I know this is probably under NDA, but I'll ask in case it's not: WHY DO YOU ALL HATE BLACK DICE SHIPS SO MUCH? DID THEY KILL YOUR PARENTS IN THE STREETS OF GOTHAM? 😂

Sup @EBerling ! How's the brother doing? Stay safe you guys!

To answer your question the only way a nerd can: I'M BATMAN! 😆

Okay more serious note. Honestly I myself don't hate, or love, ships that depend on black dice either way. And I in no way speak for anyone else, or represent FFG in any way. So nice way of saying, yeah, NDA. Lol that all kinda rhymed. 😂

I can say that on every game I've worked on in hindsight, to borrow the phrase from fiction writers: "You have to kill your darlings" has come up in some way. Even in my own personal RPG designs I've given the axe to more darlings than I've ever put on a table for just my friends to play with. I recall a completely different card game I did tests on where I broke the game (that's why you test, I got lucky and found one) And had to help rewrite a card that was important to the overall game balance already. And just because I did something crazy with them to break it, it had to get fixed. I liked the card as it was in my heart, but they weren't hitting right for that one reason I found. Soooo... Smack down. Dead darling. It happens is all I'm saying.

That said. I like a lot of the changes that black dice ships got. Good luck with your new and different toys! Charge!

Good to see some love for us playtesters! Was starting to think we did something wrong this wave.

I did kinda want to inject some levity a bit. We do our darn best, and we're not perfect. Only human.

I wait in fear of the day the fleet build, or card that wreaks havoc on the game in a bad way is found that we never considered, or worse, dismissed as just fine. This is a healthy fear I find in all designers and testers, or even artists and performers I've known. It's that nagging 'what if they don't like it, or it doesn't work?' in the back of your head y'know?

We do our darn best though. And ultimately you can't make everyone happy unfortunately. Being a flak catcher is just part of the job I guess 😆 😅 So Cheers to us @Alzer ! Keep up the good fight!

20 hours ago, Alzer said:

Good to see some love for us playtesters! Was starting to think we did something wrong this wave.

Playtesters: We did a great job!
Also Playtesters: Thank you! It's good to finally get some recognition from the people!

heh

13 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I did kinda want to inject some levity a bit. We do our darn best, and we're not perfect. Only human.

I wait in fear of the day the fleet build, or card that wreaks havoc on the game in a bad way is found that we never considered, or worse, dismissed as just fine. This is a healthy fear I find in all designers and testers, or even artists and performers I've known. It's that nagging 'what if they don't like it, or it doesn't work?' in the back of your head y'know?

We do our darn best though. And ultimately you can't make everyone happy unfortunately. Being a flak catcher is just part of the job I guess 😆 😅 So Cheers to us @Alzer ! Keep up the good fight!

There's a word I learned when I was playing WW2 wargames, 'grognard'. It's French and means'grumbler' and referred to the tough-as-nails French Imperial Guard that fought for Napoleon from 1804 to 1815, through Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo and so on.

Wargamers have adopted it as a description of themselves over the last few decades and I think it's very apt. I can recall bitter arguments, page after page of forum row, over the speed of the Cromwell tank or the penetrative power of the 17pdr gun on the Sherman firefly at long range. (40mph later regulated to 32 to spare the Christie suspension, and rounds tended to lose their accuracy beyond 1000 yards, in case you're wondering).

I am of.the opinion thatArmada attracts the same sort of professional grouch that all wargaming attracts, so I would ignore all the grumblers if I were you.

@flatpackhamster ohhhh yes, we are very much a band of grumpy grognardy folk for sure! Always were lol 🥸 😂 Some things never change. After years of it you just come to terms with it. The grumbles will continue no matter what we do so, may as well get used to it 😆

1 hour ago, flatpackhamster said:

There's a word I learned when I was playing WW2 wargames, 'grognard'. It's French and means'grumbler' and referred to the tough-as-nails French Imperial Guard that fought for Napoleon from 1804 to 1815, through Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo and so on.

Wargamers have adopted it as a description of themselves over the last few decades and I think it's very apt. I can recall bitter arguments, page after page of forum row, over the speed of the Cromwell tank or the penetrative power of the 17pdr gun on the Sherman firefly at long range. (40mph later regulated to 32 to spare the Christie suspension, and rounds tended to lose their accuracy beyond 1000 yards, in case you're wondering).

