And what I'm saying is that if SOE wishes to accomplish its design goal of making a cloak which is effective in close quarters, and especially indoors, a small adjustment on Hunter Stealth will be inadequate. There are far bigger problems than Hunter Stealth's short duration which prevent it from already being an effective close quarters cloak, after all. What you intend to use Stalker Camouflage isn't relevant to what this class needs it to be. That you'll already be getting everything you want is nice, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't do more.
For the drone no weapons and make it cooldown and that and the pull bolt will be the peaks of the update.
This sums it up. Only reason we even need a straight bolt is because our bolt actions have become useless (seriously everyone runs nano now, every headshot is a gamble that it will even ohk). So can look forward to my RAMS 50 becoming obsolete. Decoy nade isn't new, just bugged atm. Obviously they have known this and waited to fix it to make their upate list look bigger. A lot of these features seem redundant and gimmicky. The recon drone best have a weapon, or better yet do something really useful like paint a target for an artillery strike or something for another class. Perhaps for HA rocket launchers like the tracer gun in BF (you would hit a vehicle with a dart, team mates with launchers would be able to shoot in that direction and rockets would lock on to the tracer), but that will never happen. Unsure about the new cloak...unless it increases stealth or something we will just be running into the meat grinder with our side arms.
If the stalker cloak doesn't have a 100% invisible state then is not going to cut it for indoors use. The hunter cloak, even while crouched, is not hard to see because it breaks the straight lines you see almost anywhere inside rooms.
100% invisible would be too much. I could just sneak inside a building ,hide somewhere and provide continuous intelligence without anyone being able to spot me. I'm more for a PS1-like setting: hardly visible when crouched and not moving, slightly more visibile as you stand up or walk, move visible when you run. The concept of the Stalker Suite should be that you have to take advantage of the neverending cloaking by moving slowly. The key with the Stalker is being patient. Like in PS1 we might spend 15-20 minutes trying to get close to our target then being killed without having achieved anything. The trick will be trying to be where our enemies won't look: on top of a crate, under a staircase, between two containers and so on. Maybe throw a decoy, hack something, report enemy positions, sometimes, kill someone with a heavy gun and a knife. We will create panic: that's how the life of an Infiltrator should be
No use for Stalker Cloak. Cloak already makes you more visible at close range to most players anyway, why would you want a cloak that forces you to then use it at the range at which it is broken? Cloak is a long range tool, and is only viable if you're using a long ranged weapon. If you are running with an SMG and need to clear spots and your presence on the minimap, or escape a vehicle using thermal optics, Hunter Cloak works just fine.
Yes exactly, guess what, you would be infiltrating. At least that requires more teamwork than the scout flash, which is another thing that gives continuous intel that you can't do jack about it. If the "hardly visible" setting of the stalker cloak is going to be the same "hardly visible" of the hunter cloak, then I tell, you aren't going to get anywhere.
In theory you have a point - however, intel is not that limited in PS2 that this would actually have any general benefit. An Infiltrator sitting in the corner fiddling with his thumbs is no way near as useful as scout radar and/or recon dart spam (from ammo pack), while general spotting and contextual awareness would be just as useful (with the added benefit of those players also being able to actually do stuff). What I don't get is why people argue in favour of "nearly invisible" instead of "invisible" - the only difference is that sometimes someone will get lucky and you will get frustrated. You a fan of RNG? A far more enjoyable way would be for a game of cat and mouse using generalised information with a counter that is not all encompassing, spammable and "lucky" (like normal eyesight is). For example (although this need not be the only way to do this), a static distortion field that lets people play hot and cold with the infiltrator, while using the flashlight to reveal them - the flashlight reveals their own position hence stopping spam and almost certainty they wont have it on generally, while the small cone of effectiveness means it actually needs to be used precisely. There is no real RNG in this system - only your skill at eluding people and their skill at finding the infiltrator. That example is by no means "ironed-out" - there are many more things you could do with it, like make the infiltrator become quite visible to a close enemy (say within 5m). Make the cloak fade flashy, loud within 10m (but no sound further than that), and take a while - hence discouraging dropping cloak near enemies. You could make it so the cloak doesn't work (visually) when the infiltrator runs (but it is still active). Make the visibility state switching time instant (so if you are moving and then come to a stop the cloak changes visibility state instantly) - thus allowing the infiltrator to react to a change in the environment. Etc.
While I'm interested in how Stalker cloak and Drones will play out, IMHO the things we need the most are actual secondary objectives to sabotage. Which is unlikely to be seen until the bases get a total rehaul Also, no vehicle interaction makes me a sad panda. They don't want me to steal magriders, fine, but why can't I disable enemy AMS sunderers if I can get close enough to them for a period of time?
Okay, where to begin... I suppose the best starting point would be the fact that Planetside's cloaking suit scaled in visibility very smoothly based on your movement. There were no levels like what you're describing here. If you stopped moving, you didn't have to wait almost an entire second to transition from one visibility setting to the other. Crouch-walking actually made you significantly harder to see than regular walking. Another thing to point out is that Planetside's graphics quality is nowhere near as good as Planetside 2's. A cloaker in the original game is similar to what you see in this one when you run low graphics (yet somehow the effect was implemented far better back then than the tripe we have now). There were no fancy shader effects to simulate light refraction, which actually served cloakers extremely well, because a very slightly off-color patch of the background is much harder to notice than a cutout of that same background with edges that don't line up with the rest of it. Yes, true, that cutout is the right color unlike the white ghost that was the original Planetside cloaker, but start moving it around and I guarantee you'll find the former a harder target to notice. Watch this video. You can tell that the cloak is effective because this guy goes third-person to hack vehicles and it's nearly impossible to see him even when you know where to look. The very fact that he has the power to go third-person is incredible already.
