That's fine, but this thing is around for a long time no, so historical reasons isn't really an excuse. There were rules, they changed it, the change messed things up, so fix it. It's not complicated at all.
Nah, we just need to never bring it up, and then everything will be cool /s. Honestly, CB might not even be aware it's an issue. It seems they've got a lot of yes-men in their communications channel
In my opinion, when it comes to so-called "gotcha" rules, there is an important difference between 'core' rules that all players have access to and unique model/faction rules or combos. The difference is knowing how the game works versus knowing all the rules for models I have no interest in playing. I don't want to get 'got' because I only learned the core rules and what I needed to know for my models/faction. I don't want to get 'got' because I did not spend the time and effort to be up to date on the current 'meta' of the game. On this forum I read Rules, Nomads, and Access Guide to the Human Sphere. That's it. Literally. Nothing else. To play Infinity I really don't need to be up on what is happening with the new OSS or TAK or even the special new ITS rules. There might be a little surprise here or there, but it is almost never game-ending. In Infinity, if you play the core rules you are going to have a sporting chance. If you are comfortable with your own models and your own list you are going to do just fine, regardless of the mission format or the opponent. I run lots of hackers, usually 3-4. Do I sweat going up against Ariadna, or a list with few/no hackable units? Nope. In that scenario, are my Army Points spent a bit inefficiently? Absolutely. Does it mean I can't have a good game? Not at all. Like I said in my first post in this thread, it just doesn't matter. I can still move and shoot and spend Orders efficiently and force favorable Face to Face rolls. No 'dirty trick' my opponent pulls is going to shut me down. Most of the dirty tricks in Infinity are agglomerations of generic rules, or maybe particularly efficient ways to do a thing that most everybody can already do somewhat less efficiently. So if you got 'got' by that trick it was already because you let yourself get 'got' by being out played on the core rules. Infinity can severely punish sloppy gameplay. This does not make Infinity a 'gotcha' system or an overly complicated one. It doesn't even make Infinity a 'competitive' game that isn't for beer and pretzels fun. You can play Infinity with one eye on the game and a beer in your hand and still do pretty well, which is really all you want in a wargame. At least for me. I just want a good game. It is nice to win, of course, but when I unpack my models all I really want is a good game. I don't want to be a pushover. I don't want the game to be over by the end of the first turn. I want to challenge my opponent. Once you spend a modicum of time learning how to play Infinity you can do that without putting in a lot of effort. After only a few months of playing, 80% of my gameplay strategy is already locked in before I see the table or know my opponent. This unit is my primary attack piece. Its job is to move to the midfield, find cover, and engage at 8-32 inches. This is my harassment unit. Its job is to push ahead of my attack pieces and lay down smoke cover. This unit protects my DZ from AD, this one does the objective, this one speed bumps, etc. etc. etc. When I get to the table I adapt my basic strategy to meet the demands of the terrain, the mission, and the opponent. And damn if that isn't how a WARGAME is supposed to play, am I right? I know my units, I know their backstory, I know why they are together, I know what they are supposed to be doing, and I can reliably get a good game playing THAT regardless of the mission or the opponent. Sometimes it's less efficient. Sometimes I know I've got an uphill battle going in. Sometimes the shoe is on the other foot. But it is never a situation where I feel like I am losing because I don't know what the heck is going on.
@MindwormGames are you saying that you've never been caught in one of those "gotcha" situations? Have you ever run into Exile?
Infinity is a vidya and everyone is finding and exploiting glitchs. Imagine the speed runs. Or maybe time to start a thread of glitches and ask for clarifications. Now, if that goes ignored, we can confirm there is something wrong (beyond the glitches). No. What's Exile glitch? Or just devastating effects in some situations?
You should say that there are some nasty surprises in the game when you pitch it to someone, but I wouldn't actually introduce a gotcha until the new player is comfortable at about 200 points in an escalation league. Information overload is a real problem with a game as rules-dense as Infinity.
