Realistically, we're getting 2 copies of Starbird Slash with this Resistance pack, and the Rebel pack will probably come with 2 also. That's 4. If you want enough for 5 or 6 A-wings you have to buy a second copy of one or the other. I don't think this is unreasonable. If there are 3 copies of Starbird Slash in each box, then I would be surprised and grateful.

Look at the spread below. 13 upgrade cards are shown, one of which is a title. It stands to reason that the other 12 cards have duplicates sitting in that face-down pile. I'm not worried in the slightest.

If the argument boils down to the fear that there may be only 1 copy of Starbird Slash in Heralds of Hope, I can't really relate because FFG has shown again and again that they're willing to put extra cards in these bigger packs.

IF I'm wrong, then I will gladly stand by you in despair and disappointment at the marketing choices for this game, @dezzmont . Until that time, I'm going to keep flying casual.

For the record, the two copies of Starbird slash has to be in that pile because Starbird shlash is not any of the revealed cards. There are three talents face up and none of them match the artwork for the Starbird Slash. There's Daredevil, Snap Shot and one new upgrade with a LAATi on it.

We also know the two underslung blasters would be in that pile judging by there being 3 arc indicators.

4 hours ago, Ebak said:

We have provided a casual solution to that problem

Your solution is that I should not buy stuff to support the game and essentially become a free rider. Which is fine, I guess, but then it raises the question on why the current practice is the current practice. If my sale isn't 'needed' then why is it being pushed so aggressively? If it is, why is proxying acceptable? You yourself noted a discomfort with long term proxying, because eventually a player should 'fork it over' so its only kicking the problem down the line.

4 hours ago, Ebak said:

You're not subsidising PT or ST players

If my purchase of new ships is required despite not being a player of those factions to ensure the game is profitable, that is in fact what is happening. I don't think that is the case (FFG is, in fact, not hurting as a company, and the main issue with X-wing has been almost proven to be 'too many plastic products hurting relationships with stores and customers') and it is more a desire for profit maximization at worst or a misguided attempt to service older players without realizing that re-paints and minor sculpt tweeks are not at all attractive and they wish to C O N S U M E cards, but if it were, my stance is, in fact, 'X-wing should die because the game only being able to be profitable by exploiting FOMO and actively enacting anti-consumer practices to wring cash out of people by selling plastic they don't want' is not... a good company or game. I get that is a bit provocative, because no one wants X-wing to die, but in that hypothetical reality, that would be the 'just' outcome: No one buys a product they don't want or need to support a game that actively mistreats them to try to survive after making critically bad choices.

Again, can't stress enough that doesn't seem like the reality, just pointing out that the logical conclusion of 'they can't afford to release cardboard without new ships' is, in fact, that OT players are being asked to subsidize new ships.

4 hours ago, Ebak said:

-- Break to let my blood stop boiling --

The fact you are getting actively mad that someone is saying 'I don't think the game is prioritizing a large swath of players who haven't gotten new content for the entire lifespan of the game' indicates maybe you should take a walk. I do it when I get heated in internet debates, even if your right this level of intensity isn't healthy.

4 hours ago, Ebak said:

In my mind, you want FFG to give you 6 Starbird slashes in Heralds of Hope/Phoenix Squadron pack. It's not happening, and you're fooling yourself if you think it is.

Ok, I think you are actively seeing red to an unhealthy degree where it is twisting your thought process (read: Your engaging in 'hot thinking:' you may or may not be mad, but your overcharged emotionally and aren't in a place where you are able to argue empathetically because your 'amped' more than 'mad).

Quote

"If Phoenix Cell comes with extra copies of the new cards so I can also use them with my old ships? Fantastic, I might even be persuaded to get 2 if they are cheap enough."

I clearly don't think it is or should come with 6. I think 3 is the magic number: I think both this and the rebel aces pack should be 'enough.' I think that the precident set by H&A with the B-wings was a good one: 2 packs for a full set for the OT stuff. FFG sometimes tries to dip its toes into 3 pack forcebuys for a full set (Ex: L5R core, Netrunner core) and it always results in bad feelings. But X2 is a pretty clean number.

