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Public LT WIP is making them too obvious

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Triumph, Feb 8, 2021.

  1. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    That's a false representation of what's going on. We're talking about referencing Army.
     
  2. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    I can see being bothered about your opponent taking 10 minutes of a time limited game to fiddle with their device and recreate your list when they should be spending orders/declaring AROs, but that falls under standard slow play/sportsmanship rules.

    Quickly checking the cost of an ORC and Nisse to decide which to go after in a quadrant control game though? I don't see anything wrong with that.
     
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  3. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    Memorizing every profile in the game is a skill, but I don’t think it’s an interesting skill. I want to see games decided based on tactical decision making, not rote memorization.

    Similarly, I favor pre-measuring in wargames, because while being able to precisely eyeball distances is a skill, I don’t find it to be an interesting skill. I want to see games decided based on tactical decision making, not practical carpentry experience.
     
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  4. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    Maybe not entirely on topic, but my only real issue with people looking on profiles with the app, is if they start reconstructing the list to gauge how many points I have on the table, so they can guess how much I have in possible Hidden Deployment.
    Personally, that's where I draw the line, because I think it stands to reason that that's not the kind of information my opponent should have.

    However, I don't care if he gets access to what potential Lt's I have access to, I think it's more transparent and I have actually witnessed a new player getting cheated by another player, because he was ignorant of the fact that he had killed the enemy Lt.
     
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  5. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    That is literal cheating, though, since private information becomes public when a unit dies. When you kill their Lt, you know.
     
  6. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    @Hecaton

    Yes... That's why I said he was being cheated... he lacked the information to know that there could be no other candidate, so he couldn't call out the cheater on the spot..
     
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  7. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    End of the game in N4
     
  8. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    Just a couple of points:

    There is no contradiction between the cost of a trooper in your list being private information, and the list of all troop choices in Infinity being public information. I really don't see a way to rule that a major part of the rules is suddenly off limits to one of the players. That would explicitly mean that it would be illegal for my opponent to look up the stats of my camo troopers during the game, since they are not on the courtesy list. You could argue that I am obliged to reveal their information verbally as soon as they are revealed, but it's just so much easier for me to give them the profile and invite them to look it up in army.

    Additionally, in my meta, several of the players have taken to presenting their armies at deployment, not just stating which models are present and what their weapons are, but also pointing out which are possible lieutenants, as well as obvious gaps in points and SWC. I think this makes the game more enjoyable, and it has not increased the number of lt assassinations; only reduced the time that players spend on trying to figure out what's going on on the other side of the table. Of course, we don't tell each other everything, so the opponent doesn't know if the missing points are a Cutter or a Swiss, and an Akal or a Croc Man, which makes a lot of difference.

    Trying to keep stuff like that secret from the opponent kinda feels like cheating to me. If the only reason my lt wasn't killed on turn one is that the opponent didn't know that profile existed then I should have played a better defense or gone inte LoL.
     
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  9. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    I mean, it's pretty easy to figure out that I'm missing ~60-70 pts from the table. Now, guessing whether that's Mirage-5, or Van Zant and an AP Spit Airborne Ranger, or three Paracommandos, or maybe you've underestimated the gap and it's two Spetsnaz and a Cube Jaeger - that's the skill part.
     
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  10. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    I definitely am not a fan of open Lt. WIP in N4. It's especially bad for hacking vulnerable Lts, who can already have it bad enough.
     
  11. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Not when I'm making the point that both actions are functionally the same breach by accessing private information.


    Like I said, don't try and design a game around cheating it's an exercise in futility. Someone who cheats like that will simply cheat in a different fashion. The fix in that case is to excise that player from the community (assuming that was a deliberate action on their behalf), they're a cancer and you'd be better off without them in the long run.


    Limited pre measuring is ok, beneficial even. Like pre measuring movement in N4 is an acceptable form of pre measuring.

    Unlimited pre measuring though is bad, I've seen that path to madness play out in Warmachine where they went from limited pre measuring to unlimited, and then had to be artificially restricted again in the annex rules. Ironically it turned the game into exactly what you're complaining about, a practical carpentry experience where you sat there while your opponent literally spent 45 minutes mapping out 40+ intersecting movements with widgets the table then killed your warcaster and won the game.
     
  12. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    I've certainly heard stories like that, and I think Warmachine is prone to that sort of play. Back when I played, there was certainly a skill gap between people who were able to use trigonometry to calculate lines based on their warcaster's focus area and those who weren't. It really depends on how much the game depends on minute measurements.

    I'm not a hard-line premeasuring partisan, but I definitely think that the Infinity ZoC ARO mechanics would be massively cleaner if you definitively knew whether or not a ZoC violation had occurred before declaring your response.
     
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  13. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    That's another form of limited pre measuring you could implement without causing the afore mentioned problems, and I think would probably be better for the game than the current situation. Pre measuring ZoC from current positions during a model's activation, perhaps attaching it to being an anytime thing during a model's movement would probably work.

