I know this has been skimmed over when the June State Of The Game was released, but I do think it's important to take into account how singular sets being released at a time really will affect the game. I've been thinking about this over the past couple of weeks, and to say that I have concerns is mild.

First of all, we should look at the positives of this. It eases the pain on people's wallets by quite a stretch, by allowing everyone to buy one set at a time, it gives everyone the same chance of pulling what they want and therefore enabling more people to keep up with the meta. As Steve said in the State Of The Game earlier this month, people are finding it difficult to get into the game because there is just too much to get your head around. Reducing the number of sets released per year will allow people to get into the game more easily, which is what we aim to do all the time.

However, I would not have made this thread if I thought all was well with this decision. As much as I respect the decision to lessen the number of sets produced, I can't help but wonder about the consequences that could follow it. One of the biggest worries is that becuase there will only be 4 sets released per year (seemingly, I could be wrong on this), there won't be enough of them to cover the 7 licenses that UFS currently uses (Street Fighter, Soul Calibur IV, The King Of Fighers 2006, Samurai Shodown V, Tekken, Darkstalkers and Shadowar). This could lead to upset from a lot of fans who expect their favourite characters to show up, but the chances are that they might not ever come. This block, for example has, with the currently announced sets, 1 Shadowar Set, 1 Tekken Set, and 2 Soul Calibur IV sets. With only 2 sets that will follow the second SCIV set, that will leave out a minimum of 2 licenses that won't see release at all this year. Now it's already been said that Street Fighter is on hiatus, which is fair enough, but thats still leaving one other licence who inexplicably won't have any release at all. And with the reduced number of characters in each set, a lot of fans may feel unfulfilled. Does this also mean that the licenses themselves won't be happy that their product isn't getting enough attention from UFS? Something else that occured to me was that while it is a good thing that people will be able to get to what they need more quickly, it could also cause a problem in terms of how much of the product actually gets shifted. I'm no businessman, so I apologise if I seem above my post, but if people get what they want from the Tekken set, for example, a month or so before they would have done if there were another set alongside it, which is entirely possible with only 99 cards in a booster set, doesn't that mean that the product being sold will slow much faster? Speaking of the character reduction, 5 characters at a time, while good for the sake of people who don't want 10-12 characters in each set, doesn't do any favours for new players. I can imagine someone asking about UFS after having been told that Tekken is soon to be released asking: "Is Hwoarang in it?" "No, not yet." "Ok, what about Jin?" "Uhh... no, not yet." And so on and so forth. Once again, I respect completely the decision to reduce the number of characters released per set, but what are FFG doing to pull new players in who want to play with a character who doesn't yet exist? Promo characters haven't been released in large numbers since the first 3 sets.

If it were up to me (and I am well aware that it isn't in the slightest), I would have said that releasing at least another 20-25 cards in these single booster sets would be a good idea, as it would give more exposure to the characters within the licenses. I also think that we are going to need a lot more in the way of promo characters, as otherwise we will end up running into more diversity problems than we already have, as has been stated a few times already on these very boards. It also means that fans of the video games will be more inclined to play the game more often.

Lastly, I would like to say that I've not meant offense or insult by anything I've said here, but I wanted to see if I was the only person who felt this way, and whether anyone feels that we've lost something this month, and wants to find a way to get it back.

Thanks,

Joe xx

Well when it comes to promo characters that is a good point, and with the Tekken release we should also have run out of the soul calibur promo foundations and attacks being part of prize support, which leaves a gap. What they do need to do though is release characters that coincide with the latest release, because atm they are just releasing STG promos that were made before the takeover. And Seth and Revenent for example have nothing to do with any of the recent sets. So yeah i think that maybe 3/4 of the prize support needs to be promo characters that support the release, the other quarter can be the reprints they are doing for block 4, which they are using as prize support. As for the rest i require a bit more analysis and thought before i comment.

We actually talked a lot about this over the weekend. I for one am in complete agreement with Joe above.

That said, I wouldn't even mind increasing the sizes of the sets themselves to base set size - bigger, even. Take set 8, for example. That release didn't have people pulling stupidly high numbers of characters, now, did it? Increasing the size of each set to ~150 cards and giving us ~10 characters in each set will both get lots of new/different characters into the game, as well as give the licenses the exposure they want, while giving the players what they want (not too many characters, etc etc) without hurting anyone's wallets.

Okon some points I C/S but on the fact that they need more characters in packs "um how bout NO" cause they tried that formula before and look what happened. Now on a bussiness POV I have to agree with FF on this cause releasing one set per quarter is a good look finacially cause the cost of making the product and putting effort into playtesting,developing,and making the product cost time and money which in these tough economic times are hard as hell sometimes to do "or would you like to go back to the Dave Freeman era?" you know put it out there to please the fans without playtesting and have people complaining and leaving or would you like to see where this is going.

