Let me add to my previous post the following, because here’s the best part: it’s a GAME!! If there’s anything you really hate about the FAQ, DON’T USE IT!! However, we are under a series of constraints that for various reasons I can’t elaborate on. Keep in mind that the HA’s are rabid fans as well. Not only so, but we have the dubious honor of trying to get these products out in a timely manner, making sure they are right, having to squeak by a set of constraints placed upon us by those that ultimately decide whether or not after all our effort, all this stuff ends up in the bin anyway because for whatever reason they don’t like what we did. On top of that, we are constantly getting genuinely good feedback stitched in with crazy demands to change core fluff, ignore other core fluff or simply do what feels good.
If it were that simple, don’t you all think we would do it? A majority “we hates it†tells me maybe this is something the fans want or don’t want, but there are subtler issues at play here. Additions and FAQ edits are far easier to sell than core changes, and unfortunately this effort will likely be judged in sum as opposed to individually. Imagine all of this as one last massive Fanatic article that gets to be made official if we can get it past the editor. The best way to do that is to leave the rulebook and Armada as unaltered as possible except for where we can actually justify it is legitimately broken. In GW eyes, this is how the “broken†filter works:
1. Are people buying and using the model? If yes, then it’s not broken. If no, then it is. Case in point- everyone here wants the Devastation re-priced, but as it is a popular model, this doesn’t qualify as “broken†to GW. This by the way is why fixing the escort profiles was an easy sell. The ones people are buying in droves (Swords, Firestorms, Cobras, Hemlocks, Brutes, etc.) qualify as “not broken.†The ones NOBODY are buying (Hellebores, Savages, etc.) qualify as “broken.â€
2. Can you fix it WITHOUT changing the blue or brown book profiles? You would think it’s just a PDF, how hard can it be to fix it? I get it. For whatever reason, price changes are an easier sell than profile changes, ESPECIALLY for ships that have been in the book for a decade. Argue all you want- I’m not the person you need to convince you’re right, and it’s not necessarily an HA thing.
I promise you we’re listening, and we are still discussing a number of issues concerning your feedback on the latest FAQ version before we make it Final. I promise you we want the end product to be worth to YOU all the effort we are putting into it. In the end, everyone here is going to find something they don’t like or agree with. That’s what comes from a game as complex as Battlefleet Gothic. Just know that if in the end the HA’s don’t bend on something, it is NOT because we’re trying to ram something down the fans’ throats from our bully pulpit. Keep in mind that we’re fans too, and we aren’t even getting paid for all this effort.
Please help me by not asking me to elaborate more on any of this or make me explain why we won’t fix this or bring back that. Let’s focus on what’s actually really broken (meaning unplayable or unfair as opposed to “I hates itâ€) and try together to fix what is in our mandate to fix so that in the end, even if the rule set isn’t 100% as good as we want it, it is at least better, more varied and more FUN than the way it is currently.
- Nate