A skin with a name and lore change with certain bonus would be nice maybe an improvement you could build that would add bonuses to craver pops like 200 damage during ground invasions or 50% FIDS on depleted planets or something like that,.

I agree that some quest seem "unfinished" and not so rewarding. In some case, great change could be difficult to implement, but at least some changes on skin / special unit / very important upgrade would be welcome.

quaedam wrote:

Hello MemeLord

I understand your disappointment about Cravers populations, compared to what happens to UE populations.

One sure thing is that we can’t swap the Cravers population as we did for the United Empire. Because of the custom factions, swapping Cravers population could make you lose all the special characteristics you chose. In the United Empire’s case, you can still choose whether you want to change your citizens or not. Because of the Cravers quest’s architecture, their population could be swapped without asking for the player’s input at the time of change. Of course, we would like to avoid that case.

We could add a skin/name change for the Cravers population to our Improvement list as this is a good idea.

Out of curiosity, couldn't modifying the race in a way similar to the Horatio's gene splicing circumvent this issue? Adding a new trait to the race  (perhaps something that removes depletion points at a fraction of the rate they're gained?) would make it feel like the race has been changed without having to override any custom characteristics.

Bugsydor wrote:

I'm afraid there's something terribly obvious I'm missing here, but what's stopping them from telegraphing to the player in the quest that there will be a change? Like, "submit to the Virtuals and become wasps". Is it because the UE had several quest bits alluding to the upcoming shift?

Agreed, hints can be modified withouth editing the lore text and are a clear indication to the player what is going to happen

New skin and title for the pop is also acceptable I guess - even more easy to implement, but something is definitively needed here to make the faction more rewarding (and yes I only play the factions for their quest line :))

quaedam wrote:

KyoPa wrote:

atejas wrote:

I'm not certain I understand the issue. The rebellion ending for the Cravers quest lets you keep your pops the same. If the quest rewards indicated that the religious ending would cause that change (as all the choices in the UE quest do) then wouldn't the player know what they're getting into, and have the choice to avoid it?

I think the issue is with the premise of the questlines. In the UE questline, the player is given a clearcut choice of changing race or staying the same. With the Cravers questline, the choice isn't about staying Cravers or becoming Wasps. Instead, the player is given the choice of rebelling or submitting to the Virtuals. The race-change is only a secondary consequence/reward of the submission choice. The quest narrative doesn't give any information on what a Wasp exactly is until after you made the choice.

I'm afraid there's something terribly obvious I'm missing here, but what's stopping them from telegraphing to the player in the quest that there will be a change? Like, "submit to the Virtuals and become wasps". Is it because the UE had several quest bits alluding to the upcoming shift?

What if instead of giving a drastic change to craver pop you could get something different, i had this idea that once you finish the religious quest all of the cravers conquered worlds get locus points back and the locust points required to deplete a planet are now increased in 50%.  ( lore explanation being that now that the cravers have been modified and turned into wasps their new stomatchs can assimilate inorganic matter too and due their modifications they are extra hungry or something like that  ) This could give them a massive and neccesary boost in the mid/late game making their conquest of enemy worlds easier in this stage of the game without making a drastic change in their population ( my only problem is the 50 population bonus). 

If you choose the militarist path instead of getting that you can build something like an endless factory unique improvement (make it that you can only build it on the infinite factory world ) the endless factory building would give a considerable increase in craver troop damage, manpower generation and ship XP? this way the population stays the same and i feel it would be simplier since you are only adding a building of course a really powerful building. 

KyoPa wrote:

atejas wrote:

I'm not certain I understand the issue. The rebellion ending for the Cravers quest lets you keep your pops the same. If the quest rewards indicated that the religious ending would cause that change (as all the choices in the UE quest do) then wouldn't the player know what they're getting into, and have the choice to avoid it?

I think the issue is with the premise of the questlines. In the UE questline, the player is given a clearcut choice of changing race or staying the same. With the Cravers questline, the choice isn't about staying Cravers or becoming Wasps. Instead, the player is given the choice of rebelling or submitting to the Virtuals. The race-change is only a secondary consequence/reward of the submission choice. The quest narrative doesn't give any information on what a Wasp exactly is until after you made the choice.

Yes, that was exactly what I wanted to say xD Thanks for this clever translation :)

solrac137 wrote:

A skin with a name and lore change with certain bonus would be nice maybe an improvement you could build that would add bonuses to craver pops like 200 damage during ground invasions or 50% FIDS on depleted planets or something like that,.

That could be a good idea. I’m just scared that people will always compare this Cravers/Wasps result with UE/Mezari/Sheredyn: the leader has to change (as Zelevas does), but the population cannot (because of the issue we have with the quest structure).

Besides, I have to admit that I really like your ideas, guys. They could add a meaningful reward to the Cravers Quest line…

MidnightTea wrote:

I for one wouldn't be upset by a skin/name change happening as a result of a quest outcome, even if it's not entirely telegraphed to the player.  It helps convey the notion to the player that the quests aren't happening in a seperate place from where the game is happening. That is sometimes how it can feel because your quest goals may or may not line up with your goals in the game itself. But being reminded your choices matter and can turn up in the main game in various ways is a great way to keep it feeling alive.  

