There are slight subtle differences between having the keyword and taking upgrades that have the keyword. You could have an upgrade card with a list-building restriction printed on it like Maul for Rebels, that your list must include a TIE ship (in place of Ezra) in order to equip it. Then if the V-Wings don't have the keyword they don't qualify, even though they can take TIE upgrades.

4 hours ago, rawbean said:

There are slight subtle differences between having the keyword and taking upgrades that have the keyword. You could have an upgrade card with a list-building restriction printed on it like Maul for Rebels, that your list must include a TIE ship (in place of Ezra) in order to equip it. Then if the V-Wings don't have the keyword they don't qualify, even though they can take TIE upgrades.

That is an avenue, but I imagine that would lead a large portion of people to believe they could take that hypothetical Maul when they had the V-Wing in the list. People would be coming to the forums and reddit asking why they can't take the upgrade when the V-Wing counts as a TIE for upgrade purposes. They'd be wrong, but justifiably confused.

Yeah that is more 'interesting' design rather than 'good' design, making that level of nuance. You have very little to gain from a mechanic that includes literally every TIE across every faction, but excludes the V-wing, and the level of confusion is easily not worth it compared to a requirement that is just 'Not republic' if you REALLY need to force it.

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2020 at 7:07 PM, Hippie Moosen said:

I'm in agreement with @The Penguin UK 's thinking on the matter.

The keywords open up design space that allows cards to target specific ship types or types of pilots which sounds cool to me. These could have lots of impact beyond what upgrades you have access to while list building. Say sometime down the line there's an upgrade that makes a pilot better at shooting down Tie's specifically. Something like "Tie Hunter: when making a primary attack against a ship with the Tie keyword, re-roll one blank result." That theoretical upgrade cannot target the V-wing, but still allows the V-wing to retain it's ability to equip "Tie only" upgrades.

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2020 at 7:32 PM, Matanui3 said:

Now there's an idea that might hold some merit...

Boy, I wish I'd thought of that. . .

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2020 at 10:27 PM, Darth Meanie said:

"Unless you define elsewhere what a 'TIE Series starship' means in X-Wing terminology, this ability doesn't do anything."

16 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

"Unless you define elsewhere what a 'TIE Series starship' means in X-Wing terminology, this ability doesn't do anything."

Oh it does do something!

...It starts fights! A lot of people talk about 'not introducing confusing mechanics for newbies' in a lot of games as if new players are brainless morons who couldn't understand something as simple as how to roll a dice, but this is almost deliberately confusing, when the TIE keyword exists and some non TIE-series ships have phantom versions of it, because it plays upon the fact that not everything that 'counts as a TIE' is actually a TIE, so you introduce the dreaded for some things into the concept of Keywords: "This is a TIE for most effects... save literally one thing that you for sure won't remember."

It also is a very 'feels bad man' counter ability, in that either it is terrible because its overcosted in most matchups without TIEs because you price assuming the ability gets literally any value ever, or its comically undercosted in matchups vs ties because you assume the ability isn't active. Any ability that 'picks on' a specific type of ship should still get value outside of that matchup so you have less of an extreme disparity between the ability being active or not: Any ability that explicitly targets a type of (enemy) ship is a bad design full stop.

3 hours ago, dezzmont said:

Any ability that explicitly targets a type of (enemy) ship is a bad design full stop.

I humbly disagree. I know it's not everyone's idea of good design, but I do see quite a bit of potential in allowing abilities and upgrades to target key words with both beneficial and harmful effects. The hypothetical upgrade I proposed does sound too strong for my taste personally, but I came up with it quickly to simply point out the potential of this design space. Based on other responses in this thread it does appear the devs have already stated they are against this idea, but it still feels like the V-wing's ability is what it is to leave the door open in case this is something they want to explore later on.

