Well, the Q2 was more of a motivation. But I think you missed Greif and Kiiutan. Not everyone can take out a HI or TAG, particularly not a Morat HI or TAG, but yeah. I think it's important to have a wide threat area, but the amount of troops with easy access to opponent's DZ makes going second a potential death sentence against several sectorials unless you're specifically prepared to mitigate it with all lists.
Maybe lets step back a little from factional jockeying and look at the hacking problem from the beginning. For me the beginning was N2, pre-ITS, pre-scenarios. Do you guys remember what was the most common accusation against the game from its detractors at that point (apart from eternal "everything looks the same")? "Infinity is the game where you take a TAG or Achilles, 9 cheerleaders and hope to win initiative. the end." Hacking was sometimes cited as one of the counterarguments, as a possible defensive strategy. Because back then hacking did pretty much one thing - a proto-carbonite. You rolled Wip minus target BTS* (So TN was 4 for Wip 13 vs 9 BTS) and if you succeeded you bricked them. Reset was on straight Wip. So pretty much only useful as a hail-mary aro, or if you really couldn't get a favourable FtF shooting against a TAG in active. *(thats why BTS is in 3 increments, a remnant of the past when it was used as a stat modifier, CB could totally stop doing that now so we can have more differentiation between troops, but somehow it became a sacred cow now) How much did you pay for 20% chance to brick 9BTS, or 35% against 6BTS? 12 points a pop. That was the price increase from a line trooper to a line trooper hacker (moderator hacker with 12 WIP/-3BTS was 21 points against regular 9). And considering that those 12 (or much more if you wanted to have some repeaters or better chances with more hackers) did F-all for you if it was a dog warrior decimating your DZ in alpha strike instead of Achilles, it was no wonder that people simply preferred to spend those points on multiple buffer warbands or whatever. I vividly remember when an experienced player from a way bigger meta was completely surprised by my hacker bricking his Iguana. He didn't even know how the hacking rules work, cause apparently nobody used them where he played. The only reason why I had a hacker is because it was a 300 points single combat group tournament (before Limited Insertion was a thing with a name) so I was fairly certain that my 12+ points investment won't be useless in most of the games. Oh and there was GML too, but only available to Nomads (GML targeting was what HD+ did). It was much more expensive (HD+ was 15 points I believe) and harder to set up (no pitchers) but once online it was even stupider than now (no PH-3 roll to dodge AFAIR). So, GML. A way to play infinity without playing infinity. All those rules about moving, about skills interacting, about LoF and 3 dimensional positioning. Bin them, we gonna play Yahtzee. I roll one die, you roll one die, who rolls better gets to be happy. Unless you go first and kill the hacker or the drone. Isn't it funny that hacking+GML - "the nerdy/brainy way" is actually the second most brain-dead way to fight in Infinity (after speculative fire which was mercifully nerfed into a niche)? Pitcher, spotlight, GML, thank you. It's like a sorcerer spamming a min-maxed fireball, when a fighter has all the sweet tactical moves and stances from some well designed splat-book. I have a question here to ask CB. What was your point in creating hacking directed GML? A) was it because you though it's gonna be a cool addition to the game? It's not, a mechanic that sidesteps 95% of the rules and turns Infinity into Yahtzee never will be. (Unless it is a niche to be used sporadically when a specific tactical opening arises - as speculative fire works now, being useful mainly to punish too much clumping and to deal with some problematic suppressive fire nests). B) Did you consciously want to add a way of playing Infinity without playing Infinity for people who have no mental capacity to play Infinity, thus increasing the potential player base? If so, just bring back old Heavy Grenade Launchers (32''/+3 range) without bringing back shadow zones. Same result, less side-effects. C) Or did you want to make Nomads the hated non-interactive faction for the simple people? If so - goal achieved, have a pat on the back. With the exception of N3, I heard that a thing called U-Turn killed GML then. To sum up this rambling post. 1. GML always was and always will be cancer, unless rethought from ground up. The problem isn't even whether or not it's powerful. It's above all boring and uninteractive. 2. If hacking had a specific reason to exist in infinity, it was originally to give you a measure of defense against Cutter alpha. It failed miserably at it back in the day. Now it might be a little too good at it, for fraction of the price. Most if not all of problems with hacking now could be solved with: 1) bring back U-turn or just straight up nerf/bin GML. 2) make oblivion reset -3 in line with other programs. 3) make repeaters S1 and/or vulnerable to deactivators without LoF (optional but advisable).
