38 minutes ago, Koing907 said:

This runs the risk of chasing off new players who don't want to spend on every single release in order to be competitive. The pool of players is reduced to "whales", who buy multiples of everything, and reduces the popularity of the game. 40k got hit by this when, appropriately enough, a game named X-Wing Miniatures started eating their lunch with it's lower barrier of entry.

On the other hand, if they don't give as many people as possible reasons to buy new releases, their revenue gradually decreases, which means less resources to do new stuff and eventually the death of the game. There's no way I can think of to get let's say a K-wing expansion sell as well as an X-wing expansion, except for making people need the K-wing for game mechanics reasons, like TLT or Miranda.

FFG, and logically so IMO, caters to regular buyers. Not necessarily whales, but people who get at least 1-2 ships every wave (unless the wave has nothing for their faction). If you're an occasional buyer, a guy who bought some ships and expects to buy little else for the foreseeable future, you shouldn't expect the company you aren't really supporting to cater to your needs.

7 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

On the other hand, if they don't give as many people as possible reasons to buy new releases, their revenue gradually decreases, which means less resources to do new stuff and eventually the death of the game. There's no way I can think of to get let's say a K-wing expansion sell as well as an X-wing expansion, except for making people need the K-wing for game mechanics reasons, like TLT or Miranda.

FFG, and logically so IMO, caters to regular buyers. Not necessarily whales, but people who get at least 1-2 ships every wave (unless the wave has nothing for their faction). If you're an occasional buyer, a guy who bought some ships and expects to buy little else for the foreseeable future, you shouldn't expect the company you aren't really supporting to cater to your needs.

Neither should a company expect money from a consumer when they aren't offering a product that the consumer wants. Part of that product appeal is the competitive X-Wing scene.

Ideally new ships will do different things, instead of more powerful things. Making them appealing for the newness they bring to the game.

Practically, this is not FFG's strong suit, and we shouldn't expect too much from them.

11 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

On the other hand, if they don't give as many people as possible reasons to buy new releases, their revenue gradually decreases, which means less resources to do new stuff and eventually the death of the game. There's no way I can think of to get let's say a K-wing expansion sell as well as an X-wing expansion, except for making people need the K-wing for game mechanics reasons, like TLT or Miranda.

FFG, and logically so IMO, caters to regular buyers. Not necessarily whales, but people who get at least 1-2 ships every wave (unless the wave has nothing for their faction). If you're an occasional buyer, a guy who bought some ships and expects to buy little else for the foreseeable future, you shouldn't expect the company you aren't really supporting to cater to your needs.

So, this is a bit of a misconception i.e. the only way to turn a profit on new releases is to make them better. This mentality has sunk a lot of miniatures and FTP games. It gives you some short term gains, but rarely works out long term. In reality, the better strategy and one that most miniatures games are increasingly leaning towards, is increasing accessibility and lowering buy-in costs. This is one of the biggest contributing factors to the current 40k resurgence we're seeing, the game was significantly simplified (and mostly for the better in my optinion) and a lot of relatively good buy-in deals were released and have seen consistent releases. In short, 40k is trying to cycle new players into their game faster. Sure, not all of them are going to be long term fans or dump enough money to buy a used car into the game, but you get pretty good volume on all of your basic building block models that compensates for relative loss leader elements.

In 1.0, that was X-Wings big strength for a while i.e. easy learning curve and low buy in. As the game became more of a mess and a buy list to just hard buy certain squads became pretty egregious (try just buying everything you need for 1.0 palp aces at retail prices for comparison, IIRC it was close to $300 and only about a quarter or less were the physical ships). 2.0 definitely looks to be at least trying to get to that point. Not everybody that picks up 2.0 will be a "maximum of everything" kind of player, but that's fine. 100 people buying an X-Wing 2.0 core and 2-3 extra ships is still far more in terms of profit than 1 guy buying max FA of everything.

Not everything in game design has to hold the company afloat. As long as you're not taking a loss, it's fine for more specialized elements to be under used.

1 hour ago, Koing907 said:

This runs the risk of chasing off new players who don't want to spend on every single release in order to be competitive. The pool of players is reduced to "whales", who buy multiples of everything,

27 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

On the other hand, if they don't give as many people as possible reasons to buy new releases, their revenue gradually decreases, which means less resources to do new stuff and eventually the death of the game. There's no way I can think of to get let's say a K-wing expansion sell as well as an X-wing expansion, except for making people need the K-wing for game mechanics reasons, like TLT or Miranda.

