12 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

I honestly wish FFG would just announce the game is dead instead of letting us sit in limbo.

The funny thing is how many players have switched to Legion rather than Armada... nothing says legion won’t end in the exactly the same way in a few years... I know I for one am happily paying legion but being super conservative in my purchases as a direct response to how they have handled armadas decline.

I'm still fairly new to Armada so the expansions I don't have I'm pacing myself in buying them. so I don't mind waiting a bit longer.

Ahhh.... too much negativity for me. The game as is is really great i love all my games. Faq nerfs completely reinvigorated it for me.

Im sure there is more on the way. Of course im keen to see it.

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

We were talking about this over in Scotland this week - it's a tricky one.

On the one hand, yes it has been a while, and the Hyperspace Report was a fumble. That being said, it's not like they've abandoned an explicit release schedule; the pattern of announcements/releases has been broken, sure, but that's likely just due to other big developments like X-wing 2.0 and Legion.

On the other hand, you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to just jump on Twitter with a reassuring nod to the core community. It's a shame to read about people considering selling up because they don't want to commit their limited time and money on a hobby that might not be supported.

But don't lose faith, dudes! We joke over here about Armada being "the thinking person's game". Our X-wing comrades just take a little more looking after, that's all. If you have the patience for Armada, have the patience for its release schedule! We had a great time at Euros and came across some cool new meta that proved there's plenty life left in the game yet. Besides, we can't all quit before we've conquered Rieeken Aces once and for all.

That struggle is real.

34 minutes ago, TTC said:

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

Because that's the whole point of subscribing to this kind of game.

7 hours ago, beefcake4000 said:

The funny thing is how many players have switched to Legion rather than Armada... nothing says legion won’t end in the exactly the same way in a few years... I know I for one am happily paying legion but being super conservative in my purchases as a direct response to how they have handled armadas decline.

Every game dies eventually. Or, lives long enough to see so many edition changes it becomes unrecognizable.

Even just 10 years in this industry is a lifetime for a game. Magic, 40k, the other big games over a decade old - a game played in June 2008 was a very different thing from a game played today. (For reference: 40k was still in 4th Edition and Magic had just released Shadowmoor.) Players of those games transported to today would barely even recognize them.

And in that time, Warhammer Fantasy has died. Infinity was born. 40k's had four new editions. Age of Sigmar was both born and rebooted. FFG's meteoric rise from a board game and RPG publisher to a dominant force in every segment of the tabletop gaming was in this period. DnD has both lost, and then reclaimed, it's spot at the top of the RPG market. Fourty out of fifty of the BGG top 50 board games were released.

Nothing lasts forever, and a decade's a long time. You've just got to enjoy things while they last - and then, once they're over, decide whether you're sticking with them until you stop being able to find people willing to play; or whether you're jumping ship to play something ongoing, with more players and evolving metagames.

Anyways I'm pretty sure the people who design Armada still have jobs at FFG so something somewhere is in the pipeline.

1 hour ago, TTC said:

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

New content would be great but I do agree with this.

Let things settle down for a bit and enjoy that virtually everything is balanced. Well ok some cards are still pants but nothing is too good.

Chess is still a popular game and they haven't had a FAQ or new content for decades. The rumoured third faction (grey) never materialised either.

1 hour ago, TTC said:

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

The game is well balanced, but almost perfect? That seems to be a common thought, but I can't agree with it. We wouldn't see the same lists still winning year after year and tournament after tournament if the game was perfectly balanced. I love this game to death, but squadrons are both overly complex/fiddly and a bit too effective.

Honestly, I'd be all about Armada 2.0 being the next thing. It's not entirely warranted yet, but it would be much cheaper to transition now when there aren't so many ships for each faction. They could move points to a digital format, fiddle with squadron play, and release new single faction starters to boot. It's early in the game's life, but that would be my wish.

I don’t understand the ‘it’s perfect so don’t change it’ mentality.

Everyone thinks something is perfect until an actual improvement is made. Wave 7 was a darn fine addition to a ‘perfect’ game if you ask me.

8 hours ago, beefcake4000 said:

The funny thing is how many players have switched to Legion rather than Armada... nothing says legion won’t end in the exactly the same way in a few years... I know I for one am happily paying legion but being super conservative in my purchases as a direct response to how they have handled armadas decline.

