Infinity N5 - Wild Speculation #2 (much less wild and also less speculative)

[@R0bertShepherd]

In this video we're talking-about-things-that-were-talked-about at the seminar given by Carlos Bostria at the Krug, which you can find in full on the Infinity Global Community here: facebook.com/100001376211146/videos/1672023630256669/

[@zephyrrrr4813]

Yessssss more content. I deeply enjoy consuming my infinity news through these dulcet tones. They really do make me feel much more optimistic than my inherent urge to doomsay

[@fastpandagamingtheclaw]

Great video - informative and well presented as always - keep em coming

[@kylemoore7746]

That speedball segment immediately reminded me of your BR vid of Varuna vs hacking heavy nomads 😅 that first round was pure sadness

[@fastpandagaming]

​@@kylemoore7746I am hoping that the speedball will help in those situations

[@Blaze_Raven]

"The horrors of unmanned warfare" Pano: Laughs in Remote Presence

[@Rocketonwz]

Yu Jing literally zombifying dissidents and putting explosive collars on them: I sleep A creative solution that's not much different from a guided missile: THE HORRORS OF UNMANNED WARFARE!

[@Tewhill357]

Going to call the speedball Belushi instead. It's the way John would have wanted it.

[@DarylAtkinson]

Very much enjoyed this. I appreciate the even-handed take, and i largely agree with your optimistic view. I think the most impactful changes we'll see from this edition will be from changes to faction rosters.

[@JasonPBury]

You are slowly convincing me to give n5 a go........great presentation, keep it up!

[@benbrody1674]

Would love a video diving deeper into the change for vanilla factions, thanks for the videos!

[@R0bertShepherd]

We don't know much more just yet, but I'll try to cover it when we do :)

[@The_Revanchist]

My understanding is limited DUOs (like now), and potentially a Haris, which might be different by faction. They're specifically mentioned as being less flexible, so no Wildcard additions, it what it sounded like. Otherwise, things are looking to be condensed, as Robert mentioned, but this will obviously look different, by faction, as well.

[@Grithertime]

Over all very happy with all of this. Another update is hopefully soon. I am optimistic as well. The slowed release of factions is unfortunate but I understand. Further the Nerf to "Just play Vanilla" is amazing, stylized factions are cool and lean in on the anime/high-tech vibe/theme etc... Great!

[@Catspaw86]

2 small comments about vehicles and 'drones' in particular is that they, one, probably want to refer to them as VTOL units to avoid confusion (due to the naming convention of most CA remotes). And two, at its most basic conception it'll be a size 6 model that can't go prone that can transition to a '6+' double height silhouette that is immune to CC and can't get partial cover benefits.

[@christopherbeers8095]

I think an interesting potential mechanic for speedball would be that if you have lost up to x amount of swc (0.5-1.5) or whatever the range, then you now have the ability to replace that swc. But it can only be triggered after you lost the swc.

[@thesophist4914]

That actually feels like a really elegant way they could could do that

[@christopherbeers8095]

@@thesophist4914thanks. Probably the only good idea I’ve ever had 😅

[@Ninjat126]

Was thinking the same thing during the Speedball part of the video, came to the comments to check in. The only real concern I have is how "randomness" plays into things, because there's an incredibly wide difference between "Spitfire" and "Missile Launcher" or "Red Fury" and "Viral Sniper Rifle."

[@christopherbeers8095]

@@Ninjat126 I could see them doing it two different ways. I am sure there are more possibilities than this but these are the two I thought of lol🤷‍♂️ 1. A chart like booty where you roll a dice and get a weapon. 2. Depending on how much SWC you have lost you unlock a different “tier” of weapons. The more SWC you lose the better the weapon you can get. Or instead of unlocking a “tier” you spend SWC that you have lost. Idk something along those lines🤷‍♂️

[@jakoblernhage2867]

Love to hear both what we know and speculations you have. Both are interesting. Good work

[@johnharris7426]

Hope some drones get repeaters!

[@Damn_Cat]

Speedball is such a neat concept. I wonder if the way it'll work will be similar to a retreat state, except it will count based on the amount of SWC left in the list. It would be interesting to see it work mechanically as a box that has to be interacted with once deployed say a certain range from a table edge. I hope it isn't randomised like booty or metachem.

[@R0bertShepherd]

It sounds like there will be some kind of trigger before you can use it, and that while it might be random it'll be much more tightly bound then metachem. I expect something like a support weapon table where no matter what you roll it'll be something like what you requested.

[@Damn_Cat]

@@R0bertShepherd on that thought, it would be cool to see if Corvus Belli plans to have access to certain specialist weapons/tools be faction dependant. PanO and Yu Jing thematically have ready access to high tech, so maybe they can call in specialist weapons with various options for ammunition types, where other factions may have more limited but otherwise niche tools.