You are doing some 'Sith absolute' thinking, along with seeming to take offense at the mere idea someone would have a problem with the status quo must also want everything handed to them. "Oh, he isn't happy forking over 50 bucks for a singleton, but also doesn't want to see value in the cross faction ship or reprint, and doesn't want to proxy? Must want 6 of in one pack." But in reality there is a middleground between 'I don't want to buy 200 dollars worth of ships and get 12 pieces of plastic I don't want to to run 6 RZ-1s with an upgrade that may be stapled on them 'officially without waiting likely a full year and a half to get a card pack option' and 'I want everything in a 6 of right now.'

4 hours ago, Ebak said:

I do disagree about 'every faction getting something every couple of waves' because the ratio has to be new factions 2 to 1 for old factions

Lets math this out:

Waves tend to (in normal circumstances) be released 3 months apart, and with around 8 packages.

A 2:1 ratio, assuming that FO and Resistance count as 'new' means that each year we should be seeing 1 ships per-wave for all 4 of the new factions, and 1 ship every other wave for rebels, empire, and scum.

So yeah, we should actually be seeing something for the OT factions every other wave or so, that is a completely reasonable ask. This means 4 products a year for Resistance, FO, Republic, and CIS, and 2 products a year for Scum, Empire, and Rebels. If 1 of those products per year is an aces box with good card support to get reprints out, and one is a pure cardboard pack ala Hotshots and Aces, and you had to buy 2 of any 'OT faction' pack to get a full set. As the newer factions get 'filled out' then you even out the releases (Which, arguably, is already happening a bit with the PT ships, which could be argued to be a 1.5 ratio faction at this point, which gives room to give 2 ships in one wave to FO and Resistance, which actually have worse support than the PT ships once the next two waves 'land').

Rebels and Empire do not need as many new releases, but not getting any, and getting poor support from the scraps they are thrown, sucks no matter how you slice it.

@Parakitor x2 is a 3.5 out of 10 on the dezzpair-o-meter, mostly because it seems like FFG may be going back onto the BS that they pulled with the Netrunner and L5r core sets of trying to get that last 3rd purchase despite the value of the product being almost zero depsite finalizing the playset (because you were buying some odd 250 cards to get... 11 cards that were absolute staples you needed 3 of in a deck with the last purchase), and at x2 your in the exact same scenario at least for resistance players (Who will need to buy 2 more X-wings at LEAST than what they can use in a normal game, assuming this is their first resistance purchase ever) to finalize the set, which I think is fair to say is slightly coercive even ignoring the fact that for most resistance players even two purchases is dubious value because they are almost certainly 'wasting' at least 1 X-wing.

The upshot here is, unlike with Netrunner, the redundant components can realistically be re-sold, re-gifted, or split between players, and I am actually sooooorta ok with it? It may be a good way to get products I can give away to friends who are curious about X-wing, but who haven't started at all yet. This is definitely a 'I dunno about this, but it is at least not as terrible as the situations that made me not get into netrunner till the secondhand market allowed me to opt out on giving FFG 240 bucks to get my 3rd copy of Desperado' situation.

Problem solved.

28 minutes ago, Ebak said:

Problem solved.

Short term, yeah. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease and OT players raising a bit of a stink right now is probably what would create a new product that better suits what they actually want next year (Because, you know, the delay from product conception to development to actual sale), because, to be clear, all new support being in aces packs or very thin on the ground in collection packs isn't going to fly either long term.

I would be willing to nab an extra Phoenix pack as a value add to a gifted core set, giving away the redundant pilots, missiles, tokens, ect, whatever and just nabbing an extra set of new upgrades for myself once, maybe twice. That isn't an effective long term solution though and it would not be ideal for that to be discovered a year too late like reprint-mania not being a solution was discovered a year too late for Epic and wave 6's OT stuff.

1 hour ago, dezzmont said:

all new support being in aces packs or very thin on the ground in collection packs isn't going to fly either long term

Why not?

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why not?

I suppose I am operating off an assumption, which I shouldn't be at all, that we aren't going to see more than 1-2 new X-wing and A-wing pilots, and not many more new upgrades, which would make this product mostly a reprint with a bit of extra stuff. That was the impression I got (especially looking at the cards in the spread and seeing quite few familiar ones that would make it rather difficult for even half of the unrevealed upgrades to be new), but I may have missed something. If I am wrong, I am prepared to look like a big dumb idiot. It almost certainly isn't all or even mostly new stuff (If half the X-wings in the pack are new, for example, that means that Resistance is gunna have 18 pilots for the X-wing which seems like a lot.

