Are generics too expensive?

[ISD Avenger 897]

I’ve seen a least 2 posts recently where someone has said ‘why take X generic fighter when for a few points more you could use Y ace, who has defence tokens & a cool effect’.

So it got me thinking. Are (some) generics too expensive? Would generics benefit from a 1-3 point price drop? This would further encourage their use no?

Discuss 😁

 

[bleezy 222]

Yes, I think so. Defense tokens are very valuable.

[Captain Ordo N-11 107]

Or increase the price of aces. 

[Bertie Wooster 1,857]

Or aces are too cheap. Shara/Tycho or Ciena/Valen cost less than 5 Z-95s, but the aces will win the fight nearly every time. 

[JauntyChapeau 188]

Generics are okay, I think.  Every unique squadron with defense tokens should be more expensive.

[ISD Avenger 897]

Interesting that aces are seen as too cheap, given some cost near to a flotilla already. 

 

[CMDR Kastor 108]

I am all for the careful consideration of point balancing. There are a lot of dead upgrades and a few under performing ships in the game, it would be nice to make them viable and increase list building variety. If anyone wants to start a community effort to such a end consider me already signed up.

Anything to avoid x-wing 1.0

[CMDR Kastor 108]

5 minutes ago, ISD Avenger said:

Interesting that aces are seen as too cheap, given some cost near to a flotilla already. 

 

That says more about the pricing of flotillas than anything else.

[Mon Cala Blue 28]

I think the cost of Aces could use some adjusting. Maybe Armada 2.0 will keep the cards but update the points like Age of Sigmar has been doing with it's General's Handbook. I would prefer that to a mass overhaul like they did with X-wing 2.0. 

[Colindarklighter 8]

I think one of the issues is more that there should be a cap on the number of ace squadrons that can be in a fleet, kinda like the flotilla nerf. Its ironic that when they nerfed rikeen they never considered one of the reasons he needed a nerd in the first place was rikeen ace holes being to good. The only downside to this is that it would kill two ship which imperial players need to stay relevant.

[xanderf 6,789]

Thing about aces is that they are very expensive for how squishy they are IF you can reliably generate ACC results.  Trick is that "reliably generate ACC results" can be quite overpowered in some cases, while useless in others, making upgrades that do it...difficult to price.

I'd dearly love upgrades that did the 'dual side' thing X-Wing 1.0 had on some cards.

IE., a ion cannon upgrade that on one side is 'The battery armaments for your front and rear hull zone are increased by 1 blue dice' and the back side is 'When performing an anti-squadron attack, add 1 blue dice to your attack pool'.  It's a fixed price, and you choose the side during deployment that you'll use the entire game.  Upgrades like that would help a lot in solving a bit of the paper-rock-scissors element that isn't particularly desirable in tournaments.

Edited August 7, 2019 by xanderf

[CMDR Kastor 108]

51 minutes ago, Mon Cala Blue said:

I think the cost of Aces could use some adjusting. Maybe Armada 2.0 will keep the cards but update the points like Age of Sigmar has been doing with it's General's Handbook. I would prefer that to a mass overhaul like they did with X-wing 2.0. 

I live in hope. I think to get the ball rolling on that we need to pressure them a bit. Currently I'm sure they view the game as "Balanced enough". Creating a community team to make some light handed point adjustments that could start being taken up by the unofficial games could prove to them it's something we want.

[Bertie Wooster 1,857]

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

Interesting that aces are seen as too cheap, given some cost near to a flotilla already. 

 

Many of them have more health than a flotilla...

[CMDR Kastor 108]

Hey, so I made this form about your feelings on fighter balance. I don't expect anything to come of it. It's more to see if the community can generate useful data rather than actually see what the balance is.
https://forms.gle/YkhnNrYTqD7BwkfN8
 

Answer it if you wish, partially is fine. I'm only covering the first wave of fighters because I couldn't be bothered adding the rest. A complete picture isn't really the point, more I just want to see if this format provides decent data. I'll post the data after a while, provided I get more than a handful of answers.

