1 hour ago, mxlm said:

The Jumpmaster was specifically designed to be an ordnance carrier. It arrived in a wave that was specifically aiming to buff ordnance. Which seems more plausible: nobody thinks to put extra munitions, deadeye, and the mech on the ordnance carrier when testing the ordnance wave or it's spotted, it's intended, and it's believed (whether by the designers or the testers) to be within reasonable bounds.

In a podcast, the designers of said wave explicitly declared they'd missed the Deadeye interaction.

They might've lied, but they sounded pretty humble about it.

3 hours ago, KelRiever said:

Part of their success is that they price in customer attrition. Whoever they have left pays enough money to make up for whoever they lose. And as awful as that is, I sickly think it works? If Games Workshop could get only 2 people in the world each year to buy all their product for $100 million apiece (maybe each space marine costs $2 million for the same model they made 20 years ago) then are they really a failed company? YES! from the point of view of having any presence in the world. No from the standpoint of profit.

They would be a failed company from the perspective from an investor as well. They would be still a failed company, even with their little profit. And it would be actually close to their current state ;-)
Without growth and a declining customer base the only thing left to you to keep a stable income is to increase prices. And that is the state of GW since the late nineties. The process seems to have been dramatically accelerated since FFG got their star wars licence.

In my field, simply enough to say that neither Games Workshop or Asmodee are companies even worth talking about on the scale of the money they earn. Don't even bother talking about investing imo unless something is Hasbro. GW and Asmodee/FFG are sneezes on the scale of real companies.

Having said that, both are huge when we talk about miniatures, painted or not. There is no doubt to me that FFG has put more than a dent when I look around and see not just X-Wing, but a slew of pre-painted 'fighter' games out there, some licensing from FFG itself.

So why hasn't Games Workshop failed? I mean it isn't like they are doing something worse than they did 1, 2, 5 or even 10 years ago.

To bring this back on topic, its because the truth people don't want to admit is what they do works at a certain level, and if what GW did was so bad, not only would they have already failed, but other companies wouldn't follow in lockstep as they raised prices. Everybody likes to talk about how Privateer Press is different, and yet they fail to see the obvious similarities that are there.

FFG should raise its prices I'm convinced after all this. I mean, if they aren't going to do things like card packs because they aren't profitable, and people like buying the $80 sets for more cards, its fans letting FFG know they would pay a lot more for what they are getting. I sort of guess this is already happening, with all the large ship releases in the past few waves. But I say throw the switch and at least raise fighter prices to $20. We're kind of most of the way there now.

34 minutes ago, KelRiever said:

neither … Asmodee are companies even worth talking about on the scale of the money they earn.

Correct, Asmodee is not interesting on the amount they make, they are interesting on the amount of money they spend, money to acquire FFG, a few million here to buy catan, another "few" there for pandemic, HB. etc. And while they were at it, they bought nearly all local distributors of their games as well. Asmodee is the arm of eurazeo. Growth rate is the most important metric for Asmodee. They are iirc still 10 times smaller than hasbro, while at the same time they have capital behind them which dwarfs hasbro. They must have spend close to a billion on that shopping spree by now.

In this context you can bet that raising prices to anything that would endanger growth is the least thing FFG wants. Now Milking us still good to acquire more cheap capital to do some more shopping sounds legit and they actually did this a few times already. The real milkin will start once they are actually left with little growth potential. GW never became a big player, because they never growth out of their profitable niche position and they are shrinking since a while now as far as I know. (edit) I would not be surprised if Asmodee downright buys GW in the next few years.

Well, last I checked GW financials, they weren't so bad as everyone would like to think they were. That doesn't mean someone couldn't buy them. I always laugh at that FFG did a better job making GW related products than GW did. And GW ended the licensing agreement. Self inflicted foot shot!

I sort of believe, then, that there should be a card pack released. Either do things like release card packs and make the fan base happier, or claim profit and raise prices, maybe by a lot. The middle of the road, status quo, seems rather failure oriented. Ahem, JUMPMASTER THREADS! As an example of things going wrong as they are.

