I'm hoping for predator style cloak. Still, anything but completely fucked without your comm vs camo would be great.
99% fucked, awesome!
100% fucked, camo OP.
It's a fine balance.
Yeah marines liked 99% camo...if your not 100% people will be able to tweak setting and find a way to may you almost totally visibile.
This is what plagued cloaking through out most of the beta...if its not 100% its not worth having (even when its 100% most people dont view it as worth having (so how is it OP if no one uses it?)) and I just hope UWE remember this if they are redesigning it in any wyay.
unfortunately, assholes exist. Still without comm intervention there are a grand sum of zero ways for good marines to do anything about camo. Without an experienced comm, fighting camo is the lamest experience in NS2.
By "predator style" I mean distortion based on alien shape/outline. Still 100% clear, but wavy edges that can be seen by keen eyes when moving. When still, nearly perfect. I don't think it would be super easy to hack. At least not as simple as changing the model.
I bet UWE has made the best availble decision and eagerly await this most gorgeous of updates.
Distortion or partial visibility....which ever way you try to do it if its not 100% then its useless.
A good marine can counter camo, stick in packs and change the focus from res to tech nodes, stop trying to push all the time and understand that holding 3 tech points will mean you dont face full strength aliens.
Camo is barely used now as its hard countered by obs (which by late game should be at every marine tech point) and really only has a small window if viability early game (though its an all or nothing strat as if you cant secure 3rd hive your done) and requires significant change in game play from both sides.
If your not 100% invisible that 1% will be neon green thanks to mods or perhaps just driver anomalies.
We barely see shade hives being dropped 1st or 2nd, it should not be the default 3rd hive (not only is this boring game design..its also when its the most useless).
Nerfng cloaking nerfs shade hives....means even less diversity in upgrade path for aliens.
For the sake of arguement, let's ignore bugs/anomalies and assholes who cheat.
You are in favor of skulks and frigging oni walking straight at marines who have zero ability to stand a chance unless the comm intervenes through scan/obs placement?
I encourage you to look up The Hidden: Source. That is my ideal camo. I would link something, but I am posting from a phone
You are in favor of skulks and frigging oni walking straight at marines who have zero ability to stand a chance unless the comm intervenes through scan/obs placement?
I encourage you to look up The Hidden: Source. That is my ideal camo. I would link something, but I am posting from a phone
I see where you're coming from. But, I agree with hakenspit as a player. Even without armor/weapons upgrades, it's easy to take out most camo skulks, in pub play. Most only get one bite in, some two, before I turn and fire; most experienced FPS gamers can 180 fire pretty accurately. Once I know aliens went shade, I know they have no speed or carpace (for at least 3-5 minutes), I know I can sporadically sprint and force the less experienced players out (due to impatiences), and I can call for scans on specific areas to out hiding skulks. Cloak giving 100% invisibility doesn't bug me.
If I remember correctly, the Hidden creature (test subject guy) could kill with one hit, while being able to high jump, and move faster than the swat team (I think they were swat). I think that changes it enough to not be a great example. Imagine a skulk with a 1-hit kill, at start. No need for any type of cloaking.
I'd still like to see the shade hive give a passive ability like marines are different colors based on health or which gun they have to help make it more viable throughout the whole game.
Well, I hope we still have full invisibility, it's a such a rare mechanic to exist in multiplayer, that I don't want to part with it! It can work within NS2.
It's funny you say that and not get any disagrees from the "vets", because I've been saying for the longest time that mechanics that work to directly deceive and disorient the player, is something that doesn't appear very often in MP games.
Of course, all you ever hear about is how anything that isn't focusing your dexterity on pixels is skill-lezz and doesn't deserve to be in the game.
An ability that kills whole point of playing as alien is totally broken indeed. Skill as alien in nutshell: to get close as possible to marines while taking minimum amount of damage doing so. This is done by teamwork, clever ambushing and movement skills. When using camo you don't need any of those, even my 90 years old grandma could get close to marines with camo.
