1 minute ago, Do I need a Username said:

I think you might have missed how long boom has been mad about aces, because it's been going on for a while.

SAME

TEAM

Just now, RStan said:

SAME

TEAM

DEFEND

THE

FORT

13 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

I think you might have missed how long boom has been mad about aces, because it's been going on for a while.

Still 7-13 points.

but fair point about the length of time.

2 hours ago, Wazat said:

A-Wing swarm

African (flipping arc RZ-2s) or European (static arc, relative to the facing of the ship, RZ-1s)? 😄

17 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

African (flipping arc RZ-2s) or European (static arc, relative to the facing of the ship, RZ-1s)? 😄

Haha

RZ-1 A-Wings

the really cool thing is how 665 and 655 lists can literally and regularly just not spend 5-20 points and still not immediately get laughed out of the meta by lists running at i1-4

Source?

1 hour ago, Stay OT Leader said:

Source?

X Wing games?

The only 665/655 lists I can think of that can do that are imperial and Republic.

Republic less so, since regen. I saw a large shift away, locally. To, funnily enough, Imp aces. Probably still annoying.

So really, Imps. Which should be small sample, but kind of isn't.

But it is at least a small number of ships to potentially adjust.

Unless you want to include 2 ship lists, ofc you do, in which case it's just Boba/Fenn. The others are often crock full of nigh on unplayable nonsense and agency theft, but don't exactly laugh into the meta.

Judging from random videos/blogs/posts/experiences/voicesinmyhead.

5 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I keep having the recurring thought that this all reduces down to Poe being under-powered compared to the Status Quo.

1. If you like the Status Quo, buff Poe.
2. If you don't like the Status Quo, Poe is the archetype for what an Ace should be, and nerf everyone else.

I thought that was exactly the argument Boom Owl has been making all along.

5 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

it seems like Soontir is subject to a high degree of variance; that is, the dice matter a lot more for a guy with 3 hull and 0 shields than they do for a 4 hull, 2 shield Kylo Ren, for example.

I think this is the biggest problem in setting an appropriate cost. That is to say, the glass cannon problem.

Imagine a ship that has 6 attack dice and 6 defense dice, but only 2 hull. If it's in the right place, it will annihilate lots of enemy ships, especially smaller ones. But if you roll blanks on one defense roll, you could easily die to a single 2-dice attack. It's all variance. How do you price something like that? Maybe it die to the first Range 3 shot through a rock, maybe it will solo the whole enemy fleet.

Now imagine we give that ship zero agility, but it has every maneuver, and they're all blue. It's got SLAM and reposition actions, which all link into each other. It's still a flying mega-cannon, but its survival is based primarily on player skill. It needs to perfectly avoid every attack: one mistake and it's basically done. How long can a good player make it last? If they make it into a 1 vs. 1 end game, it's almost an auto-win, but how many players can do that? And against which lists?

Now, these are obviously examples at the absurd end of the spectrum, BUT: Soontir is on that spectrum. And a person's opinion of where he lies on that spectrum also differs, presumably based on the expectations of how he will be played. If you're someone who assumes top-tier champion play, you're likely to think Soontir will be positioned perfectly every time. If you only play your two buddies on your kitchen table, you're probably all-too-used to seeing that one important mistake that ends his day. And of course, you're going to think he should be costed according to those performance expectations.

So maybe this is an appropriate question: If you look at the list of "accused" undercosted aces, how many of them fit this archetype? Because I don't think Poe does. Most posts seemed to say he's good, but not great, but he's reliable. In other words, he's not a wild, janky ace, he's an elite version of a widely-recognized solid workhorse. On the other hand, I see a lot of contentious pilots in TIEs, Fangs, etc. Not nearly as much wiggle room for taking a couple lucky hits.

4 minutes ago, Hatemonger said:

that one important mistake that ends his day.

This is why I think Soontir is a bit of an unnecessary distraction to the main point here. The problem pilots, as I see it, are the ones that don't have to care.

