I get that the proliferation of DTWs is frustrating, especially for a lot of premium 1Wers, but I think they are somewhat of a necessary evil in the current state of N4 - without them, offense be even more prominent and powerful. I also think people overstate the effectiveness of DTWs in the active turn. Yes they force a dodge, but actually using those DTWs gives you very mediocre average wounds per order in most scenarios. Not saying it's not something that could be drawn back on in N5, but I think it would need to be tied with a systemic drawing back on the general power of offense.
Remove Vanilla or drastically cut down what can be taken in them. Remove 6th Sense Active balance maintenance Remove profiles that are redundant. Looking at things like the shitpile or ORCs Stop cheating your own formula
Make 1 name change anywhere 2 rules have the same name (like Veteran and Veteran). Pretty sure they got this with changing Wounds to Vitality, but hopefully they don't miss any.
Veteran skill and veteran Troop category aren't too hard to understand. I want a better division between: Short Skill "Move". and Short skill with the movement label.
By the look of it, we shouldn't really expect anything too big. Bigger I could see is full integration of reinforcement into the game, perhaps even not limited to the roster we've had before. On the more realistic side, I fully expect more de-nesting of skills. For instance, the shikami card we've seen seem to imply that damage bonuses left the martial art table for good.
i hope that anytime they copy-paste a rule, without doing any major change to the wording; that they also copy-paste the relevant FAQ. Because if the wording wasn't clear the first time, it still won't be clear if you copy-paste as is.
I hope they make good point changes to YJ. ISS especially has been ignored for a long time. IA needs help too. Right now with so much hacking HI can be disadvantage more than not.
Goonhammer and Robert Shepherd have made an article and video of speculation and recap info on the N5. Goonhammer : https://www.goonhammer.com/infinity-gencon-seminar-and-n5-announcement-reaction/ Robert Shepherd: Infinity N5 - Wild Speculation
Here's a really simple request for CB: "Stop putting skills (or equipment) under unit names in printed Army Builder lists, and include them in the Skills/Equipment sections like everything else." I don't know how many times I've looked at Fiddler's profile and said "Well their Jackbots have Climbing Plus, but I guess they doesn't for some reason..." because Climbing Plus is in small print under their name, and not listed under their skills.
As weird as it sounds, I'd like to see a massive reduction in profiles across the board to allow better balance. The game has suffered several editions of endless expansions with dubious utility/duplication/design space infringement/poor costing/lack of clear roles all being problems in different places at different times. Copy pasted factions that have only had a lick-and-a-spit since n3 versus premium lean-and-mean new factions doesn't equate well to a tight tournament system. Id be fine with a really big streamlining program and stripping a lot of dead profiles/factions out of the game
The big one for me is an honest ppoints balance pass. Currently there are so many exceptions and discounts that it has led to those profiles that receive them becoming ubiquitous, and those that dont being niche. I'm sure that wasnt the intention, but here we are.
Give Mormaers NWI or two real wounds. They're expensier than orcs having only a single wound... (And make them link with volunteers instead of grey rifles, maybe that way they could see action more often) Spread special rules for all the armies. If you are an old school sectorial, you probably are missing NCOs, tactical awareness and LT +1 order/command token. Targeted go back to only possible in active turn. Allow berserk work in ARO again, like in the past. Or make the skill grant a bonus for ARO, even if it has to be a f2f roll. With the actual rules, i'm a very angry guy, but in reactive im as dangerous as a little girl.
Why is Vanilla bad? Isnt that what we want? Vanilla should be better than sectorial armies. Theres a serious problem with a faction if their sectorials are notably stronger than the vanilla army. Whats the shitpile refer to? And people have been complaining that basic HI like Orcs are redundant units since forever, they are not going to get rid of them. Why? Because people do make use of them, it just fits a different playstyle. That said, I would agree on removing redundant basic HI profiles. This is mostly a Yu Jing problem where every sectorial has its own basic HI. But then you run into the issue of every sectorial having the same basic HI which is maybe not a bad thing. It doesnt seem to be a problem with Pano having Orcs in every sectorial. Maybe people could list out what units they view as redundant in a faction to make things more clear. hmmm. Off the top of my head, its usually basic HI (orcs) and basic LI (fusiliers) that get duplicated in a new troop for new sectorials. Would people be ok having all sectorials use the same basic LI/HI just to reduce redundant units?
Vanilla factions aren't bad per se. But: It's redundant to have 5 profiles of an Orc with Multi Rifle. It's redundant to have units such as Machinist and Curators. It's redundant to have units such as Locust and Nokken. And more redundant to have they in the same sectorial... It's redundant to have units such as Akalis and Brethen. ... Also, It's absurd that the main factions can bring 20 mercenary units.
Ah I see. Yeah its annoying to see how many units in Pano are pointless because they are just duplications made just to have a different unit filling the same role in a different sectorial.
And lieutenant. When doing suggestions back when we had N3>N4 transition, I suggested changing lieutenant to commander. It both has more sense and avoids issue you stated. On a related note I hope they make LoL less punishing. That would nerf alpha strikes and make the game a bit more relaxed for factions with crap lt options. IMO killing a LT should just give 1 OP and that is it. Would also open a possibility for removing Veteran skill from the game reducing bloat and open new design possibilities.