That little line might be a reason for me to stop playing this game for the first time. o0 I am playing Infiltrator a lot because I am playing often alone. And if you have a good position where no one looks at you and shoot just when no one can see the tracer... well then that should be rewarded. Also the infiltrator cloak will be useless then. You can sit within an enemy group and shoot/knife them one after the other without them noticing that you are right in front of them. As long as no one is smart enough to come with the dark-light attachment you just have to sit and wait for the next perfect moment. If they get your direction on the map and there is only one place in the area that is passed by the line where you could be(in a building for example), they just need to shoot in that direction and you are dead. AND they see your kind of cloak on the death screen. Great, just great. So we will just running with the Zerg, because it is the only time the enemy is to busy to hunt you down... It might be ok if it would be turned off with BR20 or something around this. Or even earlier if you play in an outfit.
If you're using the annihilator, there's nothing I can do for you. (this thing is totally useless, I don't consider it a G2A lock-on. It's just good enough to destroy flashes). Rather use the Hawk/Grounder/Nemesis. 5 hits. Maybe 6. Not more.
The crux of the matter here is a new player lacks the situational awareness to make sense of what happened to them in the confusion of a massive battle. Giving them the location of their killer on the "Death Screen" seems like an easy solution but as others have pointed out, its not necessarily the right one. "Kill-cams" from other games are just a cheap crowd-pleaser. Giving up an opponent to its victim so some sort of revenge can be sort. Neither the "Death Screen" idea or "Kill-cams" address the problem of educating a victim in terms of situational awareness, because they are looking at the death of a player from a killers location, when we should be focusing on the victims. My suggestion; Ghost-cam On death, a player would see three short replays. The view would be from a 3rd-person camera giving an out-of-body perspective showing what killed them. A bit morbid maybe but the only way new players are going to learn whats killing them is to study their own deaths. Replays should auto play but have an option to skip. The positioning of the camera's around the player should be from 3-points of a triangle, looking at the player in the centre of that triangle. No more then 3m in distance for a death as an infantry/MAX or 10m for a vehicle. To ensure the focus is on the player and not giving away the greater tactical situation around them. Watching these replays players will be able to see what killed them and more importantly understand what happened to them. Instead of being left to struggle to comprehend what happened, screaming the question "What killed me?!" to themselves. The "Ghost-cam" replay would answer all their questions, give them time to think, relax, develop a tactical counter in their mind and launch back into the action, ready to fight and alert to the dangers that killed them before. "Oh! it was a rocket to the face through a crowd of MAX's. I won't stand behind MAX's from now on." "Snap! A sniper round in the back of the head. There must be another path behind me" "C4 dropped on my head. I need to look up next time!" "I was expecting to be safe standing behind this Sunderer but took an arrow to the knee. I'm jump in the Sunderer for cover next time"
Personally, I find this entire concept completely ridiculous and wonder just how spoiled new gen gamers actually are. There is absolutely no reason for this unless you believe that everyone went to school riding the short bus and is completely incapable of actually learning to gain even a semblance of situational awareness. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that many players do lack situational awareness...but that's part of the learning process. I mean hell, what next...aim bots for players who currently lack adequate twitch response times; I mean hell, we know that there's plenty of players who can't do that...why not give them a leg up too aye? All this does is provide a crutch for players who should be learning to compensate for their inadequacies on their own, through practice, and absolutely destroys stationary stealth related tactics. This isn't just for Infiltrators either, this is for everyone who actually takes the time to flank their enemy and then establish a sneaky position behind enemy lines. Light Assault peeking from a rooftop and taking out oblivious forces? You get a single kill before the enemy knows your exact location. Heavy Assault took the time to flank the enemy, coming up behind them and eradicating each target to ensure he can keep it up? You get one kill before all that time has been wasted because your dead target magically knows your exact location. Then yes...the huge blow to Infiltrators. With the way the entire concept is done now, a direct line pinpoints your exact location to the individual that you killed. Any stationary sniper now gets one kill before their exact location has been revealed to the enemy...way to encourage aggressive sniping without the range cap devs. Ah yes, Stalker Cloaking...the cloaking device that's been redesigned from the original incarnation from the previous game so that it actually rewards flanking by allowing you to take up a stealthy ambush position behind enemy lines..............................now doesn't reward you with anything because you have to constantly be mobile with a cloaking device that actually punishes mobility. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. At the most, the only thing that should be added is a small arrow attached to the skull and crossbones symbol that marks your corpse on the mini-map. This SHORT little arrow should point to the cardinal direction of where you were killed from. North, East, South, West, North East, North West, South East, South West. If some sort of indication is needed, for whatever the ridiculous reason, that's the only acceptable method.