I just doubt that the new aces pack will have enough new content to, essentially, sell the plastic as a very minor side benefit and essentially 're-release' the ships inside them with the same level of new content a new ship would have (For smalls, that would be like... what... 4-6 new pilots, 3-4 new upgrades? Though previous bundled ships like the transport pod came with far more new stuff at 22 cards for 30 bucks for a medium and small). Especially because they are pushing plastic collections to 'Why do I need to own 6 X-wings? Or 8 if I buy a second set?' If it isn't as valuable to buy an aces pack as it is to buy 2.5 new smalls (or like... I dunno... a small and a 'loaded' medium like the transport pod) they just aren't a good long term solution for supporting factions because they still will be in a content drought and its still a poor value proposition for actually new things. It becomes hard to continually buy them for 50 bucks as a single over time, let alone multiple copies for playsets, and sustain them on splitting the price by splitting the plastic in em, or giving em away, which is what would allow a hypothetical 'spend 50 dollars to get 4-5 new pilots and 3 new 2 of upgrades' to make any sense, and even then not a ton of sense. It is better than their other game's 'I have now some odd 300 extra cards that are duplicates from this triple core set I got that I can't realistically sell or give away' because you can sell or give away the ships, but that probably crashes the second hand market, floods even more reprint plastic (T-70 packs are already 9 bucks for a 1.0, meaning the plastic itself basically has no value, and a conversion kit is dirt cheap as well) that is already hurting X-wing quite a lot. These ships already have Too. Much. Plastic for the plastic to be any sort of value add save for a very limited range of ships. Re-prints just do not offer any intrinsic value on their own of any sort when your average medium or small is under 10 dollars and larges are 20 maybe. So in the cases of Heralds of Hope, the cards are, essentially, being sold for 25 dollars in the context of the plastic running you around 25 if you shop smartly, and if you don't care about the plastic at all (And most players probably don't at this point unless they are very new) that is 50 dollars for the cards.

If the packs are mostly new (or have enough new stuff in them to match the value of buying 3 totally new ships, probably with a little bit of change because most players in these factions aren't actually going to need the ships or dials), then they basically ARE cardboard packs that also happen to be a way to get plastic into circulation, which would, again, mean I am a big dumb idiot. I would love to see FFG just saying casually 'yeah, Resistance now has 22 X-wing pilots, and 10 of those upgrade cards in the pack are new, deal with it.' Especially because Hyperspace would ensure they could gate those hypothetical 10 new pilots into just 2-4 they feel really sure about. But I just don't see them using that direction for the aces packs if they are meant to be an 'onboarding' product. But unless they are willing to stuff a truly ridiculous amount of new content into these packs, I doubt they will actually solve the 'why can't we sell any reprints?' issue. I am sure most OT players are willing to pay SOME 'plastic tax' to get new content, and would be content to pay around the price of a ship to get a meaty ship expansion's worth of cards due to understanding the logistical issues of the OT factions: Value parity need not be there. But the value proposition seems really off and still seems to assume the plastic holds any serious level of value based on the info we got (Assuming FFG doesn't force feed me my words).

For most 1.0 ships, the plastic stock is so comically over-saturated that it is reasonable to buy them for 25% of the price of a new ship if you reaaaally shop around. So aces packs mostly trying to earn their value by being reprints with a few extra do-dads doesn't make sense: Either these products need to have so much cardboard that the plastic is almost an after-thought at their price point, or they need to sell content to OT players in some other way, because the ships in the pack are worth like... generously 25 dollars, but more realistically 15. If I wanted 4 X-wings and 2 A-wings, meaning a double Heralds purchase, I could get all of those ships and a conversion kit to continue expanding my resistance collection for probably the price of one pack, forget two. This is what people mean when they say FFG is going to have to push cardboard, because they really can't push plastic for any 1.0 product besides maybe the super rare ones like the Star Wing or the K-wing: I am not paying a 400% markup for a reprint and fewer cards than an actual new release, especially if I have to handle the inconvenience of it coming in a bundle with LESS new value, rather than more like the other bundles they sold had.

