[Suggestion] Slight Nerf to Stalkers

Alright, I was going to type up another long-winded reply but at this point I don't feel that would do any good. You are taking figurative, intentionally satirical examples literally and all the while continuing to construe your personal experiences in game as incontrovertible evidence to support your position. Whether you are doing this maliciously or in ignorance, the results are still the same.

You keep harping on about how it is only a "slight nerf", but if your nerf is so minimal as to be imperceptible you might as well leave it unchanged, so I am opposed to it. On the other hand if your nerf is significant enough to matter, it constitutes nerfing something that does not need it, so I oppose that as well. Nerfing things just for kicks in a 7-year old game is not desirable and sets a terrible precedent.

If you want to add capability, then add capability, but if that was really your intent I feel like you would have entitled your thread differently. So far it looks like your primary agenda is to get the class nerfed, and that it was only after the majority told you your idea was nonsense that you decided to bring up the "make them more useful" carrot.

What a constructive contribution to the thread. Thank you for blessing us with this valuable insight into both your knowledge of the game's mechanics and to your own thought process. I know I will certainly take both into account when viewing any future posts you may make. Have a nice day.

Stalkers are not that bad to fight against and they are even fun to play as. I've even made friends on the enemy team by having knife fights during big team battles. It has been in the game since forever and if it was removed now the game wouldn't be the same and would feel duller for it. They aren't overpowered and they aren't underpowered - they are simply fun.

Don't get rid of fun.

I use my experiences to show what usually happens when I go to fight something. I use my own logical reasoning as I go along, filling in details that help the reader to see how I think and feel. I use my examples to prove a point or show how something may occur, such as the way the average player MAY approach a situation.

I do change my idea, based on what else is suggested. See my bow post for an example. No one is perfect. If my idea is unbalanced, I try to balance it. simple as that, and truly something we should all do.

You can disagree if you'd like. Yes, my experiences are usually situational, but I want them to show practice over theory. Numbers do help support a claim, and I gave a few, but they can also be manipulated to fit your data, hence why I just give my stories about what happen to me.

I end up dying to Stalkers the way others do. Maybe I should run, but I don't think I should be forced to run because of not having a Darklight. Yesterday, we walked into a control point and I instantly got shot up by a Stalker and a Light Assault(?). LA was dumb, so most damage was due to Stalker. I walk back in to shoot the Stalker and proceed to die again, mostly because he moved and I shot at where he was, not where he is. Alright, gotta stop that. I emp the area and run it with a Heavy to back me up. We get him when he uncloaks, and later get the LA. We get ready to leave, but another Stalker gets on point. Here we go again. I walk in, cant find him. Heavy walks in, can't find him. No darklights for either of us. We go on for 30 more seconds, he uncloaks, we shoot him. Simply no way to find them. We tried everything, from shooting around in corners to baiting, all but a Darklight. Later, I learn from my mistakes. We are losing point by Stalker, I shoot ontop of point, Stalker dead.

Maybe this isn't proof in your book, circumstantial at best, but this is what happens. My slight nerf helps that when you are truly looking, and a buff to help Stalkers and give them some benefit from this can help them too. I want an "everybody wins scenario" while getting my agenda done. Sure, we can add more ways to detect Stalkers, most of which will be just like a Darklight, requiring you to run it, but I didn't think of that first. Instead, I thought of this, so can you really call me out on the point of this post and execution based off knowledge I didn't have until the post was conceived?

Edit: after. Until AFTER the post was conceived.

You understand how when both sides of the argument do this that we end up in an endless cycle of ring-around-the-rosie where everyone's personal experiences are used as evidence for all kinds of things, right? For example, I usually don't need to use a darklight to track down Stalkers because I find them predictable and easily baited into mistakes. Now we are at an impasse, which of our personal experiences is more correct?

Your own experiences in game are unique to you and subject to a variety of factors that may not be applicable to others. You need a broader spectrum of evidence than just yourself to decide whether something is over/underpowered.

