I think people are inventing outrage where there isn't one, considering AFAIK no one, including the OP, implied FFG lied or renegged on their promise, and they themselves even noted that they were sure another H&A style pack was coming out soon.

The way the question was phrased seemed to be more taking stock of people's feelings on chase cards and the nature of the wait, rather than any specific 'call to action.'

I play casual so I wait and I proxy. I don't mind proxying upgrades since I play off of printouts to save setup time (back when I played in person). I personally don't like to proxy pilots, but that is rarely a problem since those are all in faction.

If I feel bad about anything, it's a lack of information from FFG.

Presumably, Rebel and Imperial and Scum squadron packs are coming down the pike eventually. Presumably, there's another card pack or two on the horizon. There's leaks and rumors about some of these, but nothing I'd be willing to bet on. Even a mostly unofficial "hey, we have some such-and-such in development that isn't announced, but it will be around." More information is almost always better.

Hopefully, if they ever do any more re-release ships, they actually include a lot of these new upgrades--it was dumb that B-Wings didn't come with Plasma Torpedoes and Passive Sensors and Autoblasters--all upgrades out in the same wave as B-Wings. The S-Foils weren't out yet, so I can't really fault it, but c'mon. There's "We don't want to make players feel like they have to rebuy ships," but there's also "We put the upgrades in as many releases as possible, so players have options." More sources for stuff is always better than fewer.

I do not mind buying out of faction. Sometimes I prefer it, take Ion limiter override (sorry if I butchered the card name). I don't plan on buying a bunch of tie heavies so the fact that I can mix in some v wings which added bonus get me more upgrades is great.

Slave 1 will be the first time I buy "out of faction" to get cards. Luckily all through this game until the Prequel factions I got everything anyway.

Now CIS is the only faction I don't have, but Slave 1 will be my first purchase for them. Mostly to get cards for other factions, but it will be the start of collecting the CIS in the new year.

I can wait for a card pack. Proxy, as I mostly play casually, and scenario.

Packing the Tie Ion limiter override into the assumed Empire box would be a nice thing for Empire players. I sincerely hope that it will be elsewhere as well, cause Rebel and Scum Tie l/ns want it too, and unless you play Empire or (V-wing) Republic, you are out of luck.

On 10/30/2020 at 8:00 PM, CoffeeMinion said:

H&A was perfect and I hope FFG chooses to make some more money off us that way. Bundling the new tech with some new pilots in old ships is a slam dunk.

The thing "not perfect" about it though was availability, at least in northern Europe. Nowhere to be seen, the few H&A coming in sold immediately.

9 months after release I finally found someone who had bought two sets and was willing to sell some cards for a reasonable price. I really hope the next card pack comes in a higher quantity (or better distribution).

Observing the Laat expansion fallout here makes one not too optimistic though... Came in far too few packs, and those few were were immediately bought by scalpers who split the content and sell for fantasy prices on the second hand market.

Hopefully FFG has noticed H&A selling fast.

The main difficulty I have with cards is numbers, rather than availability. But FFG appears to be doing some work on that front too. Example: the TIE/rb is listed with 2x Deadeye Shot and 2x Ion Limiter Overdrive.

I'll only be buying one of them, so that's a nice touch.

I do think that if you only play and buy for one faction, you're naturally going to be at a disadvantage in these situations, but there is only so much they can reasonably do. The card packs are neato, but you'll be paying over the odds for a lot of stuff you don't need.

I do have a whole bunch of Snap Shot, plus others, as alts from store tourneys. Putting new cards out there in this way is another good resource.

8 hours ago, Managarmr said:

The thing "not perfect" about it though was availability, at least in northern Europe. Nowhere to be seen, the few H&A coming in sold immediately.

It wasn’t just Europe. I got super lucky and grabbed the one copy of H&A that was left on the shelf on release day in the one store in town where I could still find it. Then I kept quiet for months while others far and wide voiced their frustration with not being able to find it.

They way under-printed. Hopefully their sales numbers show that. But on the flip side, hopefully it gave conclusive proof of the viability of this kind of product.

