Cloaking takes away the fun

Big picture: yes the cloak on the ANT is very powerful. But so is say the orbital strike. What balances them is the amount of time and effort required to make it happen.

If you and I did that suggested contest to go annoy players, the wraith driver would make short work of them before the ant could even locate the cortium.

One thing I do take from your comparison is this: If we got rid of the weapon on the wraith flash folks could still go cheese on the ANT. So one less objection to doing it I think.

Does reload speed balance a weapon? Not inherently and only to a degree. So the time and effort it takes to get cortium only balances an ANT to a degree, but it doesn't actually balance the usage. It just affects you in the way that you need cortium to stay cloaked and you can't just cloak right off the bat. So after you have spent the little bit of time to get that cortium, then what balances it out? Nothing. You shouldn't be rewarded just because of time or inhibited just because of time. At least if a Wraith Flash tries to run you over, you can avoid it and damage it easily. If an ANT tries to do it, you are going to get hit, and if you manage to avoid it, you can't damage it unless you are a Heavy Assault or Light Assault, because your C4 isn't going to reach it in time.

Bad comparison. The "reload speed" here is several minutes. so yes, it matters. And yes reload speed balances a weapon too. You act like we haven't endured a bajillion betelgeuse threads

Sure it does. Minutes matter. You can pull a wraith right from a base being attacked and go have at the sundies. You can pull an ant and ... go leave the hex, LOL. The tactical ramifications of this couldn't be more stark.

That can't cloak right off the bat is really a big deal. You literally have to go somewhere... typically leave the hex if at a fight and go fill up then come back. And THEN you can cloak.

Meanwhile on the wraith you have to... click a button. Tada!

This is a significant difference. If you think it's trivial then you'd be ok with the wraith needing to do the same?

So after it's balanced out what balances it out? Is that what you're asking?

Ok ... billy mays here .. but wait there's more... you're gonna have to leave the hex again when it runs dry.

I think you mean when you finally see it coming, yes? Starting to see how maybe it's the invisible bit that it taking the fun out of stuff? What I see as a typical roadkill scenario for the wraith..

It approaches and folks DO hear it. But it's tough to pick out and kill when running loose. This is what enables it to get into a range that the infantry would never tolerate from another vehicle. And once it's in range it's not going to run over someone who isn't aware of it. They are aware. It's cloaked and out there nearby making noise. But there are enemies firing and **** to contend with. And THIS is how the wraith gets it's roadkill.

It's invisibility at the moment of impact is irrelevant. The player has back turned and is occupied. It's invisibility as it approached is what allowed it to make a strike at all.

And if at that moment the player suddenly becomes aware and pulls a dodge, they'll get no better use out of C4 at that moment than you would vs an ANT.

I just don't have an issue with the cloaked ANT.

What did I just say, dude? It doesnt INHERENTLY BALANCE anything and it only gives balance TO A DEGREE. It is a tertiary concern in balance, and there is a broad spectrum of balance that the weapons can fit in, whereas things like damage, firerate, and hit multipliers need to be fine tuned to keep a weapon balanced.

For the ANT, the time it takes to get cortium is a tertiary concern, because that doesn't balance the vehicle; it just changes the playstyle. Instead of going to combat right on spawning, you need to go and get resources, but once you have those, you are all set. That doesn't balance what happens after you get those resources, in this case, cortium. It just slows you down in getting to that goal and adds a sense of risk to the playstyle, but thats mostly a risk of you trying to leave the hex that has an active firefight going on. Therefore, you change your playstyle and don't spawn at contested bases... Thats what the time it takes to get cortium means. It means you change and adapt your playstyle to the needs of the vehicle and slot.

Refer to what I stated previously. And no, don't go leave the hex. Don't spawn in a contested one, and you most likely won't get caught, save for an annoying ESF or Harasser that just goes through enemy lanes causing havoc. THEN you can enter and leave the hex.

It makes a difference in how you play, but its not a primary balancing factor, which is my point in this discussion.

