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Is this healthy for the game?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Zewrath, Nov 17, 2020.

  1. Armihaul

    Armihaul Well-Known Member

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    that is half right in my opinion. Yes, markmanship is very similar to mimetism...but we are forgetting also the msv2 over 1...with full link maight be not of much difference, but when the link gets loses, the differences become very important. Remember that a msv2 over 1 against smoke is the same difference as msv2 vs no msv against Mimetism -6. We are talking of BS13 MSV1 with markmanship, against BS13 MSV2 with mimetism for the same cost (or even cheaper)

    but... do you want to bring nerf to those that were so strong before? I don't think CB will do so. And again, all that problem was allready in n3...but there were not this kind of threads then. I am not saying is wrong doing it.... but I feel that now is too late to complain, specially since this has been how CB has been managing his game since mid n3

    I have the felling they are aiming for the "if everything is OP, nothing is OP". But complaining about the expensive and worse ones, instead of the ones that have been a real problem much more time (because they are better, cheaper or both), feels a bit wrong to me
     
  2. Benkei

    Benkei Well-Known Member

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    Problem is not everything is OP but rather a handful of very specific factions
     
  3. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    Ah, yes... that’s totally the commonly understood usage of the term “Brute Force”

    and an extra wound before it goes down. Let’s not pretend that isn’t a big factor, when you insist on comparing them.
     
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  4. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Yes, more or less. They're almost a duplicate of a unit that people have been complaining about the power level of for about 2 years.
     
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  5. fatherboxx

    fatherboxx Mission control, I'm coming home.

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    no, thats a different tactic
    brute force is just dicing opponent which still works as plan b because 5 dice are more than 2

    Huh? All of those three (Kamau, Bolt, Grenzer) are 1 wound and shock immune

    What I mean is all methods of dealing with kamau work against those msv1 marksmen
    If you havent planned for dealing with kamau prior to this point these two years you usually lost those matches
    Just apply what worked before and if your army doesnt have the tools, tough shit, shelf it or avoid competetive games/events of Infinity
     
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  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    You mean Nimbus? I used Nimus a lot for handling Kamau. And gambling on rolling really crap odds (for being active turn) if I was unlucky to face the single person playing Varuna in the tournament. Both tactics got busted by N4 :p
     
  7. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    My apologies.

    For some weird reason, I thought you compared the Vostok and the Kamau... which makes even less sense when I read your post again.
     
  8. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    I'm not sure, because I haven't had much opportunity to play the new Bolts. I would have been happy to see PanO retreat a bit from their constrained design space, in favor of more versatility. But if CB is going to double down on PanO-shoots-everything as a theme, especially in an edition where everybody-shoots-everything extraordinarily well, then I'm glad they found a new way to carry this theme to the next level for PanO. There's only so much we can see Mimetism + Visor without getting exhausted, and having a 1 Wound Medium Infantry choice that simply shoots well, no neg mods to the enemy, is actually pretty new as far as design is concerned. I like it.

    Would it be nice for NCA to have a bit more midfield presence and deployment flexibility? Definitely. But I think Bolts could be far, far worse off. And as for NCA in general, even with their strong active turn firepower and diverse number of builds, I'm still not sure they can compete in N4. They can definitely win games, but I think that being super hackable and having very little tactical flexibility is a dangerous combination in N4. I think Bolts, Bulleteers, etc need to feel incredible, and they need to be able to win gunfights easily, because something like a Bolt team with Bulleteer is still going to get wiped out by a mine or a template if the NCA player is careless.

    Speaking to the broader theme of this topic: For a while now, i've just assumed that my opponent is going to be able to dominate active turn, and I'll be able to dominate in my own active turn, and that I need to pace my turns and structure my order expenditure with that universal truth in mind. Once I got comfortable with that perspective, I stopped worrying about how strong someone's gunfighters are, and focused more on how they were vulnerable. A Bulleteer in a Core is strong, but the second you bring that Core team out of the DZ and into the midfield, they're asking to get massacred by a template, a CC specialist, whatever you have that hurts 1-Wound units. You can lob a pitcher, and suddenly the NCA player has to bring out his subpar, slow KHD to try and counter-Hack you before that Bulleteer can really do anything. My goal isn't to get into "what if"isms here, but just to show that NCA is so glaringly limited in other areas of the game, I don't really mind them shooting as well as they do.


