And why would those overlap in a way that Sval and Varuna won't overlap over PanO's current 3 sectorials? They're already cool with profile overlap, with LI specific to each sectorial that are different in ways that are essentially meaningless.
That I feel is going to just happen. But using design space/bloat as an excuse to cleave a faction doesn't make sense. Not unless other factions are also on the carving block. For example, Ariadna is absolutely filled to the brim with redundant profiles. And to be frank, I'm pretty sure I won't stick around if that is indeed the case, especially if it's handled as callously as JSA's separation from Yu Jing.
I'm not sure if Tiger Soldiers are going to be Svar or IA, but how about separate the Combat Jump OR Multi-terrain. There's not way Multi-terrain should cost the same as Combat Jump!
Then it basically stops being MI. MI are usually ARM 2 or 3, MOV 4-2, non-hackable, sometimes with a high BTS like Bolts. There are exceptions: The Briscard is currently MI with 4-4, but may become LI or Ariadna HI. All others with 4-4 are characters or character-like units (The ALEPH Proxy Mk 5). What redundant profiles would those be in Ariadna? Remember they're more or less four factions under one flag so their background justifies it a little. Background has been a big reasoning for a lot of changes lately. That can lead to many an argument about balance, of course, but you'd like to hope the background of losing some of the JSA's role-filling tricks might lead to a new YJ variant that does something similar, or fills a different role that can counter what the "gap" was.
Which is fine, except the argument that was given was a mechanical/balance one - "profile overlap" is not a fluff issue. It also begs the question of why that culling is only levied against Yu Jing and not against PanO, Ariadna, or Nomads.
PanO's probably not the best example, because the overlap within each Sectorial, and even within the Vanilla faction, is pretty minimal. Each of the three Sectorials has defined personality and respectable power. PanO's probably the only Vanilla faction where you might see line troopers from all of their Sectorials realistically used in the same list. You get some funny stuff like triple MI with Visors and long-range weapons, but that's famously the most egregious outlier. On the bigger topic of why I think the new sectorials will explore interesting new design spaces: One difficulty with Uprising is that Yu Jing appears singled out as "the faction that lost something." We don't know if that's going to be true in the long run. Every faction might be losing a Sectorial, we just don't know. If we want to jump into speculation territory (and let's face it, there's so much baseless dialog in these threads already, why not...) I actually think the wave is cresting for a major SKU control effort by CB. I don't think CB can realistically afford to churn out redundant units anymore, because it's a nightmare for their retail partners and the cost of fabricating/maintaining inventory for it all must be immensely difficult. The design ethos needs to be tightened up, with minimal overlap, because CB can't afford to have idle profiles/miniatures that don't move out the door. Looking at the coming couple of years: most factions are getting 1 new Sectorial, with moderate design space for new units. Yu Jing is getting 2 new sectorials, with clearly defined themes, and (as of Uprising) a huge amount of design space for new units. That's an enviable place to be. It sucks now, but the potential exists. I'm actually concerned as a PanO player that we're next on the chopping block. We have 2 more Sectorials coming as well, and we already had more Sectorials than anyone else. It makes us a pretty likely candidate for a loss. Frankly, I hope they get rid of MO, but I don't think that sketch of "Acontecimento Explodes" was necessary idle banter on CB's part.
@barakiel Stacking up ORCs vs. Hospitalers is where I see the overlap in PanO. Things like that. I don't share your optimism. I think, if CB is streamlining its SKUs, Yu Jing just took a big hit right before there is functionally a permanent reduction in the rate of new releases, leaving them permanently diminished. Breaking up factions for the sake of breaking up factions is a bad move. The JSA/Yu Jing conflict had been in the fluff for a while, but there are other factional splits hinted: Morats vs. EI and Ariadna's tenuous federation, among others. If they pulled a similar stunt with Morats I'd stop playing the game.
The flag ship example is the number of their camo infiltrating skirmishers. The Chasseurs and the foxtrots are near identical stat wise, with the main difference being the defensive combo of sixth sense lvl1 with a light flamethrower of the former. Due to non shared AVA, the sheer number of camo infiltrators that Ariadna could bring to bear was a major factor in them being them a power house and the creation of Exclusion Zones in ITS. Metros and Volunteers, so much so they used to share AVA. Tank Hunters and Scots Guard 2nd Battalion. Camo MI packing antiarmor weapons. Moblot and Minutemen. Basically high mobility MI who don't like EM. In vanilla, it's pick the skill/gear you want since outside a difference in CC and WIP, they are identical stat wise. Yes, this overlap can be justified by having four separate armies. But that redundancy also has affected game balance. That said, CB has a fiction excuse for splitting as Hecaton pointed out. Ariadna only recently united under the Kazaks, with Caledonia and USAriadna not too happy about it. Once again I am not advocating that CB pull that trigger, not until they've demonstrated they can handle that kind of situation with appropriate care and forethought.
Sorry, wasn't clear: Didn't mean the only or the biggest, just that background has been one of the reasons oft-cited of late, especially for the rather split-personality approach of having a competitive tournament system's results have a background impact. The irony is, the answer to "why" now is probably because "the reception to us doing it to Yu-Jing was too mixed for us to feel it's worth risking again", so... Just begs a rephrased question, really. Background wise, it was hinted at for years (just not that many people actually expected it to ever happen) and the Japanese had distinct identities from Yu-Jing to a degree in asthetics, tactics, and even amongst the playerbases. The JSA were really just the obvious choice for something like this - but we can debate forever if it was a good idea or not.
