If nothing else, cloaks do wonders to encourage team play. Now you gotta have ppl playing defensively in groups as opposed to pure offensive gang up tactics of Nyian San. If you put effort in watching backs of your squad mates scout assaults on you become a suicide run.

Now this is very different from arguments of 1.7 where ppl would say "use a squad of AV" to take out one tank. Countering a cloaked scout takes only one player willing to watch the rear.

Try to play Dom and see how successful cloaked scouts are - not at all. Because scouts don't do well against red blobs. In skirm, sure - if you let your ppl spread out and everyone imagines themselves to be a pro Medium Suit Rambo, as has been the case since early Uprising, a scout would pick you off one by one. That kind of death is deserved.

-Fluxes should disable cloak for a short period not random bulletspray.

God Dammit.... Dust bunnies are such cowards......

1. God Dammit.... Dust bunnies are such cowards......
Try fire a Bolt Pistol while de-cloaking.... you barely make the shot
So what is being moaned about is less then a .5 second delay

2. QQ is not the solution to Cloak/Shotguns.... we already have the solution
Rifles! And being able to look in front of you and see the shimmer of a cloak

3. God help CCP trying to balance a game where players QQ over something killing them
Am I the only one who realizes this is a FPS ?? we are meant to kill each other

1. Increase volume of decloak sound for players other than the one cloaked.

Biased poll is biased.

Yes this is the problem.

Cloak by itself- fine.
Shotgun by itself- fine.
Cloak + Shotgun + Gallente Scout = Not fine at all.

The cloak takes all the properties of the shotgun that make it balance and practically removes it. The reason why I say gallente is because you can scan down any other suit if you really wanted to. There's a counter for every other scout. Not the gallente.

Cloaking up with a gallente scout and a shotgun and sitting in a nullcannon to protect it should not be an acceptable strategy.

This is a good point but actually not just limited to scouts/cloaks.

Because this game's design allows for many combinations of different things, there are several set ups that can completely circumvent the disadvantages built into certain powerful items to balance them.

- Shotguns: extreme damage at extreme close range, balanced by difficulty of reaching required range, circumvented by cloak-insta-shoot
- HMG Heavies: extreme damage at reasonable range, balanced by slow speed of heavy suits easy to get away from, circumvented by LAVs allowing anyone to get anywhere very fast

I'm sure there are more examples...

Yes this is the problem.

Cloak by itself- fine.
Shotgun by itself- fine.
Cloak + Shotgun + Gallente Scout = Not fine at all.

The cloak takes all the properties of the shotgun that make it balance and practically removes it. The reason why I say gallente is because you can scan down any other suit if you really wanted to. There's a counter for every other scout. Not the gallente.

Cloaking up with a gallente scout and a shotgun and sitting in a nullcannon to protect it should not be an acceptable strategy.

@ Moody

Couldn't this problem be solved by tweaking Cloaks' added profile reduction property?
Doing so would encourage folks to run Damps over Plates; bye bye brick-tank Scout QQ.

Or would this lend too significant an advantage to Cal Scout and Gal Logi?
Or place undue stress on Min / Amarr Scouts?

My 2c.

FOTM brick tank shotgun scouts don't need dampening, and wont run EWAR regardless. The only suits they have to fear if dampening is lost is other scouts. Mediums and heavies still won't be able to see them passively due to the scout base dB + Gal damp bonus, and they still gain the advantage of the active invisibility the cloak offers. And they can crush a non-brick scout in two shots, so they're not much of a threat either, if they're bricked/quick enough.

Additionally, removing dampening will harm the Cal and the Mini, due to limited lows. The Mini will losing speed for dampeners, while the Cal end up losing their range advantage as they can't use enhancers if they want to drop dB.

Until the brick is fixed, most of the suggested cloak changes are going to disadvantaging proper scouts without fixing the problem.

@ Moody

Couldn't this problem be solved by tweaking the Cloak's added profile reduction?
Doing so would encourage folks to run Damps over Plates; bye bye brick-tank Scout QQ.

Or would this lend too significant an advantage to Cal Scout and Gal Logi?
Or place undue stress on Min / Amarr Scouts?

How do you propose we solve the problem?

WARNING:

if you nerf the cloak, regardless of the nerf, I will begin pairing it with knives and a Mass Driver/Shotgun.

Let's not be discourteous here... I run around with my basic AR and a basic cloak and play nice with the newberries, without screaming about the RR or insta-pop HMG's (insta on scouts) because they fit the canon too.

The cloaking device is the equivalent of a tablecloth if you use strategic locations. I suggest the QQ's think paper-rock-scissors instead of nerf-nerf-nerf or the hammer will swing your way too, this is how we lost the 3rd grenade.

Thats what we are trying to stop. The insta freebie shotgun shot or knife

If we remove the damp bonus it nerfs everything but the GAL scout. Then no scout has much of an option against prototype scanners and cal scout. There is no balance there, there are no counters. ITS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE UNSEEN. Thats also IMO should be the final counter; to be unseen. All other scouts would need to completely nerf their fit just so they aren't seen on the radar. Seeing other people on the radar is a huge benefit. HUGE. Its why there is so much damn complaining about the scanner changes and how scouts are "OP"

Remove the Cloak bonus and you get a whole host of other problems. It would actually be nice if they could modify the bonus to apply as the shimmer does (the more speed the more profile) but that is probably unlikely, but perhaps the best solution. You get a "scanned message" you cloak and stop moving until timer expires, something else CCP needs to add, a timer for "being scanned" or hud information to that effect.

Scouts:
To throw out some numbers, without the profile bonus all other scouts (w/o damp) besides GAL will be passively seen with a CAL scout without any precision mods. A Cal scout with 1 cPE will be able to see all scouts (w/o damp) To combat this, Gal scout will need to fit at least a basic damp and all other scouts will need to fit at least two damps. A CAL scout with 3 cPE is pretty much uncounterable except by using 4 damps or a 2 damp GAL scout.

Med Frames:
Can fit 2cPE and pick up nonGAL scouts without damps.

Scanners:
nonGAL would need to fit at least 2 damps to avoid GAL-logi proto scans and 4 damps to avoid focused GALlogi scans.

So TL:DR on removing damp bonus
-Creates another "permascanned" environment for nonGALscouts.
-Makes the GAL scout even more powerful (unseen > seeing) (has no "real" impact on GAL scouts)
-Ruins the counter/counter environment for healthy balance
-The problem with cloak is being able to fire before fully visible.
-Elephant in the room is the GAL scout (w/cloak and single damp its impossible to scan)

Im a cal scout, so go ahead and advocate for removal of the damp bonus, I will have a freaking hayday with all of the scouts not running >3 damps, as you simply won't have a counter to avoid the passive scans