THE solution for Darklight.

[Boomer]

Well, all this complaining about Darklight is giving me a headache. I hate DL as a cloaker, and I think it should be removed. But, since all the noobs in Rexo's will complain, here is my solution for Darklight for us cloakers.

IDEA: A cert called "Stealthing" and "Advanced Stealthing"

Stealthing: 3 certs: Gives you a more "Advanced" infiltration suit, which is harder to spot with the naked Eye, and also makes you harder to spot with DL, for example, if you have this certification, then the range of which DL is affective is shortened. So if you are 5 m away from an DL abuser then he cant see you until you are -5 m away.

Advanced Stealthing: 2 certs: Makes you completely invisible to the Naked eye. Makes it so that DL users have to have DL on for 5 seconds for you to appear, and you have to be within 4 m of your target. Makes you impervious to Spitfires but not Motion sensors or anything else.

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.

[EDIT: Nerf COMPLETELY invisible. No one wants that.]

[Lartnev]

Advanced Stealthing: 2 certs: Makes you completely invisible to the Naked eye. Makes it so that DL users have to have DL on for 5 seconds for you to appear, and you have to be within 4 m of your target. Makes you impervious to Spitfires but not Motion sensors or anything else.

Quite simply, no. The rest is borderline, but completely invisible is a definate :nono:

[Baneblade]

Man, you know how bad it sounds to hear ppl call Rexotanks noobs...I miss Surgile :( at least I wasnt a noob back then.

[Spee]

We'll stop killing you if you stop being a really irritating trip back to the spawn tubes.

Its a game of who gets caught first. If you catch us off guard, we die. If we catch you with DL, you die. Balanced, as far as I see.

I can stealth for over an hour and not get rexospammed by HA. Darklight isnt a problem.

[Boomer]

no, this is an issue. Thats not how the game works. The idea of being an infiltraitor is to INFILTRATE. Not to Get DL flickered by a Guy in Rexo with HA.

Im not saying a guy in rexo with DL is a Noob, Im saying it is incredibly unfair.

Dont get me wrong, I am an excellent cloaker, and I am barely ever killed. I average 20/5 in the 30-50 minutes I play before planetside freezes. I kill about 6 rexos per hour. Most of which I do not catch by surprise, and kill with my MAGscatter. I have advanced targeting, and usually attack those that are wounded, but only attack when I am in danger. I usually just like to drop gens and spawns. Then hack the CC while they are distracted, and mess with the enemy whilst getting kills and dropping morale.

The best time was when i was in a vanu tech plant, I dropped the gen, hacked the CC, dropped the gen again, then went up to the air terminal, killed 5 with one boomer, knifed a guy repairing the terminal, hacked the CC Again, then my clan finally showed up and we captured the base, stopping the zerg.

My point, is that I am not a bad cloaker. I just think this will even it out a bit. I will spend those cert points to be more stealthy.

[Madcow]

Boomer, you obviously don't get the game here. You bring up a point, and then somebody claims that you either suck at cloaking or that you are playing a cloaker wrong. Then they 'back up' this point by making a ridiculous or unrelated claim about their own prowess. We don't appreciate facts around here.

[Cauldron Borne]

Just get rid of DLV flicker/3rd Person DL view, and I'll be happy for the rest of my PlanetSide-gaming days...

[Spee]

We don't appreciate facts around here.


By facts you mean an opinion and a claim of his own prowess, followed by a battle story? Rock hard evidence.


Now, I didnt mean to offend, or imply that you were bad at cloaking. Im simply stating that I hadly ever get flickered, and to my experience, folks only flicker when they -think- theres an infiltrator about.

And most times, when I see some people bitching about "flickering" its cause they did some -really- dumb to arouse suspicion. AMP/Beamer/Magscat/Repeater round, boomer going off, standing in the middle of a hallway, etc.

[Madcow]

By facts you mean an opinion and a claim of his own prowess, followed by a battle story? Rock hard evidence.


Now, I didnt mean to offend, or imply that you were bad at cloaking. Im simply stating that I hadly ever get flickered, and to my experience, folks only flicker when they -think- theres an infiltrator about.

And most times, when I see some people bitching about "flickering" its cause they did some -really- dumb to arouse suspicion. AMP/Beamer/Magscat/Repeater round, boomer going off, standing in the middle of a hallway, etc.

I'm sorry, Spee, but stories about going an hour without anybody flickering DL are one of three things.

1. An outright lie/exaggeration.
2. A fluke going against a platoon of idiots/people who don't play like the other 99% of Planetside.
3. Somebody operating so far away from others that it doesn't apply to the majority of us who enjoy mixing it up.

Really, the stories get exhausting. I can do absolutely nothing for an extended period of time, not even move, and have somebody run up to me like they knew I was there and blast me in the face. It happens nightly. It has absolutely nothing to do with caution. And it happens every time I log on. That's why I have a hard time listening when people talk about not getting DL'd in an hour. That's absurd, period. To say that people only 'flicker' when they suspect an infil is about is absurd, and makes me think we aren't even playing the same game. It's a fact of gameplay, people run around and flicker the implant on a regular basis. They will do it far less often in a firefight, but will still do it. I'm good at cloaking. I know for a fact Boomer is too, I've fought in battles against him before. So either I have no idea what a good cloaker is, or you're the all time God of cloakers and should be writing a manual.

[skeet270]

what if the fictional advanced suit had properties simaliar to that of the one in C&C Renegade where it is invisible up to a certain distance i'd didn't mind those in that old game. I no im risking being called a noob or sumthing of that nature of what is rexo.

[Spee]

Flickering is not as common as you think. I hardly ever flicker when I play tank(only using it in situation where I've already listed) and Im damn sure most of my outfitmates never flicker, either.

As per idiots, I was facing NC. But thats irrelevant.

maybe Im just lucky, but I have never had an issue with flickering. The only times when I get killed, are doing something stupid, or when Ive been plasma'd. Ive moved in with a squad of cloakers, and have never been subject to this "rampant" flickering you speak of.

And while Im not saying ti doesnt happen, Im saying that either I'm lucky as a cloaker, or tales are being exaggerated. I dont question yours, or Boomers capabilities, mainly because Ive never seen you play. but I cant say I can take all the complaints with a grain of salt, mainly because I dont recall ever being subjected to the act very often.

[JetRaiden]

Jesus...if they implemented that you could spend every cert point up to BR20 on infiltration...

[Apocolypse55]

Yeah...No. PlanetSide has enough balance issues. We don't need Infiltraitors being overpowered.

[Meursault00]

I had this great reply planned to list why darklight should not be modified. But then I realized that you people who just moan and groan about me being a newbie Rexo user. So I figure I'd express my ideas in a few short statements.

1. You're no James Bond, so don't act like it.

2. Don't insult the largest group players in the game if you want to instigate change.

3. Cloakers are support characters. They alone will not win a battle and they alone will not win a war.

4. Personal stories mean squat. The battlefield is way to unpredictable of any of that to mean anything at all.

Oh, I think it's a bad idea by the way.

[HawkEye]

NO!!!!!

and like spee said people only fliicker when they think they see/hear and infil. when i infiil i never have a problem with flicjering either. i am very selective of my targets and wait till the right moment to attack/ move.

[Peacemaker]

There is a problem with a players ability to see cloakers with or without darklight on. Darklight is too easy to use in my opinion, and I dont even cloak. Now there is DEFINATLY something going on with some users in this game though. The other night Lunarwarrior managed to get ONTOP of the lockers in one of the rec rooms and went afk. He came back about 5 min later to see the whole base CRAWLING with enemys. One came down the stairs ran right up to him and blasted him in the face. He had NOT moved in those five minutes and the guy did not switch on darklight (hell he JUST spawned too). I used to cloak occasionaly but now I find it too frustrating. I have had the same experience. JH whore comes out of no where runs up to you and blasts you with NO dark light and you havnt moved in a minute and a half. Something is wrong with someones gamma.

[Warborn]

Darklight is fine, the problem is the role that cloakers have. They should not be something you want in a big firefight except for what they're capable of doing now. There really isn't a lot of room for stealth in this game aside from stuff like hacking, boomering, and scouting. Until there is a valuable role for cloakers to fill, they will always seem secondary and ineffective, because they are secondary and ineffective.

Personally, I think there should be areas around the bases that are hackable and control different things, like hacking panels near phalanx turrets that, when hacked, disable them temporarily. Or things that can knock out lattice benefits for a couple minutes, or vehicle terminals, or base power (albeit very briefly). There has to be more that capitalizes on stealth, so that cloakers can contribute to a battle without forcing grunts to fight invisible shit that just strafes around them holding down the fire button for their AMP. Give them a real role and they'll be fine.

[Real Mulambo]

I think the cloakers should just stop whining.

I use DL and don't flicker unless suspicions aroused.
I get killed by plenty cloakers and I kill plenty to.
Hang on.........does that mean...................No..surely not..........balanced?
Assholes

[Sputty]

cough*jammers*cough

Seriously, it's not hard to throw a jammer or two in before you run in

[Boomer]

I think the cloakers should just stop whining.

I use DL and don't flicker unless suspicions aroused.
I get killed by plenty cloakers and I kill plenty to.
Hang on.........does that mean...................No..surely not..........balanced?
Assholes

1) We are not whining. We are complaining.
2) We are not assholes, you nooblet.
3) It all depends on if you think "Balanced" Is. someone flicking on darklight out of randomness, just seeing you, then flicking it on again, then blasting your unarmed self with HA. I mean its hard enough to be an infiltraitor without People beingn able to use Darklight. That is not balanced or fair. And dont tell me it never happends, because it happends about 2 times a day.

As I said before, I am a good cloaker, but I just dont have time to pull out a jammer (If I even have one, because REK + ACEx2 + Pistol + Ammo takes up all of my inventory), and hit the guy within the 3 seconds it takes to A) Realize he had DL on. then B) Actually throw the grenade at him. All before he takes those shots.

Now, I usually find myself running away, and placing boomers/spitfires behind me, and I usually win. Unfortunately, I am of low rank right now And all I have IS darklight. Yes, I have Darklight. Ironic eh? Well I have it for a good reason. Other cloakers. They make me paranoid. But, If I see a cloaker sitting there Afk, and I flash on DL, I do not kill him. I just leave him alone, only for one of my own to DL flash him and fill him full of JH shells.

When did I say Rexo's are noobs? I never said that. I said that the Rexo flasher who "owns" you with his Lasher or MCG or JH and calls you a "Noob" and sends you /tells like "Pwned man! You noob! Wow you suck! Must be your unlucky day! OMFG I OWN!" Is a noob. And deserves to be wiped off the face of Auraxis, ishudar, oshur, searhus, and all the new stupid planets. They need to go play halo so that I can own them with my pistol.

Now I get idiotic tells like that almost everytime I am HA pwned by a Rexo. But what do they say when I own a fully healthy Rexo who has Darklight with my Magscatter? The whine. "Cloakers are overpowered" Then they go to the Devs, whine, whine, whine, whine some more, and eventually cloaking becomes less and less appealing.

My point, is to offer a solution, that I thought was pretty reasonable. I especially like that with "advanced stealthing" They DL user has to have DL focused on you for 4-5 seconds to fully see you. That would solve DL flashing. That would balance.

Another thing that just came to my attention yesterday, is that Alot of cloakers DO whine. I saw a cloaker from about 1000 yds away when he was being a stupid idiot and running while throwing grenades, and I snuck up to him, knifed him without the implant, then recieved hate tells until I reported him and added him to my fairly lengthy ignore list. some Newbish cloakers DO complain. But the fact that I saw him from 1000 yds away needs to be fixed. I dont see how that is fair.

BlaH BlaH BlaH BlaH you can call me a whiner but I think I am quite the opposite. Please post comments realating to the original post.

[Cauldron Borne]

Like i said before:

Get rid of DLV 3rd Person (it IS an EYE implant) and flickering (c'mon, i can't even turn on/off adv regen that fast). Do this, and the good cloakers will be happy. If you have to leave DLV on for even THREE SECONDS or maybe FIVE then it will at least have a negative side to it's use.


I've cloaked full time since release. I've had CE since before release. I can get 4-5 kills on a life while cloaking, but i still find it annoying that people randomly flicker DLV as they walk through the halls. I can speak from experience. It does happen. It doesn't happen a lot, but it does. And EVERYONE (or almost everyone) uses the 3rd person dlv thing. kinda lame that you can use an eye implant in third person.

[Boomer]

Like i said before:

Get rid of DLV 3rd Person (it IS an EYE implant) and flickering (c'mon, i can't even turn on/off adv regen that fast). Do this, and the good cloakers will be happy. If you have to leave DLV on for even THREE SECONDS or maybe FIVE then it will at least have a negative side to it's use.


I've cloaked full time since release. I've had CE since before release. I can get 4-5 kills on a life while cloaking, but i still find it annoying that people randomly flicker DLV as they walk through the halls. I can speak from experience. It does happen. It doesn't happen a lot, but it does. And EVERYONE (or almost everyone) uses the 3rd person dlv thing. kinda lame that you can use an eye implant in third person.

Amen. But you dont think that this would help at all? It sure would add a negative to Darklight, without touching it. And it would also make to role of an infiltrator more appeling.

[Madcow]

Darklight is fine, the problem is the role that cloakers have. They should not be something you want in a big firefight except for what they're capable of doing now. There really isn't a lot of room for stealth in this game aside from stuff like hacking, boomering, and scouting. Until there is a valuable role for cloakers to fill, they will always seem secondary and ineffective, because they are secondary and ineffective.

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.

I think the cloakers should just stop whining.

I use DL and don't flicker unless suspicions aroused.
I get killed by plenty cloakers and I kill plenty to.
Hang on.........does that mean...................No..surely not..........balanced?
Assholes

You are such an asshat. Seriously. So far from you I've seen nothing but gameplay ideas, and then insults when people don't embrace them. If you think it's balanced, I know something's wrong.

cough*jammers*cough

Seriously, it's not hard to throw a jammer or two in before you run in

Must we address that again? Inventory space = premium. We have 1 holster slot and switching to jammer will often take too long to be realistic. We can't afford to waste a 3x3 spot for a 2x2 piece of inventory. Want to give us another holster slot? Then we'll talk.

[Boomer]

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.


Well, I Dont cloak that much anymore with my Main, which is BoomerTR. I am starting to hate the Enclave more and more. But they are one of the only outfits that does organized Gal drops like every one should.