This makes game marine commander vs. aliens. Marine players on field come useless because outcome of game is decided by commander's ability to use right time scanning and field observatories. In NS1 we even had gentleman rule not use cloak in competitive matches because it killed all fun from the game.
An ability that kills whole point of playing as alien is totally broken indeed. Skill as alien in nutshell: to get close as possible to marines while taking minimum amount of damage doing so. This is done by teamwork, clever ambushing and movement skills. When using camo you don't need any of those, even my 90 years old grandma could get close to marines with camo.
This makes game marine commander vs. aliens. Marine players on field come useless because outcome of game is decided by commander's ability to use right time scanning and field observatories. In NS1 we even had gentleman rule not use cloak in competitive matches because it killed all fun from the game.
but camo is purely defensive, it doesn't help you push. adrenaline, cara and regen all help you push. and it's completely fubared by a scan, so it doesn't really help you defend important areas either.
Have camo give a modest cloak (can still be seen by trained eyes) if you stay perfectly still, so you can hide, but doesn't cloak in any other way except that the marine minimap will never show anything with the ability. Buildings hidden by shades will still be visible on the minimap.
LEAVE (early game) CAMO ALONE!
Please do not nerf Camo (thinking of 100% invisibility). Shade first is used so rarely already. Camo is so much fun to use.
As for people complaining that Camo cannot be countered by Marines: it can. For example:
Run. Be quick. Run around. Camo Skulks are slow.
Use Mines to make it difficult for a Skulk to get to you. Especially in conjunction with running around.
Adapt your strategy. Camo is just OP if the Marine Team thinks they can play "wheel of resource towers" like normal. Quickly get to 3 Tech Points in big groups with just very few scans, build Obs/Gate/put Mines there, Profit.
Change strategy completely. Hive rush, for example.
NS2 is a strategy game. Adapt your strategy (this is not something only the Commander has to do!). Timing is important. People saying "Camo is OP" ignore that.
This is not just team deathmatch where, at any time, everything has to be equally useful.
It's funny how so many people complain about Camo being OP, and *at the same time* Aliens complain that Shade is too risky or useless and regularly threaten to eject Comm for going Shade.
And let's remember Aliens actually can *not* counter Obs reveal or Scan (Shades don't count here obviously).
I like how Camo changes the game strategically. It's a great example of fun "hard counter" game mechanics.
"Soft counters" often make games more boring (see Starcraft 1 vs Starcraft 2) because eventually, if everything can just be soft countered, only one (the best) options remains (*cough* Celerity *yawn*). The forced play change of a few hard counter mechanics is what makes gameplay varied (Skulks should *not* just play "get to the Marine alive, nothing else to do") and allows micro-comebacks (not of the team, but of one or few players in a certain situation).
TLDR: I just remembered that the devs stated somewhere that "soft counters" are a preferred game mechanic, and now I am a bit worried the game will get more boring in exchange for "accessibility". But I guess we will have to trust the devs here :-)
An ability that kills whole point of playing as alien is totally broken indeed. Skill as alien in nutshell: to get close as possible to marines while taking minimum amount of damage doing so. This is done by teamwork, clever ambushing and movement skills. When using camo you don't need any of those, even my 90 years old grandma could get close to marines with camo.
This makes game marine commander vs. aliens. Marine players on field come useless because outcome of game is decided by commander's ability to use right time scanning and field observatories. In NS1 we even had gentleman rule not use cloak in competitive matches because it killed all fun from the game.
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
As long as they don't rework crag and shift at the same time, there's still no way people are going to go shade if there's even the smallest chance of not getting three hives.
how the hell are marines going to hold three tech points if they can't walk half a room without a scan?
a half decent skulk has two free bites with camo, a decent skulk will position himself so he isn't in range of obvious scans in the first place, a good skulk wishes he had carapace.
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
Not really considering you get right next to them and get two bites off before the marine can react, there's no skill in that only proper ambushing should be rewarded not this. The game is still a res node war it has not changed.
I'm hoping for predator style cloak. Still, anything but completely fucked without your comm vs camo would be great.
99% fucked, awesome!
100% fucked, camo OP.
It's a fine balance.
