Exactly. If you don’t find value for money, spend your funds elsewhere. And there’s no “right” or “wrong” answer here, just what we each have as “our” answer. No one’s going to convince anyone else. It’s the Internet. That’s not how it works. However, if the same clutch of folks are going to keep complaining ad nauseum about a project they don’t seem to want to buy, or as cover for older grudges, other folks are going to keep offering a differing opinion.
The only question I'm personally asking is if the price/content/fun ratio will be right for me. I judge every game on its own merits, without comparing with others. And it works for me so far. If anyone else approches this differently I have no problem with that. I'll probably get Defiance because 1) I don't have a dungeon crawler in my collection, might as well get this one, 2) I'm a SEF player, so duh, and 3) It might be another way of drawing people into Infinity in general, giving me more options as a Warcor. The price point is still under what I'd pay for the separate minis, I'll have fun playing the game itself, so why should I complain? There's a good point about CB not making much of an effort to market Defiance to actual board game players, though. BGG and other portals, Essen... Hey, new Sakiel, Tohaa not dead yet ;) On a side note: one complain I have is that CB apparently has problems with making exciting character profiles. All the Defiance ones we've seen so far are pretty bland, with either very minor changes compared to their base unit, or simply not having any wow factor. And characters are actually the best place to shake the design up a bit, giving them some personality, flair, and unique options without the risk of making them too accessible or common.
Well, considering that actual board gamers are not target audience for this, kinda makes sense, when you think about it.
Well, with Defiance characters in particular, it’s a bit of a Catch-22. Too exciting and, “why are these minis locked in a KS?!?!?”, too bland... no *good* answer.
Lookig at new Jazz body, I must say I would like to see more hackers using both hands for hacking, rather than just blessing their enemies with one hand Also aleph hero is awesome. Luckily our local community will split one Defiance box, so I might be able to lay my hands on some of those models.
A lot's been said here already. I'll just reiterate my point that if CB is serious about getting the board game set to buy in, they need to cough up more mission/tile content and less "hey, buy our existing range of minis so you don't have to play with tokens" content. Kickstarters, even those by established companies, can stall out and go south when desirable stretch goals don't appear attainable and the value isn't apparent to backers--CMON's recent experience with Trudvang springs immediately to mind (though they salvaged that by switching from funding-based stretch goals to daily stretch goal reveals). At the end of the day, I think most of us want this KS to do really well so that we can get the most new content out of it, and that's what's driving the complaints above (both those that are phrased constructively, and those that are more spirited). Will Defiance fund regardless because there are enough Infinity players who'll back it as an N3 expansion? Sure. Is that good enough? I say no.
Getting the wider boardgaming set into Defiance might be to big an ask since you would be trying to adapt what is the square peg of a wargame quality product into the round hole of a market that prefers quantity over general quality. Defiance is focused on a specific demographic of the gaming scene and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm looking for the best product they can produce that fits this niche not something they have to cut any corners with to appeal to a wider and notoriously fickle market.
Looks at KDM which targets niche audience, yet got +12mil on ks, and who knows how much more millions after it opened PM few times...
I definitely wouldn't expect CB to go all in on trying for a massive boardgame breakthrough here, they don't have CMON's production methods to provide 8,000 minis in a box, the traditionalists arent going to embrace metal minis over wooden cubes. But Aristeia seems to have been acknowledged as a good game, and not just by Infinity wargame players, there's a segment of the boardgame market you could seek to tempt with a really great game that also has a small number of great miniatures. Those are extra sales, and those minis sitting on shelf are a temptation to dip a toe into wargaming, potentially expanding CB's market. I'll voice a different criticism than that of several others here in terms of stretch goals... I wasn't expecting a massive cascade of new miniatures, CB's casting rate has limits and once they chose in-house metal over plastic that became an obvious cap on what they'd be able to offer. Its the small number of tiles that is definitely disappointing to me. 16, double-sided isn't a small number, sure, but we seem to have seen Defiance tiles, Paradiso tiles, maybe Combined Army ship/station tiles, dividing 32 sides between 3+ options means each one doesnt have too many possibilities. Back in the ancient mists of time, I was a big fan of Games Workshop releasing a White Dwarf issue with Warhammer Quest content... a board tile, a couple of related cards, a small expansion of the dungeon crawler's possibilities. Having seen how CB supports Aristeia, with regular releases of new Aristos+cards or new card decks, I'll admit I'd been hoping to see a little bit of that for Defiance... extra 'mission packs' with board tiles, cards, maybe a miniature. Not seeing any of that sort of content in the stretch goals, and with it seeming the game is going to just be a Kickstarter release not a general one, that seems less and less likely.
I am mostly with you here. But i will get Defiance because 1) its a Sci Fi Dungeon Crawler, there arent much in the market yet and im not much of a heroic fantasy guy, 2) I only got MAF for our EI Overlord so usefull expansion into other EI stuff 3) not o Warcor but will use it to get more people and maybe their girlfriend into Infintiy. And CB heard me! Translucent Dice is something i already wanted for Aristeia! So i will get at least 4 sets of them.
Im honestly not hoping for tons of free stuff. But would like some paid expansion add ons with more heroes.
I agree completely, if there were more stretch goals with actual content I would be fine with paying for them
My people are pledging as they like, yet they nag about underwhelming stretchgoals; I know you guys are doing a great job, and its awesome - but couldn't we do it better? It feels like many stretchgoals are urgently made to meet the need, resulting disappointment among the backers. :(
