How to grow 9th Age - Thoughts of a 20+ years competitive gamer

Aside from that, i have to say, the scene near me really pulled out of a nose dive. My personal gaming group is basically restored, and the tournament scene went from non existant, to pretty kickin. So it's not like it can't happen. A buddy and I hauled back an old WHFB player, and a pure new blood, by painting and modelling while we hung around with them. It's contagious. They would be like: "What do you have there?" and we would be like: "ohhhhhhhhh nothing........justthisnewarmy I'mworkingoncuz Ifoundagreatdealonline, andIlikethewaythenewWarriors lookand checkoutthiscoolthingifoundtobemyAncientabitpricybuthowsweetdoeshelook. Hey pass the blue. They didn't stand a chance

Ok@mi wrote:

Also, if possible...

4) Stop tweaking the army books once they hit Legendary phase. The meta will shift no matter what, all this "one point here, ten points there" makes any printing futile. If you still want to tweak legendary books, put the lists OUTSIDE.

I agree.
Personally, I think that future points updates should be done as an optional, supplementary "tournament update", so that those people who just want a genuinely frozen (not half frozen) game can have it, and can print things that are not invalidated, and those who want to chase the meta can still choose to do so.

I don't see the point of a "half freeze" myself, but then it seems some people on this very forum disagree so... *shrug*

Ok@mi wrote:

I would like just three things, to make my life spreading the hobby 100 times easier:

1) The website.
2) The legendary edition rulebook (I'll print copies myself).
3) Fluff.

Also, if possible...

4) Stop tweaking the army books once they hit Legendary phase. The meta will shift no matter what, all this "one point here, ten points there" makes any printing futile. If you still want to tweak legendary books, put the lists OUTSIDE.

Regarding what the QS is or isn't, of if there are tons of fluff released or not... try to think the other way around: if people who stalk the forums as often as some of the members here don't have the slightest idea of what you're selling/advertising/promoting, then I might very well dare to say that you need better marketing tools.

First of all nobody said we have found the perfect marketing strategy for T9A. We're not even close to it. But that's in my opinion not that easy, since we are a volunteers project which lacks in ressources to pay advertising and so on. All we can do is ask pur community to spread the word and work on social media. Additionally we try to help our community to make their lifes easier in this regard with products like the QS or the new website.

At point 4: I think the minor tweaks are very important not only to improve balancing, but the shift meta from time to time a bit (unintentionally). This is what makes up the half of the fun - building new lists.

And to be honest, how many of us grab their printed books to build lists?

Open a Patreon (an official one, not someone sneaking money out of us) to pay for those pesky ads and whatever might be needed that needs professionals (like website maintenance, or whatever...).

Point 4: every time a newbie needs to get an army to play with and ends up having to adjust anything half-way to go to that awesome tournament that we have in Asturias (shameless plug) because of 10 points shifting the goddamn meta, I'll let you know how "fresh" the game feels.

Lich King wrote:

At point 4: I think the minor tweaks are very important not only to improve balancing, but the shift meta from time to time a bit (unintentionally). This is what makes up the half of the fun - building new lists.
What you say is true... for some people. Which is why it should be a supplementary product, for those unsatisfied with balance in the printed books, or who want to shake up the meta for the sake of it.




And to be honest, how many of us grab their printed books to build lists?
Me!
Who doesn't?

Are you all so lazy you use these app things?
No wonder you all write rubbish lists ... you need to sit down with pen and paper and really explore a book to get a feel for list writing.

To be fair, I am a bit of a Luddite. I only stopped using stone tablets for my army lists because they were too heavy to take to tournaments.

Ok@mi wrote:

Point 4: every time a newbie needs to get an army to play with and ends up having to adjust anything half-way to go to that awesome tournament that we have in Asturias (shameless plug) because of 10 points shifting the goddamn meta, I'll let you know how "fresh" the game feels.

Agreed. Or someone who doesn't play very often having to change their list.

DanT wrote:

Ok@mi wrote:

Also, if possible...

