changing equipment

[Cyntrox]

Then there's balance issues on maps like Hospital where 1-2 chaffs can take out an entire room. As a spy, you don't even have to be careful or actually FIND the mines. Just throw chaffs so that it covers the room and run around at will.

The maps should be balanced around the gadgets, not the other way around

"oh look, a mine around the corner of that box in 117. Well i has chaff, lawlz, i run up to mine and quick throw chaff lawlz."

If someone did enough recon to see that there was indeed a mine there, they should be allowed to disable it, no?

This literally shaves off about 5 seconds, which is huge considering that the motion sensor already alerted the merc to your presence.

Well, 5 seconds isn't OP considering you give away a gadget slot for it.

Perhaps it's me, but I typically envision mines as a way to counter kill aggro/careless players and slow down stealthy players. But lawlz I has chaff, so they do neither.

My point remains: If you do enough recon to spot the mine, you should be able to disable it. If you just spam chaff everywhere, you'll run out soon enough.

Looking at it another way: don't you think a gadget that allows you to bypass any and every single possible trap placement in the game in virtually no time at all, in addition to functioning as a great harassment tool because it disables many of the mercs abilities, is a bit overpowered?

No, since you have a very limited amount.

[Farley4Fan]

Spekkio, you just listed why it's a great gadget, not overpowered.  You only have 5 of these grenades.  Chaff is hardly very affective against an actual merc.  Just a temporary system malfunction, all they have to do is move out of it.

[Gawain]

chaff dust not going through walls is actually a stealth boost.
by increasing the number of simultaniously placable spy traps to 5 and increasing the number of passive defenses on the map, chaff would still stay useful. maybe slightely increasing the time of the chaff emp effect on the merc and increasing the radius would be needed with this change.
in general i'd say improve the mercs' ability to slow down rushes and increase the ability of the spies to play stealth.

[Westfall]

I got what you're saying Spekkio. I love that chaff kills lasers in doorways instantly. I can tell you this though. Few minutes left in a match and all u have to hack is 1 more obj. out of like 3 possible. YOU KNOW proxies will be around it. If you throw chaff near a proxy, it will go off b/c for some reason you're loud when you drop it. It would be practically impossible to get the hack because u can't really take your time with it in this situation. This is the only reason chaff has really saved me through walls....proxy whoring. I think it works well in CT and is balanced w/ only 5, and still going through walls.

You are right in saying it negates the idea of stealth. I could just run through a map with thermal on and see where the mines are and chaff them, though that would still be retarded.

There are other examples, like in clubhouse, where near the garden hack you can put a spy trap that ges through a beam. You can't jump over it in the doorway, so good trap. I know where it goes, so I run up to it on the other side of the wall outside and chaff it to disable it. If chaff can't work through walls, then I'm sure lasers can't/won't go through walls.

I can deal with chaff not going through walls. I just think it works well, given how unrealistic it is. Or is it? No clue if it works throughout multiple environments. I assume only a certain radius, but it does bug electronics, so why not? I wouldn't mind if they still had it through walls or didn't have it through walls. Just saying I kind of like it given what its helped me accomplish in game.

[InvisibleMan999]

Gawain, I can count on one hand the number of traps or mines that would not able to be dismantled by chaff if it did not work through walls, and a lot of them are due to the crooked lasers experienced by clients. Besides, who suddenly made the rule that chaff has to give you a free pass through everything no matter what? I would consider an unchaffable trap good placement. If you're looking at one, take another route or come have your partner help you disable the trap.

Looking at it another way: don't you think a gadget that allows you to bypass any and every single possible trap placement in the game in virtually no time at all, in addition to functioning as a great harassment tool because it disables many of the mercs abilities, is a bit overpowered?

Honestly I don't think so. Defenses should serve to slow down a stealthy spy, not stop him completely dead. Any merc placeable trap should be able to be bypassed with chaff. Perhaps not with quick throw chaff, but with some form of chaff nonetheless.

Personally, what I'd do for chaff is have chaff disrupt laser devices, but not proxies. So a presence detector or proxy mine would not be disabled by chaff at all. This means that spies still have to slow down to take out proxies and can't rely on chaff as a be-all end-all to defense bypassing, but it also means that all defenses are inherently bypassable. Then you don't even care that it works throughwalls.

Having unbeatable trap placements is a bit cheesy in my opinion.

[SITHDUKE]

I guess we just agree to disagree Spekkio. I don't have EAX so I can't hear mines I'm about to run into, so as a precaution I throw a chaff at the places I expect there to be proxies. This comes from experience and costs me a gadget slot. I don't see the big deal, it makes no sense for chaff to disable proxies if you have to be in its trigger radius before you can chaff it, that's useless. Shooting a chaff would be fine except they take too long to detonate and if you're on the run you'll be dead either by the merc or the mines.

[Spekkio]

Personally, what I'd do for chaff is have chaff disrupt laser devices, but not proxies. So a presence detector or proxy mine would not be disabled by chaff at all. This means that spies still have to slow down to take out proxies and can't rely on chaff as a be-all end-all to defense bypassing, but it also means that all defenses are inherently bypassable. Then you don't even care that it works throughwalls.

I have just as big of an issue in regards to spy traps as well, which are largely useless in part due to this mechanism.