I could see this being used to create effects that can counter certain lists, but those abilities are likely not something you'd want on more than a single ship due to them being totally wasted points in other match ups. A bigger upside for me is that it could also allow effects that synergize with you taking a large number of specific ship types. There could be an A-wing Squad Leader talent that could allow an A-wing to grant benefits to other members of his squad provided they're in the right ship, and you can easily translate that to Ties and other key words that are coming eventually.

Other games have made this keyword stuff work after all. My favorite MTG deck I ever built for modern was almost entirely stuff that only triggered in relation to the human keyword. I had Champions that got stronger for every human I played, Necromancers that summoned zombies when a human died (extra funny when you have 3 necros all making their own zombie from one fallen champion) , Angry Mobs that got bigger and angrier as humans were killed, and so on. I get that this is a different game altogether, apples and oranges and all that, but I honestly don't see this as a knock against the idea of incorporating keywords into stuff other than what upgrades you can take. There is potential here for some good stuff and just dismissing it outright because it's maybe a little complex, or strong in certain matches and useless in others doesn't sit well with me. As stated above this is apparently not happening now and as far as we know it's not happening in the future. Even so, I hope there are some devs who are at least entertaining the notion and toying around with the idea just in case they come up with some good stuff.

7 hours ago, dezzmont said:

It also is a very 'feels bad man' counter ability, in that either it is terrible because its overcosted in most matchups without TIEs because you price assuming the ability gets literally any value ever, or its comically undercosted in matchups vs ties because you assume the ability isn't active. Any ability that 'picks on' a specific type of ship should still get value outside of that matchup so you have less of an extreme disparity between the ability being active or not: Any ability that explicitly targets a type of (enemy) ship is a bad design full stop.

3 hours ago, Hippie Moosen said:

I humbly disagree. I know it's not everyone's idea of good design, but I do see quite a bit of potential in allowing abilities and upgrades to target key words with both beneficial and harmful effects. The hypothetical upgrade I proposed does sound too strong for my taste personally, but I came up with it quickly to simply point out the potential of this design space. Based on other responses in this thread it does appear the devs have already stated they are against this idea, but it still feels like the V-wing's ability is what it is to leave the door open in case this is something they want to explore later on.

I could see this being used to create effects that can counter certain lists, but those abilities are likely not something you'd want on more than a single ship due to them being totally wasted points in other match ups. A bigger upside for me is that it could also allow effects that synergize with you taking a large number of specific ship types. There could be an A-wing Squad Leader talent that could allow an A-wing to grant benefits to other members of his squad provided they're in the right ship, and you can easily translate that to Ties and other key words that are coming eventually.

The other thing that now exists, in addition to keywords, is game elements that are neither Extended nor Hyperspace legal.

One-off pilots like this could be fun without being overpowered and would never show up in official play. A single "TIE hunter" (not to be confused with a TIE/HU) would hardly imbalance Epic games. A pilot like this could also be part of a mission set, or campaign series.

If you are flying lots of TIEs and my "Rogue Seven" pilot shows up, he just becomes a Target of Priority, just like any number of other pilots.

41 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

The other thing that now exists, in addition to keywords, is game elements that are neither Extended nor Hyperspace legal.

One-off pilots like this could be fun without being overpowered and would never show up in official play. A single "TIE hunter" (not to be confused with a TIE/HU) would hardly imbalance Epic games. A pilot like this could also be part of a mission set, or campaign series.

This is a pretty good idea. The notion that not everything has to be balanced for a 200 point match gives a lot of room to allow for a bunch of stuff that probably just doesn't need to be in a 200 point game to still have a home in X-wing. Really niche overspecialized pilots, talents, etc. could be pretty cool to toss into Epic where they are probably more likely to be useful but also far easier to deal with. Plus this thought is just really fun to speculate on. Lots of people still want to try Vader in a Defender and while that doesn't sound like much fun to fly against in a 200 point game, that would be really cool to see playable in Epic.

I get the appeal of more 'tag' interaction, but that isn't a good road to go down.

