[Vehicle] Cloaking flash with Fury is very overpowered. Solutions here.

So here is why the wraith flash is far too effective in its current state as of June 2015:

The problems:

First and foremost, wraith flashes break the developers own credo by causing the situation they call: being killed with no counter. This is their reasoning behind not including artillery in the game, and is the reason for the historical outcry against the original infinite range of MANA AV turrets and Ravens. A wraith flash is right up there with non-rendering incoming fire. See below.

1. As with all flashes, you can run over MAXes and infantry with impunity. This in itself is a problem, as it makes no sense in reality that you can run over a MAX with a tiny quad and not be stopped / severely damaged. Add the invisibility, and you are basically conducting sanctioned exploiting. It's hard to imagine that the devs intentionally designed the wraith flash to be an invisible infantry mower, but that is its most effective use. Consider the MANA turret, which will stop a flash dead and I believe it also causes collision damage. Is a man sized turret on a tripod less smashable than a MAX?

2. In addition to the above, there is a severe imbalance of resources vs. resources balance. In general, this game tries to balance the concept of resources = resources in a conflict. A 400 resource unit can be expected to cause 400 resources of harm before being destroyed. Skilled players push that envelope. The wraith flash breaks that by costing 100 resources and running over MAXes with impunity. A simple pass by an active sunderer can easily score you multiple infantry and MAX kills just by driving over them. Multiple passes will cause 1000's of resource damage if MAXes are present. They have little to no way to counter this other than placing landmines nearby, which is typically only reasonable if you are actively being farmed. With the current resource system, a player can chain pull flashes all day.

3. In addition to the above, which is the main problem, you are also able to mount one of the most effective anti infantry weapons in the game to your invisible flash: the Fury. This is the equivalent of giving an infiltrator an MCG or a jackhammer. A fury flash without wraith it tough to use without being killed; it takes a skilled player to use and it belongs in the game. But a fury on a wraith flash becomes severely overpowered. Use against vehicles is generally not a problem as it does require prolonged exposure, so I can't fault that aspect.

4. The wraith flash cloak is extremely "cloaky". It's nearly impossible to see beyond 20m. For infiltrators, there have been some visibility patches that make them significantly more visible when sprinting. For the wraith flash, it is nearly impossible to see in most situations, so you generally can't attack them when they are cloaked.

My solutions:

For starters, a flash has 1500 health and costs 100, a MAX has 2000 health and costs 400.

1. A collision with a MAX stops flashes and causes up to 750 damage to the vehicle, and up to 1500 damage to the MAX, depending on speed. If a MAX is killed in the impact, damage to the flash is reduced. Lockdown'ed MAXes always stop a flash and may cause higher damage.

2. Ideally, infantry collisions slow the flash and can stop it if multiple infantry are hit.

3. An impact with a wraith flash decloaks the flash, but the cloak is not turned off so it will reinitiate on its own.

4. Wraith flashes become more visible based on their speed, similar to how sprint affects infiltrator visibility.

5. An additional weapon slot is added to wraith flashes: the sensor shield. An armed wraith flash shows up on scout radar; a wraith flash with sensor shield is completely sensor invisible. This is analogous to how visibility and sensors work for infantry. They are separate things.

Potential results:

• Wraith flashes can still mow over infantry, but have to act more conservatively and pick their roadkill targets (Like all other drivers of all other vehicles).
• Wraith flashes will engage MAXes with weapons rather than driving over them, bringing balance back to reasonable levels
• A weaponized wraith driver will prioritize weapon use, a sensor shielded driver will use it more as intended: as a way to reach rearward locations through enemy lines to flank and snipe.
• Defenders have more recourse, as they may actually SEE a wraith flash in the field if they are being vigilant.
• Resource balance achieved for wraith flashes
• Far fewer disenfranchised players who have lost their MAXes by doing nothing wrong.

If i can count every time i was shot from god knows how far away (way past 20m) on my cloaked scooter.

I play on high quality and can barely see them. Perhaps the snipers are in low quality, which until recently handled invisibility very differently

Forumside pls.

