I also thought about this solution, but in my experience there is no fireteam which can effectively withstand an active players attack (this includes Bolt/Kamau Sniper). Since attack pieces are so powerful, it is just a matter of how many orders it takes for him to remove your defensive ARO fireteam member. I am therefore reluctant to remove defensive capabilities of fireteams. That said, I think it would be interesting to test your suggestion. I just fear that alpha strikes (which have a heavy NPE element) may be even more powerful. By removing the +3BS in active turn, the alpha strike potential is slightly nerfed. That was my thinking at least. Defense needs a boost. Too many games have all the opponents troops hidden in total cover in the DZ with the occasional sacrifical TR bot/other defensive unit as a speed-bump.
So, I must play an elite faction to deploy a massed amount of cheap bodies whose loss won't affect my overall plan. Wouldn't this point to "keep spamming, there is no other option"? It was an example. If you prefer random sequence of numbers, it can be done in a simple table... But the lower line is: Your target number is X1, X2, X3... Xn Your roll is Y1, Y2, Y3... Yn You only get a critical hit when X == Y. Because each roll might, or might not be, a case of Yn == Yn-1 The tables you present in the next post seem to me like an answer to something I'm not trying to convey, frankly :S I agree, but mostly not because of the "I get a regular order, haha" (that is quite meh, in my opinion), but for the Hidden Deployment Lts, that can spend the first turn in perfect hiding, declare the invalid ARO on the opponent's last order, and be safe from Lt loss. Mind you, I think Lt loss dissapearing in C1 is a good idea... Sadly, this moves the issue to Heckler's fastpanda or Repeater Moran, removing the viability of all factions without those tools to opress with Marked state. The problem is not truly the repeaters, but being able to Mark (a state than now doesn't dissapear at the end of the turn) as an ARO, which makes all troops "hackable", and allows for the extreme efficiency on order corrosion against the opponent. Also, this does not remove the issue of Speculative fire spam (Moira/Druze/Emily EM linked grenade launcher, for example). Not a critic, just an observation. I think the problem with Eraser is that two (non-hackable) units can spam it freely, while the others need to have a Symbiont armor, and 1-2 Kaeltar. I think making them Disposable (2) like Jammers might be the solution (since the weapon is mostly a Jammer, after all). Also, if an attacker is going to be reduced from B2 to B1 (for example, a Coordinated order for the leader with a B3-4 weapon, like an HMG), he can spread the Burst, but the defenders cannot. I see a problem with this, which is the smoke - MSV combo. Good MSV ARO pieces would mostly ignore this, while all others... would not. Is this a change of paradigm desirable? It would mean, for starters, that some factions would have a harder time dealing with Fireteams (those without access to MSVs and Smoke) while others would be really free to engage. Right now, the exposed ARO troops from a fireteam are already good shooters with good defenses, and this rule would mostly mean all basic infantry would suffer a lot in utility, other than being cheerleaders. Surprise attack could be changed, so Sixth Sense would not affect it, but only regarding returning fire, so Dodge would still be viable, if the problem comes from fireteams (they would have a choice of 2 dice for BS at -3 with range, cover and visual mods, or 1 dice for dodge with no penalties). At least, that's what I think it would be a little fairier.
Sixth sense could just remove negative modifiers to dodge, and allow you to dodge attacks outside your LoF. Makes more sense to me; having a guy watch your back shouldn’t let you point your gun backwards over your shoulder and squeeze off perfect shots.
To be fair, smoke + MSV is already in the game, it is designed into the rules just as White Noise and Albedo are. By removing the ability of Sixth Sense to ignore ZVZ mods and Surprise Attack from Fireteams, it means that linked MSV ARO pieces can be dealt with by models shooting through White Noise/Albedo or by a Camo Sniper using Surpise Attack from out of Range. Similarly, models without MSV can safely be ignored by using Smoke, you do not always need to kill an ARO piece to render it ineffective. As to making basic infantry worse, well with Wildcard options basic infantry are not the ideal choice for linked ARO pieces, thats what the Wildcards are for. And basic infantry are already delegated to being cheerleaders so there is really no loss here. I admit though that this is just an idea and that I could easily be wrong. The suggested changes would need to be play tested to see how viable it would be.
