That's an inaccurate way of looking at the world. The halls of corporate power are full of people who compromised their ability to accrue money or power in order to feed their own ego. Private industry is not some Shangri-La of efficiency.
Huh, you'd think if that were the case it'd be in the forum rules. It's not, and it's not a widespread convention.
In my experience, basic manners are widespread in this regard and I wonder about your experiences. Well, I have to remember not to send you private messages if I want them to be private… But I will stop now with this offtopic.
Yeah, well, basic manners would imply not calling someone hostile for simply disagreeing with you, but there you go...
In terms of game balance the universal issues as I see them are; 1) Expensive 1 W troops are generally hard to justify in a world of DTWs, which are extremely prevalent. 2) It is arguably a little too easy to guided missile, perhaps a return of the U-Turn hacking program would be appropriate? But generally these things are a result of edition shifts. HI used to suck and it was all about skirmishers, and guided missiles were pretty poor in N3. In N4 those things have changed. I am not 100% sure how I'd resolve no.1 tbh. I'm terms of factions, I'd say YJ are a little weak in places and that generally most Sectorals and factions are fine, especially post Avatar nerf. I am not sure if I'd really say any of the factions or Sectorals are particularly OP although I think almost every vanilla is stronger than their sectorals. Some struggle into others (I'd say CJC struggles vs Kosmoflot for example, but then Kosmoflot probably struggles vs Hassassins), but I'd say that largely you could overcome that with good play. And if you go first almost any faction and Sectoral can slap anyone else around.
In terms of factions that I play regularly these are my current views. Nomads - Vanilla, v solid, few weaknesses, notably vulnerable LTs/squishy backline. Strongest Sectorals probably BJC but in a narrow sense (Observancy not great, but Riots and Mods, Uberfallkommando and Vostok all excellent), then CJC (couple of bum units, some great efficient ones, great area control), then TJC, which could do with a spruce up. Haqqislam - Vanilla, v solid, few weaknesses at all imo. Strongest Sectorals definitely Hassassins, then RTF which has a couple of not great to bad units but otherwise great ones, QK which definitely needs a rework although isn't so much weak as like five years out of date, also quite a few poor units. O-12 - Vanilla is strong, Starmada is okay, has narrow capability but some specific weaknesses. Honestly could do with a lot of expansion tbh
The strongest vanilla CA lists did not use the Avatar. If they were busted before, they're still busted now.
It's almost like you take pride in swimming against the current. Avatar can be super strong and CA can have strong non-avatar lists. Those two statements don't have to be mutually exclusive.
I don't think that Avatar is/was that problematic compared to other TAGs. Sure, Avatar is the strongest attack piece there is but nearly every TAG in the game can pull a similar attack run as the Avatar. The reasons why TAGs are very good at moment is the following: 1) Immunity to single bad roll: It's extremely unlikely that they die to unluckly f2f rolls against undercosted long range template weapons like HRL. Heavy infantry is vulnerable to bad rolls, TAGs aren't. There is a similar dynamic with hackers. Multiwound high BTS trinity hackers (Anathematic) behind a (pitcher) firewall and nearby engineer are immune to single bad roll. Good players avoid risks if possible. 2) People git gud: The pandemic made people sit at home and play TTS, which made them very good at Infinity. As an old Warmahordes player, I can say that Infinity is very competive game at the moment. Perhaps not as competive as in haydays of MK3, but very close. This isn't a beginner friendly meta. 3) The weaponization of LoF: The way how play-by-intent, no time limit, large base vaulting and anytime pre-commit LoF checking works in most metas, TAGs are very good at exploing any mistakes in enemy deployment and map setup. Basically map makers have to double check that map is playable against TAGs or it will be very likely a one sided fight.
I'm not saying the Avatar isn't good, let's say for the sake of argument that it's the second-strongest build in CA. Nerfing it won't actually restrain CA, because they'll just run their most powerful build, and all you've done is remove options.
If they are indeed overpowered, that would be the more reasonable take than kneejerk nerfing the Avatar.