The only defense a wraith Flash has is it's cloak, pretty much anything that sees it can kill it quite easily. Making them more visible would make them that much weaker, and they're already the worst vehicle in the game.

If you're really that bothered by them, consider pulling a vehicle of your own. Pretty much anything that isn't a walker Harasser will kill a wraith Flash.

I'm indifferent to your suggested roadkill changes, given that you can drive straight over stationary hostiles and not do anything to them, I typically use my weapons for engaging infantry rather than my bumper -- they're much more reliable. I do not see the purpose in making these changes without adjusting the Harasser as well, however.

Some people can spot you on those things from really far away. Not to mention it really seems like it makes your hitbox bigger when you ride on it.

Agreed completely. Cheesy and no real counter. I pride myself on being good at spotting cloaked things, and I just love ruining the day of some cheeser by shooting him off his skill scooter, but even for me cloaked flashes are often hard to see, and often it's just a lot of guesswork. Not to mention there's a frequent bug that you can't even see the rider on top of the cloaked flash.

Cloaked objects are hard to see at distance, and this is how it should be. But Wraith cloak's ranges are just too damn short for a vehicle that can move so fast.

Wraith cloak should be more visible at range, that's it. Wanna stay hard to see - stay away, this is easy for a fast moving small vehicle.

Personally, I don't think that cloak should come with weapons at all. Like stalker cloak, it should disable the weapon slot. To me, wraith flash was always the flanking and insertion vehicle, to help infiltrators get where they want. Not a cheese-abuse-farm, grenade-spam-at-sunderer, cheap-roadkill-nonsense mobile.

Flash should not even be able to roadkill without taking severe damage anyway.

Post Count + 1, eh?

I suppose with my response, I'm also unfortunately, inadvertently, ironically, guilty of the same thing.

I've always thought this was a unresolved Bug, seeing Infiltrators cloaked at 10m+ isn't a problem if you cease moving and look for the "Predator", but the Flash has always bewildered me with it's... well, there is NO Predator visual disturbance at 10m+ out. Unfathomable.

They could AT LEAST fix that if nothing else mentioned in this thread, damn Devs.

Personally, I think a smaller start would be useful. I internally always call the Wraith Module "Stealth 2.0" because its specific benefits overlap the benefits of normal Stealth as an activate-able service. My first-level suggestion is to make the Vehicle have a radar signature if it is moving faster than a certain velocity, even if cloaked.

In this game, MAXes are massive health infantry with insane firepower and get out of jail free card because reasons. When MAX is treated like a vehicle (not revivable, always renders when it can hit vehicles), then you can have vehicle collision.

Also keep in mind that there's a roadkills directive for flash, which was added well after wraith. The devs are perfectly aware that roadkills are a thing for flash, harasser, galaxy. Lightning roadkill directive is weird though.

MANA turrets are also classified as vehicles according to the game. Now that you mention it, why don't you just put a mana turret down and have your MAX sit on top of it? Or tell the MAX to press spacebar?

Flashes are far from invisible in the first place. Just ask any flash on Connery how they feel fighting my lightning for example.

A good MAX should have no issues killing wraith flashes, or at the very least avoid dying to them. Even if the MAX dies, it's revivable. Resource cost is a non-issue when those resources can be recycled indefinitely.
Liberator and galaxy break resource balance with that logic because they require more than one skyguard to deter or kill.
Sunderer breaks resource balance because of how ******* ridiculous blockade armor is, and to a lesser extent the shield.

Also remember that an effective flash is 50 for the vehicle, 200 for the driver medkits, 150 for the gunner c4, and an optional 50 for AV nade. Total 400-450 resources, 2 players (admittedly, you don't need that much to roadkill maxes, so let's say 250 resources 1 person) having the chance to kill a single bad player who spent 450 resources, has no support, is in an unfavorable position, is unaware, and who can then get revived even after screwing up really hard.

