51 minutes ago, GreatMazinkaiser said:Seems like 12 to 24 months is the timeframe in which normal (i.e. not sporadic) organized play starts occurring; 2.0 is a bit further out.
Yeah I honestly think that this game could go for a good long while with no edition change. A few more years at least.
Most, if not all, of your list could be accomplished in the game as-is with the addition of new keywords, upgrades, Command cards and/or Battle Plan cards.
* Rules for building interiors, doorways
* Building destruction / terrain morphing
* Fires (burnable terrain)
-These could be done with Battle Plan cards. Either they could be Condition cards that add the terrain and tell you what they do, or they could be Objective cards where you have to try to destroy/burn/morph the associated terrain.
* Off-board artillery (see Leia’s command card)
* Air-strikes
-As you pointed out, these options can come in the form of Command cards. I could also see FFG creating a new type of card, similar to Plots in Destiny, which cost build points in exchange for some advantage (or disadvantage in exchange for extra points), which could include some off-the-board attacks.
* More sophisticated grenade rules (scatter? different types of smoke?)
-FFG could create new grenade upgrades with different keywords.
* Spotter rules for forward observers (laser pointing)
* Enhanced Camo / Invisibility / Force Projection (i.e. Luke’s trick in episode VIII, Imperial Spy/scout units from Imperial Assault)
* Jump-Troopers (Mandalorian)
* Impersonization (sp?), I.e. shape shifting units/spies
-Spotter, Low Profile, Jump and Incognito all exist in the game already. Invisibility (preventing line of sight) would be difficult to balance, but would work mechanically in the current game.
* Non-violent attacks (“there’s one, set for stun!”), non-violent scenarios/units (Corusant / Naboo police actions?)
* Civilian rules
* Prisoners, taken in game
* Surrender rules (Episode IV, Episode VI)
-Technically in this game you 'defeat' models, not kill them, so you could imagine your units are stunning the opponent's units. If you're looking for a more explicit scenario of dealing with police and civilians and/or taking prisoners, FFG could create a new Objective along those lines.
* Customized armor rules (Mandolorian)
-I believe the various armors are already represented by defensive keywords like Nimble, Impervious and Danger Sense. It might be cool to see some armor Tech upgrade options, though.
* Half-squads. For extra activations, manning heavy or medium weapons (smaller versions of e-webs, with a spotter/loader and shooter for example, but not on a super-heavy frame)
-That's essentially what Heavy Weapon Team Strike Teams represent.
* Experience upgrades (for campaign play or multi-game play - units that survive gain minor upgrades or even downgrades)
-A campaign game mode where units could earn build points to use on upgrades could be cool. It'd be a new game mode, not a new version of the game.
* Hidden deployment
-That would be a new Deployment Battle Plan card.
* Hasty-barricades (engineers)
-A personnel upgrade with an action that can add a barricade? That'd work in the current game.
* Climbing/elevation rules that encourage vertical movement (right now this is rarely a good thing to do in Legion as it consumes precious actions)
-This one is actually something I'd like to see if they make a second edition.
17 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:Yeah I honestly think that this game could go for a good long while with no edition change. A few more years at least.
I am thinking somewhere around the 6 year mark is the right time. An edition should last the better part of a decade unless someone really messed up.
On 5/16/2020 at 1:36 PM, KommanderKeldoth said:Im thinking of ways, in the rules themselves, that they could balance the inherent advantage a larger number of activations gives you. Half squads would just get spammed by the same list types that currently spam activations.
This would be a step in the right direction.
Another thing they could tweak in a 2nd edition is clearing up the terminology between actions and board states. For instance: A move action, a move, and a standard move are all different things, which can be confusing at times. They should give all of the actual actions a distinct name. Like the Assault action allows you to perform an attack. Or a Reposition allows you to perform a move.
Disagree re: unit count;
That would just encourage a different type of meta game, and more likely than not, artificially tilt it in favor of whichever faction is designed that way (ie GAR vs CIS).
