I'm pretty sure they knew that could happen. They really shouldn't have given PanO that many in the first place. I knew something like what happened was going to a while ago. But I'm sure it had to happen.
Reminds me about the situation with Malifaux, when the company removed from the game some characters for better balance in the future. Friend told me, that it was harmful for their community. And people were very alerted to get back to the game. Now Malifaux got some attention and popularity back. New people entered into the game. Of course lots of job was done because of enthusiasm of old players. I wonder, if Infinity could get back this way. After all people are active. Even if it is not in our region. And not all of them decided to stay in N4. I sold my armies for a half of the price to some new players in other region. They are playing N5. I decided not to scare them with stories about how some sectorials died (I am not so worried. They got o-12, yu jing, haqqislam and aleph action packs and other boxes. At least it is not what could be over soon) So, may be picture is not so dark for everyone.
So in order to get new players, that may or may not stay in the game, they should sacrifice loyal veteran players. It doesnt feel right. People was here playing for 10-15 years with their favorite armies and get nothing but discontinuation and oblivion, but new players get all the new shiny things.
With all due respect, the game has not become better since reinforcements, let alone since N5. We have the completely unsuccessful reinforcements attempt, which was not fixed in N5. We have fewer armies. We do not have better balance between armies (as sectorials like SP actively got shafted). We have lower number of viable army compositions for several armies (mostly vanillas, which lost a lot of units and again several sectorials). We do not have wiki. We have numerous issues with untested/undesired rules interactions, that are yet to be patched, almost half a year after the release. Bold decisions were made, and we boldly went nowhere. Can the game improve? Yes. Can the game become better than it was in late N4? Yes. But the activities in the last year or so did not bring us closer to a better game overall.
Agree to disagree on most of this I guess. Agree with Reinforcements. I didn't expect anything to happen there though, so no disappointment on my side. Disagree on internal faction balance. Every faction I've built lists for and played so far, including vanilla factions, offers a lot more viable builds than before. N4 often felt like there were a handful of good units while the rest was trash. This has changed significantly in N5, opening up lots more different list types. Disagree on external faction balance as well. CA felt OP in N4 and feels OP in N5, so nothing new there. Almost every other faction feels very competitive, including Steel Phalanx. They were OP in N5 and are just good now. Ariadna feels shafted, but even there people seem to disagree. I certainly feel better about it than ever before. Missing Wiki is just a matter of time. Took a while at the start of N4 as well. So to me, the game has already improved a ton. Sure, there's always room for improvement, but I'm very happy with the overall state of the game.
Ah, Yeah, SP is dead as they have 0 N5 satelite winner, only 2 in top 4, 6 in top 20% (https://bythenumbersinfinity.blogspot.com/) (EDIT: This was sarcasm. SP more played and having some good results doesn't mean they are dead.). I agree that N5 still have problems, both rules and balances, but definitely better than N4. There are things getting late (especially wiki and FAQ for me), but the Nourkias change a few days ago shows they are not just sleeping. I know many people will hate what I say, but I have to say this about removed sectorials. I understand the money, time, effort, and love people spent on their armies. But, in my opinion, some people here look way more negative, doomposting, and "hate for the sake of hate". Other games, for example, TCGs rotate out or ban cards. And you can still play your miniatures in Infinity, even they are proxying different profiles. I understand the calls "I want this that my old sectorials back", but don't want to see someone crying about that on every post.
"Nourkias got nerfed, CB listen the players." Getting balance every 6 months, that's not fast enough. Lets see what exploit will be found before the Interplanetary and not adressed on time. PD: Infinity N5 is in so good condition than the biggest tournament, the Interplanetary, with it registration opened weeks ago, is not even full yet. Every Inter in N3 and N4 at this time would have an extensive list of reserve players.
SP got buffed going into N5. Significantly so. Their kit just got slightly less braindead is all. Norky got buffed, sidegraded at worst. He's a little more complex to support and play now, but the stuff he can get away with now is disgusting. Infinity has balance issues, but it's rooted in CB's history of buffing stuff that's already powerful because they don't grasp the depths of their own mechanics at times.
We can, of course perceive balance differently arguing about that will be long and probably not too fruitful, so agree to disagree. However, the matter of time is still significant matter, when it happens to be 6 months already and no ETA is announced. Living rules require easy lookup, with hyperlinks, errata, change log etc. Complex system like Infinity also needs sufficient explanation on rules interaction, which currently is also not in a good place. Even the forum changelog about the army builder leaves much to be desired.
