Balance issues in N4

Guided is blight upon the game in its current form. But we knew that since N4 released and nothing is ( and likely won't ) be done about it.

 

The finals have shown a distribution that is wider than that though, I am eager to see this years lists.

 

Please look at the top ten of each round especially the Prodigies, though the final results and lists been published will shed more light in this rather interesting discussion.

I will agree the masters has a lot of Assault Subsection in its top ten and this is an interesting discussion by itself.

 

I do not think we have the final standings yet, do we?

I think we just have the final top ten of kraken and prodigies and the final round between the top kraken and top Prodigy correct?

 

Yes, it will be highly interesting.

 

The top 10 after every round is full of SP, Nomads/Bakunin/Corregidor, and CA/Morats. Stop trying to get people to drink the Cool-Aid

 

There is not a single thread in here without any random slur against nomads :-D

Did u get any information, how (to my experience) out of nothing SP became the most dominant faction out there? Were you present in Vigo to observe that?
I for myself war honestly very surprised about the dominance SP showed at IP. I spoke to now 4 players from different rankings, everyone of them played against 2 or 3 SP over the whole tournament and the three things everyone mentioned was:

=> very open tables (there exists a picture of a (to be fair: excluded) table, where everything the size of a TAG sees nearly the whole table. You cannot hide unless you´re prone)

=> SP players with mostly Atalanta/Agema and linked Phoenix, plus Panadora and Eudoros. So basicly ARO-castle, which is very nice if your table looks like a footballfield.

=> very SP favoured missions (Decapitation, Frontline, Biotechvore and (lets be honest) Supplies: Kill-missions. C&P also more easy if you kill the enemy)


From what I heared it was winning because i have the bigger hammer. Plus knowledge / experience with how IP´s tables look like.
Or pitcher into GML.
But thats just what I´ve been told from the people i asked from different regions and METAs. This does not realy sound to me like an balance problem, but more like a table-problem.

Spoiler: Edit:

Thats the one. As said, the table seem to be put aside after one a couple players complained about it, but that´s just to show, what there can possibly happen. And if you take the time and look at pictures of the tables,..... oh boy.... some of them are a snipers paradise. This combined with the mostly killy missions is of course highly favorable for everything high BS, MSV, Mimetism, multiple Wounds, +B ARO units, that has access to Eclipse in active. Well, or you blame an overall balance issue and Nomads in general. That´s also an option.

 

Are we looking at the same pictures? because I see no Corregidor, and both Tunguska and Invincibles appeared on the top tens, while Bakunin presence got slowly out of the top 10.

Though I cannot find the pictures of round 6 top ten.

 

Where can you see the pictures?

 

With all the good will to take a step back, it can't be hidden that two things are "problematic" to say the least in competitive game right now :

1- Steel Phalanx : Mim -6 + eclipse + Fireteam bonus make them almost impossible to kill from long / mid range and short range mean suicide attack. There are some way around like Berzerk, Speculative fire, Guided missile ... but these 3 thing have one in common : they are non interactive and thus not very fun (berzerk is unopposed, spec and guided doesn't need line of sight and placement skill, just good roll). It's the only army I feel like I have to build specificly to beat them. Even the so called meta CA or Nomad list dont require such specific list building to be beaten.

If the dev are looking for solution that doesn't require massive change to the game and won't impact miniature sells here is one imho : remove eclipse grenades and make it smoke. Make MSV great again (lol). Maybe give white noise to some of their hackers to compensate but that will make navigating the table a lot harder and order intensive.

2- Aggressive guided missile with Pitcher / fast panda : non interractive. A lot has been written already. Doesn't work all the time (because dice) and doesn't work against some army well (like Aridna if full of camo and total immunity) but it freak everybody out because how non interactif and non skill based it is.

Possible solution : change the rule so that the pitcher is activated as soon as a hacker use it, allowing people to shoot at it and/or change the range of it.

Disclaimer : Weran used this tactic in the final but he definitly IS a very skilled player. He makes a great and well deserved Interplanetario Winner. Personnaly witnessed him be on the podium in two satellite tournament in France, he won more satellite than I can count etc ... the fact that he decided to us this tactic against steel phalanx nonetheless should incent the dev think about the balance of the game.

 

I attach Weran's list (champion) and, with permission of Iro, both of his lists (the Avatar was only used for Biotecvoro), he has also commented that people was surprised by his Overdron (frankly, considering the amount of MSVs in N4 with the buff to MSV1, I find surprising nobody thought others would bring Albedo troops, or White Noise, which Kerr Nau has, aside from the Hackers Plus).

