An Essay on Some Potential Over Performance Conditions of Spotlight into Guided Attacks

My meta used sniffers in N3. I used them on the Chaiyi as well as the Kanren.

I mean I said it was gonna be like that at the start of the edition. The current hacking dynamics are messed up and it encourages people to go sit stuff under camo markers and pretend it's N3 where hacking can be ignored again.

 

Just wanted to point out that 400 points is a absolutely valid, and supported by rules design, enviroment. The lack of limited insertion rules protecting your army from the strategic token usage make everyone who plays at 300 points having to stretch themselves thin in their search of including the full15 trooper roster. I myself theorize that if the limited insertion rule would have been kept as an standard rule for everyone, we would see more 10 trooper lists at 300 points with a balanced 50%/50% of armies being 10 troopers or 15 troopers. And only at 400 points would see the full 100% of armies reaching 15 trooper lists. With of course the game at 200 points being a 100% of armies having only 10 troopers lists. Forming a nice bell curve. But alas, without the limited insertion rules, everyone is deploying 13 to 15 troopers lists at 300, with the ideal being 15 troopers.

But going back to the topic. It is jammers all over again from what I have been told of the N3 era. Jammers were an absolute risk free, if out of LoS, way to stop cold the enemy plan. The solution with N4 was to make them disposable (2), and becoming tech weapons so no one could benefit from the fireteam bonuses of B and +3 to BS. And now jammers are a nice tool to have, but not the 'how many linked jammers can you bring to the table?' question of the past. If there is no problem with hacking through own ZoC, nor through repeater that is carried by a trooper, and only somewhat problem with a deployable repeater, but the actual oppressive issue is the B2 and bonuses for the roll from a fire team that pitchers are receiving... turning them into technical weapons would cause the same effect that jammers caused back then.

 

Jammers were actually fine and weren't the issue. They proliferated to Hecklers and Zulu Cobras and they were absolutely reasonable to deal with.

The problem always was the Ghazi. With the Jammers, Chain Rifles, and E/Marats all on the one profile they created a horrific warband that there was no actual way to reasonably engage and remove without having access to your own disposable warband to try and trade with them (and even then that didn't do the job half the time because they were dogged).

 

It wasn't quite limited to Fireteams since only the Tian Gou could link. The primary offender was Muttawiah who had its profile broken up into three profiles.
I'm personally hoping that Jammers will get infinite ammo again as they are in a unique position to be able to address the worst Alpha strikers and Repeater spams. Besides, for the load outs that can bring Jammers; this is the primary reason to bring them, so it's not a dime-a-dozen ability and can thus deserve to be quite good for its points.

P.s. shooting deployed repeaters through walls with jammers reminds me; deactivators tend to be bad at their designated job due to being on the wrong side of the wall. Maybe... let's try out No LOF on Deactivators during Season 15?

 

That was the intent of their design, I'm fairly certain.

 

Maybe, but just because CB designs something with specific intent doesn't make it good design.

 

Oh, I know, I was pointing out that it was particularly bad-*intentioned* design. Like camo Morans, which we almost got.

 

@Grotnib amazingly well put together, you've summed up everything very precisely.

GML was introduced to our meta on the 3rd week after the release on N4 and is still used. It's very powerful roster archetype that forces opponents to significantly adjust their rosters, and has very non-interactive gameplay with minimal risk for the GML user. While our top players got used to it, yet sometimes still feeling salty, but universally agree that repeater/pitcher+spotlight+guided needs some adjustments, these type of rosters create a very negative experience for average and below average players.

I really hope that this issue will be addressed somehow by the "reinforcements" update in August.

 

I'm down for that.

 

Wouldn't that impact mines a bit harshly too? I don't think they're a problem...

 

Only if the are not under camo. If they are under Camo, they still need to be discovered.

 

Call me crazy but removing the +6 to hit from guided attacks, and just allowing the attacker to make an attack against the targeted model on flat BS, regardless of LOF seems powerful enough for guided attacks. Lowering the chance to hit to a 60% per "safe" shot, rather than 90% and closing the defensive probability gap will make it feel a lot better when you're on the receiving end, but does still keep the attack powerful enough that it is worth it against HARD pieces (like suppression fire Avatars, etc)

Then remove ECM(guided) or reduce it's effectiveness. As it is, it is so niche, and functionally accomplishes the same thing as I mentioned above (but only for expensive models like tags).