[@simonberndt2015]

Great video, loving these, pls keep them coming 💥💥

[@nuuskye]

I'm a huge fan of vanilla getting more curated. I personally love that Vanilla combined and vanilla O-12 play very differently from their respective sectorials. Like, how would vanilla Nomads change if the heckler (or at least fast panda heckler) was Tunguska only? I definitely love making each faction feel more unique

[@OliverOusley]

Shasvasti-i... Drink!

[@dmr2044]

My only hope is that we get a tricycle somewhere

[@R0bertShepherd]

Ah I see you are a person of culture too

[@ScrutatorCarlos]

Thanks for the video

[@aslbaron1]

Good video! Looking forward to more N5 updates! The changes are not that surprising, and I am excited to see the final rules. The addition of vehicles & drones seem like a natural evolution of the game. The updates on Vanilla armies does not surprise me at all. As the game continues to grow in size, CB is going to have to make some hard decisions on balancing, and limiting the models available in the Vanilla armies is an easy solution.

[@adityam7866]

Hopefully there's new things shared during Nova Open this weekend. If you check the schedule there is a Panel scheduled by CB about new releases and plans

[@R0bertShepherd]

What I'm hearing is more content-about-content opportunities! :P

[@adityam7866]

@@R0bertShepherd hopefully someone takes a video just like the previous seminar session this video was based on!

[@-Ambos-]

Great Channel! A friend and me want to start Infinity. I guess we should wait for N5?

[@R0bertShepherd]

Depending on what faction each of you was interested in, you could potentially grab some models to start the hobby side any time - since Infinity has very permissive proxy culture. But N5 *would* be a logical jumping-on point in terms of learning the rules, since it's only a month or so away now.

[@quietprofessional4557]

Regarding drones, a simple introduction into the game would consist of a silhouette 2 base with a silhouette 8 height would be easy to implement. The drone would have climbing plus to allow ease of movement over terrain, and a special rule for no CC attack. Guess work of equipment loadout, perhaps flash pulse, sensor, forward observer, maybe equipped with pistols only for a shooting weapon. Manned drones possible similar to puppetmasters, you have one controller and add a drone as a profile variant, following the peripheral (control) rules. Unmanned, possibly just various drone profiles without a controller.

[@ChazCharlie1]

I actually thought I was watching a Perun video at one point, Australian accent and dark grey and orange slides on combat drones...

[@johnharris7426]

I wonder if Vanilla links may be more flexible…. Like more wildcards/mixed links

[@R0bertShepherd]

The impression I got was probably less flexible than sectorials, since they'll still have access to a wider variety of troops. But they're probably likely to have a wider selection of possible starting points for the links, if that makes sense - multiple different pure haris options, for example.

[@be-noble3393]

Perun referenced (Kermit Arms!) Anyway I’m very interested in seeing how Drones are going to affect gameplay. As typical, actual development surpasses speculation. Hard Sci-fi ages the worst for a reason.

[@wearestardust5376]

I would make the point about the relevance of drones even stronger: Ukraine has demonstrated that absence of drones flatly makes Infinity divergent from directions in modern warfare. Which to be fair to CB, seem to have taken everyone by surprise. (even though eg John Birmingham was writing from a position of informed thinking about defence technology quite a while ago). Blaze has made a point along these lines, but I was also thinking 'the other big thing is autonomous killing bots'. Oh yeah, Infinity has those in spades. I await accusations that CB is paying your rent and buying you tomahawk steak dinners

[@neocalder1228]

Are the meteor zonds not already drones?

[@R0bertShepherd]

They're the closest thing to it, yep.

[@ehkesoyo]

Drones sound like synchronized on copters rather then wheels

[@erpagan]

Great content. I’m really curious to learn how new players interested in buying in for the first time in N5 should educate themselves and what sort of ideal entry points will exist in the new N5 landscape.

[@R0bertShepherd]

I didn't cover this in the video but Carlos covered it in the seminar - they're releasing entry packs called Infinity Essentials. A little terrain, a mat, two factions, three miniatures a size, introductory rules (designed to get you up to speed to play N5 in full quickly), with video tutorials online. You can see some of these tutorials already with the scenario breakdowns they've published on their youtube channel. The really interesting thing here is that these Essentials packs will be *aggressively* priced - basically little to no profit margin, they're essentially being released as a loss-leader to give new players a really easy jumping-on point. Keep an eye out for them.

[@erpagan]

Thanks so much. That’s great information.

