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[April], come she will...

Discussion in 'News' started by Solar, Feb 14, 2018.

  1. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    Lol, you can't even buy just one Hac Tao anymore 'Storm. Anyway, AVA2 should stay.
     
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  2. Dragonstriker

    Dragonstriker That wizard came from the moon.

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    You still don’t get it @psychoticstorm, just because you keep insisting that, doesn’t make it true. Nor does it address the massive change to the character and the characterisation of the faction; from contender to incompetent caricature.
     
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  3. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    Also there is this thing called communication, that CB (despite their recent best efforts) is still miles ahead of the competition on.

    "We are raising the AVA on the Guilang, Dao Fei and Hac Tao. This might only last until the end of the season or the next book."

    All it would take.
     
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  4. SKOZZOKONZ

    SKOZZOKONZ Well-Known Member

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    Seems intentionally dense.
     
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  5. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    Yu Jing have not changed as a faction nor as a contender

    Sure, like we have not seen that not working in the past.
     
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  6. Primo

    Primo Well-Known Member

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    I do, regularly, more so than Pheasant rank, Sun Tze, Wu Ming or even Crane Rank.
    And before somebody repeats the "then you should play JSA" mantra, I don't like to play JSA in the same way I don't like to play vanilla without my japanese troops, the army I collected and liked is Yu Jing, not some aggregate of sectorials
     
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  7. Melchior

    Melchior Well-Known Member

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    I'm happy with the sitution for now but this would be a nice idea.
     
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  8. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    Except you don’t and can’t know that, since the full history of the Uprising is still not known outside of CB. It’s fine that you choose to see and believe the worst based on massively incomplete information, but just because you keep insisting that, doesn’t make it true.
     
    #2108 A Mão Esquerda, Mar 17, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2018
  9. sarf

    sarf Well-Known Member

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    I agree on short story point, I hope that Uprising timeline will be available in some article once book will be released.

    From other point of view I`m glad that it is not "Your ninja-squats are eaten by cyberdemons, you can throw minis away, miniature range is dropped out of production. All info about you could read only in paper journal for 59.99"
     
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  10. Shiwen

    Shiwen Commissar, Yu Jing Political Work Department

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    I'm trying to see the possibilities and the silver lining here, we don't have the book to know the background, Invincible Army will probably be amazing whenever it comes, there are lights in the darkness my fellow subject-citizens!

    But this statement is absolutely mindbogglingly ludicrous.

    Yu Jing is changing as a faction. That's the whole POINT of the Uprising, of the Secession, the faction is changing! Japan, once second-class citizens, will now be an independent enemy, unit profiles and sectorials once available to StateEmpire lists will now be gone. There are arguments for and against the merits of setting changes to make a dynamic game world, on the significance of lost profiles to those who can no longer access them, but those debates all revolve around determining whether changes to the faction are good or bad, if Yu Jing wasn't changing as a faction there'd have been nothing to talk about and this speculation thread would've petered out well before 100 pages.

    Now, if the faction changing is, to me, indisputable, the changes to its status as a 'contender' might be more subject to debate as a whole. After all, what is meant by 'contender'? I see three different (though not wholly disconnected) uses of the term, and changes to contender status in all of them.

    Yu Jing as Contender-in-Setting

    In the context of the Infinity background, Yu Jing has been portrayed as rival to PanOceania, attempting to supplant it as the hyperpower, dominant force of the Human Sphere. I don't claim that this requires Yu Jing to have been equal to PanO in terms of economic or military power, but the setting as it stood before Uprising was one where Yu Jing's ambition was taken seriously by themselves, PanO, and the other powers of the Sphere. There seemed to be a delicate balance of power politically, with each side jockeying for advantage.

    The secession of Japan from Yu Jing is a significant loss to Yu Jing on all fronts.

    - Loss of Military Strength: Militarily, the JSA did not likely exist as a reserve force above and beyond the StateEmpire's defense requirements. Secession, even were it bloodless, represents a massive loss of soldiers and equipment that must be replaced. The secession does not appear to have been bloodless, worsening the losses. Some might argue that the loss of JSA regiments also causes losses of troops which fit into specific tactical niches, leaving specific holes in capability and doctrine.

    - Loss of Defensive Position/Infrastructure: In general, there has been an assumption that Earth Japan is where the secession has secured its territory. This point is less of an issue if that were the case, but the recent article did seem to give us one bit of new confirmed info from Interruptor:

    "..the different secessionist regions (the Japanese archipelago on Earth, the Martian, Svalarheiman and Paradiso colonies, and Japanese Human Edge space stations).."

    The secession of portions of Yu Jing territory across the StateEmpire is significant, and particularly so because it happens on Paradiso, which is an active warzone, and on Svalarheima which is a contested planet that Yu Jing military planners know will become a warzone should a new NeoColonial war ever erupt.

