Box Set

[Fear Factory]

Sort of how I play my home games now.

Straight up AS movement on Hexs, so a Jenner JR7-A is a 7 hex move/5 hex jump. Don't pay for tunring, just streamlines the game.

Attack is calculated as per AS rules too:

MOVE = +0
Stand Still = -1
Jump = +2

Can run for Running movement on a Standard Record sheet, but no Attack/spotting/etc.

Does wonders to speed the game up

Seemed like it would.  I might give it a shot if I pick up classic again.

Weapons are kept as is on the record sheet.

Also, the BIGGEST reason to keep hex range/movement as strictly hexes and not mix the two, I play on a 1.75" hex mat (to match HeroScape tiles), to have to convert them to some arbitrary measuring stick...that's just silly.

And last I checked, no one in my group had difficulty counting from 1 to 23  O0

I have no problem counting either...  maybe we're misunderstood here.  I was thinking of less to count.

Example (intro box):

Short Range Weapons (1-3 hexes)
Machine Gun
Flamer
Small Laser


Medium Range Weapons (4-15 hexes)
Medium Laser
Large Laser
SRM's
Autocannon 10
Autocannon 20

Long Range Weapons (16-21 hexes)
LRM's (6 hex minimum)
Autocannon 2 (3 hex minimum)
Autocannon 5 (2 hex minimum)
PPC (3 hex minimum)

You're still counting hexes, just not as much.

[cavingjan]

I would hope the movement mods work. You are only dropping the run mod and essentially using a base 3 instead of base 4 gunnery. Any game with lower gunneries tend to go quicker.

[NeonKnight]

I would hope the movement mods work. You are only dropping the run mod and essentially using a base 3 instead of base 4 gunnery. Any game with lower gunneries tend to go quicker.

Well, been doing it this way over a year, and no major concerns.

[UrQuanKzinti]

Kit's answer, which I suspect you misunderstood, is pretty accurate. I would have said:

What leads you to believe I misunderstood an answer that I did not reply to?

If you find any of the above unclear, let me know.

Thanks. It's was never unclear, I just find it odd that the worst selling part of this game is the actual board-game and the boards used to play it. 

[cavingjan]

More people are interested in the universe and story than playing the board game. The novel line was very popular.

[worktroll]

Case in point. No-one's said they're the worst selling. They are expensive up-front to produce, and aren't being sold at highly profitable margins in order to make them affordable to new players.

Case in point: Kit answered "plot books", you assumed he was talking about the class of plot books taken collectively, where that wasn't what was meant. If you

[cavingjan]

Well, been doing it this way over a year, and no major concerns.

I would expect it to. It isn't a huge change.

[UrQuanKzinti]

Case in point. No-one's said they're the worst selling. They are expensive up-front to produce, and aren't being sold at highly profitable margins in order to make them affordable to new players.

You just said "Practical answer - just because something sells out over three years doesn't make that successful."

You also said: "3) Hex packs weren't profitable before; is there strong reason to suspect this would change?"

And earlier "How many hours go into the whole process from "Hey, let's do maps!" through to the very end? How many people touch it? And what happens if only around 600 sell, and the rest go into the 'bargain bucket' spiral?

Is a product which was "unprofitable" not one of the worst sellers? What sells worse than a product you lose money on? (as Kit claimed of Map Packs)
And to be clear, I have been talking about both the boxset and map/hex packs for the last four-five posts.

Case in point: Kit answered "plot books", you assumed he was talking about the class of plot books taken collectively, where that wasn't what was meant. If you

No I didn't. That response you are referring to was to Maingunnery, not Kit. 
Maingunnery compared players buying a boxset to then going on to buy "TROs":

"When one becomes a fan they keep buying TROs, but not box sets. If one sells a lot of box sets but not a lot of followup products then something has gone wrong. So in an ideal situation the book portion would be greater, even after removing old fans from the equation. "

And it's quite clear here that he's talking about multiple different TROs, not players purchasing the same TRO multiple times. Whereas there's only one boxset.


If something's still not clear, let me know.

[nckestrel]

Sales is user of units sold.  It does mean profitable.  They are separate measurements.

[Cubby]

I need to learn to stop reading these threads before going to work on BT things.

[Talen5000]

Mmm... I have been thinking about the concept of a minimalist box set and
I am getting the thought that, the rules and maps would determine the minimal box size. Am I wrong?

I wouldn't think so. It would be more the size of tne mapsheets and boards than the rules though.

I still think an Introductory Box Set is a good idea....but in todays market, its going to be competing with other wargames. That implies a certain level of quality.

Hardback mapsheets for one. A certain number of minis...I like the idea of 8 IS and 5 Clan but you can get away with 8, or even 4. A universe guide....a scenario book....tokens which could be cardboard but probably better if they were plastic and 3D....re ord sheets...lookup tables for each player

And a ruleset designed to strip out at least some of the complexity and detail in favour of speeding up gameplay....although this aspect would argue for more minis and larger battles. The more lethal a game is, the more units you need to have to avoid lucky wins and keep tne game going for a full session.

