You could go a number of ways. But you also do have to stay within the world to some degree.

I would have an issue with a hologram giving out evade or a LS style. That to me has to be on a commander.

I think a lot of the points here are worth evaluating

others include

add more force ghosts that give out evade and illusion.

Add a decent beatstick, ala General Skywalker that adds shien or soresu to followers.

add a mini-yobuck, some medium piece with galloping attack.

All these things would help. There are so many ways to achieve these ends, it just needs the focused direction of the design crew.

We fixed it before in vsets 1-3, we can fix it again but the base power is going to have increase because shooters have been given a power pill in the last year or so.


WHAT TO STOP DOING.

stop giving cannon shots to shooters.
stop giving movement to shooters (Daala, CDO and COMMANDO's i'm looking at you)
stop making crazy powerful cheap shooters
Stop giving mass killing to to factions with activation control.
stop boosting shooters dmg, boost attack, fine, damage NO.
Stop giving CE's to allies.
have some restraint in your designs.

WHAT TO START DOING

Give mass killing to those without activation control (gallop, burst, war throat). Attack low hp pieces so the cost of these pieces are low. 20 dmg max. Think quednecks.
Boost the defense of the melee pieces of these factions via styles, or defense. Its easily done and, like Trevor states, the cheaper pieces it goes on, the more variety (hence the force ghost idea).
Increase the speed of melee pieces, progressively (+4 speed is ridiculous. speed 8 is fine, just look at the current vong)
Add charging attack on melee (why do stormtroopers and Naboo charge but jedi shuffle about, seems backwards)
Mess up the shooter commander effect (ABM does this, but distraction, disruptive or new abilities can do the same but i would caution restraint with how often these are given out. We are striving for BALANCE not melee domination.)
Add movement cancellation abilities (clamp, melee snare rifle, some force power that pins a character at range)
Add movement force powers (pull, push, master speed)
Add targeting nullifiers (cloak, aggressive negotiations, phantom menace etc)

THE LESSONS TO TAKE FORWARD

Many of current problems come from set 6 onwards. Sets that both Lou and Trevor (and myself and others) designed on.

I'm clearly not talking poggle. That was an early mistake that i am totally fine with errataing at least the rapport and possibly SD 20 to SD 10. I think the rapport is the most important but i'd be fine with it, especially after Daala got the treatment.

HOWEVER, I DIGRESS

There is a lesson here. Be careful what you make. Its no surprise that I agree with Tim about much (all?) of this.
He is one of the most reserved designers I've worked with, frustratingly so at times, but he's right.

He cares about the game as a whole. He cares more that something doesn't throw the game out of balance more than seeing it played. It is both refreshing, and frustrating, but mainly refreshing.

You tackle these issues with a hammer, and you end up picking up the broken pieces of parts that you most liked before the hammer.

This is what we are doing now.



There are so many issues I have with these statements.

Was this before or after Dalaa? Was this before or after introducing beefy strafers to factions with activation control?
Was this before or after giving cannon shots to twin shooters in the same turn they get movement in a faction with activation control?

If you make a decision to combat something, you don't come back to it at a later date and give it one of the best toys it could ask for.

If you want melee to be good, make it so i don't believe it should be that hard. Vset 10 has taken steps, vset 11 will probably do so more, and by the end of vset 12 the game will probably be unrecognizable.

However, after all this fall out don't then complain that shooters can't compete if you don't keep some subtlety in your approach.

All these conversations, this whole thread, is happened before. In WOtC, in the early Vsets and again now.
When will we heed the message?

ig swarms where viable correct?

However it is what some people in the community wanted at the time. "I want to be able to run a bunch of troopers and not get beat all the time." was the general sentiment. Some people like running those types of squads.

Deri makes a bunch of really good points and I agree with pretty much all that he said. We need to stop giving factions with activation control and easy access to tons of activations (like the Seps and their 2 pt peices) the tools that make their NPE's even better, as Deri pointed out for example, giving the Seps a strafing Durge with 110hp and twin, the CDO's that are almost 2 times better than Princess Leia would ever hope to be (cannon shot to a faction full of twin attackers, 70hp, built in twin AND gives a movement breaker). I think it was a big mistake to give the Seps these tools in a faction where it was unnecessary to give them, and we should learn from that. We need to tread very carefully now also with the Vong since they have activation control and the Yun Ne'shel priest (which has factored into a lot of the top squads in NZ and Chicago) and a ton of damage output possible. This is a very long topic to discuss and a lot of great points have brought up. I am glad it is being talked about now, since I think we are taking steps in the right direction with how Vset 10 turned out, and I think V11 onward will continue along this trend of helping melee since we have been addressing issues with the shooter meta and this forum has only enhanced the resolve of designers to try and limit NPE's in the future sets.

Oh I don't disagree with that at all, some people definitely wanted them and some people enjoy running them. I personally just feel that extreme versions of squad types should never make it past tier 2. Rock could be the exception, but only because it has some innate handicaps that paper and scissors don't have.

There are other things that are considered, and need to continue to be considered though. High act squads aren't played as fast as they used to be... And the number of acts has continued to increase. Also, in the recent past increasing engagement has been a goal, swarms to be competitive have to have oodles of capitans huddled in a corner. Doesn't exactly encourage engagement and doesn't give up 3 point wins easily.

Everybody already knows this stuff so I won't beat a dead horse. Just my personal irks with different pieces and squads...

Padawan on hover bike (medium base)

OR
18 points

Hp 80
D 18
Att 10
dmg 20

melee
speed 12
galloping attack

force 2
Lightsaber deflect.
knight speed



This could be nice sac piece to smash opponents activations. Turn on ABM and ruin the opponents poggle bombs.

I know for me, it wasn't that I wanted swarms to be awesome, I just wanted to field a trooper army or something similar without having death shots be my only defense against yobuck, etc.

A big army of stormies or ewoks or tuskens or droids or clones seemed to me like they were as much a part of star wars as the rebel heroes joining together, or whatever it is Mandalorians do.

It could also be a holocron, perhaps with emplacement. Since those things often contained Jedi techniques, that might open up the options more.

Methinks you'll really like an upcoming OR piece