I know CB is a small company. I know they have a bandwidth limitation as everything has to go through an individual to OK or not. I understand that going back to rework old things doesn't make them money unless they are releasing new models. However. Could they communicate what might be up for examination? There are a TON of profiles that need a look as they are more or less ignored due to a variety of reasons (poor link options, overpriced, no real purpose, etc). Is CB actively working to bring more of these items into line so as to expand the range of models that see play? A simple monthly or quarterly "We are looking into this dozen underused profiles to see what we can do to make them work" would be a huge benefit.
I've had the opportunity to discuss this issue with Bostria, and their CEO Fernando. They aren't working to do this. Having said that, we've seen a few unexpected balance changes, like what happened with Netrods, the Avatar, things like that. And I'm told there will be another balance update when the next big American convention comes up later in the year. But their general philosophy is to bring the rules up to a level that is 'acceptable' (their words) and then just focus on the packaging. I believe they mean 'acceptable' in terms of casual players. I think it's fine to hope for these things but I wouldn't expect too much. They don't really look at what you're putting in your army lists for games with your friends, they look at what you're buying. And for some reason, they're banking on the idea that we're buying kickstarters and board games and side projects. Don't get me wrong--I'd love to hear Hellois or one of the other guys step in and give you a more robust outlook.
Game development is a funny thing. And yet Infinity turns out far better than any GW game. [If you think GW actually listens to their fans, I have a bridge to sell you... made of Finecast...] CB -definitely- care for their game, they're just not super bothered to address every whinge on the forums about profiles. CB's development process mostly works fine. It's fast enough to keep players interested, and produces new models at a rate that doesn't further bloat retailers' commitment to stock (a painful error from early Infinity that CB are still recovering from). Giving early reports on product rules details -before- they are finished tends to provoke waterfalls of negative opinion that make any useful suggestions for change difficult and time-consuming to tease out. The dev team moving their attention to a firehose of fan opinion in return for "feedback" on rules and units in development would be more likely to slow things down than improve them measurably. Similar could be said of the value of giving reports on fixing existing already-released profiles. It's another energy requirement: comms are a whole layer of extra effort because there are always weird fans out there who will twist or misinterpret whatever you say. Adding that layer will slow the process down for minimal gain to either the fans (faster better profile fixes) or the company (effort leading to returns/sales increases which allow them to support making more cool stuff). Over the life of the game CB do handle addressing weak/lame profiles pretty well (see the Bronze for a good recent example). They do so with army updates generally, so yearly or so, and only a portion of the lame profiles in each of those groups of fixes. It's not super fast and there are indeed still a lot of orphaned profiles. However every single profile being excellent is not critical to the life of the game, as most models/units have at least a couple playable profiles, and the majority of profiles (at least 80% IMO) are playable and have good reason to be in the game. Fixing the orphaned/weak profiles slowly is part of a pace of development at a smallish company supporting a sprawling product range, and IMO the existence of those lame profiles does not hamstring the game since there are many alternative options. Spoiler: Other thoughts on CB development practice/rate It is definitely true that core-rules fixes and FAQs could iterate a bit faster and with better clarity. But that's not part of the initial development cycle, and the rules to be fixed are already visible to the fans. There's also a decent feedback route already set up on this forum thanks to the people who boil down the open issues, list and track them. In the relevant topic threads there are also many who do a good job of offering restrained change suggestions without digressing too much. Also, you're making a strawman argument about everything going through a single final decision-maker before publication. Having a single point of final review is a wise choice for any product that isn't automobile-level-complex: review by multiple people at different times is a recipe for miscommunication and poor product. That's definitely not why CB's release and rules cycle is "too slow" in the opinions of some on this forum. When rules -development- went through a single person that was definitely a bottleneck but I understand that has not been the case for some time now. Fluffbook text might still be though. I'm also not convinced that Warcrow is a viable product in the saturated fantasy minis market, or that Defiance was a good choice for health of their long-term products. But they haven't actually set the company -back-, and they have a benefit which may not be super obvious, namely: developer enthusiasm and engagement. CB's greatest asset is that they like to experiment: they seem to really enjoy improving rules, trying different business/product models, and improving production methods. Whether these other experiments cost them energy that could go towards Infinity is a moot point: If you are not allowed to do things that make you happy and keep you engaged in a long-term business, the key players will lose interest and the enthusiasm that leads to good products will die off. For that reason, even tangential experiments that frustrate us Infinity superfans are of value to the company continuing to make really cool Infinity stuff for years to come. On a similar note, having worked in Europe and recently returned to working in the US, I'd say the existence of better work-life balance in European firms does slow production rates down overall in the short term compared to a US/anglophone-world company... but that the gains in the long term more than justify that measured pace. - A month to 6 weeks of vacation, not being obligated to answer email or work texts on your off hours, and having decent medical and parental leave DO alltogether mean less hours spent at work. - Long term though, it leads to a lower chance of burnout, making better long-term products and a greater likelihood of the company still being around to support them. I've watched European game companies try to function like anglophone ones and it does not usually work out well for the health of the people, the product, or the company in the long term. Meanwhile contemporaries who took their time and vacay when they needed it and release a bit slower are doing pretty well. CB are at this point a pretty long-term company and setting themselves up well to continue even longer. Let's not encourage them to add more communication activity with marginal benefit that will sap energy from their production work just to keep us in the know.
