I don't see the point of the Rebel YT-1300, especially without many/any upgrades. I'm also not sure I see the point of them with lots of upgrades, either, to be honest.

Mathematically, two generic X-Wings are about the same price as a named YT-1300. But, those two X-Wings hit twice as hard, throwing 6-8 red dice per turn instead of 3-4. They are also substantially more survivable, since they have 12 HP behind 2 Agility instead of 13 HP behind 1 Agility. They also have other small perks. For instance, crits are pretty rough in second edition, and large hull-based ships like the Falcon are much more vulnerable to them than two X-Wings. It's also harder to get bullseye arcs (which have become increasingly relevant) onto small based opponents, but more trivial to do against large-based targets. Finally, it's easier for an opponent to block/deny a single large based enemy than two small based enemies, and it's easier to set up a block and still be able to shoot the blocked enemy when you've got two ships rather than one big ship.

So what's the added appeal of the Falcon? I get Dash and the YT-2400... his 4 dice, his large-based barrel roll, and his ability to ignore obstacles allows him to play like an unusual sniper that has some tricks to avoid enemy arcs and as such he brings something unique to the lineup. The Falcon lacks any of that elegance and is just a big expensive beefy brawler. It's very hard to win the attrition war or earn your points back with that kind of ship, especially relative to other beef brawler options.

Given all of this, I'd see the appeal of the Falcon if it hit harder and/or was more survivable than two snubfighters, but the fact that it hits substantially less hard and has less effective HP and is more vulnerable to bullseye effects and critical damage... uh, what's the point again?

Speed, initiative, the ability to shoot out the sides/back and access to double mods. The YT-1300s that see play are i5+ and have access to double mods. They can arc dodge effectively to prolong their lives and when they get low on health they can run to bait a chase/serve as a points fortress.

Leia is held back for the same reason many rebel value options are held back. Rebels have access to a lot of good pilots, but don't have access to anything so amazing it borderline breaks the game. And while people like to talk about Fort Hyperspace, even hyperspace has been at a point for a while where your list merely being 'good' meant it was too fair.

I think X-wing is at a point where its way less about most ships not seeing play being overcosted (there are some outliers, A-wing squad represent!) and its a bit more about how the 'superships,' mega aces, and inherently synergistic swarm ships are undercosted and over-preforming. Rebels especially suffer from this: They have a lot of really strong tools like the newly priced E-wings, Leia, Han, Luke, Dutch, Norra, ect that in any other faction would be amazing but Rebels as a faction overall are in a super fair position and don't really have an answer for the more extreme lists in the meta. If you struggle vs Imp Aces, how do you even deal with something like Boba who's entire gameplan involves utilizing the fact that mathematically you can't break through his defenses to fortress 120 points?

Worse, Rebels are MoV bleeders the faction, as 'high durability 2 defense low shipcount' makes it really easy to chip points off them. So structural elements of the default X-wing scenario hurt Leia's chances of showing up as well. I think if the top end meta cooled down and having a list that isn't 'delete everything if it wanders into fire arcs' or 'My goal is for you to score 0 points and its realistic I achieve this goal' lists stop working so well, and more... 'interactive' lists became the default again, we would see Leia as a good 'budget' selfish YT-1300, contrasting to fat Han ships and Lando as a support with teeth or as a 'Stress heatsink' if rebel stress passing ever becomes an archetype. But right now Rebels both lack an 'unfair' option and just have poor matchups with most lists in the meta.

On 10/30/2020 at 4:47 AM, Revanur said:

Although I do agree with you, small nitpick in that your example is not completly correct. Ezra can change 2 eyes to a hit or evade with the force while stressed. Not just one.

Here I disagree. In Republic her force recharging ability would be more usefull. As the republic has many force users that have abilities with a force cost. So after spending your last force on fine tuned control and then getting a force back to use on for example Luminara's ability might in some circumstances be a better option then getting a focus.

