7 hours ago, dezzmont said:

So I think a lot of these complaints aren't 'Poe isn't competitive' but 'Poe struggles to even be viable.' Because most of the entire game of X-wing is non-viable. One can say 'people are just refusing to experiment' but they... kinda are willing too? Its just that its very clear most experiments fail in the environment of X-wing, which is kinda a huge bummer if you like Poe.

My complaint about Poe is he is too expensive to make a competitive list, not that he isn't individual competitive. The fact is he isn't a single power house that can carry a list but is priced like he is.

If there was a combination of upgrades that gave him the kind of endurance we see in Vader or Kylo's, or a streamline effective version that was level with Fenn's and Guri it wouldn't be an issue. However he is neither of those, he is sat at price point that makes him obsolete without upgrades and a price liability if you add them.

Let's face it, his ability isn't as powerful as push the limits was in first edition. Linked actions are the controlled version of this and Poe having an open linked action shouldn't set him 11-12 points above his next contempory I5 pilot.

He needs the price decrease so he can be better supported. He can't hold his weight like Rey or 2 I5 RZ-2 in the same price band.

I think a lot of people assume that balance is actually an objective we should be aiming for. I believe the opposite and that balance, should it ever be achieved, is the death of X-Wing.

Balance means you can fly whatever you like. Balance means you don't ever need to change your squad from the one you like. Balance means you never need to buy a new ship. Balance means the game dies.

Some things are good and some things are bad. A large part of trying to win as many games of X-Wing as possible is about working which the good things are and using them. It's not about working out what the good things are then complaining that the bad things aren't the good things. Play with and enjoy the game you've been given rather than being sad about it not being the game you WANTED to be given.

And as always, if you're not trying to win as many games of X-Wing as possible you absolutely CAN fly whatever you want. And that's fine too.

7 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

My complaint about Poe is he is to expensive to make a competitive list, not that he individual isn't competitive. They fact is he isn't a single power house that can carry a list but is priced like he is.

If there was a combination of upgrades that gave him the kind of endurance we see in Vader or Kylo's, or a streamline effective version that was level with Fenn's and Guri it wouldn't be an issue. However he is neither of those, he is sat at price point that makes him obsolete without upgrades and a price liability if you add them.

Let's face it, his ability isn't as powerful as push the limits was in first edition. Linked actions are the controlled version of this and Poe having an open linked action shouldn't set him 11-12 points above his next contempory I5 pilot.

He needs the price decrease so he can be better supported. He can't hold his weight like Rey or 2 I5 RZ-2 in the same price band.

Poe in particular, I could easily see both versions of Poe drop 8-10pts. He's a long way overcosted.

But that's ok, just play something else instead.

21 minutes ago, Stay OT Leader said:

Poe in particular, I could easily see both versions of Poe drop 8-10pts. He's a long way overcosted.

But that's ok, just play something else instead.

I do, I play with Nien.

However it should be highlighted that the faction only has 2 initiative 6 pilots.

1 that's over costed and struggles to fit into lists and the other might as well be a generic I6.

It also only has 1 force sensitive pilot.

Anything with passive mods of any degree are low initiative.

Plus the 2nd lowest number of chassis of any of the factions.

It has no AOE crew or support ships.

It has no small base bombers.

Now it fine to experiment and all but actually effective combinations are light on the ground. A game doesn't have to be completely balanced but each faction should have thier highlights. I struggling to name any but the RZ-2 and as people have pointed out 5A aren't doing well outside of hyperspace. Mainly because 2 dice attack ships struggle in a passive mod meta.

Its not surprising our only force user and 2 I5 RZ-2's are the only list making waves. (The vennie version of the list was inspiring tho)

Hi! Rebel main popping in here!

Thanks for starbird slash, we like and appreciate that one, but y'all can keep 2 point tailslide.

37 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

My complaint about Poe is he is too expensive to make a competitive list, not that he isn't individual competitive. The fact is he isn't a single power house that can carry a list but is priced like he is.

