Questionable future of the game?

[tazman222 0]

I am worried about how long this game will be around until FFG decides to move on.  There was 2 statements that gave me reason for concern: 

1.  At 1:15:56 of the designer discussion they say, "this is not one of our perpetually ongoing game lines."

2. At 1:20:55 of the designer discussion they say, "We are definitely keeping the door open and exploring some other supplemental things for this game line."

Obviously the second statement is completely dependant on how successful the game is.  And from these forums it does not look great.  I would like to see this game succeed and continue with expansions beyond a single campaign told across 3 acts.  But paying possibly $500+ for just the one campaign seems a bit high. I would rather spend that money on a game(s) that has more replayability.

[Lily Chen 23]

The said it was going to be 3 acts. The first box is act 1.

[rugal 589]

I'm almost sure it will be like Runebound and Runewars miniature or even Imperial assault : some expansions during 2 year, maybe plenty, and then nothing more and that would be all, and only if the game sells well

[kris40k 4,544]

Each act is its own full campaign, there is an over-arching storyline across all three campaigns with a beginning, middle and conclusion. Legends is going to be the progression of the Terrinoth settings story.

[Tubb 164]

6 minutes ago, kris40k said:

Each act is its own full campaign, there is an over-arching storyline across all three campaigns with a beginning, middle and conclusion. Legends is going to be the progression of the Terrinoth settings story.

And so the second and third boxes will be standalone games or will they need first box material to play them? Seems strange to buy a 175€ expansion... XD

 

But on the other hand, if you don't use first box minis and tiles in 2nd and 3rd "chapters" people will allegedly complain... they will have a lot of minis and tiles that will become useless and it will be a pity not to use them anymore...

But if you need first box minis and tiles to use the content of the 2nd or 3rd box, people will complain that you want to milk players forcing them to buy 1st part to play 2nd and 1st and 2nd to be able to play 3rd part...

Bad move FFG, that idea of "chapters" will make people complain no matter what you do...

Edited October 25, 2020 by Tubb

[kris40k 4,544]

12 minutes ago, Tubb said:

And so the second and third boxes will be standalone games or will they need first box material to play them? Seems strange to buy a 175€ expansion... XD

<snip>

My impression is that Act 2 and 3 will be expansions onto the base game. I don't see any complaints that its "milking" players to have to own the first. I mean, if you want to play the "Mists of Bilehall" campaign and then the "Chains of Rust" sequel, you need the Journeys core set.

Core Set - > Mists -> Chains

Act 1 -> Act 2 - > Act 3

This isn't a new thing, Journeys already did it before. Just more planning going into it game from the get-go, which will likely turn out a better story. I always like it when a writer starts a storyline with a goal in mind. Its like episodes of the original Star Trek when they were just an open-ended series vs Babylon 5 which had a planned out storyline from the beginning, and some space for filler in-between. The story feels more complete, rather than tacked on over time or rushed  to conclusion when its suddenly getting cancelled by higher-ups. 

Edited October 25, 2020 by kris40k

[Tubb 164]

9 minutes ago, kris40k said:

My impression is that Act 2 and 3 will be expansions onto the base game. I don't see any complaints that its "milking" players to have to own the first. I mean, if you want to play the "Mists of Bilehall" campaign and then the "Chains of Rust" sequel, you need the Journeys core set.

Yes, but they are talking about BIG boxes, not expansion size, and that means not expansion price, but BIG BOX PRICE... Big boxes that require other big boxes... seems too much money...

[kris40k 4,544]

2 hours ago, Tubb said:

Yes, but they are talking about BIG boxes, not expansion size, and that means not expansion price, but BIG BOX PRICE... Big boxes that require other big boxes... seems too much money...

Who is they? I just see you speculating here in this thread as if you didn't know which is was going to be. If you remember the time stamp in the discussion I'd like to catch it, because I was listening to try to determine if they were going to be standalone big boxes or expansions and they did not specify yet to the best of my knowledge. 

But from what they did say so far, a similar release to Core Set - > Mists -> Chains would make sense, just with a more in-depth overarching story that can pull data from the previously completed campaign stored in the app (characters used, decisions made, events that occurred, NPCs that survive, die, etc.) and use those to flavor the 2nd and 3rd act campaigns. They also did refer to the Act 1 box as "this core set" at 1:16.30 which leads me to believe the others will be expansions.

Edited October 25, 2020 by kris40k

[Watercolour Dragon 392]

On 10/23/2020 at 5:32 PM, tazman222 said:

I am worried about how long this game will be around until FFG decides to move on.  There was 2 statements that gave me reason for concern: 

1.  At 1:15:56 of the designer discussion they say, "this is not one of our perpetually ongoing game lines."

2. At 1:20:55 of the designer discussion they say, "We are definitely keeping the door open and exploring some other supplemental things for this game line."