I'm completely lost here, as far as I know the Interplanetario already ended and the data was already given for all? Hard not to if you want to give the players their prizes...

GravityPool, n10 at one of the groups, has a YT channel (spanish) and he explicitely mentioned that Steel Phalanx would be overrepresented in the Interplanetario weeks ago... He mentioned specifically how the missions would favour them, and how a troop like the Agema (MSV2, template weapon) getting that Hidden Deployment was insane, with Eudoros getting that second wound (and changing to Structure) for almost no cost becoming the cherry on top, since being a specialist operative with WP 14 and Eclipse grenades (and I agree he is right now a better choice than even Achilles, his damage output is lower, but he survives a TON more).

Sorry to disagree on one point here. Phoenix is a permamember for all SP lists, not because he is broken, but because unless you are forced to bring Thorakitai he carries the only template long range weapon, and the other option are Eudoros' Mk12 or the single wound BS12 spitfire, so those not expecting Phoenix when facing Steel Phalanx need to play more.
Pandora is a cheapo medikit spammer, I prefer the WP15 Machaon doctor, but I don't see her broken, considering it's the same profile Thamirys had minus the Reporter, but with SMGs and medikits...
Eudoros and the Agema I already mentioned my opinion in the previous paragraph, and I agree they are the most egregious changes.

Please explain to me how having Mim-6 and smoke in N4, where MSV1s see through smoke and remove 3 from that mimetism, is broken. The Fireteam "bonus" is, btw, a +1 to BS, since SP is capped at 4 members in composition (and cannot field 3 working cores anyways due to costs and AVA anyways... more fun to come with Reinforcements). And yes, it may be suicide to face them in melee... Unless you have Berserker skill. Last time I checked, Natural Born Warrior and Berserker was a part of a lot of the new releases... and it's been years since the Krakots were released for the vanilla factions. Yes, they are non-interactive, but you can assemble your own melee groups, or units. Have you looked at the Chimera, for example?

Or maybe give White Noise grenades to those with Eclipse, so you have to throw twice the grenades for the same effect. Claiming the SP is so imbalanced the only solution is to throw it away at the mercy of the omnipresent MSVs and force them to close to be effective, since most of them carry combi rifles at best...

I've been claiming for years now that at the very least Guided shared the 5 tops with Speculative fire, and people laughed at me. Now we have this, and profiles like BS14 Kusanagi with EM Grenade Launcher in pure core for less than 120pts (and it's a VERY good core, with Wabara, 2 cenobites, and a Reverend), so I think CB thinks this warhammer-esque style is good. I disagree, and think only Smoke grenades should be allowed for unlimited Speculative fire, but...

That's a bandaid at best, pitchers are rarly thrown at a place where they can be shot once activated, but those that force the enemy player to also burn orders or expose their troops to remove. The problem is the ARO-hacking with Spotlight mostly, making Guided a VERY order-efficient idea.

That does not compute with the list that's been shared (see attached) he used in the final, frankly. If the list is wrong I apologize, however, since that one was doing the rounds in several channels.

 

I won't because mim -6 + smoke as it used to be is perfectly fine to me. What is not is eclipse all over the place with Eudoros + Machon (sometime Hippolita) thrown at Burst 2, Phys +3 (+1 for FT) so usually 17.

Won't elaborate much on the GML thing. All has been said multiple times. I don't think the ARO guided is such an issue. It's not in our meta. And I don't think the aggressive guided missile is so much a balance issue. It's more of a fun killer issue.

I wasn't there. But that's what people who were told me on discord. 3 SP characters killed by GML on turn 1

 

I mean and here I am on the other end of the spectrum not considering Inteplanetario a relevant indicator of game balance because their mission selection is unbalanced as crap.

Seriously, Biotechvore and Countermeasures are fuck awful for competitive play.

 

Smoke/Eclipse could be made disposable and problem solved. I suggested that back in N3.
IMO non-interactive gameplay needs to be removed, I wouldn't cry over a removal of GL and guided from the game and I only play Nomads who can abuse it. I just don't want to, it is zero fun for both players in that game. Games should be about plays and outplays, not about who gets first turn and destroys you with guided or GL.

 

I disagree that Guided is the problem; it's Pitchers and Fast Pandas; namely, ability to deploy repeaters against which you can't do anything.

In N3 at least you could hack (in your active turn) to disable the repeaters themselves with Blackout; this no longer exists.

Just removing Fast Pandas and Pitchers would be a major move forward.
Maybe making Spotlight be -3 in ARO as well.

Or you need to give Hackers something else they can do in ARO versus non-Hackable troops, or we go back to "simply ignore hacking" from N3