And the ANT has a big advantage over the Flash: it doesn't die in one hit to tanks, a Halberd, a Deci, or a Tank mine, and it can't be damaged by small arms fire. Therefore, its only fair that it has to use its cortium abilities (as it does with all its other slots choices) to resupply the cloak.

No, its not balanced out. Thats my point. It doesnt balance the actual usage of the vehicle. It only gives you a side task you have to complete before you can begin your killing. Can that time change the tide of the battle? Yeah, which doesn't have to do with the usage of the vehicle and the actual balance of it. As I was saying before, its just like reload speed. Reload speed only balances the weapon when you need to reload, but the amount of damage that you can do BEFORE A RELOAD is what balances the weapon. The reload only matters when you have to go and reload, and its a whole lot less room for error in balancing it. You just have to take it to an extreme to unbalance it, like making a reload instantaneous or take way too long.

In the case of the ANT, the time it takes you get the cortium is only a balancing factor when it isn't taken to extremes that limit the usefulness of the cloak, and again, it is only a factor in vehicle and ability slot balancing, not even a primary one. It does not balance what you can do when you do have it.

Order of prioritization, sir. If someone is shooting at you and something is coming to roadkill you, you are going to die if you don't change targets. You may even die to the dude you just stopped shooting at. It's a decision. If you are shooting at somebody who is either trying to peek out from behind cover or you yourself try to move from cover to shoot at someone and a vehicle is coming to roadkill you, if you don't change your priorities, you are going to die. That goes for any and all 2v1 situations where there is a bigger threat, and you have to decide against something that WILL KILL YOU and something that MAY KILL YOU.

Therefore, if you don't decide to kill the idiot on a Wraith Flash, he is going to run you over because you didn't. If you didnt kill the dude you were firing at, well, now he is still alive and so is the Wraith Flash. This is especially bad if you weren't being shot at, because you could have dealt with the Wraith Flash then attempted to go back to the other guy.

But it isn't irrelevant. If someone, anyone, is preoccupied and someone else comes against them, they usually die. And yes, the invisibility does help you actually make the attack, but it's not like you couldn't have done it with a turbo Flash or Harasser, especially if the person was preoccupied. Plus, the Turbo Flash lets you actually escape vehicle threats that see you while cloaked. The only threat you can escape on a Wraith Flash is a deployed sunderer because no one is in the top gun. And even if the invisibility is the only factor as to whether or not the Flash can make the strike, so what...? Thats the same as to whether or not an ANT can roadkill someone too. And you said that they heard you, so if they decide not to go after the Flash or ANT, they recognized a threat and didn't adapt to it.

Once again, you have a decision, and your life depends on whether or not you make the right class.

And about the C4, yes, thats what I said.. you can't use C4 on it, therefore making the Medic or Engineer less viable as an Infantry counter to it, meaning you need to be a Light Assault or Heavy Assault to do anything about it, whereas with a Flash, just shoot at the driver or it.

And I don't have a problem with the ANT either.

(I'm just gonna repost this here, since it's literally the same topic, or similar enough. As the other post qq'ing about infil snipers)

I'm the main knifer for my faction. Or stalker (emissary/blackhand).
However I use to play LA c4 fairy a ton.

The thing new players don't understand, or people in general who have a hard time vs snipers is. Once you get decent at the game, snipers are for sure, the least infantry class spec, you'll die to. I die to snipers the least, on any infantry class I play. Honestly, even when I was a new player, I don't see how that would be any different. Most fights are at bases, not fields, most base fights don't have snipers. Snipers are usually just for hills, towers, & bridges. Not base fights, besides a few of course.

Their are afew pros tho, that make it annoying at times, like scout rifle pros (however barely any of them exist). LA should have ambusher jets anyways, the other jets aren't as useful. If ambusher, you're usually moving too fast for a sniper to do much. HA can just hug doors & is fine. Medic hangs with allies, so is fine. Ect. Truthfully, you should be dying to LA & HA more, because that's how it is in general.

