Nomad improvement thread

That's a good start. But I think we need to make it a bigger deal - at the beginning of the game all hackers opposite a Nomad player should immediately be rendered unconscious, and all their TAGs possessed - that's the only way to represent the triumph of Nomad ingenuity and cleverness over the rest of the Human Sphere, who rely too much on their technology with no understanding, in the form of superior Nomad infowar capabilities hitting their overconfident enemies at the start of the battle.

 

I have quite a few issues with Nomads. If we could solve these, I might finally start buying an army:

* inability to punish heavy infantry units charging at us through the midfield
* poor access to smoke
* nothing good at CC
* units generally overcosted
* access to any cost-effective TAGs at all

Btw it would be nice if we could have some units with peripherals that helped soak damage and generally screen our more fragile stuff.

 

It sure is nice to find one thread on these forums where people aren't complaining about the rules for miniatures I've spent a considerable about of my time and money to collect and paint being too good, when I have at best a mediocre win:loss ratio with them.

Nothing quite makes a player want to quit a game so much as everybody telling them its not you it's your list every time you beat them.

I would love to see internal balance worked on enough that I actually wanted to put a Reverend Moira/Wildcat/Iguana into a list though.

 

Unless there's some good explanation of what the data actually shows and how it was actually calculated I'm just gonna pretend it doesn't exist and that I didn't see it lol.

 

there is not enough specialists. 4-5 more specialists in hidden form, with mad traps and repeaters around can help

 

Is it just me or does it starts to sound a bit like some conspiracy theory?

"CB knows nomads are broken (even if nothing in the tournament results or casual play says so but shhhh) so they purposedly produced or wrongly interpreted data showing they're not and show them to us. Mouahaha, it was a perfect plan but I see right through them!!! Nomads are broken!"

:P

 

No, it's just there's no data, no info on where the data comes from or what the terms they use actually mean.
As it is, you can't really derive any conclusions from it as there's no context, sample size or clarity on what the terms actually are. It's just a fancy graphic with some faction names on it lol.

 

I was half-kidding, I agree with you it would be much more informative if we had the methodology behind this ranking :)

EDIT : Maybe they will. I hope so.

 

I agree with most of your points. That being said, I'd like to elaborate:
* punishing HI: If "punishing" is "counter them" I think jammers / marat / our elite hackers can block heavy infantry. If you mean "deal them wounds reliably / engage them" then I totally agree.
* poor access to smoke / nothing good at cc: Each faction has to keep some weaknesses. We have smokes the same way we have CC : it exists but it's not meant to dominate. I think that in the current state of the game, Nomads having to trade-off with comfort to get smokes or cc is good game design.
* units overcosted: I agree, most of the stuff feels elite. With careful profiles creations, CB could really bring low-cost utility in the faction.
* access to cost-effective TAGs : Geckos are low-priced for TAGs around 50-60 points. I think Szalamandra, Iguana, Gator and Lizard are not bad TAGs; they are certainly far less potent than CA/PanO/Aleph ones, but in the context of Nomads they can perform well as army lists (protected by hacknet, repaired easily, lots of specialists in midfield..etc).
* peripherals that soak damage: it really looks like what the puppetica can already do with x3 2W peripherals wielding shotguns.

On a wider note, I think that many game-design issues of the game come from the following points:
* CA/Aleph "top tiers" optimization : many elite profiles; either by loadout, cost-efficiency or being cheap orders. I regret that factions are not more differentiated the way Starmada, Tohaa and Shasvaasti are specialized : with strong theme and / or unique weapons. In a game where having all tools in an efficient way is crucial, having factions centered around "we are everything elite but also have netrods/imetrons to cut costs" makes higher expectations in other factions.
* Sheer mass : Infinity is getting old. With that many profiles, isn't it good time to cut profiles and do less but better loadouts for units ? I think that "Zuyong/WuMing/ShangJi", "Streloks/Scouts" could be merged in some way. As a side effect, each new troop has to be "meanier" to be attractive: more special rules, extreme characteristics...etc. We could do less with more purpose.
* Local vs Global : international plays are 300pts ITS games with it's own meta. But many profiles in the game (Yan Huos, Grenzers, Ratniks) really have a purpose on 350/400 pts games; same can be said about light-priced units on 150-200pts games. As long as international meta isn't defined in a wider spectrum, the competition between factions will be even harder because restrained to a smaller window. Note that in a local meta, more flexibility = more interesting games and probability to see corner-cases profiles.

