It also opens up viability of other weapons and profiles, and for once the stock standard HMG is no longer the king of all weapons, which is something I like a lot.
This is why I love that idea so much, at least before I think of what it would do to the game as a whole. I feel when I play an ARM 2 or 3 dude that I'm paying a premium for not much more durability. But when its doubling in cover, man do those models get tough as nails.
That's not how it works out, though. If ARM is doubled instead of '-3 to Damage', ARM2 will got to ARM4 which is lower than the current effective ARM5, and ARM3 will go to the exact same effective ARM6 as now.
I suspect he was speaking relatively- under current rules an ARM0 Moderator in Cover is 15% less likely to take a Wound from a hit than an ARM3 Riot Grrl, under these proposed options it would jump to 30%, which is significant. With the vast majority of troops seeing table time being ARM1 or less this would produce more visible value to improved ARM despite being often statistically worse off than before, which would certainly make people feel better about paying through the nose for the stat. I don't actually think this is a good solution, but I can see its psychological merits. Points formula and unit design philosophy changes are my preferred approach to subjective "feel" issues like this.
^ this sounds like it would make things even worse for light infantry and magnify the bonus oh high armor even further. Doubling armor instead of +3 doesnt even even out to equal to current cover with AP right now until you have armor 5 or better and without AP everything with armor 4 or better becomes super tanky or nigh unkillable. Arm 1 in cover goes from 4 to 2 before and is the same with AP Arm 2 in cover, goes from 5 to 4 and from 4 to 2 with AP Arm 3 in cover, stays at 6 and goes from 5 to 4 with AP Arm 4 in cover, goes from 7 to 8 and from 5 to 4 with AP Arm 5 in cover, goes from 8 to 10 and stays at 6 with AP Arm 6 in cover goes from 9 to 12 and stays at 6 with AP Arm 7 in cover goes from 10 to 14 and from 7 to 8 with AP Arm 8 in cover goes from 11 to 16 and from 7 to 8 with AP Arm 9 in cover goes from 12 to 18 and from 8 to 10 with AP Arm 10 in cover goes from 13 to 20 and from 8 to 10 with AP Even with the suggested extra complicated alterations to ARM from crits, TAG's in cover become nearly invincible without AP and actually go up in armor even with it. Seems like Light Infantry and Medium Infantry get to suck it with these changes losing out consistantly or only breaking even under ideal condtions Arm 4 for gets a little better vs non AP and worse vs AP Arm 5-6 break even under bad conditions and get significantly better under good ones. Basically in this system is extremely complicated and you fish for crits and take every AP weapon possible. : ( I've played around with the double your armor concept with shock ammo. Since I still find it rather underwhelming especially now. Thought it would be interesting to make it Double Action but you double your armor before cover vs it. So it is ment to be used on light unarmored targets and it still keeps Shock Immunity relevant, and heavier units will very likely shrug it off.
Is it really neccessary to significantly magnify the gap between lights and heavies? I'm good with the current system, since the cover provides a relatively fatal safety net to lights, where heavies can take cover to be even more reliable, getting additional +3 arm. I might be generalizing too hastily but I don't want Infinity to be World of TAGs where light infantries have no meaning of existence other than cheerleaders, evaporating into red mists when they face all-mighty-colossals.
One thing I always notice when people talk about changing crits is that they add in several clausules in a row. Guys, keep it simple. The current rule is: "A crit always wins the FTF and causes one extra armor save applying all ammo rules of the weapon which caused the crit." Simple, easy to explain. Quick. Any solution counterproposed to this one must be just as simple and easy to explain, otherwise it is a step in the wrong direction.
Having played a few games of N4, I much prefer the non-auto wound nature of the new crits. That being said, I still feel like "A crit always wins the FTF, unless the opponent also crits (in which case both shots are cancelled)" would've been the better solution. I'm not a fan of the potential 2 wounds from a B1 Normal ammo ARO, I think the kind of randomness it adds is not interesting.