Might just be evidence that cores are too good if such a bad balance mechanic is still accepted by people who play with full cores.
I guess that he was referring to moving around 5 guys and trying to keep them alive against teamplates. As I mostly play with Tohaa I have many troubles when deploying or moving 5-men Fireteams when I use JSA or OSS.
The biggest reason why I stopped playing IA and started vanilla was how annoying moving entire core is. Sure it was in N3 when you had to declare distance and direction before measuring but even in N4 moving couple of units at once takes time when you have to check lofs to all of them and make sure you don't walk into repeaters or other dangers. I don't think that time consuming and tedious to use is a proper balance mechanic for something powerful, especially in game that people should play for fun...
So is the suggestion that sectorials to basically be Tohaa without the extreme flexibility? That would be interesting as I know a lot of people do a haris and a 3 man core. It definitely would simplify the game significantly. Would the Sectorials keep a significant power level?
Lots of people keep saying "cores are too good" but as far as i was aware collated ITS data showed that vanilla forces did better overall. If that is the case, why is the mood towards a nerf for cores? I raised the question ages ago and was shot down ridiculously quickly, but shouldn't sectoral forces be improved for balance purposes rather than nerfed?
I can see two reasons: 1. Individual playing experience. Losing to a variety of models that work well in concert is one thing, but losing to that one HMG guy in a core fire team you just cannot contest likely leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many players, especially new ones. So while it may not be a concern in the big picture, it likely leads to frustrating individual experiences. 2. Internal balance. The current fire team rules result in rather clear and narrow best fire team compositions. If you can just pick and choose 3 mooks and 2 power pieces from your army list there is very little reason to consider ever using other units. The underlying issue of the "optimal build" is true for any set of rules to some extent, but it's particularly egregious in Infinity where you can assemble all the best tools you need and amp them up in a core without any drawback or tax. Fire teams basically widen the gap between stronger and weaker units in the army roster. When talking external balance, the data you referred to seems clear, but Vanilla has its own host of issues atm, so changes in how fire teams work should ideally be followed by a fix to Vanilla bloat to get the whole thing done correctly.
If cores are being weakened, then the amount of indirect or chaffy ARO for all sectorials needs to go up. IMO its not acceptable for an army to have no answer to the strong alpha which has taken over the game at the moment. Or of course, the peak alpha pieces can take a hit with the nerf bat at the same time as fireteams. But unfortunately I'm way black-pilled on that concept and feel we are going to be dealing with impersonators and dogpodes and Sphinx for a long time. Saying all this as someone who really, really dislikes big fireteams and wants the tohaa approach of flexible 3-man teams to become the norm.
An individual rule that a sectorial has access to can absolutely be far too powerful while the external balance of the same sectorial is crap (and the reverse, of course, but generally speaking players won't use stuff that are too obviously bad). What it does is make the use of that rule mandatory and if the rule itself is causing a negative play experience by negating a lot of options for the opponent, then the rule negatively affects the game even if the specific balance of the sectorial is not affected. P.s. This is just theory, I'm not saying Cores are this extreme, but I don't like what 4-man and 5-man bonuses do to the game.
Nah, considering that vanilla is still so powerful. There seem to be a lot of vanilla players who think that vanilla should just be better though. Looking at fireteams should come with dropping the AVA of most midfielders in vanilla to 1.
Everyone keeps throwing around Vanilla being better but don't say that those vanilla are exactly Combined and Nomads,. Yu JIng is said to be up there but I haven't see that myself. When all general factions are "better", then I'll believe it. And sorry one guy winning a tournament with a vanilla that's not those two doesn't change things. I don't understand how not allowing special additions to a faction to not get bonus weakens them. They still get more benefit that vanilla just by being able to move around with the team. Also if it happens too all fireteams then it's fairly even. My suggestion was because I'm sick of buying a box of figures and only ever using one of them. I'll probably never buy the Zhanshi SWC box and use my 1st ed. Zhanshi until the game dies. I just got and painted the Shang Ji and so far again, only one is used. Maybe that's all a different issue, but some of this thinking is all because of link teams and not wanting to waste time, money, and effort on something that will never see the light of day.
I'll clarify for myself, I was referring specifically to the cumbersome nature of moving a core to be slow and unenjoyable, the actual challenges and gameplay concessions required are secondary. Haris teams are fine, and I'd really love to see duos get more love. There are a lot of troopers in the game that would go really well paired together, but don't get the opportunity.
Liked and quoted for maximum +1-ness I so wish they would (at least partially) move away from balancing sectorials around 5-mans.
I had the thought too but didn't think anyone would like it! I'd actually like to see them do more like Tohaa for everyone. All factions including some limited Vanilla get 3-man teams. I know you'd say it would make Vanilla too powerful but remember Vanilla has much lower AVA so you wouldn't be able to as many. Maybe even Vanilla and Tohaa being the only ones that can mix and match teams.
Yeah, duos could really do with greater expansion, I like the idea and they're slick to move, just a bit under-fed as an idea
I'm all for a good de-bloat. Ultimately I don't think the issue is in the fireteam rules themselves, more in what composes the fireteams, which is more a balance issue than a rules issue per se.
I have Nomads, O-12, Ariadna and Haqq as possible vanilla factions and for my playstyle I prefer at all 3 (O-12 doesn’t really count, starmada is crap) vanilla over sectorial. As a mediocre player, link teams are are as much as a problem as they are a benefit. Personally I can’t hear the complains abbaut “this is too strong” any longer, exception, it is against Achilles or Avatar. Had no problem with jammer, the where a kingslayer on tournament against first strike list, that kind, that now is dominating the game. Now they are nerved to death, where the only real change the one to comms attack should have been. I don’t know, what CB will do with the Fireteam rules, but when they make a major nerf, I don’t see, why I should play snd buy sectorials anymore. The mad on the one hand a good job with N4, on the other hand, the made the game worse, e.g. First Strike Lists, Order balance through Tactical Awareness and 15 Model Limit and unique playstyle of factions (Hassassin may be one of the strongest armies atm, but I don’t prefer to play them shooty)
Yes! Duos are such a neat idea. Unfortunately apart from somewhat niche cases of units really supporting each other (like TAGs and engineers) they are just too pale when compared to haris. You know what would really made sense on duos while not making them OP? Sixth Sense. Buddy system keeps sneakies in check. I so wish they would buff duos at cores expense.