As for most kills, hmmm. Probable 134 killd on test, when I was mining a tower on extinction. I looted the Beamer (best pistol in teh w0rld!!!111) and used it to get about 30 kills from on top of the mountain, (Which I got up using surge, so noone could get up there to kill me.) Then I just used plasma grenades. I escaped All the Dl users, Killed about 60 Rexos, 15 cloakers, and about 5 magriders and Prowlers. Then I went and camped the WG, chased enemies out of it, knifed them. I hacked about 5 enemy vehicles, not including the 6 AMS's I hacked, then decon'd. i think I got the most kills form my mines, but The only reason I did was because I lowered their health with the beamer / grenades.

I will loot a beamer any day. Better then the repeater IMO.

[Madcow]

I love both the Beamer and Repeater, but mostly because when you use them against their own armies they go unnoticed. I used to love the MagScatter, but since all the rexo changes and incentive changes it's just not as effective as it used to be.
I use ACEs for spitfires more than anything else. The spitfire is great to get kills if you have interlink, otherwise it's perfect for distracting your prey long enough to knife them. The vast majority of my kills are with the knife. I actually had one guy bitch at me for using melee boost because it wasn't fair (he'd killed me using Dark Light in a random flicker earlier). I responded that I used a weapon which was loud enough to give away my position and that I still needed to hit him twice from point blank range, so maybe he should rethink what was fair.

The Enclave's gal drops are very nice. It sure beats the hell out of the complete disorganization that all of NC has had the last few nights.

[Red October]

I'm a cloaker and there IS a problem with DL.

1) There are days when it seems everyone and thier mother has DL. What do I do? Switch out to Agile w/ my grunt set up. Extreme measure do to extreme over usage. Why cloak when everyone is going to see you anyway?

2) I use DL as a cloaker specifically to hunt down other cloakers! Chances are they won't have it and all I have to do is hang around recently hacked towers, bases, entrances and fliker it on and off and sooner or later, me gets another kill.

3) People only flicker it on and off when something looks suspicious? Thats a truck load of bull shit. I have seen more occasions than I can count where a zerg (or small squad) will head towards a base or tower and the first thing that happens? People with DL turn it on and start looking around tree's, rocks and other obstructions (hell, I even do it myself....as a cloaker). I actually have changed my tactics to just crouching right out in the middle of the open (and hope I don't get ran over)....but as of late, more and more people are turning it on out in the open. Running out of tactics and ideas quick...

4) #3 brings up my other point...why should a cloaker have to hide behind tree's? That in itself should tell you something. He should be able to stop, crouch and no one see him.

5) How often do you see a CC gaurded by one guy with DL? Quite often, everyone else is outside of it in case of troops...but only one guy w/ DL? That not only tells you how easy it is to take down a cloaker, but its also an insult.

6) This point is unrelated to DL, but it happens more than you think. Enemies running right past me like nothing is there, then one guy w/o DL walks up and blasts you...WTF?! Sony!

The role of a cloaker keeps getting reduced...more and more. Thats why you "see" us out there looking for sheep that strayed from the main flock so often. We can't hack into bases or tower's easily anymore...like I said, you only need one guy with DL to gaurd the CC. Granted getting rid of DL will only make cloakers completely overpowered. You don't want us on the battlefield...but we've been forced onto it against our will.

My suggestions:

1) Give us more items to hack. Allow us to hack spitfire's, motion sensors and mines if you have CE.

2) Give BEP for hacking if your in an infiltration suit (50 BEP and up if enemies in building...but only if your in an inf suit).

3) Before you jack a vech, have a secondary mode on the REK that allows you to just deconstruct the vech w/ half the time to hack. Or even allow to jack a stationary occupied vech (with longer hack time of course).

4) Allow us to hack spawn tubes with a time limit (just like equip terms).

5) Allow the secondary mode on a REK to basically disable Equip, Vech and Med terminals for everyone. Just like blowing it to smithereans w/o the boom. Engineer or Hacker can fix it.

6) Give us a second holster. We need a small fighting chance. When you catch us with a REK in hand...you caught us with our pants down.

Everything I mentioned above will give more reasons for a cloaker to hack instead looking for weak guys, afk, etc on the edge of battle. The other option is to mess around with everyone's coveted DL.

1) Make it a 2 slot cost implant. Make someone actually think about getting something else.

2) Shorten the range...but this really doesnt help much. Just forces a person to make a longer scan. Once they get a glimpse of you...they no which direction to spam shoot...and its pretty easy to kill a cloaker.

I personally don't like the option w/ messing around with DL...afterall, I'm a user of it too. But, giving cloakers more options beside going after someone on the battlefield I'm all for.

[Lartnev]

1) Too easy imo
2) Not really fair on people who use sneaky tactics without an infil suit (IT CAN BE DONE :D)
3) Interesting, especially the idea about jacking stationary vehicles. Flail hacking anyone?
4) Don't particularly like that idea
5) Sounds promising
6) We'll see what the merit man brings.

1) Too Extreme
2) Yeah, I'm all for shortening the range, means people have to keep it on longer when sweeping corridors etc.

[DeepStrikeck]

I am a rexo sniper (VS Markov) and I have DL, I hardly ever "flicker" and I only do that when I'm running through a base and suspect a cloaker (spits being planted, repeater/magscatter kills, etc). When I'm sniping I only use DL to scan the area right when I arrive and I switch positions so frequently (about every 10 shots) that I don't get killed by cloakers that often. With the 3rd person dl, its kinda retarded and I dont use it because its hard as hell to aim when in 3rd person. Its just easier to use it in FPV.

[JetRaiden]

Screw jammers, once you get to CR3 EMP is all you'll need on the field. you could EMP a courtyard and walk right in as far as anyone is concerned.

[Madcow]

Idea #3 is freaking brilliant. Flails as well as tanks parked outside towers, you jack it and it forces them out of their own vehicle. If it has a long amount of time necessary (and jacking is already painfully long) it would be hard for people to complain. Vehicles shouldn't be stationary that long, and giving some sort of cost for not being aware of your surroundings is nice.

I also think we should be allowed to hack phalanx turrets, and that if you hack it you should be able to then heal it and save some base drain. Plus, there are a handful of times when I've been forgotten on a base wall that it would have been perfect to turn their turrets against them. I usually end up wandering around looking for an abandoned tank I can use against them.

[Madcow]

I am a rexo sniper (VS Markov) and I have DL, I hardly ever "flicker" and I only do that when I'm running through a base and suspect a cloaker (spits being planted, repeater/magscatter kills, etc). When I'm sniping I only use DL to scan the area right when I arrive and I switch positions so frequently (about every 10 shots) that I don't get killed by cloakers that often. With the 3rd person dl, its kinda retarded and I dont use it because its hard as hell to aim when in 3rd person. Its just easier to use it in FPV.

If everybody played like that, I'd have no beef at all with the implant. If I do something stupid to give away that I'm there, hunt me down like a dog. That's deserved. No issue. You don't use 3rd person which is one of my huge issues. I don't think people try to aim in 3rd person, they just use it to see if somebody is sneaking up on them, switch to first person, swing and fire. Unfortunately, that's not how a lot of people play.

I would also like to see the Dark Light implant not initialize if you are inside the infil suit. Honor among thieves, or something like that. This idea will piss of a number of infil, but if it increases the fantastic fights you sometimes get when neither of you has the implant then it would be well worth it.

[TheN00b]

I personally care less whether or not Darklight Vision is removed or not. I am a grunt, but I have not played with Darklight for quite some time. I feel that using it is akin to cheating, and when I used to use it, I flickered it often, even if I had seen absolutely nothing suspicious. That's simply smart tactics. Now, I merely take my hits from infiltrators if they try and attack me; given that I have much greater health than them, as well as a powerful weapon, I still win against them the majority of the time. The best tool for balancing, obviously, would be to remove the implant itself. Equally obviously, this will not be immediately, if ever, possible: The majority of the grunt community would scream for their mothers, and cancel their subscriptions. However, I do not believe the answer lies in buffing the abilities of the infiltrator to avoid the naked eye: Let the watchful, cautious players be able to see them slightly (Just figure out how to fix the gamma). The solution potentially lies in implementing the following changes:

1) Darklight Vision now takes 25 points of stamina per activation (idea courtesy of Dharkbayne).
2) Darklight Vision now has a mandatory minimum usage time of 15 seconds.
3) Darklight Vision now has a per/second stamina drain of .5 SP/PS when still, and 3 SP/PS when moving.

Implementing the above three ideas, in addition to the Devs understanding and fixing the gamma problem, will, in my opinion, finally balance the stealth needs of infiltrators.

By the way, don't use the Repeater or Beamer: Simply stick an AMP in the back of a snipers' head, and open fire. Voila; dead sniper.

[_-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.

[Lartnev]

1) Darklight Vision now takes 25 points of stamina per activation (idea courtesy of Dharkbayne).
2) Darklight Vision now has a mandatory minimum usage time of 15 seconds.


Those figures are way too high imo.

[TheN00b]

Those figures are way too high imo.

How else are you going to avoid bloody flickering?! The way I see it, Darklight Vision needs to be severely limited. I feel that infiltrators need to fill a much larger role in this game, and their current role simply cannot be expanded the way Darklight Vision is now. Flickering is the primary problem, and the changes I propose severely curtail, if not completely prevent, any sort of flickering, as well as lowering the power of the implant in general. And that is my goal.

[Boomer]

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.

Dont you think that making it take 5 seconds for Dl to catch you is worth it? I think it is. How is that Balony? (purposely mispelled)

As for the snipers that hate us, which are apleanty, you have the right to hate us. I love snipers. I eat them for breakfast. The only thing I dont like about them is their Insta gib gun. A sniper with DL that you are stabbin/miss with boomer = almost certain death. I am killed probable about 2 times a session by snipers because of my carelessnes. Most of the time I find a smoking corpse over the big black mark of a boomer, and get some cool pistols/grenades.

So, I love snipers. but I dont like snipers with Darklight. I think We should be able to purchase a cert or two to be able to "stealth". because right now, it just isnt fun to find a Rexo with DL.


Madcow: You dont like the MAGscatt, but I love it. 3shots kills an Agile, 4 kills a Rexo.
The beamer is 2nd on my list. somewhat inaccurate, but you gotta love it. I think its 5 hits to kills an agile and 8 to kill a rexo? Or am I mistaken?
Next would be the AMP, just because its fairly accurate, its a versitile gun, and it kills quick enough for me.
The repeater, i dont like it. I dont know why, I just dont think it has a Bang to it. It takes too long to kill someone with, but is excellent for sniping.


I would love to hack a flail thats sitting its ass on a hill kill whoring, and to decon the driver inside, getting the kill, would be awesome. " You noob! Get your ass in a Tank!" I would /tell him until I earn a spot on his Ignore list.

The only problem with flails, is when you are close to one, placing boomers, spitfires, and a guy in a reaver/tank/whatever starts spam-fireing the flail. 3 seconds Im dead, and the guy who is spam-fireing gets my BEP. Then i get /tells like "get away from the flail when Im shooting at it jackass" or stupid things like that. Just another day's worth of people on my ignore list.

[Madcow]

Madcow: You dont like the MAGscatt, but I love it. 3shots kills an Agile, 4 kills a Rexo.
The beamer is 2nd on my list. somewhat inaccurate, but you gotta love it. I think its 5 hits to kills an agile and 8 to kill a rexo? Or am I mistaken?
Next would be the AMP, just because its fairly accurate, its a versitile gun, and it kills quick enough for me.
The repeater, i dont like it. I dont know why, I just dont think it has a Bang to it. It takes too long to kill someone with, but is excellent for sniping.


I would love to hack a flail thats sitting its ass on a hill kill whoring, and to decon the driver inside, getting the kill, would be awesome. " You noob! Get your ass in a Tank!" I would /tell him until I earn a spot on his Ignore list.

The only problem with flails, is when you are close to one, placing boomers, spitfires, and a guy in a reaver/tank/whatever starts spam-fireing the flail. 3 seconds Im dead, and the guy who is spam-fireing gets my BEP. Then i get /tells like "get away from the flail when Im shooting at it jackass" or stupid things like that. Just another day's worth of people on my ignore list.

You might want to try the Repeater again, Boomer. It's much nicer since the MA buff since they actually buffed the rounds and not the specific gun. No damage degradation for the first 75 meters, so Beamer and Repeater are just about equal now for longer range plunking on people. I enjoy the Mag less now because of those 4 shots. It's faster to stab people, plus with the small magazine it doesn't allow for much in the way of mistakes.
I hate AMP. Just personal preference, I won't even loot them when my inventory is totally stripped.
I used to enjoy single-handedly killing flails with mines but most are now smart enough to undeploy and drive off now whereas most usually sat still when the flail was new. Now I try to draw them into trying to run me over so I can get more mines in.
I'll have to look up BoomerNC sometime. I have a friend I run with pretty often, and when you get a semi-coordinated group of infils who are decent at killing in an area you can really have a blast.

[Boomer]

Cool. Ill retry the repeater, its just that I never got any kills with it. I havent tried it after the latest patch, but I will.

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

[Red October]

Those are some pretty big restrictions on the DL....but it would most certainly stop the "flicker" (heh...worst enemy of an Infiltraitor...t3h F1ik3r). But I can hear the OF people crying me a river already (must really like thier cheap kills). I think any limitaton on DL will get the "river of tears" from the OF people. Eliminating it completely won't go over well either. Its pretty easy to see a cloaker moving, killed two in a tower the other day while in Agile/Cycler. They were crouch walking....while everyone was looking at the door's for incoming enemies...I kept an eye on the edges of the stairs. How many idiots forget to do that and then scream nerf the infil...we can't see him. If they get close enough and are moving....you can see them. So the likely hood of DL "disappearing" is unlikely. Thus why I suggested we are given more opportunities to wreak havoc behind enemy lines...which is what were really supposed to do.

Honor among thieves? Well there isn't any, hence why I took DL. But forcing them to de-cloak like Personal Shield would most certainly curtail its use. Just like Personal Shield, it will become useless.

Regaurdless, something needs to be done with DL and/or Infiltraitors....were a dieing breed....literally and figuratively.

[Boomer]

Those are some pretty big restrictions on the DL....but it would most certainly stop the "flicker" (heh...worst enemy of an Infiltraitor...t3h F1ik3r). But I can hear the OF people crying me a river already (must really like thier cheap kills). I think any limitaton on DL will get the "river of tears" from the OF people. Eliminating it completely won't go over well either. Its pretty easy to see a cloaker moving, killed two in a tower the other day while in Agile/Cycler. They were crouch walking....while everyone was looking at the door's for incoming enemies...I kept an eye on the edges of the stairs. How many idiots forget to do that and then scream nerf the infil...we can't see him. If they get close enough and are moving....you can see them. So the likely hood of DL "disappearing" is unlikely. Thus why I suggested we are given more opportunities to wreak havoc behind enemy lines...which is what were really supposed to do.

