External army balance issues in N4

I very much agree with everything in the OP. I'm very worried about the direction to balance that the game has taken and I know I'm not the only one feeling this.
There seems to be an unwillingness to nerf stuff that needs nerfing or to make adjustments to make specific units viable which is crippling list variety and makes any lists that seem to be breaking the norms of what was playtested to either fall behind hard or to get ahead.

 

I totally agree.

Some things I've been saying for years (removal of interaction: guided -while not an issue in N3- and Speculative fire, or not being able to recover units from some stuff - YJ currently has 1 engineer that is not a HI-, for example), others are somewhat new, but of little surprise, and some... well, let's just say that several conversations in the Spanish Telegram channel were speculations about the drugs taken by those who greenlighted things like "4 orders Avatar", or "2 wounds Total Inmunity backdoor durok".

I personally am disgusted by the removal of the -2 orders to the starting player for single group lists, and the "group and a half troop limit" to either reduce playing time, or complexity... when you can see 23 orders CA lists, or a Bakunin Chimera Spam (12 models counting as 3, which is mostly the obvious wtf, since there are Antipode Control Units or more "limited" 1-2 synchro troops).

Finally, I think something goes wrong when all the lists you make keep most of the stuff you have been using for years, but suddenly you feel the need to add a Total Reaction bot... regardless of faction (and by that I mean I play any faction but Ariadna and PanOceanía... not out of hate or something like that, I simply can't reach more factions paint/playing-wise).

 

I cant agree with some of the examples (I think Tohaa can f up avatar real good because e/m mines impersonator and makauls are still legal; TAK guy who is afraid of HI links should discover tankhunter ML in the builder; phalanx, bakunin and MO are far from bottom-feeders) but the gist of OP is right, the game got way less interactive (while still being a dumb DM-less RPG casino half of the time).

eh I think it was that way in N3 and it is that way in any wargame - there are competitive lists and fun/casual lists. Running overcharged 20+ order ariadna or kamau sniper on novice players was not very fun, just as effortlessly tabling people with andromeda and the bear is now. Maybe the development of the game in the described direction will slowly strangle competitive play and lead people into casual/fun direction (narrative play in Infinity is very rudimentary unfortunately).

CB dont like to do balance adjustments (and when they do, they never publicly explain) and the community at large is allergic to the words "nerf" or "buff" unfortunately

 

I mostly agree with OP.
There is what, 43 armies in the game ( vanilla + sectorials ) ? And N4 book list something like 40 people in playtesting/proofreading department. So under 1 per army if we count every one of them as playtesters. And those people live in 3-4 different countries, so it is easily possible that some factions weren't even represented in certain playtesting metas. Not to mention the quality of some of the playtesters. Plus COVID happened in the meantime. So why is anyone surprised that balance in horrible ?
I said when N4 released this is not a finished product, core rules were ready for release and nothing else. Now, because of COVID I personally could give a pass to CB for releasing the game in such a poor state. But enough time has passed since the release, and CB does nothing to address many balance issues that arose in the meantime. And they have zero excuse for that, I mean every balance change is click away literally and they can do playtesting in house for at least some of the things and find fixes. But nothing.
CB's approach to balancing is fundamentally flawed so we will never have good balance in this game IMO, but at the moment things are exceptionally bad, as in taking the joy out of playing the game.

 

I think the bubble comment is a fair one, both to our own experiences, and CB balancing the game.

Even with TTS there's a lot fewer games being played until very recently. Even fewer being entered into ITS for consideration. I think as the US is starting to open up for larger events like Salt Lake Showdown and Rose City Raid, and hopefully Gen Con, LVO, and Adepticon next year we'll get a bigger picture as bubbles mix and data starts to get uploaded via tournament results. Hopefully Europe isn't too far behind and sees the competence scenes in the various countries start to mix and compare again.

That said, I wouldn't cry if I saw Pitchers and/or Spotlight taken down a few pegs!

 

They are actualy two since Betrayal. Jeong the Chief Mech Engineer. A bit pricey but nicely equipped.

 

I feel conflicted about this post.

On one hand I feel like Infinity is growing more non-interactive to the detriment of the game.

But a lot of the things you mention were already in the game in N3.
For example, I started playing TAK in N3 as my first army and I was told in my local scene that my camo heavy lists were not fun to play against. So much so that I don't even really want to play TAK anymore. And that was before N4 even began.

N3 had strong armies as well. The ones who could order spam and stay effective were far stronger than the rest. Especially ones that could employ hordes of cheap/powerful smoke throwing warbands.

Having someone throw oblivion smoke at you then run around butchering your army in close combat with 20+ orders was never fun or interactive for the person on the receiving end.

 

Interesting read. Not shure if i agree with it all.

Could the balance been even better ? Shure yes.
Is the balance good enough for pushing around toy soldiers and have fun ? Yes IMO, but people may view it otherwise.

