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Infinity/Corvus Belli growth

Discussion in 'News' started by IAGO242, Feb 24, 2020.

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Is Infinity growing in player count in your area?

  1. Yes

    76 vote(s)
    56.3%
  2. No

    59 vote(s)
    43.7%
  1. Willen

    Willen Well-Known Member

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    If having a quick 30sec chat about figuring out LoF lines and typically both agreeing on the outcome of an action even before rolling dice, then I assume Infinity is pedantic, and I am a pedantic guy (along with all the crew). Which makes it amazing such a group of pedantic people in all 4 metas I have played to enjoy being together for beers and other activities as well, discuss game outcomes during a tournament and share strategies and typically even apologize when you are in a crit-run and the game feels less fun for your opponent.

    In short, I do not think the word pedantic, with its negative feeling, is appropriate at all.
     
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  2. Savnock

    Savnock Nerfherder

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    [You probably don't know this, but the guy you are replying to is a lawyer. He's definitely familiar with the difference.]

    Your analogy is a fairly good one, but I think you're missing the point, both there and here:

    The manner in which we discuss and agree on rules is one of the things that's different about Infinity v.s many other tabeltop minis games. With a lot of games where play is either so high-detail or poorly-defined (Infinity is the former not the latter IMO) that the way the game proceeds must be negotiated to some degree, you have to be mature and willing to see the other person's point. N2 was so broken that we HAD to negotiate outcomes, and it made most of us nicer to each other than we were with tighter if simpler (and/or less-realistic) games.

    That's not a matter of not doing "gotchas," it's a matter of being willing to decide cloudy issues together in a way that either has the best simulation effects or promotes the narrative best. And that's one of the reasons that I like Infinity.

    [I also like the way the crunch requirement weeds out some players who can't handle the mental load itself, either intellectually or emotionally. I'm down to play simpler games with folks who don't like deep deep rules, and there's totally a limit on the crunch that's possible within two hours, but I love the fact that about 3/4ths of the players I face across the Infinity board are really, really, really smart people who aren't bothered if a toy-soldiers game can overcome their mental capacity sometimes.]

    Basically if someone can't handle some negotiation and some fairly-quick-to-resolve intricacy, I don't really want to play a game against them. It's why I quit playing GW products: specifically, I really hated the jerks and WAAC types it attract(ed)(s).

    Infinity's requirement for maturity to handle the complexity/cloudiness helps keep those types out, and I like that. Here's hoping some of that effect stays in N4, even as the actual cognitive load requirements a reduced by a refactored set of rules.
     
    #102 Savnock, Jul 2, 2020
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
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  3. Haytu2

    Haytu2 Member

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    Where is this NJ gaming group you speak of? I am just across the boarder in NY and can't find anyone local.
     
  4. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    I think comparing "individual sectorials" to "the Vanilla average" is a little bit of comparing apples and oranges. Yes they're fruit, but...

    I think your point is solid though that Sectorials are more popular than Vanilla: the Sectorial average participation is higher than Vanilla participation (certainly if you exclude NA2, but probably even with NA2) as is total Sectorial participation vs total Vanilla participation (which is almost inevitable given that Sectorials outnumber Vanilla by such a margin). But it's not universally true across factions, so I think overall it's a sign that Vanilla Sectorial balance and accessibility is largely in a good place.

    @n-sphere I absolutely personally disagree with your take. But it's a really well expressed point about one of the failure modes of casual Infinity. +1 :)
     
  5. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    It's the outliers that are interesting and if you discuss Varuna (or rather newly released sectorials) specifically you can't really use sectorial average to represent a specific sectorial, now can you?

    What we see is a few things, I think: sectorials are universally more popular than vanilla, old factions in general are less popular, factions with (perceived) bad unit mixes are less popular.

    I'm not comfortable drawing a conclusion that the balance is fine with all that in mind and with how large the disparity is between vanilla and sectorials, rather I think there is reason for CB to take a look at the design choices and mechanics that makes people gravitate towards sectorials so clearly. I think there's something to address there.

    Going strictly by popularity numbers it seems that it's either the strength of the fireteam bonuses or the fireteam flexibility that's causing it. (Not both)
    Sure that might be my own bias showing through in a tiny armchair analysis, but I think that fireteam bonuses needs to be toned down if they are to keep being so flexible with so many Wildcards. Or for wildcards and FTOs to be reigned in significantly.
     
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  6. Armihaul

    Armihaul Well-Known Member

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    I would not say that the fireteam bonuses are the problem. When fireteams appeared, they were not enought to make sectorials rise over vainilla in most cases. Only a few wildcard and the like options are the problem. When you can fill a fireteam for the broken dude using only cheap dudes, that's the problem. There are also underperforming fireteams, ones that are not well dessigned (kriza-haris, I am looking at you).

