I never said they didn't hunt down everyone else, just pointing out that cloaking doesn't last long enough to get away from one who's dedicated to hunting you down. And yes, a hovering ESF would be vulnerable to all that anti-air goodness if it were actually sneaking in with you.
Great post, this is how balance is supposed to work. Imagine I roll into your base with my stealth 100m radar Flash. Suddenly, someone on your team notices that he's being pinged. He can tell everyone to destroy any parked Flashes around because one of them has radar. Since mine is stealthed, you won't see it on your own radar unless I fire the weapon or someone Q-spots it. Suddenly, hiding your radar becomes a lot more important, and knowing the good hiding spots becomes equally important.
That would be one way - it could be an Implant. Knowing if you are beeing pinged by radar... Because not showing up on the radar at all is propably way too usefull to use compared to what other implants would offer (5% reload reduction? lol...) I would also be ok with a relatively silent sound (but hearable notheless) that is emitted from the radar in a radius of 10-15 m. It could also be a tool for the infiltrator, a consumable that is tossed on the ground and detects radar in a certain radius for a certain amount of time It's almost freaking impossible to find an infiltrator without radar in an amp station and stop him from destroying and hacking the whole base all by himself. Even then, he could have brought his own radar and ambush you because of cloak. And it counters the abuse of drop-pod-deploy on tower rooftops. There is no other way to call it, because it's basically always at least 3 free kills to whoever got on that roof during a defense. Even with radar they usually can hurt the defenses more then they had to do to get on that roof
Unfortunately... if it was nerfed completely, a lot more people would just go D/L a REAL wallhack instead. It's crazy how many working free hacks this game seems to have plaguing it. I think the biggest thing we as INFs need to worry about is just DIFFERING it from our crappy Darts. There's lot of low-hanging fruit here. Like the posts above said, Scout radar should have unlockable warning systems or something that gives away it's "Use" whenever the vehicle is parked. The other thing I just thought of is our Dart Radar showing DIFFERENT COLOR DOTS on OUR MINIMAP depending on whether the enemy is at our current elevation... OR more than 10ft above or below our elevation. ...something that would make it a lot more useful in certain bases than the larger radius always-on Scout Radar is. As was also already mentioned: Scout Radar not detecting ANYONE who's crouching so that all the other classes without stealth also get some instant 'counter play' options against it, and just rebalancing the massively unfair-to-new-players Cert costs VS. effectiveness of the Dart Radar should all be SOE's main priorities for Information Warfare. (instead of just releasing more P2W crap like the RocketTurret, Pheonix, Commiserator that they just have to nerf later anyway and piss off everyone who bought them)
I don't have any real issues with their being warnings and/or counters to radar, or buffing recon darts, but I would just like to point out that tanks actually get proximity (not scout) radar. The difference being that only the occupants of the vehicles can see the minimap pings. It's also almost completely useless, seeing as the max cert level only gives a 50m radius, which, as someone else mentioned, is about the equivalent of being able to see people in a small building you're parked right next to. So, scout radar needing a counter? Yes. Proximity? Not so much.
I agree with you. Scout radar needs a fundamental change to the way it works. If they can't do that, infiltrators need some sort of immunity to scout radar. Maybe a deployable anti-radar beacon?
Right I actually brought this up earlier when I said said the current selection of vehicles for it is imbalanced or downright a**-backwards. Only Galaxies, Lightnings, and the ATV should get Scout Radar. The absolute last vehicle in the game who should ever have gotten Scout Radar was the ESF:
1) Scout Radar is only available for use on the Flash and ESF. Tanks and Sunderers can purchase proximity radar that only benefits players inside that vehicle. 2) I think that Scout Radar is pretty well balanced on ESFs since they have to give up Flares to equip it. Scout Radar on the Flash may need to be readjusted since Flashes are dirt-cheap with low respawn timers. 3) That being said it might be good to give Infiltrators a way to avoid detection perhaps through the upcoming implant system. (e.g. an implant that prevent the infiltrator from being detected on radar when not moving, reduces the range at which an infiltrator can be detected - say by 50%, or prevents the infiltrator from appearing on radar period - except for when he is shooting w/o a suppressor, of course).
Don't worry mate, I have a fully certed out Scout Radar on my Flash. Even parked in a shielded tech plant/AMP station, some friendly will blow it up because they're either (a) color blind, or (b) 4th faction. Also, I read that someone said it is possible to equip a Wraith + Scout Radar. This is not true. They share the same slot, so its either Wraith or Scout Flash. In addition to that, if any friendly goes beyond a certain distance from the Scout Flash, the Scout Radar will no longer track the blips for the friendly. Plus, its only good for small skirmishes. Once a zerg rolls in, it doesn't matter because the mini-map will be full of enemies and this tends to discourage the average player from fighting on in defending the base. Hard counter? Blow up all Flashes you come across.
