Krigels do not TriCore and Pheroware is not a weapon, so they are B1 WIP13 with Eraser, while the core-linked YJ monstrosities are B2 WIP17 Jammers. Not sure how they even compare.
Eraser is a -3 to the opponent’s WIP, plus hits with DT ammo on the same DAM, is ZoC, and available in Reactive, so seems to track decently.
A Kriigel absolutely gets to use SSL2 from being in a Tricore in combination with their Eraser, which in my experience is the most powerful fireteam bonus for both it and jammers due to how it closes down stealth as a counter-play option. I have had many, many games against spiral including a tricore of a draal marksman and two kriigels (one of whom is real, one of whom is the tricore draal). It's a great module, overall a little less numerically powerful in ARO than the Tian Gao while full team bonuses are in effect but a little more powerful if you want to actively isolate things. I'd describe it as very good and it often did me a mischief but I have no balance concerns about it.
How can a Kriigel be in a TriCore? The only TriCore unit in Spiral is Taagma and they create a Special Triad with 2x Chaksa Auxiliars. Are you thinking regular Fireteam - Triad? That one doesn't get SSL2, this is a 4-man core link bonus. Triads only get only two- and three-member fireteam bonuses - acting as a single model / provoking single ARO and Burst+1. I don't play Spiral at all, just regular Tohaa, but something's wrong in your assumptions about TriCore?
The Taagma has straight Fireteam: Triad, plus the special options. So, yeah, you can get a Kriigel in a Tricore.
You realize that he was literally one of the best Street Fighter 2 players ever, right? Capcom literally tapped him to balance Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. He knows more about competitive game design than you or I probably ever will. Taagma have the Fireteam:Triad skill. They can go in any triad. Tricore can go in any Triad in the army. Also keep in mind that Eraser is B2, imposes a -3, and is DT ammo. It performs less consistently than a B2 WIP17 Jammer, but the power level probably leans more towards Eraser in active and Jammer in reactive. ___________________________________________ Re: the Asura example from above -- if you're relying on camo so much that you can't deal with an Asura, that isn't because of non-interactive gameplay, that's because you're playing a skew list.
By all members having Fireteam: Triad. There's only one model with TriCore (Taagma) and he has Fireteam: Special Triad rules that say Taagma + 2 Auxiliars. My takeaway was that it's the only TriCore in existence and the rest of Triads a Taagma creates are regular ones. Instead, I understand that any Triad a Taagma is in is a TriCore AND there's a Special Triad for him and two Chaksa, "Special" because they do not have Fireteam: Triad themselves? Like I said, I don't play Spiral. The way it's annotated on the Taagma profile is not that clear.
I have no idea about the fighter game scene nor do I care. Neither do I feel any kind of accomplishment gives him the right to call casual players "scrubs". If he sits down to a game of Street Fighter on his casual gamer friends' couch when invited just to spend time with them and then picks his most familiar and optimized character to fight with and then proceeds to wipe the floor them her and calling her a "scrub" - do you really want to play casual games with this kind of person who always plays to the hilt "because it's otherwise insulting"? The article comes off as smug elitism and his status does not change a bit in it. He might be the Street Fighter elite, he still has no right to spit on the casual gamers' heads from his 111th story penthouse balcony. Not sure what's a "skew list" but it seems derogatory. I still don't see too many non-Smoke, non-Camo tools Ariadna has to reliably deal with sth like Asura in an all-comers not specifically designed list.
It’s perfectly clear. The Taagma has Fireteam: Core listed on its profile, with the special options listed under it, much like ORCs in SWF or VIRD or Kamau in los Comeserpientes.
