16 minutes ago, haritos said:

Are you understanding what I'm saying? What you said is 100% what I am saying. They grabbed their cash and now they level the playing field.

You are in complete agreement with me, you re just skipping the part of why this happened in the first place.

You think this happened because you literally believe the designers who made this brilliant game are actually too dumb to understand what the tie x7 power level would be. I'm saying they are not.

Nobody questions the follow up to that cash grab: they want a level playing field, and an evolving meta. Nobody said the opposite. You get your diverse meta, they get bucketloads of cash.

It was a tongue in cheek comment related to the fact that, deliberate or not, the changes are for the good of the game and as someone who has invested money in this hobby, I am still pleased about it because it makes the game better (imo).

You'll notice that I didn't comment on whether it was the intention of the game designers in the first instance.

You appear to be blinded by your nerd rage. All of the expansions that have had cards nerfed are still very useable and they all have other cards and ships that may become more competively viable now so you may get some more use out of them. For example, the raider has the tie x/1 title in, may be the tie advanced will become more playable in a meta where zuckuss, manaroo and x/7 are less prominent.

3 hours ago, haritos said:

Again, it's incredibly cute that you actually think that there is some God like ability behind the most simple cash grabbing business model. Or that this is a conspiracy theory.

Is everyone here so naive to think it actually takes brains to think of a plan like that? Would you buy as many uboats if they weren't so strong? Would you EVER buy a raider? You actually find the simplest idea, which is to pack strong cards in new products to sell them, genius? Wow, you are cute.

Again repeatedly using cute as if it's an insult. Please explain why you think it is.

2 hours ago, asters89 said:

It was a tongue in cheek comment related to the fact that, deliberate or not, the changes are for the good of the game and as someone who has invested money in this hobby, I am still pleased about it because it makes the game better (imo).

You'll notice that I didn't comment on whether it was the intention of the game designers in the first instance.

You appear to be blinded by your nerd rage. All of the expansions that have had cards nerfed are still very useable and they all have other cards and ships that may become more competively viable now so you may get some more use out of them. For example, the raider has the tie x/1 title in, may be the tie advanced will become more playable in a meta where zuckuss, manaroo and x/7 are less prominent.

OK, thank you for clarifying it. Your comment was completely irrelevant to the topic, whether this is good or bad is an entirely different issue (my opinion is its good).

I would suggest you steer clear of personal attacks. You are in no position of knowing if this is me raging because I'm hurt (don't worry, I'm not, of the affected ships I only own 1 j5k), or just observing that greedy FFG has gone more greedy (because hey, don't tell me the way cards are packed as they are is not a greedy business model).

9 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

Again repeatedly using cute as if it's an insult. Please explain why you think it is.

I have not intention of insulting anyone, hence the word cute. I literally find it cute that people so passionately defend the fact that FFG is using a ridiculously greedy business model.

I am not telling you not to love the game, I love it as well and you won't find a single post by me whining over balance or fixes.

I am telling you that putting a 100$ price tag on an insanely strong card is just corporate greed, and now they re doing the whole hype and nerf trick. And it's cute that you think that FFG actually likes you when they do everything in their power to empty your wallet.

Accept it, it's just business. It's the company that sells extra dice for 8$.

2 minutes ago, haritos said:

OK, thank you for clarifying it. Your comment was completely irrelevant to the topic, whether this is good or bad is an entirely different issue (my opinion is its good).

I would suggest you steer clear of personal attacks. You are in no position of knowing if this is me raging because I'm hurt (don't worry, I'm not, of the affected ships I only own 1 j5k), or just observing that greedy FFG has gone more greedy (because hey, don't tell me the way cards are packed as they are is not a greedy business model).

It is not (intended to be) a greedy buisness model, it is one that has been created with a much smaller game in mind. X-Wing was never expected to be the success it turned out. 3 waves were about as far as FFG dared to think. That the tournament scene blew up as it did radicaly changed the game from its original vision.

23 minutes ago, haritos said:

I have not intention of insulting anyone, hence the word cute. I literally find it cute that people so passionately defend the fact that FFG is using a ridiculously greedy business model.

I am not telling you not to love the game, I love it as well and you won't find a single post by me whining over balance or fixes.

I am telling you that putting a 100$ price tag on an insanely strong card is just corporate greed, and now they re doing the whole hype and nerf trick. And it's cute that you think that FFG actually likes you when they do everything in their power to empty your wallet.

Accept it, it's just business. It's the company that sells extra dice for 8$.