This is what happened. Note the emphasis. Again, you draw conclusions based on individual anecdotes and assume that suffices as evidence.

Even in your own example the end result is still a dead Stalker and a secure base.

First, call a pig a pig. It's a nerf. Saying "slight nerf" over and over again makes it neither more palatable nor less ridiculous. At least you finally admit you are pushing an agenda.

Second, not thinking about the Darklight in a thread about nerfing Stalkers is a faux pas on the order of creating a thread about nerfing vehicles without acknowledging rocket launchers and I won't bat an eye at dragging you over the coals for it.

Thats when Stalkers are predictable and easily baited... You don't compare people who are ever on the same level as you or give your experiences from the other side. What have you ever done as a Stalker that pushes your point? You say they are easy to kill. Yeah, they are; if you know where they are. I know that personal experiences differ, but I give them from both perspectives, that of the Stalker and of the attacker. I also sometimes show that it isn't just me by including other players in the story, such as the HA in the last one. He couldn't find them either, and he was just spraying around waiting.

I said "happens" because it continues to happen time and time again, in usually the same ways. Stalker comes around, idiotically spots you, you turn around and have no idea where they are, turn to leave, get murdered. That is what continues to happen each and every time I see a Stalker, and will continue to happen. You have no idea where they are unless you have a Darklight. You can run and get shot in the back. You can stay and get shot too. You can try to bait them out of the cloak and then attempt to kill them. You can use a Darklight.

And yeah, sometimes they are predictable. That is why I included the last part of the story. A Stalker came to the base to cap the same point, and I just guessed where he was. I shot in the corner. Nothing. I shot on top of the point. I sunk his battle ship. In that scenario, they are within a certain amount of meters from the point, depending on how big the contested area can be. That is a situation where Stalkers are easy to take down, due to the process of elimination, however I also gave the scenario earlier of what happens when they kill you and move, and repeat. You can't find them without a Darklight, and based on the design of the base, it won't matter if you have one unless you walk headon towards them.

Well DUH I am pushing an agenda. Thats the purpose for any post on a forum. You want something done and you want to get it done. You have a suggestion tab for just that purpose.

I did not say I didn't think about the Darklight. I said I didn't think of other detection devices that would be similar to the Darklight in execution. You have the attachment, you are good. You don't have the attachment, you are probably screwed. Thats the main problem with the Darklight. If it is the ONLY viable way of detecting Stalkers (just ignore guessing for a moment because that isn't as much detection as hit and miss), then you are required to use that if a Stalker comes into your area. It would be the same thing with other attachments. You don't have them and you probably won't find them. Being able to see them if you are looking hard beats those attachments. You have to look for them and know what you are looking at. You always have access to that if you are playing the game. You always have access to your eyes.

Darklights are there, not to necessarily detect Infiltrators, but to detect Stalkers. Hunters and NAC have a fuse on their cloak, so you are going to detect them without the Darklight in almost all of your engagements. The Darklight is meant to be a direct counter to the Stalker Infiltrator, but that means that if there is no Darklight, Stalkers pretty much have no problem. They won't be shot unless they have revealed themself by killing someone or unless they are shot by accident.

My stories are for practice, not the numbers you are looking for. If you care so much about numbers, why haven't you used any to prove me wrong?

I don't compare myself or use my own experiences as evidence in an argument for exactly the reasons you are running afoul of.
Things that happen to you do not count as evidence.
The perspective your anecdotes are presented from matters not at all.

Stalkers are not an issue in this game. Their most powerful weapons require high precision just to get a TTK that competes with primaries, and honestly given the price they pay they aren't really that much better than a Hunter/NAC at infiltration. They are at their most potent when facing opposition that does not know how to counter them, and even then they can be stalemated if the enemies simply stick together.

They are predictable by design. Everything they do, from hacking to de-cloaking to point-capping to killing, reveals their presence if not their position. If there is a Stalker in the base you are defending there are only so many places they can go to cause trouble, and once you know they are about they are the only class in the game with a device that specifically counters them.