I feel like adding any kind of killcam will take some level of skill out of the game. Observing your surroundings is a very important skill to have and I do believe it's something you learn over time. Just because something you've learned gives you an edge against newer players, it doesn't mean it has to be "rectified" in any way. Having a decently high skillcap is one of the most important things in a (semi-)competitive game to me and many other players. After every session I look at my stats(KDR, Acc., HS Acc.) and I usually see improvement. It gives me a sense of accomplishment that no kind of in-game achievement etc. can. Learning the game with all of it's gimmicks, tricks and properties is part of that development, and I just don't want to see a scenario where you're given "skill" on a plate right from the start. I just think that adding a killcam is a step in the wrong direction. You can miss stuff on the minimap and the damage indicator doesn't tell you everything outright, but a killcam might be over the thin line from sufficient feedback to EZ mode.
I love how there are people who haven't read a single post, who come on to say: "KILL CAMS ARE BAD, WE DON"T NEED KILL CAMS" Yeah, read the whole exchange between Higby and other people back a couple pages ago. It's largely turned the informed responders from negative to positive, or from negative to accepting. I'm fine with the 15 degree cone showing the general direction of people, unless you are spotted. I'm rather apathetic when it comes to the level cap on the kill screen though. I mean, it'll only get you if you are spotted... you can break spots by cloaking (At least this is what I have heard)... *Shrug* My concerns are placated +1 to the amendments mentioned by Higby. ...Now, about those changes to Lockdown...
I would suggest that looking at your death from the point of view of your killer is by definition focusing on the victim. You should sit down and rest. Take a load off those callouses you worked up walking uphill to school both ways. Actually, the idea that this is being driven by the PS4 launch makes a lot of sense. Not that it is somehow catering to 'console kiddies', but consider the economics. The last time I saw the PS4 had an install base of about 6 million units. Even if only 1% of those try out Planetside (which I won't abbreviate to PS2, just to avoid confusing myself with 2/4 switching), that's 60,000 new players all at the same time. I'm not even sure that NA/Europe even have 60,000 active players right now. So somebody in the financial wing at Sony is looking at this as a potential gold mine. You have 6 million people willing to pay the early adopter premium in order to get a console with no games. That sounds like exactly the sort of person you want playing your freemium title. So O:MFG, the new player questionnaire, kill-cams; all these things are addressing the "Why did you quit Planetside?" surveys SOE sends out when we leave. "The game runs like garbage"/"I get slaughtered by people with better equipment"/"I just end up dying randomly". As a slow trickle of PC churn, that's bad but low enough that it gets re-prioritized behind things like Hossin. The massive influx of new players that the PS4 launch predicts however is the sort of thing that gets Smedley on the phone with Higby to address new player churn numbers now. So as I alluded to in my swipe at Tenebrae, this isn't Don't Starve. Learning how to play the game isn't the game that SOE necessarily wants us to be playing, especially when it's driving their potential customers away. Until we get to the point where the 'old guard' players bring in more money than the potential new players (and again, at a pulled out of my *** estimate of 60,000 new SC purchasers, they don't) then their demands will be overridden by the prospect of Higby being able to pay his mortgage and feed his kids.