Way to move the goal post. Your initial argument was that ALEPH had no disposable trooper to defend their deployment zone, and now suddenly your argument is that non-elite don't have an answer? Each faction has different way to mitigate assault and protect their DZ... Some have sacrificial troopers that loss don't affect their order pool. (Peripherals, Post-Human) Some have ZoC ARO coverage (Hacking, Pheroware, High PH Dodging Warbands) Some have camo spam to tarpit Some sacrifice actual troopers, but compensate by having much more elite troopers (perhaps some that generate more orders via Tactical Awareness) Etc. Some faction have indeed "bring more bodies" as a way to mitigate assault. But this isn't the only answer. (Some factions even have a varying amount and mix of multiple options) It doesn't matter what your targets are. It is ALWAYS 5% chance to crit per dice, no matter what spread of target numbers are. Your example is non-sensical. You're trying to use an example of a failed result, which while it exists, tries and claim that the percentage are different, but you're not taking all the possibilities into account. You could of course roll "Yn-1" on every roll, but the matrix I posted show every single possible outcomes (you can even weigh them how you like) and the end result is... ALWAYS 5% CHANCE TO CRIT PER DICE (there is literally no exception to this) It will never be more, it will never be less.
Not like these house rules alter the game to such a level that someone would be hard pressed to compete anywhere except their local meta…
No surprised you'd get negative feedback from completely gutting a faction's main strength, lol. a) How do you handle this? Do you ignore measurement timing from N4? If you do, that'll break a lot more things than it'll "fix". Revealing hidden deployed stuff barely has any relevant impact on the game to be honest, it's usually a misplay more than anything. b) That'd be fine, though a idk why someone would want to volountarily play 10 orders, but that rule would be fine imo. c) I think the terrain aspect of decompression zones are pretty interesting, but the saturation is a pretty hard nerf to fireteams, and sectorial do not need to be weaker. I think a single decompression per player would be a lot more interesting. d) Idk what this really changes, it will slightly drop some % win chance on active turn Kriza Borac? Is that really necessary? Seems like a spite nerf. e) Revamp of Fireteam rules would be nice if the change promoted list diversity and gave interesting rules. A straight nerf to fireteam would be pretty bad imo, sectorial are already weaker than vanilla imo. f) That's outrageous, lol. An insanely big nerf on a very core part of the game. Some really hates hacking, lmao. g) Guided is a pretty good way to enforce a hacking network. It's pretty order intensive to use actively and it's avoidable reactively. I think Minelayer repeater and fastpanda are more of the issue with Guided than the chance to wound. I haven't mathed it with everything, but it's pretty poor use of orders for cheap troopers and it's also pretty mediocre versus the Avatar. There is a sweet spot in between where it is certainly good. I'd be careful about implementing changes that alter %'age success without having any numbers to back up such a change. h) That's a very uninteresting nerf that just makes things more luck reliant. You really don't like hacking. That seems like a lot of changes based on "I hate this" and very little based on thoughtful decision. I'm not surprised the Nomad player is angry, I'm surprised not more people are.
Probably meta dependant, and an extension of the "bad match-up" syndrome going on in N4. There's a lot of build archetypes and factions that get screwed over by the Nomad/Corregidor Hacking network, to a far greater extent than basically anything else and in a staggeringly unenjoyable manner. Heavy-armour PanO and Yu Jing take the cake, since those are some of the biggest playstyle draws for the factions, but many flavours of Ariadna, NA2 and even other Nomads suffer. If Infinity worked on a draft/ban system I'd be kicking out Nomads, Corregidor and CA in that order every time- and some of my factions actually can take that matchup. It's just boring.
Vostok has better odds than a Kriza against the vast majority of enemies and it's B4 in a link. B5 cap probably isn't fixing anything really.
Do I hate hacking? No. But I think elements of it to contain extreme amounts of NPE. In N3 I was often faced with people thinking game elements such as Jammers and Symbiomates being boring. In N4 they got nerfed/corrected. Is it unthinkable that guided could go the same way? Guided+spotlight is a much larger NPE issue since it is a possible strategy for most factions, not only Nomads (they are more effective with it) . Besides, in N3, hacking was much weaker and it's not like Nomads were unplayable, so I think they would do fine with removing the effectiveness of the oppressive guided/spotlight tactic.
Does it, though? Make it more luck based, that is, when it's a range adjustment to a device most factions don't have? Yes it is true that this nerfs hacking in the sense that Pitchers are a primary decider for whether your hacking game is strong or not, but the reality check is that it doesn't do anything at all to hacking for about 37 factions and the remaining 5 factions are not held at gun point and forced to play hacking through this mechanic.
I wonder how much of this is being affected by the fact that the most popular of maps favor very dense midfields on TTS, where things like Morans are at their greatest advantage.