Honor among thieves? Well there isn't any, hence why I took DL. But forcing them to de-cloak like Personal Shield would most certainly curtail its use. Just like Personal Shield, it will become useless.

Regaurdless, something needs to be done with DL and/or Infiltraitors....were a dieing breed....literally and figuratively.

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

[Mandalore]

While I agree with Boomer that stealthers are totally underpowered and useless right now, his "fixes" for DL are a tad extreme. If you look at it from a cloakers point of view, DL is cheap in the fact everyone has it and it is VERY hard to move about in most situations without being spotted by the naked eye, let alone by DL. From a grunt's point of view, there are WAY too many killwhore stealthers who only play as a cloaker to get knife/boomer kills and flaunt it like a trophy. I'm on both sides of the fence here, and both sides have valid points.

However, the fact everyone can get DL as an implant with almost no downside is pretty lame. A few suggestions come to mind to balance DL a bit.

1) Make it so that there is a 5-10 second timer before DL can be DEACTIVATED. This would ensure that there is no random DL flickering, and that DL would ONLY be used if a stealther was suspected. A LOT of good stealthers plan their movements carefully and spend time slowly sneaking into a base/tower, only to be ripped off by a BR6 with a JH who happened to flick on DL for no reason.

2) Another change would be to take DL off the implant list entirely. DL could now be an equipment cert for 1 or 2 points, and would require you to carry a small pair of goggle in your inventory, about the size of a box of ammo. You could still bind DL to a single key, and flick it on and off at will. The balance here is that certs are being spent on it now, and it will take up some inventory space.

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.

Now these are just my suggestions, so don't flame me if you can't make a legit counter-suggestion to any of these. I do agree DL should be put into check somehow, but not totally gimped.

[Meursault00]

Funny, I'm a sniper, I love you cloaker guys. When they attack they become easy targets for me. Unless that guy has a boomer then I've gotta whip out the quick reflexes.

On a general note, calling people noobs, nubs, and such is seriously uncalled for. It only shows your own immaturity. Same if you actually hate a particular player role. If you're annoyed, okay, but if you hate then you're taking this game way too seriously than you ought to.

On topic, I think the only changes I would support of darklight is a limitation to the range. Maybe 3 meters or so, just so I don't see a cloaker from halfway across a room. I would also support a longer timer, but that's about it.

Ultimately, I hate to say, the pleas from the infiltration part of the community will win the devs over. A minority will conquer the majority, its wrong I know, but it has happened in the past with Planetside.

[Spee]

The only time I ever recall "flickering" is if I hit one of those invisible walls. You know the type, the ones that stop you dead in your path, kinda like if there was a cloaker there. Look at the spot. Turn on. No cloaker, turn off. If there is a cloaker, bangbang.

But other than that, the only time I use DL is CC guarding, and sweeps when someone VWC's.

[Lartnev]

I think that people will flicker whatever, and they'd probably take the 10 seconds of activatrion in exchange for know there isn't a cloaker about. Although it will produce a downside to turning it on.

And I said the figures were too high, not that they were bad ideas

[Madcow]

I'll go over my (refined) wishlist again for Dark Light:

Items that must be changed:

1. No Dark Light in 3rd person

Items that should be changed:

1. Use of Dark Light must be locked on for 5-8 seconds.

Items that I'm on the fence on, but leaning towards liking the ideas:

1. Dark Light has a 'cool down' period after use where it can not be turned on again (20 seconds or so).

2. Dark Light does not work in vehicles.

3. Dark Light can not be used while in the infiltration suit.

And of course, all these are independent of the fact that Enhanced Targetting needs to be fixed yesterday. That bug is getting out of hand.

[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]

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".


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-_]

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

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]

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]

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-_]

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]

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.

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.

[Lartnev]

Yeah but it's so much more rewarding when you kill people as an infil :)

[Madcow]

Yeah but it's so much more rewarding when you kill people as an infil :)

It is. Killing somebody having no armor and using a minimal weapon is a much bigger rush than any grunt work I've ever done. It's a true challenge, and I don't want to remove the challenge at all. I just want to keep the spirit of Dark Light where it was originally intended, and increase the cat and mouse game.

[Lonehunter]

BAD IDEA, and this is coming from a cloaker's prespective. About 5/10 times I'm in an enemy base I'm caught on DL. About 2/10 times I'm in an enemy base I'm killed because of DL. Just cuz you've been spotted doesn't mean you're dead, and if it does for you, then drop cloaking. Cloaking is about knowing how not to get caught and if you do, knowing how to deal with a problem and if you can't, knowing how to run away and live. Everything that your Stealth certs give you I can achieve with Implants and skill.

I just want to keep the spirit of Dark Light where it was originally intended, and increase the cat and mouse game.
Indeed

[Warborn]

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.

Now that's interesting. I like to think that as something slightly more than retarded apes we're capable of grasping a point whether every nuance is covered to a nauseating deree. Which makes me really wonder why on earth you've chosen to focus on the smaller, less important sort of afterthought section I posted, defending your honor like some Internet samurai. Believe it or not, but talking about how you get kills really wasn't #1 on my agenda. The point I was making is that infiltrators will always have the same gripes provided they're going for the same stuff as the grunts are.

Also, I never used an AMP as an infiltrator, so you're right, I don't have a lot of experience with the gun. But you know what? I kill lot's and lot's of infiltrators who use an AMP to run circles around me at close range, holding down the fire button. So, why do I need to have experience with an AMP as an infiltrator to know that infiltrators sometimes use AMPs and circle strafe around targets when I kill them every other day?

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.

Not many people play cloakers because ultimately you're just killing infantry like the rest of us, only you have a lot of chance built into it, though that gives you an elitist feeling, as if you're better than everyone else because you can die really quickly due to bad luck, so it still holds some appeal. I do agree though that PS on the whole has a lot of skilless roles, like Reaver pilot and using strikers or other homing weapons.

As for Darklight being something for killwhoring, give me a break. What's the alternative, shoot at a barely visible, fast-moving wisp of a cloaker as it runs around blowing people up with boomers and grenades? It's either Darklight, or having to deal with a really annoying enemy with very few effective ways to fight back, and thus very few ways to defend yourself and avoid being killed by grenades or otherwise.

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.

Oh, semantics, it's been such a long time since we've gotten together.

The grunt comparison was to say that infiltrators are simply another type of fodder. This is a generalization of course and it may not apply to everyone, but the vast majority of infiltrators either run up to stationary targets, plant a boomer, and run, or they do a similar activity but use an AMP, and circle strafe instead. They're doing a grunt's job, just in a different method. Or if you want to nitpick, they're on par with snipers instead. Suffice to say though, even by your own admition cloakers spend most of their time killing people for no reason other than to grind the enemy through attrition. Doesn't matter how, but that's what they do, and it's also what grunts, or snipers, do.

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.

Darklight might need some modification, but I would hate to see the developers focus on trying to make most cloakers just another group of killwhores, as you put it, alongside most grunts and most snipers. They already do have a lot of success in combat, as cloakers have been sharing without hesitation, and I don't see why they need to have even more if they're already so potent with DL as it is now.

And, changing DL for the worse will not increase the cat and mouse aspect. It'll be the same old thing, just now more boomers will be going off in spawn rooms, or by locked-down MAXs, or more spitfires will be popping up in the middle of infantry attacking a tower or enemy base. There is no cat and mouse to begin with, because the goal of most cloakers is simply to kill enemy soldiers. They're not trying to get somewhere Sam Fischer style and avoid detection, they're trying to run in, kill some doods, and respawn to do the same thing.

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

I thought you said you've played a grunt before.

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.

A Darklight change wouldn't make that much different. You'd still be going for the same place the grunts are going. You'd still have to deal with people actually at your objective, usually (dropping spitfires and other field work would be a bit safer though). And so long as the objectives of a cloaker don't stray from those of a grunt (blow the gen, hack the cc, hack/destroy the AMS, etc) I certainly don't want to see cloakers made anymore potent. The rarity that cloakers are right now is perfect considering they're just killwhoring for the most part, anyway. If Darklight were nerfed, they'd be doing it even more effectively, and as a grunt I would really rather not be fighting an army of cloakers primarily.

[Red October]

There is no cat and mouse to begin with, because the goal of most cloakers is simply to kill enemy soldiers. They're not trying to get somewhere Sam Fischer style and avoid detection, they're trying to run in, kill some doods, and respawn to do the same thing.

Cloakers who do this are kill-spam, plain and simple. They are also a pain in the neck for me. I'm trying to get into a base, he blows or amps somone which quickly alerts his buddies which quickly kill him and chances are, me to. Furthermore, trying to kill whore as a cloaker is just stupid. A cloaker will get killed many times due to stray fire, well placed and hidden mines, TK, etc. before he gets any kill.

The overall problem is the flickering....way too much of it. I'm well hidden in a base that has a low enemy population (I've been in spawn rooms for long periods of time w/o anyone taking notice), but some one with the flickering finger hits his DL for no reason (as I haven't given them reason to suspect yet) and pow, im dead with JH to face or back of the head. DL is simply way too easy to use and way too convient. Simply forcing a mandatory time and stamina use will eliminate the majority of this. Only people who complain are those who love to flicker.

Furthermore, if this creates armies of cloakers...smile...your getting some cheap and easy kills. Turn on DL and spam away. Don't worry, the armies of cloakers will "disappear" real fast.

[Madcow]

Now that's interesting. I like to think that as something slightly more than retarded apes we're capable of grasping a point whether every nuance is covered to a nauseating deree. Which makes me really wonder why on earth you've chosen to focus on the smaller, less important sort of afterthought section I posted, defending your honor like some Internet samurai. Believe it or not, but talking about how you get kills really wasn't #1 on my agenda. The point I was making is that infiltrators will always have the same gripes provided they're going for the same stuff as the grunts are.

Internet samurai? Interesting. Pointless name calling, but interesting. Your point about kills is fairly moot, as I've already mentioned. I hack more towers, I hack more bases, I jack more vehicles than grunts. When I do focus on killing, I'm focusing on a completely different area and taking care of a task that the average grunt would not be able to do, by virtue of my ability to slip behind enemy lines which is much easier with minimum visibility.

Also, I never used an AMP as an infiltrator, so you're right, I don't have a lot of experience with the gun. But you know what? I kill lot's and lot's of infiltrators who use an AMP to run circles around me at close range, holding down the fire button. So, why do I need to have experience with an AMP as an infiltrator to know that infiltrators sometimes use AMPs and circle strafe around targets when I kill them every other day?

The only reason to ever circle strafe with an AMP is because your target is 2-3 bullets from death after you've unloaded a bunch into their back. The CoF on that gun while moving is large enough that you will miss the majority of shots while point blank. Basically, you're killing crappy infiltrators. I'm glad to see that, though, thin the herd a little bit and people will be looking for the rest of us a little less.

Not many people play cloakers because ultimately you're just killing infantry like the rest of us, only you have a lot of chance built into it, though that gives you an elitist feeling, as if you're better than everyone else because you can die really quickly due to bad luck, so it still holds some appeal. I do agree though that PS on the whole has a lot of skilless roles, like Reaver pilot and using strikers or other homing weapons.

I've played every role PS has to offer. I personally find that other play styles can not keep my attention and that I'm able to excel in them with significantly less brainpower and with less of what I would consider skill. Most roles reward twitch reflexes beyond anything else. However, this is not a blank statement to the whole of PS. I also think that Reaver pilots for the most part are skill-less killwhores. That being said, I've seen some great pilots and can certainly appreciate those that continue flying until they get to that point. The downside is that kills are so plentiful while flying that few challenge themselves to get to that point. I personally believe that infiltrator is one of the few PS roles that begins with a steep learning curve, which discourages many from taking up the suit for more than a week or so (I think this is a good thing, mind you). If you want to call that elitist, que sera.

As for Darklight being something for killwhoring, give me a break. What's the alternative, shoot at a barely visible, fast-moving wisp of a cloaker as it runs around blowing people up with boomers and grenades? It's either Darklight, or having to deal with a really annoying enemy with very few effective ways to fight back, and thus very few ways to defend yourself and avoid being killed by grenades or otherwise.

What's the alternative? You are aware we have no armor, right? You are aware 2 plasma grenades will usually do us in, although 1 will disclose our location while you riddle us with the gun of your choice, right? You're also aware that most spam-tastic weapons, led by the Lasher, get the chance to kill us just on the suspicion that we might be around? Those alternatives are just for the more patient cloakers, the less patient ones will disclose themselves and allow you to run them through anyhow. Considering how few bullets it takes to bring a cloaker down, that's a lot of alternatives before Dark Light is brought into the equation. I've said it before and I'll say it again, not everybody is using Dark Light to killwhore. Plenty are. If my saying that makes you feel guilty, you're either misreading what I'm typing or you've got some guilt going on. I won't pretend to know which it is, I don't know you in game at all. If people are using Dark Light because they caught some movement, good for them they deserve the kill. If people are running through random locations flickering the implant, they're killwhoring and bringing the general skill level of the game down.

The grunt comparison was to say that infiltrators are simply another type of fodder. This is a generalization of course and it may not apply to everyone, but the vast majority of infiltrators either run up to stationary targets, plant a boomer, and run, or they do a similar activity but use an AMP, and circle strafe instead. They're doing a grunt's job, just in a different method. Or if you want to nitpick, they're on par with snipers instead. Suffice to say though, even by your own admition cloakers spend most of their time killing people for no reason other than to grind the enemy through attrition. Doesn't matter how, but that's what they do, and it's also what grunts, or snipers, do.

I never said anything about killing enemies to grind them by attrition. When I get behind enemy lines and am able to destroy gimped vehicles that drop back to repair, I think that's an invaluable asset to my team. When I can mine Flails until they disengage and run to repair, my guys can get out of that tower that they couldn't run up the stairs of earlier. When I can knife Snipers or AV guys I'm allowing my team to have a better chance of resecuring a courtyard or base, or taking one. It's certainly possible to be very successful killing while also helping your empire. They don't have to be exclusive of one another.

