Not to mention you know people are going to multibuy cores anyway. FFG game core boxes are always cheap for whats inside, it mainly depends on how much unique stuff is in there. The xwing core is the biggest one i'd say getting repeats isnt a wise idea, not much in there outside uniques.

heck, RWM is less than HALF the value of whats in the box if you compare them to the standalones. Even if you didnt want half the box you still saved money lol, especially if you just pawned off the other half for ~40USD or so.
Curious how these mechanics will play out in legion. If we get yet another card system, multi-cores might not be a wise idea.

2 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Curious how these mechanics will play out in legion. If we get yet another card system, multi-cores might not be a wise idea.

Have you seen the TC demo from GenCon? They cover all the rules and core mechanics pretty thoroughly.

Yes but i have also seen very few of those demos actually show EVERYTHING about the game due to limited time. RWM for example didnt have any upgrade cards even shown let alone in the demo.

I generally defend FFG. They make mistakes sometimes and I don't always agree with all their choices, but I don't think of them as the mustache twirling villains some people make them out to be. The designers love games as much as we do and want to make fun games. Yeah, they want to make money (it's a business) but they also want to make a great product and they don't intentionally make bad choices to try to squeeze money our of people (which is just bad business anyways).

Except for dice. They know exactly what they are doing with the dice. You pretty much have to but a second set with any of their games and you can't use dice from another game because they all have special custom dice with funny symbols. It's diabolical.

...but I got to say, I kinda love their stupid looking dice. I know it's a scam, but I want to fill a vault with them and go swimming Scrooge McDuck style...

i like the custom dice because it enables a much better feeling of "this weapon is stronger" than that of other games imo.

Games that use D6s and D20s basically can only show a weapon is stronger through rate of fire or the strength of the attack or how much it pens armor. But you need special dice to impose a side effect that isnt always there (surges/crits) and you cant really make it more accurate without tweaking a value that could mess something else up in the process (see 40k: "Add/remove 1 to the hit roll" - this tends to really screw up rerolls)

I like their custom dice, and I like FFG and their games. Overall they are definitely one of my favourite games companies.

But their sales strategy for the dice is pure exploitation, and they bloody know it

1 hour ago, Vineheart01 said:

Not to mention you know people are going to multibuy cores anyway. FFG game core boxes are always cheap for whats inside, it mainly depends on how much unique stuff is in there. The xwing core is the biggest one i'd say getting repeats isnt a wise idea, not much in there outside uniques.

heck, RWM is less than HALF the value of whats in the box if you compare them to the standalones. Even if you didnt want half the box you still saved money lol, especially if you just pawned off the other half for ~40USD or so.
Curious how these mechanics will play out in legion. If we get yet another card system, multi-cores might not be a wise idea.

Actually an X-Wing core is a pretty good value if you are looking to field more TIEs and X's. Sure, you want to pick up both of the expansions, but if you want more than 3 ties and 2 x's, it's a great buy. 3 small ships and the dice pack is $53. The core is $40. Although the days of TIE swarms are long gone.

Armada is the iffy double core box. The price is nearly a wash. $100 core vs $98 (vic, cr90, neb, tool, and dice). You want the expansions because they have unique stuff, but then how often can or do you want to field more than 2 Vics or 2 Nebs? You end up paying for a lot of stuff that never hits the table.

I used to be annoyed at the "Ha you have to buy more dice" thing.

But giving the benefit of the doubt, my assumption is this.

Core = $90
Dice Expansion = $10

OR

Include more dice int he core for a $100 Core.

Same end result, but the cheaper core set is more likely to sell.

I just see it as cutting down the intial buy in cost to lure more people into the game.

You can complain that they should just include them in the core box, but then the core box would just cost more, so it's kinda just whatever... :\

They should definitely at a minimum include enough dice so that whatever character or ship or unit rolls the most of any given particular type of die can roll all of those dice at once.

1 hour ago, RogueLieutenant said:

I used to be annoyed at the "Ha you have to buy more dice" thing.

But giving the benefit of the doubt, my assumption is this.

Core = $90
Dice Expansion = $10

OR

Include more dice int he core for a $100 Core.

But you can't calculate it that way, the sinlgle dic epack needs packaging, storing and so one, the diece pack on its own is vertainly more expensive than adding some dices to the core. I even think adding one of eahc die wouldn't really raise the price.