Making repeaters more vulnerable doesn't address the 'alpha problem' - the fact that the solution to the problem cannot be implemented until after the nukes have fallen and the intended effect has already been achieved. While Morans and shit are annoying, for me the ultimate problem is the unstoppable pitcher shot, or the camo repeater "move/move, move/place/die to ARO" that only realistically can be stopped by a mine (and even that only limits its range). I would certainly add something along the lines of "repeaters generate ARO" to any solution, along with any changes to timing that requires. Make it so you have to find safe locations for that repeater, not just splat in front of the tag then duck into your fallout shelter. Edit: Oh, and some kind of U-Turn or or whatever seems essential at this point. What about an ECM drone - give everyone an alt-profile to the ever present Flashpulse Bot or Baggage Bot that has no flashpulse/baggage but has a sort of global or zone of control ECM.
I would expect repeaters in enemy DZ to be much less of a problem once GML is nerfed and Oblivion can be realistically reset. Being carbonited in your own DZ is usually much less of a problem than in opponent's DZ. I might be wrong on that front though. Also yeah, it would be kinda cool if guys could react to a repeater drop, if nothing else then for immersion sake. Maybe make it like smoke - if you're in the effect area you get to ph-3 dodge? I'm always vary of troops/profiles that are used to counter one thing only (relatively rare thing), as it can result in making lists feel like checking counter-to-X boxes. Maybe make it a Nullifier drone/deployable - completely nullify all hacking- spotlight included in it's ZoC. If someone really hated hacking, or had list very vulnerable to hacking he could invest in those. Or an anti-hacking version of Albedo. A defense that wears off giving you time to deal with the problem.
If isolate became easily reseteable (it became reseteable, which is a big thing compared with n3), and GML (the main problem) is nerfed, then we will have a n3 hacking but worse, a game mechanik that don't fullfill its intended role at all.
Considering that you get only one chance to reset from Isolated (cause you can't take orders from order pool) Wip-3 is still a coin-toss, and Oblivion would be very beneficial to drop in aro. The idea is for hacking to not be too good at permanently neutralizing opposition in their DZ, as it can do that now without much risk other than order sink, which kinda seems unfair and maybe is. Achilles would still hate getting hit with Oblivion when on rampage, as it stops the rampage cold, and he has to survive full opponent's turn to get a single 60% chance at going back online. I would pay extra 5 points + 0.5 swc to have such a tool in my list, no problem.
As pointed out repeatedly up thread; There are more than just two, any BTS 6 hacker behind a firewall (typically a tinbot, or an aggressively placed repeater) really drive those numbers up, which is an issue when they are the hackers you are going to be seeing. So tunnel visioning and just saying theres only two its fine, is just short sighted and asinine.
Which again is why some of us have been talking about ways to make a meaningful hacking defense so as to make that strategy have some risk and so the player on the receiving end has something to do beyond picking models up off the table. While there MANY counters for this they are all currently active turn only, Yes you can stab them with an impersonator or drop an AD guy on their head or use your own repeaters and GML bot, which is great if you go first, however if you don't there is no real way to stop it happening, which is why there needs to be a way to defend against hacking within the hacking eco-system. Such as pointed out previously, making firewall just ECM hacking so BTS doesnt get stacked into stupid land or make the the woefully underperforming killer hacker actually relevant.
Proliferation of TacAware and NCO on profiles that you want to Oblivion means the likelihood of Oblivion stopping a rampage has decreased. The worst example of this is an Avatar which, provided it doesn't stop inside a Repeater, is on normal roll 8s over 3 orders to Reset out of Oblivion. But less extreme versions of that also exist. The high penalty of ISO means that it's not trivial. Oblivion in a DZ shouldn't be an issue either: Engineering out of it is entirely reasonable from inside a DZ. That being said I DO agree that IMM should be easier to apply than ISO because of how much easier it is to get out of.
