in tournaments tend to fly similar lists all the time, which comes back to the point of others that the skill required for tournament winning is perseverance.

MSU can win tournamemts because it has something fundamental in its favour. Losing any individual ship has marginal impact on MOV.

I picked up MSU for the first time in a long time before christmas and immediately downed an SSD. I think I finished 3rd in a ten player tourmament that day with zero practice. I made quite a few mistakes and if I had the dedication could improve quite a bit. However I lack the perserverance required.

Please note my MSU included Tycho in addition to small ships. Bite me.

I’d rather not if that’s ok Gink, covid and all that.

As well as still being able to win, MSU is just so much fun, the simple pleasure of manoeuvring your fragile bucket of black dice is just great.

Proportion of small ships to total ships:

Wave 0 - 2/3 67%

Wave 1 - 4/6 67%

Wave 2 - 5/9 55%

Wave 3 - 7/11 64%

Wave 4 - 7/13 54%

Wave 5 - 9/15 60%

Wave 6 - 10/17 59%

Wave 7 - 10/19 52%

Wave 8 - 10/22 45%