THE solution for Darklight.

[Queensidecastle]

I have a BR18 Rexo grunt HA/SA/med/eng and a BR 18 pure infiltrator. I get to see both sides of this ugly mess. Darklight flickering is so effective that I do it with both my characters as often as I can. Why not? I have DL mapped to the downward stroke of my mousewheel. Any idea how easy it is to flicker DL when it is on your mouse wheel? It basically gives me full immunity from cloakers and allows me to kill them wherever I see them. This is such a problem that I really cant play my cloaker effectivly indoors and have adapted my battle style to killing people on approaches and on catwalks...etc. I use it exactly the same way when I play my infiltrator as well. Nothing is better than sneaking up on another infiltrator and killing them and this is very easy to do

While I feel playing an infiltrator is 100x easier now than before I quit, there are still problems with Darklight that can be fixed with 2 very simple ideas

1) Take off a chunk of Stamina just to activate it: buh-bye flikering. Turning on DL should be like jumping
2) No reason whatsoever that this should work in 3rd person: Remove that ability

[Red October]

Originally Posted by Boomer

I always saw PS, but never used it. is it good for cloaking?

Completely worthless....It decloaks you the minute you turn it on....They may as well paint a target on you and neon light above saying "Shoot Here".

Originally Posted by Mandalore

3) My final suggestion actually has nothing to do with DL, but is an idea to give the cloaker a valid role again. Right now, ANYONE can do what a cloaker can do, aside from actually cloaking. When I think of cloakers, I think they would be the ones to do the best job laying traps or hacking consoles. Perhaps give cloakers the benefit of silent hacking, and take away the red laser that the REK gives off when you're in an infil suit. Perhaps also allow the infil suit to report enemy positions on friendly radars. By this, I mean that when a cloaker is behind enemy lines, he can use his suit to make enemy soldiers and vehicles show up on all friendly radars within a certain radius. Maybe 100m or so. A cloaker would kind of be like a mobile interlink now. Of course, it would take between 20-30 seconds to complete the uplink, and you would have to be still. Also, the infiltration suit would now be bumped up to 3, or even 4 cert points because of this benefit.

Very good ideas and a valid point about our roles not being very unique. We need more emphasis and some way to elimintate the flicker. Were special Ops and we need special ops certs and equipment. A diving suit just does not cut cake far enough.

A mandatory use on time used and a cool off period would eliminate some...but not all. A limited range would limit the flicker as well. Bottom line, your never going to eliminate people who just love to flicker, but you can make it a little harder while still keeping the emphasis of using it when you suspect cloakers.

Those that complain were on the battlefield to get cheap kills...don't play cloakers. Yes, I can get some really cheap kills off of snipers, AV guys and Medics, but for the amount of time it takes to get these kills, I would just assume to gun a tank or lib and get far many more kills. Or if I want face to face....Special Assault. If your an Inf for the kills...your in the wrong business. Its tough playing a cloaker, I was gaurding a CC when the NC blasted thier way in and took out all the TR. It just so happened that I was obstructed from view by one of their own troops. I was in the precarious position of being between two grunts gaurding the grunt hacking. Kill anyone of them...im dead. Try to escape...I'm dead. So I droped a boomer right were I stood and did the suicide bomber thing. Took all three of them plus a one way trip to a tower. I suppose I could have just stayed put until they left...but I didn't give it a thought because I was sure someone would run through and flicker.

[Queensidecastle]

And madcow, I am outfitless on Markov and Emerald, and I wouldnt mind joining your outfit. That way we could always infiltrate

give Kingsidecastle a tell if you guys hookup. I like nothing more than ops with competent players

[Madcow]

My Emerald NC is Bizzle. I'll be looking for both of you. I think a group just causing havoc in the same area could very well be a total blast. I've done it with my friend quite a bit, and we've had others involved but not really coordinated (or the others weren't seasoned cloakers). Most fun I've had in quite a while was recently defending a tower with Mookie and a few other cloakers. The TR kept bringing AMSs and we were taking turns jacking AMSs while the other cloakers ran around distracting people. By the time the TR thought all the cloakers were dead, their AMS was gone. We went through probably 10 AMSs in about a half hour. I also ran across the road and dropped 3 mines killing a fully manned Prowler, a Lightning and a Basilisk in about a 5 second period. I got about 3 tells for that, dumb luck pwns joo!

