Synergistic Certs

[Grognard]

I'll start...

Though I will not play this, I have a sinking feeling that the Fighter Pilot / Cloaked Sniper certs will be very powerful in tandem.

Cloaked bailing.
Sniping from air-locatable positions
3 dimensional scouting
3 dimensional farming
Solo transportable remote diversions
So... much... more...

Anyone else have some synergistically fun / powerful combinations?

[Duncan]

I imagine Gal Pilot / Engineer is going to be a pretty common combination. Bring troops to front lines, park the Gal, set up a forward defensive position with turrets, mines, maybe even unload an AA Lightning and hop in to protect your turf, if the Galaxy ends up doing vehicle transport.

[Brusi]

I'm hoping my old Fav, from PS makes a comeback...

Cloaker hacking out a MAX unit in the enemy spawn room ;p

[PeteHMB]

I'm hoping my old Fav, from PS makes a comeback...

Cloaker hacking out a MAX unit in the enemy spawn room ;p

ALWAYS fun times!!! AI MAX + spawn was great. Especially when you had friends with you. I remember one time we had 6 of us all cloak down into the spawn room (back before the stupid gas stuff)..3 came up the back stairwell, 2 tried one front door, one tried the other...only 4 of us made it to the terminals, and only 3 got our MAX suits, but we cleared the entire spawn room and setup shop as soon as we did. Survived throughout the entire hack until the base turned ours and I swapped back.

[The Kush]

I'll start...

Though I will not play this, I have a sinking feeling that the Fighter Pilot / Cloaked Sniper certs will be very powerful in tandem.

Cloaked bailing.
Sniping from air-locatable positions
3 dimensional scouting
3 dimensional farming
Solo transportable remote diversions
So... much... more...

Anyone else have some synergistically fun / powerful combinations?

I agree cloakers should not have vehicle access

[Bravix]

I'm hoping my old Fav, from PS makes a comeback...

Cloaker hacking out a MAX unit in the enemy spawn room ;p

I much prefer'd putting a door open virus on the facility that we're getting farmed at, hack a term and pull AV MAX, run into their gen and blow that b*tch like it just paid me 10 dollars.

That or run in to find out that there's a omfgbbq supwerpowered pain field and die.

[CutterJohn]

I agree cloakers should not have vehicle access

Eh.. they just need to make it quite difficult to land in a tree.

[Sabot]

I suspect there will be next to no difference if you're sniping as a cloaker or a reguar light... every god damn bullet in all shooters now days is a tracer round so they can cloak all they want, we'll still see where they are.

[CollinBRTD]

We have to remember that Aircav is the strongest and most flexible vehicle in game. In PS1 it even had a i will survive button (ALT+G).

I would even say NO BAILING from Aircav at all!

[Bruttal]

I agree cloakers should not have vehicle access

ATV's only maybe but not none at all thats just mean

[Kipper]

I just don't want cloakers to be completely invisible meaning that everyone will have to cert darklight stuff first thing or just be farmed.

I find little more annoying than being taken out by something I can't see or have the opportunity to fight back against because it kills me with the first hit - and while I'm sure there are ways you can know they're nearby, it often doesn't work if you're concentrating on shooting / not being shot by the people that you CAN see.

The only reason I put up with artillery insta-killing me on World of Tanks is because I can do it right back at them (and it is kinda satisying, but I can almost hear them screaming at their PC sometimes)

[Sabot]

Hey, war is war. Although for the sake of keeping it a fun game, maybe a sniping cloaker could be instantly revealed and seen by everyone that's in... say a max or rexo (and some vehicles maybe, idk) and is in range of hearing and/or seeing that first shot... no matter if they're cloaked or not. That way, if they want to park their cloaked vehicle in a tree/atop a mountain or on the bio dome, behind enemy lines, they can't just sit there and farm, they have to move after the first shot. But if they want to sit along their own front line, it wouldn't matter much if they get spotted, since everyone is shooting in that direction (and probably at other things) anyway. It'll turn into a sniper vs sniper situation, and the one with the most skill will win... just as it should be, imo.

[Kipper]

In real life, counter sniping is obviously pretty important because it stops enemy snipers taking out your troops.

In FPS games, counter sniping is not as important because its harder, and you get more kills just farming people from across the map.

People tend to play for themselves, even despite the fact that organised squads clean up (and everyone gets more xp/points) over random rambo's in every game I've played.

I prefer to play for the team, but I understand/gather that most people play to pad their stats. As cool as it is to see how well you've been playing the game compared with your buddies, for me, stats are a by-product of what I do in game, not the reason I'm in the game (which is to have fun).

The more PS2 does to promote team play, the better.

[Sabot]

And that's why we obviously can't have cloaked snipers... everybody would be one and there would be no battle. Playing it "safe" and sniping from across the map should be hard... no risk, no reward. No difficulty, no xp. If you want to snipe, you should have to wait for that perfect oportunity and be sure you kill your target, or at least hit it... cause when you fire, every enemy sniper in range will see you and you'll be so full of bullet holes so fast, if you don't hide and move and wait until they lose track of you.

No easy farming of kills to promote stats padding, please. I mean, there will always be some tactic that's proven to be a real stat booster... and if it's an imbalance they will have to fix it. But it shouldn't be so easy as just equipping a sniper rifle.

But in short, I agree with ya.

[Kipper]

Yeah, I wouldn't like to have to be the one that has to think of how it can be balanced. It has to be rewarding but not farmable, and not a death sentence either.

ANY cloaker initiating any attack should probably become visible for a few seconds - so if you're going to sneak behind my lines and try knife me, everyone near me is going to have the opportunity to see you. This means you can't wipe out entire squads single handedly - but realistically also means you're dead meat if you try to knife an entire squad. Knife kills should be for stealthily picking off unsuspecting guards alone or maybe in pairs, in sneak attacks - squads on a raging battlefield who are pumped up shouldn't have to worry too much about their back along their own lines.

