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Why not try to be more positive?

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Redfaint, Sep 11, 2020.

  1. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    I'd prefer DA CCW on all profiles, but CB has a habit of giving (generally, but not situationally) lesser CCWs to profiles with other potencies.

    I don't know how the point formula would put things, but if it were around 45-55 it would be a solid investment. Moreover, they'd actually be interesting profiles that bring something unique to Yu Jing and IA to the table.

    Also, even though removing NWI+Bioimmunity would be an almost strict nerf in this context, I am ideologically opposed to NWI+SI combinations.
     
  2. Fed4ykin

    Fed4ykin Well-Known Member

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    You mean all the different blisters and loadouts that exist apart from the one in the starter right?
    I like the sculpt and I like the idea of a HI droptrooper. But for an tiger alumni his Stateline isn't good enough to depend on him to drop where you want him.

    Explode could be good if it had dmg 13/14 and as the liu xing comes from above and suddenly the enemies trooper couldn't ARO. But then he would be overpowered.

    Give him the Stateline that says tiger alumni, so +ph and veteran and he will do work.
     
    #122 Fed4ykin, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
  3. Sedral

    Sedral Jīnshān Task Force Officier

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    As @Miraclebutt pointed out in another thread: What we've seen so far (su-jian and EVAders) seems to indicate there'll be a fairly big discount for HI in N4, and it'll most likely be enough for IA to afford some much needed redudancy.
    The main issue I have with the liu xing and hulang in N3 is that IA can't afford to lose ~40pts on a gamble drop or have them act as a speed bump, not when all your support troops are that expensive and they have to make up for the added weaknesses you get when playing mostly HIs. They're both already much more playable in vanilla, not only because they have better support but also because you can take the loss and not be straight out of aces in your sleeve.
    By the look of it, the overall discount will allow us to fit another zhencha or liu xing in HI heavy lists. It's a big deal!

    I'm still highly concerned by the hacking rework though. If it gets stronger (and apparently, it has), and IA's only options to deal with it reliably are still to either drop your liu xing on the hacker or ram a zuyong haris/hac tao KHD in your opponent's DZ, we'll have a big problem.
     
    #123 Sedral, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
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  4. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    45-ish seems about right for N3 costs, if we take the N3 profile and attach the CC ability on it. Doubt PH 13+ happens, most drop troops seem to have PH 12. I do think that NWI and Bioimmunity makes sense on a drop-trooper, though, because somethingorotherjustification weight!
    Glancing at Cuervo, though, it seems Louie is paying a huge premium on AD4 for being HI or that Explode LX is grossly over-valued and I can only hope Louie is one of the profiles to get a proportionally larger discount going from N3 to N4.
     
  5. Knauf

    Knauf Transhumanist

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    Personally, I'm hoping for Explode LX to get a buff. I like the idea of giving ExLX Para ammo, so Louie could fairly reliably cripple key targets without hainvg to rely on a terrible 12 DMG normal ammo attack. If you classify ExLX as always being out of LOF for the enemy, a -3 PH dodge would make sure you get some mileage out of it on a regular basis.
     
  6. Mc_Clane

    Mc_Clane Zhànzhēng bùzhǎng
    Warcor

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    Meh, It would be ok with just PH 13 and Explode:X damage=PH

    Or rather taking out the flank AD levels and provide him a +3 to combat jump

    Just place the Liu at the back of the target troop or aim for remotes with the jump

    Seems Someone didn't play BS liuxing enough on N3. An enemy deployment zone wrecker, a situation changer, a last resort solution... I think It's pretty valuable. I've taken out noctifers, dakini linkteams and even TR bots with it.
    It can even make some clasifieds easyly due to being a "Veteran/Elite troop"

    It's problems are the randomness of the combat jump mechanic and CC can also be considered a weakness. So you need to be cautious about dropping him too close at the face of people. It seems This last weakness would be even worse on N4 since you no longer need LoF to dodge as ARO and you can get in B2B contact with the movement
     
    #126 Mc_Clane, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
  7. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    My comment wasn't aimed specifically at you, although I can see that it could be taken that way since it appeared right after yours, but I didn't @ you or anything. Sorry if that felt personal—it's more a general reply to the thread and a reaction to the tone of many, many, many posts by a variety of forum members. I'm not going to name any names.