Darklight might need some modification, but I would hate to see the developers focus on trying to make most cloakers just another group of killwhores, as you put it, alongside most grunts and most snipers. They already do have a lot of success in combat, as cloakers have been sharing without hesitation, and I don't see why they need to have even more if they're already so potent with DL as it is now.

At least you're kind of seeing what we're saying. Most of us aren't saying get rid of Dark Light. The changes I've talked about wouldn't give a massive advantage to cloakers. Honestly, I think the changes I've talked about put the implant where it was originally intended, but that's certainly open to argument.

And, changing DL for the worse will not increase the cat and mouse aspect. It'll be the same old thing, just now more boomers will be going off in spawn rooms, or by locked-down MAXs, or more spitfires will be popping up in the middle of infantry attacking a tower or enemy base. There is no cat and mouse to begin with, because the goal of most cloakers is simply to kill enemy soldiers. They're not trying to get somewhere Sam Fischer style and avoid detection, they're trying to run in, kill some doods, and respawn to do the same thing.

Any changes to Dark Light won't impact spawn room boomer runs as 95% of the people in a spawn room won't have the implant initialized yet anyhow. Regardless, spawn room boomering has slowed to a crawl since the surge nerf. I think you'll have trouble finding people to back you up on that one. Mining locked down MAXs hasn't slowed down a bit. The lockdown takes so long to get off I can still place a mine before the MAX could possibly see me in 3rd person, disengage and get far enough away. They've now changed it to 2 mines to kill a MAX and I would actually encourage them to change it to 3. Sorry if that messes up my killwhore rep.

The reason for not much cat and mouse now is specifically the way the implant plays. If an infiltrator is going to kill, he has to commit early and go in quick. The grunt has nothing to discourage him from using his implant carte blanche, so either way it goes it's going to end quickly. Now if the implant was to lock on for a period of time, I could move about with significantly more freedom from random 'flicker' deaths. If I were to make a bonehead move, somebody would see me and light me up and I'd deserve that. If somebody were to see me in the field, I might have opportunity to try and draw the blind man into fire knowing he was committed to searching just for me for a few moments. Much more cat and mouse.

A Darklight change wouldn't make that much different....If Darklight were nerfed, they'd be doing it even more effectively, and as a grunt I would really rather not be fighting an army of cloakers primarily.

Do you really thing such a minor change would create an army of infiltrators? Maybe at first, but people would quickly drop it when they realize it's not so easy as they like to pretend. However, if you think the change wouldn't make it that much different (as you say), why should you care if the change(s) were to be implemented? If things wouldn't be much different on your grunt end, why should it bother you that those of us on the other end are asking for it?

[Sputty]

IMO Darklight needs a range decrease and an instant stamina drop when it's first used
Perhaps 20 stamina points

[Lartnev]

IMO Darklight needs a range decrease and an instant stamina drop when it's first used
Perhaps 20 stamina points

QFT :nod:

[_-Gunslinger-_]

DL range is fine. If I flip on surge im out of thier range in like 4 seconds. Now if they have good aim (or a JH) ill be dead otherwise not, eitherway unless I was detected by a flicker its my fault, and I just would considermyself lucky to have gotten away.

What DL needs is a FOV nerf akin to the black edges of your screen when you zoom. Perhaps instead of just blackness it distorts the edges, posibly disorienting the solier.

That and a initial stamina drain of 10-15 is needed to balance DL IMO.

Those implimentations dont effect killwhoring, cloakers are only good at this aganst unaware targets (Snipers, phonix users, ect.). All I want is for a person to have to actually search for me when they use DL. As apposed to hit DL and thirdperson and seeing me instantly.

[Madcow]

DL range is fine. If I flip on surge im out of thier range in like 4 seconds. Now if they have good aim (or a JH) ill be dead otherwise not, eitherway unless I was detected by a flicker its my fault, and I just would considermyself lucky to have gotten away.

DL range is fine sometimes. It gets longer in 3rd person, and even in first person it gives you away further than 35 meters sometimes. Nonetheless, 35 meters can be a long distance sometimes. I think 25 or so would make more sense, but I could live with the range staying the same if some of these other changes went in. Sputty's change would be just as effective as mine I think. Heck, if they put Sputty's into the game I would almost be okay with the implant not costing stamina after you turned it on. The initial hit of 20 would be enough to discourage flickering, an initial hit of 20 and then an ugly stamina drain would be too much.

[Cauldron Borne]

I can spot cloakers at 50m w/ DLV.....

everything is a purple haze, except for this faint white outline. Cround, aim, fire, dead cloaker.


And I am considering getting rid of DLV when i hit br18 in favor of:
Adv Target OR Melee Boost (depends on my mood).
Audio Amp
Sensor Shield

[Wraithlord]

I had this great reply planned to list why darklight should not be modified. But then I realized that you people who just moan and groan about me being a newbie Rexo user. So I figure I'd express my ideas in a few short statements.

1. You're no James Bond, so don't act like it.

2. Don't insult the largest group players in the game if you want to instigate change.

3. Cloakers are support characters. They alone will not win a battle and they alone will not win a war.

4. Personal stories mean squat. The battlefield is way to unpredictable of any of that to mean anything at all.

Oh, I think it's a bad idea by the way.


1. Yes infils are, if played correctly they can do about anything except tank a hallway full of spam.

2. This has worked before.

3. They can win a battle easily with their actions, if played properly, not the war however.

4. Thats true, but my personal record is 47-0 over the course of 3 hours, this includes about 5 boomer trips, and the boomering of an ams, and killing snipers and such, if he wants to brag let him brag, I believe what he said because I've done about the same thing.

[Warborn]

Internet samurai? Interesting. Pointless name calling, but interesting.

Name calling? Yikes. It was an analogy. Your entire post revolved around you trying to tell me that you're the James MacGuyver of infiltrators and are so leet you're reet, totally ignoring everything except a little footnote in my post.

Your point about kills is fairly moot, as I've already mentioned. I hack more towers, I hack more bases, I jack more vehicles than grunts. When I do focus on killing, I'm focusing on a completely different area and taking care of a task that the average grunt would not be able to do, by virtue of my ability to slip behind enemy lines which is much easier with minimum visibility.

Haha, ok. Yes, there are a couple occassions where a cloaker has been able to do something worthwhile. The odd tower here and there, an unoccupied vehicle hacked for kicks, and so on. But you're doing nothing that I haven't seen grunts do a million times. You really don't have any place in the game, similar to a sniper (and I'm a sniper myself, by the way). We're not necessary. We're just novelties, and we rarely make a significant difference, although snipers are meant to be infantry support, whereas cloakers are... well... I guess they're for the people who don't have the twitch required to grunt. Or they're there for the guys who love doing boomer runs and seeing the kill spam. But really, your role is that of a grunt, you're just very poorly equipped for the job, and so long as the role of cloakers overlaps with that of grunts, I doubt you'll ever be happy. Unless, of course, cloakers are made better at grunting than grunts, in which case I suspect you'd be just peachy.

The only reason to ever circle strafe with an AMP is because your target is 2-3 bullets from death after you've unloaded a bunch into their back. The CoF on that gun while moving is large enough that you will miss the majority of shots while point blank. Basically, you're killing crappy infiltrators. I'm glad to see that, though, thin the herd a little bit and people will be looking for the rest of us a little less.

Well, let's see. The infiltrators who try to boomer me die. The ones who setup spitfires die. The ones who try and knife me die. And the ones who use an AMP die. Maybe I'm just lucky, but there doesn't seem to be any cloaker who is at all good at killing infantry outside a spawn room. It's this that makes me wonder why you guys focus on trying to kill infantry so much. Sure, now and then a few have some limited success, but for the most part you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight, and it's really ridiculous. I never imagined cloakers would be executed so poorly, but maybe one of these days that'll change and they'll get to use their stealth for something effective more often.

I personally believe that infiltrator is one of the few PS roles that begins with a steep learning curve, which discourages many from taking up the suit for more than a week or so (I think this is a good thing, mind you). If you want to call that elitist, que sera.

What's the alternative? You are aware we have no armor, right? You are aware 2 plasma grenades will usually do us in, although 1 will disclose our location while you riddle us with the gun of your choice, right? You're also aware that most spam-tastic weapons, led by the Lasher, get the chance to kill us just on the suspicion that we might be around? Those alternatives are just for the more patient cloakers, the less patient ones will disclose themselves and allow you to run them through anyhow. Considering how few bullets it takes to bring a cloaker down, that's a lot of alternatives before Dark Light is brought into the equation. I've said it before and I'll say it again, not everybody is using Dark Light to killwhore. Plenty are. If my saying that makes you feel guilty, you're either misreading what I'm typing or you've got some guilt going on. I won't pretend to know which it is, I don't know you in game at all. If people are using Dark Light because they caught some movement, good for them they deserve the kill. If people are running through random locations flickering the implant, they're killwhoring and bringing the general skill level of the game down.

It's funny that you'd play-up the infiltrators weaknesses so much when you just got done boasting about how successful you are as an infiltrator, despite Darklight being in the game as it currently is. You are aware that if Darklight were to take a big hit you'd only do better, right?

I never said anything about killing enemies to grind them by attrition. When I get behind enemy lines and am able to destroy gimped vehicles that drop back to repair, I think that's an invaluable asset to my team. When I can mine Flails until they disengage and run to repair, my guys can get out of that tower that they couldn't run up the stairs of earlier. When I can knife Snipers or AV guys I'm allowing my team to have a better chance of resecuring a courtyard or base, or taking one. It's certainly possible to be very successful killing while also helping your empire. They don't have to be exclusive of one another.

The manner in which you kill the enemy doesn't discount your actions from amounting to nothing more than attrition. You are doing exactly what any type of infantry does: kill the enemy. Maybe you use boomers or knives, but you're still inflicting casualties, and that's what grunts do. Perhaps you think there's a distinction, but in fact, there's no more distiction between it than if you were to have been another grunt with an AV weapon destroying the vehicle before it was able to get away to repair. This is one of the more unfortunate realities of the game, as infiltrator is actually what I started out as during Beta, though after a couple months I quickly realized there wasn't much hope for infiltrators to be just another form of grunt.

At least you're kind of seeing what we're saying. Most of us aren't saying get rid of Dark Light. The changes I've talked about wouldn't give a massive advantage to cloakers. Honestly, I think the changes I've talked about put the implant where it was originally intended, but that's certainly open to argument.

As I said, I don't want to see cloakers just the Reavers of infantry, throwing around skilless kills with impunity. Give them jobs other than simply killing things and the jammer grenades will allow the job to be accomplished in spite of Darklight.

Any changes to Dark Light won't impact spawn room boomer runs as 95% of the people in a spawn room won't have the implant initialized yet anyhow. Regardless, spawn room boomering has slowed to a crawl since the surge nerf. I think you'll have trouble finding people to back you up on that one. Mining locked down MAXs hasn't slowed down a bit. The lockdown takes so long to get off I can still place a mine before the MAX could possibly see me in 3rd person, disengage and get far enough away. They've now changed it to 2 mines to kill a MAX and I would actually encourage them to change it to 3. Sorry if that messes up my killwhore rep.

You realize of course that the way cloakers in spawn rooms is usually solved is by someone who's already spawned going down there and using Darklight to kill the cloaker, right?

Also, a few posts ago I think we determined whether you were a "killwhore" or not. After all, what grunt isn't in the game to kill the enemy?

The reason for not much cat and mouse now is specifically the way the implant plays. If an infiltrator is going to kill, he has to commit early and go in quick. The grunt has nothing to discourage him from using his implant carte blanche, so either way it goes it's going to end quickly. Now if the implant was to lock on for a period of time, I could move about with significantly more freedom from random 'flicker' deaths. If I were to make a bonehead move, somebody would see me and light me up and I'd deserve that. If somebody were to see me in the field, I might have opportunity to try and draw the blind man into fire knowing he was committed to searching just for me for a few moments. Much more cat and mouse.

Your example was pretty awful. Drawing them into fire? Is that while you're behind the lines, as you put it, or what?

Do you really thing such a minor change would create an army of infiltrators? Maybe at first, but people would quickly drop it when they realize it's not so easy as they like to pretend. However, if you think the change wouldn't make it that much different (as you say), why should you care if the change(s) were to be implemented? If things wouldn't be much different on your grunt end, why should it bother you that those of us on the other end are asking for it?

People migrate to the easiest, kill-happy professions. That's why there are so many Reaver pilots and HA users. That's why there used to be so many boomer whores running down to spawns with surge. Make infiltrators further encroach on the grunt's territory and you run the risk of making infiltrators more effective at killing infantry than grunts. And as for whether it's minor, you have no idea of how it would pan out. With such an ill-founded alteration I would oppose it based on sheer principle, but in this case I believe an imbalance could be easily created.


Anyway, this discussion is tedious and a repitition of threads ages-old. I'll be keeping my future replies to three words or less.

[Madcow]

Name calling? Yikes. It was an analogy. Your entire post revolved around you trying to tell me that you're the James MacGuyver of infiltrators and are so leet you're reet, totally ignoring everything except a little footnote in my post.

Yawn. Right, there's no insulting going on. Nothing to see here I guess.

Haha, ok. Yes, there are a couple occassions where a cloaker has been able to do something worthwhile. The odd tower here and there, an unoccupied vehicle hacked for kicks, and so on. But you're doing nothing that I haven't seen grunts do a million times. You really don't have any place in the game, similar to a sniper (and I'm a sniper myself, by the way). We're not necessary. We're just novelties, and we rarely make a significant difference, although snipers are meant to be infantry support, whereas cloakers are... well... I guess they're for the people who don't have the twitch required to grunt. Or they're there for the guys who love doing boomer runs and seeing the kill spam. But really, your role is that of a grunt, you're just very poorly equipped for the job, and so long as the role of cloakers overlaps with that of grunts, I doubt you'll ever be happy. Unless, of course, cloakers are made better at grunting than grunts, in which case I suspect you'd be just peachy.

I'm going to type something here, but it really won't be relevant. The reason for that is that no matter what I type, you'll make up what it means and an argument to counter a point I never made. So I may as well just type some words so that you can get along with arguing with your own points.

Well, let's see. The infiltrators who try to boomer me die. The ones who setup spitfires die. The ones who try and knife me die. And the ones who use an AMP die. Maybe I'm just lucky, but there doesn't seem to be any cloaker who is at all good at killing infantry outside a spawn room. It's this that makes me wonder why you guys focus on trying to kill infantry so much. Sure, now and then a few have some limited success, but for the most part you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight, and it's really ridiculous. I never imagined cloakers would be executed so poorly, but maybe one of these days that'll change and they'll get to use their stealth for something effective more often.