A simple pass by an active sunderer might get you kills. Then everyone gets revived or respawns, and you die to tank mines the next run. I know that if I kill anyone decent on a sunderer, I should expect tank mines to be up in under 20 seconds. Putting turrets up is still an option, as is parking your sunderer better.

You can chain pull almost anything with the current resource system.

Fury-F has a longer AI TTK than infantry do on the flash, especially rockets. Fury vs. infantry comes down to who shoots first, and who has better positioning, which is EXACTLY how everything else works in this game except AA. Renegade and kobalt are much better AI weapons than Fury anyway, and out of those 3 the renegade is the cheesiest.

MCG isn't an effective weapon, and infiltrator wouldn't have particularly good synergy with it anyway. Jackhammer is OP on any class.

I can do nearly as well with scout radar + mineguard + engineer for AI as I can with wraith + autorep. The difference is that I don't die to tank mines with one of them. They both play very similarly, even down to "i can just be a radar if it's too hot to shoot things."

You need your eyes checked. I regularly see them from around 50m. They have the infiltrator sprinting visibility 24/7 if I remember correctly.

This will be a joke, just like infantry x infantry collision is right now.

Addressed above.

I'm completely for scout radar being a soft counter for wraith. However:
-If this takes the weapon slot, it will only be useful for wraith or point hold stealth + radar flash. But wraith and point flash won't use it effectively, because they need an actual weapon to get things done. In the off chance that you use wraith flashes purely for transport, having a weapon to engage the scout user (or anyone else you come across) is more effective than praying for them to be bad and running away. The end result is that no one uses sensor shield thing.
-More cancer wallhack gameplay (see: motion dildars) isn't needed, therefore it would need to come in pings instead of constant feed.
-Scout radar being able to find stealth/cloaked vehicles isn't needed, because that can already be done by listening or looking for them.
-Scout radar being able to find stealth/cloaked AI flashes isn't useful, because the people who get killed by them more than once wouldn't have the skill to look on the minimap for them anyway.
-Infantry can also move slower or not move at all if they want to avoid being spotted by motion sensors of all kinds. I doubt the devs would spend extra effort programming a "speed limit" of sorts for scout vs. vehicles on top of all the other complications.

-I don't think you've ever driven a harasser or sunderer. Valks and gals also ram liberally.
-I already do this because you can't jump over phoenix missiles, fury rounds, or infantry shotguns. And because it's more reliable with the collision netcode.
-Addressed above. Would be too problematic to implement, and people still wouldn't use sensor shield anyway.
-Already happens. This is on the players, and changing the game will not have any effect.
-Addressed above. Resources are largely a joke anyway unless you get repeatedly cheesed down in an MBT.
-Addressed above. It's not the flash's fault that the MAX has no idea how to fight wraiths.

The only real problem with wraith flash is c4, which is problematic anyway:
-You can get off the flash to brick things, and it doesn't even need to use stealth to remain undetected by less aware players.
-Strapping the vehicle with c4 is one of the cheesiest, most uncounterable things in the game. It's like tomcats, except imagine the tomcat user has a semi-functional cloak, locks are instant, flares/stealth don't exist, each missile does 3 decis of damage, and the lock crosshair is the entire screen. And it's still as/more resource efficient than the things you're attacking (sundies, tanks, lightnings).
-Even without those things, as soon as you get under a mag or some sundies' firing angles it's over.

Note that you address none of those things, none of them impact infantry significantly, and none of them would change AT ALL with your suggestions implemented.

edit: holy **** wall of text

Can't say that I have too much pity for the poor, poor MAXes being abused by wraith flashes. They stand a better chance than the medic who turned a corner into some hacksaws. How often are you getting run over by flashes as a MAX anyways? I haven't had it happen a single time and if you really wanted to avoid it you can just stand on a rock or something (the type of rocks that are definitely present in the two bases of this game where people use wraith flashes with any regularity).

I think we are going to need a screenshot from your computer and your .ini settings, because I have actively searched for wraith flashes with no avail dozens of times. If I ever kill them is while they decloak. Is easier to find a not-running cloaked infiltrator.

