Steamforged has officially announced the game is done. When it sells out, it’s gone. The made the perfect competitive game and this is entirely not their fault.

https://steamforged.com/sfg-news-blog/10-8-2020-announcing-the-end-of-guild-ball

Well, COVID-19 had a big hand in this, but being quite a bit too competitive and overtly obsessed with balance also hurt the game's longevity and starved the game of new blood by the designer's own admission. Not unlike Warmachine, if your game is defined/dominated by the competitive crowd, you're probably in trouble.

Be careful what you wish for. We set out to make the cleanest, most balanced miniatures game you could play at that time. And we achieved this hands down, flat out, nailed it!

Guild Ball truly was a competitive player’s dream. It rewarded player skill and experience, with a very flat probability curve to minimize variance. The competitive scene grew and grew.

But this ended up hurting the lifespan of the game.

Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.

As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?

The style of gameplay changed to low-risk, ultra-conservative play where the ball was often deliberately side-lined.

The problem is they’d stopped doing anything Before Covid hit. And new players couldn’t get into the game because they didn’t have product to sell them. Three quarters of the teams were unavailable for Months. Those captains they said gave them a look at their community? Sold out instantly with scores of people lamenting they weren’t able to get one. New product was constantly delayed for months. They were flat out unable to make as much of the game as people wanted to buy. If they want to believe it’s because they made their game Too perfect, that’s on them I guess.

Stocks running out / low towards the end was a symptom of its failure, not its cause.

it's not like this is the first game to fail on the basis of being overtly balanced / tournament-focused to its own detriment and eventual demise.

That's a shame there were some gorgeous models in there. I hope someone picks up the line for the models alone.

My guess would be it's a case of designers being good at making games but not the business end, out of stock once is a sign of success. But prolonged stock issues means you can't meet demand.

Everyone loves perfectly balanced skill-based gameplay until they realize they're not as skilled as they thought.

Personally, I find this news to be rather sad. I didn't play Guild Ball, but I appreciated what it was trying to do and the way it managed to exactly what it wanted with some degree of expertise.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Not unlike Warmachine, if your game is defined/dominated by the competitive crowd, you're probably in trouble.

I've been saying that for years, and here's another one for the evidence pile. Competitive gamers are, bar none, the absolute most dangerous threat to the healthiness of a game system over a long period of time.

I'd be curious to see what games have lasted the longest and been the healthiest through the years. I'll bet that they are narrative (Necromunda), feature randomness as an equalizer (Blood Bowl), or have frequent rotation/reboots to keep the competitive players in a constant state of flux (Magic, 40k).


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Sunny Side Up wrote:
Stocks running out / low towards the end was a symptom of its failure, not its cause.

Or, it could be that this move has been planned for a while - and that they resisted announcing it while the stock was still high and risk getting stuck with a bunch of models to sell for a dead game.

I'm not too surprised as the community certainly seemed to be both dwindling and tightening up with those just in it for the occasional fun game falling away meaning a double barrier to entry

and while the switch to selling whole pvc team boxes may have made it easier to manage for stores it certainly cut out buyers who were just in it for the minis to collect/paint as the 'stuff I didn't want' tax was too much (no idea whether this made any real sales dent but I know I've a few of the metal singles, and several of the folk I know who never played do to)

but at least they're officially ending it, rather than just staying silent while selling off their stock behind the scenes

As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?

The style of gameplay changed to low-risk, ultra-conservative play where the ball was often deliberately side-lined.

This does not sound like the kind of game where the devs 'nailed' game balance. In fact, that seems like a ridiculous claim to make in the face of all releases being either must have or trash tier, and the gameplay warping to such a degree.


Traidionally, though, that's where second and revised editions come in. Why are they throwing in the towel rather than trying to improve the game?

Cronch wrote:
Everyone loves perfectly balanced skill-based gameplay until they realize they're not as skilled as they thought.

Yes and no.

As those games age (without shake-ups, power-creep, edition re-boots, etc..), the backlog of stuff you need to learn before being competitively good simply grows.

It doesn't mean that there aren't people who enjoy that. New chess grand masters do appear every so often, and many more attempt (and fail) at being highly competitive chess players.

But it's a very, very, very steep mountain to climb and usually takes a) starting at a very young age, b) being insanely talented, c) decades of practice and probably d) all of the above.

Miniature games, for many people, scratch a different itch. And while everyone likes "winning", having the "meta" be levelled every few years and allowing people (who just want this to be their hobby, not a more-or-less-full-time-profession/obsession) to come in at the ground floor over and over and over again helps a lot.

The stock issues have not been "planned for a while." Large swathes of the range have for what feels like the majority of my involvement with the game been out of stock.

There were production delays, inadequate quality requiring replacements, inadequate quality requiring a complete abandonment of a manufacturer and starting over with another one. A total fire sale of one medium meaning that the stock vanished literally overnight when the replacement medium was months away from being ready.

That's just the stock issues. Let alone the lack of communication, lack of follow through, launching a community playtest event after lockdown was instigated and the employees they didn't let go after dangling on the string for months were on furlough.

The list is long, and it doesn't confine itself solely to GB. SFG appear to have systemic issues which will continue to hurt them until they're solved.

Second the stock problem. Originally the game was metals and options for fancy resin. Stock was ok, even in the initial growth phase as the manufacturing was in the UK & EU. But metal costs, and a move to plastics made sense but only if the supply chain could be managed. That was an epic failure it seems that was never resolved

The Game being too competitive is a terrible excuse... Infinity and Malifaux are doing just fine and are very much those kinds of games (I'm sure they will be doing even better now with ex GB players looking for a new home.) Is it hard to balance well a game that's played that seriously? Heck yeah it is , that's why it needs the right kind of people constantly passionately working hard on it.

Truth of the matter is, these kind of games are still unfortunately quite niche and just are not as profitable as the well known popular IP board games full to the brim with minis, that easier to play, that they are now pumping out. With little to no financial risk using the kickstarter model too. They are just chasing the money now, going for more mainstream appeal and sadly quality often goes down the toilet in doing so.

It's a real shame, because it really is one of the best miniature skirmish games created in recent years. Maybe there is hope someone else buys the IP from them, but its doubtful.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Everyone loves perfectly balanced skill-based gameplay until they realize they're not as skilled as they thought.

Yes and no.

As those games age (without shake-ups, power-creep, edition re-boots, etc..), the backlog of stuff you need to learn before being competitively good simply grows.

It doesn't mean that there aren't people who enjoy that. New chess grand masters do appear every so often, and many more attempt (and fail) at being highly competitive chess players.

But it's a very, very, very steep mountain to climb and usually takes a) starting at a very young age, b) being insanely talented, c) decades of practice and probably d) all of the above.

Miniature games, for many people, scratch a different itch. And while everyone likes "winning", having the "meta" be levelled every few years and allowing people (who just want this to be their hobby, not a more-or-less-full-time-profession/obsession) to come in at the ground floor over and over and over again helps a lot.

And there's simple resources. Not everybody can　play enough games to learn every trick. Using warmachine as example as that's where　i ran into it. That time 4 machine factions, 4 horde faction. Each has whole bunch of casters each affecting force significantly. Now even if you learn it perfectly in one game how many games you need　to learn all? Then if you get 1 game a week and maybe odd tournament here and there? That's my 40k and aos schedule. Tricky to learn all the combos.

After 2 years in wm i　still had tons of games i was introduced to new comboes i　had never　heard nearly every game

I jumped ship a long time ago, as I really dislike how Steamforged approaches their properties.

I think the lack of admission of any fault in this statement is also pretty damming, imo. If it was the perfect game, it would survive. If it's struggling so much you pull the plug after 6 years, there are issues. Blaming competitive play instead of fixing their ruleset is just even more baffling.

Steamforged is very much moving into the CMON model of big boxed games that are released as self contained things, then moving onto the next big project. It's a successful model, but not one I want anything to do with for miniatures games (as opposed to more true board games) personally.

Honestly surprised this didn't happen sooner, the huge mess they made of switching the range to resin can't have been good for business.

Plus, they really seem to have hit something of a wall designing the Minor Guilds. I can't speak for how they play, but sculpt-wise they've all been pretty uninspired apart from the Ratchatchers.

I think there are two main forces here, and whiel I'm sure both impacted the decision to end the game eventually, I think one really explains the swiftness of the decisions.

First, I think that game designers are realizing that there is a finite amount of options you can include in a competitive game that will see play. You see it in Magic, Warmachine, and you see it in guild ball. magic continues to pump new cards into the game, but it both has multiple play styles (draft, commander, sealed deck) that favor different cards, and it's ruthless in pushing older cards out of play, either by rule or simply because they suck. I really don't think you can continually expland minis games without cycling out old options, both from a game play and store stocking persepctive. But... players wnat to use models they own and painted! It's a conundrum. I think this, plus the success of their other games, was why GB had a shelf life.

But... I doubt that's what they pulled the plug now. First off, a hard deadline like September first rings of some sort of legal requirement. Either they have a sales agreement, or they want the whole thing off the books by a certain date. I'm guessing as a company that still runs kickstarters, cashflow is a concern, and with a supply chain crunch and covid, tossing in the towel might make sense.

Well thats a big sack of gak

Guildball is my favourite game, never really felt the steep learning curve but that might be due to everyone at my club more or less starting around the same time, cant deny i was gotcha'd a few times but equally i did some gotcha myself

Sad to see it end but playing a 'finished' game may be interesting

also means I wont ever get the minor guild for my beloved Alchemists, boo with fire and poison on top

When Guild Ball first launched I was a big fan. I loved the resin models being a hobbyist and I truly felt like Guild Ball was a game going places however it didn't take long for the wheels to fall off. The move to PVC was killer for me and Steamforged seemed more interested in the Kickstarter model using Videogame IP's to cash in.

I really enjoyed Guild Ball back in the early years and played a ton in Seasons 1 and 2. Unfortunately it was a game that demanded all of your time and attention, and I'm too much of a hobby butterfly to commit like that.

I think this has less to do with the game's competitive focus and more with Steamforged never being able to get over the growing pains that Guild Ball's explosive popularity gave them. Poor reception of the Dark Souls kickstarter, and chasing other IPs for kickstarter, probably didn't help either.

Also, I wonder if this puts a dent in the enthusiasm for Godtear. That just came out, so does it also have until the mid-2020s until Steamforged moves on from that as well?

Well, that's disappointing, but at least this is a better way of handling the death of a game than Dark Age got - total radio silence leaving the audience in limbo.

I never played it but it really seams like all argumenets being made are correct.

It came out and burned quite brightly having lots of the ex-warmahords players going to it. For the first year or two all I heard was how great the balance and game play was.

But balance and gameplay don't pay the bills and new stuff needs to be created and sold. The more you add the less and less clean the balance and game play was.

Also the hyper competitive people figured out the best way to play wasn't to play the way intended (which is a soccer game) which took the fun out of it for the designers.

At the same time it's impossible to ignore how miss managed the switch to plastic was for them and that it really marked the decline of the game. Even when they went back to resins you never saw anything online. Boardgame KSers and D&D minis were the focus of Steamforge and you could tell. The designers and the company really seamed to loose interested in the property 2-3 years ago which is a shame as I think other games in the world could have done well.

