I have only read the 1st post of this & a little after but here is my thoughts.

Recall the days you could scan everywhere? If you were a Scout, and you see "You have been scanned" was really annoying.

Remember Scouts being made of paper?

Recall if you were a Scout you were just as easily spotable as a Heavy?

Well now the scout is actually playable.

What people are really annoyed about is the cloak & shotgun, being a smart scout includes being a sort of Assassin on the battle-feild & using good tactics such as watching points, ninja hacking, or tracking a target to kill is fine & is grand tactics.

The problem is it's no longer Cloak & Dagger - It's Cloak & Shotgun. The majority (not ALL) of scouts currently are Scouts with NO originality - Scouts who are only Scouts for the shotgun purposes.

They pump into shotgun, probably proto, get a low level cloak & a decent suit, & the best modules possible.

They run around 1 shotting everyone with them having no chance to react. Proto Heavy's with complex sheilds & armor are took down in seconds to these shotguns. That shouldn't be happening & that's the REAL issue. The cloak complaints is because it's a CLOAK it just annoys people when they go invisible, running around killing people like it's nothing.

The only nerfs needed in my opinion are possibly Combat Rifle Range & shotgun DMG.

To CCP - Do not be afraid to stand by something that isn't broken like how the AR was originally, or how the scout suits are now. Only fix what needs fix & if it's not broke don't fix it. You have people like CPM's & CCP LogiBro - they'll tell you the facts they see on the feilds.

CCP forget them, why shouldn't the rest of us?

seriously just get rid of the cloak altogether, 1.7 was balanced dampener wise and scouts just needed a little push to achieve true parity

stop conceding that cloaks are 'here to stay'. they're ****** and kinda boring to use and if CCP didn't botch map design from square one there would be no niche for the cloak at all.

If you have to have it altogether than ditch the dampening bonus and give scouts a real skill rather than a CPU/PG reduction on cloaks and then we'll see a lot less slayer cloaks and a lot more stealth-oriented scouts.

Brick tanked cloak scrubs are the problem I believe so we need to keep in mind that proper scouts are not the problem. I believe simply setting the CPU and pg cost for cloaks higher would help. That way its either brick tanked scrub or hidden scrub but not both.

I have a scout alt with 17mil sp FYI, its amarr and I run either light assault or ninja fit depending on my squad composition. I have experimented and I can produce a fit that not only has better stats than an assault but it can also cloak. I know the amarr scout is supposed to be more assault oriented but seriously now lol. Its HP is slightly less but its quicker and can cloak with proto weapons. I do not use that fit though and deleted it after completing it, I cannot bring myself to run that easy mode bull sht and of course, it is proto amarr scout.

You arrive at an objective and there is a cloaked scout-shotty waiting in the corner. How do you propose to see him with your eyes?

Cloakheads aren't always running in front of you where you can see them shimmer. Most of the time, they are cloaked waiting or running up behind you. The only counter would be that EVERYWHERE you go, you must CAREFULLY survey the area for your crosshairs to turn red. Hopefully, your back doesn't turn from them or they don't just pop you with the shotgun before they decloak if you happen to walk right in front of them.

I understand cloaks are here to stay....but remove the dampening bonus, remove the decloaking animation when changing your weapon, and you should decloak or be at maximum shimmer when you take damage.

This week, I will make sure that I post some video and commentary of when cloak scouts are ridiculous.

Cloak is easy mode.
I should be the proof of that. Before 1.8 i have played a scout for maybe 20 minutes. Now with cloaks in 1.8 i am a beast when i run my cheap BP dragonfly suit with only a shotgun and a cloak (not enough pg or cpu to fit anything else)
Running this ultra squishy dropsuit that has under 250 hps i typically go 20/2

So tell me again how such a combination is balanced?
I cant tell you how many times i have run right past enemy players and they do not notice me. The shimmer probably does not work properly otherwise i am sure they would have at least taken a second look. Remember people in a FPS lagg also plays a huge part of the game a shimmer effect might actually happen on a players screen far too late for them to actually ever see the shimmer.

Granted i like having this suite because the only things i pay for on it are the shotgun and cloak so its ultra cheap and i get pretty nice war points running it. However i think something should be done to make it more possible to counter a cloak. Situation awareness is not it.

