Fireteam changes incoming

The sectorials I see running without fireteams are Shas, MRRF, and TAK - in all three cases they work by spamming camo midfielders on high or Total AVA.

So yeah, I think if you wanted to tone down fireteams what you could try is dropping the AVA on every midfielder to 1 in vanilla. It would have to be playtested, but...

 

Combined Army I think is a standout because some very strong models (namely, ei aspects) aren't part of any sectorial. There aren't a lot of gameplay-defining tier units that don't belong to any sectorial these days.

 

Sure, why would you play corregidor without fireteams instead of corregidor themed vanilla nomads with a few key unit insertions / substitutions? Sectorials do offer higher AVA of particular units, and sometimes bring in "foreign" units that aren't always available to the parent faction (be they mercs or something actually belonging to another major faction).

Back in the day (N2, etc) SEF was kind of infamous for being a sectorial that didn't bother with fireteams because a) they didn't have great link options and b) they had significantly higher AVA of camo skirmishers, which still enabled builds / playstyles that weren't available in vanilla CA. The big revamp they got at the end of N3 made the army look a lot more like a conventional sectorial, which is both good and bad, depending on whether you're looking for ease of balance or unique flavor.

 

This. This right here.

It's the only thing I can think of that'd make the notion that vanilla being consistently better make sense.

 

Really? I would believe that if it was, like, pre-rework Shasvastii (what was it, only old gwailos link? wack), now if you are skipping on even the barebones fireteam you are shooting yourself in the foot or playing a meme list.

So, for those:
Shasvastii: the excellent solo units are in vanilla combined army where you exchange minelayer on speculo and big ava of seed soldiers for Daturazi, Libertos and better drop troops; mostly no reason not to go vanilla unless you already got big boy defiance pack and need to run every model from there;
MRRF: the basic fireteam indeed mostly sucks ass but Moblot and Wolfgang as leaders are servicable, Briscards are ok; otherwise the only difference with vanilla is +2 Chasseurs, who are easily replaced with a wealth of other skirmishers (most importantly SAS). If you are not running a fireteam you are in challenge mode for not just going vanilla, imo;
TAK: the main difference is +3 streloks, no swc tax on K9 Strelok and Carmen; streloks are great and I enjoy running 17-18 camo markers lists in non-serious games... buuuut Frontovik MSV and Veteran HMG are too good to skip. In the end strelok decoys dont work against really experienced players (guessing the real one/mine is easier than you think) so going for better skirmishers in vanilla is a better choice.

It has been said in this thread many times that the difference in ava and exclusive profile between vanilla in sectorials is mostly neglible. Unless there is a harder demarcation, with more agressive ava difference and truly unique profiles, running fireteam-less sectorial lists will never be competitive.

If you play sectorials for aesthetics/flavor, then you should not bother with balance issues and meta calls, just run what you like, roll high roll crits

 

I think that if we accept that there is a strength advantage for vanilla factions, you do not fix this by buffing Fireteams. All that will do is solidify and further force people to play Fireteams more strictly and play around opponents' Fireteams.

As an example; I rate Shasvaasti as one of the absolutely strongest sectorials, but most of their strength comes from solo pieces - incidentally solo pieces is exactly what vanilla Combined does best. I also quite often see vanilla Combined played in a way that I can best describe as "Shasvaasti with two Daturazi" quite often.
Maybe the Venn diagram between vanilla Combined's strongest units and Shasvaasti's strongest units need to be made smaller?

Wait what?
Let's drop Combined as an example for now. I'm talking about two things: AVA and specific profiles.

There are some pretty strong units out there that can single handedly carry a list. Allowing sectorials increased access to these specific units should be a benefit. Indeed, the example of Guilang shows this is not just theory, but absolutely the case. Maybe if vanilla is allowed to make too prolific use of these strong units, it undermines sectorials ability to make proper use of their increased AVA?

So with the state of the game right now we are seeing increased number of units in increasing number of sectorials. Perhaps it is time to instead of talking about buffing Fireteams to get sectorials to keep up, maybe what needs to happen is to reduce the general AVA in vanilla.
Combine this with make some more iconic profiles not available to vanilla, you can easily give sectorials an advantage without risking making Fireteams unassailable.