Some other general thoughts:

Was Guildball the first game to do the season concept with new cards/pack every years? Seams like they were .

Those pointing out other games are competitive and that it's a poor excuse. While I never played this I did play warmahords years ago and Infinity until maybe two years ago and went to tournaments (like LVO). I've never seen infinity as hyper competitive as Warmahords. At least when I played good infinity players didn't mind taking odd army builds against bad players to even thing out and help point out what someone should be doing.

 Mangod wrote:
Well, that's disappointing, but at least this is a better way of handling the death of a game than Dark Age got - total radio silence leaving the audience in limbo.

Well, they’ve been radio silent for a couple few months now. Left GB out of their keynote speech but said it would get its own in the coming weeks. Over the weekend one of the lead people was in the GB Discord telling people the future of the game was fine and to just wait for the announcement.

Part of the problem was the game was never really as well balanced as they claimed. It may have been an incredibly skill based game, but at competitive events you'd always see one team making up 3 of the top 4 with no real competitive diversity. Part of that was the way certain skill elements worked created some absolutely binary encounters. If you played a team with little 2" melee range you might as well not play.

Ultimately though, its the stocking issues that killed it. The PVC teams had none of the flair that made the metals stand out and ultimately felt like a proof of concept to start making board game minis. The drop in quality was staggering, IMO, but even that wouldn't have mattered if you could in any way buy teams. My FLGS actually opened featuring the game heavily and almost immediately got hit with the inability to carry.... anything really. I've never seen a line so thoroughly abandoned while releasing new product.

 AduroT wrote:

 Mangod wrote:
Well, that's disappointing, but at least this is a better way of handling the death of a game than Dark Age got - total radio silence leaving the audience in limbo.

Well, they’ve been radio silent for a couple few months now. Left GB out of their keynote speech but said it would get its own in the coming weeks. Over the weekend one of the lead people was in the GB Discord telling people the future of the game was fine and to just wait for the announcement.

Hard to tell if that was just standard cooperate PR or of this decision was only just recently made. I really doubt this game ever had a intended lifespan of only a few years but even if it did they may have been, up util this weekend, still planning on finishing the line before ending it (which does sound very odd for a tabletop game which are known to be abandoned quite quickly once support is over by 95% of all the playerbase).

Ah, it was fun. Had some good times with this but it isn't a surprise. I dropped out of the lawyers last year and I'd assumed it was just me needing a breather. Turns out lots of people were feeling the same. Sadly I can't justify the expense to pick up the last few teams to complete the set - Morticians seem to be out of stock everywhere already anyway.

Always wanted to try it, but could never find a starter for one of the guilds I liked that wasn't horrifyingly expensive on eBay.

Read through the Facebook comments for the fun of it.

Lots of the competitive people are upset at being blamed. Saying you're suppose to win in a game -- don't blame us. I kind of agree with that. If you focus your game to attract that group then it's more your fault then theirs.

On person calling them Spartan Games 2.0 (ouch).

Lots of people calling out what everyone here is. Stock and price issues (as in almost doubling the cost of figures).

And like one or two people saying if Steamforge doesn't want to make the game anymore, which has been evident for years it looks like, they shouldn't and move on. Which I also agree on.

Matt and Rich definitely lost interest about a year or two in. Pretty much from the point where it was apparently that the first draft wasn't as perfectly balanced as they thought, and the game got stuck trying to figure out what to do about Morticians, Alchemists, and Union.

How are their other games?

I know Darksouls really got crapped on, though there are some reviewers that liked it, but I haven't heard much about anything else they've released since rules/gameplay wise.

Do they actually tend to make pretty decent games are people just buying stuff for the minis?

God Tear is okay. It's got really bad match ups and balance issues like crazy though. The character and their followers that you use to build your force often have powerful abilities against a certain type of enemy and struggle against others, so it can really matter what types you are facing. After a day of playing with different combinations that a friend got, I ended up deciding not to buy any of my own. Board game plastic is a huge "no thanks" for me already, but the game play isn't really a reason to settle for that material in this case. I'll play the game casually a couple times a year because a friend will want to though.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
How are their other games?

I know Darksouls really got crapped on, though there are some reviewers that liked it, but I haven't heard much about anything else they've released since rules/gameplay wise.

Do they actually tend to make pretty decent games are people just buying stuff for the minis?

They promise perfection and get crucified for their faults, but I overall really like their stuff.

Dark Souls is a weird situation. A lot of what's wrong with it is simply that the Dark Souls experience of dying and having to slog your way back to the boss to try again is WAY less fun in a group setting than it is solo. I feel like the whole experience comes across like a failed PUG MMO raid. You spend an hour fighting through the dungeon rather trivially, get to the actual raid, and when the party gets wiped have to convince everyone its worth trying again after a natural break point. What really hurts it is just that the dungeon part of it is very.... mechanical and the rewards are very even so its got a huge sense of grinding associated with it.

I think the boss encounters make up for it personally. They're among the most well done AI driven encounters I've played and a worthwhile play session all on their own. What's funny to me is the unnecessary nature of the dungeon is a benefit to me now. I just skip it. The rewards for it are static, so I just... take that, take on the boss and if/when I fail, try again with another dungeon runs worth of experience and gear. It's clear 90% of the design went into the boss encounters and I'm personally happy spending my time on the same part of the game the developers did.

Godtear is good, but feels more like a board game than anything that will expand for long. I think its super worth picking up say... 2-3 of each type of warband and playing it with a ban/draft setup out of a single collection. It's a fun game for sure, but doesn't really feel like it has any more room to expand than Guild Ball did.

I didn't see that coming. I was always led to understand it was relatively popular and I certainly saw it played quite alot, albeit not as much in the last couple of years. As an outsider looking in it always seemed healthy.

Blood Bowl (2016) likely didn't help, since people will almost always run back to a GW 'alternative' when it rears it's head (although the flop that is Aeronautica Imperialis arguably contradicts that).

Godtear is pretty fun, but it’s a very Rock Paper Scissors balance wise.

The above said what I’ve heard about Dark Souls from others, I haven’t played it myself.

That’s... about it I think? There was a flash in the pan GB lore based card game that nothing really came from.

Oh, Resident Evil game that I’ve seen a few people buy but never heard anyone talk about.

Interesting. While it sounds like there were definitely other issues (supply being one of the big ones), I think the validity to the claim that focus on tournament-style play to the detriment of casual/pick-up/other style has some merit.

A game has to keep releasing new models to continue to grow. Just relying on bringing in new players isn't enough. Likewise, just relying on expansion isn't enough, either. Tournament-level play makes any new releases really challenging to balance or give reason for the ultra-competitive crowd to buy into. And as you keep adding more and more stuff, bloat not only skews balance (which is a really bad thing if your claim is "we have great balance") and makes the ramp up for gaining new players a lot harder.

I think the move to PVC also hurt more than it helped. I know it kicked me off of even considering it, because I hate that material and personally have a higher bar on model quality for my games than just the game play.

LunarSol wrote:Matt and Rich definitely lost interest about a year or two in. Pretty much from the point where it was apparently that the first draft wasn't as perfectly balanced as they thought, and the game got stuck trying to figure out what to do about Morticians, Alchemists, and Union.

There's an anonymous Reddit post doing the rounds that purports to be from a SFG employee. At first I treated it with the caution that anonymous reddit posts deserve, but almost everything else it says has proven to be correct. In that it states that Matt and Rich fought for GB because it is their baby, but ultimately the money men that have been brought in wanted it gone, because who wants a funny little minis game that barely covers its costs when you can have Sonic the fething Hedghog churning millions through KS?

Arbitrator wrote:I didn't see that coming. I was always led to understand it was relatively popular and I certainly saw it played quite alot, albeit not as much in the last couple of years. As an outsider looking in it always seemed healthy.

Blood Bowl (2016) likely didn't help, since people will almost always run back to a GW 'alternative' when it rears it's head (although the flop that is Aeronautica Imperialis arguably contradicts that).

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

 Azreal13 wrote:

LunarSol wrote:Matt and Rich definitely lost interest about a year or two in. Pretty much from the point where it was apparently that the first draft wasn't as perfectly balanced as they thought, and the game got stuck trying to figure out what to do about Morticians, Alchemists, and Union.

There's an anonymous Reddit post doing the rounds that purports to be from a SFG employee. At first I treated it with the caution that anonymous reddit posts deserve, but almost everything else it says has proven to be correct. In that it states that Matt and Rich fought for GB because it is their baby, but ultimately the money men that have been brought in wanted it gone, because who wants a funny little minis game that barely covers its costs when you can have Sonic the fething Hedghog churning millions through KS?

That's interesting and I certainly wouldn't claim to know otherwise. I know they're very proud of it, its just felt like they lost interest in maintaining it and were happy to shift it to more enthusiastic staff while they pursued new things.

There's an anonymous Reddit post doing the rounds that purports to be from a SFG employee. At first I treated it with the caution that anonymous reddit posts deserve, but almost everything else it says has proven to be correct. In that it states that Matt and Rich fought for GB because it is their baby, but ultimately the money men that have been brought in wanted it gone, because who wants a funny little minis game that barely covers its costs when you can have Sonic the fething Hedghog churning millions through KS?

Link per chance?

It’s a shame the PVC sets were so expensive, as I generally prefer that material To metal or even resin. But every time I thought about buying a set, I realized I only wanted one or two minis in the set and the price was way too high to justify.

I’m in a similar boat with Godtear, but a bit more tempted because the minis are more interesting.

 Valander wrote:
Interesting. While it sounds like there were definitely other issues (supply being one of the big ones), I think the validity to the claim that focus on tournament-style play to the detriment of casual/pick-up/other style has some merit.

A game has to keep releasing new models to continue to grow. Just relying on bringing in new players isn't enough. Likewise, just relying on expansion isn't enough, either. Tournament-level play makes any new releases really challenging to balance or give reason for the ultra-competitive crowd to buy into. And as you keep adding more and more stuff, bloat not only skews balance (which is a really bad thing if your claim is "we have great balance") and makes the ramp up for gaining new players a lot harder.

I mean, its also worth noting that there's basically no way to bring in new players when the core teams aren't available.

On the competitive side of things, I see it two ways. On one hand, I think clean rules, sound mechanics, and most of the other hallmarks of competitive play are strong, important things for a miniatures game. I think where games get in trouble is when they start mistaking complexity and mechanical minutia for signs of competitiveness. The more millimeters matter, the more a competitive environment demands precision and its often there that a game loses the ability for new players to have fun while they learn things. I've started to really come around to the widgets of Legion and Crisis Protocol, not so much because they work better than a tape measure, but they keep designers working in fairly large chunks of distance that make it harder for games to devolve into leveraging a half inch advantage in threat range. To be out of range, you usually have to be so in a more significant way that conflicts with the realities of terrain and scenario placement. I'm a strong believe in competitive play, but I think its important for developers to ensure that a competitive game isn't played all that different from a casual one.

As an aside, I think GBs big design failing was assuming players would need to put some effort into scoring. Minis games often fall apart the first time a player realized they could just back up and that moment for GBs design was almost certainly the first time someone punted the ball behind their own goal.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

People go where the players are. That's why so many Warmahordes players jumped ship back to 8th 40k at launch, despite the two rulesets being far apart in terms of 'random nonsense'.