    In overall, I think that most fireteams do a good work for some factions, and save them from lots of the handicaps they have. But a few fireteams do extra work, they are overperforming and create the wrong idea that fireteams are too much op, when the problem is only those few ones.
     
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  7. Ghost87

    Ghost87 Well-Known Member

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    They already had some nice ideas for mitigating the "Fireteam of doom" effect with splitting the profiles of a unit in Fireteam capable and not. This keeps Order Sergeants with special tools (MSV2, TO, Auxbot) away from the Fireteam while enabling it as solo pieces. Additionally there are replacement profiles without these special tools.(MSR without TO, Spitfire without MSV, HRL without Auxbot). Another example would be the Scot Guards profile split but here they overdid it imo.
    Sadly, for newer factions like Varuna they totally forgot this approach.
     
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  8. Armihaul

    Armihaul Well-Known Member

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    well, I think that there are different approaches depending on the factions. Not all of them are dessigned in the same way (and I don't mean the differences of each faction, but the way the dessign team approaches each one of them). For some factions, the lore is an excuse to give them things, for others, ir a limiter tool, and some others are in between.
     
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  9. HotFreshTofu

    HotFreshTofu Well-Known Member

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    Are sectorials more popular than vanilla factions? I enjoy list building in the confines of a sectorial, but I think overall vanilla factions are some of the strongest (Nomads, Haqqislam, Yu Jing).

    It's pretty difficult to determine, and popularity doesnt equate to power anyway. Just my view.
     
  10. Brokenwolf

    Brokenwolf Well-Known Member

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    CB has given us ITS data in previous seasons which let us know what factions were chosen in ITS. I think vanilla is usually more popular than Sectorials for all the factions except for Panoceania.
     
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  11. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    There's 29 Sectorials to 9 vanilla factions, so everything being even you'd expect about 3:1 ratios.

    If we discount OOP factions it's 25 to 8, so it remains very nearly the same ratio.
     
  12. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Okay, let's look that up instead of going by memory.

    Here's the outliers from the 2019 stats (found here: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/2019-in-numbers-its-data-analysis.36359/page-3#post-319175)
    Popular outliers: OSS, TAK, Varuna, JSA, <Tohaa> (in order of popularity)
    Unpopular outliers: ForeignCO, <MRRF>, Druze, Starco, <QK> (in reversed order of popularity)
    Too new to count: O-12, Shasvasti remake.
    Average number for vanilla: 872,25
    Average for sectorials: 702,78
    Average for non-NA2 sectorials: 772,14
    Commentary: Tohaa are vastly more popular than most factions and all vanilla while Pan-O and Haqq are remarkably unpopular and doesn't even top O-12 which was released during the middle of this period. For these stats, I'd like to note that compared to previous years' stats the participation numbers vary a heckin' lot more than for 2018 and 2017

    If we instead look at data harvested by Ieldin Soecr from the OTM statistics, there's a slightly different picture. https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/2019-in-numbers-its-data-analysis.36359/
    Popular outliers: OSS, TAK, Varuna, IA, Shas, JSA, <Tohaa>, Nomads
    Unpopular outliers: ForeignCO, <MRRF>, Druze, <QK>, Starco, Ikari, Pan-O
    Commentary: Here we have a greater conformity to expectations. We see the most recent releases be the most popular, followed by the usual suspects which always score high (which is remarkably the discontinued Tohaa). We can also see that aside from JSA and Spiral, NA2 are all very unpopular with even the over-performing Dahshat not even managing to climb over 100 participants (where the average is in the 170-180 area).
    Compared to CB's stats: The only thing that's worth noting is that Haqq are fairly average in Ieldin's numbers while they're unpopular in CB's. It's also important to note that these numbers span a slightly different time period compared to each other not to mention that Ieldin's numbers are tournament participation while CB's seem to be a greater variety of reported events. As a final quirk to note is that CB has an uneven number of participants in a 2-player game.

    There's a few outliers in the stats for 2018 (found among the blogs), namely
    Popular outliers: JSA, <Tohaa>, Nomads, TAK, Tunguska (in order of popularity)
    Unpopular outliers: Starco, Ikari, Druze, <MRRF>, Caledonia, Morat, and <QK> (in reversed order of popularity)
    Too new to count: IA, Varuna, Shasvasti remake

    Note on average numbers for 2018 and 2017: besides the outliers (which are fairly similar for both years), everything is fairly close to each other.

    --

    So, with that analysis out of the way, I can only admit that my previous analysis was based on biased memory where I remembered the outliers rather than the whole picture. I do think from a subjective point of view that the fireteams need to be inspected closer by CB as they're a source of a good deal of complexity and "fiddliness", not from the individual abilities they offer, but due to how they apply in practice with wildcards and counts-as being so common now that an opponent has almost no ability to verify the Fireteam (primary example being Spiral's Auxilia Special Triad).