I am willing to support the cause, but, again, to paraphrase @Koing907 "I am not a charity" and I need to be able to contextualize this as a purchase with some support, rather than throwing 50 bucks at the company to get a 'appreciation gift' not at all in line with 50 bucks. I can do the mental gymnastics to think the Heralds of Hope bundle is a good bridge into Resistance, even though objectively I know it very much isn't, because I like supporting the game and having even one copy of a card makes me much more comfortable casually proxying it (I didn't ENTIRELY freeload, I supported the game, and it feels 'cleaner' in my play area to place that ship to the side near all the ships using it to sorta signal its on all of them) and probably can do the same with Phoenix, maybe even two if I give away one of the X-wings it inevitably comes with along with a core set to some new player. Past that? The mental gymnastics to pretend I am getting anything remotely in line with what I am paying don't work, and we are right back to 'so your trying to sell me another B-wing, here is why you shouldn't.'

49 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

I suppose I am operating off an assumption, which I shouldn't be at all, that we aren't going to see more than 1-2 new X-wing and A-wing pilots, and not many more new upgrades, which would make this product mostly a reprint with a bit of extra stuff.

Sorry I must have missed the news. Where can I see what's in this rebel aces pack?

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Sorry I must have missed the news. Where can I see what's in this rebel aces pack?

I am talking about Heralds of Hope, which has been partially spoiled and allegedly has at least the 'count' of how much content it has here.

I am not assuming anything about the Phoenix pack, besides that it will also have Starbird Slash, will almost certainly include at least 1 A-wing, and probably will have a similar level of 'new' (Including stuff already in HoH, but 'new' to Rebels at least) content. I think that is a reasonably fair set of assumptions.

1 minute ago, dezzmont said:

I am talking about Heralds of Hope

Why then the jump to rebels from resistance? You say "OT players" or "OT factions", but so far that seems to mean exclusively rebels.

Of 10 T-70 pilot cards in Heralds of Hope, six should be the generics for two ship. Then there are new Temmin and Poe. This would leave for two unknown new pilot cards.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

You say "OT players" or "OT factions", but so far that seems to mean exclusively rebels.

I can only speak for the rebel perspective, but i have seen imps belly ache as well.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why then the jump to rebels from resistance?

This question is phrased strangely and I am struggling to understand what you mean. If you are talking 'why would you, Dezzmont, get it' it is because I actually DO want to support FFG AND am interested in resistance.

If your talking about 'why bring it up in the context of OT support' its because we have no reason to suspect the support for OT will be better in their aces packs than resistance.

Looking at the spread and squiiiiinting we can see 1 snap shot, 1 ion missile, 1 concussion missile, 1 R4 astromech, 1 ion cannon, 1 daredevil, something that miiiight be an R3 but I honestly can't tell so lets call it new, The Black One card, and 1 primed thrusters. We can assume there is going to be a torpedo, and they might double up on anything for the X-wing. We know 2 of the 21 new upgrade cards are the Underslung Blaster. That means, assuming the primed thruster is for the A-wing and both new droids are unique, 11 of the 21 cards are reprints. That means, with the info we know, the new content could, at most, be 10 cards for upgrades, assuming we minimize reprints, which would be bad for old collection value. Assuming a x2 of most of the upgrades, that means 5 new upgrades, which means that it only has the new cardboard of one middling small pack, for the price of what is effectively a large ship, assuming @RikuM 's count on the pilots for the X-wing are true and it holds similar for the A-wing. In which case, oof, I may actually go for the conversion kit and 1.0 product after all..

All in all, a very low value for new content. And, assuming it isn't radically different for the other factions, we can extrapolate squadron packs will not really be pushing that much new content to be a 'cardboad pack plus' which means that they will remain a bad value for money and will be directly competing with reprints, but with the added bad feels that to get the new cardboard most people are paying 20 bucks for when they buy a Nantex, you need to spend an extra 30 dollars to get a bunch of reprints and some plastic you probably already own, and if you don't you could get for 5 bucks each after getting a 20 dollar product you basically NEED anyway.

The fact this pack seems to be 50% reprint and is either a really bad way to get an existing collection up to speed with new content due to requiring a really extreme investment in 50 dollar packs for less than what most medium ships get, or is only going to be like 5 new cards overall and is less value than even a small's new cards, means this just frankly won't work long term, because its still trying to trade mostly on the plastic, which, again, is worthless, or more accurately, for small ships, is worth somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars for any product from 1.0, because wether FFG likes it or not new players seem to be aware conversion kits are 'mandatory products' very early in their lifespan as players.

Again, there is a gradient between 'Only reprints' and 'Give me a full set of every new card for 20 dollars, please.' I just think they are still cleaving way too close to 'the value is the reprinted ships' rather than 'the value is new content.'