Well thank you for the considered response and the question. It's a bit hard to answer the question without defining what the problem is, and I think there's kind of two: 1. When area control hacking (ie through repeaters) allows you to too easily be more powerful in your opponents turn than they are it kind of stalls out the game and makes it unfun for them. This is kind of the same problem as the Kamau was. Not that it was too good at shooting, that it was too good at shooting, at long range (and therefore over large parts of the board) in your opponents turn. Meaning it is hard and frustrating for for your opponent to have their fun, when it's is their turn to do so. Although its good that in Infinity 'its always your turn' (and control is kinda my style) taken too far this kind of violates the contract of a game where people do have their own turn, so people can find it unfun. 2. Guided is both powerful and largely uninteractive. You do have some choices when targeted by it but not great ones. I'd note a lot of people don't make the best of those choices yet though (e.g. resetting out of targeted so they cant hit you again instead of dodging can be a good choice for multi wound heavies who c asn take 1 hit but not 5). Solving 1. by just making KHDs blaat any hacker off the board in their own turn through their own repeater is problematic for several reasons, not least of which are the issue with making peoples own resources used against them being not fun and a dead end design wise, and also the structural design of Nomads meaning if you can delete their hackers like that they suddenly aren't the hacker faction and have to encroach more on other design space to compete. I guess my solution to 1 might be something like a program that had good odds to disable a hacking network in your own turn without trivially killing the hackers behind it. Then each player still gets their go, even if one is better at the hacking part of it. Like Blackout or some program that inflicted the stunned state maybe, that had better odds vs High BTS hackers than Trinity. Sounds a bit like old AHDs but it could go on KHDs. I think for 2. (Guided) It'd be better if this interaction was more interactive. The template is a bit much sometimes (though this is what gives the target the ability to dodge). Maybe if it had no template but was considered an attack from within ZOC, and also nearby hackers could ARO the missile bot. Something like that. I know that's not without rule adjustments as you'd prefer but that's my immediate thoughts. Having said that, in a game with 87pt Jotums that don't care about crits and can just kill all the limited threats to them and laugh at anything else I think the focus on this is way overblown. And without Hacking being at least as good as it is, that problem would be way worse. If we really need to nerf hacking from where it is, give us old crits back. Or else The TAG Problem which is already worse than The Hacking Problem (IMHO) is gonna get way worse, because the latter is the design solution to the former. Or just play the game as it is and adjust. That's what the best players I know do.
in active, it is usually better to use an engineer instead of reset (no malus, can be repeated, etc, but yes, I know not all factions can bring them the same way), whoever wants their HI safe from hacking should bring at least one (usually with a serverbot). The huge improvement is for the aro reset, which is a new option even if it has a big malus, and you can reset as many times you get aro the problem with nerfing firewall is that low BTS hackers and HI get the bad end of the stick when nerfing a tool designed on purpose to deffend them. But instead of nerfing the defences, there should be alternative ways to deal with high bts hackers, the same way factions with low MSV2 were told to look for alternatives when facion high count of mimetism-6 or smoke, or when the 2 heavy weapons fail against a Jottum, against those kind of hackers people should be open to use alternative ways, not to use the place where they should be "the best". Maybe upgrades for giving AP to some programs, a B2 AP program so to KHD or more damage to some programs (like alepth has in some of their hackers). But seems to me that CB has decided other paht: giving hard to hack units, like the new holy sepulchre, with marker state, high BTS (to save him from IMM) and isolation inmunity. Only the marker state alone is enought a lot o times to save a unit from hacking
Tunnel visioning on BTS as the problem stat is just as asinine. You can easily cause the same issue with BTS3 Hackers (with or without Tinbot) at a higher density. There are very few BTS6 Hackers with trivial access to Tinbots (I honestly can't think of any. The closest is Jazz/Valerya/MB Hacker/SJ Hacker/YM Hacker but in practice that's not a trivial list building decision but rather represents a significant compromise to get that benefit). Infiltrating KHDs exist in pretty much every faction that has KHDs (sorry Tohaa*) to avoid using the enemy Repeater (and likely taking multiple AROs) - so the tools already exist to avoid Repeater based Firewalls. So ok, you want to make a systemic change to fix a perceived issue with 7 profiles, maybe a few more, the majority of which belong to 1 sectorial? Is that an accurate summary? * Which I'll admit is a problem with Tohaa's design. I do, however, agree with Hecaton's point that a B1 AP+DA program to allow KHDs to effectively screen Repeater placement by threatening AROs is reasonable: but that's just as much due to the impact of BTS0-3 Hackers as it is BTS6+ Hackers. The issue is how trivially Repeaters can be spammed coupled with the efficiency of Guided. Make dealing with Repeater spam easier and tone down the efficiency of Guided. That's the prescription: not, make killing troops - which have invested in defence to precisely this vector - easier. // Ooh @Hachiman Taro a high likelihood of success "Sword" program that inflicts Stun is really cool. B2 +3 WIP DAM16 AP+DA feels about right, utility in both Active and Reactive that way. Clearly maths will need to be done, but as a starting point that feels reasonable. Still keeps the defence of high BTS but gives them an option for removing the Hacker from the game for a turn. Feels like it balances the concerns. I like.
