With the recently added camo's that are in empire colours only and the adjustment to vehicle textures, as can be seen below, it is clear that SOE wants to get rid of the tactical aspect of camouflage in this game. What do you think, is this good or bad?
I can think of three reasons why they're doing it:
- Performance issues
You can't really argue with this but there's a price to pay. With all these identical looking empire camo's, there's really little reason to buy them any more. Who cares about these different textures if they look more or less the same on your uniform anyway?
- Identification Friend or Foe
Making faction colours less visible is not that much of an issue imo in a game where you can spot enemies and friendlies. If you need safe, consistent an stealthy IFF, then spot friendlies, not enemies.
They also have plans for empire specific walk animations, which should make IFF even more easy.
- Solving the "camo is p2w" issue
If this is the reason behind the camo nerf, than SOE is completely solving it the wrong way, pissing off their own customers who paid hard cash for them.
What they should have done is making one good camo per continent (plus a night camo) grindable.
All in all, I'm not favouring the direction they are going with camouflage, as it takes away a tactical aspect of the game that was hardly an issue to begin with. The map design in this game is way too static and blunt for camouflage to ever become an OP issue and blending in with the environment/enemy (giraffe camo) is naturally balanced by the increased risk of taking friendly fire damage.
EDIT: The real reason seems to be, surprise surprise, upcoming vehicle hacking. While nice, this still feels like a trade-off to me and I would prefer a win-win solution.