@ijw I fell like we're talking past each other. What you're talking about is how rules are and what they are to be played / interpreted as. What I'm talking about is how the rules should be and what they (IMO) should be designed / worded as, to achieve a uniform and logical interaction between items / skills / etc that do exactly the same thing on the table (create some type of a Zero-Vis zone).
We're only partially talking past each other. I understand that you think that every ability that places a Visibility Zone on the table should work in the same way. I disagree with this. It's a bit like saying that all template weapons should work in the same way, for example that Chain Rifles etc. should need to make a BS Roll because Missile Launchers need to make a BS Roll. White Noise is (and in my opinion should be) fundamentally different to Smoke and Eclipse Grenades due to it being a Hacking Program instead of a BS Weapon. The biggest impact is the differences to how they are triggered in ARO*. Smoke/Eclipse Grenades can only be used in ARO when you're already at risk of dying if you don't win the roll-off (excepting a few situations where the Active Trooper is too far away to hit). As a Hacking Program, White Noise AROs get triggered much more often, and at far less risk to the user. I have personal experience of this from both sides in N3 - a couple of HD+ Hackers could easily lock down most MSV attackers in ARO, without being at any risk from that attacker and without the White Noise ever being a FtF to decrease the chances of it failing. In N4 it's now even more common for a player's main attack pieces to have MSVs. Mirrorball, in comparison, is a much smaller issue due to being limited to the user's ZoC to be triggered. *Because if you're streamlining White Noise to to be equivalent to Smoke and Eclipse Grenades in creating a FtF Roll, keeping White Noise as a Short Skill with no ARO option would create an even bigger discrepancy between the abilities...
I didn't ask for the above to be the only and singular change to how White Noise works. I asked for White Noise to be brought in line with other things that create different Zero-Vis zones and affect the table in almost identical ways. The issue is not balance, it's design and how legible the rules and the intent are to the players. If there's a partial symmetry in how certain rules are activate and how they affect the table, there is a logical and intuitive expectation within the player base for the symmetry to be complete among all "sister" rules. Instead, we have several rules that work identically in a certain aspect and one that doesn't, "just because". You can see from the comments above that there's that expectation. And I think that expectation should be met. If that fact causes an imbalance for whatever reason, use other design tools to adjust that - without causing further assymetry.
@ijw thanks for pointing out the ARO issue. It’s bugged me since N3 came out that White Noise breaks the mold vs. other abilities that generate zero viz zones. I’m still not 100% convinced, but I can at least see your point of how it could potentially get really oppressive running a visored model through an enemy hacking area, only to have a strong FtF ARO once you finally get a bead on the enemy. I’ve mostly experienced White Noise on much smaller scales; in a micro example, it’s very frustrating for a Custodier to not be able to do anything good to defend herself if an enemy with a visor is about to fire on her.
Reducing something having a completely different design space to ‘just becuase’ is not a good way to advance the discussion. :-( This is purely hypothetical, as I think it’s unlikely that White Noise will be changed in function, what would be your fix for it? Bearing in mind these constraints: A Short Skill/ARO, No Disposable, No negative MOD for the user, Normal Hacking rules (Hacking Area etc.) apply.
@HellLois would be the person to ask why the ARO ability was removed for sure, but given my experiences with White Noise in N3 I think it’s likely to be due to how oppressive it can get, especially with the big increase in MSV1 pointmen in Fireteams.
Let me rephrase then - it seems like a "just because", as neither we are told why this is designed differently (I don't mean why it works differently), nor do you provide such an explanation here. We do not know the designer's reasoning and there isn't a visible one. That one thing is an outlier and we do not know the intent behind it, at least it cannot be easily gleaned from the rules and the way they are created. I am not a designer, I'm a player. I do not presume to be able to provide a good solution to how to achieve the unknown design intent in a different way than "does not cause an FtF". If you told me directly what the intent was, what exact role in the design space that specific decision has, what was the reasoning behind it - then I might give it an amateur shot. To get ahead of it, I wouldn't want this to be shot down with a classic internet "can't provide a solution, don't point out the problem" though. My amateur reply would probably be: "Smoke / Eclipse aren't Disposable, so this doesn't need to be either. Make it a Short Skill/ARO ability for anyone with the particular Hacking Device / equipment. Require a straight WIP roll, constraining the User to unmodifier WIP value. Limit the usability with placing the Zone completely within the user's ZOC. Since Smoke / Eclipse get bonuses to usually high PH values at 8" range, sometimes even with burst or +3 bonus (fireteams) and White Noise works only against Visors, the limited range and no bonus to test value should be limitation enough." Again, I'm no designer of Infinity, I have no idea about the needs of the gross interactions between units and factions, so I'm not even considering that.
