[Suggestion] Slight Nerf to Stalkers

Stalkers are about as serious a threat as Barry Williams.

Its not about them being a threat. Not to me, anyways. Its that they are relatively safe when they shouldn't be, and they become relatively safe when they disengage combat when they have made a failed attempt. Here is an example.

I was on Esamir, walking a cliff. I got spotted, and immediately knew it was a Stalker, because no one else was around. I walk around looking for him. I can't simply put on a darklight because we are attacking the base. I search the area, but I can't find him. (duh) So I go to walk away, waiting for him to attack. He shoots me in the back. I turn around, no idea where he is. He uncloaks and kills me.

Stalkers are able to remain hidden when they make mistakes. Hunter Infiltrators and every other class can usually not.

Its not that Stalkers are OP, but its annoying that they have a cloak of the same quality as the Hunter cloak, and it lasts forever. The only downside is that you have to use a pistol, but if you have good frames and aren't incompetent, you can fire those pistols pretty fast for some good damage, as long as you hit your shots.

Flashlights. Mount them on a shotgun > profit. Do this with 2 LAs and you got yourself a veritable cleanup detail.

I have been polite thus far, there is no need to begin something left un-begun.

You can split hairs all you like, but the fact of the matter is that if you are a Stalker and you are in a position to be useful to your team (i.e. "help take a base") then doing 'something' informs everyone in the area that an infiltrator is about doing sneaky stuff. Decloaking, spotting, hacking, killing, etc. ALL reveal your position in one form or another as an infiltrator, and all it takes is one person who knows what they're doing to start searching and the Stalker will either be dead or forced to run/hide. In either case he's no longer helping his team.

Have you played Light Assault?

Personal anecdotes are not evidence. If a Stalker is being so still and quiet you don't even know he's there, he may as well be a rock because he isn't even spotting you.

Citations needed for these claims.

That's like saying cortium farmers shouldn't be safe just because they're 3 hexes behind the front lines playing Minecraft waiting for the fight to come within range of their Doom Flashlight. Their effect on the game is minimal.

I'm sorry but that's just not how it works. You cannot just "bail" when "things go bad". If things go bad you die. Quickly. You don't get to turn into Curly Joe and 'woo-woo-woo' away just because you have a cloak. If by some miracle you are in a firefight with Stevie Wonder and have the time to try to cloak and run away the only thing that is going to happen is a swift lesson on what bullets think of camouflage.

Honestly it is sounding more and more like you, specifically, have a problem with this class. In the scenario you describe above you are alone on a cliff with no support and no teammates, yet you willingly accepted a fight with an enemy you knew was there and had the advantage instead of relocating. This Stalker not only alerted you to his presence in advance, but was fully dependent on you staying in the area to kill you.

As you say, they are not an issue in balance, they don't kill quickly and they don't kill very often. There is no reason for them to be adjusted. Your suggestions to "shift" the class amount to essentially making them into crappy Hunters that no one will use, while destroying a niche playstyle that few use and even fewer use to its potential. The irony here is you use a lot of the arguments against Stalkers that others make against Infiltrators in general, while maining Infiltrator.

My ONLY issue with Stalkers, CQB Bolters, and Snipers is this: They should not be able to fire while cloaked. Period.

It's a bullcrap game mechanic that is unfair and unfun.

"OH But JibbaJabba they already can't cloak when they fire! Even whens they has the decloak on fire checkbox checked there is a delay mista jibba jabba.."

Bullcrap.

The way the latency and graphics work, infiltrators become visible TO THE VICTIM only as the shot is already being fired. Perhaps the theory says otherwise but in practice we have invisible players who can fire on you.

Although I do not think highly of infiltrators and those that play them, I have no other complaints. They put a lot of work into their craft and when they engage with 100% advantage, they deserve it.

Just fix the cloak-while-firing.

I play the class. I have a problem with it because of what I have done myself and what other continue to due. Let me give you an example of what happened yesterday.

