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Changes to crits confirmed. (And the best suggestion I have heard for changing it)

Discussion in 'News' started by deltakilo, Jan 27, 2020.

  1. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    Even playing Nomads my most common Hacking lists are basically a Custodier HD+, a KHD Zero and a Dep Rep Zero (or the sectorial equivalents). They hardly take any time to set up an ARO hack at all.

    Aside, I'm always supremely jealous of the Leila, double Hunzakut FO, Al Hawwa AHD Hacking list. Such potential for so little expenditure.

    Carbonite is the only Claw program I actually think is worth spending orders on (outside of specific circumstances). And that's mainly so I can get away with shenanigans inside the LOF of the TAG/HI: which is precisely what it's designed for.

    @Teslarod yes I meant only 1 dice of DA, EXP etc as now. I don't think it's particularly complex and it's universal and could be written as part of the generic Crit rules.
     
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  2. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    It doesn't take luck to make it work.

    75% of my success with Hacking is board control. Before my opponent could move his TAG/HI attack piece into the ideal position, he needs to deal with my Repeater or my Hacker. That's 3-6 orders that he's not spending on shoving his whatever down my throat.

    That's a win, and I never declared a single Hacking ARO. Plausibly I didn't even have a HD/AHD even on the table. All it took was list design and smart positioning.

    Only 10% of my Hacking success has ever relied on successfully landing the effect on my opponent.

    (the other 15% is dropping troops from Suppression Fire by forcing a Reset or White Noise).

    * Numbers are completely made up, but illustrate my experience.
     
  3. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    If I make a list with two Zetas in it, that list will fail to do anything useful most of the tine because the SWC expenditure and total lack of points for supporting units or tools to deal with a bunch of tactics.
    Same with hacking. If you design a list with 90 points worth of (non-killer) hacking, you'll have shrunk your ability to deal with other threats by over 30% only to be able to contain what will typically be at most an equal amount of investment by your opponent. This is what other games would call "a skewed list", and the key with skews is to realize you only use it against opponents you know will skewed by them - so basically IA or people practicing Daboarder's double TAG tactica.

    The same goes for any over expenditure. MSV2 is great, but 4 Bao + Pheasant Core is just begging to get locked down by White Noise and picked apart by shock ammo.
    A Ninja sniper can be excellent flanker, but what do you really hope to do with 3 of them? What can 4 Oniwaban do that 1 doesn't reasonably do as well without hogging all points?
    A Kamau sniper is extremely strong, but only as long as the link is full, so sticking 3 of them in the same link makes for a very full basket.

    Btw, a Kriza can only guts out if he can get out of Repeater with one single 2" move and no part of the move may be spent moving towards the Hacker which makes it awkward for the target and funny for me. If he can't get out he'll prone on the spot instead. Also, why should I not be happy with that result? The Kriza just guts moved further back into their DZ, lost cover and won't be attacking my weaker flank while spending 2-4 orders repositioning to the stronger flank or be forced to use less deadly attack pieces?
    Sure, he'll keep on being a PITA later in the game, but I'll be able to deal with him from a stronger position.
     
  4. Disko King

    Disko King Well-Known Member

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    So if your main plan fails, heavy weapons die, you deal with problem...if I throw enough rifle mooks at TAG, some are bound to score crits eventually and kill it?

    You don't try to throw smoke, and make that TAG completely irrelevant?
    Don't try to go for his order pool and once again, make him quite irrelevant?
    Don't try to lock him in CC?
    Don't try to hack something?

    You just throw rifles and pray to the dice gods for crits? Yea, sounds like completely reliable tactic, straight from the West Point!
     
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  5. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    Is it just me or does this discussion really bring out the worst in people, even more so than most other typically do?

    It seems to cut a deep rift between two types of players whom approach the game very differently (and want very different things from the game).
     
  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Armihaul has a point, though; let me go through what you suggested. The TL, DR is; No one will hunt a TAG using Combi Rifles now or in the future, we're talking about preserving a desperation tactic and preventing completely risk free situations for the TAG.

