Also, with respect to what @A Mão Esquerda is saying about these strategies not being on top tables, that's incorrect. The top players regularly employ these strategies, especially in Nomads. When there's no downside to attacking via hacking from behind a wall, and attacking via normal gunfighting runs the risk of being hurt back? You'd take the zero-risk play, every time.
Could someone list the Top Ten results for Adepticon and Salt Lake Showdown? Are Nomads really dominating the Meta?
1.) RTF 2.)Tohaa 3.) RTF 4.) NCA 5.) ISS 6.) Tohaa 7.) Onyx 8.) Military Orders 9.) Shasvastii 10.) CA
Nomads are so totally dominating with their insurmountable hacking and repeater tossing they didn't even make the top 10. Top Nomad player placed 20th.
You know, as much as I dislike defending some people, using the argument that 'Nomads are not dominating the high-end tables, therefore this issue is a non-issue' is kinda disingenous. The problem is one of perception. There is a /perception/ of nomad dominance. Which doesn't mean Nomads do dominate, but it does mean that some, a perhaps not to small fraction of the players, perceive them as too strong or, more likely, perceive CB to have some kind of favoritism towards them. About 1/3 of the players I talk with express some kind of belief that there is a bias when it comes to designing nomad models. Not all of them will say this is a bad thing, but the perception is there. Of course, I am talking from a purely empyrical standpoint here.
You are totally right there is a perception that Nomads are too strong. I don't know how to counter that without pointing to ITS results. Nomads do have a lot of great tools and Vanilla has so many options. But it also feels cruddy when people say that it a faction you love playing is OP; especially when it does not reflect reality. EDIT: What could help change minds about Nomads?
At the moment? Not much. It’s accepted and received Interwebz Wizdum. Doesn’t matter if it’s borne out on the table or not. Of course, it does vary from place to place and meta to meta. Again, going to the experience of SLS, there wasn’t any talk of “Nomads OP” in any convos I personally was part of, overheard, or heard about. Again, opinion, but it ofttimes feels like a combination of Interwebz Wizdum and folks’ hobbyhorses coming together in an especially caustic way.
Honestly? there's nothing we, as players, can do. This is wholly on CB's ballpark. I mean, getting stuff like the whole 'spotlight+guided missile' interaction nerfed might be good. Not fucking giving Nomads stuff like the Gator might also help. I mean... the problem isn't even the gator, or the kriza, or the hollow men... it's just... man. I mean, why do Nomads have the second largest TAG pool in the human sphere? Why do the guys who allegedly have less money and resources somehow get to have more options for THE SINGLE MOST EXPENSIVE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT than the guys who explicitly have actual money an resources on top of them? 'But Red, YuJing doesn't get many Tags because they have power armor!" Well, cool, you're right, YuJing gets more than double nomads options when comparing their HI options. Except YuJing gets a lot of 'generic dude in armor' profiles, with stuff like Wu Ming, Zuyong and Shang Ji being almost the same. It just feels lazy, man. And that's what irks me on a personal level. I look at stuff like tunguska and say 'ok, this looks like it was done with love and care', and then I look at Invincibles and go "Yeah, whoever designed this did it because they were on a paycheck" I had this feeling for a long time with Morats, and it was only with the recent update that I finally felt like someone who actually gave a fuck about the faction worked on it. Shit, they're not even top tier competitive, but I am in love with them again since I hadn't felt since I started playing this game back in HSN3 So what can be done to change minds about nomads? Give the other factions the same love.
I hear you. Things like the Gator is frustrating. Like I mentioned in another thread, it felt like it was developed by someone who was Shinobu'ed and decided to make a hard counter. At least the removed the CC(-3) that was shown in the preview. But to me, it feels like CB has been sharing the love. With N4 and the incremental updates, Haqqislam has gotten much stronger and is in a great place. The Shotgun change by itself was a big boon. PanO is really powerful now; TAGs are significantly better and they have some of the best. They also got the incredible Karhu, which feels like one of the most optimized models in game. Vanilla PanO feels competitive. Ariadna has bears and a TAG now. Yujing, the huge N4 discount in HI and the 15 order limit was big in improving their competitiveness. They also have lots of NCO and arguably the best Lieutenant in the game (Daoying). Most (not all) of the sectorials got better with Fireteam update. With the exception of some sectorials, it feels there are more competitive options than there were before. Looking at the Glow-Up they gave Morats, I am hopeful for QK and MRRF when their time comes.
