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Episode 40: New Content, New Me! (Featuring Ryan Staniszewski)
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A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Andrew Kouba, Nick Sperry, and Samuel Graebner are joined by special guest, XWA Design extraordinaire, Ryan Staniszewski! The 4 of them discuss the exciting new content from the XWA Legends and Relics, alongside a sweeping points update forn the game of X-Wing TMG.
View the new Legends and Relics content here: https://www.xwing.life/resources/xwa-content
View the points change breakdown here: https://www.xwing.life/resources/points
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron Podcast. My name is Nick Sperry. I'm Andrew Kuba. I'm Samuel Graibner. And I'm Ryan 313 Staniszewski.
00:00:14
Speaker
Not 312. 313, not Or as people like to say, or which drives me crazy. but three thirteenth for those people three hundred and twelve isquads three three hundred and thirteenth that just sounds awful it's like yeah nails on a chalkboard Ryan calling in from a remote ah secret location.
Excitement Over New X-Wing Content
00:00:37
Speaker
Just north of us. With good internet connection and a good microphone. Very remote indeed. Guys, we got new content. Super exciting. New content, new points, and even a new XWA council.
00:00:49
Speaker
ill I'll just get the elephant out of the room addressed. um I was fortunate enough to get elected as a part of the new council for XWA recently and super excited to be able to help the organization, continue to help the organization and work with you, Ryan, and and everyone else who helps keep the game of X-Wing going.
00:01:06
Speaker
ah Thanks for joining us, man. i Really appreciate it. And guys, thanks all for making the time to talk about the new stuff. Yeah, I mean, the new content and new X-Wing stuff after Worlds has just been dropping at a breakneck pace. So it's really cool to be able to jump on and talk about it.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, Ryan, you had a a big role and in ah you know yet another release under your guys' belt here. Yeah, it was another step in a direction of designing where we focused completely on SLs before, and this time we dipped our toes into custom stuff. both upgrades for custom pilots that exist and new pilots that are custom.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think proving the haters wrong, you're like, you guys are only going to do SLs just because people wanted to manifest that kind of narrative. But it's it's nice to have a place. There's a place for everything. And it's been really cool to to see this new stuff already getting played on streams at at at the local game store. to be able to to pop open the list builder as we all like to do and just kind of start theory crafting like what can I do with this pilot? How can I build around this or yeah can i incorporate this upgrade? Super, super fun.
00:02:13
Speaker
Guys, have you gotten a chance to really like dig into um all the the new stuff that dropped a few days ago?
Building Strategies around Thrawn
00:02:19
Speaker
I'll go. I've played one and NCX match with some new stuff. I played with Thrawn. I've been building a lot of lists as well for for Empire, just like tinkering around with new stuff because a lot of what I was playing was got shifted around with the points. So i'm I'm super excited by all the new stuff. It's it's very cool.
00:02:39
Speaker
How did you implement Thrawn? What was he on? Thrawn was on Vizier. Okay. So we we could um mostly coordinating at range three didn't did only got the double of activation one time in a spot where it wasn't. ah It was kind of irrelevant to the game play game state. The coordinating range three was really powerful.
00:03:01
Speaker
Thrawn cool. And i've i've he's been a center of most of my lists. I've got at least one list that's going to try and maximize him with fair off and tack officer as well. That sounds yeah really cool.
00:03:13
Speaker
I've had a chance to play with the new pilots. I've been flying a lot of resistance, so it was really cool to see a kazuda Ziono in the T-70 instead.
00:03:24
Speaker
And I've also been playing against some of this new stuff. One of my favorites was i an opponent who was flying wedge with the flight assist astromech that allows you to do use the two template barrel roll and boost. And it totally, I thought changed the way that wedge flies, making them a lot more AC than kind of like a big gun platform. And then I've been really curious about trying like Karnor Jacks. It sounds really cool. And then even for FO, Tamara Rivora.
00:03:54
Speaker
kind of taking that M9G8 like role and putting it on an F0 ship, I thought was just super neat.
Designing Legends and Relics
00:04:01
Speaker
Ryan, I'm going to just, you know, we while we have you, I'm just going to dive into kind of this really quick, like, you know, quote unquote, sidebar interview to to to get some insight on just how things were on your end when it came to the ideating process with Paul and Roberto. to obviously you know getting to the point of release.
00:04:19
Speaker
Can you tell me a little bit about the design approach with Legends and Relics? And why why did you guys want to or or feel the need to quote unquote, like revive some of these legends that you saw in 1.0? So as I kind of alluded to earlier, we were it was the first content release that included custom pilots and upgrades.
00:04:36
Speaker
But our approach was somewhat similar to what we did with Evacuation of Dakar and Armed to Dangerous, where we wanted to take like an educated, smart approaches to this next step of custom pilots and custom and new upgrades. and With that mind, we started like, kind of like do light levels of research in multiple avenues and just kind of asking ourselves some some questions like that, that we should probably answer to ourselves, which is what were some holes in in certain point brackets, either for upgrades or pilots or chassis, I guess, in which we might be able to fill. Some answers to that were,
00:05:14
Speaker
Astromechs and some factions or generic felt a little light in the mid-range costs. There were some high cost ones that, you know, you're regenning ones, your your choppers, your R2s. or your low cost ones, you know your your your light you know dial, ah making it more blue with the R4 or the r four whatever the astromech is, ma'am. There's so many astromechs now I'm trying to remember it's our all of them for it. It's R4.
