I wouldn’t say that the Dropzone Universe disappeared from news feeds. Even before the news post the other day there was a regular, if limited stream, of releases being posted here and on other sites that I read regularly. Sure in the last few months there was a bit less, but the skirmish game and DZC had models teased.
Why did Dropzone decline? Without knowing the internals we can’t be absolutely sure, there are many factors. Fulfilling the overly successful DFC kickstarter did exhaust Hawk and lead to the takeover by TTCombat. Then there were production issues which lead to a few years of product drying up. Also 8th ed 40k probably drawback players who had jumped ship because of the earlier state of 6 & 7th Eds. Titanicus came onto the market to catering to those who wanted small scale wargaming. Etc.
I enjoyed both games, played DFC more, but this has declined over years to virtually nothing now though every year I’m nearly drawn back in. The games are good and the starters are really good value, some of the best alongside maybe Flames of War. So why did I stop.
While the games are good I never liked the core missions and objective setup. For DZC the majority were go in pick up intel and get out. That just got boring after a while and adding in all the extra units didn’t change that.
For DFC the strength and weakness of the game was the 3d battle space, the layers and the landing of forces. That really was unique, interesting, but also because of that focus made this less of a space combat game and it quickly degenerates in an efficiency battle for dropping off tokens which then battle it out in a very basic dynamic. There were a couple of missions that did not involve this, but I didn’t want to have to fight it out over ground objectives anymore. Because so much of the core rules and ship stats revolves around the layers, it could not be easily changed, but then the designers have never tried to expand in the new rules. As DFC shares so much of its DNA with BFG I tinkered around using some of those missions which added dynamics but it became hard work to make the game work for me when really this was something the designers needed to do.
The layer battle needed the very fiddly stands. I never used the supplied ones. First we used dice, then a third party solution and not I have started to think about a design for a 3d printed stand solution that makes it clearer. Did the same for Aeronautica Imperialis which has simpler info on the stands, but still is tedious to use.
While the starters are very reasonable and I had a huge lot of ships from the Kickstarter I found the recent releases to be expensive. Sure you don’t need many, but it adds up. AND there were quality issues – the resin was brittle, great details, but horrendous mould lines, gates in the most visible places. What was passible in 2018 is less of a proposition in 2024 when you compare TTCombat’s offerings with 3d printed ones. That’s an issue.
While the ships for DFC look great the scale was off from the outset. Too much is going on on the table, even with moderate sized fleets the objective play draws everything together quickly and combined with tokens it is a cluttered mess a lot of the time. Half the size ships would make DFC as it is right now play better. Having played around with half-sized Gothic ships this is the one element I personally would like the change the most – that’s never going to happen though because it would require a complete redo of the production infrastructure and TTCombat would never go over to releasing the game as a 3d print one with STLs to purchase.
List building is an issue for new players. It’s not difficult, but with so many permutations and combinations it’s overwhelming very quickly. What brings “depth” for tournament players is a nightmare for new and casual ones. That made it really difficult to teach players or just play casually. Yes the list builder helps a lot, but can’t justify spending tinkering around for hours – even though I get it other’s might really be attracted to that.
I still do like the game, even the universe in principal, but the issues around the edges combine to limit my enthusiasm to get it out again. I don’t think that many of the little rules issues and missions are impossible to solve but right now the lack of a determined effort by TTCombat beyond just adding in more units doesn’t help.
limburger 6 months, 2 weeks ago.
jamescutts.
