Cloaking has been dramatically nerfed compared to NS1, in which:
- When fully cloaked you were 100% invisible - The cloak upgrade would let you run full speed while partially cloaked, with your visibility depending on how fast you were moving - Sensory chambers would fully cloak you even while running
Not really sure why all three of these things were nerfed. We should at least have the first two back IMO. Not to mention that SCs had Focus, and they still weren't even the favorite first hive choice. I'm actually not particularly attached to cloaking, if it's not going to be done well it should be replaced IMO.
The biggest problem with cloaking right now is that the speed penalty is crippling.
I wouldn't mind it being changed to being able to run full speed while cloaked, but be visible very faintly, and completely invisible when walking/crouched.
Right now not only you move at... is it 50% but you're also not fully invisible. Kind of a not very desirable upgrade, to say the least.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
edited November 2012
it would be cool if each room and hallway had at least 2 or more moving parts that would attract a marines attention, so that even uncloaked alien movement did not stand out so much.
it could be masked by things like:
pipes that rattle wildly steam ejections coming out of vents walls with moving gears fans (already in the game, but usually only used for shadow effects) machinery movement small blinking LED lights screens that turn on/off with static swinging light fixtures and cables flapping flags and cloth chains that wobble malfunctioning doors (that go no where) that open slightly and then close again - and elevators, fork lights. crate doors that flap open and close from imaginery wind. dripping water flowing water bending/warping floors - perhaps some grates or metal grip floors could occasionally have corners that pop up (as if the whole facility/spacestation is flexing and contracting) laser scanners turning on and off, or scannining at random
these would all be animations, and not physics based so they dont waste cpu/gpu power.
not only would these help mask player movement, but it would also make levels feel much more alive instead of the quite sterile (although very beautiful) maps. (i guess no game really has non sterile levels though, not just ns2).
a lot of the alien and marine buildings already have small movement which is cool though :)
<!--quoteo(post=2010810:date=Nov 5 2012, 09:53 AM:name=|strofix|)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (|strofix| @ Nov 5 2012, 09:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2010810"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What is instead required is distortion, similar to heat effects you see in most modern day game engines. This involves the cloaking lifeform being 100% invisible, which is to say that none of the pixels which make up the lifeform are present on the screen. Instead, any pixel in the background which is viewed through the lifeform has its position modified by some transform, creating that sort of rippling water effect. Instead of varying the transparency of the lifeform (which is essentially useless as 90% transparency is just as good as 10% transparency) you ca instead alter the magnitude of the distortion, or the magnitude of a pixels displacement when viewed through the lifeform.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes definitely, distortion instead of an opaque "overlay" in the field of vision. By not implementing it they either took the easy way out or it's a performance issue. Either way they should work out a solution for it.
<!--quoteo(post=2012613:date=Nov 6 2012, 03:12 PM:name=Reubot)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Reubot @ Nov 6 2012, 03:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012613"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes definitely, distortion instead of an opaque "overlay" in the field of vision. By not implementing it they either took the easy way out or it's a performance issue. Either way they should work out a solution for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a horrendously simple shader. I think its just a choice right now, which they may change in the future.
cloak should be 100% cloaked (even in obs) but only when stationary. Move and cloak goes and you appear on the obs again. So an obs could see you moving but as soon as you stop (only with cloak) then the red blip disappears when you cloak.
<!--quoteo(post=2012780:date=Nov 6 2012, 06:00 PM:name=Exodus19)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Exodus19 @ Nov 6 2012, 06:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012780"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From what I can see cloak is fine, it's just the people who have it don't know how to use it correctly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Camouflague is the last upgrade I buy as alien commander. If anything it's a gimmick for trolling the other team, but it is far outweighed by silence, celerity or carapace.
The question I have would be can it be effectively improved so that it's useful? Reading this thread, and other camouflague threads, I think not. I would vote that it be replaced with something else: my first thought would be something that creates a mirror image of your player model, with limited AI, so you have a hallucination buddy that can eat some bullets for you. I have -no- idea how that would work in practice, but I can certainly see people using it in a combat situation.
<!--quoteo(post=2013689:date=Nov 6 2012, 09:11 PM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Nov 6 2012, 09:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2013689"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Camouflague is the last upgrade I buy as alien commander. If anything it's a gimmick for trolling the other team, but it is far outweighed by silence, celerity or carapace.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This, cloak sucks stop trying to trick people into thinking it's good. You gain significantly less from cloak than you do from silence and cloak is easy as hell to spot even when you're not moving.
Also the ability to scan whenever you need to. The ns1's energy system was great for this as it made you to have certain amount of scans per time. Now you can always scan when your pressure team goes for the rt kill.
