Is the game getting too complex?

I think this is very important, but does require having opponents you know, and know you can trust. Me and a buddy I play with, take the playing with intent to extremes. If I am using an order, I let him know what I intend to do. I might say, "I move my sniper just far enough around the corner to see that miniature, but not be seen by that other miniature." If he thinks that sounds reasonable, he agrees and tells me how far he thinks I need to move my miniature. It saves us time, and prevents us from sticking our heads sideways on the table with one eye shut. "Can he see me? Can he see me? Oops moved too far, he saw me!" We both know if we take our time we can achieve the desired result, so we just skip the tedious line of sight checking, declare intentions and go with it. Now if their is a dispute if something can be done, then we stick our heads on the table sideways, but we do it together and quickly come to an answer. Really speeds things up.

 

This bothers me a lot because it gets trotted out a lot during discussion an is endemic of a problem I feel is becoming more common.

This isn't to call you out specifically though

So firstly, dealing with someone trying to cover both corners pre-FAQ was actually trivially easy. So much so that this supposed "problem" was rarely a problem.

All people arguing to get the FAQ were doing was to make shooting people in the back even easier. It now has the shoot in the back from the front as the side effect. I don't understand why, in a game where FtF rolls as supposed to be the norm, people though getting rear shots should be easy and cheap in terms of orders.





Option 1: move to corner, they declare change face ARO, move into back arc.
Bonus if you move out of ZoC if you want those sweet sweet normal rolls. Many units will have less than a 40% chance to succeed and face you.
Proceed to take shots into their back.

Option 2: slightly less efficient. Start outside ZoC. Cautious move into back arc.
Proceed to normal shot into their ass.

So /rant mode on.

I think part of the game is getting ruined by people searching the rules for gaps. Finding an interpretation that benefits them, arguing said interpretation is in the rules and rationalising what they are doing is for the benefit of the game via some niche circumstance completely ignoring any negative results and down playing the potential benefits so as to not appear biased when first coming to the interpretation.

its getting tiring, and I'm finding its starting to erode the collaborative nature of the game as people start to polarise around different interpretations.

If people took a step back, and realised that maybe they potentially have a stake in a given interpretation which could be influencing their perception of how "true" said interpretation was, and thought about negative side effects, I don't think we would have ended up with some of the FAQ we have.
Because I can see how (potentially naive) CB have read discussions, read the rationalisations and thought they seemed reasonable and FAQd it. The problem is when the rationalisations are hugely dishonest because people don't stop and think about their own bias before presenting an argument.

Now we can sit back and just blame CB for being naive, or writing bad rules. But I think thats a cop out. A good game, and a good community come from the community. We can make the game better inspite of the rules, and we can certainly make the game worse as well. Thats a choice, and we all have the power to make it as a community.

 

I think there are a number of rules and interactions that could get streamlined without losing the good kind of complexity that makes the game deep and interesting.

 

@Alphz Agreed. The downside of the "back from the front" argument is too high.

 

Agreed.

I think the big problem is that there are rules introducing new mechanics that don't work the same way other things do. Just getting all the rules down to a "Like X but ..." would be really good.

 

I don't think anyone has ever pitched this seriously. It's not legal because you can't do a full order climb as part of an engage.

There is nothing wrong with wanting CB to make a complete and functional ruleset. And there's nothing wrong with arguing for a certain interpretation of the rules on line -- for example, in the case you presented, I play one army that is perhaps more likely than anyone else to be able to just walk past a unit and shoot them in the back on turn one due to facings.

I don't think looking to the forums for this is great, I don't think I've ever had an argument about one of these things in a game -- and if I do, I make a rules forum post afterwards so we have a real answer or at least enough info to make a ruling.

This is super disingenuous. CB historically has tacitly refused to make rulings about core elements of the game such as intent, despite it being one of the most hotly debated topics. It also uses a bad post hoc argument -- just because CB rules a certain way doesn't mean that they were swayed by forum users. You could reason just as easily that the reason CB rules a certain way is because they follow the same logic as forum posters independently, or that they just make official rulings that they already intended.

I would say the main problem is the opposite actually -- far too much of the Infinity community 1) does not have a good handle on the rules and 2) expects others to know the rules for them. I bet half of the players in my meta have never actually read the rulebook cover to cover, and there's a widespread attitude that people always expect someone else will know a given rule interaction. I'm not saying that no one should ever forget a rule, because it's a complicated game, but if someone feels like they are losing because other people know the rules better than them, shouldn't the right course of action be to learn the rules?

I would add that CB not separating errata, FAQ, and actual balance changes does nothing to mitigate this.

Again, there is nothing wrong with wanting a complete and functional ruleset. I would say that sportsmanlike play can't exist when there are ambiguities in the ruleset. Every player should be able to make the maximum use of every mechanic the rules allow for the game to be interesting, and demonizing players who use every trick in the (rule)book is... just not a good thing to do. It smells to me a lot like when kids called things "cheap" in a videogame.

 

Funny that you use an example that isn't actually a rules argument. Intent isn't a core rule element. Its an application of the rules in the context of short cutting certain processes. Everyone is playing without intent, until both players agree to intent placement.

While what you posit is possible. Its pretty evident the LoF rules followed on from some fairly heated forum and facebook debates and some relatively prominent players thought it should be played a certain way.

