The real camo in this game

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Spookydodger, Sep 25, 2013.

  1. Spookydodger

    That announcement about correct camo usage almost entirely silly. For most situations, camo is not useful. What's worse, due to the split-up between gun, armor, and vehicle, it's overpriced for what little it does do.

    Why it rarely works:
    • Suit armor still has large areas of the body where faction colors / undertones are visible, making the shapes stand out. This is especially true in most situations for the NC, where the yellow sticks out starkly.
    • Weapon camo is usually worse, with large swaths of the weapon completely uncovered.
    • Distances where camo would be most effective for infantry usually don't exist in this game.
    • You can't go prone, making blending into the terrain nearly impossible unless you are standing in front of a hill or rock or have otherwise wedged yourself into a gully.
    • Using foliage is a fool's errand because you have no idea if the people you are fighting against have bushes simply turned off.
    Why it is too costly for what it is:
    • Weapon camo, for how often it doesn't mask the weapon, is the same price as infantry camo
    • Weapon camo, for the size of item it covers, is the same price as infantry camo
    • For how many camos you could potentially need to be effective (Indar, Esamir, Amerish, Urban, Nighttime), they are priced pretty high.
    • Camo on vehicles is often negated substantially by addons like extra armor or composite armor.
    Where camo does work pretty well:
    • Esamir. The snow-themed camos often do a pretty decent job of blending in at a distance, especially for vehicles. Especially for the VS and NC, where the yellow / teal blends in a bit better with the terrain.
    • Confusion: some camos look either so faction unspecific on some armors, or look more like another faction's armor, that it gives you the necessary moment of confusion to get into defended areas uncontested. Not a normal use for camo!
    • VS at night. We definitely have an advantage even with our normal armor. Dark on dark. With the new dark grey and black player armors, more factions have access to it.
    • Vehicles: usually camo works pretty well for certain vehicles, like MBTs and any aircraft that is landed that doesn't have composite armor.
    What can be done to rectify the situation:
    • Simple price solution: offer the most common useful camos in a bundle, at a pretty good discount. Make it consistently available to new players.
    • More complex price solution: have scaling camo prices. First camo is ridiculously cheap. Next one is more. By the time you get to 4 they are real price.
    • Fold the armor / weapon camos together for a discount (maybe 750 instead of 1000). Maybe offer them in addition to the a-la-carte individual ones. Weapon camos being the same price as body camo is pretty silly considering how little it does / how little it covers. Non-sale non-SC-sale buying of 1 camo for $10 is pretty hard to justify for most people, and many people don't think of it in the sale-scaled pricing.
    • Make camo apply to vehicle extra-armor, such as the huge composite plates on aircraft or extra armor on tanks.
    • Give an option to paint your face, too. Doesn't help to look all covered with a giant flesh blob at nearly the highest point
    • More body coverage / toned down faction colors. I know it makes identifying harder, but that's a realistic problem in the real world too, and one I am willing to deal with!
    • Idea for hiding in foliage: for people who have bushes turned off, have soldiers in the area of foliage receive a certain amount of translucency to the player. Otherwise bushes are just decorations to those that have good systems.
    • Make aircraft camo be 2 toned, or offer 2-tone possibilities (maybe I'll have to try this with Player Studio), giving a lighter underside to blend with the sky and an earthy/foliage camo on top for viewing from the top.
    • I can haz prone? Pretty please? With whip-creamed camouflaged cherries on top?
    • Some ghillie suits would probably make a lot of Infiltrators very happy, especially on the upcoming Hosin continent.
    • Tank addons that help break up the shape of vehicles. Magriders, other than floating, have an organic shape that breaks up their silhouette pretty well. Prowlers stand out pretty well and well... Vanguards are huge boxes, what are you gonna do? Maybe some vehicle camo nets!
    And that post... It was funny and all, but it seems to reinforce the notion that many players have that the people that play this game simply don't get this game. I don't think that's the case. I think it was meant in good fun as much as anything else, but it should have had a serious side to it too. Like that sunderer picture, showing it at a distance from the ground and air. As it was, most people will look at that Sunderer and note the huge area making it stand out.
    Anyone else got any constructive thoughts on poignant observations on the failures / successes of camouflage in Planetside2?
    • Up x 5
  2. Robes

    Cosmetics.
    • Up x 2
  3. -Synapse-

    That make you blend in.

    It's a minuscule advantage, but still an advantage.
    • Up x 2
  4. sindz

    Again, using this logic about the VS camo.

    If its so OP at night, it then should logically make you stand out even more during the day, like a sore thumb.

    Camo's mean 0 in this game, the "advantage" you are able to gain is so small it doesn't even begin to matter. Where as individual skill level, would make all the difference in the world but is completely ignored.
  5. RHINO_Mk.II

    It might...