I was a Stalker, waiting for the point to flip at Howling Pass so I could take NS Material Storage back from the TR to stop their zerg. At first glance, I guess I didn't look like I was doing much, but I was waiting. I take a Flash, get past the enemies, and go to the point. I am cloaked, so they can't see me slow walking very well. I walk into the point and a Heavy is there. I am using the Hunter QCX. I double headshot him before he can react. I flip the point and 2 TR come in so, I jet. I wait till they leave, and I go to the vehicle terminal. I place a Betty and I hack the terminal. At this moment, a guy comes up with a Darklight, and he saw me. He shoots at me, I hit him once with my Amaterasu, I think, and he steps on the Betty and dies. I finish the hack and run. He and his squad are looking for me with Darklights. I am far enough away and using adrenaline pump, so I am running away from him. I shoot him, he turns around, they all shoot at me. I run away, rinse and repeat. I eventually kill him. They have blown up the vehicle terminal again and repaired it, so I wait till I think they leave and rehack it. He didn't actually leave, and after i hack it and jump off the little rampart, I get shot in the back by him. At this point, I have bought my team enough time to rush in there with a group of sunderers, tanks, and harassers, and overwhelm the squad there.

At first glance, I wasn't doing much at all except for reconnaissance. I was telling my team the plan I came up with and executing it. I was disrupting the enemy lines after that by hacking and turning a squad's objective from taking a base and getting sunderes and tanks to fighting a single Infiltrator. The thing is, I know that when a Stalker is around my base, I have to go looking for him. If you don't that can disrupt your attack. I can't even count the times I have had to tell all my blueberries to turn around because a Stalker is capping the point. Even if you don't look like you are doing anything, your presence should be punishment enough. If you work with a squad and you have a stalker, that is free info without spotting or repetitive cloaking right there. Not just that, but you also have disruption and chaos.

I don't think a nerf is needed because I dislike the class. I think a nerf is needed because I have played it and it was the only thing I played when I first started.

As for the thing about KDR and SPM, someone has said that on these forums when talking about Infiltrators and many players have agreed. Also, its only logical. Low exposure would go towards your SPM, KDR, and KPM. If you choose your engagements well, you will take down your opponent. Same with an LA, except the LA can't go into hiding. While it may not have as high a KDR necessarily, the LA can flank opponents and attack from unexpected angles, and can attack midair. They can attack, retreat, rinse and repeat, but not as well as the Stalker can, due to the nature of how the LA works. I don't think I truly need a citation, though I probably wouldn't be able to find a reliable source for one. You'd have to find a group of players that mainly play Stalker and not just every other Infiltrator or find a website where you can find the usage and KDR of a single ability for a class without including all abilities. Again, only logical.

Yes, you can bail when things go bad. If you didn't take down your target at the speed of which you wanted to, as long as they didn't see you yet or they didn't turn around yet, you can recloak in the same spot. Otherwise, you would have to recloak in a different spot. This is regarding outdoor engagements. Indoors is a little bit different. Thats when you run and gun, then turn the corner and cloak somewhere relatively safe. Also, cortium farmers are never safe. They drive into enemy territory and have to make sure they don't get murdered by a random guy who spawns there. That is paired with the fact that they don't start out with a top-gun to deal with any attackers. Infiltrators are relatively safe even when there is fighting around them. The things that make them unsafe are stray bullets, explosions, and vehicles that just may happen to run you over. There also is a darklight, but people only typically use those when they know you are near.

Now, I don't understand how shifting the balance of the class from quality to quanity is making them a crappy Hunter. Notice that this thread is entitled "Slight Nerf to Stalkers." I'd never ask for DBG to literally obliterate a class just because you can't find them. I am just saying that the quality of the cloak shouldn't be the same as the Hunter cloak. Only having a sidearm or a knife isn't going to make the class more balanced. If we were going to keep the quality of this cloak and the quantity of which it lasts, I simply don't know what we'd do. If we take out the sidearm and leave only the knife, we'd just have a class that would mostly use a OHK knife and that would annoy people even more. By making the cloak SLIGHTLY more visible when in deep cloak, that gives the quantity over quality effect. You aren't truly hidden. You are just unnoticed, for the time being. That isn't a game breaking change. It'll only slightly hurt Stalkers to know that they aren't safe.

