Pilots:
Upgrades:
51 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:
- +3 Maul
Maul should probably not get a global price increase because the number of ships he is actually usable on is extremely small. 99% of his play rate in the last 6 months has been on one specific pilot: He has been used over 400 times in reported tournaments on Boba, and... 14 times on the next runner up. In fact, if you search for the entire history of X-wing 2.0 Maul has been used on only two ships more than 10 times: 400 times on Boba, 82 times on Ketsu. He has been used on 18 other ships in tournaments, all of which have used him only a single digit number of times. 75% of Maul's usage is on Boba through the game's history, and 88% of the time was on two specific ships.
Maul is extremely not the problem, and so a points hike on him just removes him from the game if he is pushed to a point he isn't optimal on Boba. Worse, this doesn't even really stop Boba from being able to both defensively and offensively focus mod, or defensively modding twice, as perceptive exists. It isn't as strong of course in many situations because it eats your action, but it is strong enough to see consistent play.
I would 100% put any points intended to nerf the Boba-Maul combo onto Boba, not Maul. The idea of nerfing Maul themselves is frankly a bit ridiculous as that only glues them to Fett's card more. The tool isn't the thing broken in this instance, and I would rather Boba feel obligated to take a specific crew than a crew being worthless on anything besides Boba, who probably wouldn't bother anyway. If anything, Maul probably could go a bit down in price!
51 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:
- +5 Slave 1
I am surprised that A: This is so low, and B: That this upgrade isn't scaled off initiative. Honestly, I could see it getting the Suprow treatment because the effect is so powerful and jumping to the price of a full (if cheap) ship on an I6 pilot.
The question that should be asked about this card is essentially "What is the price of getting Hera's power, on a ship far more suited to it than the VCX? Put another way: would you not take Slave 1 100% of the time at 6 points, assuming Boba's base price didn't go up (or, in fact, you could lower it by just taking perceptive co-pilot)?
51 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:
- Vader -2 = 65
- +2 Passive Sensors at i5-i6
- +3 Burners at i5-i6
I get this is to offset the passive sensor and afterburner increases, but I think it is telling that if your reducing the price of a pilot to compensate for two entirely seperate upgrades being nerfed on them, it really doesn't mean those upgrades are at fault, but that the pilot is too good and you actually want to just hit the pilots. However, in this specific case I think you did a relatively good job with the actual nerfs, and I only disagree with the idea that Vader should go down, because he very obviously should not due to the fact he was strong as **** before passive sensors entered the game and would gladly drop them and take a 1 point discount on Afterburners.
Again, when a specific ship is consistently over-performing with a wide array of tools, that probably means the ship needs an increase, not the tools, or at least in addition to the tools. Otherwise your just admitting Vader's existence at their current points total is a design limiter forcing a wide array of upgrades to be worse just so he doesn't have a points increase that forces him to take some upgrade (despite Vader's design literally forcing them to take a sensor upgrade anyway...).
I also worry a bit about Afterburners as a way to get high initative plodding ships to be more acey, which actually is fun, but that could be handled through some other system or buff to weaker pilots.
51 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:
- Boba +0 = 85
This, combined with the fact you can entirely sidestep Maul with a perceptive copilot (which is less common but optimal enough to still see a extremely high amount of play) means that your proposed Boba nerf is essentially only a 1 point nerf, or 8 points if the Maul nerf works and people dont' find a work around. This seems clearly incorrect, as it is very likely due to the extremely high power level of Boba's ability that he will find a way. It is definitely the base ship that is undercosted, not just their upgrades working together. As others have said, Boba could go up in price by 10 points and he probably would still be play, his performance as a pilot is truly insane. Not even hitting him, but hitting one specific set of upgrades he only sometimes uses, and that only he really uses, is such a bad idea.
Overall this just sold me more on how points changes aren't going to actually help here because I look at this and notice no major break point changes or things that shake up what the pilots would do. Boba and Imp Aces consistently bid over 20, I don't think an 8 point shift on either of them is really going to do much to weaken those lists.