    I think Oblivion is the new Redrum, definitely. Every N4 hacking conversation I've had basically revolves around this program, which is pretty telling. I do like that a 15 point linetrooper Hacker can have a strong impact on the game. But it really makes me wonder, as @Mahtamori indicates, why Jammer needed to be nerfed so heavily in N4. The units that carried Jammer were either nerfed as well, or received no boost/point discount to offset the big hit that Jammer was taken. There are a few things that I believe were overcorrected in N4, overcorrections that feel silly in light of other N4 enhancements, and Jammer is one of them.
     
    #48 barakiel, Nov 18, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2020
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  9. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I don't think the issue is that a player dominates in the active turn as this has always been the case. More that there are an increasing number of units that dominates the active turn so hard that it makes AROs pointless with little to no chance of success (that is as long as the ARO isn't a 35-ish point Grenzer / Kamau / Bolt sniper in a Core)
    I might be wrong, but that's my take away from the OP.
     
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  10. Ghost87

    Ghost87 Well-Known Member

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    With this argument one could defend any unit profile buff. I wonder were the limit would be? Especially considering that not every faction gets buffed equally.

    This is exactly the point. The WIP of most PanO hackers is mediocre and the Bolt is no exception but in your example he would be right there in the fireteam and as everyone already mentioned: burst is king. It is not really relevant whether you have WIP12 or 13 with B3 Trinity.
    NCA has a deployment disadvantage but the fireteam options are extremely flexible with Bolts alone.
     
  11. deltakilo

    deltakilo Bear of Butcher bay
    Warcor

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    In general I don't have issue with it. Provided you accept that hard aro pieces are unlikely to win FTF and CB should be aware of that situation and balance around that fact that aros are at best a delay (which is absolutely ok)
    I think wildcard creates this issue. I also think without wildcard you had other issues. And I think business wise wildcard is helpful. It allows them to make a heavy or two knowing it will wildcard in without needing five of them.
    I'll also make mention that almost all those examples are in factions with no or poor access to smoke. So you need something to keep heads down or shoot em off.

    I also think when you have units immune to small arms fire you HAVE TO ramp up active so they don't sit there without fear of reprisal. I think it's a deck of cards of their own making and whilst I think the lethality of active turn is strong I think the issue is that nerfing these units just further improve the things they are meant to be there to deal with.

    I also think that the issue that these units are too good has less to do with them being good and more to do with CB (outside ariadna which I don't consider addressed in an authentic way for the new game) having good interfactional balance but very poor intrafaction balance. There's clear winners and losers. For instance Bakunin feels like an army they stopped updating halfway through. Observance for instance being awful.

    I have been saying for a long time that CB need their playtesters to work harder on reducing the peaks and valleys of what is good and what isn't. But unfortunately it appears that they are more interested in pushing their partisan darlings within their own armies. So your best results is when you listen to what the army is demanding you take. Good players will get by with substandard units and the core balance means one or two average choices won't hurt you. But if you decide to take a full Moira link for instance you are pushing shit uphill. Perfect balance is impossible and not necessary. But the divide needs to be narrowed.
     
  12. Rejnhard

    Rejnhard Well-Known Member

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    Disclaimer - I haven't played for something like 5 years or more (N3 turned out to be too finicky for me and my guys) but I'm getting very interested in N4 now.

    Re: absurd active power
    I still have trauma from N2 Vector, shooting at any angle, from any height, so I pretty much had to go *all prone behind* buildings (cause dodging trough smoke was also at -6 then). And then total ava Pretas with *biomines* come. So I'm like "eh, at least the guys in the first post probably have to come out of DZ to kill my entire force, and their WBs don't have mines"

    Re: Wildcard mix and match
    I always disliked links (played vanilla Haqq). Where I played people usually took the core ML/MSR aro links, felt kinda OP and boring at the same time. Also they felt like army; trench war.
    Moarmer shooting tags with AP+T2, going upfield with his buddy Grey laying B3 DT shotgun on links and there is Isobel in their Haris for some Hacking (or Bravehart for some... Hacking) seems like Tarantino Spec Ops Anime.
    I don't know how it plays (maybe OP, or maybe worse: cookie-cuter boring in the end), but for the first time I am excited about links.
     
