BTS 0 hacking devices are the extreme example, this extends to anyone with "modest" BTS and who hasn't got access to firewall outside of repeaters - although since Tinbots are firewalls now, the suggestions are to make Tinbots useless as well. However, the point I was making was that KHDs are fine as tools for removing anyone who isn't a hacking equivalent of a TAG. This 3 point device works well at taking out stuff that's not designed to be literal hacking TAGs. Maybe accept that and accept that it is a reasonably target rich environment as long as people don't start shelving their modest hackers because they become pointless. Particularly not since the suggestion essentially amounts to the first person to manage to run a (alien) KHD into a repeater is the person who gets to play with hacking that game. Got your Dasyu KHD up close to a Ye Mao HD? 56% vs 9%! Got your Daysu Combi up so you can deny a Ye Mao Multi Rifle cover? 60% vs 9%! It's a device that actually makes sense to use actively once you peel away the repeater mechanics. These numbers makes sense for anyone who doesn't want this 3-point device to have the same odds as an Orc shooting a Feuerbach in a Fireteam 'cause that Orc is paying a hell of a lot more than 3 points premium for that Feuerbach. You didn't, but Hecaton has on several occasions. Removal of firewalls have a pretty significant impact on the basic hackers, I'd argue. It's the one and only reason why I run them at all - it's a pretty significant shift from certain death to even odds of wasting an order. Literally their only saving grace that the opponent actually has to do their own leg work and that me at all using my Rui Shi aggressively isn't going to automatically kill my Zhanshi HD and my EVO REM. Even then, I consider* them both to be almost impossible to run against the hacking heavy factions without being in a team with Jisus. And since EVO can't into fireteams... I guess buff totem gets to be in storage. * prior to fireteam reshuffles, I'm less sure of what assumptions I can make for some factions like HB now.
I believe the suggestion from Tourniquet wasn't allowing KHDs to ignore firewall bonuses, but to just remove Firewalls from repeaters. I don't believe the argument that people have is against that, it's that there's no alternative effective program or device to deal with them. The system has been dumbed down too much and we're left with half a game that doesn't have effective counters beyond refusing to participate in it for some factions. Would things be better if you applied singular fixes like maybe making AP baseline on Trinity, or nerfing Pitcher range, or nerfing Repeaters. Sure, it would but there are so many things wrong with hacking right now, Trinity, Repeaters, Firewalls all these interactions have problems. It needs a total overhaul, CB need to expand on hacking to make it better just like they did with Fireteams.
Like many people have said, not just me - stop trying to force a solution through hacking. I agree with you in the other thread that hacking probably needs a fairly comprehensive rework, but I don't think the solution to these issues either way is going to be to empower hacking further. I mean... we're in this thread that's not actually about hacking in general, but about how Nomads - CJC in particular - are getting all the toys and increasingly all the toys at a discount. Who will benefit the most from having hacking be the prescribed method for hunting down and killing hackers? The factions that are already good at hacking, primarily CJC, CA and TJC. Game kind of needs more options or opportunities for other factions than those to engage with the hacking game. Either to protect their own, likely much worse, hackers or to protect themselves from hacking - without the game devolving into either be strongest at hacking or to hide most units under marker state or total immunity. We don't actually need the three suspects (and a few others who are nearly as good) to get a further monopoly on hacking.
Everyone, while the top would benefit the bottom will benefit more, as they can now threaten the top and force them to be more cautious as opposed to things are now where they can what ever they want without any repercussions what so ever. Think back to N3, these factions were just as dominant in the hacking sphere but yet they still needed to be incredibly careful to not just get punked by a missed KHD popping out and ruining their day.
In N3 guidebots were less effective, because (in addition to guts move with successful Reset) you could always compensate everything with more orders. A few aggressively costed camo troopers (coughLibertosLSGminelayercough) with 20x orders would always triump over any spotlight tricks.
We've been over this, the alternative to hacking them when they're hiding at the back of the table behind or in a core link is I have to all in charge my opponent's DZ and table my opponent in the process. Even if it's strategically viable it produces an utterly shit game of Infinity where I'm forced into doing a turn 1 all in. Either I more or less crush my opponent, or I've over extended and I lose next turn. It's not healthy for the game and it needs to change. All those factions were already better at all the other factions at hacking in N3, yet the lesser hacking factions were in a better place and were better able to keep shit in check with stronger anti hacking weapons. IA was the poster child for "hack the shit out of my many HI please," yet 1 tinbot and Haidao throwing a -9MOD with a program that could fuck up anybody it touched and everyone thought twice about hurling careless pitchers at them because surprise nobody wanted to waste an active turn taking WIP5 fights. You're freaking out over a problem that was never an issue.
Using hackers meant less order generating bodies. This discussion would immediately end if 15 slot cap was lifted. Only few would play spotlight tricks. Everyone would play 20-30 bodies.
