It is clear to anyone and everyone that Bastila has to go. Sets have completely been ignoring her since satele and jaq came out. They add crap rivals that don't make any sense or have other ways to not include her. Even the new archivist piece negates denying to use her.

The OR is splintered into 3 or 4 subfactions that all suck.

Old Republic has some of the best stories and most loved characters in the game.
Since designers refuse to allow Bastila to have a competitive squad, I vote she gets banned so that designers can open up the faction.

Old Republic has stayed stagnant for forever. The best squads in Old Republic are wookiee commander and hex droids. Which is sad.


The #2 option is to lift rivalry with Bastila off of Malak. ( I say off of Revan as well).
Malak is a fantastically designed piece.
We need factions to be able to compete to have balance. This would instantly make them competitive. 97 points (I think) for bastila, revan, and Malak is half your squad. Other factions can do less with more. Bib and jabba can give +8 Attack and +20 damage for essentially 43 points.
4 Jedi and a shooter would be amazingly fun to play at the highest levels.

Since there is not a single person in the game happy with where Old Republic is right now....
I call on the balance committee to do something about it. Ban bastila and drop the rivals on Revan and Malak.

Old Republic would be on their way instantly. Then demand the design team to design powerful pieces for the OR.

Look at Old Republic pieces.
Covenant sub-faction has rival for Bastila.
Revan and Malak have rival for Bastila.

When I was PTing everyone talked about rival for Bastila and splitting the Old Republic. But I guess I was wrong. I thought that they would come to their senses when they found out it was just too hard to design around Bastila and would keep her included. But that is not the case.

Designers are too scared to design with Bastila.
So I say, ban her.

If we didn't ban Bastila and needed a piece to jump start Old Republic this is what I would put out.
http://www.bloomilk.com/Custom/39773/nomi-sunrider--jedi-master

90 damage, great ranged defense, back up defense for adjacent shooters, small movement breaker and helps Thon be playable for sure. Force barrier Charging Assault from Thon is Epic!


I still think YOU FIX OR by lifting the rivalries off Malak completely and lifting the rival for Covenant from Revan. It would give two good squad types as well. Revan and Malak with Covenant and Malak with Bastila.

If we did Ban Bastila the piece I would put out in her place would be:

http://www.bloomilk.com/Custom/39774/nomi-sunrider--jedi-general

She would have to work exclusively with Malak and Revan and still be a decent attacker (she can do 60 with 3 force points). Presence of the Light Side can help Revan who needs force points.

Here's my idea. Make another worthy Satele Shan. Even better than the 37 pt one. Why you say????? Well, one that is uber strong, one that kicked Malgus' butt at the Battle of Alderaan. If you disagree with me, please watch the "Hope" cinematic trailer, one of the coolest lightsaber battles I have every watched. Here is the write up on Wookieepedia. She is absolutely bad ---, in this battle!


"The remaining Sith forces gained the upper-hand in the skirmish, eventually forcing the Republic soldiers on the defensive. Havoc Squad troopers that fell behind were systematically executed by the Sith,[6] until intervention from Satele Shan, who had raced to Malcom's aid after contacting the Council.[3] The Jedi Knight allowed Havoc Squad the opportunity to press their attack once more while she engaged Sith Warriors, their war droids, and Malgus himself. Shan and the Sith Lord's fierce melee was nearly ended when Malgus disarmed his opponent and attempted to stab her with his lightsaber. His attack was unsuccessful however, as Shan was able to absorb the energy from Malgus's lightsaber, essentially catching the blade with her own hands. While the Sith Lord attempted to penetrate the Jedi's defenses, he was tackled once again by Captain Malcom, who had recovered from their earlier scuffle. While the two grappled with one another, the Havoc squad captain activated a handheld grenade, sparking a blast that threw the two combatants apart, and grievously injured both.[6]


Satele Shan and Darth Malgus duel while the forest battle rages around them.

Jace Malcom was rendered unconscious, though Malgus quickly recovered. Despite surviving the explosion, the Sith Lord was again assaulted by Satele Shan, who threw him with the Force into a large rock face. As Malgus struggled against her telekinetic attack, the Jedi mustered strength through the Force and delivered a powerful Force Wave, impacting the Sith Lord and shattering the rock around him. With the Imperial commander incapacitated, Republic forces continued to wipe out the Sith forces both in the forest battle and across the rest of Alderaan. Malcom later recovered to find the Imperials defeated, along with many of his own men. Upon being joined by his savior Shan, the commander fired a signal flare into the sky to indicate the Republic victory. The flare was matched by dozens of others across the planet that were immediately followed by the arrival of the Republic fleet, which had returned from addressing Malgus's diversion.[6]"

(edited for language)

The only reason you would ban her is so designers can move forward. I get the feeling that the designers have no intention of making Bastila tier 1 again. They have proven that the last 6-8 years.
I am 100% in agreement that she should stay. I just don't think the designers want to do anything with her, so you might as well get rid of her to free up Old Republic design.

She makes designers hesitant to design powerful things in Old Republic.

Bastila has been left behind completely even though I think she is great for the game.

To be honest it would be amazing if the game reflected the "power scale" of the Star Wars verse.
Satele should be a staple tier 1 piece.
Nomi Sunrider (my all time favorite character) should be a staple tier 1 piece as well.

