The Art of Cloaking
Pawndemonium
Join Date: 2010-07-24 Member: 72725Members
Join Date: 2010-07-24 Member: 72725Members
Yo, at first, good thing that my beloved stealth is back!
However, as of now its implementation is lacking in my eyes,as you're just bloody invisible, and that's frustrating as a marine. Not only because they die too often to it, but also because it's boring to look at nothing.
Seriously, this engine is capable of nice eyecandy, and on top of that its current implementation needs a different approach, to get rid of frustration.
- For marines the camouflaged aliens are just invisible, it's not that they don't have to play hide and seek already, they pretty much would need a nuke to cover every mapcorner to uncover those sneaky ######s, getting ported in to buy stuff, just to drop it 2 seconds later is crap.
- The partice effects on cloaked entities just looks a bit out of place, we all know it's a beta, but I'm just mentioning that this purple stuff doesn't really do the trick imo. We are talking about a grim bloody race which kills stuff, not about carebears on rainbows.
So what would I change?
Well, basically I see no reason not to use a light distortion effect, we all saw in Predator and probably in any other game with some form of cloaking. But this isn't only about eyecandy, because a marine's flashlight should come in handy to make it easier to realise what is hiding some units away. This could be achieved by somehow adding a nifty light reflection effect (awesome), or just increase the bluring the closer you get with a flashlight, to make that dreaded lifeform stand out a bit.
This obviously shouldn't end in disco fever to render Camouflage useless, but the effect when sudden lightning changes happen should be noticable enough to give a vigilant marine a slight hint what might block his path in a moment (and most importantly soon enough to have initiative over a failed hiding attempt).
Even sneaking in general should be changed for that matter, adding some distoration when doing so, but less of an effect compared to having a marine point a flashlight on you, in darker areas this shouldn't be noticable at all, and when it comes to brighter areas, well you really should get the idea what's going on from quite a distance if you're cautious, as it can't be intended to park a Skulk near an armory/IP to block off a wave of marines.
When it comes to taking damage the alien should completely uncover with a nice penalty (at least 5 seconds) on when it may slip into stealth again.
Cloaked stuff for the aliens should also have a distortion effect for their own team (with a bigger distance of course, and more easily distinguishable), because that shader effect is awesome and should be spammed all over the place, and if that doesn't fry most rigs on that planet already, it also should have a smoke effect on top of that, because it's scientifically proven that smoke is more awesome than lame purple particles.
This might give the alien commander the creeps, but I think buildings in the dark need to be dealt with in that matter anyway, eg. giving a different vision if he does so desire.
So much for the suggestion, pictures would make it look more shiny, but seriously, we all know predator cloaking and smoke! =p
Well, to be more serious, I hope that's descriptive enough to be useful.
However, as of now its implementation is lacking in my eyes,as you're just bloody invisible, and that's frustrating as a marine. Not only because they die too often to it, but also because it's boring to look at nothing.
Seriously, this engine is capable of nice eyecandy, and on top of that its current implementation needs a different approach, to get rid of frustration.
- For marines the camouflaged aliens are just invisible, it's not that they don't have to play hide and seek already, they pretty much would need a nuke to cover every mapcorner to uncover those sneaky ######s, getting ported in to buy stuff, just to drop it 2 seconds later is crap.
- The partice effects on cloaked entities just looks a bit out of place, we all know it's a beta, but I'm just mentioning that this purple stuff doesn't really do the trick imo. We are talking about a grim bloody race which kills stuff, not about carebears on rainbows.
So what would I change?
Well, basically I see no reason not to use a light distortion effect, we all saw in Predator and probably in any other game with some form of cloaking. But this isn't only about eyecandy, because a marine's flashlight should come in handy to make it easier to realise what is hiding some units away. This could be achieved by somehow adding a nifty light reflection effect (awesome), or just increase the bluring the closer you get with a flashlight, to make that dreaded lifeform stand out a bit.
This obviously shouldn't end in disco fever to render Camouflage useless, but the effect when sudden lightning changes happen should be noticable enough to give a vigilant marine a slight hint what might block his path in a moment (and most importantly soon enough to have initiative over a failed hiding attempt).