No. The Taagma that has the Tricore skill, when put in a regular Triad, grants the fireteam the benefits of the Tricore skill. The base profile of the Taagma has the triad skill, so all Taagmas can form any Triad. The Chaksa Auxiliar base profile *does not* have the Triad skill, so in order to form the Triad on the Sectorial Army List while satisfying the Fireteam Triad rule, only Chaksa Auxiliars with the Special Triad skill can form a special triad, which must be made of 2 Chaksa Auxiliars and one Taagma (of any variety). A very popular trick in Spiral is to start your first reactive turn with a triad of Tricore Taagma, MSV2 Taagma, and some third unit with Triad, and immediately start your first turn by reforming that as a special Triad with 2 Chaksa Auxiliars and MSV2 Taagma, and a second triad of Tricore Taagma and 2 more pieces. The Taagma does not have the special triad "rule" because that's not a thing units have. The special triad is on his army list, and he has the Triad skill. It is best not to comment on rules issues for Spiral Corps if you do not play or have never played Spiral Corps or at least familiar with the FT: Triad and Tricore rules. You are conflating two different things here. You can be a casual player and not be a scrub. A scrub is someone who invents rules outside of the game and plays by those instead. "I can't throw you 5 times in a row, even if there's an opening, because that would be cheap" is a scrub mentality. Casual players can play without being scrubs. A competitive player can still play a casual match. Again, the definition of "to the hilt" is flexible -- but that doesn't mean you don't play to win every time. I casually have played BlazBlue for years, but if someone throws me 5 times in a row, that's not cheap, that's me being a shit player. I'm not a scrub. It's not. A skew list is a list that overrelies on a single tactic which makes it perform very well or very poorly. For example, an all camo list would do very poorly against any list with Smoke + MSV2. An all TO list does poorly against an army with Sensor + Sniffers. A list of all warbands does poorly against strong AROs. A list with all Smoke + MSV2 shooters does poorly against linked AROs and White Noise. Those are all examples of skew lists.
That I knew. I was unclear on when and how the TriCore bonus kicks in - the Special Fireteam confused me, so I incorrectly assumed that was that. "Shut up and stop asking questions which turn out to be stupid" is not exactly a welcoming stance for a learning player, you know? I haven't commented on Spiral as a faction, either. I literally said I didn't see how something was comparable which means that if there was a way to get high WIP to compare with the YJ unit and get the 4-man and 5-man Core bonuses I wanted to be told what it was. I was told "you can get him into a TriCore". I said "I don't see how, only Taagma seem to have it?" and then the misread on my part happened. "I don't see how that works, what do you see there?" does not really merit this kind of derisive "shut up until you git gud' response. This whole "scrub" seems to be some kind of ego / macho thing I'm not really interested in being involved in or addressed as. I can ask a casual opponent to not go all out on me and idgaf if anyone thinks I'm a "scrub". I'm bringing a fun biker heavy list of USARF and I want to have a fun game instead of getting roflstompted by somebody overinvested in winning. So just don't call me that and if you can't take a fun list don't play me in a casual game. Yeah, I quick filtered with "TriCore" and got only Taagmas, saw the Special Fireteam underneath and that confused me I guess. Like I said, I don't play Spiral. Thanks for pointing the rule out though.
@Nuada Airgetlam a big problem you/we are going to keep running into in this thread is that you keep making assertive claims about balance and rules but you're posting from the knowledge base of a novice, still-learning player. You're asking for respect and mutual dialogue but you keep saying things in a way that makes it hard for people to take you seriously. Yes, the best thing from those engaging with you would be to approach your posts with kindness and patience, but everyone is very anxious and on edge right now, on top of the internet generally being dehumanising. That sucks, but everything sucks right now, so you're going to need to meet people halfway. As a bit of a secondary point, I'd also note that you're going to continue to struggle with learning the game if your approach to dealing with challenges that arise is to adopt the social solution of asking your opponent not to play those challenging elements. This is fine if your objective with the game is not to learn - that is to say, if it's just to have fun with the pieces you like and focus on the hobby and social aspects. I am entirely sympathetic to that. But understand that by doing so you'll be retarding your growth as a player, which in turn is going to result in you continuing to post from a novice position, which is going to lead to more of the issues you've been having in this thread so far when you speak authoritatively but with very limited knowledge. And on that I don't just mean when you speak about factions you're unfamiliar with; everything you said about your experiences with Tohaa over the last two pages suggest your understanding of the game in a tactical and strategic sense is very limited. Which again, is fine, but you need to understand how that limits your capacity to speak on issues of game balance with players who are approaching the conversation from a competitive perspective. You aren't speaking their language, and they aren't speaking yours.
