Forum opinion? TO opinion? As you can see in the handy graph below, it is factually unfortunate for the population named Mahtamori that these missions remained in ITS.
Annihilation being good or not is a more abstract idea about whether or not pure killing missions are a good idea for Infinity. I lean slightly towards them being good, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that I'm wrong. Highly Classified is just bad, and I don't care how many times people choose it for ITS. Countermeasures is 100% better and I was really hoping we'd see the end of HC with this season. Ah well.
Eh, for me it's a toss-up between the two. Countermeasures is slightly less random and restrictive to its lists, but it also has that annoying Exclusion Zone.
I dont mind Highly classified as a mission, but I agree that Countermeasures is alot better and could probably just replace it. I also dont know what he's on about getting rid of annihilation, it's much more useful to have a spread of complexity in missions contained in one book vs having one book of only complex missions and having the main rule book contain another set of missions while both being viable for an its tournament.
What are you two on about? Countermeasures is more random than Highly classified, you literally draw randomised objectives per turn rather than once before the game starts. You can be ahead on points in Countermeasures, then your opponent gets a bunch of super easy missions to do, blitzes them down and catches right up, then your turn comes about again and you draw a bunch of really hard missions as replacements and struggle. Your opponent goes again, replaces a mission and maybe he gets another hard one, maybe he gets a super easy one and gets ahead on points. Totally random. The whole argument around the mission is more balanced with the red deck is that the mission more consistently sucks all the time for both players which leads to the mission being less randomly swingy.
100% of objectives in both games are randomly drawn; in highly classified you have a single discoard from a choice of two, in countermeasures you have three discards and redraws from a choice of three each. My play experience with Countermeasures has certainly felt highly controllable (relative to Highly Classified, where I have less agency I can exert on the course of the game), but I appreciate its not a scenario for everyone.
Highly classified is less random purely because the objectives are static before the game starts, even before lists are chosen. If the player is selecting lists that struggle to complete the known classifieds then somewhere along the way the player is making significant unforced errors. You don't run into the situation of either player having harder or easier objectives. You might wind up with Telemetry, Follow-up, and HVT Designation and find that's pretty simple. Then your opponent draws Mapping, HVT Inoculation, Kidnapping, and Retrongineering and says "fuck my life" then redraws one into Nanoespionage and flips the table. You can get randomly lucky or unlucky during Countermeasures based on mission draws. You might get suddenly saved because you draw test run and happen to have an unconscious REM you can snag an easy point off. Maybe you lose because in the final turn you draw missions that your list can no longer complete due to casualties. It's all random. Highly Classified is static at the start. You have the list you chose which you feel fits the draw the best, and the game plan roughly stays the same all the way through because the cards stay the same. There isn't the aspect of random swings mid game.
To each their own. I've never felt like a game of countermeasures was outside my control, either moment to moment or over the full three rounds. And the last game of countermeasures I watched start to finish was won off the back of a redraw into nanoespionage on the final turn and some really ballsy play to commit to getting it. The scenario is won or lost off a player's capacity for consistent adaptivity. That might not be your strength, and that's fine.
You just admitted it yourself that countermeasures is more random. Entirely possible turn 3 that same player redraws into an objective he is unable to complete. Drew Test Run and you have no unconscious remotes? Bad luck for you that's a dead mission objective on the final turn. You can declare each to their own as much as you like but it doesn't change the fact that countermeasures is quantifiably far more random than highly classified.
Both highly classified and anihilation should remain in my opinion. They are somehow the "extremes", from killing focused to objective focused.
And this is why I regret not submitting Clighly Hassified to White Noise :'( (it's Highly Classified expect each player secretly chooses 2 Main Objectives. If both players choose the same Objective play the Extreme Version for double points instead).
I’m stealing that for my local game night on Sunday. Regarding the subject of Highly Classified vs Countermeasures. I feel like it’s a matter of taste but in my opinion Countermeasures is more fun mission. Highly classified is a better mission when you use it in a tournament and TO announce the objectives before the tournament begins (so Ariadna for example doesn’t get fucked by drawing 4/4 hacking related classified during a game or something similar, which countermeasures at least can somewhat rectify). Countermeasures, for me, is a better mission than Highly Classified in tournaments where the objectives are not predetermined and you insist on having the draw mechanic.
And with the new scoring system, Countermeasure is no more a swing mission (draw to major win with a single roll). You can score A LOT of Objective points even losing.
There are only 2 hacker only Classifieds, HVT espionage and Datascan, but yes you 100% can get fucked over by them as Ariadna in Countermeasures. You draw both of them on one turn you lose the ability to score 2 points on that turn, that can quite easily mean game over. With that said, I think it's time Ariadna got more skin in the hacking game. Nomad mercs like Zeros being slotted into sectorials via Teseum bucks would make sense lorewise and would assist in mission design eliminating these problems. I think you should actually do the math on that. Simply being 1 classified ahead of your opponent is worth 4points still, that makes a 5pt difference. It only stops being a major victory if both players have done at least 6 classifieds. The only real difference between the two is the datatracker is gone, which does help a fair bit, but it certainly doesn't eliminate swing from the game.
How is this different compared to most missions in ITS? Annihilation has a potential 6-point swing, Biotechvore will probably have a 4 point swing, Capture and Protect can have a 4 to 6 point swing from killing a single unit, Frontline can have the second player go full 18 point swing if they have enough miniatures left and are good at counting points (though it's more common to be a 6 point swing), and so on. Any mission with an objective that is 'more X at end of game' will be swingy. Countermeasures and kill missions (other than Capture and Protect due to logistical reasons) are the missions I can think of where you can deploy and play in a way as to prevent massive comebacks through hail mary.
The TP scaling is in some ways worse and in some ways better than before. You're still rewarded mainly for binary winning and 5 OP is significantly easier than "5 MORE OP than the other guy" was. You're not punished at all for not playing the mission and scoring low on OP as long as you manage to edge out a win you're likely to have those 5OP and get full 4 points. A well fought Tie is still 2 points behind that 4 point win. We previously saw 5 game Tournament winners at mostly 12-15 TP. Now it's going to be 18-20. The changes don't affect the top spots and certainly don't introduce a comeback mechanic to recover from a loss or draw. Everything behind the podium becomes a lot more interesting though. The average score should rise now that you can score 10 TP with 5 straight losses, that should make tournaments more engaging for the majority of people duking it out for anything from top third to dead last. While I would have preferred that winning stops being 2 points more than a tie by default and for OP to have bigger impact, it's an overall improvement.
