Not too much to say. I'll try to respond to anything you guys say, but I don't have too much to say right now. Carapace is just too powerful. I can't remember exactly how many shots it takes to kill a cara fade. I think it takes like 4-5 FULL shotgun shots with weapons 2+. Something like that. If this turns into a good thread, I'll figure out exactly how many shots it takes to kill a fade. I just know that it is a LOT.

A fade who knows how to fade doesn't need carapace. I've heard many people say that with the removal of hive armor, carapace is almost necessary. Well, I have personally faded against JP/HMGs with 2/2+ tech without carapace and have been able to still remain effective. It is very difficult, but very possible. I personally enjoy the challenge. With carapace, you have to make such a huge mistake to die that a non-carapace fade would die like 3 times.

The only thing that carapace is "good" for is to reduce the skill necessary to fade.




Perhaps you could make carapace an anti-hmg upgrade. It would mostly only good be good for reducing damage done by HMGs, but still reduce SOME damage from every other gun.

I have to admit that the same thought goes through my mind every time I play combat, but JPs with heavy weapons can already hold an area almost indefinitely against 2 hive aliens as long as they can aim and weld.

Try going as a group when you play. Or you know, you could always "aim better".

This is Makaveli: http://www.putfile.com/mrmakaveli/media

This is SmoodCroozn (Not really, but this is how most people envision him, I imagine): http://media.putfile.com/Hellabean-is-Bad

As you said, regen fading is a challenge.
I like both, cara and regen, depending on the situation.

Regen helps you to pressure more, because you heal back to full hp faster and thus are longer around marines and can distract and annoy them more effective than with cara.

Cara helps to lower the risk and do more dmg in one hit and run situation, but it takes longer to heal and gives the marines more time to recover from an attack (reload, weld, whatever).

Maybe making innitiate regen stack with regen upgrade (and then nerf cara and regen just a little if necessary) would make the regen upgrade more appealing, but i'm not quite sure at all, wether cara is really too strong.

I don't have much to really say about this topic because I don't fade all that often, but I still got something to say. I say that I know a online damage calculator at the Unofficial NS Guide that will tell me all the damages done by whatever thing.

Here's my investigation of this matter:

----------

Before I begin, I'd like to tell you that we are under the assumption of a 3 things:

1. All regen done naturally over time is not counted
2. All bullets/pelts hit your target
3. There is no outside interference or supporting fire

With that covered, here is my data!


Shotgun




HMG



----------

Alright, here's my data for you guys to chew on, I don't really care how you interpret this. Personally, I see it to be not a big problem, but only if you hunt in packs. Working alone would make a big difference because 1 second makes a huge difference.

(my post sucked) Continue on.

I don't really understand the argument here...

"The only thing that carapace is "good" for is to reduce the skill necessary to fade."

This isn't a bad thing...

The fade has always kind of been a decisive unit of NS. I don't see how something has suddenly changed. Can you provide some sensical evidence for why the fade with carapasc is overpowered now as opposed to how it was before, or at least some rational of how powered the fade should be in comparison.

I like the idea of having different weapons counter armor in different quantities though... Although I'd tend to have them flipped, with the HMG being more armor piercing and the shotgun being less. IMO it's problematic that the shotgun is the cheap and quick counter all.

Again, clanners just whine about the learning curve suddenly getting easier.

Look carapace is fine and if you are going to be such a baby about it, go around the map with a buddy. Or two. Or three.

I don't see anything wrong with a feature that supports marines sticking together, unless you're complaining about co, which I have lost hope for.

No offense, but you are NOT the majority -- and I mean that as a compliment. A fade doesn't need carapace if they are good enough. That's rather arrogant isn't it? Your perspective on what is overpowered is going to be skewed based on skill level. If it's really that much of a problem, get a server with an anti-carapace plugin. Personally I wouldn't play there but hey if it makes you happy.



