44 minutes ago, Blue squadron recruit said:

The I1:s will have to choose between Starbird Slash and Heroic, I belive Heroic is the better choice.

Also, moving early and dealing a strain is neglected if the opponent moves after you with a blue maneuver.

Not, if you hit 'em with multiple strains in one turn. Which is tricky but not impossible. Also, forcing your opponent to consider blue maneuvers when you may, or may not fly over them is a terrific semi-control element for 1 point. Boba has pretty crap blues and would HATE taking a strain for a couple shots. Of course you have to survive the initial joust but there is some potential there. Too early to tell but 1 point for Slashing on the RZ-2 seems very aggressive to me. Maybe this means the RZ-2 is going to actually take a hit in November? One can hope.

41 minutes ago, hargleblarg said:

New baby is keeping my brain not good. I definitely meant to say, I don't think anyone considers the RZ-2 overcosted. You know, the opposite of what I wrote.

Been there man. Words hard when sleep not for normal times happening.

51 minutes ago, hargleblarg said:

New baby is keeping my brain not good.

Raised three; same team. 😎 🍺

FFG must have sold off enough of those extra post-nerf Nantexes in the warehouse between July and now to the people whose stores have started up in-store OP again.

Classic bait and switch. Create something just broken enough just long enough to make a bunch of sales on that expansion, then when people are about to reach their breaking point, they come out with a "fix" for the problem they created. A lot of other games do this too. -8 points is such an insane points drop for a spammable ship compared to everything else they've done in the past, I find it hard to believe this wasn't the effect they intended.

Honestly I don't blame them, I'm sure sales are down across the board right now, and they're dealing with tariffs importing their products from China, they're getting squeezed on both ends right now. But that means we have to expect something like this to happen again now that they know there's a money lever they can pull.

13 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Classic bait and switch. Create something just broken enough just long enough to make a bunch of sales on that expansion, then when people are about to reach their breaking point, they come out with a "fix" for the problem they created.

If you sincerely believe they do all this stuff on purpose you need to stick around a little longer. If it were all about predatory marketing tactics with little regard for game balance, pray tell why did they interrupt the normal schedule for this emergency fix?

Spoiler: it's because if you want to create a sustainable business model that makes you the most money in the long run, you do it by creating a fun and balanced game that people continue to love year after year. I don't see any perverse motives here. If you're looking for them, there are plenty of smoking guns in the hands of their competitors.

As much they want to make cash, I don't think costing PWAs down to 30 points was done to sell Nantex expansions.

15 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

As much they want to make cash, I don't think costing PWAs down to 30 points was done to sell Nantex expansions.

To add a little nuance here:

• Yes it made them very very strong

• Yes things sell well when they perform well

• Ideally they want to be able to sell everything, not just tons of one ship

• It follows that they should want everything to perform well

• A well-balanced game is in their best interests

• It doesn't help anyone for some ships to be super-OP or competitively dead

• This is why they have dynamic points and they do a quite-impressive job of keeping them balanced

20 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

If it were all about predatory marketing tactics with little regard for game balance, pray tell why did they interrupt the normal schedule for this emergency fix?

So I never used the word predatory , and I never said they didn't care about game balance. Don't put words in my mouth. They obviously care very much about game balance, but that doesn't mean they're above manipulating the meta to influence purchasing behavior. They have even said as much themselves, they wanted to use the points adjustments and the Hyperspace format to fluctuate different ships in and out of the competitive meta, which of course means different ships will become more or less desirable to the competitive playerbase, which will influence the purchasing patterns of those players. When 5 X-Wings suddenly becomes a viable list, a lot of people are going to go out and purchase their 4th and 5th x-wing that wouldn't have otherwise.

And I already said in my post why they interrupted their normal schedule to do this. Because they probably had their ears to the ground in multiple channels and thought enough people were at their breaking point and they were in danger of losing players long term.

20 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

If you're looking for them, there are plenty of smoking guns in the hands of their competitors.

Absolutely, and FFG probably also saw those same smoking guns that constantly go unpunished by customer bases in other games and thought "hey why not?". Although I think it's also a combination of someone at FFG having way too big of a crush on the Nantex, since this is now the 2nd time they've had to nerf the ship.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

So I never used the word predatory , and I never said they didn't care about game balance. Don't shove your dirty words down my throat.

My apologies, I probably read too much into your post, based on things I've seen from a lot of other users.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

When 5 X-Wings suddenly becomes a viable list, a lot of people are going to go out and purchase their 4th and 5th x-wing that wouldn't have otherwise.