00:05:41
Speaker
Modification slot, another one. They had ah not much in that mid-range cost. You got like afterburners and higher at eight or eight or more or whatever. But then you had some low cost, delayed fuses, but there was really not much in that like four to six range. so that was sort of answers like there were some upgrades that we knew that there were some slots that put and we worked closely with the points team on this to make sure that like we what we found with just us looking being the design team matched what the points team viewed from their perspective making adjustments and things that they had been doing over the past year plus within the point structure the next question was what are some upgrades from existing sl cards that don't have
00:06:24
Speaker
versions of upgrades you could put on custom ships, could we use to help fill those holes without needing to make a ton of new upgrades and try to balance a bunch of new things and make sure that if we have the chance to utilize abilities that we as as players are already familiar with on those existing SLs. So like,
Balancing Classic and New Upgrades
00:06:46
Speaker
again, kind of go back to the modification, automated loaders, like that's a solid, good upgrade that we felt like had a great opportunity to be used on custom ships. I have my own slight vendetta against the reload action, but besides that point, um it felt like it was a solid spot to add a wrinkle into some of these payload munition-based ships where they don't feel like they have to take so much time off and maybe get some of those lesser charged or lesser and ammoed upgrades to be used more by just having automated loaders as an option.
00:07:22
Speaker
And then what have been some pilots or characters the community has mentioned missing from first edition. the reminis that we we see people reminisce about stuff all the time, right? Oh, I did this with Karn or with Thweek or with this and that. you know those we We saw the patterns, the the names that consistently came up and basically answering those three main questions with upgrades or or chassis and point holes and fond memories and nostalgia filled our whiteboard really quick of ideas and we set out from there yeah honestly i think you know i'm i'm curious to hear what excited you the most and or were any of these upgrades or pilots one that you had like a direct hand in in bringing into the game how the process has kind of gone more recently as we've started getting the flow of designing together as a team is like
00:08:16
Speaker
roberto is just a madman of drafting designs in in vast quantities and he he pulls from all levels of lore and media and everything to try and like like he he is easily the whiteboard filler he he will come in he will make all these designs and then me and paul will sort of like look at him a little bit we'll give some of our two cents what feels good what and and and what we like and how we can tweak some things here and there and and and just kind of refine it a bit. And then we'll kind of all go back and look at them again as like a grouping and see how it all comes together. So like,
00:08:55
Speaker
i I have to honestly, I'm looking back at at our releases and be like, what did I really have much more of a hand in? Maybe Gravitic well a little bit or pushing for wing reversal to come off of only on the Bo-Katan SL and really like that was one of the first things I was like, man, even though we made the Bo-Katan SL and had the wing reversal, I'm like, this needs to just be a config. Like I'm so tired of,
00:09:20
Speaker
these these ships that should be able to turn around not be able to turn around. So I want like gauntlets to be able to always have access
Configuration Options and Gameplay Impact
00:09:27
Speaker
to wing reversal. And then we also, because some people like saw the wing reversal card, they saw the art, they're like, oh, the gauntlet thing. And they didn't read the fact that it's also available on U-Wings. U-Wings.
00:09:35
Speaker
What about the Upsilon? What do you mean about the Upsilon? I don't see that thing turning like the gauntlet. i You know, I just forgive me for being the meatball X-Wing player who was like, oh, the Upsilon would have loved that.
00:09:50
Speaker
Not saying, you know, I'm giving you crap, but I was like, oh, it's fine. Look, gets a poor gun. yeah It has wings. You're right. I would just like to see those wings stay intact while doing that maneuver. du Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah. What? You don't want my auto proton torpedo shooting a large spaceship to be able to to turn around on a whim like that. I mean, I will say, though, that I really loved Bo-Katan's design in the gauntlet, and i'm I'm very excited for this change to to come to that chassis. Yeah. just cause i I definitely see people who love the idea of the stop and the rotate. um And there's a there's a chance really that the swing reversal has a much stronger effect on the gauntlet than it does the Ewing because Ewing does only have like the two turns that open up for it. But hey, um it's it's a new wrinkle. There's a lot of new wrinkles and you talked about it, the flight assist astromech. It's like.
00:10:43
Speaker
Crazy. I mean, you're talking to Wedge. With Wedge specifically, I really like the basic loadout of like plasma torpedoes and the retrofit autothrusters. Just give him a chance to have a pseudo afterburners, but with barrel roll and then like still get your locks. You get a little bit of reposition, set up the the good plasmas that he's always equipped pretty well.
00:11:02
Speaker
I had the absolute misfortune of playing against Steven Weiland with Anakin and the Delta 7 with flight assist astromech. He can do dirty things to you. yeah And extreme maneuvers. oh yeah I had forgotten that it was two charges, so i was like, oh, wow, you're going to get to me again. He's like, oh, no, it's only two charges. I'm like, oh, OK, good. I was just convinced that I was going to be miserable the whole game dealing with this. It was really good.
00:11:31
Speaker
And I probably just gave some Republic players some dirty ideas, but it's got to be a lot of fun to do something like that. We are happy to to make things strong, but apply necessary amount of charges for it. unlimited and it's not like three or four charges. Yeah. Ryan, what was the most challenging and why to to design and why was it the burst laser turret?
00:11:54
Speaker
I'm just kidding. But what was it? What was really challenging from a design perspective for you guys once you kind of settled on the
Integrating Nostalgic Elements
00:12:01
Speaker
ideas? The challenging ones were definitely leaning more so on, to be clear, like all this challenge stuff for me, it also invites a level of intro intrigue and fun to it too. Like working through the process of finding the best way to capture a pilot or upgrade as best as we can while also making as balanced as we can.
00:12:19
Speaker
But then also the added wrinkle of the nostalgia ones here, 1.0. Thweak was probably the more challenging or the most iterative pilot we had on this list, where we knew early on, we're like, okay, sure, we can entertain the idea of doing like the original abilities or one of the original abilities in the condition, but like it this really probably shouldn't exist in the current environment of the game. in either capacity. So we're like, okay, got to start fresh with weak. How can we capture him? Well, his old ability made him feel very adaptive, right? Like to to ah to a game state situation, that condition when applied in 1.0, picking either one of them basically allowed the user to feel like their pilot that they brought to the game was very adaptive.