    You don't try to throw smoke, and make that TAG completely irrelevant? Some factions need to build specifically for smoke while others simply don't have it, regardless of which if you are in reactive turn you do not have the agency to do this.
    Don't try to go for his order pool and once again, make him quite irrelevant? Typically the tools to do this are also the tools primarily used to go after the TAG, so if you're on the back foot for losing those tools you're also on the back foot doing this.
    Don't try to lock him in CC? As a tactic this is sound, but in practice it is a very costly tactic that the TAG player can effectively counteract by not over extending.
    Don't try to hack something? Much like smoke, this is something that is not an option for some factions and difficult for others.
    Also keep in mind that these "some faction" points actually have some overlap in the Venn diagram.

    All are sound tactics, but they don't always work. As the game is currently constructed, when you've had your nose bloodied you can affect a comeback by using less-effective units in hard gambles. I don't think anyone is arguing that throwing poorly optimised bodies at a TAG should result in an even fight (ye olde 17 Keisotsu vs 1 Avatar fight), but that as a desperation tactic it should still pose a serious risk for the TAG - not to mention that the active turn TAG already have odds stacked heavily in their favour when they go hunting opponent's orders and at 5% to fail versus a rifle for an Avatar that's already up 6 BS and 3 burst, that's less than 2% risk which even XCOM's RNG will have problems chewing through 3 STR across 20-ish orders.

    I think we need to treat the situation with respect, particularly regarding how player experience is concerned. It is a delicate balance between making players feel their decisions (as opposed to praying to RNGsus) and keeping a risk and reward structure that matters. Part of this risk vs reward structure is that protection players invest in need to matter while not being so high they eliminate the risk.
     
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  7. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    That's a lot of conversations on forums.

    As a medium they tend to polarised positions. You have to actively try to engage with the opposing views.

    A combination of hyperbole and strawmaning doesn't help.

    For instance nobody has in all seriousness argued that throwing mooks at a TAG fishing for crits was the reason TAGs are held in check. Rather people have argued that a mechanic that can randomly hold at risk powerful profiles is valuable. They've not always done that clearly or undramatically, but that's what people are primarily arguing for.

    Equally nobody, I think, is actually arguing against that position. Rather most people seem to be either arguing against the strawman (Combi crits are a legitimate Anti-TAG tactic) or arguing degrees (IE. "Yes a mechanism that holds at risk powerful profiles is a good thing, but given we know it's being modified what mechanism would we like to see and why").

    Personally I think it's entirely possible to reconcile. I see no reason why CB won't update the crit mechanic so that it:
    * holds all profiles at risk whenever there is a chance of success at all
    * doesn't arbitrarily undermine DAM or ARM
    * has less negative psychological impact
    * is no less clear than presently
    * is not significantly harder than presently

    I think that's what we all really want from an updated crit mechanic.
     
  8. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    Of course. I doubt any one of us are new to forums and flame wars. There’s always one or other “discussion” going on here these days.

    I mostly meant that this seem to strike a particular nerve between players who wants to be rewarded for their strategy and tactics first and foremost (see Laughing gods comment about tableing opponents), their goal being to outplay their opponent, on the one hand.

    On the other hand players who prefers a more chaotic and even and dare I say mutually fun experience (being tabled without a chance to change the outcome isn’t fun). The goal being to have a wild and exciting time together.

    It probably sounds like I think one of these perspectives is badwrongfun but I don’t. If anything it reminds me of the old ameritrash vs eurogame thing that went wild a while ago.

    I’m just surprised to see that divide within our gaming community is all. Given how niche Infinity is within an already niche hobby. For instance I don’t see the same in the discussions about HI and TAGs relative power or hacking or even intent.

    Just an observation even though your post excellently summarised the real discussion.
     
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  9. Cothel

    Cothel Well-Known Member

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    When the Crit changes happen I'll probably just house rule they work like they work now. I like the way they work currently and no one I play with hates the mechanic.
     
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  10. Pen-dragon

    Pen-dragon Deva

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    I disagree with this particular statement. When your trying to starve a unit of orders, you go after the cheerleaders. The tools to do that are usually a highly mobile figure, that has a kit that lets them get an advantage over Light Infantry. That generally is not the same tool set you hunt TAGs with. Now it is possible you lost both sets of tools, but I feel like if you have had your plan A trashed, your plan B trashed, and have no plan C, it might be time to call the game a loss. Congratulate your opponent and move on.