Yeah marines liked 99% camo...if your not 100% people will be able to tweak setting and find a way to may you almost totally visibile.
This is what plagued cloaking through out most of the beta...if its not 100% its not worth having (even when its 100% most people dont view it as worth having (so how is it OP if no one uses it?)) and I just hope UWE remember this if they are redesigning it in any wyay.
unfortunately, assholes exist. Still without comm intervention there are a grand sum of zero ways for good marines to do anything about camo. Without an experienced comm, fighting camo is the lamest experience in NS2.
By "predator style" I mean distortion based on alien shape/outline. Still 100% clear, but wavy edges that can be seen by keen eyes when moving. When still, nearly perfect. I don't think it would be super easy to hack. At least not as simple as changing the model.
I bet UWE has made the best availble decision and eagerly await this most gorgeous of updates.
Distortion or partial visibility....which ever way you try to do it if its not 100% then its useless.
I'm not so sure it will work this way when tracking a moving object. It obviously remains to be seen, but transparency versus distortion are two very different things when it comes to visually identifying something.
If we go back to the style of cloaking before the current one, it was essentially just a transparency mask, that was around 99% transparent. Even though that version was completely ineffective and I would never use it, it was still semi difficult to see a skulk provided he did not move at all. As soon as the skulk did move, we could identify the object by its outline and see the outline moving, and immediately pin point the location.
The problem with that was the fact that there was an easily identifiable outline, that required no other reference points to identify. You just saw this different colour cut out moving along the wall. Easy.
With a distortion effect, there isn't as much of an outline, if its done correctly. Instead distortion changes the location of certain pixels behind the distorting material. Looking at one location probably wouldn't entirely reveal the location of the skulk, because you need a broader reference frame to identify the unusual pixel shifts.
I think that, mid combat, if aliens still receive a portion of this distortion while moving, it will work much the same way as celerity or carapace; increasing the total number of bullets the marine needs to fire in order to down the skulk. Carapace does it by brute force, celerity does it through speed. I think camo may do it simply by making tracking direction and trajectory very difficult. In theory the best play style would be changing direction a lot trying to shake your opponents visual track on you.
Also, a suggestion:
Distortion is identifiable because the distorted pixels do not match up with the visual background. Does anyone remember the old distortion effect the shade used to have? Kind of made the whole area look as if it was giving off heat? Imagine combining a distortion effect on the skulk with an entire area that is distorted. It would be near impossible to pin point its location. I think that is a pretty good stacking shade AOE buff.
Full invisibility while being able to move (albeit slow) is just an incredibly cheap way to get kills. Even if you enjoy it, you can hardly say it takes any skill to use. I'm glad they've decided to do something about it.
eh.. silent fade/lerk is amazing??
Camo is what you were thinking of, i believe.
Ah silent fades are a joy to play. Stood behind 3 marines shooting into central drilling and killed 2 before the third even realized what was going on )
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
Not really considering you get right next to them and get two bites off before the marine can react, there's no skill in that only proper ambushing should be rewarded not this. The game is still a res node war it has not changed.
It does change (if marines want to win) to a tech point war, deny aliens their 3rd hive you will see slow or strong aliens...but not both.
Being able to use cloaking successfully against competent marines means knowing when to be cloaked and when not to be.
Being even partially visible means you might as well be 100% visible.
We seem to have run out of those OMG camo is OP'd threads...because marines have learnt to change the game from res node to tech point when encountering camo 1st.
Camo does take skill to be used right and actually win a game not just slow down early expansion. You are not guaranteed two bites against good marines, even if you do land 2 its 3+ to actually kill him.
But simply killing marines doesn't win you the game, you have to take and hold hive points to secure the much needed crag and shift hive (if you want to win).
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
Not really considering you get right next to them and get two bites off before the marine can react, there's no skill in that only proper ambushing should be rewarded not this. The game is still a res node war it has not changed.
Camo does take skill to be used right and actually win a game not just slow down early expansion. You are not guaranteed two bites against good marines, even if you do land 2 its 3+ to actually kill him.
But simply killing marines doesn't win you the game, you have to take and hold hive points to secure the much needed crag and shift hive (if you want to win).