As to Ezra: I was assuming no stress, for simplicity’s sake. But even if he IS stressed, the Focus is still better; roll three eyes, change two with a Force point, or change all three with Focus.

As for the Republic’s Force-users: Eh. Sure, you can spend yourself out of Force if you aren’t careful, but the best option for a Force-depleted Delta is still quite often going to be to get a Focus from Leia.

Like I said, there will be edge cases where the Force point matters for some ability or perhaps a Force Talent, but honestly, most of the Force Talents aren’t worth their cost, and most (MOST, not all) of the text on the Jedi pilots isn’t either.

4 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Like I said, there will be edge cases where the Force point matters for some ability or perhaps a Force Talent, but honestly, most of the Force Talents aren’t worth their cost, and most (MOST, not all) of the text on the Jedi pilots isn’t either.

This loops back around to the fact that the basic use of a force point is probably way too good. Most mechanics are dice modification, and obtaining actionless generic dice modification for free makes it hard to create other interesting options without getting wacky.

I personally like wacky, but its hard to imagine the level of wacky you need to pull people away from 'I get a free calculate every turn' being fun even for a clown like me.

On 10/30/2020 at 12:03 AM, Cpt ObVus said:

A little off-topic here, but why do people even fly Blue Squadron Escorts when they have access to Cavern Angels Zealots? The points saved may not be much, but isn’t a mini-bid worth more than the minor initiative bump that the BSE’s get?

BSEs are slightly better pilots. So they outfly I1s that do see a lot of play from what I can tell.

21 hours ago, dezzmont said:

This loops back around to the fact that the basic use of a force point is probably way too good. Most mechanics are dice modification, and obtaining actionless generic dice modification for free makes it hard to create other interesting options without getting wacky.

I personally like wacky, but its hard to imagine the level of wacky you need to pull people away from 'I get a free calculate every turn' being fun even for a clown like me.

Respectfully disagree. The fact that most Force Talents are underwhelming or have very niche uses comes down to the fact that most upgrades in general are underwhelming and have niche use. I think the Force feels about right to me.

For better or worse, this is a game whose basic design philosophy seems to be more about ships than upgrades. Sure, you can have your ships with a half-dozen bells and whistles, and they can be great, but as often as not you’re better off saving the points.

That new Force Talent that gives Daredevil to Force users, though? I think I’ll be using that! Always ticked me off that Force-users couldn’t figure out how to make a 1-hard Boost.

2 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Respectfully disagree. The fact that most Force Talents are underwhelming or have very niche uses comes down to the fact that most upgrades in general are underwhelming and have niche use. I think the Force feels about right to me.

It depends on if you value customization or not. I think its kinda silly to balance around naked ships and it has proven a problem. It feels like FFG is pivoting away from that with the pricing of a lot of new upgrades because its hard to differentiate some odd 100 ships while discouraging synergy with upgrades by pricing upgrades to assume the absolute best case scenario. You rapidly get to the point where if its all about base stats and pilot abilites only a small handful of ships are really viable, which we see quite often: Its a really bad sign for game balance when a variant on one super specific list takes up more than 75% of the top lists of a meta, which constantly happens with X-wing because the design space of 'base ships+pilot abilities' just doesn't create diverse enough interactions to support all the factions, forget variants of the ships within the factions.

Force also has problems that are becoming apparent now that a faction has easy access to force. Mainly it encourages hyper-defensive non-interactive play. This was the problem with the Delta-7, which was just too tough and evasive to be allowed to have force and be good, which is why it was constantly nerfed despite never being the top list in any given meta: It didn't matter regen 7B wasn't the best list, no one wants to deal with a list that takes forever to kill and is constantly encouraged to just not play X-wing, which force absolutely does.

