I happen to agree that we are maybe releasing sets faster than would be ideal. Coming out with a bunch of pieces to fix glaring issues and craft the meta into decent shape, early on, was a good idea. Now that we appear to have gotten a meta that isn't RPS, isn't full of NPE squads, and that has options for every playstyle, I think we would be well-served to slow it down a little. Maybe do two sets every other year, one set every other year, something like that. Or maybe do one epic set every other year in lieu of a full set. I think that many people who have been involved with Scum and Villainy/Jedi vs. Sith would agree that a more deliberate approach to design and playtesting, as well as more time to do so, would have been a good thing. It's also getting harder to come up with new good ideas and new good people!
I'm not saying to put the brakes on, but reducing our "output" by 25% or so would not be a bad idea IMHO.
LESHIPPY wrote:
What I am getting at is that the "really good" players were not raveling like they are now. The Atlanta crew is a great example of this. I think they did 4 regionals last year and are doing 4 or 5 this year. They are good players and they must enjoy each others company to ride in a car as long as they do together.
You have no idea. Daniel recorded about 30 minutes of our conversation during the Jamestown trip last year and we're basically just cracking each other up nonstop. There's no way we would have driven 12 hours each way to the North Baltimore Suburb regional last year if we didn't have a lot of fun together.
One thing I was worried about last year was that people would start to get upset about ATL guys showing up. We drove to five regionals, won all of them, and took 16 of 20 top 4 spots (12 of 20 if you want to call Spry and David Team Carolinas). We almost always played diehard competitive squads, no one less than myself (even if Ricky's diehard squads usually looked like something he threw together on the way there). But that never happened. Everywhere we went people were friendly, gracious, cool to be around, and all-around fun. I'd like to think that they walked away thinking the same of us. I'm really grateful for that, because doing all of this wouldn't be any fun at all if no one wanted us around.
Anyway, I think the main effect traveling players has on the meta is to make it more hardcore, more competitive. Someone who drove 8 hours to your event isn't very likely to play something goofy, you know? Some people talk about "regional metas," which makes no sense to me at all. We're all on this website, reading about what won at other tournaments, trading thoughts about this piece or that squad, sharing ideas. It isn't about the "Atlanta meta" or the "Chicago meta" traveling to Owensboro or MI or Danforth and running up against whatever locals play. It's about whatever the best squads seem to be, that's what traveling players will bring.
And that's why people like me, Daniel, and Tim are throwing our arms up now. When we travel, we don't want to show up and get rolled. Right now, it's surprisingly hard to figure out how to make that not happen. If you come to a weekly game with something you think is neat and get blown out, oh well. If you spend a whole day and a bunch of gas money just to play minis, getting clownstomped really sucks.
Speaking of which, the Kokomo regional is starting to look freaking
stout.