I'll try and answer everything you said, if it's disjointed I'm at work and get interrupted often. Infintiy is mostly good. MESBG is fantastic, Kill Team is pretty fun. 40k is 40k, it's what it is. Not my favorite. I don't expect CB to use player feedback, I expect them to look at the statistics of usage and then put in some effort to figure out why things are not being used. Seemingly at random with little consideration for the game itself, behold the Lobos+Diablos. Lobos, what is your purpose? And yet it drives hype for the product, which is why the biggest player in the room invests heavily in that. Nothing better than a 5 year wait to see if a model/unit type/profile is going to eventually be a competitive choice. Whether or no they actually look at it beyond Psychoticstorm wading through the trash to partially moderate discussion is an unknown, there is no communication from CB. Fair enough if they have more people reviewing stuff. Whether or not it's too slow is a matter of opinion. Jayth have been trash since they released years ago. It's a bunch of worthless models that were paid for. That sucks. Honestly, unless it leads to developer enthusiasm and engagement with games they make that people are actually playing it doesn't matter from a customer standpoint. In fact, it's worse as now they actively want to work on something else. As far as work/life balance. Sure. I work in the US, I get 6 weeks off, completely paid for benefits, etc. I don't deal with calls or emails outside of work. But if we didn't get our stuff done in a timely manner it would be an issue. I know I am very lucky, but none of this precludes working on Infinity. I guess. Most of our local group primarily plays other games. Infinity has become kind of a side game due to lack of movement. I am very excited to dive more into Kill Team and we'll see how 10th ed 40k turns out. So far it's looking good with a huge revamp of the game. I did Infinity at LVO this year, I don't think I will next year and instead play MESBG or KT for instance. But that's a long way off. I guess the best thing to do is to vote with the wallet, and encourage other people to play other games instead.
I'm thinking there's an NA2 or other-faction inclusion coming for these guys. Also Biovisor may play more or a role with something we haven't seen yet. Diablos, I agree with you, but that's part of publishing a few random things here and there. Gotta try stuff out. GW's profitability and size definitely doesn't make it a good model for actual player satisfaction. Most poeple I know who play Infinity heavily quit GW for this much-better game, self included. CB's business niche is at least partly predicated on GW doing things poorly enough to drive others elsewhere. And there are definitely many ways to do hype. Updates on upcoming profile fixes are not even in the top few options there IMO. Hyperbolic. Usually a year or two. Still a long-ass time for a dedicated faction fan true, but that's part of playing a game from a smaller company. Telling forumites how much attention you actually pay to them will never work out in a company's favor. There's definitely a reason that companies pay non-devs/execs to trawl through social media and summarize anything useful. My roomies actually do that for music companies. It would -not- be healthy for recording artists to read all the comments on social media... Also fan-driven changes to games don't actually lead to better play. They tend to lead to lower amounts of randomness and flatter, maxxed-out profiles, because people find unpredictability in their tools undesirable, even if risk is actually what makes gameplay thrilling. @RobertShepherd explained this as an aside in one of his videos reviewing new profiles during the last army update iirc. I'd have to agree from the board games perspective. So being able to read forum posts and take them into consideration when you have time and find good stuff is the goal. That doesn't require a feedback acknowledgement that the devs read your posts. Having fans able to know "ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!?!?" is not a great idea, because there are a -lot- of TFGs out there hiding among the vast majority of us who are sane and have decent things to contribute. Really depends on your meta. MSV1 supp fire turrets are pretty useful out here on the US northwest coast. Cheapo smoke warbands are still a problem you'll need a decent solution or two for. A single Jayth in one of the "final approach" areas as Robert Shepard puts it is quite useful. You're right that more though or an actual Haris isn't your best choice given the opportunity cost for other great SEF stuff. It's definitely a place where tweaks are needed. But those can either come in the form of profile fixes or of other means of play (missions or core rules changes). Look at what they did with bikes: It's been great IMO, really fixed a lot. Same for underused terrain skills, at