The demo games i've seen so far worked pretty well with red veil and that has TO. To be honest i throw one interesting new thing in per game. (And explain it beforehand) People are always excited about how that new stuff works and come back.
Little Dude, don't deprive yourself; https://forum.corvusbelli.com/forums/miniatures.109/ and https://forum.corvusbelli.com/forums/scenery.110/ Infinity is a very visual game. Enjoy the pretty pictures if nothing else. These three especially are worth a gander: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/painting-collection-infinity-mini-paintings-from-korea.24782/ https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/nathelis-paints-iss-tjc-terrain.3403/ https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/lefrank-the-chromaholics-addictions.22471/
I've gotten got plenty. But again, it's normally a general gameplay mistake that applies to all games. For example, I recently played a game where I moved a unit across an open fire lane near one of my infiltrated cammo markers on a second short skill. Noctifer missile launcher pops up to ruin my day, and as a bonus kill my cammo marker that can't even react because it is my Active turn. Ouch! Yea, turns out you can't ARO Dodge on your Active turn, which makes sense. Hadn't happened before. Learned something new. And I learned that it was ultimately a really stupid thing to have done. TO cammo missile launchers are a thing. Note to self, move on. And did it make a huge difference to the outcome of the game? Nope. It wasn't good, for sure. I lost a piece that was an important part of my extant plan of action in a way that I did not expect. So you just... keep playing. Change your plan, adapt, find a way to win, and if you can't, pick up as many OP as possible. That's what makes Infinity different from a 'gotcha' system, where some special snowflake unit combination means I should have been playing the game in an entirely different way if I wanted to win. In the example above, I knew that TO cammo was a thing. I knew that missile launchers are a thing. I knew that you don't want to eat a template on your second short skill. I knew that you really don't want to give someone an excuse to catch a cammo unit in a template. I knew all of those general gameplay things. I blundered into a trap because I wasn't paying attention. Like that fire lane wasn't being covered by something. It was a stupid thing to do in any game. And that Noctifier got to do something cool. Like it is supposed to do. I'm not going to be pissy about that. If it was a thing that could only happen playing Combined Army, because only Combined Army had TO cammo troops, then yea, it would feel kinda crappy. That would be a real 'gotcha' situation, and even moreso if that action set off a chain reaction that effectively ended the game cold. That's a gotcha system.
@MindwormGames it sounds like you're describing a gotcha scenario to me. Van Zant, TO missile launchers, Impersonators... there's plenty of that in Infinity, and it's weird to see you claiming there isn't.
What MindwormGames and I are pointing out is that two different things are being conflated. It's an important distinction becaue "gotcha" (rightly) has a negative connotation and a game where gotcha moments are common is not good. "Gotcha" and hidden information are not the same things. Hidden information is a part of Infinity and results in mind games that add to the tense experience that Infinity is designed to deliver. Gotcha moments (as commonly meant) are bad sportsmanship. Gotcha moments become possible when a game is so convoluted that it is difficult (or impossible) to know all the rules and some of those rules/abilities are good enough to win a game if you don't consider them. Plus that games' community is toxic enough to accept that level of bad sportsmanship as standard. Some players leverage thier knowledge of obscure rules or thier faction's unique rules by letting someone who isn't familiar with said rules make decisions which are poor because they don't take important and open information into account. It's like bringing up a technicality in a court case, except the people involved are not professionals, we're supposed to be having fun. It's not supposed to be a prac test of the rulebook. I could take the time to look up all your rules when I get your courtesy list or read up on your faction, or I can assume you will tell me what I need to know by pointing out threats that are open information. Makes the process easier and faster for everyone and is what most people do. Don't abuse my assumption that you're not a asshole. My assumption that there isn't a TO trooper or AD coming in though? Have at it, it's not an obscure rule and part of what makes Infinity fun and immersive is having to make decisions with partial information (you know what's missing though). Do make sure that a new player knows about it before you use it against them. For example; if you play Haqq, them maybe get in the habit of checking that your opponet understands holo before you start.