3 hours ago, KelRiever said:

Well, last I checked GW financials, they weren't so bad as everyone would like to think they were. That doesn't mean someone couldn't buy them. I always laugh at that FFG did a better job making GW related products than GW did. And GW ended the licensing agreement. Self inflicted foot shot!

I sort of believe, then, that there should be a card pack released. Either do things like release card packs and make the fan base happier, or claim profit and raise prices, maybe by a lot. The middle of the road, status quo, seems rather failure oriented. Ahem, JUMPMASTER THREADS! As an example of things going wrong as they are.

Card packs will not make the fan base happier as a whole. You're spending additional money to get a corrected version of what FFG has already sold to you. Also how often will this pack be updated? After every wave? 2 waves? Or I can print my 8 page reference guide and continue to enjoy the game. If anything were to happen like that, it should be a sort of trade in program, FFG recycles the old cards, you get your new cards with the correct printing. Or a campaign box.

Also you talk about GW shooting themselves in the foot, One of X-wings major selling points is it's relatively low cost. You can build a really decent squad, perfect for kitchen table and store tournament settings for about $100 USD. Which appeals to a whole lot more people than the 100/6 competitive players. That's why the 101 USD articles have been popping up as of lately. Deviating from this model with raised prices will hurt any growth FFG wants to experience in the next couple years. $15 for an X-wing blister is reasonable. If you raise that to say $25 I better be getting alot more in that blister than just what was in the blister for $15. And this is reflected in the bigger blisters like the starviper and K-wing. They are worth their raised cost.

And yeah the jumpmaster is currently broken, but so was Fat Han when I started playing back in early 2015, and FFG nerfed that into the ground. The Jumpmaster's day will come.

The comment about GW shooting itself in the foot had more to do with not maintaining their partnership with FFG. On the contrary, raising prices for them has worked out much better than anyone really wants to admit to.

It was a quality of rules comment more than anything else. I actually think FFG's star wars is a better game and a better IP (although if you want to paint a model, I will have to give that nod to GW if price is not a factor). All I'm saying is I think that if people don't want to see card packs, and would instead rather buy ship packs with cards they need, even if they don't need the ship, that simply says they're willing to pay more. And frankly, if that's the case, I think FFG would do fine raising prices. I wouldn't call their cost low, either by the way. People don't necessarily want to admit it, but I bet they'd pay more for exactly what they are getting now. I don't think FFG would make up for any customers it lost, if even they'd lose many at all.

19 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

GW...are done for in a slow death.

Hasn't this been predicted since before 2000?

49 minutes ago, Verlaine said:

Hasn't this been predicted since before 2000?

Are they not dying since then? They ain't growing and recently they started to slap their warhammer IP onto every PC game whose developer is willing to pay a few dollar for it, no matter how bad to products are. ;-)

Not really, despite the rumors. GW is more profitable now than it was then. And while its sales haven't gone amazingly upwards in the past few years, they have definitely not dropped. Hence...someone is picking up the slack over there.

They were slowly circling the drain for a long time, but recent changes to customer engagement, rules, and models seems to have reversed the trend, at least in the short to medium term.

Interesting times.

12 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Are they not dying since then? They ain't growing and recently they started to slap their warhammer IP onto every PC game whose developer is willing to pay a few dollar for it, no matter how bad to products are. ;-)

My, admittedly badly informed, impression is that they are alive and well in business and paying enough dividend to make the investing in them interesting. So perhaps some confuse financial with creative bankruptcy.

And let's be honest: taken as a whole, the history of GW is a unique success story for a gaming/miniature company.

A certain Mark Twain quote about an exaggeration comes to mind.

In all likelyhood, as much as I make fun of GW for not doing 40k lore as well as Fantasy Flight Games, I would be zero surprised to believe the licensing agreement was pulled the moment GW got wind of FFG entering the painted miniatures market in Fantasy. So much coincidence it's hard not to believe.

Anyway, GW does card packs, even useless ones, and they seem to sell fine.

On 6/27/2017 at 10:02 PM, Reiver said:

In a podcast, the designers of said wave explicitly declared they'd missed the Deadeye interaction.

They might've lied, but they sounded pretty humble about it.