I looked it up and Sirlin managed to contradict himself in the first paragraph by stating that everyone starts out as scrubs and that scrubs play with their own self-imposed limitations. Having limitations means you've got a feeling for what you do and as sense for how things should be, which you don't as a new player. I haven't dived deep into his works, but on surface level "back of the book" kind of thing, I'd say that he might have a good sense for competitive level games that less than 1% of a game's audience participates in, but he seems to be struggling to make sense of things outside that sphere. You know, like making the mistake of asking a 1%-er for advice about the micro economics of managing life as a $5/hour worker. In either case, even Sirlin opens up with stating that "scrub" is derogatory and perhaps it's not the best idea to frame a discussion around a derogatory term? Even if someone fits your definition of such, it's still derogatory and meant as an insult. By definition.
I can only say that I have limited opportunites to play (pre-COVID I needed to commute 2 hrs to play and commute 2 hrs back). I still managed to play two 5-game ITS leagues and a proper ITS tournament, plus a few casual TTS online matches and now I've started in Vaul's TTS league, about to play 2nd game there, with Tohaa as well. That is the extent of my Tohaa experience, I've played several Ariadna (mostly TAK) games in the 2018/19 season, a 3-game tourney with Haqq. I rarely win, I attempt to read up on theory like theDiceAbide or LonelyArtichoke, I watch YT review vids. The game's complexity is overwhelming, especially the hidden sub-clauses, sub-rules, obscure interactions and such. I still find stuff that only come up mid-game. I'm doing my best to learn, but getting called out as a "scrub" is really discouraging. Yeah, I ask for, even demand respect and dialogue because I believe everyone deserves that regardless of being a novice or an expert. There are some people here on the forum who make a bully's point of stomping over myself and others and that doesn't help either. I'm not sure how much more 'halfway' can I meet people other than asking questions. I am allowed to have opinions and perceptions about the game - they are no less valid than those of an expert. Some of my assertions may not pan out in the deeper statistics or I might not be taking some things into account. That's easy enough to simply correct instead of mocking myself or my point instead. See, one thing to consider would be whether one is interested in becoming a highly competetive player at all. I might be satisfied with Infinity as just a fun game. Were it not for the four-faction limitation for the time being, I'd probably consider switching to Code One completely - I still might. The definition of "fun" is different for different people and I can only speak for myself - and I know for a fact that an opponent showing up with a high comp list to a previously agreed casual fun game had me pack up and go back home a few times when they were unyielding and had no understanding that "playing to draw at best and probably lose" is not my idea of a fun evening. The fact is also that high comp players in threads like these could do well to identify their experience somehow, because it's easy to point out a newb, but without other context all of the dismissive or semi-dismissive replies I get come off as simply rude. Even some of the polite non-replies you've made (to the tune of "your perception of X is very much different than mine") would read completely differently if the contained an assertion of some source of authority. I assumed them to be benign "this was not my experience" replies, but they could just as well read as "you're talking nonsense and you're playing checkers while we all here are chess masters". It might be the internet harsh filter with how my replies read as well. I never mean them as authoritative, way more inquisitive, as I've described in replies above. "I don't see this working like that" is not supposed to convey "it doesn't work like that", but instead "I don't understand how you've arrived at this, please show me".