That said, the stock issues I can definitely believe as being a huge problem. It's a similar case with Asmodee games (notably Legion and ASOI&F) where you've got new players lining up, only unable to find the required starter boxes ANYWHERE and inevitably get bored of waiting/forget about them and go back to GW.

 LunarSol wrote:


I mean, its also worth noting that there's basically no way to bring in new players when the core teams aren't available.

100% agree there. Supply issues contributed to a much larger part of the failure, I'm sure.

On the competitive side of things, I see it two ways. On one hand, I think clean rules, sound mechanics, and most of the other hallmarks of competitive play are strong, important things for a miniatures game. I think where games get in trouble is when they start mistaking complexity and mechanical minutia for signs of competitiveness. The more millimeters matter, the more a competitive environment demands precision and its often there that a game loses the ability for new players to have fun while they learn things. I've started to really come around to the widgets of Legion and Crisis Protocol, not so much because they work better than a tape measure, but they keep designers working in fairly large chunks of distance that make it harder for games to devolve into leveraging a half inch advantage in threat range. To be out of range, you usually have to be so in a more significant way that conflicts with the realities of terrain and scenario placement. I'm a strong believe in competitive play, but I think its important for developers to ensure that a competitive game isn't played all that different from a casual one.

As an aside, I think GBs big design failing was assuming players would need to put some effort into scoring. Minis games often fall apart the first time a player realized they could just back up and that moment for GBs design was almost certainly the first time someone punted the ball behind their own goal.

Agree on a lot of that, too. Micromanagement of measurement is a quick shot to the head, IMO, for any level of "casual" play. I mean, sadly, there's not much way around it even if using measuring widgets and templates; you're still going to be out of range at times that you thought you might not be. I think it's just exacerbated by the "win at all costs" mentality that starts with a focus on tournament level play (and why I generally rarely do tournaments of any kind myself; usually only at cons and even then more for the "I want to go play games" than "I must crush all competition" reason).

I don't have an answer for how to deal with balancing tourney vs. other play.

That said, I do not think "clean rules with good balance and the fewest gray areas and loopholes" is something that necessarily needs to be restricted to tournament/competitive play. Any game benefits from clean rules.

Yikes. Reading this thread has me very nervous. I just picked up Godtear and I've been enjoying it, but hearing about how some of SFG's previous games have gone definitely does not inspire me to invest in it.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

People go where the players are. That's why so many Warmahordes players jumped ship back to 8th 40k at launch, despite the two rulesets being far apart in terms of 'random nonsense'.

That said, the stock issues I can definitely believe as being a huge problem. It's a similar case with Asmodee games (notably Legion and ASOI&F) where you've got new players lining up, only unable to find the required starter boxes ANYWHERE and inevitably get bored of waiting/forget about them and go back to GW.

I think its a gross exageration to say 'so many' warmahordes players jumped ship to 40k.... perhaps a few did, but most WMH players see 40k as a joke of a game in terms of competitive play and if they left for another game it was probably something more along the lines of guildball or another game with similar tactical depth and balance.

Personally, i dont go where the players are at all, id rather play nothing at all than a game that has a big community but gamplay mechanics i find completely underwhelming. These days i spend a lot of time building communities around games that are to my tastes, takes work but totally worth it.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

People go where the players are. That's why so many Warmahordes players jumped ship back to 8th 40k at launch, despite the two rulesets being far apart in terms of 'random nonsense'.

but my anecdotal evidence differs to yours so it appears we are at an impasse

although PP flubbing 3rd and forking the non-US supply didnt help and mishandling COI made me give up all things wmh

 Valander wrote:


That said, I do not think "clean rules with good balance and the fewest gray areas and loopholes" is something that necessarily needs to be restricted to tournament/competitive play. Any game benefits from clean rules.

"Clean"? Probably.

But less balance with a more evolving rotation of "OP" stuff and power creep to shake up the meta as well as recurring tabula rasa clean slates through edition-changes or some such certainly helps a lot.

Oldie but Goldie

 Valander wrote:
Agree on a lot of that, too. Micromanagement of measurement is a quick shot to the head, IMO, for any level of "casual" play. I mean, sadly, there's not much way around it even if using measuring widgets and templates; you're still going to be out of range at times that you thought you might not be. I think it's just exacerbated by the "win at all costs" mentality that starts with a focus on tournament level play (and why I generally rarely do tournaments of any kind myself; usually only at cons and even then more for the "I want to go play games" than "I must crush all competition" reason).

I don't have an answer for how to deal with balancing tourney vs. other play.

It's not really being out of range that creates issues. It's the opportunity to intentionally set myself out of range where things break down. Where I think Legion and MCPs widgets matter is that they are precise while also reducing the value of precision. In part, this is because the lack of a tape measure means you can't really check beyond a single action for "total threat" but it also has to do with how the range bands offer less minute ranges.

In GB and WMH notably, having a 11-12" threat puts you at an enormous advantage over a 10" threat. You can line up 10.1" away, they can't hurt you and you get to destroy them. Part of the reason that works though is because 1" advantages in threat can be leveraged without really sacrificing board position. It becomes a binary positioning issue rather than a tactical choice.

In MCP on the other hand, the difference between range 2 and range 3 is 3" and more interesting, the base range 2 is 2" longer than the range 1 that is largely only used for contesting objectives. What this means is that its far less likely that where I choose to contest an objective from affects whether I'm out of a range 3 threat range and at the same time, its actually impossible for 2 characters to contest an objective without being in the base range of one another. It creates a game where positioning matters, but not one where its one and lost on precision.

The other option you see is threat range options. One of WMH's biggest issues is that models deal the most damage when they use their longest threat. There's no real choice in this compared to say, Malifaux 3E, where if something is out of your range, you can sacrifice an attack to likely move in range, effectively halving your output to double the threat. GB sometimes gets a bit confused on this choice, as the whole playbook wrapping mechanic created some really weird incentives for threat ranges. Ultimately though, for me it comes down to how awful the difference between 1" melee and 2" melee interacted with counterattacks and unpredictable moment. That's always been the minutia that breaks the game in a casual environment because it's essentially a perfect inverse of what I said about MCP.

Sunno wrote:

There's an anonymous Reddit post doing the rounds that purports to be from a SFG employee. At first I treated it with the caution that anonymous reddit posts deserve, but almost everything else it says has proven to be correct. In that it states that Matt and Rich fought for GB because it is their baby, but ultimately the money men that have been brought in wanted it gone, because who wants a funny little minis game that barely covers its costs when you can have Sonic the fething Hedghog churning millions through KS?

Link per chance?

I have one bar of phone signal and my broadband was a casualty of lightning this morning, so I can't search for it, but it's been shared on FB and Discord, and is obviously on Reddit somewhere.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Read through the Facebook comments for the fun of it.

Lots of the competitive people are upset at being blamed. Saying you're suppose to win in a game -- don't blame us. I kind of agree with that. If you focus your game to attract that group then it's more your fault then theirs.

On person calling them Spartan Games 2.0 (ouch).

Lots of people calling out what everyone here is. Stock and price issues (as in almost doubling the cost of figures).

And like one or two people saying if Steamforge doesn't want to make the game anymore, which has been evident for years it looks like, they shouldn't and move on. Which I also agree on.

Man, that Spartan 2.0 comment . Honestly, I agree with that, the are moving from property to property so quickly.

I did pick up Godtear, after the Kickstarter (which imo was handled really poorly). But for the prices, the miniatures are so hit and miss. Some pretty darn good, others just atrocious. They sell them like they're high quality resin, when they're pre-assembled PVC.

So, yeah... I think they'll be fine commercially in a CMON-like niche, but they deserve a lot of the flak they're getting for this.

LunarSol wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

LunarSol wrote:Matt and Rich definitely lost interest about a year or two in. Pretty much from the point where it was apparently that the first draft wasn't as perfectly balanced as they thought, and the game got stuck trying to figure out what to do about Morticians, Alchemists, and Union.

There's an anonymous Reddit post doing the rounds that purports to be from a SFG employee. At first I treated it with the caution that anonymous reddit posts deserve, but almost everything else it says has proven to be correct. In that it states that Matt and Rich fought for GB because it is their baby, but ultimately the money men that have been brought in wanted it gone, because who wants a funny little minis game that barely covers its costs when you can have Sonic the fething Hedghog churning millions through KS?

That's interesting and I certainly wouldn't claim to know otherwise. I know they're very proud of it, its just felt like they lost interest in maintaining it and were happy to shift it to more enthusiastic staff while they pursued new things.

Private Equity firm put in 5million pounds. I'm surprised it took a year to kill. probably the amount of time it took for the new ower to figure out how everything is operating. Need to be careful with these investments or you end up loosing everything you wanted your company to be. They probably didn't even think the company investing would prevent them from running their game that broken even (or had like 10% return). Need to always be bringing in more and more in off of the money being spent. I don't think Godtear will last that long as there's no way the investment firm will let them keep putting money into a low margin game when they can spend the same resources on a high margin KSer boardgame. Just how the world is now days sadly. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/steamforged-games-boosted-5m-investment-16194494

BobtheInquisitor wrote:It’s a shame the PVC sets were so expensive, as I generally prefer that material To metal or even resin. But every time I thought about buying a set, I realized I only wanted one or two minis in the set and the price was way too high to justify.

I’m in a similar boat with Godtear, but a bit more tempted because the minis are more interesting.

I guess I'm lucky. I've always liked the GB designs so I've managed to pick up, I believe, all the plastic sets for around $30 each since they started coming out through various sales.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Valander wrote:


That said, I do not think "clean rules with good balance and the fewest gray areas and loopholes" is something that necessarily needs to be restricted to tournament/competitive play. Any game benefits from clean rules.

"Clean"? Probably.

But less balance with a more evolving rotation of "OP" stuff and power creep to shake up the meta as well as recurring tabula rasa clean slates through edition-changes or some such certainly helps a lot.

Oldie but Goldie

Spoiler:

That is a good old video, actually.

By "balance" here I mean more of a "each player feels like they have a chance to win based on how they play." Sure, you can't "perfectly balance" anything, and there's definite weight to the argument that if you did, it'd be kinda boring (Go players may argue with you there). But keeping some balance to make sure you don't have "auto includes" that devolve everything into deciding a game based on the list building phase is, I think, good for any game.

Games come a go, only a rare few stick around long enough and even those seem to be struggling when the whale in the pound splashes a bit.

I remember the huge hit GB was at one particular Salute, probably one of the busiest stands at the time.
A shame to see good minis vanish but nothing we can do about it. Regarding the shifting of the blame towards others and in this case their actual clients is errrr, just don't go there, close and move along with some dignity.

In the age of 3d printing a game can truly never be dead. There's a group of fans trying to convince SFG to do just that.

 Azreal13 wrote:
[
Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Just about everyone who was completely into Guildball has switched over to MCP at my local store.

 bbb wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
[
Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Just about everyone who was completely into Guildball has switched over to MCP at my local store.

