Pure Disappointment...

By Visovics, in Star Wars: Armada

25 minutes ago, Flavorabledeez said:

If patience with FFG results in a continuation of well thought out elements for Armada that require minimal tweaking with errata as opposed to a plethora of material that results in the need for an entire updated edition requiring the purchase of cardboard sets then they can tell me a week before a new Armada wave hits stores and I’ll say “thank you.”

Completely misses the point. The anger is about the bait and switch nature of the stream announcement vs its content, which stands upon several years now of late releases and pushbacks.

Do you hear the forums rage?

Its the rage of angry nerds!

Its the rage of a fanbase who are running out of words!

We’re waiting for something big while we sip our rum

but we’ll forget all this **** when wave 8 comes!

2 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Do you hear the forums rage?

Its the rage of angry nerds!

Its the rage of a fanbase who are running out of words!

We’re waiting for something big while we sip our rum

but we’ll forget all this **** when wave 8 comes!

I never forget.

14 minutes ago, RobertK said:

I never forget.

The North Remembers.

34 minutes ago, RobertK said:

I never forget.

19 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

The North Remembers.

I will always sh*! talk FFGs PR / Management / Leadership. They must have some of the best design staff because Armada is a tight, tight game, and I personally enjoy Fallout and X-Com. People seem really fond of IA and Rebellion, and I hear a lot about Runewars even though I get the impression it's been canned. FFG has great reputation for their designs, experiences, fun etc.

But the decisions, the lack of communication to the fanbase especially for "expandable" games....just hot trash. I mean, does their Comms department even run the teaser and preview article photos by the design teams before they post? The fanbase finds dozens of errors, and sure that doesn't matter much, but it's another telling sign on how they operate internally. Not being transparent about the Hyperspace Announcement, not even giving crumbs of news, or a date range of when they *might* make an announcement. ****, even if you miss the target date, at least update that you had a date in mind, can't come through etc. Yeah people might get a little mad, but it would be nothing compared to saying "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ON OUR PRODUCTS" (Except for anything not named X-Wing.)

I get it, at the end of the day the day upper level FFG people are trying to make a profit and stay in business. X-Wing prints money. Armada is probably profitable. Armada would be more profitable if they released more content/expansions for it. 7/10 people that play Armada in my local metas have multiple copies of their ships, both factions etc. The community is nuts for this game, and it's tough to be the younger child. I know it takes time to release expansions that fit well and are balanced for the game, but that doesn't excuse the lack of communication. Tell us what you're working on, and if you can't, tell us about the design process, and if you can't, tell us what your own staff like about the game, tell us what your favorite ships are, tells us about the manufacturing process, tell us about the original concept, whatever my point is there is a ton of stuff they can do to keep us engaged and they just don't.

Good management is hard to find I guess.

Edited by eliteone

What if the "Something Big" is a new campaign box, with new variants for some of the early wave ships, Rouges & Villains squadrons, Rebel 2 squadrons and Imperial 2 squadrons...

How would you guys feel about that possibility?

(Just trying to break up the tension generated from our extreme disappointment...)

Edited by Indy_com
2 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

What if the "Something Big" is a new campaign box, with new variants for some of the early wave ships, Rouges & Villains squadrons, Rebel 2 squadrons and Imperial 2 squadrons...

How would you guys feel about that possibility?

(Just trying to break up the tension generated from our extreme disappointment...)

That was basically my guess in the predictions thread. I'd be pretty happy with it.

I really enjoyed the CC campaign, and I think Armada is well suited for that style of play.

8 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

What if the "Something Big" is a new campaign box, with new variants for some of the early wave ships, Rouges & Villains squadrons, Rebel 2 squadrons and Imperial 2 squadrons...

How would you guys feel about that possibility?

(Just trying to break up the tension generated from our extreme disappointment...)

I would totally be down for this. SO MANY opportunities there. I would love to see a death star run campaign-like box come out. But that isn't the only possibility.

How about the organized play folks developing a league template to get FLGS's involved more? I have to BEG my local guy to order Quarterly kits, and a league would liven up my meta A LOT.

How about taking a stab at a rotating objective list, maybe yearly. Keeping things fresh between waves. That would make the community use the ships in different ways. I get SO tired of running against MW, CO, and Solar Corona...every..single...game.

There are ways to fix the issues this and other communities are having right now, and they have been mentioned Ad nauseam. ALL boil down to the same issue: Lack of communication with the communities.

1 hour ago, Indy_com said:

What if the "Something Big" is a new campaign box, with new variants for some of the early wave ships, Rouges & Villains squadrons, Rebel 2 squadrons and Imperial 2 squadrons...

How would you guys feel about that possibility?

(Just trying to break up the tension generated from our extreme disappointment...)

While I would welcome a new campaign box I did ask specifically at Gencon and they said there is no plan at that time to create one.

