YES IT IS.it still screws me up every single day i play infiltrator, several times during my session. this is the only class i play. this is not something you can simply get used to over time because it is fundamentally re.tarded the way it is implemented. all that would need be to fixed is make it so you cannot cloak at any time while pressing down the "fire" key, that is it. the solution is that simple. will SOE ever change this? nope. why? cause they know best .
i mean, they won't even give us hotkeys on vehicle terminals. basic stuff like this you shouldn't have to beg for.
when not using a stealth cloak makes you more stealthy, you know something is messed up make the sound only audible within 10m
But only Infiltrators can carry EMPs. I don't mind if Infiltrators counter Infiltrators; they both have the same combat handicaps.
I wonder, what can we do about this except just whining here? SMG infiltrators are pretty much like any other infantry at the moment, only with less HP. Anybody who can't see a cloaked Infiltrator is either partially blind or very inexperienced. I respect that SOE did a cloaking-balance pass to make the visibility same on all settings, but this is ridiculous. Before that, I was playing on medium-high settings and (in)visibility was just perfect :/
Words cannot describe how true this is. This is the reason I have relegated myself to playing with scout rifles and sniper rifles. The cloak is still effective at range.
The suggestion is to up every stage on Stalker one level (so for Deep Cloak, you just don't render at all unless Darklight). Stalker only, though--no invisible SMG Infils running around.
Y'know since reading this thread I have noticed this more - people, especially the higher BR players, can and do spot you easily whilst cloaked. I don't really know how I feel about this. Though I will say I'm not sure the cloak was ever intended to make the user invisible - merely harder to track and target (it removes you from the minimap upon activation, for instance). You still have to employ considerable sneak tactics to remain unseen, or at least minimize your exposure.
But that makes it kind of useless other than removing your radar signature--you can be clearly seen moving out to any range at which you would be accurately hit if not cloaked, and up-close you just effectively incapacitate yourself (delay before shooting, etc) in the hopes that no one looks very hard.
OK, now I have first-hand experience in how pathetic the cloak is from the other side: So I was hunting an Infiltrator as an LA. I knew his general vicinity, but not his exact position. He was in deep cloak. I saw him. Clearly. Well, not his whole shape, but I could see enough outlines to know that someone was there. Far, far too easy.
The cloak itself isn't perfect, but if used right, it can be pretty effective. The main problem with the cloak is the sound of it. As soon as you use the cloak or turn it off, you've pretty much just alerted everyone within a 100m radius that you're around. They may as well attach an air horn to the cloak button...
"Can be" not "is". That's the problem. Sure, there's a chance that I'll walk into the room and be oblivious to your presence. However, there's also a chance that if I look around, I'll see you and mow you down before you have the chance to decloak, much less shoot back. You'd arguably be safer against just one opponent if you weren't cloaked, so you could shoot back.
I've had guys spot me in deepcloak at +65m. I've even sat there for over 15 minutes typing out a /tell conversation, and some guy just rolls up, spots me at about +50m, and mows me over with headshots. These kinds of glitches are game breaking for stalkers, and walking/sprinting while in cloak has easily gotten 5x easier to see since the cloak change they did to make it more visible across graphics settings. Lastly, you should be able to move around with low chance of being spotted via crouchwalking. Crouch walking should be the current deepcloak level of invisibility. You can see it, but you have to be looking for it. Deepcloak needs to be 100% undetectable again unless you're literally ADS looking straight through the enemy deepcloaked infil at 0.3m or less (Back when the cloak worked properly, this is how it was. And I have had that happen before, but it was exceptionally rare. Now you get noticed all the time even without glitches revealing you).
The official description of the cloak says it makes the user "nearly invisible" and on deepcloak you are nearly invisible, even after the balance. high BR players find me because they run into an invisible structure (me) and thats suspicius and im ok with that. Other people seem to be able to spot me on deepcloak out of unbelievable ranges and i dont know how to feel about that (perhaps some failure in the cloak (head or weapon not cloaked ???)). But the big problem is (and i know i repeat myself): there is no difference between the different types of movement. you are as visible while crouchwalking as you are while running and thats stupid. since the balance i started to play my crossbows, because they allow me to kill my targets as a stalker out of ranges where noone is suspecting me (most of the time 30-50m sometimes up to 80m) and i can see them running around looking for me and im just happy to see them looking for me and kill them the moment they take a rest (ahh....all those hate mails). but if you want to play another secondary (so any other sidearm which is not created to kill out of longer ranges) you have to be really sneaky and if there is only one hostile around who looks into your direction will see you crouchwalking out of up to 50m and that makes the cloak worthless especially if you recognise the fact how long it takes to go back to the deepcloak (nealy 1sec). and yesterday i had a really funny experience. i was sniping some people at a hostile base where they got theire vehicles out of 240m and i got countersniped out of the spawnroom while i was on cloak and crouchwalking (barely survived). So that means, even with that blurry shield and a distance of 240m (+-10m) it was possible to spott me while crouchwalking and that is shows how destroyed the cloak is. in summary: the class that needs to be the most stealthy one - is too easy to spot even out of high distances (especially dangerous for smg hunters and stalkers) - the f****** loudest class (could find a hostile cloaker on top of a tech plant because of his cloaking sound) - is the easyest to kill class, because of lower shields and the fact that we have 1sec delay before we can start a counter attack when someone spotts us, because we have to decloak. So please SOE: give us our frist and only line of protection back!!
sorry, i forgot one of my most hated bugs in this game: The magical power of the darklight, that allows the wielder of that light to make a cloaker visible, even if he is on the other side of a wall/rock, because the light is able to go through solid strucktures.
That could be really helpfull while running away on cloak. What bothers me is, people on lower settings were mad because they could not see us while people on high or ultra were able to find us but instead of changing the cloak into the direction that even those high/ultra players would have trouble to find us without the dark light SOE decides to make us totally easy to find the moment we start to move one toe. Do they want everyone to become a sniper or at best a stalker with a crossbow? I mean, a stalker with only a beamer (or any other sidearm) will always have the disatvantage of not being able to use a full automatic weapon or a shotgun, so why do they have to shorten our lifespan even more? Do the devs hate this class so much? If you are inbetween the enemy lines its hard enough to come close enough to the effective killing range of a sidearm, so we need to be stealthy enough to get the chance to get there. If i start shooting with my beamer in the back of someone and he does not have the attention of a dead ferret, he will start to move and i only have a 17shot mag to hit as good as i can while following him with my aim, and if the target is a heavy i definitively have to hit the head to deal as much damage as i can before he can turn on the shield (for heavy: i leave them allone when i dont have the chance to come close enought for a headshot/knife combo). No really, the last changes of the cloak are a bad joke. the deepcloak is still ok as long as you are able to not move your mouse but the tiniest movement will give you away (and looking around - so using your mouse to check the area around you before you move - is not a healthy option anymore, because you can only do it verry slow and when you finished your check, you can start again because you dont know what changed in the meantime). really nearly everyone owns a darklight so everyone has a good chance to find us, especially when they team up. give us a chance to compete with other classes through our stealthyness. we dont need better weapons or more shields/health, but we need a better cloakingsystem (differences of visibility at various movements and the cloaking sound needs a reduction to only 10 or 20 meters and not the actuall over 100m).
I think deep cloak itself is ok, but the fracking transition time is bull-**** when my cloak only last 8sec total (fully certed hunter)