Nothing about them warrants a nerf, and aside from a few intellectuals who obviously have a bone to pick with the Infiltrator class in general you aren't likely to find many who disagree.

You're bass-ackwards, Billy. The only one depending on numbers for their argument is you. Numbers don't factor into my position.

Noted. Still almost guaranteed a kill per life and have the time and ability to get away in case the person respawns. They have to watch out for another enemy who is in your line of sight or medics who can revive the fallen player, which matters more because of the kill cam. You shouldn't be guaranteed a kill because no one can find you without a Darklight. You are almost required to die before you even know the Stalker is there, hence why you won't have a Darklight on to deal with them until death and respawn.

Death costs nothing, and respawning is free.

Honestly this is just the Planetside experience. You die frequently, often to things you don't have time to react to. A Stalker is no different than getting strafed by an ESF, or rounding a corner into a shotgun, or getting picked off by a sniper, or spawning at a Sunderer into C4. Often you don't realize there is a threat to you until it has already killed you; but it's okay, because you get unlimited retries to get it right, as long as you choose to actually learn from it.

Thats not an excuse. You have options as every class. Lets say your run speed is 5m/s. The Hunter cloak lasts 12 seconds, so that means within the span of time it takes to drain your cloak, you can go 60 meters. You have a 60 meter radius until people hear that cloak and know you are there, if you started while cloaked. Anyone within earshot can hear you. Your options are limited within that 60m radius. Sometimes all your options lead to death, but make no mistake; you have options.

The Stalker doesn't have to alert anyone that it is near since it has unlimited options until they encounter an enemy. Time isn't against their side. They don't have as many variables against them. They won't be seen unless they are moving, and they can control that.

Yes, dying is a part of the game, but you shouldn't be virtually guaranteed death unless you have one specific thing - a darklight. All of the things you mentioned are able to be seen, but you just can't do much about it. If the sniper can aim and they one hit you, you can't react to that. You could have done things better to make sure they didn't hit you, but you didn't. If they missed, that would have been a different story. Someone could be posted up against a corner, waiting to pump you in the face, and when you go around the corner, you'd see them and die to them, unless they missed or didn't do enough damage. That in itself isn't to warrant a nerf, because it is all dependent on you not knowing. However when you respawn, you know that they are there and you can deal with them. If you spawn into a Sunderer that has C4 on it, well you are screwed. Nothing I can say about that.

Almost all those example give you the opportunity to do something about it, but if the person is a Stalker and you don't have a darklight, you aren't finding them. You have to wait for them to kill you. That is the problem. New players who come into the game can't detect a Stalker without the Darklight Flashlight. That is stupid. Why should you have to pay certs, not for a convenience, but a necessity? That seems stupid to me. You shouldn't only be able to detect and kill someone if they make a mistake. You can detect a sniper by them shooting, whether or not they get the kill. Not so with sidearms. That shot you heard could be literally anyone!

By reducing the quality of the cloak, they would be easier to see in deep cloak, but you'd still be able to overlook them. We could then give them special primary weapons for them to crutch on or a new benefit to their cloak.

Good, it isn't meant to be.
You are just as "guaranteed" death by a sniper or shotgun as you are by a Stalker (arguably moreso) and your response is still to respawn with the knowledge that they are there, taking steps to avoid a repeat. To say that it is fine if you die by one of these other methods since you can take steps to counter them after respawning, but that when a Stalker kills you you are completely helpless is non sequitur.

After you are already dead.

Except you're dead, so it doesn't matter. The killcam is showing you where they are anyways.

It is not a problem, it is literally no different from being killed unexpectedly by any other item in the game. You die to it once, maybe a couple times, then you adapt.

I'll give a deliberately abstract example. Let's say you joined a fight as a sniper where no one had been sniping before. At the beginning all the enemies are usually standing still, headglitching, doing normal firefight stuff. Easy targets. After you kill a bunch of them, things change. Sure you get the dum-dums that don't learn and keep trying the same thing that was working before the sniper came, but the majority tend to change things up. They don't stand still anymore, or at least not for as long. The Battle Rifles and Counter-Snipers come out, and the fight changes. Bob the Medic had no chance to react the first time you took his head off while he was reviving his teammate, but the next time you'd better believe he isn't going to be sitting still.

