How to fix Phantom for good, without a massive rework.

(JJMAJR) #21

But isn’t there a different metagame for each map? What about Execution, Dockyard, or Dome? Why not have some maps be balanced around larger teams?

(Eox) #22

Why is there so much people in favor of the “damage absorb” part of the refractive armor ? Should I remind you that it was the main reason about why Phantom was so much hated when he came out ? :expressionless:

I still don’t get why that mechanic is still present. That armor part should just go : it’s either frustrating to deal against or underpowered as hell. Did you enjoyed that time where Phantom was able to rush you from a mile without taking damage ? Well, I didn’t. Better get rid of the mechanic that was Phantom’s main issue from the start. Invisibility can be tweaked in another way.

Let’s begin by reverting a part of the changes that was made when he got that huge nerf. Giving his 120 hp back shouldn’t be such a big deal, and the armor could trade visibilty reduction as well. Maybe at cost of a very slightly louder sound. Szakalot idea wasn’t bad too. I’d also suggest to allow Phantom to perform any contextual actions while invisible (helping up, objective play…). I don’t get why people always said this would be broken : it’s super slow and you would notice it if you pay attention anyway.

Invisibility modifications :

  • Taking damage won’t eat your invisibility anymore.
  • No more armor.
  • Apply Szakalot’s changes.
  • You can help up and play objectives while invisible. Playing an objective will make you slightly more visible. There’s no penality for helping up though.
  • Reduced max visibility while running when invisible. Not a lot, just enough.
  • Maybe make the visibility based from how far you are located from him. He’ll look 100% invisible if you are 20 meters away, but then he’ll become to be more and more visible the closer he’s to you. 10 meters and below is max “cloak visibility” (if you see what I mean). Not sure if such a change is possible though.

Another ability is obviously needed too IMO. A total lone wolf character shouldn’t exist in a team based game. Phantom deperately needs a way to contribute to his team. Some people suggested a spotting ability, some suggested a noise reducing item… There was some good ideas around.

(RedBeard) #23

A massive rework would probably be better.

(Szakalot) #24

[quote=“Eox;159185”]Why is there so much people in favor of the “damage absorb” part of the refractive armor ? Should I remind you that it was the main reason about why Phantom was so much hated when he came out ? :expressionless:

I still don’t get why that mechanic is still present. That armor part should just go : it’s either frustrating to deal against or underpowered as hell. Did you enjoyed that time where Phantom was able to rush you from a mile without taking damage ? Well, I didn’t. Better get rid of the mechanic that was Phantom’s main issue from the start. Invisibility can be tweaked in another way.

Let’s begin by reverting a part of the changes that was made when he got that huge nerf. Giving his 120 hp back shouldn’t be such a big deal, and the armor could trade visibilty reduction as well. Maybe at cost of a very slightly louder sound. Szakalot idea wasn’t bad too. I’d also suggest to allow Phantom to perform any contextual actions while invisible (helping up, objective play…). I don’t get why people always said this would be broken : it’s super slow and you would notice it if you pay attention anyway.

Invisibility modifications :

  • Taking damage won’t eat your invisibility anymore.
  • No more armor.
  • Apply Szakalot’s changes.
  • You can help up and play objectives while invisible. Playing an objective will make you slightly more visible. There’s no penality for helping up though.
  • Reduced max visibility while running when invisible. Not a lot, just enough.
  • Maybe make the visibility based from how far you are located from him. He’ll look 100% invisible if you are 20 meters away, but then he’ll become to be more and more visible the closer he’s to you. 10 meters and below is max “cloak visibility” (if you see what I mean). Not sure if such a change is possible though.

Another ability is obviously needed too IMO. A total lone wolf character shouldn’t exist in a team based game. Phantom deperately needs a way to contribute to his team. Some people suggested a spotting ability, some suggested a noise reducing item… There was some good ideas around.

[/quote]

the issue with armor is that it works no matter what. Invisibility is really hard to balance:

high lever players with high-contrast configs will see you. low level players wont. Thus cloak is barely useful at high levels, making phantom rely on cloak only would kill the merc for me.
Phantom without armor would be extremely weak, even if you give him 100% invisibility when stationary. Game is won by big firefights, not by trying to setup a flank for 10sec while sneaking around.

edit:
if i recall correctly, the only things that changed in regards to armor is removal of the damage protection on the last part of the armor, and phantom got 10more hp

(Eox) #25

[quote=“Szakalot;159322”][quote=“Eox;159185”]Why is there so much people in favor of the “damage absorb” part of the refractive armor ? Should I remind you that it was the main reason about why Phantom was so much hated when he came out ? :expressionless:

I still don’t get why that mechanic is still present. That armor part should just go : it’s either frustrating to deal against or underpowered as hell. Did you enjoyed that time where Phantom was able to rush you from a mile without taking damage ? Well, I didn’t. Better get rid of the mechanic that was Phantom’s main issue from the start. Invisibility can be tweaked in another way.

