I don't mind the idea of a consensus community balance mod (I've had a go at one before myself), and I don't mind a few of the changes here. But overall I think it goes too far, and is too skewed towards some factions (notably PanO) to gain the broad support it would need to succeed. Really to do it properly you need to have good data that only CB (maybe) have or at the very least be an expert in every faction. Outside that it'd be better off only implementing fairly non contentious clarifications and adjustments to broadly accepted things.
Mono weapons are rare, always short ranged, and tricky to use. And you want them to be useless ? Let's be honest, an oniwaban (or any infiltrator for what matters, or Penthesilea, or whatever) won't use his monosword against some cheerleaders, he will just shoot at them because combi has an higher burst and decent enough damages to put any cheerleader unconscious. The only reason to use a mono CCW is because it has lethal potential. Remember that CC is unreliable at best, and you need to reach it first, shooting is always easier. If CC does not have any killing potentiel, why even bother ? I don't think TAGs need more survivability, when properly supported they are already a pain to remove.
@Teslarod 's a pretty unabashed PanO fanboy so go figure. Everyone's got the feeling that their own Sectorial/faction is underpowered. Umbras need Shock Immunity, btw ;-). Actually, Protheion should just grant Bioimmunity, it'd be simpler.
I think you misunderstood me. I think balance should be as good as it can be! But I also think it'll never be perfect. As long as it works out pretty much fine though, then it's not a big deal. The Asura probably is a bit too expensive, as I said. But it always seems to be okay in my experience. I think you're getting too hooked up on the little details, and changing them with further little details that don't do much. You'd be better off saying "hey, can we have ITS missions where all the control areas are low vis by default?" That's actionable and buffs msv, for sure.
Like, people forget how much scenarios drive the game. If we have scenarios with targeting specialists, we get less Camo infiltration FO spam. Scenarios with low vis zones? More MSV. Scenarios with +3 to AD? More drop troops. When N4 comes along, in years down the line, we can reapproach the printed mechanics. In the meantime though, ITS scenarios are our primary method of enacting changes. And they have! Ironclad has promoted TAGs. Datatrackers has promoted non marker, tough, multi-capable specialists. It does work!
Prothein should just grant you the ability to "steal" that extra wound when ever you do damage. IMO there was no need to add an entire extra table of 4 different pseudo MA levels to remember (also, why did they remove the ability to remove dogged with it? :( )
Good to know, thanks for the feedback. Missions are another issue. I'd really like to do something about several badly designed Missions as well as how Datatrackers, Intelcom and a few other things work. Again, I'm not dead set on the current fix for Asura/MSV3. Imho the MSV3 is not a detail, but the core piece that is problematic for every troop that has it. Did you have any intention to give the chages a try and see for yourself yet? Otherwise we're gonna have this conversation for a very long time. Wouldn't go as far to claim they are useless... did you catch they cause 3 damage a hit now? A slightly damaged TAG is still gonna die to a failed Mono save, full HP TAGs still die to 2. The majority of HI still dies to Mono in one hit as before. As someone who plays a lot of JSA I don't think capping Mono at 3 wounds per hit is a problem. Also - CC is pretty damn reliable on things like Oniwabans. Kanren and Cube Jäger hitting lucky oneshots is what I'm more concerned about. Yo my boy @Hecaton long time no see! Weren't you still preoccupied demanding reparations for Uprising? Glad you finally got past that! Spoiler Ah the uninformed mindeless hating. Your memory seems to be lacking again, as that is neither the first or last time let me help you really quick with what factions I play: Vanilla Yujing ISS Vanilla Aleph (Vedic) JSA Vanilla PanO Military Orders Shock Army of Acontecimento Neoterra As you honestly should still remember from your previous transgression attempts you already tried to attack my opinion with: Badly planned insults, making assumptions about my age, assume my faction bias... yadda yadda and so on. So the response for now is just gonna be a sod off mate and get off my lawn, feel free to come back with a valid opinion at a later time. If you're interested I can recommend several notebook webapps so you can keep track which shit you already tried to pull against whom. It's getting embarrassing to watch your rants. Kan did the straight faced angry man act way better than you ever managed, all that while staying objective to his point (on top of actually having one).
I like this idea: Protheion, it includes MA 1 and let you steal wounds. Plain and simple, you just need a few lines in the rules explaining how the wound-stealing works. Or even easier, Protheion just grants the ability to steal wounds and CB just gives also MA to the troopers that need it (so we remove rules-nesting).
Touching on the Asuras; +11 points and losing MA1 gets you +1 WIP, +1 ARM and +NWI. That's a really good trade compared to the Hsien. Could it be that changing the Spitfire to a HMG would make it used a lot more? P.s. just as I'm about to post, I realized I haven't listed the MSV upgrade for the Asura...
