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Become ITS missions more boring?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Ben Kenobi, Mar 26, 2019.

  1. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    By hazard I got the ITS-2015 document and glance through the mission and imo the missions of its 9 and 10 are more boring than these.
    Nowadays we seem to have more kill orientated missions and bonuses for specific specialists hardly exists.
    Is that a try to make Infinity more mass compatible and what do you think about the development?
    The custom mission in its10 is a step into the right direction, but the limitation of one mission independent from the number of rounds seems not right.
     
  2. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    ITS 6-8 were criticized for being extremely specialist oriented. It was literally the measure of worth for a profile if it was a specialist or not (and also the reason so many new profiles are Specialist Operative)
     
  3. ZlaKhon

    ZlaKhon New scale enthusiast

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    Can you elaborate on what made ITS 8 more interesting?

    My memory is fuzzy, but I remember that we used to play, as @Mahtamori said, mainly button pushing. I recall TAGs, pain trains and HI in general being taken a lot less than nowadays. Also the mew missions at least to me seem to have helped balance elite lists against order spam a bit (basically if you need to take 3 or more consoles, rolling badly really messes with you and being high wip isn’t necessarily associated with elite lists).

    Also, I‘m not sure if I like mission bonuses for specialists too much. Some is fine, but in the end it linits list building. I like the „if you have a CoC on the table, you get some bonus“ though, which we have in some mission of this season.
     
  4. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    That was before my Infinity time.
    Personally I like playing missions more then decimating my opponent to win a match.
    I can understand the reasons why somebody likes the new missions more, but I think they sacrificed to much of a unique game element to welfare of old 40k behaviours.
    As written, I would prefer this, cause nowadays these Rambo lists are for me an unpleasant excess.
    When you go to a tournament with more than 8 players and you will see at least one Achilles list isn't funny. And I don't blame the player for that.
    I think it is now clear, but I want to build lists for missions and have to make the decisions what specialist I have to take and wich list I can take for different missions.
    Deadly dance and Show the Force are stupid mission designs there's only goal is to force you playing TAGs.

    I liked the idea of a data-tracker with an extra order and I dislike the idea of the Xenotech in ITS 10 who punishes elite lists.

    Imo CoC is a bad skill for bonuses, cause not every faction has access to that skill. And "on the table" is an unfluffy rule too.
     
  5. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Personally I think the current scenarios (mostly) strike a better balance. Previous seasons the specialists existed to push buttons and that was the sum total of their reason to be - Paramedics were common back then for all the wrong reasons.

    I think that there is a golden path where the missions doesn't need to be about killing the LT / DT / HVT / opposing army, but can still be about "pushing buttons" without overloading on mandatory specialists. Unmasking is a decent example where, granted, specialists are important but you don't have to have ever single non-HMG unit be a specialist.

    Generally speaking, though, the primary fault of button pushing missions is that it promotes orders over anything resembling quality. Partly because WIP isn't tied to cost similar to how BS kind of is, but also partly because to actually get a specialist to objective A through F, you need a shittonne of orders. Not to mention that it also strongly favours going second because you simply can't Hail Mary as the first player, your troopers have to survive to ARO early enough that Hail Mary isn't an option for the second player.

    There's still problems. Rescue is an utter shite mission, to put it bluntly. The amount of orders necessary to fetch two+ HVTs from your opponent's DZ and then get them back home again is ludicrous. Last time I played it I had a 15-order IA pain train roll perfect results and it took them well over 20 orders to be able to get one (1) single HVT back to my DZ. Still, that mission can be completed for decent score using 0 specialists and it's not at all about pushing buttons.

    We need more missions designed with Rescue's premises and a lot fewer missions designed like Rescue.
     
  6. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    The button pushing missions never went away, we just have the fighty ones as well. Though my favourite are the area control and area control/button pushing hybrid missions. Highly Classified is IMO the worst Misson (always has been).

    The previous seasons also separated missions into "Fighty", "Button Pushy", and "A bit of both" and a tournament could only choose missions from one of the three categories. This was done away with recently after community consultation.
     
