I'm a person who jumps into such things with both feet, so I read everything and started posting even before buying the games, so I wouldn't presume to know what an average kitchen player who doesn't casually decide to sink hundreds of dollars into a new game thinks.

When it comes to errata I'm not a fan of that which makes a card illegal in use such as the Deadeye alteration or even Tactician to a much more limited extent. It may be nice to walk in blind and find something is actually better than you expected but at the same time I can really see the disappointment if you walk in and learn that something is not longer going to be nearly as effective as you had hoped. Sometimes those may be relatively minor (sorry but the x7 change isn't world ending) but if they completely shoot down a plan they suck big time (decloaking).

43 minutes ago, ModernPenguin said:

However if you read the tournament regulations, it clearly states that tournaments are played with the FAQ in mind. I did read up on tournament rules in my first tourney.
I would expect new timers to do the same! :-)

If people are going to a big tournament blind, they have no room to complain. Ignorance is not an excuse. You have to know tournament rules, and that means knowing the FAQ if you are going to play competitive. If it's just a LGS kit tourney, then its not a big loss and they will learn real quick about the FAQ.

3 hours ago, wfain said:

The hesitancy *should* come from people using cards in ways other than as written. The errata to cards like Daredevil don't really matter, the card still does what it says (basically). Errata to Palpatine, x7, Manaroo, and Zuckuss is an entirely different thing. We're talking about 4 significant cards which now do not work as they are written. This creates strange feelings when kitchen players show up. They have a cool list with Palpatine in a Decimator, a Delta x7, and maybe a Phantom. They sit down to play their first ever match in a local store and suddenly none of their cards work they way they're written? Wouldn't that sound suspicious to you on your first trip?

I don't know but I think for balancing the tournament scene errata is the wrong move, banning or restricting is much better. The cards should do what they say and if what they say is too powerful you either limit them or ban them completely.

Banning cards for collectible card games works because people buy packs with several cards, and don't know exactly what they're getting. If they end up getting a banned card in a pack, it's not like they didn't get several other cards with it. It won't stop a player from buying more packs since the chances are greater that they'll get cards that aren't banned, anyway.

Banning items from a non-randomized selection game, like X-Wing, is a sure-fire way to make it so that certain products stop selling entirely. Leaving retailers with products that they cannot sell at all is a great way to end up having said retailers stop carrying anything from that line, and thus, killing the game entirely. Once you know what you're getting, an outright ban has financial consequences for the game. Likewise, making it so that only certain products are viable in a tournament scene is another way to warp the sales of products. As a result, using errata is the more economically viable solution.

9 minutes ago, Freeptop said:

Banning cards for collectible card games works because people buy packs with several cards, and don't know exactly what they're getting. If they end up getting a banned card in a pack, it's not like they didn't get several other cards with it. It won't stop a player from buying more packs since the chances are greater that they'll get cards that aren't banned, anyway.

Banning items from a non-randomized selection game, like X-Wing, is a sure-fire way to make it so that certain products stop selling entirely. Leaving retailers with products that they cannot sell at all is a great way to end up having said retailers stop carrying anything from that line, and thus, killing the game entirely. Once you know what you're getting, an outright ban has financial consequences for the game. Likewise, making it so that only certain products are viable in a tournament scene is another way to warp the sales of products. As a result, using errata is the more economically viable solution.

Fair points. Though I would contend: A) by the time you have to ban anything the packs have already sold through and are waiting for restock/aren't likely to sell many more no matter what, B) It's not like we're talking about packs with only the banned item in them, even if Palpatine was banned the Raider still has other interesting cards. The same is true for the JM5K and Imperial Veterans. I would think the only way you outright kill sales of a pack by banning something is to actually ban the ship itself, which I don't think we're going to see no matter their policies going forward. Obviously they would prefer to do neither. C) significantly changing the function of the cards/ships from their printed version likely decreases sales a significant amount as well, to wit, there are Phantoms lying around ever since the errata.

20 hours ago, wfain said:

Fair points. Though I would contend: A) by the time you have to ban anything the packs have already sold through and are waiting for restock/aren't likely to sell many more no matter what, B) It's not like we're talking about packs with only the banned item in them, even if Palpatine was banned the Raider still has other interesting cards. The same is true for the JM5K and Imperial Veterans. I would think the only way you outright kill sales of a pack by banning something is to actually ban the ship itself, which I don't think we're going to see no matter their policies going forward. Obviously they would prefer to do neither. C) significantly changing the function of the cards/ships from their printed version likely decreases sales a significant amount as well, to wit, there are Phantoms lying around ever since the errata.

If point A) were correct, FFG would never need to reprint anything. Not everyone got into the game at the same time, so having people who entered the game later not be interested in previous product still leads to my original point.

As for point B), well, some packs are already bought by most competitive players solely for the upgrade cards (see: Starviper). If they banned autothrusters, how many Starvipers would end up sitting on shelves? For that matter, once you've opened the door to banning, who's to say they won't discover they need to issue a ban for a ship in the future? After all, one option to dealing with several problems over the last few months would have been to simply ban the Jumpmaster5000, instead of issuing changes to Deadeye and Manaroo. Banning should be the last resort when you have no other options. At least if a card works a little differently than expected, it can still be used. Banning means it can't be used at all.

Which brings us to your point C): it is technically accurate that an errata may lead to fewer sales, but that ignores that a ban is going to impact sales far more than an errata will. Especially if the errata leaves the product in a useable state that is just no longer overpowered.