You're at a tournament. Why do you need an explanation of the other player's faction at a tournament?
Whoosh. He means going over your units you have on the table if asked. Not about the faction as a whole. Just on the table that's in front of him.
I need to know about what your faction can do to play against it? It's not reasonable to expect everyone to know everthing about everything? Are you really that desperate to win that a quick summary is out of the question? I can take my time with your courtesy list or you can quickly tell me what the treats are. Also, if you add a condition (like being at a tournament) then how applicable the things I said earlier are will change. You expect a person at a tournament to know the rules better than someone who is playing thier second game I would make sure that the latter knows about TO and AD before we start, but not the former. I would remind the former that dakini have mimitism, asura is badass (the model is kinda dainty) and ask them if they are familiar with proxies. If I played Haqq I would ask if my opponet knows how holo works, it's being nice but either they know or they are new. New players and casual players also come to tournaments because Infinity is fun and our tournaments are not cesspools of toxic assholes, I'm not looking to be the guy who disproves that in anyone's mind.
Obscure, convoluted rules or interactions are a problem with the system, and should be addressed by the company as part of general support. About the only place this really breaks down is with terrain, and that should be resolved by the players or TO. When I'm teaching somebody, or they're new to the system I will go out of my way to explain things, or warn them about stuff that might seem overwhelming, like TAGs, AD Troopers, Fiday's or rambo HI. I'll also offer suggestions or explain possible solutions. I'm not going to do that during a tournament. First, I make mistakes all the time, and I don't want my own failings to cause my opponent to make mistakes. I'd rather have my mistakes only effect me as much as possible. Second, at a tournament I've got a lot going on just making sure I'm doing everything right, without also having to worry that my opponent might not be forewarned about something I'm about to do. There's also always going to be an imbalance with one player warning the other player more about potential strategies. Some people might point out that they only have 8 troopers on the table, while other would gloss over that since that would reveal too much. I also don't have any issues with doing anything legally within the bounds of the system when I'm at a tournament. The truth is that loopholes need to be addressed by the company, because I don't know what each of my opponents considers to be fair play, and what is not. Attempting to address this socially can be a pretty big conversation in a system as complex as Infinity. I can probably do this with regular opponents, but not for random people off the street. Further I'm sure I'll forget something. My own experience with other systems is that social solutions to these problems are often poor at best. If I take one of unit X I'm okay with opponent A, but at two he gets upset, while opponent B considers just one to be cheesy, while opponent C thinks that unit X is under powered and I'm handicapping myself. Similarly with various rules interactions. They totally break down when dealing with random people at a tournament. I'm also going to put "gotcha" interactions into the social solutions aren't good pile as well. Most people are going to agree on a 70-80% of what might be a gotcha, but there is always going to be another 10-20% that gets fuzzy, and people are going to disagree on. Without the company establishing clear and concision rules there are going to be disagreements about what's "fair" play (particular with people from other areas). In the case of a tournament it can result in one people or another handicapping themselves unfairly. If we all play RAW we can all refer back to the rules at the basis for "fair" play.
I find it depends. Some people really want to take it slow, other people find the slow approach limiting and boring.
@DarkBlack gotcha moments as you're describing definitely exist in Infinity, and in a large part because the rules are written fairly poorly for what they're supposed to represent.