Weird, I thought I was McGyver. Since you're able to kill every infiltrator ever, why do you care about Dark Light changes? Holy crap, with you teaching a grunt class and Spee teaching an infil class I think I could rule this game.

It's funny that you'd play-up the infiltrators weaknesses so much when you just got done boasting about how successful you are as an infiltrator, despite Darklight being in the game as it currently is. You are aware that if Darklight were to take a big hit you'd only do better, right?

I'll use small words as I'm holding out blind hope you'll actually read what I'm writing. I want them to encourage skill. I do have success in the game. I still die to skill-less noobs who flicker the implant. I get tk'd a dozen times a night, I'm not calling for a nerf to friendly fire. I get found a handful of times due to my own errors each night, I'm not calling for the removal of Dark Light. Another handful of times each night I'm found by some dipshit who is flickering an implant and is able to completely discount a few minutes of skillful work in moments, not because he suspected I was there but because a quick flick of the mouse wheel is easier than actually paying attention. That's crap, and it brings the skill level of the game down. Would I do better? Not significantly, but if it could remove those overly frustrating deaths at the hands of shitty killwhores I'd be happier.

The manner in which you kill the enemy doesn't discount your actions from amounting to nothing more than attrition. You are doing exactly what any type of infantry does: kill the enemy. Maybe you use boomers or knives, but you're still inflicting casualties, and that's what grunts do. Perhaps you think there's a distinction, but in fact, there's no more distiction between it than if you were to have been another grunt with an AV weapon destroying the vehicle before it was able to get away to repair. This is one of the more unfortunate realities of the game, as infiltrator is actually what I started out as during Beta, though after a couple months I quickly realized there wasn't much hope for infiltrators to be just another form of grunt.

Knock yourself out with whatever you think there. I know what I do, I know what others do. Honestly it's not worth going in circles.

As I said, I don't want to see cloakers just the Reavers of infantry, throwing around skilless kills with impunity. Give them jobs other than simply killing things and the jammer grenades will allow the job to be accomplished in spite of Darklight.

The reavers of infantry? Seriously, you're getting beyond ridiculous. I can only hope you're laughing as you're typing because that's just not even worth the time it took to type.

You realize of course that the way cloakers in spawn rooms is usually solved is by someone who's already spawned going down there and using Darklight to kill the cloaker, right?

Weird, I usually solve it by not rushing to the equipment term and cutting down the running cloaker using no implant and a Suppressor. To each his own.

Your example was pretty awful. Drawing them into fire? Is that while you're behind the lines, as you put it, or what?

Oddly enough, there are different stages being behind their lines. Some are far from friendlies, some are not. Also, I'm not always lucky enough to get behind enemy lines. The example still stands, regardless of your inability to grasp it.

People migrate to the easiest, kill-happy professions. That's why there are so many Reaver pilots and HA users. That's why there used to be so many boomer whores running down to spawns with surge. Make infiltrators further encroach on the grunt's territory and you run the risk of making infiltrators more effective at killing infantry than grunts. And as for whether it's minor, you have no idea of how it would pan out. With such an ill-founded alteration I would oppose it based on sheer principle, but in this case I believe an imbalance could be easily created.

So many boomer whores running to spawns with surge? Even though the percentages who have the infil cert have stayed nearly static from launch (and even dropped for months before the surge nerf)? You're talking out your ass. There is nothing remotely close to cloakers being overpowered now, and the small Dark Light changes certainly wouldn't make some drastic unseen swing. Since you're so interested in balance, I'm sure you protested the extra damage absorption and extra armor when they changed rexo...no? You certed it instead? Interesting.

Anyway, this discussion is tedious and a repitition of threads ages-old. I'll be keeping my future replies to three words or less.

Excellent, perhaps that will allow people who actually read comments to respond to them.

[xMuNcHx]

trying to kill whore as a cloaker is just stupid.
Actually, It's not. If what you're saying is true, sprinting down to the spawn tubes with boomers is stupid. It can be more effective then alot of things. Don't just think cloakers are for hacking, cause they aren't. I'm a 100% cloaker because thats my style of how i play. I get a lot of kills with boomers and i can kill maxes sometimes too.

Another thing they could do is... when you turn on darklight as a grunt you flashing and very easy to see. The cloaker would see this and then run away. Maybe they could have sensor shield counter darklight. So darklight would do nothing if a cloaker would have snesor shield on. That would help majorly.

[Rayder]

BAD IDEA, and this is coming from a cloaker's prespective. About 5/10 times I'm in an enemy base I'm caught on DL. About 2/10 times I'm in an enemy base I'm killed because of DL. Just cuz you've been spotted doesn't mean you're dead, and if it does for you, then drop cloaking. Cloaking is about knowing how not to get caught and if you do, knowing how to deal with a problem and if you can't, knowing how to run away and live. Everything that your Stealth certs give you I can achieve with Implants and skill.
You obviously havn't met me in-game.

[Cauldron Borne]

LoneHunter is a pretty good cloaker, man. He's in my outfit, so i oughta know.

AND WHAT IS ALL THIS ABOUT CLOAKERS ONLY DOING WHAT INFANTRY DO??? I'm sorry bro but you are DEAD wrong. I'd like to see you TRY to sneak into a zerged vs base in yer rexo or agile armor, and drop the gens THREE TIMES. Tell ya what...you can't.

I can. Done it before, will do it again. dropped 27 generators in 2 hours. A personal best i plan on beating very soon. If you can drop 27 generators in OCCUPIED bases that fast in rexo... i'll give you a cookie, because that's damn good.

Can an agile have a tower from RIGHT behind an enemy max? no. couldn't even get into the room w/o being spotted.

Can a rexo sneak into an enemy courtyard, kill a loading ANT, hack a GAL and escape without anyone seeing him? only if the base was completely empty....

Can ANY grunt sneak into a warp bubble and hack an ams from under 30 ppl's noses? no.

Once again, sorry mate, but the Cloaker fills more roles than a grunt ever could. Why do people play cloaker support? because they can help their buddies while under fire and the enemy not be the wiser. Because they can sit in the basement and wait for those counter gen droppers to all leave, then revive his buddies and have them do it again. Because he can wreck havoc behind the enemy and distract them long enough for his grunt pals to make some progress.

BOO-FUCKING-YA!

(and before you make the post 'well if a cloaker can do all that, then why does dlv need a nerf' post, think about this:
You don't want the cloaker class to become the 'reavers of the infantry', but as of right now, Dark Light users are just that. You don't want a bunch of skill-less people running around w/ boomers, but Dark Light users are the equivilant of the skilless with the implant that gives them the opportunity to hunt down an entire pop of this game with near impunity)


ONCE AGAIN:

BOO-FUCKING-YA!

[Lonehunter]

Thank you CB

You obviously havn't met me in-game.
You might be one of those 2 out of 10 that kill me, never know. I'd say the hardest weapon to face up against as a cloaker is the Lasher, MCG and Jackhammer I can jump around, Lasher connects every shot as long as I'm on his screen. The other day I landed to take a NC tower, then heard my Skeeter blow up, stopped hacking, then saw a Rexo guy with a JH and DL falling from the sky, couldn't run, he was too close, so I charged, jumped, shot, reloaded, jumped some more and shot some more, and he went down (AMP by the way). Then he sends me a tell saying I'm a personal shield using noob, which would have uncloaked me... Amazing the tallent that rolls in now-a-days. In the end though funny as hell.

[Boomer]

Haha, ok. Yes, there are a couple occassions where a cloaker has been able to do something worthwhile. The odd tower here and there, an unoccupied vehicle hacked for kicks, and so on. But you're doing nothing that I haven't seen grunts do a million times. You really don't have any place in the game, similar to a sniper (and I'm a sniper myself, by the way). We're not necessary. We're just novelties, and we rarely make a significant difference, although snipers are meant to be infantry support, whereas cloakers are... well... I guess they're for the people who don't have the twitch required to grunt. Or they're there for the guys who love doing boomer runs and seeing the kill spam. But really, your role is that of a grunt, you're just very poorly equipped for the job, and so long as the role of cloakers overlaps with that of grunts, I doubt you'll ever be happy. Unless, of course, cloakers are made better at grunting than grunts, in which case I suspect you'd be just peachy.



You know I never see you on. You Missed lightning night, you are never there for the Gal drops we do daily, and, im just not sure when the last time it was you were on. Oh and by the way. Im making my infil character a Main character now just so I can get the chance to knife you in the face a few times.

Well, let's see. The infiltrators who try to boomer me die. The ones who setup spitfires die. The ones who try and knife me die. And the ones who use an AMP die. Maybe I'm just lucky, but there doesn't seem to be any cloaker who is at all good at killing infantry outside a spawn room. It's this that makes me wonder why you guys focus on trying to kill infantry so much. Sure, now and then a few have some limited success, but for the most part you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight, and it's really ridiculous. I never imagined cloakers would be executed so poorly, but maybe one of these days that'll change and they'll get to use their stealth for something effective more often.


again. A knife in the face would shut you up.

[Boomer]

Thank you CB


You might be one of those 2 out of 10 that kill me, never know. I'd say the hardest weapon to face up against as a cloaker is the Lasher, MCG and Jackhammer I can jump around, Lasher connects every shot as long as I'm on his screen. The other day I landed to take a NC tower, then heard my Skeeter blow up, stopped hacking, then saw a Rexo guy with a JH and DL falling from the sky, couldn't run, he was too close, so I charged, jumped, shot, reloaded, jumped some more and shot some more, and he went down (AMP by the way). Then he sends me a tell saying I'm a personal shield using noob, which would have uncloaked me... Amazing the tallent that rolls in now-a-days. In the end though funny as hell.


Can i join liquid force? I want to be in an outfit that doesnt call you a "***" Everytime you screw up. I also want to be in an outfit with other cloakers.

[_-Gunslinger-_]

We should all just put warborn on ignore. He seems to be unable to grasp the points made in this thread and has added virtually nothing construcive...ever.

While informing us that there are people opposing us he also showed us what type of willfull ignoreance we are up against.


BTW I still hold that making DL be tunnel visioned and adding a 10 stamina to activate. Oh and one more add, make Sensorshield and DL have the same activation time. They are both classes defense against the other why not have the same activation timer...

[Cauldron Borne]

Sure, Boomer. We would love for you to join. I like playing w/ other cloakers that know what they are doing. Send me a tell ingame, or just visit our website (link is under my name).

[Warborn]

I can never resist numerous provocational posts directed at me. Oh, Internet, you are a cruel mistress.

AND WHAT IS ALL THIS ABOUT CLOAKERS ONLY DOING WHAT INFANTRY DO??? I'm sorry bro but you are DEAD wrong. I'd like to see you TRY to sneak into a zerged vs base in yer rexo or agile armor, and drop the gens THREE TIMES. Tell ya what...you can't.

I can. Done it before, will do it again. dropped 27 generators in 2 hours. A personal best i plan on beating very soon. If you can drop 27 generators in OCCUPIED bases that fast in rexo... i'll give you a cookie, because that's damn good.

1) 27 times in two hours and you think an RExo couldn't do it? Haha, alright man, even if that wasn't all against one base. If you were fighting the Mongoloid Brigade or whatever enemy was stupid enough to allow their generator to be unprotected so much even after it was dropped that many times, I'm sure an unarmed RExo could walk in ram it with their head enough that it goes offline. Also, count-down until infiltrator talks about capping an enemy Sanctuary with a half-used 9mm clip and an REK. These are some big fish, guys. Big fish indeed.

2) Gens go down a lot. Then they go back up a minute later. If you can't hold the gen, you're not doing a hell of a lot. And as I said, what the hell kind of enemy allows their generator to go down so often? Who the hell are you people fighting to get these kinds of results which, in over a year of PS, I've never seen once (aside from hilariously effective boomer runs)? These stories you guys are writing here are really pretty hard to believe, and do nothing to help support the case for weaker darklight.

(and before you make the post 'well if a cloaker can do all that, then why does dlv need a nerf' post, think about this:
You don't want the cloaker class to become the 'reavers of the infantry', but as of right now, Dark Light users are just that. You don't want a bunch of skill-less people running around w/ boomers, but Dark Light users are the equivilant of the skilless with the implant that gives them the opportunity to hunt down an entire pop of this game with near impunity)

You know, back when I would play an infiltrator, if I had somewhere I wanted to go that enemies were, I'd use cover, I'd wait till they walked through a door before I opened it, I wouldn't go down a hall when someone else was coming down it too, I'd use jammer grenades, and so forth. The only time I ever really had a problem with Darklight was when I played the idiot and tried to get into a heavily occupied base to unhack the CC or drop the gen or otherwise cause the enemy problems. But, the rationale I always had was, why should a single little cloaker be able to cause such a substantial problem to the enemy when you could try the same thing with a squad or two of infantry and still probably fail?

As has been said, people don't usually turn on darklight unless there is a suspicion of an infiltrator nearby. The changes that have been proposed to Darklight in this thread will only make infiltrators better at killing grunts. As you've demonstrated yourself, it's easy for a cloaker to get down to kill a generator. As Boomer said earlier, it's very possible to take out a generator and then hack a CC during the confusion. The only thing I see wanting in this thread is for more cloaker success during combat. Stuff that makes darklight less useful, and thus cloakers in combat more successful. You do not want something to help you take out a gen, because it's clearly doable already (in my own experience as well as from cloaker testimonials in this thread).

That said though, I absolutely do agree that a cloaker is probably the most skill-demanding occupation in the game, and it's also the most frustrating while at the same time being probably the most exciting. I loved being an infiltrator, but I never felt like an infiltrator, because there really weren't that many things to do with myself as a cloaker apart from try to make a run on the gen or CC or spawn room, or just kill some doods. I've always felt that the solution is to add more stuff for infiltrators to do aside from attack the most critical areas of a base, not to make darklight worse. If you put stuff in that a couple stealthy individual could get to and hack or destroy to help further the fight somehow, and if these areas were apart from the normal routes taken by grunts in a base, things would probably improve. But what you guys are asking is either to be able to take out the most important sites on a base easier, which I don't agree with (you're one guy; Planetside is not about Rambo-like individuals), or being able to run around killing people with more ease, which again I don't agree with because I never imagined that being why you'd want to get into a suit with no armor and crap inventory/holsters.