And as for the thing about the Stalker killing me, he doesn't have to rely on me being in the same area to kill me. Why? Because he has feet, which are attached to legs, which means he can walk and follow me, and I probably won't notice because we can't see them in the open. I'd leave the area, hoping I'm rid of him, just to get shot in the back because he is following me. He could get up and run to follow me, and I'd have to turn around to see him and recognize that he is a Stalker, only for him to crouch and lose him because you can't see them in the open.

Possibly the worst suggestion in the last 6 months. Stalkers just got a *HUGE* nerf with the nosKILL CAM. If you're still getting killed by stalkers a lot, maybe you should start using your head instead of just trashing someone else's gameplay.

Oh, yeah! another nerf thread!!! And the same nerfsuggestor ^)) Lol
I see no problems with infiltrators. Just hear the sounds around you and/or set the graphics quality at least to medium. Stalkers are weak and can easily be killed if you have decent aim and nanoweave armor.

Another? YOU ALREADY SAW THIS ONE AND QUOTED IT IN YOUR NERF NERF THREAD! now, on to your terrible argument. Graphical settings are dependent on your computer, so thats a stupid argument right there. What are low quality players to do? Hmm? I don't care if a Stalker can be killed. Everything ingame can be killed, except for the trees. The main crux of my argument isnt about stupid aim! Its the cloak, moron! Did you even read the post? Also, you need nanoweave to take out a Stalker? Are you some sort of Heavy Assault seal clubber?

For me, I don't feel the cloak itself needs changes, but I do feel the darklight bug needs fixing. The amount of times I've shone my darklight at an infiltrator only do it to do nothing is really frustrating. I thought maybe I missed an update some time back, but no. I spent 200 certs per sidearm for a rail attachment that works only 50% of the time. This bug has been in the game for months and it needs fixing!

I don't know exactly what causes it, but for me, only stalker cloak users seem to be affected, and even then, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So I don't know if there's a bugged implant, suit slot, weapon... or what.

If they could get them to work as intended that would already be something ...

Not sure how long it's been, maybe 6 months or so, but some stalkers remain invisible to the dark flashlight.....

I mean seriously, that's the kind of bug you fix ASAP..

Kill cam only matters IF YOU DIE to them. You have to have been killed to see where they are, and the fact that their cloak is infinite means they can simply walk a few steps to the side. I don't get killed by Stalkers a lot, but they are undetectable. Only thing you can use is a Darklight. Recently, though, I have been getting killed by people I can't detect or counter. Here is what happened yesterday.

I was at Haven and we lost the base. I got out my Railjack and went sniping. I get spotted by a guy in the spawn. He is spawn room "sniping" as an Engineer. His MAX buddy has no idea where I am. He shoots at me, I play with him by spamming crouch. His MAX buddy steps out and I headshot him. He runs away. Soon an Infiltrator spawns, and I kill him. He comes baack and I hear his cloak. He is coming to kill me. He flanks from behind, I shoot at him with my pistol, he shoots at me with his SMG. He emps me, I emp him, I jump down and end him. The spawn room engi switched to an Infil and he is sniping for real now. Hes a bad shot. I continue to shoot the MAX. I type, "Really, spawn room sniper? This is why people dont like Infiltrators." I immediately get headshotted by a Blackhand and die.

A random Stalker came to end me. He was a level 88 I think. I couldnt detect him and there is nothing you can do about it. They run up, get close enough, crouch walk, and wait. If his cloak was more visible, I still would have died to him. A more visible Stalker cloak only benefits those who pay attention and know you are there. It only benefits you after the Stalker revealed himself in one way or another. You can still hide in plain sight, but when you mess up by missing your shot or failing to kill your target, its probably the end. Why do you people hate this?

Personal anecdotes are not evidence. I am going to repeat this as long as it takes for it to sink in.

First of all, there is nothing about that story that suggests in the slightest that the class needs to be nerfed. You had a task and you did it, and honestly could have done it with a Hunter or NAC Infil just as well.
Second, this is why personal anecdotes are not evidence. You were fortunate enough to find enemies who courteously obliged to sit still for headshots and play Ring Around the Rosie while the tanks rolled up. Facing more competent opponents you might not even make it past that first Heavy.

I may as well make a vid of me farming 2XP-weekend players in a Bio-fight with the Blackjack and start complaining that shotguns need to be nerfed.

