Remember when back in the day Marines would take damage and be forced to go shipside for treatment? Yeah that doesn't happen anymore.
- fractures: these still happen. Nanosplints made them less annoying. That would be fine if not for all the other factors
- internal bleeding: basically a joke. Rarely happens, and is extremely easy to treat, to the point that there's no reason to EVER bring QC anymore
- organ damage: only really happens from moving with unsplinted bones. I'm fine with that
- delimbs: inconsistent, but definitely rarer than they used to be
- friendly fire: got nerfed some time ago. Don't remember how exactly though.
So, that's how things were recently. Now throw in techwebs.
- nanosplits: already mentioned
- plates: ceramic means friendly fire is even less of a factor, metal means less damage from xenos
- subdermal implant: less damage overall.
We've reached a point where it's literally impossible to take permanent damage, short of a fracture or two. How did this happen?
Now, you may be thinking: "What's the issue here? Having to go shipside sucks." And you're right. But consider the other consequences of this.
- medbay has nothing to do on any round that Marines win
- medevac rarely needs to happen
- there is no backline gameplay anymore, since there doesn't need to be a backline, you either sit at the frontline or the FOB for the entire game
- no backline means Lurkers and Runners lose their main gameplay loop and are forced to pick on the frontline instead
- people who liked soloing Lurkers and Runners have less space to do that
- medics are glorified walking defibs, you can dump half of your pills without any consequence simply because you wouldn't use them anyway. The fact that minimedic exists doesn't help
- there is no way to bleed momentum from Marines anymore, you have to stomp them and force a full retreat because they just don't attrition.
Look how many players suffer here. Engineer mains, Medics, Lurkers and Runners, rambo Marines, POs, the entirety of shipside Medical. The amount of interactions between players in various roles was always the most interesting part of CM, and I can't help but think that a significant part of it is now gone.