What's the point of inspiration?

[xerrol nanoha]

I've always wondered why inspiration mechanics were a part of the game. I suppose they add interest, but they seem very snowbally to me in the sense that they let you win fights harder if you are already winning, but has very little effect if you're losing a fight. That seems pointless to me, although I can admit there will be an effect in the game and that just because you win a fight doesn't mean you'll win the game... but it pretty much guarantees it, right?

[Asmon]

Inspiration is a well-designed feature. I disagree with you saying that Inspiration cannot win fights. It actually does, especially with FC where it does it constantly.

[Batpimp]

I agree with asmon. Its almost needed for the FC to support his army.

[Torpid]

Yes, because killing a few termagant/ork boys/guardsmen models is clearly an example of the snowball effect.

[xerrol nanoha]

Despite your skepticism, I think it's clear that any mechanic which allows you to kill more stuff provided you have already killed stuff is a snowbally mechanic. If not, then I would ask what a snowbally mechanic would be to you?

[FiSH]

Your first point was that the snowbally mechanic does not change the tide of a battle. This is incorrect. Inspiration is a big deal and helps win battles that would have been otherwise lost.
Now you are saying that inspiration is snowbally. Duh.

I really do not mean to be offensive, but I have seen a lot of your posts recently, and most of them are very poorly thought out. Please put in more effort and time when making a post.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

it forces a different play style. on kill inspiration is the one with the most swing because it requires you to get a kill but then makes it easier to get another. on hit is much more dependable in general.

[xerrol nanoha]

Your first point was that the snowbally mechanic does not change the tide of a battle. This is incorrect. Inspiration is a big deal and helps win battles that would have been otherwise lost.
Now you are saying that inspiration is snowbally. Duh.

I really do not mean to be offensive, but I have seen a lot of your posts recently, and most of them are very poorly thought out. Please put in more effort and time when making a post.

Forgive my offense, but it is clear to me that you missed the point of my post entirely, as I was not making claims about inspiration, much less was I remotely saying that inspiration doesn't change the tide of battle, only a fool would make a zero-sum claim like that.

To that end I was mostly asking a question, which could be restated here as to "why is inspiration a mechanic in the game at all (when there are balance alternatives that would be more reliable and more fair).

Since you would like me to think it through myself, which I have been frequently discouraged to doing so in the past from prominent members of this community, and since then chosen mostly to ask questions instead of making statements, I could none the less go ahead with your request and walk through the arguments as to why Inspiration is actually a burden to balance and good design instead of a feature.

To start with I'll go over the obvious, Inspiration provides an area damage (and other effects) benefit to your units once a key unit (i.e. dreadnought for the rest of the example) has killed an enemy.

Now, mathematically this means that the benefits of Inspiration will be greater, under circumstances in which killing an enemy is more frequent and more likely. This is the snowball aspect of inspiration. The problem with snowball mechanics of this nature, particularly as involuntary passives, is that they provide greater benefit when it is not needed, and lesser benefit when it is more needed.

This is where you misread: I would not say that Inspiration has no effect, and I would acknowledge situations where Inspiration provides enough benefit for 1 player to win a fight against another, which he would have lost otherwise.

However, I am not disputing any of the above, but instead would say that Inspiration proves to be a burden upon balance, specifically for the reason that all the effort and tuning of units specifically is undermine by passive auras that throw the values of those units around. Active and temporary effects can be praised for their tactical value in changing combat, but passive persistent effects that alter those baser values would undermine the care of tweaking the stats of one unit or another, when those stats are persistently different in practice than in theory.

To that end, I ask why Inspiration is in the game, because it would seem that, to use my example of the Dreadnought earlier, that all players and all races would be better served for a snowball mechanic like Inspiration to be replaced with simply more reliable features for such a unit as the dreadnought itself.