It is worth mentioning that Nomads at present shut down more army builds than anything else due to easy Hacking dominance. I know my NCA is considered one of the better PanO Sectorials at the moment, but for all its solid options I'm pigeonholed into filling one of my tournament lists with "that one list that actually works against Jazz and Morans", making Nomads easily my least favourite faction to see on the other side of the table since games have gotten so predictable against them.
Lobo specifically, and in online events where people from all over the world play and aren't constrained by their model collections.
Basically the Cryx problem Warmachine had at one point. Cryx wasn't outright winning everything in the game, but they were so stupid broken that anyone worth their salt was packing an anti Cryx list in their drops targeted against the most popular Cryx casters. They didn't break the game in the end but the faction was warping the metagame, and factions/casters who shared Cryx-lite traits got caught up in the crossfire. They weren't as dangerous as a real Cryx caster but every nerd was packing a counter for them so they tended to suffer as a result.
Perception can be a problem, but if perception is out of wack the solution is to readjust your viewpoint, not change the things around you. My argument is that it's not a matter of perception.
Redesign hacking and/or hacking profiles to where Nomads aren't head-and-shoulders above other factions for less points. Put a risk in skeeting repeaters everywhere, i.e. make extending your repeater network create a vulnerability that KHDs can actually exploit. OR dramatically cut down on their ability to take top-tier offensive/brute force profiles. Also, and this applies to more than just Vanilla Nomads, cut down on vanilla AVAs so that there are meaningful tradeoffs for taking Vanilla.
The issue is that you're so overwhelmingly positive about CB that saying that admitting there was imbalance/favoritism in the game wouldn't sit right with you. Nomad hacking, as it exists right now, constrains listbuilding at a high level whether or not Nomads win an event.
That's exactly it lol. Like someone was playtesting Nomads, got outplayed, and was like "NO! I don't get to get outplayed! Only Nomads are allowed to do that!" and created that profile.
That's not an indication of the faction's power. That's only an indication of what very good players decide thy want to play. For the most part very good players will do well with any army.
Both actual power level and perception of it are problematic here. Regarding actual power level: back in N2, when I started to play, Nomads were Jack-of-all-trades with an emphasis on hacking, but hacking wasn't an overwhelming tool, and there was a consistent counterplay to it. They also were at a slight disadvantage in a straight up firefight, so playing Nomads required more nuanced gameplay than, say, playing PanO, to solve the same tactical problems. Their units reflected it, as their original emphasis was on MI, with their versatile toolbox-like builds. In time hacking power level and utility changed in variuous ways, and with it relative power level of factions who could or couldn't really rely on it or were or weren't affected by it. But, aside from that, the combat side of Nomads got beefed up in various ways, some subtle, some... not so much. On one hand units like Kriza, Sombra, or now Gator showed up. On the other, there were subtle tweaks here and there. Can someone explain to me why Mobile Brigadas of all standard HI got ARM 5? I would understand if YJ or CA HI were buffed this way, but Nomads? Why are Hellcats the only unit in the game with Combat Jump (+3), while there are many units in other factions who would both need and deserve it? This creates situation in which Nomads are extremely versatile, and their only real drawback is their relatively weak command structure. But now we have an influx of NCOs in Corregidor, and it's only a matter of time before someone will decide Nomads should have CoC and better Lieutenants in every sectorial. And this ties into the perception issue: it's very much related to what @DaRedOne said, Nomad units are created with obvious love and care, while other factions are done because it's a job. It feels like no one stops to think, much less say aloud "does this faction really need this particular tool? Does it fit its character and playstyle?" If I recall correctly, psychoticstorm said about Gator that it exists to allow Nomads to play lists made around an MBT. How is that a good argument? I bet other players wanted to play PanO lists made around standard Smoke and MSV, Aleph Camo Spam, or CA hordes. But while these kind of things weren't made possible (and rightfully so), Nomad playstyle is simply expanded with every new unit. And when you're getting all the toys the argument that you aren't designers' darling holds no water.
