Nah, it's always been iffy

The games never been particularly mechanically sound apart from some brief periods. We've always had some rather stupidly dominant archetypes, the far worst of which occurred during wave 5 between the phantom and PWTs

If anything, it's improve by a marginal length but I don't think it's dropped

Until we start getting these things again you can't convince me the quality of Star Wars merchandise is declining. The crap has always been around, you've just ignored it in the past. It's also not like collectors wanted the vinyl caped Jawas because Jawas are so cool; they didn't make very many and most of the ones that were made got destroyed through normal play or getting tossed by parents. Trying to make a collector's market is oxymoronic, because things become actually collectible by accident.

Do kids even play with Star Wars action figures? I think it's geared to the adult collector. Kids seem to prefer to play with Star Wars Lego.

Back in my day...

15 hours ago, markcsoul said:

The only thing I've noticed that has gone down in quality are the new micro machines. It looks like they might be re-using the old molds for the OT ships, but the plastic quality and painting is terrible looking.

At least you can find them. I haven't even been able to find any SW micromachine stuff anywhere near me.

4 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

i prefer the 90s, when excellent games told great stories, books and comics were everywhere, and lucasarts still had directional control. Force awakens was worse than Revenge of the sith and waaay worse than clone wars

I agree 100%!

Two Words: Hot Toys.

1 hour ago, patox said:

Do kids even play with Star Wars action figures? I think it's geared to the adult collector. Kids seem to prefer to play with Star Wars Lego.

No idea. I cannot say I've seen a kid with anything that wasn't flat, electronic and had a screen.

Which is a shame, IMO.

20 hours ago, Velvetelvis said:

Face it fellow nerds, star wars merchandise in general has just gotten awful since the Disney takeover.

Toy store shelves are glutted up with crap products that noone wants. There's force awakens stuff that's been there for two years now collecting dust.

Now....back in the day...when I was a young man, star wars products seemed to ALMOST mean something.sure there was stupid cups and hot wheels but there's a collector market for those action figures and vehicles still going on.

Speaking of hot wheels...why on this great earth has hot wheels merged with star wars? It's beyond ridiculous. There isn't a car in any star wars story.

Ok. Anyways....

Something has gone seriously wrong with star wars merchandising. It's off a cliff. Quality is garbage. Collectors don't want it.kids don't want it.

Nobody wants it.

I wonder if the last few waves are somehow tied up in this mess of " **** write star wars on it and it will be great".

Even if it's not.

And,

It's not.

It’s always been garbage. Cheap plastic with paint made by the lowest bidder. I really like the X-Wing Miniature game stuff but even that leaves a few things to be desired, especially the cardboard templates and tokens and the ship pegs that are too lose or too firm.

It would take a functioning lightsaber for me to change my tune.

The black series stuff is amazing, from figures to light saber replica’s. Toys have become garbage since they refused to make them out of metal or thick sturdy plastic so they lasted. Heaven forbid you actually punish your kid for acting like a **** and beating the neighbor kid with a club instead of making everything flimsy. Now as a parent I weep for kids they get utter crap to play with.

you even build a ban-dai Star Wars kit? granted most of them are hard to get in the USA. also lots of black series stuff does not stay on shelves very long (only the odd figures they make too many of).

As for the game design FFG suffers from massive talent loss. their best designers get jobs at places that offer a living wage or go freelance. They also have anemic development teams. compared to outfits like MTG the design team on any LCG or miniatures game at FFG is 1/4 1/10 the number of humans. things slip and opportunity is missed when you have so few devs responsible for so much.

OH BOY THAT MOUSE SURE IS FULL OF PROBLEM MAKING THINGS

*SWINGS ARMS AROUND*

I'm a big Lego fan, and when I look at star wars Lego sets today in comparison to ten years ago I'm overwhelmed with disappointment. $100 (AUD) buys you the same amount of plastic crack as $40 before, and the sets are worse too. I haven't bought anything at retail prices since Disney took over because of it.

I think the problem with X-wing is its own success - they're on such a tight schedule with a small team of designers (and, for a game like this, few playtesters). It's very, very difficult to find the every broken combo (that takes the community months to figure out, anyway). If they either decreased the release schedule to 2-3 ships per wave (with no "ace" packs in between) or had only one wave a year all the problems would go away. Unfortunately that's not the business model FFG is going by, so we get products that are a little half-baked because of the sheer demand for them.

I'll guarantee - if sales started dropping massively (say, 50% of current revenue by the end of 2018), in early 2019 you'd have a large, comprehensive FAQ dealing with OP lists/cards. They'd delay the release of the next wave by 3 months or so (in addition to the normal lead time) to make sure everything was totally perfect, and they'd put out a big release article title "Bringing balance to the force" apologising to the players.

You mean products like this?

On 10/10/2017 at 2:36 PM, Velvetelvis said:

Face it fellow nerds, star wars merchandise in general has just gotten awful since the Disney takeover.