Why not nerf guided then, and not the hacking in general? Dropping +6 to hit MOD for guided when firing against targeted seem like a reasonable solution. With only 5 shots it will make guided tactic pretty risky on top of already being order intense.
The problem being that some sectorials, and PanO, have no access to one, the other, or neither, while others, like CA, have access to all. No, it's more on the lines that spammy factions got elite profiles (if not as good as elite's profiles of the same tier/role), while elite factions didn't got cheap, spammy bodies. I'm making a diferenciation between "cheaper body that can do something" and "cheaper body in you lineup beside common remotes". For example, Bakunin does not use Moderators for spam tactics (in fact, I'd say they see more use now than in N3, thanks to the Riot Grrrls and Avicenna linking options), nor does Morat spam Vanguards. They have cheap harassing troops with short range BS options (their longest tend to not have a FtF option, so they need to use the pistol if they want that) and have melee capabilities. That slot for Aleph would be the Myrmidons, for gear and profile, but the Mimetism -6 makes them start at mid-high basic infantry cost. So Aleph has Dakinis and Thorakitai, neither of which can melee, and neither of which are exactly a good exchange piece (they aren't "bad", either). In fact the 12pts Thorakitai, the cheaper cheerleader, is not a cheerleader per se, but a defensive turret against AD troops thanks to a 360º visor on a SMG + Chain Rifle troop, and exchanging that Thora with another piece means getting a hole in the defensive net. The Dakinis... well, they shoot "bad" (unless supportwared, linked or Apsara'ed), but are good shootes against FtF fire because of mimetism... which is useless against chain rifles, for example. Sure, I use them for defense (and offense), but the cost of losing one of either is higher than a Nomad losing a Morlock, or even a Haqq losing a Bashi Bazouk. Faster games. In N3 when one player would play a single group, the game would go down to 90-120 minutes, and when both players did so, it would go down to 60-90 minutes. Sure, it can be considered that wiping one or the other is faster, but people had less things to look for, and less troops in the table, using the same amount of time to decide the orders (yep, I fond that strange, since you could increase thinking time in order to be more careful). I'd say the problem is more about how many pitchers the Nomads have, and less the other factions having none (Aleph has 3-4 units with... and two are Scylla and Thamirys, plus none can enter a fireteam... While Onyx can link Kerr Nau) I also would like to make the limit of 5 per turn to include Especulative fire, frankly.
IMO it's more about how shooting pitchers is difficult to justify order expenditure on unless you're using a really good unit to do it with like a linked Barid or Bit+KISS (which is available to Onyx). Not unlike Smoke Grenades in how below a given threshold of spamming or reliability, it is a waste of orders. The problem is that when you have a unit that's sufficiently good at it it stops being a tactic and starts being a grand strategy so to speak. Or maybe the better analogy is that it stops being a scalpel device and starts being a sledge. That spews mustard gas. Btw, when I write that it is limited to 5 factions I don't necessarily include Aleph in that because to me at least it falls below the threshold of reliability. I have had pitchers used by Aleph tactically against me, don't get me wrong, but not to try and deny the entire board to me.
Sorry for the late reply, the notification got lost in all the others and the ´'REEEEEE' from some people. Anyways, this is the part I actually disagree with also something I think I highlighted in the OP. I would be forced to concede the point, that the top 3 factions in N3 vs the bottom factions had a massive disparity similar to what I've described in this thread. Taking two extremes for example, would be DBS vs OSS. However, despite this I still think the pool of armies that could competet against each other in N3 was much larger and to boil it down in a very simple manner, there're are like 4-5 OSS armies, while the rest are stuck at MAF levels of strength (judging from N3 standards). Or, if you wanted it described in tier lists (although some people are really allergic to this) N3 had 3-4 S-tier armies, 8+-A tier armes and 8+ B-tier armies. Meanwhile, N4 has this "mostly shifted around" as you describe it, which I agree, but it's HOW it has shifted it around, which is that N4 (in ultra competitive min-maxing) there're 4-5 S-tier armies while a few are C-tier and the rest are D-tier and below. So yes, I agree with you on the specific premise, that N4 didn't invent this particular issue but I disagree strongly that N4 didn't made this much worse. So what issues did N4 actually introduce then? Well, that's easy for me to answer, the primary factors are threefold: 1. Hacking Yes, I know hacking bad, 'Nomads plox nerf!' yada yada. My problem is not actually Nomads being good at hacking, I think it's a very simplistic and bad way of viewing the subject and it's hard to present a case hacking and not come off as someone who isn't just butthurt over he lost to Nomads hackers. My problem is how