00:13:04
Speaker
So went off that initially. to where we were really experimental trying a sort of like adaptive loadout design. But it was kind of an ah a nightmare to a degree or a bit complicated and hard to give to the points team so that they had the ability in the future to adjust the loadout value and the point of the ship on on ah on a points flexibility. Because we felt like if we designed it with this sort of adaptive loadout system design in a way that it'd be so tight to balance and give to points teams so they could have loadout values adjust as they need to push and pull. Because we kept the windows super tight on like what he could do but still be adaptive. It was just like, it was too much, basically. And then there was like the actual gameplay of it.
00:13:49
Speaker
And then we're like, OK. Back to the drawing board Thweak. We're like, OK, we dove a little bit deeper into what limited lore there is of him and actually found he hates Geonosians.
00:14:01
Speaker
We're like, huh, can we do something with tractor tokens here and find some way to have a built-in counter to the Nantechs on a theme level while also like making cool things happen? Because we know With the micro thrusters on Star Vipers, it was always like oh, if I get tractor, they get to do the bendy barrel against because they have to. What if you could use it yourself, but also find a way to make it sort of counter like Nantex or more specifically at the time in snare?
00:14:32
Speaker
So... That's how we got to the Thweek you now see, basically. Ryan, was there was there a card that didn't go through a ton of changes in this process? like Was there anything that came out and just you were like, yep, this is it. We nailed it. Let me see.
00:14:49
Speaker
Karnor, I think, stuck pretty similar to what you see him as. i You know what? I'll say that the one that surprised me the most that kept almost everything from initial design was Gravitic Well.
00:15:03
Speaker
Like it took us a bit to get a new config or like we wanted something to give to the Nantex that was like, can we get off and snare or do something else with this chassis? And we're like, okay, can we come up with a config, a standardized one that you don't have to worry about, oh, this s Nantex and snares and this one does not or like whatever it's doing.
00:15:25
Speaker
And can we find a way to sort of reverse it? So like there's an incentivized way to keep the tractor still use all of its base ability and then just have it act like this sort of gravity pull center. yeah We kind of took a little bit of inspiration from like um in the Star Wars game Armada, they have the Interdictor class Imperial star crew Star Destroyer style, where it is like a gravity well type effect that it has, and it pulls things, it does things to ships. So how can we adapt that to have that type of effect in the Nantax? And the the last sort of like
00:16:04
Speaker
tweak we had to it was like, how can we make sure that like Sunfac and Chairtech actually would want to take this because other stuff needs to be tracked up for their effect. And like, we checked with Maui and the rules team like, yeah, if you just like, say, replace any instance of the defender is tracked or two, if you are tracked or like that, that just works like we can, that, that works as is. And through play testing, we expected that to come back in some sort of like feedback adjustment here and there. And we got very little, like, we need to fix this feedback, which was for me kind of surprising because the Nantex is such a, I'd say polarizing chassis to say the least in the game's history. i honestly don't have any idea what you're, I have no idea what you're talking about. um
00:16:53
Speaker
I might've missed something. It's never been good. Like there was a point at which we were just kind of making sure we're going through all the notes from play testers. And I'm like, like, Paul, if there have been many notes on Gravitic, well, he's like, surprisingly, no, like not, not in like in the effect of like, it's not working or is it just like there wasn't any negativity towards of of what we put together with this. We're kind of surprised on that one.
Community Engagement and Reception
00:17:16
Speaker
i'm ah I'll be 100% honest. I still don't exactly know how it works. Probably because I have a small brain and I don't play Nantax. Show up, keep tractor token, make everything strained around you. yeah That's it. okay ah Okay. And so it's obviously very high risk. Yes. it is very like and it It can better support the lower initiative ones. They don't have to try and line up their arc with something special to pass off the tractor. Now, do if when you bring this version of the config, do you really, really want to have a gravidic deflection? Probably.
00:17:49
Speaker
but like then that kind of works. like You're generating a gravity well and it's now deflecting lasers versus there's just something tracked in your arc from ensnare the ship itself to generate the Gravitic Deflection. So like it kind of does work well together on a theme level too. Yeah. Does that mean that Sun Fat can use his ability more, like roll extra attack dice while he's just, he's tractored?
00:18:11
Speaker
Correct. He just, if he has a tractor token, his ability is always on. But now he's permanently to agility. so Right.
00:18:22
Speaker
Cool. You know what? I've learned something. I and i learned more. i big Big words mean do trick, as they say eloquently. Sure. Ryan, what is it what does it feel like to see the work that you guys have done evolve all the way from just whiteboard concepting to playtesting to being played at like tournaments and ultimately you know the biggest events leading up to worlds how does that feel so like through the whole process there's a level like okay you know the first audience we so we we have is essentially the points team because they're they're going to evaluate it
00:18:59
Speaker
see initially if there's anything they see that's like a a red flag or like we give these points right and do we target because we do have like point targets that we give stuff like ideal ranges that we want to hit and we see if the points team like aligns with that or if we're way off or way off then we probably should like do a little back and forth to figure out why and then there's like delivering it to the play testers and see what what feedback we're gonna get from them and like that whole process of like bringing it out to new eyes there's like a level of anxious, nervous, excitement, you know all those feelings when you're about to like reveal something to anyone about about something you've worked on. So that that's that familiarity or that type of feeling is pretty common. But like once it's like on the table or you're seeing people talk about it, build lists with it, show excitement for it, then it's just pure like joy for me. I'll be honest, like whenever I pull up a stream or like see results and events, I'm like i'm like constantly rooting for the the stuff that like we made. I'm like, oh, did this do well? I'm like, oh, he's playing he's playing the new thing from Evacuation Dakar. I'm rooting for that guy. yeah I did that. I'm not going to lie. I am purely biased. Whatever we make, i want to I want that to win. Now, that doesn't mean I'm trying to make it purposely like amazingly good to do great in the game, but I just like seeing people enjoy it and like find new wrinkles and like ways they're going to use the cards because
00:20:25
Speaker
i mean, we've known from when AMG or FFG worked on this game, I mean, play testers and the design team can only do so much when it gets to the wider audience. It's like they that there's interesting things. I see them ah try, do, or attempt, fail, succeed, all of it. And it's very interesting to see it all sort of unravel within like a week or two already.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's I mean, I will say that I feel that this has made a big impact on the game and really shaken it up from what I've seen. Yeah, agreed. People are excited. Things are changed. It's cool time to be playing X-Wing. Hope so. that was That's the goal, right?
