Tohaa also continue to do well despite being outgunned because of un-interactive play. As tohaa, go 2nd, keep Makaul and a couple of specialists alive and then just go push buttons on last turn under eclipse smoke and there's sweet fa your opponent can do about it.
Just hazard a caution, Tohaa may be a popular "sectorial", but there are no numbers for the whole factions. This means Tohaa is still kinda small fry as even if we count Spiral as "Tohaa", players are still at least twice as likely to face some form of Nomad. There are some similar complaints levelled against Combined, by the by, but it's mostly the more peripheral complaint about pitcher-hacking-guided spam.
In previous online campaigns they've showed at the end the number of players for each faction, and it's just like you said: if you add vanilla+sectorials, Tohaa is the least played faction.
I think there's a few explanations that I have seen. Mostly that popularity is based on volume of games played, not volume of players. 1) Tohaa players are very tournament active. I know one who will drive between tabletop communities to play multiple tournaments a month, and he only plays Tohaa. If this popularity is measured with volume of games played for ITS, he probably counts two or three times what I count for popularity statistics, and that's before acknowledging that I split my time between RTF and O-12. 2) Tohaa (and CA and HasBam) are popular for TTS tournaments because they have strong mechanical complexity, and those tournaments can be held faster and more often. I have a friend who said during COVID he participated in 2-3 tournaments a week, while in person tournaments happen once a month (and only if enough people show up). One again, skew due to volume of games. If Tohaa was top 5 in popularity based on volume of players, they wouldn't have been discontinued. They must measure quantity of games played during the event or in ITS statistics.
I agree the numbers are weird. If it's just a percentage of number of popular factions to wins it would be very skewed. It's not a true number if just a few played really well or were lucky.
All, thank you for all the well-thought responses. So what is the expected design space that Nomads are supposed to have and how are they violating it? I see them as tricky fighters who have the best hackers in the sphere. I agree with @TheDiceAbide with the overarching description of their strengths and weakness: https://www.thediceabide.com/blog/which-infinity-army-is-for-you-part-3-nomads I think they have always had strong hacking and control elements, at least as long as I known them. Morans used to be even more oppressive in N2 and early N3. So what is the scope creep? Direct shooting? Is it their recent increase of multiple wound or NWI models (Generally, I have seen that as a system wide change). Ignoring GML, which I believe is a global issue, how has there been Nomads "Scope Creep"?
It's a good thing GML, Pitcher, Repeater, Chimera, Jammers, Bears, are all excluded from Code One. Can we stop using NPE as an excuse now?
Nomads are incredibly weak to command and control There isn't one, or they would be competing at the top of the Efficiency ratings right?
On the one hand, Nomads have been getting a lot of grease compared to Yu Jing lately, so not sure what you're implying. On the other we just got told they'll add a character whose name is basically pronounced "bitchy" so there's that. As a community we're still very very happy about Bixie (that one person who thought she was bad doesn't seem to play Yu Jing so that doesn't count) You've got basically one person who claim there's scope creep in Nomad hacking. Scope creep is in command and control, TAGs, and HI mainly. It's a slow evolution since I want to say HSN3.
I don't think it's a complaint that overall Nomads had scope creep in hacking but specifically Corregidor who were traditionally the weakest at it of the 3 Nomad sectorials became the strongest with Jazz while also having the best fireteams, excellent warbands, and other conventional attack units like 2W Skirmishers that the other sectorials lacked. There's literally an entire thread about this in the Nomad forum. Just go read that.
I'm implying that YJ infamously squeaked since forever and as a result they got greased into top spots in efficiency charts. Unless one disbelieves the efficiency chart, which is *obviously* the case for everyone whose personal opinion is not supported by it. Another thing I'm implying is that nomads on the other hand mostly squeak when they get something "too good" so they are nowhere to be seen in top 10 (though Vanilla and Corregidor may be in the teens). New releases might be CB getting some stats for the new edition and deciding that numbers are more trustworthy than forum feelings. Which obviously was met with cries of anguish from Nomad players for whom the top priority is keeping their precious "scrappy underdog" identity.
I look forward to Nomads getting made better, means I can stop playing combined army and aleph. Maybe after the bakunin update next year, just maybe ..
Yu Jing complain mostly about specific units, and other factions getting really top-shelf HI in space shared by said problem specific units. Bakunin have actually been quietly bitching about the viability of Observance units for as long as I've been playing, and they're right to do so since said units are a huge drawcard for the faction visually and in fluff but perform poorly on the table. The only calls for direct nerfs from in-faction I've seen so far are for the Kriza Borac in mid-N3 (and that was very warranted; you needed a Dragao to outperform it in active against an MSV unit) and the Grenz Sniper, EVAders and Jazz at N4 release. Even the Gator mostly warranted confusion about its pricing and design space.