I find the problem being that a tooled up useful Poe isn't worth the Rey that I could get at a similar price.

6 minutes ago, Roller of blanks said:

Thanks for starbird slash, we like and appreciate that one, but y'all can keep 2 point tailslide.

Starbird seems lackluster for Rebels, while Tailslide actually has some potential that needs explored in both factions.

10 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Thanks

Depends what you like to play, but rz2s most certainly aren't the only reliable resistance option!

You can play Rey with 2A, sure. But you can also slot in a fireball and 1X, or directly 2X. Those are decent.

Then there are the jousting lists, 4-5 ships and a mix of 3-4 xwings and 1-2 pods. Some like to again swap in a fireball.

Then there are cool lists with Vennie, including a Rey Vennie build.

There are arguably 2 lists in extended where awings are good: Rey AA and Rey AAA. All the other lists that are still decent avoid them.

Yeah, you're right. I should look into it again. Seems like The Resistance has changed a lot since I last played which is... is nice.

1 hour ago, Tyhar7 said:

However it should be highlighted that the faction only has 2 initiative 6 pilots.

It also only has 1 force sensitive pilot.

Anything with passive mods of any degree are low initiative.

Plus the 2nd lowest number of chassis of any of the factions.

It has no AOE crew or support ships.

It has no small base bombers.

And it is also only half finished, if we go by the ship counts of the "original" 3 factions. . .

This is a pretty minor ask in the grand scheme. Most games manage this and strive for it. Not everything needs to be top tier obviously, but its ideal for at least half the cast to be able to make strong competitive showings in this sorta game.

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, if we are back here after just 2 years with an entire reboot of the game plus a handful of releases, I'd say that main failure is that XWM does not work as a competitive game, and never will.

"If we failed to balance a few individual pilots by refusing to points nerf or buff them when its clearly a problem and they are off by such a large amount that there is a lot of room to be conservative and not change the balance, it means the whole game design is flawed!" is certainly a take to have.

X-wing's problem is, again, the win rates of the best lists and pieces in the game are ridiculously high. X-wing is a completely viable competitive game: It has a high skill ceiling, a wide design space, lots of skill testing mechanics, ect.

1.0's problem was it allowed some specific options to go completely ham and overtake the entire meta due to raw, linear efficiency and, FFG not having the tools to fix this. 2.0's problem is some specific options go completely ham and overtake the entire meta due to raw, linear efficiency, and FFG having the tools to fix it but just kinda not.

As someone else pointed out, Poe is probably overcosted by a whopping 10 points. When balance is that transparently off, the fact that it is impossible to perfectly balance a game sorta doesn't make sense as a counter-argument: Yes, it might be impossible for Poe to ever be at a point where he is consistently taking top spots at tournaments while still being fair, but the ship is just so off the mark that it becomes complete nonsense: It isn't just that the game is unbalanced, but that FFG isn't... really trying with a lot of ships?

The complaints about Poe aren't just 'fan whining' like you frame it: It is a super obvious, actionable problem with a very obvious solution that just isn't being explored. Your essentially arguing FFG shouldn't ever try to make the game better because something will end up unbalanced or too weak.

What you are doing is invoking the nirvana fallacy: your extrapolating people want a game where each individual piece is perfectly balanced, which is obviously impossible, when in reality they kinda want super obvious gaps that have existed for a really long time to close, which is an actual concrete problem that progress can be made on.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Luckily, these days, FFG can fix that.

Yes, but they don't have an incentive to do so if people don't... talk about it and complain and make it clear they perceive this as a problem with the game...

And to be clear it looks like POLITE, WELL THOUGHT OUT whining works: Boba is a bit more in check. Nantexes are at a more fair spot. A lot of loved ships that aren't too good keep getting buffs. And, most importantly, there seems to be a lot of effort to make the massive cast more distinct and create more cards that reward things that aren't traditionally rewarded in X-wing. So I am not saying that FFG doesn't get credit here, but I think its fair to say the Resistance has a bit to complain about because despite this progress obvious problems are ignored.

