Regarding new cloaker changes

Am I the only one who hates the new change to cloakers, especially to stalkers?
Cloaked infantry/vehicles can no longer capture control points.
In addition to:

• Cloaked infantry can be spotted with a 100 certs flashlight.
• Stalker cloaking needs 1850 certs to be maxed.
• Cloakers have 100 less shield than other classes.
• Stalkers can only equip pistols.
• Deep operative needs 3,675 Iso to be maxed and has a time frame needed to activate which resets when you are damaged.
• Kill-cams always give away your position
• Decloak-cloak makes a sounds alerting everyone who can hear you.

By removing the ability to capture points while cloaked not only do they remove the hide-and-seek fun but they also make the deep operatives obsolete. Whats the point of being nearly invisible if you can't do anything other than get a few kills? We all know that we can get way more kills and a better survivability with a heavy.

So whats the point of being a stalker deep operative? Your only defence can be removed by a cheap flash light that everyone can get, you got less armor and resistances than all of the other classes and you need a lot of resources to maximise the class's abilities. Now try capturing a point while visible, you get shot once and the deep operative no longer works making the perk useless for the next 9 seconds (if maxed), try escaping from that...

TL;DR, the new cloaker change makes deep infiltrator stalker obsolete.

I'm pretty sure you're not the only one, I'm pretty sure all the stalkers HATE that change...

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure all those not stalking LOVE that change!

Personally, though I've yet to see it in "action", I love it

People hate infiltrators.

Just the other day I saw a thread where people wanted this exact change, and also wanted to remove SMGs from infil, and wanted to increase decloak time, and remove the tier of bolt actions that can equip close range scopes (ghost etc).

About all I can tell thats left once these people are done; is sniping, and maybe knifer lolz.

I guess people dont realize that at over 60% of bases sniping is a waste of time because walls and/or terrain force you to be in close enough range to be shot by all the sweaty heavies. Either that or they would actually just prefer that infiltrator is removed from the game completely.

I'm a little bit indifferent.

On one hand it's not like a stalker is a big threat so I don't care if he's cloaked when he caps the point or not.

On the other hand there won't be any more of those annoying useless stalkers who just cap the point and hide a few meters away so they can keep capping it as soon as everyone leaves. The noise from cloaking and uncloaking ought to do away with that.

However, I imagine they'll no longer be indicated as on the point anymore, which I would feel is probably more of a detriment to gameplay than anything else. Now not only can stalkers hide on point and not prevent the cap (giving absolutely no impression there is anyone there), SMG infils and CQC aimboters bolters can walk onto the point while cloaked and anyone holding or taking the point wont know it.

Currently aside from the obvious taking the point (losing control, flashing icon, etc.) the capture UI will also indicate if there are enemies able to capture the point within the radius. ("Secured"/"Contested") This can often give a warning to an enemy sneaking on to the point or of hidden enemies already there.

In this sense, this is a partial buff to infils and a nerf to quality of life for everyone. Now it's less safe for infils to capture points, gives away more information than is needed as a cloak will have to sound off to cap the point, experienced players will have to constantly check with a darklight in case of hidden stalkers not acknowledged by the UI, and stalkers defending points won't be rewarded for it.

Not a good change, in my opinion.

As for vehicles, I do think this is better. Currently there are two such vehicles that can be cloaked on a point? The ANT and flash. ANTs aren't hugely common as combat vehicles despite how good they can be in this role and wraith flashes deserve the nerf.

Does this mean no knife as a stalker?

Knives have not been changed to my knowledge.

I dont get why you are complaining? Low-skill annoying is out and actual thought is in!

I mean you complain about the Flashlight, the #1 attachment that should be making you giggle with joy as they waste a valuable slot for an attachment that reveals the users position and has literal tunnelvission plus tiny range build in. If you fail to ambush someone with a flashlight before they find you, you simply Failed with a capitol F.

Stalkers have always been used wrong. Sitting in a corner of a map capturing a point and keeping someone busy with nothing much is not good for the overall game. It also makes these Stalkers avoid combat and be all pissy when someone discovers them and blows a stationary, hesitant target away.

And the funny thing is, if you just decloak you can still capture points. The only thing you cant do anymore is sit invisible along an edge (possibly outside of the room) and repeat this forever. You now need to *gasp* THINK about how and when you capture a point.

Also your list of disadvantages misses something important: PERSPECTIVE. What about the disadvantages? The Infiltrator is arguably the best class for any weapon, and with both Stalker and basic cloaks available with a range of SMG's, Battle Rifles and snipers available its arguably the most versatile class and for higher skill players (who dont farm) also arguably the best class.

Stalker and basic cloaks available with a range of SMG's, Battle Rifles and snipers

???

Stalkers get SMGs?

I am pretty sure that when they came up with the stalker cloak and deep operative implants they weren't saying "Wow, this is going to make for some EPIC afk capture point gameplay".

I play infiltrator a lot, it's probably my second most played class after engineer. Rarely do I go invisible though! At no point has anyone said infiltrator is the passive class, the hiding class, the inactive class! We have so much firepower, we have so much intel, we can dictate every damn encounter and you want to sit on a cap point permanently invisible? No thanks.
And if you don't mind me saying, "limited to pistols only" is hardly any limitation, the sidearms in this game rock hard especially when you have the element of surprise.

Are you saying that stalkers can now use their main weapon??? Also, of course an infiltrator stalker MUST avoid combat, check my list for why. "Funny thing is that you can still decloak to capture". Decloak and die due to lack of defense/offence + alerting everyone with the stupid noise you make by decloaking. Good joke. By the way, this post is about the stalkers which are definately NOT the most versatile class in the game.