hacking is janky AF and some mechanics/programs were introduced (never before on N3) that has a very negative influence on the game. Nomads being good at hacking is something I don't begrudge them for, in the same sense that I do not begrudge Ariadna for being good at camo, however the infowar aspect is just bizarre and very much looks like something that didn't get so much playtesting. Take for example Steel Phalanx and JSA, which both rely on Stealth to somewhat reliably get around Repeater nets. Against the hyper hackers of the Human Sphere, they can just walk past them and have no care but against some shitty Zhanshi hackers, they will suffer Spotlight/Oblivion spam because they have 6th sense, so they can now almost mitigate Steel Phalanx's entire tschick of visual mods. Spotlight on ARO is something I'm semi-okay with in concept, but I cannot understand why it gives a -3MOD to Reset on top of having granted the ARO label, but that's a minor issue for me (in the grand scheme of things) but it does exacerbate the issue of Guided mechanics, as you basically must Reset or suffer the consequences while being given a penalty to a RNG single dice roll (which is also frustrating). Really, Guided is not actually a bad mechanic or that annoying if it weren't for the Spotlight ARO because the order investment of setting this up in active turn is much more fair (even if you dislike the mechanic). 2. Oblivion I know it seems weird to exclude this program from the point above, as it is literally about hacking but I still want to single this mechanic out as an issue because I'm beyond baffled that CB greenlighted this. Really, I don't think anyone here can contest that Jammers (mostly on the cheap platform, granted) was one of the most widely detested things by the community and CB's response to this was to basically destroy Jammer from the game. "But Oblivion isn't new to N4?", you might say but it actually is because the AVA, B and Ammo of this weapon changed to such a warping degree that you, in practice, have a new program. And I do mean it when I say that's it's warping the hacking game, because the program is so good that BTS and Tinbots are of little value to the target you wish to ruin. Going back to the linked hackers (and janky design) for a bit, Tinbot's primary purpose is, at this point, not to actually protect things like Shang-JI or Riot Grrl (that's actually very much a secondary effect) but primarily to link Hackers with a Tinbot, to increase their chances of beating a FTF-roll and none of this is made better by the fact that you are no longer allowed to perfom a Guts Roll, after a successful reset. I actually want Nomads to be "the ones with good hacking" so I think the concept of this program being available on every single normal device very much undermines this, as well as having loads more armies playing the Oblivion/ARO hacking game which is, generally speaking, not really that much fun. I would keep Oblivion as it is but remove it from normal hackers, while giving skirmishers (and other units) who traditionally had Assault Hacking Devices before Oblivion as an Upgrade! on their profile. 3. Orders Yes, yes, Ha, ha. The guy who played ISS, YJ and Nomads in N3 doesn't like fewer orders. Except not really, and it wounds me a bit for you to say that when I placed 2nd in your German Satellite using only Limited Insertion list of Invincible Army, while everyone was laughing at me for attempting to do so. In all seriousness though, am I really being controversial when I say that almost everyone would have preferred a restructure of armies/points to organically reach around 14-15 models, rather than slapping on a band-aid limit and hoping it would affect few armies as possible? It doesn't strike anyone as very odd, that CA or IA with massive units churn out 17-18 orders while other armies barely struggle to pull 14 orders or can fill 15 orders but the models have nowhere near same value and impact? This dynamic almost never existed in N3 and it's weird to me that we pretend it existed before. It very much feels like N4 gave HI's and TAG's massive discounts, while buffing hacking to compensate, further (massively, in fact) increase the value of camo/marker states and hoping it would fit for a somewhat balanced game, while not noticing how many armies have falled short in all of those categories and/or options.
About order limit: What you folks think of a solution to: - Increase troops limit to 20 (two full combat groups), - Add a +3 LT Wip mod to Initiative roll for whoever has less troops, Instead of insta-crippling order spam relying armies, rendering some warbands and bodies for trades unwanted - why not provide an incentive to play less orders than opponent? This would also add a nice layer of mind meta games while listbuilding. It would also not mean you always win a roll if you play low order count - just an increase chance to win. I do think it is simple and would be effective. Should also make high order count fans happier, than flat 15 troops limit.
imo LI incentive wasn't enough to justify fielding 10 troops vs 20... If you provide +3 WIP to "who starts the game" roll 20 troops list might meet a 19 orders list and have -15% to start... 19 troops list might run into 18 orders list and so on. Fielding a lot you gotta count in that chance.
