Interfaction balance can only be discussed in the context of other factions. Pointing out that Nomads have too much good stuff compared to PanO is entirely relevant. Pointing out that Nomads have a massive unearned advantage vs. PanO is also relevant. Pointing out that it makes no sense for the technologically advanced hyperpower to be bad at... technology is also relevant.
At a certain point, people who make nonsensical gameplay arguments need to understand that their own viewpoints are baseless.
I'd even add to this that Nomads is probably PanO's worst matchup, and is the one that shows the glaring weaknesses of the roster better than any other- nobody cuts options better than Nomads, and with our poor stealth and mobility tools on scoring models we get a better game into even CA. Good Nomads lists, especially the common archetype featuring a midfield Repeater network, Pitchers and a top-shelf Hacker, really need to be part of the discussion when talking about retooling PanO because they exploit a historical weakness- and we as a community still haven't even reached a consensus on whether eroding faction identity to combat power creep is even desirable, let alone how to do it.
I'll allow myself to hijack that a bit: I am of the opinion that EVO in general needs a major rewrite. As-is, I don't see it on the tables in my local meta. Unless it is to provide an extra Order due to a scenario rule. Sure, at 15 pts / 0,5 SWC is is not terribly expensive, but it occupies a valuable slot in the Army List. That wasn't a problem back in N2, when two full Combat Groups were a common sight, and it was sometimes spiling into a 3rd Group. However, under Tactical Window - or even more constricting Limited Insertion, I really don't see much space for it. With no limit to the number of models allowed, and perhaps with a 400pts game size, well, that'd be different, I guess. When on table, it can use just, unique 4 programs. All of them depend on a specific unit type being present in your list (a Combat Jumper, REM, or - in case of Fairy dust - REM, HI or TAG), and you have to spend 1 Order to provide a single model with that bonus. Except for Combat Jumper, all the other models need to be in EVOs hacking range. It would, then, require a pretty specialized list to have more than just a few models benefit from EVOs presence. Having PanO EVO support be better than someone else's EVO support would require equipping EVO Mulebots with soem abilites unique to it - but I firmly believe you'd need to make EVOs actually useful, regardles of who is using them.
To better talk about interfaction balance you should at least play one of the factions, ideally both, in order to have an understanding how the faction actually plays and not have just an academic knowledge of unit abilities and stats that give little insight on the practicality of the factions. At this point you say buzzwords with no meaning, massive unearned advantage? be bad at technology? these mean nothing, if you want to contribute to the thread do the work actual PanO players in this thread have done and write down analytically what you want to say with examples and suggestions, preferably understanding and keeping faction restrictions. To be frank you seem to have no knowledge of either faction, or any of their sectorials, and go with whatever experience you have facing them or hearing been discussed online, neither gives any actual insight on the factions advantages, disadvantages and struggles. At a certain point various forum users need to understand that the forum has some basic standards of communication and however valid or invalid their opinions may be, expressing them in this way will eventually result in a time out. This is not what the tournament statistic reveals though, if nothing else the opposite is evident, Nomads have a lower win rate against PanO, it gets more nuanced in sectorial versus sectorial, for example, Bakunin seems to be the one of the worse matchups for Millitary orders. This is were personal experience and local meta have great effect to shape perceptions, a big reason why this thread and other discussions have not reached a consensus on many things, but they have reached a consensus on a few things. I am almost certain that in my local meta I am the only one who regularly bring EVO and the sole purpose of it is to give my Bulleteer Markshmanship, even then that 0.5 SWC makes it a tough choice.
TIL the Kiss (Repeater) profile is actually the B&K profile people use the most, and that Tsyklons are the meta Nomad hacking projection piece. That's right, the 30 point 1W REM that can barely do anything else without a janky core team or idk, an EVO bot buff. Not Jazz & Billie, Zoe & Pi Well, Hecklers or Initiates. Is this what the vaunted 400 point meta is? You can take inefficient, redundant pieces and throw them away because you have enough points to afford silly levels of redundancy? Like HB can afford to throw away their linked Barids because they also have the points to afford a Govad hacker? Competent players in my experience are more than capable of playing and moving FTs around HD AROs, even those with impact templates. My point with not being able to reserve drop an linked hacker was wider than just HD AROs as well. You can counter deploy pitchers based on their LOF, especially on denser maps and objective room maps. Frankly it sounds like you need to actually get out of your meta and play against a larger variety of players, at least if you wanna justify the aggression you put behind your takes. Almost no one actually likes you and Triumph. This forum has other issues but when people in other community spaces talk about why they don't like the forums, you two are often brought up. You actively shit up the community, it'd be a net benefit to it for you both to just go away, and both of you probably should have been banned years ago.
