EMP for mercs

[Farley4Fan]

Tigaer, I told you why I don't think it would work on paper and I gave you some ideas of how to maybe make it work on paper.  On paper, tell me why a stealthy spy would not care if a merc knew he was in the same room.  Why would an aggro spy want to lose his ss?

I just don't know which kind of spy it benefits and how it benefits them.

[tigaer]

Other uses aside from jamming the mercs radar,
Reduces the risk of getting hit by mines and traps, deactivates them in the smallest radius, so they can still explode and kill you if you're running around right next to them.
Reduces the risk of being chased after you trip a spy trap, as the Mercs radar would jam the closer he gets to you.
Eliminates the need to chaff/shoot out lasers and other defenses, freeing up a gadget slot.
Eliminates the ability to be seen on EMF unless hacking, so whore those visions.
Possibly have the ablility to throw/roll grenades.

Am I the only one that would use the hell out of something like this? I usually go full stealth, so this is coming from somebody who goes full stealth, and I could see this being perfect for people like me. If you think it's useless for spies because the merc knows his general proximity, you haven't played DA for longer than a couple hours. You can confuse the hell out of mercs in that game with even the short range of the PD. Imagine what you could do with the range this has.

If it's really a shit idea, just tell me lol.

[Farley4Fan]

Well, you show 2 spies that have the jammer suit on?  Is that correct?  Well, that sounds like an interesting situation but then you talk about a situation where a spy has a ss even though none of them would. 

That little diagram makes it look practical but like you said it would require intense teamwork to really work.  I still think to make this more useful the suit should set off random pings on the merc's sound reticule to be used in conjunction with alarm snares for a very nice strategy.

[Ion.67]

The same thing is in MW2 and is basically thought of as one of the worst perks of the game. It gives away your position, and that game isn't about stealth at all. Having the drop on someone is what SC is about.

[tigaer]

Well, you show 2 spies that have the jammer suit on?  Is that correct?  Well, that sounds like an interesting situation but then you talk about a situation where a spy has a ss even though none of them would. 

That little diagram makes it look practical but like you said it would require intense teamwork to really work.  I still think to make this more useful the suit should set off random pings on the merc's sound reticule to be used in conjunction with alarm snares for a very nice strategy.

Sorry I didn't make it clear, the point of the diagram is to show that the Merc would t actually know where you were if he starts to get static, you could be litterally anywhere around him, it becomes a guessing game from there.

[Farley4Fan]

Think about this.  The merc walks into, say, Pirates room from Greek.  As soon as he goes through the entrance his radar becomes jammed and he knows that a spy is there.  Once mercs figure out the range of the jammer suit they will be able to narrow down where this spy will be.

I just don't think this could really work and be useful for spies.

You'd have to make the range gigantic, like 30 yards for the radius.  But really, what good would jamming the merc's radar do?  Spies are hardly tracked by mercs from my experience. 

The main positive that you talked about would be the immunity to mines.  But is that really worth losing your sticky shocker and ability to stay hidden without suspicion?  I don't think so.  It might be but I can't really say.

I don't have a problem adding strategic elements to make the game deeper but I don't if this particular "suit" could help spies too much. 

[Westfall]

I thought the EMP was supposed to be for the Merc's use.....

[tigaer]

What about getting rid of jamming radar then? And make it where it only jams the radar if your tracked or have a disk. And then since you wouldn't need chaff, what about making an EMP greande, that when thrown acts as a SS shocking the merc in it's blast radius, so you would have to move in close to get the shock. Idk. Just an brainstorm really, so I guess just forget it and move on lol.

[Farley4Fan]

I think removing the jamming radar would actually help the spy.  So yeah, I'd forget that.  You had a decent idea with the suit I just don't think the original specs would work out too well.

[VenomousNinja]

How about a radar jammer that works whenever you activate it, and can be thrown, dropped, planted, etc. Instead of having it as a constant effect.

[Farley4Fan]

You mean like DA?  I guess it could work.  Not sure.  The problem I see is that the jammer was in DA so that it would trick the presence detector.  What could it jam in project stealth that makes it a worthy gadget?

[Gawain]

this whole idea started based on the wrong motivation. camnet is not inherently flawed, it was just implemented poorly. it can perfectly be balanced just by placement and adding/taking away light/laser/special visions.
i also think adding some emp stuff on both sides is a bad idea. svm is all about asymmetry.

furthermore, some devs seem to have a very bad understanding of balancing a game:

I disagree that EVERYTHING should have a hard-counter. Most, yes.

in fact, most stuff shouldn't. basing a game rather on hard counters gives you command'n'conquer, basing it rather on soft counters gives you starcraft. HUGE difference.

i also wonder if some folks here haven't learned anything from sc:da...

[frvge]

Define 'softcounter'. Either it counters, or it doesn't, AFAIK?

[Cronky]

Define 'softcounter'. Either it counters, or it doesn't, AFAIK?

I'm taking a wild stab at what it is!

Hard Counter:

"This" stops "That"

(Sticky Shocker:Merc) [bad example]

Soft Counter:

"This" stops "That", "That", "That", and "That"

(Chaff:Visions/Mines/Reload/Radar)

I never played Starcraft (or rather learned about it way late) but I assume that rather than one Unit being the counter to another (Anti-Air Turret Vs Planes in C&C Logic), many things COULD be a viable counter.... if you used them correctly.

Just my guess!

[Spekkio]

this whole idea started based on the wrong motivation. camnet is not inherently flawed, it was just implemented poorly. it can perfectly be balanced just by placement and adding/taking away light/laser/special visions.
i also think adding some emp stuff on both sides is a bad idea. svm is all about asymmetry.

The idea started on the motivation that taking away the spy's energy could be useful. However, it wouldn't be useful if it's only implemented in ways where you could have killed the spy instead. This is why poison mines are usually a better option than spy traps; you know where the spy is, and you have 15 seconds to kill him while he bee-lines to the health box. With traps, you know where the spy is and still need to kill him all by yourself. The same dilemma is with flares/grenades...if you shoot a flare into an area to light up the spy's presence, you probably could've hit him with a grenade.

I posted to try to brainstorm regarding how to implement this ability without overlapping with something else that would kill the spies already.

And camnet is gay no matter what. Even if it were perfectly balanced (which is impossible IMO, but good luck to the devs for trying), it slows down the game considerably by allowing the mercs to camp.

Define 'softcounter'. Either it counters, or it doesn't, AFAIK?

A hard counter is something that has a specific counter and nothing else. Because it is specialized, it does this counter extremely well. For example, the gasmask will counter smoke grenades and cams, making them essentially useless while the mask is active. It won't do a darn thing to help you against anything else the spy does, though, so if the spy doesn't take smoke and cams then you wasted a gadget slot. This is poor design in the context of the game because it leads to gadget war guessing games.

A soft counter is something that counters multiple things, but doesn't render the things it counters completely useless. All other gadgets in the game fall under this category.