Balance issues in N4

First and foremost please do not clog the thread posters are trying to have a serious conversation.

Secondly please do try to consolidate replies in as few posts as possible instead of creating multiple short posts.

 

Was it purely because of GML, or the GML just added on the list and player skill and if it was not there nothing would have really changed?

 

You a living meme, man

 

From someone actually attending the tourney:
I had the "joy" of getting booted by @alfa037* in Decapitation. And that despite I was using the "totally overpowered GML alphastrike" to directly kill his Lt. Unfortunately he's a good player who managed to leverage any of my small mistakes against me and with his pretty baller SP list he did just that effectively. Thusly I conclude the 7 SP players (one of them SirXXI played them on any IP so far) are in the Kraken's top 10 are there because of their skill and probably use of the right tool for those missions. If it were a balancing issue the 9 SP players in the Pulpi tournament would've riddled the top 10 there too.


*) he's a nice and frendly spanish chap

Try this button and marvel at its magic, works like a charm

 

Someone needs to have a discussion with the TO and teach them about diagonals, there are many tables that have sufficient terrain but it's just arranged terribly.

 

because GML is in the roster as a backup tool with good repeater network, good way of delivering those repeaters to desired location, and because this roster is piloted by very experienced players.

 

oh boy....

one question, just to silence my curiousity: You don´t like were Infinity comes from, you don´t like the current state of the Game AND the fluff and you seem to dislike at least half of the regulary posting cumminity here. What keeps you interacting with ....well...anyhing here?

I played a lot (and i mean: A LOT. during Corona my flatmate was tooha player only) against tooha, and the one thing that came up regulary was the factions lack of good smoke throwers. With makauls having eclipse instead of regular smoke seems to be more like a nerf for the faction than a buff for makauls (ofc makauls are beasts in what they do, but it could be so much worse... )

Thats, due to my experience, not a unique thing to SP. Most factions can form a link out of a weapon plattform and 2 WOOOOH!-boys/girls to support it with B2 AROs and +1B. the only difference is, taht other factions can afford actual specialists that bring more to the table than a Mimetism Chainrifle with smoke. But thats more an issue of SPs lack of cheap specialists than can link with the usual suspects. For 16points the avarage nomad player can link half its army to a weapon plattform, and so can a lot of others aswell.

actually a good point, and it would work in the same regulations as BS attacks in ARO work (having to shoot the whole burst at the same target)

Thank you for the insight. Always good to hear as much voices as possible.

This. Table set up is so important for this game to work properly. I played on a lot of truely awful tables, some of them set up by myself. Learning how to build a table thats both fair and fun to play on is a trait you get from repeating, playing on it (and a lot other tables) and getting feedback from playrs using your table for a different perspective. Tables telling a story is additional icying on the cake.
I started with some no-go´s i experienced as not fun or fair, like to much overwatch from one DZ, to few options to advance out of DZ, no proper cover for all sizes of siluettes, and so on.
The terrain provided by CB in the starter sets is very nice. But i would wish for some basic instruction and tips for new players how to place it properly.

Non-interactive gameplay is, was and always will be both unfun and a balance issue. We stated that mutliple times now. But i think it is a good sign, that most players attent to rather play without that specific strategy instead of abusing it to death.

Yes, but as mentioned before by multiple user in here: it is not just GML strat. It is a combination of both the strat and the skill. I don´t think that some satellite winner will get magicly stomped by a new player just by getting GMLed. It´s a strong thing to play especially in the hands of a skilled player.
Commenting a satellites first place with "well, he played GML, no wonder" is straight up belittleing the players abilities.

Treason! Heresy! Lies! Propaganda! A nomad player with GML loosing? On the pire with him! :-D

Actually a good point.
Now someone could ask why there were that much SP players in the first way, but i guess it´s because of the new and shiny stuff that came out not to long ago and cause it´s a fun faction to play.
To be fair, having 7 SP in Top10 over a couple of rounds defenetly looked .... surprising to say the least, but viewed from the perspective now considering some other variables it does not look that dire anymore. And maybe (just maybe) it was also a little bit the loud and lurid headline of this thread encouraging the otherwise so calm and steady minds of the users in here

I smiled a little bout that and looking at this very post of mine I myself would comment it, equally charming, with "tl;dr"

 

There are always winners and losers with gametables.

Ariadna (the bearpode faction) is usually strong in TTS, because there are no physical limitations to the amount of terrain. In the real world bearpode is a lot weaker and Atalanta/Agema/Noctifer a lot stronger.

From what I heard from the tournament:
- SP is very popular in Spain
- Oppressive GML play isn't popular in Spain
- The tight timetable favored small lists such as SP
- The terrain favored bunker style SP

--> People should be playing reinforcement games where SP and GML are a lot weaker compared to other alpha strikes and factions.

 

Playing at 300 probably didnt help much either as 300 highly rewards crippling alpha strike plays, which both SP and GMLs benefit from immensely.
Both GML and alpha strike factions are a lot less effective at higher point levels as they cant just gut your one assault piece/ team and render you completely ineffective for the rest of the game.

If you play 250/100 it'll worse, 300/100 isn't too bad but you can still cripple an army fairly easily, but you at least get to have more defensive tools and some redundancy to mitigate it.

 

@Tourniquet my experience is that alpha strikes are a lot weaker with 250/100 (read: 230p+4,5sw), but that's a topic for another thread.