[ZAYZAY]

I think I have a much better and simpilier solution to DL. Just make it tunnel vision so that the person using darklight would have to actually scan the area to find the clocker. It also prevents flickering.

[_-Gunslinger-_]

Originally Posted by ZAYZAY

I think I have a much better and simpilier solution to DL. Just make it tunnel vision so that the person using darklight would have to actually scan the area to find the clocker. It also prevents flickering.

See this post

Originally Posted by Gunslinger

I totaly DISAGREE with boomer. Those additions you suggested = no fucking way. Cmon 'cloaking' is our defence its a damn good one at that. However you are correct about DL, it is far too powerful.

1) DL is forced to a 1x zoom. This would force first-person. And limit thier detection abilities. They would have to make actual sweeps, and it would be painfully obvious when they were. However they could still defend the CC and if you were made they still could get you.
2) Add a crouch-walk to the game that limits your crouched speed by 50% but makes you 95% invisable.
3) Make it so that if you select the all names option in gameplay all the names are actually rendered up to say 75m. Tired of not being able to see a persons life/armor let alone name because theire are 4 prowlers and 10 spitfires around a tower.


Add that and belt-fed TR maxes and everyone will be happy.

Edited for clarity.

When I said make it a 1x zoom thats what I ment. That WOULD solve alot and be an acceptable nerf to DL. Maby make it so that DL takes 10 stamina to activate.

Boomer: Takes 5 seconds to detect someone with DL? Jesus do you want cloaking to be noobified? My suggestion has 2 things over that. 1) It might actually be considered. 2) It makes DL more of a "sweep".

5 seconds is a long time, if I saw someone I could easily find cover and completly evade them. We havent even addressed the timer issue. Would it be based on LOS of ammount of time having DL on? If its the latter then perhaps that is a good idea but if you mean to tell me that they have to keep a LOS on me running away, uhh no.

[xMuNcHx]

OR instead of chaing darklight around, maybe they could change the infil suit around.
1) Make them low gravity so they can jump really high.
2) Make them able to prone (Lay Down)
3) Make their inventory size bigger

Those are my ideas.

[Destroyeron]

Originally Posted by Boomer

I believe this will completely solve the issue with Darklight. It will solve the problem with Noobs in vehicles, Darklight flashing, and all the other nonsense. Please discuss.

It would aslo create ARMIES of cloakers.

[DeepStrikeck]

I don't like the timer idea (must charge/be on for a certain time, could become very inconvienient in those times where u see the cloaker run by but you have other enemies real close), i think draining stamina to activate would work(5 points seem reasonable, 10 is a little iffy and 25 is just absured). That should cut down considerably on the DL spamming.

[Cauldron Borne]

I like the tunnel Vision ideas and the stamina drain ideas.


And I'm a TR cloaker on Emerald, if ya'll play TR there, look me up. I always enjoy messing with the other guys' heads while in a base.


I went to an NC base being attacked by the VS and sent both sies tell along the lines of:

I AM A TR CLOAKER INSIDE YOUR BASE! I WILL DROP YOUR GENS, HACK YOUR BASE, AND BLOW UP EVERY TERM! KILL ME!


I did everything I said, and no-one killed me....

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Madcow

My best run was 74 kills before I got taken out, using ACEs (spitfires only, no boomers), a knife and looted pistols and never once returning to base for healing or inventory. All outside the same tower, all within 45 minutes. The run was actually ended by Jaged. This was before a lot of the bugginess we currently experience. Tell me again about a cloaker's role. A cloaker's role is whatever niche they find, and that doesn't necessarily = constant support or hacking. I do those things, they are a part of what I do. I don't feel secondary or ineffective except when I see the issues in the game that need addressing which are ignored by Devs. Talking about the 'role' of a cloaker comes across as incredibly ill informed. Maybe you should talk to Boomer, he's in your outfit.

