This brings up a very important point. WotC had a lack of cohesion among the elements of its game because the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and vice-versa. To some extent, we still have that problem. Add to it the problem that - well, I didn't anyway - see the direction we were setting up for Lancer dominance. Ironically, quite a few of the pieces in DotF were designed to combat the lancer but they just aren't being played.

Chris only went so far on adjusting the Swamp caves anyway.

At the time fast shooters were a problem and i gave him several changes to close the LOS around the center to protect the leftside more. He went halfway and the left is mightily exposed as a result.

I realise that there is a personal aspect to map design and you don't want people messing with the layout but some people have a knack of spotting the obvious flaws and the flaws will remain unless they are taken into account.

Can't fault anyone for choosing to run it if it is competitive, but it is still not in the spirit of the game. The goal is for both players to have the opportunity to engage each other, not for one player to spin figs and/or stat cards 90 degrees and then sit and watch as his opponent makes ALL the dice rolls. Heck, even init rolls don't matter.

The squad may be legal, even some would say fair, but it is not in the spirit of the game.

Name another squad where one player gets to do absolutely nothing the entire game and loses ALL their utility in a single round.

I've got to point out, that you are only including one particular version of the lancer squad, and one particular way to play it. I believe this one to be inferior in a large competitive tournament to others to be quite honest. An aggressive double lancer is still the top tier. A single Lancer whorm wait it out squad has serious issues with other meta squads, that the double lancer can get around better. Double has a couple of concerns as well, but I think they are not as strong of meta squads. But the point remains, that the way you've characterized is, is not at all the common way to play it, or the common build (or at least not both together).

I'm not talking about a specific squad, although certainly there has been some focus on the one Tim played as it was relevant to this discussion. In the post you quoted, I am thinking of the Lancer in general terms, paired with Lobot, Gha, and a ton of mice.

Basically:
30 Lancer
12 Gha
27 Lobot
10 San

That's 79 points and with 10 mice (or 6 mice and an MTB, in some cases), that's 14 (11) activations. Before even adding in the other 121 points, odds are good you are outactivating most opponents with that build alone. Toss in a second Lancer or Sidious, and you still are barely over half your total cost.

I remember running in the Epic format, 4 Lancers, San, Sidious, and GGDAC. It was just brutal. It ripped through everything. I really have a problem with that piece, just slightly less than my problem with the Mouse Droid.

I don't think that's the problem in regards to the metagame. I think it's inherently unpredictable when you're designing well. Chaos theory stuff. Only by creating something "broken" (see GOWK) can you easily predict the future shape of the metagame. Bad design obviously creates another problem. So you just have to keep chipping away at it and see what happens.



I agree here aside from the core disagreement about the nature of the problem. I think you made the right choices with DotF. Try 5 small things and see what sticks.

I'm still not sold that the Lancer is this grossly overpowered squad that people claim it to be. If it were, then wouldn't it be like snowspeeder/teth where everyone was playing it? Now maybe people just aren't playing their best squad at regionals and are saving it for Gencon and if 2/3 of the field shows up with Lancer at Gencon then I can be proven wrong, although I doubt that will happen. Yobuck is nearly as good at crowd control and is in a much more balanced and cohesive squad (proven by the fact that there were 3 yobuck squads in top 8 at gencon and it continues to do well at regionals this year), there are plenty of existing counters for the lancer in the current meta.

Playing a squad slowly is about the player and not the squad. Plenty of people run squads that are designed to outactivate then mobile out kill anything in gambit and then hide to keep a points lead. That is unfortunately how things work. If there weren't some form of crowd control (lancer/yobuck) you would certainly see squads with 40+ activations just to make sure they go last and get to do their cool trick. Eric's original nute squad was designed this way. Out activate you/open a door/ blast the crap out of you/shut the door. Keep doing it over and over until yer dead. Because of the 3/2 scoring system some of those squads have fallen by the wayside as they are hardpressed to get anywhere close to 200 pts even though they may win nearly every time. So unfortunately the meta (which was helped shaped by the 3/2) has led to the crowd control pieces seeing more play (lancer/yobuck/arica) which leads to a smaller portion of squads available to be competitive (ie the ones that cannot consistently compete with crowd control). It is the nature of the meta.