Point value is the only neutral and fair method of selecting the first player.
Or you could just get rid of bids completely, and have blue player be determined by a 50/50 die roll regardless of points or activation count.
7 minutes ago, Derrault said:Disagree re: unit count;
That would just encourage a different type of meta game, and more likely than not, artificially tilt it in favor of whichever faction is designed that way (ie GAR vs CIS).
Point value is the only neutral and fair method of selecting the first player.
This is just flat wrong. Using the fewest number of activations to select blue will stop the absurd activation spam. No army is inherently better at lower activations because of build types. Please explain how GAR is better than CIS at fewer activations.
3 minutes ago, DFocke said:Or you could just get rid of bids completely, and have blue player be determined by a 50/50 die roll regardless of points or activation count.
That removes layers of strategy from the game. Not really a great solution as it just makes luck more of a factor.
15 minutes ago, DFocke said:Or you could just get rid of bids completely, and have blue player be determined by a 50/50 die roll regardless of points or activation count.
That removes the value and strategy of point bids. It’s an option, just not a great one.
12 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:This is just flat wrong. Using the fewest number of activations to select blue will stop the absurd activation spam. No army is inherently better at lower activations because of build types. Please explain how GAR is better than CIS at fewer activations.
Small activations are easier to kill, they aren’t an inherent good. Good players Know to peel off the cheap activations to gain advantage in the game.
10 minutes ago, Derrault said:That removes the value and strategy of point bids. It’s an option, just not a great one.
Small activations are easier to kill, they aren’t an inherent good. Good players Know to peel off the cheap activations to gain advantage in the game.
Sure, but how does GAR have an advantage over CIS here? Phase one clones are 52 points for a stock squad (4 wounds with red defense no surge), while B1s are 36 points for a stock squad (6 wounds with white defense no surge). Adding an E5-C heavy weapon to B1s makes it a much better point comparison phase 1 (52) vs B1 (54). Phase 1 is still better defensively, but B1 is much better offensively.
5 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:Sure, but how does GAR have an advantage over CIS here? Phase one clones are 52 points for a stock squad (4 wounds with red defense no surge), while B1s are 36 points for a stock squad (6 wounds with white defense no surge). Adding an E5-C heavy weapon to B1s makes it a much better point comparison phase 1 (52) vs B1 (54). Phase 1 is still better defensively, but B1 is much better offensively.
The GAR vs CIS comparison is the question of few expensive activations vs more numerous cheap activations (6 barebones B1s are just 216 points; for those points you’d still get 4 Phase I Clone squads AND always get Blue Player...why would that be fair???)
The B1 offense is not great. (1.5 on the barebones; 3 if you include both the extra trooper and the E5-C)
Phase I are looking at 2 on the barebones, 3.5 with a z-6; and they have frequent access to shared tokens. If first player is given to whoever spends the most on fewer units, it’s just rewarding the GAR for what it already really wants to do.
4 minutes ago, Derrault said:The GAR vs CIS comparison is the question of few expensive activations vs more numerous cheap activations (6 barebones B1s are just 216 points; for those points you’d still get 4 Phase I Clone squads AND always get Blue Player...why would that be fair???)
Why are you assuming that the CIS player would take 6 units of B1s? That makes no sense in the context of wanting few activations to win Blue player.
4 x Phase 1 (barebones) = 208
4 x B1 (with E5-C heavy weapon) = 220
6 minutes ago, Derrault said:The B1 offense is not great. (1.5 on the barebones; 3 if you include both the extra trooper and the E5-C)
Phase I are looking at 2 on the barebones, 3.5 with a z-6; and they have frequent access to shared tokens.
So a 54 point B1 unit that can facilitate perfect (or near perfect) activation control and has an average offense of 3 is somehow worse than a 52 point Phase 1 unit that borrows tokens with an average offense of 3?
The only point of using fewer activations is to reward people for taking large point costed units.