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why then the jump to rebels from resistance? You say "OT players" or "OT factions", but so far that seems to mean exclusively rebels.

Imperials have similarly only received the one card pack of pilots since 2.0 launched. Scum got some new toys in wave 1-2 but dropped off after.

31 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Assuming a x2 of most of the upgrades, that means 5 new upgrades, which means that it only has the new cardboard of one middling small pack, for the price of what is effectively a large ship, assuming @RikuM 's count on the pilots for the X-wing are true and it holds similar for the A-wing. In which case, oof, I may actually go for the conversion kit and 1.0 product after all..

All in all, a very low value for new content. And, assuming it isn't radically different for the other factions, we can extrapolate squadron packs will not really be pushing that much new content to be a 'cardboad pack plus' which means that they will remain a bad value for money and will be directly competing with reprints, but with the added bad feels that to get the new cardboard most people are paying 20 bucks for when they buy a Nantex, you need to spend an extra 30 dollars to get a bunch of reprints and some plastic you probably already own, and if you don't you could get for 5 bucks each after getting a 20 dollar product you basically NEED anyway.

The fact this pack seems to be 50% reprint and is either a really bad way to get an existing collection up to speed with new content due to requiring a really extreme investment in 50 dollar packs for less than what most medium ships get, or is only going to be like 5 new cards overall and is less value than even a small's new cards, means this just frankly won't work long term, because its still trying to trade mostly on the plastic, which, again, is worthless, or more accurately, for small ships, is worth somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars for any product from 1.0, because wether FFG likes it or not new players seem to be aware conversion kits are 'mandatory products' very early in their lifespan as players.

As multiple people observed, the base of new users that don't own conversion kits for 'their' factions don't exist in numbers to justify reprints, and its super clear this is the case. The squad packs serve as a good 'bridge product' to new factions (Which the game sincerely DID need) but probably don't have the longest lifespans as products to 'push.' After that, FFG really either needs to massively improve in the quantity of cardboard till it starts resembling H&A's value in terms of 'new for you' (Perhaps people would pay 10 bucks for some odd 14 new cards for their faction, meaning a single ship with an 'update' might be something that could be sold for 30 bucks, which would also help as opposed to 3 ships for 50. Its worse value on plastic, way better value on cardboard and may be more attractive), or needs to make pure cardboard products that contain the contents equivalent to a new ship (Again, doesn't need to actually be the value of H&A in the sense of being some odd 60 cards for 20 bucks, but should feel around that value of H&A for a single faction player, which was about 12-14 new cards depending on faction).

Except for some of us, we see value in the ships because it’s a repaint and looks cool. Yes new content is valuable but the ships have some value too. If ffg is too far into “the ships are the value”, then you are too far into “the cards content are the value.” The balance is probably between you.

This feels like a good way for a new player to go and won’t need a conversion kit much. It also appeals to me because all repaint minis. While you are not valuing the ships at all, they hold value to many of us. At the same time, you’re not including cost of 1.0 minis with that hypothetical conversion kit. You’re probably paying $10/model for small base, so that’s like $30 of the $50 accounted for right there.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

Except for some of us, we see value in the ships because it’s a repaint and looks cool. If ffg is too far into “the ships are the value”, then you are too far into “the cards content are the value.” The balance is probably between you.

I am sure there is value to some players, and no shade is intended to anyone who values ships for things like repaints. I do think you might be underestimating the 1.0 overstock problem though, which is an objectively real problem facing X-wing.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

This feels like a good way for a new player to go and won’t need a conversion kit much.

I think we have very conclusive evidence that this hypothetical new player who does not get a conversion kit does not exist and cannot support continued sales, because if they did, we would not be in this current situation. If they did, we would not see the canceling of basically all stand-alone reprints, which is exactly what happened. The hope of these packs is to entice people with content into buying old ships they don't need. I think that would work at a similar value proposition of around 10 new cards and 4 new pilots at 30 dollars, but 50 is way too big an ask.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

While you are not valuing the ships at all, they hold value to many of us

I know some people really, truly do value those ships.