Sure thing, if only the skin or the name changes it could be ok. But we can’t switch the Cravers pop as much as we changed the UE population, so I am worried that people would be disappointed with this solution.

UndeadPuppy wrote:

It's better than the RIftborn Pacifist ending which is supposed to change population bonuses and tooltips but does neither., but that's a bug more than a design choice.

Could you report this “bug” on the thread “Deeds, Quest and Events bugs” ?

ManyEagles wrote:

Man, turning into either the Mezari or Sheredyn was so cool it makes me sad no other faction's quests quite live up to it.  A big civilization change like that would be very interesting for the cravers. I would love if they fleshed out the faction quests more in the future. I always choose to rebel against the virtuals so I don't think I've actually seen the ending your talking about though.

It's barely different, honestly. Most of my choices earlier in the game had been industrialist (and so I was drifting away from the Virtual influence), and I chose the industrialist ending - i.e. spend 1k dust and blow a hole in the mountain, fight the enemy fleet, destroy the Virtuals in the factory - but then saved, reloaded, and tried out the religious ending afterwards. The story didn't feel as right given my previous actions - the Cravers just said 'hey these dudes are totally deserving of our loyalty, let's submit ourselves to them' and then 'became wasps' in name only. I agree with you in that the religious option should change the race from Cravers to Wasps.

I think that every questline needs at least another chapter, potentially two, in order to resolve everything, give catharsis, and see what the true end result of your choices leads to. It would also be good to see your previous choices having more of an impact on the final options - perhaps, if you went religious every other time for the Cravers, you'd have to pay a higher cost to choose the industrialist outcome - this would be similar to the way alignments were chosen in GalCiv2, where you'd have to pay a lot of money to choose an alignment that differed from the event choices you had already made.

I for one wouldn't be upset by a skin/name change happening as a result of a quest outcome, even if it's not entirely telegraphed to the player.  It helps convey the notion to the player that the quests aren't happening in a seperate place from where the game is happening. That is sometimes how it can feel because your quest goals may or may not line up with your goals in the game itself. But being reminded your choices matter and can turn up in the main game in various ways is a great way to keep it feeling alive.  

The ending of this path talks about converting the cravers into Wasps (which are supposed to be 100% mechanical) however to my knowledge nothing happens to your pops after you've finished this questline, I'm disapointed with that because it'd be cool to see this transformation happen to your empire, heck, even if it was only cosmetic I'd be happy with it.

quaedam wrote:

Hello MemeLord

I understand your disappointment about Cravers populations, compared to what happens to UE populations.

One sure thing is that we can’t swap the Cravers population as we did for the United Empire. Because of the custom factions, swapping Cravers population could make you lose all the special characteristics you chose. In the United Empire’s case, you can still choose whether you want to change your citizens or not. Because of the Cravers quest’s architecture, their population could be swapped without asking for the player’s input at the time of change. Of course, we would like to avoid that case.

We could add a skin/name change for the Cravers population to our Improvement list as this is a good idea.

MignightTea: the building you’re talking about has been fixed. You’ll probably see the issue resolved in the next patch (I hope ;) ).

I'm not certain I understand the issue. The rebellion ending for the Cravers quest lets you keep your pops the same. If the quest rewards indicated that the religious ending would cause that change (as all the choices in the UE quest do) then wouldn't the player know what they're getting into, and have the choice to avoid it?

Hello MemeLord

I understand your disappointment about Cravers populations, compared to what happens to UE populations.

One sure thing is that we can’t swap the Cravers population as we did for the United Empire. Because of the custom factions, swapping Cravers population could make you lose all the special characteristics you chose. In the United Empire’s case, you can still choose whether you want to change your citizens or not. Because of the Cravers quest’s architecture, their population could be swapped without asking for the player’s input at the time of change. Of course, we would like to avoid that case.

We could add a skin/name change for the Cravers population to our Improvement list as this is a good idea.

MignightTea: the building you’re talking about has been fixed. You’ll probably see the issue resolved in the next patch (I hope ;) ).

There could be some unfinished hooks. When I finished the Riftborn quest with the pacifist option, it caused some of the... Riftborn build queues to read really funny. Like "embodiment" or whatever it's called became a string of computer code related to their questline. I'll submit this to bugs later if it hasn't already been, but I'd be shocked if not.

Likewise Riftborn, it was something about "next time I will be prepared". So I was waiting for this "next time" and only stopped when I checked my achievements and found I'd finished the quest line.

we just need a chapter or two for each faction, the cravers and the unfallen most of all, both of them feel.... well unfinished there should have been more but nothing happend.

Man, turning into either the Mezari or Sheredyn was so cool it makes me sad no other faction's quests quite live up to it.  A big civilization change like that would be very interesting for the cravers. I would love if they fleshed out the faction quests more in the future. I always choose to rebel against the virtuals so I don't think I've actually seen the ending your talking about though.

You have my vote. The United Empire get something very similar to this and it does actually change some stuff pretty dramatically.  The community generally seems to agree the Cravers need a pass-over some point, and I think you brought up something we shouldn't leave off the wishlist.