Reverse the cloaker nerf

[Noah Buttes]

What if, instead of having this stupid restriction on actions, we had two changes made:

1. You can attack the cloaker if you know where they are.
2. Have it run on a battery that, once drained, can only be recharged by hooking it directly into an SMES cell. Invisibility takes a lot of power, after all!

[Frank_Stein]

Personally I like the action restrictions, but I do think the penalty is too great for them. Maybe five or six seconds of people being able to see you, before you're fully cloaked again would be better.

The battery would be okay too, but that cloak time would have to be pretty short or you're just going to have several mini rampages instead of one long one.

[Noah Buttes]

Personally I like the action restrictions, but I do think the penalty is too great for them. Maybe five or six seconds of people being able to see you, before you're fully cloaked again would be better.

The battery would be okay too, but that cloak time would have to be pretty short or you're just going to have several mini rampages instead of one long one.

I was thinking around 30 seconds of cloak with a 2 minute charging time.

[mozi]

a time limit would take away its ability to let you lie in wait for an ambush or shadowing through doors. sounds like a bummer.

[Noah Buttes]

a time limit would take away its ability to let you lie in wait for an ambush or shadowing through doors. sounds like a bummer.

What if the cloaker could switch between two settings:

Battery-Saver: Works as it does now, doesn't drain battery

Performance: Runs on a time limit, drains battery.

If the battery is fully drained, neither one will work!

[Frank_Stein]

Maybe borrow a page from TF2 and not have the battery drain while standing still?

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

[Noah Buttes]

Maybe borrow a page from TF2 and not have the battery drain while standing still?

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

I thought about that, but that depends.

Does it recharge while standing still, or just not drain?

[Dauntasa]

I'm on board with giving it a couple of modes to switch through, but I'd have 3, like this:

Passive Mode: You're totally invisible indefinitely but picking up or using any item causes you to become visible(the cloak doesn't shut off, you're just visible for a little while). Takes no battery power but the battery doesn't charge in this mode either.

Active Mode: You're totally invisible and can do things without turning visible but you have a battery that drains while this is active.

Recharging Mode: Automatically switched into when you're out of battery. You're visible as a black Unknown shadow that can be attacked but not examined. You're very difficult to see in the dark but still have a sprite people can attack.


You should be Unknown during your visible periods in Passive Mode, too, and to Thermals.

[Frank_Stein]

Maybe borrow a page from TF2 and not have the battery drain while standing still?

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

I thought about that, but that depends.

Does it recharge while standing still, or just not drain?

Maybe, not drain if standing still while it's on and recharge while it's off?

[Noah Buttes]

I'm on board with giving it a couple of modes to switch through, but I'd have 3, like this:

Passive Mode: You're totally invisible indefinitely but picking up or using any item causes you to become visible(the cloak doesn't shut off, you're just visible for a little while). Takes no battery power but the battery doesn't charge in this mode either.

Active Mode: You're totally invisible and can do things without turning visible but you have a battery that drains while this is active.

Recharging Mode: Automatically switched into when you're out of battery. You're visible as a black Unknown shadow that can be attacked but not examined. You're very difficult to see in the dark but still have a sprite people can attack.


You should be Unknown during your visible periods in Passive Mode, too, and to Thermals.

I think this is the best implementation of a battery.

[Zamujasa]

I think the biggest problem with the cloak now is that it's wildly inconsistent in what you can do versus what you can't, and this post summed it up well:

I got a chance to test it and here are all the obvious things that do / do not disrupt the cloak at the moment. When the cloak is disrupted, it switches off and I think there's a visible message in the chat for people in line of sight.

Disrupts:
Picking up an object on a different tile
Clicking a door off your tile
Clicking the floor off your tile
Basically plainly left-clicking anything off of your tile - attacking a person, interacting with an item, anything

Does not disrupt:
Picking up an object on the same tile
Dropping an object
Walking into a door
Ctrl-click or right-click pulling an object or person off your tile
Throwing (via button or shift-click) an object off your tile
Stripping someone or placing something on them
Using right-click -> move inside on a locker

It's also way too easy to accidentally trigger the turnoff for the cloak. Oops, you clicked on an empty floor tile with nothing in your hand, even though it has no effect your cloak is off.

You also can't be a stealthy troublemaker by, say, emagging doors open willy nilly. But at the same time, you can throw items around and drag people? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'd like to see a change where large actions like throwing, firing a weapon, etc. trigger it, as well as anything that targets a player or other mob (so no punching or attacks)... but actions like using items on floors, walls, etc. don't, so you can still e-mag your way around, or build walls invisibly, or randomly crowbar up floor tiles.

That way you remove the ability for someone to go on direct murderspree with weaponry, and encourage more stealthy, indirect ways of subterfuge.