Why cloak+SMG=OP? Because lag

I see you've never played an inf with a cloak on a laggy server. Cloak + Lag = Dead Infiltrator, because the cloak takes 10 seconds to work when you press the button.

If inf's are decloaking in front of you and killing you, that's on you. Cloaked inf's pick the easiest targets - usually those who stop moving, or who aren't paying attention to everything around them.

It's like how it is in life at times. We can be dead before a blink of an eye, well not us of course because we are still alive but others already have died around the world already. Preparation is how not to die but we all can only cover so much. Either become an infiltrator and do the same, stay with a group, get in a vehicle, all this can reduce the chances of you dying to them.

That still requires equipping a specific loadout just to counter an infil.

A much simpler and effective way is to increase the decloak time so it is unlikely the latency will hide you and the cloak will be less of an in-your-face direct combat tool. Instead it would give you the time you need to get around enemies and into an advantageous position, decloak and then move in for the kill. Ideally the decloak is carefully balanced so decloaking from a flanking position can still give you a small advantage.

As compensation the health and shield of the infil are equalized with the other classes and the decloak sound has its range reduced. Additionally when walking/running cloaked your visibility is reduced when farther than 20m to give infils an easier time getting in position. And dont forget: DECLOAK is lengthened, cloaking is still as quick as always for a quick getaway.

There, instant balanced infil. Sniper infils wont be able to decloak and shoot before they are actually decloaked on the opponents screen, SMG/knige infils cant decloak in your face and murder you (which is easy as all hell if you've ever played one) but the class ability is still mighy strong if you have more than two braincells knocking around your skull. You know, hide, lay ambushes from unexpected angles that isnt right in the open, flank.

No, they definitely did it wrong. Infiltrators in PS1 were a special breed, singlehandedly changing the flow of battle, not the Predator wannabees we have in PS2.

But the problem has a lot to do with the way PS2 works, so the solution involves massive sweeping changes that are probably not happening.

I just say they should strip the cloak from anything but deployed sunderers. It's a pure show of lacking knowledge and experience in gamedesign to give a class invisibility available on a button push in this kind of games.

Infiltrators are practically the best storm troopers - go in invisible, take the point and plant motion sensors everywhere. Either the enemy has to slowly crouch through them and become easy targets or they get spotted and become easy pickings. It's so damn easy to take a base with just 3 infiltrators that the "Big battles" the devs yell about to keep the game relevant became obsolete.

They removed the ability for IR sights to spot cloakers because everybody had them equipped I heard some time ago, and with only the flashlight it became a joke to fight them.
Of course nothing will change and it will fall on deaf ears - because the only ones still playing the game are said infiltrators, as everybody else already stopped playing out of frustration.

(I would write what I think about people thet need a cloak to not suck in a shooter, but I already got a warning for expressing my opinion)

Its actually not that big of a problen if you make sure they cannot use the cloak in direct combat, or at least limit it to only being advantageous if you decloak in a flank but even then not being an assured victory.

Slowing down the decloak is a good solution. Similarly making the cloak a handheld 3rd weapon you have to switch to is a great solution as players cannot simply aim for your face and decloak anymore.

An alternative is letting you know they are there or not. The current ways to search for them simultaneously nerf your firepower and make you great targets for regular classes to walk in and catch you in a bad position (and the infil can also catch you easily while you are looking).
So at the very least let players know when they need to be on the lookout or be taking evasive maneuvers when one is in the area: use geiger tellers.
All cloaks would emit radiation a geiger counter would pick up on. At long range you get only a few clicks per second and only when a direct LOS is established. This lets you know a sniper might be aiming for you somewhere, and encourages snipers to be decloaked when trying to hit you.
At closer ranges the geiger clicks go up. They will also pass through walls and cover at close ranges but with reduced radiation reaching the geiger counter. This lets you know if a cloaked enemy is nearby or even in the room with you, so you can take measures to be ready for them.
You can have two variations: omnidirectional and directional. Omnidirectional is the best for being warned of one being nearby or trying to shoot you, directional doesnt warn you as easily but lets you pinpoint the general direction your cloaker might be in.
A nice addition: the cloakers could be allowed to throw down radio active materials. Place one in a room and as your opponent tries to look for you, you can move past or ambush them from outside the room where they dont expect you.
Even if the infils can still decloak and fire in those circumstances, you have a chance to be ready at the right time should one be nearby and not require you to be on the lookout 100% of the time. For convenience friendly infil radiation is filtered so they dont make your geiger counter go off.

