I think crits are not an interesting or especially fun mechanic in most interactions in Infinity. They further the dominance of high wound count, high burst units, and they can often have the effect of punishing otherwise good plays. The prospect of being crit really hurts 1W elite troopers, already suffering under the weight of a very direct template rich metagame. Take units like the Nisse and Intruder - squishy 1Wers that are reliant on fantastic active turn F2Fs to take fights and not die - but even versus the humble combi of a Fusi, they have a 5% chance of having to make two saves. Knauf getting crit has a high chance of going down - where for your Azra'il or Asawira, it's annoying, but far less likely to create a critical failure. While removing crits wouldn't make bad 1Wers like Shujae and Makhe viable, it would make the the overall environment less hostile to them. Crits means high burst units are king. Not accounting for your opponent also criting it means any HMG or other burst 4 gun has a 19% chance to win an F2F and it means a HRMC has a 23% chance to win an F2F. High burst guns already have significant advantages over lower burst guns like MULTI Snipers when it comes to just winning F2Fs just by virtue of throwing more dice - they also don't need this. High burst and crits can also have the effect of making differences in BS between units rather moot. Compare, for example, the PanO Dragoe, and the Combined Army Bultrak. On paper, the tradeoff between the two units is obvious. In return for losing 2 points of BS and the DTW of the Dragoe, the Bultrak gains Super-Jump, NCO and Veteran. The Dragoe is a better shooter, the Bultrak is more mobile, resilient to hacking and gets an NCO order. But when you stop and look at the odds, you realize the Dragoe is only 8% more likely than a Bultrak to win an active turn F2F against a standard MBT (in this case, a Squalo). Perhaps the worst thing about crits is how they can punish otherwise good plays, or reward plays that feel wrong. I think almost every infinity player can speak to an experience where their key active turn piece got crit by a random warband or line trooper and instantly died. I've thrown my Asawira at powerful AROs like HD Atalanta even in bad rangebands, and won just through the combination of burst and crits, relying on the inherent tankiness of the Asawira to avoid a critical failure. Neither player feels good when either of these scenarios play out. I get that variance is a necessity for wargames, but the key skill in most wargames is managing that variance. The F2F and armor save systems in Infinity offer manageable variance already. Crits are an extra layer of potent variance that are nigh impossible to mitigate. Removing crits wouldn't solve every issue with the game, but I think it would be a step the right direction - toning down the dominance of high burst high wound count troopers, toning down the dominance of the active turn, and creating less moments that make both players go 'yeah that's bullshit.' The one place where you could argue for them perhaps is in the case for success values over 20. CC can already be extremely swingy just by it's common nature as burst 1 versus burst 1, so crits in that context help to lessen variance.
I like how 5% risk is too much for a tabletop game. I mean it is, but it's kinda funny when you think about it.
The base systems of the F2F roll provide plenty of risk and unexpected outcomes on their own - but in a manner that allows for more interaction in how you manage your odds. It's not especially interesting for either player to say, spend a lot of orders setting up an attack run with a close assault unit like a Monk, only for it to immediately not work because the line infantry you tried to take out crit you. This can also happen without crits admittedly, but less often. Infinity imo has too much variance as it is right now.
I hated crits when it meant 1 automatic HP lost. Now that it just forces one additional save, it's just fine to me. And yeah, high burst weapons and multi-wounds profiles are powerful but that's the point, right?
Crits mean there is always a chance. Does it sting to see a plan fall apart? Yes. Is it worse to face situations where you really have zero chance? The idea of rolls where the result is literally a foregone conclusion is worse than facing uncertainty. It would eviscerate the game.
I'd argue if you are in a situation where you are dependent on crits to have a chance in the game as a whole, you've probably been outplayed in some capacity. It's not especially interesting or rewarding for either play to have someone thoroughly outplay the other and then lose because of a crit.
Ohhh, sweet child of summer... You were here when the crit was autowound instead of extra armor roll? It's a part of the game
I like how crits (and boardgames in general) reveal what kind of person your opponent is. Can he contain himself or does he revert to childish behavior? Crits have the added benefit of causing the most toxic tryhards to leave the community.
Crits in N3 were just too powerful. Crits in N4 are a good addition. Yes you can go crit-fishing with B6 (this was not a good idea and just seem, that someone forgot about this interaction and they were too lazy to fix it) but its more important when it happend in single dice or ARO and in CC its good combo that make the amount of orders worthy, that it can take to actualy bring you CC expert to work (yes there are too much cheap NBW profiles out there, but this is another topic). In N4 crits can be soaked up by high armour units but also help to bring them down. Fun facts: My Jujak ML see his first tabletime after beeing painted vs a bunch of Nuns equipped with optical distrupters and so it comes, that he rolled a 10 (crit) and obliberated the attacking MSR. Some weeks later, he saw his second time on the tabletop (that is a bit more than I expect from this unit) and was the target of four shots of MK12, while at a lone dice on a 10 to defend himself ... yeah you got it! But this time the target shrouged of the majority of the impact, because it has a high arm (and lucky rolls of course). So yeah - I kinda like them.
The crits have been in the game since N0, when Infinity was just a campaign setting in which some of CB's founders played their role-playing games, many years before they even considered founding a company. I'm afraid it's such a characteristic element of the game and something so of its origin, that it won't be removed... ever.
I'd argue if this was your only path to victory and a 5% made it fail... But seriously, I understand your methodology and why it's frustrating. "Good play" should be rewarded with a win, that's how chess works. Infinity has it's roots in RPG and cinematic movies. Sometimes the elite commando unit is discovered by a guy taking a piss, or the hero gets their gun back and shoots the overwhelming Achille... bad guy. There is a narrative element that doesn't seem to get any attention anymore from what I can tell..
And that narrative element, that core of the game, will never go away. It’s part of the reason for AROs (“it’s silly to have your opponent just stand there slack jawed and get sho5 ‘cause it’s your turn”) and Order Pools (“the hero stands tall and saves the day/the humble trooper makes the Hail Mary play to save the day”) as well.
Without critical hits the game system will revert to higher stats and B always win, removing (almost) all danger from any engagement.
I mean... It already is? The entire point of playing well, at least as the active turn player, is setting up circumstances to ensure that your engagements are as heavily weighted in your favour as (reasonably) possible. If you're not already doing that, you may as well be playing yahtzee. If anything, the odds of critting always favour the trooper with higher burst anyway. You're still rolling dice, you can still flub the most heavily weighted rolls. Believe, me, I'd know. Ultimately, I dislike crits (outside of CC, which needs them). Winning or losing off them often feels hollow. That said, they're so low on the totem pole of issues at this point that I'm not going to get bent out of shape one way or another on them.
They are a fundamental gameplay element, changing from N3 auto wound to N4 extra hit has suddenly made AP ammo important.
It illustrates how integral and crucial part of the system the critical roll is, the balance shift removing critical would change the system would be so drastically one might as well play another game altogether.