00:21:06
Speaker
Oh, and I will note Nick's nick's slight comment on the Burst Lacer turret earlier.
Challenges in Designing Turret Options
00:21:11
Speaker
um It was that one's exclusively wasn't just that specific card. It was designing a new turret that was just there was so much that comes with that. And spoiler, it's not easy to make a new balance turret for this game. It's it's one of those there's all there've been so few and we found out why. because it's really hard to design something that can shoot not only out the front arc, it can shoot out any potential arc, but we had just almost a separate whiteboard of ideas for turrets and just narrowing them down and figuring out what felt good, fun, experimental, interesting. you know we We pushed and pulled a lot on the turret slot options. and i can't really go specifically into...
00:22:02
Speaker
what were some of the core or like rough ideas because i don't know what may you know be reused in future content so just know we had a lot of turret ideas some crazy some way unexpected some that like I came up with a thing. I thought it was really cool, but like, man, it was probably too good.
00:22:30
Speaker
Have you gotten any games in with any with any of this stuff, Ryan? like My understanding is you know you're not playing as much right now. um is Is that still the case? Or I'm not grilling you about playing. I'm more so just wondering if you've got a chance to play any of the stuff you've designed recently.
00:22:46
Speaker
Not recently, a lot of what I've been playing is I got into Star Wars unlimited the card game and I've been doing a lot more ah focus on my physical health too so I have been incorporated more like you know exercise time on my daily schedule so. X-Wing is not as common, but still played when I can. yeah Well, you guys you guys once again done an awesome job. It seems like you genuinely all have a really fun time are very passionate about creating, and we obviously need that from a design team. And you guys have been very steady to this point. and so
00:23:23
Speaker
Great work. Thank you. Yeah, of course. um Guys, we'll flip the coin over to talking about kind of the points side
Points Update and Faction Changes
00:23:30
Speaker
of things. is is is That was a in tandem with the new content release.
00:23:35
Speaker
We had a major points update. I'm scrolling through the document right now, and it is like a lot of rebel ah buffs. um It just tons of pilots going down in cost in terms of squad squad point cost.
00:23:53
Speaker
But really just a a big shakeup, right? You know, without really talking about line by line, we're not going to do that. Just in terms of the theme, the the patch notes are pretty are pretty simple. it's just like we shook things up.
00:24:04
Speaker
um How do you guys feel about everything? About you know your favorite faction? What are you noticing? what and Also, like, what were you expecting to get changed? Any surprises? I think the most surprising thing for me has been the the raising the bar for lower initiative and the ah like expensive, ah lowering or raising the cost of i six and I5 to make it so that the game seems to have from at least my initial list building and and playing it kind of evened out somewhere in the middle of the the initiative band uh there's there's more incentive to take i four and i5 rather than trying to just fill your list with i6s um i've been i've played a bunch of empire over the past six months in prep for worlds and um and in ntx and um
00:25:00
Speaker
my lists were pretty much always like two i6s and then fill in whatever rest. I i i love Whisper, so i I usually would play two i6s and an i5. But I found right now that you're you're really incentivized to have a more like a mid-rangey version of an empire list rather than like the the hyper aces or the or the big swarms. things are Things are kind of coalescing in the middle, I've found.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree with that assessment. yeah I would say that for some factions, things really have only gone down by like one or two points. like nothing There was nothing they really that stood out to me as like a massive swing. as We all had ah at an idea that in Scum, Fenn was going to go up. Some of those higher initiative ships on on the Scum side were going up in points, and and that happened. So I think the the some of the obvious...
00:25:58
Speaker
issues in the game were taken care of. And I think that the points would be like less impactful if it wasn't for the introduction of this new material. So I think that they do kind of coincide together. My personal feeling is that maybe there was a lighter touch on some of the ships from a purely like points perspective with this new you know content that's kind of, I think, really shaken up the game a little bit more. But I will say, i think that Rebel, like Republic and FO are moving in the right direction.
00:26:35
Speaker
The last thing that I want to add to we had Tony on who was sure that his world's list was going to be nerfed and F.O. is, you know, one of the factions where that didn't happen and they were given a lot of support. So I'm looking forward to seeing them more on the table, too, because I think in the X.W.A.
00:26:54
Speaker
era. uh fo is has been a faction that's kind of needed i think a little bit more help think my understanding is that his list had minor loadout tweak nerfs uh just like feedback ping related i think was like the only thing yeah um but yeah not like drastically changed um yeah ryan i think one way to describe the new continent how it's priced points wise is like price to play is that how you would describe it it seems like everything is like ready to go like let's do this put it in your list Yeah, I mean, <unk> it's not just like, hey, new stuff, you should play this 100% no questions asked. But like, there's some stuff in there where it's like, yeah, like, i I want to put this and find space for it. Or I want to put this stress test. I've seen plenty of people who are like, find the most things that can i can find the generic that gives me all the secret missiles. And let's just see what happens. like
00:27:48
Speaker
go have fun with it i guess like i've seen like cartel spacer list that's just a bunch of secret missiles i've seen sfs a bunch of secret missiles like that's what people do all the time is they take like the this is the cool new munition how could i break it like sure go for it but there's also like you mentioned the flight assist astromech like three points good good get it use it try it out yeah but also that means you don't get some of the named astromechs on that feature ship you might be using like it's There's a trade-off, right? like People are like, oh, you know I get to do this maneuvering thing.