Star Wars Dice App: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-dice-app/

The dice thing will be very annoying, it seems as soon as you begin an attack with a core squad of troopers your going to have to pick up and reroll some hits every time, it would be like the X-wing starter only coming with 2 of each die, clearly not enough to play the game with smoothly without constant memory requirements.

Also the diminishing returns on the playable points in terms of units in the core box is significant, with Vader and a couple upgrade cards making up nearly half the points available to the imperial player and similarly but not quite as much for Luke and the rebels. Buying 2 cores will not give you the 800 points required for a standard squad most likely, making buying a second copy distinctly unappealing.

This means the inevitable separate dice SKU will need to be bought, we can only hope that the wave 1 expansions offer some really cool options to make up for these repeated issues.

This is typical standard FFG at work, but honestly I plan on getting it from a discount seller so that "discount" I will just use to get more dice anyways. Can never have enough dice I guess.

15 hours ago, RogueLieutenant said:

I used to be annoyed at the "Ha you have to buy more dice" thing.

But giving the benefit of the doubt, my assumption is this.

Core = $90
Dice Expansion = $10

OR

Include more dice int he core for a $100 Core.

Same end result, but the cheaper core set is more likely to sell.

I just see it as cutting down the intial buy in cost to lure more people into the game.

You can complain that they should just include them in the core box, but then the core box would just cost more, so it's kinda just whatever... :\

FFG has you wrapped around their little finger don't they?

Dice cost literally pennies to produce especially when you are talking the scale that FFG is. The armada dice pack with packaging likely costs FFG less than $1, yet they sell it for $10.

For FFG, putting a bare minimum of dice is a way to ensure further sales of products at a high profit margin. They don't give you enough to actually do everything you can, and then charge you extra for the ability to have enough dice to play the game. It's kind of a scam....not that it stops me from buying them.

Yep. As I said elsewhere....as much as I love FFG and their games, the dice trick is pure business shenanigans. There are zero reasons other than an easy cash grab, because dice cost pennies to create.

19 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

FFG has you wrapped around their little finger don't they?

Dice cost literally pennies to produce especially when you are talking the scale that FFG is. The armada dice pack with packaging likely costs FFG less than $1, yet they sell it for $10.

For FFG, putting a bare minimum of dice is a way to ensure further sales of products at a high profit margin. They don't give you enough to actually do everything you can, and then charge you extra for the ability to have enough dice to play the game. It's kind of a scam....not that it stops me from buying them.

I mean. Totally. It's a cash grab. I'm not going to be mad at them about it though. There is a lot of value in a core set.

Plus, one thing people don't often consider is that when you buy a game, you are not just paying for the material used to make the game but also the R&D costs. The game took a while to design, test, refine, etc., That's where the bulk of the cost is and they have to make up for that investment while still making a profit.

I admit, I don't work in gaming, but I do work in an industry where most of the cost of our products are a result of the R&D and people don't realize how costly that is. Since I don't work at FFG, I don't know the amount of R&D that went into it, but I can make some guesses.

Quick disclaimer, I'm not a finance guy. I'm a software engineer, so this is just my best estimation and not a professional opinion.

Say they spent 2 years working on it (I feel like I heard the number in an interview somewhere). Now, I don't know how many people were involved, but between designers, playtesters, artists, managers, etc., etc., there had to be a lot. I'm sure it started out low but rose as development went on. Let's just say that on average 25 people were working on this game at once. (reasonable?) And lets say these people got paid 35k a year on average (Though I hope they are paying people better than that).

$35,000 x 25 people x 2 years = $1,750,000. With overhead, you are looking at closer to 2 mil. And I'm really low-balling this figure.

Then they have to make the game. So, manufacturing costs, transport, logistics, marketing, etc., etc.,.

It all adds up quick.

If I had to make a guess, I'd think they put at least 5 million into this project. The cost of a core set is $90, but a lot of that is retailer/distributor markup. I'd guess they charge distributors about $60 for a core set (at absolute most).

So going by that, they would have to sell over 83,000 core sets. Granted, a lot of that is going to be made up by expansions rather than sets, but still, that's a lot that has to sell just to break even. And in order for the game to continue, it has to do much better than break even. It has to make a profit. It's still a business, after all.