It's true they did this, but... a lot of us were begging for it for a long time before they finally gave in. Again, good game balance tends to lead to more sales anyway, and dynamic changes will have that effect naturally without any help. Changing up the meta is good, it also happens to drive some buying patterns; everybody wins.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

FFG probably also saw those same smoking guns that constantly go unpunished by customer bases in other games and thought "hey why not?"

This is the attitude I'm skeptical of. Certainly they have to keep the bottom line in mind (or else they can't afford to keep making these awesome games for us due to bankruptcy), and there were aspects of how 2.0 was rolled out that may not have been sustainable and they've had to backpedal on. It's annoying and rather a shame that promises were made that can't be kept but on the other hand, I like FFG strictly because they prize the type of customer feedback that a lot of other studios laugh at. They tend to give us what we ask for unless they have better knowledge of something based on information we don't have yet. I mean of course there are exceptions to and no one is perfect.

Unlike the electronic gaming industry, the tabletop industry in general tends to run on unsustainable margins (I know this from a lot of insiders). It's not pretty. I doubt FFG is subject to that problem to the same degree, but it can become a sort of "race to the bottom" when the competition is bankrupting itself to beat you...

I'm all for holding businesses accountable for things they do. I just don't really see any blame to be cast here. At all, really...

12 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I'm all for holding businesses accountable for things they do. I just don't really see any blame to be cast here. At all, really...

That's why I didn't call for pitchforks and torches, I was just saying that people should be aware of the reality of the situation.

The reality of the situation, without making accusations about intent, is that FFG made a huge drop in points to a ship that can be spammed (aka not a unique ship like Dash) when usually they tend to drop points on generics 1-3 points at a time. As a result of that points drop, there were Nantex packs sold that would not have sold otherwise. Then once reports started coming in that stores were holding Store Championships again and there were multiple 6 Nantex lists making top cuts in these physical tournaments, FFG now had proof that people had bought into the 6 Nantex lists in physical play, and then they reversed course back to a more sensible points drop on the Nantex.

And now people are celebrating like all is right with the world and all is forgiven. But when companies see that they can pull a lever to generate extra sales at the expense of competitive balance, and all will be forgiven as soon as they unpull the lever as long as they do it fast enough, it's pretty tempting to not keep pulling the money lever when there's no consequences.

I'm hoping we don't see a pattern emerge with every or every other points adjustment.

1 minute ago, Tvboy said:

But when companies see that they can pull a lever to generate extra sales at the expense of competitive balance, and all will be forgiven as soon as they unpull the lever as long as they do it fast enough, it's pretty tempting to not keep pulling the money lever when there's no consequences.

Again that's not what happened. They pulled the lever for the sake of competitive balance. As the article said, the Nantex was effectively dead. It wasn't in competitive play at all.

I do get annoyed when they nerf or buff things a little too hard, but it's often more annoying when it's not buffed or nerfed hard enough (Boba dominating hyperspace for 3 seasons back to back, RZ-1 still unplayable etc.). Yeah it was a huge change, but we had bigger changes before that didn't cause problems. They couldn't have known really.

I doubt the change was made strictly with a view to sales and I absolutely reject the notion that it was knowingly made "at the expense of competitive balance."

While I think X-wing has some pseudo-predatory practices in other areas, I highly doubt that the Nantex buff was intended to be a 'sell a ton at all costs' thing, or else they woulda just made ensnare broken and let the ship be a super annoying control option. In many ways, control nantex was way more healthy than the nantex ace swarm. Sure it was annoying as ****, but at least it didn't shut down the entire meta.

There are a lot better and more subtle ways to get people to drop 90 dollars on some plastic and cardboard. It isn't like we are seeing this with every new ship either, if they really wanted to get people to buy piles of new ships by spiking their power level, why was the Delta-7 never allowed to be a good ship and preemptively nerfed every time a NPE list became not even meta, but just remotely playable?

35 points for the I4 is right.

We can now add Spamtex to the once-powerhouses of the "what were they thinking" Quad Phantoms and Rebel Beef in their hay days.

Honestly, I would be really interested to see the Spamtex vs either of those lists both in their "hay day" iterations.

35 minutes ago, Skitch_ said:

35 points for the I4 is right.

We can now add Spamtex to the once-powerhouses of the "what were they thinking" Quad Phantoms and Rebel Beef in their hay days.

Honestly, I would be really interested to see the Spamtex vs either of those lists both in their "hay day" iterations.

I really want to see how a Spamtex Tripsilon match would go down.

Tripsilon was never great but would be really interesting vs Spamtex.

7 hours ago, Blue squadron recruit said:

The I1:s will have to choose between Starbird Slash and Heroic, I belive Heroic is the better choice.

True....but I find myself wondering about Rebel awings with the talent.

