Remove Carapace in it's current incarnation
rantology
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Something that was said in one of the 205 feedback threads prompted me to say this, and it's something that's been discussed before.
Carapace is something that makes the game a little boring when you look at your upgrade choice as aliens. Armor is so ungodly good in this game that you'd be stupid not to get Carapace first every single game. Even the 20 extra armor for a skulk is gonna yield 40% more survivability against 0/0 LMG (10 bullets up to 14 bullets). That is SO huge. The importance for higher lifeforms is even greater.
Am I the only one who'd like to see carapace removed and implemented back into the game in some other form? I think chamber upgrades should be playstyle modifiers, not static survivability upgrades. No other chamber upgrade in the game currently works like carapace (a static survivability increase). It's no wonder it's just a no brainer staple opener in like 90%+ serious games. The only reason you wouldn't get it is if you think your strategy/team was competent enough to have a second hive up/going up around the time fades start appearing. Crag hive is just too dominating, umbra/crags are also by far the best support structure.it takes away a lot of freedom strategy/choice wise for early game aliens.
Suggestion: Remove Carapace from the Crag chamber upgrades, make it a researchable upgrade from the hive perhaps. Or just straight up get rid of it. Or increase alien armor for the # of hives you have (that may not be a very elegant solution)? You would also have to come up with something new to replace the upgrade on the crag chamber.
I think I also read somewhere that Carapace was going to slow down your movement speed. I really don't like mechanics like that, if an upgrade is too powerful you should adjust it, not tack on impairing (and un-fun) disadvantages. You don't see anything like that in SC2 (aside from marine stim I guess).
Carapace is something that makes the game a little boring when you look at your upgrade choice as aliens. Armor is so ungodly good in this game that you'd be stupid not to get Carapace first every single game. Even the 20 extra armor for a skulk is gonna yield 40% more survivability against 0/0 LMG (10 bullets up to 14 bullets). That is SO huge. The importance for higher lifeforms is even greater.
Am I the only one who'd like to see carapace removed and implemented back into the game in some other form? I think chamber upgrades should be playstyle modifiers, not static survivability upgrades. No other chamber upgrade in the game currently works like carapace (a static survivability increase). It's no wonder it's just a no brainer staple opener in like 90%+ serious games. The only reason you wouldn't get it is if you think your strategy/team was competent enough to have a second hive up/going up around the time fades start appearing. Crag hive is just too dominating, umbra/crags are also by far the best support structure.it takes away a lot of freedom strategy/choice wise for early game aliens.
Suggestion: Remove Carapace from the Crag chamber upgrades, make it a researchable upgrade from the hive perhaps. Or just straight up get rid of it. Or increase alien armor for the # of hives you have (that may not be a very elegant solution)? You would also have to come up with something new to replace the upgrade on the crag chamber.
I think I also read somewhere that Carapace was going to slow down your movement speed. I really don't like mechanics like that, if an upgrade is too powerful you should adjust it, not tack on impairing (and un-fun) disadvantages. You don't see anything like that in SC2 (aside from marine stim I guess).
Comments
These kinds of problems can generally be fixed by tweaking the numbers. I'm kind of sad that I missed the versions where carapace slowed you down... would have been interesting to see how that affected gameplay.
Not in B205. In b205, you take carapace as lerk. Then if you ever get hurt, you just switch to regen, heal, and switch about to carapace.
What? How to deevolve? Omg I missed smth?! Lol
Hit B, -click your current evolution (the one within the big circle), select new one, hit okay.
rinse and repeat to get carapace back :P
NS1 was exactly the same. In the early days DC was the <b>only </b>option. Players would be instantly kicked for dropping anything else. However, as the game matured and more patches and balances were released, the first hive choices became more even(ish).
Don't get me wrong, it will never be completely even between the upgrades. Of the choices, additional armour benefits the most play styles, and will always be the first choice of less experienced players. Its the more generally applicable choice of the 3, which isn't to say its the wrong choice, in many occasions its the correct choice, but in nearly all situations its the easier choice.
In response to the idea of adding consequences to alien evolutions I don't believe that is a good idea. The consequence of evolving with a certain evolution should be in the forgoing of other evolutions, not a direct penalty.
Shift is not currently in the game. In NS1 it was extremely rare to ever see your team drop a DC first.... as celerity was much more important for early game skulks. Even with carapace skulks are largely a kamakazee class... so having a lot of armor just slows the inevitable.