Now I agree that they should increase the cards in the boosters but then they will have to increase the price just to make any money off of the product cause put yourselves in their shoes: make UFS cards increase the boosters from 12 to 18-24 ok would would please the fans but then those same fans would complain that there's to many cards and wouldn't buy your product from stores they would just go to "certain websites" that sells singles and then what your losing money however as of right now we're buying UFS boosters by the box and packs cause they increased the ratio of getting good cards but do what you want then the ratio changes and you might pull hellacrap.

I for one likes where this is going and as far as the Tekken thing goes there's people lining up just to play the characters that was announced but If I was in charge then make some of the Characters into promos (you know like two that people want to see and two that people wouldn't want)

I don't know if my opinion on this subject warrants that much since I've only been playing since April-ish, but I actually either like or can't tell the difference between 1 and 2 sets being released. Like when SC4 and ShadoWar came out, for all that concerned me, SC4 might as well been the only set that came out. The one ShadoWar box I bought was one of the worst decisions of my life.

A few issues with only one set release:

Before when two sets came out at once, there was always 'the one set everyone wanted' and the set that people didn't want as much. Either due to liscence or due to power cards. NOW there is only one set, and we have no choice. We must all buy from that set. Could this DEcrease sales?

Card pool availability will be fine, given that we hardly use any decent sized percentage of the CURRENT card pool anyhow. However, some resources might be a bit less undersupported... some clever balancing of cards will have to be done to insure this happens, or some more cards need to be getting 4 resources (but please no, not 6 resource monstrousities like KFT and TagAlong).

________________________________

AND THERE WILL BE NO DAVE FREEMAN BASHING ON MY WATCH!!! I still hold by my firm belief that 1.) there were more than one game designer during many of his 'errors' (if the design schedual works in any way how I think it does). 2. some of the cards that may have been 'omg strong' were also designed with the CURRENT CARD POOL in mind (that being, did not anticipate things like Injury asset and such banned).

Just a thought. Quit blaming Dave for everything... He was working on this game during (IMO) this game's best block, that being the meta in which Drew won worlds (what was that... worlds 07?)

I am a business man... with a degree in marketing and years of experience running game stores... (i'm not trying to brag, just qualify my opinions a little)

FFG wants to make this game the best card game on the market. The one thing they cannot do, is listen to their customers... well not directly. One thing you learn, is that your customers aren't good at making decisions about your product. They want things, and need things, and are sometimes vocal enough to ask for them on Forums and such... HOWEVER, most of the time what they ask for isn't what they really want... they just don't know how to conceptualize the issue in a way that leads to positive results. They never take into concideration the concequences... they can't because they are blinded by emotions. Its like why your mom will always think you were a great kid... despite that arson charge...

Not to say that you shouldn't listen to your customers, because you SHOULD>... But, you can't listen to them directly. There are ways we take feedback from customers, and decipher what they REALLY want. I feel that FFG has a handle on how to do this, which is good, because more than half of the businesses out there DO NOT.

I think that Mini-Block (Should be renamed into "i got next" format... or maybe "new challengers" format) Is going to fix 90% of the problems with the game, by basically banning all the old broken @$$ cards, and getting rid of the worthless stacks of cards printed beside them... Only the new cards, which have been designed to make the game more balanced and fair are going to be available, and the game will turn into somehting other than who has the promos... This is all they needed to make the game better, but for this to succede they need to promote and support it with promos or something else. However not old school promos like chester, brt, or anything... but balanced promos that everyone wants...

What would be a promo that would get everyone to play Mini Block, without breaking the game? Just releasing new characters as has been suggested?

NO...

Characters are cool... and collectors will like them. But if you release them without support, thats all they will be... just collector cards. If you release them to fit into current support, they aren't really getting the attention they deserve. With sets being 99 or 150 cards, you have enough cards to support only 4 or 5 characters.

I feel that a character needs at least 14-16 cards that are directly support for what they are supposed to do. If we have 4 characters to a set, with 15 cards a peice, that is 64 cards already accounted for... We could have room for support of a few others, but you also have to have cards that don't directly support anyone... but are good cards that people can use to come up with their own stuff...

It sucked back in the day when I would open a box, and get mostly characters as my rares, and useless other rares... and 1 card that was so broken...

I would like to open a box and have every card playable... that is also FFG goal...

Sure we could spam the prize support with characters instead, but then you have a ton of characters in your binder that you never play with, because there isn't support for this character.

Sizing up the sets may be a decent option... Pushing for 250 card base sets, and 150 card additional sets, if we stick to a 4 a year process. But one thing I have to see... is my cards staying legal in the most popular tournament format for as long as fesible. I hate games where you buy something and a month later it cycles out... I don't want a hampster wheel.

However if we increase the sized... that's almost like releasing 2 sets at a time.. which is problematic for FFG. We have done pretty much the same as before, but now we are just able to support more characters from a single game at a time...

The point? You want me to end this huge rant and get to a point? Ok, but only because you asked nicely.

