There seems to be an abundance of negative and naysaying topics posted and the end results seem to be the same in every instance. People feel the need to vent and complain, which is understandable, but at the same time most complaints are not unique. In the interest of supporting and promoting this game that the vast majority of people like, it may help to breakdown all the negative comments and maybe alleviate some confusion. Here are some facts.

Fact - FFG did not product sufficient quantities of product to satisfy everyone. To what percentage that means is debateable. Should they have made enough product so that everyone wanting to play the game could have two Vaders? Or should there be alittle "wanting" left to keep people in the hunt. As a Star Wars product, one has to assume success, but online and physical store preorders seemed to be on the slim side, so FFG was left with a tough desicion on how much to produce. Regardless, no one here knows how many units FFG produced and thus there's no way of knowing how far off the mark FFG was in their assessments.

Fact - Team Covenent Saga Sets did not impact booster box sales. Given there are 17 Legendary cards and 6 Legendaries appear in a given booster box, TC would have had to open 3 booster boxes per complete Saga Set to sell. And that's assuming they pull all the Legendaries they need, which is mathematically unlikely in any frequent pattern. It is more likely that TC acquired the Saga Sets from FFG directly.

Fact - FFG has a track record of missing scheduled product release dates. This is true, but has no really bearing on Destiny. FFG has gone on to produce multiple expansions for a number of games that had rocky starts, like X-Wing. To think another great Star Wars product like Destiny will suffer the same fate due to a rocky start seems to contradict previous successful data.

Fact - FFG has elected not to engage the player base regarding any product supply issues on this board or elsewhere. Whether that's due to a rewuest from Asmodee or Disney remains to be seen. It could even just be an internal policy within FFG. In business, it's generally advantageous not to report any shortages or issues and to maintain a semblance of "everything's fine." Is that right? Not really, as people would prefer to have the opposite - more information. But that is the situation that players are in - an effective product shortage blackout of information.

Fact - SoR is on the way. Given preorder sell-outs and the productive secondary market, the game appears to have legs. Even if additional supplies of Awakenings never happen (which is highly unlikely), there seems to be enough sales momentum to carry this game till the end of the year at least.

Fact - Areas are seeing a general lack of interest and event attendance because of the lack of product. If players cannot receive the product they require to stay competitive in the tournament scene, they will lose interest and leave the game. Again, this references a rocky start and will surely change as more product is released. For lack of better terminology, we can only go up.

Fact - The current rule set is very ambiguous and is leading to some varied interpretations to individual rules. This will become more problematic as more varied product is released. The most common solution that FFG generally offers is updated errata and this game will hopefully see an even more updated errata by the time SoR drops.

Fact - Pies are equal to Cakes as a food.

Fact - Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica.

I think this covers all the most common complaints regarding FFG and Destiny. I would ask that rather than the community posting addition threads on issues listed here, that this thread could just be a "catch-all" location. Being positive and promoting a game is a sure way to continue its success. Yes, Destiny has some obstacles, but overall it is a game worth trying for and staying in with.

I sincerely doubt FFG handed TC complete sets, unless you mean that they received a surplus of boxes to crack for singles. FFG has enough supply issues as it is without tinkering with their card sheets. It just doesn't seem logistically feasible.

And pie is certainly not equal to cake; it's at least 3.14 times more delicious.

I gotta disagree. There have been a number of people here in this hoard indicating they bought SS. And the math probability would take a ton of booster boxes just to satisfy those people. And we're not including people who bought SS that don't post here.

That kinda surplus booster boxes being used to build sets would be outlandish especially compared to how seemingly little product was made in the first place.

Love my Saga set. I'll only be purchasing Sagas and then additional legendaries on the market/trade if I need a second copy.

I highly doubt the sets were put together by TC as they would lose money overall.

Put in my vote to Pie in the Morning (w/coffee) and Cake in the evening (w/ tea).

I'm with WAAAGH on this one. For the Saga Sets, you don't need three perfectly aligned boxes for each set. If you buy 300 boxes intending to create 100 Saga Sets, the law of large numbers says that you're very likely to get just about what you need.

Most countries didn't even get 300 boxes.

And even at wholesale prices (let's say $40 per box) TC would have had to drop $12,000 on 300 boxes for an unproven game. And that's with them not even knowing if they'd make their money back.

30 boxes making 10 or 300 making 100, The real number likely lies inbetween. Using the 300 costing 12,000, that's a cost of $120 for sell price of $299.99. It could even be more like 50 boxes to make 10 sets. Cost $200 per set.

That being said, I could see 'Hawkman2000' being right. TC and FGG do have a relationship, and could have arranged something mutually beneficial.

7 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

30 boxes making 10 or 300 making 100, The real number likely lies inbetween. Using the 300 costing 12,000, that's a cost of $120 for sell price of $299.99. It could even be more like 50 boxes to make 10 sets. Cost $200 per set.