As someone that was actually at the Hyperspace report event yesterday I'm going to pipe up with a couple of comments:

1) I went to the event with the expectation (as did several others) that the point of the event was to cover several of FFG's Star Wars titles. Obviously that didn't happen. For those that don't play X-Wing we walked away disappointed, tho the Star Wars mug was pretty cool.

2) For the boo-birds saying that Armada is dead or whatever, seriously buzz off. If you're at worlds playing armada I'll happily give you this message in person. Tough love, I know, but seriously just because the event yesterday didn't include Legion or Armada or <your favorite Star Wars title here> doesn't mean your game is dead. (*)

3) Don't say you want the game to grow or say you care about the game if your attitude is nothing but 'gimme gimme gimme or else'. That attitude does not attract new players to this or any other game. It's pure crap. Look we all want new waves, new challenges, new FAQs, etc, this isn't however the attitude that accomplishes that.

4) The game, *THE GAME* is in a really good place these days. Lots of choices to make. Lots of things to challenge you as a player. The element of competition is healthy.

'nuff said.

* o, hi Imperial Assault player. Can I buy you a beverage of your choice?

1 hour ago, tgall said:

* o, hi Imperial Assault player. Can I buy you a beverage of your choice?

Actually, Imperial Assault is getting a new expansion! That's pretty cool!

In other news, even if the game is dead, this just makes it easier to officially modify the game ourselves. I would love to start a legacy community rules or whatever kind of like the Star Wars Decipher CCG that lives on with the players. You could put out that Admiral Piett we all want or whatever.

1 hour ago, tgall said:

Don't say you want the game to grow or say you care about the game if your attitude is nothing but 'gimme gimme gimme or else'. That attitude does not attract new players to this or any other game. It's pure crap. Look we all want new waves, new challenges, new FAQs, etc, this isn't however the attitude that accomplishes that.

It's not about new shiny stuff, well not all about new shiny stuff. It's about the burden for maintaining and fostering a healthy and fun community is currently 100% on the players and the stores. Armada simply isn't enough of a money draw for the stores to expend the money, and the players have a finite amount of energy to pour into their local community.

1 hour ago, tgall said:

The game, *THE GAME* is in a really good place these days. Lots of choices to make. Lots of things to challenge you as a player. The element of competition is healthy.

I completely agree with this, the latest FAQ in theory has made fleet diversity more of a thing. Continuing from above though, since the stores won't spend money and the players are out of energy, the game needs more than build diversity to help it. As @moodswing5537 said above, in our local area it is a huge struggle to get stores to run events, and that I am referring to 3-5 hours away as "local" is indicative of this. Even if stores are willing to host an event, it tends to be up to the player base to promote and run the event.

1 hour ago, tgall said:

For the boo-birds saying that Armada is dead or whatever, seriously buzz off. If you're at worlds playing armada I'll happily give you this message in person. Tough love, I know, but seriously just because the event yesterday didn't include Legion or Armada or <your favorite Star Wars title here> doesn't mean your game is dead. (*)

Armada is far from dead, it's mostly neglected, and I am not referring to product releases. It is more than possible to have a vibrant meta without new content.

I would be at worlds to have this discussion, but the stupid ticket lottery didn't give my better half a ticket.

Edited by AdmiralYor
4 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

FFG's PR skills are truly horrible! Every once in a while I go check out the Firestorm Armada forums. Just to compare apples to apples. They actually have Staff accounts so the PR department can interact with the fan base, without making promises the can't keep.

"This is where we are at. Currently working on evaluation of molds, and upgrades to our production ability. We hope to be able to announce a more comprehensive production plan at the end of May" not an exact quote, but the basic gist of 4-5 posts in one thread alone, over the last month.

Not only is it more information than we get, it is also delivered on a more personal level. It is that level of personal interaction that truly sets the really good game companies above the rest. Of course, with the obviously pathetic skill level of the FFG PR department, I can understand why they don't want them interacting with the fan base any more than needed.

As soon as warcradle starts producing firestorm armada im outta here.

11 minutes ago, fistfulofforce said:

As soon as warcradle starts producing firestorm armada im outta here.

As soon as Warcradle starts producing Firestorm Armada I am grabbing more Sorylian ships to convert to Star Wars armada as Corporate Sector Authority ships.

2 hours ago, AdmiralYor said:

It's not about new shiny stuff, well not all about new shiny stuff. It's about the burden for maintaining and fostering a healthy and fun community is currently 100% on the players and the stores. Armada simply isn't enough of a money draw for the stores to expend the money, and the players have a finite amount of energy to pour into their local community.

That's a bad cycle. If people are playing the game in store then others will see it. If it's not in stock, they can't impulse buy it and you won't add to your player base.

2 hours ago, AdmiralYor said:

I completely agree with this, the latest FAQ in theory has made fleet diversity more of a thing. Continuing from above though, since the stores won't spend money and the players are out of energy, the game needs more than build diversity to help it. As @moodswing5537 said above, in our local area it is a huge struggle to get stores to run events, and that I am referring to 3-5 hours away as "local" is indicative of this. Even if stores are willing to host an event, it tends to be up to the player base to promote and run the event.