Innovative List Building Strategies
00:28:22
Speaker
But this maneuvering thing comes from my astromech, which i means I lose my... you know On Republic's side, I lose Chopper, i or I lose R4P17. Or in Rebels, I lose access to... i don't know what's probably... ah Like R3 even, you know? Yeah, R3 on some of your... On the E-wings that love to take them, right? or the Y-wings, yeah.
00:28:46
Speaker
what you The one that really stood out to me, and it's a unique one, i really like the idea of having Nora with the new lock boosty mech, R7-T1.
00:28:59
Speaker
Strap an advanced proton torpedo onto her with the new burst laser turret, and then you have four points left. Now it'll take an ion bomb or automated loaders or whatever you want to do, but burst laser, advanced proton, R4-T1, Nora?
00:29:12
Speaker
Sounds fun. It just frees up a mod slot, too. Mm-hmm. Pretty scary. Boosting Nora. We have never had that before. Yeah. No kidding. Well, that does sound really good.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. Andrew and Nick, and I guess Ryan, but you said you mentioned you were you were playing a little less. um How do you you guys feel about some of the battle over Endor stuff for Rebels becoming, I guess, unlocked points-wise?
00:29:37
Speaker
um i I was frankly a little terrified of it. It's exciting. Are you looking at wedge? like I'm looking at wedge, man. I'm looking at wedge.
00:29:48
Speaker
Let me look at the wedges. I'm looking at wedge and I'm looking, I believe Gina came down as well, the BOE B-Wing. Probably to of range that is still a little expensive, but certainly in the efficiency wise, like I think playable.
00:30:06
Speaker
She's kind of out of her points jail that she was in.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'm scrolling to it. Yeah, once i've mean I've been, like I it said, with Wedge coming down, i was alluding to earlier playing against some Rebel players who have been really happy to get Wedge back on the table. Not the Battle Over Endor one. I've actually been seen a lot of the the build your own at 13 points, which I think is a little bit more manageable. I feel like for Rebels, though, some of the the Battle Over Endor, like 15 points for Wedge team is pretty properly priced.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, I'll take it. Karner Jax is in comparison with one of the new pieces of content for Empire is is priced at 12. Battle over Endor Wedge, you know, he has the extra shield. He's got that that ah ability to get the focus s token back. um He is, you know, a little bit more nimble and he has that APT, etc. etc um and the double modded potential. So at 15, you know, he went down a point down from 16 to 15. Battle of Yavin Wedge is really cheap. He's at 13 now. He went from 15 to 13. thing about Battle of Yavin Wedge, though, is that you can't use that ability to deduct
00:31:16
Speaker
ah reduce the agility of the defender unless a friendly is in your attack arc so he's not in an auto ability sort of situation like you have with custom wedge um and i i have to double check but i can't remember at the top of my head if that's for primaries only or if he can use it for his proton torpedoes i'm looking at it it's primary only yeah and that's another thing is that that so he's really not that good where you're like oh my gosh like what would have you done and he's i5 he's also not even i6 um But like I mentioned, the I-5 is kind of a little bit. is Yeah, still good value for sure.
00:31:53
Speaker
I think people just see Wedge and they think about the really nasty abilities that we've seen Wedge have, whether it was the, you know, it's the OG Wedge, Custom Wedge, or, you know, Battle Over Endor. And then we have this one, which is always the forgotten one. And it's nice to see in price to not be forgotten. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, since Battle of Yavin came out, I'm trying to think about what people were playing when that came out within the first like six months.
00:32:16
Speaker
And it was mainly Luke. It ah stuck around with Luke. Dark Curse, barely, if at all. um But boy, my my favorite personally is Mahler, Mythal and Backstabber because that yeah those two guys got me worlds invites. I would have collected them if I was allowed to get more than one. A worlds invite.
00:32:36
Speaker
Super fun and ridiculous and crazy. so yeah i i'd say that the i think rebels were the faction that i feel like i heard the most noise about when it came to complaints about them not being very good and at this points change shakes up everything not just rebels but there is a lot of blue which is like green basically on that spreadsheet yes i know the list that consistently been like tweaking and putting together has been more rebel based it's got Custom Wedge, Fen Rao in the Fang, Nora in that Y-Wing, and Kyle Katarn in the Hawk. Cool. Just two I-6s to take some heat off of Nora. Nora can go in, do her thing, blow something up. Kyle's sharing some focuses around with Jyn in there if I want to share an evade somewhere. And then this is a boosting Nora too, which is exciting. It's a boosting Nora who can shed the stress if Fen Rao's ability is active too.
00:33:29
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah. Sick. want to maybe try and that sounds like fun or ah see if you get a U-Wing to do those Talon rolls. Yes. Oh, man. I'm trying to see what like the largest change was. I'm seeing a lot of like for I rather for pilot like the ship points.
00:33:48
Speaker
I'm seeing a lot of like twos. Is there any threes or more? I don't think anything shifted that drastically as far as aware. Yeah. Ryan, can you, you alluded a little bit to about like how you and the points team work together.
Collaborative Design and Balancing
00:34:02
Speaker
It's always a fluid conversation, right?
