Hello Testers! Here's this week's update; as usual please feel free to post initial reactions and feedback here. Also, please note in the news post: updates for the beta are ending soon, although the forums will stay up for a while longer. 

Thanks for all your feedback and hard work, everyone!

And I see we now have clarification on damage. Thanks. It is each UNCANCELLED SUCCESS that adds to base damage :) That words it much better than the wording in the book.

Just quickly - the article references next weeks update - does that mean we'll get a final update in a week, or are we still getting it an a fortnight, as the previous fortnight's update article suggested?

Initial thoughts after reading:

The new interpretation for multiple hits does nothing to tone down auto-fire. The main issue with autofire was always scoring multiples of the weapons base damage on an opponent, and this change doesn't fix that. Perviously, a roll of 3 nett successes and 3 nett advantages with the lowest base damage (heavy blaster rifle - 10 base damage) autofire weapon would result in 12 x 3 = 36 damage. Now it will result in 10 x 3 + 2 = 32 damage. Four less damage isn't really the problem - the problem is the fact that it deals 30 damage to one target.

I'll try it out in play next week, but I can tell already that this "fix" doesn't solve the worst problem.

I wonder…

First, Linked - unless there's something I've overlooked, can only apply to one target - same with auto-fire (unless walking fire of course). Ah. I see now. Soak. Soak applies to each hit, therefore one can be "ooompf" while the others "ompf"… or more/all can be kind of "oompf". I see. I always did this with blast though, never considered adding successes to the blast quality, I see now that this solution is similar and a bit more elegant. Nice. I still have issues with the "engaged" blast range though…

Now, two-weapon fighting… unless I'm engaged in close combat using both a vibro-dagger and a heavy blaster (or some other melee/ranged combo), the rules of skill difference is never going to come into play - unless you guys are planning some surprises on specializations or more combat skills (please?!). Or this is just a nifty way for letting me play a pirate with a gun and vibro-cutlass (if someone else would ever GM this game in this town) shooting imps in the face and slashing at plastoid armour! YAY! I like it.

So, with this new wording of "uncancelled success" really implies that as long as you hit, a net of 1 success, you deal weapon damage +1 … weapon base damage is never actually inflicted, its always +1 or more, or you miss and cause no damage?

This distribution solution (no rhyme intended) is elegant, not sure if it does enough to limit the power of especially Auto-fire, but what do I know, my players haven't got it yet and when they had the chance, they gave it away, first for tons of money (bounty on prototypes), second time because… well I think his exact words where "who wants to carry big a$$ gun around?" I mean even the ranged heavy character decided that her carbine was good enough, while fiddling with her zenji needles.

gribble said:

If I understand this right, an attack from a heavy blaster rifle that succeeds with a total of two uncancelled success and three advantage would now score four hits (base plus one per each advantage) that would cause 10 damage per hit, and then there's be an additional 2 damage to allocate after that, because there were two uncancelled succeses.

In the previous iteration of the rule, the weapon would have dealt four hits of 12 damage each with no player agency for allocating the damage.

So, the net result in this one case is that the weapon would now deal 42 total points of damage instead of 48.

I'm not sure that address the issues that players have been experiencing.

@Jegergryte

"First, Linked - unless there's something I've overlooked, can only apply to one target - same with auto-fire (unless walking fire of course)."

I believe you can use Auto-fire to hit multiple different targets without using walking fire, if those targets are engaged with the initial target.

Are you implying that Soak is intended to be counted once against the initial hit at the weapon's base damage, and then again when the extra damage from uncancelled successes is allocated? Or am I misreading you?

"

Jegergryte said:

I must have missed this - is there a rule for distribution of additional hits?

Some interesting changes for this week.

First off, having to determine where those extra successes go is going to slow gameplay down, though I don't think the change will do so to an excessive means.

I do like change that the extra uncancelled successes only get to add to one hit of choice rather than all of them.  Does take out some of the bite of Autofire, but like JegerGryte my worry is still if the shooter concentrates on a single target (such as a PC or a Nemesis); given the base damage rating of the weapons that have Autofire, even just two hits with no extra successes is going to be enough to drop just most any target (barring those with amazing Soak Values and Wound Thresholds), and the Dice Feedback thread in the Game Mechanics section has enough examples of people rolling a plethora of Advantage with only one or two successes, so being able to activate Autofire two or three times isn't out of the realm of possibility, particularly if within Close Range, which would be an attack at 2 Difficulty, something that most combat-capable characters won't have too much trouble dealing with.

