He's speaking pretty chaotically. And, as far as I can see, giving very little specifics on what exactly will happen to which army. Although I agree, 43 armies is hell of a lot. And difficult to keep up, even less if you want to have some more, new, flashy armies. Can you show me a way to release new armeis without swelling the count, one, that does not include removing some of the old ones? IMO it is mostly a matter of making it in a way that keeps the old players still interested. Their old model collections remaining relevant.
Thank you! This what I pulled from the wonderful expansive interview on CB's mindset: There is a dedicated push on the Infinity IP and getting it more well known. This is important as more profitability will keep the company going. Better planning of releases. They want to make sure prior to a release, there is a build up of information releases. Videos with unit fluff and more gradual releases. They like the focus on completing forces (Bakukin release was an example). While the surprise release of Druze Bayram Security was fun, because it was not promoted well it was not profitable. They need to release with better intention. Not all Factions will be available at launch. They do plan for all the Vanilla to be available. OOP and NA-2 will probably take some time. Some of the Sectorials will be merged or integrated (example was of Star Co becoming a Nomad Sectorial). Vanillas will be treated more like sectorials. Some might get Haris, but the main goal is to prune them down significantly. No longer will get access to everything. They also want the sectorials to get more Sectional-only units. Steel Phalanx will probably get a nerf as it was extremely dominant. There will be tweaking. Tohaa is still mechanically very powerful. Pheroware is powerful, but the only reason it is not complained about at the level of GML is that Tohaa is not very popular. They strongly realize the meta. They believe that players value camouflage + Infilitration much more than Combat Jump. They notice that competitive players like to minimize risk, but they would like these Combat Jump profiles to be more utilized.
Easy solution would be that if you fail the roll, you come on like a Parachutist. I think people would start using it as you will always get some benefit.
I'd like it to be more similar to its older iterations - missed jumps scattering instead of automatically deploying from DZ edge, or what Brokenwolf just suggested, failed jump becoming Parachutist. But I'm one of those players who actually enjoy high risk - high reward options, instead of eliminating every possible risk. Very happy to hear about pruning of army count and vanilla options. I'd like some units to disappear/merge as well, so that we have lower number of more distinct choices.
"If it was up for the developers, N5 would have been released much later" - Bostria Did someone notice that?! This is something that I kind of thought of, when they announced N5 so close before release and while it is making sense that they want a new edition now with the biggest visibility of the IP, I'm starting to get concerned about what we'll get and how quick we'll be bumping into issues with the nitty-gritty of the more difficult rules. Or the new stuff about vehicles and reinforcement integration.
I like it, too, so I wouldn't want it to have zero penalties. Following the parachutist rules, but being limited to your half of the table would be a decent penalty. Scatter could be fun, though, and the current smoke template is still numbered for it. Or you could center the circular template over the intended drop location and the opponent gets to deploy your combat jumper touching or within the template. I think there's lots of ways it (and, arguably, Infiltration) could be written that make failure still fun, which might encourage people to make the gamble more often.
The last three times I did combat jump I flubbed the rolls. One of them was a blessing in disguise but the rest of them ended up doing nothing the rest of the game.
I heard that as well, but they also mentioned that they were talking about Possibility of Survival back when N4 occurred, but did not want to be too radical. They seem to want N5 to be just a better polished version of N4. The changes he mentioned seem to be in line with that. I think it is good that they are pushing to iterate, as to me, each edition change has made the game better.
I like combat jump very much and I try to buff it up with EVO. The exclusion zone landing in the current ITS is also a nice idea. My last three attempts were all successfull :-D but in my last game I failed approx 8 or more times a WIP -3 roll with WIP 13 until I finaly crit it. So yeah a faild CJ resulting in parachuting would be an intresting approach. But camo is always good - undeniable.
For the video, interesting stuff. For sure, 43 armies is a lot, of course it will be interesting to see what ones vanish with N5 and how many they feel need to be purged. For the NA2 stuff, I am happy they are investing in JSA as it's own faction and therefore won't be on the chopping block anytime soon. I would like to see Druze stay around (I'm no Druze fluff-bunny, but I consider it more of a military merc sectorial, with the rest of the NA2 stuff feeling more like merged faction models except spirral) and happy if Spiral get merged with Tohaa.
It may be too reliable like this... It would be win-win, as there is almost always a useful and safe Parachutist spot somewhere. And it would basically remove the use for EVO boost.
I could see a happy medium here too. Like only up to half the board or something, then you’re still getting something but there’s also a slight penalty for your failure. It would be a partial benefit but not the whole edge up to enemy DZ.