[@ItsRinaldo]

I wonder what their new player on boarding experience is going to be without Code 1

[@R0bertShepherd]

Someone else also asked this, so I'll copy the comment - I didn't cover this in the video but Carlos covered it in the seminar - they're releasing entry packs called Infinity Essentials. A little terrain, a mat, two factions, three miniatures a size, introductory rules (designed to get you up to speed to play N5 in full quickly), with video tutorials online. You can see some of these tutorials already with the scenario breakdowns they've published on their youtube channel. The really interesting thing here is that these Essentials packs will be aggressively priced - basically little to no profit margin, they're essentially being released as a loss-leader to give new players a really easy jumping-on point. Keep an eye out for them.

[@DanielVisOneCade]

Just a touch on a point you brought up between the existing development iterations and the lore that exists around remotes and Evo hackers strategic info warfare I've always thought CB has Mr opportunity to have a character remote presents Evo hacker lieutenant. Who like your wallpaper concept would have multiple remotes as a physical profile not dissimilar to mechanical game system for post-humans or puppet tactica. I think that's a good future representation of where is ELECTRONIC WARFARE/RECONNAISSANCE assets are going to be.

[@Ravanstrike2009]

I want to preface this with love the video. Informative and entertaining as always. You make excellent content and have unique and different insights into the game, and i always appreciate your videos and how they change my perspectives on the game 10/10 I am curious in regards to a statement you made (off handed) The sectorals released in n4 have been universally good. Is this a genuine stance or a simplification for sake of time? Also if you wanted to share more thoughts i am genuinely curious on your stance on the n4 sectorial re-designs/re-releases Overall I FEEL (dangerous putting a feeling online) that there have been some amazing fun and powerful sectorials [see kosmo & Bakunin] And some [like shassvasti] that have been disappointing to say the least. That could be entirely due to time and design team trimming the fat and later factions being more optimized. Buy would love to hear your thoughts.

[@R0bertShepherd]

It's definitely an over-simplification plus a little rose-tinted glasses. Perhaps more accurate would be that the design trends over the course of N4 have been increasingly toward publishing reworked or new sectorials as complete, well-rounded forces with their own identities. With Shasvastii, though, bear in mind that they were an N3 sectorial. They've suffered the same fate twice now - be released at the end of an edition in a state suitable for that edition, then a new edition comes out in very short order afterward which leaves them in the dust again. It wasn't as bad going from N3 to N4 as N2 to N3, but it still hurt them. Not that I miss fighting BS18 Burst 5 Fatality 2 Sheshkiin.

[@GaleOfTheVale]

I don't care what happens as long as my Shang-ji's keep the same level of kickass

[@R0bertShepherd]

Given my opinion of Shang Ji's I would say you're probably pretty safe in this respect. :P (I actually expect them to get maybe a touch stronger if anything.)

[@DanteHrwrFTW]

I think the points drop on ORCs also bodes well for the Shang Ji

[@magnus0017]

Great video, except for the lack of wild and the lack of speculation; I want to hear you talk about the possibility of insane things that may or may not exist. Feed my need for hype!! But really, great, always enjoy your analysis, so whichever you do, am looking forward to it.

[@Griffolion0]

The martial arts changes are roughly in line with what I've been saying they need to change to. The fundamentally bad part of CC in Infinity is the fact it's 1 die vs 1 die, meaning an MA5 monster can still potentially lose against a fusilier to a degree most people would agree is unreasonable. I've argued that the MA levels should primarily increase the number of dice you roll _to hit_, but at baseline the opposing model is only ever saving against one dice - even if an MA5 monster hits you with all 5 dice. Naturally the saving dice increases with a DA or EXP weapon, for example.

[@R0bertShepherd]

This is actually something I *sort of* disagree with, but only sort of. You can break any die roll in any game down to a raw probability of success, and with Infinity's current and future CC mechanics, the probability of success for an expert fighting a non-expert is overwhelmingly in the expert's favour - often much more so than a gunfight between an expert HMG shooter and an inexpert combi would be! (For example, a BS14 Mimetism -3 Burst 4 DAM15 gun vs a BS11 Burst 1 DAM13 gun has a 77% vs 3.7% face to face roll. A CC23 Martial Arts 3 DAM14 DA CCW vs a CC14 DAM10 CCW has an 88% vs 3% face to face roll. Despite the latter only being one dice, and not even being especially elite as far as martial artists go, we can see the superior margin of success. It's not uncommon to see 90+% wound/kill rates on CC attacks, which is almost unheard of for BS attacks.) However I'm sort of on board with the argument that you can push CC success rates even higher pretty safely. The real difference between those two engagements is that the CC attack probably required significantly more manoeuvre and risk to even get to in the first place, so it should be rewarded commensurately. Basically, it's fine for CC to be *extremely* lethal.