I remember a similar claim ("in a cast, Davy said x about the Jumpmaster") that got repeated a lot on the forums but, well. When I listened to the cast was plainly untrue. So: do you recall which cast and episode that was said in?

e: Ah, right, I found what I posted ages ago:

They make no such claim. The podcast everyone points to in support of this position does not actually support this position. Alex Davy says two things happen: sometimes a combo is missed and sometimes a combo is underestimated. He is never explicit, but the implication of the words he uses is that triple jumpmasters were underestimated rather than unintended.

On 6/29/2017 at 11:46 AM, KelRiever said:

In all likelyhood, as much as I make fun of GW for not doing 40k lore as well as Fantasy Flight Games, I would be zero surprised to believe the licensing agreement was pulled the moment GW got wind of FFG entering the painted miniatures market in Fantasy. So much coincidence it's hard not to believe.

Anyway, GW does card packs, even useless ones, and they seem to sell fine.

And guess who doesn't do card packs and sells well?

FFG concerning X-wing, Armada, Imperial assault, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I think we're agreeing. It's not impossible, basically, to sell card packs and make money off it.

In fact, I heard, cards are all some companies sell!

The main counter to this is licensing...except you know, there are things called conversations and other things called putting them in writing that could clarify, say, any licensing difficulties. They even have these people hired to do thing like that. What are they called again?

31 minutes ago, KelRiever said:

The main counter to [selling card/cardboard-only packs] is licensing...

No, the main counter is that, to date, FFG clearly have no interest in it.

The system they're running is working. By all accounts they've been very successful in the marketplace running the current system.

It's not like they're just not smart enough to come up with the idea that they can cater to a smaller portion of the market by splitting up their product, they've run their numbers and done their diligence, and have concluded that the current system is working well enough that there isn't a good reason to disrupt it right now.

Maybe some day that will change, but it's not going to be because the 400th thread on the subject was created and they finally saw it and they all smacked their heads and shouted "Eureka!" in unison.

It will be because whatever economic voodoo chicken bones they're reading said "It is time; Release The Cards."

I might just keep posting about this because apparently it annoys enough people. And I'm not enough of a yes man yessir man to think its all perfect. Nor in the history of game companies has really anyone ever not one time ever come close enough to being perfect.

Card packs would work, sorry, they would. The question is, yes, do they want to do them. If enough people keep talking about it, maybe they will. I bet the chances are a lot less, however, if people stop raising the issue.

So...thread 401? I'll do it.

By the way, I can't imagine one makes sense counter at all. The licensing argument isn't even mine. It's that of several naysayers above.

Interest is even a weaker argument because that's really no reason at all.

It's Time, Release The Cards: economic voodoo I think is simply a matter of interest because proper pricing was found, and a way to make it accessible by fans. Both can be done.

I believe.

11 hours ago, KelRiever said:

By the way, I can't imagine one makes sense counter at all.

I... can't imagine that either.

17 hours ago, mxlm said:

I remember a similar claim ("in a cast, Davy said x about the Jumpmaster") that got repeated a lot on the forums but, well. When I listened to the cast was plainly untrue. So: do you recall which cast and episode that was said in?

e: Ah, right, I found what I posted ages ago:

Was that the one in which they note the suprise at a card that'd been dead since wave 1 being such an effect?

Perhaps I do need to listen to it again, but they seemed pretty clear (or at least, I guess as clear as they ever are) that it seems Deadeye had caught them off guard.

I'll concede the 'explicit' point, though I'll note they're really careful not to be explicit about very much of anything at all, so precision of wording aside, the bar tends to be lowered around them.

I don't see why it would be so hard for them to have a yearly "Tournament Update Kit." Yearly, or maybe they release a card update pack as part of each wave. The very first one would be bigger, of course, as it would cover any and all cards that have been changed or updated since the first release of the game. Probably a few copies of the more common cards, and one copy of the bigger cards (like Palpatine). Include any pilots they want to revise as well, or release those separately in Rebel/Imp/Scum packs.

