Yeah, you want them all on an even keel. More rock paper scissors lizard spock though for infinity as its a pretty complex game. I'm not advocating that the current system is brilliant but link teams are pretty much the biggest reason to take most sectoral forces so any change to them massively changes the game balance. I'd sure like to see links that do stuff other than "shoot better". I don't think an overall nerf for sectorals is a good idea though, most of the issues with NPE pieces are internal balance issues and overly generous wildcarding. A balance pass would fix them rather than a core rules change. At an educated guess, I'd say CB will be changing more than just the rules as the internal and external balance of all forces is going to shift relative to the new rules going live. Pure teams are gonna need to be good for sure to justify using 5 slots for a zanshi, metro, volunteer, rokot etc link without wildcards otherwise the internal balance of forces is gonna be weird again but in a different way
I broadly agree but I think the main issue is with balance and wildcarding in specific sectoral designs and I think you could fix most of that with a balance pass rather than a rules change. I'd like to see links do more stuff other than just shooting but if you take that away from them, without suitable replacement, than opens a rather big hole in some force capabilities that will need to be patched
What is NPE, a Balance Pass, and what did you have in mind beyond fireteams just being better at shooting?
That is largely true, but if the balancing act starts at the wrong end you'll also end up with a game that's a hard sell to players both new and old. It's possible to achieve a game where the victory rate for several factions show good balance but where the gameplay is frustrating and primarily focused on very specific counter-play and decided in one or two orders. The risk, I feel, is that it'll make a gameplay pass take that much longer because the issue stops making as big a blip in the ITS results. Now, I don't think we'll see a big upset in the mixed fireteams, as much as I want it to, and I do recognise that a core is a big ungainly mass of soldiers that desperately need bonuses to stay relevant*. I do hope, however, that the changes can further simplify fireteam creation so that the only concerns are either Counts As (eligible for pure bonuses if all members counts as the same type) or Wildcard (ineligible for pure bonuses if joining as Wildcard). I hope they do away with the kind of arbitrary style of almost-wildcard-but-not-quite such as Rui Shi in Dahshat, Yan Huo in Invincibles, Anyat in Morats, etc. That is to say, for example; Rui Shi Counts As Zuyong Yan Huo FTO Wildcard (Duo, Haris) Anyat Wildcard Patsy Wildcard and Counts As Orc As a further aside, I wonder what'd happen if they made all units that have the appropriate skill (or the non-skill Core) to join as if Wildcards of those kinds of fireteams and made the impure teams weaker. Many new players think that for example a Moderator and a Moira can join a Core since both have the Core skill - what if that is true but the impure bonus isn't quite as strong as the current bonus? On the other side of the coin, what if a pure Core of Moiras, Custodiers and Healers got slightly stronger effective bonus than the current one they get? * Less "greater than the sum of its parts" and more closer to "equal to its strongest part"
NPE is negative play experience, balance pass is going through all the units and balancing them. Bonuses to capping objectives would be one thing for sure.
I really like this idea, it would encourage the players to MOVE forward the Fireteams, not just to leave them behind in high ground and dominating the batllefield.
Yeah it'd be great, just difficult to achieve as dtws are literally everywhere. Imho that's the worst thing about n4, dtw spam is massive
Capping objectives is very mission-dependent, so it's a good candidate for an ITS seasonal trial rule before implementation to get a wider "polling". I think I'd personally like it, but testing in a "sanctioned capacity" would be neat, even if the trial rules are a bit disruptive (bravery's benefit was skewed and tactical ride is a mixed bag of goods and bads, but the TAG stuff was great)
I wonder what would happen to sectorals if pure teams continue to keep the current bonuses, mixed teams lose some, and there is no limit of the number of fireteams? Steel and Tohaa have been able to function alright and the order and AVA limits might be enough to keep everything 8n line. It would definitely shake things up if you could have 2 FUSILIER fireteams in a army...
I was thinking it could be a potential revival of Tohaa if everyone got at least the ability to take multiple 3-man teams. Especially if their 3-man mixed teams get bonuses but others don't. There's other issues with them as well but I think it's a start.
Honestly, I've been thinking about this kind of mixed team change ever since I saw it suggested and I believe this would simplify a lot of things and be better than restrictions we have now. It is one of my more favorite suggestions for fireteam changes and I would love for someone to create a poll on it.
Is there any method you can think of to make all members of a fireteam act at the same time outside of move, dodge and reset; somewhat like a Coordinated Order? I would love for fireteams to actually coordinate objective grabbing, shooting and melee, but the problem is burst because not everyone has a panzerfaust...
It depends a lot on what the remit of what you're trying to do, if CB are just trying to tidy around the edges, the stuff they'll come up with will be pretty conservative tinkering; you could see a layered bonus of +1 to objective capping per member in zoc of the objective or per member of a team for example. If you're going for a full re write, then you can go pretty crackers with the imagination running wild. For a "blue sky thinking" approach you'd be looking at wide ranging changes to the whole game and meta. For the tidy-up approach you'd see a bit of a rejig of what links are good but less of a game changing effect. I'm really keen to see how it pans out but part of me thinks it'll be a bare minimum tweak around the edges because they missed the boat for a drastic change with the transition to n4
Good response, if you were to do a revamp, what would you say is an intuitive fireteam rule/s? Yes we are in N4, but we arent in N4 Human Sphere yet
I'm not really sure tbh, the sticking point I think will be all the faff with the skill declaration mechanics. If you end up with more complexity involving who's doing what, when and when those things are measured and what interacts with what and when, you're in a minefield of extra complexity. So far most things have been streamlined in n4. It would be interesting if the streamlining seen with puppetbots and g:sync had some carryover into team activation mechanics but you're into major rewrite and n5 territory with that one. I suspect the easiest thing to do would be to leave the core of the rules the same, tidy up some of the interactions and change the skills around. Instead of having sixth sense, you could have immune:surprise attack, you could have sensor to represent troopers meshing their battlefield sensors together, some bonus for specialists in links capping objectives and alter the shooting bonuses a bit. I'd love to see a greater focus on duos too, give them something better than just order efficient tow of a specialist up the field
