This has been a theory of mine and I don't know how much of it actually carries any weight; probably very little, but nonetheless I find the theory intriguing. So I came into the game around wave VIII with Imps being the dominant force arguably followed by scum and the missile boats. From my memory the rebels always got a bit of pity being clearly the weakest force. Now clearly things have changed. With Scum and rebels alike being fairly dominant with the Imps bringing up the tail end of things. Now there isn't any set rotation of anything in this game per say...but what if a strategy of FFG was to have a hidden rotation of the Factions that be by bringing them to power one after another. This would allow each faction its time in the lime-light and exposing players to every faction, cause of course who doesn't wanna play the hot stuff? If nothing more than an interesting take on our game, I think this idea of power rotation is pretty cool. One downside to the idea however is the need for constant power creep over the previous bar. Many of us are experiencing this to our dismay, but it does keep the game unpredictable in a sense.

so yeah ill spare anyone my late-night brainstorming rant. Just an interesting thought.

That'd be a terrible idea.

Yes, power creep is a way of keeping a game fresh and selling, but the right way to do it is to "spread the love" more or less evenly across the factions. Making them intentionally imbalanced a) would cause a solid chunk of the playerbase to be constantly frustrated with the game and b) can get really out of hand if the intionally overpowered thing turns out even better than anticipated.

X-Wing is simply going through its puberty. It has reached a point where the complexity makes it impossible to keep balanced, but the counter-measures to that (rotation/second edition/something else) have not been deployed yet.

They already have everyone buying everything to get upgrade cards. They don't have to intentionally break the game.

power creep is a form of rotation though. Lots of old pilot cards, upgrade cards may as well be rotated out of the competitive card pool. But thankfully they put effort into keeping old ships models relivent with new cards.

8 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

They don't have to intentionally break the game.

Yup, they're breaking the game because they are incompetent.

I would say they are being given the job of 10 people and the salery of 1 person. FFG does not have enough game developers for the number of games they are making. Their game lines are all suffering for it.

3 hours ago, Giledhil said:

Yup, they're breaking the game because they are incompetent.

Look out, we've got a master game designer over here. Care to point me to a more balanced miniatures game of a comparable or higher depth and scope?

Oh, wait. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

50 minutes ago, Elavion said:

Look out, we've got a master game designer over here. Care to point me to a more balanced miniatures game of a comparable or higher depth and scope?

Oh, wait. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Maybe I am, how can you know ?
I'm not saying the game isn't "good", and neither I am comparing it to other products.
But clearly, we can see that the team in charge has no concern for banlancing things, but prefers adding more and more power creep (for reasons I will not discuss here, since it's a little out of subject).
If you can't see that, then you have a problem with basic math.

I'm just going to repost what I wrote in the "game shortening theory" thread because it's just as true and applicable here:

On 8/26/2017 at 10:04 AM, Herowannabe said:

Or...

4) they're dealing with a game that has grown quite substantial and complicated with literally hundredsof moving parts and it's an incredibly difficult- if not impossible- task to balance everything and keep everybody happy WHILE releasing new content and trying to make the new content exciting and interesting so that people will buy it but at the same time trying to keep the old stuff viable and useful still, plus it's not an Intellectual Property that they own, so they are to some extent beholden to Disney and their demands and directions, oh and they're a business so they want to make a profit, too, and juggling all of that is really difficult and it takes time and care to make course corrections, and they're just doing the best they can (you know, the logical theory).

1 hour ago, Elavion said:

Look out, we've got a master game designer over here. Care to point me to a more balanced miniatures game of a comparable or higher depth and scope?

Oh, wait. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Kings of War 2.0 by Cavatore?

1 hour ago, Elavion said:

Look out, we've got a master game designer over here. Care to point me to a more balanced miniatures game of a comparable or higher depth and scope?

Oh, wait. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Look, I agree with you in sum and substance (that X-Wing may have flaws but it is still in a good place everywhere but the highest levels of competitive play), but since you issued such a challenge, I'll bite.

Blood Bowl.

The teams that aren't competitive are designed that way for a reason (for fun, to give yourself a challenge/handicap, etc.) but all of the competitive teams have their own strengths and weaknesses that balance them out. I know it's apples and oranges, but you issued the challenge ?

49 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

Look, I agree with you in sum and substance (that X-Wing may have flaws but it is still in a good place everywhere but the highest levels of competitive play), but since you issued such a challenge, I'll bite.

