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Too many Vsets ? Options
billiv15
Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:52:54 PM
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R5Don4 wrote:
Echo24 wrote:
Obviously more pieces is better than less pieces, but here's a question for you: How many Vengeance/Cantina Brawl pieces have you gotten to play yet? How many R&R/Battle of Theed pieces have you gotten to play? If in the past 9 months or so you've only been able to play with half of R&R/BoT, would you really miss the other half? Be honest; I'm sure that most people would want as many pieces as they can get, but if it DID get reduced, how much would that really hurt?


The point is there are pieces in any set that most (myself included) have no interest in ever playing. The more new that comes out the more interesting combinations emerge and options players have to build squads in their favourite factions, which is the real crux of it. People have favourite factions/characters, it isn't the most competitive mindset, but it is true.


This is spot on reason #1.

Reason #2 for 72 cards is from the design side. We cannot reach our commitments to the community with 40 piece sets, nor would I want us to try.

Now, on the opposing side, there is one viable argument that no one has mentioned, overworking the design team (note, not primarily the designers but the PT people). But that's another issue that we are working on internally (although suggestions are always welcome of course).
Azman
Posted: Thursday, May 3, 2012 9:52:28 PM
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billiv15 wrote:


Now, on the opposing side, there is one viable argument that no one has mentioned, overworking the design team (note, not primarily the designers but the PT people). But that's another issue that we are working on internally (although suggestions are always welcome of course).


I agree. This is a definate issue

we might kill the goose that laid the golden egg ? Scared
markedman247
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 2:46:20 AM
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My concern comes from the custom side. Too many minis to maintain makes crafting a pain. But the economics of the v-set are very sound. Thirty bucks for an entire set plus bonus content every 6 months. Not too shabby.
Darth_Jim
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 3:21:26 AM
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kobayashimaru wrote:

That said, no set past Masters of the Force is in any way tournament legal (at least, in QLD)


What tournaments are those? Whose authority? Every major tournament from regional tournaments to GenCon utilize the vset pieces. They are legal... and promoted... at EVERY sanctioned tournament at the highest level.

I think there is something to 'producing too many vsets' though. There's potential burnout for the people working on the sets to consider. Also, people complaining about not being able to play everything before the next set comes out is an interesting one. Think about that... even when WotC was producing sets at a brisk pace, that was never brought up as an issue. Why? I think because of the overall quality of each vset as opposed to the widely varied usefulness of the pieces in each WotC set. We have more good pieces and combos to explore in each vset. I think thats a good problem to have.

I'd like to see us produce 1 vset each year, distributed at GenCon, with another January set produced every other year.
countrydude82487
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 3:36:42 AM
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Darth_Jim wrote:
kobayashimaru wrote:

That said, no set past Masters of the Force is in any way tournament legal (at least, in QLD)


What tournaments are those? Whose authority? Every major tournament from regional tournaments to GenCon utilize the vset pieces. They are legal... and promoted... at EVERY sanctioned tournament at the highest level.

I think there is something to 'producing too many vsets' though. There's potential burnout for the people working on the sets to consider. Also, people complaining about not being able to play everything before the next set comes out is an interesting one. Think about that... even when WotC was producing sets at a brisk pace, that was never brought up as an issue. Why? I think because of the overall quality of each vset as opposed to the widely varied usefulness of the pieces in each WotC set. We have more good pieces and combos to explore in each vset. I think thats a good problem to have.

I'd like to see us produce 1 vset each year, distributed at GenCon, with another January set produced every other year.


i would like to see 1 major v set a year and one in January on the off year, but i would also like to see some of the theme sets that come up with them. Things like the epics every year or 2, battle of theed, these kind of things that dont always add alot to the game but are made for the casual player. (yes i realize that about 1/2 of cantina brawl has seen play already)

this would still allow the people that like to have alot of new minis to play get more ecewry year, but not tax the designers and testers as much. Plus it will allow for a longer playtest, so that some of the pieces can be more thoroughly tested.
gwek
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 6:29:19 AM
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Although the V-Sets result in slightly more pieces annually than the WotC sets (120 pieces + misc sets vs 120 pieces), I don't think this is a particular problem.

Personally, when WotC was producing pieces, I preferred three 40-piece sets to two 60-piece sets because that was "buzz" three times a year. For the V-Sets, though, the "buzz season" (most notably previews) seems to last longer. The discussion after the fact also seems to remain lively for a bit longer (perhaps because the designers will respond to some of the discussion points), so overall it's probably the same amount of time annually that there's active forum discussions for 2 V-Sets as 3 WotC sets.

I think there's something to be said for there being more playable pieces in the V-Sets vs the WotC (W-Sets), primarily in the commons/uncommons. In the average W-Set, there were typically one, two, MAYBE three standout pieces, and most were filler or highly niche. As consumers, we accepted that because many of the "useless" pieces LOOKED COOL.