Yes, you are.
You have to factor in average human reaction time and lag, you can easily get two bites in and even if you somehow mess up after these two bites you can always parasite for a kill.
And I'm still wondering how marines can walk freely to tech points against camo.
NS2 is a strategy game. Adapt your strategy (this is not something only the Commander has to do!). Timing is important. People saying "Camo is OP" ignore that.
This is not just team deathmatch where, at any time, everything has to be equally useful.
It's funny how so many people complain about Camo being OP, and *at the same time* Aliens complain that Shade is too risky or useless and regularly threaten to eject Comm for going Shade
You are equating strategical depth to 'more options', which is generally hard to argue with.
However, Shade, as it is right now, is not a viable option. All it does is give aliens an advantage in the first few minutes and, depending on experience of the marine commander and skill balance across teams, either screws aliens over after that or wins them the game. Those are literally, and I do mean literally the only two outcomes with Shade first. The game will have been decided with 100% certainty before the 5 minute mark and will optionally be dragged out for forever when the winning team is only slightly outskilling the other team but simply doesn't have the means to finish it due to either having to spend tons of res on scans and observatories or having weak or slow lifeforms until the 3rd hive.
Basically, Shade first makes for stale gameplay because it changes favours in a way the game is clearly neither designed for nor balanced around. If you disagree, you're terrible at this game and/or put your enjoyment over that of others.
What anyone with an opinion worth listening to means when saying "Camo is OP" is that it's no challenge or fun to play against and no fun or challenge to play with for everyone with just a little game awareness and/or self respect. A massive Shade overhaul could change this, and I am excited for what they come up with.
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
Not really considering you get right next to them and get two bites off before the marine can react, there's no skill in that only proper ambushing should be rewarded not this. The game is still a res node war it has not changed.
Camo does take skill to be used right and actually win a game not just slow down early expansion. You are not guaranteed two bites against good marines, even if you do land 2 its 3+ to actually kill him.
But simply killing marines doesn't win you the game, you have to take and hold hive points to secure the much needed crag and shift hive (if you want to win).
Yes, you are.
You have to factor in average human reaction time and lag, you can easily get two bites in and even if you somehow mess up after these two bites you can always parasite for a kill.
And I'm still wondering how marines can walk freely to tech points against camo.
As I said you have to change how you play...freely walking is not what you want to do...this is why a res node war is not fought.
You walk as part of a team (spaced out to cover each others feet), hold...get phase up...obs...push to next one...then sit and turtle up some upgrades. You have to do this pretty much right off the bat and be organised...not faf about for the first 2-3 min once you realise they have camo.
Freely walking about is what you do against crag or shift hives....with a shade hive you know you can stall weapons upgrades as aliens wont be getting carapace any time soon.
I can't agree with that. While I don't go shade hive first (I personally prefer carapace), silence first is quite funny, and the games in either case are not a foregone conclusion. To say this is black and white is ridiculous.
Also, why would both mercury and archaea go carapace then silence if celerity was so important?
I absolutely loved the hidden, so I hope it's along those lines!
Also, why would both mercury and archaea go carapace then silence if celerity was so important?
You can't compare competitive play to public games. It's vastly different because teams are smaller and everyone knows what they're doing (hopefully). It's a best case scenario you basically never get with public play.
Celerity can be dismissed because Skulk walljumping closes the speed gap of not having Celerity quite nicely and Silence gives every single class a benefit, as opposed to Celerity being useless for Fades. Exceptionally good Fades can and do decide games, so if your team is able to live without Celerity and Shifts, it's a decision well weighed between the pros and cons.
Silence can work in public games as well because its benefit doesn't disappear after the early game. My earlier post was mainly about Camo however. The black and white still applies, but to a lesser extent.
I take issue with "the game will have been decided with 100% certainty before the 5 minute mark" and " Basically, Shade first makes for stale gameplay because it changes favours in a way the game is clearly neither designed for nor balanced around. If you disagree, you're terrible at this game and/or put your enjoyment over that of others."