ABSOLUTELY NO! What on earth are you guys smoking! There is absolutely no reason to give a victim such a detailed information about his killer, especially the exact position! The whole level of information renders long range sniping, flanking and stealthy gameplay completely obsolete. I.e. smart snipers can cover their current sniping spot for a long time by using the right tactics, by the understanding how people look and listen and how the human brain handles what they see and hear. Not so smart snipers reveal their position already after the first 3 shots... Now you take all gamers by the hand and tell them exactly where the death came from: "Look here you you blind idiot! HERE, exactly where the white dot is! See it? And to make it even easier for you we give you additionally all information that grants your revenge at best"
They wouldn't have had nearly as many people leave if they would have introduced the meta-game that everyone wanted from launch. That was what caused the first mass exodus from the game, and the second exodus came from the lack of large scale battles because the FIRST exodus transpired...combining to form the population problems we have now that are resulting in more people leaving. Bringing in mechanics that no one wants isn't going to fix that...it's going to drive further people away from the game and make the PC version fail horribly...which will then factor into how Everquest: Next does because gamers remember this kind of crap and hold grudges. So, If that's their way of thinking, what you described, it's very short sighted and will ultimately hurt them in the long run...especially when gamers get tired of failed games.
My gut-reaction is this is a bad idea, but I am willing to jump on test and consider what Higby has said regarding this new feature does not give more information than the damage indicator on your hud currently gives. Hopefully people who are against this will at least try it out and give themselves a chance at being wrong.
so last night, i managed to take a silenced parallax and survive as a TR push pushed past my location. i then proceeded to kill several heavies and engineers by shooting them in the back of the head because they thought they were safe and had no idea where i was. i also took out a few snipers as well. None of them had the slightest clue i was behind them because i held fire and shot from a bush! even if they had a 15 degree cone i would have been destroyed by the mass of prowlers operating in the area (i was trying to take out the engines as they repaired). so tell me again why i should not be allowed to do this and the enemy should get a free pass on making sure an area is secure?
Things like this are being added to make the game more appealing to the PS4 crowd its just that simple.
I am completely 100% against this change. Massive unnecessary nerf to infiltrators/light assault or any other player who enjoys using a superior position as a combat advantage and for what........? What does this accomplish outside of further penalizing good positioning & catering to people that are not competent enough to identify their surroundings? Under no circumstance should kill cams or anything of the sort be added to PS2. You want to help new players, improve the tutorial. The overwhelming feedback from new players completing tutorial state, it was not helpful & did little to prepare them for the real PS2. Something I discussed in length on reddit & was ignored by SOE. As much as I would like to re-link my said conversation with all attached effort/resources, I can't be bothered. I've wasted enough d**n time trying to improve the new player experience only to be ignored & have features like this being considered.
find me a massive TR tank zerg intent on crushing a VS advance during an alert and i'll gladly try. that said i can tell from the guys spinning around searching for me on live they sure didn't know where i was. nor did the guys in chimney rock know that the shots were coming from INSIDE their base. they just ASSUMED that the shot came from the main VS force. again even with the cone, that positioning advantage on an unaware target (even br100's can be unaware) is a 1 shot deal
If you really want to do that then you should nerf OHK shotguns, Viper Lightnings, Rocket Pods (which should be purely AV tbh), bulldog galaxies, and a large list of etceteras that a new player has absolutely no way of fighting against. I believe that's the main reason of people quitting because of being killed by "random stuff". Oh and also, as Jak said, give all attachments for the starter weapons for free. And I'd add that you should give level 1 of all passives for free, both for vehicles and infantry classes (this means, for example, giving level 1 Flare, level 1 auto repair and such, but it wouldn't necessarily include Front/Side/Rear armor upgrades for the tanks). Both of those things would definitely improve a new player's experience much more than this death screen without dumbing down the game.
Armor is ATM only effective against FLAK (AA MAX/Skyguard). Only possibility might be that he used fire suppression, which adds 1 or 2 shots to destroy the lib. Anyway, 3 guys with Hawks should have no problem with libs.
If you're fighting a tank zerg as an infil, you're doing it wrong anyway. Bad players will be bad, regardless of the crutchs you give them.