It doesn’t really bother me. I went for a long time without any CIS and had no issue with it (and I only bought up some when it was on 40% off msrp at my LGS).

As others have said, it’s not physically possible for them to release all the content for all the players at the exact same time.

They said it would happen - they didn’t specify how long a wait it would be. H&A was not that far behind. If they do an H&A2 that would be great and probably upcoming around the same time as the squad packs (though the squad packs could well solve the issue as well?)

Am I at a disadvantage? Maybe. Do I plan to spend a ton of money to even it out? Not really - there’s no competitive scene right now anyway with the world the way it is, and I can always borrow if I have to for a tournament.

I just buy the ships I want to buy, and figure it out as I go from there.

On 10/31/2020 at 1:23 PM, theBitterFig said:

If I feel bad about anything, it's a lack of information from FFG.

Presumably, Rebel and Imperial and Scum squadron packs are coming down the pike eventually. Presumably, there's another card pack or two on the horizon. There's leaks and rumors about some of these, but nothing I'd be willing to bet on. Even a mostly unofficial "hey, we have some such-and-such in development that isn't announced, but it will be around." More information is almost always better.

Hopefully, if they ever do any more re-release ships, they actually include a lot of these new upgrades--it was dumb that B-Wings didn't come with Plasma Torpedoes and Passive Sensors and Autoblasters--all upgrades out in the same wave as B-Wings. The S-Foils weren't out yet, so I can't really fault it, but c'mon. There's "We don't want to make players feel like they have to rebuy ships," but there's also "We put the upgrades in as many releases as possible, so players have options." More sources for stuff is always better than fewer.

Amen regarding the lack of information. It would be nice if we had more information. The problem is we have already seen the damage that information can cause. I'm sure we've all worked for a company before and been in circumstances where we make a statement and someone takes it as 100% gospel and should anything change, our feet are dragged over the coals.

The very situation you established was one of them. There was a lot of talk around rereleases that people didn't want to feel forced to but new expansions to get new content, and as such all rereleases had nothing new in them that weren't already in the conversion kits. I personally agree that it would have been nice to have those upgrades in that pack. Sadly FFG were under a lot of pressure from the community to be very very very very consumer focused; not forcing old players to rebuy older ships, while providing those older ships so new players can purchase them, and as people have theorised since the cancellation of reprints...it's quite likely FFG got burned from that.

There's really no ideal solution here. However I echo your statement: More sources for stuff is always better than few.

On 10/30/2020 at 11:18 PM, any2cards said:

I disagree. There is absolutely no reason why FFG couldn't plan to release a card pack at the same time as expansions, that include the cards that are out of faction. None what so ever. Not gonna ever happen, but it would be possible, and I think would be very lucrative as well.

You're talking about creating an extra product to market, distribute, and sell. A pack that would contain...well let's look over the theoretical content of a 'wave' upgrade pack.

No packs for Wave 0 and 1 since they were day 1 of second edition and so...everything was there.

There may be upgrades missing here, also anything that appears in the Rebel, Scum, Imperial conversion kits are omitted because, again, they were there from the start.

----

Wave 2
Targeting Synchronizer
Predictive Shot
Composure
Afterburners
Hate

Wave 3
Brilliant Evasion
Spare Parts Canisters

Wave 4
Passive Sensors
Plasma Torpedoes
Electro-Proton Bomb
Diamond Boron Missiles
Delayed Fuses
Autoblasters
Angled Deflectors

Wave 5
Snap Shot
Foresight
Precognative Reflexes

Wave 6
Mag-Pulse Warhead
Coaxium Hyperfuel

Wave 7
Deadeye Shot
Automated Target Priority
Suppressive Gunner
Multi-Missile Pods
Synced Laser Cannons
Backwards Tailslide
Starbird Slash
Ion Limiter Override

Wave 8
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (2 maximuim)
Marg Sabl Closure
Extreme Maneuvers
Patience
Precision Ion Engines
Thermal Detonators
Boba Fett (Gunner)
Weapon Systems Operator
Zam Wesell (Crew)
Jango Fett (Crew)
Hondo Ohnaka
False Transponder Codes
Slave I (Sep/Scum)

----

As you can see from above, there is a VERY big variance between new upgrades in waves. By your argument you'd expect a tiny pack in wave 3 just for Brilliant Evasion and Spare Parts Canisters which...quite frankly...is a waste of resources for a company to package, and ship a pack of cards that small.