And each wave will have it's own R&D costs that have to be recovered (it will be much less since the game is already designed, but still)

So, yeah. I'm not going to be mad that I'm being over charged for a handful of dice if I enjoy the game.

(Also, if there are any finance people or people who work in the industry who can give me a better estimate or just think I am way off, please let me know. I find this stuff pretty interesting)

I rescind my suggestion then lol. Didn't realize how cheap dice were to manufacture.

On 8/22/2017 at 2:23 PM, Extropia said:

I'm unsure on 2 cores for once. It'll really depend on unit prices, as it's not as though I need 2 vaders and lukes.

It'll likely still work out cheaper than the units, dice and extra movement tools etc separately though.

Why 2 Vaders? I am pretty sure you will end up with 3 cause you don't want to miss the upgrade cards and alternative character version that comes with the Vader expansion pack.

Just now, Hannes Solo said:

Why 2 Vaders? I am pretty sure you will end up with 3 cause you don't want to miss the upgrade cards and alternative character version that comes with the Vader expansion pack.

I really hope they don't do a Vader/Luke pack.

According to Alex Davy those models are only coming in the Core, but I guess he didn't see anything about OTHER Vader/Luke models...

2 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

Why 2 Vaders? I am pretty sure you will end up with 3 cause you don't want to miss the upgrade cards and alternative character version that comes with the Vader expansion pack.

Vader and Luke are core-set exclusive.

11 minutes ago, svelok said:

Vader and Luke are core-set exclusive.

And there won't be a 3rd Faction in X-Wing...

Just now, Hannes Solo said:

And there won't be a 3rd Faction in X-Wing...

Are you just trying get your post count up or something?

Vader and Luke, as they are will be core-set exclusives, just like they are in IA. That doesn't mean there won't be another Luke or Vader put out at some point, like say a RotJ style Luke, again like they did in IA. But they won't be the same model, and will have new and different upgrade cards.

Seriously what's your problem?

Wouldn't it be nice if each expansion came with one extra die?

On 2017-08-23 at 5:12 PM, Cade Bulkin said:

I mean. Totally. It's a cash grab. I'm not going to be mad at them about it though. There is a lot of value in a core set.

Plus, one thing people don't often consider is that when you buy a game, you are not just paying for the material used to make the game but also the R&D costs. The game took a while to design, test, refine, etc., That's where the bulk of the cost is and they have to make up for that investment while still making a profit.

I admit, I don't work in gaming, but I do work in an industry where most of the cost of our products are a result of the R&D and people don't realize how costly that is. Since I don't work at FFG, I don't know the amount of R&D that went into it, but I can make some guesses.

Quick disclaimer, I'm not a finance guy. I'm a software engineer, so this is just my best estimation and not a professional opinion.

Say they spent 2 years working on it (I feel like I heard the number in an interview somewhere). Now, I don't know how many people were involved, but between designers, playtesters, artists, managers, etc., etc., there had to be a lot. I'm sure it started out low but rose as development went on. Let's just say that on average 25 people were working on this game at once. (reasonable?) And lets say these people got paid 35k a year on average (Though I hope they are paying people better than that).

$35,000 x 25 people x 2 years = $1,750,000. With overhead, you are looking at closer to 2 mil. And I'm really low-balling this figure.

Then they have to make the game. So, manufacturing costs, transport, logistics, marketing, etc., etc.,.

It all adds up quick.

If I had to make a guess, I'd think they put at least 5 million into this project. The cost of a core set is $90, but a lot of that is retailer/distributor markup. I'd guess they charge distributors about $60 for a core set (at absolute most).

So going by that, they would have to sell over 83,000 core sets. Granted, a lot of that is going to be made up by expansions rather than sets, but still, that's a lot that has to sell just to break even. And in order for the game to continue, it has to do much better than break even. It has to make a profit. It's still a business, after all.

And each wave will have it's own R&D costs that have to be recovered (it will be much less since the game is already designed, but still)

So, yeah. I'm not going to be mad that I'm being over charged for a handful of dice if I enjoy the game.

(Also, if there are any finance people or people who work in the industry who can give me a better estimate or just think I am way off, please let me know. I find this stuff pretty interesting)

None of this does in any way justify them illwillingly including less dice in the core box then actually needed for the core box (with needed we all agree at least the minimum anything in the core box rolls).