All cards are legal to play casually, but if you want to play in a tournament, you need to have the latest versions of any changed cards. Yearly, they can release an updated Tournament Update with the cards. The ones after that big first one probably wouldn't need to be very big at all unless they ever decide to make some sweeping changes.

Then, any reprints they have of old ship packs will have the newest version of the card (with a version number on them for easy sorting).

Simple to do, cheap to print, targeted at the audience that wants them (hardcore tourney players), and shouldn't be too hard to get permission to do from their license holders since anything that encourages tournament play would be a good thing, and most importantly, shouldn't cut into their bottom line that much.

Nope, because once that happens the the Nerfrattas will be out of control. That business model will simply force people to discard old pilot tiles and upgrade cards to get the new pilot tiles and upgrade cards to "update" their models all in the name of balance. which we already know that is not the strongest point of FFG.

You are probably one of those mobile game players that see nothing wrong with buying a game and spending hundreds upon thousands of dollars on microtransactions.

I have actually never played a mobile game in my life. I only recently got my first smart phone, in fact. I run my business out of my home and use my landline so much, I rarely felt the need to have any mobile device smarter than a flip phone for emergencies when I'm out and about. And while I'm not the person you guessed me to be, you are definitely one of those people who happily makes false assumptions about other people while adding just a bit of bile just because you can. I wonder if you're as "fun" in person, or if you just act like that when you're behind a computer screen...

I also fail to see how spending a couple of bucks once a year (or once a wave at the very most) is the same as spending "hundreds upon thousands of dollars" in microtransactions. And yes, I would happily spend 5 bucks once or twice a year to have the most updated print versions of cards in a game that is now flexible enough to adapt to a changing meta. I like living games/rulebooks, because those games can improve.

Since we're making baseless assumptions here, you're probably the one of those people who whined and moaned about the INJUSTICE of maybe having to use a new damage deck, even though you probably bought at LEAST one copy of the TFA Core Set the day it came out.

Lol, Doomsaying much Marinealver?

Ideally, a game shouldn't have to be rebalanced. But any game that's good, and doesn't need rebalancing also has the benefit of having stopped making releases.

Games that are constantly releasing rules are going to have to correct at some point, because they're going to have blown the scale. This isn't an FFG issue, it's a never stop expanding ever game issue.

There are good ways to do it, and atrocious ways to do it. The most atrocious way is the Games Workshop way, where you intentionally release broken stuff to get people to buy it, then make a more broken set of stuff to bea that with that people have to buy, etc., until you make a new edition which requires more buying of things.

Then there are the proper ways to do it, where you update only when you have to, and because you do, and don't charge through the nose to do it (or do even, because FFG Star Wars players have proven mostly they're willint to spend $80 just to get some cards), people buy your updated cards.

I trust players to know the difference, because I'm not so cynical to think they can't.

25 minutes ago, KelRiever said:

Lol, Doomsaying much Marinealver?

Ideally, a game shouldn't have to be rebalanced. But any game that's good, and doesn't need rebalancing also has the benefit of having stopped making releases.

Games that are constantly releasing rules are going to have to correct at some point, because they're going to have blown the scale. This isn't an FFG issue, it's a never stop expanding ever game issue.

There are good ways to do it, and atrocious ways to do it. The most atrocious way is the Games Workshop way, where you intentionally release broken stuff to get people to buy it, then make a more broken set of stuff to bea that with that people have to buy, etc., until you make a new edition which requires more buying of things.

Then there are the proper ways to do it, where you update only when you have to, and because you do, and don't charge through the nose to do it (or do even, because FFG Star Wars players have proven mostly they're willint to spend $80 just to get some cards), people buy your updated cards.

I trust players to know the difference, because I'm not so cynical to think they can't.

Just saying with the new policy of using the FAQ to change pilot and upgrade cards and given the recent "corrections" with G4H you can see a requirement for getting the "latest" pack and watching older upgrades either being underpowered or just banned. Imagine now needing the C-ROC Heavy Scyk title because that is the only one that gives +1 hull. You could equip the Scyk expansion but you would be at a disadvantage because they don't have the extra hull, or you could even not be allowed to equip.

Anyways the idea of making new card packs has the potential for becoming the most atrocious way.