The Emperor was not 100 dollars, the raider expansion was 100 dollars. Dice are 8 dollars because things cost money, and businesses are in the business of making money. X wing miniatures is not an investment, it is entertainment. This game will always change. If it doesn't it won't last much longer

22 minutes ago, haritos said:

I would suggest you steer clear of personal attacks. You are in no position of knowing if this is me raging because I'm hurt (don't worry, I'm not, of the affected ships I only own 1 j5k), or just observing that greedy FFG has gone more greedy (because hey, don't tell me the way cards are packed as they are is not a greedy business model).

I would suggest that you follow your own advice as you seem to have caused some offence with the repeated use of the word cute and an implication that any one who can't see what you take to be a self evident fact is either willfully ignorant of it not clever enough to see it.

I just can't... with this thread...

15 hours ago, Democratus said:

Right. Because time and experience make games immune to FAQ.

D&D: 30+ years ,5+ editions, millions of hours of playtesting. Still putting out errata.

SFB: 30+ years, multiple editions, millions of hours of playtesting. Still putting out errata.

Warhammer: ditto

Warmachines, Call of Cthulhu...

Exactly what "perfect" game company is FFG meant to be emulating?

Hmmmm. I never said that games, including this one, are immune to FAQ's, or that there exists a "perfect" game company immune to FAQing their games.

Quote

corporate greed

- is the driving motive of pretty much every publically owned company. Maximise returns regardless of if you actually need them. That doesn't mean hiking prices just because they can though. It means finding the balance point between how much people will pay and how many people will pay. It's called the price the market will bear.

If you're already familiar with economic theory then this won't be new to you but it might still be a benefit to someone else.

Take a group of 100 people. You have a product to sell and they're all willing to pay different prices for it.

• The first 5 people won't pay for it ever.
• The next 25 people will pay a maximum of $1.00 for it.
• The next 25 people will pay a maximum of $3.00 for it.
• The next 40 people will pay a maximum of $5.00 for it.
• The last 5 people will happily pay $10.00 for it.

For the purposes of mathematical simplicity we'll ignore supply, production cost and competition for the moment because they make the model much more complicated and therefore harder to explain.

How much do you charge for your product? These are your options.

• Charge $1.00. 95 people buy the product. You get $95.
• Charge $3.00. 70 people buy the product. You get $210.
• Charge $5.00. 45 people buy the product. You get $225.
• Charge $10.00. 5 people buy the product. You get $50.

The optimal price to sell at is $5.00. See how the optimal price is set by what the customers are willing to pay?

FFG charges $8 for a pack of dice because that's where they believe that optimum lies. You and I wouldn't but we're in the 55 people who don't buy the product in the above example. This is the nature of a hobby product like X-Wing. The people who'll pay insane amounts don't have a big effect because there aren't may but the sizeable chunk of people who'd pay $5 instead of $3 tip the scales.

This is called a demand curve and to make the most money you find the point that best balances how much people will pay and how many people will pay.

Companies that charge less aren't doing it out of charity, they're doing it because the optimum of the demand curve lies lower.

Quote

whole hype and nerf trick

FFG is incentivised to make Palpatine desirable because that drives up demand for the Raider: more people will pay more. However they're disincentivised from making Palpatine broken: if they damage the health of their game they drive down demand for everything: fewer people want to play a broken game. A few more Raider sales won't offset declining sales of the entire range.

Assuming for the sake of argument that everyone at FFG's only drive is maximising returns and that they don't care about their products in any way beyond that (I like to think the designers at least do care) then nerfing Palpatine presents a choice.

• Nerf Palpatine. Reduce confidence of players looking to invest in power cards, reduce demand from those players.
• Don't nerf Palpatine. Reduce demand from players who care about balance.

A company thinking only in terms of profit is looking at one thing here: which drop in demand is bigger?

"Hype and nerf" drives down both. It's a short-termist strategy that will kill your game and your customer loyalty. Even for a PAAC FFG (profit at all costs) this isn't a viable long term business plan.

20 hours ago, Blue Five said:

If this were the case FFG wouldn't design DoA (dead on arrival) ships. Balancing X-Wing is hard. FFG screws up occasionally.

Yes, no doubt they package desirable cards with powerful effects in huge ships to sell them, same reason they package content for Standard in there. But they don't deliberately make cards meta-warping because killing their game's reputation is bad for business in the long run.

I don't even believe the negatives of the distribution method are deliberate: for Wave 1's release it makes sense without appearing harmful.

Name three dead on arrival expansions which are not the M3A. ;-)

DOA ships are a fine way to keep it simple while still selling expansions. FFG is making money from selling expansions, not ships, and last time I checked the Kihraxz expansion was one of the bestseller which sold out quite often, all thanks to crackshot. DoA ships are actually desired from a business point as long as those expansions contain one or two good cards, because you sell that way the ace pack on top.