Wave 8 is perhaps the only time when I can potentially see an argument for it, but even then, that's not enough for a card pack on its own. Combined with everything over the past few waves since the last card pack? Oh yes, we are in need of a new card pack and pretty much everyone agrees about that.

On 10/31/2020 at 12:37 AM, svelok said:

"but why isn't there a new product card pack with like 4 upgrades in it for every single new wave?"

That is basically what you are proposing, and quite frankly, while I understand the frustration, and it's reasonable to want it, it is a ludicrous thing to expect.

7 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

The card packs are neato, but you'll be paying over the odds for a lot of stuff you don't need.

I solved that with the first pack by selling the cards I didn't need to my friends. Though with everything that's going on, I'm not sure I'd be able to do that again (honestly, I just hope anybody comes back to play when stores open again).

10 hours ago, Ebak said:

That is basically what you are proposing, and quite frankly, while I understand the frustration, and it's reasonable to want it, it is a ludicrous thing to expect.

If you read what I wrote, you will see that I am not expecting anything. The OP stated it was "impossible" to do. That is factually incorrect. It is possible.

I also stated that I never expected to see FFG ever do it. This, in of itself, does not make it "impossible".

I also do think that if they waited a period of time to gather a sufficient amount of cards (no matter what faction they belonged to), say on a quarterly or bi-annual basis, there would be significant demand for the sale of such a product. And if, as others have pointed out, it would come out a specific times during the year, then people could decide whether to buy it, or wait for a theoretical expansion pack that may or may not come out with the cards they are looking for ...

10 hours ago, Ebak said:

The very situation you established was one of them. There was a lot of talk around rereleases that people didn't want to feel forced to but new expansions to get new content, and as such all rereleases had nothing new in them that weren't already in the conversion kits . I personally agree that it would have been nice to have those upgrades in that pack. Sadly FFG were under a lot of pressure from the community to be very very very very consumer focused; not forcing old players to rebuy older ships, while providing those older ships so new players can purchase them, and as people have theorised since the cancellation of reprints...it's quite likely FFG got burned from that.

They didn't get burned by being consumer focused, or not sticking to incomplete information.

They got burned by being overall kind of dumb. The bit above I put in bold is key.

There's a huge difference between being forced to rebuy ships, and ships having new stuff. What folks didn't want was the "Veteran's Pack" issues of 1e, where you had to buy the veterans pack to get the fix cards to actually use the old ships you had. That's a good thing to want to avoid. But instead of just avoiding that one specific thing, FFG put no "new stuff" in the reprint expansions. That's an order of magnitude beyond the narrow "rebuy old ships" problem they were trying to avoid. In practice they created a situation where players were "forced to buy" out-of-faction ships. One ship you don't play is as good as another.

Meanwhile, it probably helped to doom the sales of reprints. If players had the option to rebuy B-Wings and TIE/sf, or to buy N-1s and Resistance Transports, instead of only the latter, that almost surely would have increased the sales on reprints like the B-Wing and TIE/sf, without significantly canabalizing N-1s. And it also improves things for folks who aren't rebuying, but getting into legacy factions for the first time (whether new players, or old ones branching out).

Someone who is good at designing custom cards, hit me up please. I'd rather proxy with some sweet home made alt arts that come out when the packs come out.

Not thrilled.

When there were only 3 factions, I could buy one of everything if only for the upgrades. (tho I played all three factions) But nowadays I've pruned 3 factions from my purchasing.

For example, when Jango/Seperatist Firespray drops, I can buy the thing, and toss all the Seperatist only cards in the trash, or skip it and wait for the cards to come in another ship or card pack.

Neither are great options.

55 minutes ago, Koing907 said:

For example, when Jango/Seperatist Firespray drops, I can buy the thing, and toss all the Seperatist only cards in the trash sell the model and the Separatist-only cards to make some of the purchase price back , or skip it and wait for the cards to come in another ship or card pack.

