[Vehicle] The 5 second Cloak Restriction is too high for single a single occupant Flash.

Now I can see if you want to give a restriction to a Rumble Seat active Flash, it would make sense, (The Rumble Rider likely does not have a Cloaking system and an extra person without one would tax the Cloak and it would need a few seconds to recover before using it again. This would be a direct exchange for the power delivered by a heavy. But a 5 second restriction regardless? Instant cloaking is the ONLY thing that made the Flash viable on the battlefield. Tank turrets turn around INSTANTLY, and if you do not include the AIM BOTS and Cloak Counter Glitches that are blatantly used by a few PC players, there are plenty enough GOOD players that have no problem back tracking where their assailant hit them from, and then returning fire, killing their target. (5 seconds is a lifetime when it comes to mounting an attack on a large target and hoping to survive long enough to kill it) There were only a hand full of people able to use a Flash longer than to die killing a single target before this nerf. Are you looking to kill them completely? This is a bit unreasonable. A Rumble Heavy Flash was only a real threat against a tank if the Flash drivers skill was very high, this was very rare. People were afraid to even attempt to gun on a Flash because the prior (Skilled Flash Driver) was usually not the case... AT ALL.
Also, once again you have accidentally given a major advantage to T.R. The Pillager is the only weapon (Of the 3 new ones) that can successfully, directly engage both vehicle and soft targets and actually have a decent shot at killing both thanks to its high damage and very wide splash. Coupled with its reload and blinding affect fire is supposed to have, it is now the only one that is not really affected by the timer. It can basically lay its own smoke screen while it waits to re-cloak. Vanu as you know is my main and all of these hits are making it murder to actually ENJOY playing with this faction.

The answer to balance was not in messing with the cloak, but in turning all of the new Flash weapons into N.S. class weapons. That way everyone had a choice as to what they wanted to run and could not complain.

The problem is the low nanite cost of the flash combined with its cloak. One had to go.

I would have been just fine with them doubling the price of them if that were the case. But that is not the issue. The issue is people cry when they get killed by anything, and the staff listens without actually being dedicated payers of the game. They have no clue what is really going on because of this, that is why they make discussions sections in forums. Sadly it is the dedicated players that wind up suffering as most of them do not post, nor do they have in interest in forums. If you are talking you are not playing, and that is why I am here in phases. I recognize the importance of voicing opinions in a forum, because otherwise the whiners get their way and the game goes to crap. Half of the time that happens anyway, but at least this way, I fell like I did my part in preventing the games downfall.

If you are crying over a vehicle that can rarely survive blind shotgun spamming, that is not a vehicle balance issue, it is a player skill issue. It is a vehicle that literally takes damage from EVERYTHING including itself. Jump too high, boom. If you even GRAZE another vehicle, boom. If you suffer splash damage, that is half the bikes life and YOU die. There is a reason they are cheap. You get what you pay for.... There are several topics where people have posted: "If you want to save your Ratio, Stay off a Flash." in one way or another. There was no reason to mess with the cloak.

First of all, the emotes are a bit much because they distract from the post, but maybe that's just me. Second of all, I mostly agree. With the 5 second delay and the -25% drain of cloak activation, what happens is that if you decloak early enough, shoot the MBT or anything, try to drive away, you will either not be able to cloak in time or your cloak will run out soon after you drive away, and then you are easy to take down. 25% drain is what really kills you. If it doesn't charge fast enough, you can't regain your energy before you are confronted with another battle.

First, the emote's are way overkill.

Second, I agree that the cloak nerfs were way overkill. The problem was the presence of the fury/decimator combo. Some alternative options would have been rear seat weapon locks when cloak is equipped, cloaking kicks off the passenger, or only being allowed to hold your primary or secondary weapon and not a rocket while rear seated would have all made more sense for the main issue.

Instead, it now feels almost mandatory to run a fury/decimator combo to be effective.

The biggest mistake that was made with the cloak flash was letting it have weapons, period. It should of operated much like Stalker cloak where equipping it also unequipped weapons.

