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Is the 15 unit limit a good design choice?

Discussion in '[Archived]: N3 Rules' started by redeemer, Aug 16, 2020.

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is the 15 unit limit for ITS rule a good change or not

  1. yes

    147 vote(s)
    81.2%
  2. no

    34 vote(s)
    18.8%
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  1. Moxie

    Moxie Well-Known Member

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    For me as a Ariadna player this really does not bother me, sure lists that go to 16+ orders can be better but I prefer the sub 15 as a game size and regularly choice to play tactical window with friends .

    One issue I had with the arguments about the change is the people saying that it will make lists more generic or something along that line of thinking. Which is extremely strange to me since the 17+ lists of a faction almost always look the same to me compared to lower order lists since they are all pretty much forced to run the same set of cheerleaders over and over again. The high order lists tend to be more of a template lists that just have 2 to 3 pieces swapped out at a time.
     
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  2. Devil_Tiger

    Devil_Tiger Your Friendly Neighborhood Asura

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    I don't mind the change personally, never fielded more than 14-15 order-generating models (though playing OSS there's proxies but that's another can of worms.)

    Though i feel like point costs might be the issue for warbands, at the same time if those units go a cost bump significant enough to tone down spam lists, those who love those lists would be screeching all the same about how CB is dictating play style by invalidating what they love to play.

    And if elites got some sort of general buff of one type or another, i'm not sure it would have corrected the course, those hypothetical changes could have had severe unwanted consequences.

    So yeah generalizing tactical window might be lazy, maybe, but it seems like the simplest way to sort out that problem. Beside it was apparently the most popular ITS mod out there so peoples upset about it are probably in the minority anyway, not that the majority is always right, and maybe this will have bad consequences, who know? But we're also drawing conclusions from an incomplete slice of the N4 and litterally next to nothing is known about what the content of Infinity Army will be like.
     
  3. SpectralOwl

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    This is true, though I'd argue another aspect of this is the need to counter so many potential strategies with so few tools. Having an answer to mass midfield Camo alone requires a Flashbot and a Sensorbot eating 1/5th of a combat group for most armies.
     
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  4. MATRAKA14

    MATRAKA14 Well-Known Member

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    Not the case for USARF to be honest.

    And for ariadna I prefer 16 with as many regular as possible.
     
  5. Marduck

    Marduck Well-Known Member

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    I'm very happy with this change.

    I really hate the kuang shi / 8 pts mulebot or fugazi like swarm just for the sake of cheap order. It doesn't look good on the field and it's tough to remember where the models are when there are so many of them. It doesn't provide a good gaming experience imho.

    Luckily, our french meta has alway been more TAG (or Achilles) and HI link oriented, with only a few players going for the horde option. So I don't expect it to change our habits very much, but it will certainly create a better gaming experience.

    It's an ITS thing, so there is no problem for you to play with more miniatures in casual games if you would like too. Also Hellois said you could disregard this rule if you want to.

    PS : also Ariadna won't suffer from this. I have played limited insertion Ariadna list with a lot of success in a Satellite tournament (and a lot of pleasure, much more than when I tried to play the 20 orders list) loosing only the final game, and that was not because of the list.
     
  6. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    "Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right.

    When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."
    -Neil Gaiman


    I like the change. It's something different that forces me to try new stuff.

    I like that CB is basically saying, we fucked up. Let's try something else!

    Most of the criticism is not very well thought out considering we have no idea what they've changed besides a small part. It is very possible and more than likely that they've done a little of what most people are arguing about (mostly re-balancing points costs). I try to take people's concern seriously and can absolutely get behind feeling concerned (I've recently finished painting my four Mutts and seven Daylaimis) but it is hard when it mostly comes down to "but muh toys" or "I can't accept that the game company who for over ten years have released a successfull game now changes the rules....".
     
  7. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    Not really true. "Whore" is the original term for prostitution, since biblical times.
    "Whore" is slur for women who have a lot of sexual partners.
     
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  8. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    Really? Have you been outside lately?
     
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  9. Spellbreaker90

    Spellbreaker90 Well-Known Member

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    Point cost for equipment, stat. and similiar could have been the same. What should have changed was the Point Cost of the Order the unit provvide adding to consideration the opportunity cost. So when a unit gives a regular order it's point cost should come with a penality the cheaper it's cost from stat and equipment is. To put it in simple terms (sorry, but english it's not my first language) if an Alguaciles profile + equipment add to 8 it's order should cost 10 so that the total cost of the unit is 18 point while an Intruder that has a cost of 30 point from stat + gear should cost 35 point (paying it's order only 5). Something like this could have helped keeping the game more on a level of skirmish.
    But in the end I am not a game designer so I think someone at CB had a better view of things than me.
     
  10. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    What do you mean? Are you illiterate or something?
     
  11. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, you know what - I'm sorry. It was an unnecessary comment and I should absolutely have followed IJW's example and let Psychoticstorm decided what's what.

    I just feel that kind of language is so unnecessary and in poor taste. Especially on an international forum like this. It's not really ok and together with people using actual medical diagnosis or calling being tabled "being raped" or similiar words to describe a negative behavior is something I think should be curtailed.

    But regardless I should not have made a snide remark or derailed the thread further. I won't comment on this side discussion further.

