Spies and disguises

Currently, I believe it's too easy to spot a spy disguised. Simply hit 1(or whatever hotkey your melee weapon is) and wack someone and if they grunt, it's a spy. It really should be harder to spot one. Against any good player, you won't be able to knife them more than once before they start hitting every person they see, checking if they're a spy or not. If they do find you, you'll be dead within a few seconds.

Thoughts?

[Iggy]

Learn to be sneaky, and you won't have this problem.

Originally Posted by Iggy

Learn to be sneaky, and you won't have this problem.

Except you can't when everyone is running around hitting everyone they see, checking if they're a spy or not. >_>

Costs you nothing. Costs the person you're hitting nothing. Can save your life. There's no reason for you to not hit everyone wearing your team color checking if they're a spy or not.(I play on no FF servers)

[Gigiya]

Originally Posted by omgpewpewlazerzz

There's no reason for you to not hit everyone wearing your team color checking if they're a spy or not.(I play on no FF servers)

Unless there are confirmed enemies around to be hit instead. Don't expect to get into an enemy base every time while disguised alone.

[Skanky Butterpuss]

use cloaks more. wait for people to clear out of a high traffic area before running in there. confuse the enemy. read this guide

Originally Posted by Skanky Butterpuss

use cloaks more. wait for people to clear out of a high traffic area before running in there. confuse the enemy. read this guide

Oh I know how to play a spy very well. I understand all the mechanics of the class. Simply saying, versus most good players, there's usually someone like say a med, running around trying to heal people and ends up infecting you and thus screwing you. I've found it impossible to play a spy when there's a good med in their base.

Possibly making you immune to infections when disguised might help a bit.

[Skanky Butterpuss]

hate to sound like a dick, but obviously you dont know how to play spy really well if you are the only person complaining that spy is too hard to play. you shouldnt be running in all gung ho through the front door if you expect them not to shoot you. if a medic is chasing you with the medkit out, tranq him, bhop to somehwere safe, cloak, and redisguise. that guide gives a lot of good tips, and if you are having trouble with spy, it might help you learn some things.

and when threads like this one exist, it reinforces that these 'problems' arent balance issues but differences in skill levels...

Originally Posted by omgpewpewlazerzz

Currently, I believe it's too easy to spot a spy disguised. Simply hit 1(or whatever hotkey your melee weapon is) and wack someone and if they grunt, it's a spy. It really should be harder to spot one. Against any good player, you won't be able to knife them more than once before they start hitting every person they see, checking if they're a spy or not. If they do find you, you'll be dead within a few seconds.

Thoughts?

This is how I know you're a spy;

1) You run around the corner at me, then hesitate because you're not sure if I know you're disguised or not. Dead giveaway

2) You take a little more interest in my SG placement, etc then you should

3) You throw a grenade at me

4) You seem to want to fiddle with my SG

5) You enter an area a teammate has no business being in (while I'm defending flag/switch/hallway

6)I'm very observant of my surroundings and I notice slight changes in pixels that make me think a spy is about. You move again, and I will kill u. That's my skill, not a fault in your spy class.

A good player will be able to spot you even without shooting. I'll just start shooting anyone who looks suspicious. If you saw from my perspective, you'd see I don't shoot everyone who comes into the base, it only appears that way to YOU, because I always spot you when you come in.

A good spy can be a pain in my ass;

1) Being patient and working his way around and through defensive positions to wreak havoc

2) Does a manouver (kills me, blows up SG, etc) then re-cloaks.

3) Ambushes me where I will build my defense, stand,etc.

A spy now has more tools than one had in TFC, and people still think it's not enough?

If you consider it a class that is not used to score points, and to have fun fouling up the enemy defense, then you might not be so displeased with it.

For myself, I don't worry about score. All I care about is that my team wins. Anyone witnessing my gameplay will see that I will pretty much do anything to stop the enemy from getting my flag. Sometimes I end up with top scores (without flag caps) and others I have severe negative scores. 90% of the time my team has won though, due to my sacrifice and hard work on defense as engineer or med/off as pyro.