Mostly in the areas of firepower and resilience, easily giving them 4 points using The Dice Abide's scale. They still have their excellent specialists (as they should have), but instead of having to work around other factions' defences and use asymmetric warfare approach they can punch their way through and soak up damage just as well as factions who specialized in firepower and resilience in the first place. This gives them incredible versatility. I'd argue that PanO still has the edge in firepower, but only a very slim one now, while their specialists are two leagues below Nomad ones. Aleph is still more resilient, but its units are also far more expensive, including cheerleaders - save Netrods. Same can be said about CA. The list goes on. This makes Nomads similar to Achilles; they're very good at everything, and even when another faction gets close or even better in one aspect of the game, they can't match Nomad strengths in other aspects. To be fair, for some time now the game is focusing on raw firepower more and more. Armies are being oversaturated with units which combine MSV and Mimetism (in fact, I think I remember some people arguing that units without both aren't worth taking over those that have them), NWI+Shock Immunity on everything and its dog calls for more firepower (to be fair this is most likely CB reacting to feedback from people who were saying NWI units aren't worth it because of Shock ammo), while at the same time other tools and tactics are weakened, making that asymmetric gamepley less relevant. Grenade Launchers got nerfed, the amount of DTWs makes it harder to use CC units unless they're resilient enough to get into base contact (on a side note, I consider N4 shotgun change to be a mistake and I hope it gets modified in N5). So the core issue might be that the new additions make factions more and more similar, while the care and passion CB staff have for Nomads make us feel like they're getting ahead more than others. For me the symbol of it is that ARM 5 on Mobile Brigada. It has absolutely no business being there. Nomads aren't HI faction, they don't have the best heavy stuff. Their thing is versatility, which is nicely represented by MB having a good Tinbot and DTW here and there. Hell, if they got another specialist loadout or some wacky skill allowing it to play in some different way it would fit Nomads more. But they got this particular tweak, and from perspective of other factions you can only sigh.
To just trust the presented statistics without knowing the methodology is kind of silly. Bostria more or less said as much when presenting it. Plus I'd point out that vanilla Yu Jing is always ranked higher than any of its sectorials and typically ranks in the top 10 by the almost anyone who think they play the game enough to form an opinion on a large enough amount of factions. I'm not someone who think they can rank 38 factions, but with everyone being so consistent in ranking vanilla Yu Jing highly I'd be suspicious of hidden data putting them outside the top 10. I think we should all be curious about what it is this ranking shows and what numbers are behind it rather than try and make internet points out of it. I think you must've obviously missed the "nuanced" opinions on Sombras and Lobos if you say Nomads don't complain about poor performers, and whether you acknowledge it or not Nomads have been getting a bunch of adjustments on profiles and off-season new profiles while Yu Jing kind of has remained fairly constant. Maybe your wheel hasn't been as squeeky, but Nomads have been getting some quality water based lube all the same. Raveneye was good to WBA and ISS for sure and I also would like to thank PanO for carrying the burden of Chief Complainer during Durgama, that was a huge load off our collective back for sure. But your worst crime of all is not acknowledging my self-deprecating joke that I work so many seconds on. That's hurtful, man :'( Anyway, in about two months I'll get to enjoy Bixie-smacking people around. Look forward to that.
@Stiopa, Thank you for the clear explanation. I generally agree with you that all factions were made more shooty, and that ended up narrowing the firepower advantage that PanO had. I think that N4 was great for PanO tags, but people are not exploring that aspect as much as they should. PanO being the least favorite Vanilla Faction for competition tracks well. I do like the common ideas of them getting more auxbots. Hopefully the Data pushes CB to give Vanilla PanO some more playstyles. One thing about the popularity stats is I am surprised how much Dahshat has dropped in popularity. I know the N4 change was rough for it, but man I did not think it would be abandoned so hard... Edited to better clarify my thoughts
The worst part is that the MB is shit for the cost next to the Vostok, which does everything better. Hell, Vostok makes the Gecko obsolete. That said I don't think MB ARM 5 is causing a lot of problems. It could be far more interesting, but CJCs thing has forever been air droppable and direct action. They are the least hijinky of the Nomad factions in lore. Shock ammo needs to be removed from a ton of sources. It's far too common. If I were going to do something with CJC it would be to lean more on the MB as it is now, make one count as Alguacile/Jaguar and let it be the point man for a basic link. It doesn't have the visor or vis mods to break the game and would encourage their use outside of being a Tinbot caddy. It would also help to push back the Vostok as a thing. It would also mean you would give up bonuses if you want to slap Jazz in there. Of course a fucking Wildcat and EVADER box would go a long way in link team diversity as well...but why finish up anything. Only a year and a half later...
I've been breaking out the Squalo and Uhlan a lot with my NCA. They're greatly improved over N3, but everyone and their Dogface packing AP or E/M levels the playing field against such elite units a lot and PanO has absolutely rubbish support- our best Engineer is the Monstrucker in Vanilla for actually fixing the TAG, and good Hacking costs more than a TAG list can spare for the faction. The Squalo has to be used as a bit of a distraction and supported with a careful balance to get the best results, whereas the Uhlan has to look out for itself. Both are NCA Hard Mode compared to Bolts, Swiss Guards and Cheerleaders, albeit the Squalo can be quite a lot of fun when you aren't matched into Morans every second game (not even kidding there, local meta isn't particularly Nomad infested but I draw them in tournaments constantly). You get used to completing a truly baffling array of tasks with a Bolt CoC very quickly.