    The rest of the post was fairly spot on, although I feel we could probably argue about the weight of importance of each point.

    And again I am just arguing for the sake of arguing, I am actually fine with the current crit mechanic, I just don't think it is essential.
     
  11. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    You are correct. Many tools to go after order pools are slightly different but they also typically form a bit of a speed bump in my experience. If you've had your punch blunted you tend to have those curtailed as well.

    I just hope they'll be able to make low ARM values more relevant and medium-high ARM values less cost inefficient.

    Semi-related, wonder if they'll change the missile launcher to be a bit more worth spending orders on outside of fireteams.
     
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  12. miguelbarbo84

    miguelbarbo84 Well-Known Member

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    About the missile launcher, I think giving it B2 might be too much, but what if it had some kind of Fat2, or other indirect advantage that could be rewarding on 1 dice?

    Generally speaking, btw, i believe N4 is a good chance to try and rework a few more weapons and achieve a bit more usefulness spread. Right now HMG (burst) is king. I'd love to see HMGs giving some more space for other weapons. Maybe make its +3rangeband narrower but keep it in SF...I don't know. But right now it seems to me that many too games are defined by: "take and hmg platform and fuel it with orders".
     
  13. Pen-dragon

    Pen-dragon Deva

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    No personal experience, but I am curious if in real-world-small-unit-tactics if the HMG is king? (realizing of course, that what Infinity calls an HMG probably does not correlate to what most military trained would call an HMG, and SWC cost is a fuzzy representatives of opportunity costs for bringing big guns, but you get the idea.)
     
  14. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    @miguelbarbo84 missile launchers are plenty deadly, but they have a tendency to outside of Fireteams be shooting at fairly poor odds of winning the face to face.

    @Pen-dragon I think if you position them as medium machine guns the Spitfire neatly becomes a light machine gun and combis become assault rifles. Very linearly satisfying.
     
  15. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    The term HMG comes from a dodgy translation of the Spanish "Ametralladora" back in 1st ed, which is probably better translated as just "Machine Gun"

    In most western parlance HMG refers to especially powerful machine guns like a .50 calibre or 14.7mm crew served and decidedly non-portable weapon. The more accurate name for the weapons used in Infinity would probably be LMG (Light Machine Gun) MMG (Medium Machine Gun) or GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun).

    In terms of versamillitude all these fail though as they're not designed to be fired from the shoulder on the move, even LMGs tend to be fired from a supported position such as on a bipod.

    Infinity allows a trooper to move and fire their *MG as easily as they do any other weapon, which is nonsense from a pure simulationist point of view, but does create a dynamic game where out flanking and redeployment is encouraged. I'd actually be against a rule that needed you to "brace" or "set up" heavier weapons because it would be detrimental to the flow of the game.

    I've posted in other threads that the easiest way to "fix" the HMG is to drop it to Burst 3.
     
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  16. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    It would be an interesting thing if the range bands of a weapon more directly connected with the Burst. Long = low, short = higher as a basic rule
     
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  17. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    They already kind of do, most weapons with a +3 range over 24" are already Burst 1-2.

    Which is why the HMG tends to be the dominant weapon, in that 24-32" rangeband (which many troopers will deploy in or near) it has twice the FtF winning ability of a sniper, HRL, Feueueurbach, etc. It doesn't hit as hard but a lot of the time just winning the FtF is important as it means you're not being hit in return.

    I don't even think that Multi-HMGs or the HMRC need to change because they're on such specialised platforms, simply dropping the standard and AP HMG to burst 3 makes Spitfires/Red Furys/Molotoks/snipers/HRLs/Feueueurbachs/Autocannons more appealing.
     
  18. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    I guess my thought was more balancing to the bottom end of range. If SMGs were to get +1 burst while losing the ammo types that would make an interesting choice against a combi for example.
     
  19. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    That'd just be an assault pistol without SuppFire though
     
  20. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    Exactly :P

    Ranges are a little different between them (SMG has both a -3 and -6 range, not just -6) and the pistol can be used in CC (if you wanted to for some reason)
     
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