Force pike is a neat little change, making it a bit more suitable as a guard's weapon since it can detain as well as maim.

I know this was in the Week 8 Update thread, but I'm still saddened by the Assassin's loss of the Deadly Accuracy talent.  My initial suggestion was to drop Stalker in Column 1/Row 4 to make room for Dodge, but I wonder if the Column 2/Row 5 entry for Sniper Shot could be dropped and Deadly Accuracy re-inserted there instead.  I get a feeling that part of the reason Deadly Accuracy was dropped was to make the Gadgeteer specialization a bit more special, but putting Deadly Accuracy back in at the fifth row for Assassin (and not something quite as easy to get to as it was initially) lets the Assassin keep a talent that seems very well suited for them while still letting the Gadgeteer have an earlier crack at it.

Nice change on Street Smarts, given the removal of Surveillance.

Also, would it be possible to unsticky the threads for the previous Weekly Updates?  Given the volume of them, they're pretty much pushing several other threads off the front page.

 It might be a little late for me to post a suggestion for auto-fire, as the BETA has almost run its course, but here is a thought…

How about adding a footnote to autofire that could read something like:  "Attacking with a weapon set on auto-fire expends significantly more ammunition (energy?). Two (?) threats to can be spent to cause an auto-firing weapon to run out of ammo (instead of the triumph usually needed)"

I think it would illustrate well enough the advantages and disadvantages of auto-fire. PCs can still be as trigger happy as they want and deal heavy damage, but at the cost of having to expands maneuvers (and credits, 25 a pop) to reload once in a while. (Thus also slightly reducing the damage output). Consider it a more abstract way of counting ammo. There rule would also be an encumbrance aspect to auto-fire as each extra clip has an encumbrance of 1. (Backpacks and utility belts suddenly become even more appealing)

A round last an abstract amount of time (around 1 minute?) so it's not impossible or unlikely to fully empty a full clip in such an amount of time.

When we used to play Saga, some of our players we're using autofire to great effect but they had to pace themselves as to not run out of ammo.

I haven't done any testing so I'm not sure it's viable but I might give it a try.

 - - - - - - - - - -

Regarding spreading the extra damage. Why not suggest "Spreading it as evenly as possible, with more damage going to the first hits". Less room for interpretation and optimization. (Also faster?)

i.e.:

11 damage weapon, 3 hits, 2 uncancelled successes = 12, 12, 11 (in that order)

11 damage weapon, 2 hits, 5 uncancelled successes = 14, 13 (in that order)

- - - - - - - - - -

Slightly unrelated question: Is there a rule to pin down a target behind cover with auto-fire? (Saturation). I know there is a use of the cool skill to act normally under those conditions.

Venthrac said:

I hadn't thought of that - any group of enemies within engaged "range". That might be accurate. The point is still that the Linked can get one big damage hit, whereas the second (or more if more than linked 1) gets cause smaller damage. Which decreases its effectiveness somewhat. As for the auto-fire, as you say that might be the way it works - most likely it is, I'm just forgetting stuff.

About the soak thing: no, I was only thinking "loudly" - that it applies to every hit, but one hit gets more through due to the extra successes, instead of all the hits. Sorry for the misunderstanding. So what I mean is: 3 adv and 2 successes with a heavy rifle equals one hit of 12 (10+2), and three of 10, all of which are reduced by soak - average stormtrooper henchman means 5 if subtracted from each hit, not that it matters much; its still a total of 22 which kills him outright.

@gribble: The distribution of extra successes to one or more hits - one makes the most sense of course - was what I was referring to. Not in which way you distribute the hits - if Venthrac is correct and I assume s/he is - of a group of engaged henchmen or nemesis, I assume this is per choice, whereas a group of minions it doesn't really matter. A question - as a side note - about minions, do you count soak once for the attack against the whole group?

As I have not properly tested the auto-fire mechanic - since the one time I tried it the NPC failed miserably to hit anything - I can only refer to what has already been observed and suggested on these boards. This current limitation is an improvement, I guess, but only slightly (hardly). I mean, against a group of minions it doesn't really matter, even henchmen, but nemeses should not really be that "easy" to take out - nor should PCs. One could argue that hitting nemeses is harder, and therefore requires 2 advantages - but this is fiddly. Nemeses still have, usually, the adversary talent which means challenge die or dice, but this doesn't really outweigh the beard of 1 advantage 1 extra hit at base damage. I'm starting to repeat myself. I'll stop now.

