You weren't? Funny, I could have sworn I read the following in the post I responded to:
Those are some very inflammatory statements you made. Especially the first two questions.

As you just said, it isn't a huge effect. The playtesters just might have said, "eh, for 3 points it isn't worth worrying over." It's also possible the game designers overruled the playtesters on this one, precisely because it doesn't have a huge effect.

Unless, of course, they saw a somewhat more wordy version of the text that did a better job of explaining things than was ultimately produced. The cards have a limited amount of space, and it is quite possible that WizKids shortened the text and thought the intention was clear enough. That is a breakdown in the playtesting process, but not on the part of the playtesters.

Of course, if the game designers had originally intended that an unrecruited Gunslinger or Mercenary be present to use the card at all (which has been clarified to be the case, incidentally), and that the card was meant to only be used by said unrecruited Gunslingers or Mercenaries (which is currently not the case), and they let the playtesters know of those intentions, the playtesters could very well let this card get through. Or, they might have still voiced objections over the wording, and WizKids decided to ignore those objections.

No, this doesn't paint a very flattering picture of the WizKids end of the playtesting process. Except, of course, that we're talking about three (four, if we count the twins as two units) exceptions in a process that has kept a few hundred game pieces balanced. Again, I don't regard a less than 1% failure rate to be awful when lives aren't on the line.

Your words not mine :p

Hi folks,

Just wanted to chime in. I am sure that broken units are not the only "errors" of playtesting. How about the numerous dud units that will never ever see gameplay outside of sealed?

How many times did you open a booster, found a few 1-2 star units, and try your very best to make some use of it, then toss it away in frustration after several games? Those AOD attack APCs, Pathfinders, PAL suits, Zeiblers, and homing-beacon tanks come to mind. Playtesting should produce useful units too.

Just my two cents.

- Oliver


no to landfill bait! give us a higher ratio of useful units out of the booster, value for money! :p

And I believe it is you who is missing the point. They made a conscious decision, based on fluff AND connected to actual game mechanics, to adjust the point cost for this one pilot to be a mere 3 points lower. No doubt the intent was to add some variety or variablity to the game, beyond just the dice rolls.

And you can continue to moan about it "breaking" some sacred formula, but the fact is that it was done, and there WAS a reason behind it, and the fact that it simply doesn't fit your worldview of a "perfect" MWDA statistical universe is just too bad.

I'm the one who's saying that it ISN'T a big deal, and that I can see the rationale behind the decision. You're the one who's claiming it may be the beginning of a "slippery slope" or "the thin end of a wedge." It's not. It's a 3 point difference that the game designers DID base on the rules, and thought would be amusing and/or interesting for this one pilot. Obviously you disagree, and fail to see the same value to making the game less pure statistics.

-= Lunatic

Thankfully, it appears (at least to me) that "playtesting" HAS been producing a greater ratio of usable units to duds. Similarly, there doesn't appear to be as many "uber" units, where only one rank out of a whole set of sculpts is not just usable, but so good that it immediately gets put into everyone's armies. i.e. BR Legionairre, DF Schmitt, DF Maxim, SS Balac, SH Towed Field Arty, DF SM1, DF Donar, SS Arrow IV, BR Sprint, etc. How often did we see the OTHER factions' versions of those units? (This is rhetorical. I personally used the SW Maxim and Arrow IV a LOT, but everyone else only played the other versions I mentioned.)

More recently, MOST the versions of a particular sculpt appear to be either usable, or they're all not. Or maybe just one version really doesn't cut it.

For some types of units, or re-hashes of old units where the previous stats were nothing special, it may simply be that there is just no way to really make them competitive in the current environment. For example, pretty much any medium tank, or for that matter most vehicles that aren't transports, artillery, VTOLs, or have some kind of insane stats (Kelswas) just aren't going to cut it. WizKids first makes the decision of what sculpts are going to go into a set, since the sculpts/molds/production take the longest amount of time in the process. Once that's done, only so much can be done with the stats.

For instance: Ziblers, JES IIIs, and Bellonas. They've all been produced more than once, and both times around they weren't competitive. Why did they bother the second time? I don't know. For some reason, SOMEONE decided they were going to re-use those sculpts. Playtesting had no control over that. Do you really doubt, then, that when given those lemons playtesting didn't TRY to make as many suggestions as possible to bring them close to being usable? Wouldn't you, if you were a playtester?

Anyway, I don't play other collectable games, but I can imagine that this problem isn't solely limited to MechWarrior. So I would expect that the "no to landfill bait!" refrain is hardly limited to this game.

I suppose one option would be to just chuck out the units that don't meet a minimum acceptable level of "playability"--but then the selection of pieces would get really narrow. That also would be ignoring the whole section of the "collectable" market that really doesn't care as much about the pieces' playability, but just buy them because they look cool. (At one venue I go to they sold a whole case of Domination to a couple of guys who worked in the mall who've never played a simgle game. They just liked how the figures looked. Unfortunately this meant that we didn't have any Domination boosters left to buy for the Domination Call to Arms...)

-= Lunatic

@Lunatic, it doesn't matter how you dress it up, no reason in the world will convince me you can produce two identical units, give one a penalty it will never apply and reduce its cost as a result. You say the unit is not a big deal and, by itself, it isn't. However the fluff does not for me justify abusing your own game mechanics.

That is munchkinism. That is, using the mechanics of a point cost formula to make something cost less than it should.

EITHER: they undercosted speed (and I think, in fact, that they have undercosted speed - particularly for heavy pilots) and so the 31 point pilots should all be 28, or this unit is munchkinned.

I don't mind the fluff. Heck I like it. What I don't like is Munchkinism and that is a hang-over from RPGs and CBT designs whereby people min/max. Now I can take min/maxing to some degree but blatant munchkinism I disagree with on principle.

This is plain blatant. It's like putting an ammo explosion on 1 damage (used to be 2 but thanks to faction prides those can potentially hurt these days).