But the model is Pay-to-Win(Tournaments); or it's Play-for-Fun(1 Core Set). You want to win Tournament Matches? Pay up. Practice Up.

Time is money. So you must pay to win Tournaments. No way around that.

Yeah, it must be because tournaments. Because local gaming circles never have players that like to buy more than others in the group. Because losing all the time to someone with better cards is totally fun as long as it's not at a tournament.

It sounds more like you just have envy issues that you can't get past and plain don't understand the difference between want and need.

In casual play the people that buy more than others only means two things, those people have more options and if they buy up ships others may have to wait to get ones they want. Neither are really all that important unless you feel entitled. You might WANT to have all the options but you don't NEED them to enjoy playing, and you might really WANT to use a ship that someone else buys up but again you don't really NEED it to enjoy playing now do you?

And I hate to break it to you but you do realize that if those players who buy everything aren't capable of self regulating so others will enjoy playing them then the other players should be refusing to play them. It's really easy to do, you just say no to the people that ruin your enjoyment of playing. It's not FFG that's to blame it's the players who don't understand that because you can doesn't mean you should. So stop complaining about your problems and trying to pass the blame onto FFG or anyone else and start actively taking control of your game experience.

No matter how you put it the upgrade model is flawed. I can't think of any other game in which options for using one unit are so dependent on me having other units. When I buy a model in say Malifaux I know I can use it every way it's supposed to be used. And it gets even worse when you consider things like the A-wing or the Tie-Advanced, there you don't even get the base experience with just having the ship. (FFG would not release fixes if they didn't consider the existing product to be sub-par.) And I'm fine with the A-wing solution, gives you more pilots, more options, etc... but expecting people to buy an Epic ship, a format a lot of people don't even play, just to play their Tie Advanced as intended is ridiculous, they could handle their model a lot better. (and FFG can take the criticism, people criticizing FFG isn't an attack on the hobby you know.)

In the case of the TIE Advanced, I'd be fine with an ALTERNATE title. Perhaps the X7. Have it do something different altogether, like focus on arc dodging. (After Barrel Roll you may boost for free). Have it be an alternative to the X1, this way a new player doesn't HAVE to buy the Raider.

In the case of the TIE Advanced, I'd be fine with an ALTERNATE title. Perhaps the X7.

The x7 is a Defender.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that FFG selling that card directly would be significantly cheaper than that, taking licensing, packaging, printing, shipping and infrastructure into account.

Shipping aside, absolutely.

All of those other things can be applied to every expansion pack as well. And for a list price of $16, the ship that card comes in comes with a model, it's stand, 4 pilot cards, 9 upgrade cards(including 2 copies of said $7 card), and a ****load of cardboard tokens. All of the licensing, printing, and infrastructure are already in place because of the models.

So yes, it should be CONSIDERABLY ****ing cheaper to just get one card.

Again, that's not counting the cost of shipping. But you can greatly limit the impact of that cost per-card by ordering as many cards at once as possible. That $5 shipping fee goes from being $5 per card, to being $.50 per card if you just order 10 cards at once.

I'm not entirely sure they have the printing infrastructure in place, and they certainly don't have the distribution infrastructure in place.

Add to that the possible cannibalisation of expansion sales, and I start to think that people who say stuff like "THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE TO FFG OFFERING THIS SERVICE" aren't really thinking it through. I more get the argument "maybe it'll cost them money but FFG should offer the service anyway as a customer-service gesture", but, eh. Call me Mr. Cavalier With Money but I don't think $7 is an outrageous price to pay for a card you really want.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that FFG selling that card directly would be significantly cheaper than that, taking licensing, packaging, printing, shipping and infrastructure into account.

Shipping aside, absolutely.

All of those other things can be applied to every expansion pack as well. And for a list price of $16, the ship that card comes in comes with a model, it's stand, 4 pilot cards, 9 upgrade cards(including 2 copies of said $7 card), and a ****load of cardboard tokens. All of the licensing, printing, and infrastructure are already in place because of the models.

So yes, it should be CONSIDERABLY ****ing cheaper to just get one card.

Again, that's not counting the cost of shipping. But you can greatly limit the impact of that cost per-card by ordering as many cards at once as possible. That $5 shipping fee goes from being $5 per card, to being $.50 per card if you just order 10 cards at once.

FWIW you can print custom cards online, 2 sides, full color, good quality for like $0.10 each. (plus shipping) I'm quite sure FFG has a much lower cost than me going to a random online print shop.