Teamwork is Powerful, this is not only not unique to the Stalker, but other classes don't require it before they can meet their usefulness threshold. And for what it's worth a Hunter/NAC with motion spotters and sensor darts is more reliable, covers a wider area, does not require LOS, does not require comms, and is more useful in a fight.

This...isn't a reason.

Allow me to simplify the translation: "It was a Rectal Extraction Figure which both sounds good and conveniently supports my argument." You could at least put forth the effort to grab Heg's or Beaver's stats page.

You seem to be implying that Stalkers are better skirmishers than Light Assaults. That is certainly an unconventional position to take.

Yes, this right here. IF a list of scenarios as long as your arm pan out, you can escape. IF they don't see you, IF they aren't good enough to kill you before you double headshot them with the slowest sidearm in the game, IF they don't have Darklights, etc. This is not a case for a class needing to be nerfed. The fact that I need to continue stating this blows my mind.

I also noticed how you stated that you don't think Stalkers are OP, and that when asked why you still wanted to nerf them you changed gears stating you just want to "shift" them. I think using your thread title to discern the direction of this thread is a bit of a fool's errand.

As for why your "shift" turns them into a crappy Hunter, you suggest nerfing their cloak and giving them below-average primary weapons. By doing this you force them to rely more on movement more than stealth while giving them a slightly improved means to defend themselves. At which point you may as well take a Hunter with a scout or SMG, since they rely on this kind of playstyle already, but they would have a better cloak and more effective weapons.

I guess we're sticking with the smart*** play, then. So be it.

You remember the intellectual who made this statement, right? Is it suddenly no longer true? Have you recently contracted a vision problem?
When those feet (attached to legs), make their way towards you from a location where you KNOW there is a Stalker infiltrator, he moves. If he:
A. moves quickly enough to catch up to you he moves he becomes exponentially more visible. If you don't notice at this point, that is not the Stalker's fault.
B. moves so slowly that he is not visible then he isn't going to be able to kill you, because pistols have garbage-tier damage falloff.

This is called A Pickle. The Stalker has to either let you go and stay 'safe', or risk detection and death to chase you. You have full control over the engagement from the moment you know he is there, you can disengage at will, he cannot. The only way you die in this scenario is if you decided to willingly remain in a position where your opponent clearly has the advantage, in which case your pride/stubbornness/ignorance killed you just as much as that Stalker.


Understand this: I don't have a dog in this fight, I neither play the class nor do I personally have a problem killing them. The reason I am even going to bat here is because low-effort nerf-posts like this set a terrible precedent and can be used to argue almost anything. A lot of the arguments you are making about Stalkers are very similar, if not identical to ones that have been made about the Infiltrator class in general, which I have also argued against. Whatever your intentions, admitting a playstyle is not overpowered, yet still trying to change the way it plays because you dislike aspects of it looks petty and vindictive.

While I will not go quite as far as saying they are useless, they are far from the utter terror they are made out to be; especially since most of the side arms no longer kill in a single clip due to implants, hacks and exploits. I fully agree with them not needing Nerfs however.

Personal accounts ARE evidence.... If I shot your mother in the face without you being at home, you come back to find her dead, then I call you and say, "I shot your mother in the face." The courts would accept that personal anecdote as a confession. This confession would then be used as evidence to convict me of MURDER..... Why... WHY DO YOU STILL TYPE!?!?!?!?! STOP IT!!!!!!!!! No I do not agree with the class needing nerfs, but he is entitled to his opinion and accounts that support it. If you want to counter his argument, use accounts you have experienced yourself. Brain Cells..... USE THEM.

I don't agree that stalkers need a nerf. They're already pretty weak and rely entirely on stealth to achieve pretty much anything. They require a certain playstyle and can be certainly be somewhat effective in that style but are never more dangerous or threatening than any other infiltrator or other infantryman.

Hmm, no. Sorry bud, eye witnesses and confessions are circumstantial evidence, not anecdotal.

And no, more than just a confession is needed for a conviction. Did you know 25% of all confessions are proven false by DNA evidence? If you knew extreme details about the crime, left your finger and shoe prints and maybe tire impressions at the scene, then surrendered the murder weapon over to the investigators you would be convicted.