    When you plan your defenses, you need to do a number of things. In case of war you want to plan defensive 'lines' (hopefully not a Maginot Line, but even defense-in-depth involves some geographic specifics), with transport corridors and hubs to allow deployment and retreat, supply depots and communications to ensure the army remains connected and fed/loaded. Yu Jing will have planned these out including now-seceded territories, and holes will have been torn in the plan, as well as NEW borders appearing which must be accounted for. Even outside the war zones, the more general defensive plan, and even civilian infrastructure, must be protected against infiltration, sabotage, espionage (all the things we do when we're playing our games of Infinity)... military patrol routes, the road and rail lines, the power grids, the information networks. These complex webs of infrastructure are now disrupted, and with them Yu Jing's ability to defend itself from aggression both great and small.

    - Loss of Economic Strength: The Japanese might be second-class citizens, but being barred from aspects of political life did not mean milling about in concentration camps: the Japanese people produce stuff, they produce value, they're noted for their high-tech industries. Losing territories means losing factories, universities, research laboratories, resource extraction. Even if we assume most of that was on Shentang and remains in Yu Jing hands rather than having been flattened by the orders of some overzealous Crane agents, the evacuation of so many citizens removes labour power, you can't just tell the Vietnamese or Han Chinese populations to vat-grow replacement kids by next week. It also represents loss of intellectual power. Some of that lost labour will have been skilled labour, even more difficult to replace trained and experienced technicians, and even if you get their notes it doesnt make up the loss of the cutting-edge researchers who had been producing it). Add to that the various contracts and arrangements between Yu Jing and Japanese corporations which have now been stripped of their legal framework and thus voided or needing renegotiation in the wake of a hostile split. Yu Jing is losing a significant chunk of its economy and that is going to have ripples through both its internal state and its geopolitical position (what happens if the Soviet Union loses Ukraine in 1970? If the PRC loses the Dongbei/Manchurian region in 2018?).

    - Loss of Political Leverage: Infinity isn't a game of open warfare, and both the scale of the wargame and its background show the complex political maneuvers that are the underpinnings of the Human Sphere. Spoiler alert, the Outrage manga was fantastic for showing the importance of image and message, it presented an entire Yu Jing plot which involved allowing a small team of mercenaries onto their territory to get into a gunfight, so that the StateEmpire could swoop in, kill them, provide evidence they took orders from PanO, and use popular disfavour with the hyperpower for having done so to gain political concessions at the next 0-12 meeting. That's not even the story Outrage is telling, but its a great part of the manga for demonstrating WHY scoring that Objective in your last game mattered... and for placing events in the setting material in context.

    The secession of the Japanese is a significant propaganda blow to Yu Jing. It makes them look weak regardless of how it unfolds. The audio clip of psychoCrane is leverage for the Secessionists and PanO even if it is just hyperbole, the more it maps to Yu Jing's actual actions the more leverage they lose to their rivals in the rooms where it happens. It weakens the StateEmpire's position either way, the question is one of degree.

    Now, for losing this sort of contender status, the solution is pretty simple. This is all background, all 'fluff', and we haven't gotten to SEE that material yet, its all in the new book. None of the points above are inherently unanswerable, but they do need to be answered, and that just requires the Uprising book to be deep, well-considered, and well-written. That some blurbs we've gotten so far are the opposite of that is concerning, but I'll grant it is far from damning, We only get the answer to that once the book is in our hands.


    Yu Jing as Contender-in-Gameplay

    I'm not sure we can really find common ground here since there seems to be a line of response to 'I play [x] profile and its being removed that is bad' which is 'no one played that anyway.' Certainly this change does not affect ISS one bit, so any gameplay issues are entirely about those who play vanilla Yu Jing and employ JSA profiles in their lists. Thats a narrow sliver of the Infinity player base to be sure.

    There has been a lot of extrapolation by posters here on exactly what they're losing, how they used it, and how it is hard to replace. Narrow sliver that they may be, those are still legitimate perspectives explaining how the reduction in the available profiles for making lists causes issues for them. These issues are not imaginary, players are going to have to find new solutions to problems, or accept new problems as unsolvable and find ways to ensure gains to exceeds those losses. Given the nature of ITS, and particularly as this is occurring in the middle of a narrative event which may well deprive factions of certain profiles, this affects Yu Jing as a contender in the organized tournament system, even if the impact may be temporary as new approaches are learned. But there are alternative, viable ways to play Yu Jing with no JSA units... at the end of this ITS season, CB will run the numbers, we'll see if Yu Jing has slipped in ranking and ratio.

    Its less relevant, but certainly we'll see a reduction in total NUMBER of vanilla Yu Jing games played in ITS, since some of those players will have switched to JSA. If you think being a contender involves number of games or wins, this is going to be relevant, but that's not universal.

    The solution here would seem to be to supply replacements to fill those gaps, or at very least to hint that some day those gaps will be filled. I'd had a half-suspicion CB's article was going to be them reaching out to a high-ranked ITS Yu Jing player to write an article which goes over 'yes, these are losses, we are not pretending they arent, but here are some options in Vanilla I've found that substitute or are comparable in playstyle'. I wish it had been, and while I know CB has their plan and doesn't answer to me, I'll absolutely suggest it as something they should consider for the coming week... a lot of ill-will has been generated, but acknowledgement of an issue and guidance on a way forward would dispel a lot of it (though eliminating it entirely at this point is, I think, impossible).