No matter how you put it the upgrade model is flawed. I can't think of any other game in which options for using one unit are so dependent on me having other units. When I buy a model in say Malifaux I know I can use it every way it's supposed to be used. And it gets even worse when you consider things like the A-wing or the Tie-Advanced, there you don't even get the base experience with just having the ship. (FFG would not release fixes if they didn't consider the existing product to be sub-par.) And I'm fine with the A-wing solution, gives you more pilots, more options, etc... but expecting people to buy an Epic ship, a format a lot of people don't even play, just to play their Tie Advanced as intended is ridiculous, they could handle their model a lot better. (and FFG can take the criticism, people criticizing FFG isn't an attack on the hobby you know.)

I disagree. Firstly, while the options may be dependent on having other units, they remain options. It supposed to be used exactly as sold with the cards included. If you have other ships, however, its use expands. They are expansion packs, after all. And you do get the base experience with the A-Wing and the TIE Advanced, base experience being defined as the ship and all the pilots and upgrades packaged with it. Further, your assertion that a lot of people don't play epic is not a fact. The assertion that the Raider is needed to play the TIE Advanced as intended is also not fact. You are looking at this from a tournament-playing point of view, which this board in general likes to present as THE way the game is played. It is not necessarily true, but nobody has the statistics to show the truth except maybe FFG. How many people are going to Worlds? How many at the Regionals? Store Championships? What percentage of the total player base is that? We don't know. We can reasonably assume, however, that FFG is trying to sell X-wing to as many people as possible and their main focus is making a fun game for all player types with everything you NEED to play a ship included in the ship's expansion. They also want to support the competitive scene and will occasionally introduce things to increase diversity in that scene, but probably realizing just how small a percentage of the player base that is, they don't find it financially feasible to introduce ways to buy cards individually or in packs.

As for refreshing the existing expansion packs, we already have vocal complaints about the core set with a refreshed damage deck (and lots of other useful components people gloss over). Imagine the consumer confusion if you suddenly had 2 different packs of each ship, with slightly different cards in each. Which card in the TIE Advanced or A-Wing would you be willing to sacrifice to put in the X1 title or whatever? ​ What are they supposed to do with the V1 expansions once the V2 expansions are available? Destroy them? Wait for them to run out before selling V2? Stock them side-by-side? There are no good ways to do it that won't cost them a lot of money or good will.

I'm not looking at it from a tournament point of view? The fact that FFG released fixes for several ships does mean they thought the original releases were subpar, and that affects all players, not just tournament players. Caring about balance / ships being viable doesn't make you a tournament player.

It really shouldn't surprise me that people really don't understand the economics of manufacturing. But it continues to.

[...] The assertion that the Raider is needed to play the TIE Advanced as intended is also not fact. [...]

This is what I find, at least, humorous. Ever since, perhaps before, the TIE Advanced was released people have complained that it is: worthless; unplayable; unusable; too inefficient to use; terrible; awful; a waste of points; and sooooooooooo many others.

Do you need the Title to play? Of course not! As the ole' saying goes however 'it would be as much fun as a sharp stick in the eye'. In other words you could also shoot yourself in the foot and have as much fun. Comments like these while narrowly defined is factually accurate also shows the complete and total lack of grasping the either the point of the post of the facts taken as a whole in the post.

Sorry I think that came off a bit strong. But clearly you don't understand the point being made. No offense intended.

Vader is at least pretty decent without the title. Top tier, no. But, not everything needs to be top tier.

I'm not looking at it from a tournament point of view? The fact that FFG released fixes for several ships does mean they thought the original releases were subpar, and that affects all players, not just tournament players. Caring about balance / ships being viable doesn't make you a tournament player.

It seems to me that they only came to realize this supposed inferiority once it was noticed that the ships were disappearing from the competitive scene (or just not appearing at all) and when people started dabbling in mathwing. So while you personally may not be a tournament player or looking at it from such a perspective, that is now the litmus applied to all discussions of viability or efficiency. It's unfortunate, because I feel that type of groupthink taints the waters for everyone else.​ Case in point below.

[...] The assertion that the Raider is needed to play the TIE Advanced as intended is also not fact. [...]

This is what I find, at least, humorous. Ever since, perhaps before, the TIE Advanced was released people have complained that it is: worthless; unplayable; unusable; too inefficient to use; terrible; awful; a waste of points; and sooooooooooo many others.

Do you need the Title to play? Of course not! As the ole' saying goes however 'it would be as much fun as a sharp stick in the eye'. In other words you could also shoot yourself in the foot and have as much fun. Comments like these while narrowly defined is factually accurate it also shows the complete and total lack of grasping the either the point of the post of the facts taken as a whole in the post.

Sorry I think that came off a bit strong. But clearly you don't understand the point being made. No offense intended.

