Hi everyone, I haven't got into N4 yet. For one thing, my minis are in boxes as I prepare to move my stuff (from Mali to Jordan, so not exactly the most straightforward process). But I can't help coming to the forum regularly, nor can I help noticing all the rules questions that have been popping up. So I was wondering if any of you guys would care to give your general opinion of this new ruleset. Is it better, an actual evolution? Does it solve perceived issues in N3? Or is it a bugged mess? Does it deeply change anything, or is it just a small update, a N3+ so to speak?
It's a buggy improvement. A lot of confusing and difficult to arbitrate things were removed at the cost of a relatively small amount of tactical depth, and it's a lot easier to handle most situations. Hacking and Comms Attacks in particular were transformed from some of the biggest headaches in Infinity to being easier to resolve than most BS Attacks. The change to States is also a big deal, especially with the addition of the States Step giving some much-needed timing guidance. The meta has been adequately shaken, and all manner of weird and fun lists seem to be viable. However, as you can tell from the rules forums, there are some rough edges in a couple of corner cases that could still use a few months of FAQ sanding, and some changes aren't intuitive for N3 players. Army in particular has been a bit of a crapshoot, adding greatly to the confusion, but much of that seems to have been resolved by now. Things are also a fair way off being truly settled as we are still waiting on November's missing factions and the expected Fireteam rework, which could solve or create several major issues.
Ruleswise N4 is better in every regard I can imagine. It's a perfect evolution of the game. And I say that as somebody who REALLY disliked CB's business practice in the last two years.
Couple things got removed that I thought were cool, but probably clunky. I think some factions got hurt real bad but others got some fun toys. Its def a good progression, though, I’d say.
That sounds great! I always thought N3 had a bunch of rules that brought more overhead compared to what they brought to the table in terms tactical choices. And this is what I was afraid of. Oh well, I won't be playing N4 before next February at best, and solo at first probably (I doubt the Amman Infinity scene is worth much). I'll cross my fingers for a good FAQ between now and then, although I already saw the provisional rulings, and I think that's a great step forward.
It's fantastic. N3 was great, N4 is even better. The rules writing is fine. The high volume of rules questions is only to be expected in a new edition, and not a sign that the rules have some sort of bugginess problem. Moreover, @ijw has been doing a bang-up job working tirelessly to answer questions and has resolved most of the biggest ones. There are one or two questions that may get new answers with the first FAQ, but even there, we have provisional answers from @ijw that work in the meantime.
Getting rid of the cursed phrase "smoke dodge" was well worth the edition change. Overall the rules skeleton is great now and better for new players.
As someone with a considerable amount of posts on the rules forum; don't take what is written there as too much of an indication of the game's health. The big sport on the rules forum is to seek out and find the corner cases where the rules break, bring them up, and try to get clarity on them. If you don't find that practice fun to participate in, just keep an open mind when reading the rules; N4 is much more robust than N3 was, but there are changes. At least this one is finding N4 to be more intuitive and focused on easy game play.
I will also chime in to say that N4 is a good improvement. In fact, a lot of the "confussion" is people who didn´t understood N3 fully and now with updated wording and unnested rules they _think_ something has changed when in fact, it never worked that way. Be warned there are a lot of small details that did change (Technical Weapons in a Fireteam, how Paramedics work...) and some big meta-changing changes (crit mechanics, cover, dodge...) so I advice to approach the rulebook and wiki with a fresh, open mind. N4 is in a much better space than N3. Edit: BTW, good luck in Amman! I have a good friend there, nice people.
To expand upon my "3.5" comment - yes, N4 is better than N3. It's been cleaned up a bit, streamlined in a lot of places. Some nuance was unfortunately lost, but that's a price I can pay. However, to me it feels like a mid-season update, not a new edition. Not enough was changed in the core game that it would feel like a new game edition to me. It's more like a patch.
