We're all fine here, how are you?

[durandal343 418]

1 minute ago, geek19 said:

That REALLY hurts Escort and X-Wing worth then. Would that turn off too? And turning off bomber is weird to me, as I'm just flinging bombs into your ship. I'd be ok with a unique with it, but spammable in your own fighter corps? Oof, pass, please.

I think getting rid of keywords that are communication with other squads (Intel and Relay, Counter buffs etc) would be appropriate though.  Escort and Bomber seem to not follow really.  That would be a tough ability to write unless it was worded for just Intel and Relay.

[tgall 796]

3 minutes ago, durandal343 said:

Yeah.. that would be much more versatile than just getting rid of Relay.  I like the idea of a ship being able to interfere with another ships communications too.

Having some fun here, if slicer tools could either set a command dial or jam relay, that'd be an interesting usecase for flotillas.....

[xero989 1,068]

In short I don't think anything is broken in Armada. I think there are powerful combos/builds but I feel like each have a counter or can be out played.  Fleet devrsity is high at least where I play and in all honesty the only time I feel nerfs are necessary is when not doing so will effect the health of the game. Right now even though there are powerful lists the health of the game is very good right now.

Edited October 26, 2017 by xero989

[durandal343 418]

Just now, tgall said:

Having some fun here, if slicer tools could either set a command dial or jam relay, that'd be an interesting usecase for flotillas.....

I was thinking maybe Jam all outgoing communications.  Kills squad commands or severely limits their range.  Not sure if messing with other fleet commands would be feasible.

[ricefrisbeetreats 614]

4 minutes ago, geek19 said:

That REALLY hurts Escort and X-Wing worth then. Would that turn off too? And turning off bomber is weird to me, as I'm just flinging bombs into your ship. I'd be ok with a unique with it, but spammable in your own fighter corps? Oof, pass, please.

Sometimes gameplay has to beat out flavor when designing mechanics.  Not 100% sold on the "jam" ability for squads, but it's easier to say, "while engaged with this ship, enemy squadrons lose all keyword abilities on their cards" over "all ships lose relay, escort, counter, etc..."  It leaves design space open for future releases and it's a pressure relief valve if/when another squadron ability ever becomes too powerful.

[Drasnighta 26,831]

19 minutes ago, geek19 said:

That REALLY hurts Escort and X-Wing worth then. Would that turn off too? And turning off bomber is weird to me, as I'm just flinging bombs into your ship. I'd be ok with a unique with it, but spammable in your own fighter corps? Oof, pass, please.

That’s what I determined in my testing - Unique is best for it, so it is not ubiquitous. 

The other option is to have it turn off ALL, not just enemy, so you cannot even escort it yourself or use it like super intel.

 

Turning off Bomber is turning off those nifty targeting computers we see Xs and Ys have in canon... now you have to fling those bombs BLIND over irons, and that makes them less accurate and/or effective...

Edited October 25, 2017 by Drasnighta

[Undeadguy 5,749]

14 minutes ago, geek19 said:

I'd be ok with that ET nerf. I can't answer your Relay hatred issue as we're just starting to get squadron players up here in Chicago. Insert horrid joke about flyover country being true because that's where the squads must have been.

Same with the 80/ISD and flots. I think on average we're down to 1.5 flots a side here for most lists. Much VSDs though.

As for swarms, I don't disagree with you, but how much is your player skill? If you're beating people with the list, is it because of the activation advantage, your abilities, or what you're flying against (as in, have you tested your no squads vs a squadron heavy fleet?) Not trying to accuse or belittle your complaint so much as understand it somewhat better.

 

My problem with flots is not that they are OP or the root cause of the activation game. They are just boring. I've been running 1 on Imps (Comms Net supporting a Vic) and 2 on Rebels (because dial and token manipulation is so good). Once you've played the doom pickle with flots, you've really played them all.

You can't really separate activation advantage and player skill. I've played MSU long enough to understand how my fleet is supposed to work and how I need to activate my ships in response to what my opponent does. You do become a better player when you have more ships, but I've seen people with high activation still make mistakes, like activating in the wrong order. I've won against no squads and against max squads. I've won against large ships and MSU. The greater the difference in activations, the better my list does. I've certainly have some close calls, like the game I had on Vassal where I won by 9 points, but the activation game is quite strong. It's always been a big thing in RTP with the Cracken TRC90 swarm and the Mothma MC30 swarm. And now we have my JJ Glad + Vic swarm. 