I'd throw Oblivion vs. LTs on this fire with the rest. Needing to bring an Engineer up to restart a TAG or HI is one thing, but you don't need a Vertigo to unreasonably cripple an opposing force if they've brought a Hackable LT. Having a proper ARO program would mitigate this somewhat, though I think your proposed Stun program is actually a bit strong in active against high-BTS Hackers given it could be followed up by Oblivion and Trinity without any chance of response beyond Reset. I also do like KHDs as lethal options, fluffwise, since getting the medic to treat nerve damage from a fried device is a lot more evocative than calling IT. Maybe a less evil Maestro could go on some DZ-bound KHDs, or the powerful Stun program could be implemented on the EVO device to prevent easy abuse.
A Stun Sword program into Oblivion would require 2 Hackers. So you're probably around 3 orders to ISO the Hacker, with efficiency decreasing as the quality of the target increases. A Stun Sword program into Trinity would still suffer from Trinity bouncing off BTS. But if it's too easy to get off, then dropping it to flat WIP or dropping its base DAM would be the go to. It fits the fluff for Sword programs: not all of them are lethal. Nobody is forced to take Hackable Lts, you can opt out of that threat if you don't think you can reliably defend against it (and it's definitely a reason why TMs are the preferred HI LT in Nomads due to integral Tinbot) but it's certainly a reason for adding in a decent ARO presence to KHDs: either through an active/Reactive Stun program or through a B1 wounding program. The argument for Interventors is essentially "if I can't take them as my Lt because they're not survivable vs Hacking, why take them at all given Jazz exists?". TJC does not have this option, but gets to be very shooty as compensation: personally I'd prefer to see the shootiness decreased and Interventors left as very difficult to kill via Hacking than to nerf Interventors but leave the Shootiness intact.
It may seem counterintuitive, but high BTS hackers actually benefit more from firewalls than low-BTS hackers, for the same reason a Jotum benefits more from cover than a Fusilier.
I thought it was all BTS6 Hackers with Firewall not just Jazz and Interventors? Personally, I would like to see Jazz nerfed by losing the FTO profile and making Billie compulsory.
I didn't say that Jazz and Interventors were the *only* things that were meta-defining. Reason being, you can beat basically all TAGs in Shooting FtF rolls with troops available to basically all forces during the TAG's reactive turn, and in order to use them to attack, your opponent is going to have to move them, because they rely on LoF to do their thing (except for the grenade lob). This is not true for hackers, so the hackers that *are* problems are particularly problematic in a way that TAGs aren't.
Mary Problems can do both, but I'll admit she's an edge case and isn't exactly taking the Infinity world by storm right now. Stun-Oblivion-Trinity is the play I'm talking about here when I say it might be too strong, using Stun to clear Oblivion for an easy Isolate and then taking advantage of lost Tinbot access and Hacking backup to get the kill with Trinity. It's still pretty inefficient, likely burning a whole turn and a Hacker or two for crappier Hacking factions to neutralise the network, but it's also got the same impact as ripping a mid-cost TAG out of the list given all the investments into Hacking synergy in the average Interventor- or Jazz-centred list. The issue with Hackable LTs is that nobody can reliably defend the things right now, to the point even CB acknowledges it in their MO article; despite the fact that CB really wanted MO to be characterised by its heroic and capable Knight leaders, even through multiple reworks they couldn't get the competitive community to adopt the faction due to the inability to keep a costly HI LT safe, so they've caved and made the Knight Commander to give MO a safe LT option that will actually see play. A lot of PanO players don't even seem to see Joan of Arc's benefits as worth the risk anymore, which is really saying something given she's one of about three viable LTs in Vanilla and PanO has decently affordable CoC. As for Interventors, I think I'd still play them as LTs with competition in the game. White Noise as a LT order and Cybermask for reactive-turn defense is a lot better than you get out of most LTs, to the point I usually find a Custodier worth the investment in Bakunin. As long as the enemy needs to make compromises in their list and play well, yes, they should be able to threaten an Interventor, but it sure as hell shouldn't be as easy as "apply Anathematic to Repeater". I've been outgunned by a Nomad list in late N3 while playing NCA before; my opponent didn't do it by throwing a Kriza at me and rolling well, but by using tools like a Tomcat and Hollow Man to outflank gunners and exploit blind spots, setting up Smoke, Skirmishers and Hackers to prevent movement, and getting a little lucky that my well-positioned Locust securing the centre of the table flubbed his shooting rolls. I want playing Hacking from a disadvantage to feel like that too instead of just throwing dice until one side, probably yours, dies.
