[Suggestion] New darklight options.

Ofcourse I am assuming a lot of things, I was holding up a mirror to show how you were assuming things.
And exactly when did we have darklights on vehicles and who found them toxic exactly? Better question, what was actually toxic about them?

No I'm not assuming, I'm inferring.
You assumed I did not play infiltrator, I do. I also play it without stalkers and most often without the cloak. Being stealthy isn't hard especially with vehicles and avoiding entire vehicle columns is similarly easy. Just treating vehicles as a bit longer and broader would make you virtually immune against their darklights until you reveal themselves and they start looking for you.
Since you seem to think something so easily avoided is toxic and destroys your gameplay, I infer that you are to stupid to properly play the game.

I invite criticism, but that does not mean I have to nod along with anyone, or that I am suddenly not allowed to provide counter-arguments. This becomes especially true if that someone has apparently failed to learn some things that children already learn at a young age and could easily be adapted for use in game:

If you walk around you may find something we call a ROAD. at the edge of this ROAD you need to stop, since VEHICLES might pass by and you don't want to be too close in front of behind them, just like the darklight VEHICLES in game!
When you are at the edge of the ROAD you look around you, in most of the 1rst world first you look LEFT then you look RIGHT.
If no VEHICLES are coming your way at a speed they might hit you, it is safe to cross the ROAD. Often VEHICLES are also able to be HEARD in advance, letting you avoid them with more ease!

I specified non deployed because of sunders. (the may be an issue with the TR and colossus(sp) tanks but most other vehicles deployed are support. Ants or sunders. While I think deployed sunder should be immune to theft a non deployed one should not.)

I do not think the infiltrator should be able to force people out of vehicles. With their stealth they could sneak around behind and take out the crew when the pop out to repair it then stealth tank and use it to attack. Basically infiltering the enemy tank line and disrupting it.

Thats the beauty of this virus system: it doesn't truly force them out. They choose to do it.

Since the virus item does not stop the tank from defending itself and just nerfs it the Infil needs to avoid getting killed until the crew gets out. That means the crew could use the darklight items to find the infil and kill him, or they can try to drive away (unless their speed is nerfed enough), or in multi-crew vehicles one can watchout while they remove it.

The virus item could also cost resources. That way you have a limited supply and you have less incentive to toss it at any vehicle.
Its not much different from waiting around to steal a vehicle under repairs, only the crew is actually warned of your presence and can try to deal with you prior to exiting the vehicle. It would also be quite a feat to virus a vehicle, kill its crew and steal the vehicle behind enemy vehicle lines compared to stealing it out from under the nose of a repaircrew. Especially since the virus'd vehicle could warn nearby vehicles to watchout and help search with darklights.

Virus + stealing does seam to me that it would make them, really annoying to vehicles. People already treat them as toxic.

My thoughts:

1: Darklight strobe light. - I hate the very concept of flashbangs in an FPS game in general so I wouldn't want it included on a rail attachment. And It seems kinda redundant to have 2 darklight rail attachments, both of which would be of limited usefulness in detecting cloakers. I'd rather they just extend the current Darklight Flashlight's effect out to 25-30m. It would be much simpler to implement.

2: vehicle darklight lights. I see no issue with this. As a side note, I don't recall Darklight ever being on vehicle headlights before, so I dunno WTF Unlimited is talking about. I've done several searches here, on Reddit, Google, YT, etc but could find no reference to it ever being in-game.

3: turret darklight searchlight. I love this idea, assuming it has a really long range like 200m. It would certainly make sniper camping more difficult around bases, which is a good thing.

4: Flashbang upgrade: Darklight strobe effect. I'm not sure about this one. Would an upgraded flashbang have its blinding effect removed?

5: Deployable Darklight camera. Seems like just a motion sensor variant for Engies using a different technology. I presume it would pick up crouch-walking Infils. Otherwise IMO it's utility is a little too similar to existing equipment.


Here are a few additional suggestions I'd like to see implemented:

1. Let 1x/6x NV/IR scopes light up cloakers for the user again. Then give said 6x NV scopes to all long range auto/semiauto weapons
2. Give the Flare Gun a new ammo type that acts like a parachute flare that hangs in the air for 20-30 seconds and also includes a darklight effect.
3. Give long range auto/semiauto weapons a 4x Darklight scope that would light up cloakers only for the user.

What if Blockade Armor got darklight headlights as well as a timed temporary overshield for infantry upon departure?

It would make APC sunderers... exist, buff the harasser in at least some way, and improve the usage of the slot in other vehicles as well.

Especially if they renamed the composite/blockade armor slots to something more "infantry support" sounding.