Legion is attractive because it's new and is supported. These monthly releases really brings people into the store, and I think my area has 10-20 people who play weekly. It's so popular that the Armada guys re-purposed Armada night as Legion night because it takes the same amount of space. Legion is also better than Armada in regards to releases, because you only need to buy 1 faction to get all the upgrades you want. It wasn't till wave 6 that Armada got on that release pattern.

Legion is also shorter games and easier to play a tournament or league. The game time for Armada is a concern for our local players, potential-players.

26 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

you only need to buy 1 faction to get all the upgrades you want. It wasn't till wave 6 that Armada got on that release pattern.

Chimaera has Hardened Bulkheads and Intensify Firepower; and Profundity has Heavy Ion Emplacements, Ordnance Pods, and Wide-Area Barrage. Armada's still not on that pattern.

3 hours ago, TTC said:

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

Where are msu-s then?;)

3 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

Where are msu-s then?;)

Basically Coming Runner-Up at Regionals in Calgary and Winnipeg.

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Basically Coming Runner-Up at Regionals in Calgary and Winnipeg.

W7 was a huge blow to them, they are nowhere near as good as they used to be. At least here. I got good results with Cracken, but those days are sadly over/lot harder to achieve.

4 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

W7 was a huge blow to them, they are nowhere near as good as they used to be. At least here. I got good results with Cracken, but those days are sadly over/lot harder to achieve.

And like removing all of the Jedi - it brought balance to the force.

1 hour ago, Cusm said:

Legion is also shorter games and easier to play a tournament or league. The game time for Armada is a concern for our local players, potential-players.

And I always tell folks this is an overblown concern.

I have never failed to complete a standard tournament match within the 2:15 time limit and often finish with 15 miniutes or more to spare. The difference comes in casual play, for whatever reason, maybe us Armada players are a little too chatty, my casual games tend to take 4+ hours to play.

Now of course a new player is going to take longer to play the game, I also think one reason casual games take longer is there is more experimentation happening. Most folks in a serious tournament setting have tested their list thoroughly and have a pretty good idea what their strategy is going to be.

My first few Legion games took just about as long, recently as folks have become more used to the mechanics things have picked up and when focused and ready to play we can get a game in in about 1:30 after deployment and for whatever reason turn 1 seems to take forever but the game speeds up considerably as it progresses. Armada on the other hand tends to have quick first turns and turns 3-4 tend to be the slowest before picking up again for the last couple rounds.

Anyway my point is that when prepared Armada can be consistently be played in about 2 hours, it is just the distractions of casual play that slow things down.

1 hour ago, Coldhands said:

W7 was a huge blow to them, they are nowhere near as good as they used to be. At least here. I got good results with Cracken, but those days are sadly over/lot harder to achieve.

I mean, with some training and effort they can still get work done. I heard about a guy who had some success with them.....

4 hours ago, TTC said:

The game is almost perfectly balanced right now.

Why do people need new content to continue enjoying it?

It isn't about wanting new content all the time. It is about wanting support. Those are two different things. Content just wants new stuff to play with, but support asks that FFG help stores and individuals create thriving communities by offering information regarding the future of the game, OP, campaigns, etc.

The problem is that although many of us, me included, would continue playing even if FFG dropped support for the game right now, communities playing the game would whither. There would be only very limited ways of getting new people involved (Mels) and products would no longer be on shelves where people might see them and decide to play.

On 6/9/2018 at 7:50 AM, Undeadguy said:

I'd like to point out that a lot of companies will go into R&D for a product, just to scrap it last minute. I know you touched on that, but that's the only possible explanation as to a disconnect between play testers and the dev team. They could have the next 2 waves finalized and ready for production, but if the projected sales don't make up for development, the entire project could be scrapped. Based off the loss of Netrunner where the lead producer didn't know the game was going to be pulled, I'd say it's also possible that Asmodee or the higher ups of FFG give the ax to Armada without the development team knowing. Granted, both are under different circumstances (there's no licence issue for Armada), but I think Netrunner shows there's a lapse in communication in FFG, which is a real shocker...

The Netrunner thing is HUGE.


