Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1119997Because?

The market said so.  Seriously if they were doing good they would not be in the position they are in right now and forced to lay off so many people.  You can get all emotional you want for all those cards, fancy dice, and "Oh look it isn't D&D!" all you want.  Your right after all, but let us be honest here for a second.  How much did all that junk cost to make when a normal set of dice and some simple rules are just as effective?  How much of a money waste was that?  Not enough people enjoyed it to keep it afloat and if Fantasy Flight Games keep it up the business would die.  So yes they are bad games because they got people laid off.

Im not a fan if their games. I just like learning different opinions.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1119998The market said so.  Seriously if they were doing good they would not be in the position they are in right now and forced to lay off so many people.  You can get all emotional you want for all those cards, fancy dice, and "Oh look it isn't D&D!" all you want.  Your right after all, but let us be honest here for a second.  How much did all that junk cost to make when a normal set of dice and some simple rules are just as effective?  How much of a money waste was that?  Not enough people enjoyed it to keep it afloat and if Fantasy Flight Games keep it up the business would die.  So yes they are bad games because they got people laid off.

If that's how we measure what's a "bad game," then how many RPGs can actually support > 1 or 2 full-time staff (without those staff having to take day jobs)?

If the business requires only one guy and a few freelancers to be successful, then those are the requirements.  I don't make the rules here.  Just a realistic observation at a company that wants you spend money on their rpgs like how one spends money on video game DLCs/microtransations.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1119998The market said so.  

By this definition, Pundit's RPG stuff he's written must REALLY suck.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1119992Their games were crap.

Nah, just yours.

Quote from: Mistwell;1120004By this definition, Pundit's RPG stuff he's written must REALLY suck.

Since when Pundit had to lay people off?

Quote from: Snowman0147;1120006Since when Pundit had to lay people off?

Unless I'm mistaken Pundit is the only empkoyee of his company. So what is he going to do if business is bad fire himself. So not exactly a fair comparison.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1120006Since when Pundit had to lay people off?

Not what I said.

The claim was made by Snowman that products can be measured on a scale of not sucky to sucky based on how much they sell (markets determine if something sucks or does not). I said based on that standard, Pundit's books must suck. None of that has anything to do with layoffs.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1119997Because?

I can't speak to the 40K games, the their Star Wars game had a debilitating flaw built into it's die mechanic. Even though the die rolls could generate results in two axis (succeed/fail, and advantage/threat), the fact that both values scale with the number of dice roll and adding dice is the only way to increase difficulty, meant that two of those results (succeed with advantage / fail with threat) were significantly more common than the others. The result of this fact is that if a player isn't optimized for a particular skill, that character was far more likely to fail with added threat than do anything positive for the party. In other words, if you weren't optimized for combat, shooting at a bad guy would hurt the party more than help it. You ended up with a Star Wars game that actively discouraged players from taking risks. Quite the opposite from what someone would expected.

One example I posted to their forums years ago was that if 7 Y-Wings attacked a Star Destroyer, the Star Destroyer would only kill 6 of those Y-Wings before the firing of the turbolasers had generated enough Threat to completely cripple the Star Destroyer. All without a single Y-Wing taking a shot. (as a response they completely changed combat vs large ships in the Rebellion game). When I brought this up, I was giving the GM Advice that I simply ignore any die results that didn't fit the narrative.

The designers stated that they never did any numerical analysis of their dice, they just make sure they "felt right". Which was obvious the first time someone actually did it.


And the blue die is wrong.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1120025... In other words, if you weren't optimized for combat, shooting at a bad guy would hurt the party more than help it. You ended up with a Star Wars game that actively discouraged players from taking risks. Quite the opposite from what someone would expected.

One example I posted to their forums years ago was that if 7 Y-Wings attacked a Star Destroyer, the Star Destroyer would only kill 6 of those Y-Wings before the firing of the turbolasers had generated enough Threat to completely cripple the Star Destroyer. All without a single Y-Wing taking a shot. (as a response they completely changed combat vs large ships in the Rebellion game). When I brought this up, I was giving the GM Advice that I simply ignore any die results that didn't fit the narrative.