I say this would be the better option, as it is a simpler and finer change than altering some of the elements of the game.

About the Nano Cloak, The Damage Resistance should last during the decloak process, getting caught out then having to decloak might be a bit much. Maybe even taking damage speeds up the decloaking process?

See, and I think this is where our disagreements lie. Because personally, I've been using the same graphic settings and even recently switched my monitor and I've got 0 issues seeing infils during my time playing PS2, to a degree I can even spot an infil standing completely still crouched if I look hard enough.

I think the main issue isn't lag with decloak, because everybody has clientside issues. I've had people shotgun me to death not even looking at me. I think they would need to address the differences between visibility of players of the cloaks, why for some it's like the hardest thing on the planet and for people like myself having no issue with it.

That's also it's only advantage, as the moment your spotted it's also an instant disadvantage to the cloaker. They have to decloak before they can shoot, and with lag that takes enough to to straight up die. It's the whole point of the HighRiskHighReward playstyle. That lag, is a incredibly double-edged sword for any class and doesn't just apply to the cloaker.

I'll be honest, reusing the same argument doesn't make it more valid. It's not the 'truth' it's your opinion, and your opinion can be influenced by a multitude of factors. There are people including non-cloakers who have 0 effort spotting a cloaked infil. So clearly there might be an issue related to visibility of a cloak due to somebody's monitor/graphics settings.

So this by definition doesn't make it OP, that's your opinion not a fact. And stating it as fact would not go well with anyone.

The issue with HA though, you can literally use simple math who's gonna win. In a game that is all about to have a certain TTK for every weapon universally. And anything deviating from that is bad (*cough* Powerknife*). Having a class that can instantly pop a shield worth of 1/2 of their HP pool automatically grants them advantage over any class, without having to do anything.

Infils only get an advantage IF they get the drop on someone
LA's only get an advantage IF they get the drop on someone
Medic's get an advantage in sustained firefights but in direct kill or be killed combat, they are baseline
Engineers get an advantage IF they are within range of say their deployables.

Heavies however? No matter which of the above situations, they will ALWAYS have this mathematical advantage. All of the above mentioned classes have a criteria that needs to be met in order to get their advantage, the only criteria a Heavy needs to meet is pressing F and that's a fact, there's no darklight, or fancy gadgets that can stop a Heavy using an overshield.

How many times I can count that a Heavy straight up wins because they turned around and pressed F no matter the class I play because they instantly have 1.5 times my HP regardless of what I do. If you have equal skill in that regard, the Heavy will win.

So your point is "just because I've been lucky others should suck it up and deal with it"?

Its a clientside issue, its a visibility issue and its a design of the cloak issue. Its not like the entire issue will go away just because you fix one part.

Also the clientside issue isnt "because of the latency someone might not be looking in my direction when they kill me" or "when I run behind cover I can still be killed as it takes the latency longer on their screen before I do that". Its the fact that cloak gives you a massive advantage when you decloak and shoot someone in the face. And in part you can do essentially the same when jumping out from a corner, but the difference is that you then still need to find your enemy and the opposition can anticipate someone jumping a corner. You cant do that with an Infil who has already spotted and aimed for you by the time the decloak starts.

What high risk? Only a fool would try to stay hidden when someone is about to find you. And in fact that is one of the best times to strike and kill them. Between all classes the lowest risk is to the Infil. An LA exposes itself on rooftops with little cover, HA's use their ability when they are about to take a beating, Engi's and Medics put away their weapons to do their job as people are firing in their vicinity and only an Infil that failed is discovered prematurely and dies before decloaking. Ofcourse it will happen occasionally, sometimes an unforseen thing happens. But most of the time the Infil will have the least risk and the highest reward for it. How else can it be? Its literally a tool to qvoid detection and people firing at you.
If you arent already in the process of decloaking when someone discovers you, the fault is yours. Its not a high risk high reward thing.