Despite the prices that make GW look reasonable? Wow.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Eh. Honestly don't find this to be very true, I play Warmachine, and tried Guild Ball before I moved. Found the game to be quite enjoyable, but the switch from metal to PVC as I finally convinced people to give it a try once I moved killed all my interest in the game.

Playing Blood Bowl darn near everyday now, and have people joining in. While there is tons of randomness to Blood Bowl, I have found not having every model be tied to a unique and named character has been tons of fun and quite refreshing due to the amount of official and non official model choices, and the conversion opportunity.

I actually like that not every Blood Bowl team is created equal, and that some are more challenging than others to play. Been a nice change from tightly written rulesets that try as hard as possible to achieve relative balance.

Interesting to see people moving to Crisis Protocol though, haven't really given it much of a look due to not being a big super hero fan.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Eh. Honestly don't find this to be very true, I play Warmachine, and tried Guild Ball before I moved. Found the game to be quite enjoyable, but the switch from metal to PVC as I finally convinced people to give it a try once I moved killed all my interest in the game.

Playing Blood Bowl darn near everyday now, and have people joining in. While there is tons of randomness to Blood Bowl, I have found not having every model be tied to a unique and named character has been tons of fun and quite refreshing due to the amount of official and non official model choices, and the conversion opportunity.

I actually like that not every Blood Bowl team is created equal, and that some are more challenging than others to play. Been a nice change from tightly written rulesets that try as hard as possible to achieve relative balance.

Interesting to see people moving to Crisis Protocol though, haven't really given it much of a look due to not being a big super hero fan.

You’re not playing Blood Bowl for the reasons you played GB though, which is pretty much Azrael’s point. They’re very different games, despite both having a ball.

 Dysartes wrote:

 bbb wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
[
Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Just about everyone who was completely into Guildball has switched over to MCP at my local store.

Despite the prices that make GW look reasonable? Wow.

Whilst MCP is a bit pricey its still slightly cheaper than GW, which admittedly is still steep but I suspect its to do with why 40k characters are priced like they are as they wont sell in volume like units will, plus the House of the Mouse's cut is most likely quite hefty

 Dysartes wrote:

 bbb wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
[
Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Just about everyone who was completely into Guildball has switched over to MCP at my local store.

Despite the prices that make GW look reasonable? Wow.

The base set is a tremendous value and gives you everything you need to play. You end up paying $20+ for each additional model you want, but you tend to only play with 4-6 models per game, so it isnt too bad.

 bbb wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 bbb wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
[
Anyone who admires the qualities of GB will in no way find the random nonsense of BB appealing, they might both have a ball, but they couldn't be more different as games. People who are jumping ship are jumping to other low count skirmish games like Crisis Protocol.

Just about everyone who was completely into Guildball has switched over to MCP at my local store.

Despite the prices that make GW look reasonable? Wow.

The base set is a tremendous value and gives you everything you need to play.

that's pretty much any game. Base set sold at much lower margins to get people to buy in.

FWIW, I'm having more fun with my MCP purchases than any other system at the moment. The models are fun and quick to paint, large and display well, and get to the table in a timely manner where I get a lot of game time with them. They're a good value, even if they're expensive.

Reading the comments here, it sounds like GB ran into the same problems "lifestyle" games often eventually encounter : high metagame barrier to entry, large number of SKU's to stock, inability to rotate out old models, upper management and bean counters, etc. IMO, The core game design (typically the rules when the game is released, before complexity and bloat from expansions set in) is, compared to boardgames, while critical to game's success, only a small part of it. I imagine anyone considering GB had to weigh the money and time commitment, as well as popularity among their community, against other 'lifetyle" games.

In contrast, KS's "one and done" boardgame model starts with everyone with the same level of knowledge of the game (none, to the point where backers don't even know the final rules), no need for a long-term commitment to or support for the game (because there is no future for the game, anyway), no game store support for tournament play (it's just a boardgame), and no local community buy-in (just bring the game to game night and look for another player). KS boardgames do run into the issue of supply, but only once it hits retail.

Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

 ced1106 wrote:
...Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

The reason I never picked up Guildball is that there was no list-building element; you bought a team and played with those exact models every game unless you wanted to entirely hop factions. I think the fact that you can build different armies for ASoIaF and swap individual units into/out of your force really helps with the longevity of the game.

ASOIAF minis are good quality, great designs, for a reasonable price. And they can work in a variety of fantasy settings. The game itself could cease to exist and people would still have a reason to buy the minis.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:
...Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

The reason I never picked up Guildball is that there was no list-building element; you bought a team and played with those exact models every game unless you wanted to entirely hop factions. I think the fact that you can build different armies for ASoIaF and swap individual units into/out of your force really helps with the longevity of the game.

That wasn't really ever true. Even from the beginning you had 7 faction figures and 4 or so Union choices for your 6 man team. New models have bumbed that up to almost 3 times the models that fit in your team, though for list building purposes you take about 2/3rds of them and draft your 6 at game time.

LunarSol wrote:FWIW, I'm having more fun with my MCP purchases than any other system at the moment. The models are fun and quick to paint, large and display well, and get to the table in a timely manner where I get a lot of game time with them. They're a good value, even if they're expensive.

I hope it stays that way for people that enjoy it. Small scale games tend to grow in size of the years. Infinity and Warmahordes are easily double the number of figures they use to be.

ced1106 wrote:Reading the comments here, it sounds like GB ran into the same problems "lifestyle" games often eventually encounter : high metagame barrier to entry, large number of SKU's to stock, inability to rotate out old models, upper management and bean counters, etc. IMO, The core game design (typically the rules when the game is released, before complexity and bloat from expansions set in) is, compared to boardgames, while critical to game's success, only a small part of it. I imagine anyone considering GB had to weigh the money and time commitment, as well as popularity among their community, against other 'lifetyle" games.

In contrast, KS's "one and done" boardgame model starts with everyone with the same level of knowledge of the game (none, to the point where backers don't even know the final rules), no need for a long-term commitment to or support for the game (because there is no future for the game, anyway), no game store support for tournament play (it's just a boardgame), and no local community buy-in (just bring the game to game night and look for another player). KS boardgames do run into the issue of supply, but only once it hits retail.

Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

I think it's is really important to bring up. The industry if very low margin and it can take years to get any real returns on an investment going the traditional route which is made harder by all the competition and distribution changes we've been hearing about. KIckstarters are quick, for the hobby, turn around of maybe 2 years (one year developing one year producing and delivering) and you know roughly what your profits will be before the KSer ends. Companies that do well are just going to attract the interested of investors more and more and we'll probabably see more VC/PE funds investing. This might, in turn, help table top games and it would divert competition to one and done boardgames. I'm curious to see who's still creating traditional wargames in 5 years.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:ASOIAF minis are good quality, great designs, for a reasonable price. And they can work in a variety of fantasy settings. The game itself could cease to exist and people would still have a reason to buy the minis.

Assuming sales keep investors happy. Considering that CMON doesn't have a warehouse anymore and Asmodee isn't probably wanting to keep a lot of stock to remain competitive with other distributors it could suffer the same fate as GB. If no one can buy is it any different then no one wanting too as far as the stock market is concerned?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:
...Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

The reason I never picked up Guildball is that there was no list-building element; you bought a team and played with those exact models every game unless you wanted to entirely hop factions. I think the fact that you can build different armies for ASoIaF and swap individual units into/out of your force really helps with the longevity of the game.

Unless something changed later on, that’s not how it worked - you picked a Captain, a mascot and 4 other players from the faction for a team. There were just no points or anything, every model was ‘equal’ in terms of list building.

At the end of guild ball you were looking at a list of 3 Captains, 2 Mascots, and ~10 Players for a Major Guild, and a Captain, Mascot, and 4 Players for a Minor Guild. 2 specific Players from the Major and 2 from the Minor could also play up/down. Lots to choose from for the Majors to build your list, much less so for the Minors but they then got other bonuses to compensate. Four Minor Guilds will not see release.

I was actually quite good at the list building aspect, and had some teams that really annoyed opponents and did stuff they weren’t expecting.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:
...Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

The reason I never picked up Guildball is that there was no list-building element; you bought a team and played with those exact models every game unless you wanted to entirely hop factions. I think the fact that you can build different armies for ASoIaF and swap individual units into/out of your force really helps with the longevity of the game.

GB never really needed list building as its six / seven models at most and the pre-game draft when players alternated choosing players stopped a fair bit of rock/paper/scissors, it was a bit harder at the very beginning with each team having limited numbers but even then having a mercenary faction whose players could be used by every team was a handy fix

 Monkeysloth wrote:

ced1106 wrote:Reading the comments here, it sounds like GB ran into the same problems "lifestyle" games often eventually encounter : high metagame barrier to entry, large number of SKU's to stock, inability to rotate out old models, upper management and bean counters, etc. IMO, The core game design (typically the rules when the game is released, before complexity and bloat from expansions set in) is, compared to boardgames, while critical to game's success, only a small part of it. I imagine anyone considering GB had to weigh the money and time commitment, as well as popularity among their community, against other 'lifetyle" games.

In contrast, KS's "one and done" boardgame model starts with everyone with the same level of knowledge of the game (none, to the point where backers don't even know the final rules), no need for a long-term commitment to or support for the game (because there is no future for the game, anyway), no game store support for tournament play (it's just a boardgame), and no local community buy-in (just bring the game to game night and look for another player). KS boardgames do run into the issue of supply, but only once it hits retail.

Makes me wonder what the long-term future is for CMON's ASOIAF.

I think it's is really important to bring up. The industry if very low margin and it can take years to get any real returns on an investment going the traditional route which is made harder by all the competition and distribution changes we've been hearing about. KIckstarters are quick, for the hobby, turn around of maybe 2 years (one year developing one year producing and delivering) and you know roughly what your profits will be before the KSer ends. Companies that do well are just going to attract the interested of investors more and more and we'll probabably see more VC/PE funds investing. This might, in turn, help table top games and it would divert competition to one and done boardgames. I'm curious to see who's still creating traditional wargames in 5 years.

I agree with all of that, but then you look at the success of GW, which is 90%+ "lifestyle" games, so there's clearly still a market for it in the general sense. It's not that the popularity of lifestyle games are declining in general, it seems that GW has sucked up more and more of it at the moment to the point anyone else struggles in that specific market segment. But yeah chucking out a boxed game with an IP paint job slathered on it once a year is an easier path to the quick cash.

There's still space for non GW lifestyle games from other companies, now and in the future. But they can't be just average, they'll need to be good games and more importantly have a good, well run company behind them that are committed to competing in that space, with all it entails. Guild ball was a very good ruleset, and it could have easily had a 2nd edition (yes, even if it did piss off the "competitive" crowd) but clearly SFG did not have the chops nor the will to handle the product and supply chain and that's a real shame.

Not entirely on topic but kinda related, i do see an increasing challenge in future for US & UK companies that are completely reliant on manufacturing in China. It's already hard enough to get your stock out there with that sort of supply chain (SFG and CMON being good examples) but the cost/benefit ration made it worth it. With increasing anti-China sentiment, COVID related unemployment, and politicians wanting to be seen to be "doing something", there's certainly scope for more and more barriers being put into place for Western-China trade in the future. Forward looking companies i would expect to be taking steps to mitigate that risk.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
ASOIAF minis are good quality, great designs, for a reasonable price. And they can work in a variety of fantasy settings. The game itself could cease to exist and people would still have a reason to buy the minis.