Let’s begin by reverting a part of the changes that was made when he got that huge nerf. Giving his 120 hp back shouldn’t be such a big deal, and the armor could trade visibilty reduction as well. Maybe at cost of a very slightly louder sound. Szakalot idea wasn’t bad too. I’d also suggest to allow Phantom to perform any contextual actions while invisible (helping up, objective play…). I don’t get why people always said this would be broken : it’s super slow and you would notice it if you pay attention anyway.

Invisibility modifications :

  • Taking damage won’t eat your invisibility anymore.
  • No more armor.
  • Apply Szakalot’s changes.
  • You can help up and play objectives while invisible. Playing an objective will make you slightly more visible. There’s no penality for helping up though.
  • Reduced max visibility while running when invisible. Not a lot, just enough.
  • Maybe make the visibility based from how far you are located from him. He’ll look 100% invisible if you are 20 meters away, but then he’ll become to be more and more visible the closer he’s to you. 10 meters and below is max “cloak visibility” (if you see what I mean). Not sure if such a change is possible though.

Another ability is obviously needed too IMO. A total lone wolf character shouldn’t exist in a team based game. Phantom deperately needs a way to contribute to his team. Some people suggested a spotting ability, some suggested a noise reducing item… There was some good ideas around.

[/quote]

the issue with armor is that it works no matter what. Invisibility is really hard to balance:

high lever players with high-contrast configs will see you. low level players wont. Thus cloak is barely useful at high levels, making phantom rely on cloak only would kill the merc for me.
Phantom without armor would be extremely weak, even if you give him 100% invisibility when stationary. Game is won by big firefights, not by trying to setup a flank for 10sec while sneaking around.
[/quote]

Looks like Valve had the good way to balance invisibility from the start then : 100% invis but you can’t attack while invisibility is active (need to manually uncloak before). Maybe we should inspire ourselves from this instead. On the good side that definitively stop the Rambo rush Phantom tactic that bad Phantom players cherish from being efficient.

If we keep the armor function, then it should be as another ability separate from the invisibility function IMO, with a shared Cooldown. Someone suggested it once and it seemed like a nice idea IMO.

(Jesus) #26

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;24942”]First, watch this video, and pay attention to a few things.

[/quote]

haha 00:02 when you tryna start an epic phantom vid but you get stuck on some piece of wall at the second second!!

Now two things i want to know… How did he got that crosshair and how come it the name in the chat and his allies name are written in green ?

(Szakalot) #27

[quote=“Jesus;159669”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;24942”]First, watch this video, and pay attention to a few things.

[/quote]

haha 00:02 when you tryna start an epic phantom vid but you get stuck on some piece of wall at the second second!!

Now two things i want to know… How did he got that crosshair and how come it the name in the chat and his allies name are written in green ?
[/quote]

its a mumble crosshair

(SereneFlight) #28

Give Phantom a Sticky Cam, basically works exactly like a Turret, bur instead of shooting people, it just spots them on radar.

The little I know about Aimee… well… that sounds a lot like Aimee’s ability.

(XavienX) #29

And revert all melee speed back 100%. Like wtf is 92.5% speed or 97.5% speed for different melees. Like seriously wtf? Players need to keep in mind to pull out secondaries depending on their loadout like idek what SD was thinking.

(DirtyHarrier) #30

They weren’t.

(Peikko) #31

Leave my Phantom alone :C

(SereneFlight) #32

Hmm… when it comes to detection ability, maybe we could nick Revelation from Starcraft 2

Revelation is a spell cast by the Protoss Oracle. Upon casting, all enemy units within the spell radius will be revealed by giving the Protoss player vision 1 radius around the affected units. The spell affects visible units as well cloaked and burrowed units.

So basically you detect an enemy and all nearby friends would be detected as well. Mobile Heartbeat Sensor if you will.