Same could be used for radar-based vehicles, which have very little love if any

Im afraid i cannot show you the patchnotes that removed them as i am not an encyclopedia and the game has not the best track record of cataloging its changes but i am cetrain you can infer the reason for its removal if you think about it for a little bit longer than 5 seconds.

I never said i had problems with vehicles, hell i never even said i played infiltrator. I dont have issues with vehicles. You just taking my words as me just being bad at the game just shows how little you actually understand about game balance.
It does not matter how good somebody is able to mechanically play a Game, to be able to understand it.
There is no correlation there and if you do not see that then there is no point in talking further even though i am for the record not and i quote "to(o) stupid to properly play the game."

No you dont invite criticism.

The second i questioned your position you turned condescending and insulting, barricading yourself in your own ideas. I never once stated how i myself would like things to be. I even gave credit to you other ideas which had some merit. I stated the fact that what you suggested has been attempted and it did not work. It is fairly obvious why. Especially with the way Light is bugged in this game, going through solid obstacles, do you not consider a single person in a vehicle invalidating an entire Class simply by shining light in the general direction of a chokepoint or controlpoint or room or etc. etc. to be insanity?

I've played the game since launch, there were no darklights at any point in time so unless you want to make the bold claim this was in the beta tests I can infer that you are lying or severely misremembering.

If you think for 5 seconds you have given me no reason to believe you. Especially since you call something toxic that can be avoided by basic travel safety taught to children.

You are unable to understand the mechanical way to play a game where basic road safety can avoid the premise unless you reveal yourself first? I think that if you think about that for 5 seconds you can infer a lot of things.

Also you see right here that your idea of mechanical playing the game is different than mine. So your claims fall on deaf ears. You are saying "but you have to believe me because I believe it and thus its true".

So you don't find this insulting and condesending? Ok:

You quite literally assume I get gibbed by infils all the time and never play them, not to mention that you call it toxic all the time without really seeming to know what it means. Then when I point out how your arguments show a large hole in your own knowledge in colorful words suddenly I'm the one who started it all.

Finally you at least try to give your reasons beyond "it is obvious!". It is not obvious, otherwise I would not contest you on it right?

The "oh noes it looks through walls!" Argument is plain dumb, always has been. It sometimes does, but its rather strange to make a big issue out of it. "Oh noes, someone might shine a light and reveal me through a wall!". Ok, but to who? Not to the user, a user who is looking for you so the light passes over you in a split second. The only way to be revealed then is if you are in an already compromised position where someone else can spot you by accident if someone else accidentally shines a light through a wall.

You are also making a massive leap in assumptions there. The way you put it those lights have 50m range or something. The range on the head and tail lights on vehicles is short, just like the darklight is. Just shows what you know and how quickly you assume some nightmare scenario for no reason at all.

I fail to see how having darklight headlights for vehicles would be toxic. I do see that it would be a great counter for infils and cloak flashes. Im mostly thinking of the javelin when i say this

Anymore added than just a darklight spotlight on Sunderer that has a very narrow area would be OP (not good). There a great stalker cloakers that are near perfect with Commissioners, but not everyone is as good (like me).

Also, being able to disable cortium bombs w/ a Max is OP.

How though? Vehicle Flashlights are already limited in how much they illuminate, adding a darklight function would just make Infils go around said lights, which they usually do anyway if theyre anywhere near a Sunderer (mainly to place mines/cortium bomb/stab some people) and any Cloak Flash or Cloaker with half a brain would avoid the lights on other vehicles.Turning on said lights in the first place would make you stand out like a sore thumb, especially at night.

Same deal with the other ideas, they can be bypassed and they would only slow down an enterprising stalker. As is there is little counter to stalkers beyond praying to Vanu/Freedom/Unity that you hear them decloaking and react in time, tagging them with a darklight at point blank range because it doesn't work at its intended distance, or seeing their blur on certain settings. Adding these ideas wouldn't be OP, and it would hardly kill Stalkers or just Infils in general - it would just make them think more about doing their job, and give non-Infils more time to react to possible Stalker attack or Ghost Cap. Both god tier and low tier Stalkers would still find work.

The MAX comment on the other hand... like, why is it OP? Its just something everyone can do, interacting with stuff. I fail to see how a MAX being able to shut down a Cortium Bomb, like every other class, is somehow game-breaking.

Devs should attach darklight to the head, so you can highlight the area youre looking at and only then darklight will be at least somehow useful. Right now is useless when you try to scan for cloakers.

It create new job roles for people in the game such as scanning for cloakers. It's not entirely OP because it takes a gun off a Sunderer plus people might slack doing the darklight spotlight searching. Just because it can highlight cloakers doesn't guarantee it being 100% OP because if no one is there to kill the cloakers can still still the people coming out of the sunderer.