It's entirely possible it's just in my area, but this is not the first time activation nerf has been asked for, and certainly not by me. Y'all can recall IFF asking for it and literally the whole community, myself included, said "no the game is good, here take these flot counters." And the call goes back further. It just so happens the more vocal part of the community thinks the game is in a healthy state, so it doesn't get brought up very often. I am one of the few converted who stands firm on this nerf.

I'm also surprised by the amount of people who want Relay nerfed. 

 

Also, I'm going to busy with work in a few minutes, so I won't be able to reply for a few hours, or maybe even tomorrow. I want to discuss this further and I am not ignoring you because we may disagree.

[Drasnighta 26,831]

18 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Sometimes gameplay has to beat out flavor when designing mechanics.  Not 100% sold on the "jam" ability for squads, but it's easier to say, "while engaged with this ship, enemy squadrons lose all keyword abilities on their cards" over "all ships lose relay, escort, counter, etc..."  It leaves design space open for future releases and it's a pressure relief valve if/when another squadron ability ever becomes too powerful.

I had to account for it being s keyword itself (Jam) and then, if it turned them all off, what would happen when you brought 2 together.

 

Thsts why I settled on Non-Heavy, Non-Jam as a concept. Don’t want to turn heavy off and make things better, and non jam so it avoids... complications...

 

but it it was only ever s concept I tested on my own.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Drasnighta

[Undeadguy 5,749]

41 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I'm glad you're able to maintain objectivity with these things.

Its important to do that.

Geek asked for thoughts. I gave my thoughts. 

It's important to share your thoughts.

[Blail Blerg 7,585]

The game is broken. We should go back to playing checkers. (Just kidding). 

 

The only thing I think really needs looking at is how impactful activations are. It feels like a game-y game of manipulating turn order as opposed to a Star Wars combat simulation. That's about it. 

 

I hear relay could be tweaked a bit. 

[ricefrisbeetreats 614]

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

I had to account for it being s keyword itself (Jam) and then, if it turned them all off, what would happen when you brought 2 together.

 

Thsts why I settled on Non-Heavy, Non-Jam as a concept. Don’t want to turn heavy off and make things better, and non jam so it avoids... complications

I was addressing the flavor issue someone had with escort and bomber being negated by the "jam" keyword.  Having it say all non-heavy and non-jam keywords are removed from the card makes a lot of sense.

I'm all about pressure release valves in games.

[Darth Lupine 1,556]

You all think Sloane is bad, wait till Thrawn comes to play......???

[svelok 6,487]

I propose a more targeted option, that just turns one specific enemy ace's ability off - a squadron ability ala Dutch Vander, that instead of activating the damaged squadron, gives it:

Jammed. (You do not count as friendly to other squadrons).

This could be a non-unique ability, although the squadron that brings it would need to be expensive and/or weakly armed or armored if so.

Escort would still protect your vital abilities - and by only targeting one squadron at a time, it doesn't revert squadron play to perpetual engagement, and doesn't add another "bubble" ability that would further complicate squadron positioning. (Although it would allow you to shoot yourself). It's also reliant on getting past scatter/rolling damage.

That wording would disable the ace abilities of Jan Ors,  Hera, Biggs, Nora, and Blount for the Rebels; and Dengar, Jendon, Rhymer, Jonus and Howlrunner for the Empire. It wouldn't affect any of the squadron keywords currently in the game. (Heavy, Swarm, Escort, Grit, Intel, and so forth all rely on engagement, which is unaffected by Jammed.)

Edited October 25, 2017 by svelok

[Kristjan 218]

I wonder if having to activate all your ships before you activate your floatillas would have a meaning impact on the power of high activation lists, or even just encourage more diversity.

[geek19 6,557]

3 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

You all think Sloane is bad, wait till Thrawn comes to play......???

I don't fear Thrawn. I fear the edgelords playing Thrawn who try to pass themselves off as Master Strategists who get whiny when they run over an asteroid and my Dodonna flips a Projector Misaligned on them. That's what I fear to play against.

Edited October 25, 2017 by geek19
Had to change the word hurt to its current incarnation

[Drasnighta 26,831]

I have not issue with bubble abilities. Especially in this case, where it is potentially all-or-nothing.

Squadron play is positioning. If you don’t want to play positioning, don’t play squadrons ?

[Drasnighta 26,831]

1 minute ago, geek19 said:

I don't fear Thrawn. I fear the edgelords playing Thrawn who try to pass themselves off as Master Strategists who get hurt when they run over an asteroid and my Dodonna flips a Projector Misaligned on them. That's what I fear to play against.