    My bad, carry on.
     
  12. Sedral

    Sedral Jīnshān Task Force Officier

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    Ideally you'd want this kind of change to happen organically, but given the complexity of the issue enforcing the 15 troops limits is probably a better solution than months (if not years) of "live-beta".

    And as a long time ISS player I totally understand why they want it that way. Not all "2-full-groups" factions are problematics, but pumping 20 orders in attack pieces can be ridiculously brutal and yet surprisingly defensive by virtue of body spam, so I don't think it's a bad thing to see this kind of gameplay go away.
    I just hope they'll quickly give a look to the less problematics one, like USA and Hassassins, to make sure they don't lag behind for too long.
     
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  13. Sergej Faehrlich

    Sergej Faehrlich Well-Known Member
    Warcor

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    There is a really important point in your post: pumping orders into one or two attack pieces is at the core of the game, so that should not be an issue...problems arise once you can build a list in which almost every unit offers enhanced utility. It's a quesion of "what else are you able to field?". Over the last two years it has been the vanilla lists the benefitted from new releases in particular...in terms of flexibility. Sectorials suffer from reduced selections anyways (though mixes fireteams are a thing of it's own...that's a road we shouldn't have taken outside of QK), but vanilla can make use of all the good stuff...and choice has increased tremendously.

    I have to state that we were in a kind of beta for almost 2 years, as several new sectorials were released, introducing new units each time while changing the balancing in return...so it's not like readjustmens couldn't have been made "on the fly". Felt more like "adjusting by power creeping". It probably just eats up far more manpower than a small company like CB can afford to spare while lauching several side projects. So I agree that recalculating everything is probably the worst choice from a business perspective. Still points were readjusted...but things got cheaper in general...which is one root of the issue. Hard-cuts are easy, while I still wonder, why those cuts haven't been made on a smaller basis to keep thigs from amping up. Now this "quasi beta phase" is over and we arrived at a point where a 15 units cap seems necessary.

    Just a few examples of how some issues could have been fixed easily without tweaking the points (at least from what we discussed in our gaming group):

    Tohaa...change the Kaeltar profiles and have the CoC get the Symbiobombs, while the vanilla profile gets the Symbiomates...wouldn't have been a great deal in terms of readjustment but the results could have been really nice.

    General Flashpulse...make it a BS weapon with a Combi rangeband and those pesky 3 Fugazi lists would have been less effective.

    ALEPH Proxies...have them take up a unit slot for each pick. Less bodies & less orders.

    Making stuff less effective, more espensive or less avaiable is often the better way to go. Sure...some people would have complained, as we do right now. No approach woud go unquestioned by players...but that's just to say that there are several ways to maintain balance...as I wrote in another post: it's micro management.
     
    #73 Sergej Faehrlich, Aug 17, 2020
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2020
  14. Devil_Tiger

    Devil_Tiger Your Friendly Neighborhood Asura

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    I was wondering in fact. With how ubiquitous and powerful Flash Pulses are... What if they took the bat in N4? Like, real hard?

    I wouldn't mind these to go the way of the dodo, it's dumb that you can disable an enemy unit with a goddamn laser pointer. You'd think this far in the future they'd have some countermeasures against plain old military lasering.
     
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  15. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    There is protection, it's called BTS.

    Problem is they keep making the lasers better as well!
     
  16. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    Some of the N4 unit previews have had flash pulses, so we know it’s not gone entirely.
     
  17. redeemer

    redeemer Well-Known Member

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    It is a bit off-topic Devil_Tiger but maybe we will be introduced with new equipment in N4 that provides defense for flash pulses and even other ranged weapons, but that feels more of something that should be in RPG or dungeon crawl than a skirmish game. BTS does provide resistance but it is not a hard counter.
     
  18. Devil_Tiger

    Devil_Tiger Your Friendly Neighborhood Asura

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    When i mean countermeasures i meant in universe, 180 years in the future, someone point a laser at you, your TAG is stunned by a 3pts loser who has no business being there in the first place. (as likely or unlikely that scenario is to happen)

    In truth it's just a gripe of mine, i'll take an extra Yudbot over a Warcor most of the time because i hate that unit. (Though i wouldn't mind if it had other purpose, and it did with the last ITS rules). But yeah i just dislike the idea of the flashpulse as it is in N3.

    Well i guess what bother me is the mega efficiency

    Which is also a thing that CB introduced more and more, and is related to the issue at hand, with stuff like Liberto, helots, monstruckers and so on, proxy MK1 and MK5 are also guilty of that. While a lot of older models get taxed for carrying a combirifle while somehow a SMG is mega cheap while being a better weapon. And that particular aspect contributes a lot to "spam" i think.
     
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  19. bladerunner_35

    bladerunner_35 Well-Known Member

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    Total Immunity is becoming more prevalent, or at least it seems so right now.
     
  20. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    This is kind of like saying "I can't believe 180 years in the future they've not developed a defense against small pieces of metal at high speeds."

    Most TAGs are also going to bounce a Flash Pulse 80%+ of the time (Cover+BTS 6 or higher.)

    An Infinity flash pulse is a "sophisticated piece of equipment emits a focused beam of light or data" implying it uses both future-tech lasers but also a crude hacking attack to overwhelm the sensory organs/devices of the target.
     
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