The fact that cloakers can potentially be effective in combat really doesn't change much. I've always been of the opinion that it's stupid to have a bunch of stuff all designed to do the same job. It's why Harassers and so on are all totally useless except when you can't get a tank, or something heavier. I'd be very surprised if a cloaker could outkill a grunt, assuming they were both equally as skilled, and that's probably why there aren't many cloakers, at least not compared to grunts, MAXs, or otherwise. Them getting a role is quite honestly apart from their current effectiveness right now; the reason I think they should be given more that requires their unique skills is because they're, currently, just the masters of either circle strafing with an AMP, placing a boomer and running away while pulling the trigger, running around dropping spitfires, or sprinting down to a spawn, placing a boomer, and pulling the trigger. They're cheap-shot grunts that are hard to see without an implant. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I thought a stealthing suit might be useful for, you know, stealthing missions and so on. Not boomer/spitfire runs and AMP whoring exclusively.

Either way, with the loss of being able to surge with a weapon out I don't see anymore boomer/spitfire runs, not like they were before anyway. But I guess I'll take your word for it and consider this thread unfounded based on your findings. Cloaker offensive power and DL appear to be just fine then. I'm not sure what cloakers are really complaining about then.

[_-Gunslinger-_]

Originally Posted by Warborn

The fact that cloakers can potentially be effective in combat really doesn't change much. I've always been of the opinion that it's stupid to have a bunch of stuff all designed to do the same job. It's why Harassers and so on are all totally useless except when you can't get a tank, or something heavier. I'd be very surprised if a cloaker could outkill a grunt, assuming they were both equally as skilled, and that's probably why there aren't many cloakers, at least not compared to grunts, MAXs, or otherwise. Them getting a role is quite honestly apart from their current effectiveness right now; the reason I think they should be given more that requires their unique skills is because they're, currently, just the masters of either circle strafing with an AMP, placing a boomer and running away while pulling the trigger, running around dropping spitfires, or sprinting down to a spawn, placing a boomer, and pulling the trigger. They're cheap-shot grunts that are hard to see without an implant. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I thought a stealthing suit might be useful for, you know, stealthing missions and so on. Not boomer/spitfire runs and AMP whoring exclusively.

Either way, with the loss of being able to surge with a weapon out I don't see anymore boomer/spitfire runs, not like they were before anyway. But I guess I'll take your word for it and consider this thread unfounded based on your findings. Cloaker offensive power and DL appear to be just fine then. I'm not sure what cloakers are really complaining about then.

Most people arent looking for the uber cloaker that can outkill a scattercannon in VR. We just want to be able to stealth and possibly take out targets w/o DL being flickered on and off, your statement doenst address that main concern of this thread. While boomers approch is like using a plutonium doped sun to kill an ant, flickering of DL is unbelievably cheap. To make illistrait this point allow me to dichotomise this issue:

A new implant is implimented. This implant makes a person undetecable by any means (DL or otherwise) for 2 seconds and then turns off. It has minimal stamina drain and can be only used while in an infiltration suit. So all i have to do is flicker this implant and shoot you to death. Assuming I have enough amunition and kept an eye on my stamina I could do this indefinatly.

That is verymuch the same as flickering DL. While flickering DL you arent nesicarally invulnerable but I have yet to survive against a HA+Rexo who DLflickered me, let alone a tank. So you see thier IS a problem with DL. See my previous posts for, what I believe to be, the most balanced way to fix the issue.

(Reduce the field of vision and add a 15 point activation cost.)

[PhoenixTypeX]

Well I just look at it as an ocupation hazard lol, I don't use a pistol due to my melee booster so, I have free space in my inventory, so I have a jammer in my pistol slot. If I hear them switch on DL I just throw a jammer in their face and either run away and move onto someone else in the battle or if I'm feeling daring try and finish them off with my knife lol. But I do agree there needs to be changes to darklight and small ones to the infil suit such as the ability to have two pistol slots, one for REK and one for whatever else takes your fancy. Just my thoughts..

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Warborn

The fact that cloakers can potentially be effective in combat really doesn't change much. I've always been of the opinion that it's stupid to have a bunch of stuff all designed to do the same job. It's why Harassers and so on are all totally useless except when you can't get a tank, or something heavier. I'd be very surprised if a cloaker could outkill a grunt, assuming they were both equally as skilled, and that's probably why there aren't many cloakers, at least not compared to grunts, MAXs, or otherwise. Them getting a role is quite honestly apart from their current effectiveness right now; the reason I think they should be given more that requires their unique skills is because they're, currently, just the masters of either circle strafing with an AMP, placing a boomer and running away while pulling the trigger, running around dropping spitfires, or sprinting down to a spawn, placing a boomer, and pulling the trigger. They're cheap-shot grunts that are hard to see without an implant. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I thought a stealthing suit might be useful for, you know, stealthing missions and so on. Not boomer/spitfire runs and AMP whoring exclusively.