As you can see, every decision has points and counterpoints... arguments for and against. Its a fine line that FFG walks, and they have to consider and think about every possible scenario. In the end a few people make the decision to do X or Y, and because they have all that pressure on them to make those sort of decisions, they insulate themselves from people like you, and me, and everyone in the thread... not to say they aren't listening... but everytime you or I makes an impassioned plea it becomes harder for them to focus... So this sort of thing helps, because OTHER people might read it and pass it along to the people in the know, but most of the time it just gets ignored... because they can't listen to us... not directly.

I wish I had spent more time playing, or working on a deck, rather than trolling a forum... but GOD we love this game so much we do troll the forums and talk about the game... Whats wrong, whats right....

If you want this game to be awesome, and fun, and grow... GO PLAY.

vermillian said:

Yes, with one smaller set, sales will decrease, but FFG will reap more profit due to much smaller operational/production expenses. It's like why some car companies are forced/will be forced to discontinue certain models even if they did sell a little.

MegaGeese said:

Except FFG's. Last I checked they did this because they wanted to cut back on printing cards.

I've been in favor of 14 cards per character since time immemorial, so unsurprisingly I have the same philosophy here. The optimal number might be 9 characters per small set, making 126 cards. This (a) gets a healthy number of characters into each set; (b) doesn't increase the set size too too much, which is important not so much from a customer standpoint but from a design & testing workload standpoint; © won't result in character overload - you'd be looking at 4-5 characters per box; (d) is probably a healthy amount of support overall - imo a number of set 12's characters took some stretching or unnecessarily redundant effects to fill out the full 18 anyway, making those last couple cards of support something of a waste; (e) is a set size they have done before, so theoretically it should work with any printer limitations.

In terms of promos, we certainly don't want to see another SNK1P-sized deluge, but having 2 or maybe 3 new promo characters each month for licenses that haven't gotten much recent support couldn't hurt. And I'll disagree that promo characters without support are wall decorations; Ukyo, Naks, Athena, Zi Mei etc. say otherwise. Of course we probably wouldn't want to see anything quite that powerful again, but suffice to say it's plenty feasible to make characters with general-use effects that don't need specific support - see Padma and Cassandra - and if they're good enough, they will see play.

Another random potential concern: The timing of the next Shadowar release might be tricky -.-' Since it'd be coming out by itself this time and not alongside a fighting game set, that's a full release that new players that join for the fighters may simply not be interested in. I'm not exactly sure what that means in terms of whether or not there's a better or worse time to release it, but it is an odd little factor that results from the 1 set at a time switch.

As much as people keep saying some licences will go unsupported in the near future, I gotta say its not a hard hurdle to jump. Dark stalkers and SF are both capcom properties, so relise a capcom set. SNK has almost always been a little bit of both, even soulcal and tekken can eventally be rolled into that format. Promos here and thier can plus holes as well.

I for one am really happy for the smaller releases. Im goign to buy the same amount of product as i always have, but now ill get mroe of what I need from any one given set. I've played plenty of games that had smaller set sizes (anyone play duel masters before?) and they usually are all the better for it. Easier to play, easier to get into, better quality, no filler.

I think we should wait untill the sets hit and we ultimatley see the quality of the cards before passing judgement.

Character diversity has to be looked at in all seriousness. The end result is that any character that stands out just a bit after rebalancing will become the dominating force of the new sets. So then the set after the next would have to implement cards to "fix" characters that are not broke but are above par in the rebalancing act. As stated before the easiest thing to do is to make alt characters prize support. Make gimmick characters the prize support and the hardcore characters in the boosters. Next thing would be having more path of the master like cards but make them Shadow War characters or from Shadow War universe. The thing that makes Shadow War great is that it can produce prize support that the company doesn' t have to lisence. Not only that it allows them to create counter meta cards on the fly and get them into the play sphere more quickly. Prize support is a great way to balance and tweak the game or at least provide major threats to the current meta inbetween sets.

I feel that we need the regular sets to grow a bit, just by about 2 or so characters+support. Exactly how many cards per support are released though? Including the character. I just feel if the trend keeps up in the wrong one, that we'll be limited in character choice options.

In the past they made alot of chars in each set, and how many were ever played? I know some people want to be able to play their favorite chars, but I'd rather have fewer chars and have them mostly playable.

bloodocean said:

It would be less characters still, yet in addition, we'd have way more support for and built around them.

DaiAndOh said:

In base sets...

144/8 = 18 cards per character, including their character card.

Let's see now...

5 characters at 18 cards per character makes a 90 card set. One with only 9 filler cards where you can put in reprints/whatever.

Adding two more characters to the mix would make a 126 set... which honestly is all right if we had bigger base sets. I'd say 7 character expansion and 10 character base for sets of respectively 126 cards and 180 cards, without filler could be acceptable for me.

We'll see when Tekken hits but yeah those who're in this for the licenses are definitely pissed.

Homme Chapeau said:

Yeah that's the number I had floating around, by the filler cards were throwing me off specifics. That's also the amount I'd suggest.

DaiAndOh said:

I'm personally fortunate due to the fact that out of the 5 Tekken characters revealed, 3 I'm genuinely wanting to play to the point where I will actually buy the set FOR the characters rather than just to get XYZ broken card.