(l2c) #33

He needs to be faster, less visible and able to oneshot snipers with the katana (heavy attack ofc). As for not being counterable if less visible, Red Eye (who btw has smoke you can’t counter).
I don’t mind him being squishy if he’s less visible and able to actually kill stuff with the katana. His speed needs to match his health in any case.

In any case, he needs more utility. Mechanic, ammo station, something more than just a surprise attack that’s rarely a surprise, and barely an attack ;p

(JJMAJR) #34

Redeye’s smoke could be countered with explosives.

(responsibleKangaroo) #35

I would just give him health regen on his armor as a plus. You kill someone, get on stealth, reload your weapon and regen hp

(Naonna) #36

If there was a passive constantly-regenerating over shield effect, phantom would be considered broken while cloaked and still be wimpy as soon as the cloak was off. It wouldn’t really benefit his team any more than usual. He’d still not be good enough at killing to be fragger or nader level.

(terminal) #37

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;24942”]First, watch this video, and pay attention to a few things.

One, notice how movement affects the visibility of the cloak. Two, notice how visible he is from the first person perspective, this is good tell sign of a few things and will be the majority of this thread.

So, how do we fix Phantom once and for all? Well, here’s my personal take.

  • Phantom standing still with Refractive Armor should be completely invisible, 100%
  • Crouch walking Phantom should be 5% visible
  • Standing Walking Phantom should be 10% visible
  • Running, Sprinting, taking damage, all should be 25% visible, essentially looks like a walking shadow.
  • Tweaking his visibility to reward a more slower tactical play is imo ideal for him, and would fix a number of problems with the Refractive Armor’s usability. If he’s still too visible while walking and crouch walking, then keep reducing until it’s so good it hides him perfectly from the best players.

Next, some other specifics regarding the Refractive Armor

  • Change how much damage the armor can effectively Tank, in exchange for giving Phantom more HP, 120 HP like he used to be, or buff his speed so it matches with other 110 speed mercs.
  • Change how Undercover interacts with Refractive Armor, should it give it more duration, or should it give it more Armor? As in tanking more damage?
  • Should the Refractive Armor’s duration be changed from a constant time ticking, or motion sensitive, like the Cloak and Dagger watch from Team Fortress 2 and the Stealth Pack from Tribes?

And finally, some new adjustments or additions

  • I am going to propose that Phantom get a Decoy, this Decoy acts like a normal player and is essentially a hologram that even fools Motion Sensors and Red Eye’s Goggles as an actual enemy. This can be used to misdirect players or lure them in, due to the slow pace of how Refractive Armor works.
  • Throw it into the wind, and just make Phantom an Engineer, for a totally different style of play from the others.
  • Give Phantom a Sticky Cam, basically works exactly like a Turret, bur instead of shooting people, it just spots them on radar.

[/quote]

  1. Phantom is meant to catch people off guard, people who aren’t focused on hunting for a Phantom, that’s why his armor has low visibility instead of full; You’ll never believe how many times Phantoms have been standing in front of me and I didn’t see them because I was focused on something behind them. Making Phantom have full invisibility means he can at any time go invisible, sprint away, and stand behind a wall to evade a fight completely. This game isn’t like TF2 where there is no sprinting and a spy running away to hide behind a wall is easy to catch.
  2. Having a set number for the armor would make it so Phantom can still tank shots when his cloak is low. I liked how Splash Damage made the cloak, keep it that way. His health and speed is fine, the katana has a long reach and his gun choices are good. Undercover should remain the same. Making Phantom’s armor motion sensitive encourages more standing around and camping corners instead of playing fast and tactical, plus it could break future gamemodes (like the Cloak and Dagger).
  3. Sticky Cam sounds exactly like the Heartbeat Sensor. The Decoy sounds extremely hard to create and would most likely spawn numerous bugs upon release; plus, you’ve mentioned you wanted Phantom to be tactical, adding this would only encourage him to camp around his decoy and wait for people to come by. Making Phantom an Engineer may be a workable idea though, it would give him a real purpose in competitive.
(Rawr) #38

Hmmm I’m probably gonna get some heat for this, but I think Phantom is like 95% fine the way he is. About the only thing I would suggest is buffing his speed a little to match Fletcher (seems fair since they have the same health). I guess I wouldn’t be opposed to reducing his visibility while cloaked though.

(Tanker_Ray) #39

Faster movement speed.

Team-helping skill.

Done.

(Koyotea) #40

i agree he should be completely invisible when standing still, but the other suggestions i disagree with, it’d make him to OP.