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Why is CC different from every other part of the game?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by theomc, Apr 8, 2021.

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Does CC working different than Ranged, Dodge, Doctoring rolls enhance the game?

  1. Yes

    39 vote(s)
    73.6%
  2. No

    5 vote(s)
    9.4%
  3. Meh

    9 vote(s)
    17.0%
  1. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    +1" dodge is one of those abilities that doesn't cost anything and it's pretty harmless since it was mainly applied to units that have some of the lowest PH in game.
     
  2. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I like how cc works overall, but agree with some concerns itt. A big thumbs up for any change that removes stat charts - martial arts could be "cc+×" or legit just a higher cc stat.

    I would also like it if middle class cc troops could consistently punk low class cc dudes. Make their engage range a meaningful thread.

    I would also dig it if we had special attacks - throws, pushes, reach weapons, ear attacks, combo attacks etc - to give cc some of the dynamism that we see with rangebands etc in shooting attacks. Gang up is ok but too expensive to pull off under most circumstances.
     
  3. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    But what would these "special attacks" accomplish other than obfuscation the combat rules further when CB has been trying to do exactly the opposite?

    Those more complex maneuvers may have some value in a more intimate RPG setting, but at the scale infinity takes place at, the more abstractified combat doesn't leave or require much room for flourish. When considering implamenting such expansion, what sort of creative decision making can be further added through it, and can it justify the added complexity?

    The core systems are pretty simple because most of it is done in the maneuvering leading up to it, even moreso than the basic game of move-and-shoot-mans. Grapples, shoves, and combos would just unnecessarily slow the game down when in melee combat with pointless fluff that likely ends up being easily reduced to optimal damage dealing solutions like killer hacking in N3 anyway.

    CC is not and should not be an equal pillar to shooting in Infinity. It's a tool in the box, not a defining mechanic.

    Keep the fighting game concepts to fighting games. That sort of complexity requires a full game of nuance that just cannot fit in Infinity.
    Melee and close quarters skirmishing are basically the okizime equivalents of actual fighting games. In that sense, melee is used very similarly to how a command grab would be on a tactical level.
    You don't need to represent the neutral game in Infinity, because the neutral game is already found in midfield offense and defense. Your main long range guns are already your pokes.
     
    #23 Weathercock, Apr 12, 2021
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2021
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  4. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    We already went from 4 charts to 1 in N4, anything else and I think we're losing some of the more interesting dynamics of CC. The chart takes all of a few seconds to check (or zero since it's really easy to memorize now) and everyone works the same way.
     
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  5. SpectralOwl

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    Digging up an old thought I had about this, a while ago I proposed that the old Assault skill (without the LoS requirement) be a common skill. It could be handy for letting mooks rush forward and still get a FTF roll while gaining extra distance towards the enemy/objectives, which may be useful when Orders are tight (now you'd just have to run and make ARM saves) and would get some use out of the CC stat between less skilled units. It would also make fast CC units like some TAGs, JSA bikers or 8-4 Metachem Morlocks into monsters, so it's far from perfect, but it was the best I was able to come up with when this discussion last happened.
     
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  6. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    I think you're underestimating how powerful it can be as a defensive skill against AD etc in this edition. Even with low PH, >50% of a zhanshi defensive link could reposition up to 3" as a result of an AD troop dropping into their ZoC. It won't affect every game, but as a faction wide ability on most LI it generally improves Yu Jing's ability to react and reposition as an enemy strike is heading into your lines.
     
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  7. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I'm not over nor under estimating anything. I think as an ability it's appropriate to be free on units with medium to low PH. The amount of times this has been useful is far less than the amount of times they manage to Dodge, which isn't very high to begin with. Still, it is more useful than the CC that actually costs points.
    Only about half of the LI/MI got it, btw, and I think it was only added to the most basic troops.
     
