2722

I like the -idea- of Tapestry but the execution has sucked for me so far. Most I have scored is 130ish and others I’m playing are lapping me, and they aren’t that much better gamers and strategists than me. A LOT of luck and wildly unbalanced civs are at play

2723

Also don’t sleep on Village Pillage. It’s great and 2 expansions on Kickstarter now. You should buy it @tomchick in exchange for skipping Tapestry

2724

I actually want to back this game now.

2725

There is… lots to say about that.

At a basic level you shouldn’t need to upgrade 5 factions. If the only scum ship you have is the Slave 1, well, just don’t upgrade it. I know it may not be ideal for you, but it does make sense for that not to be in the Empire. Given it only was Empire since it released prior to the launch of Scum, well, it is a thing.

Yes it does require a core set. Though that is admittedly soon to not be true. They are releasing faction specific damage decks, so those will be a few dollars. There are also acrylic third party templates, and I am certain that there are alternate options for all components that are lower cost than buying a conversion kit.

The main reason to get a conversion kit would be if you fly Empire or Rebels and want those pilots.

I had a handful of First Order and Resistance ships. But not enough to justify getting full conversions. I only converted Empire and Rebels, and got a core set. The rest? I traded some items for the scum ships I have.

With 7 factions it really should not be a case of ‘I want them all’. Pick 2-3 factions you want to play and go from there. Hell, skip conversion and pick up a core set and Republic or CIS from their faction packs. For ~$100 I could get you a decent variety for either, but especially Republic. I mean if you are a casual player who wants to play all 7 factions? Yeah it is a bad deal. But if you move past that, it actually is a pretty good value for what you get.

I mean think of it like this, if you are in 1.0 how many ships do you have that are barely playable, or never hit the table? Probably a good % of your collection, right? If in the process of conversion you have a handful of ships for factions you don’t convert, are you really worse off? Unless your collection is very specifically built so you only have a few ships in each revised faction, yeah. And if you really only have a handful of ships then go on E-bay. Most ships can be acquired conversion parts for a few dollars. You can get the conversion dials, pilots, and bases for a dollar in many cases.

Honestly I think that the conversion was about as well executed and non exploitative as could be. Sure some quibbles with specific decisions, such as only two Alpha class Interceptor pilot cards or the lack of Barrage Rockets in the Rebel kit, but it did a good job of covering most cases.

If you have a local group to split things, share extras or cover shortages, so much the better. I know at my local game stores we were very much active in trading components for odd cases and such. And a lot of people did chose to sell off First Order/ Empire and Rebels/ Resistance ships to focus on one half of the split faction depending on interest and collection.

I can think of a million worse ways to handle the conversion. Individual ship conversions at $5 a pop? Not great, especially for small game stores, as the massive number of sku’s, dividing common upgrades across a huge pool of ships, etc. Requiring purchase of 2.0 ships to use 1.0 models? Yuck! That would be quite greedy. Ignore the 1.0 problems and render many ships unplayable due to various creeps? Mega combowing meaning you could lose in list building? Nope.

The game is far better than ever, and for the ~$130 I spent to convert, setting aside new ship purchases, it was well worth it for me as I can field a competitive list with almost every ship I own. And have. I’ve won tournaments with some super janky off meta lists using ships people dismissed. And when it isn’t max initiative or go home? So much more enjoyable!

I mean I can understand your hesitation, it is a real up front cost, but it doesn’t have to be this huge outlay. If you shared your collection I could probably recommend some options to maximize options and minimize cost. Hell I may even have some ship components I don’t need I could send your way. Want Auzituck or Decimator pieces?

2726

Craig, I’ll give your post more time next time I’m at a keyboard, but for now I just wanna say…

that I couldn’t disagree more with this sentiment. The non-exploitative way for FF to handle this was to allow me to upgrade only the ships I own. I’m a casual. A dabbler. I shouldn’t have to choose between dropping another $200 on X-Wing or marooning some of my ships at 1.0. And I couldn’t care less if it’s not feasible for them to do it this way. But instead, to no one’s surprise, they chose the rapacious upgrade path.

2727

Wait, what makes you think I’ve slept on Village Pillage? I have it and we like it a lot, although Loot n’ Run tends to fill the spot where Village Pillage used to be. Someone here – @Nightgaunt, I think? – recommended it a while ago and I jumped right on it. I love the “always everyone’s turn” dynamic.