Yea they're called 'cloakmandos'. Usually only the proto ones are somewhat decent at it but it's a hard life for them to go invisible sometimes.

Not sure your a Scout. A little push would not have achieved parity, the Scout was in a rough spot for about 8 months for this very reason. Also, I find cloaks are quite fun indeed, both using and killing those who use.

Why increase the cloak fitting costs and not the plating? Or even better reduce the cost of kincats as they are ridiculously hard to equip and stack for something that doesn't give your normal movement any boost.

I would prefer a bigger kincat bonus
or
lower fitting req
and
a kincat variation that affects normal movement speed rather than sprint.

I promise you are exaggerating. You played a scout for 20 min, you constantly go 20/2 with a bpo scout suit and only SG/Cloak. On both counts I call BS. The style that a scout promotes basically dictates you camp, meaning your scores will not consistently be 20+ kills, or you speed into everything, meaning your deaths will not consistently be 2-. You may get the occasional good game where you land those scores but acting like it's common, not happening even in pubs. If you are now thinking, "Yes that sounds right", then allow me to remind you that a "good" player should do this and therefore nothing is wrong. Are you sure you didn't just start a new character and troll the academy?

This is ridiculous. People are whining way too much about the cloak. They say it's a "crutch" for "******-players" pre-1.8, which is absolute BS. And these are the people who just say the cloak is "trash" and provide NO proper and logical explanation as to why it's even "garbage" in the first place. They don't even say why they couldn't see them. Players like Judge Rhadamanthus have video proof as to what extent the cloak is visible, and he even states that the cloak isn't even broken, rather it's just harder to see scouts in certain lighting areas, which is completely fine because the scout is using the environment to hide itself. Another problem is that people are STILL used to just looking at their radars and expecting to see EVERYTHING, and now when cloaks help hide scouts from the radars, they complain they can't see scouts when they get shotgunned, which is true because they aren't even looking at what's even right in front of them on their screen since they're too busy looking at their ******* radar!

Another reason why people are against cloaks is because they're really angered at the "brick-tanked" scouts, who shove armor plates up their ass to act like Assaults. Why are you getting pissed off by the cloaks, channel your fury into armor plates, which provide way too much eHP for such a small movement penatly.

Seriously if you're looking at your radar instead of the main screen right in front of you, don't be surprised when a "blue-outlined" scout comes up running to you and pops with you a shotgun.

Cloaky-crutcher spotted.

I believe Judge's words were "invisible" and "invisible at full sprint on certain backgrounds"

My thoughts on some of the ideas in this thread

- Removing the dampening bonus

I wouldn't mind this change but I feel like it wouldn't do anything towards addressing the real issues. As it would only knock brick tanking scouts down a just peg but would royally screw all others.

I would prefer a small scan profile penalty of 3/4/5 scan db added per bas/enh/comp armor plate instead.

---

- Fluxes disable cloaks

No, just screws over shield tanked scouts.

Instead cloak depletes at a faster rate when under fire (2-3x normal rate when being fired upon and hit)

---

I'd also like to add that cloak duration is too long and they need to be shortened. 30 seconds, that's the duration of the basic cloak that is more than enough time to get anywhere, position oneself perform a hack, whatever it may be.

I'd suggest

30 seconds across all tiers
20/15/10 second recharge duration

Users would have think more tactically when deploying their cloak (e.g.before going into hot areas), instead of leaving it always on and/or camping objectives and spawns.

People that so fiercely defend cloaks saying that they are balanced are funny as hell.
O ya use your eyes. What you think people playing this game suddenly become selectively blind? Come on get your mind out of neutral and actually engage your brain. If someone actually sees a shimmer they sure as heck are going to pop a shot off at it.

It is re-producible that the cloak doesn't even drop fully by the time a scout can fire. So what makes you think there isnt also some sort of issue where the shimmer sometimes might not even be on the other players screen?

Clearly being able to shoot before de-cloaked is not working as intended.

But you cloak fanboys are just going to defend it tooth and nail because you can not possibly consider any thing else and you want to vainly believe that it is actually your superior tactics ( LOL! ) that enable you to get so many kills with so few losses.

I am willing to admit using cloak and shotgun is a easy mode crutch when i use it.