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 Zweischneid wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
I dunno what it's like with Dreadball, but Deadzone mercs are pretty much dead meat for campaigns due to the - 3 rep thing.

DreadBall MvPs cannot be used in tournament or one-off games.

They are "meant" to be used through auctions in leagues.

In theory, if you have a good and lively DreadBall League of 20 players, you'll have ~ 8 to 10 (max) players will be low on points. Assuming some low-ranking players will match up, around 5 to 6 will be able to have enough MCs to bid. To make sure there is actual competition to drive up prices for MvPs to a (slightly more) balanced level, you need less than 5 MvPs.. probably around 3.

So you'll probably need one MvP for every 5 to 10 players in your League, more or less. Even than the system is clunky.

Also, MvPs that don't play for all teams obviously break the auction mechanic.
Also, MvPs that are Jacks are pointless, cause people will bid for Strikers or Guards.

So yeah, if you bid Frenzy to kit out your entire gaming club for DreadBall, you'll want some 3 or 4 MvPs.. maybe.

Also, I never managed to get a league of 20 people going for a reasonable time. But that might just be me.

Eep, can't see them getting that much use then unless DBX handles them differently (sounds like it might with the new sponsor rules).

If not, well, they can always count as an alternate sculpt for the regular teams. Quite handy if you just want one model from a particular team.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

You misunderstand - the comic updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Therefore, more people will come to their website on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, because they want to read the new comic.

Didn't they have a Kickstarter asking for 500 Dollars for a Tweet?

They can just do a blog post, facebook, tweet it.. etc...

Not ideal, but hey. I am sure Penny Arcade can do something to earn their money, no?

Maybe they can, but they could do so much more to earn their money if they did it just one day earlier.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I dunno what it's like with Dreadball, but Deadzone mercs are pretty much dead meat for campaigns due to the - 3 rep thing.

That, and half of them are kinda pointless as they don't really do anything interesting that your strike team couldn't do already.

I'm not a DB player so I don't know how much MVPs actually add in terms of on-table tactics. Considering how many we get even with Rampage, I hope there's a point to them.

In the 'short' league I ran with just 8 players, round robin, having 3 MVP's (1 jack, 1 striker, 1 guard) didn't seem that bad. Though I think their costs could have been boosted by 5 or so before the league started.

Although we haven't played the game that much...

 Compel wrote:
In the 'short' league I ran with just 8 players, round robin, having 3 MVP's (1 jack, 1 striker, 1 guard) didn't seem that bad. Though I think their costs could have been boosted by 5 or so before the league started.

Although we haven't played the game that much...

Well. That is the problem. They are far to cheap to "just take" at the costed price. With 8 players, you'll usually only have ~4 underdogs allowed to make bids, possibly only 3 who are underdog "enough" to make bids, and among those, one (or two) might not even care for an MvP, preferring to buy other things, ultimately leaving you with too many MvPs to get a "proper" bidding-war started.

Which I don't get. Why can't they be "costed" at a minimum price that would roughly give you an idea how good they are, and give you a point value you might "informally" also use to buy yourself MvPs for one-off exhibition matches.

The entire insistence by Jake that it "must" be an auction to balance MvPs by demand seems unnecessarily bone-headed.

And of course, they are widely different in potency. Some come with things no regular player could hope to achieve, like Buzzcut being a STR 2+ (!) Guard with Grizzled (killing 5 or 6 of your opponents team is always a great way to make them enjoy the league) or the Praetorean being a "tough" Striker with Can't Feel a Thing, while others are barely better than your regular player type or, like Anne Marie Helder, potentially worse.

I love the snark and humour in DreadBall, not least in the MvPs, but too often it remains "in the book" and doesn't really make it to the board for one reason or another.

[edit]

Also, Penny working hard for their money
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/15/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

 AlexHolker wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Well, there's a new Penny Arcade KS exclusive.. $10 metal add-on.

This is just amateur hour.

Penny Arcade updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. People are going to go to the website on Monday, see the exclusive and feature, and then go to Kickstarter and discover the campaign has already finished. It would have made a lot more sense to put the exclusive and feature up on Friday (or earlier, hopefully with another mention on Friday), so that people coming to read the comic would find out about it in time to pledge.

Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

I think Penny Arcade did it better than last time. At least they're sounding vaguely interested (up until the, 'well, I gave it away).

People did seem interested enough in the MVP's to take one if they had the opportunity. But yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you that they could have had a more suitable / balanced prices to start off with.