Edited by dezzmontBoba hasn’t been a problem when he didn’t have his action step freed up. He was a problem with cheap Han gunner and he was a problem with Maul as both gave him the action step to Boost. Boba alone, or Boba with Percop, are completely reasonable pieces that aren’t above the power curve.
I understand your point about Maul not appearing outside Boba, but it’s also true that there’s not many other ships that could reasonably ever take him as the big scum ships aren’t great and Ezra is a massive gatekeeper into Rebel Maul. So I’d counter that immediate take by asking what good ships you think want 12pt Maul but not 15pt Maul?
My Vader pricing is very similar logic. Just how bad Vader was without Afterburners was a big part of imps being bad in Hyperspace. Vader without boost is pretty bad and I’d drop his base cost to reflect that and move the cost into Afterburners. In an ideal world you want to cost pieces to create legitimate decision making points, so some people would take Vader without burners as he’s cheap enough to brawl with and other would feel they want to pay the premium to make him faster. Cost up the base price and you are removing decision points not adding them.
QuoteTo summarise, I'm going to quote a friend of mine: Vonreg should definitely be cheaper than Soontir, but Fel's price should probably start with a 6. I disagree with @Boom Owl when he says it should be as high as 69... but it should definitely start with a 6.
This is a really reasonable perspective that I understand and appreciate. Thanks @DR4CO
I don't completely disagree with a low 60 target. The main thing that makes me pause and drives me closer to 70 than to 63 or so is the fact that in the low 60s the prices for Vader, Whisper, Duchess, GI, and Redline, etc start having to go even higher to end up having a more serious impact on the Archetype. Leads to questions on how much of the burden of these increases other Aces/Upgrades should share vs Soontir to avoid an immediate switch to Vader Soontir GI instead of Vader Whisper GI. Maybe thats where upgrade slot removal comes in so they dont have to price pilots we like to high. Soontir maybe shouldn't have access to two Mod slots if he is going to start as low as 60. Whisper probably shouldn't have a Gunner slot at all to force lock set up instead of immediate double modification. All things I think would work to keep price increases “down” a bit.
I kinda generally prefer pairing slightly lower point increases with aggressive upgrade slot removal. Vader loses the Sensor, Whisper loses Gunner, Soontir loses 1 modification slot, etc. Boba probably could afford to lose Crew/Gunner paired with S1 +20. Whatever it takes to make the Aces alot less comfortable on the joust so they have to lean into their substantial mobility advantage more.
Edited by Boom Owl5 hours ago, DR4CO said:Soontir makes Vonreg look like a bad joke, and if they were in the same faction Vonreg would see play
ahead of Felexactly 0% of the time. Vonreg's only real advantage is the better dial and the synergy of his ship ability with Daredevil, which allows him to pull some maneuvers Soontir can't keep up with. But neither of those can compensate for the numerous advantages Fel enjoys...[and lots of other stuff]
I suppose here’s where my inexperience comes into play. I just haven’t put in the games you guys have, and while my lived experience is that Vonreg is better than Fel, it’s possible my friends and I simply haven’t learned how to fly Fel optimally yet, so he hasn’t shown us his full potential. Or maybe that the law of averages hasn’t yet kicked in, and more games will reveal his superiority. Interesting.
I still have trouble with the idea of such a fragile piece ending up at 1/3 of the available points. Say what you will about that free Focus keeping him safe; I’ve watched Soontir die like a chump by rolling two or three blanks several times now, and it’s just hard to envision that kind of fragility at 60+ points.
In any event, it’s nice to know there are layers to evaluating these game pieces that are well-hidden, and I definitely have some things to learn. Thanks everyone for explaining things fully, and thanks for the mostly pleasant conversation! I’m gonna largely bow out of this one for now.
Pilots:
Upgrades:
Note: aside from a couple things (adv sensors, precog/super, ensnare, sense) that are soft-bans, this list is the reasonable, non-punitive version. The
Ace Armageddon No Survivors
version is much
-ier.
*Not sure how much was on here, but for a long time I argued passives at high init was a meme and not worth caring about. I was super just wrong and was convinced like, months ago.
