I agree their priorities seem off. However, I don't think there needs to be any set schedule for things like this. There's no reason to have any self imposed limitations. New content and improvements should be made to the game because they are considered worthwhile additions. Fixing new content or improvements should always be a consideration. If it was worthwhile to add, it should be worthwhile to fix. The issue is when they put off or ignore fixes in favor of adding new content or improvements. Those additions invariably need fixes as well. Put them off too long and whatever balance exists starts to shift in bad ways.
That usually is the online worldwide tournament, I'd say. It's also a lost opportunity for a narrative tournament in which to test all those crazy missions, with a scoring system different to that of the map-based. Sadly, it seems that most often than not the missions don't get clarified good enough for the ITS use. As for the issue with the central room, I would add that it is also a headache for the TO. 20 people tournament in a shop means 10 central rooms... 40 people tournament, 20. Satellites can need up to fifty... Every ITS some missions get retired to add new ones, instead of adding without removing. Heck, they could have a PDF with all the missions ever published, in the most barebones format, and then add some modular extras that tailor the mission for a given ITS, while keeping the "official ITS mission PDF" as they have been doing until now. Bugs grow too! And design weaknesses, if not taking into account, can give nightmares even to Cthulhu :(
Eh, maybe? 16 missions to choose from doesn't seem like a bad pool. I agree that having more missions isn't worse by itself, it totally depends on the quality of those missions. That's what is frequently lacking. Perhaps CB should do more crowd-sourcing; I think Unmasking is the best new mission of the last several seasons. I also agree that a three round tournament is much more open to choosing a diverse mission set than a five round event. Two lists for three missions is much different than two for five! I think carefully considering mission selection for big events is much more important than for small: as the TO you're affecting more players who have traveled farther, are committing more of their time, paying more money, etc.
Missions are easily one of the most important things about gaming for me. I always hated the GW games in the past that were solely focused on just killing your opponent. Thematic scenarios and fun objectives make games diverse and interesting. They give a nice longevity to the game itself. I'd love to see more care taken in the development of missions. I don't buy individual board games myself, but I'd certainly buy expansions for Infinity focused on providing new missions combined with relevant scenery, models, 4x4 mats, and other products to make them work (for all factions). I'd prefer expanding the missions I can play for my 2 factions, rather than buy more factions to play in an effort to spice things up.
Maybe the solution could be allow more than 2 lists in big tournaments? I always tought that it should be allowed one list per mission. If you want to do a really competitive tournament make sense. Usually you don't bring swords into a gun fight, but some factions have guns and swords, but others have to choose between swords or guns. So, bring a multipourpose list is harder. More if terrains are involved.
I'd prefer to take that approach as well. I'd like to find a way to allow players to create their list based on the mission AND terrain.
Going back to the older ITS mission breakdown, where you have a choice between combat missions, button-pushing missions, and a limited set of missions that require both. And yes, that does push you into having about 7 missions of each type out of a choice of 20 missions overall. But you have ~14 missions or so if you allow the 'both' missions to be mixed in with the 'pure' missions. I really think ITS was better when you had tournament types like that. You used to be able to say, OK all missions are killers (a 'Direct Action tournament'), so I'm building one list for dealing with spam and one list for elites. And that ran fine. Or you'd say, OK, all the missions are button-pushing (forget what that type was called) and build one list for preventing a spammer from out-scoring you and another list to out-score an elite. The hard tournaments were the 'both combat and button-pushing', which usually required one combat list and one button-pushing list, both of which had to be able to handle either spam or elites. And that's where we are now!
But more player choice during list building and gameplay isn't necessarily a bad thing! I enjoy list building and the difficult decisions to be made pre-game associated with it, I also enjoy seeing more varied lists at larger tournaments, which mixing mission types promotes.
For what it's worth, that restriction was removed as a direct result of TO and player requests, because they wanted to include a wider variety of missions within each event.
@BLOODGOD I just can't agree with your assessment of Transmission Matrix. I enjoy that mission both with USARF and OCF, both factions that have a widely different take on the existence of hacking.
I actually like that the restriction was removed. I just think that it now means that TOs need to be very careful about mission selection.
? Were people not using many of the mixed scenarios? I remember those being the more interesting missions to play. I think right now the problem is that TOs are throwing in very killy missions and very button-mashy missions, and not using any of the hybrids. Running a 'Direct Action' (killy missions) tournament with a couple of the mixed missions gives you the challenge of button-mashing, but without requiring taking a list for killing and a list for buttons. You used to be able to take a list for hordes and a list for elites, or a list for open tables and a list for closed tables, and those are not valid options anymore.
This is why I think a mix a tournie formats is ideal. I disagree with you. I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 Suppremacy tournament (or alternatively, Suppremacy, Quadrant Control and Safe Area). BUT I can accept that it's not to everyone's taste. One of our tournaments locally ALWAYS has BTV in it. It's a thing. The upside is that it means that nobody feels like they need to include it an another tournie all year. More importantly though it lends that tournie character. This is fine. Having some tournies where you need 2 different lists to account for the missions is fine and fun. I do enjoy the problem of building 2 lists that can do the missions and take all comers. But equally, I'd like to see more deliberate choice to ease that problem (particularly for 'entry level' tournies) so that people can experiment with list designs that optimise vs tables or opponents.
Well, I (obviously) disagree to some extent, but you can have interesting tournaments with some pure combat missions and some hybrids, or some button-pushing and some hybrids. That was the entire point of the three mission classes, to tighten down the problems with outlier missions. You could run a pure combat tournament, or a pure button-mashing, or hybrid missions back then. I'm proposing a modification of that, so that you should be taking some missions from either Combat or Button, and others from the hybrid list.
I don't think restrictions are the right way to go. I think influence is a better solution. Partly that's making (Politely!) your objection to the mission selection known to the TO. Partly it's pre-emptively having conversations about what you want to see in a tournament with your community. Finally, become a TO yourself and build the tournaments that you'd like to see (I'll get a 3 game Suppremacy tournament off the ground on day, I swear!).
People talking about Biotechvore but they forget that what happened to it in this season was a travesty.
I agree to no restrictions, period, so I don't think there needs to be any outside influences either. If players/factions have trouble making competitive lists, I don't think the answer is to restrict or influence the mission selection. Any combination of missions should be viable for selection at a tournament. I think any solution should focus on giving players the tools to create better lists. Whether that's allowing them to bring more lists to a tournament, or setting aside time to alter/create lists before a game. Quite frankly, I see no harm whatsoever in allowing players to come to a tournament and bring 50,000 lists if they want. They simply pick the one they want to use after knowing the mission and table. A default list is required beforehand in case they're unable to decide on time.