Hey, I have an idea (and I love it when I can quote myself}:

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 12:03 PM, Darth Meanie said:

Core Identity ships and would (almost) never rotate out. This allows players to buy these few ships and play "forever," and keep the game Star Warsy thru the years.

Other ships would be replaced by a new release, when available. Each faction would see at least 1 new ship per year.

Others (an under-preformed or an over-performer) would be replaced by an extant ship from the Extended pool of ships.

The Core Identity ships get any player into the game at any time, at the same point of entry. The only thing that would change from year to year is the non-Core ships a noob might bump into.

Never want to buy more than an X-Wing? No problem.

Want the latest hotness?? No problem.

FFG gets to have it's cake and eat it too, and all players are on even footing, all the time.

TBH, the current Hyperspace list looks pretty **** much like what I would call the Core Identity ships.

what would excite more is "Scenario" play ops!! tired of X vs Y format...The new alt art ships as prizes are a cool step however if FFG is smart they will learn from WK and SELL those same ships a year or so later during the "reprint" process maybe? But if you made scenario play a thing folks would have to try different builds and ships... Anyone that has played attack wing knows its the Scenario play that kept the game interesting and fun..Personally I like the blinds too...but I dont think FFG could pull that off...

31 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

On the other hand, if they don't give as many people as possible reasons to buy new releases, their revenue gradually decreases, which means less resources to do new stuff and eventually the death of the game. There's no way I can think of to get let's say a K-wing expansion sell as well as an X-wing expansion, except for making people need the K-wing for game mechanics reasons, like TLT or Miranda.

FFG, and logically so IMO, caters to regular buyers. Not necessarily whales, but people who get at least 1-2 ships every wave (unless the wave has nothing for their faction). If you're an occasional buyer, a guy who bought some ships and expects to buy little else for the foreseeable future, you shouldn't expect the company you aren't really supporting to cater to your needs.

A "Scenario" based op the REQUIRES K wings would fix that....maybe make the prize an alt art K-wing ship....make the scenario based off one of the books or shows movies.. make one up... just make

it different from the same old X vs Y format...

27 minutes ago, Koing907 said:

Ideally new ships will do different things, instead of more powerful things. Making them appealing for the newness they bring to the game.

Practically, this is not FFG's strong suit, and we shouldn't expect too much from them.

I thought they did a pretty good job with the Gunboat. It had a somewhat unique play style that could work without massively overshadowing everything else.

8 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I thought they did a pretty good job with the Gunboat. It had a somewhat unique play style that could work without massively overshadowing everything else.

I'd agree with you. I was skeptical, but wound up loving the gunboat.

*Here is where I post the list of counterexamples. We all know them by now.*

1 minute ago, Koing907 said:

I'd agree with you. I was skeptical, but wound up loving the gunboat.

*Here is where I post the list of counterexamples. We all know them by now.*

Sorry; I didn't mean that as an argument that everything's perfect, but just saying they can get it right when they try. Hopefully they put a bit more effort into this kind of thinking.

The RZ2 Awings also play very differently from everything else. And I've used a lot of Quickdraw in 1.0!

There are several examples where they got it right.

So, I had a thought while driving today, and I'm wondering what the unseen consequences of it were.

What if all generics (or just the cheapest one) were legal for hyperspace, as well as the "curated" list?

So, for example, if I only play X-Wing because I love the Tie Punisher, well, the Hyperspace format might take Redline away, but I still can use the generic. FFG isn;t taking any of my ships away - just keeping the pilots and upgrades more manageable.

The only negative I can see is if there is a chassis so good that the generic is broken - maybe the Quadjumper would fit here. But then you can clean up that mess with pricing modifications.

Anyhow, a thought experiment. In what other ways is this idea terrible?

9 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

In what other ways is this idea terrible?

It doesn't solve the problem of a format where not all legal ships are available for sale. Current hyperspace has all available as actual 2.0 products (with one exception out of 21, the rebel Falcon).

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It doesn't solve the problem of a format where not all legal ships are available for sale. Current hyperspace has all available as actual 2.0 products (with one exception out of 21, the rebel Falcon).

I'm not sure I understand why this is a problem. Is it always going to be a problem if every player can't get every ship at any given time? If there are situations in which it's not actually a problem, what distinguishes the situation you've got in mind, such that it is a problem?

10 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It doesn't solve the problem of a format where not all legal ships are available for sale. Current hyperspace has all available as actual 2.0 products (with one exception out of 21, the rebel Falcon).

Aren't all the Resistance/FO ships Hyperspace legal too? Most of them haven't been re-released either.

21 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It doesn't solve the problem of a format where not all legal ships are available for sale. Current hyperspace has all available as actual 2.0 products (with one exception out of 21, the rebel Falcon).