Yep, but these two cloaking mechanics can be hardly compared. PS1 and PS2 are very different: in PS1 ttk was considerably higher, implants were already in the game, pistols caused less damage than Commissioner & Co, hackers could be spotted because of the REK sound, in PS2 we have deadly AP landmines and blah blah blah.... There are plenty of good reasons why it was ok in PS1 to have 100% invisible Infiltrators while PS2 shouldn't. I think the Stalker should grant crouched players that are not moving an ALMOST completely invisibility, but finding a good place to hide should always be the key factor of success. As someone pointed out this is just a sligthly different way to look at how the cloaking should be
Like? I can think of a few reasons why it would be more OK in PS2 than PS: Nothing to hack that makes any real difference. Can not hack in cloak. No vehicle hacking. Generators have a long time until they blow up once used (PS1 objectives were the opposite - long time to use, instant result when successful). Can't put down explosives in cloak - bonus reason: don't have remote detonation so we would get caught too. Dropping cloak (which is needed to do anything) alerts everyone within shooting distance via a faction-specific noise. Happens on entering cloak too, just for fun. TTK is lower, so cloak a poorly functioning cloak is more penalizing. Graphics are improved, making slight differences in detail more noticeable (Dr. Euthanasia commented on this) - thus, a poorly functioning cloak is more penalizing. Looking at the "reasons" you listed: "PS1 ttk was considerably higher" "Implants were already in the game" "Pistols caused less damage than Commissioner & Co" "Hackers could be spotted because of the REK sound" "PS2 we have deadly AP landmines" As explained, TTK being higher for PS1 is actually an advantage for PS1, not PS2. It would be more punishing for PS2 to not have 100% invisible infiltrator than it would be for PS1. We don't need implants to provide the function of revealing infiltrators (which is what I assume your point is) - there are perfectly useless flashlights already in game that could do the job. TTK with pistols is lower because TTK with any weapon is lower. Not really much else to say here. Balance is balance. At least the REK could be used while cloaked and was still very much invisible. We wouldn't be able to do that in PS2 at all - plus we have the sound on dropping/entering cloak. "We have deadly AP landmines?" We do? Could have fooled me! Anyone with nanoweave (in the outer radius) or flak will survive. Regardless, PS had this - and they could dropped while cloaked. If we tried to do what we could do in PS (go up to an enemy and drop one) we would most likely fail because we would have to drop cloak first, then if we were successful we would highly likely die, while the enemy could have move away enough for nanoweave to allow them survive (never mind flak). PS mines could be remoted detonated, hence they were more strategic of use and allowed the infiltrator to find a safe spot before exploding. By far and large PS mines were more deadly, and also more useful.
The game's current base design does not support this, nor will it ever change significantly to accommodate Infiltrators. Expecting otherwise is nothing more than blind, unfounded optimism. In fact, rather than more places to hide being added to the game, they've actually been removed with each significant change to base structures, the most egregious example being the removal of that lip above the top floor of watchtowers. Almost all of the power that was available to the original Planetside Infiltrators has been denied to us, and yet you seem to think that having a functioning close quarters cloak would be too much. Care to explain how low-TTK weapons which can't be used with the cloak active are more of a threat than the ability to silently drop instant-death C4 while invisible?
A big MEH. The cloak is useless because as others have pointed out, it is pretty counter productive to be that close and all you have is a pistol. In longer range situations, decent infiltrators don't even use cloak because they use cover. What really needed to be done was to remove weapon safety when cloaked so we can just automatically decloak when firing. This actually makes the up close infiltrator viable, as right now you will lose most fights because you have to hit decloak and the other guy can just shoot, which is a big difference. Also nano. Nano is the only thing in the game that is a hard counter to a class's playstyle. 750/800 damage to the head should always kill something. Nano should not affect headshots.
I swear you guys are the most dull people on the planet. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! I saw these updates and I went, "what can I do with this," and I thought of four things all revolving around this update. I Play infiltrator a lot and I love this update. This is a recon class, not a do everything class
What are you planning on doing with the Recon Drone? As much fun as I think it will be to pilot a little hovering robot, I'm having a hard time coming up with legitimate uses for it - especially if it doesn't have weapons.
There is no need for weapons. If you want my set up it is a purely recon class. This class is for infiltration and recon. Not for mass killing. For the drone you get in a safe position to scout out what you see before going and if it has weapons take some pot shots.
Hmm. Not exactly what I was hoping for. Is there anyway you can elaborate? Perhaps with some real situations? Recon in a game like this just doesn't seem particularly useful because you have infinite lives (why scout when I can just run in & figure it out first hand), because the game gives you plenty of intel already (general areas where enemy is at, points/objectives they've taken/are taking, how many there are, etc), and you've got recon darts/scout radar for actual enemy locations. If it was a hardcore game (one life), and if the game didn't give you an abundance of intelligence by default I could see a scout/recon class being fairly useful, but right now it doesn't seem to have a place.
I have a feeling, if it had a weapon at all, it would be something more like the Repeater handgun. A LMG of any sort would be a bit much, I imagine.
This guy in the video drives me nutty: Lay down mines to kill AEGIS MAXes? Why not throw an EMP grenade? You can maybe do 30% damage from 2 mines. I would think the best use of a stalker cloak would be point capping, since you capture points while cloaked.