Still, I think two sets a year is a nice rate.
R5Don4
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 6:46:19 AM
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Darth_Jim wrote:
kobayashimaru wrote:

That said, no set past Masters of the Force is in any way tournament legal (at least, in QLD)


What tournaments are those? Whose authority? Every major tournament from regional tournaments to GenCon utilize the vset pieces. They are legal... and promoted... at EVERY sanctioned tournament at the highest level.

I think there is something to 'producing too many vsets' though. There's potential burnout for the people working on the sets to consider. Also, people complaining about not being able to play everything before the next set comes out is an interesting one. Think about that... even when WotC was producing sets at a brisk pace, that was never brought up as an issue. Why? I think because of the overall quality of each vset as opposed to the widely varied usefulness of the pieces in each WotC set. We have more good pieces and combos to explore in each vset. I think thats a good problem to have.

I'd like to see us produce 1 vset each year, distributed at GenCon, with another January set produced every other year.


Must be a south of the equator thing.
jhc36
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 9:37:42 AM
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I tend to think, less is more. I'd honestly rather see just one 72 piece set every year being released at GenCon. I've barely had the time to digest RaR as it is. I think this would give designers and playtesters not as much headache and more time to complete well thought out sets. (not saying these aren't).
FlyingArrow
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 9:47:15 AM
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I'd prefer to see them spread out more, but I know that for distribution reasons that may not be the most feasible plan. Perhaps the mini-set could be finalized and "released" halfway between the major releases so that they're legal... but then the cards don't come out until they ship with the major releases. We already have enough pieces previewed that they could constitute a mini-set and be legal if the previews were exclusively from the mini-set.

Mid-June: Mini-set is officially released, but stat cards are not available.
Mid-August: Full set + Physical cards of mini-set
Mid-December: Mini-set is officially released, but stat cards are not available.
Mid-February: Full set + Physical cards of mini-set
Darth O
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 9:44:54 PM
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R5Don4 wrote:
Darth_Jim wrote:
kobayashimaru wrote:

That said, no set past Masters of the Force is in any way tournament legal (at least, in QLD)


What tournaments are those? Whose authority? Every major tournament from regional tournaments to GenCon utilize the vset pieces. They are legal... and promoted... at EVERY sanctioned tournament at the highest level.

I think there is something to 'producing too many vsets' though. There's potential burnout for the people working on the sets to consider. Also, people complaining about not being able to play everything before the next set comes out is an interesting one. Think about that... even when WotC was producing sets at a brisk pace, that was never brought up as an issue. Why? I think because of the overall quality of each vset as opposed to the widely varied usefulness of the pieces in each WotC set. We have more good pieces and combos to explore in each vset. I think thats a good problem to have.

I'd like to see us produce 1 vset each year, distributed at GenCon, with another January set produced every other year.


Must be a south of the equator thing.


Queensland I'd say. New Zealand has pretty much the most up-to-date stuff in all areas of minis. We even have our own Facebook group Flapper
Captain Typo
Posted: Saturday, May 12, 2012 9:26:19 PM
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Echo24 wrote:
We print 72 at a time because the sheets they come on are sheets of 18 cards each. We wanted to do 60 cards, but 3 full sheets is 54 cards, meaning we had to have 4 sheets printed per set. For DotF (which didn't have a microset) that 4th sheet just had the same 6 cards printed 3 times, and the other sheets that each had 18 different cards were printed 3 times as often. The key, though, is that one of the big costs of printing is the number of DIFFERENT sheets that have to be printed, so the cost of printing 4 sheets with 60 cards is not much cheaper than 4 sheets with 72 cards (that is, 18 different cards on each sheet).

If we DID reduce the amount we printed, we would most likely reduce it to 3 sheets, which is 54 different cards. I imagine we would make that a 40 piece main set with a 14 piece subset instead of 60/12.


Well… this thread was enough for me to finally register on BlooMilk, and do my first post.

How about this, a 54 card set?
Why 40 or 60? Just because WOTC did it that way for their production reasons will not match the V-Set team's reasons.

That would have 5 characters for each faction, with 4 characters to fill in for the faction(s) that need the extra boost.

This would help bring the cost down, to help sustain it to a level of many V-sets being produced for a long time (Through good money times and bad money times).

With a 54 card printing, every once in a while (with 54 cards) there could be the Epic printing with several mini-sets; instead of a regular set release.
EmporerDragon
Posted: Saturday, May 12, 2012 10:34:01 PM
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gwek wrote:

As consumers, we accepted that because many of the "useless" pieces LOOKED COOL.