Force is in a better spot now that the Delta-7 is in a bad spot, and it looks like the Eta will be more interesting as its so force starved and its hard for the ship to play this non-interactive style due to its purple maneuvers creating a force tax for going back in, but I think it is super fair to say that even if you don't think force needs to change, its a long term challenge for FFG: Even with 'intangibles' like Extreme Manuvers (which are a good design, as intangible power that can't be linearly compared increases the space of lists that can be 'good' based on how well they are flown and how well they mesh with individual players) will have a problem where any force talent both costs points and requires you to give up a calculate every turn you use it. How often are you going to 1 hard boost to the point your willing to spend points to do so, when that dramatically reduces the defensive power of a ship priced entirely around its defensive power?

Its clearly useful, but because the usage of most force talents is incompatible with the basic usage of your free pre-turn force, the 'cost' of any force talent is artificially inflated quite a bit. In some ways you can evaluate the price of that maneuver as flying through a rock: vs the common shot of 3 dice focused 1 force point is worth an extra .5 health. How often do you fly through rocks for a positional advantage and just eat the damage on a jedi? Probably sometimes, but not often enough to want to play force for it. So unless you never bottom out on force your only breaking even on that pseudo-daredevil if you avoid two shots with it, assuming that level of incoming fire. That certainly can happen, but its hard to imagine that it will be priced at a point where you would be willing to pay both the presumed health cost on future incoming attacks and the points up front assuming you will be able to avoid that level of fire with that talent you otherwise couldn't.

Force talents see fairly little play even compared to other upgrades. It isn't just that upgrades are bad, people run upgrades, and some force upgrades that beat this metric or don't cost force points like sense or perception see play. It just is hard to get razzed for an upgrade that arguably does less for you than just getting a calculate.

On 10/31/2020 at 8:11 PM, Cpt ObVus said:

As to Ezra: I was assuming no stress, for simplicity’s sake. But even if he IS stressed, the Focus is still better; roll three eyes, change two with a Force point, or change all three with Focus.

As for the Republic’s Force-users: Eh. Sure, you can spend yourself out of Force if you aren’t careful, but the best option for a Force-depleted Delta is still quite often going to be to get a Focus from Leia.

Like I said, there will be edge cases where the Force point matters for some ability or perhaps a Force Talent, but honestly, most of the Force Talents aren’t worth their cost, and most (MOST, not all) of the text on the Jedi pilots isn’t either.

Your example had Ezra doing a K-turn so he will be stressed as he doesn't have a white one. Like I said, I agreed with your stance on the matter, but it was a nitpick on an error in your example.

With republic force users it may be corner cases, but it can end up mattering. Even when not using your force recklessly you can run out of it. Your opponent can force you into positions to spend more of it. Giving back a force to Obi Wan after a sloop to get it back to full sooner, in a turn where you at that point know for sure your will not get shot or get a shot that turn, as you moved last is an upside to Leia's ability in Republic which she lacks in Rebels. As the only rebel pilot with more then 1 force point is Luke who already has build in extra force regen.

So it would for sure up her value in Republic or would up her value in Rebels if Rebels had more force users with multiple force charges as corner cases could win or lose you a game every now and then.

11 minutes ago, Revanur said:

Your example had Ezra doing a K-turn so he will be stressed as he doesn't have a white one. Like I said, I agreed with your stance on the matter, but it was a nitpick on an error in your example.

With republic force users it may be corner cases, but it can end up mattering. Even when not using your force recklessly you can run out of it. Your opponent can force you into positions to spend more of it. Giving back a force to Obi Wan after a sloop to get it back to full sooner, in a turn where you at that point know for sure your will not get shot or get a shot that turn, as you moved last is an upside to Leia's ability in Republic which she lacks in Rebels. As the only rebel pilot with more then 1 force point is Luke who already has build in extra force regen.

So it would for sure up her value in Republic or would up her value in Rebels if Rebels had more force users with multiple force charges as corner cases could win or lose you a game every now and then.

Ah, you’re right on the K-turn thing. My bad.

I’m not saying that Leia’s ability to Regen Force is valueless. I just think the Focus token is better 90% of the time now, and it’d still be the right call 90% of the time if she were Republic. The other 10%? Those are those edge cases. And they do exist.

IMO, Leia is the best Rebel pilot in Hyperspace.