And sound? I can't even hear the decloak

The real question is : "Why did you stand outdoors while being immobile and using a costy ressources class?"

Wraith flash can be easily countered by land mines and the fact of being aware.
Why not getting your own wraith flash in order to counter opponents who use it? Most of times, those guys prefer to leave the place after having been killed 2 or 3 times in this way.

Wraith is a near costless way to defend, but is highly risky, more than it may look to be.
Bumping a Max which is moving is a relatively hard task, because of each player's lag.

I'll not give any opinion about the Fury on Flash, because i do not use it. But i remember it has been critically nerfed 1 year or 2 before. It has longer reload time (if i remember well), and splash damages have been nerfed.

I play on max and I can spot them from across the map.

Flash is OP thread? Now I've seen it all.

Left Mouse Click is a heavy counter against a cloaked flash. You can see them coming. If you can't, update your video drivers.

At mid range speeds they do NOT one shot a MAX. At high speeds they should kill a MAX. That makes sense. One concession I will give is that hitting a MAX should also damage or destroy the flash. That makes sense. But what also makes sense is destroying a flash should not kill the driver, but knock them to the ground at whatever speed the flash is traveling. If that kills the driver so be it, but a destroyed flash standing still shouldn't kill the driver, damage yes, from the explosion. But not outright kill.

I can take a base with a Galaxy. I can suppress a Base with a Lib or MBT. I cannot do it with a flash, even spending the resources on multiple flashes to equal that of a Gal, Lib, or MBT.. you cannot take a base or even suppress it. This doesn't hold weight with me.

So what? It can farm certs? It can't take a base, it can't win an alert. It has no bearing on the actual game. It can farm a group of clueless players. You know what else can? A set of camo and a knife. If you've been catching their messages on twitter and such. You'll realize they are moving away from cert farming balancing and moving back to OP (Organized Play), as they call it. That means the focus will be back on winning the alerts and taking bases. So what if people can farm certs? They aren't doing anything for the 'real game' and have little effect.

I frequently kill Flashes much more than they can get me. Both in and out of a MAX. This isn't true. I can see them out to 100m easily.

I could agree with this, it makes sense.

If its not hard to code, go for it. It kinda makes sense too.

Colliding with infantry should damage the flash slightly, more if its a MAX. And this should cause the 'flashing' effect you see happen to Infils when damage while cloaked. Again.. makes sense.

Again makes sense actaully.

I don't really see the point in this. Nor the need.

Ironically I agree with most of your solutions. Even if I disagree with the reasoning behind them. I just want those changes I like because it makes the situations more intuitive. It just sort of makes sense. But I don't think Wraith cloak is hard to see, nor hard to counter. As I've said, I've had no problem picking them off.

However...

If they ever changed redeployside so that you can't redeploy to bases under attack unless you are close to them.. my opinion might change. Right now the cloak is the only thing that makes the flash viable. It has no other use. With redeployside gone, we may yet see Beta-Era style flash convoys from base to base.

But of course that is a big if.

Sure, let's remove the only reliable way infiltrator can attack vehicles. Playing on ultra, I can say that I can easily see these things out to 50m or so and as a semi-frequent flash pilot I can say that a decent number of Emerald players can as well. This video by Wrel comes to mind.

Wraith flash is one of the last things I have honest fun doing. It's a great break from endlessly grinding directives in a game where I no longer care about my team winning or losing. I hardly ever see anyone playing wraith flash, save for a few locations on Indar. Why nerf a fun aspect of the game that not that many players use?

Flash is overpowered? Have you ever tried playing with it? Honestly, you can't cry about something that you have experienced only as a victim.
Tanks, mines, AV turrets, and most of rocket launchers will kill you in one hit. And killing driver is easy too, because he is unprotected. It is sort of high risk - high reward playstyle.
Ability to ride over a MAX and insta-kill him is pretty overpowered though.

The way it can drive over MAXes is kind of a bummer. Everything else? Personally, I do not agree.

Just throw some AV mines around. You will be surprised, but that works.