I mean some of us KDR worshippers will run back to base with our skulks :-P but in reality it doesn't do anything but help your KDR.
Once shift is in I think we might be seeing carapace as a 2nd upgrade. Also I am not sure why more people don't use silence as their first upgrade. It's more deadly than cloak in my opinion and is amazing for ambushing marines.
Shift is not currently in the game. In NS1 it was extremely rare to ever see your team drop a DC first.... as celerity was much more important for early game skulks. Even with carapace skulks are largely a kamakazee class... so having a lot of armor just slows the inevitable.
I mean some of us KDR worshippers will run back to base with our skulks :-P but in reality it doesn't do anything but help your KDR.
Once shift is in I think we might be seeing carapace as a 2nd upgrade. Also I am not sure why more people don't use silence as their first upgrade. It's more deadly than cloak in my opinion and is amazing for ambushing marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That can be quite true, but I don't see it as a chance to pad KDR as a skulk, skulks are quite frail and being able to take 40% more punishment greatly increases your chances of success, especially against smart marines that play in pairs. Carapace is also such a globally rewarding upgrade to take, because not only does it immensely help skulks, but it's very important to have in order to keep your higher lifeforms alive and on the field while things like shade/shift upgrades, while good, they IMO don't provide the same level of benefit to the higher lifeforms. I view taking the Crag Hive route as insurance for fade/onos dominance while still being extremely good for skulk. Any with such a low emphasis on multiple hives in the game ATM, I have a hard time seeing anything being equally viable as crag hive.
Or I guess another way of saying it is: I think all of the chamber upgrades are relatively balanced and equally rewarding to skulks, but the higher the lifeform, the more un-equal the benefits become. Especially fades and onos - lerk is debatable (although imo carapace is still top choice for him too).
This should be flagged as an exploit imo
Also camouflage is much better than shift for ambushes IMO.
Also camouflage is much better than shift for ambushes IMO.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It isn't an exploit. It takes 5-6 seconds to switch between the two, but it is clearly intended for you to be able to swap out upgrades.
Yes, but it seems like UWE is completely ignoring the community pleas to remove hive sight? I know very few people who want to keep it in, and if they do they want it to be at least a tech option. The current version is just plain overpowered.
I'd love to remove that Upgrade and see Aliens Armor/Carapace get improved
by every Hive they build. That it scales up to lategame, where marines get attack/armor upgrades
themselves and skulks getting demolished.
this also could end turtling games, where alines have 4 hives, and marines only their base but 1000 sentries and all upgrades
and aliens can't finish it
A lot of things "seem" to be but aren't. Just because they haven't gotten a patch out quick enough for your tastes doesn't mean they aren't well aware of the problem and working diligently on it.
Even though people have been complaining about it since it was added and it would be as simple to remove it.
Go remove it then. Take it out, design a system to replace it, implement it, balance it, playtest it repeatedly, tweak it for feedback, submit it to UWE, and package it as a mod in the mean time.
Do that and you can complain about it not being in all you want. In the mean time, you've got no excuse if it's so frusturatingly easy.
Do that and you can complain about it not being in all you want. In the mean time, you've got no excuse if it's so frusturatingly easy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The vision had no place in the gameplay. It has no skill factor and is constant until you destroy the cysts around it. It adds nothing to alien gameplay aside from making their lives easier without any skill or input on their part. It already slows marines and has further plans for additions to buff aliens. Just get rid of it and replace it with a structure that functions like an observatory without a beacon for aliens. I don't need to playtest something that is so mind numbingly simple to implement and clearly better than the current system. The devs have no excuse when something is so frustratingly easy to change.
In the mean time, sitting back in your armchair griping about how easy it would be to fix something, while UWE hunch over in their armchairs working hard on optimizing and improving every aspect of the game (in-between fan events, coffee breaks, and general office shenanigans), is hypocritical at best.
Yeah, it's always nice to be reassured that the developers are working on/care about issues that we care about. Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of issues like that out there. UWE already spend so much time staying in contact with their community, but I wonder if in a way that has just set the bar even higher for the amount of attention we expect from them.
At the end of the day, the patch notes are UWE's responses to our complaints. If only it were easier to tell the difference between "haven't gotten it completed yet" and "don't really think it's an issue". Drifter 2.0 has been all over the progress tracker though, so we know they're working hard at reforming hive sight and the building system.