You do realise that if you could stay out of the enemies line of sight there would be no need for a cloak right? The whole point of the cloak is to change the outcome when the enemy does have line of sight of you. I think you are ignorant of how exactly infiltrators play. While people do try to avoid lines of sight whenever possible, there are undoubtedly going to be times when they can not and those are the times the cloak comes into play. Your statement also highly suggests you are not aware of what the cloak does. The cloak is very poor at remaining undetected at close range (it switches to being invisible at longer ranges), while it was good at hindering recognition - though that has been casually thrown away by developers who either don't care or don't know what affect their changes have. The Hunter cloak also helps with throwing off peoples aim by providing a blurry outline instead of a distinct one. Both this and the IFF feature only come into play if the enemy can see you.
As several people have pointed out already, it's impossible to totally avoid being seen without using the cloak (line of sight sneaking works better anyway). No, i don't use the cloak by cloaking and running right in front of enemies while expecting not to be seen. That has previously and probably always will mean suicide. My point was that pre-GU11, if you happened to be seen briefly in an instance where you either had no choice but to cloak and try to run right by someone (a rare situation if you manage your approaches right, but still happens often enough to be an issue) there was a moment of hesitation by your enemies because they couldn't instantly identify you as friend or foe. they had to stop and think for a moment. This brief moment of hesitation ideally allowed you to slip by them. I try to keep my use of the cloak to a minimum because it is so unreliable. However, now that the IFF has been introduced, you can basically use it to throw off enemies aim a little because you're a slightly blurry, shimmery target as opposed to a solid target or to disappear at longer ranges. It no longer has any usefulness as an infiltration tool. Another use of the pre-IFF cloak was running through crowds of enemies. The fact that you were very hard to identify as friend or foe at a glance and that you could use other players as cover enhanced the effectiveness of the cloak. this combined with the low fps many people get in larger battles, would occasionally allow you to ghost through large crowds using the cloak. In short, pre-GU11 thought process upon spotting cloaked infil: 1. Have i heard an enemy faction's cloak noise recently? If yes, move to step 2. 2. Does that shimmer have a different silhouette from my faction's infiltrator? If yes, move to step 3. 3. Aim or chase. 4. Fire or aim (if step 3 was chase). 5. Fire (if step 4 was aim). Post-GU11 thought process upon spotting cloaked infil: 1. Is it glowing my faction color? If no, go to steps 3, 4, and possibly 5 of pre-GU11 actions. IFF cuts out two steps that require concentration and experience in favor of one that requires color recognition, something which a trained monkey is capable of. So now being seen cloaked has roughly the same effect as being seen uncloaked with a tiny side benefit of being slightly harder to hit.
Yes, I do know. This invalidates my points how, exactly? You're still a slightly harder target as a wireframe figure, especially at night, in any sort of shadow, or against gray backgrounds. Even with the wireframe, the same thought process applies because at a glance the wireframes look fairly similar. Let me repeat; IFF tosses the old methods for identifying cloaked infils (sound/silhouette recognition) out and replaces them with color recognition, which requires next to no mental capacity to figure out and requires much less time and experience to do. At this point I'm not sure what you're arguing about my posts or what point you're trying to make because all of your responses are one sentence affairs that convey things that are common knowledge. Could we try to establish what your argument is? That may prevent us going back and forth for ever.
I don't think anyone would argue that. Only stupid Infiltrators run right up to an enemy with their cloak on expecting not to be seen. But since this is a first person game and the only way to see to your sides and behind you is to turn and look in that direction, you can't always know who might be watching. For example; An Infiltrator is running down a long hallway. There is an intersection up ahead that connects with another hall that may or may not contain enemies. The Infiltrator's destination is ahead of him, not down the adjacent hall, so to avoid being potentially spotted he toggles on his cloak when he runs past the intersection. He could have stopped to check if enemies were in the adjacent hall, but (Pre-GU11) that would have been riskier than using the cloak. If he stopped and was spotted he would have been shot at, probably killed and at the very least chased. At this point the Infiltrator has already failed as the enemy is aware of his presence. Even if he gets away or kills his pursuer his cover is already blown and operating within the enemy base will be that much more difficult. Since GU11 I have been the enemy in this situation many, many times. I see that cloak shimmer in the hall in front of me and open fire, because I instantly know that it isn't friendly. Even if I don't kill the Infiltrator, even if he gets away, his cover is already blown and he's already failed because I'm aware that there is an Infiltrator behind our lines and I make it known to my squad. Did the Infiltrator do everything right? Yes, he did. Did ridiculous game mechanics screw him over? Absolutely. Is this game breaking for CQC Infiltrators? Without question.
Your point? I wear glasses to see better - I can still see without them though. Doing something better does not preclude doing it at all.
I'm in agreement with the OP in this aspect: IFF is bad. For one, I have NEVER been TKed by a friendly when cloaked, in the rare times I see the need to use an infil to accomplish an objective. Second, I have been grievously guilty of the infil gang. Stupidity at work folks. Finally, when I do did run as an infil, I almost always was infiltrating the crown or another highly occupied tower, and just racking up kills with the M77B (suppressed ofc). Good times, till the crown was nerfed, lattice was intro'd, and the days of long, drawn out fights for facilities were destroyed with a single keystroke. Can we roll back lattice and move C back to where it was on the crown while we are at it? That'd be great.
Is there really anything to get though? Or are you just spouting things out with out any real meaning? Your implied meaning is that people have some sort of difficulty detecting infiltrators that are cloaked (at close range). While I can say that in some cases this may indeed be true (just as I am sure toilets are fatal contraptions in some cases), it does not mean that such a thing is reliable or in any way probable - just possible. The real difference cloak makes is not one of detection but one of identification - which, as Arkos pointed out in his most eloquent post, has now been lost. However, I don't think you get it if after such things have been explained to you by many people you still sprout such poor statements like "You do know that people actually turn down their settings in order to see Infiltrators better right?".
Actually that's not what I'm trying to imply, that's your assumption. I understand what everyone is trying to say, it's just you who don't get what I'm trying to say.
I must say that seeing as you've replied in one or two sentence bites that consist of rather vague and/or patronizing statements, it's rather understandable that "it's just [us] who don't get what [you're] trying to say." Could we please get a better idea of what you're trying to say so that this doesn't devolve into people flaming each other? Seriously, I've been following this for a while, commented on several of your posts and vice versa and I still haven't the foggiest idea about what's actually being argued here by you...
I know the feeling! I've experienced this more and more. Its like I have this huge big blue or red signalflare on top of my head, screaming "HEY FELLOW SNIPERS - COME HERE AND GIVE AWAY MY POSITION!"... I've begun, however, to kill them myself, whenever they come close to me. A little "friendly fire" can happen.... *cough* If they come back? I'll just kill them again. Untill they learn.
God OP you put doen what was on my mind...sometimes if I got into REALLY sneaky place and see a friendly infiltrator running towards me...and I'm in a bad mood or tired...well let's just say I have several more hits before I get wep locked.