And the only thing to do there is to whine in a POLITE AND WELL THOUGHT OUT MANNER louder. You make it clearer and clearer its a sticking point.

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

And it is also only half finished, if we go by the ship counts of the "original" 3 factions. . .

For sure, but Resistance hasn't seen a new ship since the beginning of the year when the prequels are getting 2 each next wave, and just had 1 in this.

Lets be fair neither the fireball or the Transport have had a huge impact on the faction as a hole. It's not like we've had something like the LaaT where you think its gonna change the meta within the faction. Every release has been kind of meh...

I'm not sure the Y or B wings will do much to help.

My only hope is the T-85, that it is a platform closer to the Defender or silencer. Hopefully opening up some options for a true Ace platform.

19 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Lets be fair neither the fireball or the Transport have had a huge impact on the faction as a hole. It's not like we've had something like the LaaT where you think its gonna change the meta for the faction. Every release has been kind of meh...

you won'T have anything else much. They have said it in The Rise of Skywalker: it's just...... people

(just kidding, I really hope to see a cohesion other than simply heroes together)

13 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

you won'T have anything else much. They have said it in The Rise of Skywalker: it's just...... people

(just kidding, I really hope to see a cohesion other than simply heroes together)

Well as I just mention in another thread, the narrative doesn't support the faction very well.

Going forward I think FFG will have to expand the Resistance to incompass the new Republic. So future narrative content from the Mandalorian or other shows in that era will help the game.

8 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Well as I just mention in another thread, the narrative doesn't support the faction very well.

Going forward I think FFG will have to expand the Resistance to incompass the new Republic. So future narrative content from the Mandalorian or other shows in that era will help the game.

It would be great. They should have called the Faction New Republic, but they haven't got a symbol yet when they release the Resistance in 2.0

12 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

It would be great. They should have called the Faction New Republic, but they haven't got a symbol yet when they release the Resistance in 2.0

They could make New Republic a keyword for pilots that were actually New Republic pilots at some point.

1 hour ago, dezzmont said:

This is a pretty minor ask in the grand scheme.

Well, I'm more of this paradigm:

2 hours ago, Stay OT Leader said:

I think a lot of people assume that balance is actually an objective we should be aiming for. I believe the opposite and that balance, should it ever be achieved, is the death of X-Wing.

Balance means you can fly whatever you like. Balance means you don't ever need to change your squad from the one you like. Balance means you never need to buy a new ship. Balance means the game dies.

Some things are good and some things are bad. A large part of trying to win as many games of X-Wing as possible is about working which the good things are and using them. It's not about working out what the good things are then complaining that the bad things aren't the good things. Play with and enjoy the game you've been given rather than being sad about it not being the game you WANTED to be given.

And as always, if you're not trying to win as many games of X-Wing as possible you absolutely CAN fly whatever you want . And that's fine too.

And, as a true casual, I live by the highlighted notion.

1 hour ago, Tyhar7 said:

For sure, but Resistance hasn't seen a new ship since the beginning of the year when the prequels are getting 2 each next wave, and just had 1 in this.

Looking at ship counts, FO and Resistance are due. I'm pretty sure FFG is aware of this.

45 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

you won'T have anything else much. They have said it in The Rise of Skywalker: it's just...... people

(just kidding, I really hope to see a cohesion other than simply heroes together )

But, what if Resistance was like Scum but good guys. . .

32 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Well as I just mention in another thread, the narrative doesn't support the faction very well.

In another thread about Blue Ace, and all the racers, I think that The Faction Of Good Guys Working Together actually makes for a nice theme.

I think adding the B-wing and Y-wing and T-85 are obvious, but I also think that a true faction flavor could be achieved by adding all the Resistance Racers as the true "ace heroes."