    Yu Jing as Contender-in-Campaigns

    CB's global campaigns have flaws, to be sure, but I enjoy the idea behind them immensely. Alass, they haven't been kind to Yu Jing so far. That is going to get worse.

    The Yu Jing playerbase has always been the most anarchistic in these campaigns, individual agency preferred to coordination for the common good. Without JSA players, the faction is going to be operating from an even weaker position. Put aside people who won't be playing because they feel wronged or insulted by CB's approach to releasing Uprising, simply removing JSA means less players in raw numbers. You can do amazing things with a lower player base, as demonstrated by the Tohaa in both campaigns, but while Yu Jing isnt removed from contention, removing players still absolutely means Yu Jing is less of a contender.

    There is no fix for this one, what could CB do, artificially double value of Yu Jing wins, hand the faction a giant heap of free points? That's ludicrously unfair to everyone else.
     
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  11. sarf

    sarf Well-Known Member

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    I fail to see why this is a bad thing.
    A friend of mine stopped play Infinity after he played several factions all across, extensively, each and every combination. And then he got bored and now waiting for Shaswasti redesign because they have unique mechanics.
    Finding new solution to problems is great aspect of gaming, otherwise you could always slap symbiobandaid and continue mindlessly roll dice.

    Another thing, allowing YJ players use old JSA profiles till end of current season may be quite a good idea. It could keep angriest sportsmen out of arguments about unfair blow during competition. But that`s until season end.
     
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  12. Pierzasty

    Pierzasty Null-Space Entity

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    CB seem to have painted themselves into a corner.

    Yu Jing gets extra sectorial outside the standard release queue - everyone else gets pissed because they feel left out, fuck you we should've gotten XYZ sectorial that we've waited for years for instead
    Yu Jing does not get extra sectorial outside the standard release queue - no, no, it's totally fair that some original factions have 3 sectorials and others have 1, wait your turn. What do you mean faction tiers and previous edition codices, those are GW things, wait where are you going
     
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  13. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    Ummmm... it’s not a matter of authority... it’s theirs, to do with as they see best, regardless of what others might think, since, well, they created it...
     
    #2113 A Mão Esquerda, Mar 17, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2018
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  14. sarf

    sarf Well-Known Member

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    YJ players seem to have painted themselves into a corner.
    Yu Jing gets extra sectorial outside the standard release queue - everyone else gets pissed because they feel left out, fuck you we should've gotten XYZ sectorial that we've waited for years for instead of these crybabies.
    Yu Jing does not get extra sectorial outside the standard release queue - no, no, we`ll cry our eyes till Dawn.

    FTFY.
     
    #2114 sarf, Mar 17, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2018
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  15. Shiwen

    Shiwen Commissar, Yu Jing Political Work Department

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    I hope I wasn't unclear, I wasn't trying to state that having to find new solutions to problems was inherently bad. What I was pointing out is that it is a real thing that is actually happening. It is a change. There have been a number of posts that have stated that nothing is changing, those posts are wrong.
     
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  16. sarf

    sarf Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, but some of loudest players comprehend changes only when this means "shiny new toys for cheap".
     
  17. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    It's silly that I have to explain this to you, but... there are good decisions and bad decisions. One's ability to make good or bad decisions is typically independent of the power and authority to make decisions. You just explained that CB had the authority, and you're right. It doesn't mean they necessarily have the presence of mind to do things right.
     
  18. Shiwen

    Shiwen Commissar, Yu Jing Political Work Department

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    Absolutely. Its an understandable reaction... all of us here are consumers, we spend money on product, we want to get STUFF. One could launch into a critique of capitalism and bourgeois consumerism over that, but best to accept it as our reality: at the most fundamental level people want to have things, not have them taken away.

    I'm not sure the loudest players on this particular issue have been asking for that, though. There is definitely a tendency of some players thinking the correct response from CB to the removal of JSA profiles in Yu Jing is to toss out some compensation in the form of Invincible Army profiles. Whether we can all agree that is correct or not, I hope we can empathize... there have been things taken away, there is a desire not for "shiny new toys for cheap" in a vacuum, but for "shiny new toys at any price since you just took away the toys we were having hella fun playing with".
     
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  19. Knauf

    Knauf Transhumanist

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    That is true, but it's only half the story. CB is not perfect and they have certainly made mistakes in the past, but they are in the best position to evaluate what constitutes a mistake and what doesn't. We have no such insight apart from our personal perspective and possibly some general understanding about how to run a business.

    What might seem like a huge issue on the forums, will most likely not affect their sales at all, so it's hard to tell whether any given move is a mistake in the long run.
     
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  20. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    Whether their decisions are right or wrong is utterly and totally immaterial. They... are... the... final... word... on... their... creation.
     
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