The point is, if the game ceases to exist, the miniatures will stop being sold.

So that means if you don't have the miniatures already, you will have a harder time to find them afterwards.

It's only "good" for those who have bought everything. But it's not a good point in itself...it's just common sense that if you have them already, of course you can use them for whatever you want.

Any game stopping is not a good thing for fans of that game. Sure, BB has a great community to make it survive all these years and plenty of alternative sculptors jumping on the opportunity, but Guild Ball isn't Blood Bowl (and CMON's support is known to be fickle). Nowadays, all games like this are just dieing faster - the days of games able to live on dozens of years are clearly a thing of the past, and the Blood Bowl case is more an exception than the main rule. The attention of players is just way too much sollicitated by so many new games / kickstarters constantly, especially in the chaos of boardgames !

Blood Bowl was very much the exception to the rule, there's 1000 games out there that pretty much disappeared not long after official support ceased. BB is a rare case indeed

MaxT wrote:

I agree with all of that, but then you look at the success of GW, which is 90%+ "lifestyle" games, so there's clearly still a market for it in the general sense. It's not that the popularity of lifestyle games are declining in general, it seems that GW has sucked up more and more of it at the moment to the point anyone else struggles in that specific market segment. But yeah chucking out a boxed game with an IP paint job slathered on it once a year is an easier path to the quick cash.

Except GW games arent' really lifestyle games. There's no huuuuuge amount of combos and tricks to learn. Once you learn how your own army works you have feasible chance and can win against armies you haven't played before. Less weirdo combos and the ones that are are more obvious(it doesn't long figure out aggressors that shoot twice move or stand still shoot hell of a lot). More result from dice rolls as well. More focus on list building rather than in game. If you have built your own list well you are well on way to victory depending on random.

Not that skill effect isn't there but unless you are playing on tighest of the tight competition top spots(which is tiny majority of games) you won't be totally screwed as long as you didn't screw yourself in list building. You have chance to win. Even if you don't know opponent's army inside out.

In warmachine etc there's lot more combos and interactions you need to know or you get vaporized.

GW games are lot more casual step in, have fun, step out games.

I was extremely disappointed and a bit annoyed about the announcement from Steamforged, although I wasn't surprised. Covid19 didn't cause this, nor did the competitive players, it was just down to money and bad decisions.
I've been playing since the beginning and now have 8-9 teams complete, including the alternate versions of players. I'm no great player but will admit the more skilful and knowledgeable player will always win, but surely this is as it should be.
Going forward I hope someone else picks up the Guildball ip but as I hear it that's not going to happen. No other game plays quite like it and although I have everything I need to play, knowing there won't be any new players models or rules makes me kind of sad and many existing players will surely move away as a result.

I doubt SFG would be stupid enough to sell off the IP. Right now they'd just get pennies on the dollar. Better to keep it in their back pocket for a potential future relaunch if and when the market looks like it's suitable, and they've sorted their own gak out.

But you never know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

MaxT wrote:

I agree with all of that, but then you look at the success of GW, which is 90%+ "lifestyle" games, so there's clearly still a market for it in the general sense. It's not that the popularity of lifestyle games are declining in general, it seems that GW has sucked up more and more of it at the moment to the point anyone else struggles in that specific market segment. But yeah chucking out a boxed game with an IP paint job slathered on it once a year is an easier path to the quick cash.

Except GW games arent' really lifestyle games. There's no huuuuuge amount of combos and tricks to learn. Once you learn how your own army works you have feasible chance and can win against armies you haven't played before. Less weirdo combos and the ones that are are more obvious(it doesn't long figure out aggressors that shoot twice move or stand still shoot hell of a lot). More result from dice rolls as well. More focus on list building rather than in game. If you have built your own list well you are well on way to victory depending on random.

Not that skill effect isn't there but unless you are playing on tighest of the tight competition top spots(which is tiny majority of games) you won't be totally screwed as long as you didn't screw yourself in list building. You have chance to win. Even if you don't know opponent's army inside out.

In warmachine etc there's lot more combos and interactions you need to know or you get vaporized.

GW games are lot more casual step in, have fun, step out games.

Warmahordes is a particularly brutal example due to its caster kill rules, but 40K has plenty of multi rules/strategem combos that can very much mess you up if you're not aware of them. Not to the same extent ofc. But if you've not really read up on the latest codex/hotness to come out, you're very much at a disadvantage if you play them in a matched play setting. Not in narrative, but that's where 40K shines!

MaxT wrote:

Warmahordes is a particularly brutal example due to its caster kill rules, but 40K has plenty of multi rules/strategem combos that can very much mess you up if you're not aware of them. Not to the same extent ofc. But if you've not really read up on the latest codex/hotness to come out, you're very much at a disadvantage if you play them in a matched play setting. Not in narrative, but that's where 40K shines!

Yes you are at disadvantaged but to the extent that you are quaranteed loss? I don't think so. I keep running into new things. I don't play every tournament out there and there are not even one every week. Generally I play 1 game a week plus maybe 1 tournament a month and even that isn't quaranteed. Means there by definition going to be new armies and tricks I have yet to face. Even with 40k I have played only 1 game vs death guard, once against custodians, never ynnari etc. In AOS I only started this...january? and have played 1 meeting engagement and 1 regular tournament. Have maybe faced 7 factions in total(and from those obviusly not all sub factions).

Yet I dare to maintain I have higher chance to win 40k/AOS against never heard thing than I would have had WM that as you say is brutal. First AOS tournament I ran into 2 new factions in 3 games. Sylvaneth sure I did get massacred but was of course against player who does dominate finnish AOS scenes so that was one of the games where I faced tough opposition. Also failing the priority roll on turn 2 was game over. On 3rd game I faced yet another new faction(Idoneth) that I knew in advance a) they get bonus based on turn(but wasn't sure what it was though recalled remembering turn 3 was most nasty one) b) eels are supposedly deadly.

Result? Won last game. Despite improvizing against new faction I had very little idea of what each unit even does...Good luck doing that on warmachine! I played warmachine for a while starting shortly before 2nd ed public testing started, playing quite a lot during it(vassal was also used a lot so I played more of WM than usual for miniature games during that) and for a while during WM2. I learned out there was huuuuuuuuuge amount of stuff I could not realistically catch up with my schedules and new stuff just kept appearing...In short for me it was simply unfeasible.

GW games are much more easy to come in and have something other than always losing without playing tons of games all the time. Game a week you can get games and win if not half the time or more at least more often than once in a blue moon.

MaxT wrote:
I agree with all of that, but then you look at the success of GW, which is 90%+ "lifestyle" games, so there's clearly still a market for it in the general sense. It's not that the popularity of lifestyle games are declining in general, it seems that GW has sucked up more and more of it at the moment to the point anyone else struggles in that specific market segment. But yeah chucking out a boxed game with an IP paint job slathered on it once a year is an easier path to the quick cash.

Well, GW, WotC, and, to some extent, HeroClix and D&D were all "first to market, best to market". Each of these "lifestyle" game companies are pretty much all of their market. (Arguably, Pathfinder a large player in the RPG market, but its customer base was originally D&D. This is very different from most "lifestyle" games which attempt to start from no customer base.) I dunno how well each "lifestyle" game market is doing, though. (Honorable mention to Gloomhaven which has carved its own position in the fragmented boardgame market.)

MaxT wrote:
There's still space for non GW lifestyle games from other companies, now and in the future. But they can't be just average, they'll need to be good games and more importantly have a good, well run company behind them that are committed to competing in that space, with all it entails. Guild ball was a very good ruleset, and it could have easily had a 2nd edition (yes, even if it did piss off the "competitive" crowd) but clearly SFG did not have the chops nor the will to handle the product and supply chain and that's a real shame..

True, but I don't see any companies doing this to the point of taking much market space from that dominate their market. I think companies, like FFG and CMON, which *could* support a "lifestyle" game went with other games (eg. boardgames) instead. Hence, CMON dropping Wrath of Kings and Dark Ages, and FFG dropping Runewars (and, arguably, Battlelore). CMON's ASOIAF is quite popular, though, alhough its supply problems; I'm definitely interested in its future.

MaxT wrote:
Not entirely on topic but kinda related, i do see an increasing challenge in future for US & UK companies that are completely reliant on manufacturing in China. It's already hard enough to get your stock out there with that sort of supply chain (SFG and CMON being good examples) but the cost/benefit ration made it worth it. With increasing anti-China sentiment, COVID related unemployment, and politicians wanting to be seen to be "doing something", there's certainly scope for more and more barriers being put into place for Western-China trade in the future. Forward looking companies i would expect to be taking steps to mitigate that risk.

Actually, with 3D printing, we may be able to solve the production problem of miniature games, but not others that block adoption of a new "lifestyle" game, such as buy-in from a local community. To a good extent, RPGs are an example, as they can be distributed by PDF, bypassing any need for a printing company, and thus allowing thousands of RPG's (including free ones). Yet, D&D is still the most popular RPG game, though Pathfinder is a definite contender.

Still on the fence if I should back Massive Darkness 2 to pillage for Gloomhaven miniature proxies...

 LunarSol wrote:


It's not really being out of range that creates issues. It's the opportunity to intentionally set myself out of range where things break down. Where I think Legion and MCPs widgets matter is that they are precise while also reducing the value of precision. In part, this is because the lack of a tape measure means you can't really check beyond a single action for "total threat" but it also has to do with how the range bands offer less minute ranges.

In GB and WMH notably, having a 11-12" threat puts you at an enormous advantage over a 10" threat. You can line up 10.1" away, they can't hurt you and you get to destroy them. Part of the reason that works though is because 1" advantages in threat can be leveraged without really sacrificing board position. It becomes a binary positioning issue rather than a tactical choice.
....

...
The other option you see is threat range options. One of WMH's biggest issues is that models deal the most damage when they use their longest threat. There's no real choice in this compared to say, Malifaux 3E, where if something is out of your range, you can sacrifice an attack

Well, ranges and alpha strikes in Warmachine aren't as insurmontable as you're painting them. Agreed, going first is huge advantage that should be balanced better, but you definitely can counter better threat ranges with layered defense, jamming, planning scenario play. Only yesterday I read a report from our National Championships that perfectly shows this scenario.

The Cryx player gets first turn, casts Mobility and runs his warjack-heavy army to the middle of the table, pushing past scenario elements with charges threatening 13" from his opponent's ( the reporting player) table edge which equals "you can move no more than 3" out of your DZ if you don't want to come into charge range".

http://momentofclarity.eu/constance1-vs-asphyxious3-polish-team-championship-round-4/

Spoiler - the Cryx player loses the game on scenario, alongside his entire army even though his opponent is playing a relatively slow melee army with hardly any shooting.

Having said that, the idea of sacrificing efficiency for ranges is an excellent one and I would love to see it implemented! Warjacks paying 1 FOC and losing 1 attack as a result but getting boosted charge damage roll is a really small price and other range bonuses have even smaller price quite often.