@Sith: Then your problem is that you can't hear mines, not that chaff has to work through walls. When you could hear mines in PT, did you still think this was the same?

@Westfall: Yes, there will be many mines around the last objective. But that is why, in a well-balanced map, there are always more objectives than mercs at the end of the game. You don't need chaff to instantly disable 3 proxies by going through any and all walls to be able to get around that.

The trap you mention in club is an example of a bugged trap that wouldn't exist in PS. You could also adjust the laser distance to match PTs range, thus eliminating that problem entirely.

Cyntrox:

I'm not saying that someone shouldn't be able to disable traps/mines. I'm saying that to be able to do it instantly, no matter how well the item is placed, is overpowered.

[SITHDUKE]

@Sith: Then your problem is that you can't hear mines, not that chaff has to work through walls. When you could hear mines in PT, did you still think this was the same?

I could hear mines in PT but I couldn't do anything about them because chaff didn't affect proxies. Chaff disabling them through walls helps stop this. It's not like you can run around a corner throw down 5 chaffs and leave 6 mines disabled laughing at the mercs. There's a limit on how fast you can quick use them so if your proxies are spaced out you'll only disable one of them unless you stop and wait for the grace period.

Edit: Except for the abundance of silent mines that is...

[Gawain]

i fully agree with spekkio.
when you find a spy you should at least get a chance to chase him into mines. one of the things scda did better than ct is the fact that it's way harder to escape once detected than just ss the merc, run like a retard and drop a chaff right before every suspicious corner. if we really want to improve the gameplay, patroulling should be rewarded and not punished. there are some ways to achieve this:
-quick-drop chaff not working through walls
-more objectives and less camping spots on a map
-more possibilities to surprise the spies
-changing ss timers (3-4s not being able to shoot is too long; if you want to get away more easily use flash/smoke)
there's no real need to boost stealth besides better map design, further specialication of vision modes, implementing sound the right way and boosting camo a little bit.

[Farley4Fan]

How about you make it so chaff can only go through certain types of walls.  Like it would go through wood easily, but if it were a concrete or metal wall then it wouldn't go through or it wouldn't be so effective.  Then the map designers can place these walls so that it would be balanced in places where you allow chaff through walls.

[SITHDUKE]

if we really want to improve the gameplay, patroulling should be rewarded and not punished. there are some ways to achieve this:

Punished...right.

-quick-drop chaff not working through walls
-more objectives and less camping spots on a map
-more possibilities to surprise the spies
-changing ss timers (3-4s not being able to shoot is too long; if you want to get away more easily use flash/smoke)
there's no real need to boost stealth besides better map design, further specialication of vision modes, implementing sound the right way and boosting camo a little bit.

Like mercs dont already win the majority of their matches we're going to make it easier? Spies are already an uphill battle. I'm not saying make it easier but I definatly don't think you should be making it much harder either.

[Westfall]

if we really want to improve the gameplay, patroulling should be rewarded and not punished. there are some ways to achieve this:

Punished...right.

-quick-drop chaff not working through walls
-more objectives and less camping spots on a map
-more possibilities to surprise the spies
-changing ss timers (3-4s not being able to shoot is too long; if you want to get away more easily use flash/smoke)
there's no real need to boost stealth besides better map design, further specialication of vision modes, implementing sound the right way and boosting camo a little bit.

Like mercs dont already win the majority of their matches we're going to make it easier? Spies are already an uphill battle. I'm not saying make it easier but I definatly don't think you should be making it much harder either.

QFT/E....in some instances we as a community still don't take balance into effect. Boosting camo is a horrible idea. It just doesn't need the EAX noise to accompany it. No need to "boost" it. Better map design, and vision adjustment is only part of what needs to be fixed on spy side if this game is going to balance. I hope that if chaff going through walls gets removed, something to unbalance the merc has to happen also.

[Gawain]

i can see some1 using camo down on the other side of the yard from the living room balcony, and you tell me that it needs no other boost than fixing sound??

punished right

i think you don't get my point. in ct it's too strong to camp at bottlenecks and close to the objectives than to go on patrol. however this wouldn't be the case on a map like factory without camnet (!) because of the bigger amount of objectives. all i'm suggesting is making patroulling necessary/more effective and camping less effective.

[SITHDUKE]

It already is, if you camp at the start of the game and don't patroll you better play perfect because if either of you screw up the game is over.(Unless you're playing with Mr.Mic *wink*) You can camp the first floor in club house but you've given the spies at least 2 free objectives out of 4. (Assuming the mercs are sniping garden by glass) Which means the spies will have alot more time and lives to crack the camp the mercs have setup. Camping in CT is a workable strategy but very risky. You're much more likely to win by patrolling, killing spies before they get to the objectives and chasing them away from objectives.

[Gawain]

patroulling within a certain radious around the objectives > camping at the objectives of course. you  stand no chance against hack-n-run garden hacking if you don't cover aggressively with the help of spytraps.
one of the strongest tactics on club is to cover both floors (with emphasis on garden) at the beginning but as soon as one objective got hacked you both camp on the other floor and maybe still cover the other garden a bit to gain time.
i don't consider club to be a very good map just because it's quite balanced; the (repetitive) gameplay on club sucks.

in my experience, going into hall (orph) = loosing bomb objective to rushers if they don't run into mines (<=>chaff) or the other merc is covering the area they are heading to.