Both are totally ridiculous and false statements, and simply a case of anonymous internet hyperbole for the sake of it.
Btw I hate camo first as I find it boring, but there are plenty of pub gamers out there who love it, often enough of them to fill an alien team. Don't try to impose on those players your idea of how they should enjoy the game!
The two of us disagreeing on my entirely valid and true statements aside, my entire point was any viable strategy should either be fun or a challenge, ideally both, for everyone involved. It's not at all about how I think the game should be played or enjoyed.
Ever see a ton of people complain or even ragequit because the alien comm went Celerity first? Exactly.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Ok.. work with me here... I do not get it.
What cloaking mechanics?
You are already cloaked anf fully invisible.
You have that bluish world when cloaked, which I personally find a nice addition. (cant speak for everyone of course).
So on a graphical view.. whats there to fix?
Also dont mind full cloak, gameplay wise.. but I will stay out that for now.. I am purely interested in the graphical aspect of cloak in this post.
Full invis is horrible and needs to change, so many other games do the distortion field/outline thing so well and it adds so much more to the game, that feeling when you realise the floor or wall is moving towards you slowly is much more unnerving then hearing "whoohhhh" of 2-3 people cloaking in the next room, waiting 5-10 seconds, 2-3 skulks attacking out of nowhere all the while you're spamming request for a scan, which the comm can't because he has 1-3 RTS because guess what, there's also 2-3 cloaked aliens on the RTs.
Slows the game down far too much, makes the 7-8 marines on the field completely reliant on the commander scanning and the aliens being too stupid to abuse to well enough to completely shut the game down, so early game it's a double fuck you for marines but if the marines can hold off for 8ish mins against camo the tides turn and it's now a double fuck you for aliens, they're stuck with cara/camo/silence or worse, cele/camo/silence which feels absolutely horrible when assaulting a base.
Comments
Distortion or partial visibility....which ever way you try to do it if its not 100% then its useless.
A good marine can counter camo, stick in packs and change the focus from res to tech nodes, stop trying to push all the time and understand that holding 3 tech points will mean you dont face full strength aliens.
Camo is barely used now as its hard countered by obs (which by late game should be at every marine tech point) and really only has a small window if viability early game (though its an all or nothing strat as if you cant secure 3rd hive your done) and requires significant change in game play from both sides.
If your not 100% invisible that 1% will be neon green thanks to mods or perhaps just driver anomalies.
We barely see shade hives being dropped 1st or 2nd, it should not be the default 3rd hive (not only is this boring game design..its also when its the most useless).
Nerfng cloaking nerfs shade hives....means even less diversity in upgrade path for aliens.
For the sake of arguement, let's ignore bugs/anomalies and assholes who cheat.
You are in favor of skulks and frigging oni walking straight at marines who have zero ability to stand a chance unless the comm intervenes through scan/obs placement?
I encourage you to look up The Hidden: Source. That is my ideal camo. I would link something, but I am posting from a phone
I see where you're coming from. But, I agree with hakenspit as a player. Even without armor/weapons upgrades, it's easy to take out most camo skulks, in pub play. Most only get one bite in, some two, before I turn and fire; most experienced FPS gamers can 180 fire pretty accurately. Once I know aliens went shade, I know they have no speed or carpace (for at least 3-5 minutes), I know I can sporadically sprint and force the less experienced players out (due to impatiences), and I can call for scans on specific areas to out hiding skulks. Cloak giving 100% invisibility doesn't bug me.
If I remember correctly, the Hidden creature (test subject guy) could kill with one hit, while being able to high jump, and move faster than the swat team (I think they were swat). I think that changes it enough to not be a great example. Imagine a skulk with a 1-hit kill, at start. No need for any type of cloaking.
Bring focus back, so Lerks and Fades can get a useful upgrade out of shade, and suddenly it will be a viable first chamber pick.
Camo is what you were thinking of, i believe.
Of course, all you ever hear about is how anything that isn't focusing your dexterity on pixels is skill-lezz and doesn't deserve to be in the game.
