I understand how business works. I have been defending FFG and their business practices. There are a lot of assumptions in your post about what people are willing to pay though. FFG won't know until they sell them for whatever price they choose. Also, they usually have to make a minimum amount during manufacturing due to R&D costs and such. Usually there are discounts depending on how many are made at a time also, due to factories not having to switch things over between runs. Over head also costs money.

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There are a lot of assumptions in your post about what people are willing to pay though.

There are two main assumptions. The first is that the proportion of players who want (but won't necessarily buy) the cards from an Epic ship for standard is greater than the proportion of players that want the ship for Epic - that standard is a "bigger" format. The second is that players wanting the ship for the standard content are generally willing to pay less for it.

The conclusion (that you were right in that people buying ships for cards drives down the cost for people buying ships for ships) is born of those two assumptions.

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I understand how business works.

Does everyone in this thread though? Were it a post replying you alone I'd have given up as soon as I realised you were right: no need to tell you what you already know. I thought a quick run-through of demand with respect to bundling would be beneficial to the general discussion.

Get you Tin Foil hats on....

There is a story about a game and a bunch of Play testers (L5R) who deliberately mis-represented play test feedback for their own ends....

I truly believe that some things just slip through the cracks, however some things are so egregious (I think thats the term the Americans like) for them to simply be a case "Opps, got that one wrong" seems a little off.

But then a manager once told me "Try not to attribute maliciousness to something that can be easily explained by stupidity"

7 minutes ago, Shockwave said:

... egregious (I think thats the term the Americans like) ...

It seems that you may have misspelled "freedom".

"I truly believe that some things just slip through the cracks, however some things are so freedom for them to simply be a case "Opps, got that one wrong" seems a little off."

2 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

"I truly believe that some things just slip through the cracks, however some things are so freedom for them to simply be a case "Opps, got that one wrong" seems a little off."

I think there's something obviously wrong with that sentence.

Great write up on the business stuff. And of course reality will be much more complicated as there is a secondary market of people buying Raiders just to break them up and sell piece by piece. They wouldn't do that if they weren't turning a profit. Meaning, in part, that the number of people willing to pay more for huge ships is higher than just the epic-only crowd.

5 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

"I truly believe that some things just slip through the cracks, however some things are so freedom for them to simply be a case "Opps, got that one wrong" seems a little off."

You need to use it more like a Smurf would use the word "smurf".

5 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

You need to use it more like a Smurf would use the word "smurf".

As in, "Some smurfs around here think that FFG went ahead and smurfed up this whole smurfing game with that latest smurfing nerf."

So smurf could really just equal f***

On Tue Mar 07 2017 at 0:26 PM, MegaSilver said:

They probably had the party bus in mind. But Dengaroo? I doubt it.

I second this.

Dengaroo pretty much requires a specific Dengar build to become a monster and has to have Manaroo support.

Meta and group-think at time of JM5K play test could no way have put much thought into 1 single ship solo-ing an entire list being possible, while 40 pts of ship hung out in a corner doing donuts.

I know when I first started building Dengar + Zuckuss, when JM5K came out, I thought it was good, but built up 4 stress tokens, used my Glitterstim, then relied on Predator for 4 rounds while I de-stressed, then only re-rolled 1 dice a round with zuckuss a round. At the end of it, I thought it was cool, but an X7 Vessery still survived, so I put it in the "meh" category as I could not find the right Ace ship to run with it, as game was still in a "Turret + Ace" meta.

7 hours ago, Jetfire said:

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.

To be pedantic, perfectly balancing a game is essentially impossible. Balancing a game very well is incredibly difficult.

And Chess is not perfectly balanced: white has a first mover advantage and wins about 55% of the time while black wins about 45% of the time.

That said, I generally agree, I think that the FFG developers are trying to balance the game as well as they can for a day 0 release, but getting it right without introducing power creep is almost impossible given the technical balance and playtest capabilities of the industry in general, and FFG in particular.

[double post!]

2 hours ago, Shockwave said:

...But then a manager once told me "Try not to attribute maliciousness to something that can be easily explained by stupidity"

Hanlon's Razor... Philosophical way of eliminating unlikely explanations for a phenomenon

9 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

[double post!]

We all know that you are a very smart guy. Therefore your double posting was _ckearly_ not a mistake, but rather a devious plot to prove that mistakes are possible. I've seen through your subterfuge, and therefore I see through FFG's insidious plan.

8 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

I've seen through your subterfuge, and therefore I see through FFG's insidious plan.

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?!

2 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

To be pedantic, perfectly balancing a game is essentially impossible. Balancing a game very well is incredibly difficult.

And Chess is not perfectly balanced: white has a first mover advantage and wins about 55% of the time while black wins about 45% of the time.

That said, I generally agree, I think that the FFG developers are trying to balance the game as well as they can for a day 0 release, but getting it right without introducing power creep is almost impossible given the technical balance and playtest capabilities of the industry in general, and FFG in particular.

Is that stat for just all games or for championship level games? I'd love to know the stats for black and white for grandmasters. @MajorJuggler

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

Is that stat for just all games or for championship level games? I'd love to know the stats for black and white for grandmasters. @MajorJuggler

Here's a good link:

https://www.quora.com/In-chess-how-significant-of-an-advantage-is-playing-white-in-grandmaster-level-games

4 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

Here's a good link:

https://www.quora.com/In-chess-how-significant-of-an-advantage-is-playing-white-in-grandmaster-level-games

You're awesome.