    Last but not least, I'd like to mention how utterly crazy it is that CB is freezing Tohaa which has consistently been in the top-5 most popular faction while Spiral basically acts like a perfectly good Tohaa sectorial of average popularity. Also, the mercenary companies really are a mish-mash with a poor showing of numbers. Not CBL terrible, but still...
     
    #112 Mahtamori, Jul 4, 2020
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2020
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  13. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    And as a small post scriptum, I can see a few "usual suspects".
    Nomads, JSA and Tohaa are consistently popular factions and for all stats I've looked up ranks very high in popularity. Equally, Corregidor, Military Orders and Steel Phalanx have loyal followers who keep the participation numbers up even when their sectorials are old (including pre-MO polish). More whimsical seem to be Yu Jing, Pan-O, and Haqq players who seem to be more sensitive to other influences - possibly group-thinking or possibly Oh-shiny-syndrome. Aleph has gained popularity over the years and is now fairly close to the other factions.
    Haqq and Pan-O are the only vanilla factions with a poor showing while Nomads is the only proper vanilla faction with a galaxy level popularity.

    --

    I can't quite think of any gameplay connections that bring this about; arguably the best and the worst ranged factions, Varuna and JSA respectively, are the most popular, while the community appointed strongest sectorial, Dahshat, is barely treading water. The newest factions all have good showing, almost regardless if they are performing well or not.
    I can see a few things that makes a faction popular or unpopular; whether the faction is receiving attention from CB(1), whether a faction has a strongly defined identity(2), and whether a faction is recently released.
    (1) Well... except for Tohaa who are popular even though receiving like 2 releases during 2 Years of Tohaa (ex-aggregation)
    (2) Yes, I'm totally accusing Pan-O of being bland and featureless.

    --

    I suspect that if Fireteams have an effect on popularity, it's at customer retention level and not inter-faction popularity.
     
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  14. SpectralOwl

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    I think most actual PanO players will agree with you there. There's another couple of layers to the unpopularity of Vanilla PanO in particular; 1: PanO is short on tricks to increase MODs and avoid fights, meaning that thanks to increasing reactive-turn firepower from other factions the very powerful Fireteam Core buff can be critical if the list is built around any gunner weaker than a Swiss Guard, and 2: EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of the PanO Sectorials has units or profiles gated behind it that just can't be had in Vanilla, and they tend to be very desirable. Deva AHD to turn PanO's dense Repeater coverage into a threat instead of a liability, Naga to provide a conventional and high quality Skirmisher, Dart and the Sectorial ORCs are all enough motivation to switch into a Sectorial list in the right situation, even before taking Fireteams into account.
     
  15. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    Tohaa have probably been frozen because they're the most badly designed faction in the game by far
     
  16. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    Except that but for 2-3 profiles everything in Tohaa works and nothing is broken on its own. And Triads are what Fireteams should've been like.
     
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  17. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I mean only Sukaels, Makauls, Clipsos and Symbiowhateverthefucks are out of line, everything else is fine. Good thing people don't make lists almost entirely composed of these minis with some token specialists to round out links isn't it!
     
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  18. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    Maybe in your meta?
     
  19. SpectralOwl

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    No, it's like that here in Melbourne too. We do seem to have a few more Nikoul Snipers than the Internet meta would suggest is reasonable though. Generally Spiral is the artichoke of choice around here lately, people seem to really like Taagma and Draal instead of the more direct Sukeul or Makaul options.
     
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  20. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    There's a bit of "Tohaa is stale" contributing to that though.

    //

    Re: PanO and sectorial vs Vanilla.

    I don't buy the "gated behind sectorials" as a significant driver of PanO's Sectorials > Vanilla: there's equally builds that are gated behind Vanilla (Joan + Monstruccker + Tech Bee + Helot + Warcor TAG lists as a start). I think your point that a core gives you cheap effective firepower to add depth to a list is a bigger factor: the Vanilla factions that are popular all have access to (some of) the best assymetric defensive tools rather than having to rely on direct firepower.

    I don't like most of the PanO design space, but I don't think that it's that bland anymore: Varuna, ASA and NCA all have very interesting design options (even accepting that Varuna is quite narrow). Personally I find ASA significantly more appealing than TJC to list build with. I think the jury is still out on SWF: they're clearly designed around N4, so we'll see how that performs.

    I do think that this does influence retention, but not necessarily in a clear way.

    Infinity has increasingly become a game where you are expected to play multiple armies over time (q. f. Tohaa becoming stale, PanO being 'bland' so equally not holding attention long term): even among those (few?) of us who play only a single faction, everyone eventually migrates to new sectorials (Inc. of Vanilla) or leaves the game. Now from CB's POV this makes sense as ultimately they're a miniature company, but I think it's something that's worth making explicit in the culture of the game.
     
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