I've had some time to put my thoughts in order about what I dislike about the current proxy rules and probably more importantly, what Corvus Belli could say or do that would get me to buy miniatures again. Edit: In retrospect this is a bit too stream consciousness, so I'm spoiling out a chuck of it that is largely irrelevant. Spoiler The problem of proxies. I have always been a proponent for proxies. As long as you are using models from the game in some way, to keep the game supported I think everyone should proxy if they like. The issue with proxying is that it can lead to issues with market. As I detailed above the short version for me, is that I have a lot of proxies now that I never intended to be proxies. I basically have a surplus of models that will be much harder to sell on the secondary market, so the wise thing would be to repurpose them before buying anything else. Especially since miniatures obviously take up a lot of space to store. And while proxying is in the official rules for N4, I've always felt at least a little bad when I am running a heavy proxy lists as I get a vibe that most players would prefer to play WSYWYG as much as possible, even if it's in no way a deal breaker. There is also a more minor issue of proxying hiding the true market for models. For example, when I started playing MRRF was still in print, but the models were clearly old sculpts and my preference was for the new cad stuff. So I went in for USA instead, but if MRRF was available in modern sculpting no way I would have passed on Cyberpunk operators in combat hoodies. If I wanted to get a feel for MRRF I could just buy USARF and proxy til they came out. While there are many reasons MRRF didn't get resculpted as planned, I'm sure, at least part of it had to be new players saw USARF in shiny new sculpts, saw a vast resculot of the entire catalog was underway, and then did not buy the MRRF started because it was clearly going to be resculpted. The problem of uncertainty: The fact that MRRF went from in catalog, to out-of-catalog, but in army in N3, to almost DOA with N4, to resurrected at the last second with life support tier updates to their rules, to suddenly at the very end of N4 getting both new sculpts and new models right before the launch of N5, to being cut from the game. How am I supposed to read their intentions there? Without commentary from CB, you could easily read this as a last minute setup in N4 for a glorious MRRF launch. Instead CB planned to cut MRRF from the game and unceremoniously dump them into vanilla on N5 launch. That caught me off guard as much Achilles gaining fireteam options and moving to CA. Proxying can also warp market expectations in other ways: CB said that the infinity Army stats showed that people played way more zanshis than Keisotsus despite the common talking point at the time that 10pts is better than 11 points for an order. This seemed bizarre to me because obviously that would the case. N3 had launched with 3 zanshis in the box. CB was clearly resculpting it's entire catalog. I can assure you as a Yu Jing player I was salivating at the thought of JSAs release, and I wasn't going to buy some old sculpts that would clearly be redone soon. I wanted them badly. I almost felt like I was being punished for not proxying JSA in my lists and just sticking with WSYWYG lol. I should have been pumping those numbers up! Maybe I should have just made a bunch of Steel Phalanx lists with Achilles in them and saved them unplayed to my account, I dunno. Which brings me to second part of the uncertainty problem. Using lore to as a means of conveying where the game is headed. There are lot of problems with this method of communication. For example: uprising. PsychoticStorm is clearly a lore fanatic infinity, so his reaction to uprising makes logical sense from his point of view*. Clearly JSA was always rebellious and it was inevitable that JSA would eventually split from Yu Jing. Except to me and many others (did I mention I started infinity with Yu Jing, man am I unlucky right) that was not clear and you could easily read the fluff as a forever war between an unruly vassal and their liege. Every bit of lore is written from the point of view of in universe propaganda or extremely biased sources. Part of the Cyberpunk setting is that everyone is deeply evil and many times has a ulterior motives or unclear loyalties. I did not pickup Raven Eye or Endsong. But even if I did, I would not expect to be able to divine CBs release schedules from it. CB dictates the fluff, not the other way around, and the fluff is murky and biased, as it should be, but that makes it a bad source for auguring CBs plans because of how unofficial and subjective it is. Fluff can also be changed or reconned as need be in order to better for the rules and world of the game, so it can and should be written with a bit of mystery and uncertainty. CB already has the door open for winter for to be cooped by Shasvastii agents like Octavia. Liang Kai, tired of being a slave to the jade empire, leads a revolt of Shaolin monks to Pan-Os side. And CB could retroactively point to the seeds they have sown. Which is good writing , but also why the lore should not be