Blood Bowl.

The teams that aren't competitive are designed that way for a reason (for fun, to give yourself a challenge/handicap, etc.) but all of the competitive teams have their own strengths and weaknesses that balance them out. I know it's apples and oranges, but you issued the challenge ?

Blood bowl is a miniatures board game, though, not a free movement wargame. It is more comparable to Battlelore. Its not a massive difference, but it certainly plays a part.

40 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

Look, I agree with you in sum and substance (that X-Wing may have flaws but it is still in a good place everywhere but the highest levels of competitive play), but since you issued such a challenge, I'll bite.

Blood Bowl.

The teams that aren't competitive are designed that way for a reason (for fun, to give yourself a challenge/handicap, etc.) but all of the competitive teams have their own strengths and weaknesses that balance them out. I know it's apples and oranges, but you issued the challenge ?

Unless BB was very drastically changed between editions, it does not fulfill the "depth and scope" requirement. . Which is by no means bad, just different.

55 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Kings of War 2.0 by Cavatore?

I will admit, I have not heard anything about KoW since it's original release, when the rulebook was shipped with the minis as a 4-page pamphlet.

The community seems to be very small though (0.6k on reddit, compared to Infinity's 3k, WM&H's 6k, or X-Wing's 18k). Which would suggest the game does not have a serious competitive scene that would exploit the game the same way we do in X-Wing. Am I right?

1 hour ago, Giledhil said:

Maybe I am, how can you know ?
I'm not saying the game isn't "good", and neither I am comparing it to other products.
But clearly, we can see that the team in charge has no concern for banlancing things, but prefers adding more and more power creep (for reasons I will not discuss here, since it's a little out of subject).
If you can't see that, then you have a problem with basic math.

Because if you were a game dev you would never call people who made a game that took over an almost monopolized (for decades!) market in 6 years "incompetent"

If you think the design team can make balance decisions by themselves, you're being delusional. Ace packs, lack of card buffs, and- yes!- power creep are a result of the business part of FFG meddling with the game.

Another part is community resistance. People kept asking for a Dengaroo nerf, and when it came in the FAQ? Literally half of the comments in the thread were whining about FAQs changing how cards work.

7 minutes ago, Elavion said:

you would never call people who made a game that took over an almost monopolized (for decades!) market in 6 years "incompetent"

GW monopolized the market for longer than that and some of their designers were really *** at their job (plus the fact that dominant position often get people to become sort of lazy...).
You can't consider that the position in the market is a direct result from the game quality. Especially when there's a enormous license like SW involved. Quality and sales does not always come together.

13 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

GW monopolized the market for longer than that and some of their designers were really *** at their job (plus the fact that dominant position often get people to become sort of lazy...).
You can't consider that the position in the market is a direct result from the game quality. Especially when there's a enormous license like SW involved. Quality and sales does not always come together.

The thing is, GW monopolized the market because a) their games were actually OK at first (at least by that time's standards) b) there was basically no competition when they were claiming the market.

SW franchise definitely mattered, but they did not conquer the market with just that. There were plenty of SW miniature games before FFG claimed the license, and they all failed.

34 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Blood bowl is a miniatures board game, though, not a free movement wargame. It is more comparable to Battlelore. Its not a massive difference, but it certainly plays a part.

I think Blood Bowl and X-Wing are more comparable than you think. In fact, I would argue that X-Wing is more restricted in movement than Blood Bowl. In X-Wing each ship has a set number of maneuvers, and those maneuvers (plus repositioning skills) dictate the only ending positions a ship can be in. Meanwhile, there are literally hundreds of final positions a Gutter Runner can have based on starting position. Actually as I'm typing this I realize that I don't disagree. The difference is there, but it is minor, and I think it's actually in favor of Blood Bowl for more free movement.

15 minutes ago, Elavion said:

Unless BB was very drastically changed between editions, it does not fulfill the "depth and scope" requirement. . Which is by no means bad, just different.

I'm really not sure what you mean by depth and scope, in that case. Are you talking setting, or system? Obviously the Galactic Civil War has a broader, more epic scope than "a football game but with spikes," but I would argue that the systems, tactics and different approaches each team needs to take make the depth of blood bowl very close to at least on par with X-Wing.

Once we start talking about leagues, then there is simply no contest in the depth discussion (in my opinion), but leagues also start to toss balance out the window once someone gets a decent winning streak going.