Think about the realities of such a 'specific' hate card, even in epic, even as a one off: Either your picking it in a blind game, and hoping it pays off, and most of the time its a generic, or your specifically picking it into a known list and your just kinda being a jerk to your friends. This is pretty much the exact problem the 'protection from colors' effects in MTG create, they actually create a lot of 'meta-negativity' in casual and aren't interesting in a competitive environment. Most modern 'protection from x' abilities are either extremely niche side benefits (like the Sword of X and Y cards, which are far more about their game winning effects on attack rather than you get protection from white and black, or whatever) or are reactive abilities that let you select what you are protected against and reward you no matter what you play against, but reward you more vs a monocolor list, or they are deliberately kinda bad tribal hate intended for drafting and packfiller.

Human trible is a purely positive internal synergy, human 'hate cards' were unpopular in MTG because human as a tag is mostly arbitrary and not designed with hate in mind for most sets. I would LOVE to see more positive 'tribal' stuff in X-wing (Or themed stuff in general, for example, rebels getting a card that gives them a bonus if no ship in their collection matches and all of them are unique would be cool!), but hate needs to be done very carefully to avoid old fashioned MTG hate where its either a toss of the dice of if you get blown out or always worthless, because hate is less 'controlled' than internal synergy: You can't guess what hate your opponent will bring or what list they will bring, and really control if hate just 'blows you out' so to speak.

This is why good hate is either subtle (Ex: Jango Fett low key bullies force users but works on other stuff too), or selective (Ex: 40k changing some of the champion style characters for the imperium from 'hate a faction to be slightly better vs' to 'pick an enemy leader in the enemy list: if these two characters meet that dude's a goner): It avoids the 'I know my bud only OWNS TIEs so I know I will get an unfair amount of value out of this pilot' problem, and the 'It is a tournament with no side-boarding' problem.

For example, a neat ability that might work would be 'Favored Enemy: X' and at the beginning of the game you declare a specific type of ship. This would be similar to MTG's 'reactive color protection' rewarding you vs ships that spam but giving less value vs mixed lists while still giving value. A specific pilot you have to pick ahead of time and either hope to snipe your target or, worse, specifically kinda low key bully your single faction friend, is really not great, but something that lets you 'call the shot' and gets more value the more your opponent spammed, regardless of what they spammed, is cool in my book.

This is basically how 40k fixed the Hatered (X) effect: it is selected match for match, or is always granted in return to your enemy: You are rewarded for your enemy only fielding one army in their FO charts or biasing towards one.

I could see a card like the following existing:

Talent: Favored Enemy. During setup, declare a ship name. During this game, when attacking this ship, you may re-roll 1 dice.

Does that upgrade do better against lists spamming 6 TIE/Lns, and worse vs Imperial aces? Sure. Does it completely blow out 6 TIE/LNs and do nothing vs imperial aces? Nope. The variance in its effectiveness is clear, but not so huge you would have a dead card in some matchups and a trump card in others, you could always target Vader vs Imp Aces or name different ships with different copies: getting a re-roll 'only' vs your opponent's most expensive ship in what is likely a small ship list isn't terrible anyway, and it is more interesting as a card than "Tie Hunter."

Furthermore, tags are listbuilder tools, they can't and shouldn't matter 'in game' because accessing that information is a weird new extra step that requires like... downloading a PDF or reading your opponent's list: it isn't contained by anything 'real' in the game. This is why I think IGs are a good design: They create a clear signal for what can or can't use the upgrade. Perhaps future 'tribe' effects could be signalled in game by upgrades as well.

All in all, I do agree X-wing's actual mechanics need more dynamic effects to reward creative listbuilding, I just think the actual ramifications of printing a card that says 'I hate on another, specific type of thing' is a reaaaaally bad idea, and there are better ways to implement the effect.