Resources lost there, so it was a loss. A comment here: threat vectors continue to rise, toolkits to compensate remain limited. Turrets help alleviate this, but distribution may lead to mutual blocks. The lethality has gone down too, so those turrets are harder to remove. Ariadna's problem is more in the way that it no longer feels like Ariadna for the veteran players, too McFaction (this is an issue for most factions, all have been forced to conform to the minimum of 1 TAG, 1 S5/S4, access to tools, etc...). Point cost, contrary to CB's belief, is not the end-all balancer. All factions are balanced, but some factions seem more balanced than others. Irrelevant, since those who can make it work, will make it work unless it's made unplayable. The faction got shafted (some needed, other are second or third order consequences) for the following reasons: Smoke nerfed, no more ZoC with +3 => all smoke-dependants lost 3 from all dodges. Characters removed, as an implicit admission of defeat from CB's regarding how to make them attractive to play. The fact that one was the face not only of the faction, but the closest the whole game has (Achilles was the 10th year anniversary conmemorative troop...) seems like an unnecesary hit in the pants, when the troop needed a point reduction, refocused statline and loadout, and become linkable... Removal of Eclipse smoke from ALL sources but the Myrmidon Officer (AVA 2), so now that troop is autoinclude (third order impact is that O12 lost all access to Eclipse smoke). The troop also having AP SMG for 1 pt less than BSG is an extra. Machaon keeps his cost, despite losing Eclipse smoke, I see no reason for him paying that 0.5 SWC... Hector is still expensive as hell, again a troop that does everything, but at least he can link and protect Ajax. Eudoros is still specialist because of reasons, but lost all smoke and is a HI... so after overbuffing him, he gets nerfed in a way that incentivizes not to play him, instead of normalizing him into something you can use. ALL factions got unlimited access to the extra dice per fireteam, so the greeks suffer the final comparative loss in Fireteam availability since N3 (the first was giving Haris to everybody, reducing the advantage ASS had). Being capped at 4 members, ASS fireteams get banned from reaching Sixth Sense entirely. Fireteam composition is a FU to veteran players: Thorakitai and Myrmidons are limited to Core fireteams (3 or 4 members) while Haris and Duos are limited to Dactyls (those have always been able to link as a duo and I think I've never seen a linked Dactyl in more than ten years, be it in the table or in secondhand reports/lists...), Makhe, Hoplites and the TAG. The TAG has become the shooter, like it or not. Agema ML has gone to overpowered to unusable, being the only Camo-0 in the faction; Seeing how other troops elsewhere get Decoy directly, I wonder about this idea, since the old starter came with an ML Agema, the new with a Sniper Agema, and Atalanta has the HD option too (so she competes with the sniper Agema for the slot). For some reason, ASS gets same access to Pitchers than OSS and vAleph... (Only in characters instead of AVA2 of the same troop). it's a mixed bag, aside from the smoke nerf and the fireteam changes that really shaft this sectorial. But at the same time, it feels less and less unique. It's the standard CB response time, we've seen quite clearly this since the Xenotect exploit about six or so years ago... Funny how some factions get the nerf hammer several times, yet CA receives careful lovetaps. We agree to disagree. Eudoros was a problem, and it was asked for his kit to be reduced, and dispersed on other troops. Instead, the faction as a whole lost options, got banned from Sixth Sense (so now you have to charge into the enemy position, get surrounded... and shot to the back with at best a 50% dodge), and the troops that have been the most readily seen face of the faction can't make a Duo. Yeaaaah... buffed. It is even more braindead now, you start with a Myrm Officer, Agamemmon, and then decide what can you cram... but certainly that "unlimited CORE" option that rarely reached 3 Cores in the list, now rarely reaches two, since points do not allow it, unless you go with cheap mooks, instead of the characters that used to be the hat of the faction. I agree here, he has been turned into a "you need to be this tall to ride" (or know better what you are doing) instead of properly balanced. In a spreadsheet, at least for a time, it will look like he's balanced, since a lot of people will try to use him and fail, but those who know how will still devour enemy armies with little interaction from the rest of the CA list. There is some inconsistencies with the changelogs too, since sometimes we get those in the forums, other times in CB's blog articles. Then again, CB has always been... liberal with the concepts: FAQ to what was patch, errata to what was patch, and now "living document" to what is merely a "we publish the rules in PDF, no physical version, and update at our own pace". Well, it's not like it feels like the edition was released without being properly finished after all... yeah?
The games that I have had so far in N5 have been quite enjoyable. The number of games that have been a nail-biter so to say until the last couple of dice-rolls in turn 3 actually has gone up in comparison with the games I had in N4. I agree with most of the changes, the only mechanic that I would tweak a little bit are the armed turrets. It can be exploited to a laughable degree. But there is a number of ways that this mechanic can be nerfed in a way that makes armed turrets stay relevant and cool as a mechanic while making it harder to just spam the midfield with (sometimes really dangerous) budget TR-bots. Regarding the new models, I like most of what I see. Although I do have to say that I lmiss the long ponytail of the pheasants and cranes of the previous iteration.
Bostria has been interviewed by the russian community. Interview w/Bostria from Corvus Belli - warcrow & infinity
So new sectorial army for Gencon... With so many armies needing attention it is a questionable decision.
New stuff sells better than resculpts. Always has. And they just did a rework, so it makes sense they would bring out something new next.
yeah, lets cut some sectorials because there are too much, but then launch 3 new ones in less than a year
New shinies. Fun! Having listened to the Infinity section, I didn’t hear a new sectorial for GenCon, I understood more that it’s more likely something new before Tohaa gets redone.
At least i hope is one of the already named sectorials in the lore, like Gaqbar or Pano Earth Defense and not a totally invented new one
Agreed. He didn't say a new one was Actually going to happen. Only that a new one would happen before Tohaa. Never mind Edit: yeah near the end he did say there'w as likely to be a new sectoral army. Ug I was hoping there wasn't going to be any new ones so soon. The only one I can see, that should get one, is what's left of O-12. But it's not likely since TB just happened.