Cloak is a bit underpowered atm, a few ideas to make it better would be; 1. Once you are cloaked the only things that can uncloak you are scans, obs, marines coliding with you or you attacking them and marines shooting you. 2. Cloaked should be cloaked which means can't be seen. It is hard to see things that are cloaked and don't move, but what doesn't move on the alien side? The shade is extremly easy to see cause it's always flapping up and down.
And as far as a cloaked onos goes, "hmmm theres a outline of a big thing coming towards me".
Make the default Obs weaker: <ul><li>Aliens at normal speed will be detected like the current Obs does.</li><li>Aliens at crouched speed or without movement are not shown as white reticles but show as red dots on the minimap, though the dot on the minimap lags behind the actual location of the alien or is only updated in slower intervals, so it can only be determined precisely if the alien stays longer at a certain position.</li><li>Cloaked aliens are not automatically uncloaked as soon as they enter the range of the Obs. Besides that the rules for crouched aliens apply.</li></ul>
What the marine commander can do now is to pay his 3 resources to put the Obs into scan mode for 20-30 seconds (whatever works out). Scan mode would detect all aliens as if they were at normal speed and uncloak them, i.e. what the current Obs is doing.
It just should be something that the commander has to actively use if he notices from some red dots that aliens might be nearby, but he actually has to pay the resource price for it instead of having a permanently active hard-counter to cloak.
I don't think cloak is so much the issue as a lack of a counter for observatory for aliens early game
May not see the light of day, but I would highly recommend the Dev's consider a <i>"Distortion"</i> evolution for aliens that makes their hitbox slightly smaller, adds a blur effect, and gains them immunity to detection from observatories
It would be a really nice package for Lerks who can almost never sneak into a Marine base alone for harassment
<!--quoteo(post=2011151:date=Nov 5 2012, 09:27 AM:name=Typhon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Typhon @ Nov 5 2012, 09:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2011151"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What if motion tracking and auto-reveal was an expensive upgrade to individual observatories? This would delay the time at which cloak/silence become useless near a marine base, and also greatly increase the expense of covering the map with it.
Also, do observatories really only do motion tracking nearby, or do they even reveal stationary targets? Really should be just motion tracking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Observatories do in fact reveal stationary targets. The obs isn't horribly expensive, and because it scans in a radius, it can really cripple an alien team. Was against a team with a clever obs placement in locker room on Docking yesterday, they got scans of half of courtyard, all of locker room, most of ball court, and most of the way to onos bar from one structure. Because of the nature of the placement, the alien team had to attack around several corners to get to the obs, which means the marines always know they are coming; the one time we stood a chance of taking it out, they beaconed in and saved it of course.
<!--quoteo(post=2011903:date=Nov 5 2012, 07:08 PM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Nov 5 2012, 07:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2011903"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it would be cool if each room and hallway had at least 2 or more moving parts that would attract a marines attention, so that even uncloaked alien movement did not stand out so much.
it could be masked by things like:
pipes that rattle wildly steam ejections coming out of vents walls with moving gears fans (already in the game, but usually only used for shadow effects) machinery movement small blinking LED lights screens that turn on/off with static swinging light fixtures and cables flapping flags and cloth chains that wobble malfunctioning doors (that go no where) that open slightly and then close again - and elevators, fork lights. crate doors that flap open and close from imaginery wind. dripping water flowing water bending/warping floors - perhaps some grates or metal grip floors could occasionally have corners that pop up (as if the whole facility/spacestation is flexing and contracting) laser scanners turning on and off, or scannining at random
these would all be animations, and not physics based so they dont waste cpu/gpu power.
not only would these help mask player movement, but it would also make levels feel much more alive instead of the quite sterile (although very beautiful) maps. (i guess no game really has non sterile levels though, not just ns2).
a lot of the alien and marine buildings already have small movement which is cool though :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are pretty cool, but would also require a TON of time to make the art assets for. You should try going silenced onos sometime though- it does in fact make the metal rattle around you as you run, even while silent.
<!--quoteo(post=2015366:date=Nov 8 2012, 07:12 AM:name=ReluctantPuppet)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ReluctantPuppet @ Nov 8 2012, 07:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015366"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about giving a 50% damage increase when attacking out of cloak? Or it could be a static number to prevent so skulks gain more than say, an onos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like this. It'd be fairly intuitive, too, since it's an "ambush" attack. This would also harken back to Focus. If damage is too much, it could simply slow the marine, or prevent him from jumping. Perhaps a poison effect, too.
I think it'd manifest in a "buff" that would give the skulk 50% extra damage on one attack for 5 seconds. This allows the skulk to leap out of camouflage and still get the bonus damage. The % damage could be different for lifeforms, much like it's different for celerity (according to the wiki, anyway).