4) Stop tweaking the army books once they hit Legendary phase. The meta will shift no matter what, all this "one point here, ten points there" makes any printing futile. If you still want to tweak legendary books, put the lists OUTSIDE.

I agree.Personally, I think that future points updates should be done as an optional, supplementary "tournament update", so that those people who just want a genuinely frozen (not half frozen) game can have it, and can print things that are not invalidated, and those who want to chase the meta can still choose to do so.

I don't see the point of a "half freeze" myself, but then it seems some people on this very forum disagree so... *shrug*

Grim. The point changes only happen once a year.

If its a printing issue, a version of books can be structured in a similar way to the RB & arcane compendium, where all the entries are cost-less, and there are 2-3 pages of summaries with costs which can be printed individually during an update.

Freezing the books semi permanently is a double edged sword. Personally, I myself, and a couple of my friends, enjoy the constant changes and tweaks. Seeing the same lists over and over can get pretty tiresome. I think it's dynamic nature is an advantage this game has over other game systems. Besides: having your book frozen is fine, if you personally enjoy the state it is in. If you don't.......yeah.

I don't know how it is in different subforums but since freeze VS is rater dead. Despite attempts of topicomancy and community engagement. Freeze kills engagement.

Ok@mi wrote:

Open a Patreon (an official one, not someone sneaking money out of us) to pay for those pesky ads and whatever might be needed that needs professionals (like website maintenance, or whatever...).

Amen! This could also be used to support book publishing, companies releasing Ninth Age army/starter packs and so on.

Fnarrr wrote:

Grim. The point changes only happen once a year.
If its a printing issue, a version of books can be structured in a similar way to the RB & arcane compendium, where all the entries are cost-less, and there are 2-3 pages of summaries with costs which can be printed individually during an update.

I hate the splitting of costs like this.
The removal of points from printed cards is part of why I don't play x-wing 2.0.
And it doesn't solve the problems for people who play rarely or who put a lot of care into modelling/painting a list as a long term project (I know you don't understand those people Hristo, but they do exist ).

JimMorr wrote:

I don't know how it is in different subforums but since freeze VS is rater dead. Despite attempts of topicomancy and community engagement. Freeze kills engagement.

That's because people have got used to engaging=lobbying for changes.
There are plenty of ways for engagement in other ways, and I've been actively saying the forum should go this way.
Forums saw plenty of activity even when GW made no pretence of listening to them.
The freeze has resulted in growth in multiple communities.

DanT wrote:

I hate the splitting of costs like this.
The removal of points from printed cards is part of why I don't play x-wing 2.0.
And it doesn't solve the problems for people who play rarely or who put a lot of care into modelling/painting a list as a long term project (I know you don't understand those people Hristo, but they do exist )

I totally do! But their lists are unlikely to get flat out invalidated by point costs; especially as we are talking about people who are hardly min-maxing. Unless I'm misunderstanding the scope of the annual point tweaks, this would result in very minor changes to their army, a couple of R&F models to add or remove.

We have talked about this before in other threads - an annual point change is already a compromise solution between those who want a complete freeze, and those who want rapid-fire point AND design changes. A complete freeze will alienate the latter as much as overhauls at beta-book rates for everything will alienate the former; and creating a "tournament point pack" splits the community which is bad times.

The cost splits aren't great, but are a potential way of addressing a static medium (fwiw, not advocating for changing this, just for creating a version of the ABs which is formatted this way). Its a separate issue to the above.

Fnarrr wrote:

... and creating a "tournament point pack" splits the community which is bad times.

I don't buy this.
People who don't play tournaments get what they want.
People who play tournaments get what they want.
People who are new to the tournaments will see clearly in the tournament pack the statement "we are using the tournament supplement points update (or whatever)", so zero ambiguity.

DanT wrote:

That's because people have got used to engaging=lobbying for changes.
There are plenty of ways for engagement in other ways, and I've been actively saying the forum should go this way.

Not only, in fact OP discussions were quite rare. Not random enough, sure. Not swarm enough, of course. But hardly 'not strong enough'.

The discussion have been on development and style of VS rather than how to boost our wheels and daemons even more. "What we would like VS to be". But with 'no changes until Legendary, ETA 24-36 months' no one has heart to continue the discussion.