I was talking specifically about the "design space" argument, not the fluff one. I think the fluff relating to Uprising/Treason/whatever has been particularly bad even for the game line, but it could have been handled better. From my perspective, though, the "design space" argument is just *wrong*.
It's been mentioned that background-wise it's OK for the JSA to go away from YJ. The problem is with HOW was it presented, WHAT was hamfisted on the player's face, and the QUALITY of the product that was sold to the playerbase. Essentially, too many serendipitous situations, too many "luck" for the Kuge, roo many atrocities by both sides, which were also tolerated by the rest of the Sphere, the PanO "we will be the knights in the middle of this, mwahahahahaha", the JSA conducting war operations in Kuraimori after being elevated to nation status... So, simply put, it was a rush job without effort demanding as much money as truly professional work. It smells too much to EA's policy of "launch it at this date, whatever the state, and then we will complete it with patches and DLC".
I agree, but I'm hoping that CB will find a way to drop Zuyong about 2pts across the board. That would actually be really interesting! I hadn't considered using REMs like that. Yeah, I like the idea. Well, we do know that there's the Shooting Star HI, which is apparently AD HI. I'm hoping that YJ-Svalarheima gets the long-rumored Blue Wolf as a TAG, I'd kinda been messing around with a S6 light TAG with Holo2. Yeah, I really hope CB has learned that you need to handle a split carefully. And without making War Crimes anything but an extreme outlier event. Yes, they can be mentioned. They also need someone to come down like a ton of bricks on the offender(s). This would also allow us to do something like the Scots Guards, where the Multiterrain Tigers are linkable. I could see spinning MO off as their own thing, but that'd be some ... ugly results to PanO fluff-wise. The Church is responsible for a lot of PanO's Resurrections. Yeah, the JSA weren't a great fit with the rest of Yu Jing. The split doesn't bother me much as being a split. I saw the models and said, "wow, those new JSA models look great!" I mean, I was honestly very impressed by them. But how the split was handled was awful.
Linkable Multi-terrain Tiger Solders would be the BOMB! Then the multi-sniper Tiger would make a little more sense. I'm sure there are guys that did the multi-terrain over combat jump for fun games but in ITS? If so it's got to be a pretty small amount.
On Tigers: I don't see why AD troops can't be linkable, considering the costs in both orders and the command token to form the link, since you can't form a link when they're off the table. On REM: playing a bit with the concept I'm getting stuck. I think the Yaokong chassi is ideal for a camo REM, but I do think such a box would need to serve at least one of REM profile - plus both Yaokong and Yaoxie are kind of small and will struggle to get cover the way a Raiden did. So this also leads to concern regarding price. In either case, a Yaokong with HRL would need some serious points bloat to get close to 20 points. I'm half thinking "Why not TO camo?" which would also mean it'd be a viable attack platform if given a decent attack weapon, but how not to make it step on Rui Shi's tiny feet? And giving one of the profiles shotgun(s) makes it a lighter, more hidden, Bulletteer. In either case, a barebones Raiden setup (HRL, AP mines, Minelayer, Limited camo) on a Yaoxie would run an estimated 15/1,5. A Yaokong might run a bit higher, but not much.
Hmmm, maybe a Yaokong unit with regular camo, mines, minelayer and two weapon options: HRL + light shotgun OR portable autocannon. Neither should have Repeater to make it a bit more difficult to stick Marksmanship on them. My line of thinking: these are support REMs, just.like the Husong, but the idea here is that as an enemy you need to consider whether the marker you try to discover-shoot is the ARO version (i.e. an inherently passive HRL that's fairly cheap and is waiting for you to move that link team) or the active suppression of an Autocannon. Yeah, sure, Autocannons love sticking ARO shots into people and both are B2, but one of them wants to be active a whole lot more than the other and both would be hella-funny to stick enhanced reactions on. (Possibly the AC would need Repeater so you can 1st-turn buff it with an EVO to balance it versus the low cost of the HRL, but I'd be a tiny bit concerned regarding the design proximity to Tankhunters (who are just +1 BS, +3 ARM and prone state away from my suggested Yaokong)) P.s. a more outlandish suggestion would be a twin Light Grenade Launcher with a special rule regarding burst when Speculative Fire. Mortar REM!
I think having a squad of S1 support remotes that fit into your link team, carry no weapons but are engineer/FO would be hilarious. Maybe give them a knife. Little robots love knives.
CB can definitely push YJ towards this. Hell, it looks like they're trying. If they were wondering why YJ didn't sell - it's because everyone already had the stuff for ISS, and was waiting for IA. Instead of giving them something new and interesting, they took stuff away, in a way that is unprecedented in the game, and had the disrespect towards their customers to give the boldfaced lie of "design space."
It certainly could use a bit more justification, like, say, actually having that design space at least previewed if not actually starting to be filled in as soon as it's cleared. You don't demolish an old building and assure everyone the new structure will be totally great without showing a concept drawing at least. Tonberrys?
