Letting Go... Or You Know, Not

Letting Go...Or, You Know...Not

"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy." - C. Joybell C.


We humans often say we’re okay with change. Welcome it, even! I’ve found that it’s a rare breed of person who acknowledges they do not like change. Most of us claim “we’re fine with it,” but then continue talking and say, “as long as…”, thus making our claim conditional. I can appreciate this. I’m often fine with change unless I’m not. I will happily live in a world in which the only permanence is impermanence, until something I enjoy or love is the casualty of that mantra.

Conquest LCG and Ba’ar Zul #NeverForget

But change and time are not to be held at bay. My son is now 3 years old. He walks, he talks, he makes demands, and I have to choose which battles to fight and which ones to concede. I LOVE my son as he is. But I also miss the way he was when he was just a couple of months old. When I come home now, he’ll run to me and yell “Hi Dada!,” but I still miss the way he would use his whole hand to grasp one little finger, or fall asleep while snuggled up in the crook of one arm. It’s weird, I know, but I naturally sway from side to side while I stand. When he fit in one arm, it was easy to play most board games with one hand while he slept peacefully in my other arm. I can’t turn back the clock on any of that.


Which brings me to my point: some games change, and some games do not. There have been variations on chess, but chess remains the same game. Armada, while chess-like, is driven by a meta that changes with new ideas as well as new releases. So many of us want new ships, new squadrons, new upgrades, on and on. Because we like having new things with which to play! There are lots of us who enjoy watching the game evolve and grow. Sure, there are things I miss about different stages of Armada. I really felt like I had a handle on the game before the Starhawk and Onager dropped. I already miss that particular meta. But this is the way of things, is it not? I’ll be honest: I’ve been looking forward to Clone Wars and 1.5. There were changes I wanted to see, and I wrote about some of them. I like the vast majority of changes. There are a couple I don’t love. And some stuff stayed the same, and I wish the designers had changed it. But overall, I think there’s a ton about which to be excited!


But if you don’t, I can’t disagree with you. If you assert that the change is “stupid,” then THAT’S something with which I can disagree. But I won’t bother explaining why I think you’re wrong about how certain changes are “bad for the game.” I respect that anything “bad” for Armada rarely sticks around for a terribly long time without being fixed. All I’ll say is this: If you don’t like 1.5, then don’t play it. You have that option! If you and a group of your friends don’t like 1.5 and want to live in the before-times, that’s up to you! You can just agree not to play with 1.5 rules. When I play Eldritch Horror, I don’t play with the Masks of Nyarlathotep expansion because I think it hurts the game. I really enjoy Betrayal at House on the Hill, but the Widow’s Walk expansion makes the game experience a weaker one for me: I don’t use it. You have that option!


I really like the Armada community. A great many Armada folks are very positive, friendly people. But the vitriol I’ve seen on the FFG forums of late has been pretty upsetting. Maybe some of it is simply due to the state of the world. I get that. I’m angrier now than I was before covid. I’ve found it difficult to maintain balance and perspective, and so my patience is shorter than before and I’m quicker to anger. No doubt about it. But a lot of the crap I’m reading is just that: crap. Much of it need not be voiced, and the raw anger behind some of it simply isn’t welcome in this community. Too many people are complaining about the size of the cards as though it breaks the game and isn’t an easy fix. One of those people actually said that designers deserved to lose their jobs if they were involved in that change. How hateful do you, as a person, have to be to say that someone deserves to lose their job during a global pandemic over a cosmetic change that has no impact on gameplay? That’s not what I expect from this Armada community. Kindness, thoughtfulness, understanding, patience...THOSE are the qualities I’ve come to associate with the Armada community. I suspect these posters on the forum are the outliers. And maybe some people have just responded badly to the state of the world.

But either way, you’ve got a call to make. If you don’t like the direction the game has taken, then quit now. Don’t spend any more money on Armada product. Play the game you love without the changes you don’t. That’s your prerogative. But keep your hate in your own head, because the rest of us don’t need it. As for the rest of us who have been waiting on 1.5 and Clone Wars: I’m glad to be here with y’all, and can’t wait until we can game together in person again.


-IratePooka