Oh man, you've clearly not looked at any other game if you think there's an inherent problem with Infinity balance. Infinity is one of the best balanced skirmish games out there, the differences between "top tier" and "bottom tier" are minimal, even without comparing to things like 40k and Warmachine. I am pretty sure Infinity is better balanced than things like Frostgrave in which everyone essentially plays the same faction (with just a different hero unit). The entire time Bolts' problem wasn't that they were inherently bad, it was that other options in the sectorial were better. Now they have a better niche, which makes NCA lists less predictable. I am sure a lot of people will just dismiss those Bolt changes and play as they did so far (since nothing on that front got really changed aside from an odd Wildcard or two) while some will jump at the opportunity to try out the shiny new Haris.
Recent Guild Ball French Nationals (90+ players) - Four Miners (faction released couple of weeks ago) in Top 4, six in Top 8. Recent Warmachine/Hordes tournament at Adepticon - dominated by Circle Orboros with one warlock - Iona. I can only laugh when I hear that balance between factions in Infinity is bad... It's not good but far from other games.
Not being as bad as other games doesn't mean you should be satisfied or stop striving for improvement. There is always work to do and Infinity has been slacking off compared to itself in ITS8. @SmaggTheSmug the gap in between top and bottom 3 keeps growing larger and is far from "minimal". If all new Factions could compete without problems that would be nice and all, but that's not what has happened. There is an obvious difference when you put OSS and Varuna next to Druze and MO. Part of that is also to blame on ITS, which has been favouring higher Order counts, quality Datatrackers and the ability to tarpit your opponent with cheap bodies for a while now. On average the higher tiered Factions are up to 4 times as likely to win a tournament as the weakest ones.
@Teslarod You are 100% right. It's just that I hear a lot of "game X is balanced better than Infinity" lately. People lack perspective :)
Entirely possible, like Fatality L1 got kept for TAGs. A good external balancing measure, where you can keep successful tweaks and discard those that threw things off. As for balance: Toy soldiers is going to be wonky if you have lots of cool exceptions in it. Having been playing the game since most units were basically spreadsheet clones of each other, I can say that the differentiation and pushing of some things to relative extremes makes the game far richer. What few balance issues there are have been addressed pretty well. Fatality L2 will probably be so evidently OTT that it will catch a nerf. Not much else is truly out of whack. Having had really skilled players beat the crap out of me with even the lamest of tools, we're still well within the range where it's you (not your list).
Full auto 2 is another rule that provides far more value than its cost. Overall id like to see some recosting of skills come n4, specially when it comes to skills that simulate attributes vs the cost of just having said attribute
Now he needs to find a way to add a 9th Bolt and buy the Cosplay Bolt! I'm hoping that we get this recosting before a hypothetical N4! The NCA Engineer suggests that either Veteran or Bioimmunity also got cheaper, since it went down in cost by 1pt.
We've known for a while now that both Veteran and Bioimmunity were skills with a scaling, rather than static, cost. So having both of them on the already kinda expensive (due to attributes) Bolts was always problematic. But it's the Bolts, rather than the Engineer, which demonstrate the new costing (the Engineer would probably have been roughly the same price anyway).
@Teslarod As long as the game doesn't work like this I am satisfied. Spoiler Yes, some armies will have a hard time against other armies (anything Heavy Infantry focused will groan when facing Nomads) and not all armies perform well in all scenarios. There is rules bloat issue and ITS became very fiddly (I personally hate Xenotech and Bravery so much I barely play ITS anymore). I am definitely against the proliferation of "unit X counts as Y for Fireteam composition", it goes against the idea of what Fireteams were meant to be in the first place. But it's still a game in which skill trumps numbers, so that's good.
Exactly my point, thank you. Every faction has some very optimal units and bunch of sub-par ones. You can do well with sub-par units but you put yourself at an unnecessary handy cap for no real gain. The old bolts were that kind of unit. The new Bolts, where you can take drop bears on an 18 point profile instead of a 25 point one makes a huge difference. The whole point of Bolts was to be able to deliver drop bears and now they are much more cost effective in their role. Not to mention they even added a linkable Machinist so we could finally have "bolt" engineers. CB listened to us, it only took a few years of complaining. :P Now yes, the balance of this game is far better than 40k or warmachine. But that doesn't change the fact that factions in Infinity suffer from codex syndrome where a few factions dominate and those that lag behind will have to wait many years to get revised. And if such a revision is questionable in effectiveness (arguably MO), tough luck.
Out of curiosity, is it really promoted by ITS and not core principles of Infinity? What would be those missions that promote the opposite? Agreed. I've looked into Infinity when games by certain other company started to become streamlined, and units even more same-y than they were before.
Ironically the most common accusation leveled at Infinity is that "everyone looks (and probably plays) the same". Especially when a newcomer looks at different factions and sees the same Combi LI guys.
This cant possibly come from the people playing a game with like 9 armies that all use the same exact models in different colors right ?
I'd love to see them rebalance units so that 20 regular orders basically doesn't happen. Also I'd like to see them completely remove the reduction in cost for impetuous/frenzy, because trading cover for a free order is way more equivelant than trading cover for a free order + up to a 10 points rebate per unit. ... I have more, but i'm sure everyone has a wishlist for N4.
There are some units that wouldnt work without the rebate to be fair. In addition cover is one of the strongest things in the game to boost a units survival, so trading an order that must be spent with very specific parameters for the inability to take cover, doesnt sound too good, specially now that tactical awareness is a thing.
I mean, like I mentioned before our local community has a joke about how all toy soldiers are the same in Infinity. When you look at stats alone, you notice that there's relatively little difference between normal grunts and elites, and 10 pts model may wield basically the same gun as 52 pts model. But at least Infinity still has all those characterful rules like Impersonation, HD, Superjump etc. Meanwhile the system I mentioned originally does away with whatever little it had in that department.