a source for news about the real world tabletop game. Also, I feel like it requires a unreasonably high level of engagement from me. If I had purchased and read would I have known to dump my Achilles and Spiral Corps models right away? I'm not even sure , if you look at the Spiral Corps forums, PsychoticStorm, mercifully I might add, let's the posters know that the Endsong fluff confirms Spiral is dead and gone as a merc company. Now, just on principle, I think if he was just a normal forum goer, one could argue the fluff is a matter of interpretation. But I actually trust this is accurate, because he is like a psuedo employee of infinity, making it as official a confirmation of the death of Spiral long-term as we will get. But it's not the fluff that convinced me, it's the fact that he said it. *This is just my recollection from a long time ago, if not specifically PsychoticStorm it was at least the argument of some pro Uprising commentators. So what is a solution. For me I would like to end the uncertainty that is holding me back from buying and supporting the game. Lot of people assume that changing the proxy rules is a line CB would not cross, but a lot of us understood that CB would not kill off the out of catalog sectorials, and they did. So a very direct statement that from CB confirming that the proxy rules will remain and will always remain would certainly be a good step. And pardon me if they've already done that somewhere, but I haven't seen it obviously. That still leaves me with quite a bit of uncertainty though because as I've detailed it's extremely hard to figure what they plan for. I was able to avoid the JSA and Merc pitfalls, but not Achilles or Spiral and now I don't know how soon my existing collection might move from relevant to proxy. And I'm already becoming proxy rich. To address that, I would like know how CB views themselves. If I knew that CB not only tolerated proxying, but encouraged it and considered it a core part of the game. If they said something affirmative along the lines of "not only is proxying accepted and often necessary part of the game, but we encourage players to build their own factions and use whatever generic/sectorial rules they like to express themselves. " Which, to that end, @psychoticstorm, I've changed my mind on the idea of a proxying guide. Putting myself in the shoes of CB and using my best, and optimistic guess at what they intend for N5 to be: I don't know Pano, but obviously stuff like Orc = Griffin. Bagh Mari/Kamua = black air. And maybe a little blurb about how helots might serve in less suicidally defensive roles now. From there they could talk about how proxying has allowed people to all kinds of fun things like Robert Shepherds alien coalition, of Tohha and Exrah. Wild ideas like people who might want to run a Panoceanian militia force that has used a smoke grenade before, or panoceanian militarized police force that uses the 0-12 rules. Etc. Now a lot of might say this is already how the proxy rules work. Or that my uncertainty is only because I haven't waited til next week to find out what's happening. But my uncertainty extends far beyond that and could be cleared up for me easily. I started playing before proxying officially allowed for all infinity models, what I am trying to clarify is if CB sees proxying as a necessary evil to prevent bad feelings about release schedules for profiles, or as a band aid to keep enfranchised players from leaving over their collections being invalidated. A rule to be removed as soon as the emotions died down. If it's part of the culture of infinity that you proxy. If they consider it part of their business model that they are confident in creative abilities to sell models to people who already have a lot of them. Then hell yeah I'm all in. I'll feel confident in buying again. Because even if CB released the MRRF hoodie brigade box next month and then deleted it from the game the following month because you ingrates have terrible taste and the only box CB could sell was to me, I'd feel good knowing I got some sweet limited run models for my head cannon faction. If it was how CB views themselves and there business model in this way, then I don't need to be on this sort of the forum anymore and I can move to the hobby and fan sections. Where I develop my own infinity minor corporate and PMC factions, cherry pick my favorite sculpts, and introduce the Bostria Challenge version N5: what is the most flefficent, but also stylish way to purchase enough models to cover every faction, profile and loadout in the game. ( For those not in the know, Bostria had an army building challenge to build a functional list for your chosen faction with the least SKUs purchased and without having surplus models. A cute and cool challenge it was) Edit:fixed some typos
@Nimlothautle OK there's a lot there to process (and if you could break up the paragraphs into shorter more manageable chunks it would do wonders for digesting it all). The just of what I'm getting is that if CB released some sort of "Official Proxy Guide" for the discontinued N5 units it would do a lot to reassure you that proxing is both OK and unlikely to change in the foreseeable future?