Meeeh... I think he knows more about competitive game design in Street Fighter than game design in general. I mean I agree with many of the points he made in that article, but some examples are flawed or outright shitty, like the one "it doesn't take skill". By his own admission Akuma is way too strong and you can defeat literally anyone by spamming the same button infinitely, with literally no skill invovled, so why isn't this a valid point? This single point is where he loses me the most, and this is also where it's glaring to me that his mentality only holds up in fighting games in general. Having played high rating in League of Legends as well as upper end of diamond in Starcraft 2, something "taking skill" is absolutely essential to game balance, as skills, abilities and mechanics are measured by APM (actions per minute) compared to your decision making. This is also why "point-and-click" champions in LoL are being phased away and their abilities replaced by skillshots, as it is deemed bad game design to have different champions where one can just click and auto aim at the target and land the ability with 0% of missing, against someone who have every single ability designed to be a skillshot. This holds true for Overwatch too, with one-trick Mercy's who used to be a meme, where it was simply shocking how bad the average Mercy player was, compared to their piers of equal rating, due to how insanely forgiving as well as powerful her kit were, yet they were carried to a rating they didn't belong to by the virtue of Mercy's toolkit taking little to no skill to achieve success with.
It's not a contradiction, he's explaining the term has two meanings, of which he's focusing on only one (the self-imposed handicap). It's not a contradiction to say "There are multiple definitions of the word, but I want to focus on just one." The derogatory term “scrub” means several different things. One definition is someone (especially a game player) who is not good at something (especially a game). By this definition, we all start out as scrubs, and there is certainly no shame in that. I mean the term differently, though. A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win. The term actually has its origin in sports, where it refers to "a sports team or player not among the best or most skilled." It's not necessarily a pejorative, though I admit it can't be fully divorced from its more derogatory implication. It's similar to being "green." It's certainly no less insulting than the insult that the mentality itself is to sportsmanship. I think posting just one chapter with no context has given people the wrong impression. Here's what Sirlin has to say about playing just because you love the game. They're all reasons that have been touched on here -- you can't play the perfectly optimal strategy all of the time (not only because it leads to becoming super predictable).
I do want to point out that I think there's a huge difference between being a scrub and having a scrub mentality. One of those is a statement of who someone is -- it's immutable. One of those is a statement about how they approach the game. I would never intentionally apply the former to someone, because I do agree that's an insult. The thing about scrub mentality is you can just choose to stop approaching the game that way! Ultimately, the scrub mentality is about not being completely willing to take responsibility for your own mistakes in the game. People want to blame mechanics, rolls, or units, instead of their own decisions both at the time of list-building and during the game. Yes, unpredictable things happen. But players who make the best choices win the game. Of course, that doesn't mean that people can't comment on the balance of the game, regardless of skill level (especially because balance is going to be different at different skill levels of the game). But until the balance changes are made, we have the version of the game we have. He explains this in the same article. The confusion here is what “skill” actually is. In Street Fighter, scrubs often cling to combos as a measure of skill. A combo is a sequence of moves that is unblockable if the first move hits. Combos can be very elaborate and very difficult to pull off. But single moves can also take “skill,” according to the scrub. The “dragon punch” or “uppercut” in Street Fighter is performed by holding the joystick toward the opponent, then down, then diagonally down and toward as the player presses a punch button. This movement must be completed within a fraction of a second, and though there is leeway, it must be executed fairly accurately. Ask any scrub and they will tell you that a dragon punch is a “skill move.” The definition of "skill" in the mind of someone with a scrub mentality isn't "mastery of the game", it's "doing difficult moves." In the case of Akuma though, it's that the character is literally impossible (and I mean literally in the most complete sense of the term) to defeat for most of the cast of the game. Someone with a scrub mentality could still believe that Akuma is a "high skill" character because he has lots of fancy moves. For an Infinity comparison, this would be someone in Infinity complaining you walked your Ariadna HI straight through his hacking web to kill his backline, when the "skill" move in their mind would have been to thread a bunch of difficult lines between repeaters without getting hacked. The reality is the skilled moved was walking into their backline and bringing yourself closer to winning the game, regardless of how your opponent played. The key point here is that those operating in the scrub mentality redefine elements of the game to feel like they are the best player despite the fact they don't win. They redefine what "fairness" is. They redefine "skill." They redefine "sportsmanship." They associate "innovation" with "being good," when those are separate things.