The biggest problem with unifying smoke/eclipse and white noise is the fact when you can declare them (assuming theoretical Aro white noise). To throw smoke as Aro you need to see active trooper, this means he can see, and shoot you. With white noise you can be prone on rooftop deep in your DZ and have repeaters anywhere on the table, as soon as anything (Impetuous warband for example) moves within said repeaters range you can start spamming White noise Aro. Before you opponent is able to cros midlane with his MSV pointman half of the board could be covered with something he cant see through. Does this look good?
Thank you, that was a lot more useful for getting your point across. It’s designed to be a passive ability, not an active defence like Smoke and Eclipse. If you need more detail than that, you’ll have to hope that @HellLois comments. There was a small aspect of that, but a bigger aspect is that I was hoping was that you’d try, and realise how constrained some parts of the Infinity design space are. As a case in point, why are you limiting a Hacking Program to the Hacker’s personal ZoC instead of their Hacking Area? This is (in my opinion) a bigger discrepancy than the one you’re trying to solve.
If you mean "hacking area" as in, ZOC and repeater ZOC, then that's just me not playing with hackers almost at all. That's basically what I mean, "completely within the Hacking Area" then would be the phrasing.
More to the point, White Noise already had a limitation on the ability to throw down multiple White Noise Zones: NFB. By declaring a second or subsequent White Noise (program), NFB would cause the cancellation of the first zone on declaration. This means that for an Interventor there was a 25% chance that you'd end up with no Zones on the table after trying to shift the first zone to a more advantageous location. Overall this would have meant that defensive White Noise was mostly niche rather than oppressive (particularly since you're giving up a Spotlight ARO to get White Noise down). There honestly doesn't seem to be a purpose for NFB now that White Noise has lost ARO: multiple active turn White Noise Zones is *extremely* order intensive. All it really does is serve as a significant direct nerf to Custodiers, which - admittedly - are clearly a troop in need of nerfing: teenage girls are too strong in the current meta. (It also is a minor direct nerf to all other HD+s due to the inability to use Cybermask and White Noise together ) Trading no ARO for no NFB would be a lot more coherent and would cause a lot less issues (I still need to regularly explain that White Noise NFB applies to the Hacker that used the program not to the model standing in the Zone).
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Infinity is -still- impenetrable to newbies. It’s deep and rich, but hoo boy there’s really no avoiding a bunch of confusion when things that are similar-looking but have different outcomes/interactions. There are good reasons for those differences, but the explanation and walkthrough to understand them is still a steep curve.
Thanks to those who took time to explain this, both on the rules-explaining side and on the hey-guys-here’s-where-our-confusion-comes-from side. When presenting superficially similar scenarios with different outcomes/interactions, it’s really difficult to summarize the issue and clarify that A and B are not like C. Here for example, several effects all using LoF-affecting round templates, but not all possible to deploy the same way or at the same time. On the other side of the discussion it’s also difficult to explain the nature and source of our alternate, usually incorrect misunderstandings. The discussion in this thread did a really good job of defining and then differentiating those things. My own understanding of the differences in whatever-viz template effects and the whys behind those differences has been expanded. Anyways, just to say thanks to you guys, since it must often seem a thankless effort opposed by weird trolls.
Yeah the idea that White Noise isn't intuitively very similar to smoke for Hacking/MSV, outside all the complex rules that labour to make it not similar seems pretty far fetched. It really could have been simplified to be basically the same mechanically as smoke in N4 IMHO. Trading being an ARO or being NFB for working in Hacking area seems fine. But otherwise it's a whole lot of confusing complexity for little gain.