The designers stated that they never did any numerical analysis of their dice, they just make sure they "felt right".

These kinds of stories clearly demonstrating the lack of playtesting make me cringe. Was very glad not to have ever purchased any FFG Star Wars. One other thing, The ship minis were very visually attractive, but the scale was off some (They were too large for tabletop play), and they were ridiculously expensive to boot. I'm sure the license fees added to the cost, however paying $20 for a single mini was just a no-go for me. For $20 of basswood and a bit of acrylic paint, I could afford to buy an entire fleet.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1119998The market said so.  Seriously if they were doing good they would not be in the position they are in right now and forced to lay off so many people.  You can get all emotional you want for all those cards, fancy dice, and "Oh look it isn't D&D!" all you want.  Your right after all, but let us be honest here for a second.  How much did all that junk cost to make when a normal set of dice and some simple rules are just as effective?  How much of a money waste was that?  Not enough people enjoyed it to keep it afloat and if Fantasy Flight Games keep it up the business would die.  So yes they are bad games because they got people laid off.

Companies downsize all the time if they believe they can get away with doing more work with less people, for no other reason than pure greed, even if they're making profits. All signs in this point to Asmodee.

The Star Wars RPG has been pumping out content for years and are a meal ticket among IPs regardless of ones opinion of how good it is.

It's just very strange to have people tout the "IT SOLD POOR, SO IT MUST SUCK!" when 5E is widely touted as The Devil and outsells every RPG combined.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1120025I can't speak to the 40K games, the their Star Wars game had a debilitating flaw built into it's die mechanic. Even though the die rolls could generate results in two axis (succeed/fail, and advantage/threat), the fact that both values scale with the number of dice roll and adding dice is the only way to increase difficulty, meant that two of those results (succeed with advantage / fail with threat) were significantly more common than the others. The result of this fact is that if a player isn't optimized for a particular skill, that character was far more likely to fail with added threat than do anything positive for the party. In other words, if you weren't optimized for combat, shooting at a bad guy would hurt the party more than help it. You ended up with a Star Wars game that actively discouraged players from taking risks. Quite the opposite from what someone would expected.

One example I posted to their forums years ago was that if 7 Y-Wings attacked a Star Destroyer, the Star Destroyer would only kill 6 of those Y-Wings before the firing of the turbolasers had generated enough Threat to completely cripple the Star Destroyer. All without a single Y-Wing taking a shot. (as a response they completely changed combat vs large ships in the Rebellion game). When I brought this up, I was giving the GM Advice that I simply ignore any die results that didn't fit the narrative.

The designers stated that they never did any numerical analysis of their dice, they just make sure they "felt right". Which was obvious the first time someone actually did it.


And the blue die is wrong.

Now this is what I wanted to hear. Also what about the blue dice?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1120032Now this is what I wanted to hear. Also what about the blue dice?

Theres an older thread or three here where we dissected various quirks of the SW RPG. If he is talking about the die I think he is then I believe it had to do with how it interacted with the system. FFGs SW system is a borderline oracle system and that in and of itself can be a boon or a bane depending on the players. The other problem is that some players just can not get the symbols to begin with so theres a potential barrier right there.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1120026These kinds of stories clearly demonstrating the lack of playtesting make me cringe.

Oh, they had playtesters (I was one of them) but they did tend to ignore any feedback that didn't fit with their narrative. It was really frustrating when bad spots in the rules would be pointed out and they would just say "that part is already set, what about X?" over and over. Once the foundation had been poorly laid they were OK with just piling more on.

And as for the designers going with what "felt right," when they did run/play their own game, they heavily houseruled it until it barely followed the mechanics they had printed, and I think some of their own houserules were stuck in their head when they evaluated playtest reports. I recall three of four playtest groups giving negative feedback on how a rule worked in a Force and Destiny product, and the developer said "no, that's not how it's supposed to work; we'll clean up the wording" but the printed product contained the exact same wording and when an Order66 podcast featured a question on it they said "decide for yourselves how it works." So, while there was playtest, it was as loose and narrative as the system; what didn't fit the writers' and developers' whims was simply discounted.