Um, you just kinda put your foot in your mouth on that one buddy. Sorry. but um... well as another posted a link:



Yes, really, it is. Although I have to admit your aim isn't half bad either Smood. You can actually use the sniper pistol quite well, even when in frenzied combat. But MrMakaveli is even better. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he's banned from a few servers for "aimbot hacking", yes?

if u dont have a lot of teamwork, DC skulking is pretty ineffective, but if you know how to say "hey rush with me!" then the logistics of cara skulking is obviously imbalanced: as a squad of early game LMGers, the marines simply don't have enough time to deal enough damage before a group of cara skulks are on top of them. but perhaps that's the alien's reward for attacking en masse?

like you said with fading- you don't die as a cara fade unless you make a mistake. undoubtedbly, this lowers the skill needed to play as fade.

the chamber itself is also pretty powerful- i heard someone say that a DC under a hive is more effective than a gorge. but i don't work in numbers so i don't know if that's true (guess it depends on the time period as the gorge will eventually run out of adren).

as marines it's also much harder to finish games off against DC aliens. look at the ensl final between nL and sauna- after dominating the aliens on veil and nuking the 2nd hive, nL couldn't finish the game for like another 10 mins, because- as said above- cara fades can't die so you always have to compete with them, and the old skulk trick of meeting a marine as he moves around a corner and tanking him works really well with carapace, even against shotgunners. against MC weaps2 and SGs would have ended the game quicker, and against SC the lifeforms will die when defending the 2nd hive. those counters don't really work against DC, you just need paitence and marines with great aim and movement.

and SmoodCroozn- this thread actually looks pretty serious so if you could stay out of it i'm sure myself and others who know NS would appreciate it.

Swift: It's hard to explain exactly how something is unbalanced in NS, as it's such a complicated game. Everything is situational. All I can really give are personal opinions on why it's overpowered.

Ya, I understand, but that was sort of what I was expecting, you to provide an example of a situation that I can then say either "ya, I can see why you call that overpowered" or "no, you're just overevaulating" or something like that. It really doesn't help that NS is so fluid with the way it handles balance, in one game a fade's role is totally different then it is in another, but the game is still supposed to be balanced.

But I mean, in your opinion of ideal balance where should the line be drawn. Should a good fade running up into 3 shotty marines have a 100% chance of dying? 5 marines? 40% chance of dying? How many marines should a fade be able to take out alone? How many is too many? How much does the skill of the marines matter? how much should it?

I'm personally not very good with the fade, but I feel like I can get more done with focus for example then with carapasc, isn't focus therefore overpowered? Or are you telling me that your personal opinion that you feel invincible with carapasc and you get far more done then you believe you should be able to? Just give me something I can latch onto so I'm not just saying "I don't understand why you feel this is overpowered so I really can't agree or disagree, all I can express is that I haven't formed the same sentiment for some reason". It's not that I know you're wrong, or even that I think you're wrong, but a vague feeling of something really isn't enough to judge major balance changes on, even if it's by one of the games better players. Ultimately a good dev team will make balance changes that hopefully don't shallow the skill curve but also don't ruin the play experience for lower level players, so it's important that they have at least a passing understanding of not only what both sides feel are underpowered and overpowered, but also why.

I doubt its inbalanced.. I have never been a super fade, however I have been good. But cara IS the thing which gets you out just that second extra. You need it in long hallways when facing HMG. a Full clip will end you always. (Given it hits full)

Sure, cara reduces the chance of a hit. Well, since fades are now hit and run its perfect for them. I don't see the problem. Without hive armor they indeed need cara. (against HMGs) Also since the acceleration is slower, it means rines got longer to fire at you, meaning taking more damage is prefered.

Saying you don't need cara as a pro is bull... I ranked up enought frags as a fade in earlier versions which I could never do without cara and noone ever blaimed me of being n00b. (more the opposite)


If they want to kill a cara fade they should work together, same as if a regen fade wants to own a location bad he needs help. Its a teamgame. Its not that cara is pure magic, you do not get regen which is great aswell. a fade under continues fire won't be able to metab his health up that fast.

In short, I do not see it as overpowered.

Like 30 HMG bullets kill a fade if every one hits. Fades aren't allowed to be around a marine long enough for a an HMG to unload a clip. That's more then 7 seconds of constant fire.

durrrrr

of course its overpowered, why else would we be using it? (see link below)

Aye... ONE hmg. I think I was talking about teams buddy.

I seriously do not want to blink in a room with more then 2 HMGs as 2 can already be pure suicide. You are right, 1 vs 1 it will do.. then again, if a rine is in a tincan 1 vs 1 might just because favorable to said HA.

its all about the situation. We aint shouting HA being to overpowered aint we.

