...so let's pour over this semi-related one until the next one rolls around;

https://twitter.com/FFGOP/status/1079818878090391553

...and the ironic follow-up tweet, complete with it's own dumpster fire.

Shout-out to @Masterchiefspiff for roasting FFGOP's chestnuts on an open fire. I enjoyed the read.

The follow up tweet seemed like the kind of thing that would get deleted if their OP had any oversight

On the bright side, maaaaayyyybbbeee there was enough of a negative response that someone might actually have an urge to do something about it? I mean we do a lot of complaining amongst ourselves, but nothing's going to really happen unless someone with the power to do something actually sees it.

Oh god.

As someone who is just starting to get into community management, this is horribly cringeworthy.

Like, they need a strong PR team bad, and their own community development seems nonexistent.

That department has been their worst by far for a number of years now.

Part of the problem is it’s the OP department this tweet was to/from. So it’s not the people above that directly. The company as a whole needs to communicate with us/the whole customer base more. State of the game style at the bare minimum. If you haven’t announced anything/given some kind of positive forecast for a game in 2-3 months and you’re expecting that game to live on or to not do damage to that community - something is wrong with your understanding of how to grow and support a competitive game.

I don’t care if skirmish was a technical afterthough originally in the design process for IA - you have (and have had) hundreds of players who play it (many of whom also play other FFG games) and all it takes to sour them to the whole company/competitive/op experience is silence. And it’d be one thing if it was just IA but it sure sounds like it’s not. Armada has serious issues. Destiny. And even the poster child Xwing can’t have a definitive announcement of whether the points rebalance will happen or not before the next major tournament? Just make a decision and say it. Communicate. Tell us something IS being made to continue the skirmish side of IA for at least one more wave eventually. Even if that’s 6 months to a year from being a reality I still want to know the game won’t be dead after this botched up worlds audible (which also had no communication until it was too late for the vast majority of people to even try to act).

I love this game. I consider it to be FFG’s best game (I get other people like other styles for their skirmish) but grid based, customizable command decks, and small squad tactics for a tight organized play experience just checks all the boxes for me and I hope this game has another 2-3 Years at least in its OP/competitive life. But I guarantee it won’t if they don’t do a better job communicating with the players/customers. I’m not any of the big names out there, but I’ve been playing the game since the beginning and seen a lot of content providers for this game fall by the wayside - largely because FFG didn’t say what they were doing enough to support and curate the skirmish side of the game (even when they had stuff/fixes in the works...)

Quick fix for the game (after communicating better of course) - release a card pack of redesigned deployment cards (and even new command cards) for a large chunk of outdated figures. We don’t even need new figures to get a huge breath of life into the competitive side of the game - and this could be done in a span of a few months and released. Even just throwing us five to ten fixed deployments - or 1-2 per faction per quarter for a year. It’d be like Magic getting a new set regularly. And do this to give us something to shake things up in between boxes. I’d pay ten or fifteen for renewed old deployments we never use.

15 hours ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

Quick fix for the game (after communicating better of course) - release a card pack of redesigned deployment cards (and even new command cards) for a large chunk of outdated figures. We don’t even need new figures to get a huge breath of life into the competitive side of the game - and this could be done in a span of a few months and released. Even just throwing us five to ten fixed deployments - or 1-2 per faction per quarter for a year. It’d be like Magic getting a new set regularly. And do this to give us something to shake things up in between boxes. I’d pay ten or fifteen for renewed old deployments we never use.

and, that would give reasons for people to buy some of those old boxes/blister packs that are just sitting on shelves right now

On 1/4/2019 at 8:50 AM, ManateeX said:

On the bright side, maaaaayyyybbbeee there was enough of a negative response that someone might actually have an urge to do something about it? I mean we do a lot of complaining amongst ourselves, but nothing's going to really happen unless someone with the power to do something actually sees it.

They deserved some truth telling from @Masterchiefspiff . I have been trying for the past year to communicate with these bozos in some way or another and got exactly zero responses. They need a serious overhaul of their customer service department or risk losing their gaming market share. Our distributor is even worse. Asmodee has managed to take what little customer service FFG had left and flush it down the toilette.

What kills me is that, for the most part, it really does appear to be nothing than communication issues.

Obviously, some people will be mad when their product line is slowed or discontinued, but I think they'd prefer that to being strung along year after year.