As for people in other threads whining about cloaking. 1st of all infil has weaker armour, a commisioner is able to 1 shot me, as infil. Next SMG infil is the LEAST PLAYED spec, I've ever seen. Nobody plays it, compared to most specs. It's even more rare than pistol infils. If smg infil was all that, more people would play it, it's not that easy. As for 1 shot knives, oh so a shotgun 1 hit kill ambusher jet LA, with nightmare implant, is okay? But not knife? Naw, knife is just a shotgun's dps & range (ish). Shotguns can't cloak, but have more range. Knives have no range, can cloak, but you have to literally hug the opponent to score a kill. Many times you'll miss the swing, based on how extremely close you have to be to an enemy to even knife them, then if they backup while your swinging = dead infil. Actually it's taken me years to learn how to sneak up on others & I still die all the time. Front of the line infils are also most prone to getting tk'ed.

I don't sniper much, but it's never been some grand scheme class to pick for farming kills. It's situational. Some classes are good in all, or most situations, snipers not so much. The only class I can see snipers being bothersome with, is if you're a medic main, even then, like I said you're surrounded by allies usually. You'll probably get revived soon. HA can take a hit & should be trying to learn how to run to cover, regardless of sniper fire or not (for HA).

Actually this game, has done cloaking better than any game ever to exist, people should stop dissing it or trying to nerf it, sheesh. As for flash's, who the ..... pulls a flash... who complains about dying to a flash? haha. *facepalm*. Who complains about dying a ant? xD Just move to the side & throw some c4 on the invisible wall trying to ram you, or ambusher jet above it, idk, invisible ants aren't running people over left & right, barely happens. & is avoidable most the time, you can hear the wheels, before they arrive.

Lastly, you have a kill cam, telling you where they shot you from.

I dispute your point on LA's, Ambusher jets are fun, but drifter jets with extra fuel are amazing for mobility if you learn to use them.

I WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree with you sentiment on how well this game has done cloaking though for sure, it was an absolutely amazing run while australian server with my friends while it was populated and existed.

I don't think there will ever be another game like it at this point, most modern shooters are still gushing at hitting 128-200 players in bits like warzone and battlefield, but nothing comes close to the complete masterpiece this SANDBOX game can be in large battles.

Alas, have watched that aspect of it degrade since development changed hands and gave us CAI and onward.

Look dude, no offense, but I've seen you play and I wouldn't put you in a position to know what a decent player would experience. You're a tank and stalker main, and perform meh, from the ragetells I can remember.

Anyways, you're completely false. Infils operate everywhere, and smg infils are not an uncommon sight, though it's true most people prefer to use the 1hk cheese weps.

The weaker armor point is silly, first off that's not even true depending on which cloak they chose, they could even have as much health as a HA! Also, 1hk knives are extremely powerful, they aren't like shotguns because there's a hs multiplier, and no rng involved. In fact when I want to cheese a zerg ghostcapping, I lock myself in the SCU room with my carapace vampire 1hk knife loadout, and in most cases can last another 10-20 minutes after the base flips just denying anyone entrance to the SCU until they MAX crash. Not as hard as you make it seem to be, especially when you get to use infinite invisibility to set yourself up for the easiest kills.

While infil might not be able to farm KPM like a betel heavy, it's a great class for farming KDR and the go to class for getting kills if you can't aim normal guns. That isn't the point though, the point is it's a broken playstyle, I could die to it once a year and still know it's bs.

No class is able to take a hs from an infil and survive. The only time HA can survive is if he flicks his shield up the second the shot is about to hit him. So it's pretty much impossible to do so in reaction to seeing an infil (clienside), only luck would make it so the dude's shield flicks up on the snipers screen as soon as he shoots. OR the HA is using resist. Even so if you use a 750dmg model sniper the HA will die with the shield up in one hit.

And then the closing point is just ridiculous. Planetside 1 maybe did decent with the cloak/infil. The way it's been implemented here is clearly broken, and even hardcore infil mains have reluctantly admitted that in these threads. You're still light years behind I guess. As for the comment about cloak on vehicles....yeah oh dude, maybe we don't all magrider main. You sure look like you know what you're talking about lmao. Have you even been able to do what you suggest to counter these things even once? I know for sure you haven't, not even based on your stats or the way I've seen you perform in game, but for the simple fact C4 doesn't actually detonate and deal damage to vehicles that are moving, and this has been a feature for a while. So you'd do your james bond moves and stick 2 c4s at that moving ant and they would detonate dealing 0 dmg, unless the ant stopped for some reason, in which case the C4 would maybe work and then you could finish it off with rocklets.