But I completely agree.. if a fade is under 7 seconds of fire its doing something wrong.

what makaveli is saying is that it is possible to counter groups of marines with big guns without carapace, however once a skilled fade gets carapace(or even a lesser skilled fade) they will not die to that group of marines.

however, the survivability gained by cara also creates a lack of focus, or killing power. meaning that even though the fades wont die they will be less effective at killing. it is just one of the many tradeoffs in the game.

really the problem with DCs is what sherpa pointed out earlier. early game DC (cara)skulks are way too overpowered.

good skulks will push a good marine's accuracy down to about 50%, meaning that it takes 20 lmg bullets to kill a skulk, or 2 seconds. it also takes about 2 seconds for a skulk to kill a marine. so as you can see here it is balanced, as whichever player is more skilled will kill the other. the problem arises when the skulk takes carapace; effectively giving the skulk 40 more health, and increases the time he can survive by .8 seconds(or 1 seconds for easy rounding). so now it takes the marine 3 seconds to kill the skulk while it still takes the skulk 2 seconds to kill the marine. now the skulk can be significantly less skilled than the marine and still win, while the marines have no counter to this like they do with cloaking.

Comm gets more armor. >_<

yes, because it is always possible to get armor 3 in the first 2 minutes of the game.

I ment armor 2. It makes a difference combined with medpacks

you cant get that until 3:30. the skulks will have cara at 1:30, meaning that by the time you get armor 2 it will be too late.

the same goes for damage upgrades.

the marines cannot produce an adequate counter to carapace skulks until it is already too late.

Some corrections. Shotgun damage is 170/180/200/220 (the value for each pellet is truncated); ROF is about 1.5 shots per second. HMG fires about 16.7 times per second.

As I've seen everyone rave about how great you are on these boards, perhaps you need to realize your own skill as well. Not everyone is as good as you, and for players that aren't your "very difficult" turns into utterly impossible.

I believe carapace does exactly what it should do - it makes the lifeform harder to kill. How can you complain about that?

Of course, FPS can hugely affect HMG ROF. Some frame rates bring it as high as 20 rounds per second.

You're assuming a lot of ideal situations. A real game isn't perfect.



I agree.

After taking time to listen to the arguements in this topic for the suggestion to nerf carapace, I fail to be convinced it is severely imbalanced.

vote no

good topic! Carapace is used way too less! /Me runs

im not assuming any ideal situations x5.

it is not possible get enough upgrades to counter carapace skulks until the mid game. by which time the early game is obviously already over and the advantage there has been had.

juse for the record.. I was a good face. Now I am just a waste of 50 res. (Ok thats actually )


but in short, I indeed find that exactly what cara is suppost to do.

Why should a game be balanced for players that do not play the game correctly? I see people miss like 8 shotgun shots in a row on fades, so should 1 shotgun shot do 8x more damage?



Let's say there's an upgrade that makes skulks do 10000 damage. It does what it's designed to do. Does that make it balanced? No.

You're also not accounting for the amount of time an average attack run takes assuming a movement upgrade (celerity or silence, celerity decreases point a - b time and silence decreases the amount of time the marine is aware of the skulk) or focus (decrease the seconds it takes to kill a marine). The game isn't balanced to have marines facing mostly unupgraded skulks that take that ideal ammount of time to kill, it's balanced to have skulks that are upgraded taking on marines. Carapasc might mean it takes me longer to kill the skulk, but it also means I'm aware of the skulk earlier and it takes him longer to both get to me and kill me. I basicly just requires a bit different style of play, where you try to force action on the skulk's part, whereas countering the MC is about reacting faster as soon as the skulk takes action, since he's going to suprise you or get to you quickly anyways.

Because pub play is NS, not imaginary 6v6 competitive servers. Carapace does what it was made to do. Unless you're playing combat, fades with carapace are perfectly able to be killed, as well as carapace skulks. You seem to forget by going dc first, they lose celerity or silence, which can be arguably more effective. Carapace works and marines can and do win. So make your argument more convincing than just, "I am good at NS, so whatever I say is right".

NS is NS. You don't get to say you play the right NS any more then mak does.

This argument is a joke.

He's arguing that carapace is overpowered, because it's designed to be what it was supposed to do. That's like arguing that cloaking is too strong because it "cloaks" or that celerity is overpowered because it makes you faster. I guess guns are overpowered because they shoot and bite should be nerfed because it bites.

