No. People are not complaining about Swiss Guard (unless they are on receivibg end) - That's why I meant to write them as an example of a high-tier unit. Aquila goes as high-tier as well (I mean with that cost... duh), but Swiss embodies everything people expect from high-tier both in performance and shenanigans.
Although it has to be said that the sort of people who tend to flip their shit in what we might call shit-flipping situations do strongly feel that shit flipping - particularly their own shit flipping, is indeed the metric that Corvus Belli should be paying attention to.
I think if it were do-able, I'd be with Tox and Ursun on this one. The whole split between 'vanilla'/sectorial split means that right in the heart of the game there are effectively two ways of playing. We're all used to that, but when you think about it anew, it's a very strange situation. Couldn't 'vanilla' just be reworked into a faction of its own, and rewrite the Fireteam rules to somehow intrinsically constrain things (perhaps like Fireteam Duo already does) - rather than doing it by creating the Sectorials and changing the Availability of units. When you look at unit profiles, Availability is a very strange and unintuitive attribute - it's the only part of the stat line that changes.
"worked into its own thing with constrained fireteams and different AVAs....." You mean like vanilla?
@Wolf Everyone feels their opinions are the one that's important, regardless of if they are flipping shit or calling people out for flipping shit. Hell, could even argue that people who think their opinion doesn't matter has an opinion of their own that they think is more important. Vanilla is the main faction all-star. Infinity as a game system works best without fireteams, in my opinion. The towers they create and the massive prevalence of sixth sense... Remove sectorials?
I would be for reworking sectorials before trying to rework vanillas. The sectorials that are not as powerful as their vanilla counterparts are in that position because their fireteams and AVA changes aren't sufficient to cover the losses that they suffer from leaving vanilla. Nomads are probably the best example of the differences between vanilla, a strong sectorial, and a significantly weaker sectorial. Vanilla nomads have access to a ton of flexibility and enough AVA of strong units to play well. Bakunin makes up for a loss in flexibility by giving access to RIOT pain trains, reverend links, and retaining some key strong pieces (Taskmasters, Zoe, etc.). That's an example of a sectorial losing flexibility but gaining strong advantages in other areas. Then you look at Corregidor, who loses out on flexibility and doesn't make up for it with the same powerful links that Bakunin gets. Some of it's increased AVA goes to units you would never use it on (see Hellcats). Having said that, I would be all for some changes to fireteam bonuses. Specifically reworking the SSL2 at 4 people. Maybe bump it down to SSL1. To this point, I would like AVA to stay as a stat. I think it gives them the design space to create powerful/cost efficient units without breaking the game wide open.
I feel OK with Crits winning the FtF roll but I think I would feel a lot better about them if, rather than causing an automatic wound, they caused a hit that ignored Cover, ARM and BTS. It still makes for a tense moment and allows the opponent to roll and feel like there is still a chance they don't immediately lose a wound while perhaps causing less tilt.
So kind of like mono filament? I'd like for everything to get better when you crit, your attack is more lethal regardless of source. To me that means upping the damage it deals. I'd bump the damage of a crit up by 3 or 6. Reducing ARM and BTS to 0 means that unarmored guys suffer crits less severely when really everyone should suffer more. And the current crit mechanic already devalues ARM by its very nature, so i'd like to see ARM be more effective albeit slightly. If you're going to get crit i'd rather be in a TAG than dressed like a tech-bee. I'd alternatively be happy with them just auto winning FTF and nothing more, but that might be too extreme for some people. It might make the game too much like A-Team shoot out sequences with lots of bullets thrown about and no one going down.
Yeah, in general, except I would say that it's a slight bit better against single wound models than monofilament is since you would still be using the damage value of the weapon (rather than Mono's 12) and a single wound is usually enough to do what you were looking to do. I was actually worried my suggestion was devaluing crits too much against very high ARM models like TAGs. The way it is now gives even a combi toting mook that opportunity to pull off a lucky shot which can make for some interesting underdog/unexpected moments, though this may not be as balanced. I considered a damage boost but book keeping and rules bloat becomes is something I would want to avoid. When it comes to single wound/effect attacks I actually find the crit rule to be rather elegant as it stands, despite the emotional issues it might cause.
Paramedic. Take away the -3 PH! Physical is already a lower stat compared to WIP generally. Why make it a -3? Symbiomates. Others have said enough. Seed-Embryo. Make it a free move to get out of it. Similar to prone. No nested skills!. It’s hard enough to remember a skill, but skill within skills!? Combine skills. Some skills/weapons have many skills with it it. For example Perimeter weapons have three or more different places to look up rules. Perimeter Weapon, Boost, Stand-by Mode, Ammo type, ZoC, Coherency, etc.
I will agree that the current standing of crits allows a model to be removed from one round of dice rolling, which is not something to be underestimated. A general +6 on damage roll following a crit isn't that hard to track, but In a situation where you both hit and crit and then roll for damage now you have to differentiate the hit that has a +6 vs the regular one. Unless if you crit then all hits are at an increased damage? That could be interesting... hmm
Keep crits as-is. I love the lethality of the game. There are plenty of watered-down games out there for others to play if they don't like crits.
I think 'watered-down' is needlessly inflammatory and palpably false. Lethality =/= Depth or Complexity, or even drama or interest. Lethality simply is a measure of how quickly controlled units are removed from the board. You don't want pieces removed super quick in a game where we both have 3 battleships each, but in a game like 40k where we bring 100 models each then surely you want the game super lethal to help stuff to actually happen. Infinity is unusual in that it is much more lethal than the number of units you have would lead you to believe, and I I too enjoy that in this game. But. when nearly every bat rep of this game begrudingly mentions their opponents lucky crits or admits they had an easy time due to being unusually fortuitous, then the appreciation of player skill starts to diminish, and players can feel robbed (rightly or wrongly). And players feeling a certain way about a game can never be right or wrong. They may point at the wrong mechanic in the game as to why they feel that way, but their emotional response is always correct. Plus the last thing I want is my opponent to whinge about how I crit too much and bring the mood down. From a design point of view Games need to manage player emotions and expectations well, and 'feelbad' moments need to be designed around and mitigated (or deployed very carefully). I don't think Infinity handles it's FeelBad moments very well. An example of games adapting to manage this, just look at MTG; randomness in Magic the Gathering has changed forms so dramatically in the last 20 years. I don't think the crit mechanic defines the lethality of Infinity, I think the other mechanics build that system; the crit is just a cherry on top. And it's a frequently sour tasting cherry.
I don't watch/ read batreps. I could care less about what others are doing in the regard. If they lose, oh well. It's just a game. Luckily I've never had to play anyone in the game in the past 8 years or so I've been playing that was that much of *%^#^ that they would say that to me. Your opinion. In contrast to mine, which is opposite.
...whats wrong with dressing like a Tech Bee? Sure, you can feel a little vulnerable in a room full of neckbeards, but it really helps get into the right frame of mind to fully appreciate the game I ... I mean a friend of mine tells me! Spoiler: Dress for success
My change would be for the word "vanilla" to be stricken from everyone's brains in the most violent, damaging way possible. Like you're at the ice cream shop perusing your choices and suddenly you just completely turn off.
