DUST Search - CPM cloak discussion

Iron Wolf Saber wrote:

AfroSunshineY Consequence wrote:

If you want to fix this problem, if you consider it that, you need to make it so that cloaking is an either or proposition. People who are asking for even more slots on Assault and Logi suits are absolutely out of control. As a scout, pre-1.8, it was true - you could be "stealthy" but no more stealthy than any other suit in the game. It's true that on SOME radars you wouldn't show up, but most suits had a scan radius of 10 or something pre-1.8. So nobody used passive scanning anyway. They relied on their eyes. And scouts were just as visible as they've any other suit in that situation. Compound on to that OP rifles like the RR, CR, AR and SR (the latter two OP to a scout with 250 eHP) and scouts were needlessly slaughtered. We weren't (and aren't) fast enough to get away and we had no real method of actual "stealth". We could be sneaky, but we could be sneaky in a gallente assault suit with more slots, more PG and more CPU and more base armor and shields. The cloak was supposed to even the battle field. Scouts would still be squishy, but at least, if they were smart, they had a functional game mechanic that could help them overcome their inherent disadvantages. (for instance, if you're defending a point that suddenly gets overrun, you can hide, cloak, passive scan and wait for the opposing squad to leave before undoing their work - simple, annoying, efficient scouting).

The problem is "scouts" with 200 shields and 750 armor. I don't like these people. They're not now, nor have they ever been real scouts. They are assault holdovers from 1.7 who used to role in a gallente logi with 5 complex armor plates and damage modifiers up the wazoo. Now, they're fully brick tanked, running around in a cloak and are abusing, destroying, tarnishing everything the scout community has waited SO INCREDIBLY LONG for. They will inevitably say that "this is new eden", "all's fair" "it's a valid fitting" --- but everyone knows you're just abusing the game mechanic because you've invested so much of yourself in your KD/R that you don't care if you ruin the game for everyone so long as you protect your win button. Seriously.

That is why I am suggesting that fittings in which a cloak is used have a 50 to 75% reduction in armor and shield mod efficacy. brick tanking won't be a real issue then. Real scouts can continue to fight - not as light assault suits, but as paper-tin, invisible, fast, menaces on the battle field.

I like people who think and see the bigger meta that is evolving.


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Yan Darn Science For Death 421	Posted - 2014.03.28 03:37:00 - [1] - Quote BL4CKST4R wrote: DUST Fiend wrote: Glitches obviously need to be fixed, but glitches are glitches. Moving while cloaked is easy to see. Flux grenades should fully drain a cloaks recharge meter thing. I haven't used them personally, so I can't really comment on the rest. You shouldn't be decloaked from damage. Brick tanking is a problem that CCP has been creating for a while, and they only further encouraged it with the 1.8 TTK changes. The damage and flux I like, the glitches needs to be fixed but this is just common sense. As for brick tanking that is not a scout problem, this is a general problem due to bad module distribution and nothing better than HP modules. This. The problem of cloaks isn't just abot cloaks. It's not even about scouts. It's about a lot of other issues with the fittings meta as well. Also, assaults need to be better at assaulting - that would help alleviate scout/cloak spam. Without the spam, QQ should be reduced. Just please - I'm sure I'm not the only scout who was apprehensive about our role bonus being tied to one specific piece of equipment. I'd seriously prefer CCP ditched it and gave us another role bonus, rather than watch it go through a ridiculous nerf/buff cycle. Alternatively, create more ways to counter cloaks. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 421	Posted - 2014.03.28 04:03:00 - [2] - Quote Iron Wolf Saber wrote: I agreed with the sentiment earlier; which is what helped killed the cloak racial scout specific bonuses early in development. (you can hate me for it) Don't worry - you are know as 'friend of the scouts' (or whatever) after all. Saying that, we don't have a role bonus if we don't use it (I'm pretty sure no other role bonus is so specific). I take it there is no chance CCP will just ditch cloaks (at least until they come up with a 'cov-ops' frame) and giving us real scout bonus? I get the impression they really want to force this shiny toy into the game one way or another. If we had for example, reduction to electronics and Biotics mods we'd get bonuses to modules that increased our speed, stamina, stealth and perception - which are pretty scouty to me. Maybe give only the min scout a bonus cloaks if they have to stay in - since the scout QQ is really compounded by the brick tanking issue. Would help alleviate the flow of slayers to the scout role - though they need a good home in the assault class. Just trying to emphasise, half the perceived problems is not with the device itself, but the context it is used. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 421	Posted - 2014.03.28 04:08:00 - [3] - Quote kiarbanor wrote: I'll add that you shouldn't get a profile dampening bonus just by being cloaked. Leave that up to actual dampening mods. This will make us (scouts) rethink our low slots. This will disproportionately hurt non-gal scouts the most and of course gal-scouts are the ones most likely to 'abuse' their low slots. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 423	Posted - 2014.03.28 14:20:00 - [4] - Quote Sana Rayya wrote: Krad Gunnerson wrote: Just saw this thread so I will post what I put in another thread of my own here. To stop brick tanking the cloaking device when equipped should give a -25% to damage resistance, meaning people shooting at you are dealing 25% more damage. When the cloaking device is activated you get -50% damage resistance, meaning the person shooting at you gets 50% more damage. This both prevents brick tanking clockers and give a reward to those who shoot is while cloaked. Uh, what? If anything that would encourage more people to brick tank, since cloaking without doing so means you'd die at a sneeze. My E-WAR cloak fits typically have 300-400 EHP, so you're halving that to 150-200 EHP when I am cloaked? How does that make sense? I think the only real change needed to the cloak is removing the ability to perform "decloak" actions other than pushing the FIRE button. So no more switching weapons then shooting, throwing grenades, or melee-ing to deactivate the cloak, allowing you to perform said actions while the cloak is still wearing off. This means that if you decloak in front of someone with the intent of shooting him in the face, he will see you materialize before you get the shot off. You would need to manually decloak then use the quick-switch and fire. Therefore the only "surprise" attacks you could consistently win are those done from the back, which is how a scout should work. This is the simplest and most effective solution I've seen. Adding a specific timer seems uneccesary when there is already a delay when you manually deactivate. On that note. Is it possible to have a 'shortcut' activation like injectors? The problem I have in trying to use them defensively is that it's finicky to actually switch to (I'm sure logis are right now...). Manual deactivation and hot key activation would make it more like a smoke bomb in practice. Which I think is closer to what everyone wants than the current assassination cloak... The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 431	Posted - 2014.03.29 03:45:00 - [5] - Quote Appia Vibbia wrote: Yan Darn wrote: This. The problem of cloaks isn't just abot cloaks. It's not even about scouts. It's about a lot of other issues with the fittings meta as well. Also, assaults need to be better at assaulting - that would help alleviate scout/cloak spam. Without the spam, QQ should be reduced. Just please - I'm sure I'm not the only scout who was apprehensive about our role bonus being tied to one specific piece of equipment. I'd seriously prefer CCP ditched it and gave us another role bonus, rather than watch it go through a ridiculous nerf/buff cycle. Alternatively, create more ways to counter cloaks. wut. . . . You do realize that you kept the previous bonus, reduced scan profile, right? Only now it is innate to the suit, rather than the skill. That makes the cloak bonus far superior to having a 45 dB Scout and 33 dB Gallente Scout. wut. I coulda sworn we had this 15% reduction to cloak fitting bonus. You're right, our base profile changed - this made it so the old bonus on all scouts was unnecessary...that was part of the balancing; we didn't 'keep the previous bonus'. We got a bonus to cloaks. If the cloak QQ continues I'd rather see it changed to something else and cloaks just ditched. Its the only role bonus as far as I'm aware that only affects one specific piece of equipment. We are tied to cloaks more than any other role is defined by a single specific piece of equipment. Unless for some reason you think I'm arguing for the old bonuses back. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 435	Posted - 2014.03.29 12:59:00 - [6] - Quote Sana Rayya wrote: The ONLY reason why the cloak is currently OP is because you can perform certain actions like switching weapons and shooting, throwing grenades, meleeing, or switching to equipment, before the decloak animation is complete. This could be easily solved by forcing you to go through the decloak animation before performing such actions, either by making it so only the FIRE button decloaks you, or making the animation mandatory before any of the other actions are initiated. Therefore you could no longer kill an enemy who has line of sight on you unless he realizes you are there, as you MUST become visible prior to using your weapon/equipment/whatever. Scouts are currently using the "shoot before decloak" to successfully surprise attack from the front. The above change forces them to attack from the back, which is how a scout should attack. But let's be real; in many cases where a frontal assault worked, the scout could simply have waited for you to pass by, decloaked, then killed you. You should not have a problem with this; this is good strategy, not an exploit or an OP tactic. I take it you mean, pressing the swap weapon button, grenade button or selecting anything else off the wheel while cloaked - instead of instantly switching to whatever, it forces the same animation as if you pressed R1 to disengage cloak? This makes perfect sense to me, because honestly; how many people, even when decloaking behind cover etc. press R1 to disengage cloak instead of just swap weapon: no one I bet - because the R1 animation takes longer to finish... This is a solution I prefer over 'fuel' consumption for switching - that is almost the same as the fire while cloak mechanic that the CPM fought against in the first place. Being ganked this way is what is 'upsetting' people - its irrelevant if that scout actually did anything to help the team; even if they go 10/10, if those 10 kills are cloak kills people will still claim OPness. Any fast decloak to shooting mechanic will always cause QQ - it'll just lead to arguments over the recharge time and a whole lotta of other nerfs... The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 442	Posted - 2014.03.29 23:50:00 - [7] - Quote Iron Wolf Saber wrote: AfroSunshineY Consequence wrote: If you want to fix this problem, if you consider it that, you need to make it so that cloaking is an either or proposition. People who are asking for even more slots on Assault and Logi suits are absolutely out of control. As a scout, pre-1.8, it was true - you could be "stealthy" but no more stealthy than any other suit in the game. It's true that on SOME radars you wouldn't show up, but most suits had a scan radius of 10 or something pre-1.8. So nobody used passive scanning anyway. They relied on their eyes. And scouts were just as visible as they've any other suit in that situation. Compound on to that OP rifles like the RR, CR, AR and SR (the latter two OP to a scout with 250 eHP) and scouts were needlessly slaughtered. We weren't (and aren't) fast enough to get away and we had no real method of actual "stealth". We could be sneaky, but we could be sneaky in a gallente assault suit with more slots, more PG and more CPU and more base armor and shields. The cloak was supposed to even the battle field. Scouts would still be squishy, but at least, if they were smart, they had a functional game mechanic that could help them overcome their inherent disadvantages. (for instance, if you're defending a point that suddenly gets overrun, you can hide, cloak, passive scan and wait for the opposing squad to leave before undoing their work - simple, annoying, efficient scouting). The problem is "scouts" with 200 shields and 750 armor. I don't like these people. They're not now, nor have they ever been real scouts. They are assault holdovers from 1.7 who used to role in a gallente logi with 5 complex armor plates and damage modifiers up the wazoo. Now, they're fully brick tanked, running around in a cloak and are abusing, destroying, tarnishing everything the scout community has waited SO INCREDIBLY LONG for. They will inevitably say that "this is new eden", "all's fair" "it's a valid fitting" --- but everyone knows you're just abusing the game mechanic because you've invested so much of yourself in your KD/R that you don't care if you ruin the game for everyone so long as you protect your win button. Seriously. That is why I am suggesting that fittings in which a cloak is used have a 50 to 75% reduction in armor and shield mod efficacy. brick tanking won't be a real issue then. Real scouts can continue to fight - not as light assault suits, but as paper-tin, invisible, fast, menaces on the battle field. I like people who think and see the bigger meta that is evolving. That idea is pretty bad though - its only regular armour plates that are an issue - ferroscales and reactives are expensive enough for what they do. Shield tanking is only a 'threat' on Cal scouts - and that is only used because the Assaults are in such a bad position, not because it is OP or unbalanced in anyway really. Really, balancing regular armour plating would ease this problem and so many others... EDIT:'Sorry, just seen above post. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 454	Posted - 2014.03.30 13:46:00 - [8] - Quote Knight Soiaire wrote: Only problem I have is how people can instantly pull up and shoot their weapon after decloaking, it needs to have some timer that stops you from immediately pulling your weapon and shooting just like an activation timer for REs. If you're caught while Cloaked, you should not have the chance to instantly fight back, you should have to wait 1-2s before being able to fire back as punishment for being caught. Sounds in third-person needs to be increased too, out of the +20 times I have been Shotgunned by a decloaker, I have only heard the sound once. I'm just going to keep mentioning this - because I'm worried CCP might add artificial timers that will make decloaking feel awkward and clunky. There already is a 'timer' if you manually decloak wih R1 - lets just have it so any action that would decloak you activates the same animation. Voila - the glitch that some people don't realise is a glitch and not a reason to nerf cloaks is fixed. Right? The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 476	Posted - 2014.04.01 13:19:00 - [9] - Quote Ydubbs81 RND wrote: Yan Darn wrote: Knight Soiaire wrote: Only problem I have is how people can instantly pull up and shoot their weapon after decloaking, it needs to have some timer that stops you from immediately pulling your weapon and shooting just like an activation timer for REs. If you're caught while Cloaked, you should not have the chance to instantly fight back, you should have to wait 1-2s before being able to fire back as punishment for being caught. Sounds in third-person needs to be increased too, out of the +20 times I have been Shotgunned by a decloaker, I have only heard the sound once. I'm just going to keep mentioning this - because I'm worried CCP might add artificial timers that will make decloaking feel awkward and clunky. There already is a 'timer' if you manually decloak wih R1 - lets just have it so any action that would decloak you activates the same animation. Voila - the glitch that some people don't realise is a glitch and not a reason to nerf cloaks is fixed. Right? There doesn't have to be any timers added. There shouldn't be an animation when you decloak or switch to your weapons. Decloaking should be instantaneous so that you don't appear to be still cloaked when you start firing. If there has to be an animation, then you should only be able to fire AFTER you are fully visible. I suppose it needs testing - but in my experience you can't do **** until the animation finishes, by which point you are decloaked I.e from first person you never see your weapon in any kind of cloak animation, where as weapon switching you still see at least the glow that occurs from decloaking on your weapon. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 522	Posted - 2014.04.06 14:09:00 - [10] - Quote After reading the OP Edit everything Varoth and Shotty said ^ (though I still think Ewar is a bit too binary, this is still a better situation than before). I'm also glad that the broadness of the balancing issues at hand haven't escaped the attention of IWS. I'd hate to see any changes to the scout other than decloak/shoot delay and/or sprint shimmer until the broader issues have had some attention. The Ghost of Bravo