And bringing up the killcam...just LOL

You seem to be holding others to higher standards than yourself.

Yeah it came from a tree 100m above somewhere. How am I to remember what tree. Perhaps drop pods should be removed.

For now I just have to redeploy somewhere else. There is no counter I can see beyond an orbital strike. What ******* nonsense is that.

The game is **** balanced. The most piss poor I have seen.

You'll remember that tree after you play at the base for a bit, especially if you are looking for it. Plus, the Infiltrator can't get down, so he's a sitting duck that just gave off his position to you.

Well if you wanna be salty & downplay that I'm the best stalker, magrider, harraser driver, & c4 fairy on the server, then sure. Tittle that, " meh " out of salt. It's plenty enough experience to teach anything. I guess that says a lot about WHO is whining on this thread & which CLASS is doing so.

So this is a thread of Medics & Heavy assault mains who are to whining about cloaking or snipers. Because for sure LA are dodging sniper fire most of the time, unless you're a noob. So Heavy Assault & Medics mains, aye. Medics should stand next to other medics & get revived if they die, they aren't running around solo alone, most of the time, so if they did from a infil, revived, woopdeedoo. Actually Medics gets better asp skills than my infil, I get nothing a stupid smoke grenade. Medics get an Assault rifle + Scout rifle, so actually they have potential to out-range a cloaker, by pure accuracy alone, if they get the drop on the infil.

As for dealing with knivers as a HA? HA block my knife, often, with their shield. Many times not even intentionally, just because they have it on, so often. Also it's pretty simple. I'd wager that Heavy Assault mains are whining on this thread MORE than medics. Which is ironic, seeing as the average HA pro, gets WAY more kills than the average Infil. Theirs also twice as many HA pros to begin with. I don't snipe, so I get some of the frustration with getting 1 hit, as a HA, still HA are DOOR FIGHTERS, boo hoo if you get shot from a hill, since door fights happen x100 times more! Than hill fights do. Snipers aren't killing my LA the most, HA are, LA are, trying to 1v1 another LA on the rooftop gets me killed, even more than the sniper trying to shoot me off the rooftop...

If knifing was so easy, you'd see more of it, just because some pro knows a tad bit of patience to do it well, doesn't mean anything. Also a HA can simply just not have his back turned, to see any approaching pistol infil & negate the dmg, if his back isn't turned. The HA pros know this. It's as easy as puting your back to the wall, or a corner. HA verses Stalker infil? Pro vs Pro? Is a equal fight. They may die from a cheap shot at first, tho once their aware a front line infil is around, their on the lookout. What about all these people with flashlights, only died 1,000 times to flashlight searchers alone.

How does sniping help, while fighting in Nasons tunnel? It doesn't. Infils good in tunnel? Not really. How is sniper fire good fighting at Watersons 3 way fight, near the wall openings? Sure you can post up on the hill, but a HA farming infantry need the points, doors, or walls, is gonna score more points. So if most of the fights happen to be door battles & most of the 3 way faction fights favor HA, why are HA whining again?

The only exception to how annoying snipers can be, isn't even long range snipers, it's mid range sniper pros, who usually play on TR = some TR guy who's instant headshotting people in 0.1 secs, via mid-range, fast cloaks (however even those mid-range-sniper-pros, barely exist / not many of them / & they seem to get bored of that playstyle & move on to another class often. However most games have 1 shot snipers & to the person who says their's some " glare " like Halo Infinite has more scopes, not every game has that either. Halo Infinite has Snipers that can 1 shot you, while flying on a Jump Pad, or would you prefer non-cloakable Counter Strike Snipers? Hah, nope. CS snipers are even worst, so theirs other fps games with worst sniper situations.