I am of.the opinion thatArmada attracts the same sort of professional grouch that all wargaming attracts, so I would ignore all the grumblers if I were you.

Wait, APCBC or APDS?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

1 hour ago, Aldaros said:

Wait, APCBC or APDS?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

APDS, since you ask.

On 12/8/2020 at 7:25 PM, Alzer said:

Good to see some love for us playtesters! Was starting to think we did something wrong this wave.

Weeeeeeell.... if you approved the card size changes, then.....

13 hours ago, mazz0 said:

Weeeeeeell.... if you approved the card size changes, then.....

That's all Asmodee I'm pretty sure. I don't recall actually testing the new card sizes, just the abilities of the ships etc.

On 12/8/2020 at 1:46 PM, EBerling said:

I know this is probably under NDA, but I'll ask in case it's not: WHY DO YOU ALL HATE BLACK DICE SHIPS SO MUCH? DID THEY KILL YOUR PARENTS IN THE STREETS OF GOTHAM? 😂

Same goes for all those big expensive Ion Cannon ugrades, like NK-7s for 10 points lol. Why. Who's ever going to play them?

18 minutes ago, Jamborinio said:

Same goes for all those big expensive Ion Cannon ugrades, like NK-7s for 10 points lol. Why. Who's ever going to play them?

That has nothing to do with 1.5.

The changes were very clear in targeting high usage cards to level the playing field by lowering the power level across the board. Some of those ion upgrades have become playable thanks to the token change and price increase for leading shots.

2 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

That has nothing to do with 1.5.

The changes were very clear in targeting high usage cards to level the playing field by lowering the power level across the board. Some of those ion upgrades have become playable thanks to the token change and price increase for leading shots.

You can keep pointing this out but its like half the player base just keeps ignoring it. I think its some sort of post truth alternative facts thing.

8 hours ago, Jamborinio said:

Same goes for all those big expensive Ion Cannon ugrades, like NK-7s for 10 points lol. Why. Who's ever going to play them?

NK-7s have always been 10pts? Not sure what you're going for here.

@Alzer I believe @Jamborinio was just also pointing out that NK7 card could have gotten a buff instead of staying a chaff card is all. Sure there is a few that have newfound room to maybe hit the table, but a bit of wiggle room isn't really all that much, and how long that lasts remains to be seen.

I d on't think we're allowed to say why certain things got changes and others did not, even if we knew. But you could, hypothetically speaking of course, understand that the choice of nerfing boogiemen and repetitive cards that allow heavy power plays, or buffing everything else to the same power play level, it's pretty clear which way a designer would want to take it to allow for growth.

And the new card size I definitely don't remember. All my testing material fit old style sleeves. I'm just as unhappy about it as the rest of you to be perfectly honest. My organization was so good, and cards all fit perfectly in one of my plano boxes before! And now all my promos (except a few like admirals) don't match either 😓 OCD rising! 😖 Sux. 😑

To go into further @ForceSensitive

When rebalancing a game you want to adjust the fewest cards possible. The reason for this is that every change impacts on the balance. The more variables to adjust the longer it takes to balance.

Hence the choice wasnt simply more cards it was for longer testing.

For all those asking would you rather

A) Have the rebalancing that has happened and it come out now

Or

B) Another year of playtesting and the weaker cards be strengthened as well with nothing released till 2022?

Exactly so, Ginkapo. (Teehee it rhymes ☺️ )

The other add on to that is it's good to adjust by degrees so you can see the live results of the first one both as a designer and a player. This batch retros a ton of new mechanics onto older cards too which is a big jarring experience. Seeing the wider consumer response gives you a chance to see how it's all working before going further, and letting the players get used to the new mechanics in stages. If FFG had just done all of them, or would have been basically a second edition instead of a .5 clean up.

7 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

The other add on to that is it's good to adjust by degrees so you can see the live results of the first one both as a designer and a player.

This would be easier to understand if Armada was a living game with regularly revisited and readjusted points updates where the points-values were not printed on cards (e.g. X-Wing 2.0), as this allow for a 2-3 times per year points update. But this is Armada, and this is the one and only time points have been revisited in the game's five-year life (and it really feels like what we got was a response to a meta that's now two years in the past). Since printed points-values were kept on the cards, it's hard to imagine a "wait and see and then adjust again in the near future" justification is really applicable. Do any of us really believe that FFG would have been willing or able to drop another updated upgrade card pack with new point costs in another year or two (or that players would have embraced and accepted buying their upgrade cards a second time in as many years)? Though this is all moot now with Asmodee pulling the rug out from under FFG, of course, who who knows what the future holds.