Here is a 7 activation CIS list (799 total) that has a lot of punch:
Grievous or Dooku could easily be swapped for a second tank, allowing for a few more upgrades. Can GAR really put together a 6 or 7 activation list that hits that much harder?
8 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:Why are you assuming that the CIS player would take 6 units of B1s? That makes no sense in the context of wanting few activations to win Blue player.
4 x Phase 1 (barebones) = 208
4 x B1 (with E5-C heavy weapon) = 220
So a 54 point B1 unit that can facilitate perfect (or near perfect) activation control and has an average offense of 3 is somehow worse than a 52 point Phase 1 unit that borrows tokens with an average offense of 3?
The only point of using fewer activations is to reward people for taking large point costed units.
Here is a 7 activation CIS list (799 total) that has a lot of punch:
- Dooku (Aggressive Tactics, Reflexes, Push, Choke) = 240
- Grievous (Strict Orders, Pistol, Tenacity) = 196
- B1 (E5-C) x 2 = 108
- B1 (Barebones) x2 = 72
- AAT (High Enerygy Shells, Tactical Droid Pilot) = `83
Grievous or Dooku could easily be swapped for a second tank, allowing for a few more upgrades. Can GAR really put together a 6 or 7 activation list that hits that much harder?
I’m saying that maximizing your activations by having incredibly cheap corps is a key feature of the CIS, whereas the GAR is known for having more expensive unit choices, which are also stronger units.
The reward for a large point costed unit is, generally, that it hits hard and is also harder to kill.
Let’s put it yet another way: Emegency Stims is a 12 point upgrade that effectively adds 2 wounds to the lethal for a character. 4 x 12 = 48.
So, you could have two players who run otherwise identical Imperial lists, and one takes Emergency Stims on 4 units, and the other takes an extra unit, in the form of Snowtroopers, but the former always gets blue player. That just doesn’t make sense from a balance or design standpoint.
7 minutes ago, Derrault said:I’m saying that maximizing your activations by having incredibly cheap corps is a key feature of the CIS, whereas the GAR is known for having more expensive unit choices, which are also stronger units.
The reward for a large point costed unit is, generally, that it hits hard and is also harder to kill.
Let’s put it yet another way: Emegency Stims is a 12 point upgrade that effectively adds 2 wounds to the lethal for a character. 4 x 12 = 48.So, you could have two players who run otherwise identical Imperial lists, and one takes Emergency Stims on 4 units, and the other takes an extra unit, in the form of Snowtroopers, but the former always gets blue player. That just doesn’t make sense from a balance or design standpoint.
That's a pretty nice straw man argument. The player adding the extra activation knows that it will hurt their potential at getting blue player. They could just as easily take those extra 48 points an add upgrades of their own.
2 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:That's a pretty nice straw man argument. The player adding the extra activation knows that it will hurt their potential at getting blue player. They could just as easily take those extra 48 points an add upgrades of their own.
Yes, but that’s my point; even though there’s room for that activation to exist, this puts further artificial pressure on maximizing upgrades, rather than having it just be a choice it becomes a mandate to take upgrades over units. That’s not a good outcome.
If the upgrades aren’t priced well to move themselves already, reprice them, don’t upend the entire scheme in a way that you’d end up just having to rebalance again, down the line.
TLDR, changing the first player rubric from total points spent to number of unit activations is both counterproductive to balance and, in the long run, utterly pointless.
7 minutes ago, Derrault said:Yes, but that’s my point; even though there’s room for that activation to exist, this puts further artificial pressure on maximizing upgrades, rather than having it just be a choice it becomes a mandate to take upgrades over units. That’s not a good outcome.
If the upgrades aren’t priced well to move themselves already, reprice them, don’t upend the entire scheme in a way that you’d end up just having to rebalance again, down the line.
TLDR, changing the first player rubric from total points spent to number of unit activations is both counterproductive to balance and, in the long run, utterly pointless.