 

On 10/23/2020 at 5:32 PM, tazman222 said:

 

 

https://youtu.be/tnZPwT6PH4M?t=4580

 

re 1 - The context of this is that the three acts are a whole complete entity rather than something which will have an unknown number of expansions for an unknown timespan- the three boxes are basically the complete campaign / story, a contained story of three acts.

 

This echoes the change discussed before where in a more crowded market they're thinking more of a planned range from the off rather than we may/ may not do expansions and not doing loads of expansions.

 

It could actually have quite a few benefits- maybe balance, avoiding pitfalls such as new things introduced not breaking earlier ones and imbalance bloat (expansions not planned from day one throwing in some unintended imbalance etc)

 

the 2. means there could be some things tacked on which could be alternative heroes to play, and of course they could do another contained story campaign series that is its own complete thing etc etc

 

It may also be hopeful for the 'journeys' branch of Descent, this could run its course then they might do more for that, but they could do anything else.

 

 

[Shirys 150]

On 10/25/2020 at 3:53 AM, Watercolour Dragon said:

It may also be hopeful for the 'journeys' branch of Descent, this could run its course then they might do more for that, but they could do anything else

That's exactly what i was trying to explain across the surprisingly overly negative forums, that for all we know, FFG might have a dedicated team working on more Journeys 2nd edition (since it sells so well) or a 3rd edition with new Overlord and random dungeon crawling mechanics.

Some are way too quick  to drop the ball. The game isn't even out and at this alarming rate, it will  be already dead - all stores stuck with countless copies that nobody wants , like Atari's E.T. in the 80s.

Might as well prepare another landfill in New Mexico to dump the boxes in, by the truck.

I want to play this very bad, and the whole three acts of it!

Edited November 17, 2020 by Shirys

[rugal 589]

Let's see if this game lives more than 1 or 2 year. Since few years, no FFG games was supported more ...

[tibia 88]

18 hours ago, Shirys said:

Some are way to quick  to drop the ball. The game isn't even out and at this alarming rate, it will  be already dead - all stores stuck with countless copies that nobody wants , like Atari's E.T. in the 80s.

I want to play this very bad. All three acts!

The game is already dead. I wish you that you will be able to get act 2.

[Shirys 150]

2 hours ago, tibia said:

The game is already dead.

Is it dead really, or because you want it so?

I'll take it with a grain of salt

[KalEl814 1,512]

5 hours ago, Shirys said:

Is it dead really, or because you want it so?

I'll take it with a grain of salt

FFG can barely support two very successful, expandable Star Wars mini games. There’s no way they’re also developing Descent 2nd Ed content right now.

Also Andrew Navaro already said FFG wasn’t developing new, physical content for 2nd Ed. 😛 So I don’t know if that means it’s DEAD, but it’s on life support, at best.

[tibia 88]

22 hours ago, Shirys said:

Is it dead really, or because you want it so?

I'll take it with a grain of salt

I have no interest in it being alive or dead. Let's see if you will get act 3 😉

[Bucho 145]

On 10/23/2020 at 12:32 PM, tazman222 said:

But paying possibly $500+ for just the one campaign seems a bit high. I would rather spend that money on a game(s) that has more replayability.

The up side of a universal tile system is that you don't need to keep buying it. Since players already own an infinitely versatile tile system act 2-3 *should* be cheaper on account of not needing to buy it again.

[kris40k 4,544]

55 minutes ago, Bucho said:

The up side of a universal tile system is that you don't need to keep buying it. Since players already own an infinitely versatile tile system act 2-3 *should* be cheaper on account of not needing to buy it again.

Yeah, I expect the expansion boxes to maybe add one or two tile type (like icey floors in Act 2, corrupted ground in Act 3, whatever...), and a few unique 3d pieces specific to that box's quests (an altar, statue, etc.) and then mostly be monsters, heroes, cards, much like Journeys' expansions. They have already referred to Act 1 as the "core set", I don't think there is any cause to expect the second and third acts to be equivalent in size and price. 

[rugal 589]

3 hours ago, kris40k said:

 I don't think there is any cause to expect the second and third acts to be equivalent in size and price. 

Since expansions are always more expensive than core box, I expect few miniatures like 1 or 2 new hero, 5 monsters, some 3d tiles and terrain for 70$ compared to the core box ...