1 hour ago, dezzmont said:

All in all, I do agree X-wing's actual mechanics need more dynamic effects to reward creative listbuilding, I just think the actual ramifications of printing a card that says 'I hate on another, specific type of thing' is a reaaaaally bad idea, and there are better ways to implement the effect.

Mostly I agree, but I think it really isn't as bad as all that.

For example, when I used to play MTG, almost no one used the protection vs color cards because it was too random to use the card slot hoping someone would be playing that color.

OTOH, when the group got tired of one guy only ever playing his all-blue Prodigal Sorcerer deck ("seriously, dude, do you own any other cards??") we all started playing Blue protection and counters. He had to change decks or lose. Being able to "call him out" in-game actually made play better.

So, what if this pilot said:

If there is a TIE in your forward arc, you must declare that ship as your defender.

While attacking, as above.

This way, this pilot may lose an opportunity at a R1 shot on a different ship for an R3 TIE because he hates them so well. Furthermore, a clever opponent could keep a TIE parked out at R3 to prevent this pilot from getting a R1 shot on a preferable target.

Hmmm. . .I think you just made this card better.

46 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Hmmm. . .I think you just made this card better.

I am super glad! I think the new version is better as well!

I would recommend adding a second, very minor ability, so it isn't a 'nothingburger' when there are no TIEs. Something useful, but not crazy so you build around this ship and get blown out if it your opponent exploits a TIE or it blows out all TIE lists when both abilities work on a TIE, so it isn't in most matchups taking a generic ship.

That said, I still can't help think this effect would be even more interesting if you declared a ship type, simply because then you ALWAYS have this neat dynamic of your opponent trying to 'bait' the range 3 shot. Its rough because X-wing ships with boring efficiency effects wouldn't work as hate, but a dynamic hate effect is so interesting you kinda just... wanna see it. This effect would be cool vs all sorts of different mixed ship lists, and helps punish spam single ship lists which are (in my opinion) low key boring anyway without being completely absurd vs them.

It also hurts that TIEs are probably the worst 'ship type' to get this treatment as one faction in Hyperspace right now is like... 100% TIEs. So even though this rewards you for making a more interesting list in theory by not spamming TIEs, it sorta is unfair that there is no real downside when fighting Empire, from a practical standpoint: Empire can't just splash 1-2 non-TIEs casually as a 'sideboard' tier effect to counter this, which is a really intense structural problem with X-wing for hate effects: No side-board, and lists aren't crazy flexible due to breakpoints.

Do we still only know Tarkin? No info on other pilots?

Gimme gimme gimme Vwing

41 minutes ago, wurms said:

Do we still only know Tarkin? No info on other pilots?

Gimme gimme gimme Vwing

We also know oddball

Specific hate cards would work so much better if this game could have some sort of sideboarding system like MTG. This would also potentially fix other super niche effects (like Ahhav in this meta of mostly small ships), and maybe even fix lists being hard-countered.

Too bad the game time and the way lists are built doesn't allow for such things.

20 hours ago, dezzmont said:

That said, I still can't help think this effect would be even more interesting if you declared a ship type,

Well, doesn't this already exist in some form as Agent Kallus?

Also, declaring a "bounty" should probably be a Scum thing.

Lastly, nearly every faction has a TIE:

Rebels have a stolen TIE, scum has a Mining TIE, and now Republic has a pseudo-TIE. That's 5 out of 7, so it's not just hosing 1 faction.

15 hours ago, Matanui3 said:

Too bad the [standard] game time and the way lists are built doesn't allow for such things.

FTFY.

Lots of these things would be great for Epic play because they would be a tiny fraction of a 500-point list.

If the pilot's ability didn't come into play, you still have a T-65 in play.

6 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Lastly, nearly every faction has a TIE:

Rebels have a stolen TIE, scum has a Mining TIE, and now Republic has a pseudo-TIE. That's 5 out of 7, so it's not just hosing 1 faction.