Your opinion of the truth does not make it not the truth. Again: the complaint about the Infil is so universal that everyone uses the exact same arguments.

Nah.

Except for the one class that can get a leg-up and kill said HA before he even pops his shield, or cut off that shield's worth of health away before the engagement starts.

Also this is a whataboutism, it does not mean the infiltrator isnt OP. I have actually adressed your HA complaint many times before. The game needs to refocus its design so that KD and killing to gain directives/auraxium/certs are less important than achieving certain goals, and that secondary objectives/goals become a more important metric. The Medic AMS deployable for example would refocus players on placing/defending/destroying it and increase the value of non-murder capabilities.

And your point is? Its not like this invalidates the argument, Infils simply gain much more and have far lower risk.

This is a whataboutism. Do you really need to sink that low? It means nothing for the argument. At best you've just pointed to another thing we need to fix.

But that still wouldn't fix the main problem - no visible target to react to. It would tell that a cloaker is near but wouldn't reveal him in a way that the crosshair can be pointed exactly on him. That is the thing that breaks the balance in comparison to Heavies for example. They have a shield that gives more health, but it makes them even more visible and more people are able to react to them.
If I fire on a cloaked infiltrator my teammates often don't have an optical target to support me, if I shoot at a heavy with activated shield he goes down in a bullet hail.

A factor that makes the cloaking even worse is the amount of enemies that can/do run around with it in Planetside - theoretical the cloaking isn't bad, but it has to be scaled up to the amount of players per battle. I would say it would work in a closed arena with small teams fighting it out in a match, but we don't have these in Planetside very often.

The Geiger counter would probably give off a constant strong signal in many battles

Well no, it's clear by your examples of you and your friend that there's a consistency issue going on with the visuals for the cloak across players systems. Which heavily impact how it is perceived. Thus it's not the cloak or the lag that's an issue, but the underlying issue is the visibility of the cloak and the difference in visibility across client systems, and that should be addressed.

Not only that, I've also heard the complete opposite. Of cloakers being incredibly visible, way too visible with certain settings and people abusing it.

"when I run behind cover I can still be killed as it takes the latency longer on their screen before I do that" Is the definition of clientside really.

However it's not the same for decloaking? If they are decloaking in front of you and shooting you in the face, you'll see them. The whole point of a cloaker is to give them an advantage of surprise, however this can be negated and used against them if you found them first. Again, a double-edged sword.

If you lost sight of an Infil and they're aiming for you ready to be found and decloak, you are already in a dangerous situation. You can risk it, or you can leave it. If you already know a cloaker is there, you can anticipate what's gonna happen. If he's already spotted he can barely move as even crouch walking is pretty visible.

What high risk? Again, if you find the cloaker first, you can shoot them whilst they're still decloaking. Not only that, they also have 100 less HP than you. Putting you in firm advantage. It's only a low-risk if you have the skill to use the cloak. I've seen plenty, and I mean plenty of Infil who do not know how to use a cloak and get punished for it.

"If you arent already in the process of decloaking when someone discovers you, the fault is yours." Much like it's the fault of the enemy player, who isn't paying attention. If they die to a cloaker. The battlefield exists 360 degrees around you, and doesn't stop until you are in the redeploy screen.

I'm sorry, but that's just not how evidence and facts work.. You THINK that the cloak is OP, based on subjective opinions, your own experience, and anecdotes.

Besides, this complaint isn't as universal as you think it is. It also doesn't make it more valid. The majority of people thought the earth was flat for hundreds of years, that doesn't make it true.

People use the same arguments as it's the easiest argument to use in a videogame; I die to a thing, therefor it is OP.

You can deny that all you like, but you and anyone who's played an online competitive game know damn well that getting frustrated/calling things you die to OP is like the #1 textbook complaint, either that or they're cheating.

The difference is how you handle that frustration, in the moment I can see someone calling something annoying, cheesy, OP. Or whatever. But it's what you do after, that matters. Whereas some obnoxious low effort ones, will just be toxic in the game. Some loud minority will always take to the forums to call for nerfs.