But I think it is highly naive to say those players make up enough of a foundation to justify reprints for their own sake, which is what the squad packs seem to be. They are 10 dollars off a trio of ships, while historically a 3 pack of smalls in 2.0 is 20 dollars off. This means the cardboard is evaluated at 10 dollars or more worth of value, and most of the cost of the pack is still the reprint. I think, considering the context of why they moved from stand alone reprints to squad packs, this dooms them long term. There isn't really a demand for reprints, regardless of how you value them.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

At the same time, you’re not including cost of 1.0 minis with that hypothetical conversion kit

I think it is clear at this point most players evaluate the conversion kit as a mandatory product either getting into 2.0, or shortly after they start with a core set and maybe 1-2 ship purchases, unless they start with a totally new faction. This is especially true for OT factons and scum, but it isn't untrue for resistance either before this pack. This pack DOES change a bit going into resistance assuming you don't care about bombers or the salvaged Y-T: 20 dollars to get 3 7 dollar X-wings puts you at 40 bucks, and then an A-wing is another 17, meaning your sorta... trading an X-wing for an A-wing with this kinda? But it probably won't resemble anything close to a worthwhile investment for other factions.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

so that’s like $30 of the $50 accounted for right there.

Even assuming these calculations are true (I don't think they are. I found 3 X-70's for as low as 7 dollars on E-bay, for example. 10 is what you pay to 'rush' it with Amazon), would you say that the cardboard in these packs is 'worth' 20 dollars? I think it is fair to say it isn't even close. It doesn't need to be exact (Again, I think people would be fine over-paying a BIT for cardboard) but 20 dollars for some 10 odd cards isn't a great value, especially because conversion kits increase in value the more you collect.

And, again, I want to stress that short term this is okish. The extra ships have value, kinda, for a player of that faction, and have actually a decent value if your totally new to that faction and are not looking to get a conversion kit quiiiite yet. But are you really gunna buy 50 dollars worth of ships just for alternate sculpts and 10 cards more than once, maybe twice? If you are, more power too you, but I think that is gunna be too big an ask for most players for the same reason reprints were too big an ask at 20. Maybe if they dropped the price to match servants of strife and heroes of the republic, or maybe if they went for singe ship reprints with a mini cardpack expansion, but I just sincerely can't see this resulting in anything but another completely over the top overstock of plastic content. Again, there is already way too much plastic in circulation to make the average player really want another 1.0 ship, or stores to want to order more 1.0 ships and we really kinda definitely know that because they canceled a LOT of products over it which is a very big deal and should raise alarm over the idea of selling more packs on reprints plus a minor bonus as a long term strategy.

I think it would be completely fine if every faction got one of these packs (Besides the PT of course, which sorta already have them). They are a great first step after 2.0's core to get you instantly into a list for a new faction, or for established players leaping into a faction just based on ships, as long as they contain a few non 1.0 ships to force the issue. Again, they are probably going to single handedly get me to start collecting resistance, so in some sense they are a successful product because they seem... if not equivalent at least on the same tier as a conversion kit with the added value of some light cross faction stuff.

But I don't see each faction being able sustain these as the primary way new content for the faction comes out, because its sorta positioned as an accessory to the starter set, at least for the OT factions. I could see these being somewhat succesful long term for the PT factions simply because all ships retain the bundle value without 1.0 content. And sequel era can do it ok, I mean the resistance transport was kiiiiiiiinda a half in squadron pack if you squint your eyes really hard? I don't want to come across as too pessimistic: I am fine with getting these for each faction for a year and a half. I do not think it will work beyond that outside of unusual situations.

There is also the problem that X-wing does in fact NEED to reprint cards, because for very new very casual 'walk in and go to a night on a whim' players the conversion kit doesn't make sense, you have to research the game to understand it. And eventually stocks run out, and not every store is overstocked on everything, and easily gifted product that doesn't require a secondary purchase makes sense for X-wing. So there IS a need for new plastic to some extent, and thus it makes sense for there to be some 'plastic tax' on new content. But I do know the current price point based on a guestimation (which, again, could be very wrong) for what the OTs will likely get is.... very off if every new reprint is gunna be a squad pack at 5 dollars per-new card plus 3 pieces of plastic that I may or may not care about.