For what it's worth, we went for Number 88 (with the updated rules), Rico Van Dien and The Enforcer. They all seemed to be pretty close in utility, but yeah, their points cost could have reflected their strengths more.

 scarletsquig wrote:


If not, well, they can always count as an alternate sculpt for the regular teams. Quite handy if you just want one model from a particular team.

True. But generally, the sort of laissez-faire approach worries me.

A good example was the Azure Forest MvP. The Azure Forest MvP A'Tea was explicitly announced as being, I quote, ..

The pack contains the metal A’Teo miniature plus full rules for using him in games. As an interesting point, he will only be legal in official tournaments in 2014, but of course there’s nothing stopping you continuing to use him in your own leagues and exhibition matches.

But of course, he isn't legal in official tournaments, cause no MvP is. And you cannot use him in exhibition matches either, because MvPs aren't allowed their either.

Also Jake Thornton more or less dropped the ball on DreadBall Season 2.

Now he'll be making Seasons 4 to 6 in half the time, and balance them for not one, but two games of DreadBall? Not holding my breath.

Jake Thornton is no doubt a far better game designer than I ever could be, but he's doing far too much, far too fast, Or no longer caring enough. Mantic really needs to get more game designers in. Or people who actually care about the rules.

Tycho's post is literally overflowing with enthusiasm there, amirite?

 adhuin wrote:
Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Ahem what? Alex's point stands. The vast majority of Penny Arcade readers will see that on Monday, when it's too late.

I could see Mantic announcing just prior to the survey the great news that all the teams will have alternate sculpts and prones.

Rather than now, when it might help.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 adhuin wrote:
Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Ahem what? Alex's point stands. The vast majority of Penny Arcade readers will see that on Monday, when it's too late.

I must have missed that post, because original claimed that they do not post on weekends. They clearly do as demonstrated by a post dating 1h ago!

 adhuin wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 adhuin wrote:
Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Ahem what? Alex's point stands. The vast majority of Penny Arcade readers will see that on Monday, when it's too late.

I must have missed that post, because original claimed that they do not post on weekends. They clearly do as demonstrated by a post dating 1h ago!

My point was that Penny Arcade (the comic) does not update on weekends, not that Penny Arcade (the website) does not. People who visit Penny Arcade (the website) to read Penny Arcade (the comic) are more likely to do so when there is a new comic to read.

 adhuin wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 adhuin wrote:
Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Ahem what? Alex's point stands. The vast majority of Penny Arcade readers will see that on Monday, when it's too late.

I must have missed that post, because original claimed that they do not post on weekends. They clearly do as demonstrated by a post dating 1h ago!

Actually, you quoted that post;

 adhuin wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Well, there's a new Penny Arcade KS exclusive.. $10 metal add-on.

This is just amateur hour.

Penny Arcade updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. People are going to go to the website on Monday, see the exclusive and feature, and then go to Kickstarter and discover the campaign has already finished. It would have made a lot more sense to put the exclusive and feature up on Friday (or earlier, hopefully with another mention on Friday), so that people coming to read the comic would find out about it in time to pledge.

Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Alex did not claim they post on specific days, but they update, as in the comic. Which is entirely true.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 adhuin wrote:
Ahem:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/03/14/dreadball-xtreme-kickstarter-plus-tycho

Ahem what? Alex's point stands. The vast majority of Penny Arcade readers will see that on Monday, when it's too late.

Most of them won't see it at all, since it's a standalone blob post and not attached to a comic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
blog post.

I decided regardless of what Mantic does at this point, Frenzy isn't for me anymore. So I go to manage my pledge, and it's already set to Rampage - where I intended to go.

So I'm wondering - did I slip and do that somewhere along the way, or did my wife find my laptop screen set to manage your pledge, see the Frenzy amount, and "edit" my entry?

Either way, I'd made up my mind already, so no problem.


Anyhow, since I'm not getting every team, I don't much care about alternate sculpts anymore. If I get the Rebs, that would leave me with just one Season 6 3-sculpt team. I mean, it's still a problem, but it's now Mantic's problem, not mine.

What does bother me is the low proportion of finished sculpts to concept art in this campaign. It's much lower than Deadzone's, and Mars Attacks used computer renders so that you had a decent idea how the figures would turn out.

As long as you didn't set up a second account to back at Frenzy

(forgetting to drop it would be expensive)

I guess one thing that gets me about Frenzy right now is it was clearly priced to include a plastic Dredd and all the other now metal figures, as well as alt poses and prones.

Without those, though it may be a good deal, it is not the deal Mantic intended it to be.

Will you be conducting a post-mortem again, Buzzsaw?

 Zweischneid wrote:
...And you cannot use him [an MVP] in exhibition matches either, because MvPs aren't allowed their either. ..