1 hour ago, svelok said:*Not sure how much was on here, but for a long time I argued passives at high init was a meme and not worth caring about. I was super just wrong and was convinced like, months ago.
Only really on certain ships - Vader is the main culprit and Whisper appears from time to time.
You don't tend to see PS on other high Int pilots.
1 hour ago, svelok said:Pilots:
- Soontir +5 = 58
- Vader -2 = 65
- Grand Inquisitor +4 = 56
- Duchess +0 = 42 (remove mod slot)
- Whisper +7 = 64 (remove gunner slot)
- Rex +0 = 81
- Redline +0 = 52
- Guri -4 = 60
- Boba +5 = 90 (remove crew slot)
- Kylo +0 = 76 (remove all upgrade slots. I don't trust a single one of you.)
- Holo +5 = 59
- Anakin +4 = 66 (theme on point)
- Obi Wan +5 = 53 (CLT i3/4/5/6 prices from 2 3 4 5 -> 2 3 6 9)
- Plo +5 = 49 (see above)
- Sun Fac -18 = 36 (gain mod slot, Ensnare +100. DWYWM)
- Luke +0 = 62
Upgrades:
- Advanced Sensors: i4/5/6 from 10 10 10 - > 10 25 40
- Slave 1 +5 = 6
- Maul +0 = 12
- Fifth Bro +1 = 12
- Passive Sensors: i4/5/6 from 3 3 3 - > 4 6 8*
- Sense +7 = 12
- Afterburners: i4/5/6 from 6 6 6 - > 5 9 13
- Precog: i4/5/6 from 7 10 13 - > 10 20 30
- Super: i4/5/6 from 16 24 32 - > 20 32 44
While there are a couple of things on this list I don’t agree with, I think this is the right direction. Don’t go full nuclear, but give some smaller bumps up and see how the game adjusts.
Is it only me that thinks Soontir doesn't actually costs 53, but 63ish cause you need to reserve those points for a bid to ensure he can do his shenanigans...
3 hours ago, C3gorach said:Is it only me that thinks Soontir doesn't actually costs 53, but 63ish cause you need to reserve those points for a bid to ensure he can do his shenanigans...
That is complicated. Nominally aces 'need' room to spend on bid? But in reality they don't except in an ace vs ace match, so what you WANT is for Aces to have to make sacrifices to bid for the mirror, rather than a presumed bid being baked into cost because that helps force them to always stay on top (Because the amount they bid can scale based on how good swarms are in the meta).
27 minutes ago, dezzmont said:That is complicated. Nominally aces 'need' room to spend on bid? But in reality they don't except in an ace vs ace match, so what you WANT is for Aces to have to make sacrifices to bid for the mirror, rather than a presumed bid being baked into cost because that helps force them to always stay on top (Because the amount they bid can scale based on how good swarms are in the meta).
I'm not saying to put the bid into ace's costs. I'm only saying that they do cost somewhat near to what the op is advocating, it just doesn't appear on their card...
Edited by C3gorach54 minutes ago, dezzmont said:That is complicated. Nominally aces 'need' room to spend on bid? But in reality they don't except in an ace vs ace match, so what you WANT is for Aces to have to make sacrifices to bid for the mirror, rather than a presumed bid being baked into cost because that helps force them to always stay on top (Because the amount they bid can scale based on how good swarms are in the meta).
And importantly if you want to play the "same" game that Swarms play you can punt against the ace mirror, bring 655 or 665 and pack it full of jousting upgrades right up to 197-200 to dismiss the swarm matchup.
Soontir lists in particular are fantastic at running nearly at 200, because you also get Vader, and it weirdly turns out i6 lets you move last against the vast majority of the field.
If an i6 happens to exist in your opponents list it doesnt take much to craft a mid or end game that guarantees Soontir will be moving last.
If the mirror has 1 less i6 than 2 its not really a mirror anyway so its mostly fine vs 655/555/65.
Edited by Boom Owl5 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:Soontir lists in particular are fantastic at running at 200, because you also get Vader.