[barronofhellion]

Originally Posted by Poo Puppet

A good spy can be a pain in my ass.

lol yea back... ass, same thing

[Credge]

To go further with the list Poo Puppet made;

1. If I see you with a crowbar, I will shoot you. Regardless.

2. If I see you with a weapon your class normally doesn't use, I will shoot you. Regardless.

3. If I see a team mate running into >my< base that shouldn't be (sniper, scout, medic,... heck, anyone running into my base), I shoot them. Regardless.

4. If I see you crouching in a corner, I will shoot you. Regardless.

5. If I know there are spies around, I will shoot everyone. Regardless.

6. If I see somebody acting strange, I will shoot them. Regardless.



Here's the thing. Spies still kill me. A ton. They still get my SG's. They still backstab me, although they haven't lately (mainly due to a change in play style). Although I kill spies more than they kill me, they still get me. Further, I've seen a spy take out an entire defense from a well timed sabotage in which the spy got the flag and ran out of the base without a problem.

Now add to that the horror of having 3-4 enemy spies doing that, and there won't be a defense.

[barronofhellion]

lol lastnight a spy came next to the flag drop point in aardvark like 4 or 5 times disguesed and just sat there looking at the ground next to me (eng)a and a hw guy , needless to say somebody whose stairing at the ground obviously doesn't care if theres somebody comeing up the ramp to get in the base so i would club him to give him armor and whack ! ouch ! whack whack whack, then the hw would light him up and ... well needless to say i got a few wrench kills

[nobuyuki]

Hey,

I don't know if anyone asked this before but back in TFC I used to spycheck with shotgun all the time. In TFC, people who weren't spies didn't bleed from it. In FF, they do. Is this an intended change? It confuses me quite a bit and I end up shooting lots of friends

[KubeDawg]

Originally Posted by Poo Puppet

Now add to that the horror of having 3-4 enemy spies doing that, and there won't be a defense.

That'd be a very interesting combo if most/all offense were spies. Imagine how much damage you could do if you play your cards right and use teamwork to have, say 1 spy, as a decoy, and the other to destroy a nearby sg or knife in the back.

[Meathook]

yeah, having another spy to work with is great... one of you gets caught, the other gets free reign for a few seconds.

except sometimes the other team gets overly paranoid and spychecks like a bunch of bitches! fuckers!

[v3rtigo]

Originally Posted by Credge

5. If I know there are spies around, I will shoot everyone. Regardless.

Here's the thing. Spies still kill me. A ton. They still get my SG's. They still backstab me, although they haven't lately (mainly due to a change in play style). Although I kill spies more than they kill me, they still get me. Further, I've seen a spy take out an entire defense from a well timed sabotage in which the spy got the flag and ran out of the base without a problem.

The scenario's you describe only happen on pubs because a well guarded flagroom won't allow a spy to even get close to a SG or another player for that matter. As for point 5, this is basically why most spies can't get through a decent, stationary defense line. Unless it's a friendly fire server, the spy doesn't stand a chance of getting past if the defender is competent enough not to get killed/distracted by each incoming medic. The spy can't fool anyone if there is such an easy way to determine if one is a spy or not. Especially with the blood removed on servers with friendly fire off (making it even harder for the spy to get by) in the next patch, I think the spy is going to be almost as useless as he was in TFC (more even, IMO).

Having 3 or more spies isn't going to help either, one soldier should be able to take out all 3-4 spies as long as they don't attack him. In this matter, only if two (or more) spies work together can they be remotely effective and perhaps stand a chance at sabotaging or something. Either way, it'd require some serious teamwork. Seeing how a medic can get past defenses much quicker and easier, having 2 spies on one O team seems like a waste of resources.

In other words, in terms of usefulness in competitive play, the spy hasn't changed one bit. Rather, he has become even less effective now that he can't assault his assailants anymore (sidestab). Grenade jumping has also lost most of it's usefulness except in large open areas taking away yet another useful ability. On top of that, the cloaking is way to easy to spot and feigning won't save your butt either. Surreal is trying to tackle all these problems in one thread and has some great ideas in there that would definitely change the spy for the better. I guess it's up to the team to do something with it.