Zweischneid, are you saying MVPs aren't allowed in exhibition matches in DBX or standard DB?
If it's standard DB, page 50 says (about Exhibition Matches) "One option is to take a normal 100mc starting team and then spend the extra on MVPs and experience."

Right - the fun little extras that don't cost very much to produce (1-3 models per pack rather than 8-10 for a team) that can be thrown in to enhance a high-level pledge.

Without them the proposition becomes a bit more spartan - you can evaluate Frenzy purely in terms of the teams, and conclude that 16 of every team is a little excessive.

Bioptic wrote:
Right - the fun little extras that don't cost very much to produce (1-3 models per pack rather than 8-10 for a team) that can be thrown in to enhance a high-level pledge.

Without them the proposition becomes a bit more spartan - you can evaluate Frenzy purely in terms of the teams, and conclude that 16 of every team is a little excessive.

Seems others might feel that way, too... not much of a pickup here at all, and it's under 24 hours remaining.

I wonder if this one will spike at the end or remain flat? They've "forced" the spike early with the "ending" of frenzy, and I think we're now in the timeframe where most double-pledgers will drop one or the other. I can't speak for others, but the pile of paid add-ons in "premium metal" wouldn't endear me if I were sitting on a Frenzy or on the fence about adding one. (And frankly they're putting me off pledge managing back in at $150, because constantly shifting goalposts puts me off.)

And still no alt poses/prones for the majority of the teams!

It sounds like alt poses will just be included as standard.

Not necessarily for the Kickstarter, though, unless I've misread that comment of theirs.

And just comparing this to the first Dreadball campaign- wow, less backers but a Much lower total, it seems.

The Furon Arena is a good idea for a new gametype, since beasts offer more interesting counter-play than "stand there and die of heat exhaustion". Get rid of the pig-squigs in favour of tigers or something else that actually looks decent and it would be even better.

I hate Eclipse and Grak almost by definition.

The new Ada-Lorena flavour text is bad. The Ada-Lorena homeworld is literally fueled by the corpses of stupid people.

 AlexHolker wrote:
Will you be conducting a post-mortem again, Buzzsaw?

I think I will, though it may get folded into an omnibus analysis I have been working up. Mantic especially seems to follow a paradigm that we first really saw in TGG.

On the topic of pledges, I think I'll be dropping my EB2 Rampage to a lower level, maybe just enough to have access to the PM. I actually like a lot of what's in the campaign, but it's so uneven. The Kalyshi look great to me, and the mutants are interesting, but the convicts do nothing for me. That pattern repeats elsewhere.

It's plain fact that this is the worst closing weekend in Mantic's KS history, although the facts as to why are more opaque and will be the source of rumination at Mantic and interesting discussion here.

BUT Mantic did pull out of limbo today and push through a few stretch goals with a rising, albeit modest, total and backer number. I'm glad that there was no "meltdown" as I worried before, and I don't anticipate one at this point. Mantic's comments on the KS thread indicate that they do intend to address the alternate sculpts tomorrow, and I think Mantic realize that they have to deliver on what their front page graphics promise now - 16 MVPs in Rampage, 4 Giants, etc, and that they'll pace stretch goals accordingly to see that these things happen, although I don't currently see either Rampage or Frenzy getting anything significant beyond that.

I'm expecting an anemic win tomorrow in terms of Mantic's usual standards, but a win.







Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlexHolker wrote:
I hate Eclipse and Grak almost by definition.

The new Ada-Lorena flavour text is bad. The Ada-Lorena homeworld is literally fueled by the corpses of stupid people.

I don't care a fig for Eclipse or Grak either, but that last sentence of yours about the Ada-Lorena - deserved or not - is a gem.

Maybe people are also just burned out with this type of KS, which in my mind was pioneered in a big way by Reaper but turned into a business model by Mantic. After getting caught up in stuff like Zombicide and Sedition Wars, nowadays I'm much more conservative, I wanna see the value up front and not have to keep re-calculating what pledge level gets what stretch and how much of that will I keep vs sell-off.

I'm more likely to back projects like Arcadia or Mercs Recon, since they offer a few, clearly defined pledge levels with no fuss. Don't get me wrong I think both models DO provide value vs retail for the backers, its just that Mantic's is very exhausting for someone like me to keep up with =p

Personally I had to pull away from DBX, it was a combination of on a personal level not liking where the game ended up (was expecting more gang stuff) and the reasons mentioned above.

Exhausting is a good word for trying to keep up with the Mantic campaigns, maybe they'll improve on that in the future.

This also coincided with some other monster KS campaigns, though, and folks have had to choose.