Yeah maybe that was wayyyy to much too put in one place. The gist is slightly more than that, it's that they and players should consider proxying as an important and supported part of the game. I'd be willing to meet them half way with that from my end by thinking about my purchases and collecting. A proxy guide would be one way to show that they are serious. But Im not deeply invested in say the Pano lore, maybe I'm the only person this would help.
Change some typos, remove the unnecessary chaf, add that the ‘guide’ is just a suggestion guide that in no way is imposing limits on creativity, put more emphasis about the intention of the design team behind the changes, and you have a golden PR message here. You can spice it up with your latter actual pictures examples of @RobertShepherd army, or any other actual proxied army.
Some good PR reminding people of the long-standing generous official proxy rules would certainly be helpful. It's the sort of thing they'd normally do as a blog post, but ideally it should also take the form of a video, especially if they can also include pictures of some good quality community armies.
CB have been a bit squiffy on the marketing/PR front (lately ?), some more clarity and explicit direction would be good.
My apologies to @RobertShepherd, I was giving the bones of a fake PR post. He does not actually have that army he simply suggested that the Ex-Rah reinforcements are awesome and would make a cool box to flesh out your tohaa or spiral in N5.... What he actually has is ballin' Sygmaa themed forced that uses the Sygmaa models from Onyx Contact Force:)
Good for him, while an NDA is a legal document, the essence of it is a form of trust between the company and the individual to not disclose information. It is quite good to have individuals who can be trustworthy and its a good character trait to have generally in life. It has nothing to do with "players will riot" and everything to do with been a trustworthy individual.
Well i can tell you a thing. I asked about the treatment CB will gonna do to the OOP sectorials, and he answers me than EVERYBODY warned CB that , as it is planned right now, is a bad idea and there are better ways to manage it and keep the playerbase happy, but CB chooses to ignore them
And what, pray tell us did he say was going to happen to the OPP Sectorials? This in the full knowledge that what's actually happening to the OPP Sectorials hasn't been fully set in stone yet?
I really hope that what's gonna happen to Oop sectorials is not engraved in stone yet, and CB take another approach.
Yes but I asked what your friend said was going to happen to OPP Sectorials and what it was that EVERYBODY has warned them about being such a bad idea?
I wasn't aware that you were either a Warcor or part of the testing team and theirfore subject to any NDA's that exist on this? If the tester you met has told you something that they shouldn't have then they've broken at least one NDA and this needs to be investigated. I mean, I could just check the tournament you were at where they were the winner and that would identify them.
Look this hurts but what cb should cut the sectorials...give pdf rules to play in 5th outside of its events and warn they are gone for 6th with no more support. I have been a mini gamer for 40 years...and this is the right decision for the game and company. Will some of you be hurt...yep but if cb os going to exist in 10 or 15 years they need to pull the band aid off and get rid of bloat and lowest performance skus/ armies. Unlike board or video games we feel more hurt and entitled to more from a company. We invest more than money...we invest time to paint and for some ot even becomes a kind of identifier. In 40k i am a blood angel guy...is what it is. Doesn't change the fact the game still has too many skus and needs to focus on expanding the player base with nee players than cater to the other gamers. It's been a challenge for them for years and is the number 1 thing they need to do...to the exclusion of all else.
you could, but still nothing is leaked. And im not gonna do, so you have no proofs. And nothing like this should be a problem if CB do proper communication like they did in the past It's curious, because the axed sectorial are not the ones with less winrate. USARF and TAK have less WR than CHA or FRRM. Military Orders has the worst WR in all PanO But if they are cutting the less played, it's CB fault in the end. Why X factions are less played. Because people dont like them? Or because we dont sell products for that factions?
And did they ever? Since I can't really recall that. Then again, being a part of the community since, like, spring of 2011, I might've been around too short to remember. Or pehaps memoria fragilis est...