What are you basing the conclusion on ? Subjective opinions ? There seems to be little raw data out there yet for N4. I quite enjoy N4 more than N3. Was there less OP models and rock/scissor/paper in N3 ? Im unshure.

Your Vaul argument I dont follow. Every game systems sometimes run a wonky GT for fun. Vaul startet 2 leagues at the same time. The meme league has 8 players, Vaul himself included. The normal competitive league has 45 players.

In a complex and huge minature game like Infinity with so many models, the hard core competitive players will always push the balance. Doesnt mean that the balance is not good enough. Could always be better shure. But i only see small problems, not huge problems. I think people raise the bar too high.

 

I agree for the most part.

Not only the balance of the game feels off but also the inner balance of some factions, specially the most affected ones by the 15 troop cap. Many troops just don't make sense anymore. And there are some lazy attempts to just transform those factions with more elite troops but with no proper synergy or faction theme behind.
For example they are trying to make usarf work in a play style it was never designed for but without properly redesigning the faction. And even if they succeed usarf will become too similar to the other factions of the game.
If all the armies must have all the 15 slots full to make a properly playable list we will end up playing the same faction but with different colors.

The possibility to reduce orders to limited insertion lists is necessary because of the new rules for extra orders. But it's hurting list diversity a lot.

N4 is a good ruleset for the most part. But the faction design and balance is just unfinished and rushed. There are just too many factions and profiles to balance and they are clearly prioritizing the factions that have new products on the line.

N3 had a lot of issues specially during the second half. But it was more fun than N4 in its current state.

P. D. People who complain about camo lists should try to play a sensor at least once before complaining. Camo lists are very difficult to handle for new players but once you properly learn how to play against them they become just another part of the game with many ways to deal with them.

 

My thoughts on the balance:

I feel that excessive wildcards to push link bonuses is heavily affecting the viability of multitudes of units. I think that Corvus Belli has evolved the design philosophy several times but hasn't taken old models along with it. Sectorials that labor under oppressive design philosophy have serious issues unless they're given absolute batshit buffs (wildcard karhu). I think that the RPG elements (burnt state) of N3 helped keep balance and that now that they're gone the game is shallower for it and requires more direct counters. Pricing for units seems to have been an extreme issue with obvious cheaters (evaders, asawira) that again wildcards use to push other units out. Same old pricing issues of cheap weapons and overcosting/undercharging for various rules still persists and is complicated by other pricing issues. Overall, the game has slid backwards a bit towards rocket tag style play and this was largely helped by forcing down model counts which reduces resiliency. The game should have been capped at 2 combat groups, not this weird 15 order limit. I also believe that limited insertion should be immune to order stripping as it really hurts its overall viability.

That all said, the game is still quite playable and still highly engaging, but there are aspects which could stand to be built back up or sanded down for the overall health of the game.

 

This post nails the little niggling feeling I've had about N4 to date. I think its solid but a few things just aren't sitting right, and unfortunately can sometimes lead to very negative play experiences.

I think the lack of data out there due to limited play experience doesn't help, but I suspect while it might solve some things, I think there are just a few too many meta defining units and strategies that will stick around that aren't the most fun.

Overall I agree that the core rules are solid and many of the issues sit with army profile balance and fireteams. Personally I think fireteams are up there in terms of priority for a re-work. The fireteam core rules haven't changed for far too long, and simply aren't suited for how fireteams are built in N4 (bunch of cheap dudes to give 1-2 elite models all the buffs).

Please CB, engage with the community on incremental balance changes.

 

I agree that there is more powerful things being done in the game, but a lot of the uninteractive things are also very order intensive.

Spotlight / Guided is very order intensive and doesn't advance your board position for most of the orders.

Pheroware are very low risk, but they're worst odds than shooting with a combi.

Oblivion is good, but isolation is way overated, a lot of people act as if an isolated trooper is the same as dead, but there are many ways you can mitigate those effects in your play.

These things don't inherently win the game, they're powerful, but they take a great amount of ressources from your opponent.

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As for the armies listed, I'd have to hard disagree on many of the factions listed.

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I've seen a trend recently (and it might just be anecdotal), but a lot of the list building decisions I see barely ever mentions match-ups in their considerations. It seems like a lot of people are just trying to play their cookie-cutter all comers list and facing new powerful things and then being mad at new mechanics rather than find ways to mitigate them.

Your comments example are pretty much text-book examples of that.

People mindlessly repeat "build your list for the mission, build your list for the mission", but that doesn't just mean "put FO when the mission gives FO bonus, take D-Charges when the mission needs D-Charges", it goes much beyond that and building 2 lists to swap for matchups while keeping the 2 list able to do the mission is a much stronger option imo.

I agree that archetypes are forming up (Like you mentionned with the rock-paper-scisor example), but you can adjust most lists to edge versus those matchups. Very little people are willing to put subpar profiles in their list because of the echo chambers online crying how the profiles are bad. But a niche profile that is bad in a vaccuum can be extremely good in a meta that tends to look more rock-paper-scisor.