This makes game marine commander vs. aliens. Marine players on field come useless because outcome of game is decided by commander's ability to use right time scanning and field observatories. In NS1 we even had gentleman rule not use cloak in competitive matches because it killed all fun from the game.
but camo is purely defensive, it doesn't help you push. adrenaline, cara and regen all help you push. and it's completely fubared by a scan, so it doesn't really help you defend important areas either.
Please do not nerf Camo (thinking of 100% invisibility). Shade first is used so rarely already. Camo is so much fun to use.
As for people complaining that Camo cannot be countered by Marines: it can. For example:
- Run. Be quick. Run around. Camo Skulks are slow.
- Use Mines to make it difficult for a Skulk to get to you. Especially in conjunction with running around.
- Adapt your strategy. Camo is just OP if the Marine Team thinks they can play "wheel of resource towers" like normal. Quickly get to 3 Tech Points in big groups with just very few scans, build Obs/Gate/put Mines there, Profit.
- Change strategy completely. Hive rush, for example.
NS2 is a strategy game. Adapt your strategy (this is not something only the Commander has to do!). Timing is important. People saying "Camo is OP" ignore that.This is not just team deathmatch where, at any time, everything has to be equally useful.
It's funny how so many people complain about Camo being OP, and *at the same time* Aliens complain that Shade is too risky or useless and regularly threaten to eject Comm for going Shade.
And let's remember Aliens actually can *not* counter Obs reveal or Scan (Shades don't count here obviously).
I like how Camo changes the game strategically. It's a great example of fun "hard counter" game mechanics.
"Soft counters" often make games more boring (see Starcraft 1 vs Starcraft 2) because eventually, if everything can just be soft countered, only one (the best) options remains (*cough* Celerity *yawn*). The forced play change of a few hard counter mechanics is what makes gameplay varied (Skulks should *not* just play "get to the Marine alive, nothing else to do") and allows micro-comebacks (not of the team, but of one or few players in a certain situation).
TLDR: I just remembered that the devs stated somewhere that "soft counters" are a preferred game mechanic, and now I am a bit worried the game will get more boring in exchange for "accessibility". But I guess we will have to trust the devs here :-)
You still need skill to land 3+ bites on a marine as a skulk, all camo does is change how marines play.
The game is no longer a res node war, you cant rambo as easily....but aliens are stuffed if they cant secure 3 hives.
a half decent skulk has two free bites with camo, a decent skulk will position himself so he isn't in range of obvious scans in the first place, a good skulk wishes he had carapace.
Not really considering you get right next to them and get two bites off before the marine can react, there's no skill in that only proper ambushing should be rewarded not this. The game is still a res node war it has not changed.
Usually it's res nodes, with Camo it is Tech Points and THEN res nodes (for both teams).
I'm not so sure it will work this way when tracking a moving object. It obviously remains to be seen, but transparency versus distortion are two very different things when it comes to visually identifying something.
If we go back to the style of cloaking before the current one, it was essentially just a transparency mask, that was around 99% transparent. Even though that version was completely ineffective and I would never use it, it was still semi difficult to see a skulk provided he did not move at all. As soon as the skulk did move, we could identify the object by its outline and see the outline moving, and immediately pin point the location.
The problem with that was the fact that there was an easily identifiable outline, that required no other reference points to identify. You just saw this different colour cut out moving along the wall. Easy.
With a distortion effect, there isn't as much of an outline, if its done correctly. Instead distortion changes the location of certain pixels behind the distorting material. Looking at one location probably wouldn't entirely reveal the location of the skulk, because you need a broader reference frame to identify the unusual pixel shifts.
I think that, mid combat, if aliens still receive a portion of this distortion while moving, it will work much the same way as celerity or carapace; increasing the total number of bullets the marine needs to fire in order to down the skulk. Carapace does it by brute force, celerity does it through speed. I think camo may do it simply by making tracking direction and trajectory very difficult. In theory the best play style would be changing direction a lot trying to shake your opponents visual track on you.
Also, a suggestion:
Distortion is identifiable because the distorted pixels do not match up with the visual background. Does anyone remember the old distortion effect the shade used to have? Kind of made the whole area look as if it was giving off heat? Imagine combining a distortion effect on the skulk with an entire area that is distorted. It would be near impossible to pin point its location. I think that is a pretty good stacking shade AOE buff.
