Motion Spotter getting out of hand

This is a common, infantry based fight like you find it in PS2 all the time nowadays:




Motion Spotters, up on both sides, every time, everywhere, showing your position, movements and direction youre looking at in real time. No more reaction and awareness needed, a simple look at the minimap tells you everything you have to know, you can even start shooting before you go around a corner or see someone incoming because of the real time information. You can place 5 of those before you have to visit a terminal and each runs for 4minutes = 20 minutes total, more than enought to not care about them getting destroyed or running out of time before the job is done. At 24-48 battles it starts and the chance is already 100% percent that both teams have at least one infi placing these things. They are either in the enemy crowd or slightly behind the enemy lines, so if youre able to destroy them you´ve already won the battles and they werent needed anymore.
My infantry game experience got halved since motion spotters hit the game and got popular. Its like everyone is running around with a range limited wallhack following the slogan: "if everyone is OP, noone is".
Its not like there was no radar before the motion spotters, recon darts got spammed like them now, plus proximity&scout radar on the vehicles. So the area covered by radar wasnt smaller back then, but the quality of the minimap information. Its a difference like day&night if you have only a 2 second interval with only a dot for the position thats fades immediately(like position for weapon sound indicator) OR real time information for position and the direction the enemy is looking. The first still needs prediction, awareness and reaction while the second already provides so much information that none of this is necessary, but both tell you where the enemys is / coming from.

Wiki: Motion Spotter ||| Recon Detect Device

You did two good things with the Motion Spotter:

1. Due to the nature of PS2 fights & point defense, the stationary radar option for infis was much more needed than the darts. No more weapon switch every time to keep the radar up every 45 seconds for the duration of a conquest or defense (even solo, without an engi for resuplly). A rly comfortable solution that took away else unnecessary work.

2. With fewer darts, because they got more situational, the map stays "cleaner" in big fights because the motion spotter graphic takes much less room on the already full minimap than the graphic from the recon darts with its large pulse.

But the information is TOO MUCH! Before, people could only get such high quality minimap information from personal spotting, which required a human being having visual contact with its own eyes, aim on the enemy and a special key pressed that is only for this case.

So, nerf the Motion Spotter and make it a 2 second interval radar with fast fading dots for enemy activity like it is for every other radar in the game. Everything else is too powerful and takes away the fun. It already has its stationary benefits compared to the darts: longer duration, engi independent and not visible until the enemy is already in detection range. No better radar quality needed.

Crouch walk and/or that stealth walking implant thingy + knife/sidearm to take out the detector.

Also, given how a non-insignificant portion of the player base seems to lack spatial memory, situational awareness and/or a basic understanding of the minimap, even if that information were always available, you could still sneak up on people.
Hell, if I can manage to sneak up on infiltrators camping their own motion spotter for stealth kills, I can't imagine it's anything more than a trivial part of the game people with skill "just do."

or they can pulse like the first motion spotters or at least show info every 3-4 seconds. I agree this is an unfair advantage on the battle field.

Hey, at least you're not a tank that automatically shows up from a longer range without a motion spotter.

Seriously... autospotting vehicles is a bit silly. Players should have to rely on their eyes and ears to figure out where vehicles are, not relying on some lame crutch that is the minimap.

At least you're seeing how unfair it is to vehicles.

They should remove it ...

They day they remove Scout and Prox Radar ...

Having to use your eyes and Ears should be universal ..

Welcome to Close-Range Infiltrator, where your primary role is flanking the enemy and Reconnaissance.

At max rank, the Motion Sensor could like up a tower and then some, but is easily destroyed by practically anything and is hunted because it's worth XP. It also allows Infiltrators to be a bit more viable when near their friends, as they provide recon, thanks to their Recon Darts and Motion Spotters. That room with a full squad can react to 2 enemy squads coming to flank them because of the recon.

A dart/sensor in a high-traffic area would light up Every Enemy in that area, and is usually why you'll see them in corners, but keep in mind it only shows them on the minimap: That enemy dorito in that building could very well be a light assault on top of that building.


Besides, in the images you've shown, of course you're not gonna do very well anyway: You're out populated by a fair margin.

when was the last time you walked 50m crouched or with sensor shield unnoticed in big fights? makes you more of an easy target than being stealthy. it helps for like 10v10 or something.

its not about vehicles. and at least vehicles can equip stealth devices that negates EVERY detection at any range. not to mention the vehicle size...

thats the point, there is no advantage if everyone uses it. its just bad for the general game experience.