    If by day the world was a blue/red/yellow lego creation. As it is, dark grey and teal don't stand out any more in daylight than bright blue and yellow or red and black.
    • Up x 1
  6. OldMaster80

    Camouflage in this game means nothing: minimap shows everything, target got huge icons above their heads (probably because we're super-soldiers and we got ultra high-tech targeting systems?). Why bothering at buying camos?

    Give the fact people buy camos for fashion reasons and not to be unseen, if devs really want us to play stealthy they should eventually decide to bring back night darkness as it was during beta. Then we could really use night-ops camos, while Thermal, NV, vehicle lights a flashlight would finally make sense.

    Until then imho camo is just crap.
    • Up x 2
  7. iRhuel

    QFT
  8. Pikachu

    Camo is to make yourself look pretty and different from others, and show that you're tank is certed rather than a default uncerted low BR tank.
  9. Littleman


    A hellaciously minor one. I find a VS with a red decal on their shoulder is more likely to throw me off than their camo. Still, some might argue that the VS are covered too well, or that the NC and the TR aren't covered enough.

    Either way, dorito, mini map dots, and generally the shape of the shoulder pads and helmet are tell-tale signs of a soldier's empire. Also, movement direction. I tend to suffer FF more often if I'm running TO my allies from where they expect enemies to come from, and good on them for firing at me.

    But seriously, camos are cosmetics. They do a poor job of actually hiding anyone.
  10. Van Dax

    the only reason VS is so well covered now is because it looked really bad before
    [IMG]
  11. Littleman


    TR aren't much better than what's in that screen shot. Red everywhere. Where was there fix? NC have pretty much the entire front covered, but nearly the entire back exposed. As long as they're pressed against something, they hide as well as a VS. It's like one of them bad painted-to-match-the-wall gags. Hideous because it's practically aesthetically unbalanced. At least the TR and old VS camo appliance had taste.
  12. Grayson

    So, where do you want to blend in? [IMG]
    Oh wait......(and that's why they are cosmetics + no need for $ advantage)
  13. Kunavi

    The only issue I have with camo is the common pool ones- Bad decision! Other than that? Cosmetics, cuz even in BF3 or ARMA3 I have no difficulty spotting targets(Not through Q, referring to personal skill). Fun fact : BF3 managed to never confuse me as much as common pool PS2 camo, even considering how all camo in BF3 looks similar. So it's also bad or lazy design in PS2's case.
  14. deggy

    I dunno about you folks, but my Magrider's camo DEFINITELY gives it an advantage. With max Stealth to prevent minimap presence, I've had people drive right past my tank... er... rock... less than 10 meters away. The Mag gets really good camo coverage, and its shape makes it easy to blend in with stacks of rocks in the environment.
  15. MorganM

    Thanks for that long post telling us what we all know already =) We buy cammos to show off and look cool. If they happen to give any subtle advantage well that's a nice bonus but not really why most of us buy them.

    The new black scales camo is pretty rad; looks good and functions well. Only draw back is if you're NC/TR and ppl think you are VS from a distance =P

    Black spandex and dark purple is OP =^.^=
  16. Spookydodger


    I don't know. When I play as anything, I have a lot harder time spotting infantry because darkness makes them blend in well. At medium range, when I play TR or NC, I have a harder time spotting the basic VS camo because it blends in pretty well to outdoor dark terrain. Even if it makes you 5% harder to hit, that's a notable advantage.

    And the number of times I've been able to walk through ranks of enemy troops while wearing camo that looks a bit like theirs has been notable, too.

    And I find it much easier to spot armor from a Liberator, at long range, to spot armor that doesn't have some sort of properly used camo.

    Also when you drive something like Esamir camo out into Indar terrain, you often get spotted quicker. The converse would probably also be true.

    I can't be the only person that sees real advantages to good camo. I remember being in camo, laying in the grass, in other games and being much much harder to see.
  17. Spookydodger


    You don't have a marker over your head until you shoot, or get spotted. In the case of vehicles I think you get auto spotted on the minimap based on range.

    However you still have to equate an icon on the minimap to the location around you. That doesn't always happen easily if someone is hiding well.
  18. Spookydodger


    That was kinda my point, too. It would be nice if it was actual camo, rather than a less elaborate LoL champion skin.
  19. Spookydodger


    Yeah, they do. That was largely the point. Since they did a camo post, I felt it would do to bring up how silly the post was and why, without specifically bashing the post per se.
  20. Spookydodger


    Maybe make the entry-level camos available for certs, too. Or at least give the basic camo look of something other than "Parade uniforms"