A lot of players say PS2 isn't Pay2Win at all, often the opposite. Some people of course disagree. This thread isn't about that. Please don't derail this thread. A very large percentage of players have at least one premium camouflage and many have plenty of different camos. Some players don't have any, even some without the "free" Cells camo. Personally I only have the Cells and the directive White camos. Might as well just jump right into this: A lot of people claim camouflage can give them an advantage whether it be as an actual camo or to confuse opponents in CQC. Some of these people will also claim a player cannot buy an advantage from the in-game store. I'm curious what a gneral concenusus might be regarding wether or not camos are considered P2W. There are a terribly many players with their Indar canyons camos, their grassland/forest camos, their snowy arctic camos, and of course ones like the infamous Pink camo. There have been guides on camouflage usage in PS2, such as the one by the respected CuteBeaver, endorsed by Iridar on his site. There have been threads suggesting QoL changes with matching camos to specific loadouts and/or continents, such as the one currently on the board. There are players whom use only camos which blend into the environment. This is no strawman. What do others think and feel regarding premium-currency camos and the potential P2W aspects they bring into the game? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've noticed with a fairly high frequency with my White camo I am sometimes mistaken for TR. (Because logically one would associate the colour white with the "black & red" faction. ) This very often leads to me being shot by NC and ignored by TR. I guess they all can't see the bright blue and yellow on my chest, back, arms, shoulders, and legs. When I fight on Easmir, I don't feel like I blend in to the background at all, and the Hossin & Amerish I get focus-fired both from distances greater than one would normally be shot at from and in shorter ranges even with allies. When fighting enemies, I never miss an enemy sitting still because he was "blending in" and I'm never confused by a Giraffe Vanu because I recognize the VS-specific armour outline. Personally, I think while PS2 does give paying players an advantage, camouflages are not very Pay2Win in my opinion. That said, I do feel all future camos should relate to the ES colours of each faction or be limited to only weapons and equipment. Camos in general seem to be given much more credit than they deserve and do not provide a meaning combat/stealth advantage.
I'm on the fence. I don't really think they make that much difference. But the other night I was running the metallic silver camo and I was fighting some NC, particularly an outfit that seemed to run the same camo. I died in a room full of them then get revived by a nade and none of them attacked me, they must have thought I was one of them. I managed to take 4 of them with me before they realised. I think a small percentage of situations may give you a slight edge by confusing the enemy. When I first got Giraffe I got TK'd a lot more than usual. When I wear the White Camo it's like 'get him!' dorito is above my head.
When using continent fitting camo you're more likely to get shot by newer players, both friendly and enemy, who rely on faction colors for target acquisition. So overall I don't think camos are a problem. Although bling camo combined with NS helmets is kind of annoying. Fighting NC and expecting silhouettes with sharp corners and boxy appearance? Well here's a dude wearing all pink, sporting a weeb helmet and oh yeah, he's got an NS-15 sighted down on you. Is he an enemy or a paranoid friendly covering his sightlines?
It depends. Using camo other than your own faction's colors (cells) will make you more likely to be tk'd, but it can confuse the enemy in some cases. However, if you're already being stealthy and using terrain-appropriate camo to conceal you FROM A DISTANCE, be you a sniper or not, it can have some real value, especially before you take your first shot or if you're using a suppressor.
In the heat of a large battle I do occasionally mistake an enemy in pink camo for friendly, or vice-versa. But most of the time the shape and fixed colorations of the armor give away an enemy's faction. And if that's not enough, there's always behavior and the tell-tale marker above their head that, when it appears, lets me know if they're a fellow freedom-loving space 'Murican, a pinko commie so-and-so who read Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch way too many times, or an alien Jehovah's Witness come to teach me the word of the spandex gods. Although I have noticed the occasional moment where an enemy will completely ignore me standing two feet away when I'm wearing the Dark Digital camo, especially at night. I used to be able to go completely undetected while standing on those little arms of the point consoles as an engie with DDC, but lately people seem to have wised up to that one.
As "camo" those paint jobs are useless so there is no real advantage: when I see a vanu sniper running overnight with shining lumicolor strips it is hard not to laugh. To confuse other players about the faction yes they could have some effect, but rather limited (and mostly leading to be TK'ed by mistake). So all in all I wouldn't call them P2W.
When it comes to visual customization, I see a few issues: First of all, for camo, the camos that blend faction distinctions are quite a bit of an issue. Something like giraffe camo can be better than real cloak - While I rarely get surprised by cloakers and tend to hunt them down just because, giraffe camo often grants my opponents multiple seconds of confusion, especially while I'm pushing with allies or hunting down stragglers after a base capture. Alas, I am NC and thus just got used to shooting anything with weird colors on the off-chance that it might be an opposing faction. Not sure if that was the intention behind adding these camos, but I will assume the devs weren't just throwing this in with no regard for gameplay issues. However, giraffe pales in comparison to some kind of greenish camo that I once saw on a Vanu infiltrator. Basically, its color makes it blend it perfectly with the visual distortion effect of an EMP grenade. The guy literally ran up to my face and killed me and I couldn't even process that there was a dude moving in front of me. He looked exactly the same as that visual noise, though I guess the fact that we were on a patch of grass probably also helped him blend in. In addition, there's the doku armor set. I have a hard time distinguishing classes on doku armored Vanu. Often I will think that I got a heavy in front of me, but then get surprised when they use the abilities of another class entirely. They tend to look much bulkier on average than players with default camo, which can quickly end in death thanks to a surprise jumpjet flank or CQC bolt.
i consider the new doku armors a way bigger problem. they make everything so bulky that you can't even tell if you have a cloaker, an engy, a medic or a heavy infront of you.
Camo can provide a significant advantage against inexperienced players. Its almost never about actually seeing an enemy, its about that half a second of "WTF" it causes. The exception to this rule is when you use a good camo and hide in bushes to regen cloak, that can actually help a lot but only if you are still.
Considering Pink camo and all the neon **** are the most sold it's not really problem. Also the Q key helps counteract any camo.
This implies that you aren't understanding the importance of a half second time advantage in a game as twitchy as PS2, with its clientside hit detection and low TTK. Camo in PS2 is not like camo in other games. It doesn't hide you. It slows your enemy in 1on1 fights, giving you a few extra milliseconds of bullets to put into their heads.
This implies I don't use the silhouette instead of the camo to identify infantry or vehicles, which is a far more reliable way of seeing what faction you are. The Q key helps with NS vehicles in the distance, and "shooting anyway" regardless of faction when you're pink or such camo.
I personally don't think camo plays that big of a role except for the solid black or grey scale camo during the night. Also I noticed people wearing those doku armor with the leds are far easier to spot during the night. They stick out like a sore thumb which is why I went back to wearing composite armor with grey scale.
The point here is not what the elite mad skillz player does. It is what the average player will do. The majority of players in PS2 have no such leet target acquisition skills. My point and that which CutieG referred to is that confusing camo colors and patterns cause hesitation in less skilled players. In a game with .5s kill times you can only get to WT of WTF before you are dead.
I use delta camo because it's got bland earthy colors and all factions can use it. Barely costed me anything too.