Point being anything weaker than hard physical evidence based in objective truth is not sufficient for probable cause. A personal story gives a background and reasoning for an argument but cannot support it alone.

I can give my stories as long as I want. I don't have a problem killing Stalkers. I don't have a problem dying to Stalkers. I play the class and use it the same way as everyone else, and I say that its annoying because of my own experience playing it, and I will continue to say it is annoying because I have played it.

My story was meant to show that you won't be found until you do something wrong. They don't know you are there until you kill them or uncloak. I was safe until I flipped that point and killed the dude, and I would have continue to be safe after I killed him if I simply walked off the point after i was done. I would have continued to be safe if I didnt hack the terminal or I placed down recon so I know when someone was coming. I would have continued to be safe after I killed another dude if I hadn't have walked closer to his spawn and waited. I was always safe and opted to go into danger. Thats the time when you die, but you won't die or ever get found if you don't. If I am sitting still as any other class, I'd most likely get killed. You don't have to worry about that as much with the Stalker unless someone has a Darklight or you are sitting in the middle of a road. A slight nerf to the visibility of the cloak won't change that. It just means that when you mess up, you aren't safe. You can still hide in plain sight. There is nothing changing that. But when you shoot or move or recloak, people can find you. Darklights would make it much easier, as they do now.

I never said, "Teamwork wasn't powerful." I was just showing what happens when you have a Stalker. You can scout out a base undetected, unlike an Infiltrator with NAC or Hunter. You cloak and uncloak too much and the fact that you are out of cloak means you can be spotted, purposefully or accidentally.

The Hunter cloak being better than the Stalker cloak is subjective. You can stay cloaked forever as a Stalker, but with my slight nerf, you'd be more visible in deep cloak than you are now. That means you can't shoot, miss, and hide in the same spot. It means when you uncloak, you better get a kill. The Hunter would have a better quality cloak, being able to hide in it for 10(?) seconds and being undetectable except by Darklight, but you'd run out faster. I don't think you understand how small of a nerf that is compared to literally anything else I could have suggested. It doesn't impact much other than your ability to go back into hiding after you have failed. In fact, I think that is the ONLY thing it'd impact.

Yes, you can't see Infiltrators unless you have a Darklight or if they move. However, you have to be WATCHING THEM MOVE to know that they moved! They can follow you as long as they want, and unless they uncloak or spot you or shoot at you, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't just turn around and see them walking from 20m away as they stalk you! You'd turn around, scan the area, and see nothing. Why? They either stopped moving or they are moving too slowly for you to see, and paired with the visibility of the cloak, you can't see them even if they were moving fast! You take people for idiots! They aren't going to just keep moving towards you after you have turned around. Here is what they are probably thinking:

"Following, following, following. Boutta kill this idiot. OH CRAP! He turned around. *crouches* Did he see me? Don't think he did. Of course he didn't. Lemme wait for him to turn back around."

That thinking is the whole way we beat NPCs in games where they have to have line of sight with you before they are alerted to your presence. You follow them, see them turning, stop, wait, follow them when they turn around, and execute judgement. Now pair that with transparency, almost invisibility. There is nothing stopping them from killing you except for themselves and you. If you never know they are there, you can't stop them. They won't alert you if they are competent, which most of them are. They just sneak around and pop you in the head. There should be a tradeoff other than your weapons! If you are in close range and are any good, you can take someone down with a pistol, especially someone who isn't paying attention!

You make lots of claims based off of knowledge of the Stalker. Here is the thing: You don't know they are there. You won't know they are there. You may not have a problem killing Stalkers, but you can only kill the ones you know are there. What about the others who just let you keep walking? What about the others who kill your teammates and not you? What about the others you don't see and end up hacking a vehicle terminal and pulling a sundy? What about them? You don't know they are there, so you can't kill them. True, this is the same for any class when you aren't aware of their presence, but they can at least be spotted when you get near them. You can walk right by a Stalker and never know. Visibility changes that when you are aware of their presence or you are just very aware of your surroundings. It doesn't necessarily "help" Stalkers, but then they'd know when their enemy is aware of them. When they stop, take a few steps back, turn towards them, wait a few seconds, and shoot them. At that point, the Stalker better get headshots with his pistol or better kill them fast. I don't see why people are against this. This is why I called it a slight nerf. It helps you when you know one is in the area but you don't want to alert them with a Darklight.