This would have the additional advantage of giving the skulk some lategame oomph.
Cloak really is quite useless at the moment. Completely removing it or buffing it needs to be done.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.
<!--quoteo(post=2015466:date=Nov 8 2012, 05:04 PM:name=Skie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skie @ Nov 8 2012, 05:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015466"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cloak really is quite useless at the moment. Completely removing it or buffing it needs to be done.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
^This! Please bugfix it and make it available with full speed.
<!--quoteo(post=2013882:date=Nov 7 2012, 11:21 AM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Nov 7 2012, 11:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2013882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->how will cloaking and ambushing help if it takes 5 bites to kill a marine?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
excuse me if i'm taking your post out of context, but...
the marine only takes 3-4 bites to kill, because the stealth allowed you to get 1-2 bites for free - even against a good marine player.
that would result in an all-out super buff to alien damage.
look at the amount of 'facestabs' you can get as spy etc in TF2, with 0.0152ms lag interpolation.
if that change came into effect, you might as well include random damage spread and critical blows. backstab multiplier is a clever idea in theory, but impossible to implement without serious inconsistency during online play.
edit: lol, teach me to post without reading the whole thread (again)... if the multiplier was for 'while cloaked' only, it would be pretty fun and make it a kinda nice alternative to silence.
<!--quoteo(post=2015466:date=Nov 8 2012, 11:04 AM:name=Skie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skie @ Nov 8 2012, 11:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015466"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cloak really is quite useless at the moment. Completely removing it or buffing it needs to be done.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is not correct. I play with bloom off and can see cloaked units. They show up as pale white outlines, and are more evident when in front of particle effects.
Comments
- When fully cloaked you were 100% invisible
- The cloak upgrade would let you run full speed while partially cloaked, with your visibility depending on how fast you were moving
- Sensory chambers would fully cloak you even while running
Not really sure why all three of these things were nerfed. We should at least have the first two back IMO. Not to mention that SCs had Focus, and they still weren't even the favorite first hive choice. I'm actually not particularly attached to cloaking, if it's not going to be done well it should be replaced IMO.
I wouldn't mind it being changed to being able to run full speed while cloaked, but be visible very faintly, and completely invisible when walking/crouched.
Right now not only you move at... is it 50% but you're also not fully invisible. Kind of a not very desirable upgrade, to say the least.
it could be masked by things like:
pipes that rattle wildly
steam ejections coming out of vents
walls with moving gears
fans (already in the game, but usually only used for shadow effects)
machinery movement
small blinking LED lights
screens that turn on/off with static
swinging light fixtures and cables
flapping flags and cloth
chains that wobble
malfunctioning doors (that go no where) that open slightly and then close again - and elevators, fork lights.
crate doors that flap open and close from imaginery wind.
dripping water
flowing water
bending/warping floors - perhaps some grates or metal grip floors could occasionally have corners that pop up (as if the whole facility/spacestation is flexing and contracting)
laser scanners turning on and off, or scannining at random
these would all be animations, and not physics based so they dont waste cpu/gpu power.
not only would these help mask player movement, but it would also make levels feel much more alive instead of the quite sterile (although very beautiful) maps. (i guess no game really has non sterile levels though, not just ns2).
a lot of the alien and marine buildings already have small movement which is cool though :)
Yes definitely, distortion instead of an opaque "overlay" in the field of vision. By not implementing it they either took the easy way out or it's a performance issue. Either way they should work out a solution for it.
Its a horrendously simple shader. I think its just a choice right now, which they may change in the future.
And how does one use it correctly, pray tell?
The question I have would be can it be effectively improved so that it's useful? Reading this thread, and other camouflague threads, I think not. I would vote that it be replaced with something else: my first thought would be something that creates a mirror image of your player model, with limited AI, so you have a hallucination buddy that can eat some bullets for you. I have -no- idea how that would work in practice, but I can certainly see people using it in a combat situation.
This, cloak sucks stop trying to trick people into thinking it's good. You gain significantly less from cloak than you do from silence and cloak is easy as hell to spot even when you're not moving.
The ns1's energy system was great for this as it made you to have certain amount of scans per time. Now you can always scan when your pressure team goes for the rt kill.
1. Once you are cloaked the only things that can uncloak you are scans, obs, marines coliding with you or you attacking them and marines shooting you.
2. Cloaked should be cloaked which means can't be seen. It is hard to see things that are cloaked and don't move, but what doesn't move on the alien side? The shade is extremly easy to see cause it's always flapping up and down.
And as far as a cloaked onos goes, "hmmm theres a outline of a big thing coming towards me".