@Blue Five Your supply and demand 101 is nice, but there one missing piece in the puzzle: Encourage customers to buy NEW power cards. The ever changing meta is a basic business strategy from a lot of companies in the gaming industry and the most important about it is really to encourage players to keep playing new stuff. New is always better than old in this context.

Quote

Name three dead on arrival expansions which are not the M3A. ;-)

DOA ships are a fine way to keep it simple while still selling expansions. FFG is making money from selling expansions, not ships, and last time I checked the Kihraxz expansion was one of the bestseller which sold out quite often, all thanks to crackshot. DoA ships are actually desired from a business point as long as those expansions contain one or two good cards, because you sell that way the ace pack on top.

You don't need a dead ship to make an Ace Pack. Rebel Aces came out in the B-wing's heyday. I can't see a situation in which a clearly DoA ship is outright preferable to a balanced one. The people who'll buy a Kihraxz just for Crackshot will by definition buy it regardless of the quality of the Kihraxz but the Kihraxz won't sell as well to people who want a balanced ship.

I take the point on how good cards driving sales and more obvious Ace opportunities heavily mitigate the negatives though. It goes a long way to explaining why FFG tend to be overcautious with a lot of expansions: playing it safe is fairly low risk.

FFG could go with blind buy boxes on models with randomized boosters for cards.

Perfectly balanced games are incredibly difficult, even digital formats with regular patches have a hard time.

FFG does their best but they are just a room full of humans, they cannot realistically consider every possible use of each card with every other and often mistakenly word cards. If you want perfect balance, play Go or Chess. They are not deliberately making uber cards, they don't print extra copies so it wouldn't even make any sense to the bottom line.

20 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

FFG could go with blind buy boxes on models with randomized boosters for cards.

Yes please, the secondary market needs a boost! How else are all those eBay guys gonna make money?

6 hours ago, haritos said:

Would you buy as many uboats if they weren't so strong? Would you EVER buy a raider? You actually find the simplest idea, which is to pack strong cards in new products to sell them, genius? Wow, you are cute.

I bought two JumpMasters because I thought they were cool and wanted to run a Tel and Dengar list. I bought the Raider because I thought it was cool and wanted to play Epic with it. The cards that came with these ships were an added bonus, not the reason I bought them in the first place.

6 hours ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

It's SOOOO CUUUUTTE!!!!!!!!

[I used to raise budgies, so this was a kick of nostalgia for me. Hey! Maybe that has something to do with my screenname ...]

So the OP is mad because FFG is greedy, but at the same time isn't really all that upset by the changes.

1. If you aren't upset by the changes, why make this post?

2. Are you trying to be a champion of the masses, leading against the evil corporations and their greed?

Corporations are greedy, it is well known. No argument from me. Did FFG know ahead of time that they were going to nerf certain cards, and waited for everyone to pony up the money before they did? I'm not sure. If they were truly all about the cash, I think they just would have made the next set of ships even more over powered to deal with the previous bad boys of the block. Then you force everyone to buy more to "keep up with the joneses."

In closing, do I think FFG and other companies are greedy, yes. Do I think, in this case, it was part of some master plan, no.

So no one thinks it's curious that two of the most meta-defining cards of their time (C3PO and Palpatine) were in $100 ships that couldn't be used for standard play?

3 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

So no one thinks it's curious that two of the most meta-defining cards of their time (C3PO and Palpatine) were in $100 ships that couldn't be used for standard play?

I would call it a shrewd business practice. Also I own neither of those expansions, nor the cards, although I would love the Advanced fix cards.

Just now, GrimmyV said:

I would call it a shrewd business practice. Also I own neither of those expansions, nor the cards, although I would love the Advanced fix cards.

Perhaps. Not to mention that two other meta-defining cards (TLT and Autothrusters) are STILL only available in a single $20 expansion.

6 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

So no one thinks it's curious that two of the most meta-defining cards of their time (C3PO and Palpatine) were in $100 ships that couldn't be used for standard play?

ACD and VI were probably about as meta-defining as C-3PO.

8 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

So no one thinks it's curious that two of the most meta-defining cards of their time (C3PO and Palpatine) were in $100 ships that couldn't be used for standard play?

It is scummy. But there is still no reason to believe these cards were planned to be so good they had to be nerfed.

2 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Perhaps. Not to mention that two other meta-defining cards (TLT and Autothrusters) are STILL only available in a single $20 expansion.

At least those cards are packed in pairs... And if it wasn't for AT no one would even buy the poor Starviper.

wait...if I was a conspiracy theorist I would begin to see a pattern here...

54 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

FFG could go with blind buy boxes on models with randomized boosters for cards.

Think bigger. Blind boxes for models that include random upgrades and only 2 of a potential 4-6 pilots for that ship (1 ship chit per box). No booster card packs. $$$