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  13. Hackingslam

    Hackingslam Member

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    Let's avoid terms like "degenerate" and "retarded" for obvious reasons.

    I agree with meikyoushisui on the rocket tag front - I'd rather not have the game stick to n3's precedent of "the only reason to have ARO pieces is to kill warbands". Related to that, I agree with SpectralOwl. I think Sixth Sense as a link bonus continues to be bad for the game's feeling. The outrageous positive MODs you are afforded by being in a link team are much less of a problem when the link team's troops can be countered by (other) standard game mechanics, but a troop with MSV and Marksmanship is even less counterable.

    -6 Mimetism troops can't gun them down easily, and TAGs are basically running 50-50s but with a lower chance of dying (unless the link has a missile launcher on ARO, which I don't see why it wouldn't). Against Bolts, your ONLY hard counter option is cheap chain rifle troops IF they can get in range in the first place (which is less likely now that MSV 1 can see through smoke).

    If the idea was for TAGs to be hard-counterable because they're otherwise easy defensive and offensive pieces, then link teams need to be equally hard-counterable when they can sit in the open on the reactive turn and trade fire with TAGs. You don't need to buy additional minis to play with fireteams, but you need to buy additional minis to play with TAGs.

    Backtracking to the rocket tag front, we'll also see how other outrageous shit like Guard works out over time. I'd still rather see a more sensible game than one where we lean on single absurd pieces/combinations that the international meta slowly unveils.


    UPDATE: Listening to White Noise (who was pretty negative on Shock Army), I learned a couple of other things. Hackers and pitchers are invaluable now. My statements about TAGs versus Links failed to note that Link Teams are now vulnerable to hacking in the same way TAGs are! Sure, they're a little less vulnerable because you only lose one troop at a time to Isolation, but they also can be wiped by templates and what not. I still find the Sixth Sense benefit to be pretty annoying in how thoroughly it denies a number of counters to LI, but whatever.

    The Grenzer doesn't have Marksmanship either, which helps.
     
    #53 Hackingslam, Dec 6, 2020
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2020
  14. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    The ability to hack Fireteams has not changed since N3, unless there is an HI in the team which were already hackable all you can do is spotlight the regular guys (Karhu, Grenzer, kamau etc.) and carpet bomb the fireteam with either grenades or guided. The CA program to punt people from the FT doesn't exist anymore. the best counter to fireteams is to not engage either offensively or defensively and just avoid them and keep your head down so they have nothing to shoot.

    As for the Grenzer there is a MSR profile that costs a few points more than the standard MSR profile with Marksmanship.
     
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  15. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    N3 Jammers were fine, they propagated onto Hecklers and Echo Bravos and there were no issues.

    Ghazi were all sorts of fucked up. They were always the problem, not the Jammers.
     
  16. Cranky Old Man

    Cranky Old Man Well-Known Member

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    How is the dakini getting bs 19? Fireteams bonus and then?
     
  17. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    The Grenzer did get Marksmanship on one MSR profile.

    It's a little of Column A and a little of Column B here. Jammers were just a small nerf away from being way more acceptable (something like "remove intuitive attack" would have gone pretty far to fix any problems I had with them).

    Mutts were way out of whack though. N3 mutts would have still been a competitive choice if they all cost double what the did.
     
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  18. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    Apsara to BS13, fireteam bonus to 16 and range band to 19.
     
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  19. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    The other Mutt solution was "Jammer OR EMarat OR Smoke on the 5/6pt profile" which - lo and behold - CB did.

    I honestly think that they've gone too far with the Jammer nerf: Isolated changes and the way it interacts with Targetted, Firewalls and Isolated weakens it enough that it's not the terror it was in N3.

    Which is annoying because Jammer is actually exactly what the N4 meta needs as a soft counter for factions that can't do Hacking good / want an alternative for when they don't invest heavily into Hacking.

    I can't believe I'm arguing for it, but an ~18pt Irregular non-marker FD(8") mercenary with Jammer would probably be an alright addition to the game.

    Or, hell, a Jammer Yuan Yuan.
     
    #59 inane.imp, Dec 7, 2020
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2020
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  20. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    This is an incredibly apt observation.

    The same can be said for Nullifiers -- we finally have metagame features that would make them a really solid choice, and they're all just gone.
     
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