Fix Cloaking already. Enough is enough.

there are two cloak 'states,' moving and crouched/stationary (deep cloak.) It takes a moment to transfer from the 'moving' state to the stationary state when you stop moving.

that doesn't mean that you are as easy to see when crouched and moving slowly as you are when sprinting. As with an ordinary infantry moving through bushes or something, you will blend into the environment much more easily when moving slowly. Sprinting makes you a lot more obviously visible because of contrast with the environment.

and yeah, don't underestimate how thoroughly the cloak sound blows your cover. I can't even count how many times I've killed an inf who thought he was being sneaky because I heard that loud 'shwoomph' sound behind me

Do you know why drifter jump jets have been drop faster ? because is too op so they reduce fly range by make it drop faster.
Why should Stalker cloak have to more visible when move ? it because you are total invisible when standstill crouched, only your self and friend and see where you are.
Without a flash light or EMP, only choice they have to find you is random shot around and if you not notice they patch up to stop Infiltrator untouch while clocking(enemy and friend will walk passed your body like you never be there).

I play stalker cloak infiltrator since I'm worse at aim, with a good positioning and plan, once I capture a power plant with one capture point by my self( 5 or 6 enemies defense it) I got 5000 exp for it, however I can't hold it when enemy entire platoon(48+) come back to take the base back while me and 2 or 3 players on my faction try to defense it (I have been catch because flashlight). It's not like I'm try to tell you how I'm good at hide and seek but I point at situation that no one have a flashlight or EMP to counter attack stalker cloak infiltrator.

I agree with you in case stalker cloak infiltrator have less reward you their hard work, I only play this class for fun not farm.
To change this, I think while clocking, infiltrator can spot enemy without making a voice and drain cloak power while spot, it's much better then stay invisible while slowly move, it's not make infiltrator to powerful like hit and walk away silently and mark position this class as real scout and you will get more exp in one life more then hit and sneak away (I kill many infiltrator not because I see them but I heard them, a voice when they spot).

there are actually variable cloak levels when running, walking, standing still, crouch moving, and crouching not moving, with each level of invisibility going deeper and deeper in that order (give or take a few, i'm not sure if there is a difference in levels between walking and standing still, but i imagine there is).

but apart from that, i agree. cloak is ridiculously easy to spot, even when crouch walking. once there was a enemy 10 meters in front of me standing still up on a will while i was deep cloaked crouching, and it didn't look like i was moving, and i assume that i was in the corner of his screen from where he was looking. thinking he was AFK or something, i crouch walk just one step- and then suddenly this guy sees me and kills me instantly.

cloak crouching and crouch walking should be the same visibility at least.

and if it would be possible, it would be cool that energy drains slower or faster depending on how fast you move, just like Crysis' cloak.

the Stalker cloak should be a powerful tool for the infiltrator to use, especially since you are taking away the primary as a trade off. and right now, i find it hard to argue that it is a powerful enough tool to justify the tradeoff, as you can easily be seen when moving even just slightly.

I am 100000% sure there aren't multiple stages of cloak. And thats the point of this thread. I know for fact with my experiences and testing constantly.

THIS happens all the time, and why crouch walking needs a deeper cloak.

Like I mentioned before. I thought there were at least 3 or 4 stages.
But you can check in-game. there are only two.

I get the sneaky suspicion there used to be more but somehow it got reduced to only two..

I'm going to point out a bit what I said about the "frustrating" state of the stalker cloak on the class forum here:

Infiltration with stalker cloak is long investment, easily screwed and not very rewarding even when successful

In any base attack or defense, it means you are moving slower than a slug because you litteraly can't move with any enemy at least than 25-30m and moving in such way you can't be sure he's not going to turn toward you when you are moving without being seen... and you can't flee nor fight back if you are.
You can spend 5mn to infiltrate a base, to just be killed because a lost bullet blew your cover (among a loooong list of possible, stupid deaths that are not even your fault), and even if you succeed, what? You gained 25xp for your terminal hacking? Even the worst HA will gain 10 times that this just rushing everywhere and shooting with bad aim at everything that move.

I seriously doubt that SOE guys plan to give Stalkers stronger, more rewarding actions. It would frustrate other players too much, and make rambo infiltrators even more powerful. So I do think that SOE need to tune down the difficulty to infiltrate base without being seen... actualy, the difficult level is just not justified at all.

Amazing. Good tips!

BRB - Cloaking.

...sec. Waiting for gun to cloak.

..brb, re-spawning.

Stalker cloak definitely is underpowered. Stalkers are basically useless teammates at the moment, and it might be nice to see that buffed.

But only if Darklight becomes a better-implemented mechanic too. At least in PS1 you knew exactly how far you were detecting (because your render range was decreased by a fog, and you literally saw every infiltrator within that radius if you looked at them) whereas in PS2 the flashlights are incredibly vague as to the cone and distance they provide detection for.

Then, when that's improved, all that's really needed is (a) a balance pass on pistols so everything operates at the same general effectiveness as the Commissioner, and (b) Stalker cloak settings improved (some combination of larger capacity or faster recharge, but probably not the actual visibility of it.)

...and well, I guess I feel it's an obvious change but it deserves repeating that obviously players on Low settings should see infiltrators equally well as players on High settings. The fact that there's a discrepancy there is disappointing.

The flashlight is crap implemented. It even shines through walls.