If anything, breaking a "perfect" defence is really hard right now.

 

@Tristan228 @psychoticstorm First of all, I hope nobody feels attacked as player or to his skills as a player, for me isn't about to say "you win because of this". I don't try to take off the credit for the wins. For me isn't the point. I guess all of us play or played in the past, others games beyond Infinity and always is a problem to see too many armies for a particular faction (Nomads, Aleph, EC were literally 50% of all armies) and more if a big amount of them go to first positions. A lot of people before to even know the armies distribution, seeing the missions and how the Satellites were going to bet for SSA or Guided Missile strategy as a winner and we had both in final. Maybe it was an "auto realized prophecy"? It could be, but I don't think so.

We are talking about SP as if the whole army has the issue, which isn't true, they are only in how some troupes and abilities are combined or merged, or interact with others profiles. The best SSA counter is in SSA, which is funny. For me a lot of issues will be fixed if we could have many list as missions, or missiones -1 = number of lists you can use. You could have different configurations. Only 2 lists for 6 missions (or 7) is really short, since isn't only about the mission, but table and faction you fight against. SSA could use same list for all matches without taking in consideration table or enemy. This is a lot of advantage. Yes, you still has to play, but you will have one less concern in your mind.

About guided I think is how it feels to play against. For me is the reason to take a look on how the rule work. I had matches where guided M did nothing and others I was obliterated from table, without being able to do nothing. Yes, this can happen too if enemy unleash a TAG and the TAG kills everyone, but at least you are rolling against the killing machine. One lucky dice of Panzerfaust can stop the killing so, enemy has to think if the best way is o shoot that guy with panzer with his tag or, instead of it will be better to try with that guy with rifle. ML you only need to select the right target (sometimes not even, because table don't allow to be separate enough and with minimum covert), then try. If you have a regular luck, match can end in Game Over, if not, the other guy still will have to fight against your whole army, because only orders will be lost). Coming back to SP, that lucky Panzerfaust needs usually to be luckier than against other factions because so many mime -6. And this is my mayor point, one player mistake has less probabilities to be serious for SP because chances to be hit (talking on standard -6 lists) than others. One hospitallers 4 members fireteam core if is hit by one lucky template weapon from any army will be on 12-15 it depends. For SP will be on 9 or 6... Without doing nothing chances are far lower for one army.

Pictures sometimes are tricky about LoF. I had some from my tables, for a few looks like they are too many LoF for others the opposite. However I have yet to take a look on pictures shared by @Lesh' (really thanks for it).

 

To the guys saying "but I was playing GML and I lost!!" and "a rookie player with GML won't win against an Interplanetario winner", are you for real? Things being unbalanced doesn't mean they give an instawin, they just give an unfair advantage to the player using them, that's what balance is about, every faction being on the same level playing field. But people can lose games even having an unfair advantage, Dick Dastardly did that all the time.

But I'm pretty sure you already know this and you are just making disingenuous comments to try and prove something.

 

"We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

You are aware that nearly everyone you are refering with that statement already mentioned more than once, that imbalance is never good/GML or non-interactive game always lacks balance? Or are you just focused on the things you don´t want to read, like devalueing the skill of good players by reducing their success to their listbuilding?

You used a quote from a gulag-prisoner and Autor that was aimed at the stalin-regime in the soviet union and industrialized mass murder to describe an opinion you don´t like in the GML-discussion? In a forum about a game? Are you sure that this is the level of intensity you want to go with?
just asking...

 

You? With your multi posting? To which others have responded by showing you the quote button.

To quote Sterling Archer: “Just don’t. There’s no talking to him when he gets like this”.

Absolutely. Table setup can make or break a game. It’s incredibly evident in certain missions. I would also very much like more in depth instructions and tips for new players on how to set up terrain. There is a description in the N4 book but I admit it’s nowhere near as detailed as it should be given how much terrain setup can affect the game. A more in depth guide would be very welcome.

You forgot: Perfidy! I mean if we’re going full inquisition here we may as well levy all the accusations.

 

Please dial back the rhetoric tone, it does not help with the conversation at all....

What I asked is a simple yet important question as it is evident between Prodigies and Masters there is a similar distribution, in some cases quite similar, but the final results are definitely not the same, without lists to get more data we can extrapolate there is some difference in the two categories and assuming Masters and Prodigies have overall different skill levels, then the results may be based on skill level and not the lists themselves.

Yes, there is a big argument to be made that a certain army will be more powerful in the hands of a top tier player than a mid tier player or that certain tools and combinations are usable only to a certain tier player or need a tier of gameplay understanding and above to be able to defend against them, but this is a different discussion entirely.

But, at a fundamental level of balance the question is are the lists and skill combinations an advantage that will make anybody of any player tier have an unfair advantage over another player of the same skill level or above or are the lists and tools requiring a particular player skill level to be properly utilized and their appearance to top player lists are a symptom of this.

These are two entirely different discussions and different conclusions to be made, same goes with non interactive gameplay to be honest, it has its place and can definitely turn a loss to victory for a skilled player.

Fundamentally, for me, at this moment we have two data sets from what are supposed to be two different skill level tournaments, with similar distributions but not similar results and the main question is why? if at fundamental level something is completely broken there should be some similarity to the results.

Also the unknown factions are a problem Kraken has 5 pulpi has 6 and they may change the distribution somewhat.

 

Thanks! now go forth and do something creative, but please be funny.