JimMorr wrote:

DanT wrote:

That's because people have got used to engaging=lobbying for changes.
There are plenty of ways for engagement in other ways, and I've been actively saying the forum should go this way.

Not only, in fact OP discussions were quite rare. Not random enough, sure. Not swarm enough, of course. But hardly 'not strong enough'.
The discussion have been on development and style of VS rather than how to boost our wheels and daemons even more. "What we would like VS to be". But with 'no changes until Legendary, ETA 24-36 months' no one has heart to continue the discussion.

Right, but my point is that those conversations were not common on forums for legacy games, but still the forums had traffic.
People have just got used to using t9a forums for that purpose.
That's why I'm trying to encourage hobby blogs, battle reports, tactics articles... etc etc.
That is how to get forum traffic, not un-freezing the rules.

Except whenever I bring up why I don't like the current Vermin swarm and post homebrew or make suggestions, I get told that in the next two years at least, nothing will be done on Vermin.

DanT wrote:

That's why I'm trying to encourage hobby blogs, battle reports, tactics articles... etc etc.

I am afraid we suffer from 'I've been there, I've seen it all'. Mature players..

JimMorr wrote:

Porw wrote:

What for? I don't want to read other 20 pages & play something that plays exactly like... I'm playing t9A.

I believe it is important statement to take into consideration. Even if somewhat rough one. If you were spending resources to create a new game you could create a game that would offer a new experience for existing players. The whole marketing on QS as 'subgame for beginners' makes it uninteresting for existing players.

The whole issue is that the management has defined QS as a "separate" game and that the whole project structure is defined around QS being treated as autark.
IMO that not only is a big mistake but also does not sell the truth to current and new players.

>95% (maybe even >99%) of QS is NO DIFFERENT ruleset. It's a REDUCED ruleset.
Changing rules or just leaving rules out is a HUGE difference.
The highest premise for the QS Task Team is NOT to change rules but only remove/reduce rules.
There are few exceptions which have been done with a reason and only after more or less long discussions.

Honestly, most very complex board games or digital games start with easy missions or tutorials adding/unlocking more options and rules from level to level. It's not just about having smaller battles but also having less rules.
E.g. the QS advanced rules will have about half of the special rules that FB has...BUT hardly any of the rules are somehow changed.

So the step from FB to QS hardly is about learning a different game, BUT it's about knowing what does not exist in QS.

So all in all, learning rules from complex to simple of course can be tricky, while the other way round IMO thats no problem at all and just normal for all kind of complex games.

JimMorr wrote:

DanT wrote:

That's why I'm trying to encourage hobby blogs, battle reports, tactics articles... etc etc.

I am afraid we suffer from 'I've been there, I've seen it all'. Mature players..

My battle report threads seem to be liked.
And some of the hobby blogs on this forum are off the chart.
I think in large part the problems are
(A) People like complaining.
(B) The tone/nature of how some complain has driven others away from the forum (I know of instances of this personally).

DJWoodelf wrote:

The whole issue is that the management has defined QS as a "separate" game and that the whole project structure is defined around QS being treated as autark.
IMO that not only is a big mistake but also does not sell the truth to current and new players.

Either you are making a new game, designed on purpose to play differently and address different needs. Or you create 'How to play guide'. Now it seems you are trying to be just a little bit pregnant... Possibly 'selling strategy' is to blame.

ML_916 wrote:

If it plays exactly like T9A, maybe the reading of those extra pages aren't for you as a veteran but instead for a newbie to quickly get up to speed, but leave room for added complexities/depth for the full rules?
Depending on how similar the rules are the QS should just require a quick look at the army sheets for a veteran player to see which extra layers of complexities have been shaved off for a particular unit and then start playing.

...

I assume that veteran players can play QS by just having the army sheet and a quick reference sheet....as hardly any rule is different in QS.
just stick to the rule: "what is not mentioned/listed does not exist".

In addition there could be a document which lists all rules that are DIFFERENT in QS.
This doc shouldnt be long.
example: the way how characters do join and leave units is different.