It's a shame to read about this. I never played Guildball, but I heard some good things about it. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned here for those who are so quick to decry GW, and how you go about striking a balance between competitive vs casual, order vs variation, easy-to-learn vs tactical depth / difficulty curve for new players; and doing all of which while also trying to make money, and keep people interested.

Honestly I'd feel quite content if they said "look, GB isn't pulling it's weight, we'll commit to the rules for the last four teams we discussed and the we'll call it a day."

Then produced PDFs of the players for the last 4 minor teams, even if they charged for the download, and left players to proxy models.

But as it stands, the GB show has been cancelled after part one of a two part season finale, because the audience was watching it wrong.

 Azreal13 wrote:
But as it stands, the GB show has been cancelled after part one of a two part season finale, because the audience was watching it wrong.

Now that had me laughing.

Game of thrones,
Star Wars,
Guild ball,

Don't blame the creators, it's the audience that got it wrong!

Sounds like the sort of random subject Mad Doc Grotsnik would create in off topic just to get a conversation started.

 Henry wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
But as it stands, the GB show has been cancelled after part one of a two part season finale, because the audience was watching it wrong.

Now that had me laughing.

Game of thrones,
Star Wars,
Guild ball,

Don't blame the creators, it's the audience that got it wrong!

And Star Trek
and mainstream comics
and Doctor Who
and Ghostbusters
and Terminator...

Just to name a few.

Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

I think with any of those options it would still be taking away valuable time from any other projects. Dropping it completely right now gives them the chance to see what peoples reactions are, and maybe get revitalized and come up with a new plan. Maybe the community will be big enough to carry it for a short time on life support while they re-evaluate or find someone to take over.

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

It's because they got a 5 million pound investment from a Private Equity firm that then loaded the board of directors with their people. Guild Ball didn't bring a high enough return of investment to them so it was killed. GB2, if it ever happens, is more likely to be due to the IP sold to the creators and them leaving SFG and starting a new company for as long as the KSer boardgame money keeps coming in that's what SFG will be doing. Once that stops the PE will part out the company for more short term gains and close down what's left.

Biggest problem with all that licensed content is that while it may get you a lot of free advertising, it also comes with a higher cost to produce, and constant delays dealing with approvals.

They'll need to have a better balance of licensed to original IP to continue. But I suspect they're just looking to sell to Asmodee in 4-5 years.

I never played this game but was aware of it. Heard good things, but fantasy football isn't my thing. Couple of points after reading this thread:

1. They are not interested in long term support for games, hence the focus on high dollar, high name, Kickstarters. Sure, they will make stuff after the KS is done with, but everyone knows that is just aimed at the people who backed in the first place. If someone happens to see a box on the shelf and buy it, that's gravy. The real money and focus is the Kickstarter itself. If the game dies afterwards, no big deal.

2. LOL @ the whole "Our game was so perfect we had to end it.". Give me a break.

3. Blood Bowl was kept alive for so long because WHFB was still a thing. Same for Mordheim.

Despite what they said in the announcement, the reasons for killing the game were almost certainly purely financial, and likely planned well before covid - 19 and lockdown. Guildball just wasn't making enough money, especially compared to the video game related kickstarters. They would have been under severe pressure from the new investors to get rid of it, and money talks.

 Phobos wrote:

3. Blood Bowl was kept alive for so long because WHFB was still a thing. Same for Mordheim.

the BB community had not much to do with WHFB and NAF runs on its own anyway

there was no one who invested time into BB because WHFB was played (rather the other way around, BB saw a little boost after it was the only active community left using the Warhammer setting)

2. LOL @ the whole "Our game was so perfect we had to end it.". Give me a break.

it sounds funny, but the problem is, a good game runs into 2 problems, it does not need updates and people are not raging about it on the internet

how many topics to get there on dakka because of 1 bad unit in 1 faction book of AoS/40k
if there would be nothing to complain about how bad the game is, the amount of posts about AoS/40k would much less (and with that also the impression that there is an active community)

and a lot of people want regular updates on a monthly bases
if there are no problems to fix and not constantly adding new factions, there is no need for an update
so people think the game is dead (it is also the main complain about Mantics Deadzone, an update once a year with new Scenarios, new Models and adjusted points is considered as "no support from the company")

so if there is no long term plan on how the keep the game running without writing yourself in a corner, you have a problem if the game is too good

writing a bad game and just relase hotfixes and take you time by updating the faction rules (instead of doing all at once) is much easier and keeps the impression that the company cares much more


Guildball itself was dead the moment GW got itself back into BloodBowl.
AS long as it was the only Fantasy Sports game with "official" company support it had its niche.
while people here saw it as the "game for those who don't have enough time for Warmachine/Hordes" the casual players were gone the instant a new BB box hit the shelfs
I am just suprised that they managed to keep it alive so long

Ive been pondering this for a while and am frankly quite grumpy at the blame shifting.

Maybe I played it wrong with my thinking a bit before rolling the dice, but the ongoing supply and other issues which the playerbase tolerated out of a love of the game and wanting to support a smaller company is what killed it

Im done with SFG

 Azreal13 wrote:
Honestly I'd feel quite content if they said "look, GB isn't pulling it's weight, we'll commit to the rules for the last four teams we discussed and the we'll call it a day."

Then produced PDFs of the players for the last 4 minor teams, even if they charged for the download, and left players to proxy models.

But as it stands, the GB show has been cancelled after part one of a two part season finale, because the audience was watching it wrong.

This would have been the way to go, imo. And how much would it have cost really, even breaking even would be okay for the community good will and leaving off with a "finished" game (a la Bloodbowl).

As it is, they are burning their wargaming bridges... Hence the Spartan 2.0 comparison. They might not need the market, but it will certainly be hard for them to get it after this if they ever do...

I knew the game was dying due to their lack of engagement with it. I still thought they’d put out the last four Minors and then quietly step aside.

The sale is up. Some pretty good prices on sets.

https://store-uk.steamforged.com/collections/guild-ball-sale

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

It's because they got a 5 million pound investment from a Private Equity firm that then loaded the board of directors with their people. Guild Ball didn't bring a high enough return of investment to them so it was killed. GB2, if it ever happens, is more likely to be due to the IP sold to the creators and them leaving SFG and starting a new company for as long as the KSer boardgame money keeps coming in that's what SFG will be doing. Once that stops the PE will part out the company for more short term gains and close down what's left.

I doubt they'd let go of the IP. Plaidhat lost the rights to all of their own stuff after Asmodee gutted them. Familiar situation all around really.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

It's because they got a 5 million pound investment from a Private Equity firm that then loaded the board of directors with their people. Guild Ball didn't bring a high enough return of investment to them so it was killed. GB2, if it ever happens, is more likely to be due to the IP sold to the creators and them leaving SFG and starting a new company for as long as the KSer boardgame money keeps coming in that's what SFG will be doing. Once that stops the PE will part out the company for more short term gains and close down what's left.

I doubt they'd let go of the IP. Plaidhat lost the rights to all of their own stuff after Asmodee gutted them. Familiar situation all around really.

There was one of the US game companies, thought it was Plaidhat games, where the founders left and bought back half their game catalog from Asmodee. Was late last year or earlier this year.

 Phobos wrote:

2. LOL @ the whole "Our game was so perfect we had to end it.". Give me a break.

Matt's hubris was always one of my sticking points with the company. From the early kickstarter promotion he's always communicated with this unwavering faith that everything he designs is without the flaws that plague Warmachine or whatever game he felt like throwing under the bus. It's actually the main reason I didn't buy in to the initial Kickstarter. I kind of hoped that the early issues with the game would temper his attitude, but after a while I just kind of had to tune him out.

Update on the sale. Looks like it won't ship to the US. Was going to get one or two things but looks like I won't. Oh well.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

It's because they got a 5 million pound investment from a Private Equity firm that then loaded the board of directors with their people. Guild Ball didn't bring a high enough return of investment to them so it was killed. GB2, if it ever happens, is more likely to be due to the IP sold to the creators and them leaving SFG and starting a new company for as long as the KSer boardgame money keeps coming in that's what SFG will be doing. Once that stops the PE will part out the company for more short term gains and close down what's left.

I doubt they'd let go of the IP. Plaidhat lost the rights to all of their own stuff after Asmodee gutted them. Familiar situation all around really.

There was one of the US game companies, thought it was Plaidhat games, where the founders left and bought back half their game catalog from Asmodee. Was late last year or earlier this year.

Definitely PlaidHat. The mostly just got their company name back though to make new stuff. Most of their catalog stayed with Asmodee. There's probably a chunk they retained, but I know they had to give up a lot of the stuff that was personally important like Mice & Mystics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Update on the sale. Looks like it won't ship to the US. Was going to get one or two things but looks like I won't. Oh well.

Did you go to the US version of the site?

https://store.steamforged.com/collections/guild-ball-sale

 LunarSol wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
Seems weird they would just outright give up on it instead of trying to reboot into Guild Ball 2 or something first. Or just leave Guild Ball as-is and make like "Guild Ball journeyman's league" - with a less competitive minded rule-set.

It's because they got a 5 million pound investment from a Private Equity firm that then loaded the board of directors with their people. Guild Ball didn't bring a high enough return of investment to them so it was killed. GB2, if it ever happens, is more likely to be due to the IP sold to the creators and them leaving SFG and starting a new company for as long as the KSer boardgame money keeps coming in that's what SFG will be doing. Once that stops the PE will part out the company for more short term gains and close down what's left.

I doubt they'd let go of the IP. Plaidhat lost the rights to all of their own stuff after Asmodee gutted them. Familiar situation all around really.

PE firms and investors operate like this every second. I would assume that the IP was taken on by whatever parent co controls Steamforged. In the investors eyes, that IP failed, it no longer exists in their world. (but no one else can have it)

Hell, if returns arent as expected on other properties then the investors will be happy to take SFG round the back of the barn.....

Dont expect GB to come back

Just as a point of info, Steamforged Games is mostly (wholly?) owned by Steamforged Holdings Limited (formerly LPH Holdings Limited) which counts among its multiple directors one Ian Livingstone.

Yes, that one.

And he's not the only name with some serious tabletop chops. There are a few familiar names on the list for those who follow the business side of the industry.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10707805/officers

So whatever you may think about SFG, GB and its ownership, it's fair to say that the financial backers of SFG are pretty committed to the delivery of quality games, one way or another.

well one more team wont hurt, meat for the meat god

moved from grumpy to glum but sale spending aside it frees up funds for MCP I guess ( was almost tempted by 40k but t'geedubs geedubbed and im over it)

I'm not sure why Steamforged owning Steamforged should be reassuring... if anything, it implicates them more as faceless bean counters didn't force them to drop the game before finishing the last pieces, they chose to themselves...

 RiTides wrote:
I'm not sure why Steamforged owning Steamforged should be reassuring... if anything, it implicates them more as faceless bean counters didn't force them to drop the game before finishing the last pieces, they chose to themselves...

The investment firm that basically bought SFG rebranded themselves is what precinctomega was saying. It then stacked the board with it's people. Sure lots of them have experience in the tabletop market but it's clear their focus is to be a CMoN style of boardgame manufacturer by the way they handled closing down GB.

Got it... all the more reason not to think they'll support a miniatures system then, though (as opposed to boxed games sold as a one-off).

