44 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Pretty sure more people were arguing that this means the fairly costed stuff will see more use now. Or were you a "cool kid" who definitely was using MS1 ion cannons and Ion Cannon Batteries and SW7s 6 months ago?

And I'm pretty sure that most of the disappointed folks' have been saying things like "I'm bummed that nothing was done to buff binder fodder cards to nudge them toward playability." No one is complaining about the stuff that was fairly costed? So what's the relevance?

4 hours ago, EBerling said:

This would be easier to understand if Armada was a living game with regularly revisited and readjusted points updates

You seem to have overlooked the Gencon interview where they mentioned that part of the reason for the 1.5 changes is the success of Legion as a living rules document, thus allowing them to change the agreement with Disney to make Armada have a living rules document as well.

@Formynder4 getting the living rules is one thing, Berling was referencing his point to living points costs more specifically.

1 hour ago, Formynder4 said:

You seem to have overlooked the Gencon interview where they mentioned that part of the reason for the 1.5 changes is the success of Legion as a living rules document, thus allowing them to change the agreement with Disney to make Armada have a living rules document as well.

Yea, what @ForceSensitive said. I confess I may very well be missing something here... but a living rules reference and fluid point values that are updated on regular basis (e.g. not printed on cards) seem like two quite different things? Is there some reason to think the former is a necessary and incremental step to get to the latter? Seems like, if FFG had wanted to move Armada to the X-Wing 2.0 model of points-updates several times a year, they would have kept the points value off the cards in the 1.5 Upgrade and Clone Wars releases?

@EBerling they are two very different things to have living rules, and living costs. Some games can merge the documents the way 40k does where rules and costs can go in the same book. The minis games of XWM and Armada and such where cards carry rules text don't do that of course.

I don't believe that one is per se needed for the other. Or that one helps implement the other necessarily. But in Armada at least, of the changes to update the game that were within it's realm of possibility I can see why they went with just the RRG update to 1.5 and made it a living document. On the whole, this first edition that we're in still has life to live in my eyes. I think the upgrade pack was just a good time to make some stabilizing changes at the same time as providing new players (and even some old ones) a way to stock up on a few needed cards. I think of it as an extended warranty deal lol 😆

Having at least the living RRG does give them an potentially easier path to a potential future second edition. Which if AMG decides to do, making it living unit and upgrade cost based would be appropriate there, when they can do all the cards at once. I'd rather like to see a second ed in about two years or so myself.

8 hours ago, EBerling said:

Yea, what @ForceSensitive said. I confess I may very well be missing something here... but a living rules reference and fluid point values that are updated on regular basis (e.g. not printed on cards) seem like two quite different things? Is there some reason to think the former is a necessary and incremental step to get to the latter? Seems like, if FFG had wanted to move Armada to the X-Wing 2.0 model of points-updates several times a year, they would have kept the points value off the cards in the 1.5 Upgrade and Clone Wars releases?

Legion has the points on the cards. The points are updated quite regularly. The points on the card are for casual use. The points update are a living document for tournament play.

That'd be interesting. I wonder if that's the plan?

Better question at this point: is there a plan lol 😅 ?

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

That'd be interesting. I wonder if that's the plan?

Better question at this point: is there a plan lol 😅 ?

The plan: (AMG headquarters) "So we've just had three games thrown on our plates, each of which is arguably larger in scope than the current (and only) game we've been working on for the last year. What do we do?"

"Well I guess we should learn how to play first!"

I suspect it's going to be awhile until we see anything AMG-X-Wing, AMG Legion, or AMG Armada.

10 hours ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

The plan: (AMG headquarters) "So we've just had three games thrown on our plates, each of which is arguably larger in scope than the current (and only) game we've been working on for the last year. What do we do?"

This does help keep it in perspective. Imagine being handed the reigns to a seven year old game that you've never played and being told that you're now in charge of balancing and designing it. That you have to appease players who have been playing this game for almost a decade, and that you need to do this by offering new and novel things to them, curating a balanced competitive meta, and repair any broken elements of the game. Yikes. I don't envy anyone over at AMG.

This sort of daunting task would sure make scrapping those games and launching new original games in their stead a lot more tempting... because then you don't have to play catch-up with a community of players who have nearly a decade's head start on understanding the game...

But at the same time, you don't want to lose the cash cow. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater y'know?

It's more than feasible to think that the games are advanced enough that they don't really have to do that much to keep them going for a year or two with some supporting products to get the experience they need to start producing main content again.

They can put out a few repaints, blisters of the new CW stuff, like Acclamator (grey) and stuff. Do a card pack with the errata of some cards, those would be easy. Heck just organizing an Armada Official App would be a welcome move to buy time. For X-wing they could then make a few reprints that had a few new pilots as a practice, if they don't hit right they can change points, so not that big a deal.

They have options. If they are creative and bold enough to see that. They have the ability to put together a staff with the buzz they have. Maybe even stealth hire some veterans as support. I'm not trying to write off AMG just yet. I'm nervous. But I'm not going to be happy to pitch all my Armada and X-wing. I'll stick around them for edition changes, but I'm not jumping into another whole new game at this point.

On 12/8/2020 at 2:15 PM, Ginkapo said:

The hammerhead version wasn't any less horrid to face.

Mon karren is returning...

8 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

But at the same time, you don't want to lose the cash cow. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater y'know?

Maybe? Sometimes cash cows get old and produce less and less milk, and it can be worthwhile to replace it with a new, younger cow.

At the same time, games tend to only bleed players and profits as it's life continues to age. The most profitable time for most expandable games (very rare exceptions like Magic excluded) tends to be at the beginning of it's run. There are several reasons for this:

• the "new hotness" excitement and buzz
• the game is a novel set of puzzles and discoveries, and is not yet a "solved" game (communities tend to be more communicative early in a game's life rather than later, because there's simply less and less interesting stuff to talk about)
• players view the game with rosy glasses of potential fun, they haven't yet had a chance to realize things that can steer from the game, like realizing that the gameplay doesn't resonate with them, that there's not a sufficient local community to get it to the table enough, or that they've grown bored of the game's repetitiveness
• player $'s tend to be spent front-loaded in their relationship with a game... they need to buy up a starting point for the game, later on they can just splash expansions here and there to their large collection
• etc
  

So, for most expandable games, it's most profitable time is it's first year or two of release. Very very few expandable games last five years. Only the rarest smash hits can persist for a decade or longer.

As long as FFG executes the next wave they teased us with I won’t be as upset if AMG ended production of the game. It’ll be sad for sure but I’ll have enough clone wars content to be satisfied.

@EBerling with the 1.5 revision and the addition of Clone Wars to Armada, I think most of your conditions are satisfied for the next few years at the least. Even in this pandemic I was more than impressed to see that many of the FLGS managed to fill quite a few pre-orders and still sell out of much of their regular stock in the first week. That's a great sign. Armada will be fine for a good while yet in it's current form, even with the production studio change. New editions after all are the new cows 😆 CW should be good for at least 5 waves. Then roll out second ed.