My thoughts:
[Disclaimer: This is just my opinion, and does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of anyone affiliated with TFM here at BGA or the Fryx family]
When TMF was developed, I feel as though the designers underestimated their target audience. TFM is a nerdy science-themed game aimed at thinkers, philosophers, etc., not people who need to be babied and coddled with simplified rules and variants.
So, the game included three things that I consider to be significant blunders:
1) "standard" game rather than corporate era.
2) Beginner corporations
3) Non-draft.
Why I dislike these 3 things:
For starters, this creates 8 different combinations of ways to play before we even talk about expansions. WHYYY.
1) "Standard" game. This was clearly a miscalculation by the Fryx family. Given that 99% of TFM game are played corporate era, this never should have made it past playtesting and into the rulebook. It literally eliminates 1/3 of the deck, including basic production cards for the standard resources such as "Mine" and "Titanium mine", and removes 2 of the 12 corporations. WHY. This seems especially egregious considering that solo mode (which many players might use first to learn the game and the deck) REQUIRES corporate mode. "Standard" mode (meaning non-corporate-era) never should have existed. This was a blunder. As evidenced by something like 99% of people considering "corporate era" to be the "standard".
2) Beginner corporations. This is an unfortunate and sad mishap by the Fryx family. These never should have existed. People who buy TFM are already interested in a nerdy medium-complexity game. Beginner corporations are not necessary and never were. When my friend and I played our first game I accidentally dealt him a beginner corp. He threw the card across the groom and said, "You gave me a bogus beginner corp, give me a real one." The reasoning given was that new players would struggle to figure out which cards to keep or the effects of the corporations. Umm, no. Just let them play a few games and figure it out. Are we to take seriously the notion that people who buy TFM cannot figure out the effects of a corporation or decide which cards to keep? Learn by doing. I say this as someone with decades of experience as an educator.
3) non-draft. To me, this is just asinine. People say things like "It all evens out in the long run". (Nonsense. Each subsequent event is independent of previous events. Does anyone care about the "long-run" if the short-run produces several automatic losses in a row because of being dealt garbage?) Or, "non-draft has as much skill as draft because now you need to best figure out how to make lemonade from lemons".
WHAT? If you get dealt dust seals, underground detonations, solar power, and micro-mills, you cannot make lemonade, because you do not even have lemons! Imagine playing blood rage without drafting. Or 7 wonders. It's absurd.
Does 7 wonders include blank starting factions with neutral abilities? No. It's unnecessary. Beginner corporations should never have existed. I cannot think of any other game that has asymmetrical starting factions that uses the equivalent of beginner corporations. And non-draft? Assuming that people cannot comprehend drafting is a bad assumption, considering other games include it as a default rule and mechanism. Assuming people will struggle with relatively basic concepts is a bad assumption. People will rise or fall to the expectations set for them. As a famous saying goes, "Whether you believe you can or believe you cannot, either way, you're right."
