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Flash is already getting a boost in PS indirectly, because MT vision won't be super powerful and will be tougher to whore, which was honestly the biggest foil to flashbangs. If a merc constantly MT whored, he had almost nothing to worry about regarding flash.

If there is really an issue with lighting or whatever then forget it.   :)

I remember hearing something about dynamic lighting effing with performance but I'm sure there is a way to create a flamethrower without it being performance-heavy at all.

Um... animating fire is actually pretty difficult. It has to produce light, then you'd probably want some kind of animation where the spy actually burns to death....

totally not worth the effort.

call me crazy, but with all the vision changes and eax superhearing fixed i can imagine that stealth will get too easy...
one problem in ct is that patroulling in terms of moving away from objectives is a way too risky strategy because even if you find a spy chances to kill him are pretty low and in the time you are tazed he can basically run to the objective, change the floor or whatever. though maybe this get's better with less lag (=rifle more dangerous) and no more huge host advantage (=1s longer tazer timer), guess we really have to wait for the beta version to find out which way the balance needs further tweaking.

Yeah, we really need to do some playtesting with the new changes, and see how things go. The new maps are going to make a huge difference for this stuff too.

Another nice change to flares IMO would be giving them a bullet trajectory instead of an arcing grenade trajectory, and allow them to stick into walls. This would make them a bit easier to use and let mercs light up an area farther away.

I don't have a problem with trying new ideas, though what ideas exactly that get implemented need to be thought out well. For instance, mercs tended to win most games in CT, so we want to make it a bit easier for spies to sneak. This has been done by nerfing MT and possibly darker levels (at least Lakehouse seems really dark compared to most CT maps).

Now, an idea like this comes along that gives mercs another way to find a spy.

The main question you have to ask is why are you doing this? Originally, it's been accepted that mercs have the advantage and their spy detection should be nerfed to make stealth more viable. Why are you now going to give mercs a new way of finding spies, and thus make stealth harder and less viable?

This is the kind of idea that might make sense later after some playtesting if mercs are unable to find spies effectively, but it's certainly not an early phase idea. It's unsurprisingly that most players, who are used to stealth being damned difficult under CT rules, don't want to give mercs even more toys to help detect spies.

PT style refillable flares wouldn't be broken. I mean, flares suck as it is, so being able to go out of your way to get more isn't going to make a huge difference.

I like the idea of having flares just be default items for the merc, because really nobody is going to take them over another gadget anyway. I'd cut it to 2-3 flares that you can hold at a time with infinite refills at an ammo crate. That way, flares aren't the kind of thing that you can spam (unless you're sitting in front of the crate anyway).

The limited refill ammo crate probably won't even be an issue for flares, so I wouldn't bother. If the merc want sto constantly run back to the crate to get more, then that's more time the spy has to sneak past him in the middle of his flare spams.

1) Detecting the spies while they are crouching and moving slowly is generally bad. That's partly why MT is currently overpowered in MT...you can't sneak up on a merc unless he decides not to turn around for 6 years because you have to go too slow. However, I hope that the devs didn't take out the 360 degree detection for a spy who is running because the mercs will most likely need that to fend off aggro.

2) The fact that you can detect a spy through walls and all sorts of other things while he's moving slow per above is also bad because the spy has no way of knowing that he was detecting. In other words, if I stand up as a spy and start moving around, I know that I pinged the mercs' reticles. I know that they'll come soon. If I'm moving about carefully, I don't know if and when the mercs switch on wallhax vision.

Yeah, not to mention that stealth is already pretty difficult in this game, we don't need to nerf it further by having a vision that can "see" you when you're in a vent and moving slowly.

I think graphics quality is somewhat overrated.

Team Fortress 2 is really popular and the graphics on that are pretty damn primitive for the time.

Given what we've seen already from the PS artwork, it's going to look great.   

What will however make-or-break PS is going to be player accessibility. The tutorial has to be great so people can know how to play quickly.

i love variety in tactics, i just don't want aggro to get any easier than it is in ct. a balance allowing 100% aggro is just as bad as allowing 100% stealth. in ct 80% aggro or stealth is effective, 100% fails, and that's a good thing, afterall it's stealth-action-mp.

Well regardless of how you make the game, if you can go aggro at all, then 100% aggro is going to be viable. It may not be the best tactic, but it's going to be something that people can do.

I would say that 100% stealth should also be viable, assuming you're good enough to pull it off.

The game should be designed such that a mix of tactics is the best way to go. Aggro shouldn't be all-powerful and nor should stealth, but I don't think any part of the game should ever be built so that the solution to a problem must be aggro or must be stealth.

By the way, I said it should be easier to kill the mercs in general. That does not necessarily mean it needs to be done in an aggro way.

Nah, not at all. Aggro teams can win in this game with some difficulty, and that's probably about as good as we want aggro to get. Otherwise stealth will just be out the window and people will just go for necks.

The game should maintain its stealth motto and winning by killing the mercs should be hard. Otherwise, the game just turns into a deathmatch.

Three lives is good for the merc side. If people want to punish mercs who die, I'd say just not give them equipment on a suicide (or if their partner kills them). If a spy necks you, you should get your equipment back, simply because a spy can always choose to KO a merc instead of necking him, so that's a trade-off that I'm okay with. Killing him takes him out for a longer period, but gives him more equipment. KOing him knocks him out and doesn't replenish his gear.

I don't really see the dying thing as being that big a deal.

The only time that you probably want to kill yourself for more gas mask is if the spies are aggro, but if they're aggro, then wasting a life for a refill may end up costing you the game.

why is it every thread that i create gets made into an off topic discussion.

probably because it's not really much of a topic for discussion. Nobody here actually wants buggy animations that ignore charges.

Being safe from flashbangs was only a side benefit of MT. The main reason was that you got to see in the dark and instantly were aware of any spy moving at more than a crawl, even if he was behind you. Really, it cut most of the skill of being a merc from the game, since it gave you 360 degree vision, played a sound when a spy was detected and gave you that easy to see grey box.

It was like playing the game in easy mode.

And I don't even want to get into playing it with high quality post render.

For intuitiveness, if you're making sound on your own speakers by moving, you should be pinging the reticule based on the intensity of that sound. Personally I'd make it a direct correlation, where the radius you can ping the reticule is directly proportional to the sound you're hearing.

Yeah, no need to worry about blinding a merc in MT if the motion whore problem is dealt with in the first place.