No offense taken. However, I think you quite handily proved my belief that a competitive mindset has forever altered how ships are viewed. I don't think this is a good thing. If there are people who play X-Wing and don't read any message boards (I know a few at least), I feel confident saying they thought no such thing about the TIE Advanced. It's a cool ship with cool upgrades and pilots and flew perfectly fine. It still does. With the Raider, however, it now has a few new toys to up its game if desired, but they are in no way necessary. People have and will continue to have fun flying the TIE Advanced without the title. You just won't see them doing that at tournaments. I highly doubt FFG designed the TIE Advanced along with the X1 title, then purposely withheld the title for a later pack to screw over the customer as some people proclaimed (the screwing part, not necessarily the withholding title part). They intended it to be flown exactly as they initially released it. They may have decided newer designs overtook it, and offered an enhancement via the title in the Raider expansion, but that wasn't their original design intent. Therefor the assertion that the title is needed to fly is as designed is false. There is a lot of subjectivism being bandied about in this thread and passed off as fact and much of it relies on the tournament scene or mathwing as proof. Both are very valuable additions to the game, but do not define it for everyone. I believe FFG knows this and will not cater to that crowd with refreshes or card packs. They will make plastic ships, design pilots for them, and combine them with useful upgrades in self-contained expansion packs. It works for them and the majority of their players. If a relatively few people want certain cards to make their favorite squad better, they're easily attainable in whatever pack they come with. And they are free to buy those packs or not. They are not, however, required by FFG.​​

I'm just hoping we get a new preview tomorrow, news tends to make these discussions die down for a little while....at least.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that FFG selling that card directly would be significantly cheaper than that, taking licensing, packaging, printing, shipping and infrastructure into account.

Shipping aside, absolutely.

All of those other things can be applied to every expansion pack as well. And for a list price of $16, the ship that card comes in comes with a model, it's stand, 4 pilot cards, 9 upgrade cards(including 2 copies of said $7 card), and a ****load of cardboard tokens. All of the licensing, printing, and infrastructure are already in place because of the models.

So yes, it should be CONSIDERABLY ****ing cheaper to just get one card.

Again, that's not counting the cost of shipping. But you can greatly limit the impact of that cost per-card by ordering as many cards at once as possible. That $5 shipping fee goes from being $5 per card, to being $.50 per card if you just order 10 cards at once.

Do you know why multiple $7 cards come in a 10-15$ expansion pack? Logistics. A company can print a set number of these cards and basically give them to use FREE if and when we buy the miniature/expak. If you build a new business model around selling only the cards, you would intentionally spike prices so it's still CHEAPER to buy the miniature in question. This is standard business practice. This would also be in effort to not compete with The Gray Market, who would still be buying the miniatures and then simply undercutting Official Singles pricing.

Selling singles may NEVER turn a profit for FFG. No matter how many are sold -- especially if less people buy the minis.

I love how many armchair business managers, pretending they know how any of this works, this thread has.

On both sides of the argument. Or all 3 sides, or 4, or whatever. No worse than those trying to pass off their own opinions and situations as indicative of the whole player base on the basis of insignificant sample sizes and hearsay, while using charged language such as "forced", "screwed", "entitlement", "meta", "moronic" and plenty others.

Anyway, FFG has their sales model, we're not going to change it, and if they feel the need to, they will. It's impossible to say that the announcement for Worlds to give everyone a free new damage deck is the result of the outcry on these very forums, but it's a nice gesture none-the-less.

...

...

...

And I hate to break it to you but you do realize that if those players who buy everything aren't capable of self regulating so others will enjoy playing them then the other players should be refusing to play them. It's really easy to do, you just say no to the people that ruin your enjoyment of playing. It's not FFG that's to blame it's the players who don't understand that because you can doesn't mean you should. So stop complaining about your problems and trying to pass the blame onto FFG or anyone else and start actively taking control of your game experience.

Don't make me break out my pocket watch again! Oh so you can regulate, we'll see about that.

You must have every ship in X-wing. You will not stop buying X-wing products until you have 4 of all the small ships two of the large ships. You will even buy the big $60-$100 Epic Ships, and don't forget the card sleeves and colored bases mwahahahaha

I love how many armchair business managers, pretending they know how any of this works, the INTERNET has.

Fixt. And you're right... we're all pissing in the wind. But I do have experience in TCG businesses before and after the Gray Market swelled.

I definitely played M:TG three ways: Competitively, Funsies, and for Profit (reselling, collecting). My profits from years of M:TG puts me in good standing to explain why it's always hard to sell Individual Cards (as opposed to Random Boosters) to anyone that can't afford to play XWING to their heart's content.

Besides, I love a good Internet argument.

