September>December 2024: Nuclear winter has struck, leaving room for the N5

Oh yes, i forgot, they did also with Caledonia. They launched new starter box, new Galwegians and new SWC weapon volunteers and then... nothing. And IIRC it was roughly at the same time than the SSA resculpt

 

what have to do the SKU bloat with in game balance and gameplay?

 

Bluntly, I said this years ago and I still remain committed to it:

CB fucked up with Kosmoflot and axing FRRM. If they'd wanted to "evolve" the Merovingian side of things and Ariadna at large, the AEF was RIGHT. THERE.
Having Merovingia becoming a power in the sphere rather than on Dawn would have let something seriously interesting happen.

But nah. They went the path of least resistance and embraced a side of the fanbase that probably should have been excised long ago.

I did note that the web army builder has an option for "Reinforcements"?

You know I'm wildly out of the loop with gameplay, Stiopa, so I might be missing something on that angle.

 

Almost all Ariadna players pre-TAK era are in the same page on that. Kosmoflot was a mistake. When everyone was expecting the glow up and big return of Merovingia, after the events of the narrative campaing they give us... a sectorial no one asked for, that look like nonsense mix of troops like some NA2 and that had to be overtuned to make it atractive to the players (OP bear, rokots+volkolak being a pure fireteam, UKR wildcard, Mirage 5 because why not, we got a new box out of the oven and we need to lure players into)

 

Or like JSA or Shas... Easy on the cherry picking, fam :)

 

It's doubly frustrating that the Equipe Argent are the only reinforcements set where every single trooper in their collection is not able to be used in any sectorial. They exist exclusively in vAriadna. There's only one single other trooper out of the entire range of Reinforcement releases that got that treatment, and it's the Bolt.
And in the case of the Bolt, they're actually doing pretty well. vPanO seems to have been designed to take advantage of their new strengths with the fireteam reworks, and they genuinely look like a lot of care was taken to make them a solidly strong and interesting choice.
Conversely, Equipe Argent's inclusion is kind of just forced in there. Briscards and Loup-Garou are straight up just bad, and have spent the greater part of a decade being bad with nothing to address it. Appaches are solid. Bruant will probably still be okay, but he really doesn't appreciate the price hike he got out of nowhere. Moblots weren't great to begin with, and then lost their Infiltration profiles (if you could take more than one, they might have actually made for a passable glass-canon team, but alas). It doesn't feel (although I'd be happy for someone to point out something where I'm wrong here) like any consideration was made towards interesting fireteam composition for their inclusion, either. It all feels like it was done with such disinterest and apathy.

It sucks, because that's what drew me to Ariadna.

At this point, it might not be a bad idea to consolidate FRRM and USARF. Both collections are anemic and in need of serious rework. CB may not be interested in doing a whole lot of work for either faction, but throwing them together and sprinkling a bunch of buffs around should be enough to at least shut the players up a bit.

 

It ain't cherry-picking to put the facts out, kitten.

 

I really can't agree to this, it reads like a conspiracy theory, specially given that CB has given USARF zero attention since it released.

What you are describing is stuff that happens to every business if it last long enough, it's called capitalism and it's pretty en vogue in Europe too.

By the way people, stop asking for the pdfs that Corvus never said would happen, it's another made up rumour like the USARF rework that only served to create false expectations and, now, frustration because the thing CB never said would happen hasn't happened.

 

Everyone wanted ariadna in to space, but kosmoflot has 35 profiles and barely 2 of those are actual astronauts.

 

No, what you're doing is the very textbook definition of cherry picking. Ignoring the factions that were revived and citing only the ones that were left dead, just because it would prove your point. Except it doesn't, because cherry picking. That's what a fact is. Kitten