the mission level in current ITS. I could definitely see balancing measures to enhance the appeal of Jayth being added either of those ways. Definitely not true. Chaining someone to one product with no change for decades is a terrible idea. Actively working on something else for a while is a good thing. Working on one product for decades leads to burnout. Wheter it's Warcrow or they are working on their handstands and tans, if a dev or the company's execs need to shift focus for a while to then return to the core product later, it's better than staying on the product and grinding away with less inspiration and upcoming burnout. Yeah you are definitely in the tiny majority in this country! Here in Amazon/Microsoft Country even those with decent bennies pay for them in 60-hour weeks and never getting to have their ringers off. Most of my most well-paid friends have some deep unhappiness about their way of life that leads to declining work performance and a culture of only getting to rest and rejuvenate when you quit a job and take a couple months to get your head together... if you have that luxury. So have to disagree with you that the structure of work and time off doesn't have an impact on productivity. Definitely the exact opposite of what's happening in the Seattle area. We're waking a moribund Infinity scene back up here: The number of tourney events is pretty crazy (every weekend in May over the Cascadia region, norther Oregon to Vancouver Canada). Player numbers at regular game nights have doubled in the last 4 months or so, and we're starting to coordinate play to train for events more, doing special rules/missions testing, etc. It feels good, healthier than it has since I was one of the first Infinity players here over a decade ago. Given CB's upcoming big changes to the game (I am expecting a Conquest-style reinforcement mechanic), this seems like a good time for a groundswell. Sorry to hear it's not that way in your area. What meta are you in? Wow, those are some serious sour grapes over not getting studio announcements of profile fixes. Yeah, sounds like you need some time away. Encouraging others to do so also is ridiculous though (especially for GW, the "make it good then trash it on purpose to sell new models" king of the gaming world). Infinity's in a good place right now. It's about to get a bunch of cool new stuff in a couple months. Things are good, and I say that as someone who has been playing since early N2.
CB always considered themselves as figure makers. They simply decide to pull out a game for their figures
The thing is, they don't have to just try it out. They can literally make a profile, see if it goes anywhere, and then adjust it anytime they want. They could do internal testing to see if it is a competitive choice. They could just glance at it in a lot of cases TBH. So many ways to do hype, but you need people talking about your game. New releases, upcoming changes, etc all generate that. I'm not counting entire reworks of the game like the Fireteam changes or edition changes. In a lot of cases it sits until the next edition of the game. Randomness doesn't lead to a good game, it can be part of it, but it doesn't lead to it. I also wouldn't expect the devs to trawl through the forums or social media. But I do think something like a quarterly review of underperforming/underused profiles even if it's a handful would go a long way. They could use their official website blogs even. Of course. Yea, it can be handy. Not 25+pts starting in your DZ handy when any 8pt schmuck with a chainrifle will toast them, but sure, I guess. TBH, I think the RF profile is the best one. But even then it's competing with the Caliban Spitfire. Then get new people on it? Cycle your staff as necessary? For sure, I'm super lucky. But again, I still get my stuff done. There has not been a whole lot of development going on with Infinity since N4 hit in 2019. That's a long time of stagnation for some factions and sectorials. Northern Cali. We have plenty of tournaments, but again we all play other games too. We've gotten a few new people as they wait for 10th Ed 40k, but we also lost a lot of people over the last 3 years of nothing happening for some factions and getting bored with the game. Been playing off an on since end of N1, quit during N2, came back with mid/late N3. You're right, CB doesn't make a model good to sell it, unless it's a Kickstarter. CB release models hoping people will buy them even if they never see use. I don't have any emotional attachment to CB, and I definitely don't think they are doing anything for the good of their customers (Siocast, poorly edited/proofread N4 rulebooks, pushing people to get Kickstarters to get specific models that they don't release otherwise despite it all being 3d modelled so just requiring a repose to make a general release, etc.) But as I said, we also support a lot of little indie games, so it's not just GW, CB, FFG, etc.