[Ling27 924]

Personally, I think the solution would a limit to the number of aces. Either a varying number (1/6th fleet total) or a hard number (4)

[CMDR Kastor 108]

21 minutes ago, Ling27 said:

Either a varying number (1/6th fleet total)

Oh, I like that

[Grathew 120]

IMO if they made squadrons something more customizable. Giving each genaric squad an upgrade bar, for example, would both make genarics more useful and maybe out weigh aces in usefulness. I will admit the balancing and logisical nightmare if they went that route but it could be cool. Like getting X-wings with black bomber instead of red, or TIE\ln with an added red die. It could honestly be its own thread. 

 

Otherwise aces do more stuff, sometimes significantly more for a relatively small peice increase. 

[Muelmuel 774]

On the way to help swarm generics out

[Captain Ordo N-11 107]

5 minutes ago, Muelmuel said:

On the way to help swarm generics out

I have plans for this card. Just sad I can't use DC with it.

[CMDR Kastor 108]

1 hour ago, Grathew said:

IMO if they made squadrons something more customizable. Giving each genaric squad an upgrade bar, for example, would both make genarics more useful and maybe out weigh aces in usefulness. I will admit the balancing and logisical nightmare if they went that route but it could be cool. Like getting X-wings with black bomber instead of red, or TIE\ln with an added red die. It could honestly be its own thread. 

 

Otherwise aces do more stuff, sometimes significantly more for a relatively small peice increase. 

ION BOMBS! ION BOMBS!

Though seriously? That would be a little problematic. Currently a given squadron is indistinguishable from other copy's of it on the field. They both run off the same card. Any upgrade given to one generic Y-wing would have to be multiplied out to all generic y-wings on the field.

[Ginkapo 9,321]

Unconscious Bias

[Drasnighta 26,833]

7 hours ago, CMDR Kastor said:

I live in hope. I think to get the ball rolling on that we need to pressure them a bit. Currently I'm sure they view the game as "Balanced enough". Creating a community team to make some light handed point adjustments that could start being taken up by the unofficial games could prove to them it's something we want.

Feel free to try.  

But so you’re aware,

The last time someone tried to community panel anything ( @Undeadguy) one of the people who were just happenstance mentioned (me) got so much vitriol the concept was Abandoned.

 

That was quite some time ago, however - and no doubt the community has churned enough since then.

But the single most difficult task is finding “experts”, as the more open and larger the panel/group, the slower things go- but too small and you’ll not find consensus with the wider community.

[Green Knight 9,746]

What @Drasnighta said.

Anyway, if anyone (FFG) needs honest input on what things should really cost, just PM me. I've got the list ready.

Regards,

Your friendly neighborhood opinionated forum poster

[slasher956 546]

Heres an idea.... you need to have X generics of type to take 1 ace.... so for arguments sake start with X = 3... so to take Luke you need to have 3 other X-wings sqns.

 

You can then have upgrades / officers or Admirals who allow you to change that..... ie and officer called Rogue Co-ordinator whos card says - you may take, luke, wedge, red sqn etc without needing un-named X-wings  points 5

 

Or an Imperial Officer called Fighter Training Commander - you may take 1 ace for every non unique squadron - 10 points

[Muelmuel 774]

2 hours ago, CMDR Kastor said:

ION BOMBS! ION BOMBS!

Though seriously? That would be a little problematic. Currently a given squadron is indistinguishable from other copy's of it on the field. They both run off the same card. Any upgrade given to one generic Y-wing would have to be multiplied out to all generic y-wings on the field.

Several ace abilities were meant to simulate the variants and loadouts methinks. Norra tells all squadrons under her "command" to switch to ion bombs while Dutch's squadron is equipped with the less available ion turrets. Ketsu Onyo knows how to use her tractor beams. Jonus fires S-Thread Tracers at enemy ships when he is near them. (I don't know what Saber squadron's snipe is supposed to represent)

One thing that might have been nice would be a turret keyword that allows turreted ships to split their attack pool into 2 different attacks on 2 separate squadrons