  8. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    One of the few things I dislike about Infinity is the CC rules. I'd rather they simplify it by bringing the CC scores back down, but higher than average BS, and add burst to certain CC troops. ie: Close combat (+1 burst). It should be like a gun but can only be in base to base contact. Simple! Martial Arts can be used to add to the PH for Damage. Martial Arts 1 is +1 Dmg for example. There can still be surprise attack, berserk, etc.
     
  9. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Mate, you can't reasonably ask for the MA table to be cut off from the game then ask for added abilities and special attacks on the same breath. One thing leads to the other.

    From what I understand, we used to have somewhat special abilities in the past and they mostly made CC come off as clunky and overly complicated for little result. What we have now is quite simple: it's deadly. I particularly like it because CC specialist will more often than not just brutalize their way through everything, and unlike, say, an HMG, they don't get any less deadly in the reactive turn.
     
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  10. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    I know the MA chart is way easier to manage in N4, but it still strikes me that the N4 method of handling a lot of things could also have been applied to it without sacrificing game functionality at all. Replace the chart with parenthetical values just like we use for Mimetism or Lieutenant, and call it a day. The Martial Arts skill would just need to indicate that MODs apply to the user’s CC Attack roll, the opponent’s skill roll, and any other MODs will be spelled out.

    Martial Arts (-3, +1 PH)
    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +1 PH)
    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +2 PH)
    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +3 PH)
    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +3 PH, +1 B)

    The above would replace the chart. NBW would still disable them. You’d also get design space for:

    Martial Arts (-6, PH=10, +2 B)
    Defensive martial arts, doesn’t necessarily cause a lot of damage but the high B and opponent penalty increases the odds of winning the FtF.

    Martial Arts (+3, +2 DAM)
    Hard-hitting offensive style that doesn’t help with defense but maximizes damage even with weapons that don’t depend on PH.

    Martial Arts (-3, +3, Shock)
    Basically MA2 but replaces the PH bonus with Shock damage.

    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +2 PH, Stun)
    MA3 and you hit with Stun ammunition.

    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +3 PH, +1 B, Total Reaction)
    B2 in ARO but otherwise it’s MA5. [edit: yes I know TR only works on BS Attack as written, it’d need a tweak for this to work as intended.]
     
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  11. SpectralOwl

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    Alternatively, NBW goes away forever and everybody celebrates. Screw that skill, it doesn't offer anything except nullifying the "be good at CC" ability that is all that makes some troops worth bringing with no further tactical value.

    With NBW gone you could just use the existing skill framework, but having standard CC-skill packages like the MA variants does help reduce mental bookkeeping a bit as the current CC-specialist units have stupidly long skill lists as it is. It's one situation where I think having nested skills helps more than hurts.
     
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  12. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    @wes-o-matic
    +1B can't be used during the reactive turn. It's on a very technical level incompatible with Total Reaction and Neurocinetics for this reason. Given that you've written "Martial Arts" and not "CC Attack" it is however possible to override this using the Martial Arts skill.
    Martial Arts (-3, +3, +3 PH) is also very difficult to read, particularly when you could potentially have:
    Courage, Mimetism (-3), Camouflage, CC Attack (-3), Martial Arts (-3, +3, +2 PH), CC Attack (Shock), Surprise Attack (-3), Frenzy, Infiltration, Stealth, Terrain (Total)
    It's spammy is what I'm saying.
     
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  13. Kreslack

    Kreslack Unknown Ranger lead the way!

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    NBW shouldn't go anywhere. It's the seperating skill that defines certain CC pieces as anti CC or at least extremely discouraging to other CC pieces to approach. It's kind of the counter to MA5's burst bonus (not that there are many of them.)
    It's not always going to come up in a game directly in CC, but it always has an effect on how you and your opponent might have to approach an engagement.

    @Mahtamori
    Burst bonuses from a either 'CC Attack (+1B)' or 'X Pistol +1B' only work active turn.
    But 'Martial Arts L5' burst increase still functions in both Active and Reactive Turns.
    (Might have just been reading your post wrong with how you worded it in answer to Wes)


    This is why MA5 is such a powerful skill. (Though only like 3 units have it at this point) and I think a few others that had MA4 before and no NBW should probably have it now.
     
