I'm curious and I would like to know what you guys think. Let's imagine that the extra troops in some ITS missions, like SecDet or Corsair, are kept in the next season. What do you think would be better: A) They occupy space in the combat group and counts for the total limit of the army list, but you don't have to pay their cost to align them. B) You have to pay their cost to align them, but they don't occupy space in the combat group neither for the total limit. C) You have access to that profile, but it costs and occupy space in the group but not for the limit of the army list.
Sorry can't really understand the options, but to me, if feels like them costing army points and taking a slot from the 15 would not be great from a listbuilding for tournament angle, from a casual angle, I guess that would not be a problem to just have access to them or something.
If they cost points they would need to be available in all missions, otherwise the whole choose list depending on opponent and board breaks down.
Thanks for trying to communicate, especially for tournament stuff like ITS. IMO I wouldn't use them if I have to pay for their cost, but I think they should occupy space and troops limit for the Army.
I would go for: A-2: They occupy space in the combat group but don't counts for the total limit of the army list, and you don't have to pay their cost to align them.
I'm really against these free units. I personally dislike these missions. I'd rather have more such seasonal changes like bike buffs, remote buffs, MI buffs. But if this addition is staying, then I'd prefer free units be available only for few missions, and not providing orders at all.
@HellLois thank you for making this poll. Asking players for their views when designing content for the game they are paying you money to play, is so important. Personally, I am 100% in agreement with people adding their thought that adding 'extra' units in ITS is not only unnecessary, but horrible for competitive play. Please don't EVER do this.
A and B would both cause a lot of faction imbalance. If they only cost a spot from your 15 model limit, it's effectively free for factions like MO and SP. Vice versa if it only costs army points but doesn't affect your model limit factions that always fill up to 15 with cheap stuff will get a lot more benefit. I don't love C if inclusion is forced on the missions where they're included, it'd just make army building straight up less fun, but A and B both feel really bad to me.
Several points on these ITS extras I like the extra units, and within reason they don't cause balance issues. If you start giving everyone a free Avatar, yeah, there might be problems. But providing players with mission oriented specialists or simple low end units like CSUs, extra support REMs, Biker Bounty Hunters, or ARO Turrets is fine. They should not cost points. If they cost points, players won't use them because their inhouse options are generally superior and better supported. If you make them good enough to compete with in faction options, you will quickly start stagnating lists because either they will be stronger than in faction options, and thus always taken, or weaker than in faction options and never taken, it will simply vary faction to faction. They should not cost points. They should respect combat group limitations and count towards the 10 models allowed in the combat group. Allowing them to break combat groups limits the design spaces in missions you can explore with these extras. For example in more complex missions like Mindwipe you could try reintroducing the concept you once tried of an entire extra Haris team, and theme it around a specialist team of uberhackers. This could be used to help provide specialist profiles not normally available to factions such as Ariadna that would otherwise have balance problems involving the mission. This right here is waaay more likely to cause balance problems than adding extra units. Flat buffing REMs for example, just take a look at the current use of this with the bonuses to Sensor REMs. The value Pan-O gets from a Pathfinder gaining TacAw and Marksmanship pales in comparison to Haqq who get a Red Fury Rafiq, or Nomads who get a mimetic -6 Pi-well. Meanwhile Arianda literally doesn't get shit from this at all. Several seasons ago we buffed bikes. Yu Jing players looked around and said WHAT BIKES? We lost ours in Uprising.
I'm not a massive fan of the extra units but I think if you're going to take them, you should pay for them. The current system of them being free makes for very boring list building because you literally always take the most expensive profile and that's it. Very mindless. However, having them cost points will cause problems for submitting 2 lists per event though. Fwiw, I quite like the free bashi because its quite a skill based unit, but dislike the free CSU because a large amount of its efficacy is based on a random metachem roll.
I would go a different way Still cost free Still slot free Even giving the related order, fwiw But a single loadout, even if different from the standard ones. The "SedDet CSU" could have been with different skills (maybe Decoy, Triangulated Fire or Religious Troop?), equipment (why hot a HoloMask or a 360V?) or weapons (nice way to add something rarely used like a WildParrot, or a weird ammo'ed gun).
I would like to see three new Extras: ITS Free Units Tag Raid Units Limited Insertion That way you gonna see, how often these units get playtime on tournaments. Limited Insertion is missed alot :(
Need an option - leave it as it is BUT since the unit is free for the player, it is better to make other profiles - different but with one cost (for balance), then there will really be a choice of a more suitable profile. With motorcycles, I rarely saw anything other than a redfury profile.
A) doesn't work if you have 3 missions and one with the extra and the extra take a slot that mean you will be nerf to 9 slot for the other missions My take is extra units in ITS serve no use, we don't use them in our meta, even in big tournament ITS is already complex as it is we really don't need another layer of stuff
The free units tend to have one profile that's clearly better than the others. I'm not sure I'm a great fan of them. Usually normal list building tends to offer a lot of variety on its own. I do think that having them be an 11th member that's still generating orders is... well, only kept in line as long as the unit itself is not exciting. On the other hand the turrets, that some missions have, have been quite welcome and I wouldn't mind seeing some variety here. Lower burst at longer range or a dedicated discover "turret" (or two) to make pushing a variety of tactics more challenging.
D) Don't do it. Free ITS troops have not improved the game in any way. They add complexity without adding interest, which is directly counter to the N4 design philosophy. At least in ITS13, you had the excuse that you were testing out new bike rules, and giving everyone a bike let everyone test the new rules. In ITS14, you don't even have that. All these wacky ITS editions are not helping the game. Turrets, weird player-placed terrain zones (why do I decide where a blizzard is blowing?), Random failures on destroying consoles, Xenotechs - it's all just ill-conceived. Missions don't need to be complicated. Focus on improving basic mission design.
I am honestly not a fan of the ITS free units. Take the shasvatii sector : last season they suddenly got access to motorbikes and this season they don't have them anymore. Instead they now have parachutist and holomask/ echo, which they will unlearn in the next season. This disturbs the sector identity. I don't want to have to play the free troopers without having a disadvantage in the season. It is also annoying that every ITS free trooper discusses their special rules for weeks on end. I would also like to discuss whether all trooper profiles really have to be free, or whether one is enough.