New players for whom the average gunfight against a competent player in Planetside qualifies as an OCP are not to be used as a benchmark for anything.

Glossing over the fact that you haven't proven this statement in the slightest, even if it were true it would hardly be unprecedented for this game.

If you shoots you in the face you are in exactly the same boat as if you were killed by a Stalker, except the sniper is probably on the next hill over where that Stalker will probably be a lot more reachable when you respawn.

That is what the minimap is for.

I am basically just looking at the meat of your counter arguments here.

The kill cam is live for like 4 seconds, but after that, you get nothing. You don't know where they are; you know where they were. You know where the sniper and and the shotgun guy were at, and they can't get but so far from where they were. The shotgun guy will be seen, or you will run into yet another trap of his. The sniper guy is still in the area of where he last was. He ain't leaving! Even if he is smart enough to relocate after every kill, all you have to do is go to his previous area and wait till you hear (a) another shot, (b) a cloak/decloak, or (c) a callout. While yes, you have a higher likelihood of dying to a person that only needs one shot to kill you, if they "fail" in one way or another, you can do something about it. If the shotgun guy doesn't hit you with all the shots or doesn't score the one hit, he is in trouble. That gives you time to react. If the sniper misses or hits the body, he is in trouble. You are then able to dodge almost every shot he now shoots, or at least I can. Just run erratically and zig zag, and he will have a hard time hitting you.

It is different with the Stalker. They shoot the guy in the back, don't get the kill, and just recloak. Anecdotally, that is what happens me. They shoot at me and if they don't get the kill, they recloak and I can't find them until they attempt to shoot me again or they spot me. Most everything else in the game is screwed if they don't take you down quickly. Stalkers have time on their side.

As for your situation you described, you should never sit still ever. You didn't need a sniper to show you that. If you stood still, of course you were an easy headshot to the sniper! However, most people do not sit still. Most people are moving, which makes oyu a much harder target, which is why the people who stand still get outed first. As a sniper, you have to lead your moving targets from wherever you are sitting, and it is too risky to miss. If you hit the body, you better kill them, or they will come to kill you, unless they are the average players of 2013. If you miss, you alert them to your presence, hence why still targets are the safest to shoot. They can't react if they are standing still, but at the same time, there is almost never a situation where you should ever stand still. And while you can adapt to fighting a sniper by pulling a longer ranged weapon, you could also just close the gap. You can fight fire with fire or you can use water. Not so with a Stalker. You can only fight them one way, with a Darklight.

As for the your minimap point, suppressors. Su-pres-sors.

The game is going down with this invisible crap.. Hope you go bankrupt soon. Tons of unregistered shot and a lot of lag. No wonder nobody wants to play the game, and arena is dead before its born.. And remove the stealth or whatever you call it here.. nobody likes invisible enemies.

OP is just a bad player and I wish I knew his in game name on emerald.

I disregard your opinions, iStalk. Nothing else in the game (besides air, as you say) only has one viable counter to it, even being itself. You don't need a MAX to beat a MAX, or a tank to beat a tank, or even a Flash to beat a Flash. There are multiple ways of dealing with the things in Planetside 2. Why should the Stalker be any different? Darklights don't impact Hunters or NAC as much, as they always have to be moving for fear that their cloak will run out of invisi-juice. The Darklight is currently the only way of dealing with a still Stalker. I don't care if my anecdotes aren't evidence enough; I'm still gonna say them.