00:34:05
Speaker
um Can you just tell us with what you're willing to or able to share about just kind of what that relationship is like when it comes to working together, especially when you guys are not close on initial points estimates? I guess in that end part and specific example, um if we feel that we're far apart on where we believe the power level on something is, and then they'll kind of open up a discussion of like, okay,
00:34:32
Speaker
what is this doing in the eyes of each side of the sort of table of discussion, right? Is, you know, someone from points maybe may feel that the upgrade pile is too powerful, explain reasonings why, the design team will take a look at that, ingest that information and and thought process and kind of figure, okay, you know, how how does that, how do we find a spot in the middle or like, is there a reason to go back and, and, uh, have like a hard debate either way, or is it okay? Do we, do we find, how do we pull levers back? And it's actually one of the things we look for a lot of times when we design stuff is if we feel that something might not be enough or might be too powerful, um,
00:35:22
Speaker
generally will err on the side of let's try the powerful thing first and then we can reel it back in but finding ways to design certain pilots or upgrades to where we actually have the ability to like we already have levers in our head we're like okay if this is too powerful we know we can change this to a charge or increase the charge or instead of changing it every other turn it's only twice a game or if it's like instead of changing a hit to a crit it could be changing an eyeball to a hit, you know, we we want to make it more powerful in some aspects. So there's a lot of ways where we can find sort of preemptive spots that and when we send it off to whether it's conversation with points or play testers to be like, okay, we already have levers in mind to push and pull this. Some designs though are so specific and whether they, they hit on with the points team where we want it to hit or with the play testers that there aren't many levers and it's it's an experimental level thing where we have to go back and be like, okay, this wasn't hitting the correct the correct spots. When we have an explanation from points or play testing that say, this is where it doesn't feel good, whether it's too powerful or not powerful enough, or what are the aspects that are feeling good? Can we extrapolate on that? Or do we just kind of
00:36:47
Speaker
back to drawing board it a little bit and find different angles of thematic approach to encapsulate that pilot better i think a good example is probably like zori bliss there's a lot of levers in that initial card like if it was too powerful to give a i mean so the the resistance ship had to have a jam action right If it wasn't powerful enough and wanted to be able to fit on more chassis, maybe we don't require it to have the jam action on there and we give it a jam action. But if it's too powerful to give a ship that normally doesn't have a white jam, um maybe we only give it a red jam.
00:37:21
Speaker
Maybe the charges instead of once every turn is once every other turn. Maybe instead of one recur, it's two recur, but you need to spend two to use it each time so you can essentially only use it every other turn. The range restrictions, what type of token it's gaining instead of matching, it could be a specific one. so Having a lot of those things in mind to where um whether it's pushing and pulling because the power level seems on or seems too low or too high, or if we want it to hit a certain point range, say when we were doing the astromechs or the mods, we're like, okay, we're designing some new ones to fill those holes and we get a astromech that...
00:38:04
Speaker
Like Flight Assist, as an example, we're trying to figure out how often we should be allowed to use that during a game and where it should be on the points bracket. A lot of that will sort of try to align together so that, I mean, because if we wanted to, we could make Flight Assist Astromech not be limited, but then it would shoot up in points value yeah per game, right? So it's like, where do we want it on the points bracket?
00:38:27
Speaker
may easily dictate how often we feel like something should trigger during a game or how easily it can trigger via it's like you know is it a bullseye effect is it in an arc effect is it uh just a be within range of something effect you know the the tighter you you make you make things the harder it is to achieve meaning the payoff could potentially be higher Yeah, it's really cool to get that insight
Aligning Upgrades with Existing Mechanics
00:38:51
Speaker
into the approach. And I think it's nice. One thing i but I personally noticed with these new upgrades is that they feel like they haven't strayed from the design of X-Wing too much. like Everything feels like it naturally flows within the current mechanics in in game state, too. Yeah, there's definitely a level of like how far can we push this into new design territory while still feeling like we're playing X-Wing. and not just here's a here's a a barf of words on a card And now if we do too many weird things, it's now just a a game of reading cards over and over because people are trying to understand what is even happening right now.
00:39:33
Speaker
It's like, yeah you know, that game that we all love that is it's like ah like War of the Ring or Rebellion where you're like, OK, we're playing for a while, but I have to stop and read the and the direct the the the rules reference about 29 times yeah every hour to make sure we're doing things correctly. You don't want that. Even though lot of us look indoor, we don't want that.
00:39:53
Speaker
I played, i there was a time I played Warhammer 40k and the thing I hated the most about that game, besides how long it took, but it, part of it, the reason why it took so long was because how often we had to go back and reference like three different rule books because one was from one army one was for another and one was the core rule book and just to find the answer to the question of who gets to do the thing they want to do in this specific exchange yeah x-wing players would never fathom reading at any level let alone a level of that magnitude look and as a common reader to the people i understand reader to the people Yeah, right. Oh, man, that's amazing.
00:40:31
Speaker
A couple of quick, like a little fun exercise I want to do with you guys based on the new points in the new
Preferred Factions and Strategies
00:40:37
Speaker
content. So keep those two things in mind together, right, as they are kind of one in the same in in a way.
00:40:43
Speaker
If there was a tournament happening today, what faction are you bringing and what pilot? It could be new, a new pilot or a pilot that has changed in points. Are you plugging into that list? I'm going to start with you, Sam.
00:40:56
Speaker
I'm putting you on the spot. I'll give you a second to think about it, but I'll start with you. I don't even need the second to think. All right, go for it. So I mentioned before I've been shoving Thrawn into every list that I possibly can.
00:41:09
Speaker
um i really think that Thrawn on a Reaper is like the future for Empire. um i'm i'm flying Empire. I'm flying Thrawn. I'm jamming people all day long.
00:41:22
Speaker
acceptable losses as he says. ah If whatever does inventory. Vizier carrier is real strong and he has some really cool interactions with the aileron coordinate trigger with Thrawn at the same time. Yeah, it's it's pretty silly.