Ha ha! Oh hee hee hee. Man, that’s a good one. Ha ha! No, stop, I can’t catch my breath over here. “Non-exploitative” and “Fantasy Flight” in the same sentence. That’s comedy gold. Ha ha ha!

-Tom

2728

I’m really curious about this. Hope to hear a Wild Weasel about it.

2729

I can understand this sentiment, but honestly there is an answer for that.

Go on E-bay. A majority of ship upgrades can be gotten for <$3. There are only a handful of ships that go for more, mostly a few specific swarmer type ships and ones people tend to have a bunch of (Interceptors, X-wings, and TIE Bombers for example).

But practically think about what that looks like. Instead of 4 SKU’s at launch, the three conversions plus the new core game, you have ~60-70. One for every ship type, plus core set, plus upgrades.

Because he conversion isn’t just pilots and dials. It has the medium bases (a very welcome update!) tokens, and a bunch of generic upgrade cards. It is a heavy box full of cardboard! So now instead of going to the store and buying 2-3 items, you need dozens. Now @Vesper is a small game store owner. I won’t speak for him, but I suspect his opinion would be similar to the FLGS owners by me, and I did talk to them.

Asking them to carry 70 new SKU’s to stock, organize, figure how many of each to order, and keep in stock would be a nightmare. It is a huge, unreasonable perhaps, ask for them.

And from the production side it would be a nightmare! Much more waste and logistical problems. And it is a world I know, having spent over a decade in print. That would be much more expensive to produce, probably on the order of 2-3x per unit.

I mean best case it would be $5 a pop for conversion components. No, I understand why you like the idea, but from a practical perspective it was not a realistic solution. Besides the community solved that quickly.

They split out kits and sold parts on E-bay. Now you can do exactly what you want for less than it would have costed had FFG done individual conversion SKU’s per ship. I mean do you want components for A-wings and B-wings? How does a pair of either for a buck sound?

Having seen what the conversion contains, used them extensively, and know how things worked in practice this really was a pretty good approach by FFG. Was it perfect? Probably not. Were there decisions that were curious, at best? Moldy Crow title says hi. But in terms of value, their choice does a pretty good job of providing the best value for the largest number of customers. As always there are cases where it is not true. Extremely large or small collections? There is some odd balancing to quantities that would be an issue.

And compared to some things like the Autothrusters with free Star Viper expansion of the past? Small potatoes.

Now if the conversion kit does not fit well into what you have? That is understandable. If you have 5-6 ships for each faction you do indeed have an awkward and unfortunate situation. But to claim it is ‘the rapacious upgrade path’, when I have seen, in practice how this is not true, rings hollow.

2730

I meant everyone in thread shouldn’t sleep on it, but the you in you should buy it. =) So since you dig it, mission accomplished. Everyone else go get it please.

2731

I’ve been in Odense, Denmark for a conference, and dropped by the game and fandom store there, Pharao’s Cigars. Sadly they did not have a copy of 1844/1855 at that location, so I ended up getting Dinosaur Island.

2732

I know nothing about X wing, I’ve been avoiding it because it looks great but it’s essentially a CCG model and I hate those things.

Why did they have to redesign the entire game, or whatever, that requires these conversion kits? What was wrong with 1.0?

2733

The problem 1.0 had by the end of its lifestyle was that by wave 7 or so, every time they came out with an upgrade for an underpowered mechanic, it ended up mixing with a bunch of other, smaller fixes for said mechanic to make something broken. The easiest one to see in this regard is ordnance, where it was pretty worthless until several fixes made it completely overpowered.

2.0 let them fix these things in the core rules and it certainly did improve the game a lot. There’s still a few problems that haven’t gone away.

BTW, there are now 7 factions- i think the idea with that is to make it so there’s fewer ship-upgrade interacttions to make it less of a pain to add mmore things.

2734

It wasn’t making enough money after their customers had bought all the stuff they needed to play. It’s how Fantasy Flight rolls.

I mean, I get what @Panzeh is saying, and I certainly admire @CraigM’s enthusiasm, but this is a recurring issue with every Fantasy Flight game I’ve played in the last, gosh, five or ten years. They care more about a lucrative business model than a solid game design.

-Tom, who still buys their stuff anyway because he’s weak

2735

The impression I got was that they’d painted themselves into a corner design-wise and the only way to give the product a healthy future was the 2.0 reboot.