From my experience Vader and Soontir don't match very well since the first doesn't care about a bid (w/ Passive Sensors) while the second lives or dies by it. That though can be (local) meta dependent...
Edited by C3gorach30 minutes ago, C3gorach said:From my experience Vader and Soontir don't match very well since the first doesn't care about a bid (w/ Passive Sensors) while the second lives or dies by it.
What matters for me is I go into the game knowing that I will have at minimum an i6 and an i5 in the mid/end game.
Bringing Vader and Soontir in a list is a good way to get that done while putting a huge amount of pressure on Jedi/Boba/VaderWhisperGI etc.
The worst matchup is the exact mirror against another Vader+Soontir+1 list moving last.
Not trying to say Soontir and Vader dont want to bid, just saying they super don't have to given all the toys you can bring along for the ride including the built in one of being i6.
Edited by Boom Owlhttps://meta.listfortress.com/pilots?
Limited data but Soontir is 65th while my current shout for best pilot in the game (Cartel Spacer) is ranked 1st.
... which doesn't mean anything
Well it means *something*.
4 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:Well it means *something*.
No it doesn't. This isn't cute.
Edited by dezzmontCool, ok. This must be those alternative truths I hear about.
... which doesn't mean anything
e: that was a doublepost, but fits anyway 😛
Edited by GreenDragoon@GreenDragoon I think your account has been hacked, it’s the only way to explain the complete reversal of your post quality.
Sad.
24 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:@GreenDragoon I think your account has been hacked, it’s the only way to explain the complete reversal of your post quality.
Sad.
Are you ok?
You seem to be behaving erratically and impulsively, and are switching between trying to actually be a voice in this discussion and provide sincere insights based on your experience, and having some sort of breakdown in response to perceived slights spoiling for some sort of fight, which could indicate anything from "I am really stressed and should probably try to unwind a bit because its affecting my mood regulation" to "I should probably talk to someone if this has been negatively affecting my relationships in spaces I try to enjoy for a long time."
Either way, perhaps this isn't the venue for whatever is going on with you. Nothing happening on these forums is worth getting upset about or getting up to antics you might regret later, especially in a community this small. It is totally ok to just walk away for a day and reevaluate your strategy and priorities here.
Edited by dezzmont1 hour ago, Stay OT Leader said:@GreenDragoon I think your account has been hacked, it’s the only way to explain the complete reversal of your post quality.
Sad.
You keep repeating yourself
1 hour ago, dezzmont said:Are you ok?
You seem to be behaving erratically and impulsively, and are switching between trying to actually be a voice in this discussion and provide sincere insights based on your experience, and having some sort of breakdown in response to perceived slights spoiling for some sort of fight, which could indicate anything from "I am really stressed and should probably try to unwind a bit because its affecting my mood regulation" to "I should probably talk to someone if this has been negatively affecting my relationships in spaces I try to enjoy for a long time."
Either way, perhaps this isn't the venue for whatever is going on with you. Nothing happening on these forums is worth getting upset about or getting up to antics you might regret later, especially in a community this small. It is totally ok to just walk away for a day and reevaluate your strategy and priorities here.
All true.
Doesnt change empirical evidence of results of events that are providing awkward counter arguments that people are unable to refute so would rather just ignore them.
The one who is frustrating is @GreenDragoon because he's so much better than this, and in a way a lot of what I'm saying now began with him 6 months ago. He came and found me in one of the spaces where it's possible to have a proper discussion about X-Wing and asked me about Scyks and why we weren't seeing them. That conversation about what the pricing & environment would need to be to make Scyks a powerful force laid the groundwork for everything I've done in the game since January points change and is manifest large in the results we are now seeing from big events.
So he knows my methodology and he knows why what I'm saying is true because he was the one who pointed me at them. And another thing is that it's always possible to retrofit a hyopothesis that would match the observed facts, but a real test of a theory is how well it predicts the future and my methodology has done that repeatedly. It's not hard to do what I do, I'm not special, but most people are too lazy to even bother doing the easy legwork and would rather spout unfounded opinions and ignore evidence that doesn't fit their preconceived notions.