Let us not even begin to pretend that the idea of something targeting all TIE lines does not hose the Imp faction, which has only one (Premium large base ship) as a non TIE in HS, with every other faction having plenty of other options to escape to if this gets so good that it 'ruins' those Stolen Rebel TIE lists. This is less targeting a specific tribe (like humans in MTG) and more like targeting a player identity, but worse: At least players in MTG casually splash colors, its more like the faction targeting of older 40k editions which... were not fun and are basically gone or reworked for a reason.

"TIE series" hate printed onto a card in such explicit language probably will never ever ever happen for that reason, if it is ever good it hurts Imps really hard, or is unfun if its even reasonable. And if it isn't a 'big swing' vs those TIEs... why EVER run it? It just has no 'reality' where its a fun fair effect, because if it determines a lot of matchups it feels like you lost at list selection for your faction choice, and if it doesn't it doesn't feel good to run.

We might see a 'TIE hunter' character with bonuses that skew towards hurting TIEs (again, like how Jango skews towards hurting Jedi), like targeting low health ships, or ships with lots of agility dice, to 'evoke' the fact it hunts TIEs while accounting for the fact X-wing is a 'What if?' game and a pilot needs to make sense even outside its own 'intended fiction' in terms of matchups. But that narrow an effect that is determined at the listbuilding phase probably won't happen.

Put another way: There is a reason Kallus didn't say 'Assign the hunted condition to an enemy assault shuttle or VCX' despite him hunting those specific characters, no reason Feyus wouldn't similarly be 'flexible' in who he hunts.

6 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

If the pilot's ability didn't come into play, you still have a T-65 in play.

So now you run into the problem again: Is this costed as a generic T-65? If Y, it is comically way too strong when its ability is relevant. If N, your screwed running this vs non-imps (No, the rebel's TIE and mining TIE don't make up for that it really only has a major effect vs Imps).

Its also just really boring to have an effect that is 'does nothing' in most matchups: people want to fly pilots that do things when they pay for em, ya know?

6 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Lots of these things would be great for Epic play because they would be a tiny fraction of a 500-point list.

Not really at all, no. Imagining a hypothetical epic tournament, where your going into list vs list blind, you still wouldn't run a version of this that is 'inefficient' not vs empire, because while the loss is smaller if its only a part of your list... the gain is smaller too. Epic famously de-values individual pilot abilities in fact, because its so easy for a given pilot to be annihilated, so in epic even when this 'works' you just get gunned down by a swarm of TIEs after stripping 1 green and the ability you paid for isn't relevant.

Quote

FTFY.

I can't imagine a way to structure a wargame to have sideboards unless we were playing in some hypothetical threat based tournament. Points based building is a different beast than deck based building, in a deck your just trading things out 1:1, but in points there is so much interplay between selections that it isn't realistic unless your sideboard was an entirely new list, which isn't really a sideboard. I don't think you would use an entire list swapout just to run this pilot, and on top of that X-wing games are long enough that even having a sideboard system if you could doesn't make sense.

This is, again, why Wargames, pretty much as a universal rule shy away from these effects, and either make them a complete side concept (Ex: Dark Angels vs Cypher, which is a mini 'scenario' that is a tiny part of how Dark Angels work), or use 'soft hate' (Ex: Loup Garou in Infinity are in universe an non-lethal anti-Wulvers, aka Werewolf, Swat team, and rather than getting abilities that make them explicitly stronger against them they have tons of weapons that happen to be among the weapons Wulvers tend to do poorly against and techniques to counter highly mobile flanker troops like Wulvers), or are 'called shots' (Ex: Champions or assassins targeting specific characters).

The only way I could see a sideboard work is if some of your points were held in reserve match start and at a pre-determined point a selected 'pod' of reinforcements pops in. So like jumping from 200 point games to 275 maybe? But that extends game out, increases complexity, and doesn't add a ton besides the ability for this hypothetical pilot to maybe exist and probably still not see a lot of play unless its busted vs TIEs, in which case, again, sucks to be Imp vs Rebel, hard countered by 1 reinforcement pilot.