I would be absolutely delighted to be proven wrong, or for my assumptions about future iterations of this product to be incorrect. But I don't think it makes sense to only raise the point after we see, when its too late for feedback to be relevant for any product releasing that year. And, obviously, a lot of other voices have said things other than me, but I also think its important to note that I don't think the squadron pack's goals are to be a good product for people currently already happily buying new ships and reprints, so if that is you, the fact you like it may not be enough, if that makes sense? It is good that its popular with players already buying lots of product, its really bad to try to chase an unprofitable market segment by abandoning your loyalists, but I think it is pretty clear the swap from pure reprints to squad packs was an attempt to solve an issue where people willing to buy reprints were not justifying their cost, but it also isn't possible to just... not do re-prints, so there needs to be a solution to make re-prints attractive both to people only interested in content while still also something that can serve the functional requirement of reprints for hypothetical new players who need 2.0 ships to get started, who exist but don't seem to be in large enough numbers to justify reprints on their own judging by the really obvious failure of the reprints.

As someone who is in the 'I am kinda not interesting in reprints' crowd, at the risk of sounding egotistical, I think the insights on why I am still not super jazzed for more than one of these boxes per-faction is kinda important? Obviously everyone else's opinion maters too, but the goal of this type of product seems to be to get people like me to buy stuff, and I don't think it is going to work in the long term if it mostly caters to people who are already buying because they just like new ships, which is, again, fine, but I think is obviously a minority of players, simply because of the brutal reality of canceling 3/4ths of the epic ships, 1/6th of one wave, and what looks like half of another, because players who are already in 4 factions and who love their 'plastic crack' as the 40k community puts it just... aren't getting the numbers where they need to be.

While i get your perspective and I agree that the number of new players getting into the game wasn't enough to justify the reprints, you also can't abandon new players entirely. 1.0 stock will run out as will conversion kits, and it's not a good thing, in my opinion, to ask a player who is interested to go out and buy two products to fly a ship when they can just buy one.

Our local store doesn't have any 1.0 version of some ships anymore or conversion kits. So for a new player if FFG go the direction of "Screw repaints, let's just encourage people to get 1.0 product and conversion kits." I don't think that will work out for new players and they should be accounting new players because a healthy game is not just about player retention, but player acquisition. Thus why the squadron packs or aces packs that they are intending to do needs to be good for both sets of players:

New players need to be able to get the pilots from the conversion kit. Old players should be given new pilots in that pack too. Same for upgrades although you can tone down less on reprinted upgrades that appear in card packs like fully loaded. Previous squadron packs have usually come with 2 of the generic upgrades out at the time, but now a lot of those are in fully loaded, I can see FFG pulling that back to 1 per pack so you have something but also presenting a lot of new content.

For example, and this is only hypothetically talking about the Phoenix squadron pack.

It should contain 2 A-Wings, and 1 Attack Shuttle. The A-wing pilots from the conversion kit and re-release don't need to be redone unless FFG are just not making the re-release packs at all and not just stopping them going forward.

The Attack Shuttle should contain all named pilots from the conversion kit: Hera, Ezra, Sabine and Zeb. It should appeal to new players by offering the rest of the 'Rebels crew' as pilots: Kanan, Chopper and Kallus, maybe Rex too.

The A-Wings would be all new pilots, 4 new named pilots with the 2 generics, each with two copies.

No idea about upgrades though beyond Starbird Slash. We've also seen there are new turrets in the upcoming LAATi and HMP, so throw them in.

So I've realized I actually mentally checked out of this conversation about a page ago. While I get what dezzmont is saying, his posts are too long and I've been fast-scanning them at best, so I don't really have much to say in response to most of his points. Also the hostility and petty back & forth is not something I enjoy... I think that's where I started fast-scanning. In response to what little I did absorb from the last page of posts...

I personally do not enjoy the breathless hype-train of new content. I do like new content, and I make sure we get it added to the wiki (or rather, the more responsible people on the wiki do). However I prefer to wait until it releases to really start theory-crafting lists and analyzing its value. I know it'll be good or bad on its own merits then, and all the speculative fat is violently cleaved away by the most merciless blade, actual purchases and table play. If things are lesser, better, or about what we expected, actually playing it is the litmus test and final word. The 1E Jumpmaster and 2E Nantex were vastly more powerful than even the hype anticipated. The Modified TIE has been more or less the expected role. Snap Shot was exciting and worrying at first but eventually ran its course, and people are still trying to make the scum falcon work. I don't need to sweat blood and bullets over what isn't on the table yet, and the direction this thread has taken kinda omits it from my interest.

I also don't enjoy the doom & gloom train that says we're all dead and FFG sold us down the river. Or the "what if" train that asks what if they did. It's just as speculative and, like the hype train, quickly says what it had to say but then just keeps going, because that's how hype and gloom work. I'm tired and I can't keep up.