If anything, I think the situation could be like this:

Aramda (or insert Other Game X here) sells well, and is profitable. BUT, it is not as profitable as a similarly invested release from a mega-popular game (read X-Wing, Destiny, and FFG-sure-as-s***-hopes Legion). So you could release a new product for Armada/GameX and make some money, OR you could reduce a new product for Mega-Popular Game and make a lot more money. So, you axe Armada/GameX even though its profitable to devote your finite resources (raw materials, printer time, modelers, designers/developers, playtesters, shipping space, article writers, marketing, etc.) into things that will be more profitable returns on those finite resources, while simultaneously reducing your development costs because you now need less designers/testers etc for a whole separate game line.

This also has the added benefit of reducing the cannibalization of the Star Wars gamers. If Star Wars gamers are split between five or six products, you've cannibalized your customer base with your own product lines. To eliminate product lines could mean, generally speaking, moving those customers back together under fewer games. This makes marketing more effective, playerbases for those games larger, and means you can make larger print runs for releases. This is what GW did when it axed Specialist Games back in the late 90s: Necromunda and Mordeheim and Blood Bowl were popular and they were profitable, but they were taking sales away from 40k/Fantasy and they weren't nearly as profitable as those Flagship Lines, so GW canned those games and focused on 40K/Fantasy. This was unpopular with (some) players, but I'm sure GW's analyses and projections considered all of that. Other changes in ownership, management, and stuff caused GW to just generally lose their way all around, and 3rd Party alternatives became increasingly popular (including FFG's explosion into the miniature/hobby game market with X-Wing, and now especially Legion). And now GW finds themselves bringing BACK the Specialist Games to try and save what some consider to be a sinking ship.

Bear in mind, a lot of marketing-level decisions don't make sense to fans or customers. I've read several accounts of the following at different venues, but I cannot verify if it is entirely true: Consider the first run of Teen Titans. It was a hugely successful show, but the problem was that it was too popular with boys AND girls. That wouldn't sound like a problem to us, but to the network it was because they had less market saturation. It's great for people selling Teen Titan stuff, as now boys and girls might buy it. But the primary revenue for any show is commercials. The Network wanted their shows to have almost exclusively boy audiences and girl audiences, because this allowed them to sell that commercial ad space by promising how effectively it would reach the intended audience (boy toys want to market on boys shows vs girl toys on girl shows -- why waste ad money advertising to kids where 50% of them will have no interest?). When the fanbase was split, the worry was that marketers would just advertise elsewhere where the intended-consumer saturation was much higher. All of this is just to say that what looks like success to us as the consumer does not necessarily look like success to those at the top making the big-picture sales and marketing decisions.





So, all of this is to say I kind of agree with @Undeadguy (boy, never thought I'd say that) in so far as this: I wouldn't be surprised if Armada gets canned, despite being a 'successful' product line. Because successful does not necessarily mean successful enough. And, if that were to happen, given the Netrunner precedence, it'll probably be as big of a surprise for the designers and playtesters of Armada as the rest of us.

to the Business guys here - is there any way to tell whether Armada is successful or not?

37 minutes ago, LordKipferl said:

to the Business guys here - is there any way to tell whether Armada is successful or not?

To be somewhat crass.. how much energy is FFG putting into the game, is a good indicator of how important it is and thus how profitable and successful. While it may be a flagship product for other companies, it is clearly at the lower end of priorities for FFG's Star Wars line. At this point it looks like they are just wringing the last drops out of it before they call it quits. They may even have another wave sitting around ready to go waiting for printer space. Whether it is released or not likely depends on the performance of other products more than it depends on Armada itself.

My 2 cents.

41 minutes ago, LordKipferl said:

to the Business guys here - is there any way to tell whether Armada is successful or not?

I'd agree with @AllWingsStandyingBy, I think it's about degree of success. I'm sure in financial terms it has been a success, but they're playing the long game, hoping that the returns on each new property will far exceed the initial capital going into developing them. As the years have passed and it looks like they could get a higher return focusing on something else, it's fair sense to do just that. I believe the team is pretty small, so they have to be very careful in how they invest their resources.

5 minutes ago, TheBigLev said:

To be somewhat crass.. how much energy is FFG putting into the game, is a good indicator of how important it is and thus how profitable and successful….

I was more thinking of a way to get some figures in order to do the maths