A minimalist approach still requires quite a lot to be included.

With reference to the stick....I don't think it matters if its creating a "third set of rules" as some would say. There is nothing to say Alpha Strike isn't a better iteration of the game and more suitable for a startet set. There's no reason its rules couldn't be used in conjunction with a mapsheet, no reason the main BT rules couldn't be described as "advanced" duelling rules.

A Starter or Introductory Set needs to appeal to todays audience.

That means it can't be as complex as it could be....that certain elements which bog down the game should be streamlined, at least for Starter rules.  If there is a gameplay element...such as the stick...which can be added to speed up or simplidy gameplay, then it should be considered ....

And considered without worrying too much about how it fits in with the traditional advanced rulesets. No...you don't want the rules to diverge too much, but mixing and matching the best elements of the games different rulesets isn't necessarily bad. A certain level of abstraction can be good for a starter game

[Maingunnery]

Getting a maximum amount of playing value out of a certain amount of Money/Size/Volume does seem like a complex challenge.

[worktroll]

Is a product which was "unprofitable" not one of the worst sellers? What sells worse than a product you lose money on? (as Kit claimed of Map Packs)
And to be clear, I have been talking about both the boxset and map/hex packs for the last four-five posts.

The time taken to recoup the investment is as important as making a profit. if you can turn $20K into $30K in 6 months, you can potentially turn $30K into $45K in another 6 months, and end up more than doubling your money in a year.

If - analagous to Leviathans, and using imaginary numbers - you spend $100K up front, and it takes two or more years to realise sales, and you only make $120K back at the end of it even though every box sold, you've had a number of penalties:

1) You only made $20K margin over a two-year period
2) You were unable to do anything else with that money for two years
3) Effectively, you'd have been better off investing in high-end Lego kits

There's good reason why CGL has moved away from big, intricate box games and concentrated on lots of smaller, fast-returning projects.

So yes, if your product investment doesn't produce sufficient ROI in realistic timeframes, this is as much a problem as a product which doesn't sell.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but the real world often is.

[Dubble_g]

Make Total Warfare and maybe the Techmanual the core rule book.  None of the others are needed.  The line will not advance technologically.

The Core battletech line should stay static.  It shouldn't advance per say.  The plot books and historicals can advance the line like an adventure.

Battletech has basically been marketed the same way for 30 years now.  If we are not willing to revamp the game, then we have to at least revamp the way it is marketed to the customer.

Pretty much agree with all of this. It echoes a lot of what I've been saying upthread. Let's face it, there's a lot of bloat in the IP that has come with the kitchen sink approach to rules, designs and factions.

Reboot the timeline, set to 3025 or 3050 or whenever. Provide clearly differentiated factions. If it's IS vs Clan, push that prominently: don't get bogged down in describing 50 different factions right off the bat. Normal folks vs super-soldiers. Cunning vs "honorable" combat. Give players a hook to get them involved.

I know a lot of people enjoy min-maxing the construction rules, but again it's rules bloat and confusing. Pick a technology base and stick with it.

I know timeline books and TROs are the current big sellers, but that doesn't mean the IP has to stick with pumping out new designs and rewriting the setting every 5-10 years. Scenarios, campaigns, adventures, unit profiles, planet profiles, there's​ plenty of material to work with.

Only point I'd add is that as I said before, based on the earlier comments, I think one logical thing to do is seriously revamp and streamline the rules, while hopefully injecting a little more to make the mechs, factions and people a little more distinctive.

[FredrikR]

...if your product investment doesn't produce sufficient ROI in realistic timeframes, this is as much a problem as a product which doesn't sell.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but the real world often is.

Certainly makes sense, you only have the money you have...  :-)

Still makes the box set seem like a no-brainer though, since it flies off the shelves. Well, relatively speaking anyway, in a ponderous BattleTech sort of way...

And seriously - I found the latest box set really good value for my money, and would certainly have been prepared to pick it up at a  higher price point. Maybe not massively higher, but enough to eke out a bit better ROI for Catalyst.

Dunno about others of course(?)...

[Cubby]

If - analagous to Leviathans, and using imaginary numbers - you spend $100K up front, and it takes two or more years to realise sales, and you only make $120K back at the end of it even though every box sold, you've had a number of penalties:

1) You only made $20K margin over a two-year period
2) You were unable to do anything else with that money for two years
3) Effectively, you'd have been better off investing in high-end Lego kits

More to the point, my (admittedly incomplete) understanding is that what WT describes here has already happened with the BattleTech line. The Intro Box is only one product, one piece of the puzzle, and the ability to "just reprint it!" may be limited or less desirable now given the overall success of the line as a whole and other recent products.

In a vacuum, maybe reissuing it does seem like a "no-brainer." But given that state of affairs, investing those funds may be less savvy than rethinking the way the introductory BattleTech experience is presented. I gather that the intent in recent months was to pause and look at that exact issue. But time's a-wasting and having something on the shelves, even if it's not the ideal product/method to grow the game, is probably better than nothing.

[Moonsword]

On full review, the moderation staff has decided to leave this thread locked permanently.