Edit: Also, sorry if I'm coming off a little sore here, I just had such high hopes for SFG and they keep letting me down . I do understand that model is more profitable, and as what seems like a semi-public company (or at least a company with investors) they need to maximize profits. I just think that doing right by their first product, even if they discontinued it, would actually help them as a company (and thus also their profits) in the long run.

 precinctomega wrote:
Just as a point of info, Steamforged Games is mostly (wholly?) owned by Steamforged Holdings Limited (formerly LPH Holdings Limited) which counts among its multiple directors one Ian Livingstone.

Yes, that one.

And he's not the only name with some serious tabletop chops. There are a few familiar names on the list for those who follow the business side of the industry.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10707805/officers

So whatever you may think about SFG, GB and its ownership, it's fair to say that the financial backers of SFG are pretty committed to the delivery of quality games, one way or another.

Yes Steamforged Games is 100% owned by Steamforged Holdings Limited, it says so in it's last public accounts.

The public confirmation statements for Steamforged Holdings Limited gives more details. Ownership of the holding company used to be a 3 way split between Matt, Rich and Phil before the "investment". 33% each. Afterwards, there's been a bunch of share subdivides and reclassifications, but basically Matt & Rich now own ~15% of the company each, Phil owns no shares (presumably bought out) the other ~70% is the investment firm.

So yes, in very real terms, it's no longer Matt & Rich's company. It wasn't really an investment, it was a buy out.

On a positive note the models from the sale are shipping really fast...

Battlefoam is clearancing their Guild Ball bags, $85 bag for $17.

 AduroT wrote:
Battlefoam is clearancing their Guild Ball bags, $85 bag for $17.

to me, my credit card...

I wanted to buy some extra foam, but its cheaper to just buy the bags instead.

Just to put this in front of different eyes, a group of more prominent players and others (such as token manufacturers and the author of The Longshanks site) are currently undertaking to keep the game moving forward as a community project.

Still some back and forth on the scale and scope, but arguably people out in the world understand the game better than the creators at this point, so this could actually be quite positive for the game.

So apparently Battlefoam’s website F’ed up and wasn’t tracking inventory. Friend purchased six of the bags. They emailed him later and said they didn’t actually have any to give him, he could have one of a different $40 bag instead at the $17 price, and then buy more at regular. He is less than pleased.

 AduroT wrote:
So apparently Battlefoam’s website F’ed up and wasn’t tracking inventory. Friend purchased six of the bags. They emailed him later and said they didn’t actually have any to give him, he could have one of a different $40 bag instead at the $17 price, and then buy more at regular. He is less than pleased.

Can confirm!

Sounds about par for the course regarding Battlefoam.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to put this in front of different eyes, a group of more prominent players and others (such as token manufacturers and the author of The Longshanks site) are currently undertaking to keep the game moving forward as a community project.

Still some back and forth on the scale and scope, but arguably people out in the world understand the game better than the creators at this point, so this could actually be quite positive for the game.

Good luck! Community can keep game alive even without creators so it's possible. Going to be rough but not impossible. Hopefully it works out.

 AduroT wrote:
Battlefoam is clearancing their Guild Ball bags, $85 bag for $17.

The problem there is it means supporting Battlefoam.

I'm not a customer - and after the cancer that was Dark Souls KS probably never will be - but I respect their decision to end the game instead of dumbing it down for the unwashed masses so they can drag it on into a miserable unlife like PP tries to.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
but I respect their decision to end the game instead of dumbing it down for the unwashed masses so they can drag it on into a miserable unlife like PP tries to.

Out of interest, what do you mean by that?

Whilst unwashed masses is a little harsh the streamlining (or dumbing down ymmv) of games in the hope of attracting a mythical mass audience usually at the cost of your core fanbase is all to common.

I dont what to come across as any kind of gatekeeper but gaming always seemed to be the go to for those smarter than the average bear, but that no longer fits the make all the moneys rather just making lots of the moneys dogma these days.

Once The Event eases up and I can get some tabletime GB will still be my go to.

Re: dumbing down, I think it's easy to forget the barrier to entry and more importantly the need to maintain knowledge for games you're into. With smaller games, it's a big assumption that your game will have enough draw to keep people not only playing, but playing as one of their primary games. You're competing with other games not only for what draws people in but where their time goes once they're hooked. If a game is highly competitive, it can alienate the casual player base if you need to pay attention to current meta strategies and new rules all the time.

Personally, I've repeatedly had complex games I played really seriously, burnt out, and took a break, and by the time I was interested again things had moved enough that it wasn't worth getting back to being good at the system.

I think you're right to an extent spiralingcadaver, but you'd like to think there is a happy meeting point between complexity and ease of access.

It's interesting to see for instance that Infinity now has a ruleset with more simple rules. I wouldn't say Infinity is overly difficult to grasp, in fact it's a lot more intuitive than games which are far more widespread ("my sniper is going to shoot that chap as he runs between those buildings"), but there is a lot to learn in terms of special rules and new players will get utterly smashed by experienced ones as they get to grips with the tricks and strategies. So, in an effort to reduce that barrier, I can understand why a simpler ruleset is on offer and it will be interesting what route N4 takes (that being said I haven't tried the simplified ruleset so couldn't tell you how effective it has been!)

But I do think you can go too far. I've been reading the AoS rulebook. At the risk of being too graphic, I literally finished the rule mechanics in time it took for me to have one visit to the bog, and I will say this now I fairly fast metabolism (!) Great, very easy to learn, no barrier to entry. But I think back to how with WHFB about the importance of flanking, of the effects of a skilled combatant against a weaker one and a ratio of effectiveness, I could go on. None of those complexities (which in turn give the player tactical choices during the game) are present in AoS. I understand from reading around that there are other choices on the behalf of the player, those seemingly are around unit choice and combination of buffing units to alpha-strike. But, you had that in WHFB as well, and boy does it feel like short change, and you have to think the focus of the game creators is on the overall concept and look of the (admittedly lovely) AoS miniature and stylised high fantasy, rather than the actual content of the game itself.

I haven't yet tried KoW or 9th age - perhaps those are a better example of simplification while keeping some tactical choice on behalf of the player, and whether you would be in a position to go out and start collecting minis and ready to play after a single dump !

Oh, yeah, I definitely don't think every game needs to be casual, just arguing that less complexity isn't just about sacrificing too much for the invading pleebs and sometimes about simply maintaining a non-hardcore fanbase. I think we're on the same page.

KoW is perfect for that mix of simple to learn, easy to play, but tons of room for tactical choices.

I jumped ship from warmachine because of the toll of keeping up with everything when I also want to play various other games in my limited gaming time.

I don't see model complexity to be a huge issue in the game. It's A barrier, but what I found really cut off casual players was how punishing influence allocation was when combined with hard control elements. One of the promises the game touted was that there was always counter play, but there were just a few things like 1" vs 2" melee, unpredictable movement, and certain effects where that counter play was something like "play down a player" or "bring another team" and for as many times as they revamped the rosters, they never really did anything about those issues.

Generally speaking, I feel like there were a lot of elements that could have been paid for in Inf rather than Momentum, but in truth, they first had to really answer the question of what to do about players that decided to play the game without the ball.

I'll agree the Ball was an issue over every season, which for a footy game is not ideal.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm not a customer - and after the cancer that was Dark Souls KS probably never will be - but I respect their decision to end the game instead of dumbing it down for the unwashed masses so they can drag it on into a miserable unlife like PP tries to.

Streamlining doesn't equal dumbing down just like complication doesn't equal depth. Actually the game design goal - elegance of rules - is about achieving maximum depth (meaningful choices) with minimum complication ("moving" elements).

It's modern approach to design so you're not going to see it amongst wargame geezers who think making the game bigger makes it smarter, because unnecessary memorisation is the only skill they have a grasp of. Hence wargames which still exist in 2020 that have rules that may have been considered elegant maybe in the 80's - geezer designers at work

For more quotes from smart people:

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Certainly AoS 1.0 is the most perfect game by those standards.

If you look at their recent work, the company is more interested in chasing down a magical IP that will garner them an instant fan-base and frontloaded Kickstarter cash than develop and maintain their own flagship product.

The real facts were they couldn't keep stock in their own store much less their distributors. Also, the rules changed so frequently for the sake of competitiveness (which they fostered not the community) it was difficult to keep up for casuals.

So many people dumping their GodTear right now its untrue. Looks like SFGs decisions around GB has affected peoples trust in them or willingness to support their other games. At least in the immediate term.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to put this in front of different eyes, a group of more prominent players and others (such as token manufacturers and the author of The Longshanks site) are currently undertaking to keep the game moving forward as a community project.

Still some back and forth on the scale and scope, but arguably people out in the world understand the game better than the creators at this point, so this could actually be quite positive for the game.

Where can I track this / find more info on it?

Honestly, that has me much more interested. It's like Bloodbowl with GW... when GW was going through *that* phase, it was much better off in the hands of the community with volunteer rules development and lots of third party companies making unofficial teams. So, I love this idea!

Sunno wrote:
So many people dumping their GodTear right now its untrue. Looks like SFGs decisions around GB has affected peoples trust in them or willingness to support their other games. At least in the immediate term.

Fingers crossed for another clearence sale in due course

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Sunno wrote:
So many people dumping their GodTear right now its untrue. Looks like SFGs decisions around GB has affected peoples trust in them or willingness to support their other games. At least in the immediate term.

Fingers crossed for another clearence sale in due course

You don't even have to wait. Just go on FB or Ebay right now....

Happy (bargain) hunting!

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Certainly AoS 1.0 is the most perfect game by those standards.

You apparently didn't read carefully enough because it's quite the opposite. Gameplay in AoS doesn't offer meaningful choices but the system is overloaded with different units, each having their own mini-rules. So it's exactly the opposite - minimum decisions, a lot of miniutiae to remember. A lot of moving parts, but few real options. Nedlessly broad but shallow, as are all GW games by definition.

My examples of tabletop games which meet those standard of state-of-the-art elegance are games such as Concordia or Imperial (Imperial2030) or Brass because they create very complex game states with multiple paths of resolution but have extremely finely crafted, lean rules.

Hobby moneys for the month went on GB stuff

But good to see a bit of pushback rather than the " i hate it so only got half the amount i was intending to " that infects CCGs and GW from time to time

Sunno wrote:
So many people dumping their GodTear right now its untrue. Looks like SFGs decisions around GB has affected peoples trust in them or willingness to support their other games. At least in the immediate term.

GodTear honestly feels like it works better as a board game anyway. I don't think it's got a ton of mins game appeal.

 RiTides wrote:

Where can I track this / find more info on it?

https://discord.gg/qJHtxh
Early days, so don't expect too much. I think it's obvious that, as good a game as GB is, it never had a great shelf life. There's only so much profit to be made from a game that is deliberately limited in scale. What sucks is that it died before it was complete.

It could have been completed with competent management and an appreciation of lthe inherent imited scope. But the owners ballsed it up totally by cancelling metal and over investing in plastic. This consumed all their capital and that was the basis of the production and distribution problems they had which led to reduced uptake of the game. This mismanagement made it unprofitable to maintain the game so they stopped.