    Since you mentioned cheap fallacies and criticism, though, I'd like to say something about that.

    First off, someone doesn't have to be professional to deserve to have their opinion heard. But. Lack of credentials/experience/expertise does mean that an opinion is probably less useful—and not all opinions deserve to be listened to/implemented. Thinking otherwise is seriously entitled, but also normal because people are just like that sometimes.

    Plumbers are allowed to have opinions about cardiac surgery, but they sure as hell don't get to operate on anyone.

    Second, I have done some semi-professional game design, but more to the point I've been working as a team lead or senior designer on teams making multimedia content, animation, comics, product design, packaging design, websites, ad campaigns, and printed materials for ~17 years. The reason I mention this is that evaluating feedback is a key part of my job and I am good at it.

    So let's talk about what criticism means:

    There's good feedback ("this looks under-costed compared to X because YZ" or "I would take this but it'll ding my order count too much to justify the cost") and then there's garbage noise that wasn't worth the effort it took to type it out ("this is DOA trash"). For projects at work, I will take the first kind seriously, but may not implement it as written. I will take the second kind as "this person was not happy" and either ignore it or, if they're a key decider, I'll ask them some more questions to see if there's any nuance to be unearthed. Usually, it turns out that people like what's familiar, and change annoys people who were already comfortable, so they're averse to new things.

    Then there's my personal favorite: questions of taste being mistaken for "objective evaluation." This is worse than useless, because it looks like meaningful feedback until you dig in and realize that it's predicated on some completely wrong assumption, but by the time you figure that out you've wasted hours and hours of your life.

    Around here, I think that comes from people who prefer play style A, decide sight unseen that New Unit will be perfect for them, then they see its stats and realize that it wasn't what they expected. But they've already talked themselves into feeling so entitled to New Unit that their disappointment when it's not for their play style manifests as vitriolic forum whingeing. Later on, we hear from other players saying stuff like "I dunno what the hubbub was about, it works fine for me" and then those poor sods catch hell from the pre-existing salt miners for being dunces somehow. Does that sound at all familiar?

    This is fairly normal for games, because we nerds are generally entitled man-babies who get emotionally attached to our tiny army mans who we've spent hours and hours lavishing effort on, as if the enjoyment we got from that time can be retroactively taken from us...and I'm not going to exempt myself from that. But it's good to have some f@$#ing perspective about it, and to occasionally remember that this is supposed to be fun.

    All of which is to say that there are some people on this forum who think they're providing "criticism" but they're mistaking "toxic levels of bitching and whining" for "meaningful discourse and community feedback," and all it accomplishes is to make the forums worse and turn people off. Again, not naming names, and this isn't about you personally. It's a general thing that lots of people do, but it's annoying.

    ...

    tl;dr Criticism is worthless unless it's constructive, useful feedback, otherwise it's just vitriolic whining that takes up space and bums out the people who show up trying to have a good time with this awesome hobby. And: If a bunch of people complain about you over time, there's a small chance you're the problem and it's not that everyone else is stupid.
     
    #127 wes-o-matic, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  8. Benkei

    Benkei Well-Known Member

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    And all of that is because he has AD, not because he Explodes. Tiger can do all of that more reliably because they got Mimetism and (in N3) if needed he doesn't have to f2f, and still if he has to f2f Mimetism makes him more adept at winning that firefights, offsetting the NWI in the Liu Xing; all of this for cheaper than the Liu Xing.

    The problem is the Liu Xing is just a slightly worse Tiger, make it more expensive and make him a beast so both paratroopers have different roles and "Shooting Star" doesn't sound idiotic when you just land a basic Zuyong there. Make it a landmark of IA, something that defines the Sectorial and makes it unique, something the enemy fears.
     