So the Cube Jager needs a nerf? Here is my constructive criticism with this rule change. Your goal is to make tags more survivable. effects of your change on the game. Iguana Operator gets to live and keep fighting. Monoweapon users will now need to spend more orders making sure a tag is dead. Hollowmen and other such units also benefit. Was this intentional? Overall a very small game effect that will mostly nerf Oniwabans. Furthermore I am not convinced the issue you want fixed is even a problem. I would mark you down more here but your change overall will not have much of an effect so it's not like you are breaking anything. Now flavor Just taking 3 wounds is not anywhere as close to being as flavorful to "you cut it in half" this loss of flavor and the complication of the rather KISS rules governing it is reason enough for me to not recommend this rule change. I give this proposed rule a D.
That seems very reasonable to me. MSV3 should be worth 2-3pts over MSV2 IMO. 11pts for that, essentially an extra wound and +1ARM when it's becoming really quite useful, and +1 WIP on someone with a very serious hacking function is a good trade, even if you lose MA1 and 1 CC.
I've read the whole document, and i must say, i'm no big fan of it. Instead of rebalance, it seems more "heavy unbalanced". Big weapons like TAGs, missile launchers, snipers, are upped, while about everything which counts on unfair fight (infiltrators, ADHL, E/M weapons and the IMM2 state in general...) are nerfed. Proned TAG doing ARO with EXP multi HMG and marksmanship LX (given it's B1, i guess you want to say they can have +6 to hit in that mode ?), i'm not sure i want to see that. It's BS24 for big TAGs like the Avatar, the Marut, the Cutter, the Jotum ... There are things i could agree with, like the whole crit mecanism (i would rather do a 'to wound' test with 0 arm or armor), or the AHD being a bit on the weak side. Or that the DHD/WHD should be able to protect his teammates and not only himself. But the whole thing feels like someone who is frustrated by some cunning anti TAG measures and who can't or don't want to deal with it (like having to field an engineer in case isolation/IMM2 happens).
Really? I swear I remember an opponent of mine used it on Ko-Dali and it could even remove the Dogged state, which was an exception to the rule or something. I don't know, I might remember that wrong as that memory was like super early N3 and I was totally new to the game. Edit. Also, didn't it used to be called something else? I don't remember that skill having MA-esque levels and stuff.
Really. You can read the old version of Striga here: http://infinitythewiki.com/en/index.php?title=Striga&oldid=886
Then what's this then? O_o "If, when using the Dogged Special Skill, the figure with Protheion regenerates one or more Wounds, the Dogged state is cancelled."
You also lose 1CC(not that it matters) and the Lt option with SWC weapon. Aleph's Smoke is less common and more expensive in points and Order economy. Losing stealth, Lt Profile, Rangebands and the downgrade in terms of Smoke platform on top of being a good chunk more expensive. The real issue is still not the comparison to a Hsien, it's Asura vs Achilles. Autodiscover is nice Several oneshot mechanics get nerfed, yes. That's the goal. E/M, ADHL, Mono all got cut down a bit. I can't seem to find where I buffed Missile Launchers and Snipers. MMS LX Snipers, yes slightly, for them the Skill is useful now. You can still immobilize and kill a HI/TAG just fine. You also can just shoot it in the face till it dies just like before. Here are the changes to TAGs and what they are intended to do: TAGs can go Prone - mostly because some tables tend to suck and I can't do anything about that. That's all there is to it. They're not size 0 in Prone so claiming Total Cover is still tricky. Most TAGs are also humanoid (except Maggy who still can't go Prone) although S0 doesn't make sense for them they should be able to crouch or duck. For getting a IMM-2 troop running again without an Engineer there needs to be a second trooper in BTB to pull off 3 successful Resets, That's 4-5 Orders or more to get your TAG back with average dice, provided you have someone close enough. While singe shot BS24 in +3 Range is correct, run the numbers against 4 shots BS18. It isn't better. (It's actually quite redundant and I think I'll simply remove it again at this point).
Kind of agree, kind of don't agree. I'm not sure what you mean about rarity of smoke considering you've got Myrmidons in vanilla Aleph, it's not like Aleph is JSA when it comes to smoke - you are going to have smoke in your list regardless, I don't think I've ever seen an Aleph list without it, but I have seen several Yu Jing without it. Also, while the LT HMG Hsien is very nice, so is an LT specialist. I don't think I've ever had use for Stealth on Hsien. There's been one or two times I could have, but the Zhanying spoiled it. Point is; all things considered the Asura isn't making a good case for MSV3 being overly expensive. I've never gotten MR-equipped Hsien to work well, link or no link, but the HMG... different story. It'd be interesting to know whether a 72-points Asura with HMG would change perception of her.
