Some people like it, some dislike it. To be honest this is so subjective. I think CB balanced the game well with this rule and kept an epic feel with it. After my last example with the Intruder: Last match I lost my TR drone in a FtF. I did four good hits and lost to a single Crit with explosive treat... do I complain? No! It was a really cool situation which you have to imagine. The ISS Wu Ming close to the defeat... he hears the drone advancing with her Climbing Plus... BAM! And don't tell me you don't love headshots in a game. ;)
Aa-a-a-and if that would be a tournament, that single crit which could bring you a loss of first place could possibly make someone very-very unhappy. Name Infinity a dice-festiwal, throw game away and meet some other wargame. I don't think criticals are pleasant and they are too powerful, too random, too often. Hell...after some demo games I've done with people with 5+ years in WH40k who say that Infinity is random. That is what kind of feeling criticals bring. There are few people who say "get rid of criticals", but there are more, who say "change those a little bit".
@sorniak To be fair, there's rarely a situation when the only kind of bad luck that can make you lose FtF is a critical from the opponent. You can roll badly in many different ways :D If anything, the problem with criticals is that they define that range of probabilities which absolutely doesn't care about any input from your gameplay besides attack declaration and you being able to roll dice at all.
@Barrogh we-e-e-ell...about those rare situations. I used to play heavily with vanila CA. Charontide, Avatar.... I remember cleary loosing my games on some damn e/m critcal\ panzerfaust critical from 20- pkt cost model....My center-piece attacking unit is always afraid of criticals even when attacking with -9 to enemy, some cheap 20 pkt model ;(... One of the reason I betrayed CA :)
@sorniak I suppose the fact that crits also auto-apply ammo effects, and that crit which already happened wins F2F in at least ~77% of cases (something other successful throw results cannot boast) is responsible for the majority of cases when your attack piece stack mods like hell and still loses. So, being afraid of crits specifically probably makes sense, especially when said attack piece is mod-staking platform with high saves.
I do like Crits. I do think they should be in the game in one way or another. I absolutely love the very possibility of a mere Kamael downing a TAG with a lucky shot. This was the thing that brought me into Infinity -- that there is no unkillable godlike uber-soldiers that you cannot deal with, like in some other games. Sure, getting reliable results is nice, but over time it gets repetetive and the feeling of accomplishment just fades away. If you are that kind of player, I think you should be playing WH40k instead -- it's full of 2++s and rerolls that make sure your Master Plan will not fail. Many Magic: the Gathering players complain about the game still having land cards (the ones that produce mana you need to play any other card) as part of your deck, while similar games went with some sort of automatic mana gaining mechanic. Those players want to have a consistent mana flow so they woudln't be losing games to mana flood (having too many land card draws) or mana screw (having too few land card draws). Yes, occasionally the game will be lost due to land draw issues, but that happens not that frequently, and it also brings variety to the game. And variety is exactly what makes a good game. Mark Rosewater, the lead designer for the game, once told: “If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail” *. Love Crits, hate them, but don't say that they make Infinity a bad game. * - here's the full article where that quote is better explained (go for Lesson #11).
I already lost crucial units on tournaments to Crits. My Intruder example was a tournament match. 40K players said Infinity is random... Sorry, but I am laughing. Infinity is the most balanced system I know and 40K is definitely not.
That was my thought as well. It's basically a 1/20 chance. IF, CB ever wanted to lower the strength of crits, adjusting Infinity to be 1/25 or 1/30 seems like the simplest way to accomplish this. No changing of the actual rules, just multiplying stat values to match. Doubling the base values of everything essentially halves the odds of rolling a crit to 1/40. Of course this moves the game into needing two dice which I'm sure not many players would enjoy. Again, it's all very subjective. Whatever group of players is the largest shouldn't be relevant. Whether it's those who want more crits, less crits, or no crits. It's up to CB to decide how they want Infinity to function. I'm MASSIVELY AGAINST any argument that is supported by, "the majority want it so it's the best direction to take". I prefer to see products suited for all tastes. If every product was designed for the majority the world would be extremely boring.
Nobody has advocated removing Critis from the game, they should absolutely still exist in the system and provide a required function within the rules. What does need looked at is how much they jar with the rest of the system where every other mechanic involves some player agency and choice while the current Critical rules do not beyond staking modifers or dice in the hopes of getting them. The last time we had this discussion on the old forums it was in response to the introduction of Fatality LV 2 and many posters put forward suggestions on how the Critical mechanics could be changed. Unfortunately there was also a vocal minority who didn’t want any discussion of Criticals being changed to occur and did their best to shut down the topics through personal attacks and trolling. My favourite post still being one where I was accused of masterminding a scheme to sell more D20’s through alterations to the Critical rule, stuff got wired... Im hoping that new forum = new spirt of discussion and maybe people will be open to the idea of Criticals being changed and would like to debate what this would look like.
For what it's worth, 40k meta has moved to hordes of cheap reliable wounds since the latest redaction (granted, where were many changes that made that more feasible for more factions). Funny thing is, this is something most Infinity players are also doing, if many years of whining about "order spam" are anything to go by. But, if anything, willingness to rather play with things you can afford to lose is something crits have something to do with, if only partially. That per se does not mean this is the most competitive way of constructing your list, but there's that. Now, I have no idea whether things have improved over there (in 40k) in terms of balance, but I feel it's becoming too homogenized and factors that could interfere with vulgar statistics governing shootouts are getting thrown out of the window. I mean things like LoS, terrain etc. Last year's large tournaments were basically empty tables with hundreds of minis on them. To be fair, people who are content with status quo are more likely to remain completely silent on subjects, so the mere fact we were discussing anything could be a sign of us being a vocal minority :) The fact there was no general agreement on what exactly is wrong with crits and what should be done didn't help either...