[@yellowbellytabletop]

I don't think we should concern ourselves with how realistic it is that air support isn't in the game. Flying assets and air support provide huge challenges for games, and that is what Infinity is.

[@andrejstojsin]

I hope drones are not mines that you can move by activating their operator.

[@Nracan0]

Wait, this isn’t Perun’s gaming channel? As a PanO player, speedball sounds like it might breath life into playing them again without majorly reworking access to smoke, better hacking, better engineers, etc. On that note, I would enjoy a more in depth speculation about maybe dialing PanO’s laundry list of ‘thou shalt nots’ back to a singular ‘Tho shalt not (smoke, think, etc.)

[@R0bertShepherd]

I don't know how you'd confuse me with an Australian gaming youtuber with a defence procurement background and a penchant for orange-and-white-text powerpoint slides.

[@Nracan0]

@@R0bertShepherd KZbin’s next suggested video is your Tunguska review…orange and white…not shaking the accusations

[@rudmere9051]

​@R0bertShepherd Both of you are some of my favorite YT channels, so I wouldn't complain

[@carlosnieve1225]

I really like this vanilla faction restriction. It’s a really sleek way of “fixing” shasvastii. If people perceive shavastii as worse than vanilla, the easiest fix is probably restricting how much of the shasvastii stuff combined army can take.

[@thwalmsley]

I like almost everything they have revealed so far, but the flying units thing I am not super happy with. Giving it a S2 x 3 silhouette, or something, is theoretically ok, but for me it is important for the models to at least be roughly the same size as the silhouettes so that you don't have to be constantly switching back and forth between silhouette and model. Not to mention having *another* silhouette size and the challenges of storing and transporting them. IMO there is just a fundamental problem with flying in a miniature wargame. They just don't go together practically and that's ok. We can all just suspend our disbelief because of the reality of mini wargaming.

[@TylerProvick]

I hate those changes to GML. They aren't my first resort, they're really not efficient enough. You are spending a lot of orders to try to kill something and a few failed spotlights or successful dodges and you've handed your opponent the first turn advantage.

[@user-uq9se1nx9q]

That is the exact problem with guided. It is not unbeatable - but to attack with GML, the only thing you need to do is throw pitcher, hack and hit; and the only thing opponent can do is roll Reset or Dodge. Compare that to an attack with a close-range warband - when you have too first shoot/smoke through ARO and get through mines, opponrnt can reveal an HD, dodge into LoS, you can shoot hits or DTW or move into CC... Much more decision and interaction points. GML, if it is usable as a main attack strategy, just makes the game more shallow and boring

[@TylerProvick]

@@user-uq9se1nx9q the only thing you need to do is spend 3 orders, one of which is basically a 50/50. And when you kill your target you need to start all over, vs a warband breaking into a backline and being a massive issue even if you stop spending orders on it. And that's not counting the orders the model spent getting into position to launch the fast panda.

[@user-uq9se1nx9q]

@@TylerProvick i am not talking about if it is strong or effecient - but it is boring and uninteractive.

[@Grithertime]

I will morn the loss of Libertos with you.

[@cspo]

is it normal to hear "poot" when viewing the GML slide?

[@R0bertShepherd]

Yes. Yes it is.

[@OmegaZyklon]

I am not jacked about the vanilla army change. I don't want restrictions on my fucking army, and I couldn't give a shit about having FTs in my vanilla.

[@originalusername4142]

As a Vanilla O-12 player, all I hear is gains in terms of Vanilla changes. We already don’t have access to Sarkos or half of Torchlight anyway. Let me link my Gamma/Omega Corvus Belli,you cowards!

[@darkmystic7764]

I really hate that missiles gona get nerfed, I really dont get why.

[@philiprosenberg8217]

People find it unfun, but I agree with you.

[@freelancer102]

Theyre trying to cut down on non-interative elements and guided is one of them

[@R0bertShepherd]

Guided missiles occupy a bit of a precarious space where they require a lot of investment but not a lot of risk (other than expenditure of resources, not of actually suffering too much damage). This is a really useful thing to have in a game but because it de-risks attacking, they have to balance it so it's less powerful than actually going in guns blazing, AND so that even if it's less powerful than actually going in guns blazing, the reams of mid-tier risk-averse ELO grinding cowards that make up the bulk of any online gaming community don't latch onto it anyway and ride it for everything it's worth. That is to say, guided missiles aren't inherently bad, but anything can be bad if it becomes too popular, especially if it's a non-interactive thing. This is why I call the kind of nerf guided will get a 'signalling nerf'. It's probably not actually a big deal, but anyone who's self-conscious about win rate is likely to be swayed by it. And thus nature heals.