Despite all the mean and nasty things you guys have directed toward me, the reality is that I'm just basing what I'm saying off of my old cloaker experience in Beta. This is how I felt. I never wanted to see DL change, because even grunts can randomly die from reaver spam or tank shells or sniper fire or other stuff that comes out of nowhere and gives me a free trip back to a spawn point. But I do think infiltrators should be able to impact fights in a way that is easier to impliment without making them better at taking out gens or infantry. Maybe that's not how you see cloakers, but that's how I see them.

You know I never see you on. You Missed lightning night, you are never there for the Gal drops we do daily, and, im just not sure when the last time it was you were on. Oh and by the way. Im making my infil character a Main character now just so I can get the chance to knife you in the face a few times.

Easy there, skippy. I joined the Outfit about three or four days ago.

again. A knife in the face would shut you up.

INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

We should all just put warborn on ignore. He seems to be unable to grasp the points made in this thread and has added virtually nothing construcive...ever.

Hi there, welcome to the forums. I hope you enjoy your stay!

[Rayder]

Tactics, the right weapon, and an intelligent person is what you need to be a cloaker. Just grab a pistol, get outside, stay out of DL range, and beat your enemies down. And don't say the pistols suck or that they're not good enough to kill anyone that isn't already hurt, because they are, and with the new DD stats they're even better.

If you want to sneak inside of a base, you're going to need a few implants and the right arsenal to do it. Implants I would suggest would be Sensor Shield, Surge, and Meele Booster/Dark Light. A good arsenal would be dependent on the situation. If there are a lot of Motion Sensors, then a pistol/grenades would be your best bet. If there aren't, then anything would work really, pistol, grenades, the CE thingy. Also, a REK is the most important tool for sneaking into a base and staying there, so if you plan to harrass the enemy, get one. Advanced Hacking is by far the most useful cert for an infiltrator that wants to get inside a base, it allows one to replenish their stock of harassment tools :)

Tactics also vary depending on the situation. I personally like hacking an enemy Equipment Terminal, getting the CE thingy, and planting mines outside of doors where unsuspecting enemies will trod right over them. If you're in a zerg and you want to infiltrat, use a pistol and rape guys on the walls/inside the entrances. And if you do get inside, find the AMS and hack/target/destroy it.

[Madcow]

As has been said, people don't usually turn on darklight unless there is a suspicion of an infiltrator nearby.

GOOD GOD YOU ARE THE MOST OBTUSE PERSON HERE. That's the point. People do turn on Dark Light when they have no suspicions. That's our whole freaking point, bud. Once again, thanks for not paying attention. They should take the internet away and force you to spend some time on reading comprehension.

That said though, I absolutely do agree that a cloaker is probably the most skill-demanding occupation in the game, and it's also the most frustrating while at the same time being probably the most exciting. I loved being an infiltrator, but I never felt like an infiltrator, because there really weren't that many things to do with myself as a cloaker apart from try to make a run on the gen or CC or spawn room, or just kill some doods. I've always felt that the solution is to add more stuff for infiltrators to do aside from attack the most critical areas of a base, not to make darklight worse. If you put stuff in that a couple stealthy individual could get to and hack or destroy to help further the fight somehow, and if these areas were apart from the normal routes taken by grunts in a base, things would probably improve. But what you guys are asking is either to be able to take out the most important sites on a base easier, which I don't agree with (you're one guy; Planetside is not about Rambo-like individuals), or being able to run around killing people with more ease, which again I don't agree with because I never imagined that being why you'd want to get into a suit with no armor and crap inventory/holsters.

The fact that you never imagined it doesn't make it any less valid. From the evidence I've been able to gather, you're a short-sighted human being without much ability for free thought or imagination. Your points have zero validity and don't address what we've actually asked for. Please go outside, find a rock approximately 6 inches in diameter and smash your skull against it a half dozen times. I'm hoping it will jar something loose.

Despite all the mean and nasty things you guys have directed toward me, the reality is that I'm just basing what I'm saying off of my old cloaker experience in Beta. This is how I felt. I never wanted to see DL change, because even grunts can randomly die from reaver spam or tank shells or sniper fire or other stuff that comes out of nowhere and gives me a free trip back to a spawn point. But I do think infiltrators should be able to impact fights in a way that is easier to impliment without making them better at taking out gens or infantry. Maybe that's not how you see cloakers, but that's how I see them.

Great, that's how you see them. I guess that's the way it should be then. Everybody, stop playing how you have fun and start playing how Warborn thinks it should be played, okay? Mmmmkay.

So your cloaker experience is in Beta then? Allow me to fix you a nice warm glass of shut the fuck up. Seriously. You haven't played infil since beta, you know jack shit about infil. Your viewpoint is beyond invalid. You're trying to protect your grunt ass because you keep getting knifed and it's frustrating. Beta. As if nothing in the game has changed since then, as if people's playstyles haven't adapted. Moron. No wonder people say mean and nasty things about you, you're an uneducated troll trying to pretend he knows what he's talking about.

[Boomer]

warborn is on my ignore list. And I will go to your website Cauldron Borne, and try to send you /tells ingame.

[Queensidecastle]

GOOD GOD YOU ARE THE MOST OBTUSE PERSON HERE. That's the point. People do turn on Dark Light when they have no suspicions. That's our whole freaking point, bud. Once again, thanks for not paying attention. They should take the internet away and force you to spend some time on reading comprehension

I want to expand on this point a bit. Yesterday I was plying my cloaker and I still caught myself doing quick mouse flick 360 degree Darklight sweeps. I rarely need to do this as an Infil but even then I was doing it because it is a valuable tactic. Another thing that any smart player does is turn on DL whenever they hear an infiltrator weapon fire. Also, any smart player will do darklight sweeps around consoles, terminals and other chokepoints because why the hell not, it takes no skill, effort, and has no downside. Not to mention that everyone has experienced ghost hacking and has furthermore found and killed Infils doing said DL sweeps.

It is a common technique because it works and everybody knows it. The problem that I dont think is sinking in with folks on this thread is that there is so much Infil kill-whoring precisely because of the Darklight problem. Why bother spending 30 min actually infiltrating just to get nailed by a random DL sweep? So Madcow, myself and others have adapted our playstyles accordingly. I take the extremely agressive kill-whoring Infil role and hack terminals and vehicles when the opportunity presents itself, not the other way around. You have Darklight to thank for that

Finally, I am always amused when a cloaker gets a hate tell from a player in Rexo/HA/DL acting like they are leet because they killed the cloaker. Its just ridiculous. Also for the above poster having no luck when being discovered by said grunt: You might want to look into the Spiker. I can defeat Rexo/HA/DL grunts about 50% or more of the time in a straight fight.

PS: The Lasher is by FAR the most annoying and hardest to deal with enemy weapon in my experience.

[Madcow]

The Lasher is the most annoying in confined spaces. Out in the open, I'll take the Lasher over the MCG 10 times out of 10. Pop into 3rd person (make sure you've dragged the view back) and dodge the orbs as you run away.

[Cauldron Borne]

WarBorn: congrates on ignoring all my other points.

AND: it was not the same base, it was spread over three continents. I SERIOUSLY doubt they were all guarded by the stupid brigade, because four of the bases I attacked were guarded by C22 tags....you wanna call C22 stupid, then i guess you need to play more.


(PS: gonna break my record next Saturday. Look me up about 8am PST[11am est], boomer, if you'd like to join me)

[Meursault00]

You guys take this game way to seriously. I can't wait for the next Ask the Developers when we can finally get some opinions that matter.

Frankly, we're all too biased toward infiltrating or grunting.

[Rayder]

Flame war completley bypasses a post that suggests a tactic that is obviously too advanced to the little 12-year olds that can't comprehend it so they just keep on attacking eachother until they've both been banned. Continue on please.

[Queensidecastle]

I dont really consider myself very biased. I play both types of char equally (look at my Sig). I know what works for both sides and against both sides. I honestly really do feel sorry when I kill a cloaker with DL. Its just too damn easy.

That devs have made the statement that they would like it to be more of a cat and mouse game and I just have to agree with that. DL = game over in most situations. You can adapt your playstyle to make it where DL != game over but at that point, you arent infiltrating and its something I think the devs would like to improve.

[Meursault00]

Well, I could say I don't really see myself biased even though I have both infiltrating and grunting abilities on a couple of my characters, but I'd be lying. Everyone likes to do one more over the other, it's just that sometimes you don't notice it.

[Warborn]

GOOD GOD YOU ARE THE MOST OBTUSE PERSON HERE. That's the point. People do turn on Dark Light when they have no suspicions. That's our whole freaking point, bud. Once again, thanks for not paying attention. They should take the internet away and force you to spend some time on reading comprehension.

Hey, I said "don't usually". I flicker darklight outdoors every now and then, but I'll only see cloakers who decide the best route to take is right through the middle of our guys. And I'll flicker it indoors near important locations too, but that's when timing on the cloaker's part comes into play.

And so long as Darklight still exists you will always have this problem, and nothing short of making Darklight too cumbersome or ineffective to be useful at all will prevent this.

The fact that you never imagined it doesn't make it any less valid. From the evidence I've been able to gather, you're a short-sighted human being without much ability for free thought or imagination. Your points have zero validity and don't address what we've actually asked for. Please go outside, find a rock approximately 6 inches in diameter and smash your skull against it a half dozen times. I'm hoping it will jar something loose.

Wow, so because my opinion on what cloakers should be differs from yours, I'm somehow wrong and etc etc? Oh, alright, thanks for clearing that up. I better change my opinion to match yours before the Gestapo comes by and rounds me up for thinking differently.

Great, that's how you see them. I guess that's the way it should be then. Everybody, stop playing how you have fun and start playing how Warborn thinks it should be played, okay? Mmmmkay.

You realize how hypocritical this is, right? I think infiltrators would be more fun if they were actual stealthers who did a lot of sabotage stuff. You're content with them being assassins, essentially, and that's fine too, obviously there are some people who enjoy that role with infiltrators. I don't see how this makes either of us right or wrong though. If the only thing you've got to throw against me is "your opinion is wrong", I'm really not sure why you're wasting your time.

Also, just to *** it before it's said, a lot of people liked Surge when it was the #1 implant in the game, too.

So your cloaker experience is in Beta then? Allow me to fix you a nice warm glass of shut the fuck up. Seriously. You haven't played infil since beta, you know jack shit about infil. Your viewpoint is beyond invalid. You're trying to protect your grunt ass because you keep getting knifed and it's frustrating. Beta. As if nothing in the game has changed since then, as if people's playstyles haven't adapted. Moron. No wonder people say mean and nasty things about you, you're an uneducated troll trying to pretend he knows what he's talking about.

Nah, most of it was Beta, but I have an infiltrator alt that I toy with, as well as a Reaver alt and a MAX alt. As I said, infiltrating is quite enjoyable, it's just totally superfluous and not what I look for in an infiltrator most of the time. But I still do play a cloaker, just not as a main like I did in Beta, where I'd try to apply myself to every possible situation, whereas these days if I can't find a situation that caters to how I like to play a cloaker, I log off rather than kill whore.

And regarding your opinion of how valid Beta experience is, cloakers really haven't changed all that much since then at all. The lattice made things a little more difficult as people were now concentrated, but taking out bases in the rear and so on was still very doable. Though to be fair I really was more of a knife guy in Beta, but these days it seems pretty much everyone relies on CE to get their kills in an infiltration suit. So the CE killwhore part of it I get most of my experience from through observations as a grunt.

Also, as much as I'm sure you'd like to believe that I've got some deep seated hatred for cloakers because I die to them, they are easily the most ineffective combatants I have ever encountered in the game. It takes no time to get up and move after a boomer is planted (provided I hear the audio cue), and no time to turn around, put on Darklight, and gun down the guy if he attacks me with a knife or gun or whatever else. I'm sure you're too angry to really think anything aside from what suits your own purposes, but I really don't have any problem with cloakers. In fact, the times I would fight the most cloakers, that being as a sniper, were also the times I got the most cloaker kills. Sniper rifles are not to be trifled with by soft targets like them at close range, and I was quite fond of deploying a spitfire nearby to warn me of their approach, and in some cases kill them when they ran toward me without much heed for their surroundings. Given that I've played a sniper more than anything else in the game (followed by tank driver), the majority of my PS time has been spent without much care in the world for enemy cloakers.

But that mean and nasty things about me part is going to make me very upset soon. Not a minute ago I was so confident that I were popular on the Internet, but alas, it appears my dreams have been dashed. There are few options left to me now but suicide, and maybe going emo. AFK guys, crying IRL.

WarBorn: congrates on ignoring all my other points.

It was getting pretty long. Also, Cauldron Borne said "BOO FUCKING YEAH" so I knew we were really talking business. Maybe if you add "FROM DOWNTOWN, BITCHES" to your posts I'll know that you've got the right attitude.

AND: it was not the same base, it was spread over three continents. I SERIOUSLY doubt they were all guarded by the stupid brigade, because four of the bases I attacked were guarded by C22 tags....you wanna call C22 stupid, then i guess you need to play more.

If they were foiled by a single cloaker, then yes, the individuals guarding those bases are poor players, unless they were AFK or otherwise incapable of guarding a location effectively. I can't imagine how they could allow a generator under their protection to go down against a single enemy, though.

warborn is on my ignore list.

Oh snap.

Flame war completley bypasses a post that suggests a tactic that is obviously too advanced to the little 12-year olds that can't comprehend it so they just keep on attacking eachother until they've both been banned. Continue on please.

I think you had an excellent post, and it echoes what I wrote in my unfortunately fairly lengthy post ahead of it. It's difficult to be effective as a single cloaker, but with luck and skill it is still possible. That's exactly how I always felt, and indeed every time I died I would consider it parly bad luck, but also a failure on my part for not being stealthy enough. I guess some guys just feel as if they should be able to waltz into the generator room and blow it up without having much to worry about along the way, though.

Frankly, we're all too biased toward infiltrating or grunting.

I'm not going to be playing a grunt for much longer, and indeed have only been doing it for a couple weeks (preceeded by months of sniping) so I don't consider myself biased towards grunts. I just don't want to see infiltrators becoming stronger at killing enemies off, which is what pretty much every suggestion made in this thread would lead to, though usually under the pretense of simply wanted more survivability. I do think infiltrators need to be able to live longer when spotted, but the problem is that doing so creates the problem of, what if you're spotting them while they're trying to kill you? Is the fix really working toward the betterment of the infiltrator's place in the game as saboteurs with a cat-mouse component, or as just another form of grunt killer?

I honestly do hope that infiltrators are given a suitable role and the tools to complete that role more effectively, but I will always oppose the their continued place as just another way to farm kills in the game, because that's not at all what I think cloakers should be.

