[Suggestion] Infiltrator anti darklight-flashlight

Doing this would remove the Rule #1 for Cloaker survival.

Before we add / change anything to it can I please ask that they fix the current problems with the darklight first?

Last time I checked it can still expose you through walls, floors and everything else (this bug has been around since they released the **** thing!) and lately a new bug's been introduced where you don't even see that the enemy is using a darklight 80% (personal experience) as the beam fails to render.

This reminds me of the

This reminds me of the scripts against anti-advertisement blocker programmes.

I think this is a dumb idea because running around with a ohk knife is already cheesy enough, it doesn't need to be encouraged. But for the sake of argument, the implant should remove the ability to cap flags while cloaked. There, now half the people in this thread who are arguing against it for that reason can move past it.

But I think we should be focusing on ways to make infiltrators more useful to the team, rather than trying to give them more niche killing roles. Like that bridge on Amerish that can be hacked. We need more stuff like that.

Infiltrators are pretty strong and fairly versatile right now. You don't want a squad of them, which is the nature of the class, but you should always have at least one in your squad, between the recon devices, the incredible emp grenades, hacking and the newer improved stealth for flanking they are in a strong place right now (not saying no to more hacking options, though I see that more as overall making bases and such more interesting).

Other classes, such as LA, probably need more attention at the moment.

The LA class has needed attention since forever, but discussion always gets mired in disagreements about what to do about C-4 (anything or nothing, whichever).

Either leave it the way it is or get rid of the cloaking ability all together. There is no free lunch.

Not only is this a super bad idea, but there needs to be adjustments the other way around actually.

With the advent of new stealth, making crouching stalkers pretty much invisible, there needs to be more ways to detect them.

We need darklight flares, or sentry spotlights deployable on a location. There is simply too much cloakers can do now with very little counters. Darklight flashlights simply arent enough now.

I'm still new enough to PS2 to be considered almost brand new. But I still have some thoughts on this after I set the stage. Since I typically played other styles of Single/MMO's (read: never played FPS games) for the last 20 years, my first two days were insane. Chaos and lots of how the hell did I just die?

Fast forward. I picked the inf class, stalker specifically, because it allowed me to slow the game down to where I was able to process effectively. Took me some time to realize things like Crosshairs turn red in range even when you're cloaked (this seriously doesn't make sense to me, but whatever, adapt or die right?) and other things. I also didn't realize at the time that the Blackhand/Power Knife combo is both extremely powerful and REALLY unforgiving.

To the point:

Red: I disagree. You probably have more INF experience than I do, but I think with the sheer time and patience involved to get in place, the razor-thin margin for error that we already have, and the intrinsic weakness of the class versus MASH BLAPPPPP HUEHUEHUE auto weapons, running solo knife is so ******* hard to be effective that you almost can't buff it enough. The hit detection is frankly really poor at times and fantastically stupid, with 4 swings while the enemy takes up so much screen real estate at 74 degrees that I can't see **** except him, 4 misses, the fast people who know to crouch or jump versus the knife... yeah. Have I dropped into a couple 7v1's and gotten 5 kills knife-only before I bought it? Yeah, but not without a major distraction helping me. And that's about 1/100 if not less.

This playstyle is completely self-enforcing, and probably too frustrating for the average player to stay with. You'd see knife-only INF's for about a day. 1% would stay with the playstyle and honestly wouldn't even be much more effective, probably even less without that blackhand or the TR's ungodly auto-pistol. The ones who excelled (read: lived through the first wave before people came back with their darklights, which never happens on the first run) might be slightly nightmarish at times but only in the sense of the troll factor for point-flipping OR if they're particularly amazing with timing and strategy. Let's not forget that you now ONLY have a knife. I don't think that can be overstated.

The only real major benefit I could see would be using a character in this way for squad intel. And this guy is not only basically useless in most firefights, but also loses out on a lot of other personal benefits.

Green: Agree all the way, on all points. I don't feel like my skill level is really high enough to be beneficial to an outfit yet, and I'm not particularly interested in pugging squads (no RL friends are playing) so right now I either find very small fights where I can be effective, run a sundy, or try and affect the flow of fighting by back capping to stop massive advances.

As a solo stalker, my role is extremely limited and besides EMPing a room before a squad rolls in (kind of hard to time with no comms) or serving as a really annoying malarial mosquito, I don't have much to bring.

Counter-sniping with the Blackhand is fun though. I didn't even know there was a bridge on amerish that could be hacked. I wish they would let us hack sundy terminals, God would that be amazing. It would literally force spawn defense.