I actually want to increase invisibility of stalker cloak and NERF the commisioner (and underboss)

Well I'm probably biased against stronger invisibility on account of hating how it played in PS1 where every single one of my characters was required to use Darklight no matter what (because it was idiotic not to) and flicker it on/off every few seconds.

I liked PS2's original cloaking far better. Infiltrators were detectable without some additional clunky gameplay mechanic, but at the same time they were made dramatically more useful (they were almost never useful in PS1 apart from the very rare generator explosion.)

So while I'm not automatically against other forms of cloaking, taking steps back to gameplay I know I disliked sounds bad. I'm open to ideas that do things without clunky gameplay, but thus far Darklight in PS2 manages to be even worse than PS1.

There are 5 cloaking stages in planetside 2.

Ok if no one has a flashlight
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead

When you say more usefull I assume you include the huntercloak with sniper rifles and smg's..

Because I find the PS1 infiltrator MUCH more useful then the PS2 Stalker cloaker.
I could place an invisible AMS and harass the enemy with unlimited supplies of mines and spit fire turrets. Or hack their tank. Or blow their generator. Not much to do for the PS2 cloaker expect killing..

I see the class balance of PS2 like a simple axis: the more powerful as a killer, the less utility.
With killing power going in that order: MAX > HA > LA > Hunter Infiltrator > Engineer > Medic.

Problem is where is the Stalker infiltrator in that?
In terms of killing power, to me, it's even inferior to the engineer currently. But it doesn't bring more use as support in compensation.

I wondered about that.

Yesterday someone came around a corner and basically turned and headshot me (without any pause) as I was crouched unmoving mostly behind a console.

My only two explanations for that were:

1) some sort of bug making me much more visable

2) ESP/aimbot user.

there IS a bug where you don't go in to deep cloak..

Yeah, usually if you tap a movement key you do, at least on your own screen.

I'd done that an not moved for about 10 seconds if not 15-20 seconds when he did that. I dunno, I wonder about the "other" options.

Cloak is fine as it is. The problem you all are having is you don't understand the difference between Cover, Concealment, and Invisibility.

Invisibility: Cannot be seen nor detected visually. Doesn't exist in this game, will not exist in the game, and nor should it.

Concealment: Limited visibility, primary focus is to break up the online of the one using it. Does NOT protect the user from harm from direct fire. This is what Cloak does, it provides Concealment.

Cover: Blocks line of sight as well as shots fired. Can help with avoiding detection as long as line of sight is broken the entire time. Again Cloak doesn't provide this.

Cloaking provides different layers of Concealment based on movement. The human eye is attracted to movement. For example, IRL I have astigmatism and cannot see things clearly without glasses. However when I was in the Army I was a great shot since pop up targets move, I would simply shoot and hit anything that moved.

Same thing happens here. Even if they gave you deep cloak while sprinting, the simple fact of the matter is, people like me, trained to react to movement, will light your little tails up. So even if they 'buffed' cloak. It wouldn't help you. You're simply misusing it.

Now.. to explain a little more what is going on. You all are using Cloak incorrectly. You can't use it to sneak in front of someone. You just can't unless they are afk or concentrating on something else. A random dude running around that happens upon you moving will see you. Period.

What you all should be doing is using it to pass from cover to cover. From the back or sides if you can help it. Or in the front only if there is other things going on, such as a tank fight. That way they will be focused on more visible movements than your concealed movements.

Too often do I see players trying to sneak in front of me. I just light them up. They aren't easy to see, but I don't need to see them specifically. I just fire at the movements. I know what cloakers look like and I constantly look for the 'predator shimmer' when I think something is fishy.

The other problem some Stalker users have is they Cloak TOO close to the enemy. I can hear you cloak. I play with my sounds turned on and turned up. I also use a Panasonic Surround Sound Home Theater system connected via optical cable instead of regular computer speakers. I can pinpoint your location by sound alone.. in fact I could damn near take you out without looking at the monitor.

Also if you are in an enemy base alone, I can tell you're somewhere. My static squad knows to check for lingering stalkers by checking the map and seeing if its 87:13. That tells us there's a infil in the base. Since my static squad is small, we can devote our energy to finding them without hurting the team. In fact since there's only 4 of us, the zerg doesn't need us and can continue on while we cover the point from being ghost capped. Yeah.. we're bastards.

So understand that Concealment is what Cloak provides. Concealment does NOT provide cover. Concealment does NOT provide invisibility. Concealment only hides the outline, it does NOT break Line of Sight. It DOES break your outline up and makes you harder to hit. It DOES make you harder to detect in busy situations. And it will de-spot you when you cloak if you have been spotted (makes the dorito go away), though obviously in this situation, the enemy will know an infil is nearby. Just not exactly where.

Keep this information in mind and be unpredictable. Do that and you won't have so many issues with Cloak. Its a powerful tool in skilled hands. Skill is knowing how to use it.

Taemian, sorry, but you're saying obvious things to all of us.
We know all those things you just told. At least, I think most of us know it.

But it is just too long (takes a lot of time to move when you can't move each time someone is here to see you), too difficult to do (you need awful luck during that long infiltration to not run into a stroke of bad luck like someone just running through you when you stay immobile), for the few results and reward you get at the end of it.

There is just an imbalance between difficulty and invetment and results. So either it needs to be made easier, either it needs to be made more rewarding. One of the two.