  9. Mc_Clane

    Mc_Clane Zhànzhēng bùzhǎng
    Warcor

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    Jump on the back of a noctifer, boom. Noctifer needs to change facing, loosing 50% of it's original LoS. If he fails 50 chance of dropping unconscious. WIN, WIN

    Liuxing against TR bot. dodges/engages at 7s or 4 shoots to the chest at 8s. average 2 impacts, 2 armor rolls, 1 save passed. TRbot saves at 50%. Then you have a nice BS on it's face at 16-19s.

    Tiger needs 1 more order, are more vulnerable to pistols, direct templates, shotguns and bad rolls... the explode bypasses mimetism or TO without taking too many risks. And Explode gimmic enables some interesting forced situations like dropping on top of a hacker.

    I consider the Tiger better at shooting from far away and deploying from the borders (were mines, direct templates and shotguns are not a big issue). the Liu is better on closer ranges and inside enemy deployment. And for me, the difference between the 2 of them Is spicier than other faction inside AD trooper comparisons

    As I've said is a decent last ressort multi tool. I don't purely base my strategy on him because is 1 roll at 12s or 15s... but it can be pretty useful. And I really appreciate that the liuxing has NWI+shock immunity so it doesn't provide the enemy with free classifieds
     
    #129 Mc_Clane, Sep 16, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  10. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    I Do not disagree that the liu xing could have been something more unique it distinctive. Explode falls short of being a defining characteristic or reason to exist.

    But if you can't differentiate the functional difference of 2w versus mimetism in clearing a back field you should maybe tap out on that particular line of discourse.
     
  11. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    Sorry, there definitely are YJ units that fall short of their mark, but Liu Xing is not one of them. NWI+SI and Explode is quite a distinctive package. Having Mimetism is good, but it's not be-all, end-all of a prime combat unit.

    The issue is not that the unit is weak, but that people prefer not to use Combat Jump in an effort to eliminate risk factors from their plans.
     
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  12. Benkei

    Benkei Well-Known Member

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    Jump on the back of a Noctifier... after the Noctifier has revealed itself so probably already killed something, then you have to succeed on your 60% landing roll, then the Noctifier has to fail its Dodge roll, then it has to fail its ARM roll, then you are assuming your oponent didn't leave any ArO piece covering the Noctifier, and even if you kill it after all that the Noctifier is still cheaper than your Liu Xing. Meanwhile the Tiger can waltz from a table edge and burn the Noctifier ignoring its ODD while being a better gunfighter to fend off ArOs and being cheaper. Or he can still do basically the same trick you want to attempt with the Liu Xing if you like to make plays that have abyssal odds of succeeding. Or he can just kamikaze and set fire to a linkteam without having to roll. Or set a Mimetic Suppressive Fire that threats Fire template ArOs if you come too close in an inconvenient spot. All with the same profile, all without a Hackable disadvantage.

    One of those 2 is cheaper and more versatile than the other, is more vulnerable to bad rolls, templates and MSV but more reliable at straight firefights and doesn't care about repeaters/hackers. The other is an AD Zuyong.

    Edit: yes, Liu Xing will be better at dropping on top of an isolated TR remote with no overlapping ArOs nor repeater coverage, but it really shows when you have to resort to such a corner case example to make it work. 2 wounds is undoubtedly good, but Explode is a pretty much useless gimmick than you have to expose you troop to use just for a non favorable gamble while losing Mimetism, a fire template and picking up an extra non trivial vulnerability.
     
    #132 Benkei, Sep 16, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  13. zapp

    zapp Well-Known Member

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    Haters gonna hate. :upside_down_face:
     
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  14. SpectralOwl

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    I'm pretty sure Explode LX costs exactly one point, having done the math way back in the IA Post-Mortem. Frankly I'm willing to take a fun gimmick for such a tiny cost, even if it's rarely useful. The other thing is that Liu Xings and Tigers actually work really well together, since they cover each other's repective weaknesses. Hackable is a very serious disadvantage and why I usually don't risk taking an otherwise potent Garuda in NCA, but N4 seems to be finally providing a Hackable discount to offset the danger. Liu Xings are a part of IA I'm generally quite happy about, although I rarely use them due to only busting out the YJ for casual games with newer players these days.