I disagree very strongly with this statement.
Infiltrators are no squishier than any other infantry class, it's just two of the cloaks give you 100 less maximum shield, more than made up for by the fact that you can go INVISIBLE to engage and possibly disengage as you see fit. The armour cloak (The best one by far in my opinion) gives you the same combined EHP as everyone else while visible and MORE EHP than any class other than HA while cloaked!
Sidearms have excellent TTK too they are balanced by having poor sustain, which shouldn't be an issue for a class which can selectively pick and choose its fights.

What versatility does a stalker lose? There's no more versatility in your primary weapon than there is in your sidearm, you'll just have to reload it more often. Stalkers can even still snipe long range targets if they like thanks to the Blackhand and the Crossbow (An incredibly versatile sidearm and silent too!).

I'm not saying that the Stalker can now use his main weapon. What I am saying is that a Stalker is not designed to avoid combat, but to avoid combat until it suits him or to have a small amount of extra time to prepare for combat.
The same can be used for capturing points. You control when you decloak and start the capture. Yes you risk being discovered while you do, but considering the risk non-cloakers have getting there in the first place and the lack of cloak to safeguard you after the fact it seems like there's healthy trade-offs in place.
Maybe you should play some CQC non-stalker infils for a while. The lessons you learn from playing that should massively improve your Stalker gameplay if you apply them.

Also if you can read I pointed out that the infiltrator class as a whole is the most versatile as it includes the Stalker.

Demigan....thats what your english says but it also says the opposite as well. all good.

1)trolling people by hiding within the capture radius then sneaking away when people approach and then going back or hiding somewhere out of the room that still technically in the capture radius was not only something they probably didn't intend for you to do with stalker (other cloaks have a time limit so for them capping while cloaked was only a niche benefit) was a terrible trolling mechanic that people pretended was totally ok.

stalker was never meant for you to sneak around and never kill anyone while using capture point cloak trickery to piss off the other players while they use ineffective anti-cloak measures. back when you could use EMP grenades to decloak infiltrators it was reasonable way of catching cloakers, they should have left that in but make it so it only affects cloak energy.

2) flashlight has a narrow cone, by comparison from third person you can see the entire detection radius via light effects even if you aren't in the detection radius! only dumb infiltrators sit around and let them sweep a room, there's a reason why good infiltrators sneak away or ambush people who have darklights active, it'd be completely different if you could only see the light if you were in detection radius.

3) other classes takes thousands of certs to be maxxed too, so non-argument

4) pistols are as powerful as primaries with less clipsize and sustain, they can still outdps people with primaries on top of being able to pick and choose your engagement.

5) again other classes have to spend thousands of iso for their specialized implants too

6) every class is subject to that

7) decloak sound doesn't do ****, all it tells you is an infiltrator is nearby which is nothing to those dedicated infiltrator trolls that stealth cap points then sneak away and repeat. lets not forget light assaults have it worse then you, if they fire up their jetpack you not only hear them, you can locate their general direction and they can't cloak themselves.

While I disagree that they removed it, it's not because it removed some capability from the Stalker class, but rather because it was unnecessary.

The ability of Stalkers to capture points while cloaked was absolutely, 100% dependent on the indifference of their opponents. Either no one was paying attention and you flip the point or people notice and come looking. And once people start looking, you either leave or get found. Experienced players have seen every Stalker hiding place in the game, most two or three times.

If the only time you can realistically capture a base as a Stalker is if no one is paying attention to you, then whether or not you can do it while cloaked is superfluous.

Only someone with no knowledge of the game or who simply wants to misunderstand would get that from this sentence:

"with both Stalker and basic cloaks available with a range of SMG's, Battle Rifles and snipers available".

I understand you could read it that way, but why would you?

Although I shouldnt be surprised people are willing to see it that way simply to feel better about their argument. Sad isnt it?

Some of that stuff already existed. Flashlights are not new and they used to work so this is just a fix.
Uncloak to capture a point, then re-cloak its not that hard.

Where are the heavy assault nerfs?

Infils literally are squishier. I understand what you're trying to say, but that statement is absurd--it is an undeniable fact that they're the only class in the game that has less health than everybody else, and while the margin isn't enough that it makes a huge difference most of time time, they absolutely do feel it (eg, only infils getting OHK'd by the Commissioner). They can get the health back by taking a version of their class ability that is worse in every other respect than the default one. The 25% damage reduction while cloaked is nice, sure, but only because it gives you slightly better odds of managing to run away. If you start taking fire while cloaked, given that you can't shoot back, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of decloaking and killing the other guy before you die unless you're so much luckier than him that it doesn't matter what you're using.

I don't have anything to say about the idea that sidearms are just as good as primaries, other than to wonder why, if they're so versatile, you never see pistol-primary medics, LAs, heavies, or literally anyone else who has another option.

invis got what they deserved, capping while invis was not only used by unoriginal trolls to sit at point, but it was plain stupid. you say that this can be countered by flashlight for mere 100 certs, although true you need to realize flashlight may take better weapon gear option than just situational "here i am" beacon.

I play stalker and sniper infil a lot - and I think it's an excellent change and even suggested it ages ago.

Stalker infils endlessly ghostcapping points whilst remaining invisible has been an annoyance for years and is a super cheesy tactic.

Lets hope this is the devs starting to look at some of the cheesier tactics people take advantage of and do something about them - crap like ADAD and crouch spam, flash on max roadkill BS, Zenith gals that cant be shot at due to weapon elevation restrictions all need to go too.