The shotgun does 1 hit... knife 1 hits... enough said. If knife is so easy, why don't you suggest that to a new player, may that new player rest in peace, if so, because they'll probably rage quit they are dieing so much. Suggest invisible ant to a new player? They'll probably not do well either. Suggest HA or Medic to a new player... guess what they either scored more kills with the HA or scored more exp with the Medic. Also that's not even taking into account that HA, probably get revived more position wise on the map, than infils do. Because they usually assault points, with medics around them, or they should. As for infils having as much armour, naw they have weaker armour, because they need speed specs, which negates the armour. For front of the line infils speed is better than defense. Snipers may have more armour, tho I don't play sniper, so w/e. However armour is mostly for 1vs1 rifle duels, not sniping usually. Also I don't find vampire + carapace good enough, rather use adrenaline + deep op.

The kill cam doesn't counter mid-range snipers, but it sure counters hill-top snipers, the sniper usually doesn't have the cloaking implant, so they can only hide on the hill for so long, before spotted, & the kill cam showed you which hill or tree they at. SMG infils are the most underplayed class in the game, just because you see a few, doesn't mean that isn't still true. I see them less than pistol infils, I see pistol infils less than scout infils, I see scout infils less than sniper infils, that's the ratio. For Vanu, I never see a SMG infil run next to my pistol Infil & rarely ever see 1 try to kill me. I also play smg once awhile, it's decent, not amazing, depends on the player of course, tho I would never consider it " easy ". Than again any spec, can be considered, " easy " if you biasly word the paragraph to seem so, or if you play the class long enough. However " easy ", should be a term, used to measure how long it takes a new player, to become above average at the spec, compared to other specs.

Also yes I can easily dodge Ant's, Yes I've dodged them & threw c4 on them. Yes you can hear their wheels, 3/4th of the time. Or AV mine them before they ram you, or LA rokket them as they run away. Or even better, PULL A TANK! Or put up caltrops.

Overall I'll agree that mid-range snipers, who focus on quick de-cloaking headshots are B.S (most of them being on TR with the TSAR or SR7), but all this other talk or qq'ing about cloaking in general - I don't agree with.

P.s. DId any1 not notice how much more ASP skills a HA gets, than a Infil gets? Psh.

Plus, HA have AV launchers that 1 hit infantry / anti vehicle potential, or C4. Does infil have c4 or launchers? No. Medics have C4 too. Front of the line infils, die from mines more than HA, & get tked more than HA.

If anything nerf any sniper rifle people are using, as if it was a pre-nerfed Dynamo. Which for Vanu enemies, that would be; TR using TSAR or SR7, & maybe SASR for NC. TR 1 shotting close to mid-range.

Exactly. If you hate snipers from range, get over it. Thats how snipers work. But if you hate the CQC BASR's, its simple. 3 body shots over 30 meters or so, 1 headshot, and remove optics. Not only are they harder to use now, but you need to hit the head unless you are point blank for a shot/knife combo.

I for one would be humble and appreciate the possibility that with sidearm primaries, the stalker would have acces to sidearm primaries as the only exception to the rule that he can't carry primaries like the usual weapons for the infiltrator like sniper rifles, scout rifles an SMGs. That would make my stalker build complete and perfect. I would have a Blackhand to (counter) snipe and an Emissary for CQC and my work for the faction would enhance even further. The fact that the Stalker can't use sidearm primaries or that I am limited to 4 (or was it 5?) ASP tokens entirely is what is stopping me to save up for the ASP system as a whole. Then again, the whole talk about ASP 2 makes this topic a bit confusing. So one can earn 8 ASP tokens instead of 4 now? That would widen the possible skills one could purchase, yet this one limitation for my stalker and sidearm primaries still annoys me.

Um. I play every class, though I'll admit I play infil the least since I prefer to challenge myself. I've played every class more than you, and perform better with them than you it seems.

So this is a thread about people who know the game vs those who crutch on a broken class or 2 to scrape a few kills and salvage their less than impressive performance.