1 minute ago, Cuz05 said:

This is why I think Soontir is a bit of an unnecessary distraction to the main point here. The problem pilots, as I see it, are the ones that don't have to care.

I think soontir is actually a bit of the point, because he acts like he might care, but to a large degree, doesn't. He consistently overperforms for his points as a result.

13 minutes ago, Hatemonger said:

I thought that was exactly the argument Boom Owl has been making all along.

But never so direct to say "Poe is correct because Poe is bad for the price."

...

2 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

African (flipping arc RZ-2s) or European (static arc, relative to the facing of the ship, RZ-1s)? 😄

African.

Laden.

8 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

I think soontir is actually a bit of the point, because he acts like he might care, but to a large degree, doesn't. He consistently overperforms for his points as a result.

I honestly am not at all firm on my disagreement, but I think for consistency, he has to care.

I know Soontir jousts a lot and gets away with it. That just happens.

But you can make Soontir care, you can make Soontir earn minimal points. But do you give up too many points by doing that? I think that's less on him than the person playing against him, plus the ease with which his mates can rack up points on distracted ships.

4 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

African.

Laden.

"A 50-point ship cannot carry a 200-point list!"

* Arthur Intensifies *

edit:

"He can block it in the asteroids."

"It's not a question of where he blocks it, it's a question of arcs and firepower!"

I'm very conflicted on this whole topic...

I want Trip Aces to be viable...it's one of my favorite ways to play. But then again, I just beat down on 4 Thicc Reds (my usual jam) with Boba+Fenn, and it kinda felt bad.

But then I also occasionally miss the days of Fat Miranda and Dash and Corran (more two ship turret mods toolbox abuse....but no, I absolutely don't miss TLT's existence except on Miranda, specifically).

Basically, I enjoy almost all the colors of X-Wing.

The closest I got to quitting was getting table stomped at Regionals 2018 against Ghost +Fenn, but I was admitted pretty late to the abuse party, overall.

I'm betting the devs have some Ace adjustments in mind for our meta soon enough.

EDIT:

My dream 2.0 squad is triple T70s...

or Quad RZ2s with Ferro Paint and decent ordinance. I'll let you guys figure out if that's aligned with Boom's mythology or not.

The thing is, you can definitely nerf/price increase/artificially limit i5’s and i6’s, and at some threshold, you’ll hit a point where they’re not good, or more precisely, not good enough to justify the points you spend on them. I haven’t been playing a terribly long time, but I have a feeling that a Soontir Fel who costs 60(!) points would not feel like he makes the cut.

He’d feel like Poe. And that’s not very fun. Best pilot in the Resistance, eh? Most of the time when he dies, I’m saying to myself, “well, he was the Best in the Resistance for a minute on turn four when he took three actions, but it took him two turns to recover and eventually got him killed.”

Anyway, you can price Vader and Soontir and whatever other “problem children” you want into oblivion, but then it’ll be the Greer Sonnels and Garven Dreises and Major Vynders and Countdowns and Vesserys of the world who move up a notch. And eventually it’s the same issues as before, except now a lot of the iconic characters and recognizable ships are gone.

Part of it is that the game has to fundamentally remain Star Wars to retain a lot of the fun factor. I started playing this game because I wanted to fly Red 5 and the Falcon against Vader, not because I wanted to fly Kullbee Sperado and Outer Rim Smuggler against Ved Foslo. Now that I’ve flown a bunch of aces and a bunch of also-rans, I’m happy to report that I enjoy both. And it doesn’t really feel like anything is really that confounding (Guri kind of plays a different game, and I felt a bit helpless against her, but I already know it was partially a really bad matchup that made it feel SO oppressive). So I kinda feel like pricing the aces away is not the way to go.

The other knobs you can turn are upgrade slots, but we just had a suggestion thread about those that I personally didn’t find convincing, and actually nerfing things by changing text or rejiggering rules... neither of which are options that should be taken lightly, as they WILL alienate a significant number of players.