    The thing you wanna avoid is allowing people to map 6 orders worth of movements for a fireteam and accompanying smoke placements to see if they can run from DZ to DZ. That kind of shit will get out of hand really quick.
     
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  14. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    It's not a breach, though, to access the information in Army. If a player has multiple possible lieutenants, is it not a breach to access army because it doesn't show who the lieutenant is? You're trying to say deduction is cheating.
     
  15. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    You're trying to differentiate between checking if a specific profile is an LT with checking if any profiles are LTs, to which my point is even if you feel like there's a moral difference between the two, what if you're wrong about multiple LT options and you look up the player's only LT option? If you feel the need to use the app then you're clearly not able to remember what are LTs are.

    There's more than one breach or piece of private info you can find to your advantage by looking through your opponent's faction while playing, the issue Zewrath has with people constructing his list from scratch to figure out what he can have in reserve, or the example I made with finding out whether or not your opponent has CoC, or simply adding up point costs to figure out whether or not you're winning objectives.

    The easy fix to a better game experience is like most things that have come up the past, like Fusilier Angus holding a TAG above his head and pinning it to a wall or models getting frontbutt shot, is to not try to get hellbent on RAW and to follow the spirit or intent of the game which in this game is Infinity is not a perfect information game system, it is supposed to be full of unknowns when you play and that's part of the fun piecing it together as you go or executing a hastily constructed plan B when something goes against what you planned. Shit's private, put your phone down and stop trying to look at it and just play the game.
     
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  16. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Is it though? Is it the spirit of the game to not have Mayanet close at hand on your personal device? "Play by the spirit of the rules" is always going to be an argument that is shaky (not least because it's usually an argument that what the rules actually say is wrong)

    I say that you should play the game as you and your friends prefer to play it. If that means no digital devices, that means no digital devices. If that means no drinking while playing, then that means you agree to play sober. If it means you're helping each other out with any potential information that's not explicitly private, then it means you can ask basically anything. If you prefer to not have a thin layer of dorito dust on your miniatures then you agree on no (dusty) snacks at the table.

    Hell, if that means you're allowed to measure any LOF between models and markers, then go for it.

    There's some things the rules say "please do it this way" and then there's a bunch it basically says "don't care, up to you". The difference is in what we can make presumptions about a new player being expected to know to follow or not.
     
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  17. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    With respect @Mahtamori I don't actually disagree with your points in the post above, but if I'm not mistaken, I think Triumph is approaching the subject in context of what becomes the consensus of acceptable behaviour/information gathering in tournaments.

    This matters if a player suddenly feel he cannot give voice to a complaint due to widespread consensus.

    Just to be clear, I don’t mind the Lt. Candidate info, but if you’re constructing my list on the spot to figure out whether I have a Tiger Soldier in reserve or a Hac Tao, then I will start taking an issue.
    There’s a big difference between the threat handling of TO units and AD units, and with the 15 model cap, there’s a very big limit on how much you can have in reserve without crippling yourself, so that leaves little room for guessing once you subtract the missing points.
     
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  18. TriggerPuller9000

    TriggerPuller9000 Poverty Orde Wingate

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    In one of my old metas, we had a guy who would do exactly this - at the beginning of the game, ask you for every profile...look it up in the Army app, and replicate your list. Every time a Camo Trooper reveals? Plugged into Army. The logic was, "I could have access to all of this information anyway if I just memorized every faction's point costs." Then he'd play tetris with the Camo markers in Army trying to figure out which was what, whether there was an AD / Hidden trooper, etc.

    I don't think it actually helped him win any games, but it did succeed in slowing down the game and pissing people off.
     
    #78 TriggerPuller9000, Feb 11, 2021
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2021
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  19. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    N4 should have reduced the impact LoL has on the game.
    Some Factions get completely secure Lt choices (Tohaa) by default and some are so screwed (Onyx) you ask yourself why this works the way it does.
    This is a fundamental core game mechanic, not a Faction feature. We don't deny some Factions access to B4 weapons altogether and lock them into Rifle Rangebands.

    In between AD, AD (DZ), Impersonation Deployment rolls, Spec Fire, Pitcher into Guided ML and just the general reality of a game table, you just don't want to rely on your opponent being unable to figure out who your Lt is.
     
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  20. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I'm aware that there's a risk of a consensus forming that's completely diametrically opposite to how Triumph wants to play, which is why I'm posting that to try and remind people that Triumph's way to play is legitimate. I just don't want that to become the consensus and would rather see a consensus that says that this is actually something you need to talk about when you get to a table you don't know.

    And yeah, constructing the opponent's entire list is taking it too far, I do agree, and it's also likely going to steal a lot of attention and time which is doubling down on the dick-move. It's one of my main complaints about TTS atm, as there's basically no other way to sufficiently efficiently tally up a courtesy list and without one I end up with miniatures in my blindspot all the time. (And my main complaint about CB's courtesy list is that it doesn't have the Markers in it and it's generally frowned upon to write on your opponent's papers... oh well)
     
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