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  14. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    That's what I'm pointing out
     
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  15. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    Several hours earlier...

    So, an override in Martial Arts would be weirder than just amending Total Reaction so that it says (approximately): When declaring a BS Attack or CC Attack ARO, this trooper may use the full Burst of its weapon, and may apply Burst MODs granted by Special Skills to the attack.

    One would need to ensure that this wasn't combined with other Skills or CC Weapons with high Burst unintentionally. The suggestion is not to give TR bots Martial Arts, and I'd avoid putting TR Martial Arts on pistol kata troops like Zuleyka, but those are unit design considerations, not mandates to avoid a rules adjustment.

    Limiting it to Special Skills ought to (hopefully) make it obvious that the bonus from ganging up in CC doesn't apply since that's circumstantial rather than being based on a Special Skill. Keeping troops with any form of TR out of Fireteams would probably be a good rule of thumb, but that seems to be true already.

    Yeah, but this is sort of a known side effect for N4's Skill listing format. Adding the convention of combining parentheticals with either a comma or semicolon as a separator would at least allow you to merge CC Attack (-3) and CC Attack (Shock) into CC Attack (-3; Shock) and shorten the above list by twelve characters/spaces.

    We already have this problem, is what I'm saying. :D

    I sort of think of it as a way to nudge the design team away from overloading special rules on a unit because they can see it right there in print, the word count is a direct measure of how much extra crap the player has to think about when using that unit. If current profiles are any indication, the problem only applies to a small number of troopers. Abbreviating a few skills (looking at you, NWI) rather than writing them out in full would also help here and there.
     
  16. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    Of the real Yu Jing light infantry, excluding stuff like Authorized Bounty Hunters that appear in other factions, only Bao and Taowu don't have it. It's on the vast majority of Yu Jing LI, and all the ones who are the line infantry for sectorials. When it comes to MI, it seems like it's only there for combat monsters Jing Qo and Adil, so it's not really there by design for most MI I guess are supposed to be less mobile than LI.
     
  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, and Pheasant, Adil and Jing already had it in N3, so they didn't get it in the transition
     
  18. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    Sorry for the delay, I don't check the forums as regularly as I used to!

    The chart doesn't accomplish anything meaningful other than act as a vector to nest several different modifiers and bonuses within one rule. Given that +3/-3 is not meaningfully different than some value of +x it can be summarized most effectively into some sort of "CC+X" stat with a +B or DAM for the most elite and be gone from the game.

    Given that I am asking to remove something that does not add depth and asking to add something that does, I'm not sure why wanting to remove one makes it unreasonable to request the other. These ideas would be feasibly linked if the different levels of MA offered different utility, but as they are just ranked levels of buffs there's just no connection.

    Given that the chart is just higher and lower levels of a skill, what does it add in terms of "interesting dynamics"? I mean the word dynamic literally means continual change, and the chart is anything but that given it is for all intents and purposes completely static in its effects. For me a dynamic system would be one where you have different abilities with different uses. Repositioning an enemy, opting for an attack or defense buff instead of a static one etc.

    This is only the case if special attacks are used in a rather non-special way. An attack with + DAM, or one with + modifier or a - modifier. Thats as bad as the old hacking programs and I would agree that adding such a thing would be a waste of time.

    I disagree. Adding a couple of interesting moves to CC does not equate to "a full game of nuance", nor does the idea that "Infinity is a shooting game" mean that we should refrain from adding to CC if there are meaningful additions to be made. Those arguments just do not make any sense to me.

    Haven't the faintest clue what any of that means sorry.
     
  19. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    Okay, so it's important to figure out what close combat represents as a game mechanic in Infinity in the context of its involvement in player decision making before you go on trying to add additional mechanics on top.