Either way, with the loss of being able to surge with a weapon out I don't see anymore boomer/spitfire runs, not like they were before anyway. But I guess I'll take your word for it and consider this thread unfounded based on your findings. Cloaker offensive power and DL appear to be just fine then. I'm not sure what cloakers are really complaining about then.

Thanks for not reading anything! Have a nice day! Seriously, if you can't be bothered to read what people even put down how in the world am I supposed to see your viewpoint as valid? I don't touch AMP (and talking about circle strafing with an AMP just goes to show you really don't know much about the gun), rarely use pistols, use Boomers pretty much only when I'm forced inside, use Spitfires almost exclusively as a distraction and get almost all of my kills with the knife. So how many of your comments applied to me? Hmmm. Just about none. Yet you were responding to me. Fascinating.
The example of my kill streak happened to be from earlier in the game's existence (you may have noticed that I said that the first time, but probably not) when flickering wasn't nearly as common as it is now. As a matter of fact, it only helps to reinforce my point. As to your question of why there aren't more cloakers? I'll happily give you my biased answer. Cloaking takes skill. Cloaking well takes lots of patience and lots of skill. The vast majority of Planetside has no interest in challenge, they have interest in killwhoring. Proof of this is the popularity of Dark Light. To hunt down cloakers without Dark Light is challenging, but far from impossible. Using Dark Light allows faster kills and at times incredibly cheap kills, and that attracts the player base. Of course that example isn't really needed. You only have to watch what happens every time they 'balance' a weapon to be too strong to see the player base flock like sheep to that empire grabbing that weapon and running up their kill stats as quickly as possible. It's pathetic.
I'm not looking to 'outkill' a grunt, although I'm sure there are times that I do just that. My job on the battle field is far different than the average grunt. I'm not holding down a stairwell (I can take down the first wave, but beyond that I'm helpless). I'm not rushing into the face of battle. It's a bad comparison, but it's the one you chose. My job is to get to the battle front before the battle begins, to get behind enemy lines giving myself the best opportunity to take out Snipers and AV, as well as optimizing my opportunity to mine gimped vehicles that drop back for repairs. If I'm feeling patient I can run a 4/1 or 5/1 k/d ratio, if I'm feeling less patient it's closer to 2/1 or 3/1. I'm fighting totally different battles than the average grunt though, I'm staying away from situations with large numbers of people in a confined area and therefore am not killwhoring. I'm not impressed by killwhoring. I'm happy to know it means so much to you.

Originally Posted by DeepStrikeck

I don't like the timer idea (must charge/be on for a certain time, could become very inconvienient in those times where u see the cloaker run by but you have other enemies real close), i think draining stamina to activate would work(5 points seem reasonable, 10 is a little iffy and 25 is just absured). That should cut down considerably on the DL spamming.

But see, the 'inconvenience' that you're talking about is exactly what I'm hoping would happen with the change. I want people to have to commit to going after that cloaker, and the cost could quite possible be them getting blasted by somebody they can't see so well any more. That's perfect, that is a cat and mouse game. That's the reason they built that drawback into Dark Light to begin with, but it's easily gotten around by the flickering that happens.

[Cauldron Borne]

Cloaking solo I get about 500 points a kill. With a knife it can get as high at 1000. I know for a FACT that grunt soloing gets you about 100 points to 250-300 points a kill. I work harder for those points than ANY grunt. I know this because I PLAY grunt often.

Grunt: Die, Respawn, run out, mash down trigger at nearest enemy target, die, respawn...

Cloaker: Die, Respawn, TRY to sneak back into the field and find a place where his/her talents are most useful. ATTEMPT to pull off his/her objective. If that objective is not to kill something, then MAYBE get a few kills on the side. Get spotted for what ever reason, most likely INSTANTLY die, respawn. IF at any point the cloaker is spotted, he/she must respawn and try to go through the list from the beginning.