    I am a bit of an edge case though, given that my favourite YJ list to date was a 200pt list with 3 Tigers. I may have a minor addiction to Combat Jump.
     
  15. BenMoss

    BenMoss Well-Known Member

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    As someone who also has some years design experience I'm totally with you on the weeding out useful feedback from the less useful feedback. However, I think there's a key point that you missed and that's trust.

    If you listen to many of the more disgruntled players on here explain their positions (and the emotive content can sometimes get in the way of that) its often that they feel their trust has been abused. That's come from being sold on one idea and then finding out that the thing you've been sold isn't what you were promised (this is a thread that runs through the comments about how WB or IA failed to deliver on the themes they were supposed to represent, how units that in the fluff are part of one sectorial but then aren't in that army, etc). These are all players who are passionate about the faction or they wouldn't be here but they are passionate about the idea they were sold as that's probably what drew them to the faction in the first place.

    One of the key points that you didn't touch on when you mentioned players not liking change is something arguably even more powerful and that's loss aversion. So you've got a large number of players who were emotionally very invested in what they had been told YJ was who, with Uprising, had change forced upon them (bad) and that change was to lose a large number of options (very bad) in a way that was communicated very poorly at the time (even worse). There was a lot of trust lost during those events and if CB wanted that trust back they needed to work really hard at being crystal clear with their communication, acknowledge that maybe some mistakes may have been made (not to say that Uprising had to be a mistake, there could've been ways of making it a success), and make really sure that you are offering something back if you are taking something away.

    To build on that Uprising point. Had IA been well designed, delivering on the idea of the fully mechanised "New Model Army" that it had been sold as in the earlier fluff and unveiled as the counterstrike against the JSA Uprising as part of the same campaign release I think things would've played out very differently. But it wasn't. It was a purely negative experience for many players that was made worse with the ill thought out narrative that was built around the Uprising.

    Without that foundation of trust players aren't going to take it on faith that it'll all be ok come N4 because the evidence they have doesn't point to that. Units that have high variance in their ability to deliver on the battlefield will get a lot of criticism because without that trust the negatives of those units outweigh the positives, or more specifically its when units that are high risk high reward but predominantly overcosted are judged on their most likely outcome and not the small chance of success.

    • Uprising lost the trust of a good number of YJ players (though by no means all and we're unlikely to ever know the actual numbers)
    • IA was a chance to regain the trust of those YJ players but it came across as more lies and misrepresentation (whatever the actual power level might be)
    • WB was a chance to regain the trust of those YJ players but it came across as more lies and misrepresentation of what had come before
    • N4 is another chance to regain that lost trust but each time it is messed up the harder it is going to be to get it back.
    The main comeback you normally see to any of the complaints on this forum are "but unit X did great for me in a game where Y happened" sometimes followed up with some learn to play insult. This is to totally miss two key points:

    Firstly, statistics and probability are real. Anecdotal evidence of something being good or bad are largely irrelevant for anything other than showing where that persons existing assumptions and biases lie. For anyone saying IA is fine power wise I direct you here

    Secondly, it's not really about whether unit X is costed appropriately even if that is where the anger/frustration manifests. It's about feeling like the idea you were sold is a lie and given the time and money you've probably invested that's going to feel like you've been conned.

    I notice you don't ever see any comeback about how obviously Tigers were in IA in all of their fluff but shouldn't be in the sectorial or here's some fluff that shows that the white faces on the Hac Tao don't signify being in a banner army as that tradition isn't being followed any more, why is the main wildcard unit for IA actually a unit from the Navy, etc. There's no pushback because the people make those complaints are generally all making valid points (though being right is no excuse for some of the insults/comments being thrown around the other day).
     
  16. SpectralOwl

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    To add to the confusion, there still hasn't been any stated design direction for Yu Jing since Uprising. Everyone makes comparisons across factions for every unit, because we don't know what YJ is supposed to be good at anymore. A solid statement from CB indicating an intention to give the faction a set field of exceptional competence would go a long way to calming people here down, since we wouldn't have to worry about Nomads getting a better Zhencha or O12 getting a better Liu Xing if we knew the YJ faction advantage was meant to be CC/elite infantry/command skills/whatever.
     