[Bucho 145]

4 hours ago, kris40k said:

Yeah, I expect the expansion boxes to maybe add one or two tile type (like icey floors in Act 2, corrupted ground in Act 3, whatever...), and a few unique 3d pieces specific to that box's quests (an altar, statue, etc.) and then mostly be monsters, heroes, cards, much like Journeys' expansions. They have already referred to Act 1 as the "core set", I don't think there is any cause to expect the second and third acts to be equivalent in size and price. 

Yeah, though Imperial Assault just stuck with the core terrain types so maybe they figured out a dozen types of terrain is confusing to the average player. I figured the new cardboard would be more 3d scenery.

 

But at the end of the day coming out and saying there will be 2 big box expansions and planning the story arc out is a better idea than haphazardly throwing expansions out until the product line collapses. It's one of the few things about this they may have gotten right.

 

[Hannibal_pjv 203]

Yeah! A board game with one or too expansion is normally just enough! Most people don`t buy even one expansion. So after certain amounth of expansion They Are not any more very profitable.

in this case two or three expansio is just fine and after that dlls that give new stories. Seems very usefull consept!

[FrogTrigger 1,785]

Ya if they came out and said OK here it is, this is Act 1, we have Act 2 scheduled for this time frame then act 3 afterwards, then the game is done. Great.

But I still don't like the app driven gameplay. Why base your entire game around that? What happens in 10 years? Is the app still going to be supported with all the new operating systems on tablets?

Its a disaster waiting to happen.

[Bucho 145]

On 10/23/2020 at 12:32 PM, tazman222 said:

I am worried about how long this game will be around until FFG decides to move on.

A game doesn't have to constantly be getting new additions to stay in print and be played. I've been playing Betrayal house on the hill for a long time at this point. FFG could just create complete product lines and keep them in print.

The only reason everyone freaks out and jumps ship when they stop releasing expansions for a line is because FFG is in the habit of canning that line. If FFG changes it's behavior, they could just do fixed product lines that stay in print.

[DAMaz 151]

Judging by the reaction to this game (there are nearly no positive threads about this game neither here, nor on BGG) and the fact that all the artistic choices and app decisions tries to position this 175$ game as a mainstream game, everything but doing damage control for this game-line (like switching out a durable plastic game-board with cardboard) would be extremely bad for business.

 

Then there is the size of the gamebox which will make a lot of FLGS unwilling to display this game because it takes up too much shelf-space and sells too little (for 175$ it's like the most expensive game they are selling). This means this will remain a game you have to order through your FLGS (which means 6 months waiting time or more outside of US), you won't be able to just pick it up. This will require FFG to use a lot of stock room to store the huge game, making this game extremely costly to FFG beyond production. This will also position this game exclusively to the enthusiasts and niche gamers who do research on the internet instead of just going out and buying a game, yet as the hard evidence of all gaming board shows, they aren't really interested, probabaly rightfully so, because judging from all the components and visual design choices, this is targeted towards a mainstream audience.

 

To think FFG is spending a lot of resources to develop 2 new Descent games simultaniously when the Descent line is much less profitable than all their collective and living card games, is also unrealistic wishfull thinking, sry.

 

Long story short: FFG is going to try to cut losses on this game and not develop act II and III. Only get the game now, if you are content with not ever seeing act II and III or the conclusion of the story. If you have your doubts about spending 175$ on a narrative focused game with an uncomplete narrative, wait until act III (or act II if that is enough for you) is released and then buy the whole gameline (it will also be a lot cheaper then).

 

Imo, if you are truthfull to the fact that FFG is a business and primarily wants to make money, imo there is little reason to anticipate that there will be more releases in this game-line than the core game.

Edited November 9, 2020 by DAMaz

[Supertoe 664]

On 11/9/2020 at 9:33 AM, Bucho said:

A game doesn't have to constantly be getting new additions to stay in print and be played. I've been playing Betrayal house on the hill for a long time at this point. FFG could just create complete product lines and keep them in print.

The only reason everyone freaks out and jumps ship when they stop releasing expansions for a line is because FFG is in the habit of canning that line. If FFG changes it's behavior, they could just do fixed product lines that stay in print.

Yeah, if FFG would continue to reprint games they stopped printing expansions for, it would ultimately help rebuild brand loyalty.

[Cotgrave 83]

I am not on the inside of  the game business, but the paring off of various lines from FFG have had me wondering for a bit.  Ending FFG sleeves bothered me as I loved them, today they announced that Asmodee is paring off all the Star Wars Miniatures games (Legion, X-Wing, Armada) from FFG to Atomic Mass.  This can't be good   Or could it be? (i.e. focus on Board and Card)  Anyways, thought this might have a place in a 'future of the game' thread. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Cotgrave
clarity