Azalain's suggestion isn't bad, add the heavy blaster "quality" of 3 threats causing out of ammo (I assume this is goes into effect after hits and damage is resolved). I have called this high-energy consumption in my "house-rule supplement of stuffness". It's still not enough I think, but its another nice limitation.

Jegergryte said:

Alternatively, instead of adding a Difficulty die when using Autofire, upgrade the Difficulty by one, adding a Challenge Die into the mix.  That way, should a Despair come up, the GM can simply grin and say "click, you're outta blaster gas" without adding extra mechanics to Autofire.

 I also feel like Auto-fire should be ineffective beyond medium range in the same way that Stun is ineffective beyond short range.

Well… I was all geared up for a fairly sizable update after two weeks of QQing about the RAW - I'm sort of sad that there wasn't more in this update, and that we've only got one more round left…

Autofire is still going to be woefully overpowered.  The distribution of damage doesn't solve the problem, and adds more math overhead.  I'll test it this week to confirm, as I've got a game on Friday and potentially tomorrow.  

The TWF clarification is great.  I think it'll primarily be used for those space marine sergeant style characters, but also for dudes who want to stab & punch (or claw if you're a lizard).  Just last week I was making up rules for my vibro sword carrying Trando that also wanted to attack with his claws… Seems like the new TWF rules solve that.  

I hope we see some more big changes next week around some of the other big issues… like the ones outlined in this thread:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=318&efcid=46&efidt=736471

@jegergryte: Linked also has no increase in attack difficulty.  auto fire results in +1 difficulty.  That's a small but meaningful difference.

This update was a touch disappointing, as there isn't as much too it as I hoped for.

I guess an average enemy has soak 4-5, so an autofire hit deals minimum 6-7 damage per hit.  Add a couple ranks of barrage into that mix and it gets worse.  A single advantage nearly doubles that damage.

lets say you are a bodyguard with 4 ranks of ranged heavy, 2 agility, 2 ranks of barrage firing at a defel assassin at medium range uses a dice pool of 2prof and 2ability and one boost (it's only fair to assume he aims) with a 3 challange die pool (this is all assuming no allies aid, which would be their best option in this case).

The average chance of getting at least one net success and one net advantage are very good in this case.  5/8 chance of a success per ability dice, 10/12 chance with profs, 2/6 with boost.  total avg success 20+20+8+15+15 = 78/24 success per roll, or about 3.25 avg success per roll. avg failure is 9/12 per challange, or 2.25 avg failure per roll. 

So statisitcally on autofire the bodyguard could be expected to hit with each attack.

advantage comes up as being even more likely, with the prof dice and challange dice cancelling out, so you have 8/12 threat vs 2*(5/8)+4/6 which is 23/12-8/12 leading to a 13/12 chance of netting at least one advantage.

oops.  forgot the defel's defense.  With that calc'd in the bodyguard has a 66.666% chance to net a success and a 9/12 chance to net a success which is a good chance to blast theat defel assassin right out of the gate.

If even one ally aids the odds swing even farther into favor of the autofire. 

In this scenario, even not autofiring only increases the chance to hit by about 12%, and the odds of advantage to about 100% chance. So autofire is easily the better option, since if it hits it's likely to kill the defel out right.

Now this is a more simplistic model of the odds, as there is a measure of degree that's harder to calc on the spot here, but My view on auto fire off the bat is make the first hit cost 2 advantage, and each additional hit cost one.  this gives it a tougher hurdle than linked, but with 4 advantage it makes the damage output superior to linked and similar abilities.

I almost want to say that maybe autofire should really only be allowed to walking fire, and/or cap off the number of additional hits at 1. 

tl:dr - Autofire: It's a tough call, I don't envy them devs.

6. Nov.2012

Good news for American politics.

Bad news for EotE Beta test.

Disappointed that so few changes were made after a 2 week break, more so that the updates end next week (about 2 weeks earlier than Beta feed back , and very disappointed the devs have chosen not to address the issues identified by the community.

However, I will acknowledge the, well, gigantic rock-solid balls it takes for the devs to open the system up for this kind of beta.  Its difficult to invite us, the screaming, howling masses of the internet, into the system and and listen to us recommend/suggest/rail for/demand changes we deem necessary for game.  You guys have made a great product.  I just hope the dice system holds up for all three games.

-WJL