Coming back to Nomads, I'd like to see:
* Bakunin getting some love, emphasize over Metachemestry units and the punk things (Riot grrls are so cool)
* Getting more hack stuff to dominate infowar in different ways (AP Carbonite/Oblivion loadout to target HI ?)
* Step back from the Gator swiss-army-knife who's potent in CC, shoot and area denial (mines). Making something good by aggregating all aspects of the game kills the variety. Let's make more one-way-use units that we will include every time we want to adopt a specific strategy.


*shooo* feels better man

 

Nomad units that are bad to the point of being kinda unusable

Lobos
Iguanas
Healers

Nomad units that are okay I guess but massively overshadowed and rarely if ever taken

Moiras
Custodiers
Sin-Eaters
Wildcats I guess
Grenzers to an extent
Tsyklons
Lunokhods

I think TJC and BJC could do with a spruce up, largely centred around the above units. I think it Iis notable that these are almost all expensive 1 W troops and that this is not a faction specific issue but more a game wide one; most factions see this issue

 

Did someone just say my Grenzer Marksmanship MSV1 MSR is massively overshadowed and rarely ever taken? By whom, if I may ask? Even within the new fireteam meta it's still one of the most powerful AROs out there and an almost auto-include in most of my TJC lists. The NCO Sensor Grenzer is also a really useful piece in TJC. Or were you just talking about Vanilla?

Agree with the Bakunin units and bots though. Would add the Meteor. Even with the slight buff it's still outperformed by other units.

 

You'll note I said "to an extent"

The Grenzer MSR is often taken. I think the Grenzer NCO is occasionally taken. I don't think anyone is ever taking any of the other ones ever

 

I'd say the first step for CB is to go back to the design documents they developed during the N4 beta test, especially the ones made after they had established the base line faction and started implementing some of the more experimental ideas. Nomads were finished first among the factions and always served as the base line faction, we even have the first model of infinity the alguacil. Once they find the notes they made, revisit the nomads and implement those notes. I.e. the "main line battle TAG" or MBT being able to form duos in sectorials that it appears in (S7, armor 8, multi hmg, ecm hacker -3, etc). Thankfully that does seem to be an idea they are favoring as the Gator can now do so in corregidor, though they need to take it further by revisiting the sectorials, vanilla, and the older units. To borrow from my previous example, squalos, guija, raicho, and maghariba can all form duos in vanilla, often with something that can carry a tin bot (knight of Santiago, zuyong, suryat) or a killer hacking device (knight of Santiago, druze, etc) but neither the gator or the Lizard are able to do so. Also the chernobog can not for similar reasons, i.e. it is new and we aren't revisiting the vanilla faction.

Ironically this is a problem I find with CB overall. They make good decisions moving forward and fixing most issues once they are identified for the new units, but if you are an old unit or sectorial with a problem then you are out of luck. Corregidor was new so MBT in a duo, Vanilla is old and so no need to update even if it would make logical sense and was a clear intention for N4.

So to sum up... revisit the nomads, revisit the baseline faction and bring it in line with the experimental ideas that were developed during play testing or since play testing (i.e. not just nomads but they have been playing with the idea that NCO does not increase TAG swc (gator and bultrak) so try doing that for Zetas in O-12). Maybe some sort of annual review of units to bring them in line.

 

Oh right, and in case I missed it. Give nomad TAGs courage.

 

I don't know what it is with this forum and people choosing weird hills to die on, but you must be aware that you are achieving the opposite effect of what you're hoping for by being this pesky, right? Or do you really think you will get what you want by repeating the same tired litany over and over?

 

Funnily enough I found Sin Eaters nearly hard-counter Tohaa if you keep them alive for later turns, their HMGs will blend Makauls trying to make fast Eclipse runs and the Mimetism can hold them together against anything in-faction save the primary gunners you probably already killed. Pretty bad elsewhere though, they are not cheap and probably need to either get upgraded to Total Reaction or made linkable in BJC to find use. Custodiers are great on their own merits but held back by their cost compared to pure Hackers. I'd like to see that Combi Rifle or Shotgun upgraded to a Spitfire personally, make them a Hacker properly equipped for frontline combat.

The 1W thing is a bit of a side-effect of the massive proliferation of Shock Immune 1.5W Unhackable units in basically all factions, and DTWs appearing on almost half of all profiles in the game. It's another field best improved by CB showing a bit more restraint.

 

Yeah, a lot of Bakunin's key stuff still feels very n2.
I used Moira's a lot back then and they were amazing but they've never really changed to keep them competitive as the game has changed around them, they feel like a real relic of a bygone era.
Everything is just so expensive for 1w and so vulnerable to templates and cc that riot grrrls just make far more sense. It's a really poor internal balance issue