I mean, look at IA. We had known about the app for quite a while before hearing anything really concrete, and for most of the people that wanted the app, that was enough to placate them. Obviously more news is always welcome, but simply knowing there was something to look forward to was comforting. Heck, look at how happy the Descent people were to get their new app campaign last month. If they'd known about it a little sooner, I'm sure the "Is Descent Dead?" posts would've seen a little less daylight.

And it cannot be understated how damaging it is to a product line to have its entire front page riddled with "is it dead?" threads. Even though FFG tends to produce big bombastic games with tons of expansions, gamers typically want to buy into something that is living and breathing. It's fun to be a part of a series that is continually getting support, continuing getting exciting new releases. Sure, there's the "it's not dead if it's still on my shelf" mentality, but that completely ignores the aspect of community that so many of us enjoy (particularly us who take the time to visit and post on these forums). Plus, a "dead" line in FFG always carries the stigma that a new shiny edition will come out relatively soon, so that's also a determent to buying in to the existing product line (and we've seen that line of questioning plenty of times here already).

Like, imagine if the handful of us that post here daily-ish lacked the passion for this game that drives us to visit here. Prospective players could come, ask a question, and find nothing but a ghost town and pessimism. They might ask why FFG doesn't sell IA on their website, or which expansions to get first, and they'd be met with silence for days. I've seen it on BGG, and it's definitely not incentivizing.

Basically, if it wasn't for the fans perpetuating their passion for this game, I'm not sure how IA would've survived even to this point. Several of us are essentially doing their community management (or, at least an approach of it) completely for free.

edit: Compare FFG's fantastic product line and subpar communication skills with EA's subpar product and fantastic PR. Battlefront II is a shell of what it could've been, but a strong community management team has managed to take a game that suffered from controversy on the eve of its release , and has made it somewhat respectable in gamers' eyes. That's no coincidence. The work the team has done to create roadmaps and follow through on promises has helped gamers build up a trust with them, and expectations have been managed.

Meanwhile, even though I'll stand by the claim that Star Wars tabletop is far better than its video games currently, FFG is rapidly losing player respect and trust. Again, this is no coincidence, and it has nothing to do with the products in question.

And, for the record, if Imperial Assault is discontinued, I would like to know now . And, I think it would be healthy for the forums and game as a whole, too. Instead of grim and pessimistic speculation, we could just get back to talking about the game we already love. Sure, there would be a brief bitter period, but I'd take that over months of incessant whining.

25 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

and they'd be met with silence for days. I've seen it on BGG, and it's definitely not incentivizing.

Not on Imperial Assault forums, I gather... You must be referring to some other FFG game I don't subscribe to.

16 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Not on Imperial Assault forums, I gather... You must be referring to some other FFG game I don't subscribe to.

I'm saying if we didn't have active members here.

As in, it appears outside of our small community, there isn't a ton of other activity or other moderation.

Apologies if that was unclear.

Lots of good points in this thread. This topic is popping up everywhere I go that IA or even FFG is discussed. Even in places I wouldn't expect to find it.

The card pack with revamped deployment cards is intriguing. It would be a way to get characters like Fenn or Dengar back into the fray. You can save your juicier names like Boba or Leia for bigger releases (expansions, figure waves etc..), but give us some of the lesser known in a card pack. This also aligns with their model as others have already said in this thread, it promotes the sale of previous boxes similar to how the App does.

It's also a way to keep the skirmish scene content between long physical product gaps as I am sure attention shifts more and more to the app now.

It would also be nice to know if Lothal is going to rotate in for those Regionals that are after a certain date for people planning to attend.

The fact that Descent did recently get a new App campaign despite not seeing a physical release in what, over two years? is intriguing. I think that goes to show that even after the physical content for IA comes to a close, the app will keep the game afloat for us for a while at least with fresh content.

On 1/6/2019 at 10:51 PM, Masterchiefspiff said:

Quick fix for the game (after communicating better of course) - release a card pack of redesigned deployment cards (and even new command cards) for a large chunk of outdated figures. We don’t even need new figures to get a huge breath of life into the competitive side of the game - and this could be done in a span of a few months and released. Even just throwing us five to ten fixed deployments - or 1-2 per faction per quarter for a year. It’d be like Magic getting a new set regularly. And do this to give us something to shake things up in between boxes. I’d pay ten or fifteen for renewed old deployments we never use.

🤷‍♂️ 😀

Lol Chris

I heard that bums like to gather around dumbster fires...

9 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

I heard that bums like to gather around dumbster fires...

LOL!!! Well played sir. @cleardave