There was a Stalker camping the vehicle terminal. I heard him cloak, I heard him spot me, don't have a Darklight. I try to bait him to shoot me, nothing. I go to the terminal, get headshotted, die immediately. I seriously hate Stalkers. A friendly goes to the term, gets shot up by a new Stalker. I try to help him out. He runs around, dodging a lot of our shots, and then he jumps ONTO THE VEHICLE TERM! I spawn a Flash to try to run him over, and spam shots down the area. He attempts to shoot a new guy, I shoot him. Dead Infiltrator. Later, ANOTHER Stalker comes along. He shoots the guy at the vehicle terminal, but now 3 of us run at him. 2 of us shoot him, and he runs and hides in the open. 3rd guy comes with a shotgun with a Darklight (?) and pops him. Another dead Stalker.

This is why I say we should have a quantity over quality effect for the cloak. You can even give them back their primary weapons after that, because they aren't safe just because they are standing still anymore. I don't really care. I just want to be able to find them without requiring a darklight.

Up until the moment you get found out in the open because someone happened to run into you and noticed the slight resistance...

Well yeah, that is a way of detecting them, but that is by accident. If you use that purposefully, that is suicide.

If you were doing even that much that this conversation would have reached its conclusion pages ago.

It's pretty clear you have too much personally invested into this to see where your own biases are clouding your reasoning. You are blatantly using double standards based solely on your own experiences and hand-waving everything and everyone that disagrees with you. At this point I can't even be bothered to address all of your inconsistencies and inaccuracies because by now I'd basically be going sentence by sentence and I haven't the time or patience for that.

Piece of advice, bud: If you're going try your hand at being a smart-***, spell your words correctly. Especially if it's the word you're putting emphasis on. Otherwise it just looks tacky.

Life and death should not revolve around one variable - to have or not to have a Darklight Flashlight. The average Stalker runs from a Darklight because they know that is the only way they are going to get found. If they don't have it, they are less of a threat to said Stalker. On the part of the Stalker hunter, they are required to have the Darklight if they want any success in finding the Stalker before they find and execute you. That is really dumb. Even if you know the general area of a Stalker, down to a 10 meter radius, you have to have a Darklight to find them. You can spray bullets in that area or try to run into them, but those are not viable strategies. Say you know they are within 10 meters of the vehicle terminal. So what? Without a Darklight, you can't do a thing about it.

It'd be fine if they gave you a Darklight for free, but that would come with its own problems, as you could then be required to have a specific weapon with that specific Darklight on it, but that is doable. You shouldn't be forced to spend your certs on the only counter to a class. Nerf the visibility of the cloak slightly, so that you will glance over them on most occasions and have to strain to see them on the others.

Counters to ESF
-soft counters:
1. Lock on
2. Walkers
3.rangers
4. Sky guards
towers
5. Small arms fire
6. Even tanks, yes tanks can kill a esf. Tanks are opportunist esf killers.
(Most dont even require any skill, just simply point and click)

-Hard counters:
1. ESF
2. Valk with squad (2-3 people)
3. Coordinated ground to air
4. Liberators
5. Battle gals
Any questions?

Also regarding stalkers, they shimmer when they run.
They make sound when uncloak and have a small delay off firing. Yes not much but it can be enough.
Terminals you shouldn't spend that much time at terminal, it's just plain dumb. If see or hear a inf dont be dumb and assume he left. He's obviously being a c u next Tuesday and will wait for his free kill. Play smarter kiddo.

You don't seem to get that running is a stupid excuse for a counter.

"They make sound when uncloak and have a small delay off firing." Say that delay is 200ms. Average human reaction time is between 150-300ms, so lets make it 200, for easy calculation. You hear the cloak, they can't shoot until 200ms, you react, they are shooting you in the back and head and most likely sitting still while doing it, at least until you turn around. At that point, they have probably done half the damage needed to kill you, if not more. Depending on the weapon, you are already dead at this point, but if it is something like a Repeater and they are missing shots like crazy, you have a shot. You shoot back, trying to get enough damage to take them down, but at this point you are aiming, which means you walk slower. They are getting easier shots on you, and you are dead. That is usually how it works.

"Terminals you shouldn't spend that much time at terminal its just plain dumb." Bruh, this is stupid. You have to get the point back, and if it is a 1v1 fight, the point is contested anyways. You have to have a darklight.