To ensure every unit has an opportunity to cause wounds and to ensure there are no Invincible units or situations where a unit is invincible. The often quoted example is a Jhotum in cover which is effective ARM 13 and thus immune to Combi Rifles and Rifles who’s base DAM is 13. Normal infantry units armed with Combis should be able to damage a Jhotum in cover there’s no question of that. The issue is that there should be some risk in taking this approach beyond loosing a cheap unit in order to take out an expensive one. There are no downsides to Criticals it’s a blanket win for the person who rolls them and IMHO this contrasts with the rest of the rules.
To be fair most people who find it annoying enough won't pick up the game or won't keep playing it. I don't think it's possible to determine what the silent minority is, particularly when the polls split the forum users down the middle on the topic, so of the people who care enough about the game to have an active forum account roughly half were unsatisfied with how crits worked.
OK, so at least we're on a common ground here. I think the best way to ensure a proper discussion about this controversial topic is to try to understand each side's arguments. So, the next logical question (two in one, actually) would be: What about Crits you (I'm addressing this to everyone) don't like? What is that you like about them? Please try to answer both questions.
I like the cinematic effect of the Crits and how sometimes a single Crit could be the miracle I need to save an otherwise disastrous game. I don't think this should happen frequently, but it should happen from time to time. I don't like when my plan is ruined or made very difficult to complete because of a Crit. This means I would need to rearrange my plan on-the-fly and maybe even forfeit some objectives in order to survive. Now that I've typed the negative, I started thinking -- if my plan can be foiled so easily, maybe the plan wasn't good enough? I'm not implying anything, this is just a thought that captured me. But the more I think about this, the more I come to conclusion that CB could have introduced Crits to fight ramboing. Does this make sense to anyone else?
OK very briefly as I’m in work Things about Crits I don’t like: No downside to rolling one, is a blanket success for one player based only on luck Invalidates any player agency in choosing which unit makes an attack, an ARO or the tactical positioning of a unit to be in an advantageous position. A run of Criticals by one player can and does ruin games. It could be argued this is statistically impossible but I think all of us have played at least one game where a string of Criticals have swung the game in favour of one player. Things about Criticals I do like Ensures no unit is invincible and that there are no “Death Stars” in the system Provides cinematic moments for players where a units lucky shot has an impact Is very thematic for CC where I think Criticals really work as intended To stress I don’t think Criticals should be removed from the system I do however belive very strongly that the rule can be improved and from playtesting with small variations of the rule know that this produces a much more enjoyable experience for both players.
I think criticals work pretty much as intended in CC. It makes sense that a Ninja with years of Martial Arts training on his very worst day should still beat a line troop 2/3 of the time (due to values of 20 adding to your roll) and it also makes sense that a Samurai in power armor should be able to slice right through a guy who has no training in a close combat fight. Or maybe I just like it because I like one-shotting TAGs half of the time with an Oniwaban in hidden deployment. Either way, I would suggest one of two things to balance crits: 1) Crits only guarantee you win the f2f, damage rolls are as normal. This allows a lower skilled unit to get a "lucky shot" but without the auto damage part. 2) Force crits to take another roll. I would suggest crits need to be confirmed by rolling against your lieutenants WIP (with skills like Inspiring Leadership making it WIP+3 or something.) This reduces the odds of crits from 1/20 to 1/30 or so, and makes the mechanic less swingy, while still providing the "cinematic feel" of crits by making sure they still happen in games.
That is what i mean by predictable. The less RNG rambo's face, the more predictable their runs become. This applies to more than just rambo's, it applies to every order spent really. While I don't doubt you both enjoyed the experience better, it isn't evidence of anything is it? I can find two players who would enjoy the game more after increasing the strength of crits. Again, it's all very subjective. Reducing the strength of a crit does not automatically make Infinity better. No matter what the effects of a crit are changed to, someone is always going to want it changed even more. I used to enjoy Warhammer Fantasy. Running around with my Death Star cutting troopers down like wheat. It was a different cinematic experience. It also made for a more predictable game. I don't really want Infinity to get closer to a game where TAGs cut down all the line troops with ease and the whole game rests on how I do against the oppositions TAG. How big should the gap between a Jotem and combi truly be? I don't know. I just know CB decided what they wanted and I chose to play their game. I suppose if enough players make a stink about it something might change. Those things can happen. It's probably the forums equivalent of a crit.
You have the ectros and the gorgos. Hillariously enough both of those lose their hackabillity once symbio goes down as the become LI. All your other 2w or more troops are MI and LI. Eveb the rasail packing 3 wounds and mate able is not HI. In terms of hackers you aelis and a whd on you line troops. As a faction you are about as unhackable as ariadna is. Funnily enough you have significantly less to worry about than ariadna from EM because again. Only 2 profiles (3 with neema) that suffer imm2. Whereas all ariadna HI still get jobbed. So yeah i feel comfortable calling tohaa largely unhackable for practical intents and purposes