Even sneaking in general should be changed for that matter, adding some distoration when doing so, but less of an effect compared to having a marine point a flashlight on you, in darker areas this shouldn't be noticable at all, and when it comes to brighter areas, well you really should get the idea what's going on from quite a distance if you're cautious, as it can't be intended to park a Skulk near an armory/IP to block off a wave of marines.
When it comes to taking damage the alien should completely uncover with a nice penalty (at least 5 seconds) on when it may slip into stealth again.
Cloaked stuff for the aliens should also have a distortion effect for their own team (with a bigger distance of course, and more easily distinguishable), because that shader effect is awesome and should be spammed all over the place, and if that doesn't fry most rigs on that planet already, it also should have a smoke effect on top of that, because it's scientifically proven that smoke is more awesome than lame purple particles.
This might give the alien commander the creeps, but I think buildings in the dark need to be dealt with in that matter anyway, eg. giving a different vision if he does so desire.
So much for the suggestion, pictures would make it look more shiny, but seriously, we all know predator cloaking and smoke! =p
Well, to be more serious, I hope that's descriptive enough to be useful.
Comments
My shotgun flash alternate might be a solution.
but one thing you should remember: uwe tried in ns1 to make the models only partial invisible. In one patch it was even 99%, but the people found ways to make aliens visible (increase the gamma value). I hope this mistake will be avoided by simply don't even send the position of cloaked units to players of the opposing team, which implies that we could not have any distortion effects of already cloaked units. but, becoming cloaked or revealing should get improved.
On top of that transparency sounds just too 2001, and regardless if these are placeholders, I just think the flashlight should play a role to partially unveil a cloaked ambush.
Changing alphavalues and be done with it would suck, maybe it's a convenient alternative for your own team (although smoke is still awesome), but when it comes to revealing mechanics it just would be outdated, and will get exploited as you've already mentioned (people probably even increased the glow of it as well).
Using a shader effect makes it harder in that regard, as long as the related files can't be altered, there would be issues with people using an older video card, but what the hell, welcome to 2011, the game is so CPU intense, that if you're able to run it, you should own a proper GPU anyway.
I kinda forgot to mention that the scan should reveal the location aswell, but that will be implemented anyway.
However, scan seems to reveal cloaked aliens for 1 sec, I think it should be for whole duration of the scan, and I think it is really important that they tell the aliens when they get decloaked. I have been cloaked several times, just to get shoot, where marines tell me I was visible, but my hud said i was cloaked.
And simply getting near an obs should de-cloak you as well, I think the ability to sneak invisible inside rine base is op.
I also had this nice idea that with the nice dynamic lighting system spark has, cloaked stuff could get really faint shadows. This makes a spotlight such as the marine flashlight something usefull for uncovering aliens (as the shadow is more visible than the rooms normal lighting).
Such a use for flashlights would not be op, as it has to be lite at the alien, the marine has to pay attention as it is really faint, and on some textures the shadow just would not be visible.
When moving, this shadow could be made slightly more visible, but still faint enough to not be noticeable in a normal rooms lighting.
So not all the marines run around with it always on.
in half life there where some permanent dark areas for flair, but in ns2, this would just annoy players.
So not all the marines run around with it always on.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You shouldnt run around with flashlight on at all times anyway, its the best way to warn nearby skulks that its time to hide in the cieling to ambush you.
I modded my client to make unpowered areas turn off all lamps rather than the red emergency lighting, so every time I try to go through one, I have to figure out if I should use a flashlight or not. If I use it the alien comm can see me, but if I don't use it, I am almost blind (unlike my teammates). Really adds to the atmosphere ;).
I modded my client to make unpowered areas turn off all lamps rather than the red emergency lighting, so every time I try to go through one, I have to figure out if I should use a flashlight or not. If I use it the alien comm can see me, but if I don't use it, I am almost blind (unlike my teammates). Really adds to the atmosphere ;).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I honestly think thats how ns2 should be period, there should be no "red emergency lighting" it should just be pitch black if the power is taken out.
I laughed here.