CB and their development cycle

Please, be specific.

 

One could also argue that most Infinity players don't do tournaments, are not on the forums and just play home with one or a few friends. Thus , they couldn't care less about the meta.
Balancing units based on some so-called meta would in the end be detimental to most Infinity players.

 

And even if that is true it shouldn't matter because only official way to play Infinity is called ITS, with T meaning TOURNAMENT. So only official way to play Infinity is competitive and game should be balanced for competitive. Casual players wouldn't care either way IMO, that is why they are called casual so I don't see a valid point in your argument.

 

That's nonsense. ITS is just one way of playing, casual gaming is another one. Easy on navel gazing. Also, CB never said anything close to what you describe and I'm pretty sure they don't share your limited view of what Infinity is. The fact that there is an organized tournament system doesn't mean that the entire game should be balanced considering only this minority of players.

I don't do tournaments, I consider myself mostly a casual player and yet I don't want the entire game to be balanced according to some local meta I don't care about. Most Infinity players don't want that either. It won't happen anyway (because, in addition of not making any sense, there is no such thing as a global meta you can use to universally balance the game and thus it is an impossible task), so you should just move along.

 

However, “tournament” does not have a standard level of competitiveness. Is it a hyper-intense Satellite? Is it a get together for someone’s birthday? Is it a narrative event? Is it themed? Additionally, the use of special/thematic rules/add one for ITS shows a way to balance for that scene. And, as a last thought, CB sells one-off codes where you can record individual matches as well. So stating the whole system has to be balanced around ‘top end’ and ‘competitive’ play seems to miss the mark.

 

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I fixed it for you. You're welcome.
And one can play using the ITS rules in a perfectly casual, non competitive, fashion. Which is actually what most people do.

 

If you're not competing with your opponent in your "casual" game, what are you doing? Do you not try to score objectives or stop your opponent from scoring them? Do you declare "hug" instead of "CC Attack"? Do your games all end in 0-0 ties because you were telling stories instead of scoring points?

 

It's still competitive if the goal is to win. Competition is not just tournaments. You might not be super hardcore about it and make some concessions here and there to have a pleasant experience, but ultimately you are playing a game that can be won or lost.

 

And we are all poorer for it.

 

So, according to you, playing a child boardgame where there is a winner and a loser with your 5 years old kid is competitive play.

 

Of course it is, but you as a parent are likely making a lot of concessions at that point. When that child is old enough to grasp the game fully, however, you won't let them win anymore.

 

Of course it is. Do you think your child isn't competing? If so, you've definitely never had a 5-year-old.

 

Do you really want to die on that hill, comparing some hardcore Satellite Infinity tournament to a boardgame with a kid?
Come on, you both perfectly know what everyone mean by "Infinity competitive play". And sorry if I am the first one to tell you that news, but most Infinity players just don't play the game that way. Hence, even if it was possible (and it's not, I guess we all agree on that), it makes absolutely no sense to balance the entire game based on that very minority of players.

 

Nobody has to die here, we will remain civil :)

The issue, I believe, lies in the understanding of the term "competitive". As soon as a game (or a framework for games) has a win condition that results in a winner and a loser, that game is competitive. It doesn't matter if you play it at home with your child or in a tournament setting. The only difference is that people at the tournament will take it a lot more seriously. Have you never played UNO or Ludo as a child? Did you not want to beat your parents at the game?

Now, Infinity is exclusively competitive in concept. There is no other official way of playing the game that does not develop towards a win/loss scenario. Do you always have to be super serious about it? Of course not, I play with lax rules more often than not and make a lot of concessions for the sheer spectacle or for my buddy who is still fairly new at the game, which sometimes means that I lose as a result. Us playing the game in a more casual setting however doesn't mean it's not inherently competitive. Without that framework of missions and points and determining a win condition, there would be no game period.

 

Are you for real? You made the comparison, man. A comparison you now seem to think is inapt, based on clearly never having met any 5-year-olds.

Trust me, my 5-year-old cares way more about winning games than I care about winning an Infinity satellite.

If you think kids aren't competitive, I don't know what to tell you.

 

Much like “tournament” doesn’t have a universal sense, neither does “competitive”. And if our definition of “competitive” doesn’t mesh with CB’s, theirs is most likely to win out.

 

The set rules matter most where competition has stakes, to prevent any unfair favouritism in arbitration or uneven knowledge robbing a deserving player, and therefore ITS scenarios should be the primary target of balancing measures. Casual play shouldn't be left behind altogether as noob-stomping is a bad way to retain customers, but Infinity's support for lower-stakes or narrative games is basically nonexistent at this point (basically only Dire Foes and I've never heard of anyone actually playing the missions) so prioritising non-tournament play would be baffling, to say the least.

 

;)

I don't really think there is any issue with the term "competitive" here. In the context of that discussion, it refers to that minoritary amount of Infinity players doing more or less hardcore tournaments, where there is an actual meta, where optimization is key and where there is not really room for suboptimal units. And some of you would like the whole Infinity to be balanced according to that very specific and minoritary way of playing that game. It just makes no sense. Most people are playing Infinity in a much more casual (let's call it "way less competitive", if you really wants Infinity to be exclusively competitive, so that we can move on) way, and for them, such a very focused and "meta-based" balancing would be detrimental.
And again, in any case, there is no such thing as a global/universal/stable in time meta, which makes this kind of balancing impossible anyway.

I didn't. It's called reductio ad absurdum. You might want to check what it is because you missed the point. I also never said kids weren't willing to win, you might want to read a bit more carefully as well next time.
Let me know when you figure out :)

You're wrong and that's ok. There is a non-competitive mode for Infinity. Just stop contemplating your navel for a second and you might realize it.

Oh, and I'm some kind of home kitchen table ultra casual gamer (kinda) and I do care. You're wrong again.

"The large group". That's hilarious buddy, you're just so disconnected from reality... The forums really are a funny place. They give to a handful of largely minoritary people like you the illusion you're some kind of majority CB should care about and focused not. Grab a seat because this will hurt your feelings: you're wrong about that as well :)
People doing very competitive gaming only represent a fraction of Infinity players. Don't be fooled by the fact this fraction is over represented on the forums.