00:41:40
Speaker
keep cover lot it There was always the argument of Vizier versus Faroff. I was always of a Faroff truther just because of the durability but yeah man, What you can get off of Thrawn with Vizier is pretty sweet.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah. It gives you you, just take all the actions and I love doing that. Have you tried putting, i mean, she's at a really low cost now, but have you tried the Sienna Recruit with that too?
00:42:04
Speaker
I have not. That's interesting. I put together like a sort of really nimble affecting units that can take advantage of it. And I had a list that was like Vizier with Vizier. or vizier with thrawn with sienna re crew and then the grand inquisitor with sense and blind spot targeter countess ryad because you have the flexibility of deciding if you want to k turn or not so if you do like the sienna re like coordinate rotate and then you can do like a straight or turn around k turn because of countess with like juke and targeting matrix And then like mouse Monair, because like that, that fuel injector thing, like super big barrel rolls, whether in system or that super big barrel plus turning like with Sienna re and stuff. So, and like using outmaneuver style effects with using to defender turnaround grand inquisitor just doing tight moves, turn turns with the, with the great dial that it has. And then mouse Monair just being a more durable interceptor with great outmaneuver capability. All right, I'm in.
00:43:09
Speaker
i don't know when i'll try it but go for it so yeah i'm i'm building in yasby right now right ryan as someone who has got their ass absolutely handed to them by you multiple times i would gladly get my ass handed to me again by you to place like that list it sounds like i've always kept my eye on sienna re like maybe someday shit because she's only two points as a crew like she's gotta go somewhere and if it's somewhere it's probably with thrawn Makes a lot of sense. I've been i've been hoping that, like, because Cinerie is also, yeah, one of the pilots that I always revisit and see if there's a new way to make her work because it's such an interesting ability to me.
00:43:46
Speaker
All right, Andrew, I'm going to move on to you. Faction that you're picking, if there's a tournament today, and who's the pilot that you're building that list around? Oh, I'm going to be bringing resistance.
00:43:57
Speaker
I'm going to try to make it work with Poe Dameron in the YT 1700. And I'm going to try to fit Wedge Antilles' crew on there.
00:44:09
Speaker
because I think that's more punishing. And then I also want to bring Kazuda Siono with one of these new astromechs. I'm thinking either the Flight Assist astromech, or i can even do the like modified R4P astromech. Before I do Red Maneuvers, I can reduce its difficulty.
00:44:27
Speaker
So I think there's co there's a lot of interesting... yeah And then also with Zori Bliss's jam ability, and putting her on as a crew, i think having maybe even...
00:44:39
Speaker
putting that on depower ray if i go on that like that direction being able to jam and steal tokens from other from other people especially like i6 i think that's to be nasty don't forget sorry bliss does require the ship to already have a jam action on it oh never mind aha Jamming Isix Poe, not allowed. tell Or Isix Haunt, not allowed. when someone in like they thought about Someone's comment about is like, to seventeen hundred but thirteen hundred i was gonna say we've added four hundred to the y t i'd like to hop aboard
00:45:15
Speaker
I'm intrigued at what that extra 400 will give us. What does it give you? A action. Does it give you another dish to do that jam? Yeah, it gives you another dish to get to jam. It's a totally new unit.
00:45:30
Speaker
slap some Slap some more paint on this baby. It's ready to go. but um but I'll have Ryan go last on this. I have already played a game with Thweak. I love Scum. It's always had a part of my heart. So I would say I would be bringing Scum to a tournament as Scum has, you know, had really recently been doing super well. at events. And I will say that I was playing Thweak with advanced sensors and just absolutely never using it because I was constantly stressing myself. So probably would revisit using advanced sensors on Thweak for me, although I'm sure it's still really good because it's advanced sensors.
00:46:06
Speaker
that's That's what I would would bring. And Ryan, what about you? It's going to be some sort of Gravitic Well nonsense. um I've already mentioned some of the stuff I would do in like Empire Rebel, but ah you're not wrong that I was looking at at least ah some type of separatist list.
Separatist Lists and Gravitic Well Configurations
00:46:30
Speaker
You know, when when when the loadout has no more room for afterburners on Sunfuck, you just got to get the barrel roll version with auto ah a retrofit autothrusters and ensnare anyway. So now you can double barrel roll and tractor people on top of having the other new I-6 Tri-Fighter. Tri-Fighters are one of my favorite ships in Star Wars. And I was really happy to make this have have this one join the game. I think the fun combination with M2 is another...
00:46:59
Speaker
usage of retrofit auto thrusters, because you can do retrofit plus debris gambit. So the action bar on the try is barrel roll link to red evade, right? so you do a three turn bank talent, whatever, and you do a barrel roll and then off that barrel roll is ah with the action bar of the try is an evade, which if you do it next to a obstacle, it is now a white evade. And then you do your normal actions, which could be boost and calculate.
00:47:33
Speaker
Behold, four actions. So that and Sunfuck. Seems bad. Can't be good. yeah um but But then I, like, that's two really, like, nimble ships. I need a brawler, right? And I keep going back and forth whether I want, like,
00:47:53
Speaker
a Maul Sith Infiltrator is an option, right? Big, beefy guy, ah but we now have access to the tech slot. I love the idea of putting Pattern Analyzer on him.
00:48:04
Speaker
And then we would have the Chancellor Palpatine and probably Hate because we love to give people stress. We stress other people. They can't catch our aces as well. We're all thrown into that boat, aren't we? like i'll I'll be in this boat. I like it. Fine. I did it in 1.0.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah, the the problem is you're left with nine points. There's not a lot of like fantastic things at nine after that. It's probably an HMP, but it's like kind of underwhelming. So the other option is the big, you know, nasty middle middle the board brawler is Pre Vizsla in the gauntlet. I also like that.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, he hits really hard and does just kind of have to take ah contraband. But, you know, they want to get rid of big bad gauntlet. Well, let's put notorious on it. Sounds good.