I'd say we accepted them more because that's what we're trained to accept. After so many years of playing collectible games and the like, we've become desensitized to the bad cards. We just open up a pack and flip through it going "crap, crap, crap, good, crap, crap, decent, crap. Nothing new."

With the V-sets, the general thought process is "What if we made all the cards good?" and it shows. Sure, some of them are more specialized than others, but every v-set figure can easily be encountered in regular play. And when you're adding 120 playable figures into the mix per year instead of 50, that tends to really expand the meta and keep the game alive.
kezzamachine
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 12:07:43 AM
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South of the Equator? Hell no! We are so up with the play, even Vset 7 pieces are legal for Tournaments here!
Bob Chizo
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 8:09:31 AM
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kezzamachine wrote:
South of the Equator? Hell no! We are so up with the play, even Vset 7 pieces are legal for Tournaments here!


OMG Really!? Can you tell me if they have made a better Calo Nord yet? Please! Razz

On topic; I think that the current releases are fine, but, I am not sure that the mini-sets are needed. They are fun, but, I don't know if they are really adding that much to competitive play (but, I don't play with a group anymore, so, I don't know anything).
swinefeld
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 9:55:47 AM
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Bob Chizo wrote:
kezzamachine wrote:
South of the Equator? Hell no! We are so up with the play, even Vset 7 pieces are legal for Tournaments here!


OMG Really!? Can you tell me if they have made a better Calo Nord yet? Please! Razz

On topic; I think that the current releases are fine, but, I am not sure that the mini-sets are needed. They are fun, but, I don't know if they are really adding that much to competitive play (but, I don't play with a group anymore, so, I don't know anything).


regarding the mini-sets:
Cantina Brawl provided some outstanding Lobot reinforcement options. The new Dr. Evazan was in a regional winning Mace squad. I think it is safe to say there will be some good stuff in Jedi vs Sith as well. Smile
dreadtech
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 3:22:40 PM
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I think if there was only 1 set a year the forum here would just die. 2 sets a year keeps members hanging around because there something new to come back for. Yes smaller 40 characters sets over 3 sets a year would be ideal, but it has to be viable with the printing cost side of the vsets, in other words cost effective. So if that means 2 larger sets then so be it.

In all honestly I don't think these sort of topics are helpful at all, and as this is the second similar topic in as many weeks i wonder if its worth carrying on, as such negative topics will kill the vsets anyway. personally if you don't want the vsets just don't have them. Its not necessary to keep posting topic after topic about it and what each individual member thinks is right or wrong with the vsets.

Not helpful at all. Glare

FlyingArrow
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 4:36:53 PM
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I don't think 'too many vsets' is the problem at all. "Too many good pieces" may be the problem, though. As mentioned, with 144 new pieces per year, and 75%+ of them being playable, that's 100+ pieces per year added to the mix. Compare that to WotC: 120 new pieces per year, with probably 25% of them being playable, maybe 50% in a good year. So 30-60 new pieces per year added the mix. The meta changes much more drastically at the current pace.

Of course, there's not much point to adding an unplayable piece to a Vset. But perhaps even more specialized pieces would be appropriate. Pieces that you'd only see in fun squads. Or pieces that shine in scenarios, perhaps. For escape, a piece that is really good at getting somewhere but has horrible defense/offense. For capture, something that helps other pieces surround an enemy piece - but again with bad stats otherwise. Pieces like that would still be playable, but not for top-level competition.
Captain Typo
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 5:11:30 PM
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dreadtech wrote:

In all honestly I don't think these sort of topics are helpful at all, and as this is the second similar topic in as many weeks i wonder if its worth carrying on, as such negative topics will kill the vsets anyway. personally if you don't want the vsets just don't have them. Its not necessary to keep posting topic after topic about it and what each individual member thinks is right or wrong with the vsets.

Not helpful at all. Glare

I like the V-sets, and use the V-sets.

The purpose of my comments was to discuss what is takes for many V-sets over many years (marathon) vs. lots of bigger V-sets that fizzle out in the long run (sprint), due to production cost & overworked design teams.
rundummy
Posted: Saturday, May 19, 2012 8:35:21 PM
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A wee while back someone made up a whole lot of SWM stats for D&D Miniatures. Its a great idea I think to make a V-set of these especially as that means we can use DDMs as 'new' miniatures in the SWM game raher than just new cards. There were some pretty good ideas too.

Is it do-able??
Boris
Posted: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 4:13:11 PM
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Captain Typo wrote:
This would help bring the cost down, to help sustain it to a level of many V-sets being produced for a long time (Through good money times and bad money times).


Seeing as how we have never had to ask for more than $50 for the printing of a set of cards, and usually asked for half that, I'm not sure which costs you would be referring to. Maybe you know something I don't.
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