While I use the dreadnought as a reliable example of a unit that on its own has a large impact in combat (because lets face it they're a damn good unit), the fact that the presence of one such unit as the dreadnought suddenly makes all other nearby units much stronger is worrisome for the sake of balance alone.

I pick the dreadnought because its a clear and obvious case, but there are many units that have similar features, I could just as well use the Librarian/ Terminators/ or the Avatar of Khaine as an example.

However, I pick on Inspiration in particular because it is not simply a persistent aura (even though it may as well be) but instead it is an aura whose contribution behaves in a way that snowballs more-so, and relies on snowballing more-so than any other.

In the end My question remains? What is the point of inspiration? It is less beneficial when it is needed more, more beneficial when needed less, and undermines the efforts of tweaking and balancing units that are effected by it beyond simply the aura's carrier.

[FiSH]

If every single engagement was a full-on battle, such analysis may apply.
This game, however, is not quite so. Inspiration encourages the SM player to have small skirmishes rather than large battles to shave off the enemies health so that the inspiration may trigger more easily (for the ones that activate on kill). It also encourages the SM army to stay together. It also forces the opponent facing the SM army to be more careful about choosing the right engagements as well as the degree of commitment.
Mechanics such as inspiration is not just a number thing in a full-on battle. It greatly affects the playstyle of SM - in a similar manner as waagh affecting orks, worship affecting chaos, so forth.

[Torpid]

Snowballing in this manner is not innately bad, because the snowball effect is tiny. Ultimately you ought to be rewarded for being better than your foe in such a scenario and snowballing demands that your foe make a mistake for it to occur. Snowballing is a necessity in games. The problem arises when one pathetic and inevitable mistake leads to your doom because of how strong the snowballing effect is - example in case being the eldar vs sm MU, the SM lures your force to one side of the map while ninja bashing your farm with tacs, then they rush a razorback and it's GG from that one mistake, now that's a strong snowball effect and Caeltos seems to have decided for that reason the flamer was too strong and needed a longer build time.

Inspiration has a relatively small bonus effect for what it does. You also can't argue that a passive aura would have the same effect on gameplay as the buff-on-kill that currently occurs for reasons Fish already elaborated.

[Dark Riku]

I'm having some troubles with this. There is a big difference between the normal inspiration on kill, the inspiration of the FC battlycry and an aura like the Avatar's.

And I think Xerrol is only referring to the inspiration on kill?
I was confused when you compared the Avatar's aura to inspiration Xerrol.
Since those are just completely different.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

In the end My question remains? What is the point of inspiration? It is less beneficial when it is needed more, more beneficial when needed less, and undermines the efforts of tweaking and balancing units that are effected by it beyond simply the aura's carrier.

I don't think it needs changing and should remain. As it has been said, inspiration has been tried and true and is sometimes necessary for SC players, especially in earlier engagements (or so I find). It has a snowballing effect, but it's often a result of a player punishing another player's poor decisions - i.e having a unit of guardsmen in charging range of a FC or Dread, which should be kited/avoided by a player who is paying attention.

I really do not mean to be offensive, but I have seen a lot of your posts recently, and most of them are very poorly thought out. Please put in more effort and time when making a post.

This. I find your posts to be getting quite numerous and questionably, fluffy at best sometimes with the content you post (like the silly questions about rangers and their melee capabilities).

[Raffa]

Your first point was that the snowbally mechanic does not change the tide of a battle. This is incorrect. Inspiration is a big deal and helps win battles that would have been otherwise lost.
Now you are saying that inspiration is snowbally. Duh.

I really do not mean to be offensive, but I have seen a lot of your posts recently, and most of them are very poorly thought out. Please put in more effort and time when making a post.

Forgive my offense, but it is clear to me that you missed the point of my post entirely, as I was not making claims about inspiration, much less was I remotely saying that inspiration doesn't change the tide of battle, only a fool would make a zero-sum claim like that.

To that end I was mostly asking a question, which could be restated here as to "why is inspiration a mechanic in the game at all (when there are balance alternatives that would be more reliable and more fair).

