First experiences with ITS: It Kinda Sucks
Posted: July 28th, 2014, 8:05 am
OK, the thread title is a bit extreme, but hope that got your attention
I took part in my first Infinity tournament. I have been playing the game since first edition but in a small group and not super actively, so I'm not the best player around but I like to think I'm not a complete tosser. For the tournament I played three practice games using the ITS scenarios.
The tournament had Supplies, Quadrant Control, and Emergency Transmission. I played the Shasvastii Sectorial.
In Supplies I got paired against a really, really good player with a really good list (French Ariadna). I got one package, he got two and that was that. Once a player got a package, taking it away seemed impossible (this was true in the practice game I played, as well). Still, I think that this one was by far the best scenario of the three and I can see that it might be possible for the game to develop in such a way that stealing a package back would be possible.
Quadrant Control was a complete fiasco. I played against vanilla Ariadna with lots of camo (so killing one another was pretty difficult) and the player going second wins this scenario every time unless he does something utterly idiotic. The advantage on going second is insanely huge.
Emergency Transmission. Well, I used 15 Orders to synchronize three consoles, my opponent used six to synchronize four plus the antenna. I essentially lost an entire turn due to bad rolls. Now, naturally, Infinity has a big luck thing going on. If I crit with all of my AROs, I win (well, OK, if I'm a complete nincompoop I might not, but you get the point). But the -3 WIP roll is brutal and there is no way to stack it in your favour (other than using high WIP specialists, but it's still possible to fail several times) and it's mission critical. It was very frustrating. In the two practice matches I had of this scenario, similar things happened in both, though not quite as extreme.
How would I fix these scenarios, then?
In Supplies I might try implementing a limit on the number of Orders you can spend to move the package in a turn. Not sure whether it's a good idea, but it would be worth a try, I think.
Quadrant Control - these sorts of scenarios are just useless in IGO-UGO systems like Infinity. In alternating activation systems such as Hell Dorado (or Alkemy, or Malifaux, or Eden, or several other skirmish games I play) they are often some of the best but not here. Scrap it.
For Emergency Transmission I would add an option to use a Long Order for synchronization to make it auto-succeed. Would improve it immensely, I think.
All that said, I must say that I like the sense of urgency to the ITS scenarios and that you are often too busy so that killing the other player's models is too time consuming and you need to do other things with your Orders. So the topic title is an exaggeration for sure.
I took part in my first Infinity tournament. I have been playing the game since first edition but in a small group and not super actively, so I'm not the best player around but I like to think I'm not a complete tosser. For the tournament I played three practice games using the ITS scenarios.
The tournament had Supplies, Quadrant Control, and Emergency Transmission. I played the Shasvastii Sectorial.
In Supplies I got paired against a really, really good player with a really good list (French Ariadna). I got one package, he got two and that was that. Once a player got a package, taking it away seemed impossible (this was true in the practice game I played, as well). Still, I think that this one was by far the best scenario of the three and I can see that it might be possible for the game to develop in such a way that stealing a package back would be possible.
Quadrant Control was a complete fiasco. I played against vanilla Ariadna with lots of camo (so killing one another was pretty difficult) and the player going second wins this scenario every time unless he does something utterly idiotic. The advantage on going second is insanely huge.
Emergency Transmission. Well, I used 15 Orders to synchronize three consoles, my opponent used six to synchronize four plus the antenna. I essentially lost an entire turn due to bad rolls. Now, naturally, Infinity has a big luck thing going on. If I crit with all of my AROs, I win (well, OK, if I'm a complete nincompoop I might not, but you get the point). But the -3 WIP roll is brutal and there is no way to stack it in your favour (other than using high WIP specialists, but it's still possible to fail several times) and it's mission critical. It was very frustrating. In the two practice matches I had of this scenario, similar things happened in both, though not quite as extreme.
How would I fix these scenarios, then?
In Supplies I might try implementing a limit on the number of Orders you can spend to move the package in a turn. Not sure whether it's a good idea, but it would be worth a try, I think.
Quadrant Control - these sorts of scenarios are just useless in IGO-UGO systems like Infinity. In alternating activation systems such as Hell Dorado (or Alkemy, or Malifaux, or Eden, or several other skirmish games I play) they are often some of the best but not here. Scrap it.
For Emergency Transmission I would add an option to use a Long Order for synchronization to make it auto-succeed. Would improve it immensely, I think.
All that said, I must say that I like the sense of urgency to the ITS scenarios and that you are often too busy so that killing the other player's models is too time consuming and you need to do other things with your Orders. So the topic title is an exaggeration for sure.