The Darklight is bait. For who is up to you. To the searcher, it says to attack me, but be warned that I am aware you are near. To the Stalker, it says to look over there, check that corner, so I can shoot you in the back. It'd be nice to have a way to detect them using your eyes and ears. We can find Hunters because their cloak has a fuse, a short time limit on use. By making the cloak easier to see, it does not turn the Stalker cloak into a crappy Hunter cloak.

I am familiar with the posts against Infiltrators. I am familiar with the arguments they made against it. I am asking for a nerf to the cloak, not the whole class, which is what most of those posts were trying to make. I understood the things people said about the Hunter cloak, for instance. I think the Hunter cloak is fine. I don't like SMG Infiltrators, and I always thought that if an Infiltrator wants an automatic weapon, use an Auto Scout Rifle, but thats just me. I understood what people said about snipers, but those were arguments against the weapons and the Infiltrators having access to them. I am arguing the cloak, because that is what sets the types of Infiltrators apart. If you are going to have something with quality and quantity, albeit losing the Primary, I say that is unfair. I say it is unfair because as you said, you can choose your engagement. As a Hunter, you are forced to fight when that cloak runs out, especially at inopportune times. The Stalker is different. Your cloak doesn't run out, so you are never forced to do anything, unlike every other class and ability. This gives you the opportunity to run and hide more successfully than any other class. The others can try, but the Stalker just does. A nerf to the cloak means that you can see them more easily.

I get that practice is everything, and numbers and data help to support that, but numbers can mean a lot of different things to different people, especially when it isn't exactly what you are looking for. I need exact numbers based on the data I am looking for with a variety of people included and the factors contributing to it. That is the way you support your claims with data, not just going onto a website and giving the first numbers you see or by making them up. I can't simply give data based on KDR of Infiltrators, because that takes all abilities into consideration. I can't give a skewed number either. I can't go to FISU and just look at those numbers either because with numbers like KDR and SPM, it is based on the number of players too. You have to find a ratio. There are other reasons too, but this post is getting long.

In conclusion, stalker cloak's quality needs to take a hit, but it won't be sunk, and this is coming from a player who only got Planetside to play as an Infiltrator, to get the Hunter QCX, and play as a Stalker.

If we give the Stalker cloak quantity over quality, we can totally buff it in other ways. I think a whole new set of primary weapons would be nice, and to give those to the Stalker class. They would benefit most on stealth and shooting people in the back. I don't have an idea for them yet, but I think people would trade off some of the quality of their cloak for a primary weapon.

I can see how it would be unfair to nerf the cloak and give nothing in return. They should get something in return, but the question is what.

Yes I've made it for those who will read this $h1t proposals later. Maybe after a few months. They should know that not everyone is agree to nerf every aspect of the game.
About graphics - get a decent rig. Or get a job to get a decent rig. Medium or High graphics qualty gives more chances to see moving stalker.
About aim, nanoweave and cloak. You're moron or complete noob. You should know:
/////////
IF you hear cloak/decloak sound *if Infil is near*
-and/or-
IF you get one shot from infil
THEN
turn to the enemy, crouch, and what you'll see? Yes - uncloaked infiltrator which is subject to your fire. Do some headshots. Any type of armor and a good aim help greatly in this situation.
////////
There are almost zero chances for stalker to kill enemy with just one shot (headshot). So if you get some headshot - get to the cover or kill him. I personally never care about stalkers (yes personal anectodal evidence) even if I play other classes then Heavy Assault.
Of course $h1t happens and infil can kill any infantry unit of the game. But hey! How many times do you die during your session ? What is the percentage of the deaths from Stalkers or infiltrators ? That is the answer.

P.S. enroll to the Heavy Assault Seal club. And you'll get what is to be a goooood )))

P.P.S. do you know that there is an implant that increases transparency of the cloak ? Should it be also nerfed ?

Use Darklight or some more common sense.
I suggest both.
No nerfs just buffs.