But are the i5’s & i6’s really that bad? I mean, sometimes you just get Vadered, and sometimes you Wedge somebody. And maybe that’s not your style. But I kind of love it when I get completely blown out by sweet Fett moves, or I totally wreck somebody with Major Vonreg. It’s totally dope to see those guys do what they do! And it’s also pretty satisfying when you blast them down with a bunch of i4’s.

25 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

The thing is, you can definitely nerf/price increase/artificially limit i5’s and i6’s, and at some threshold, you’ll hit a point where they’re not good, or more precisely, not good enough to justify the points you spend on them. I haven’t been playing a terribly long time, but I have a feeling that a Soontir Fel who costs 60(!) points would not feel like he makes the cut.

I mean, you're not wrong, but the whole purpose of points adjustments is not to make them unusable, it's to price them appropriately. The argument is about what that threshold actually is. You're right that if you ONLY raised Soontir, he'd drop out of the meta, and people would only use other "big nasties". The ideal is that ALL of those should be at the correct points level, so there are no overpowered/undercosted monsters to fall back on. Again, the IDEAL situation is where any ship and pilot is a viable reasonably competitive choice, in at least some kind of sensible list.

And yeah, "haven't been playing a long time", so you'd probably fall in the lines of what I said about seeing these things fail on your kitchen table. Full disclosure: that's me too. I tried and tried to make Fenn work like I hear people talk about, but I just can't. He dies like a chump when I play him.

2 hours ago, svelok said:

the really cool thing is how 665 and 655 lists can literally and regularly just not spend 5-20 points and still not immediately get laughed out of the meta by lists running at i1-4

I feel like this is the single best piece of evidence that a list is undercosted. I mean, it's literally saying "my list works as well as other ones that cost 20 points more".

3 hours ago, Wazat said:

Haha

RZ-1 A-Wings

Aren't you supposed to say "I don't know!" and then post a link to the Wilhelm Scream? 😜

Just now, Hatemonger said:

I feel like this is the single best piece of evidence that a list is undercosted. I mean, it's literally saying "my list works as well as other ones that cost 20 points more".

The steep prices some aces are willing to pay in the init-bid arms race have definitely exposed the amount of wiggle room some lists have. They wouldn't necessarily be harmed much if they got expensive enough to soak most of that bid, and it shouldn't be necessary to bid 20 points to outbid the opponent and control the first player selection. I feel the points should be tighter than that... but the balancing act of tightening it without closing off another more interesting list may be tricky.

2 minutes ago, clockworkspider said:

Aren't you supposed to say "I don't know!" and then post a link to the Wilhelm Scream? 😜

"WHAT is the ideal bid for this list?"

"Five! NO Seveeeeeeeennn..."

"Hehehehehe...."

Fresh eyes and hopes versus the crusty salt of dried tears, sweat and blood of the past.

@Cpt ObVus and @Wazat if some of the guys you're talking to seem awfully dismissive or uninterested in a discussion then it's because they've had the exact same discussion many times. To give 3 examples:

• We've even had a poll a quite a while back, and I think roughly 2/3 of players said they play XTMG because of Star Wars, while roughly 1/3 did not care much or at all about that part. Unfortunately, the motivation is subjective.
• The "there's always something OP" or "always a problem child" argument is simply not true. We're not mindless robots, we can agree that a certain width of performance levels is fine. But that width, too, is subjective.
• "Soontir lives and dies by dice variance" is not wrong, but we can look at aggregated results to see whether that variance pushes him closer to 2 or 1 X-Wing. It seems reasonable speculation that he's too close to 2 X-wings. But all you need is for an anecdote that contradicts the aggregated data and the discussion heats up a notch.

We're all obsessing over points when the choices on the table matter much more. The people advocating for a 69pt Soontir or the Poe Principle want that the choices on the table have an even larger impact. I agree with that, but I also love actions other than focus. Most of the ships I play have a boost action, for example. A-Wings, T70s, YT1300, imperials, silencer and /ba, Jedi and N1. I would probably struggle to find something I like playing if there was no ship with boost. Even the sloane swarm has 2 ships with boost and a reaper, 7 out of 9 lists I play at the moment have more than one boosting ship! And I like pilot/card abilities because they give me the feeling that a clever use can turn a game around and allow me to catch up if I somehow fell behind. I want that to be possible, especially in a game with dice. That's my fun type, and X-Wing satisfies that.