Edge master Tiltlord the XXVIII

[Undeadguy 5,749]

1 minute ago, geek19 said:

I don't fear Thrawn. I fear the edgelords playing Thrawn who try to pass themselves off as Master Strategists who get hurt when they run over an asteroid and my Dodonna flips a Projector Misaligned on them. That's what I fear to play against.

Not the player who tries to get 2 tokens from the dials?

[geek19 6,557]

Just now, Undeadguy said:

Not the player who tries to get 2 tokens from the dials?

I can correct a lack of knowledge. I can't correct a garbage attitude without my own "nerf" bat.

[Sharego 128]

Maybe number of flotillas,it is boring to play against one big and 4/5 flotillas, so the problem with activations at least on my meta will be fixed 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Sharego

[geek19 6,557]

28 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

My problem with flots is not that they are OP or the root cause of the activation game. They are just boring. I've been running 1 on Imps (Comms Net supporting a Vic) and 2 on Rebels (because dial and token manipulation is so good). Once you've played the doom pickle with flots, you've really played them all.

You can't really separate activation advantage and player skill. I've played MSU long enough to understand how my fleet is supposed to work and how I need to activate my ships in response to what my opponent does. You do become a better player when you have more ships, but I've seen people with high activation still make mistakes, like activating in the wrong order. I've won against no squads and against max squads. I've won against large ships and MSU. The greater the difference in activations, the better my list does. I've certainly have some close calls, like the game I had on Vassal where I won by 9 points, but the activation game is quite strong. It's always been a big thing in RTP with the Cracken TRC90 swarm and the Mothma MC30 swarm. And now we have my JJ Glad + Vic swarm. 

It's entirely possible it's just in my area, but this is not the first time activation nerf has been asked for, and certainly not by me. Y'all can recall IFF asking for it and literally the whole community, myself included, said "no the game is good, here take these flot counters." And the call goes back further. It just so happens the more vocal part of the community thinks the game is in a healthy state, so it doesn't get brought up very often. I am one of the few converted who stands firm on this nerf.

I'm also surprised by the amount of people who want Relay nerfed. 

With regards to activation advantage and the strength of them, I wonder how many "flotilla complaints" could be resolved with stronger other activations. For example, you can build the Cymoon to one shot 2 flotillas a turn. That's a very strong activation that counters a lot of things. And a VSD with DCaps can hurt them similarly.

I get what you're saying that it's "boring" but I think FFG sees that as well. The BCC nerf was the start of it, but I'd bet they aren't done improving other ships to get better attacks and make them worth taking. Cymoon is DCaps for ISDs, if you will. More of a reason to take them. FFG recognizes that ISDs are "iconic" and "star wars" so there's more of a reason to see them, as you have more varied options for running them under different commanders. When there's more "good options" (again, DCap VSD is my easy example) there's less reasons to spam flotillas.

I haven't seen an Ackbar 80/flots or ISD/flots list though. That would be garbage to face I bet.

[durandal343 418]

21 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

You all think Sloane is bad, wait till Thrawn comes to play......???

Thrawn is not really that scary.. we've been proxying him lately and, unless we're just not good at using him, he's an OK option but not at all something that can't be dealt with.

Edit: autocorrect to Thrown every time

Edited October 25, 2017 by durandal343

[draco193 491]

I'd like to see something done to encourage all of the objectives to be used, either a seasonal rotation or tweaking the wording on them. 

A few squadrons could use some tweaks to see the table. But they're mostly in a good spot I think. 

Relay Nerf would be good. It'd diversify lists a bit as well. 

Flotillas continue to remain boring. 

 

[SkyCake 1,183]

Can't understand relay hate... Everytime I see people running away with their flotillae, relying on relay to activate, I shake my head... Killing a couple squads shuts down their whole plan, and they can't get back in comms range again for the whole game. And maybe I'll never get those flotillae, but killing ~300 is still really good.

[durandal343 418]

2 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

Can't understand relay hate... Everytime I see people running away with their flotillae, relying on relay to activate, I shake my head... Killing a couple squads shuts down their whole plan, and they can't get back in comms range again for the whole game. And maybe I'll never get those flotillae, but killing ~300 is still really good.

That's true I guess, but every time I've come across Relay it's been well and effectively protected.  If I'm bringing a fighter screen and not an all-out assault force there is no way I'm chewing through escorts plus relay squads before my squads die.  I'm particularly susceptible in a MSU because I just don't have much flak to throw at stuff.  And as I'm trying to get my little ships into range of something they get destroyed by squads halfway across the map from the thing activating them.