So back we go to where hacking primarily is an ARO mechanic even more than today, where a single B1 is meant to be a credible threat to B2 or B3 programs. That's a different problematic game design, but still problematic. Apparently we haven't been over it enough, 'cause you seem to have missed a few very vital parts of the debate. Well. Argument. It's not like there's any hope of reaching a conclusion here. Having hackers be effective while sitting in the DZ is not desirable. There's just so many other ways to look at the issue than to regress back to marker state KHDs finding the closest enemy REM and sitting there waiting to Redrum any hacker that dare activate. I don't think that's accurate. High body count lists need space to place those bodies and with Spotlight being significantly easier and more permanent than in N3, the ease of which to get several bodies under a template would probably increase. I don't think hackers are the unit that people would skimp on to make high body count lists happen, and we can't really pull on old experience to judge that since hacking programs are very different now. Also, looking back at N3, to say "20-30 bodies" is a gross exaggeration. There were three or four factions that regularly landed on 20 (Dahshat, ISS, Yu Jing and maybe one more), but almost everyone else tended to land at roughly 17 if they could (MO and IA simply couldn't, f.ex.). That's also looking at the high performing players, lower performing players had on average one to two fewer units.
@Mahtamori then why didn't anyone* play guidebots in N3? If we are throwing suggestions about how to buff tags and other high valueable targets vs guidebots, BS attack (Guided) could cancel the "Targeted" state automatically. A lucky dodge or ARM save(s) could mean that enemy has wasted a lot of orders for no apparent gain. *I actually played, but wasn't very successful. Got rolfstomped by order spam.
In N3, Spotlight was not able in ARO - and using a FO and Guidebot was often less efficient than throwing out a chain rifled murder hobo into your opponent's DZ which would probably crowding with warbands. Not that fan of Warband galore, but I DO miss the hacking game of N3. It was better than pitcher ridden hellhole.
I think people are gravitating on make KHDs more lethal because it's the simplest solution, and it goes back to an older system that we know did work. To make hacking better than N3 and N4 the whole system needs an overhaul and that includes the different repeaters and the units that carry them. Morans, Guilangs, Pitcher carriers, all that shit needs to go under the microscope and get re-examined. That's a big undertaking but I really hope CB put it on their shit list of things that need to be done. Guided was in my local meta in N3, but it wasn't the kind of primary killing tool you use to safely gut armies with in N4. The missile bots acted as a passive threat, forcing an opponent to realise they had to play differently and they couldn't try to hide unhackable bully units in the middle of the field. The kind of stuff like Tarik super jumping onto a rooftop and hiding prone up there at the end of his turn after killing all the stuff he could find in the middle of the table. Having a GML in the army meant you had the potential to simply drop a repeater near him and pick him off alone. That threat would then encourage the opponent to be less aggressive with this dangerous active turn piece in the first place, which meant less pressure on you. Which was a tangible effect without ever firing a missile.
I don't think that removing spotlight ARO makes a big difference. It's the 1st turn alpha strike that everyone is complaining about.
Dunno if it makes you feel any better, but as someone who is exclusively on the receiving end of Pitchers I can tell you they're less of an issue at 400 points.
Guidebots? Guided Missile Launchers? I used them occasionally, I saw them once or twice. It was much more difficult to stick Targeted on units back then as I wrote so the way to get a Guided Missile to stick was to send Snifferbots forward and do Sat-Lock with an FO-REM. Quite order intensive, but much more reliable doing a Sat-Lock on WIP 13 on a Marker or Trooper than doing a Spotlight on WIP 10 on Troopers only. Pitchers were rarer as well. So to sum up: 1. Getting a trooper in Targeted was more difficult and couldn't be done in ARO 2. Getting a trooper to remain in Targeted was more difficult and didn't last more than a player turn 3. The Guided Missile was much weaker 4. Setting it up was a lot more order intensive. 5. U-Turn would debuff the hit chance and regular Hacking Devices that had this program were quite common
The older system was changed a lot: 1. REM buffing devices weren't only EVO devices, they were regular Hacking Devices and the REMs were generally more worth buffing 2. REM buffing devices (including EVO) were capable of offering token resistance with Mindblast (basically Reset but dealing DAM 13 if success) 3. Assault Hacking Devices (which are now called Hacking Devices) got almost extinct 4. Pitchers have been made a lot more common 5. Tinbots were "ECM: Hacking" back then, not Firewall 6. Rear attack and 1st-order-DZ-assassins were a lot less common 7. States from hacking did persisted a maximum of two player turns. Except for Isolation... 8. I'm probably forgetting important changes that affects the hacking dynamics Simply going back to the old system is itself quite a big undertaking, doing it half-arsed will probably do more damage than good, and doing it whole-arsed and you might as well redesign the system. Most of all, doing it at all will undo the good changes that has made the game more interactive. Right now I think simply removing Guided from the game is a better temp fix if you're looking for half-arsing it.
I'd like to see guided removed from the game until it can be reworked to be less alpha, less npe and more interactive.
People need to start playing with covered areas. Having buildings with interiors makes this much less of a big deal.