I think there are pretty rational arguments for one over the other. But in the end it's about a balance between the two, no-words and words. FFG has to maintain a balance where they hit the most popular combination of the two. If that is in a spot that I or someone of us does not like then that's bad for that person. But that does not make the game bad.

10 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Fresh eyes and hopes versus the crusty salt of dried tears, sweat and blood of the past.

@Cpt ObVus and @Wazat if some of the guys you're talking to seem awfully dismissive or uninterested in a discussion then it's because they've had the exact same discussion many times. To give 3 examples:

• We've even had a poll a quite a while back, and I think roughly 2/3 of players said they play XTMG because of Star Wars, while roughly 1/3 did not care much or at all about that part. Unfortunately, the motivation is subjective.
• The "there's always something OP" or "always a problem child" argument is simply not true. We're not mindless robots, we can agree that a certain width of performance levels is fine. But that width, too, is subjective.
• "Soontir lives and dies by dice variance" is not wrong, but we can look at aggregated results to see whether that variance pushes him closer to 2 or 1 X-Wing. It seems reasonable speculation that he's too close to 2 X-wings. But all you need is for an anecdote that contradicts the aggregated data and the discussion heats up a notch.

We're all obsessing over points when the choices on the table matter much more. The people advocating for a 69pt Soontir or the Poe Principle want that the choices on the table have an even larger impact. I agree with that, but I also love actions other than focus. Most of the ships I play have a boost action, for example. A-Wings, T70s, YT1300, imperials, silencer and /ba, Jedi and N1. I would probably struggle to find something I like playing if there was no ship with boost. Even the sloane swarm has 2 ships with boost and a reaper, 7 out of 9 lists I play at the moment have more than one boosting ship! And I like pilot/card abilities because they give me the feeling that a clever use can turn a game around and allow me to catch up if I somehow fell behind. I want that to be possible, especially in a game with dice. That's my fun type, and X-Wing satisfies that.

I think there are pretty rational arguments for one over the other. But in the end it's about a balance between the two, no-words and words. FFG has to maintain a balance where they hit the most popular combination of the two. If that is in a spot that I or someone of us does not like then that's bad for that person. But that does not make the game bad.

Not sure if I'm being reprimanded or agreed with or what (maybe looped into a "you people" reaction, haha!), but I agree with your points. And Fear Not: This thread is an interesting idea to explore and I'm trying to take Boom Owl's idea seriously and explore it, but I don't give this proposition much weight unless it can prove itself. In my opinion at this time, giant boosts in cost to aces are going to prove untenable and unwise. Small cost adjustments to the aces currently dominating are probably likely but never guaranteed.

I think "there's always something OP" is and isn't true. It is true in that there will always be "shepherd lists" that dictate what's viable in the meta. Individual shepherds come and go with balance patches, but the top meta will always be there to say things like "5 A-Wings isn't all that impressive a list overall" or "Your list can't handle cagey aces so it won't get far" or "If you can't flank or out-damage beef, don't expect to make the cut this season". But second edition proves there's never nothing that can be done to reduce the disparity of the top meta vs the stuff below. We've seen excellent success in that regard, and each balancing patch IMO has been a net positive that gives us a better game, even when it slaughters my favorite lists without mercy, or lets my favorite pilots languish.

(I imagine shepherd lists as like Jupiter in the solar system: It dictates a ton of what happens here. It prevents planet formation in some areas like the asteroid belt, deflects/captures some major threats, and so on.... if you're wondering from what ream of madness I drew the term)

I've always seen the dismissive/uninterested responses as curious: if someone doesn't want to be in a discussion because they've hashed it out a billion times before, I'm surprised to see them actively read and post in the thread. But some topics draw people in I suppose, hard to resist especially if the thread looks active and people aren't getting the full story. If all else fails, people being wrong on the internet always picks fights.