AoA:Vanguard Campaign Postmortem

['Scaper94]

Originally Posted by Master Roshi

Yeah, the lore focus was strange to me. The trailer they released that was narrated by Thormmun was well-produced and looked nice, but not as valuable as a well-produced gameplay/terrain trailer that displayed the contents of the set.
Personally, I'm not interested in the lore. I wouldn't have read any books/comics/ etc were they to have been released; I'm here for the game
If they want to make that content for the section of the player base who want to read lore then that's fine but it should have come later once the actual purpose of Heroscape is established.

To add, cynically: instead of the fanbase looking to HeroQuest as an "example" for the AoA haslab, the marketing team should have looked at the original HS commercial as an example for what elements of the game to highlight. A bit snarky, but true nonetheless.

[Zeldarck]

I did read everything but there is all my points:

Good :
Figure Sculpt
New General
Risk to update the gameplay with 2 life figures, flying without the text
Backward compatibility
Terrains
Price (for what is propose, the price is ok)


Wrong :
The platform, using Haslab instead of Kickstarter, make the project more confidential and functionnalities are missing

Excluding some world region because don't want to spend few dollars (compare to the 2M budget) to make french translation for example. When you look big project on kickstarter (look at a CMON), you can look the community tab and you will see that targeting 8000 with mainly US is quite impossible

The haslab page. Its bad, even with the update, its bad. It don't reflect the game, the videos don't have any montage or rythmic. The components are not illustrated, the exemple for terrain mounting is cheap, show a big terrain, don't show a piece by piece build for something too cheap, yoi wait seconds on the gif to just see a quite flat terrain without jungle and castle. They could have used multiple sets. They should have show what is heroscape, what is the community, photo of tournament, etc, etc. Show that is not launching a game but continuing a game and there is already organised play

Targeting : they targeted only core fans. There last message show it, they said "once launched we worked hard to gain the support of every single backer who pledged". But NO, they should have work to have the support from those which didn't back yet. And lot of stuff reflect this: their bad video and explanation of wtf is this game and how it play. The news only on discord (problem of haslab, no actus pannel). All the last news focusing on showing new cards, yeah we wanted some card, it's cool to have a peak of original power and interaction. But base the new only on that it will not catch new player which want to see globally how it work, so few example at the beginning of the campaign were enough

Miss of tiers. A lower entry tier with few terrain like AoTP and few figures at 50/80€ and then bigger tier with everything was needed. How player with low money can enter heroscape like that. Personnaly I pledged more than 60 boardgame crowfunding and I really rarely spent more than 200€ when I don't know the game/the editor

Miss add on and commons. Heroscape is a game where everybody play differently, some want 4 squad of each common, others, it depend of the design. Some want lot of terrain, etc
Heroscape is designed for add on. We should have been able to add more terrain if we want. Should have been some common hero/squad that we could add multiple of thel if we wanted. The objective should so have been 2M$ and not 8000 backers.
And some other gamer use the terrain of heroscape for their game. They should have been take in account

The no compatibility with C3V/SoV. They say there is some legal problem. But I think its bull****, a power design inside their own game can't really be legally a problem. They could have create their own set of figures matching with the cards and tweaks the cards if needed, but keep spirit and synergy of those. For me ignoring those figure its ignoring more than the half of heroscape life. It's ignoring what made classic heroscape survive and say to players "yes you can play with C3V/SoV, but tweak them yourself, we don't care now of what you made.". I hate this design philosophy. This points it's the one which made me really hesitate to pledge.

The absence of transparency. Lot of the communication are blurry, with mysteries and a cult for that like "ohoh, I can't say that ". How do you want us to trust anything when there is no transparency, no explanation of why france & canada are exclude? Why so much time to explain the Valkrill stuff, the historical problem? Etc. Too many questions were essential and not answer and way too late.

The too big attachment to the Lore and the "Toy marketing". AoA have been marketed as a toy with only figure visual really polished. All what make heroscape a game was amateur, not clear, not explain, hide somewhere inside the discord. For the Lore, the fact to remove Valkrill because it didn't fit the Lore...really, who care? Heroscape lore is not important during game session. So why lore impact gameplay? It's not a narrative game, the selling point is really that "you can play everything", that's all, the story exist only to justify "why there is everything", but don't need to go really deep, major part of the community don't care. I am pro "gampeplay first", sacrifice a gameplay for a detail of the lore it's really wrong for me

The community itself. I have been really disapointing of all people searching excuse for AH when there was obvious problems (example, the absence of france), everybody wanting to take there defense, saying Hasbro is the problem. But how do you know hasbro is the problem? As there is no transparency and real communication, we don't know. The fact that even if their is red flag every body is eager to have heroscape back and I have seing a lot of message saying that if we don't take multiple set of AoA we are not true heroscaper or whatever. But me I don't want to jump on every possibilty to revive the game, if the product propose have too much red flag, I don't want to pledge. And not every body have 1500€ to put into a game.


The presence of exclusive figure. This is a big red flag. Having exclusive gameplay element on crowfunding its really disrespectful of future player. It make me really feel like "we only want our game to be fund, after we don't really care if it sustain and if new player come and can get everything". Especially when knowing the campaign will not be worldwide

Strech goal on selling arguments. Before the campaign, the figure which hyped me the most were the V2/3 of the Sotm heroes. The fact that biggest teasers are strech goal is a big ethic problem.

Trying to change cards layout. Seriously I just never get the point of the change, change of shape and of layout afterward. It doesn't make any sense for me to have spend so much time on it, saying it will open new design space but never show what it will really open as design space.

The ugly 3D on card &photos. There is a beautiful painted set from Gencon, why don't use those photo instead of the bad coloring. Sorry for the artist which worked on that, but your materials and lighting are wrong to replicate the painting figure feeling.

Bad marketing. I have been at Essen, biggest european boardgame event. There was only 2 printed on A4 sheet paper indicating the project exist. Seriously? No table to test?
Not any playtest video or articles. The news on discord make all of this comic to have a news saying "hey, there is a tik tok which speak about us", yeah? Cool? I hope there are tik tok advertising when tik tok is one of the biggest media, it shouldn't be so an event, just normal into a marketing strategy

Speak about the after. It come with the miss of transparency, really we didn't had any peak of the future , the packaging, the price when release. We spoke about a live game, the planning for the future are really important


There is the end of my analyse. I remind that I critics work and not the people behind the work, I don't know them and maybe they had good intention. I only judge work and idea. Sorry for being harsh, english is not my native language and I have not the subtility to turn my comment in a better way.
I really hope they will be an other try with all my red flag fixed. Especially :
- worldwide
-c3v/sov compatibility
- remove exclusive
- use kickstarter
- better marketing/transparency