CB and their development cycle

There’s also the point that when everything is optimized, nothing is. A frequent concern raised is minis/profiles sitting on the shelf, not seeing table time. Would “optimizing” everything really change that, or would players still find differences at the margins, based on various personal criteria. Coupled with the fact that CB has more than “top tournament” players to think about. It’s like a football pyramid, and CB has to think about not only the Premier League, but also League Two, the Conference, etc.

 

There's just a decent chunk of stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be super optimised but stuff that needs a role or total rewrite. Stuff like lobos that don't really have a role except "have all the stuff" which make them too expensive to run as they compete with better troops for a slot.
Stuff that doesn't sync well in its intended role also; monstrucker in spiral for example. Make it regular in a link and people would use it.
Or stuff with weird costings like the cube jager. Why are we going to pay swc for a bs 11 SMG when impersonators exist??
There's loads of examples across the range of factions, a semi regular pass through the range could easily move "WTF" troop choices to "actually have a niche for this mission type" troop choices at the very least

 

Eh? It's the reverse of that. More bike profiles became playable once they could take advantage of cover. The mimetic ones that are too expensive to be considered disposable got significantly better once they could shed impetuous and MOD stack with cover, and the Aragoto in particular because it also turned their KHD into an actual useful device.

Impetuous is a disadvantage when you're expensive. When you cost about 10 points or less and destined for a one way trip up the table is when it doesn't hurt.

 

I feel like this thread is unfortunately getting waylaid, which is a real shame because AmPm's original post was a really good one. I don't think most players want to see CB beholden to a small group of forumites who shout the loudest – that would be a really bad outcome for Infinity.

However, that doesn't mean that CB couldn't stand to improve their communication a little when it comes to their decisions, and it also doesn't mean that it wouldn't be awesome if they committed to a quarterly balance/points pass. This could be accompanied by designer notes; short, one sentence explanations of why a change was being made. Not up for discussion, just a reason for what's happening.

Really, I think players just want to see their beloved game happy and healthy, and Infinity is largely that. What does hold it back a bit, imo, is the long long longggg reign of certain units that are problematic (eg Liberto is absurdly out of balance), and strangle options out of the game. Bring them back to the curve a little and open up other reasons and other builds, I think is all we're asking.

It's not axe-grinding (or at least it's not just axe grinding!), it's our concern for a game system that we love and rate very highly. At this point it feels like CB have a kind of cultural legacy duty, to preserve what is a blue-chip mininature game. Infinity really is about as good as it gets as far as I can see, and CB by and large continue to knock it out of the park, but this is one area where they could stand to improve a little, is all.

 

There's the arguments to be made that, even if not everything needs to be optimised;
a) units can still have a role through faction scarcity as long as it is not set up to fail, but a large number of units don't have this design
b) the units that are optimised are what informs what the faction is all about, but CB seems to optimise without this intent
c) factions are receiving an uneven number of optimised units and uneven quality of "optimisations". The factions with more better units also perform more often better.

 

eeehhhhh, bikes doesnt get cover, impetuous or not. Is in the bike rule

 

"When deploying an Impetuous Trooper with a Motorcycle, the player must choose whether the Trooper keeps the Impetuous Special Skill and therefore cannot benefit from Partial Cover, or loses the Impetuous Special Skill and therefore can benefit from Partial Cover, with no change in their Cost and SWC"

Yes they can.

 

The inability to gain cover was removed in the same errata that added the ability to not be impetuous.

 

crane is unfortunetly not a fruitful unit

 

The justification is the covert sneaky Hassassins are actually the HI faction, not ISS.


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4 1
BOKHTAR FTO (Paramedic, Lieutenant, Tactical Awareness) Viral Rifle, Light Shotgun, D-Charges ( | MediKit) / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 50)
ASAWIRA AP Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 39)
ÁYYĀR (Forward Deployment [+4"]) Breaker Rifle, Zapper, Panzerfaust, Drop Bears / Viral Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0 | 41)
SUNDUQBUT Feuerbach / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 50)


All that HI for... sneaking and stuff I guess.

Jokes aside it was necessary to tech up and overhaul the sectorial for the limitations of N4's combat groups, but at the same time it's the exact overhaul that ISS, MRRF, and USARF required and did not get.

 

Well, they got that overhaul twice. The first time post Raveneye, people were already considering them a fairly potent, higher end faction. It was very surprising to see them get as much as they got on top of that.

 

With our focus on netlisting on this forum, we tend to ignore the other way to tweak unit usefulness: creating different needs for certain skills. through mission design.

Creating/promoting missions that are more narrative than the super-symmetrical competition-oriented ITS has made Infinity fun and shaken up unit value in the past: ask anyone who played through the Paradiso campaign on varied tables, or who plays custom narrative missions, other formats like 20x20, etc.

It really does feel like an area where CB could sell a hardcopy book as a quick buck -and- buff/emphasize certain units. It's also a balancing measure that does not require redesigning the core unit spread.

Here in the Pacific Northwest of the US, one of our biggest tourneys is using custom missions which include one emphasizing rooting out Impersonators (Rose City Raid is gonna be fun!!). I'm probably going to run Corregidor there specifically so I can get some mileage out of Lobos and enjoy them doing what they do best. [Okay also there's a 400-point Panic Room and I'm going to Gator that shiz.] Guessing we'll also be seeing a fair number of Bao, etc. which are not considered hyper-optimal for basic-ass ITS play.

 

Yeah that would be nice, I'd love to have more asymmetric missions. Difficult to balance well though!

 

The entire points formula needs a complete overhaul, and has for some time. Combi Rifles costing 1 point more than a Rifle/Light Shotgun combo is a complete joke. BS 10 units paying the same price for HMGs as BS 14 units is a joke.

Not everything needs to be "optimized," but they damn well do need to have a cost that reflects their performance.

 

But it's ok when people call anyone expressing a complaint entitled. Ok.

 

You are wrong, Hecaton. He did not say that.

 

BS 10 units do not pay the same for an HMG as BS 14 units though.

 

Yes they do. Anybody with a functioning pair of eyes and 2 brain cells to rub together can open army and see Keisotsu pay 8pts to upgrade a combi to an HMG just like BS14 HI.

(now watch him move goal posts and claim that the SWC difference is what's important)

 

Honestly I think that's fine, having those costs built into equipment inherently synergises with more elite platforms that have numerous skills while the game's format encourages lots of Orders to attempt various tasks, ideally encouraging a balanced mix of units in each list. The greater issue is when particularly desirable combinations of skills or discounts (linkable Frenzy being the biggest issue) work out far too cheaply, allowing highly effective units to be spammed.