That being said, I could see 'Hawkman2000' being right. TC and FGG do have a relationship, and could have arranged something mutually beneficial.

Its troubling either way. Either FFG sold sets directly to TC or FFG provided an ungodly number of booster boxes to TC and therefore shortened supply to the rest of the world. Im not looking to play this game at a super competitive level, Im just looking to have fun. I thinl there should be a hunt for the top cards/dice but it shouldnt be a literal hunt for product.

Both versions are indeed bad form and I think in the future FFG should avoid this. But there are always going to be people willing to spend that much to get a full set done.

Product on the secondary market is only pricey for the high value Legendaries. Otherwise, there is a mismatch between what's online and what's needed. Even some very playable Rares like Dooku and Jango can be had for less than $15 for two dice. The only thing really out of reach are those top 5-7 Legendaries that are currently hot. These same Legendaries could end up falling in price once the next expansion and subsequent new meta hit.

I think the interest in saga sets has shown the market for people who dislike the ccg model. You can pretty much treat this game as an lcg with saga sets and FFG is hedging their bets making these. The fact TC is only charging 300 a set is good on them taking the gougers out of the equation. Had I known about them I would have bought one for awakenings and it is the only way I will buy SOR. Screw this ccg crap and many agree with that thinking especially after this botched launch.

Fact - The dice are difficult to manufacture, required a new fabrication process which means a substantial upfront investment on FFG's part for a new game with unknown demand. They obviously only invested in what they felt comfortable losing.

Fact - FFG received a lot of harsh criticism for entering the CCG market.

Fact - One of the earlier lots of Destiny had a lot of misprinted dice. That lot was scraped. On the plus side, FFG has plenty of cards to replace damage cards, they do not have any dice.

Fact - FFG is very smart with new games. They do not over produce so if a game bombs, they aren't digging holes in the ground in the New Mexico desert to dump the left overs. If a game sells out, great, they can always make more.

Fact - Producing more product takes time.

Fact - Piecake is better than both pie and cake put together. Well ok, it is pie and cake put together

Saga sets are strange to me because you only get 1 of each legendary. There are usually quite a few you will want 2 of. If you get a saga set you don't really have any spares to trade for those legendaries. You are then in the awkward spot of having to buy singles off the secondary market, buying packs, or trading away some of your playset. I'm sure this approach works for many, but for me it kind of defeats the purpose.

1 hour ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Most countries didn't even get 300 boxes.

And even at wholesale prices (let's say $40 per box) TC would have had to drop $12,000 on 300 boxes for an unproven game. And that's with them not even knowing if they'd make their money back.

My LGS, which is quite small, probably got in and sold somewhere north of 50 boxes. We saw pictures of stores with product stacked up all around the place. MM oversold by 470 boxes, how many do you think they actually got in if that's how much they couldn't fill?

The idea that 300 boxes is some crazy amount for a major retailer to have gotten is ungrounded.

Additionally the fact regarding there being a general lack if interest in events is just plain inaccurate. It's absolutely true for some areas, but even MtG doesn't sell in every shop. But when you have other areas with stores running events more nights out of the week then not to assert some general lack of interest in events is just closing your eyes to the dozens of events being run. Many of which are larger then anything you see from FFG games short of X-wing, Netrunner, or AGOT regionals

15 minutes ago, klonoa said:

Saga sets are strange to me because you only get 1 of each legendary. There are usually quite a few you will want 2 of. If you get a saga set you don't really have any spares to trade for those legendaries. You are then in the awkward spot of having to buy singles off the secondary market, buying packs, or trading away some of your playset. I'm sure this approach works for many, but for me it kind of defeats the purpose.

Buy 2 Saga Sets, if you only want 2 of everything, sell the 2x CUR set you have extra, could probably get most of the cost of that second set back.

1 hour ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Most countries didn't even get 300 boxes.

And even at wholesale prices (let's say $40 per box) TC would have had to drop $12,000 on 300 boxes for an unproven game. And that's with them not even knowing if they'd make their money back.

They took pre-orders and you had to pre-order didn't you? So they knew how many boxes they needed with a margin of error.

2 hours ago, Hawkman2000 said:

I gotta disagree. There have been a number of people here in this hoard indicating they bought SS. And the math probability would take a ton of booster boxes just to satisfy those people. And we're not including people who bought SS that don't post here.

That kinda surplus booster boxes being used to build sets would be outlandish especially compared to how seemingly little product was made in the first place.

