Seeing actual balance sweeps would be a massive faith-restorer for the existing Infinity community. Even annual would do.
I'm afraid that's what you imagined I meant. It seems completely correct to me. Not only is it okay and right for the game to move into something like a permanent beta state, I think it should have been done years ago.
I agree with this, on the condition that it will actually be used. Over the years I've seen CB introducing a lot of cool ideas, and then not following through. This is a bigger scope change, though, so I remain cautiously optimistic.
As CB don't charge for base rules; living rules is the ideal situation but needs constant oversight which as you've said Stiopa they haven't made the changes at the intervals some would like to see. On the flip side you can take a look at GW. Codex bloat that are invalidated fairly quickly causing players to feel value wasted. I believe CB can find a good balance but remain doubtful.
Isn’t there already a pretty good balance? I find that the edge cases that are often discussed here or the many recent rules threads (about Discover bonus or other bonuses in Fireteams for instance) aren’t really significant or impactful. While still struggling with layout, indexing and clarity I find that the rules are solid and problems severly exaggerated?
Not really, look at factions like mrrf, cha etc and compare them to corregidor and kosmo. Balance is waaaaay off. Internal balance in a lot of factions is janky as well, lots of mechanically-better picks like vostok that completely outperform other options. New good units added into places instead of fixing old crap ones. Infinity gets away with a lot because so much of the game relies on board state, terrain and mission objectives but the balance issue is not good and getting worse
I believe is a good thing, if comes with velocity enough to fix the problems quickly, here is the main problem a lot of players see, at least is where I think it is, but it isn't the only concern, the other main issue is the feeling of "the new is always better", a kind of power up: morats+fireteam changes are an example, the general power of fireteams were dropped, took away, but practically not for Morats, it is too concrete to be something random. Of course It could be explain as they are the "base" for testing changed vs unchanged... of course this could be a good argument and yet the main issue will remain: the new keep the fancy rules or the "powered ones". Sometimes this could look like a good approach, but I believe most Infinity players don't buy something new because is better than the old, but because they like the new stuff, so that feeling about the "power new things" isn't good. Infinity was in general (years ago) a well balanced game, but I feel for the past few years every time is less and less well balanced, favoring the new armies with a box over others... And too some factions. This is something I really dislike, but I still can believe Corvus B wants to maintain the balance and the tool to do it is the "Living Rule Book", if well implemented it will be a really powerful instrument to have a better balanced game and too to have all (or almost) players happy. But this will be only possible if changes will come quickly enough. For example, "vostok" changes now are a good thing, even Uma ones, but the velocity on how they have happened is not. Same can be applied to a lot of things in Game. And I know Ininity isn't the easier game to balance, because many details easily remain hidden because are too linked to the board configuration, which impact directly in how some units can be played or even if they have a chance to bright beyond lucky rolls. To me this is the "trap" where the ITS analysis fell (too the pairings, as where I'm aware of which faction won or lose against other isn't taken into consideration, for example). So... I only can say, to make it short: "I want to see where this new approach can take Infinity".
@Urobros infinity balanced before? - LSG was weapon of the gods in N3 due to template tricks. In N4 it's still weapon of the gods due to (slightly different) template tricks. - N3 ARO baiting+smoke. How is that Change Facing ARO working out for you when Ko-Dali or partially stealthed fireteam comes to stomp you? - N3 Fatality2 - N3: Solving all problems by fishing for crits. - N3 Tohaa and Spiral shenanigans. If anything, the amount of shenanigans has decreased in N4 or at least it has shorter range. - N3 30xAngry scots with 3 HMG. I think the root of the problem is King Covid, which made people play more using Infinity TTS. Strategies were perfected, which makes game difficult for newbies. Covid made players too gud for the health of the game.
nah if anything COVID fucked the playtesting cycle of the edition leaving something that is incredibly and easily abusable by the community. Oh and the general streamlining of the game really didnt help when they useful tools for countering stuff and nerfing others into the dirt (Specifically the Burnt state and Grenade launchers).
And proper playtesting helps to determine what is efficient, and what is not. Ideally there would be multiple efficient options, with those above the efficiency curve being more risky, and those below - more safe.
Yeah, but you can determinate if something has potential without fielding them using a probability calculator.
You can't, however, determine if something has potential that isn't shown by a calculator. Just the simple question "how did these units end up in this situation" makes playtesting essential and calculators a crude implement at best.
Every unit, when tested in the context of their faction and sectorial. Excel spreadsheet can take you only so far.
"years ago" I said and "in general", but it is still partially true. You mentioned last half of N3 cycle, where the things began to go "in a wrong way" with some rules, profiles, etc. Even so, many problems you listed I suffered not or not so hard as others, lucky me. With the passing years many things were fixed and new problems appears. For example, right now, the changes to old DDO becoming mimetism and "fire" no burning it anymore has created a problem with some profiles, they were good when they colud lose DDo but now are even better. (All we know in what I'm thinking). Right now are, and too were (vostok, for example) things out of balance. I feel less balance now because I have the feeling on be dependant of luck more than I did before. And I'm not the only one in my local meta. I doubt TTS truly had have a negative impact. About the playtesting as far as I know they are some players which are tester, so they play with regularity, taste new rules and send back the feedback to CB. So, they are playtesting, it could be better? Maybe. But the test exists.
I don't believe that. There is a meta in this game. Some units are clearly superior in the current meta for their apparent destructive or defensive purpose. I mean people who play this game aren't stupid. They can and will use probability calculators to judge if unit is good or not. They don't let a few bad gaming experience to change that. If anything, playtesters should do the same and stop evaluating units based on personal experiences. For example in N3 fullcore Forward observers were superior fullcore cheerleaders, because back then technical weapons could get fireteam burst bonus during reactive turn, which could without save (if you critted) stop any non-total immune rambo piece thus potentially winning you the game. Do you see forward observers doing the same thing in N4?