Toy store shelves are glutted up with crap products that noone wants. There's force awakens stuff that's been there for two years now collecting dust.

Now....back in the day...when I was a young man, star wars products seemed to ALMOST mean something.sure there was stupid cups and hot wheels but there's a collector market for those action figures and vehicles still going on.

Speaking of hot wheels...why on this great earth has hot wheels merged with star wars? It's beyond ridiculous. There isn't a car in any star wars story.

Ok. Anyways....

Something has gone seriously wrong with star wars merchandising. It's off a cliff. Quality is garbage. Collectors don't want it.kids don't want it.

Nobody wants it.

I wonder if the last few waves are somehow tied up in this mess of " **** write star wars on it and it will be great".

Even if it's not.

And,

It's not.

I couldn't disagree with you more fervently.

22 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Hasbro's Black Series is turning out some good looking figures, including a Darth Revan figure I want very dearly. You have remote control droids, X-Wing drones, and on and on.

I honestly do not understand where this sentiment is coming from.

^^ This.

The Hasbro Black Series are some of the best figures I've seen in my 20 year fandom, and stock is frequently sold out here in Aus. The Black Series Force FX lightsabers and replica Kylo Ren's Helmet are some other examples of high quality current merchandise as well. You rip on Hot Wheels but they're good quality and I relish the opportunity of have die-cast models of ships. I just bought the Hot Wheels TIE Silencer and it's awesome. The Star Wars Lego products are always fantastic, and for the adults among us, I'm currently wearing a Star Wars Licensed Darth Vader themed Nixon watch and its the coolest **** thing I've ever seen!

Sure there are cheaper/lesser quality items out there, but to say the availability of good merch and general quality of said merch has deteriorated at all, let alone under Disney's banner, is just plain incorrect.

Your attempt to fold X-wing into this sentiment is completely unfounded in my opinion as well. Regardless of your opinion of the current state of the game, the progression of ship and card design has improved considerably. The game is much more fleshed out offers a much richer game than when it was initially released. The fact that I can play a different list every single week and still enjoy my time playing X-wing is testament to this. Furthermore the models quality and detail (and paint jobs) have improved exponentially throughout X-wings lifespan. Look at the Shadowcaster or an ARC-170 model next to an original X-wing or TIE Fighter model, and then look that those next to a model from any other tabletop minis game, we are very lucky to have such high quality models in a game like this.

This sort of blind hatred for this generation of Star Wars is just utterly perplexing to me.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

I'm a big Lego fan, and when I look at star wars Lego sets today in comparison to ten years ago I'm overwhelmed with disappointment. $100 (AUD) buys you the same amount of plastic crack as $40 before, and the sets are worse too. I haven't bought anything at retail prices since Disney took over because of it.

I am pretty sure that is confirmation bias (though Australian pricing nonsense could also be a thing). LEGO hasn't done much more than adjusting for inflation. Then when you look at (Disney specifically, but any other company works, too) licensed sets, they are not more expensive than regular ones on a price per part level. Some are over, some are under, depending on the specialisation of bricks, but they roughly hit the average. LEGO distributes licensing cost across all of their range.

Now, an X-Wing still is ludicrously more expensive than it used to be, but that is because it contains a lot more parts, too. Is that reasonable? Perhaps not, since for play value two small models (say an X-Wing and a TIE) certainly beat a single one.

Are the sets worse? This is of course subjective, and I myself tend to prefer the look of the 2000s LEGO Star Wars sets because they are what I grew up with and are stylised to a degree I enjoy (show me those studs!), but the new sets are a lot more detailed, come with well hidden play functions, and have much better structural integrity. They also are proportioned more accurately.

Some time ago I saw a good breakdown of this by some LEGO youtuber, Jangbricks, I think, specifically about the sentiment "Disney made LEGO Star Wars worse and more expensive". Turns out, LEGO just is expensive.

2 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

I am pretty sure that is confirmation bias (though Australian pricing nonsense could also be a thing). LEGO hasn't done much more than adjusting for inflation. Then when you look at (Disney specifically, but any other company works, too) licensed sets, they are not more expensive than regular ones on a price per part level. Some are over, some are under, depending on the specialisation of bricks, but they roughly hit the average. LEGO distributes licensing cost across all of their range.

Some time ago I saw a good breakdown of this by some LEGO youtuber, Jangbricks, I think, specifically about the sentiment "Disney made LEGO Star Wars worse and more expensive". Turns out, LEGO just is expensive.

Australian pricing nonsense is definitely a thing, I am sad to say. The 2010s sets (in Australia) were significantly inflated over what you'd expect from our standard 3% per annum. I recall a certain Obi-Wan delta-7 being around $50 back in the day, and now you can get the same fighter half the size for just as much.

No doubt some of my disappointment is nostalgia for the good ol' days, though.

5 hours ago, Marinealver said:

You mean products like this?

Honest to god laughed at his reaction to Jar Jar's insane plastic shuffling, "J E S U S" but that kinda

that kinda dragged on way too long.

WHUPS