Take a look at this. People are leaving 15+ point bids on the table with 13+ activations. Please tell me how this is productive to balance? The game is far better balanced allowing both armies to max out their points and using activations to determine blue than it is to having a bid war. Keep in mind, that by moving activations to blue, it actually forces the player bidding low on activations to have a sound plan for battle cards, as their opponent could just build an all comers list which is higher activations capable of playing multiple scenarios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm6PSlNlGBU
Ultimately, if you they don't move to activations determining blue player, then they have to cap activations somehow. Otherwise new factions will never be able to compete. CIS/GAR cannot compete with 12 activation lists at the moment. Even once BX/Arc units are released, they will still be behind the curve for quite some time. At some point they release release scum (much to the delight of Buckero0 and others) or that nonsense from the latest trilogy masquerading as Star Wars movies. Those new factions will not be able to compete with four other factions which at that point will be completely fleshed out. This current method is untenable.
With ARCs, GAR can build an 11-activation list using only Phase 2s as corps.
No need for second edition in my opinion. They can fix the exhaust weapons and have reduced them already. Really just need a mercenary faction. The galaxy is so vast and the lore so detailed, they can keep making product for years
10 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:Take a look at this. People are leaving 15+ point bids on the table with 13+ activations. Please tell me how this is productive to balance? The game is far better balanced allowing both armies to max out their points and using activations to determine blue than it is to having a bid war. Keep in mind, that by moving activations to blue, it actually forces the player bidding low on activations to have a sound plan for battle cards, as their opponent could just build an all comers list which is higher activations capable of playing multiple scenarios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm6PSlNlGBU
Ultimately, if you they don't move to activations determining blue player, then they have to cap activations somehow. Otherwise new factions will never be able to compete. CIS/GAR cannot compete with 12 activation lists at the moment. Even once BX/Arc units are released, they will still be behind the curve for quite some time. At some point they release release scum (much to the delight of Buckero0 and others) or that nonsense from the latest trilogy masquerading as Star Wars movies. Those new factions will not be able to compete with four other factions which at that point will be completely fleshed out. This current method is untenable.
If you look closely, they’re sacrificing durability by spreading it amongst the many activations; strike teams have 2 wounds, mortars 3, the throwaway officer 4. And, if you’re using the mortar as fire support, it’s effectively only 10 activations. I’m not seeing how the lists Mbweha showed would survive an encounter with an AAT or Beam cannon’d Saber Tank; both of which can attrit those little activations very quickly.
10 hours ago, Derrault said:TLDR, changing the first player rubric from total points spent to number of unit activations is both counterproductive to balance and, in the long run, utterly pointless.
Would you agree that having more activations is advantageous to winning objectives? Because in the current system a player can have more activations than their opponent and be blue player by having a larger bid. If blue player goes to the player with fewer activations, red player will still have an advantage in scoring objectives due to having more total actions.
Also, there won't be some ridiculous race-to-the-bottom with activation bids like there can be with point bids. Anyone remember the insane 50-ish point bids in Armada (the equivalent of 100-ish points in Legion)? A low activation list is just generally weaker than a high activation list on a fundamental level.
I don't think we need a second edition yet, though there are a few adjustments that could be made. I like the idea of fewest activations being blue player, the alternative would be to cap activations, say at 10, or to give snipers the detachment keyword to limit spamming. Neither of these options are better than making blue player activation based imho.
I also wouldn't mind current exaust weapons gaining cycle, might actually make them get used occasionally.
2 hours ago, Lochlan said:Would you agree that having more activations is advantageous to winning objectives? Because in the current system a player can have more activations than their opponent and be blue player by having a larger bid. If blue player goes to the player with fewer activations, red player will still have an advantage in scoring objectives due to having more total actions.
Also, there won't be some ridiculous race-to-the-bottom with activation bids like there can be with point bids. Anyone remember the insane 50-ish point bids in Armada (the equivalent of 100-ish points in Legion)? A low activation list is just generally weaker than a high activation list on a fundamental level.
