We can't. It won't be meaningful. Because it is not for us to decide here on the forum. It is a decision CB will have to make, and probably have already made. Not saying they can't alter one they've made so far, one way or another. Including based on the community's opinon - and, more likely, them voting with their wallets. On the other hand, some of the units / loadouts represented by miniatures (I'm not saying profiles: there's aplenty of difference between similar loaduts available in regular play and as Reinforcements options) are already available in the normal armies. Since you are apparently a Nomad player - there are so far 5 physical models on offer that aren't playable in normal mode, coming in the Reinforcements Nomads Pack (two Marspiders, two Kulaks and one Rounder). But, say, for Haqqislam, there is one announced, and it is a Reinforcements-specific loadout of otherwise avilable unit (Azra'il w/ Spitfire). It is obviously different regarding Combined Army (Exrach) and Yu Jing (Koreans). We'll see. Personally, I'll wait and see. But a discussion on the plans CB has isn't really going to impact what CB has on schedule.
You're not interested in this issue and you feel like it's useless to discuss it? Feel free not to participate and to do something you like instead. Painting miniatures or playing the game, maybe? :) So, exactly as I was saying above, dozens of potentially unusable models in total. Not ok.
That would be because you only have seen the final product, and not the several iterations, ideas, dead ends and overcomplicated solutions that got discarded, mutated or updated. Flawed as it may have been, the original public launce of Reinforcements is a final, distilled and refined product, been simple is a long and difficult design process, especially when you have to choose what to discard to reach a simple solution. In any case we will see how next iteration changes things and what feedback it will get.
The subject is purely speculative as it is a question only CB can answer and none of the forum users has actual knowledge that can categorically answer those questions. So the subject is unanswerable until CB decides to answer. Now if both questions where a "should?" then there could have been a more meaningful discussion.
Flawed as it may have been, the original public launce of Reinforcements is a final, distilled and refined product, been simple is a long and difficult design process, especially when you have to choose what to discard to reach a simple solution. In any case we will see how next iteration changes things and what feedback it will get.[/QUOTE] As a customer and a player, I don't really care about the design process. I do care about the result because this is what impacts my wallet and the pleasure I get from this game. And if this is the final product of "working for a really long time" after "several iterations, ideas, dead ends and overcomplicated solutions that got discarded, mutated or updated", well I'm glad I didn't see how it was before and I am a bit worried about CB's ability to improve the game and bring new ideas in the future. Come on, it's a 2 and a half pages long PDF that could be summarized to "just put 100 pts of miniatures there at the beginning of your turn 2-3". Isn't it a bit too much to talk about it like if it was some complex, innovative and polished ruleset? Also, how some useless and universally disliked "mechanic" like Commlink can remain in the game after "working for a really long time" on "several iterations, ideas, dead ends and overcomplicated solutions that got discarded, mutated or updated"? If it takes that much time and trouble to make such a simplistic system just roughly work, maybe that's because it's not a great system at all, or at least one that is not adapted to this game. Nah, I prefer to believe that reinforcements were designed with the main purpose of maximizing sales, this is the most logical, obvious and coherent explanation.
Of course you can, does not mean you are right, but you can believe what you want to believe. I was going to answer on the latter, but given you declared yourself an end customer who really does not care about the game design aspect but only the end product, I guess it does not matter, hope the update to be delivered is to your liking.
To be fair, it is a very subpar and depressing set of rules if thought as continously developed for years, which is kinda the feeling your words give, while in reality is a mishmash of adapted previous ideas that were present at some time, years ago, and recovered from the back fridge. In the end, it's like attempting to add WH40k's reserves mechanic, using the long ago discontinued Mechanized Deployment (which existed in N3 for a few units, for some of which it had become kinda irrelevant like PanO's remote since it was the only one with the skill, and no Haqq player would deploy the Halqa anyways) with a new name and some very tightly packaged units that would also serve to cover some holes in long awaited units and OOP sectorials. Seriously, though, the document had been soooo well thought it had to be amended a week in because they forgot to mention the size of the "drop pod" marker... and CB gives it so much attention, it has been nearly half a year and we got not a single update to the document despite very vocal feedback, not even in the Commlink costs. As I tend to mention, it took more than six months for CB to accept the problem during the Xenotect ITS that the xenotechnician civilian synchro'ed to any player's legal troop was ruining the experience for everybody thanks to the smoke combo (for those that weren't around, or those that wouldn't bother with the memory, you would have the civilian start synchronized to an MSV2 troop, drop smoke, and make the civilian -which could not be attacked but, back then, would generate an ARO- walk in front of the smoke to ARO-bait, so the AROs would be dodge or lose it, and then the MSV2 troop would shoot as the second short order, getting no return fire...).
What I believe or not doesn't change that this is a simplistic and bland 2 pages long PDF that you can summarize with "just put 100 army points there" and which is full of design flaws Also, why should we wait for an update? I thought this ruleset was a "final, distilled and refined product", something they "worked on for a really long time" and that "several iterations, ideas, dead ends and overcomplicated solutions already got discarded, mutated or updated". I'm confused. And when is that update supposed to come? Reinforcements are out for quite a while now.