The new 29 point Satele did come out with Force Push 4, which I think is supposed to showcase that force push against Malgus (I just checked and the piece is named "the Hero of Alderaan"). It is a good solid piece. But the OR needs great pieces.

that is the best answer

when a Vset piece is found to be awesome/broken, instead of fixing that piece
other pieces are designed to fix it
this complicates the game needlessly

instead of the OP's suggestion, I predict a piece will be made that effects Rival

There is a difference in designing counters and designing powerful pieces. The answer to every problem is not found in a counter, that just closes squad building. It is just to make other powerful things. Freedom is always the answer to combat power. Unless the power level of a certain squad is just too much (Daala).

Which is why you keep the rival for Bastila on Revan, but not Malak, and drop the covenant rivalry on both.
No one cares at all about Covenant and their Bravado Specialization. It is a non factor.

It would be WAY better to just ban Bastila then it would be to drop the +10 damage on her. She is absolutely worthless without it.
Some pieces do more than 30 all on their own (Tarre Vizsla) and are just fine tbh. There are way too many characters that can do more than 30 and it is not really a problem. Heck Bib/Jabba already has +20 damage potential rather easily. Jabba/Talia gives +20 damage as well. Any piece with its own damage boost that gets boosted will be doing that. Why try and limit which factions can do it? Rebels have situational or limited damage boosts all over (commandos, rogue one, 2 Ghosts, ithorian commander, etc) and Rebels can't really compete. New Republic, same thing...... and they are on the bottom end.
Damage Boost is a must.

Big +1

Fully Agreed



Absolutely disagree, and here is where designers are completely failing - a total lack of creativity.


Now let me stress again that DAMAGE STACKING IS BAD FOR THE GAME. I am not arguing for it.

But too many saves is also bad for the game. SAVES are not the only way to combat damage stacking.


In fact - we can combat BOTH problems at once, we just need to get designers OUT OF THE MINDSET that SAVES are the only way to counter damage.



I looked forever for my big manifesto about the need for damage capping abilities in our game that I wrote for set 14. Couldn't find it. But we did introduce several in that set. They have been sparsely used since then, if at all. I'd love to use the ones we have more, and expand them.

The general concept is that mega damage needs to be curbed. But for the love of Pete we don't need more saves.

With Damage Reducing abilities, it encourages players to increase their damage output, so more gets through.

With Damage Capping abilities, more damage is wasted, and it's better to focus on more medium attacks that will hit, rather than a couple mega hits.

It also encourages the opponent to attack more. With saves it is possible hit a million times and literally do no damage. With these abilities, if you hit, YOU WILL DO DAMAGE, it just may be less.



Defensive:

Lightsaber Protection 1(/2) (Force 1(/2): This turn, when this character would take over 20(/10) damage, reduce the damage to 20(/10). The reduced damage cannot be prevented or redirected.)

(Advanced) Diffusion Armor (Whenever this character takes more than 10 damage, immediately reduce the damage to 10. The reduced damage cannot be prevented or redirected. Adjacent enemies ignore this ability.)

Director Orson Krennic's CE: Attacks with lightsabers ignore this effect:
If an Imperial ally would take exactly 20 damage from Unit Bodyguard, it takes 10 damage instead; If it would take more than 20 damage from Unit Bodyguard, it takes 20 damage instead.

We've used the above, and I'd love to see more, or different takes on these.

New ideas -

Offensive:

Blaster Beam Splitter [replaces attacks: Attack the same enemy for exactly 10 damage 3 times. This damage cannot be increased, prevented or redirected]

Damage Limitation (Damage Cap) [This character's damage output may never increase for any reason. (Damage from this character's attacks cannot be prevented or redirected)] (Second half optional)



At the core - the concept is: Damage happens, but it is less damage. Bodyguard and Decoy are also examples - damage still happens, but it spreads it around.

I do think there are too many saves in the game, but this concept is not simply anti-save. It's anti-"all or nothing"

It encourages people to attack when they can actually do damage. It encourages people not to hide when the damage is capped. What ends up happening is more engagement and games play faster.

Currently, it is quite easy to lose a main piece in one phase. If you expose your big beat, they are likely dead. Or they roll a bunch of successful saves - but that takes no skill, it's just luck.

It's much better when you know your big beat won't die, because there is a max damage they can take. And they WILL take some damage. Both sides are motivated to jump in and start fighting quickly. Less running and hiding.

I don't think people realize how much saves and "all or nothing" damage negatively impacts games. It causes for more swings based on luck. It causes more running, hiding, locking doors. It causes more NPEs based solely on luck. It takes up time to simply roll all those saves (and re-roll, and possibly cancel, et, etc).

We sort of did a "test run" of some of these components in Vset 14. A couple have been re-used, but designers tend to go to the save based oldies. So far as I know, the damage-cap related abilities have been well recieved, and none have been proven to be broken. They simply aren't widespread enough to make a large impact. I'd love to reuse the ones we have, and push more new ones. Let's get this concept to spread and become more commonplace.

I'm not saying "no more saves", they have their place in our game. What I am proposing is "consciously less saves". That is the defense side.

On the offense side, I am all for damage limiting abilities. They make it safe to make a cool lower cost NU and not worry that they are gonna end up being used Daala style.

I call this general concept "damage capping", but expanded out the concept is - small damage, more frequently.


This isn't a quick fix. This is long term and we need to get designers on board. We need to get designers to stop mindlessly slapping on Evade and LS Defense on every other piece. We DEFINITELY need to be more conscious about damage stacking, and promote damage capping. Lazy, uncreative design for years and years have brought us here. More designers getting on board with this concept could get us back to a good place.

Still Errata when we really need to for broken pieces (Daala). However, changing overall thinking for design is necessary REGARDLESS of what the BC does, because we continue to go down the rabbit hole if we don't change, making more and more mistakes.