MM admitted that they bought boxes exclusively for cracking packs, which is why some people are upset that they didn't fulfill orders instead. The fact is that they had an agreement with FFG that those boxes wouldn't be sold directly to consumers, and so they received them at a different rate and price than their retail products. TC quite likely did the same thing. Now, read this:

http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Print_sheet

I know, I know... you already want to scream "this isn't Magic!" But this is what goes into the printing, cutting, and sorting side of the equation when it comes to manufacturing the cards themselves. It's not as simple as FFG snapping their fingers and producing complete sets; they would have to do an entirely separate print run just for TC, the logistics of which would cost either FFG or TC more than it's worth, and to what end? To satisfy only 100 customers in a manner directly opposed to the very nature of a collectible game? I highly doubt that.

8 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

MM admitted that they bought boxes exclusively for cracking packs, which is why some people are upset that they didn't fulfill orders instead. The fact is that they had an agreement with FFG that those boxes wouldn't be sold directly to consumers, and so they received them at a different rate and price than their retail products. TC quite likely did the same thing. Now, read this:

http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Print_sheet

I know, I know... you already want to scream "this isn't Magic!" But this is what goes into the printing, cutting, and sorting side of the equation when it comes to manufacturing the cards themselves. It's not as simple as FFG snapping their fingers and producing complete sets; they would have to do an entirely separate print run just for TC, the logistics of which would cost either FFG or TC more than it's worth, and to what end? To satisfy only 100 customers in a manner directly opposed to the very nature of a collectible game? I highly doubt that.

Kinda confused on what you were wanting to show there. The layout isn't static they have to be able to arrange the cards in the first place, I guess I am not seeing it that hard to have a second layout that is just complete set runs. I think it would actually be easier because you skip the packaging process.

2 hours ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Most countries didn't even get 300 boxes.

And even at wholesale prices (let's say $40 per box) TC would have had to drop $12,000 on 300 boxes for an unproven game. And that's with them not even knowing if they'd make their money back.

Also consider your math here, friend. Saga Sets are what, $500 a piece? What percentage do you figure they bought those at? Because at face value, just 100 of them are $50,000. If we assume they only invested $12,000 in the first place (that's less than 25% of what they're charging), that's still a $38,000 profit.

14 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

MM admitted that they bought boxes exclusively for cracking packs, which is why some people are upset that they didn't fulfill orders instead. The fact is that they had an agreement with FFG that those boxes wouldn't be sold directly to consumers, and so they received them at a different rate and price than their retail products.

I don't think anyone is saying MM should have taken boxes earmarked for singles and instead sent them to fulfill pre-orders. They're saying MM should have prioritized ordering pre-order fulfillment over ordering boxes to procure singles.

3 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

Kinda confused on what you were wanting to show there. The layout isn't static they have to be able to arrange the cards in the first place, I guess I am not seeing it that hard to have a second layout that is just complete set runs. I think it would actually be easier because you skip the packaging process.

Destiny is already probably being packaged in two separate print runs: one for the boosters, and a separate one for the starters. It's a small set, so for the boosters they might actually be cramming all the rarities on a single sheet - that's 160 cards spread out over sheets with 110 cards a piece. You can do the math to figure out how many sheets would be needed for an even number of complete sheets. The math gets a little more convoluted if we assume that the rarities are separated onto different sheets, at which point we have no idea what kind of ratio they're printing each rarity at. We also don't know what kind of method they're using to randomly distribute the cards. That's a lot of we-don't-knows to consider for a supposed "fact" about how FFG produces their cards.

The saga sets are $300 and after factoring in labor to put them together from booster boxes, they aren't making all that much. They would make far more money selling all those boxes on ebay.

41 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Also consider your math here, friend. Saga Sets are what, $500 a piece? What percentage do you figure they bought those at? Because at face value, just 100 of them are $50,000. If we assume they only invested $12,000 in the first place (that's less than 25% of what they're charging), that's still a $38,000 profit.

As mentioned SS are $300.

So $30,000, then. The point stands. If it's so labor intensive, what makes you think FFG would do it for them instead? They have nothing to gain and everything to lose; intentionally selling collectible products as a set would only undermine their value in the long run. That's not something they're going to go out of their way for just so that TC can reap some minor benefit.

And as I already pointed out, TC can't sell boxes earmarked for singles, regardless of what they might earn from eBay.

I don't pretend to know why FFG thought the SS were a good idea. It just doesn't make sense to me that TC would just open boxes at random with no idea of how many SS they could build. wpuld they have even known the booster box breakdowns ahead of time? What did they do with the tons of Commons, Uncommons, and Rares that would be left over? Seems like a total waste to open boxes in that manner.

Right, you don't know why they would make unsound business decisions that would only benefit TC, but despite those gaps in knowledge it still seems reasonable to you because it's the only way that you think TC could accomplish such a feat. The reality is that they can - and probably did - just assemble their sets from boxes specifically set aside for singles, just like everyone else. The only difference is that they did it in larger numbers because they're the only e-tailer with experience in selling FFG goods through the secondary market.