I agree that it could be advantageous; but the quality of those activations is more meaningful. If you have numerous weak activations, they’re just going to get massacred trying to get at the objective and, by spreading the damage amongst multiple attack actions, you suffer any damage mitigation, like cover, twice over.
On 5/15/2020 at 8:51 AM, brettspielcafe said:We’ve seen the developers modify line-of-sight rules with silhouettes, there was a big adjustment to range rules for snipers, and medium cavalry (Tauns and Dews) are clearly going to be adjusted. So the game is evolving.
In believe that in the next 12-24 months the Devs will likely start thinking about a 2nd edition. This would allow them to fully rebalance the game and also include new layers of complexity for hard core players to stay excited about.
What are some next-level improvements or just additions to the game, that you would (realistically) like to see in a 2nd edition? This is mostly spit-balling, as some of these ideas may not fit the scale or vision of the game. However, more than a few surely could be added - with perhaps only a minor increase in the cognitive load. Some could be “optional rules”, not for competitive play, just for casual. Others might be for competitive only, or campaign play.
I’ll start:* Rules for building interiors, doorways
* Off-board artillery (see Leia’s command card)
* More sophisticated grenade rules (scatter? different types of smoke?)
* Spotter rules for forward observers (laser pointing)
* Building destruction / terrain morphing
* Non-violent attacks (“there’s one, set for stun!”), non-violent scenarios/units (Corusant / Naboo police actions?)
* Enhanced Camo / Invisibility / Force Projection (i.e. Luke’s trick in episode VIII, Imperial Spy/scout units from Imperial Assault)
* Jump-Troopers (Mandalorian)
* Customized armor rules (Mandolorian)
* Impersonization (sp?), I.e. shape shifting units/spies
* Half-squads. For extra activations, manning heavy or medium weapons (smaller versions of e-webs, with a spotter/loader and shooter for example, but not on a super-heavy frame)
* Experience upgrades (for campaign play or multi-game play - units that survive gain minor upgrades or even downgrades)
* Civilian rules
* Air-strikes
* Hidden deployment
* Hasty-barricades (engineers)
* Climbing/elevation rules that encourage vertical movement (right now this is rarely a good thing to do in Legion as it consumes precious actions)
* Prisoners, taken in game
* Surrender rules (Episode IV, Episode VI)
* Fires (burnable terrain)
* ?
I know it is not Star Wars but take a look at Heroes of Stalingrad and Heroes of Normandie. Most of the effects that you are looking for are in that game. My favourite game along with imperial assault.
Limiting tournament games to 10 activations max would make the meta change for the better.
Fake worlds was won by activation spam.
Activation spam actually lets you get more health points on the board.
The main metric for winning the game is getting the most unit leaders on an objective.
There's no guarantee less units gives more durability.
The only thing bigger/more powerful units get, is being able to get past cover effects more easily.
10 hours ago, lologrelol said:Limiting tournament games to 10 activations max would make the meta change for the better.
Fake worlds was won by activation spam.
Activation spam actually lets you get more health points on the board.
The main metric for winning the game is getting the most unit leaders on an objective.
There's no guarantee less units gives more durability.
The only thing bigger/more powerful units get, is being able to get past cover effects more easily.
No guarantee, but it‘a safe to say that if a unit costs more points it probably has more health, or better defense.
10 hours ago, lologrelol said:Limiting tournament games to 10 activations max would make the meta change for the better.
Fake worlds was won by activation spam.
Activation spam actually lets you get more health points on the board.
The main metric for winning the game is getting the most unit leaders on an objective.
There's no guarantee less units gives more durability.
The only thing bigger/more powerful units get, is being able to get past cover effects more easily.
Please don't. Plenty of threads have been ruined by people getting into pages-long arguments with Derrault. He simply will not even let the argument end, and you can't "win" or convince him since he just moves the goalposts or states his unique opinions as facts. If you disagree with him, just don't engage.