I think Infinity is a complete and functional ruleset. You can play a game of infinity just fine with very few problems, and much of the game is actually quite intuitive. Whats creeping into the sides are these little niggling situations, and some of the present a very clear advantage over playing it the old way which presents a prisoners dilemma to players.
There is a fine balance between knowing all the "tricks" in the rulebook, and trying to create tricks by reading the rules line by line by line over and over until you can finally decide if you interpret one word differently you can technically do this thing which seems super incongruent with the rest of the game.
There are tricks in the game which are relatively well spelled out and have examples reinforcing it. By knowing those and your opponent not is your advantage.

Rulesets have to be moderated by sportsmanship. Thats the point of sportsmanship to be generous to ones opponent.

 

Please read the rule entry for Move. "The sequence of events would be: Move declaration, clarifying the direction and the intention of the trooper's final location, measuring, and declaration of the real movement's ending point."

Intent is strictly codified into the movement rules of the game. And I would say given that previous polls showed that over 90% of the playerbase plays with intent and that it is strictly codified into the rules of movement, that intent is a core element of the game.

Not true. The current rule for LoF was one of the earliest parts of the FAQ. It's been brought up again recently, and some TOs (Rumble on Route 66) have explicitly decided to ignore the official ruling. What is the use of rules if people decide to disregard them at a satellite tournament?

Who decides this? Some people think that forcing a ZoC ARO as you showed in your example above is rules abuse, for example. Who is the arbiter of what use of the rules is "too dirty" or "creating tricks"?

That doesn't mean you don't try to win though. You can play to win without being a dick. I just hate the idea of inventing an arbitrary set of rules around the actual rules about what is "allowed" or "sportsmanlike" and what isn't. It strikes me as an example of Sirlin's "scrub mentality." (disclaimer: I don't agree with everything in the link, Sirlin is kind of a douche, but I think his general point is correct.)

 

@meikyoushisui I agree with you on the scrubbery, at least.

 

During tournaments - Infinity is a struggle... Fight during which all ways are good (according to rules of course). At least for me, and I know plenty of people who play the same way. You shall focus on those examples, as you will be constantly defeated by them otherwise.

Oh, and I didn't blame rules - I've described the situation and said what may fix it (Loud annoncement that Infinity is a hardcore game And\Or motivate somehow CB to modify rules). Those exploits, strange interaction - are OK for complicated overwhelmed by rules systems (it is true about complicated software, business process world economy ;) etc.) ... But ...In my opinion... those hardcore rules require an adequate approach.

 

Weird. I cant recall any struggle on polish 2 day Infinity tournaments. Ah well.

 

There is one only thing i hate in the rules.
Nested-not-linear rules.

Examples?
Martial Arts, Guards and Protheion giving bonus, penalties and burst modifiers on the same named skill.
Full Auto L1 giving B+1 and L2 giving -3 to opponent BS.
Immunity messed up where a TOTAL immunity can be affected by a bunch of ammo...

This should be splitted in different skills, like Martial Arts gives bonus to CC, Guard gives penalties to opponent CC, Protheion is a CCW with its special rules for life-suckers (and then you can combine all togheter to get the CC Monster with high levels of both MA and Guards); Full Auto gives B+1 per level, the BS -3 is ANOTHER skill.

These are confusing things.

 

I dislike to put this on the users or the communities.

I don't consider this community toxic, maybe it was more peaceful some years ago, I don't know, but still can't be considered toxic. There are all kind of players around Infinity, some of them more "competitive" (however you wanna call them) than others, but I consider the most of us enjoy the game and don't aim for the victory at the top of everything. I also think most of us are over 25, that helps a lot.

Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse to have such a confusing and bloated ruleset. Infinity rules leads to many doubts on every single game, that can't be considered a good ruleset. And further than that, most of the people likes to understand the rules of the games they play. That steps a lot of people aside from Infinity, just the feeling of misunderstanding. As #1 stated one feel hidding something to a new player if you don't make him aware about its complexity.

Infinity ruleset will eventually be heavily simplified because the market will demand this, and the game will keep most of its difficulty and possibilities because bloating isn't a good complexity. More doesn't mean better, there are a lot of games with a much smaller and clearer ruleset and as much posibilities and (good) complexity as Infinity.

By the way, Infinitys excess of complexity is demonstrable, first thing at the top of my mind: I invite you to count how many different markers there are.

 

I think Infinity's ruleset could use some minor cleaning, but I certainly hope it isn't heavily simplified. Simpler games do appeal to a lot of people, but part of Infinity's appeal is the complexity, and the depth that complexity brings. It is one of the main things that sets Infinity apart from their competition. A heavily simplified Infinity would quickly lose my interest.

Also I am genuinely curious about the games that are much smaller, clearer, and have as much good possibilities as Infinity? I have seen games with simple and elegant rulesets, but nothing that comes close to Infinity's level of depth. I would love to try out these other games. (Bonus if I can use my gorgeous Infinity miniatures to play them!)

 

imo: I thank there are to mean of the same type of rules, Like the Morat rule. Why not just say they are religious? but I do like a complexity of infinity,

 

Yeah, I think most Infinity players are in this game because that complexity,still are some bunch of rules which could be simplified without loose that. I'am talking about rules which overlap others rules. "Morat", for example is "religious+veteran", so why not put this two rules in the Morat troops description instead "morat". And this is only one example.

 

Examples? I'm honestly curious about trying out new games. I think I own an army for just about every major miniature game.

 

Indeed, on the other hand a model can cover both corners back to the wall...

 

• The target must be within the troop's front 180˚ arc.

Someone with their back to the wall won't have their target in their own 180° arc, even if they can draw a line from it.

Take what you are thinking to the extreme and anything with an S2 silly can't be shot at from behind unless the enemy is perfectly placed directly in line with their back arc.