It would only be OP if the angle to scan was massive. It should also be a powerful flashlight for troops at night who run at Low brightness for realism.

I think the game has to be darker at night because the people who run high-brightness gamma have a significant advantage. Can even see cloaked vehicles and cloakers at night easy if not easier than day.

This is exactly not what is needed.

You sacrifice a weapon for a tool that is only used against a specific class.
Worse, the tool will make the Sunderer an easier target as it actively signals its weakened armanents. Add insult to injury the best use would be when you don't know an infil is there yet since doing so after an infil has revealed himself is too late. But doing so means you are spending enormous amounts of time looking for an infil that is likely not even there most of the time and it is still not a guaranteed find.
Basically you are asking players to use the Doom3 method: to use the Darklight you have to sacrifice your ability to actually kill what you find, then when you switch you can't see it and you risk getting your face ripped off while you switch.
Put another way: imagine that to deactivate a Heavy Shield you need to use a seperate tool before you can hit the Heavy with normal weapons? Thats a bit more extreme, but essentially true. You cant shoot what you cant see.

Darklights aren't powerful and they aren't instant-death for infiltrators. They are a necessity as addons to existing weapons to make it at least possible to find infiltrators and break the ludicrously powerful tool they have. Dealing with the potential of discovery should be par of the course for Infils, to be afraid of narrow, short-ranged tools that signal their presence well in advance and nerf the user is a sign of how passive and lazy infils have become when it comes to relying on their cloak.

The best option would be to ditch abilities and make classes depend on tools instead - Heavies got rocket launchers for AV work and Infiltrators have sniper rifles and can hack terminals. Shields and cloaks are redundant for the gameplay. (Could be applied to the medic as well)

If that seems too extreme the flashlight should be attached to the suit by default instead of taking up a rail slot, it's only purpose in game is to counter one single class and that shouldn't depend on buying the right equipment for that ONE task.
When it comes to vehicles it could become like a weapon attachment for the turrets - press X and it activates a searchlight attached to the weapon. Infiltrator counter without losing firepower.

Having them as infrared (and therefor invisible) would help, too as they don't become a "shoot here" sign if used

I'm heavily against removing things. Your other solution to put it on the helmet is better. You can immediately go one step further: a helmet slot. This could be equipped with some informational upgrades. For example the darklight or other class-specific detection devices, like detecting jumpjets or Heavy shields somewhere in the direction you are looking through terrain.

Concur with the removal opinion. As much as people vehemently despise cloak/snipers/MAXes/Literally Anything, removing them will only satisfy the haters and seriously piss off their users. And then the haters will pick ANOTHER thing to complain about. Its a cycle that will only lead to haemorraging players and the game devolving into... idk. Engineer only Amerish/Indar. Something stupid.

The helmet slot idea is nice. You could also add some HUD elements via said slot - A Motion Tracker pulse that alerts you to enemy proximity (which would act as an early warning system, but not give you a direction). Auto-spotter functionality. Partial Resistance to Flash/EM/Concussion grenades so you dont have to wear a whole implant to resist them and sacrifice using something much better. A one-time shield that protects you from one sniper shot to the head, but only one. You could give it to MAXes too, let them detect jumpjets or have a zoom hotkey.

The deployable camera just seems like an extremely poor mans motions spotter which provides a much better benefit over a larger area.

Not to mention it'd have to compete with stuff like babygates, the mana turrets or ammo. Which slot would this even go in lol.

How so?
A motion spotter has limits and is only available to infils. This camera would function differently: it hard spots enemies passing through rather than showing a blip, it makes it easier to find out where an enemy was spotted and it helps you spot infils more easily.
You can use it indirectly like a motion spotter, placing it somewhere out of your own vision so enemies show up if they pass.
You can also use it directly which the motion spotter cant, using it to reveal cloakers passing through its cone.
If it took the the MANA turret slot, which is kinda niche in where and when you can use it anyway, and can place multiple at a time it would be a solid tool to use.

Not powerful enough for you? Add some features. Enemies passing through might receive more damage for a short while, allies passing through could lose spots on them, the camera could deploy false signatures for enemies passing through its vision etc.

These camera's are as similar to motion spotters as Q-spotting is to motion spotters. They fulfill different roles in relaying information in different ways.

None of this was put in the OP, which simply reads as a darklight attachment on a stick.

It spotting stuff is more useful, though the thing it's supposedly designed to coutner, infiltraitors, can simply cloak to break the spot that was put onto them. It's why the motion spotters are very good at detecting cloaked things, because it still works even if they are cloaked.