Admittedly, I too when I die to a HA using overshield get annoyed. However I am not calling for it to be nerfed, I deal with it.

And yes, that's the point of a counter. Leaving other classes mainly Medic, and Engi at a disadvantage. So? We buff those classes to be more in line with the rest? LA's can get the drop on HA's as well vertically, achieving the same desired effect.

Also it was meant as example of evidence, of something you can calculate, I do not actually "What about HA, they need a nerf" I genuinely do not care about seeing them nerfed, in fact I think the Adrenaline shield nerf was way too much and undeserved.

In a 1v1 scenario, the HA straight up always has an advantage. LA and Infils cancel out this advantage somewhat by getting the drop on the Heavy. Medics, are straight up disadvantaged and so are Engineers if they don't have a turret shooting the Heavy too.

But the game is more nuanced than "1v1s", each class has their pros and cons in different situations.
Infiltrators and meant to deal damage and be sneaky, they are meant to kill and exploit vulnerabilities using horizontal flanks.
LA are meant to deal damage, and be highly mobile, they are meant to kill and exploit vulnerabilities using vertical flanking routes.
HA are meant to deal/take damage, and aren't supposed mobile or sneaky. They're meant to kill, but as a front line fighter.

Medics are your support class, they should be healing people. (I think the Medic's overal effectiveness have been reduced to just ressing people, as the healkit is way to effective at self-sustain) So either, we need to reduce the amount of usage on healkits to give medics more stuff to do, OR buff them in terms of damage/ways they can even the playing field with the other 3 killing classes.

Engineers are also a support class, but more offensive. And work the best with vehicles and deployables. I do however believe they could use an extra slot for deployables to even them out with the other killing classes should they be infantry and not in a vehicle.

The difference here is, I don't want them to 'fix' it. I don't want them to nerf it, I am simply making an example, not a what about this or that... That the Heavy currently has no counter to their ability. Unlike Infils, unlike LA's, unlike Engineers. (we don't really have anti-heal nades or something, but Medic is already in a meh spot In my opinion)

The point is, we should buff Engineers and Medics not nerf Infils and Heavies.

We had that at some point, and it was broken AF. Besides, then people would still argue "I have to trade in XYZ in order to counter, which is already a broken record that doesn't hold an value but it would only serve to allow them to complain about it more.

Darklights do counter Infils, at least close range Infils. CQC bolters are a different story. Snipers themeselves have a built in counter, get close to em and they're useless. SMG's have a REALLY bad dropoff beyond 10 meters, like you can dump 20 round of an SMG into a guy and they still won't die kind of bad.

Personally I have used mines a lot, also deployables. Be it a auto-turret, or hardlight barrier to stop entry are super effective.

It doesn't require much tactics to counter an Infil tho, just need to know how to use the tools given to it's desired effect.

But the reality in Planetside 2 atm is that there aren't counters to some aspect of the game, if anything Infils have some of the most counters, maybe besides engineer deployables/vehicles.

"and to even out the playing field they should be given additional utility functions such as generator shutdown devices, E.M.P. emitter devices (plant it on a vehicle and the vehicle becomes completely disabled until someone shoots it off) and maybe even a module that lets them change their character voice to that of an enemy faction (would allow them to make fake call outs to distract the enemy). Or a HUD scrambler device that deactivates the friend/foe HUD elements so that enemies might mistake each other in dark areas of the map."

These are some cool suggestions, however there will always be a sniper/sneaky class. What you're describing is more of a hacker class, which itself is cool, and you could argue as to why it's called an Infiltrator. However that depends on your definition of the word infiltration, in my book it does involve 'infiltrating' into backlines and killing vulnerable players.

I'll be honest, the hacking part of an infiltrator is very.. Lackluster. It's used every once in a while, but truely doesn't hold up much. But in the same breath, if we're going away from the player killing side of PS2, we'd need to look at other classes to, such as HA/LA, who's current soul purpose is also to kill stuff.

But to be frank, I think that's just the nature of PS2.