Give you examples? Sure.
Maybe Ariadna doesn't necessarily need AVA 7 of Regular 11 points 1-use Camo.
Maybe Combined shouldn't have as many Taighas.
Maybe a large number of Daylami is better left to Hassassins only.
Maybe the sectorial-specific Orcs should be sectorial-specific.
Maybe the having actual sectorial-specific profiles like Haidao CoC should be the norm rather than the exception.*
Maybe generic mercs should stop being sprinkled over vanilla quite so much

This sort of thing. Maybe not any of the specifics above, but that kind of thing. The one marked with * in particular can be a very powerful tool to modulate sectorial performance. E.g. let's say Aconticimiento is struggling hard, it would allow the addition of regular old smoke launchers in Acon without having vanilla Pan-O go MSV2Smoke-bananas.

P.s. "You Yu Jing supremacist, why not suggest nerfs to vanilla Yu Jing?" Well.. I embarrassingly find myself quite blind to how vanilla Yu Jing plays. Haven't played it seriously in years and almost never play against it. I simply don't know what is typically strong units to spam that sectorials could benefit from having more AVA of. It's not like reducing the AVA of Zuyong, for example, will do much difference other than make me warm and fuzzy knowing there is proper symmetry in the rules.

P.p.s. It's also more obvious that there's more and overlapping profiles when the main faction has a large number of sectorials, so it's easier to single out e.g. Pan-O and Ariadna as they have more overlap that defeats the purpose of AVA than others.

 

Adding to that list (even if I'm TOTALLY guity of crutching on this), I really do not think Morans, maybe even Zeros, should be AVA 2.
I remember very vividly when I first started Nomads, as a totally new player, and wanting to play Corregidor and discovered that Morans and even Intruders had AVA2 as well as AVA4 on Jaguars, on top of the fact of having access to Zeros and Interventors.

I clearly remember I was kinda shocked and literally asked my Warcor "what's the point of the sectorials then?".
This was back when I was brand new and thought things like TR-REM's where "totally OP" and the Sin-Eater was actually a "good unit no troll".
Even with that little 'game knowledge' I was able to see that Nomads sectorials couldn't compete with Vanilla, which I still think largely holds true today.

Today I wouldn't mess with Nomads too much though (if it was up me), because I'm so coloured from a N3 paradigm om Nomads, in regards to list building, but I do think either the Moran or Zero (or both) needs a revised look regarding their AVA.

 

For AVA and options. Some examples:

Corregidor - has McMurrough and Senor Massacre, whereas Vanilla doesn't. Whenever I go Corregidor is for these two dudes, not the fireteams. (Although I do field me some fireteams most of the time).

White Banner - AVA 4 Guilang, AVA 3 Total Reaktion Remote, AVA 2 Flashpulse Remote...

Fireteams are either super strong, or just convenient, but they are not a dealbreaker. At least in my opinion.

 

I'd say that vanilla AVA in general needs a good looking over, reducing it in many places. If vanilla is to represent a team hastily combined from whatever units are at hand, then let it represent it. This should be combined with bigger emphasis on sectorial-only unit loadouts and options, especially better command & control options - after all, units training together and in specific command structure will perform better within that structure than outside it, just like officers used to command specific forces will be able to use their abilities better than when commanding a ragtag group of soldiers they aren't familiar with. Let some of the CoC options be sectorial only. Same with Lt2, same with Strategos, extra Command Tokens, etc. Let some characters be unique to sectorials as well.

And I agree that whatever changes fireteams will see, it needs to be a move sideways, not a buff or nerf.

 

Strongly Agree!

 

You can see some of that with the SEF and MO re-works. No Knight Commander or Crosiers in Vanilla, no KoS Combat Jump, no Gwailos in Vanilla, etc. Perhaps a bit of a glimpse into the long term future? Also the (in PanO) the addition in each of the Sectorials of the special Machinist, with added skills to fit into one of the primary troop Fireteams.

