New Force Org ETA?

[Morgan Vening]

I'm curious why the Force Org Charts are so delayed.

It was mentioned in early July that they existed.

It was mentioned in mid July that they were being reviewed.

It was mentioned in mid August that it would be held up because of GenCon.

It has been three weeks since GenCon, two Updates, and no mention.

This should NOT be a hard thing. This should NOT be a complicated thing. This should be at MOST, a couple of hours of work. The art/fonts/design/templates are already done.

Is it not perfect yet? That's actually a GOOD thing. Because unless it was and still is completely broken (at which point, why bring it up?), then giving the community something to debate, and letting them assist with the balancing of things, and encouraging discussion about RRT that isn't the delays on Wave 2 Quotes/Manufacturing, would be a GOOD THING.

It just seems like PB is once again letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Given that perfect balance is nearly impossible to accomplish (especially in a TTG where terrain/scenario are factors beyond the designer's oversight), just put what you've got out there, and as long as it's not completely broken, the debates could be interesting. And if it is STILL completely broken after 10+ weeks of sitting on a mostly developed (according to the first mention) protodocument, then it should never have been brought up in the first place.

PB seem to think only over the fence home runs have any value. Getting a couple singles and showing that you can do some of the small things right, might give some people confidence you're capable of doing the big things right too.

[wilycoyote]

Given the small cadre of RTT playtesters Palladium seem to have, it would make better sense to release even the draft copy into the community to check out. The wider audience may be more likley to pick out flaws - we all know wargamers love to push army lists to the limit and break good intentioned designers hearts.

So why not simply put out a rough draft now?

[Alpha 11]

Given the small cadre of RTT playtesters Palladium seem to have, it would make better sense to release even the draft copy into the community to check out. The wider audience may be more likley to pick out flaws - we all know wargamers love to push army lists to the limit and break good intentioned designers hearts.

So why not simply put out a rough draft now?

I'm all for it! And the conventional army stuff also. Even if they decided not to go that way for whatever reason, they could still put it out there for us as "unoffice". As in, we won't use it in tournaments, but you could use it for your own private games.

[Morgan Vening]

Another two weeks, another blank on this topic.

I have to assume that he's forgotten, because there's no other good reason as to why this is taking so long.

12 weeks since mention, 10 weeks since review, 6 weeks since hold-up for GenCon. 5 weeks since GenCon.

This was promised. This shouldn't be a big task. But it's looking more and more like Conventional Forces the PDF rulebook, the Wave 2 Stat Cards* or Wayne's Big Status of Everything.

* Yes, the Wave 2 stat cards, have been delivered, but it took an incredibly disproportionate amount of time to go from "in a few weeks", to actually being seen over a year after promised. Everything but WBSoE was promised in the second part of the double sized Update in early June 2015, and the WBSoE was a month later. The Wave 2 stat cards were announced in September of 2016. For something that appears to have been completed for the most part in 2014 (that's what the copyright date says), that's just ridiculous.

[wizardofthenorth]

To summarize the update, it has taken Palladium two weeks to tell the base modeler to "make'm bit thicker".

And it will take the modeller 2-4 weeks to do what is a 2 minute job.

And that is about it.

[wilycoyote]

Ah but do not forget this will only be done, when said modeller gets a break in his schedule - I suggest this is the sam ebloke who is working on the Rifts BG.

However, in all honestly tthese are resin pieces shown in therir rendered form over three years ago, simple question why have these not already been cast and sent out - for all intensive purposes this will have bee separate to WAve 1 plastics and so should have been released at that time.

[Morgan Vening]

Ah but do not forget this will only be done, when said modeller gets a break in his schedule - I suggest this is the sam ebloke who is working on the Rifts BG.

However, in all honestly tthese are resin pieces shown in therir rendered form over three years ago, simple question why have these not already been cast and sent out - for all intensive purposes this will have bee separate to WAve 1 plastics and so should have been released at that time.

Oh, absolutely. Given that Wave 1 was delayed 9 months (and even initially it was only supposed to be 4-5, there's literally zero reason why they couldn't have been included in Wave 1. And if not all of it, then at least the bases, so people wouldn't have to choose between not assembling, and having to rebase.

And that's basically my point regarding the Force Orgs (and Rulebook PDF and Conv Forces and etc.). These are relatively simple projects that should be able to be accomplished in a relatively short time. When it blows out the time it SHOULD take, in an exponential factor (a couple hours at most, as it was "put together but not released, is currently at what 87 days?), it reinforces the notion that PB just don't care about or prioritize this project at all.