In a way I can see that work, but also it feels incredibly nasty to play with. I don't run "Decloak on fire" for a reason, because it feels really uncomfortable to play with. And in a game where camoflage literally doesn't exist, or even worse comes in the form of bright Blue/Red/Purple colours. There's no way for a sniper to be stealthy, and with today's Deathcam, and the overal range of every class being way higher than other games, it would be way too way to spot a sniper.

As for Knife Infils, I already suggested once. A powerknife should have charge up and a movement speed buff, this way it incentivizes Knifiltrators to equip it way earlier and allows the sound profile to give them away. ( And increase the sound profile on NC/VS/NS knifes, they're way too quiet)

As more SMG's, SMGs themselves already have a built in nerf as the range on SMG is really low which compensates as they require more bullets to kill you.

CQC bolters however are a straight up issue, like there's no denying that. The decloak-Fire-cloak. Yes it requires a modicum of skill and reflexes to land that headshot, but also.. That's not how a sniper is supposed to be used, and it's dirty and cheap. Either it should be a scout rifle/ DMR, or a full on sniper.

Also every class is easy to play, it literally just a point and click adventure at times because recoil is barely existent in this game.

Correct, currently it's a killing class. Much like LA's and HA's. There's a lot of emphasis on killing players, rather than objectives which in a FPS is understandable but also a bit of a shame.

I mean, TF2 did it. In fact lots of other games have succesfully implemented a cloak.

The issue lies, in a game where Sneaky/Stealthy can't really be done when your camo is literally a suit with bright Red/Blue/Purple things on there.. Next to say a green field. Camouflage doesn't really exist, which means horizontal flanking becomes nigh impossible without a cloak.

I just use the Sensor Shield implant on my other characters tbh,

It's mainly Heavy mains tbh, those are also the most.. 'vocal' when it comes to complaining despite being what I consider the best overall class, especially compared to other games, long range, bottomless mag, high damage, 1/2 of your HP at the click of a button. The only time they're vulnerable is when they don't have said shield active.

And boy, if you kill them with their pants around their ankles, be prepared for some ragetells xD

I've already answered your issue in the quote. And while I would normally agree that you should change the symptom and not the cause its also clear that after all these years that is pretty much impossible. Look at smoke for example which had seen numerous iterations and is still almost nothing at certain graphics settings.

As far as I can tell 100% of these are the very cloakers themselves saying how poor their ability is despite crutching it hard.

Again, the answer is literally in the quote you answered. The advantage of surprise is too great especially because of the decloak and the ability to already aim and be ready to engage the opponent.
Even if the opponent does spot you, aiming for you is still hard and if you've ever seen someone cloak and decloak to throw off aim you may notice that the human brain sometimes has trouble switching tasks, in this case looling for distortions versus a visible person.
Its why its so easy to smash people's faces in 1v1's when you run cloaked into a room right in their face.

What makes you think the victim has a choice in the matter? If your only realistic option to avoid a cheap death is "leave the fight" its not really an option is it?

"Well if you can find the class build around not being found first before they ambush you then you have an advantage!".
You dont see any problem there? Its like saying "if you just deal more damage you can beat a HA!". Sure you can, but is it likely? No. Because you are trying to negate the very advantage of the opposing class, and the Infil's advantage is too great due to several factors.

No its not. In one case the class fails to use its class ability and in the other a class fails to detect something that is designed to be (too) hard to detect, and all the methods to actually detect it are hard nerfs to the user. It is no comparison.

And thats all I'm going to take time for. The way you describe facts ans opinions for example would make it impossible to say if a Medic ability that instantly revives everyone in a hex with zero costs and 2 second cooldown is OP or not. How am I going to ever make a discussion with that kind of reasoning?[/quote][/quote]

Stealth is not about galivanting in full view of your enemies. Stealth is about the ability to get in your ideal range before being spotted.

I present to you, the tiger:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Walking_tiger_female.jpg

A bright black-and-orange giant cat in a brown-and-green environment which requires stealth to approach its prey close enough for a successful ambush. Be like the tiger.

But there is a difference between TF2 (or Halo, Quake and Unreal Tournament) - those are arena shooters, while Planetside is 95% designed as military class shooter (Battlefield like). More players per battle, faster TTKs in comparison and a complete different approach to movement and gun play.