I mean I'll just let you look browse at our profiles and you can tell me who seems like they know more playstyles better than the other.

https://ps2.fisu.pw/directive/?name=auricstarsand&category=3
https://ps2.fisu.pw/directive/?name=trspy007&category=3

https://ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=auricstarsand&show=statistics
https://ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=trspy007&show=statistics

Now ofc you could keep using the noob argument, but stats and what I remember from your abysmal performance in game and all the ragetells you sent me don't really make it seem like you're in a position to dictate how other players should play like.

Knifing is extremely easy, in fact I've auraxed dozens of knives - without using infil. So imagine people with 1hk knifes and invisibility. That's not being good, again, it's cheese. Same with pistols, they are in fact more potent than primaries, they simply just have limited mag size and ammo reserves. In a 1v1, the pistol should win, unless you're using a cqc one at range against a br or something. Again, I've auraxed dozens, including the directive pistols without even using infil.

Was waiting for you to bring out the 'use the buggy darklight that only works sometimes between 2m and 6m' argument.

Disingenuous. They do, and can even be as strong as a HA while cloaked.

As for new players they'd prolly do well using cloak. You're gonna tell me you think new players are gonna and more kills using front line classes with weps you need to land 4hs with recoil, bloom, etc vs taking the time to position and aim their perfect accuracy 1hk weapon under the cover of cloak?

Yeah....real convincing. The fact is most new/returning players pick up infil for that reason. It's the only infantry class you can do well in if you suck. Granted, MAX works as well if you've got engineers or berserker.

Yeah uh...one?

as if a heavy would need a hardlight or whatever the other one is lol. So ASP only really benefits the engineer. Cool.

Nope. And even if you were referring to the masamune or the deci since the nanoweave nerf most people run flak so even those don't 1hk infantry.

Their damage to vehicles isn't really the point of the thread, and though it ofc could use some tweaking, if you're in a vehicle and die to infantry....just lol.

Again Disingenuous. No one complaining about snipers being good at longer ranges. People are complaining the users are INVISIBLE and can use snipers at range as effectively as in CQC.

Oh and actually since we're linking profiles and calling each other noobs now, you can check in my weps I had to auraxium a flare gun for the black camo. Originally I tried doing it on HA, or LA as I do with other pistols. However the flare gun is so bad the infil was the only class I could reliably get kills, even streaks with using the flare gun.

Hopefully that adds some context to how powerful that class is. Invisibility in this game > shield that slows you down in exchange for taking up 2-3 more bullets.

I was just curious when your stats were posted especially after tour "I'm the bestest" speech and holy crap if you are the best then what is the rest doing?
Take your Magrider: I have half your infantry kills with a 1/3rd of the time, and a lot more vehicle kills to boot. So you are an infantry farmer, a slow one at that. Worse on the Lightning: with half the time I exceed your vehicle kills and more or less have the same infantry kills.
The scores with almost every infantry weapon is D's and E's. D's are the lowest scoring 30% of players and E's the lowest scoring 5% of players.

If anyone wonders why this guy is protecting the Infiltrator so hard, because he needs it's crutches.

I don't know where you have been, but yes, people are. Not only that, but its like you stopped reading there, because in the next sentence, I talked about CQC snipers... Therefore, no, not disingenuous. No word twisting!

Check the title of the thread!

Not just CQC snipers, ALL snipers

And LOL this is exactly the point. You'll have the self appointed best player of Connery (or all of auraxis maybe ) telling you you're noobs and have no idea of how to deal with the most balanced, even underpowered thing in the game, then you check their stats or encounter them in game and realize that's the only playstyle they can get kills with, and after years of playing are still barely able to perform at the levels of a new player's first hour on a good day.

And I don't even like to humiliate people or whatever, because I'm a pretty trash player myself. But when calling others noobs and claiming 'obvious' counters to stuff others claim is broken, and least have stats to back it up lol.

You can't go around claiming things are so simple to deal with and people are clearly noobs for not being as good as you when a sub-optimal player like myself has 3x your stats XD

I for one agree, I'm not sure why sidearm primaries is affected by the stalker cloak. It seemed common sense to allow stalkers to equip a pistol in their primary even with stalker if they choose to unlock sidearm primaries. Otherwise it literally has no purpose.