Show that you're capable of doing the big things, by doing the small things. Why should people believe that PB can deliver on Wave 2, if they can't even put out a couple of pages of Force Orgs, or PDF parts of their rulebook, or put out a beta version of the Conventional Vehicles, all initially promised two years ago.

Sure, they did the paper miniatures, and after more than a year, put up the Wave 2 cards. But for a post that literally says "We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead", having the list be...

Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces (took 54 weeks to start, and took several months to conclude).
Force Organization Charts. (108 weeks and counting)
Stats for Conventional Combat Vehicles (pre-Robotech). (108 weeks and counting)
Expanded rules, errata, and clarifications. (one expanded errata/clarification after 6 weeks, nothing since)
A free set of basic rules and paper miniatures will be made available online. (the first 108 weeks and counting, the second took 55)
More photos of painted minis. (there's been a few, but to argue this has yet been accomplished would be generous)
And we’ll try to do more updates (took 95 weeks to start).

When most people are told "in the weeks ahead", they're not thinking that'd be in the mid to high double figures, let alone hitting triple. Taking two years to get two of seven points done, and three half done, is NOT showing people their faith is being rewarded. None of these should have taken more than a week of work apiece. Few would have taken more than a day of dedicated work.

But again, PB seem to only be wanting to hit not just a home run, but a record breaking "out of the park and into the next one" home run. When a couple of consistent singles and doubles might get them on the board, instead of constantly striking out.

[wilycoyote]

I fully concur with this.

Okay wave 2 is the biggy, given its relative size and complexity to everything else that PB do, it is somewhat surprising (probably should say imcredulous) that someone was not given a full time role to supervise and see this through - given the suggestion that everything was in place at the end of wave one it should have been a case of marking off the checkpoimts?

As for resins, force organisations etc,yes these are smaller tasks that should have been easily done and dusted with especially as we are talking four plus years now. Even the trickle of new stuff, organisations, new scenarios, even modelling tips could have retained some sense that PB cared about this project and kept some people in the nascent community. Ignoring even these small easy tasks, appears to signal total apathy, especially given the weekly blurb about how much work was being done for Rifts in one form or another - it also signals potential issues to expand on any future miniatures/boardgames PB may want to develop.

Strangely enough, if PB had been willing to engage with the community back in 2013 an awful lot of this material would have been written and playtested for them - evidence Jaymz and Mike's efforts - but sadly they only seem to trust a very tight circle who seem more rpg than miniatures orientated - a strong argument would suggest that was why the original rules by ND were ditched to the current ones, which a more aligned to the rpg)

Can this change? Sure it can but it needs a real seed change from PB's management team. Which is simply stop fannying around, sit down and get a plan and put a shift in

[LtPebbles]

Show that you're capable of doing the big things, by doing the small things. Why should people believe that PB can deliver on Wave 2, if they can't even put out a couple of pages of Force Orgs, or PDF parts of their rulebook, or put out a beta version of the Conventional Vehicles, all initially promised two years ago.

Well said, Morgan. Well said.

I completely agree with you, especially the bold part. If PB can't deliver the low hanging fruit after all this time, than why on earth should we expect them to be able to deliver the whole pie.

[Almaric]

A friend of mine offered me the game he pre-ordered on PB store. I purchased every official expansion available to complete the base game.
If only wave 2 expansions were available, i would be happy to purchase everything to expand the base game, but nothing ...
I try to play as often as possible but without FPA, MPA, super or armored valk the interest in the game is fading.

What I can not understand is the lack of normal commercial support from PB about this game to have customer purchase it .
Doing the small things that Morgan is refering to, could be a signal of good faith from PB.
Conventional vehicles rules, small scenario books, tournament report with photos, painted minatures are not a big investment (money) and could show some interest from PB.
But I don't expect much from them on this game.

[jaymz]

You guys realize the Force Org is just a bloody chart that has all the squadron/squad/special types on it with their official costs right?

IT DOES NOT NEED PLAY TESTING. IT's. A. CHART. It's purpose is to speed up force building nothing more. Much like the Charts at the back of the Army Indices for WH40k where all your points costs are listed in one place.

Furthermore Michael Arnold gave them one YEARS ago. The only thing they MIGHT have to do is change the images he used to be sure they are legal to be used. That's it.

Mind you they haven't been able to put out conventional forces rules, which are finished and not in need of "editing" as that was done already as well and Wayne has had it since mid-ish July 2015.

Or a the PDF of the rules which would be an indexed version of what all play testers already have IN PDF format.

Hell they couldn't even bother to do bundle packs for the RRT cards on DTRPG....you have to literally download every single card (something like 120+ cards total) individually. I know because I bloody well did it to put them over on the RRT Wiki I made. I archived each faction into a zip file for easier acquisition.