Yan Darn Science For Death 551	Posted - 2014.04.09 16:45:00 - [11] - Quote Paul Ellinas wrote: After talking today with some scouts in my squad i learned that there is no big deference in damage between the militia and the prototype shotgun. You need 3 shots for a heavy with each one of them. The only difference is the target has more health left between the shots. Smart scouts are running the basic one its the best balance between price/damage/CPU/PG.And with more health left between the shots the chance someone else taking their kill is minimal. Nerfing the shotgun is a must but on a smart way so its not useless. Consider this for the CPU/PG nerf to the cloak bonus. Appia knows the math (can't be arsed finding her thread, hopefully she has sensed the disturbance in The Force here and explains in person) but the reason the overall performance is now similar is because the shotgun proficiency was nerfed in 1.8. Previously using ADV/Proto versions gave you a bigger benefit than they do now. I still like the extra alpha of the CRG/K5 against scouts and STD suits. Point being, shotguns got nerfed already this patch, and no one complained about them before - so I hope we can all keep focus on what makes shotguns and the rest appear more powerful before, rather than call for a nerf on every mod, weapon and piece equipment a typical Tryhard scout might use. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 557	Posted - 2014.04.09 19:53:00 - [12] - Quote @ keno trader - You're pretty much saying what I'm thinking regarding the cloaks usefulness. Paul Ellinas wrote: Before 1.8 nobody had a problem with SG becouse you needed real skill to get close.The main opinion was he got close enough with SG he earned the kill. After 1.8 it mutch easier to get close enough to use the SG and mor common. That's why the talk about SG is happening now. Proficency nerf was for most weapons in 1.8. Fact is CCP will nerf the SG like they did with the LR,FL,RR. They count how many times the x weapon made a kill against y weapon. This is...like exactly what I'm talking about Cloaks make it easier for cloaked scouts to get into shotgun range. Ok. So, imagine there was an animation delay between decloaking and shooting - wouldn't that ease the situation? Imagine there was increased shimmer when sprinting (but less shimmer when walking) - wouldn't that ease the situation? More ways to detect cloaked scouts -wouldn't that ease the situation? I mean...you kinda said it yourself, that if you were to nerf the shotgun, it would have to be in an intelligent way - I don't understand why any kind of direct nerf to the shotgun itself is intelligent solution to this particular...'problem'. It's because of this kind of talk I'd rather have cloaks removed at this point - if CCP even listens to a fraction of some of the scoutphobic talk going on in the forums, we're not even going to have the effectiveness of 1.7 (or less) scouts by the end of it. That's as much an admonishment of CCP as much as anyone else - they have't exactly proven themselves as proficient in this 'rebalance' thing. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 558	Posted - 2014.04.09 20:51:00 - [13] - Quote @ IWS - you quoted me, but I'm assuming you were referring to what Paul was saying. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't a misunderstanding. @ keno - again, I'm in agreement. I recently made a dual uplink fit as I realised I didn't really need to 'infiltrate' anywhere at the start of battle when I set them up. Of course, I do find myself in 'situations', and I just reconfirmed what I already knew - I was still able to track targets for ages because they refuse to check their six, I can still solo guard objectives by using my passives to stay out of LOS, I can still take down a logi-heavy duo when I flank em while they are distracted. In my normal fit I can do this better than I could before 1.8 - but not like twice as good or anything, just those times when that random guy spotted me trying to get somewhere and RR'd me, or when I needed that bit more stamina to jump over that railing to escape, or when trying to hide from a proto squad taking the objective (so I can hack it back when they move on...). This isn't the sort of thing that was OP before - so lets us not carried away by nerfing those things because we find them annoying or whatever, and completely forget scouts needed a buff to be competitive (there was a reason that only commandos were less popular than us...). Did we need cloaks for that to happen? No, in my opinion - but CCP were really excited about giving us this toy to play with and now we are stuck with it. We can't nerf it into uselessness while our role bonus is tied to it (and only it). I'm just trying to make sure this one device doesn't bring down everything that I enjoyed about scouts. The Ghost of Bravo
Yan Darn Science For Death 559	Posted - 2014.04.09 21:47:00 - [14] - Quote Clone D wrote: Playing against cloaked enemies is as fun as playing with redline snipers. They are so spineless that they still wait until you are hacking and sneak up behind you, cloaked, and then blam. Please just be trolling, please. It'd be funny then, because, y'know, I just made two ridiculously huge posts explaining exactly why this sort of statement is just...'unhelpful' and...'misguided'. The Ghost of Bravo