00:48:57
Speaker
um I forgot the six points left, but I like to but it's probably either Bo-Katan crew or Grievous crew. One of the two seems pretty reasonable. And then you have 10 points left. And then I get think I get to fit my second most favorite tri-fighter, which is, there he is, my boy, Mr. Rerolli Allday, D-I-S-T-81 from Coruscant.
00:49:19
Speaker
Without maneuver, afterburners, contingency protocol. One of my favorite appearances in the Star Wars films was D-I-S-T-81, for sure. really stole the show. Yeah, I was, I mean, incredible at the beginning of Renge of the Sith.
00:49:34
Speaker
So yeah, I might be a little bit ah little bit leaning towards the double tri-fighter one, because then you have an outmaneuvering tri-fighter. You got the sort of like in the mix can token stack I-6 tri. And then you have Sunfok doing his terrible things. And then a giant gauntlet in Pre Vizsla that if you take Bo-Katan crew is actually kind of thematic. You just have a bunch of, you know, Mandalorians on there being notorious with contraband stuff.
00:49:59
Speaker
Sounds utterly disgusting. I like it. I also would also like to interrupt this conversation to remind people that the tech slot was added back to the E-Wing chassis. And...
00:50:10
Speaker
I am liberated. i am like Andy Dufresne. How does that make you feel, Nick? At the end of Shawshank Redemption, I'm like Andy Dufresne looking up into the sky as the rain is pouring, as the text slots or droplets are hitting my face because I get to play them on E-Wings again.
00:50:23
Speaker
Give me that pattern analyzer. Please and thank you. always play them before. But give me now elusive and pattern analyzer. ah Chef's kiss. Wait, can you do elusive, pattern analyzer, and unhinged astromech now?
00:50:39
Speaker
Oh, it's turning. Gavin has 20 loadout. So maybe probably lot of loadouts. But yeah, I think that's another one that hasn't been talked about unhinged. That was actually a 1.0 card, but giving blue threes. Blue threes are crazy. Yeah. Unhinged is something I'm very excited to play with. I very' excited about that i i like unhinged astromech a lot, but on an E wing, it's R4 all day for me if I want that.
00:51:02
Speaker
yeah I figured you should. Yeah, yeah, because I'm a loser. Yeah. no no no like i understand hard one white is really hard to ignore yeah well two hard blues too bad it just opens up such a good one to two speed on the dial the infamous too hard blue yeah yes infamous for sure yeah oh man what's gonna be fun i'm gonna have to build a rebel list as well um lots of good stuff here new content wise new points updated Oh, I even had two extra points left over on that DIS L9B2. I can put Discord Missiles on it Do you know Discord Missiles on I-6 is pretty good with reposition? I think they're just good no matter what eye you're on. it's like did Did you know? Double reposition Discord Missile? hu
00:51:47
Speaker
Even if you don't get the bullseye on someone to stay I-6. I'm checking my NCX matchup for this week, and I think I have to play CIS. s So yeah, you got a little preview of... too Well, you can try to convince Nick to not release this episode before that matchup don't take take the ideas and just use them against you. Well, it's Andrew we need to convince.
00:52:07
Speaker
Although I don't know if we should be waiting super long to release this because it's based on the new release. Yeah, no, no, no. This is a little more time sensitive for sure. Yeah, it is. It's more work for you, Andrew, unfortunately. Well, guys, I think we're getting ready to wrap up here. It's been an awesome conversation. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. Yes, thank you. And talking through everything. there anything else anybody wanted to mention before Andrew signs us off?
00:52:32
Speaker
No, go for it. Yeah, I don't have anything either. But Ryan, it's been great having you on and and getting some insight into how this new content is developed.
00:52:43
Speaker
I thought that was very cool. Yeah, no problem. It's I always have to kind of like think to myself, did I say something I wasn't supposed to? No, I think I'm good. Paul will let me know, but he he trusts me. so irere We're pretty pretty good with all this stuff. so And you know, if if if something fun slips out, then whatever. That's counsel's problem. It may not ever see the light. I mean, you're yeah, you're right here, so you get to yell at me. but Yeah. um But if something ever slips out, there's no guarantee it sees the light of day. We've we've had some stuff before that ah we've had to say maybe later.
00:53:19
Speaker
i think Nick can review it. He's a council
Podcast Wrap-up
00:53:22
Speaker
member. Yeah. He's hes he's he's he's got the the the clearance level for that type of stuff. It's nice to have one of those in our backyard.
00:53:31
Speaker
But yeah yeah, without further ado, thank you everyone for listening to this episode and continuing to support us here at 312. You can find all this new content and points update documents at xwing.life.
00:53:44
Speaker
Our link will be in the description. If you aren't already following us on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, you should. Links will also be in the description. And 312 is excited to be producing exclusive alt art cards featuring new XWA pilots and upgrades for their patrons. Consider supporting us on Patreon and get rewarded with some awesome swag.
00:54:06
Speaker
Lastly, we are proud to be sponsored by Infinite Arenas, so you can head to Infinite Arenas to get your fix of X-Wing compatible components, including accessible card printing, physical game assets, and much more. That link also in the description.
00:54:20
Speaker
My name is Andrew Kubo. I'm Samuel Graibner. I'm Ryan Staniszewski from Detroit 313. Yeah. I'm better than 312. Ha ha. I'm Nick Sperry from Chicago 312. Better than Detroit 313. Ha ha. My number's higher. I win. Detroit is the YT 1700. So you're Chicago's YT 1300. Oh man. We're the YT 1300. It's in the name. You guys are the old model. You're YT 1200. 3-1-13 squadron, how dare you?
00:54:52
Speaker
Have a good night, y'all. Thank you for listening. yeah Or day. See y'all later.