Flash is, was and will forever be a cheap transport in my eyes. The weapons on it were just for the few insane ones who wished to have some funny business with it, a little offensive capability. The entire concept of it being able to murder a tank in short order is just mad. Run over infantry? I'm fine with that. But putting grenade launchers, machine guns and now a damn flamethrower on it is a bit wonky on it's own. But then allow the damn thing to turn invisible is just asking for trouble.

I'm also quite convinced that the majority of who play this game and read of that change were quite pleased with the nerf.

cloaked flash was 1 of the most toxic thing in the game. The nerf was due.

Cloak flashes were, as stated above, a terrible TERRIBLE TERRIBLE design decision left in the game for FAR FAR FAR FAR too long.

The Flash was a balanced vehicle, but with weapons on it, it was suicidal, which is something I think you guys are forgetting. I honestly would have liked the Flash to go faster, but maybe that is just me. To have a cloak on it meant two things. You could sneakily transport people past armour columns, or you could attack and retreat, but IF YOU WERE CAUGHT, you died in 1 hit from ANYTHING EXPLOSIVE! The Wraith Cloak did need a nerf, so now it serves more in the communities eyes as a Transport vehicle. I saw someone do this yesterday; he got right past me while I was shooting in an AV Cannon. Yet, the nerf was a bit overdone.

The vehicle is still usable, but you get blown up way too easily now. For whatever the nerf was directed to, whether it was a Heavy Wraith Flash, Renegade Flash, or just solo Flashes in general, it did it's job. It just did it a bit too well in my opinion. And also, a Quad nowadays that has a machine gun on it that can pierce a tank would be a good asset to have. Yet, it doesn't have the armour of th tank, and you could just shoot off the driver or blow up the Quad. Theoretically, it could tear through the tank with the mounted machine gun on its side.

However in Planetside, the said quad can cloak. Instant cloaking is too powerful, as you can lay waste to a MBT and drive away, then come back. With the Renegade, you can go into a group of enemies shooting, and running people over, then cloak and get away. Flashes having weapons was a good idea in my opinion. How's a Flash with a cloak going to defend himself when he gets spotted? Doesn't matter if he is cloaked at that point or not. The Tanks and other vehicles come looking for you. It's not like it has another sort of weapons like a Stalker cloak has (secondaries) for you to defend yourself. As said before, Flashes are weak and of low cost. They go boom easily.

5s are too long, zero too short, what's about 3s?
The drain and higher energy makes you anyway wait until eternity until it's regenerated, increase the regeneration rate for energy, else it's dump...
3s cloak cool down, it's again viable. Now you can cloak one to two times and then you need to stay out of sight for 2 min, until you can fight again.
Why not only energy drain, but no higher energy pool. Cool down time but no energy drain.

So... that 50 nanite vehicle not quite powerful enough eh?

QwQ

It's not about power or dishing out damage. It's about the survivability of the Flash and it's cloak. Here's the issue: The Flash is a one shot by tanks, but the 5 second delay prohibits you from using the only thing that will keep you alive in that situation. The Flash should be weak for 50 nanites. You get what you pay for, but 5 seconds is too long and feels like an eternity. Then you add in the energy drain, meaning you lose energy each time you use it. Then you have to wait for like 40 seconds or so for it to recharge to full. That's death. You should die on a Flash because you did all you could and you still got shot, not because you can't do anything to stop it.

The Flash should be 1 shot by 1 hit from a LAs 6 shot rocket launcher. This game has way gives vehicles way too much beef.

I think that may just be a little bit overpowered, since it dies in 1 or 2 hits from a regular rocket launcher, if I am not mistaken.

Well my style of typing is hit and miss. It is either loved by the masses or hated. The people on DC Universe absolutely love me for it, while only the PC side of the family seems to enjoy it here. Think of my writing as a kind of comic book, a meter for my feelings during a that particular footnote/Bullet-points. This allows people to scan though to the meat of what I want to say and or bypass the occasional joke. I am told it sometimes works in reverse, people look for the humor, then go back and read the meat. Haha! Remember those Sunday Papers that used to come to your house? No? Oh... Probably because I stole yours.... Anyway....