At least you can hit Yobuck as he flies past and he doesn't have 72 squares of reach (MTB lancer). I'm unsure why there is a low number of lnacer squads being played. It is as everybit as powerful as its reputation, i just think that a large majority of people don't understand what the squads strategy is or don't particulally like the strategy. Its also not the easiest squad to run, it requires immaculate placement and knowledge of the maps. Tim and you are both very experienced in running your respective squads but you both have been playing them for a couple of years so the issues of running them are more clear to you than others.

I think the lancer is still mainly an issue for the classically "minor" factions (as shown by the fact that nothing much has changed with the lancer since last year and it didn't mop up) that still don't have good ways to deal with it but might have better chances agains Yobuck because they arn't hit with teh double whammy of being outactivated as well as having all their fodder killed.

Deri's last post reminded me that, ironically, Rob errata'ed the interaction between Tow Cable and Gallop and Strafe to prevent the very thing the Lancer can do via MTB/Pawn of the Dark Side/etc.

I think the Lift/Heavy Lift were bigger issues.

I have such a map design. I started working on it after I reviewed all the maps for the last restricted list update. It needs some tweaking and I also always see things better when I can play on them as well....

I am wiling to try map making it cant be that hard.

That couldn't be further from correct. Making a great, balanced map is VERY hard

It wasn't about the metagame consequences at all. It was about the rules problem with counterintutive interactions with all sorts of out-of-turn movement that weren't the design goal for the abilties and were exacerbated by the release of a high-quality medium base Gallop character, Heavy Lift and the push rules. It reached the breaking point and so was fixed.

The Lancer issue you bring up is tactics (perhaps unforseen and perhaps overpowered), not a rules problem.

Map making is not hard. Making a good map that can pass muster for legal tournament play, on the other hand...

Where is that "like" button?

Tim i was talking about making the map that brad was talking about(artwork for the most part)
Edit took out my comments about layout vs art again they made me look like a tool and an ***
I was a little out of it when they got posted.

Edit took out my rude comments
I know there are personal play tests but there has not been a lot of help from others over the past 5 years. (I know MP4 and the last few packs has had this but I think there has to be more.) I know artist dont want to show there work till its done thats fine. I think and could be wrong that more play tests on the rough drawings would make more good maps.
I think a big key to good maps is more play testing on vassal or live but again I could be wrong about this.

LOL Thanks for not giving me any credit at my art skills and knowing how the game works LOL@Tim I am joking

So if map making is not hard boris or any one I want to see what you can do if its so easy? LOL
I have an extra IMAC with a legal copy of the suit if you want to borrow it. EDIT (I has to be someone I know)
I know a big reason we dont have more map makers is because its not that easy to get a good computer and the software. So I have extra stuff if anyone was to give it a shot.
Edit I took out my comment about layout vs artwork it was not needed and made me look like a tool( I was kind of was out of it at the time)
I dont even know if my art skills are good enough to make a map and I do digital prints of signs for fun.

Ok Johnny I'm calling you out. Let's see a brand new map completely designed by you and only by you personally. Have this map done in 2 weeks (pleanty of time cause it's so easy and your clearly a genius about this stuff) then you post it here. I'm sure we'd all like to see a master of his craft at work.

You have till June 25th at midnight. I'd like to see what you come up with.

Where did I say making a map was easy?

All I wanted to do was try to make the art work for Brads Idea. I never said map making was easy. Pretty much Tim miss understood what I was trying to say.

Then Boris had to do the same thing.

All I wanted was the support of my friends that I could make a good map that looks pretty nothing about layouts. I need to take a break from posting so I will have to post in the RPG threads and a few others but I am done posting in other threads for the time being.