...

To start with I'll go over the obvious, Inspiration provides an area damage (and other effects) benefit to your units once a key unit (i.e. dreadnought for the rest of the example) has killed an enemy.

...

I pick the dreadnought because its a clear and obvious case, but there are many units that have similar features, I could just as well use the Librarian/ Terminators/ or the Avatar of Khaine as an example.

I think Fish understood your point completely. And he makes a fair point.

Besides, saying Avatar aura and Dreadnought inspiration could have been used in the same example...I mean nobody knows everything off the top of their head, but at least do your homework. Come on man this is pretty basic stuff.

You clearly love ur fluff (e.g. dem ranger suggestions). I recommend Codex mod.

[xerrol nanoha]

I'm having some troubles with this. There is a big difference between the normal inspiration on kill, the inspiration of the FC battlycry and an aura like the Avatar's.

And I think Xerrol is only referring to the inspiration on kill?
I was confused when you compared the Avatar's aura to inspiration Xerrol.
Since those are just completely different.

I suppose I should have been more careful with the similarities between inspiration and other standard auras as they share some features that I am critical of, but do not share others.

For instance, On kill inspiration produces a much more significant snowball curve than standard auras. They are both snowball mechanics in the sense that: the more stuff you have, the more the aura contributes. Having a smaller force or being behind means that the aura or the inspiration bonus will do less for you, while being a head and having a larger force means that auras or inspiration will be more valuable by comparison.

I wrote about how Inspiration on kill specifically amplifies the snowball issue: in addition to the small/large force -- behind/ahead issue, Inspiration amplifies that effect due to a greater ease of activating inspiration in situations where the player has a largerforce or is ahead, then when they have a smaller force or are behind.

That was the evidence I based my statement about Inspiration providing benefit in situations where the contribution of inspiration is inversely proportional when it such an effect would be needed. However, I should have be clear in saying this doesn't apply to Auras.

Although at this point I would offer the aura as a better more balanced alternative to inspiration, In the end I feel the both produce a hidden shift in unit stats that throws normal unit tweaks out of balance (While I would have little complaint of auras that shifted stats as little as 5 -10%, we now see examples of the Dreadnought providing damage inspiration of up to 35% which is absolutely huge!).

There is little point in arguing that once combat has begun and there are losses on both sides, the inspiration mechanic becomes effectively an aura. With either Aura style effects of any kind, how can there be any pretense of balance with those kinds modifiers grossly skewing the careful tweaking that goes into large damage units that coincidentally happen to be near by inspiration sources?

While most of you have made it clear that you think of Inspiration as a feature of space marines, or you are indifferent enough to think it undeserving of attention, I nonetheless find myself in games where I would prefer to not get inspiration units, as I simply don't feel need for the units themselves, i.e. dreadnought, yet still feel obligated to get those units just because I feel that the aura or inspiration effects add so much cost efficiency to those units (under favorable circumstances) to make any alternatives look grey and undesirable by comparison.

I also feel that, had Aura and Inspiration units NOT had those effects, but instead were balanced upon their own independent stats and abilities, then not only would the game state be easier to balance in general, but also specifically that Space Marine would find their tactical options liberated, allowing for both older choices (provided that units like the dreadnought remain balanced) as well as providing a potential of new or more versatile play (in spreading squads or permitting greater diversity in army composition).

To those who dislike my posts because they believe "fluff" to be beneath them, then please feel free to ignore the ideas and opinions I offer, because I do not offer them with any pretense of impact or value, but instead because I am only interested in what other people think about the questions that intrigue me.

Beyond that I offer no apology.

[Black Relic]

I want to ask you a question or two xerrol.

What is the point of debuffs?


My next question will be, how many debuffs does the Space Marine Army have?

Too my knowledge there is none.

Space Marine only way to offset a debuff without flat out retreating is through buffs. So I think inspiration is a good fit for the Space Marine Army.