Obviously, carapace is supposed to allow you to take more bullets. What are you going to propose that carapace gives only 5% more armor? Or are you going to suggest a new dc upgrade?

The only thing he has in his defense is his word and some argument about skulks doing 10000 damage.

If you want to be taken seriously, give us reasons why we should support your opinion other than "because I said so".

The right NS? NS is pubs. I'm sure you can agree since I see you on TG many times. I don't see how they keep refering to the dead and beaten comp scene in defense. Clanners can go play their 6v6 buddy games, but in the end they come back to the majority, the servers, the pubs.

I never once mentioned my own level of skill or said I was better than anyone. I never said carapace didn't do what it was meant to do. It does do what it was meant to do, but too well. I also like how you simply say "carapace fades are perfectly killable" without giving any sort of explanation or proof to back it up.

An onos with a million hp is also "perfectly able to be killed", it just takes 500 hmg jp marines. The issue isn't only whether the fade is able or not able to be killed, it's what it TAKES to kill him. You can say to just move together in groups, but if you are forced to move together in large groups to counter that upgrade, then that upgrade is doing a lot more than what is written on paper. It is also effectively reducing your res income because you can't afford marines to cap. It reduces your chance to sneak a pg and whatnot due to not having free marines.

Focus is the other upgrade in the game that forces you to move in groups, but I don't have a problem with focus really. It's tedious to weld constantly, but it's possible. Whereas killing a carapace fade is damn near impossible.

If you want to talk about it in numbers, it's basically going to take 4 shotgunners with weapons 2 to kill a carapace fade. And that's IF they all hit their shot perfectly, and then some extra pellets/pistol shots on the fade's way out. The only other way to kill him is if he makes a lot of mistakes, or one extremely large mistake.

A shotgunner is usually only going to get 1 solid shot on a good hit and run fade. Occasionally he'll get two. The only time you'll get any more shots off is if the fade is just flying in and tanking your shots and out-DPSing you; in which case it doesn't matter the shots you get off, as it comes down to you dying, and the fade living but being forced to go back to heal. This is quite well balanced vs a non-carapace fade. All the timings fit well. But a carapace fade is a whole different story.

A fade without carapace is actually reasonable to be able to kill without relying on the fade to make mistakes (which is what I consider to be the best kind of competition. Relying on your own skill instead of relying on your opponent's mistakes). I beleive it takes 3 w2 shotgun shots to kill a fade. A pair of good shotguns can kill the fade regardless of his mistakes if they both are shooting at fairly high accuracy. Which is what NS is about. Aliens aren't tanks. They have the ability to blink and leap and wall jump for a reason - to be unpredictable. They should not be able to be TANKS and unpredictable at the same time, it's just stupid.




I should have mentioned this in my first post: This is mainly directed at MC first, DC second. DC only fades are quite balanced imo. But when a fade gets celerity and carapace, it's just ridiculous.

in any situation that the skulk isnt being a complete idiot it will take him about 2 second to get to and kill the marine, regardless of the upgrades he has.

the point is that carapace skulks will outclass marines for the first four minutes of the game, while there is no counter at all that the marines can provide to overcome this disadvantage. there is also no disadvantage in the mid game to counteract this early game advantage. carapace fades can be just as effective as celerity fades, while the second hive gains a massive amount of hitpoints from the defence chamber that is going to be built under it. the marines will once again find themselves outclassed.

really the only reason that DCs arent the standard first chamber is that most good fades are too narrow minded and will choose celerity over carapace, even though carapace can be just as effective. that combined with the old habit of MCs first.

You weren't specific at all, and certainly not enough for what you were declaring as factual numbers. And no, it's true that it is possible if you have resources. Hell you could make a second arms lab even. Drop some shotguns and welders. And then you have all the things about situation, timing, numeric advantages, skill advantages, ...hell even pure dumb luck! My point is that there are TONS of varibles you are completely not taking into account when throwing out numbers.

I don't know why you keep insisting that the competitive scene is dead. Far from it. We're starting to build back up; we have 8 active teams at the moment in just ANSL.

Anyways, carapace is indeed very powerful. Too powerful? I don't really think so. When you're fighting a JP/HMGer, you pretty much have to rely on them to make a mistake in order to kill them. Oftentimes, if you don't have focus, they need to make more than one mistake to kill them. Therefore, by your logic Mak, JPs are also overpowered. I just don't think that is true.