Maybe something could be done on the army builder for statistics and balance without affecting too much the company. The application is installed by every player and you can log with an account. Then you could: - send feedback (rating units and their balance by community ?) - analyse units inclusion in player's lists - see which units are actually included in lists (not only ITS) Having an app installed by literally every player has some big potential for the game, including its evolution and analysis. Maybe CB will innovate in this direction one day or another. If this happens, it will be driven by the same spirit that makes them create new universes/games. So I'm 100% into warcrow, Gag raid even if I'm not buying these games. Concerning CB themselves and their rate of fix, I think the latest works on Bakunin, MO, Steel Phalanx..etc are good. O12 and Starmada do not harm the balance of the game. It's a matter of time until all old Sectorials are refined, and we even see some good nerfs/buffs when needed (ok, the Peacemaker one was tough). That being said, I share the idea that many profiles could be fixed quickly without much effort, and that keeping those in the game is a choice from CB. @Savnock I really liked your answer, it takes into account both the company goals and individuals quality of life. And I agree with you
I'm gonna need you to scroll down to the bottom of the forum page and read the mission statement they put there. "Because we are, first and foremost, players."
This kinda seems to be the issue though. Unless they're selling new models, they tend to leave the sectorial alone. This is leading to uneven attention being spread.
Ah, passive-aggressive claims that the devs don't work hard enough or care about their product (ignoring a recent change to composition of fireteams requiring specific attention across the entire range... and monthly releases... and an ongoing annual tournament system... and a major rules update, fluff book, and several associated new product ranges coming in the fall...). What an -excellent- way to engage the developers and get them to listen to your opinions! Yeah this thread right here is an excellent example of why few companies directly engage with posters on their forums anymore. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
@LeGweg I agree that profiles could be fixed quicker, but wonder about where that task fits in. If viewed as entirely their own work item it doesn't seem like a lot. But the problem is fitting those tweaks, testing, approval, etc. into the development queue. Monthly release schedule and a couple army refreshes a year means a lot of big, relatively urgent projects. Task-switching to deal with small fixes has a big cost of time taken out of your larger, more urgent projects. That's probably why they try to lump tweaks and fixes in with larger updates that require touching the same systems, like the Fireteams update did. And about company goals and individuals quality of life, il m'a fallu beaucoup de temps en France pour comprendre que le burn-out n'est pas une vertu.
Everything viewed as an outsider is easy, cheap and can be done in no time. Everything changes when you are inside working. Worth considering.
And, again, they’re going to act as serves themselves and their company best, simple as. They depend on it as their livelihood, so they’re going to do what they believe will best stand the test of time. They aren’t obligated to include anyone outside their offices in their decision making unless they want to. We can accept that or not, and then make the best decision for ourselves, just like they did. 100%. Teddy Roosevelt’s quote about the man in the arena seems apt.
I dont think you understand what passive aggressive means, but then again you've misused strawman and hyperbole already, so may as well heap that on the pyre. I'm sorry you feel this way, but the bar is low and you're trying to drag it into the mud. Points are one of the easiest tweaks they can perform if they want to do so in limited scopes and they have told everyone that they collect and use ITS data. Its not much for this to be addressed in intervals rather than sporadically and by whim. They could also review link teams for adjustments to limits and counts as in a relatively short period of time to help flagging sectorials. None of this needs to be drastic, certainly not anywhere near as much as the ITS season rules are. But little nudges can show that you still care and are keeping an eye on things. They could commit to periodically reviewing X number of models per overall faction in a regular interval for adjustments, or a specific category such as bikes or FO rems and actually review them rather than dumping rules on them and hoping for the best. You don't have to rewrite the game, you just have to take some feedback and data and do a little evaluating.
Reminder: The bulleteer was deemed 'too cheap' by CB's internal 'points formula' and nerfed as a result of CB's desire to make sure that units in infinity are appropriately costed. Meaning that it's very easy and possible for them to adjust things if they want to. But the Asawira Spitfire costs 9 points less than a KOJ spitfire. Characters like Sargosh see no play whatsoever. I will re-iterate my earlier post--it's not that they find it hard to fix things, or that things don't need fixing--it's just not a big deal to them. We're the ones playing the game and caring about the rules, not them. And there are enough new folk buying the action packs to make it a non-issue.
It is 8 points less. In addition to this Asawira has Frenzy. Which is a significant point discount as it basically turn the piece into a 'must be linked' to avoid it, while the KoJ can perform solo without problems. And regarding to links, the Asawira has no link option that provides his a Tinbot Firewall. While the KoJ can link with a Tinbot Firewall in both vPano, MO and SWF. Even then, and I have said before elsewhere in the forums. Any formula is only a guideline that needs to be break here and there to allow any game to perform properly. This does not forbid that sometimes something need to be upped in costs because it is causing a innate limitation in lists designs because it is too cheap and efficient and skews their armies as they turn into 'must include'. See the previous nerf to Imetrons and netrods to 6 points from 4. And as a sidenote, and this is purely local meta related and annecdotical, but our Shavasti player uses the Sargosh.