    Fighting games do a very good job of breaking these mechanics down into a very recogizable rhythm once you figure the core fundamentals that are the same across the entire genre. You can apply a lot of this theory to individual plays in Infinity (held across a full game, it kind of falls apart due to the more varied mission-based structure) thanks to the guessing games and ARO system.

    First would be the neutral game. The neutral game is where neither player is in an offensive or defensive position, both players are feeling each other out and trying to gain the advantage. In this portion of the game, you'll focus on putting yourself into a position with favourable spacing for your game plan, while also trying to bait out mistakes and deny your opponent their own favourable positioning. This is commonly known as footsies. Most of the fighting done at this point is through pokes, moves that are generally used to strike at optimal ranges while trying to be hard to punish. (for a good example of some really masterful footsie work, )
    In Infinity, this is fairly analogous to pokes being your DZ-effective gunfighters looking to do damage while avoiding harmful AROs to open a path, and positioning through good deployment. Early maneuvering into the midfield could also be considered part of this. This is where you want to feel out your opponents' decision making to try and out together what their gameplan is.

    Due to the turn-based nature of Infinity, that neutral section of gameplay can transfer over into the pressure phase very quickly. Essentially, this would be the phase where a player has managed to create an opening where they can start to apply offensive pressure to break their opponent's defense. This is where you want to overwhelm your opponent's defensive strategies to either accomplish your objectives or just hit the hardest. In fighting games, this would entail attack strings and mixups to find holes in your opponent's block. Additionally, you want to train your opponent through your pressure to react in certain ways if possible.
    In Infinty-talk, this would be when moving along the midfield and in general actively engaging the opponent while trying to take ground. In the context of CC, this is where you work your way up to the positioning needed to engage your opponent. Compared to fighting game talk, this would be more situational, and you wouldn't necessarily be making attacks yet, depending on the play. A parachuting Rasyat or Infiltrating Shinobu would be an example of a very aggressive offensive pressure game.

    Once you have broken through the enemy defenses, you move on to the wakeup, or okizeme (oki) game. This is the point where you've landed your big move (it may or may not be an actual 'combo,' that part is largely irrelevant. Combos are largely nothing more than a technical reward for optimizing damage, they're actually one of the least important elements to learn when focusing on fundamental play), and the enemy is on the ground. From here, you either set up to continue pressure from an advantageous position.
    Being a game about positioning and decisive action, you've likely moved to your 'wakeup game' in Infinity before you actually end up making an actual attack, especially in close-quarter engagements. Your wakeup game here is when you've forced your opponent into a situation where you can attack with the broadest possible selection of options while denying your opponent harmful reactions. Oki is all about not letting your opponent play, and well executed CC in Infinity is just that. By weighing your options accordingly and moving from the right positioning, the simple act of Move --> reaction --> Second Action is a huge consolidation of pressure at close range. Ideally, your CC fighter is so proficient at this role that the actual combat itself is a foregone conclusion, the idea here is that no matter what option the enemy chooses, you are always in the position to punish their decision. The key here is that you don't need to throw a bunch of extra options on top of CC, because the CC attack itself already shares space with a BS attack, template, or dodge (assuming an enemy template you intend to dodge and guarantee a CC attack in the next order with) and that's just assuming you went straight in with your first move. By time you actually get to the CC attack itself, you've circumvented most of your opponents options to the point where any additional abilities or functionality would just be uninteractive bloat. And trying to make CC more interactive would just deny the reward to the player who earned that position in the first place.

    Basically, it's a round about way of getting to the point that the actual close combat 'fight' itself is basically the least important part of close combat in Infinity, as it represents the point where you've already denied your opponent most of their ability to play the game against you. It doesn't need much expansion because everything that leads up to it is already just as much a part of close combat, and more involving along the way. Picking specific modifiers is just boring mathematical optimization, and not gameplay.
     
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  20. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    That's what "dynamic" is, but it's not what "dynamics" are. Dynamics are the forces that produce variation in a system. Without the MA chart, you lose a lot of variation in the system of CC.
     
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