42 minutes ago, Elavion said:

If you think the design team can make balance decisions by themselves, you're being delusional. Ace packs, lack of card buffs, and- yes!- power creep are a result of the business part of FFG meddling with the game.

Another part is community resistance. People kept asking for a Dengaroo nerf, and when it came in the FAQ? Literally half of the comments in the thread were whining about FAQs changing how cards work.

I agree with this point. I give FFG credit for how far they've come. The creep is real but its fairly contained I think for how far this game has come with over 60+ ships and the different game mechanics that have been included. Also id say a good portion of the complaints came from the fact that FFG has/is changing the text on the cards without a fully supported way to get the doctored cards in our hands with the updated text. My experience is that people are okay with the tweaks, just not the fact that we know have product that is outdated/incorrect.

26 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

I think Blood Bowl and X-Wing are more comparable than you think. In fact, I would argue that X-Wing is more restricted in movement than Blood Bowl. In X-Wing each ship has a set number of maneuvers, and those maneuvers (plus repositioning skills) dictate the only ending positions a ship can be in. Meanwhile, there are literally hundreds of final positions a Gutter Runner can have based on starting position. Actually as I'm typing this I realize that I don't disagree. The difference is there, but it is minor, and I think it's actually in favor of Blood Bowl for more free movement.

I'm really not sure what you mean by depth and scope, in that case. Are you talking setting, or system? Obviously the Galactic Civil War has a broader, more epic scope than "a football game but with spikes," but I would argue that the systems, tactics and different approaches each team needs to take make the depth of blood bowl very close to at least on par with X-Wing.

Once we start talking about leagues, then there is simply no contest in the depth discussion (in my opinion), but leagues also start to toss balance out the window once someone gets a decent winning streak going.

I was mostly talking about list building . It's heavily restricted in Blood Bowl, with only a few unit types per faction etc. In X-Wing we have literally hundreds of upgrade and pilot cards, and there are also plenty of other things to consider (dials, upgrade slots, spammabilty etc.).

Interestingly, having fewer factions can actually make balancing them more challenging.

The designers are clearly not incompetent, they are simply stuck at a point in time in X-Wing and I guess simply overworked with the plethora of games coming out.

Friends told me weeks after the initial FAQ 4.3.0 to "bring balance to the force" dropped, they were doing the final testing for the "rest of the coming balance." No details given, but they assured me the other OPs were set for a similar nerf (Biggs, Sabine, JM5Ks, Slam, etc.) and it was going to be a great new meta that hasn't been scratched yet with new squads at the top and some old stand-buys coming back up. One felt Dash was to be the new top of the meta Rebel wise, with Soontir, Vader and Whisper making a real comeback balanced by solid Scum lists that don't steal all your agency and nuke you off the board so fast with cheap ships.

Then weeks go by.

It'll comeout any day now I was told.

Then months go by.

I don't know what they're waiting for, it's coming I'm told.

Then?

Silence.

Then?

More imbalanced ships to add to the imbalance.

What?

All I know is, they're pumping out new stuff and they've seemingly shelved the rest of the "balance" FAQ as they don't have the time to what? reword it? Revise it? Issue it as old and not as pertinent? IDK. The indirect tidbits I was 'wink, wink' led to believe seemed like an awesome game fix. But now we have Lowrick and pre-nerf Biggs. We have Nym and Slamming Sabine. We have uber-bombing, autoblasting Nym and JMK5s.

....and, we have the post-nerfed Empire squads trying to play against the pre-nerfed Rebels and Scum.

That my friends is confusing at best, and frustrating as h*** at worse.

Just issue it already FFG.

2 hours ago, Elavion said:

I will admit, I have not heard anything about KoW since it's original release, when the rulebook was shipped with the minis as a 4-page pamphlet.

The community seems to be very small though (0.6k on reddit, compared to Infinity's 3k, WM&H's 6k, or X-Wing's 18k). Which would suggest the game does not have a serious competitive scene that would exploit the game the same way we do in X-Wing. Am I right?

2 things- Firstly, I think you are confusing KoW with AoS. AoS was the 4 page fantasy game, KoW was never less than 40 pages. The current book is actually pretty long.

Then KoW's lack of popularity stems from the fact that it effectively has no IP to back it up. If it was WHFB or some other popular fantasy setting, it would be more popular. Instead, since the system was supposed to be intended to be open to people using their own models, the setting was made as an afterthought.