[Madcow]

Show me how a suggestion that would keep people from flickering the implant so much (either locking it on or a large stamina hit for initializing it) would unbalance the game. Thus far you've got nothing. Only the suggestion, without any concrete ideas even, that it might. So what do you have? How is keeping down flickering something that will make infil run wild? I can't wait for your well thought-out response.

[Apocolypse55]

Stop whining and play.

[Warborn]

Show me how a suggestion that would keep people from flickering the implant so much (either locking it on or a large stamina hit for initializing it) would unbalance the game. Thus far you've got nothing. Only the suggestion, without any concrete ideas even, that it might. So what do you have? How is keeping down flickering something that will make infil run wild? I can't wait for your well thought-out response.

The problem right now is that you're trying to defeat Darklight by making it too impractical to flip on and off. The more popular idea in this thread seems to be a large stamina requirement to activate it, I think the value of 20 points was mentioned. The problem is that, in a generic battlefield setting with cloakers such as yourself killing infantry, you do not always have the luxury of simply turning on Darklight, seeing the offending cloaker, and then laying into him. Sometimes, absolutely, but as I'm sure you can attest to when you're laying spitfires amidst the enemy it's typically prudent to keep on the move, using cover and so forth to your advantage, but always staying a step ahead of the grunts who get wise to your shenannigans and flip on DL to spot you and eradicate you.

So, by sticking on a larger stamina requirement you do make people less likely to flicker, but you also run the very real risk of making DL too costly to use effectively. Your average grunt engaging a cloaker such as the one I described above would need to flip DL, more often than not find the enemy is not in sight, and ideally pursue the cloaker, turning on DL at regular intervals to try and spot and eliminate him. Stapling a large stamina cost onto turning on DL would make that an impractical feat. It would simply take too much stamina to be practical, because the good cloakers tend to be on the move a lot, and they move a hell of a lot faster than some grunt in RExo. Hell, many cloakers seem to also be fond of running in, killing someone, backing off while everyone hunts around flicking DL, and then coming back once things resume their normal routine. That would be much, much more effective without the ability to flicker DL without draining yourself of stamina. Thus while you do make flickering go away usually (I'd still do it indoors, if I weren't expecting any action soon, but knew there was a chance cloakers were nearby) you also make it a lot harder for people to counter cloakers.

On the other hand, if you have a stamina drain which is too low, you really don't solve anything. Something like 5 points or even 10 would be peanuts, because you really don't flicker your DL all that much between spawning and getting to the action.

So it's my belief that a large stamina cost to activate DL will not solve the cloakers' problems without creating an imbalance between cloakers, and the grunts who hunt down cloakers once they make themselves known. That's why I'm hoping for something that will allow cloakers to have less "collision" with grunts so that the frequency of running into someone who happens to flicker DL is reduced. Then, with maybe something to make cloakers have a better chance of surviving an encounter with a DL user (Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow makes a few ideas pop into mind), I believe there'll be enough tools and weapons in the game to let DL users really infiltrate and disrupt things apart from the CC/generators (which are basically the ultimate objectives of any attack), be better at what they do now in terms of how damaging DL is to them, and not increase their combat potential against grunts to a significant degree.

[Firefly]

I've sat back and read this thread since it started, and I really don't see a problem with darklight.

I play an infiltrator fairly religiously, and I also play Rexo-grunt enough to know how to combat infiltrators effectively.

There isn't an imbalance with darklight - there's an imbalance with the sheer number of n00b idiots running around thinking that their infiltrator suit makes them invisible. And then they forget that Interlink facility benefits are spread like a virus through the Lattice links... so any SOI is a potential hazard, and if you're not packing the Sensor Shield and moving the right way, then you're a target.

The solution to effectively combatting Darklight is to not give away hints in the first place. Audio Amp doesn't give away a big fat icon near the head that says "I see you." That's the first thing to remember. I don't even need audio amp to hear a cloaker. I turn my volume up to a decent degree, since I have a wonderful sound system hooked to my PC, and I can hear footsteps, doors, REK twitters, etc. The second thing to remember is Interlinks and/or Motion Alarms. I don't even need to explain it. The third thing to remember is that your infiltration suit does not make you invisible unless you're standing still. If you're moving, you're visible. Plain and simple. I've spotted crouch-walking infiltrators with no tweaking of the monitor at all.

The simple rule of thumb for movement is, if there's an enemy nearby, don't move. And the simple rule of thumb for infiltrators is, you're not a ninja-assassin of doom. Leave the Rambo shit to the grunts.

Do that, and Darklight won't be an issue because it's rare to get the random darklight-flicker-onners. And the ones that do it, know where to do it and why, and what to look for.

[Warborn]

<3 Firefly

[_-Gunslinger-_]

Even with firefly's most pointed imput, btw thats what most of the sensible cloakers here have also been saying, I still think making it so that you have a "Tunneled vission" via how the zoom looks would be a nice balance to DL. So you want to fliker it. Ok but you need to actully look around for cloakers. Also it makes third-person DL dissappear.

I have yet to recieve any input from the other people who believe DL needs some tweeking. What do you think about the tunneling idea?

[Spee]

The solution to effectively combatting Darklight is to not give away hints in the first place. Audio Amp doesn't give away a big fat icon near the head that says "I see you." That's the first thing to remember. I don't even need audio amp to hear a cloaker. I turn my volume up to a decent degree, since I have a wonderful sound system hooked to my PC, and I can hear footsteps, doors, REK twitters, etc. The second thing to remember is Interlinks and/or Motion Alarms. I don't even need to explain it. The third thing to remember is that your infiltration suit does not make you invisible unless you're standing still. If you're moving, you're visible. Plain and simple. I've spotted crouch-walking infiltrators with no tweaking of the monitor at all.


Do that, and Darklight won't be an issue because it's rare to get the random darklight-flicker-onners. And the ones that do it, know where to do it and why, and what to look for.



QFT

[Warborn]

Third person view being removed from infantry would be a nice addition in general, I think. Too much hiding around corners using it to see who's coming. The DL issue only compounds the problem. Overall I'd like to see third person go from everything but vehicles, and maybe cloakers.

As for the tunnel bit, I don't know, I'd have to try it. Maybe it would improve the experience for both parties, maybe it would make using DL really annoying.

[Madcow]

Third person view being removed from infantry would be a nice addition in general, I think. Too much hiding around corners using it to see who's coming. The DL issue only compounds the problem. Overall I'd like to see third person go from everything but vehicles, and maybe cloakers.

If it's removed from other grunts I think it should be removed from cloakers, but I agree. It would have to stay in for vehicles unless they were planning on completely changing the driving system from the way it currently stands, but I can certainly live without watching my back during a hack if it means that people aren't doing 360 degree instant Dark Light sweeps for me.

In regards to Firefly, that is what most cloakers have been saying. I'm not sure why he's saying something so apparently wise when the only difference is his end opinion on Dark Light. If I screw up and you see me, I should get lit up. That's the chances I take, I get that. If I screw nothing up, if I'm not even near a base asset, if I'm somewhere stationary and I'm positive nobody has seen me but I still get lit up because some jackass has Dark Light attached to his mouse wheel? That pisses me off.

Since this conversation started, I've been doing a lot of running behind my armies grunts in different scenarios. It takes absolutely zero effort on my part to find a 'flickerer' and follow his path running around. They aren't few and far between, they're insanely common. Out in the middle of nowhere, approaching a battle, entering a courtyard, you name it. They're out there flashing that little Dark Light icon for just a second looking for that cheap kill. Seriously, bring the skill back to Planetside.

[Madcow]

Stop whining and play.

You can always ignore, or disagree. Those are both solid options that don't involve being a dickhead. Look into them.

[Warborn]

If it's removed from other grunts I think it should be removed from cloakers, but I agree.

I'm not so sure. It would give cloakers the benefit of better situational awareness. I think that's a needed benefit when movement is a liability, and you can't peak around corners. I think giving cloakers third person would work well in PS, as it worked well in Splinter Cell multiplayer in my opinion, and that's a similar sort of situation to what we have here.

Since this conversation started, I've been doing a lot of running behind my armies grunts in different scenarios. It takes absolutely zero effort on my part to find a 'flickerer' and follow his path running around. They aren't few and far between, they're insanely common. Out in the middle of nowhere, approaching a battle, entering a courtyard, you name it. They're out there flashing that little Dark Light icon for just a second looking for that cheap kill. Seriously, bring the skill back to Planetside.

At the very most I think the range of it could be reduced a significant amount. One thing I have found disturbing is how far away a cloaker can be from me yet still show up on Darklight. But otherwise, I think other facets of the infiltrator could use some enhancement, rather than relying on a DL nerf to try and make it more cat-mouse/skillbased.

[Warborn]

Stop whining and play.

Problems don't always fix themselves. There's always a chance that the developers might read what goes on here and actually take a closer look at some of the issues commonly considered flawed in the game right now. There's no harm in discussions like this, and you don't have to read them.

[Atlas24]

I didn't feel like reading the insane amount of total crap b4 this so don't burn me for repeating some1 else.

I am a dedicated stealther. I run in the devil dogs shadow team, and i am totally certed for cloaking. (not that it matterz)

Now i wil try to take an outsiders view, and not be subjective here.
I believe that DL is a little overpowered, what with it being one of the shorter implants to initialize, as well as being insanely easy to use.

When you are outside, DL is no prob, run around a tree, run out of range, etc.
Inside is a diff story, and YES there are dl flickerers don't feed me that crap. I understand that cloakers are not invincible, i think DL offers a challenge. BUT i believe a solution would be to have a initialize time on it, just like with surge, but maybe longer.

Comments?

[Meursault00]

Viewing range is a bigger problem (at least it seems so to me). Make it shorter, waaayyyy shorter.

[juggalokilla]

:boohoo: :drunk:
I split my time evenly between between agile and infil, so i see both sides of this argument. I get good kills on a infil run, if you dont, carry a spiker, it owns. You will always be on the short end as an infil , especially getting in that close to fight someone armored. Kinda like a lightning to a prowler. If someone's guarding the cc with darklight, tough, thats not where you should be going after.Thats the job for infantry. If you insist, place a boomer outside the door, run in and back out. they'll follow. you have your places that you should be. Stick to places that your not being looked for. Your supposed to be sneaky. If you are a decent cloaker, you should have more kills than deaths, as with any role you play.

I see cloaking is more for doing the bastard things that i do, drop gens, blow spawn tubes if possible, ghost hack, and my new favorite, hacking an anti infantry max in a busy spawn room, makes them poop themselves. I kill a lot of cloakers, i often flicker, because i infil often, and know where I would be. But most of my infil kills are from those running around in a feild, base, wherever at full speed, you are easily seen running. Or if i go walking around anywhere, and i bump into something that a dont see, I'll scan the area. If you dont do anything suspicous, like boomers, or pistol kills people will have less reason to flicker. If you are doing those, you cant expect people to not look for you and check frequently around the room.

Give dl a 10 point stamina drain on activation with regular drain after that, limited veiw of 5 meters, and restrict it to only first person veiw like how zoom only works first person. youll have less random flicking for no reason and it doesnt take away from those that use it for what its meant to, and limits the exploits that are being used.
Thats my perspective. Love it or hate it. Know your role, do what your there for.

:trrocks: :vsrocks: :ncsucks: :fu:

EDIT: must have missed firefly's statement earlier. I see he and i are on similar pages

[Rayder]

You do realise 5 meters is staring down the barrel of the enemy gun, don't you?

[Lonehunter]

I think the only thing reasonable is to rais the charge time and increase the stamina drain

[hex222]

You do realise 5 meters is staring down the barrel of the enemy gun, don't you?

well knifing them from teh front is just sucidal...

[Warborn]

When you are outside, DL is no prob, run around a tree, run out of range, etc.
Inside is a diff story, and YES there are dl flickerers don't feed me that crap. I understand that cloakers are not invincible, i think DL offers a challenge. BUT i believe a solution would be to have a initialize time on it, just like with surge, but maybe longer.

Comments?

The only thing that will do is make it harder to fight off an infiltrator attacking you. There is really nothing to prevent someone from still fickering DL if it had a small delay like Surge.

[juggalokilla]

the only time infil are a threat to you is at close range, beyond that, you wouldnt and shouldnt know they are there.

[Warborn]

the only time infil are a threat to you is at close range, beyond that, you wouldnt and shouldnt know they are there.

Grenades, pistols. The former especially.

Granted you could still consider grenade range "close", relative to, say, the threat range of a sniper, but overall infiltrators tend to be their most dangerous when they're not very close to you, I find, either because they're dropping boomers/spitfires and running, or because they're lobbing grenades or maybe using a pistol to snipe wounded people.

[Madcow]

I'm starting to feel more strongly that Dark Light shouldn't work in vehicles. Hunting an armorless foe who absolutely can not have AV is just weak. If you want to know exactly where they are, get out and turn the implant on. For those that say that's not 'realistic' I ask you exactly how you're seeing out of many of the vehicles anyhow. Some have windows (which should have blind spots and don't) and some don't even have those.

Also, last night I ended up inside a base in my AA MAX. A door opened and I saw a boomer on the ground. I shot it 3 times, walked through the door, turned and opened fire on the spot I would have stood. Down goes infiltrator. No Dark Light used, didn't even have to worry about plasma and was still able to do it. Amazing, no? The game does go on and you do have a chance without the implant. Of course that kill was more gratifying than if I'd hunted down 100 using Dark Light, but we all have different objectives in the game.

[Lonehunter]

I'm starting to feel more strongly that Dark Light shouldn't work in vehicles. Hunting an armorless foe who absolutely can not have AV is just weak. If you want to know exactly where they are, get out and turn the implant on.
If you think it's weak then don't do it, if you think it's not fair a driver can use DL, then don't cloak. A cloaker shouldn't really be close to a moving vehicle anyhow, but if so that's why I always carry jammers. All these things supposedly stacked up against cloakers makes it fun, exciting and challenging. If there was a way no one could see me at all that would just fucking suck.

[Queensidecastle]

If you think it's weak then don't do it, if you think it's not fair a driver can use DL, then don't cloak.

A much better option is to continue to push for change. 3rd person Darklight needs to go

[Madcow]

If you think it's weak then don't do it, if you think it's not fair a driver can use DL, then don't cloak. A cloaker shouldn't really be close to a moving vehicle anyhow, but if so that's why I always carry jammers. All these things supposedly stacked up against cloakers makes it fun, exciting and challenging. If there was a way no one could see me at all that would just fucking suck.