    #6 colbrook, Mar 26, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2019
  7. natetehaggresar

    natetehaggresar Senior Backlogged Painter Manager

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    Yeah, CB mainly added some kill missions to round out the mix. And removed some extreme spam missions.

    I enjoyed playing cold sleep. (Walk into objective room, hack a console to get a beacon, walk back to your deployment zone and upload data from the beacon, repeat). But it was a very punishing mission, the objective easily to 6-8 orders to complete even if your opponent didn't get in your way with aros and deployable equipment.

    I wouldn't mind CB putting one or two of those intense missions back in, it probably a more enjoyable way to play "hard mode" then the red deck.

    But tdlr CB is just trying to insert a mix of missions to cater to all play styles and list preferences. TOs have the options to select a variety of missions. I wouldn't be surprised if unpopular mechanics, such as xenotech go away.

    I agree deadly dance and show of force are not exemplars of game design... But they are a fun way to play a tag fight, which is the point, giving TOs and play groups the option to reward tags.
     
  8. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    There's also the question about if the people writing the scenarios are aware of what Saturation and Difficult Terrain zones do to balance. I really like Power Pack as a mission, but the Saturation zone does questionable things to fireteams.

    While in the end the removal of mission type means that TOs have more freedom to make various mission setups, it's definitely awkward sometimes - there's a 5-round Satellite coming up where I just couldn't bring my USARF because I couldn't make an elegant two-list pair for it - Highly Classified and Frostbyte both requiring lists that were too idiosyncratic in that sectorial.

    Also, Highly Classified is trash plz delete.
     
  9. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    What utter tripe. This isn't a Euro-style board game with little to no player interaction. If you don't want to shoot at the opposing player in a game feel free.

    "victory or death". It isn't meant to be noninteractive; blowing up your opponent's little metal men is *doing it right*.

    There's nothing to blame. If you're running into Achilles that much, bring counters. He doesn't like running into Makaul flamethrowers much, and you have MSV2 dudes. Achilles is not unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination; to be frank, I'd rather face an Achilles list than loads of camo infiltrators and Posthumans in Vanilla Aleph.

    Symbiomates punish elite lists too, are you down to stop using those?
     
  10. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    [historical pedant mode] Most killy missions require much more than decimation, only killing one in ten won't get you anywhere. [/historical pedant mode]
     
  11. Balewolf

    Balewolf It's all opinion

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    Sounds like you don't like TAGs or other big units. You can still build lists towards a mission and still have a big ugly in it.
     
  12. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    Haven't played Tohaa since last year.
     
  13. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I don't like them. Cause when your opponent can bring big guns, you have to do the same.
    And Tag isn't equal Tag, some factions/sectorials can build better list with them.
    In general, the playstyle I like is 14+ orders but this discussion is in another thread.

    ATM it seems I'm lonely with my opinion and my consumption was wrong.
     
  14. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    No you don't. There are plenty of ways for clever play to make it possible for units to trade up and kill or disable units more expensive than they are. Ghazi are the perfect example of this. In fact, if I bring a 10-order list, I usually find I'm fighting uphill against someone with 15 or so.

    Or a 19 order Tohaa list.
     
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  15. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    Frankly, most of TAGs aren't even "big guns". A linked line trooper HMG packs more punch against majority of targets than light TAGs or MBTs.
    What they are is "reliable guns" with 6" MOV, provided you can use the rest of your list to keep direct counters away from your TAG and, as always, keep it out of dedicated attack piece's sights on your reactive.
     
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  16. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    So much this. So, so much this!


    And in the real world, you've probably won the fight if you manage to wound 1/3. Actual kills are entirely optional.
     
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  17. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    Actually, wounding might be better.
    A wounded person can still have to have valuable resources used on them, like food and medical supplies... a corpse does not.
     
  18. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    For what it's worth, the quantity of missions that give specific Specialist bonuses haven't changed much, there are just more missions. And the Specialist bonus is much much bigger than in the older seasons.
     
  19. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    In the long run, personnel is still probably still the most expensive part of your military, what's with amount of resources you have to sink into training them to be able to use modern tech and to tackle modern tasks.

    No wonder military shifts towards drones wherever possible.
     
  20. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    And even then you need personnel to use said drones.
     
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