I don't see how you'd discover it existed without also discovering what was doing it, but: you can see the radar equipped on it, and ONLY flashes and ESF get scout radar. Tanks (sunderers, et cetera) only get proximity radar, which only displays things for a much shorter distance and only to occupants of the vehicle. The one with a disc (or on a scythe, fins. Look at one in VR to see what I mean) is scout radar, while the rotating thing on the back of tanks or lightnings and the top of a sunderer is proxy radar. Both radars take up the vehicle's utility slot, which for flashes means no smoke, no cloak, no boost, etc. and for ESF means no flares or fire suppression. Sunderers would lose their AMS, shield diffuser, and so on... so you'll probably never see one with radar (I haven't) and tanks lose anchor, shield, or magburner depending on their faction, as well as smoke if they would've used it and suppression. Lightnings don't really lose anything because all their utilities suck. Coincidentally lightnings are the only vehicle I'd ever equip with proxy radar because it's rubbish. Really only applies to a flash in cover somewhere. The range is short enough that if you can see it you can engage it, and while ESF are pretty agile, you'd have... 'difficulties'... cramming them into a corridor safely. And here's the thing... you can bypass radar with stealth (vehicle) and cloaks (infiltrator, w/ optional flash, which may itself have stealth ). Just as you are easily deployed again. You don't need to be able to run in, blow it up, and run away before decloaking in order for it to work. 12s is a huge gap in your radar presence, and you can make it even worse by doing stuff like go one way for a bit, cloak, and make a sharp change in direction. Mostly though I doubt anyone was watching that closely in the first place. Plus once it's upgraded, cloak's downtime is pretty short, only jumpjets (I think. My jumpjets are more upgraded than my cloak so I could be wrong) have less. Also remember that radar works in 3D, but displays in 2D. In places where you aren't limited to flat ground it becomes harder to track you down, and there are a lot of these places.
Hard counter for Infiltrator is to run away or Re-Deploy. Trying to destroy a Flash with a Pistol takes 3 clips and is a coin flip if you are not gunned down before you're done. This does not help an Infiltrator. Infiltrators use vehicles to get to battles, not to fight in them. Having counters built into vehicles allows Infiltrators to avoid Scout Radar... until they get to the battle... and leave the vehicle. Infiltrators are often a pain to deploy. They often have to "infiltrate" into an optimum set-up before they can engage the enemy. Many of the places they die in do not have a convenient nearby Sunderer/Spawnroom. Deploying a Flash and driving it 30 meters before dumping it is trivial. Once they're on to you, and you've burned your cloak timer, things get grim fast. It's not like you know where THEY are in this cat-and-mouse game. It depends what's hunting you. LAs are adept at hunting Infiltators once they get them spotted. Also, using 3D evasion only works in areas that are both 3D and full of looping escape routes. (like a Tower)
Both scout radar and the radar darts are really cheesy-- and this is from mainly using them myself. How can there be balance when something exists that has no counter? Moving slowly should avoid detection as well as have a suit slot option for stealth... not that anyone would use it.
How about enhancing EMP granades for that purpose? Throw one near the scout radar vehicle and the enemy gets no or misleading signals for X minutes / until somebody fixes it.
It's not just Infiltrator, that's just the worst of it. Vehicles just shouldn't get that kind of advantage over Infantry of any type. Also on the whole the game would be much better overall with less player crutch type detection mechanics... so less radar in the game the better.
Radar is not OP, nor does it need a nerf. The only thing that should be offered in the form of a "counter" is a notification that you're currently showing up on someone's radar. No noise should be emitted from the vehicle providing the radar, and it should only show up on the map if someone has spotted it or is within a proximity range to it. Here's why: This is a team game, like it or not. There are literally hundreds (sometimes thousands) of players on the same map as you. If you're off doing your own thing and you show up on radar, that's your problem. YOU chose to put yourself in an incredibly vulnerable position, and therefore you deserve to pay a price for it. This concept is known as "risk versus reward". Here's another scenario to think about: Imagine instead of running around solo, you spend 10 seconds at Warp Gate (or any location with several players standing by) and find someone to cap a base with you. BAM! Game Changer! Now you can throw down a Spawn Beacon. Now one person can look out for enemy vehicles. Now one of you can play as a Heavy, granting access to rockets for ESFs or tanks. And as someone's already pointed out, if you play with the "zerg", or any reasonably sized force for that matter, it's not going to matter if you're on the radar or not. A lot of thread's OPs should just think about one thing before they post that something is OP, needs a nerf, or has no counter. That one thing is this: If I played with a squad (as the game is obviously intended) would this be a problem? The simple answer for this thread is: No.
Pretty much this. I'd go further and swap dart function with scout radar function. Let darts see people not moving, just like scout radar currently does. Let scout radar only see people when they are moving.