Sniper rifle should probably be mutually exclusive with the cloaking field as it does seem a bit OP... or as you say, using it deactivates cloaking for a good amount of time, so you have to keep your distance and just use cloak to move point to point, rather than just setting up camp and farming.

[Snipefrag]

I don't see the problem with Snipers bailing on a roof, there are MANY things that are against them in this scenario such as:

1) Air vehicles will easily gank them
2) Sniper/cloakers will have limited cloaking time, it will take skill to manage this while trying to do damage
3) Limited cover, grab SA and spam the roof and you have a free kill. It wont be like PS now where a Sniper can take a hit and then heal themselves up and carry on indefinitely... Their shelf life will be limited.

[Sabot]

I don't see the problem with Snipers bailing on a roof, there are MANY things that are against them in this scenario such as:

1) Air vehicles will easily gank them
2) Sniper/cloakers will have limited cloaking time, it will take skill to manage this while trying to do damage
3) Limited cover, grab SA and spam the roof and you have a free kill. It wont be like PS now where a Sniper can take a hit and then heal themselves up and carry on indefinitely... Their shelf life will be limited.

Absolutely! I don't want them to limit players in that way either. Chosing where to bail and hide and take that shot is half the fun in sniping imo. It's a perfect example of risk/reward... the closer you are the riskier it gets, but also easier to kill... and getting that close (or finding a good position a long ways away) is not something with the class being imbalanced, it's just the player being creative and actually thinking while playing. So long nothing is being exploited in the game mechanics or a bug or something.

[IMMentat]

I used to play a half-life2 mod called "the hidden"
One predator style invisible player with a knife and 1-3 grenades (depending on enemy teamsize), versus a squad of up to 9? standard troopers using shotguns, assault rifles, trip alarms, panic firing. One of the most tense games I have ever played.

It was usually a close match unless the invis guy knew how to rightclick instakill people mid-jump (the rightclick had a 2-3 second wind up time with an audible throaty growl), or one of the soldiers was a bit too good with their guns at long range against a mostly invisible and highly manoeverable target that moved like a ninja across the map (the hidden moved like an alien in AVP2, or the hunter in left 4 dead, wall grabs, pounces and a special heat-vision mode).

Anyways the moral of the story is that unless they force an animation like on the hunter, instakills are stupidly OP on invis players and they will be exploited.

[IMMentat]

In terms of sniping, I hope that rifles will be projectile-physics based and that the rifles will have sensible level of CoF retention while tracking a target.
Every time I sniped in PS (maybe once every 2-3 weeks to remind myself why I never took the cert for longer than2 hours at a time) I was either forced to sit still pointing at a door with the main rifle, or use the heavy scout rifle and pray I could inconvenience something enough to let someone else kill it. Tracking just didn't exist in PS1, which then severley limited both sniping and counter-sniping options to strafe a bit and pray something moves into your sights.

As for cloaked snipers, it all depends on how powerful those rifles are and how self sufficient cloakers will be after taking a few hits (hopefully not very).

[Mezorin]

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret about sniper rifles: if you don't move in a consistent direction for more than about a second and a half, its almost impossible for 90% of the snipers in games to hit you from 200 meters away or more without taking several shots. But a tank will end a sniper in like two seconds of machine gun spray, or a single tank shell.

I mean honestly, one Lightning tank setup to farm infantry could effectively shut down a dozen or more snipers and you guys are scared shitless that one might bail out of an air cav into a tree and farm a few kills? If that sniper was smart and wanted to farm kills, he would have stuck with the plane he was in.

[Shlomoshun]

I'm pretty sure they've already said that the 'cloak' for snipers will be different (and not as effective) as the 'cloak' for actual infiltration types.

It's likely to be a cloak that deactivates for a short time upon firing, adn also deactivates upon the snipers movement or just have a timer or such. For these reasons, you won't be able to snipe from a single location for very long, which is what any sniper should already know. 1-2 shots from a location before moving elsewhere...

[Kipper]

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret about sniper rifles: if you don't move in a consistent direction for more than about a second and a half, its almost impossible for 90% of the snipers in games to hit you from 200 meters away or more without taking several shots. But a tank will end a sniper in like two seconds of machine gun spray, or a single tank shell.

What's all well and good in an evolving battle where people are on it and moving around.

What people don't enjoy so much is when you're headshotted by someone you couldn't see at a distance you couldn't engage them at. The only danger to the sniper is that they miss, they aren't in danger of dying so no amount of skill helps you. Either die or fall back.

Having said that of course - I will be on standby with my flamethrower armed mosquito to burn the entire area if someone calls out a snipers rough location :)

[Raka Maru]

It was fun to hunt snipers with my cloaker. Now I will be both at the same time. :D

[Grognard]

Any other synergistically fun / powerful combinations?

[Raka Maru]

Any other synergistically fun / powerful combinations?

Well, I liked my cloaker/engie but that won't be happening in PS2 so I anxiously await the infil gadgets to be revealed.

[Xyntech]

Any other synergistically fun / powerful combinations?

Obviously Engi + any vehicle will be a good combo, but I think Engi + Galaxy or Engi + Sunderer will be especially synergistic.

Move into position, deploy the vehicle, then set up camp by setting up machine guns and other Engi deployables around the base.

[Kipper]

Nah, sunderer + assault. Drive through a wall/door then jump out and start shooting!

[Xyntech]

Nah, sunderer + assault. Drive through a wall/door then jump out and start shooting!

That's what your passengers do.

Somebody has to provide infrastructure for them after they clear the area though ;)