True.
I don't see the aliens earlygame being that much better with dc first.
A early lerk will lack of mc upgrades and what does cara help when the lerk is slow and low on adren?
Lack of Celerity and Silence decreases skulks mobility in general and in ambush situations.

of course its a joke. carapace is overpowered, end of discussion.



dont assume that much

carapce skulks are so powerful that you really dont need an early lerk. but if you did get an early lerk the changes in the movement speed of a lerk have now made it so lerks really dont need celerity.


how the heck do i quote two people?

"You weren't specific at all, and certainly not enough for what you were declaring as factual numbers. And no, it's true that it is possible if you have resources. Hell you could make a second arms lab even. Drop some shotguns and welders. And then you have all the things about situation, timing, numeric advantages, skill advantages, ...hell even pure dumb luck! My point is that there are TONS of varibles you are completely not taking into account when throwing out numbers."

i have proven to you that skulks = marines without carapace, i have also proven to you that carapace makes skulks > marines until they get sufficient upgrades.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to get weapons two before four minutes into the game in any realistic situation, weapons two is needed to counter carapace skulks. by four minutes into the game the early game is over and the mid game is going to begin. this means that the advantage in the early game has been had and has not been countered because it CANT BE.

and extra shotgun would be a poor counter to carapace skulks, as light machine guns are much more effective at killing carapce skulks. the shotgun pellet spread is too wide and random to land enough pellets on the skulk to kill it unless the skulk is right ontop of you and even then you would still have to be lucky to land enough to kill that skulk.

so in reveiw i have logic saying that carapace skulks will outclass marines, and experience showing that carapace skulks outclass marines. i also have logic showing that marines cannot possibly counter carapace skulks until the mid game by which time it is already too late. i have accounted for all of the variables. if you are going to say that there are "TONS of variables that i am completely not taking into account" then please tell me what these variables are rather than saying they are there. because as far as i am concerned i have accounted for all of the varibles.

so please, enlighten me.

Hold on, are you suggesting that skulks with no upgrades are an equal match for marines at the start of the game? I thought that the conventional wisdom held marines to be significantly more powerful than vanilla skulks, and to still have a slight edge over upgraded skulks until lifeforms appeared.

If a vanilla skulk is already an equal match for a marine, then isn't a skulk with any upgrade already superior to a marine? Why single out just carapace as being "too good" on skulks, while celerity, silence, cloaking and focus aren't?

These guys are no better than uber over here:

http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....howtopic=101250

"RAWR CARAPACE IS OVERPOWERED BECAUSE INSTEAD of 50-4, I GET 50-5 GRAWR"

He wants to nerf carapace so that he can own even more on pubs obviously. Tours, the things you say make me wonder if you play NS at all.

carapce doesnt help me when I run in a straight line at a marine so please keep it

i never said vanilla skulks, i merely said skulks without carapace.

though vanilla skulks are almost on par with vanilla marines. it really comes down to skill and coordination. ive seen my 3 man preasure team of veterans be torn up by only 3 skulks, while at the same time i have seen them kill numerous skulks and a lerk. alot of it comes down to skill.

but at the top end of the skill ladder vanilla marines and vanilla skulks are remarkably closely skilled.

you also have to take into account that usually by the time the aliens get their upgrade chamber up the marines will also have armor 1. /stress usually

He's saying that a skulk with almost any MC or SC upgrade is equal to a marine. He's also saying that carapace is a more effective upgrade than any other single upgrade for an early game skulk. The first point I would agree with; I'm starting to agree with him on the second point due to some recent scrims I've played.



Actually, Mak is frustrated that killing a carapace fade takes so much effort, especially in scrim situations in which the fades are actually good. Pubs have very little to do with it. Although, if you took a look at carapace in pubs, you would see that it has even more of an effect as less people can aim well and certain registry problems come into play.

Tours is talking more of a technical side of it where countering the carapace in early game is near impossible. I trust his views on the times upgrades and such can be completed by.

Carapace is actually pretty underpowered on pubs now because of the alien armor. More guns aiming at you with half of them being clanners? That's a dead fade in 2 seconds.

Carapace is underpowered because you're bad? And you wonder why nobody listens to pubbers.....

Yeah this sums it all really well.

Fade costs 50 res it should be hard to kill. If you have lmgs you're not going to kill a carapace fade, but if commander spends the res for a shotgun it's not difficult at all.