Proposed by Matt Watkins, President, December 8, 2024
Seconded by Wisconsin and Virginia - December 8, 2024; New Hampshire - December 15, 2024; Gettysburg - December 19, 2024.
Proposal: Delay implementation of Eviscerating Blow, if it passes, until a replacement is passed.
Purpose: Presidents felt that players with this skill will be unhappy with nothing to fill this gap, with an expected upcoming replacement proposal if they are not done in sync this creates a customer service headache for players to deal with.
Vote: Presidents Proposal: Delay Eviscerating Blow's Removal Until Replacement is Passed [PASS: 66.7%]
The following chapters voted for this policy: Crossroads, Northeast Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Gettysburg, Wisconsin, Chicago
The following chapters voted against this policy: Minnesota, Atlanta, Virginia
Synopsis of conversations:
There was significant conversation around this vote, broken down into commentary of arguments for and against primarily, with other commentary below.
The arguments for the delay were as follows:
Without delaying the removal, some cards would be made invalid once a technical solution is implemented to remove Eviscerating Blow from the Character Management Application (CMA) - this would lead to players needing to re-spend XP on martial skills or sell back skills that are no longer valid due to lack of prerequisites for their existing character sheet to be viable. Then, once a replacement is available, those players would be unable to purchase the new skill because they have spent that XP already, leading to further customer service concerns. With the passing of this vote, there will be no immediate impact on upcoming games due to the delay in removal. High level miscommunication lead to the first vote push for the removal of Eviscerating Blow, where a more measured approach was warranted. Other arguments for included the recognition that time to provide for a more seamless transition would benefit not only chapters with upcoming games but Alliance overall. There was concern that the change, if implemented immediately, would be more substantially impactful for lower level players who do not have XP invested into skills such as Improved Slay and other fighter tricks.
Arguments against delaying the removal of Eviscerating Blow included:
With the results of the Eviscerating Blow removal vote being made public, expectations have already been set in the Alliance player community for Eviscerating Blow to be removed from the game. There was a call for better planning when proposing significant changes and better change management for such impactful changes as the removal of a frequently-bought skill. Concerns were also raised about timing, with counterarguments to the delay wanting the matter resolved as soon as possible to minimize impact on upcoming games. It was asserted that continued rules changes and delays risk alienating more players, especially while they are trying to focus on integrating and understanding 2.1. A call for decisive action was raised, with echoes of the concern that delaying now for a change later will leave a hanging question of what abilities players may or may not have in the future.
Other commentary included the concern that the depth of conversation around these votes delayed work on a tech solution that would be ready to implement by the time of the soonest impacted games, with an unnecessary burden being placed on chapters' players and logistics teams as well as the tech team. Though not an argument for or against, the concern was raised that with a delay, a reasonable time frame should be set to prevent the previous passing vote from hanging in stasis indefinitely and invalidating the vote by way of delay.
Seconded by Wisconsin and Virginia - December 8, 2024; New Hampshire - December 15, 2024; Gettysburg - December 19, 2024.
Proposal: Delay implementation of Eviscerating Blow, if it passes, until a replacement is passed.
Purpose: Presidents felt that players with this skill will be unhappy with nothing to fill this gap, with an expected upcoming replacement proposal if they are not done in sync this creates a customer service headache for players to deal with.
Vote: Presidents Proposal: Delay Eviscerating Blow's Removal Until Replacement is Passed [PASS: 66.7%]
The following chapters voted for this policy: Crossroads, Northeast Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Gettysburg, Wisconsin, Chicago
The following chapters voted against this policy: Minnesota, Atlanta, Virginia
Synopsis of conversations:
There was significant conversation around this vote, broken down into commentary of arguments for and against primarily, with other commentary below.
The arguments for the delay were as follows:
Without delaying the removal, some cards would be made invalid once a technical solution is implemented to remove Eviscerating Blow from the Character Management Application (CMA) - this would lead to players needing to re-spend XP on martial skills or sell back skills that are no longer valid due to lack of prerequisites for their existing character sheet to be viable. Then, once a replacement is available, those players would be unable to purchase the new skill because they have spent that XP already, leading to further customer service concerns. With the passing of this vote, there will be no immediate impact on upcoming games due to the delay in removal. High level miscommunication lead to the first vote push for the removal of Eviscerating Blow, where a more measured approach was warranted. Other arguments for included the recognition that time to provide for a more seamless transition would benefit not only chapters with upcoming games but Alliance overall. There was concern that the change, if implemented immediately, would be more substantially impactful for lower level players who do not have XP invested into skills such as Improved Slay and other fighter tricks.
Arguments against delaying the removal of Eviscerating Blow included:
With the results of the Eviscerating Blow removal vote being made public, expectations have already been set in the Alliance player community for Eviscerating Blow to be removed from the game. There was a call for better planning when proposing significant changes and better change management for such impactful changes as the removal of a frequently-bought skill. Concerns were also raised about timing, with counterarguments to the delay wanting the matter resolved as soon as possible to minimize impact on upcoming games. It was asserted that continued rules changes and delays risk alienating more players, especially while they are trying to focus on integrating and understanding 2.1. A call for decisive action was raised, with echoes of the concern that delaying now for a change later will leave a hanging question of what abilities players may or may not have in the future.
Other commentary included the concern that the depth of conversation around these votes delayed work on a tech solution that would be ready to implement by the time of the soonest impacted games, with an unnecessary burden being placed on chapters' players and logistics teams as well as the tech team. Though not an argument for or against, the concern was raised that with a delay, a reasonable time frame should be set to prevent the previous passing vote from hanging in stasis indefinitely and invalidating the vote by way of delay.
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