The suggested darklight flares or streetlights above - I think this would be a fantastic addition to the game provided that they were not utterly spammable. For instance, let an engineer use a dark floodlight as his turret, like the AV turret, but have it be stationary with a circular range. It wouldn't even have to be visible like the darklight is. Hell, I would give up recon darts on some occasions with my INF to use darklight flares of similar duration instead. That would be awesome.


I would think to even the field, any deployable darklight should not be visible. Trust me, INF's will react fast enough once you turn into a neon beacon of certs. It would have enough of a drawback not to be used everywhere, but enough of a benefit to be useful.

Perhaps if you cant use stalker cloak and/or the cloak is much more visible than other cloaks

First the bugs with the dark light need to be fixed (I believe this was already mentioned)
The bridge on Amerish is near one of the tech plants, I forget the name, it's some chemical lab but any class can hack it. No idea why.

I don't think we really need more of those scared hiding guys who flip the same point again and again during hours without firing a single bullet.
This game is about active fights, not about playing hide-and-seek while sitting behind boxes.
(I'm not pretending that this is your own gameplay.)
Many stalkers are more boring in terms of time lost than effective in any real way.
No flash light would be a real problem during low pop times. And noobs wouldn't undertand what's going on.

The point of Stalker cloaking is your enemies shouldn't notice you. If they start looking for you with Darklights then you made some mistakes... And in any case they have a Darklight, but you should have a laser sight on your sidearm so you're supposed to have a slight advantage.

Seems balanced to me.

90% chance that darklights on a OHK-THK weapon

I wouldn't mind if it was an implant - since it would necessarily replace "sensor shield".

Being invisible to dark light would be virtually useless in application if you are shown on the mini map every time you move. Personally - stalker infils equipped with sensor shield cause me far more problems than they would if they were invisible to darklight.
The only reason I have to hunt for them with dark light is because they don't show on the mini map when moving if they the have sensor shield implant.

I can't see many Stalkers equipping "dark light invisibility" over "sensor shield" - the mini map would show them coming from a mile off.

No one noticed this one?
Seriously? You must either be trolling or don't know anything of the game. No class that can carry a shotgun is hampered in the least by a darklight. Also a Darklight does not help against an SMG infiltrator. The moment the infiltrator is in range of your darklight, you are in prime area for an SMG attack. So even if you miraculously are aiming that thing straight at him he'll already be decloaking and shooting you down.

Also you say this will "complicate the Darklight". No it wouldn't, it would simply be a nerf, and a heavy one at that. You hear an infiltrator around and you can't be sure that he shows up with a darklight and no one can really use it. As already mentioned you sacrifice incredibly good attachments for accuracy increase in common combat for a highly specialised attachment that is only useable against infiltrators, mostly a specific type of infiltrator (Stalker), and now you want a part of that small crowd to counter an already niche counter? It's not complicated, it's simply a deathblow to the darklight.

Oh, and if you can't use the OHK knives properly that's your problem. You want a knife-only build, but there's no need for one in PS2. If you want to go around knifing people you can do what others do. Get a crossbow or other weapons, shoot someone just before you knife them and you can OHK them without all the fuss. Personally I've been auraxiuming knives in combination with shotguns and Carbines on the LA. Whenever you have the jump on someone you shoot them till half health and knife them quikly. With shotguns other than the pump-action this means a shot against the torso followed by a stab.
And OHK knives themselves are perfect for infiltrators. I've mainly been using it as a hunter infiltrator and gotten a ton of kills with it. When I finish the last Carbine and shotgun I'll probably return to auraxing that puppy.

You realise that all radar types are limited range and do not show up anyone crouch-walking? Meaning that thing that many stalkers do, crouchwalking to stay better invisible in busy area's, wouldn't really need the sensor shield?

Not everyone uses it i my self have a full kit with emp

I do this occasionally, but i also attempt kills if less than three show up to deal with me. Why? Because if done with good timing, it can prevent a base cap advance and literally turn the tide in a large scale push that otherwise I could not hope to affect. Is it kind of troll? Yes, maybe, but it's also a valid strategy based on game mechanics.

I would lend more credence to this point if we didn't have to lose half a second de-cloaking first. The effective stalker mentality is FAR different than effective hunter mentality. I died a whole lot until I learned to be more careful choosing my engagements.

I don't actually want to be able to shoot out of cloak because I think it would be silly as an abuse tool, though it's probably more "realistic" that you could do that in this universe.

When you get darklighted, your cloak becomes a cinder block tied to you while swimming. Most of those times I'm dead before I finish decloaking animation, sometimes I'm lucky and get one shot off.

Except that even crouch walking on a hill or stairs can still set you off because of the additional Z axis movement.