Don't be close to a moving vehicle? You may be blissfully unaware of this, but you often don't have a choice. See, vehicles can actually move faster than I do when I run. Of course, if I'm running I'm entirely too visible and vehicles are actually significantly faster than me when I crouch walk. Oddly enough, they also seem much faster than me when I'm stationary. So far the only place I've found that I'm faster than vehicles is underwater, but that seems to open up a whole new can of worms.

It's fun, exciting and challenging trying to avoid being run over by random vehicles that can't see you. It's fun, exciting and challenging to watch yourself fall down dead 10 feet away from a vehicle thanks to the magic of client side hit detection. How in the world would it suck if people in vehicles couldn't see you without the implant? They could still see you if you moved, they could still get out and toast you with Dark Light, they just couldn't blast you because they were lame enough to creep around searching for a cloaker in a no-lose situation.

Bring the skill back to Planetside.

[Warborn]

What? No DL in vehicles? But then how will mosquitoes and reavers be able to go close to the ground, flick on DL and shoot you?

I'd also be in favor of removing DL from vehicle use.

[Madcow]

What? No DL in vehicles? But then how will mosquitoes and reavers be able to go close to the ground, flick on DL and shoot you?

I'd also be in favor of removing DL from vehicle use.

So Warborn and I agree on 3rd person and vehicles...hmmm. Now if I can just get him to cave on the implant lock...

[Atlas24]

Ya, but if u are an infil, and u c the guy turn on his dl, then u can possibly run b4 the initalize. Just a thought.

[MrPaul]

Jebus, I've been avoiding this thread because Im not (normally) a cloaker. But after seeing all this kerfuffle about DL I thought "hrmm, maybe I hsould see it from their view". So I ditched Ground Support (:() and got Infil.

Most Kills I Evar Got In One Sitting. Evar.

5 Knifings, God knows how many Boomerings and at least 15 AMP kills. And I'm a fricken Inf. n00b! Stop moaning, for a 2point cert it's easily as powerful as It should be. Darklight doesn't need a nerf IMO.

[Atlas24]

You got lucky. :rolleyes:

[Madcow]

Jebus, I've been avoiding this thread because Im not (normally) a cloaker. But after seeing all this kerfuffle about DL I thought "hrmm, maybe I hsould see it from their view". So I ditched Ground Support (:() and got Infil.

Most Kills I Evar Got In One Sitting. Evar.

5 Knifings, God knows how many Boomerings and at least 15 AMP kills. And I'm a fricken Inf. n00b! Stop moaning, for a 2point cert it's easily as powerful as It should be. Darklight doesn't need a nerf IMO.

So now we're basing decisions on a single sitting? That sounds like a good idea. Good for you going for the knife though, it feels better doesn't it? Cleaner. I feel dirty when I wipe the floor with people using HA, I feel like I accomplish something when I stick a knife in them.
I wouldn't make a decision on any aspect of the game after one play session. Play it weeks, maybe a month, get to know the nuances, experience the evenings where not a single thing goes right for you and that storm cloud follows your toon all night long. You'll certainly never be devoid of kills, but I'll bet you'll stop acting like the cert makes you into some sort of super trooper.

[Atlas24]

So now we're basing decisions on a single sitting? That sounds like a good idea. Good for you going for the knife though, it feels better doesn't it? Cleaner. I feel dirty when I wipe the floor with people using HA, I feel like I accomplish something when I stick a knife in them.
I wouldn't make a decision on any aspect of the game after one play session. Play it weeks, maybe a month, get to know the nuances, experience the evenings where not a single thing goes right for you and that storm cloud follows your toon all night long. You'll certainly never be devoid of kills, but I'll bet you'll stop acting like the cert makes you into some sort of super trooper.


Exactomondo--- My best night as a cloaker= 2 and a half hrs, 200 kills 70 deaths, with a magscatter only.

Its just luck. Don't base things on the ONE time u tried cloaking, try playing for a while, you'll get tked a lot, and DL flickered a lot. Perseverance :)

[Queensidecastle]

Capture a module building and hold it by yourself. Only then will I be impressed

[Cauldron Borne]

Aye, you have to perserver as a cloaker. It's the only cert that requires you to get used to a steep learning curve. Sure, you may get lucky on your first run, but try your second. the third is harder, believe me. Small changes to help a cloaker avoid getting killed cheaply is all we're really asking for. Get rid of the cheap kills.

MrPaul, no cloaker here said we never got good kills, but we ARE sick of the cheap killwhoring that goes on in this game, and this particular killwhoring is, and can only be, directed towards the cloakers.

Atlas24: hey man, i didn't know you cloaked mainly! COOL! Welcome to LF. I think we've recruited some good guys just from this thread...haven't heard from boomer yet, tho. Hope to go a-killing w/ ya soon, bro.

[Atlas24]

Capture a module building and hold it by yourself. Only then will I be impressed

who are u talking to?

[Queensidecastle]

Mr Paul.

oh CauldronBorne, let me know if you guys in Liquid Force do some kind of Shadow ops. I love my outfit but I am the only person that plays a cloaker regularly and also the only one who likes to go into the caves. Hooking up with Madcow didnt work out cause he is Dirty NC :)

[Cauldron Borne]

Aye...stinky NC....they smell, that's why i don't play NC. Can't stand the smellyness :D


Oh, and just send me a tell in-game, or visit our website. We don't have anything like that planned, but we do regular Black Ops (it's what the outfit...just....does....) We're kinda small, as in we only do small squad action with a 2 squad outfit night every once in a while.

[Madcow]

I didn't start playing NC until they got nerfed silly. I couldn't stomach them until I didn't think they had far and away the best gear. Then one night my VS infil looted a bunch of MagScatter pistols and I was in lurve. Once other empires started getting buffed, and the NC population started to die down, it was time to make my move.

Besides, the TR knife sucks. ;)

[CassH]

I had this great reply planned to list why darklight should not be modified. But then I realized that you people who just moan and groan about me being a newbie Rexo user. So I figure I'd express my ideas in a few short statements.

1. You're no James Bond, so don't act like it.

2. Don't insult the largest group players in the game if you want to instigate change.

3. Cloakers are support characters. They alone will not win a battle and they alone will not win a war.

4. Personal stories mean squat. The battlefield is way to unpredictable of any of that to mean anything at all.

Oh, I think it's a bad idea by the way.


Yes Rexo's are vary important but what i think whould just solve this problem is just make DL turn on then cant be turned off for 5 secounds then all the cloackers cant moan about DL flashing

[Meursault00]

Holy crap, someone actually took the time to read my post on this topic. That's a first.

[Madcow]

Holy crap, someone actually took the time to read my post on this topic. That's a first.

I read it, but didn't especially feel compelled to respond to the standard misguided "infil shouldn't try to kill people anyhow" tripe.

[Meursault00]

#1 should have been Jackie Chan not James Bond


#3 meant this:
Snipers are support characters. Alone, snipers will not win a war because sooner or later, a grunt will have to come in and do the dirty work. Cloakers are like that. Sure they can kill grunts and kill one another (quite effectively too), but cloakers alone cannot completely fill the role that is designated for a grunt.

Unless you're referring to the other posts, then this post is completely unneeded

[MrPaul]

Well, I've been playin cloaker almost constantly since I took it up. Youre right, it isn't as easy as I first though, but it's easier than some of you make it seem. I managed to sneak into a zerged base and resecure the CC, then boomer two MAXes before being killed (I say 2 MAXes & a resecure is more than one lifes worth for a cloaker). Then I just took the fight to them, going to NME spawns & towers and just blowing the hell out of them before they could initialise DL. That's the thing, Cloaking is available as soon as you get into the suit, DL takes 2 minutes or so to become available, so any covert ops deep into enemy territory are much easier than covert ops on a battle line. So I intend to stick to my Deep Strike tactics.

PS. Magscatter's pwn. Repeater suxxors. Beamer.. heh.

[Madcow]

Well, I've been playin cloaker almost constantly since I took it up. Youre right, it isn't as easy as I first though, but it's easier than some of you make it seem. I managed to sneak into a zerged base and resecure the CC, then boomer two MAXes before being killed (I say 2 MAXes & a resecure is more than one lifes worth for a cloaker). Then I just took the fight to them, going to NME spawns & towers and just blowing the hell out of them before they could initialise DL. That's the thing, Cloaking is available as soon as you get into the suit, DL takes 2 minutes or so to become available, so any covert ops deep into enemy territory are much easier than covert ops on a battle line. So I intend to stick to my Deep Strike tactics.

PS. Magscatter's pwn. Repeater suxxors. Beamer.. heh.

Glad to see you've stuck with it. Dark Light isn't 2 minutes by the way, I think it's 1. It's the quickest implant to initialize that I know of. Those base resecures are great, but are blind luck a lot of the time. You can spend a lot of careful time getting to a CC only to find out that they actually left behind a number of people and you just wasted 10 minutes being really sneaky to get blown up in a hurry. My favorite ever was resecuring the same base twice. They finally coordinated a base sweep and left 5 people in the CC to make sure I didn't do it again. I was happy in the knowledge that I cost all of them a boatload of xp.
I still say the best use of pistols is using them against the corresponding empire. When fighting TR, loot a Repeater. When fighting VS, loot a Beamer. Both are actually very nice pistols, you use them to plunk people from beyond Dark Light range. I killed a VS MAX with a Beamer the other night but was somehow able to keep myself from sending him a taunt tell.
I'm curious to see how your opinion changes with even more experience.

[MrPaul]

Glad to see you've stuck with it. Dark Light isn't 2 minutes by the way, I think it's 1.
Enhanced targetting too, Melee Booster is soon after.


I still say the best use of pistols is using them against the corresponding empire. When fighting TR, loot a Repeater. When fighting VS, loot a Beamer. Both are actually very nice pistols, you use them to plunk people from beyond Dark Light range. I killed a VS MAX with a Beamer the other night but was somehow able to keep myself from sending him a taunt tell.
Never really tried that, as Im not too keen on the beamer. MAG kills against the VS are fun. I can imagine them thinking "WTFs an NC doing here?" "oshit he was TR" etc.

[Madcow]

Never really tried that, as Im not too keen on the beamer. MAG kills against the VS are fun. I can imagine them thinking "WTFs an NC doing here?" "oshit he was TR" etc.

That's the reason for using the pistols against their empire. If you use a Beamer against the NC or TR they start looking for you right away. If you use it against the VS, they don't bat an eye. The sound draws no attention. In a medium size battle the kill spam hopefully goes by fast enough that they don't even notice somebody racking up Beamer kills. Same thing with using the Repeater against the TR. I killed about 6 VS on a hill once using the Beamer, and finally got Lashered from behind. The guy sent me a tell that he never would have thought to come hunting me but he heard so much Beamer fire he decided to come help the VS infil who was doing all the shooting. Then he found me.

[MrPaul]

That's the reason for using the pistols against their empire. If you use a Beamer against the NC or TR they start looking for you right away. If you use it against the VS, they don't bat an eye. The sound draws no attention. In a medium size battle the kill spam hopefully goes by fast enough that they don't even notice somebody racking up Beamer kills. Same thing with using the Repeater against the TR. I killed about 6 VS on a hill once using the Beamer, and finally got Lashered from behind. The guy sent me a tell that he never would have thought to come hunting me but he heard so much Beamer fire he decided to come help the VS infil who was doing all the shooting. Then he found me.

Yeah I read that earlier in the thread, I just don't like the beamer is all. Designed to give away positions that thing is. Same for spiker. Although the spiker is reasonably worth it.

[Queensidecastle]

Forget about the pistols and use the Spiker. It is 100 times more powerfull and no one seems to have any idea what it is so they dont come looking for you. Even if they do, just kill them. It only takes 3 shots to kill an agile and 4 for a fresh rexo. Less if damaged

[Atlas24]

I don't have MA :( and we needz tha link!

[Madcow]

I'm currently thinking about getting Core Combat just for the Spiker. I have a few things I can drop for MA. With the BFR's coming, it would be nice to have CC anyhow. I just hate paying decent money for that crap expansion. I should have bought it when Gogamer.com had it for 10 bucks, it's up to 15 now which is 20 with shipping. That expansion isn't worth more than 10 bucks.

[Atlas24]

I'm currently thinking about getting Core Combat just for the Spiker. I have a few things I can drop for MA. With the BFR's coming, it would be nice to have CC anyhow. I just hate paying decent money for that crap expansion. I should have bought it when Gogamer.com had it for 10 bucks, it's up to 15 now which is 20 with shipping. That expansion isn't worth more than 10 bucks.

I bought it for cheap off ebay, and i dunno, it hasn't really been worth the 30-40 times ive been in the caverns, or the weapons. (yet)

[Meursault00]

If you're near a Fry's Electronics or know someone who is, you can get it for about 9.50 or so. A real great buy.

Edit: You usually have to wait for the sales, and even when they have one PS:CC isn't in the newspaper, have to go down and check out their gaming department. The store you go to also seems to have a role, because sometimes one store will have one on sale, and another will not.

Edit2: Also, I was at the Fry's Electronics in Fremont.

[Madcow]

If you're near a Fry's Electronics or know someone who is, you can get it for about 9.50 or so. A real great buy.

Really? I have one on the way home. I'll swing by tomorrow and see.

[Madcow]

If you're near a Fry's Electronics or know someone who is, you can get it for about 9.50 or so. A real great buy.

Edit: You usually have to wait for the sales, and even when they have one PS:CC isn't in the newspaper, have to go down and check out their gaming department. The store you go to also seems to have a role, because sometimes one store will have one on sale, and another will not.

Edit2: Also, I was at the Fry's Electronics in Fremont.

Just called the Fry's on my way home and they have it in stock for $9.90. I guess I join the ranks of suckers who bought this tonight. I checked their website (outpost.com) and they don't even have it listed so I guess it's all up to each store's inventory.

[Queensidecastle]

I would gladly pay $9.90 just for the spiker alone much less everything else

Bizzle: I am sure you are good enough to figure out how to use it but I wrote up a tutorial for it on my outfit forums I can give you a copy of if you would like

[Madcow]

Hey, I'm not one to turn down help. Especially since you've been talking about the Spiker for months and I have used it exactly 0 times. While I'm sure I'll still try multiple stupid things with it that you've probably tried and found to not work, it wouldn't be bad to focus on some ways you've found to actually have success with it. Appreciate the offer.

[Queensidecastle]

Tried to PM it for ya but the forum kicked it out because it was over 4500 characters long hehe. You got an email addy? I would link the forums but its passworded