Ah silent fades are a joy to play. Stood behind 3 marines shooting into central drilling and killed 2 before the third even realized what was going on
Being able to use cloaking successfully against competent marines means knowing when to be cloaked and when not to be.
Being even partially visible means you might as well be 100% visible.
We seem to have run out of those OMG camo is OP'd threads...because marines have learnt to change the game from res node to tech point when encountering camo 1st.
Camo does take skill to be used right and actually win a game not just slow down early expansion. You are not guaranteed two bites against good marines, even if you do land 2 its 3+ to actually kill him.
But simply killing marines doesn't win you the game, you have to take and hold hive points to secure the much needed crag and shift hive (if you want to win).
Yes, you are.
You have to factor in average human reaction time and lag, you can easily get two bites in and even if you somehow mess up after these two bites you can always parasite for a kill.
And I'm still wondering how marines can walk freely to tech points against camo.
However, Shade, as it is right now, is not a viable option. All it does is give aliens an advantage in the first few minutes and, depending on experience of the marine commander and skill balance across teams, either screws aliens over after that or wins them the game. Those are literally, and I do mean literally the only two outcomes with Shade first. The game will have been decided with 100% certainty before the 5 minute mark and will optionally be dragged out for forever when the winning team is only slightly outskilling the other team but simply doesn't have the means to finish it due to either having to spend tons of res on scans and observatories or having weak or slow lifeforms until the 3rd hive.
Basically, Shade first makes for stale gameplay because it changes favours in a way the game is clearly neither designed for nor balanced around. If you disagree, you're terrible at this game and/or put your enjoyment over that of others.
What anyone with an opinion worth listening to means when saying "Camo is OP" is that it's no challenge or fun to play against and no fun or challenge to play with for everyone with just a little game awareness and/or self respect. A massive Shade overhaul could change this, and I am excited for what they come up with.
You walk as part of a team (spaced out to cover each others feet), hold...get phase up...obs...push to next one...then sit and turtle up some upgrades. You have to do this pretty much right off the bat and be organised...not faf about for the first 2-3 min once you realise they have camo.
Freely walking about is what you do against crag or shift hives....with a shade hive you know you can stall weapons upgrades as aliens wont be getting carapace any time soon.
Also, why would both mercury and archaea go carapace then silence if celerity was so important?
I absolutely loved the hidden, so I hope it's along those lines!
Celerity can be dismissed because Skulk walljumping closes the speed gap of not having Celerity quite nicely and Silence gives every single class a benefit, as opposed to Celerity being useless for Fades. Exceptionally good Fades can and do decide games, so if your team is able to live without Celerity and Shifts, it's a decision well weighed between the pros and cons.
Silence can work in public games as well because its benefit doesn't disappear after the early game. My earlier post was mainly about Camo however. The black and white still applies, but to a lesser extent.
Both are totally ridiculous and false statements, and simply a case of anonymous internet hyperbole for the sake of it.
Btw I hate camo first as I find it boring, but there are plenty of pub gamers out there who love it, often enough of them to fill an alien team. Don't try to impose on those players your idea of how they should enjoy the game!
Ever see a ton of people complain or even ragequit because the alien comm went Celerity first? Exactly.
What cloaking mechanics?
You are already cloaked anf fully invisible.
You have that bluish world when cloaked, which I personally find a nice addition. (cant speak for everyone of course).
So on a graphical view.. whats there to fix?
Also dont mind full cloak, gameplay wise.. but I will stay out that for now.. I am purely interested in the graphical aspect of cloak in this post.
Slows the game down far too much, makes the 7-8 marines on the field completely reliant on the commander scanning and the aliens being too stupid to abuse to well enough to completely shut the game down, so early game it's a double fuck you for marines but if the marines can hold off for 8ish mins against camo the tides turn and it's now a double fuck you for aliens, they're stuck with cara/camo/silence or worse, cele/camo/silence which feels absolutely horrible when assaulting a base.