Not to mention that they
A) Don't have the hardest hitting weapons in comparison to every other class
and
B) The weapons have roughly the same effectivness (unlike here in PS were automatic guns often are the worst choice)

A cleverly disguised L2P I believe. Just as the post you responded to predicted.

Well, in this case it would be changing the cause. The cause is a grave disparity in visibility between clients, causing a symptom, which in this case is for some is less visible cloakers, whilst for others it's clear as day. It is possible, it's just a matter of doing but let's be honest this game has been on life-support for a while and only recently got picked back up again with some form of development and support, the results of which has been mixed.

If you go by the forums/Reddit, then yes. But the thing is, people who can see cloakers easily aren't going to the forums/Reddit to complain that they are able to see cloakers as other infantry, right?

Asking around in the game however, even from Sweaty players they often say how easy it is to spot a cloaker. But again, you won't really find them complaining about that, considering it gives them an advantage. Which is kinda the entire point of; People who haven't got issues with anything (such as seeing cloakers) won't be on here saying anything about it.

I myself am guilty of this, I didn't start posting on the Forums until there was a change that was so utterly disconnected from reality that I couldn't be silent any longer. Despite HA overshield annoying me, I don't come on here to complain about it. For me, that's just part of the game. Issues like construction felt like such a distant issue and more of a forgotten mechanic, that I straight up didn't bother.

In fact, part of the reason as to why people don't bother with real issues is often because it feels like the Development team isn't listening to feedback, or testing any changes made. (as evident by the Powerknife fiasco)

Take an example at the widely known Loadout bug, that resets the loadout everytime you logout/log back in or switch continent. Even making a ticket about it, I got told to basically suck it up.. And wait for an update? It's ridiculous.

Anyway, that's a whole different story xD

That advantage is needed versus a HA shield though, otherwise a HA would straight up overpower everything. This counts for a LA too, if you're an LA on a rooftop, you can get a drop on the HA and knock their shield down in order to equalize the HP. The only classes who do not have this, are the Medic and Engineer. (With the latter being super situational if you have a spitfire turret setup)

The point is not to nerf Infils, HA's or LA's. But the buff the others, to have as much 1v1 potential as the rest, or alternatively if we want to go away from the killing side of PS2. Make it so that all classes have a more Team oriented ability, a cloak doesn't do much for the rest, and a overshield for a Heavy doesn't do much for anybody either, or a light assault jump pack. They are all for Stealth, Defense, and Mobility of the individual user respectively.

They do, and it's not leaving a fight. It's disengaging, and reengaging the fight on your terms. Disengaging a fight when you're at a disadvantage is part of FPS games. Example: In Tarkov, when I know a sniper has got me in his sights, I simply disengage from the fight instead of pushing and reengage from a different angle. Other example: A heavy and myself find eachother face to face, with a box in the middle. I was still cloaked, and at a disadvantage because he's seen me. I go to the side of the boxes, he does too on his side. (I assume he was there to reload) Now we're both at the side of the boxes, after we reload, we will fight, but knowing that he knows I'm there, puts him at an advantage. Thus I need to make a decision.

Instead of going back to the middle and facing him headon, and losing. I instead disengage, jump on top of the boxes, I see him run to my side pre-firing wondering where I am at. And then I shoot him from on top the boxes.

The point of these examples are simple, did you lose that infiltrator and you feel like he has the drop on you? Disengage from it, and re-engage some other time. This counts for any class. Don't peek around a corner you know someone is aiming at, and especially don't RE-PEEK the same corner.

The difference there being, a Heavy assault can shoot WHILST using their ability. An Infil cannot, in this case you're describing an infil, is more akin to a Light Assault. Where their strength is their weakness. A light assault peek firing at you from a rooftop, is very little you can do about that because they got to their advantage. However find them in the air and they're a free kill. If an Infil gets the drop on you, there isn't much you can do. But catch them in cloak, and it's a free kill.

Also in regards to HA, tbh, it's actually kind of true.. The only way to beat them is by doing more damage, and in order to do so you would need to get the drop on them first. Or catch them off-guard. That's literally the only way. Because mathematically a Heavy Assault with an overshield will win with opponents of equal skill level.