And why should we have Infinity N4? The N1 wasn't good enough? Because things evolve, and people get new ideas, better understanding of things, feedback from the customer/user base which is by necessity coming from a wider base than just the test group. If CB were playing around with the idea of Reinforcements since late N2 (which is what @psychoticstorm seems to be indicating), and it took thme well into N4 to get it down to something they decided they like enough to publish it, I can get behind that. I can also understand they havelistened to the general player community's feedback saying "uh, we don't really like these Reinforcement rules as they are now".And they are in with an update. Will the community like these updated rules? That is yet to be seen. Are you familiar with the PDCA cycle, aka Deming's Wheel? CB has spent time since N2->N3 transition Planning, Doing, Checking, Adjusting the Reinforcements rules. Until they got to the point where they decided they were good enough to publish. Now, they have Checked, Adjusted (based on the player feedback) and Planned - and are ready to Do the publishing again. Late January / early February, that's what Koni said.
Sure, it makes perfect sense to compare the evolution of a 200 pages complex ruleset over almost 20 years with a crappy rushed flawed 2 pages PDF file... Come on, don't be so obviously of bad faith. You don't really believe that it took them more than 10 years to come up with this, right? You just decided to die on that hill and try to find anything that could help you stand a bit longer... :) Again, if this version of reinforcements is something that CB considers "good enough to publish" after spending years to work on it, I seriously doubt their ability to properly gamedesign anything in the future. Which is why the more obvious alternative is that they just rushed something that would allow them to sell a bunch of new minis. Ockham's razor. Half a year is quite a long time to come with an small update on such a "final, distilled and refined product"...
Ah. So anything that isn't your faith is bad faith? I'm afraid, o Child, that you are beyond any hope.
No. It is just factually irrelevant to compare the evolution of a 200-pages rulebook over 20 years and 4 versions to a 2 pages PDF that probably took them a few weeks to put together. I know it and you know it.
I am late to the show but as I read that I immediatly thougth that the outcome seems not very thought through but hastly written. But I lay hope in the update. Because the idea itself is not bad. How it was presented to the customer and that it have the taste of "just a new way to sell more minis" is not well done in my opinion. I have to admit, if its a pure marketing thing, than the art or design department did a very good job (I bought the YJ RF box anyway, because the minis are well done). The rules and the marketing itself ... nah not that good ;-) The fact that after the announcement of RF and the troop presentation in the Endsong book it was only mentioned in the ITS doc in the list of mods without any other presentiation did not sell in the promotion. RF recommanded missions were only marked out in the update version of the ITS doc. You said it youself in the Intruder-Example, this is totaly not the same as new box of minis in the price range of 60 to nearly 90 € that are - with some exceptions (and here I feel also a little bit uneven, because YJ has none, zero, no miniature that is playable without RF while Haqqislam can use all without RF mod) - only playable with special game mod and then maybe only two or even only one turn. Sure I have minis in my collection, that had their last present on the table one or even more years ago, I even have a whole army that not see play because its only primed and as a collector also, I have the problem many TT-player have: too much minis. But still not the same here - I could, if I would play them in any game. RF models are bound to only one mod, thats not good.
And you are right, in general terms. The thing is - we don't know what's in the future. The "uneveness" of it included - if I would be so inclined I could say that CB were out of ideas for Ariadna and Haqq Reinforcements, and that's why they've given us models form pre-existing sectorials. So, I'll wait & see what CB are going to do with it. After all, it is not like the world is ending tomorrow... (and if it does, I guess I'll have other things to worry about, right? ;)).
At my taste, CB are doing as good, as bad decisions. And despite bad things we are playing it. For now amount of bad things is not critical. As I saw, some of previous flaws was fixed in N4. Other moments appeared, but they could be fixed either. As we discussed it in a topic about balance, perfect balance is something unrealistic. Work would go as long, as game would live. As cells of organism would reproduce themselves. New thing as reinforcement would be better or would be side feature. I think one way or another it's profiles would be integrated in main game. Sadly, it wasnt done at the start, but it would be. (I hope. We cant be sure, but it would be the right decision in this situation) All idea looked like spontanous thing, but the good monet in all of this, that CB still can make some spontanous things x) may be...
Reinforcements as a purchase option just got much better https://infinitytheuniverse.com/blog/reinforcements-army-update
That is pretty massive. Yujing should be ecstatic. PanO got a linkable Tac Aware Engineer. Ariadna got some very nice options. Vanilla Haqqislam can finally have 2 Haris in Reinforcements. O-12 and Combined did pretty well.
My Moblots are thanksfull for their update! I appreciate Loup-garous gaining viral marksmen, but the 0.5swc will not be easy to find.
There's a certain Jervis Johnson-like disdain for the customer base coming from CB and the community organizers who stay in touch with them. "You want good gameplay? Too bad! You should be ok with bad gameplay, or else you're entitled!"