 

That's the way forward if you want to soft-remove Guided from the game and dodge most of negative customer feedback. It's still there and still effective when you hit, but people will progressively realize that 40% to 50% chance to hit using a unit that does very little else with a rather elaborate set up is just not worth paying the SWC for.
That's not crazy so much as cowardly; however, that's only if it remains exclusive to the missile REMs - making the trait universal to all Missile Launchers might work if it effectively becomes "Triangulated Fire" *

* Though Triangulated Fire has a -3 MOD which is why you so rarely see it ever since it was no longer a way of safely shooting stuff in melee - this is enough to be just shy of not worth it on a long skill other than edge cases

 

Agree some things could be done to make spotlight into guided feel less bad.

I think guided as one dice on base would be pretty rough... dropping to +3 wouldn't be too bad. still a 25% chance to fail on one dice and its against a face to face that is close to matching the higher physical units.

Make repeaters "activate" when hackers attack through them Opponent can try for a shot on the repeater. Still risky as it would make for a normal roll for the hacker. This would also seem a little more intuitive, as I'm frequently asked by opponents if they can react to the repeater itself.

Make dodging the template a normal roll Keep the main target rolling face to face but the things caught in the blast act as being under a direct template if the roll is successful. I think this would fix a lot of the bad feels with impact templates of all kinds. getting units nipped by guided or a hidden deploy ML or any well deployed ML in ARO feels quite bad. Its something I've learned to deploy with in mind but it took a while for me to get used to it. When I started playing my small group assumed the splash worked like a direct template, and a lot of newer players seem to think that intuitively.

Make ECM guided a bubble Have units in zone of control of the unit with ECM affected by the bubble. Thematically I enjoy the idea of troopers being covered by the tag or tractor mules launching flares that intercept the missile.

Have controlled jump effect guided attacks or make a program like it that effects guided If guided is brought down to +3, give players the option to pay to go to +6. and able to impose a -3 on enemy guided attacks in ARO.

 

I acknowledge that eliminating the +6 to hit drastically nerfs the utility of Guided missile fire. But I think that's the point. It still offers a relatively SAFE option for dealing with HARD targets, but because the effectiveness is reduced in general the desirability of using your first turn to dump all your orders into nuking key models with Guided fire becomes a significantly less viable tactic.

The point isn't to eliminate the tactic completely, but to manage the negative feelings that can arise. Keeping Spotlight the way it is in N4 is a good change, but coupled with how powerful Guided can be, I think its just a case where all throughout N4 we've seen it's just grown from being edge case (never really seen), to something that has constantly been debated as being overpowered for the last several years.

Nobody is complaining that about Daturazai or Domaru tossing speculative fire grenades on 11's - and an EM grenade is arguably just as effective at nuking a hard target (at least isolating one) as a missile. Sure that player has to spend orders to move into position, but spending 2-3 orders to move into position is no different than spending an order tossing a picture, and 1-2 orders F2F with spotlight before the missile barrage starts... So what is the difference?

 

The difference is that a Domaru or Daturazi isn't going to cross the table safe and unharassed in 2-3 orders and that them failing to cross the table will typically mean that the trooper and its tactical value is lost for the rest of the game.

Just nerf pitchers. You're not going to get safe, order efficient, and largely uncounterable Guided without them. You're also not going to get safe, order efficient, and largely uncounterable area denial against hackable units without them, either, and it's not like nerfing Guided is going to address that aspect.

 

That would still leave fast pandas and infiltrating depreps.

 

That would nerf the worst offender but it's not a proper fix. I've still seen TAGs get repeatedly alpha'd off the table by a suicide Hunzakut spending 2 orders to get a repeater down on them at 300 points.

Again to go back to what I said before focusing on guided missiles as the problem is short sighted. 300 points has an alpha strike problem, guided missiles whether delivered via pitcher or whatever means are just a single aspect of this.

The real fix is to address the alpha strike issue the game has.

 

All other alpha strikes are manageable except GML. In fact the mere existence of GML stealth-buffs rambos like bearpodes against Armands of the world, because why take MSV-Armand if it can be easily killed by GML?

My solution is to nerf the end of the killchain (added benefit of making other hacking attacks more relevant) by making all Guided missile attacks dmg14 circular without any other weapon special rules such as AP or EXP.

 

Guided is also manageable if you deal with it at list construction, just like the other types of alpha strikes.

This doesn't mean they're healthy for the game, as already noted in this thread by Mahtamori:

Alpha strikes, whatever their form, warp what is required in lists to a significant degree. They have an adverse effect on game play and heavily stagnate both strategy and list building in Infinity.

Would nerfing guided weapons be beneficial for the game? Sure, yes. However it would not deal with the root issue of the problem which would be a better solution. If you fix the alpha strike issue then you don't need to worry about nerfing guided fire. I've been saying this repeatedly, but locally by moving the game to 400 points it solved the issue with guided weapons without needing to touch them or the mechanics behind them. Guided weapons went from being spammed as preferred alpha strikes to being instead used to punch up at strategic moments.