I guess around here things have always been player run with the stores supporting. We go to the store and say we want weekend X for game Y and negotiate if that works. We pick the TO, setup any special rules and go. In the card game world it's a different matter but um, I stay away from that universe.

2 hours ago, AdmiralYor said:

Armada is far from dead, it's mostly neglected, and I am not referring to product releases. It is more than possible to have a vibrant meta without new content.

I would be at worlds to have this discussion, but the stupid ticket lottery didn't give my better half a ticket.

I grok where you're going with that. FFG's PR is driven to hype new product. They don't really expend any energy on current stuff, nor build player base type of material. Even then the articles for new product are really error prone. It. is. bad. The Runewars series they did a few weeks back about new players playing each other, while an attempt really wasn't a good representation of the game. The reader didn't see pictures of what makes the game exciting, or why the rules are great.

I'm sure FFG is probably looking at page loads and reacting to the increased web traffic that results from a product announcement. That in turn encourages them to do product announcement articles.

Don't worry guys. All of you who wanted more out of the hyperspace report - I have a little something special coming up for you all later tonight.

2 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

Don't worry guys. All of you who wanted more out of the hyperspace report - I have a little something special coming up for you all later tonight.

Sounds like something FFG would say- you better not disappoint. ?

Edited by fistfulofforce
2 hours ago, tgall said:

I grok where you're going with that. FFG's PR is driven to hype new product. They don't really expend any energy on current stuff, nor build player base type of material. Even then the articles for new product are really error prone. It. is. bad. The Runewars series they did a few weeks back about new players playing each other, while an attempt really wasn't a good representation of the game. The reader didn't see pictures of what makes the game exciting, or why the rules are great.

I'm sure FFG is probably looking at page loads and reacting to the increased web traffic that results from a product announcement. That in turn encourages them to do product announcement articles.

Everyone find a random Armada article, link it here then open and close the link as fast as possible.

If this thought is correct, we should have a new article in no time!

Double Post.

Edited by Indy_com
44 minutes ago, fistfulofforce said:

Sounds like something FFG would say- you better not disappoint. ?

I'll do my best. I've only got the sarcasm gem though so my infinity gauntlet isn't exactly "full"

21 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

Completely misses the point. The anger is about the bait and switch nature of the stream announcement vs its content, which stands upon several years now of late releases and pushbacks.

You’re angry about the bait and switch of an ANNOUNCEMENT?

Is this your first miniatures game, cause it’s really coming off like it is. I get that things are relative to everyone’s experience and this might be a big deal to you, but until it happens with the actual product it’s not really a thing.

I used to play heroclix by Wizkids. That company actually pulled product bait and switch and actively verbally attacked its fanbase, so to me this whole thing with FFG right now is a non-starter.

Of course I’m willing to admit I’m missing an aspect of this. What exactly was said in the stream announcement?

6 minutes ago, Flavorabledeez said:

Of course I’m willing to admit I’m missing an aspect of this. What exactly was said in the stream announcement?

Essentially FFG said they were doing a report where they were going to show off upcoming products for their Star Wars product lines. People who were fans of 1 or 2 of those products (Destiny, Armada, IA, Xwing, Legion) all showed up and the only reveal was X-Wing. So from what I gather, it's 100% that people are pissed that FFG didn't just say a reveal for X-Wing and that they carved out time or paid to attend only to hear something about a game they weren't interested in.

The bait and switch was implying it was for multiple products when it turned out to be just X-Wing.

Edited by ricefrisbeetreats
9 minutes ago, Flavorabledeez said:

I used to play heroclix by Wizkids. That company actually pulled product bait and switch and actively verbally attacked its fanbase, so to me this whole thing with FFG right now is a non-starter.

That sounds absolutely awful, but the fact that some other companies are even worse doesn't mean that we shouldn't be allowed to criticise FFG.

10 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Essentially FFG said they were doing a report where they were going to show off upcoming products for their Star Wars product lines. People who were fans of 1 or 2 of those products (Destiny, Armada, IA, Xwing, Legion) all showed up and the only reveal was X-Wing. So from what I gather, it's 100% that people are pissed that FFG didn't just say a reveal for X-Wing and that they carved out time or paid to attend only to hear something about a game they weren't interested in.

The bait and switch was implying it was for multiple products when it turned out to be just X-Wing.

I see.

I also see that if i were in marketing I’d do the same. For every person calling out the company for an announcement “bait and switch,” there’s probably ten who are saying “cool, X-wing is something I can get into/back into now.”

(Ignoring the possibility that they might lose a lot of players over X-wing 2.0, there’s a lot of salt over there)

Edited by Flavorabledeez
1 minute ago, Villakarvarousku said:

That sounds absolutely awful, but the fact that some other companies are even worse doesn't mean that we shouldn't be allowed to criticise FFG.

That’s why I included the part about it all being relative to everyone’s individual experience. Don’t leave that out of what I said.