23 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

It would be great. They should have called the Faction New Republic, but they haven't got a symbol yet when they release the Resistance in 2.0

A subfaction isn't a ground-breaking design idea. . .

2 hours ago, Tyhar7 said:

Let's be fair neither the fireball or the Transport have had a huge impact on the faction as a hole. It's not like we've had something like the LaaT where you think its gonna change the meta for the faction. Every release has been kind of meh...

Do you think the LaaT is gonna change the republic meta? I'm been pretty unimpressed with it, particularly at it's fairly outrageous points cost.

15 minutes ago, The Penguin UK said:

Do you think the LaaT is gonna change the republic meta? I'm been pretty unimpressed with it, particularly at it's fairly outrageous points cost.

In my opinion its perfectly priced and its just that there were still a few too many megaships floating around for well priced ships to do well.

FFG seems to be tapping down the top end of a ship's preformance a bit, pushing up the bottom, ect, and making it a bit harder to go full non-interactive. In a world where you win X-Wing by taking smart engagements, predicting your opponent, and hammering their weak points by using your ship's synergies to emphasize your strong points, the LAAT is a good ship. In a world where you get insta-gibbed by a bunch of bugs or you get thrashed by a memetic badass bountyhunter rolling the equivalent of 5 green dice on defense refusing to engage with you after he popped something, the LAAT won't do well.

It suffers from the same core flaw basically any ship that can't either participate in a swarm due to being underpriced wildly for its preformance or which can't outfight an entire list does. Same reason why despite Norra being an absolutely bonkers character she just doesn't see play right now.

Now that the Nantex is gone and we can actually see how effective some of the meta-shifts are in regards to Boba, we might see the LAAT do some stuff, because it does have a lot to offer a faction which wants re-rolls more than anything else in the world. It is pretty competitively priced compared to other similar ships in other less re-roll thirsty factions like Dutch in rebels too. We are seeing some decent stats from Warthog swarms, for example. It may not be a top tier list but it certainly appears like it gave Republic a new viable build around archetype, which is actually a huge win for any ship: Not everything can be super meta but seeing a ship create a list that seems to have consistent results and can preform well is actually pretty rare in X-wing.

That said, if republic doesn't want it, rebels would gladly take it. 👀

8 minutes ago, The Penguin UK said:

Do you think the LaaT is gonna change the republic meta? I'm been pretty unimpressed with it, particularly at it's fairly outrageous points cost.

The LAAT is well priced, and it is good. It's a swarm enabler. It has the same cost as Drea Renthal w Dorsal for a similar effect. They both have their pro's and con's but I think it leans towards the LAAT being better. Drea has a mildly better dial and can fuel more shots per turn, but is limited to generics. The LAAT has more health, and can provide greaters rerolls to both limited pilots and generics. Another comparison is to Sinker, who can punch harder, but has to maneuver oddly to provide rerolls while the LAAT can rotate to stay relevant. Sinker is more expensive and has one less health.

I suspect Warthog Swarm will make greater waves now that Nantex have but chucked out the airlock.

43 minutes ago, The Penguin UK said:

Do you think the LaaT is gonna change the republic meta? I'm been pretty unimpressed with it, particularly at it's fairly outrageous points cost.

@dezzmont pretty much summed it up.

On 11/1/2020 at 6:04 AM, Stay OT Leader said:

It’s odd to see people bashing Resistance for chassis variety when they’re a faction where EVERY SINGLE SHIP is good.

Rey’s Falcon, Vennie, Finn & Rose pods, Cova, Kaz and the generic Fireball... if all you’re running is T-70s and A-Wings you’re doing Resistance wrong.

This has been rolling about in my brain a bit.

My issue is that it all feels... kinda samey?