You can throw the cards out if you like, but it doesn't take that much effort to jump on a Buy-Swap-Sell page and offload the parts you don't want.

2 hours ago, DR4CO said:

You can throw the cards out if you like, but it doesn't take that much effort to jump on a Buy-Swap-Sell page and offload the parts you don't want.

I do play Scum. So I could use the model. I'm leaning towards the purchase simply for that fact.

The cards, eh. I tried to sell and/or give away my Resistance and First Order collection when I got out of those factions, and only wound up giving away a few ships, and no cards. Everyone already had most of what they wanted already.

2 hours ago, Koing907 said:

I do play Scum. So I could use the model. I'm leaning towards the purchase simply for that fact.

The cards, eh. I tried to sell and/or give away my Resistance and First Order collection when I got out of those factions, and only wound up giving away a few ships, and no cards. Everyone already had most of what they wanted already.

Thing is, the Resistance and FO kits came with ludicrous numbers of conversion dials for each ship type, so it’s a bit of a bad example. That was one of the most generous kits in existence TBH.

Though in your example about Jango’s Firespray, it’s probably best to just hold on to everything even if you don’t play Seps. There isn’t any Sep only content besides the pilots, and anyone who wants to fly it will buy one anyway.

As a Rebel/Scum player (Pun intended) i don't feel like buying the Heralds of Hope expansion just for the Star bird slash upgrades or the xwing talents for example. I mean for me is to expensive for just a few cards, but Jango Fett's Slave 1 its a nice deal, an extra Firespray miniature and some sweet scum and generic upgrades its not bad.

For the rest of the new generics i think im going to do the same as many and wait for the card pack.

On 10/30/2020 at 1:00 PM, dezzmont said:

I am willing to wait a bit to get those cards.

^^^^^ This.

Buying out of faction has been the norm since the start of the game's life so I feel nothing. It's always been that way.

3 hours ago, Cpdio said:

As a Rebel/Scum player (Pun intended) i don't feel like buying the Heralds of Hope expansion just for the Star bird slash upgrades or the xwing talents for example.

There’s a good chance that they’ll turn up in the new rebel squad pack coming based on distributor leaks

I’d feel much better if they would just fix their distribution issues. This last release is now six releases my local FLGS was unable to get. I was hoping when asmodee became a distributor these issues would be fixed but it seems to be more of the same issues compounded. We did finally get two of the three releases from last month in but no republic gunships. I am well aware that there are other options than only buying from my FLGS, but believe it or not I actually prefer to spend money on gaming pieces that my local store makes money on to help keep the doors open since they give me a place to play.

I wouldn’t buy out of faction to get cards to answer the original question, but that’s a moot point when you can’t buy anything.

20 hours ago, Vykk Draygo said:

I’d feel much better if they would just fix their distribution issues. This last release is now six releases my local FLGS was unable to get. I was hoping when asmodee became a distributor these issues would be fixed but it seems to be more of the same issues compounded. We did finally get two of the three releases from last month in but no republic gunships. I am well aware that there are other options than only buying from my FLGS, but believe it or not I actually prefer to spend money on gaming pieces that my local store makes money on to help keep the doors open since they give me a place to play.

I wouldn’t buy out of faction to get cards to answer the original question, but that’s a moot point when you can’t buy anything.

My FLGS said thanks for thinking of us but that I'm on my own from here on out for FFG products. They simply no longer wish to deal with the distributor. It just isn't worth his trouble and he's content to let me save some bucks online for this stuff that I'll end up spending on comics.

27 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

My FLGS said thanks for thinking of us but that I'm on my own from here on out for FFG products. They simply no longer wish to deal with the distributor. It just isn't worth his trouble and he's content to let me save some bucks online for this stuff that I'll end up spending on comics.

Trouble would be putting it mildly. The owner of my FLGS is my best friend, we first met almost three decades ago when he worked at my shop. Dealing with these distribution issues is the absolute worst experience either of us have ever experienced in the business, and if anyone has inside info on distributors to run an LGS that’s really saying something.