 

This is something of a tangent but I'm increasingly of the opinion that any extent to which the issues mentioned in the OP apply are significantly worsened by the TTS tourney environment that most people have been playing with over the life of N4 to date.

As much as TTS has been an incredible lifeline during the pandemic, I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the standard TTS competitive event format (which is structured as a necessary concession to the nature of online logistics) is unhealthy for game balance and dynamism.

To break it down in terms of iteration cycles (i.e. the process of developing, testing and then incorporating or discarding a new idea into your playing style):

Normal infinity iteration cycle: spend a month and a half at weekly LGS game nights mucking around with different lists and trying new things. Then, at the conclusion of that approximately six week average period between events, take the best or most interesting of the ideas generated and tested into my lists to a one-day event. If it turns out I took a dumb thing (intentionally or accidentally), well - it's just one day of games.

TTS tourney infinity cycle: spend one or two weeks trying to figure out the optimal list for an event that's going to take five weeks, then lock it in for those five weeks with no capacity to iterate until the next tourney cycle. Want to play an off-meta list? Not in TTS events you don't, the stakes are too high: bring on-meta reliable content or risk five weeks of torture.
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To put it another way, the risks associated with experimenting in your local community are extremely low and the benefits are generally high, assuming you have a reasonably dynamic local crowd. In contrast, the risk of experimenting in a TTS event is extremely high.

Couple this with how large online communities tend toward homogeneity in any case and remove the counterbalancing influence of dynamic/diverse local groups with different strength players trying different things, and you have a massive shift toward the illusion of a solved game state.

Again, I'd like to emphasise that TTS has been an incredible lifeline and that the various tourney organisers behind events like the Remote Access League and so on have done a huge amount of work keeping the game alive during an incredibly challenging time. They are, unequivocally, absolute fucking legends. But there are significant constraints that the platform has to account for when used for competitive organised play that I think we're seeing the long-term impacts of in threads like these.

 

I wonder...in N3, crits were kind of a universal leveler that was available to anything with a gun. On the one hand, crit fishing and the autowound mechanic in general devalued ARM, but on the other it meant that even if you didn't bring the optimal toolkit to deal with a troublesome enemy model, you still had a semi-decent option that came with every armed model in your list. Now you have to bring AP weapons to have good odds of taking out tougher targets, and even a soft target has a chance of making the saves and shrugging off a crit with some luck. On that basis alone, N4 is somewhat heavier on gear checks than N3.

A lot of complaints seem to me to boil down to objecting to gear checks, because when you don't have the necessary gear then you just don't have access to decent counterplay options. The more specialized the counterplay gear is, the more people are going to object to seeing it come up as a gear check. Widely available counterplay gear will cut down on those complaints, but you can expect more griping about factions being too samey.

The tenor of those complaints about gear checks goes up when the consequences of failing the check go up. The things that are top offenders seem, from a design standpoint, to sit in the zone that combines "annoyingly niche, impossible, or list-warpingly expensive gear check" and "if you fail the gear check badly then just give up now." Pitcher + GML taking out your LT turn 1? If you didn't bring a camo LT, you're probably having a bad day. Bearpode wandering through smoke and you don't have any viral or breaker weapons with MSV? Yikes. Cue forum complaints.

I suspect that what people actually want from the game is to have faction identity and faction strengths but without making the game too dependent on matchups/gear checks, which is...well, really hard. One faction's cool new toy is potentially every other faction's annoying new gear check, and if that gear check is so hard to pass that new units have to be published to do it, bammo, powercreep.

There's a level of design tension between the goal of avoiding too much of a gear check or rock-paper-scissors game and the goal of having variety across the factions to preserve faction identity. On one end of the spectrum, there's the sentiment that every faction/sectorial should be able to bring tools that give at least some capacity to handle other factions' strengths. On the other, there's the idea that factions should have strengths that are intrinsically harder to counter, which implies that other factions aren't getting the tools to deal with them easily.

 

I've played 2-3 games per week throughout N4. Which feels like a lot! But I don't feel anywhere near ready to judge whether some factions are unbalanced.

Is Duroc too good? I don't know! He was scary in the two or three games I've ever faced him, but I haven't had enough practice countering him to be able to say how hard it is.

Bearpode? I think I saw one once. It cleaned up after Duroc had already mangled me.

Avatar? Only seen it once. Dealt with it pretty easily, but one data point is hardly definitive.

Guided + ML? Lost to it a couple of times, won with it a couple of times. Saw it sit on the table and do nothing, for me or for my opponent, more times.

All this to say, some of you guys must be playing an incredible number of games to be able to form such firm opinions on N4. I'm kind of envious.

 

About same - and about same. I have a few opinions I'm reasonably confident in ('Pretty much all ARM8+ TAGs are probably good', 'one of haqq's strengths is its ability to trade expendable models for tempo and attritional advantage', etc) but then have had people who've data delved into league results tell me otherwise, which contradicts my personal experience and as such is frankly fascinating.