Do you think we need more neutral icebreakers?

[Marinealver 8,073]

Well taking a look at the neutral card pool for netrunner and notice it is rather limited. As far as programs go there are only 2 AI Icebreakers.

 

Now I know that Icebreakers are pretty much tied to the themes and mechanical characteristics of their factions. Shaper have flexible strength maintaining icebreakers, Criminals have the best icebreakers money can buy but you need lots of money to both install and use them, Anarch has a lot of fixed strength icebreakers but are rather efficient. So throwing in a neutral suite of icebreakers will have to walk the line to where they are better than say pipeline aurora but not better than corroder or battering ram or else they will give the runners too much of an advantage (and considering they are often richer than the corps they don't need it).

 

Still I think it would be good for netrunneer to have a neutral icebreaker suite fracture/killer/decoder much like how most other runner suits are. Maybe something that has a similar mechanic to crypsis only not as expensive to install and restricted to one type of ice barrier/sentry/codegate. 

[CommissarFeesh 458]

So throwing in a neutral suite of icebreakers will have to walk the line to where they are better than say pipeline aurora but not better than corroder or battering ram

 

Why should they be better than ANY of the in-faction options? The point of neutral cards isn't to replace your in-faction cards more efficient versions. If they did that they might as well remove Aurora/Pipeline from the game altogether as there would be no reason to EVER play them (right now people do sometimes use them because their deck needs the influence more keenly elsewhere and they have some way to mitigate the downsides).

[Grimwalker 647]

Sunny's GlobalSec icebreakers seem to be fulfilling this role admirably. Sure they cost influence, but if you're eschewing your in-faction option for something better then it ought to cost you, either in influence, or as with Crypsis and Overmind, opportunity cost as you kind of need to build around those breakers.

[Marinealver 8,073]

 

So throwing in a neutral suite of icebreakers will have to walk the line to where they are better than say pipeline aurora but not better than corroder or battering ram

 

Why should they be better than ANY of the in-faction options? The point of neutral cards isn't to replace your in-faction cards more efficient versions. If they did that they might as well remove Aurora/Pipeline from the game altogether as there would be no reason to EVER play them (right now people do sometimes use them because their deck needs the influence more keenly elsewhere and they have some way to mitigate the downsides).

 

Well pipeline and aurora are practically already replaced by spike and creeper. Sure they are not the standard cred to boost strength cred to break subroutine like most of the starter Icebreakers but as people argue that those two icebreakers should not exist because they are so bad. I say they were intentionally bad by design to teach others the basics of spending influence in deckbuilding and where a good place to start would be. Lets face it pipeline and aurora should remain the weakest icebreakers in the entire game.

 

Now as for neutral breakers still maybe give it the virus mechanics that cripsis has where they have to spend a counter or trash it when they use that icebreaker. Again something that would not be that efficient at breaking ice as you would need an extra click and hope corp doesn't purge. But somethign that is not better than cripsis, maybe a little less cost to install but have some inefficiency besides being restricted to one type of ice.

 

Sunny's GlobalSec icebreakers seem to be fulfilling this role admirably. Sure they cost influence, but if you're eschewing your in-faction option for something better then it ought to cost you, either in influence, or as with Crypsis and Overmind, opportunity cost as you kind of need to build around those breakers.

It's a new icebreaker suite but again it is globalsec or greyhat suite. It fits the greyhat faction as if it were any other faction icebreaker suite. Perhaps you could compare it to the dogs suite as it doesn't all fit into any faction without influence. Still my point was not just in looking for icebreakers but neutral programs all together. There are only 2 neutral programs for the runner. When compare it to neutral ICE, there are numerous factionless ice and includes their own suits such as grail and mythic. Sure corp probably has more shared resources but i think some more common programs could work too. Don't even have to be icebreakers.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Marinealver