I would not have even minded the 25% loss, because all that really did was take you from Max level back to a starter. If you grew up as a Wraith, this was no big loss, because you learned to work within a 50% margin. This in turn cut your attack passes from like 4/5 to 2/3 max. I normally can do my business alone on anything with 3 passes. While it is in-(Fist shaking dramatic pause)-SANELY annoying, it was not a world ending event for me. Even less so on my T.R. Character. It is the 5 seconds that renders the thing absolutely useless for me...
It was already slower 2/3rds of the M.B.T.s so unless you knew HOW to run from a tank you were already on a DethKlok. Combine that with both hits the Cloak suffered...? Worse still, now the Harasser no longer has a challenger. Whole SCORES of them now ride unchallenged. The Flash was the Mud Dauber if the Harasser was the spider. Literally the ONLY thing that could truly contain these pests numbers.... Now, I cannot kill them unless I catch them damaged, or even get them off of other vehicles because the gunner whips around so fast I have to run in order to live, and at that point the driver can easily run you over. Heck at this point when I challenge one, 3 more come out of the wood work to try to find me. All you can do is stay cloaked and run. There is no time to attack... because the windows FOR attacking with a Flash are within 2 to 4 seconds! What was done, now undo, return it to the form that is true.

FIRST OF ALL, I DO NOT USE ENOUGH EMOTIONS TO EXPRESS WHAT I AM FEELING SO MY TOPICS FEEL EMOJI NERFED!!!!

SECOND, you are absolutely right, now I have no choice BUT to run a Decimator combo because I typically only get one shot at large prey. And let me tell you, I am sure people would prefer me running around without a partner and having 3 chances to escape or kill me, as opposed to 1 or far more often.... none.

Fine if people want to be babies about that then DOUBLE the freaking cost. I will gladly pay up to the price of a Harasser for one, but as I said in the original post, if you are complaining about someone using what amounts to "PICHU" in "Super Smash Brothers Melee", then something is wrong... and it has nothing to do with the Flash nor it's weapons.... Them being cheap does not help anyone, because if you cannot drive a Flash properly it will KEEP dying within 5 seconds of being called, soooooo how does it costing 50 Nanites really help anyone... Oh I know... it helps the other team by allowing them to FARM you, I can see how that may bother the enemy.... They do not help a person that can use one either, BECAUSE they cost 50 Nanites, and you get what? 80 per minute? Soooo you stay at max? There is NO overflow..... NO benefit to holding onto the same Flash.... It is cheap because it is so easy to kill, it HAD a balance battle platform for players who took the random EON of their life to learn it, and even after they got the idea of how it was supposed to be used, actually USING it to great effect was a different beast all together. THAT is why it was rare that you would see them on the field. I, ALL the time I have been playing, I have NEVER seen another Vanu Flash on the same battle field as me attacking large targets... That says something as to just how worthless the Flash really was for those who just thought they could hop on and use it.

The Bike was perfect so long as you were by yourself. If you add a partner then you can use the current effects to deter from using that Decimator equipped partner. But I will split the diff. 5% Activation cost, NO deactivation cost, and 2.5 second cool down, to prevent you from having that second chance to recloak if you decide to use it and that second PROWLER Rounds the bend just as you do. Hahahaha! Oooooooh the stories I can tell YOU.

Well a partner could also be a second flash, as far as I know this is more effective than having a deci on the rumble seat, right?

Oh please. The flash playstyle was fine and in years, I could have counted the times that Iflubzz killed me on the thing on two hands. If you had issues seeing it, hearing it, or heaven knows what else - it really is a case of get gud sorry.

I pretty much used it as a transport in the latter days myself. But what it is now - is ruined. Just another niche playstyle destroyed by a tonne of skilless mopey carebears. Sorry not sorry. This game has been ruined enough. It was fine for years, just as I never had issue killing HA (assuming no cheats lol) with any class before its shields were gutted.

So often the whole 'get gud' line annoys me because of its use in masking hitbox tweaks and lagswitching. But to think you all thought flashes were OP really just shows the laughable state of this community in 2018. Flashes OP my ****.