It's actually the complete opposite, I'm talking from the perspective of when I play 300 point games. 400 points you don't bother trying to dump repeaters in turn 1 to alpha strike, because it's comparatively order inefficient in return for damage inflicted on the opponent. You don't get the value of the alpha strike at 300 points where you literally just snipe the heavy lifter model/fireteam out and build difficult to overcome momentum. Do I look like I care? I've been right this whole time despite people who literally have no idea how to hack try to chirp up like they know anything at all. I said the moment they started spoiling the N4 hacking changes that the new system was going to be awful and straight up invalidate profiles like Sun Tze and Joan and oh boy, look here we are years later in a 32 page thread where the system has invalidated models like Sun Tze and Joan. Your opinion of me is just like your opinion of Infinity balance, irrelevant. N4 Hacking is a mess with no small part to blame on people who had no idea how to hack in N3 complaining about KHDs killing their AHDs because they had absolutely no clue how to use one.
What are you, infinity jesus? Dying for the sins of a player base and company that doesn't know better? Get over yourself lmao, maybe people would be more open to your ideas if you weren't an abrasive asshole, or had any consistent results to back up your shit talking. I didn't play in N3, I can't speak to it. I agree N4 hacking has issues, but nerfing linked pitchers is addressing the symptom, not the actual problem. When did this turn into me defending N4 hacking or denying the dominance of alpha strikes?
IMO, Pitchers/Fast Pandas/ Repeaters are not the issue with Hacking. I do not think the tools need to be nerfed. It is the actual programs that are causing some issues. The main Tweaks would be: Re-balancing the programs. You can make having a wide Hacking network still good, just not as punishing for the opponent. Potentially, having Spotlight requiring a Save and tweaking the power and reset penalties of Carbonite and Oblivion. Change the bonus of Guided or make it use the Targeted State. If you would rebalance the programs, it would help PanO and maybe other factions. I also agree that EVO devices need a boost to promote their usage. Maybe they all should include Zero Pain and two orders by default. Make the PanO EVO have some bonuses to their EVOs programs. Allow them to have a program running before the game with a Command Token.
I can get behind this, and would appreciate others sharing any bugbear matchups. My experience is definitely coloured by my Sectorial choice of NCA, and my frequent Nomad matchups- plus my experience getting unavoidably a bit old. I can say I've gotten games into most factions at varying times, many in tournament settings, and Nomads tended to be the least fun due to the number of uninteractive, save-or-suck mechanics they could bring that my NCA didn't have the tools to actually do anything with. CA was definitely a hard game, but I felt more like I had to manage my defense well and hit hard in return to reduce the pressure. Nomads often boiled down to "hope to God I actually pass the WIP check on the objective before my crappy Specialist gets Oblivioned/Trinitied by Jazz". I never did, though one such occasion led to my Uhlan getting possessed and taking shots at my Squalo- the only TAG it has ever gotten to shoot at, annoyingly.
I'd actually start with boosting EVOs in general. Maybe have the EVO carry a standard Hacking Device in addition to EVO Hacking Device? So it would do the job of a normal Hacker in additiion to being an EVO. Of course, it would have the problem of needing a repeater network to actually use that, a baggage REM doesn't do well up on the frontline. Dunno if that would be enough. Then, for factions that don't have a Repeater coverage good enough, start equipping the EVO drone with Pitchers. Being Baggage, it could even refill its stock of pitchers.
EVO Rems should just start the game with one support ware of choice in place, baked into their current point cost.