Hmmm... I'm not sure that's a problem, or at least one that intersects with my suggestion. The suggestion keeps ships playable without (presumably) being top-tier good. Who cares if you can't buy a K-Wing if the K-Wing isn't all that good. Meanwhile, the guy who is obsessive about K-Wings (truthfully, not just Miranda is good so I guess I love K-Wings) gets to play them without making the format balance out of whack.

2 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

Hmmm... I'm not sure that's a problem, or at least one that intersects with my suggestion. The suggestion keeps ships playable without (presumably) being top-tier good. Who cares if you can't buy a K-Wing if the K-Wing isn't all that good. Meanwhile, the guy who is obsessive about K-Wings (truthfully, not just Miranda is good so I guess I love K-Wings) gets to play them without making the format balance out of whack.

I have to admit ... I haven't given it a lot of thought for flaws, but I definitely think the concept/objective is great.

19 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I'm not sure I understand why this is a problem.

Part is speculation, but I can only imagine how different the pitch to LFL/Disney has to be when they don't actually sell the majority of legal products for their organized play. That assumes that organized play is seen as important workhorse wrt marketing and sales. Maybe I'm biased and misjudge the importance, but it was definitely a selling point for 5 people around me, despite exclusively playing at home for over a year.

19 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Is it always going to be a problem if every player can't get every ship at any given time? If there are situations in which it's not actually a problem, what distinguishes the situation you've got in mind, such that it is a problem?

Being sold out is a situation that is not actually a problem, even though the result is identical. The difference is one of principle.

Extended requires a customer to buy a different because non-compatible game and convert these products. That is a hard sales pitch and does not increase the attractiveness of the game, rather the opposite. It is horrible optics if a company does not actually sell the parts of its own organized play. Not necessarily for customers for whom third party products often provide great alternative solutions. But the business side with nongamers has to recoil at the thought.

I'm not arguing whether it would be good or bad for the game but whether it is an actual, realistic option for FFG. And while I am ignorant about it, I just can't imagine that only official formats with mostly unavailable products has to be a terrible idea for a business.

25 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Aren't all the Resistance/FO ships Hyperspace legal too? Most of them haven't been re-released either.

I... did not think of them. Thanks for pointing it out. So that's 6/21 unavailable then? Only T70, RZ2 and FO are re-released, right? And was the silencer only announced but isn't out yet?

I think that's already pretty bad.

9 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I... did not think of them. Thanks for pointing it out. So that's 6/21 unavailable then? Only T70, RZ2 and FO are re-released, right? And was the silencer only announced but isn't out yet?

I think that's already pretty bad.

Technically 7. The Striker is Hyperspace legal and though announced, has not been rereleased yet.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Hey, I have an idea (and I love it when I can quote myself}:

The Core Identity ships get any player into the game at any time, at the same point of entry. The only thing that would change from year to year is the non-Core ships a noob might bump into.

Never want to buy more than an X-Wing? No problem.

Want the latest hotness?? No problem.

FFG gets to have it's cake and eat it too, and all players are on even footing, all the time.

TBH, the current Hyperspace list looks pretty **** much like what I would call the Core Identity ships.

The problem is FFG already marketed and sold conversion kits. They made a big deal out of being able to play your 1.0 ships in 2.0. Now they ban the vast majority of them with hyperspace. They marketed (propaganda) in order to sell their conversion kits and keep existing players. Dropping the ban hammer now is going to lose a lot of players as we are seeing in these threads. It creates mistrust in the community except for die hard fantatics that have addiction problems.

I would agree with you if FFG didn't sell massive conversion kits like they did and instead just sold conversion kits per ship and only did when those ships would be cycled into the new format. If they would have done this and been honest up front, than I think that would have kept more players than lost. However, FFG attempted to milk the player base as much as possible. This of course is causing the back lash and most likely x-wing won't be able to survive this. We know x-wing dropped of top 5 list of miniatures sold. Its only going to get worse.

10 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Technically 7. The Striker is Hyperspace legal and though announced, has not been rereleased yet.

I wonder if/when they go down to 0. I think 7/21 is bad but vastly better than 44/58 (counting Z95, HWK, TIE etc not combined)

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

I wonder if/when they go down to 0. I think 7/21 is bad but vastly better than 44/58 (counting Z95, HWK, TIE etc not combined)

Eh, from a certain point of view.

Either way, a subset of new players are going up against ships they don’t have. The problem still exists, on top of the already stated problems with some old players and new players who have already bought converters.

Both play styles leave people high and dry. That’s why both exist rather than just one. In the end, we will have to see if they can coexist together.

