So, I read through this, and almost answered right away... but then I decided to go back through every post I've made since January '16, and see whether or not I've been supporting the group enough.
Here's what I found:
2016 Dates
Game 1: January 30th - Yes
Game 2: February 20th - No, throwing up/fever
Game 3: March 26th - Official game cancelled, Rob family health issues
Game 4: April 23rd - Yes
Game 5: May 14th - No, sick
Game 6: July 16th - Yes
Game 7: August 20th - Yes
Game 8: September 24th - Yes (included first time with BA practice game, had no opponent for Battletech but stayed and had a good time anyway)
Game 9: October 22nd - Yes (included BA practice game)
Game 10: November 12th - Yes (had shoulder surgery 9 days before, and also brought everyone's group buy stuff from Black Tree)
Game 11: December 10th - Official game cancelled, Rob (house/car)
2017 Dates
Game 12: January 21st - XWing Regional
Game 13: February 18th - Yes
Wow, I was surprised. I actually thought I hadn't been as supportive as I had been. Tomorrow will be our 11th game in the campaign, and I've made it to 8. At least a couple times, I haven't been able to show until after 12pm, but only once did that mean I didn't have an opponent. It's not perfect, but about the best I could reasonably expect, tbh.
OK, so again, we've gone from rough attendance numbers of ~18 people down to what looks like 4-6 people on a regular basis. There's always a justification for why people can't make it, and I'm not interested in the validity of those justifications. I've heard lots of different ones, and I'm not passing judgement on YOUR PARTICULAR excuse and I'm not going to name specific names.
I'm saying that I try to bust my ass to make sure we've got games which can handle 18 people, and then, like clockwork, there's always a steady trickle of people who aren't going to show up for every conceivable reason. I view participating in a group like this as a firm commitment; the reason games are posted quite literally years in advance is so that people can change their schedules so you can show up - if not every single game - then significantly more often than not. I have to screw the hell out of my schedule to make sure I'm here and running the game every month: for the game on 18 Feb we have one car for our family, my wife has to work, my kid has two different concerts, I have a rehearsal gig, I have a private student, and I have a hockey game, AND I'm going to be there running the game. I made it work. So when I hear, "oh, I'd rather stay home because there's a TV show I want to catch up on and getting over to Northgate would be too hard", yeah, that's incredibly insulting to the effort I'm putting forth.
That's reasonable Rob, and I'm not going to try and justify my own attendance. Honestly, I'll never be able to commit to a full schedule, with a "no matter what, I'll be there!" The fact that the schedule is planned out is advance is super helpful, but still not fool-proof. Sometimes a date will have a conflict, and life simply comes first. For instance, although the December game was cancelled, I wouldn't have made it to that one since I was taking my wife on a cruise for our anniversary.
Maybe you don't like this particular campaign. That's fine; no skin off my nose. Not all games work out. Maybe you're just burnt out on BattleTech. That's fine too. The more crap I have to hear about what CGL is doing now, the more I want to distance myself from the company and the game too. I've been playing this game for twenty-nine years. I understand burn-out.
Campaign: For the most part, I like it. It's cool to have our own forces, and although I wish there were some limits on the customizing I also understand it's the very thing some people enjoy more than anything else. So, it's cool.
I do have one issue with the structure. The common mission setup requires that players pair off, bid against each other, and then play PC and OpFor against each other all day. In my opinion (for what its worth), I feel like this has had a negative effect on the cohesion of the group. In the past, we showed up, ran a common scenario on a big board (or maybe split into a couple groups on 2 boards) and worked as a group. You could interact with everyone at the table all day, and since we were all on the same "turn", you had time to talk/socialize while waiting for busier players to finish (full disclosure, this sometimes also resulted in boredom/downtime). You could watch other players complete their combats, and it was interesting because the outcome had an effect on the overall game. Admittedly, this type of scenario is the absolute hardest to scale (which is a large part of the frustration you're feeling today, whether you realize it or not). For games like this, you need an exact count on attendance before you finish designing it, and multiple cancellations can really screw it.
With our current campaign however, we show up, play all day against one other person, and because it's a 1v1 game there is no downtime for socializing/hanging out (often not even having lunch with the other players). No doubt, we all have people in the group we enjoy playing against more than others, but you may never get to play with that person in this structure. Or you may spend all day playing against someone at a vastly different skill level. Imagine if we all showed up to play a pickup game of hockey. We can do it two ways: 1) We can choose two captains, and they can do a school-yard pick thereby matching up two teams of somewhat equal skill, or 2) we can divide up the ice into much smaller sections, randomly assign everyone to a 1v1 and play that way for hours. If you (Rob) and I are assigned to 1v1 hockey all day, I guarantee neither of us is going to have any fun, lol. Likewise, if I knew when I went to an X-wing tourney, that I would face the same person all day long... I wouldn't bother.
Now the huge advantage of your current system is that it's so easily scalable! Tbh, most of the time, your scenarios would work as easily with 40 people as with 4. But tomorrow you've got us all on the same board (Yay!), but scalability is MUCH more difficult and when people don't show up, it feels like an affront. It could be that part of the pain here is a result of the campaign system itself: If your games are usually scalable, and don't suffer from inconsistent attendance, then attendance loses importance. I hope that makes sense. Just my opinion, and while I'm not a huge fan of the normal structure of the missions (1v1's), that doesn't diminish at all my appreciation for the amount of work you put into it, and I don't believe my own attendance reflects that either.
Battletech burnout: Comes and goes. This affects my desire to join CSO more than my desire to play. I like playing BT because it's fun, and I'm not going to let a leaderless/directionless company define my fun for me. What really helped me feel good about BT again was playing at GenCon... and there I played in the Trial of Bloodright (1 hour matches) and some Alpha Strike (2 hour games). Hmmm, come to think of it, 75-minute rounds is a huge advantage of x-wing, and Bolt Action games typically top out at 2 hours.
So, suggestions:
1) Penalize players who miss a game somehow. If you miss, you must play OpFor in the next round (not easily implemented due to bidding process). Or if you miss a game, someone can potentially take the mission by
matching your bid. If you miss a game, it means your technicians also missed their duties, and your mechs might suffer random "malfunctions" in your next game (assuming you win the bid). Missing a game cancels any Logistics bonus for the next game. Etc. These aren't meant to be blindly punitive, but rather to incentivize players to be present, knowing that the trade-off is a tougher road.
2) Missions designed to be shorter, with hard time-limits, and the day could consist of 2-3 "rounds". Bidding could include some cool rules, like not being able to use the same Star in multiple rounds (or maybe just the opposite, you MUST use the same bid throughout, and the mission types change from round to round). Almost like a round-robin tourney setup, without actually being a tourney. Games could be smaller/faster. Maybe units don't get repaired from round to round... just brain-storming here, but glad to discuss with you, or even post up a full mission example sometime. This accomplishes getting more people together on these days and still supports scalability.
Anyway, looking forward to tomorrow. (^_^)b
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Topic: Should we shut down Cincy BattleTech? (Read 1525 times)