5 hours ago, Blue Five said:

I thought a quick run-through of demand with respect to bundling would be beneficial to the general discussion.

I found the rundown very interesting, so I for one say "Cheers mate".

On 3/7/2017 at 3:49 PM, haritos said:

Its so cute how all of you defend so blatantly wrong balance decisions

You mean Defenders were hard to playtest too right? Who would have thought what the implication of getting a free evade token mean! It requires serious skills!

Who would have thought of putting a range 3 on Manaroo and Palp? (or 2, whatever). Really cute how you find the x wing creators uncapable of making that call. REALLY cute you think its coincidence that incredibly powerful cards people have been crying for years over came with a 90$ price tag.

I see people asking "lol why would they do that, its dumb". How is it dumb they make a bucketload of money from people who rush to buy 3x scouts because OMG ITZZZZ SO STRONK I READ IT FOR?UMS!!

Its the same business model used in videogames like LoL. Release new hero. Build the hype. People buy him. Nerf.

As I said, missing the mark occasionally is absolutely fine. Missing the mark by such a large margin? I call bull. WE ARE BEING SCAMMED BROTHERS.

Your patronizing really de-legitimizes your argument.

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Your patronizing really de-legitimizes your argument.

In terms of legitimacy it has no effect at all. Whether or not FFG's balancing issues are actually a sinister marketing ploy is independent from how he phrases his posts.

What it does have an effect on is bias: the tone makes the desire to disagree with him stronger.

People Furious And Baffled As Tens Of Thousands Of People Obsessively Scrutinising Game For Every Tiny Competitive Edge Find Stuff That A Few Dozen Playtesters Mis-Evaluated.

13 hours ago, Mattman7306 said:

Your patronizing really de-legitimizes your argument.

It de-legitimizes it for you because you already disagree with me, its all perspective. I find it cute so im gonna say it, i wont suck up to somebody to get a point across, this isn't politics

Speaking of cute, isn't it also adorable how not a single person has found an explanation for defenders also missing their mark? Zuckuss they claim, was probably not foreseen due to the very specific requirements to set him up. How so for defenders? Or palp?

I think that's the way to go if you want to deconstruct my argument/offer another explanation. Not point out that I made someone salty for finding him cute!

21 hours ago, Shockwave said:

But then a manager once told me "Try not to attribute maliciousness to something that can be easily explained by stupidity"

I have more faith in people just getting things wrong than their ability to come up with a super secret plan to successfully inflate the price of product for commercial ends. To accomplish the later would require a lot of things to go as planned and a level being clever that makes it unbelievable. The idea that they just made mistakes is a lot easier to swallow.

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cute

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adorable

The use of adorable as a synonym eliminates the North American colloquial use of "cute" (self-servingly clever) leaving only the common definition.

"Cuteness" is an attribute of babies evolved to evoke protective feelings in adults. It's why humans feel the need to protect kittens but not lizards.

To describe something as cute or adorable is to compare it to that set of juvenile attributes. When you describe other members as cute you're not saying they have an endearing appearance evoking protective feelings, you're describing their views as "cute". You're comparing them to a baby or small child. It's a more forceful version of calling them "kid."

In doing that you're, knowingly or not, placing yourself in the role of adult and them in the role of child. You're the senior figure who's views matter and they're the naive child who's views are clouded by the inexperience innocence of youth and do not matter. Rather than discuss the matter on equal terms you assert yourself as an authority and them as no authority at all.

While this boosts your own confidence it grates on others. Comparing someone to a child is usually taken as a provokation. "Grow up", "kid", they all make people angry when they don't feel it rightfully applies to them. It's taken as a challenge amd cordial discussion devolves into hostility as the conversation has become a fight for dominance. The goal of the conversation is no longer to find reasonable conclusions through cooperative discussion, the goal is to win the argument and defeat the challenger.

We may all look and sound smart but we humans are still dumb animals who fight over things as pointless as this whether we realise it or not. How many times have you found yourself in an argument with no real stakes but you still feel the need to win it? The stake, whether you realise it or not, is the internal assertion of superiority over the opponent, to prove to yourself and to any onlookers that you are better than they are.

While it's instinctive for some people to pepper such provokations into their arguments it's ultimately counterproductive. This is the internet. You hold no power over anyone. The purpose of this thread is convince others of your views (otherwise what is its purpose?) and by provoking them you sabotage any chance of achieving that. Calling someone juvenile only works as a tool of persuasion when they care what you think of them but none of these people do.

While calling everyone who disagrees with you cute may make you feel good it sabotages everything you set out to achieve here.

7 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

While calling everyone who disagrees with you cute may make you feel good it sabotages everything you set out to achieve here.

The basic premise he's spewing here does that plenty well all by itself... The fact that he results to ad hominem is really just icing on the cake. Not only is he wrong, he's being a jerk about it as well.

Also make no mistake, he is very much intentionally using words like that to paint himself as the reasonable adult and everyone who disagrees with him and a child.