Or, maybe it’s both…

2736

I mean it is kind of both.

For a long term profitability perspective, a healthy balanced competitive game is better for them than one that is broken. A game that looks like Star Wars that film fans would recognize is better for long term attachment and health. And a game called X-wing where the X-wing is playable is kind of a thing.

From the perspective of the game remaining vibrant and to keep a decent player base requires a game with new people willing to join. And the reality is that the hook, playing Star Wars battles on the table, loses some of the appeal for an outsider if there is only ships from some obscure EU book or game that are on the table. A game called X-wing where you never see X-wings seems wrong.

And the 2.0 move really is better from a player perspective. If you have a favorite ship I promise you can make a playable and fun list with it. The reliance of combos (and chase cards) has largely been neutered.

So it is a case where there is a mutually beneficial change. The game is significantly better and more enjoyable for players, in ways that were simply impossible under 1.0 (I can lay this out in detail if you wish, but let me just say that mechanically moving points and upgrades into the app makes a world of difference, and the incorporation of all mechanics into the core game helps).

From the FFG perspective a better and healthier game is also better from their bottom line. It keeps the game alive, and players willing to buy new product. Because under 1.0 trends the game would have (and already was starting to) die off. Players were leaving because of broken mechanics, or stopped buying new ships.

So 2.0 was really a case where everybody wins.

2737

Speaking of exploitative FFG models, after initially writing off the Arkham Horror card game, I’m dabbling back into it. Found a new group, and we’re just treating each new scenario like a one time play D&D session. Get together for a night of surprise story-telling Arkham-ing with 4 people splitting the cost.

It’s still a bit ridiculous price wise, but somewhat bearable.

What I still don’t get is their Mansions of Madness business model. Why are they not rapid-firing out a stream of cheap DLC scenarios? I think in 3 years they’ve done 4? 5? I have zero interest in paying $40 for boxed expansions with only 2 scenarios and a ton of more plastic crap I don’t want.

How are the DLC scenarios not pure profit for them?

2738

Oh, I don’t disagree. As a strictly casual player I bought three conversion kits simply because the reboot tidied up a lot of the rules and made it a lot nicer to play. The ability to re-balance the meta on-demand through point changes wasn’t even really a consideration.

Now that players can just focus on one or two factions (rather than having to buy an out-of-faction ship just to get some useful upgrade cards) it’s meant that my main gaming buddy has gotten back into the game and we even went to a local ‘friendly’ tournament for the first time…and saw lots of varied lists comprised of recognisable/iconic ships.

So the reboot gets a big thumbs up from me, but I readily concede that others might not feel the same way due to the conversion cost (I’d hope they wouldn’t try to argue that 2.0 didn’t significantly improve the ‘game’ side of things). Certainly helps that I came across to X-Wing at roughly the same time I exited competitive Star Wars Destiny - in terms of financial outlay it’s really no comparison!

2739

I’d probably classify the AH LCG model as ‘expensive’ rather than ‘exploitative’ given it’s co-operative ie you aren’t compelled to purchase additional products to get a better experience like you would in a competitive game.

I have the core, Dunwich, and Carcosa cycles, and don’t feel the need to buy any more until I’ve completed them all (probably more than once as different investigators can offer a significantly different ‘feel’ when playing through the same content). That’s a lot of money for one game (and I think you need to get at least a cycle to open the game up from a deck-building point of view) but the pleasure I’ve gotten from playing it more than makes up for it.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on the upcoming Marvel Champions card game from FFG. The model (from what I can tell) seems to be slightly more consumer-friendly in that you can (beyond the core set…of which you only need one!) effectively just buy the packs (heroes/enemies) that interest you rather than having to buy everything to get ‘all the cards’ for deck-building purposes. Again, the co-op nature of the game lends itself to that model, but it’s good to see FFG at least giving some consideration to how people might want to participate in the game.

2740

The conversion kit for Descent 2e was a very good deal, if I remember correctly. It had cards for all the heroes and monsters in 1e, and the 2e base game also had iconography in the missions that incorporated the monsters.

2741

I don’t see any legit reason they couldn’t offer the core set investigator decks separately, rather than having to buy 2-4 entire $40 core sets. You don’t need anything else from the extra sets. That’s 60% of the components you paid for going to waste.

No real interest in Marvel. I normally loathe collectible/living card games, but Arkham works well enough as a story driven PnP session.