At least the autospot works for vehicles and not just against them. If you aren't running a vehicle with stealth you are tank bait. Plus we have prox radar that doesn't have to be manually fired off or reapplied for when we want to bait infantry to us so we can chew them up with HE, HEAT or AP.
Stealth when we want to sneak around and hunt vehicles or kill a few infantry then disappear again.

Motion spotter isn't that hard to defeat, ether crouch walk or use the implant seriously darts are worse to deal with because you can spam them infinitely standing on an ammo pack in relative safety.

Interlink Facility Benefit: all connected SOI (bases and towers) subject to Motion Sensor radar

In PlanetSide Classic, I could place 20 of these Motion Sensors simultaneously (though not in enemy SOI).

A common pool Mosquito, radar when flying at half throttle.

Asides from watching their moving behavior, Infantry can counter radar by Sensor Shield. Nothing stopped them from appearing on Radar when shooting. (We have actual Suppressors attachments for that.)

Suck it up.

Edit: I apoloize for being terse. My arguments do tend to be more verbose and well-spoken. I think the bluntness of one-line arguments and images is more than satisfactory in this case, however.

Edit 2: Could also be countered by using Sensor Disruptors that shared the same "can-place" pool as Motion Sensors; and, those could be placed in enemy SOIs. We don't currently have these in PlanetSide 2. You could also temporarily disrupt Interlink Facilities from affecting an enemy's bases in a few ways ("removing connected benefits," that is).

Lots easier to mount radar to large lumbering vehicles. For example, even today Russian, Israeli, and Korean MBTs come with their own radar systems that can track individual bullets. Like things that infantry shoot at each other. It wouldn't be too difficult to track a human-sized target.

On the other hand infantry... who apparently have radar installed... somewhere... yea, that doesn't make a lick of sense.

So it's perfectly fine that vehicles can track infantry, but definitely not reasonable for it to work the other way around.

Did i say anything about the siege and the defenders performance? Its about what i can see and what the enemy can see on the radar. I could take those pictures in every base i fight as infantry you could aways see active motion spotters from all empires.

Flaking isnt possible anymore without the enemy knowing.
Reconnaissance wasnt possible with the previous radar options?

in general they get placed at the point the enemy have to guard or behind enemy lines. like i said, if youre able to destroy a motion spotter it means you already reached the position the enemy was about to hold but couldnt do it, so you already won and the radar information isnt needed anymore. not like infis would care when they carry 5 of them.

50m of a single device is enough to recognize all incoming enemys. even without real time spot.

Edit: Try the future.

Has nothing to do with a game

But I understand

Only applies to things you personally cherry pick rather than any type of balance aspect.

Sure it does. We drive these things around called "Main Battle Tanks" in PS2. We have things called "Main Battle Tanks" in the 21st century. I don't see why you would not think there was a connection between the two identical terms.

Yes and those Main Battle tanks are just like reality ..

I must have missed the Hover tanks in Operation Desert Storm

I think you may want to reword that sentence as I do not think it is expressing the sentiment you may think it does, unless you have changed you opinion from what you wrote in the original post.

(I've also edited my post with a lot more brief information regarding PlanetSide Classic radar/sensor play and counterplay. I haven't even gone into the ability to hack Motion Sensors or how Darklight had a larger range. The important thing to note is that PlanetSide 2 detection capabilities are very simplistic by comparison.)

better? i dont even know why i answered to a PS1 comparison

mby there is a reason behind it why you dont see all people running around with suppressors and sensor shields in 50v50 fight in a small area? because there is always one that will detect you before you reach your destination.... and much more little stuff that makes stealth minor effective to not effective at all in big fights. except if you dont compete in the main battle that decides the end for one faction at the base.

Oh, that just means that tanks get to become more and more marvelous while infantry get more and more worthless.

Which has pretty much been the trend since tanks were invented, really.

Considering that there is an implant that makes you all but immune to the effects of sensors - I don't really see the issue. (where is the implant that totally negates other classes primary abilities like a heavy's shield?).

If you don't want to show up on the minimap you can run sensor shield, and even a suppressor if you so choose. Of course that means that you won't be running some other implant instead, but if people choose to willingly use other implants doesn't that indicate that those are actually more powerful thus negating the initial complaint?

-Stigma

clientside+not able to run in big fights = death. sry but sicne motion spotter in medium and big fights i never got overwhelmed by stealth users. they get detected before they even reach critical points to deal lethal dmg to your faction lineup.