I love how many armchair business managers, pretending they know how any of this works, the INTERNET has.

Fixt. And you're right... we're all pissing in the wind. But I do have experience in TCG businesses before and after the Gray Market swelled.

I definitely played M:TG three ways: Competitively, Funsies, and for Profit (reselling, collecting). My profits from years of M:TG puts me in good standing to explain why it's always hard to sell Individual Cards (as opposed to Random Boosters) to anyone that can't afford to play XWING to their heart's content.

Besides, I love a good Internet argument.

The economics of mass produced individual cards usually isn't there. At least if you're just selling cards. However print on demand cards are a little different. They generally charge per sheet. You get 9 up per sheet (18 minis). This isn't explicitly defined most places, but you can see if in the pricing structure, plus a setup fee. They *could* setup existing cards as PoD where you check off what cards you want and get a custom deck. $10ish + shipping is fairly normal for 54 cards. I assume most of this is automated and the labor consists of taking a box out of the end of the printer and slapping a preprinted label on the shipping box. Its not really conceptually different than on online photo printing service. The idea of someone running around shelves pulling cards for sale is just silly though. Mass produced=sets or random. Of course there are licencing fees that you don't run into with your typical print on demand cars. They'd be selling already existing cards so no additional art charges, etc. Main issue I see is that setup and shipping probably doesn't make sense for small orders. PoD places generally have a 54 card minimum. How many pilots do you really need?

Its not really a question of being possible to me, but if it makes sense. FFG supposedly already owns a PoD system. Don't know how sophisticated it is vs PoD online shops. If the risk of selling less models is worth making cards available. If its legally allowed. If they adopted a season model with cards and sold it LCG style it might be viable financially. You'd have enough players using it for sure, and the packs would be big enough that the cost per card wouldn't be too bad. Under the current system where it would be mostly tournament players looking to avoid buying extra ships.... well I probably wouldn't bother even if it were possible under license. Plus you'd run the risk of pissing off distributors if you're selling something they can't get.

FFG does have their own POD set up. Recently upgraded, too.

I love how many armchair business managers, pretending they know how any of this works, the INTERNET has.

Fixt. And you're right... we're all pissing in the wind. But I do have experience in TCG businesses before and after the Gray Market swelled.

I definitely played M:TG three ways: Competitively, Funsies, and for Profit (reselling, collecting). My profits from years of M:TG puts me in good standing to explain why it's always hard to sell Individual Cards (as opposed to Random Boosters) to anyone that can't afford to play XWING to their heart's content.

Besides, I love a good Internet argument.

The economics of mass produced individual cards usually isn't there. At least if you're just selling cards. However print on demand cards are a little different. They generally charge per sheet. You get 9 up per sheet (18 minis). This isn't explicitly defined most places, but you can see if in the pricing structure, plus a setup fee. They *could* setup existing cards as PoD where you check off what cards you want and get a custom deck. $10ish + shipping is fairly normal for 54 cards. I assume most of this is automated and the labor consists of taking a box out of the end of the printer and slapping a preprinted label on the shipping box. Its not really conceptually different than on online photo printing service. The idea of someone running around shelves pulling cards for sale is just silly though. Mass produced=sets or random. Of course there are licencing fees that you don't run into with your typical print on demand cars. They'd be selling already existing cards so no additional art charges, etc. Main issue I see is that setup and shipping probably doesn't make sense for small orders. PoD places generally have a 54 card minimum. How many pilots do you really need?

Its not really a question of being possible to me, but if it makes sense. FFG supposedly already owns a PoD system. Don't know how sophisticated it is vs PoD online shops. If the risk of selling less models is worth making cards available. If its legally allowed. If they adopted a season model with cards and sold it LCG style it might be viable financially. You'd have enough players using it for sure, and the packs would be big enough that the cost per card wouldn't be too bad. Under the current system where it would be mostly tournament players looking to avoid buying extra ships.... well I probably wouldn't bother even if it were possible under license. Plus you'd run the risk of pissing off distributors if you're selling something they can't get.

So much Oversight on a project as big as PoD singles. And it may increase scalping/collecting if they down-mark all singles (think black border M:TG), so you introduce a Gray Market within a Gray Market and we're back to the groundwork for an Oversight Committee.

I think the forum doesn't help much, cause it has a very competitive attitude which does make it feel like a lot of ships aren't worth using if you don't have upgrade X. I'm gonna try and read the forum less and just play with what I have.

I do think both the fact that some (key) upgrades aren't available in faction / the fact that the Tie Advanced fix (advertised as a fix, so not really an "option" imo, but more this how how the ship should have been) is packaged with an Epic Ship are annoying for new players / players with less budget.