This thing has been a case study on how to not do any number of things and just shows how SO far behind the industry they are that it is not even funny anymore.

[Morgan Vening]

Fully aware of what the Force Org is. That's why I'm surprised (but not shocked) that it's taken them so long to do it.

Worst possible case, there might be some options or points costs that are slightly changed over official lists to capture a specific feel for a specific force style, like if beyond the 3 official ones, they do a UEDF one that has the Vermillion Squadron, but has some other limitations, or a Zentradi Miriya one that disallows MPA completely, but has some other benefits.

In which case you put up the three official ones, which should take no more than an hour for someone familiar with the software they used to make the cards, and then you put up playtest ones for the other ones, and let backers and late entrants into the game discuss what they think work and doesn't work. Encouraging discourse about something that is NOT the current state of the Kickstarter.

That it's been literally 3 months since these should have been ready, basically proves my point about not trusting them to do the big things if they can't do the small ones. There's simply no good reason, if RRT is a priority, why this hasn't been done months ago.

[Morgan Vening]

So the Force Orgs are finally up. And meh.

Firstly, I couldn't give a crap about the aesthetics, so it not being polished isn't a determinant factor either way for me. However, they've had 3.5+ months to work on this, and they obviously didn't put any effort into the visuals. So let's check the mechanicals.

I've just done a comparison of this new revision that took months to check for gameplay/balance issues, with the 3+ year old cards now available through the DriveThru page. It's possible I may have missed some things, but I did check carefully. It took about an hour to cross check (though admittedly, I only checked from, not to, so if there's options in the cards not represented on the ForceOrg, I've missed it), so the writing of this shouldn't have taken more than 3-4h, from scratch, let alone the condition it was in which Scott first became aware of it.

UEDF Destroid Core
Command Destroid is an Upgrade rather than a Special.

UEDF Valkyrie Core
Jotun Squadron, +10pts
YF-4 Squadron +5pts
Jotun Support Squad +5pts
VF-1R is an Upgrade instead of a Support Card
Long Range Missiles, Ammo 8 to 6, equivalent ~25% price drops (already errated, I believe?)
YF-4 Medium Missiles, appears to be a mistaken cut and paste of Valk Gravity Bombs.

Zentradi Elite
Nousjadeul-Ger Squad Flechette Cannon Upgrade -3pts (Discount only applies to Elite squad, Regult Squad still pay 23pts)
Nousgarma-Ger Special Upgrades prorated (the original 1 unit Special card paid as much for the upgrades as the 3 unit Core card)

Zentradi Regult
Allow Regult/HInf/LInf Squads to take Veteran, but don't provide cost (10/5/5 on 2014 versions).
Infantry Officer Upgrade for 10pts, or 5pts as a Special.

Malcontent Aerial
VF-1R is now an Upgrade instead of a Support Card

Malcontent Ground
Main Battle Squadron allowed GU-11 Upgrade, but Upgrade now only allowed for Spartans (assume copypaste error)
Zentradi Assault Squadron GU-11 Upgrade error as above
Zentradi Assault Squadron Flechette Cannon Upgrade +5pts
Zentradi Infantry Officer Special appears pointless (as you can get it at the same price as a Core or Support Upgrade)

So, got to say I'm not impressed. Other than Jotuns and YF-4's costing slightly more, and a couple of points fixes (but many more added errors), the only thing that really counts is command options (and VF-R's) now being upgrades instead of Special (or Support) cards. It's a decent change, but that's not a significant enough shakeup to warrant the delay, as for the most part, this is just a transcription of the already existing cards, and hence the "gameplay/balance" argument used several times as an excuse, falls flat.

So, that leaves ease of use, and that's where it all falls apart for me. I don't hate the use of the icons (though I'd prefer a short text description instead, but the costs should be next to them. Kind of defeats the purpose of having to cross-reference stuff to figure out costs (as the costs of each upgrade is dependent on the number of applicable units in the formation. ie, Malcontent Improvised Bombs can cost 12, 10, 8, 5 or 2pts, depending on the card it's being purchased for. You shouldn't have to flip between pages to find the cost of a single formation. That's the whole purpose of a Force Org.

Honestly, with the "gameplay/balance" excuses, I expected a significant shakeup, or alternate army compositions, or something. Apparently, "more fool me", because in hindsight, I shouldn't have expected much more than the bare minimum. And the bare minimum, 3+ months later than it should have been, is what we got. As I said in the prior post, if they'd done Force Orgs for different variants that shook up the game, then there might be something to it.

But this? I could have done it myself, in a couple hours, using the official cards, and not have had it sit in limbo for 3 months.