Lyracian wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:28 pm
I played a lot of Magic The Gathering over the years and I think they are currently on an 18 month rotation. All games companies need us to buy stuff so they can make money. With your comparison all your 'war bands' i.e. teams are still playable. It is just there special connect which has been removed. Dwarves/Skaven might have been the first to get an update but I doubt they will be the only ones.
As for most of the stuff you are talking about (Wizard, balls, weather, cup, kick-off) who actually uses them? Possibly the Wizard, I have no idea what other teams got. The rest of it is just fluff that is not legal in any League or Tournament I have seen. It might get used in a fun game; as could the old Spike! magazines.
That only leaves Stars and Inducements. There were some nice additions but far too many for my liking. The mix we have could be a little better but I much prefer the new method of giving each team a special rule that is associated with Stars. Very easy to add a new "Bad Lands Brawl" star or "Elven League" star. They do not need to make changes to any older team then.
You either have a static game with no releases (which we had for years) or a dynamic game with regular updates and releases. At least this way they might release something I will buy.
If nobody uses the extra stuff, why do GW create so much of it and sell it in cards, magazines, books and even apps? And even if nobody uses it, the 'unused' still got disparity between teams. If team a plays against team b, team a has loads of tricks and things to do in the previous edition, but nothing in the current, and vice versa for team b. Never an edition where both teams can bring the same amount or types of components to the game.
The game loses great value to me when rules are dictated by release schedule for plastic. Or random re-releases like the skaven/dwarf pitch.
To your comment on who uses it, well I do. Match Event, special balls, referees, pitches, weathers, kick-offs... I paid for it, why wouldn't I use it? A lot of it is very fun. How is a snotling ball suit not fun? Why can only 1 kick-off table ever be used, and all the rest cannot? Why play the same weather table every time? I like to try new stuff, play with tables I haven't memorized, be surprised once in a while. If I am the only one, why then does GW dissapoint me so much? Seems like I'm the only one they're trying to please?
For your comment on the star players shake-up, redistribution and trim, that's quite subjective. I prefer to comment on the more objective parts, like we went from something like 109 to 28. That's a great loss, regardless of how they're changed. And some of those few that survived are also severly dumbed down like the White Dwarf & Black Gobbo who lost all their unique rules. And can both be taken to play at the same time as team mates by Chorfs by the way. It's pretty much the same across the board, from 10 wizards to 2. I could go on...