I don't think 'gotcha' has anything to do with sportsmanship. At least not how I understand the term and its connotations. I don't want to play a game where I have to be current on all of the abilities of every model and the possible combinations of skills in order to have a decent game. I don't want to lose a game because I did not spend the time to learn the special rules for units that I had no interest in using myself. I don't want to be forced to memorize someone else's stuff. I want to be able to learn the basic rules and my own stuff and be fine doing that. You could look at Impersonation as a 'gotcha' ability. It introduces very unique rules. It is potentially very powerful. And only a minority of factions have access to it. Impersonation is probably as close to 'gotcha' as Infinity gets. If you are on the receiving end of it, it can fell like you are getting shafted because you didn't know what a Speculo Killer or a Fiday was. You can find yourself in Loss of Lieutenant on turn 1 because you 'got got' by some faction's special snowflake rule. But that is as close as it gets in Infinity. Three factions have access to the rule (not just one), any faction could get access to the rule down the line (because it is after all a general, non-faction-specific ability), it takes an afternoon to learn when to watch out for it and how to deal with it, and lastly it does not break the game. An Impersonator can give your army a gut punch if you aren't prepared for it. But that's as far as it goes. It does not make the game a foregone conclusion. Mostly an Impersonator kills one unit in your DZ and then gets shot off the table. It sucks harder if that model is your LT. But it never stops the game. It never really makes the outcome a foregone conclusion. Heck, the Impersonator could easily biff its rolls and do nothing other than waste your opponent's Army Points and Orders. The other 'dirty tricks' in Infinity are almost exclusively tricks that you can see pop up in any game. It's all general gameplay stuff. Learn cammo, learn AD, learn Infiltration, learn smoke, because any time you put models on the table you could see those rules, and you almost certainly have access to units that can use those rules. In Infinity, you can learn all about your own faction and the units available and what you can do during a game, and because of that know 90%+ of the things your opponent can do to you. And where there are holes it mostly comes down to an unexpected probability nudge. Achilles has three wounds, for example. Maestro has an extra 3 point MOD. Etc. Etc. It comes down to stuff that does not significantly alter the game and the way it is played. If I assumed Achilles had two wounds because he is a Heavy Infantry model it would be a surprise when he didn't drop after two failed ARM saves, so you shoot him again. BFD. Again, Impersonation is the closest Infinity gets to what I consider to be a real 'gotcha'. You put me in LOL because you deployed a model in my DZ that can't be attacked until I pass two low probability rolls? WTF?!? What skill is that?!? None of my units have that skill. Not even Van Zandt is as much of a 'gotcha' as that. Sure, he has a special snowflake rule that lets him deploy in your DZ. And that can suck. But once he's deployed there he works like any other model in Infinity. An Impersonator has a package of real 'FU' rules. But that makes a grand total of... ONE big 'gotcha' in Infinity. One. This is not a game where every time you come to the table you are getting F'd over by a rule you had no idea about because it is some stupid, game-ending BS that X model from Y faction can do when you combo it with Z skill, none of which any of the models in your faction can do.
@MindwormGames I think you're talking about something different than what was discussed in the thread so far. I understand how you are discussing things that can feel a little cheap or underhanded for a new player, but are part of the game, such as TO cammo or those unique rules like Van Zant. However, those things are part of the game, as you said it yourself. What has been called "Gotcha" situations here are things that are not exactly part of the game, but wonky rules interactions that feel counterintuitive to players, especially new or casual players that don't trawl the forums looking for obscure rules. For example: Stealth, Aro and CC. If a model does not have Sixth sense, they can only declare Change Facing as an ARO if an oponent moves within their ZOC but out of their LOF. However, if the moving model has Stealth, the opponent cant declare ARO because stealth denies them that option until the model with Stealth either shoots or engages them. So far so good. Now, someone found out Stealth is an optional skill. This little detail passes by most people. This means a model with Stealth can choose not to use it, forcing the oponent to declare Change Facing as ARO, so the stealth model can now move into base to base unhindered. This is a big deal, because Stealth more often than not comes with Martial Arts, and so being in BTB can be a huge bonus to a model. That's a very simple interaction, but also very obscure. A lot of people will get blindsided by this. And they will feel as if they were "got". This is bad because it requires too minute knowledge of the rules, and works because of small details that not a lot of people pay attention to. In this case it's not game breaker, but other examples can be. And if they don't break the game, they can at least make a newcomer's experience feel very sore.