I found the original premise of this thread interesting (business end of FFG's pivots and why they're driven to make those decisions, and exploring everyone's reactions to the new style of expansions and where that leads the game we love), but that's not what's really being discussed here. Not really . And even if we could return to that topic, I think my interest is spent.

@dezzmont I think that if someone can't afford to keep up with FFG's card-chasing releases, the ideal solution, short- or long-term, is to proxy what they don't have. If you're not willing to proxy and you're also offended by the prices and design of the expansions, there's really only one response left in me after all this reading: "oh well". But there's just not much more to discuss after that, because we neither know fully what's in the expansion, nor have the ability to change things by complaining here.

FFG has to justify the business end of the product or else end it as a business, so they've pivoted in the way they can best predict as the right way forward to keep the product alive in the community and profitable as a business. Whether or not FFG itself is hurting, if its X-Wing product is hemorrhaging money, they're not going to keep it. Thus the pivots: no more re-releases, yes on new repaints, yes on new ships, yes on new pilots and upgrades, and mix them together to keep the products selling to a diverse community. Some people proxy, some don't, some love repaints, some are meh on 'em, some are new players, some are established with huge collections, some are single-faction, some are multi-faction, etc. It's an extremely diverse community and it's literally impossible to make expansions that both make everyone happy and make the product profitable, and FFG understands this. They're doing what they think makes the most sense for us and themselves, and they literally cannot do everything.

Again, I would have been interested in exploring that business angle in this thread, but that's not where the thread went and... I'm blind with reading-exhaustion. Hopefully what I'm saying remains coherent.

In response to your comment that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that's why you're here...

Hey man, ask around if you need this confirmed, but FFG does not monitor these forums. This is not where they go to read the pulse of the community, mainly because things so consistently become toxic here and that's not a good place to take measurements. If you want to measure drinking water quality you read it at the reservoir that holds drinking water, or at the tap, not in the swamps. The most driven, riled-up commenters are very often not their core business and the 80-20 rule drives a very hard pragmatism: make the customers happy who are responsible for most of your business, and try to avoid having your decisions colored by the few that generate a disproportionate number of complaints. It's a very common practice: let people blow off steam in the forums/comments, and don't read 'em.

The forums are here for community and discussion, but because they also tend to stew toxicity and collect people who are irritated, unhappy, jaded as ****, or disenfranchised, and then puts them together to bounce off each other until they reach a boiling point (see: oh god so many threads on these forums, and really, any game's forums), FFG probably isn't going to come here to understand how most of their customers feel about the game. A few people working each other into a meltdown do not represent the larger picture, so FFG follows the advice of so, so many Youtubers: don't read the comments. Do your own separate research.

So for your success and other commenters' sanity: If you want to be a squeaky wheel, please squeak into their customer service or some other line of contact that actually generates change. We are literally powerless to help you. This appears to be only part of why @Ebak is so frustrated with you... but we can't do anything for you and you're still repeating your argument at us like we can . Look man, we get it, but there's only so much we can do for you:

1. speculate on why (from a business perspective)
2. console you and show empathy
3. argue with you
4. walk away

You've largely dominated this conversation for several pages now and... nothing will come of the repetition and page-long arguments and occasional very personal jabs. It leads nowhere but toxicity, and you don't have to go far in these forums to see where that will lead. If you really, really want to generate change, if it means as much to you as you very explicitly say it does, then tell FFG about it. We here in the forums can do nothing , but if you talk to their customer service (and importantly, keep your email short and to the point), there's at least some non-zero chance that it'll generate a positive response.

I've unsubscribed from the conversation because what I say here literally does not matter, and will likely only spark vitriol (including this post). And this is exhausting, it's not my style of discussion. I personally would be more interested in exploring the business side of FFG's decisions and what drove them to make these choices, and how that could and should look from a products and community perspective. I touched on that a bit above, but I think I'm done. Y'all have a good one.

I'm just sitting here thinking that those literal hours that went into writing the very long posts could have easily paid for a third box.... 🤷🏻‍♂️

21 hours ago, Ebak said:

For the record, the two copies of Starbird slash has to be in that pile because Starbird shlash is not any of the revealed cards. There are three talents face up and none of them match the artwork for the Starbird Slash. There's Daredevil, Snap Shot and one new upgrade with a LAATi on it.

Good point. Confidence meter decreased one degree. Still, I'm not sweating it until I see a component list for Heralds of Hope.