Double post.

9 hours ago, hargleblarg said:

New baby is keeping my brain not good. I definitely meant to say, I don't think anyone considers the RZ-2 overcosted. You know, the opposite of what I wrote.

Makes a lot of sense 😉 Hope you're still fitting some X-wing in though!

Also a double post...

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

True....but I find myself wondering about Rebel awings with the talent.

They are going to be shooting without mods unless Leia activated that turn (having to sloop or kturn to keep guns on target having flown over it)

2 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

They are going to be shooting without mods unless Leia activated that turn (having to sloop or kturn to keep guns on target having flown over it)

There is also the possibility of them setting up a target for squadron mates (so zip through at top speed tossing the token onto the/an intended target). Not saying it will be good, but boosting the effect of others in the list does still seem to be the Rebel shtick, even if it is just putting the focus target into a box because of a "forced" blue maneuver (requires set up, but is a possibility).

Now they just need to reduce Ensnare so we can take it again...

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

There is also the possibility of them setting up a target for squadron mates (so zip through at top speed tossing the token onto the/an intended target). Not saying it will be good, but boosting the effect of others in the list does still seem to be the Rebel shtick, even if it is just putting the focus target into a box because of a "forced" blue maneuver (requires set up, but is a possibility).

I think the real benefit is this, and its costed assuming the A-wing won't fire on the turn it does the slash because it won't be a resistance one and rebels don't have rear guns.

This has a lot of value, because a big problem with the RZ1 was despite the difference in price between a heroic-optic RZ2 and the RZ1 being like a 20% discount, the drop in effectiveness is far more than 20%, and in some matchups the RZ1 just may as well have 0 red dice. The variance is also extremely high on a single modded 2 dice attack regardless of target.

I think Starbird is at 1 less to make it so you play around it and more to help justify the RZ1's existence in a list while its trying to do other stuff, and that a lot of its power is more subtle in that it lets you generate power from turns where your attack wouldn't matter much anyway, and to make the RZ1 more about double modding every few attacks and feeling more comfortable spending focus defensively.

It sorta feels like a hidden action economy bonus, in the same way that a subtle bonus of Homing Missiles is that you don't need to re-lock after firing them. But pretty much any increase in output for the RZ1 is a gamechanger when its output is often 0.

A good summary. Heroic/advanced optics RZ-2 a-wings (much like their counterpart the fanatical/advanced optic TIE/sf) generate such reliable dice with almost continuous time-on-target that they don't really need the starboard slash: the target is getting hit with 2 damage over and over again.

RZ-1 that don't have super-reliable modifiers having the ability to strain a target seems mute useful - they are throwing 'just' 2 dice attacks, and instead work well at disruption- Starbird on a Phoenix pilot gives you a very cheap, expendable way of straining a target, and whether you knock down their defence or make them pull blue moves, both are good.

Starbird phoeniexes straining plus Wedge looks like a nice combo.

Make it Jake straining and giving Wedge a double mod anď... well, looks too situational anyway.

I think I burried the lead in why I think Starbird Slash is a good card for the RZ-1 that helps the ship:

You don't take A-wings to take Starbird Slash, you take Starbird Slash because they make A-wings less dead weight if they are doing something else, because it doesn't take actions, and RZ-1s have a lot of 'dead time' anyway.

If your running ion missile RZ-1s and you don't want to risk Vader popping you, Slashing him the turn you land your target lock rather than trying to remain in arc is actually a decent move, as is trying to slash boba if you can't land a double modded shot. Your not taking the RZ-1 to 'do this.' Its giving you a conselation prize for essentially free for deciding to take an RZ-1, and its one that is unaffected by its reliability issues and plays to the ship's strengths.

I don't think it will be fantastic until the RZ-1 comes down a bit more, but my number one issue with the RZ-1 was less that it couldn't do anything, but it had so many turns that were either actually dead or pseudo-dead because your 2 dice plink shot would do nothing and you absolutely needed to spend focus defensively on that thing to not bleed MoV if you took homings or ions or whatever. The fact you can set up things for your teammates is awesome, and its super thematic mind, and if the RZ-1 ever gets good the Slash will just make it better, but its real value is in making the ship... not a complete joke.

Part of the reason Jake is radically better than a generic RZ-1 is that he has a lot of impact even on turns when he can't shoot or his shots are statistically doing like .25 damage. The ability is good enough you want it on its own meric, but Jake also elevates the chasis itself and often adds value to the list as a little harrier at times, because you have the room to take him even if your up against Whisper or Boba and the idea of Jake doing damage is laughable, and you can afford turns when Jake tries to get a missile or rocket shot lined up without getting shots in.