As for how long, either until they’ve rereleased those 7 ships, or next rotation comes through. As we don’t know details of all the future waves or how the next Hyperspace season will look like, who knows.

7 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Both play styles leave people high and dry. That’s why both exist rather than just one. In the end, we will have to see if they can coexist together. 

That sounds very pessimistic and unusually down. I would say both play styles have me excited to try new lists and play. Is it possible that you generally don't enjoy 2.0?

What is your take on the two formats and how did you get there?

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Hey, I have an idea (and I love it when I can quote myself}:

The Core Identity ships get any player into the game at any time, at the same point of entry. The only thing that would change from year to year is the non-Core ships a noob might bump into.

Never want to buy more than an X-Wing? No problem.

Want the latest hotness?? No problem.

FFG gets to have it's cake and eat it too, and all players are on even footing, all the time.

TBH, the current Hyperspace list looks pretty **** much like what I would call the Core Identity ships.

If you want to rotate ships out, don't PERMANENTLY rotate them out. Make it periodic, or occasional, or something that allows re-use of ships that players have already invested in. THAT is the issue: elimination of those investments makes players ANGRY. Listen up, FFG.

18 minutes ago, Firebird TMK said:

If you want to rotate ships out, don't PERMANENTLY rotate them out. Make it periodic, or occasional, or something that allows re-use of ships that players have already invested in. THAT is the issue: elimination of those investments makes players ANGRY. Listen up, FFG.

Well, yes, of course. I mean in my idea of a rotation, each faction has 7-10 ships in Hyperspace at market at any given time, and those should be the ones getting heavy reprint runs to keep them in stock.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Part is speculation, but I can only imagine how different the pitch to LFL/Disney has to be when they don't actually sell the majority of legal products for their organized play.

7 factions x 10 ships = 70 SKUs a year definitively on sale. That's more ships than exist currently, no??

It also can solve some SKU bloat for the FLGS, because "these are 2019's Hyperspace ships."

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

It doesn't solve the problem of a format where not all legal ships are available for sale.

That wouldn't be the problem for Hyperspace. For Extended, ?

58 minutes ago, Lace Jetstreamer said:

The problem is FFG already marketed and sold conversion kits.

No problem. Play Extended if you want to use all of the CK. You just won't be working towards playing in certain upper tier events.

Moreover, you'll still want those 1.0 X-Wings for Hyperspace.

9 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

That sounds very pessimistic and unusually down. I would say both play styles have me excited to try new lists and play. Is it possible that you generally don't enjoy 2.0?

What is your take on the two formats and how did you get there?

Oh, I am also excited for options in both, though as I have stated before, I see Hyperspace as a side dish to be enjoyed from time to time. My experience playing 2.0 has been generally positive and I’m chomping at the bit to get more games in with my new Resistance toys.

Upon rereading what you quoted, I feel I poorly explained that part. What I meant to convey is that both play formats have downsides that affect different players negatively. On this thread, we see users who post that they have a preferred format and would not be playing the other. Thus going solely with one or the other will leave somebody “high and dry”. This is also true for new players who just bought the rereleased material as opposed to the new players who bought the Conversion kits. The former gets shafted by Extended (well, more shafted) while the latter is shafted by Hyperspace by not being allowed to use ships that they went out of their way to buy, possibly the ships they bought in for. Thus, both playstyles leave someone (though probably not the same someone) high and dry. I’ve seen this with every change to X-Wing and other games. When the final Jumpmaster nerf came through that removed slots, the forums were filled with players swearing of the game forever and others saying the change brought them back. Same thing again with the arrival of 2.0. And those are just the bigger examples. It’s classic economics. Everything has a cost.

Now, for the sake of completeness, there is the flip side as well. Something changes, there is usually someone who benefits and is made happier. When a change comes, the desired outcome is for a net positive response. We are on the starting end of using Hyperspace, thus do not fully know the net affect of it. We’ll just have to see.

This is why I am for both. With both, the hope is that the negative affect can be minimized and the maximum number of players can be kept happy. I do think more effort should be placed on Extended as I believe balancing it is more worthwhile as balance in Extended provides benefits to Hyperspace. But time will tell how well that works. Though, as has been pointed out by @Okapi, even having both formats can have a negative impact on smaller playgroups when people can’t agree.

Heh, I guess my answer to being called a pessimist is the classic “I’m a realist” defense. The truth is, I consider myself a hopeful pessimist. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I would be happy to be proved wrong that going with one format over the other wouldn’t negatively affect anyone, but that doesn’t match the historical data I’ve observed, both in the context of X-Wing and the world in general.