My gut is it'd be really bad to have pilots which target specific enemy keywords. That'll wind up being useless in most games, and too strong in others. Exacerbating Rock-Paper-Scissors within X-Wing is bad, since games should as much as possible be won on the table as in list-building. Sitting down against an opponent who hard-counters you at the list level is one of the most unfun feelings in this game.

Stuff like Ahhav targeting medium/large bases, or Kaz targeting higher intiative, work out because it's general enough, and not *that* strong. Anti-TIE abilities would probably be incredibly unfun in a competitive game. Homebrew? Do what you want, folks.

Within-list synergies based on Keywords, however, would be sweet. Dedicated and Iden Versio do something similar, but without keywords. Imagine if Kath Scarlet wasn't about non-limited pilots, but about Pirates. Or maybe some bounty-hunter-only Talent allows you to put a Death Mark condition on an opponent, and everyone with that talent gains some bonus when attacking them. It's still a powerful ability against low-ship-count lists, but doesn't specifically target, say, smugglers.

didn't max specifically say keywords were for listbuilding only and you wouldn't have to know them on the table?

3 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

My gut is it'd be really bad to have pilots which target specific enemy keywords.

Could be you are right. And I agree with most of the points @dezzmont makes, but I think they could still be a great element in the game, even if they are a bad fit for 200-pointers.

The main reason it will never happen, IMHO, is that things are added to this game at such a glacial pace that elements that are not rock-solid Good Ideas will never have the chance to "see what this does."

On 8/19/2020 at 6:23 AM, dezzmont said:

It is possible that the concept for keywords was a development of the ideas they had with the V-wing after it was far along enough in development to be printed, and originally the key-word was assumed to be inferred based on the fact a ship had TIE in its name.

It also probably would not be ideal from the perspective of conveyance for a ship to have TIE in its name and not be a TIE, so removing TIE from any of the existing TIE ships is probably not going to fly, hence why they are already committed to TIE upgrades being 'safe' upgrades to print. TIEs are already such a diverse class of ship that they probably just committed to nothing being a TIE card that does anything too wacky or alters a ship's statline too much. TIEs run the gamut from 1 agility to 3, could be ordnance carriers, crew carriers, swarm ships, support ships, or chain repositioning aces after all.

Whoa whoa whoa, Internet Police here. Do you have a permit for that logical thought?

That sort of sound reasoning will not be tolerated on the interwebz..

I'll also add that I think this system is more so designed to add keywords to cards that do not have the info printed on it e.g. Oddball = [Clone] keyword & Darth Vader = [Sith]. [TIE] is more overt example that they are going to clarify for posterity.

4 minutes ago, BVRCH said:

Whoa whoa whoa, Internet Police here. Do you have a permit for that logical thought?

That sort of sound reasoning will not be tolerated on the interwebz..

I'll also add that I think this system is more so designed to add keywords to cards that do not have the info printed on it e.g. Oddball = [Clone] keyword & Darth Vader = [Sith]. [TIE] is more overt example that they are going to clarify for posterity.

A-Wing as well, given the requirements of Starbird Slash. Quite possibly X-Wing in the future, given that there are three canon types (even if we don't have the T-85 yet).

Lots of new Builder keywords in the new Rules Reference, very exiting news!

I think the answer is quite simple. It will have its own keyword in the Republic that has nothing to do with the while Imperial Tie line. But since it's almost a predecessor, it can also use Tie Keyword cards.

I suspect a keyword for the hyperspace ring ships, Aethersprite, V-Wing and Actis.

Maybe we're way overthinking this. It really might just be the fact that it doesn't have TIE in its name. It's a reminder to players that this ship gets something special that most ships won't, even though it could be done just through the builder keywords. (I'm sure someone already said this.)