The only classes who cannot negate that? Are the Medic and Engi.

I mean the Heavy's ability is literally designed to counter you shooting them, versus an Infil's ability that is designed to counter you seeing them. A Heavy shield literally has no tools disabling it, whilst against an infil you can use your eyes or a darklight to make it (even) easier.

I'm sorry? "The way you describe facts ans opinions for example"?

A fact is simply something that can be measured, not something that is based on subjective opinions which are influenced by your own experience. You yourself gave an example of that, where you had issues spotting an cloaked infil, but your friend's PC did not. Leading you to a perceived notion that the cloak is OP, this is subjective. An opinion. The only fact there, is that there's a clear disparity of some kind between clients PCs that is causing the issue, because that is what has been measured. Not that the cloak is inherently overpowered.

Another fact would be that 1450 effective HP is more than 900, in a game where TTK is universal across most infantry weapons meaning TTK wouldn't be a factor. If skill/distance isn't a factor and two opponents start shooting eachother at the same time. Where you take 100 HP(example) off each second, the 900hp would lose after 9 seconds of combat. The other wins, even if they just had 1000 HP.

PS2 is way more nuanced than that, and that's what I'm getting at. An Infil's cloak, a Light Assault jumpjet, a Medic's AOE heal, an Engineer's turret are way more nuanced than a simple +450 HP as the latter (being the 450) is an instant, yet constant presence which is measurable.

Even your example can be measured.

A Medic has a tool that can res people. I don't know the exact time, but it takes round about ~2 seconds (correct me if I'm wrong) to get 1 non-max infantry up at max rank Medical Applicator. You described an ability where you revive anyone with a hex, with a 2 second CD.

1. Resses 1 person per 2 seconds CD. (unlimited uses)
2. Resses At least 1 person but can be up to 10? 20? unlimited if we cram a lot of bodies in a hex.

The point: Option 2 (your example) can do the same thing option 1 can, except it can be up to 10? 20 maybe even more people.. That's 10, 20 or more times the rate of the Medical Applicator.. AND you don't have to whip your tool out.

Thus, using my measurement of your example there, one can conclude that ability might be a bit overpowered.. Right?

if you wanted to compare this to say, Nanite revive grenade, the measurable components would be:
-The fuse time being 2.5 (longer than 2 second CD)
-The AOE of a grenade being a couple of meters vs an entire hex.
-Players ressurect with no shields and 250 HP, vs normal res of full HP.
-Grenades are limited

Here you can see, even if we cram all the people into the AOE of a grenade, thus nullifying it's factor. Your ability would still benefit from a 0.5 second faster CD ratio, and resurrecting with more HP than the grenade, and the grenades are limited use.

Thus using said measuraments, one can conclude the ability (your example) is Overpowered.

Well, for one Tiger's are considered Apex predators. Meaning anything else gets murked by them. Meaning they don't have to worry about being murked, a cloak is a defensive tool as well as offensive. A tiger is a pure offensive 310 kg (male) or 170kg (female) muscular murder kitty.

Another point, and most likely more important;

Whilst we see tigers as bright orange/black stripes. The targets, say for example a deer and other hoofed animals can't see in a full range of colours, much like a colourblind human.

Meaning it helps them see better in a dimlight but makes them vulnerable as well, as to their eyes (the deer and other hoofed animals) they see the tiger not in bright orange but green with black stripes, matching the background.

Also in regards to the stripes, it's actually something called disruptive coloration. It helps break up the fur, size, and the silhouette of the tiger's body, so it blends in.

Creatures, including humans are actually way more adapt at recognizing silhouettes rather than colours. In a way, this is why snipers wear ghillie suits, it's not necessarily the colours but the breaking of the humanoid shape that causes our minds not to recognize that bush for a human.

TLDR;

In a game where camouflage doesn't exist (other than cosmetic purposes), and it being brightly coloured which we humans can see, ghillie suits do not exist to break up the silhouette of a sniper, and can otherwise basically be downgraded graphically to a point where you just see boxes and silhouettes becomes even more apparent than they already are.

There is no natural stealth in this game, thus the implementation of artificial stealth using a cloak.