I also simply cannot accept that adjusting the under-costed stuff will make the over-costed stuff get played. That's nonsense. Cards that were binder-fodder were binder-fodder because of their own innate cost-to-value ratio (even if no other Ion Upgrades existed , people still would almost never drop 10pts on NK7s and would just leave the slot empty and use those 10pts more efficiently elsewhere...).



And I don't think those of us who are disappointed and puzzled by these sorts of justifications that have been offered are irrational "post-truthers" refusing to be logical. But you guys do you and dismiss and insult the playerbase however you want, I guess?

9 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

A) Have the rebalancing that has happened and it come out now

Or

B) Another year of playtesting and the weaker cards be strengthened as well with nothing released till 2022?

This really feels like a false dichotomy.

29 minutes ago, EBerling said:

This really feels like a false dichotomy.

Its the basics of project delivery

Take your pick. Increase scope and you increase cost and time. Cant have fast, cheap and quick delivery.

Customers love to change scope repeatedly, often close to deadlines. Have little understanding for why stuff takes longer and costs more.

@EBerling all great points. Please allow me to first clarify that I only worked with the current content, and was therefore entirely speculating on what reasonings there could be if a second wave was coming. And I do not know what, if any, 'stage 2' to these card changes there would've or could've been. I myself was not trying to justify on FFGs behalf. I was just pointing out a perk to the method they went with if they did do another set. Whether or not that's part of their thinking, I just don't know. But as a player, I do think it's easier to handle mass edits in manageable chunks. At least until they are ready to go full Second Edition. Kinda only one way to do that lol 😆

Some of that speculative thinking was reaction from what happened to X-wing during it's 2.0 transition which didn't sit well with some. I'm a huge fan of XWM2.0 by the way, and I hope Armada get something akin to it in the future. Living games are great and they make more sense for miniatures in my mind. Part of Arm1.5 was to at least get the rules document to be a living one, which is nice to be sure, even if ultimately a small step. I'm curious what will happen with it now that it is one, and with the AMG takeover. Like personally, I'd love to see Scatter get nerfed and Contain get a buff now that they've started 1.5. But I got no clue if that will ever happen.

And I actually agree with you about the overcosted stuff. I think at best a few people will try experiments for a few months and then put the chaff back in the box. Like I said earlier 'a bit of wiggle room isn't really much'. Because even all the stuff that got nerfed still has strong abilities to my mind, so I think they'll just float back towards the top eventually. There's some stuff in the pool that still just sucks, let's be real here. NK7 is a great example of that. I'd rather just have an extra squad for that price if that's all the effect I get. Maybe future CW stuff could be designed to combo back to them and breath a bit of life into them? Idunno.

I'm not trying to insult anyone bro. I'm just part of the regular player base again myself. Drinking my beer and rolling dice for fun again finally 🚀 🍻

3 hours ago, EBerling said:

I also simply cannot accept that adjusting the under-costed stuff will make the over-costed stuff get played. That's nonsense. Cards that were binder-fodder were binder-fodder because of their own innate cost-to-value ratio (even if no other Ion Upgrades existed , people still would almost never drop 10pts on NK7s and would just leave the slot empty and use those 10pts more efficiently

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?

I tested these changes.

I would have rather seen buffs to a smaller number of previously bottom-tier cards then nerfs that I feel may have been... improper in places (MK and Avenger come to mind.)

Bringing even 3-5 cards like NK-7s into the limelight can make a big difference in broadening the meta.

That said, I'm still very happy with what we got and think it's good for the game.

45 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?

The first two will probably have more to do with the newfound importance of command tokens, the frequency of exhausts, and the two Separatist commanders triggering crits and using raid respectively.

I have a hard time believing 2 points is the difference between a 130 point ship taking Leading Shots and leaving it in the binder.

Edit: and more generally, that goes for APTs, ACMs, and especially External Racks. These cards might not work as well as before, but nobody's going to take Rapid Reload seriously because of it. And if they were taking FTs or Pods they were trying to do something fundamentally different anyway. There's just not much else to bring.