  17. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Are there stated directions for any army? I may have missed them so would be good to pointed in that direction?
     
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  18. SpectralOwl

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    You know, I actually don't think there are. My bad. We just seem to have been working off assumptions founded in N2 that PanO shoot good, Nomads are sneaky bastards and ALEPH get the best but pay through the nose for all of it.
     
  19. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    PanO is the smoke free faction
     
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  20. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    I think it's more that trust is a PR issue, and somewhat out of scope for what I wanted to address, but yeah, you're not wrong. CB's weird communication doesn't always sit well with me, and there's a solid corpus of evidence that this is legit a problem. See also: Needing IJW to reassure people across multiple social platforms that Bolts are not getting squatted into oblivion. I can't with that nonsense, it was totally unnecessary.

    My guess is that CB (and Bostria specifically?) think that a certain amount of misinformation helps keep the audience engaged and on our toes, but for a lot of us it's really just confusing and annoying. Maybe it's a cultural interface thing?

    Maybe I'm at an advantage because I didn't pick the game up until after Uprising, but it doesn't land as an "ill thought out narrative" to me. Yu Jing has had the "evil totalitarian" vibe for a long time, thanks to the whole ISS "secret police and conscripted suicide bombers" thing, although it's not all the faction represents. My impression is that Uprising was supposed to expose some of the darker side of Yu Jing's ISS for what it is, and IA being brought in as a hammer to pound the JSA into submission would have just reinforced Yu Jing as a brutal society.

    I'm not sure what gave players the expectations they had for IA, since I missed that period, but I've been here for White Banner's release, and it wasn't quite what I expected...but I was more focused on curiosity and speculation than on getting a particular outcome. I think it's an interesting sectorial as-is, and I'm looking forward to seeing what changes and what doesn't when it updates to N4.

    I think it's reasonable to say that CB would do well to get better about setting clear expectations with the audience, but I also think that people set themselves up to be disappointed as if this were a serious life event, not a game played with tiny sculptures and dice. This is what I meant by having some perspective about how attached we get to things.

    I'm actually not sure that those numbers demonstrate a lot, because I'm not sure what the expectation was. This is a blind spot for me, I guess, but from where I sit:

    If IA dominated in all categories, there'd be screams of power creep. It's not top-tier, but it's not at the bottom either. It comes in at #5 for Limited Insertion, which seems to be what it's sort of optimized for, and hovers around the neighborhood of #28-31 in most of the other listings, lower in the top 33% with no extras...where YJ comes in at #1. In TW, it places better than vanilla Nomads, vanilla Haqq, or ISS, all of which are supposed to be pretty good?

    In between "power creep" and "DOA trash" is "added choice and more playstyle options," and a sectorial that sits a bit below the middle of the pack in most formats and excels in one seems like a pretty OK outcome if that's the goal.

    If the criticism of IA is that it can't hold its own very well against high order lists..."Orders OP" seems to be some kind of semi-consensus, and the Tac Window change in N4 looks set to push back on that.

    Sometimes I think CB needs to issue some clear guidance on how each sectorial and unit is intended to be played, just to get people started and set expectations uniformly, and then trust the community to find new, creative ways to use those units regardless of the intended method. But then they'd probably be accused of stifling creativity, or patronizing the playerbase, or something.

    ^Emphasis mine, but that last quote is key. I have my issues with stuff, and so will other people, and that's fine! I certainly don't expect everyone to be constantly positive CB cheerleaders with no dissenting opinions or pet peeves.

    But a constantly sour, insulting tone just annoys people and isn't doing anyone any good. Being a sardonic crank doesn't make you an insightful critic, regardless of how on-point you might be, and the worst offenders aren't just occasionally cranky, it's seemingly their default response to things. That's the point where it gets a bit too extra for me, and I start to wonder why they bother sticking around.
     
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