• A-Wings are their own thing.
• T-70, pods, transports, Fireballs... mostly just feel like efficiency jousters.
  • Kaz and Cova are great examples of this. They're good because their ship abilities basically make them X-Wings, and they fill a similar price point within a list.
  • OT Poe does some interesting new things, I guess, so maybe adds spice.
• Rey does her own thing.
• I guess Vennie does something unique and potentially strong, but she is a really weird ship, kinda hard to get into.

Contrast First Order. Also not that many ships, but they're all playable and most pilots and generics are OK, and can be thrown together in nearly any combo. TIE/fo don't fly like SFs don't fly like Barons don't fly like Silencers don't fly like Xi which does kinda fly like an Upsilon but they fill a really different role within a list due to 2 vs 4.

Maybe it's just that no one actually has the ships for Fireball swarm, but it seems really easy to be left feeling like... regardless of the pilots, the lists reduce down to only three things.

11 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

This has been rolling about in my brain a bit.

My issue is that it all feels... kinda samey?

• A-Wings are their own thing.
• T-70, pods, transports, Fireballs... mostly just feel like efficiency jousters.
  • Kaz and Cova are great examples of this. They're good because their ship abilities basically make them X-Wings, and they fill a similar price point within a list.
  • OT Poe does some interesting new things, I guess, so maybe adds spice.
• Rey does her own thing.
• I guess Vennie does something unique and potentially strong, but she is a really weird ship, kinda hard to get into.

Very much this!

Kaz and Cova see play because they work very much like X-wings and as Jousters and not because of thier unique chassis that add to the list.

Overall I think the transport is a particularly poor ship, its action bar doesn't do support very well. 2 attack and 1 agility leave it weak in both offence and defence. All of the abilities are self reflective and do not assist other ships, like a support ship might consider doing. On top of which there aren't an abundance of crew that help support the list either. Most crew are there to shore up the self impossed weaknesses the design team chose to implement. I'd trade it for a LaaT at any point.

The fireball is less of an issue but its essentially a z-95 or torrent with a flavoursome design.

I really feel like the Resistance designer spends more time looking at how clever they can make an individual ships design flavourful and not look at how they fit into the faction as a whole, or how they can fill game achytypes.

7 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

The LAAT is well priced, and it is good. It's a swarm enabler. It has the same cost as Drea Renthal w Dorsal for a similar effect. They both have their pro's and con's but I think it leans towards the LAAT being better. Drea has a mildly better dial and can fuel more shots per turn, but is limited to generics. The LAAT has more health, and can provide greaters rerolls to both limited pilots and generics. Another comparison is to Sinker, who can punch harder, but has to maneuver oddly to provide rerolls while the LAAT can rotate to stay relevant. Sinker is more expensive and has one less health.

I suspect Warthog Swarm will make greater waves now that Nantex have but chucked out the airlock.

Other extremely comparable options include Palp on an Omnicron or Reaper, Essege with a perceptive co-pilot, or Benthic Two Tubes with perceptive co-pilot.

All grant pseudo-focuses or focuses, rather than target locks, require you to pick ahead of time rather than as needed, and cost a bit more than the LAAT. The LAAT is a fantastic ship at 51, its just that unless your Sloane (Who isn't JUST a swarm enabler, but who also has an intangiable benefit that makes it so her value is subjective based on player skill and how the match plays out, which is fantastic design), the idea of sacrificing a ship slot to power everything else up, even to that extreme a level, is too 'fair.' Palp Shuttle, despite being arguably way worse, managed to be a viable (though not top tier) list for quite a bit back when the meta was less... extreme... So there is a good chance the LAAT will crop up as a decent mid tier list at some point. Its just that ever since Boba hit the meta, it has become extremely oppressive and synergy lists (which often struggle) just become non-viable. Back when the king of lists was Imp Aces (which were strong, but not to the point certain list types just didn't work) you could do 'cute' things where your ships try to achieve some over-arching strategy, and you could occasionally win a mid-sized tourney and get everyone trying out Norra-Wedge-Herra VCX based lists or whatever. That hasn't been that much of a thing since January.