From a business perspective they've now got lots of experience and should be able to turn a tidy profit on their new products which will be designed from the ground up to be quickly produced, large quantity, quick sale products.

It just sucks any goodwill that was remaining for them that they blamed the community instead of their mismanagement / lack of experience.

Thanks for the discord link! Signed up and read the announcements / etc, looks promising

I think these projects work much better for small scale games. Comparing the results of 9th Age versus Bloodbowl is like night and day (obviously one had an official competitor to deal with, too).

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Certainly AoS 1.0 is the most perfect game by those standards.

I really liked what AOS 1.0 was trying to achieve. I wish more gamers had taken the opportunity to step outside the usual gamer mindset, or at least not gak in it for other people.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Certainly AoS 1.0 is the most perfect game by those standards.

I really liked what AOS 1.0 was trying to achieve. I wish more gamers had taken the opportunity to step outside the usual gamer mindset, or at least not gak in it for other people.

I'm all for a more casual environment, but the humor was really flat and forced, and there's a good reason for points. Power level has its own issues and I don't believe at all that points are the only solution nor do they need to be perfectly balanced or even intended to be even (for instance, historical scenarios or last stands or whatever), but just saying "play what you want, there's no metric for gauging force balance" is unwise for any competitive system, even the most friendly, and moreso for a likely introductory game. It just bogs down everything when you need to abstractly gauge what you think will be a fun game with no assistance.

(Note: I do completely invite a counterargument. Is there some competitive game with no in-built balancing mechanic (scenario, model value, army size, starting conditions, etc etc) that works well?

I think the main issue here is “competitive”. I play a lot of these games cooperatively, especially with friends and family. They are not “gamers” at heart, so the discussion about what to field is entirely about what one wants to see in action and not about what is a fair match or test of skill. It’s a completely different approach to the game, and it’s a lot of fun....but it is admittedly not the kind of challenge most gamers are looking for.

But that’s not really relevant for a game like Guildball, which seems designed specifically to target serious gamers.

Theoretically, GB is easier to field than AoS. You bring your team, you pick captains, mascot, players, go. There's very little crunch on that end. Figuring out an "even" army without some common metric requires a fair bit more effort to get it right.

That there is where a lot of players get hung up and miss the point of points. They provide structure, but don't determine the game. If you don't care about getting it exactly right, don't stress. An extra 10 points probably isn't going to decide the game. A subpar unit isn't likely to determine it either. People get way too hung up on optimal units as the path to victory and fail to appreciate how much wiggle room there is outside of say, the top 8 at a major convention.

I think "experienced" is probably closer than "serious." I mean, I never played a tourney, we don't use a clock or drafting locally, we just choose a team of six and get on with it. But I still appreciate the depth and the challenge of the game.

One of the issues I think GB had (but by no means top of the list) was chasing the board game market with what is fundamentally a fairly hard core minis game. One only has to follow Crisis Protocol on Facebook for a few days to see how relatively clueless that sector is about basic skills that your average tabletop Wargamer probably picked up in their childhood.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think "experienced" is probably closer than "serious." I mean, I never played a tourney, we don't use a clock or drafting locally, we just choose a team of six and get on with it. But I still appreciate the depth and the challenge of the game.

One of the issues I think GB had (but by no means top of the list) was chasing the board game market with what is fundamentally a fairly hard core minis game. One only has to follow Crisis Protocol on Facebook for a few days to see how relatively clueless that sector is about basic skills that your average tabletop Wargamer probably picked up in their childhood.

I recently found the copy of Battletech I bought when I was like... 8. I did not do so well in deciphering it.

Do you mean now, as opposed to when you were a kid, or when you were 8?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Do you mean now, as opposed to when you were a kid, or when you were 8?

Yes

Lol. My experience of Battletech is similar.

 LunarSol wrote:
Theoretically, GB is easier to field than AoS. You bring your team, you pick captains, mascot, players, go. There's very little crunch on that end. Figuring out an "even" army without some common metric requires a fair bit more effort to get it right.

That there is where a lot of players get hung up and miss the point of points. They provide structure, but don't determine the game. If you don't care about getting it exactly right, don't stress. An extra 10 points probably isn't going to decide the game. A subpar unit isn't likely to determine it either. People get way too hung up on optimal units as the path to victory and fail to appreciate how much wiggle room there is outside of say, the top 8 at a major convention.

Is this in response to my post about AOS? I don’t want to go off topic with a reply in thread, so let me know if you want to take it to PMs.

I feel it comes down to whether one perceives a tabletop game more as a sport or a leisure activity.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think "experienced" is probably closer than "serious." I mean, I never played a tourney, we don't use a clock or drafting locally, we just choose a team of six and get on with it. But I still appreciate the depth and the challenge of the game.

One of the issues I think GB had (but by no means top of the list) was chasing the board game market with what is fundamentally a fairly hard core minis game. One only has to follow Crisis Protocol on Facebook for a few days to see how relatively clueless that sector is about basic skills that your average tabletop Wargamer probably picked up in their childhood.

I've noticed this with Modiphius' Fallout and Elderscrolls games. They're really chasing solo/co-op game play, which I love, but they're brining in a lot of boardgame people who endlessly complain about how complicated and confusing the rules are. I'm by no means a hardcore wargame fan but I am for RPGs and some out there are pretty crazy (looking at you Shadowrun) and I enjoy crunch from time to time--so I'm pretty good at deciphering rules but you need to play the game a few times to get things sorted. This is what I've noticed about the boardgame crowd attracted to those games is they feel if they can't understand the rules without playing they're crap. And while no rule set is perfect and everyone absorbs rules info different, and some of the criticism is valid and constructive, it's amazing how many just give up because the rules are more then like 20 pages and to many cross refrencing pages. All while I'm over there going "Have you tried Infinity as this game is a beer and pretzel game compared to that".

Depends why one is gaming and how much they want to commit to one rule set in a sea of opportunity. Battle tech made a lot more sense when you had more time to learn it and far fewer exciting alternatives.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Certainly AoS 1.0 is the most perfect game by those standards.

I really liked what AOS 1.0 was trying to achieve. I wish more gamers had taken the opportunity to step outside the usual gamer mindset, or at least not gak in it for other people.

I'm all for a more casual environment, but the humor was really flat and forced, and there's a good reason for points. Power level has its own issues and I don't believe at all that points are the only solution nor do they need to be perfectly balanced or even intended to be even (for instance, historical scenarios or last stands or whatever), but just saying "play what you want, there's no metric for gauging force balance" is unwise for any competitive system, even the most friendly, and moreso for a likely introductory game. It just bogs down everything when you need to abstractly gauge what you think will be a fun game with no assistance.

(Note: I do completely invite a counterargument. Is there some competitive game with no in-built balancing mechanic (scenario, model value, army size, starting conditions, etc etc) that works well?

Well your error is using term competive with gw games. Gw games aren't competive and any attempt to use as such fails by definition. Lottery as competive game makes more sense.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Depends why one is gaming and how much they want to commit to one rule set in a sea of opportunity. Battle tech made a lot more sense when you had more time to learn it and far fewer exciting alternatives.

The issue here isn't so much gamer motivation as producers chasing the dragon of profit by trying the market their square pegs as compatible with round holes. When it's probably more feasible and profitable long term to own your square peg game, and work on a round peg game to complement it.

Otherwise you end up with casual board gamers sat in a pile of paint, sprues and glue, with their fingers marking 8 different spots in a rulebook, vowing "never again."

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Theoretically, GB is easier to field than AoS. You bring your team, you pick captains, mascot, players, go. There's very little crunch on that end. Figuring out an "even" army without some common metric requires a fair bit more effort to get it right.

That there is where a lot of players get hung up and miss the point of points. They provide structure, but don't determine the game. If you don't care about getting it exactly right, don't stress. An extra 10 points probably isn't going to decide the game. A subpar unit isn't likely to determine it either. People get way too hung up on optimal units as the path to victory and fail to appreciate how much wiggle room there is outside of say, the top 8 at a major convention.

Is this in response to my post about AOS? I don’t want to go off topic with a reply in thread, so let me know if you want to take it to PMs.

I feel it comes down to whether one perceives a tabletop game more as a sport or a leisure activity.

Essentially. Not really arguing the point. You can see it as both depending on the setting. I've had plenty of matches where I help an opponent make cool things happen and one of GBs strong points is the ability to make some really exciting plays when you see how it goes together. The one issue with the system itself in this regard is how you have to allocate your entire turn from the beginning, which can make it hard to coach as it creates a situation where knowing what they want to do gives you a lot of ways to stop it. That's probably the one area of the game in which you can't "just play" the way you can in IGOUGO system.

My point is that GBs system is actually really easy to put whatever you want in action because everything is pretty interchangeable. It's one of the reasons I really love low granularity point systems, as it makes it pretty easy to throw models on the table you want while also having that generic guideline for what the game should look like. An accessible points system is in my mind, enables more of a "put your toys down and play" culture than what AoS tried. GB has that better than almost any other game and while it has always had players better than others, there's been few so bad that you couldn't fill a slot and play them. Most of GBs "casual" issues have more to do with how punishing some of the interactions in the game can be.


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 Azreal13 wrote:

Otherwise you end up with casual board gamers sat in a pile of paint, sprues and glue, with their fingers marking 8 different spots in a rulebook, vowing "never again."

I feel very fortunate that Heroscape existed to bridge the gap for me have a decade or so of trying to scratch the itch with things like Final Fantasy Tactics.

tneva82 wrote:
Well your error is using term competive with gw games. Gw games aren't competive and any attempt to use as such fails by definition. Lottery as competive game makes more sense.

I'd never say GW games are appropriate for a tournament environment or any other serious competition. I mean that they're not co-op. Typically there's a winner and a loser, and I think that the idea that GW is absolutely random is absurd: whether or not I respect the balance, there are good choices and bad choices, and that means there's the skill to the choice, and it would even if the difference were small.

Some sort of MM sale. Guildball spotted : https://www.miniaturemarket.com/deals.html?start=1312&sort=title+asc&sort=title%20asc

Another MM Guildball sale:
https://www.miniaturemarket.com/landing?p=sale

 ced1106 wrote:
Another MM Guildball sale:
https://www.miniaturemarket.com/landing?p=sale

Thanks, Finally picked up the Hell's Kitchen set...

Hadn't seen this mentioned elsewhere so I'll resurrect this thread for anyone that played the game:

GuildBall still lives and is being guided by a community who have published their first errata.
https://www.longshanks.org/tales/?fbclid=IwAR1l_Do-5vbo8YXPC1Y3icgsixEbNHmLybC6CqE-0o74fhqmaEi-jybFvnA

 Sqorgar wrote:
I'd be curious to see what games have lasted the longest and been the healthiest through the years. I'll bet that they are narrative (Necromunda), feature randomness as an equalizer (Blood Bowl), or have frequent rotation/reboots to keep the competitive players in a constant state of flux (Magic, 40k).

What, no mention of DBA?

MM sale has some Guildball! : https://www.miniaturemarket.com/landing?start=192&p=sale&sort=title+asc&sort=title%20asc

Noble Knight sale on Guildball : https://www.nobleknight.com/ClearanceItems?GridLayout=grid&SortBy=productline&PageNumber=141#pf