Setta on 8/12/2000 at 08:07

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I think Ion Storm NEEDS to tune down the Cloak aug in Deus Ex Multiplayer because the aug is just too damn good in Deathmatch games. In Team Deathmatch, it's alright because one person on the team can have the Vision Enhancement aug to spot cloaked players for the team, but in Deathmatch, no one is on the same team, so it is impossible for players to help each other spot cloaked players.

Ok listen to me before you flame me, I KNOW that all you have to do is use Vision Enhancement to spot cloaked players and just take them down 1-2-3 since they are defenseless, but then this gets rid of YOUR ability to possibly go around cloaking and sneaking up on other people in Deathmatch because the Vision Enhancement is the opposite aug to Cloak. And who WOULDN'T want to want to use Cloak when you can do something so cheap like this: Quickly walk right up to a person, aim your cursor at their head, select your gun and shoot, put away you gun and turn cloak back on.

I think Ion Storm NEEDS to increase the amount of energy the Cloak aug uses because it is just too good in Deathmatch games. It's like I'm being attacked all of a sudden and the minute I shoot back (if they didn't kill me), they are invisible again! I am fully aware that I can use the Vision Enhancement aug to spot Cloaked players, but it just isn't fair because I'd like to be able to do the samething as them and Cloak. And if this is what I have to do, it's just not right because then we will just have a bunch of Deathmatch games where EVERYONE is cloaked the whole time and no one is able to kill anyone else since everyone is cloaked and can't use the Vision Enhancement since you've got the Cloak aug. And what is even worse is that if you fire a rocket at someone and then they cloak right after you fire the rocket, the rocket will miss even if it was locked onto them since they cloaked!! Now you're telling me that you would rather have Vision Enhancement when you can use Cloak to completely dodge rockets? I don't think so...

The only fair solution to this would either be to make cloaked players SLIGHTLY visible and increase the cloaked players footsteps so that they are MUCH louder; or to make the Cloak aug drain energy VERY fast, because I have played several hours of Deathmatch tonight and the aug is getting COMPLETELY overused. I am sure that if you made the Cloak aug drain at a very fast speed, that would make players think twice about overusing it.

I seriously hope someone at Ion Storm acknowledges what I'm saying here as well as you other guys who read this thread.

[This message has been edited by Setta (edited December 08, 2000).]

Chris Carollo on 8/12/2000 at 14:50

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I guess I'm not so sure this isn't just gameplay styles swinging around as people get more used to the game.

I, personally, never take cloak, and I virtually always end up with most kills on my team; it's pretty rare that a cloaked person sneaks up on me.

In a game where I was the only person with vision, and everyone was cloaking, that would be GREAT -- I guarantee I'd have a ton of kills.

As far as cloaking while a rocket is incoming, that's not as easy as it sounds -- remember you have to first put your weapon away, and then enable the specific aug. All in the span of a second or two. And that's best-case!

We spent a LOT of time playing at ISA, and we all ended up pretty experienced. And which aug we'd take (vision or cloak) was pretty evenly divided. We certainly didn't experience either being overpowering, and to be honest, I haven't found either to be overpowering since we've released the beta.

That's obviously not your experience, and I'll be watching for it as I continue to play, but my gut feeling is that it will end up balancing itself out. Vision and Cloak are two of the most powerful augs in the game -- very few people don't have one of them in their top-two augs -- but I do feel that they're fairly well balanced (and make an interesting tradeoff, too).

I think we'll see this kind of thing for a while until players really get used to how and when to use their augs. It's like the GEP gun: initialy everyone was using it because it was an "easy" kill. But when people start realizing that it can be defended against fairly well, it's use will start to drop; I've already seen this start to happen.

So sure, Cloak is a very powerful aug, and it's easier to get the hang of than other augs, but it's not clear to me that it's overpowered or needs to be changed.

But we'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for the feedback!

screech on 8/12/2000 at 18:10

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i dunno. i thought cloak was nifty, but now prefer the vision enhancement.

i'll take speed and sight.

that said, i really want to see games set up where the stats/augs get tossed out. it is far more interesting to test player skill without all the boroque toys.

screech on 8/12/2000 at 19:43

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bah pistoles, a knife and a good map with hidng places. all the various shields do is to even the scales with certain weapons.

basically when you enter the game you have to setup your stats which is annoying [but not with the friggin augs].. which in my experience means picking something that ensures a kill so you can get at the next batch of stat points. it gets boring after a while twiddling B and picking something.

i think the stats stuff works in game, but its cloying in a dm situation.

Riso on 9/12/2000 at 23:32

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i use cloak and to be honest, i get my @ss handed by everyone who uses the vision aug.

the player with the vision aug can just do as if i dont exist. i walk away, thinking they dont see me and *BAM* a shot in the back.