I think it's pretty central. Hacking and warbands are the two "pillars" of gameplay which PanO is heavily restricted from interacting with. Moreover, both of them are essentially designed so their best counter is themselves - hackers are countered by better hackers, and camo units that don't have to do any else in the midfield or while approaching the hacker. Warbands are countered by trading other warbands into them, or MSV ARO pieces. The extent to which it is an those elements are difficult to deal withis going to have an extremely direct relationship to how much PanO is handicaped by having restricted use of those game mechanics. Null deployment with mechanics to punish approch and maintain offensive pressure without exposure to direct fire. Which is to say hacking and warbands. Speculo. The best way to counter it seems to be to park linked Rokots or Varangians in front of it to overwhelm the -6 MOD for the first impersonation layer, then have Volklaks or bears as most of your top end so it doesn't have any good that it can instant-kill with Monofilliment. Of course, in PanO you don't have the expendable warbands to serve as a good Discover screen, and you are pretty much locked into having a TAG or another expensive peice like it as your top-end to have any advantage in shooting. So it's very hard to stop it from making contact, and you're left hoping you make your 40% Monofilliment save to avoid loosing something important. In general, that's actually probably connected to the warband issue, since outside of NCA Auxilia spam, PanO just has awful screens, and because you tend to have such expensive capabilities, the extra 2-3 points for an escort Sergent really hurts. Or maybe the issue is just having to actually use i.e. MSV to stop smoke instead of just being able to throw a Liberto at it. Agreed. Makes them much better as going-second tools, since at least 2 of their applications a heavily tilted towards reactive turn.
No, but you should, the biggest problem here is that I care, so tone down, and ease up, else there will be a time out. This thread has nothing to do with anything you said, respect the thread and all other posters that are actually discussing here and stop using the thread as a soapbox to stand on and shout. Maybe some rebalancing or rethinking is possible, but I would rather see that in a dedicated thread about hacking, this is not it. That is understandable, personally, I have not experienced such issues with my NCA, though the amount of hackable things in my NCA is usually low, we will see how the new lists I want to try will evolve, that been said a few cheap killer hackers would not hurt PanO. In general though, I do not have bugbear matchups with factions, but mostly with "luck" and I do not want to sound bragging, its an issue PanOceania has, in most cases PanOceania has 3 heavy attack pieces, if all are lost in the same turn especially against favorable odds, then the game becomes a difficult puzzle to solve, I do not see Nomads such a problem to deal with, probably because I play with Nomads and anticipate what they are going to do.
Hackers are countered by better, or more, hackers by camouflaged models with heavy firepower assassinating them or the tried and tested fire raining from the sky, I do not understand why you think PanO is cut out of the hacking game, out repeater network even if not forwarded is substantial, we even have KH+Bulleteer duos in many lists and this is quite nasty for the enemy hacker that has been decided to die, as far as MSV ARO pieces? well you play PanO... While I will agree we do not have smoke warbands, I do not think we are cut off and handicaped in these fields. In any case, hacking discussion has little to no relevance in this thread that is about PanOceania. The easiest way to deal with a speculo (or any impersonator) is to block her movement, last time I faced an impersonator (A Fiday) I simply stuck her to a corner using a single fusilier.
I would gently push back about the Hacking not being part of the Pano discussion, as Hacking networks restrict Pano's standout power pieces of TAGS and HI. But it was interesting looking at the Faction versus numbers. Edit: https://stats.infinitytheacademy.com/unitPopularity?faction=panoceania The most popular PanO units are also pretty interesting as well. People who play Vanilla PanO in tournaments really seem to like Joan of Arc.
Dude, when someone else is insulted, and tells the person insulting them "I don't care" and your response is to get mad at the person *being insulted*, you should check yourself. You're expecting Triumph to take abuse and not even say that he doesn't care that people are hurling invective at him.
Why not? What does PanO have that's unique that makes up for that? Why not? Hacking is part of Infinity, and the balance of hacking affects PanO's balance. You can't talk about rebalancing PanO without talking about hacking and the factions it plays into and their abilities in the hacking part of the game.
The biggest differences between my NCA lists are Lists that leverage distance as a safety mechanism and lists that operate when distance isn't a safety mechanism. Lately my issue has been stubbornly applying lists that leverage distance as a safety measure into factions where that distance isn't present. Namely JSA and Ariadna. The pilots of these factions have me slightly dialled in so I need to mix it up and start putting mission essential equipment behind a Camo state - So Uma, Uhlan, Hexa etc. I have however started taking the Blocker HAcker into my Fusilier core to give me that toolbox that he provides with Sensor and at the very least a Nanopulser to help defend the core or at least put a big don't come this way bubble around the core.