<ul><li>Aliens at normal speed will be detected like the current Obs does.</li><li>Aliens at crouched speed or without movement are not shown as white reticles but show as red dots on the minimap, though the dot on the minimap lags behind the actual location of the alien or is only updated in slower intervals, so it can only be determined precisely if the alien stays longer at a certain position.</li><li>Cloaked aliens are not automatically uncloaked as soon as they enter the range of the Obs. Besides that the rules for crouched aliens apply.</li></ul>
What the marine commander can do now is to pay his 3 resources to put the Obs into scan mode for 20-30 seconds (whatever works out). Scan mode would detect all aliens as if they were at normal speed and uncloak them, i.e. what the current Obs is doing.
It just should be something that the commander has to actively use if he notices from some red dots that aliens might be nearby, but he actually has to pay the resource price for it instead of having a permanently active hard-counter to cloak.
I don't think cloak is so much the issue as a lack of a counter for observatory for aliens early game
May not see the light of day, but I would highly recommend the Dev's consider a <i>"Distortion"</i> evolution for aliens that makes their hitbox slightly smaller, adds a blur effect, and gains them immunity to detection from observatories
It would be a really nice package for Lerks who can almost never sneak into a Marine base alone for harassment
-
Also, do observatories really only do motion tracking nearby, or do they even reveal stationary targets? Really should be just motion tracking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Observatories do in fact reveal stationary targets. The obs isn't horribly expensive, and because it scans in a radius, it can really cripple an alien team. Was against a team with a clever obs placement in locker room on Docking yesterday, they got scans of half of courtyard, all of locker room, most of ball court, and most of the way to onos bar from one structure. Because of the nature of the placement, the alien team had to attack around several corners to get to the obs, which means the marines always know they are coming; the one time we stood a chance of taking it out, they beaconed in and saved it of course.
<!--quoteo(post=2011903:date=Nov 5 2012, 07:08 PM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Nov 5 2012, 07:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2011903"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it would be cool if each room and hallway had at least 2 or more moving parts that would attract a marines attention, so that even uncloaked alien movement did not stand out so much.
it could be masked by things like:
pipes that rattle wildly
steam ejections coming out of vents
walls with moving gears
fans (already in the game, but usually only used for shadow effects)
machinery movement
small blinking LED lights
screens that turn on/off with static
swinging light fixtures and cables
flapping flags and cloth
chains that wobble
malfunctioning doors (that go no where) that open slightly and then close again - and elevators, fork lights.
crate doors that flap open and close from imaginery wind.
dripping water
flowing water
bending/warping floors - perhaps some grates or metal grip floors could occasionally have corners that pop up (as if the whole facility/spacestation is flexing and contracting)
laser scanners turning on and off, or scannining at random
these would all be animations, and not physics based so they dont waste cpu/gpu power.
not only would these help mask player movement, but it would also make levels feel much more alive instead of the quite sterile (although very beautiful) maps. (i guess no game really has non sterile levels though, not just ns2).
a lot of the alien and marine buildings already have small movement which is cool though :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are pretty cool, but would also require a TON of time to make the art assets for. You should try going silenced onos sometime though- it does in fact make the metal rattle around you as you run, even while silent.
I like this. It'd be fairly intuitive, too, since it's an "ambush" attack. This would also harken back to Focus. If damage is too much, it could simply slow the marine, or prevent him from jumping. Perhaps a poison effect, too.
I think it'd manifest in a "buff" that would give the skulk 50% extra damage on one attack for 5 seconds. This allows the skulk to leap out of camouflage and still get the bonus damage. The % damage could be different for lifeforms, much like it's different for celerity (according to the wiki, anyway).
This would have the additional advantage of giving the skulk some lategame oomph.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
^This! Please bugfix it and make it available with full speed.
excuse me if i'm taking your post out of context, but...
the marine only takes 3-4 bites to kill, because the stealth allowed you to get 1-2 bites for free - even against a good marine player.
that would result in an all-out super buff to alien damage.
look at the amount of 'facestabs' you can get as spy etc in TF2, with 0.0152ms lag interpolation.
if that change came into effect, you might as well include random damage spread and critical blows. backstab multiplier is a clever idea in theory, but impossible to implement without serious inconsistency during online play.
edit: lol, teach me to post without reading the whole thread (again)... if the multiplier was for 'while cloaked' only, it would be pretty fun and make it a kinda nice alternative to silence.
By the way: You can only see cloaked units if you have bloom on, because I think the specular/illuminate texture of the creatures is visible regardless of you using cloak. So that might just be a bug.
Allowing you to go full speed while cloaked might be a worthwhile upgrade to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is not correct. I play with bloom off and can see cloaked units. They show up as pale white outlines, and are more evident when in front of particle effects.