 

Well, at this point, what else do we do? There's no evidence that CB is actually looking at re-balancing vanilla AVA, only fireteam rules. If they nerf fireteams it's just going to be tilting the meta more towards vanilla factions.

 

Personally I would file all of these away as corner cases. The main advantage of sectorials are fireteams. I do not particularly like this fact (I like sectorials, my feelings on fireteams are mixed), but in the world I perceive it is a fact.
You guys are arguing a technicality. Technically you don't have to take any fireteam in any sectorial list (The only thing you are forced to take is a lieutenant...). Technically there may be some cases when other benefits might be big enough to make one take fireteam-less sectorial lists over vanilla without a (big) hit to competitiveness. (Maybe. I'm not convinved. The fact that N2 shas were mentioned suggest grasping at straws)
But are you seriously arguing that sectorial players take fireteams in their sectorial lists just because they are too stubbornly obtuse to recognize the power of fireteamless sectorial?

I do not understand this post. The only way I can parse seems a very uncharitable reading, which is a weird feeling considering I agree a lot with your next post.

 

Because I don't agree that the top factions are divided along the vanilla-sectorial divide as some people seem to say, not least because I know that the very best players in the world play sectorials a lot in competitive settings.

 

That doesn't exactly sound like sectorials are any good compared to vanilla, even the opposite. Great players can make almost anything work. Mediocre ones need crutches and any advantage they can get.

 

I 100% agree that fireteams are a big part of the (mechanical) draw to sectorials; I was just trying to explore the area around the idea that they are strictly required in order to make sectorials competitive with vanilla factions. N2 Shasvastii were mentioned not out of desperation, but because a) they were an example I was familiar with and b) they weren’t updated until the tail end of N3, at which point they got completely redesigned from the ground up to be a lot more conventional.

Sectorial-only profiles (like McMurrough, Gwailos, or special loadouts of some units) are a valid draw, as they undercut the “vanilla has more options” thesis, but aren’t used heavily enough to stand alone. But I do think that being thoughtful about unit/loadout selection and AVA could help define a space for link-less sectorials that wasn’t better expressed via theme-heavy vanilla lists.

 

Now I really do not follow the thought connection between the posts. I'm gonna blame it on me not being a forum regular (and just jumping in some threads mid-discussion when I'm bored) and/or non-native speaker.
Just to clarify, as far as I'm concerned:
1. I don't think that vanila>sectorial or sectorial>vanilla, it does seem to vary on case by case basis. (though I do not have enough gameplay experience to be 100% sure of it and reserve an option to change my mind on that)
2. If you don't take a fireteam in a sectorial it's either a corner case or you're showing off.

I would love it if sectorials were less about fireteams and more about other bonuses like unique profiles and additional mercs. But right now they are not, at least most of them. (It's nice that Corregidor has McMurder, but when was the last time you saw fireteam-less corregidor list in a tournament? And if you miraculously did, wasn't it an exception?) Which means that yes, somebody (CB) is "making" you take a fireteam when playing a sectorial, if you don't want to gimp yourself.

 

Actually a sectorial specific Machinist was last an greatest addition of flavor to PanO.

It's sad that in general its identity is crushed between O12/YuJing/Aleph.

 

I also do not believe something necessarily needs to be busted, overpowered, or broken to merit attention. Could be that it's not functioning properly or that it could improve the game experience as a whole.

If you feel compelled to take fireteams just because you're playing a sectorial, then at least select them according to a plan and adapting them according to the situation. Just stuffing a core to have a stuffed core seems wrong?

Now, what also informed my post was another belief about a lack of game design in the current iteration of Infinity. Like, there actually is a case to be made that using more of a specific flavour of unit should be a legitimate way of building a competitive list without resorting to a core, but the way AVAs tend to work usually doesn't allow this to work so well.
For example, having AVA of Zhencha increased from 1 to 4 doesn't mean it's viable to play 3-4 Zhencha, because there's basically no way of supporting it in IA.
It's all well and good pointing at a problem like that, but I don't see an elegant way of solving it.