Hallelujah! Dead Silence nerf in the pipe!

[shaktazuki]

community.callofduty.com/message/205421471#205421471

Any change can only be positive - because it literally cannot be worse than it is now.

[tmkruelty]

I don't understand, what's wrong with it? It's the only counter to sitrep pro. Are you saying sitrep pro should be all powerful?

[stilts]

Casuals can't properly use it, so it needs to be nerfed.

[shaktazuki]

If you will but click on the link in the OP, and read through, I have laid out within exactly what I think is wrong with it. It appears others, whose opinions actually matter, have agreed with me.

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 15:56:42 GMT -5 stilts said:

Casuals can't properly use it, so it needs to be nerfed.

What are you talking about?

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 15:56:46 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

If you will but click on the link in the OP, and read through, I have laid out within exactly what I think is wrong with it. It appears others, whose opinions actually matter, have agreed with me.

Yeah I read it. You said you think there should be an invisibility perk, lol.

Have you ever played black ops?

[shaktazuki]

I played it long enough to prestige once for the token to get another class slot in MW3 - used Ninja Pro the whole time.

[tmkruelty]

Did ninja pro allow you to hear other ninja pro users?

[shaktazuki]

No, it did not. Strangely, I recall only running into 1 other NP user the whole time I was prestiging.

Also, since you changed your first post, let me respond.

Dead Silence counters everyone, and does so for free. Everyone can counter SitRep simply by crouch-walking.

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 16:13:14 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

No, it did not. Strangely, I recall only running into 1 other NP user the whole time I was prestiging.

That's because they were probably all using final stand.

Anyway, that's my point. Having silent footsteps does not need a counter. Play search for a while. There are plenty of player noises that can't be silenced. Also we can use our eyes too. If sitrep pro counters dead silence, then what is the point of even having dead silence in the game at all? Sitrep pro will reign supreme.

Comparing being silent to being invisibile is just a little Foxtrotting silly.

[shaktazuki]

Feb 20, 2012 16:23:15 GMT -5 tmkruelty said:

Comparing being silent to being invisibile is just a little Foxtrotting silly.

Thank you for the compliment, good sir! I appreciate the fan mail.

Of course you are completely correct in that drawing an analogy, with supporting evidence, between audio stealth and visual stealth is foxtrotting silly. Obviously, with your superior intellect and education, you have discovered the principle my feeble mind just cannot grasp. Thank you for your help, kind sir, and may you continue to shine the light of snark upon all errors you perceive from henceforth and forever!

[stilts]

Feb 20, 2012 15:59:23 GMT -5 tmkruelty said:

What are you talking about?

Oops, I thought the linked post was written by Ghandi, and OP was being sarcastic about being glad for a nerf. <_<

What I meant to convey is that Dead Silence is not a casual perk, so I'm not surprised IW is rebalancing it, based on their track record.


P.S. Let's add that invisibility perk, and make crouch walkers invisible even if they haven't chosen it.

[shaktazuki]

Why stop there, good sir? Why not make everyone invisible to begin with? Have the courage of your snarky convictions!

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 16:26:32 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

Feb 20, 2012 16:23:15 GMT -5 tmkruelty said:

Comparing being silent to being invisibile is just a little Foxtrotting silly.

Thank you for the compliment, good sir! I appreciate the fan mail.

Of course you are completely correct in that drawing an analogy, with supporting evidence, between audio stealth and visual stealth is foxtrotting silly. Obviously, with your superior intellect and education, you have discovered the principle my feeble mind just cannot grasp. Thank you for your help, kind sir, and may you continue to shine the light of snark upon all errors you perceive from henceforth and forever!

I don't think I'm the one with the snark problem there, Edgar.

But please elaborate on what you are talking about here, I'm really curious:

"...it ought to have a counterbalancing perk in the same tier which grants visual stealth, like the adaptive camo the Predator wears (I have some ideas along this line, which I think are really cool)."

[shaktazuki]

'Tis quite alright, good sir. I'm sure you're just humoring my deficient self to be asking me about any ideas my feeble mind generated; I mean, there's no need to explicate anything which has already been demolished by the light of snark, now, is there?

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 17:03:26 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

'Tis quite alright, good sir. I'm sure you're just humoring my deficient self to be asking me about any ideas my feeble mind generated; you have quite justly described them, sight unseen, as "Foxtrotting silly."

I mean, there's no need to explicate anything which has already been demolished by the light of snark, now, is there?

Ok, you can put Edgar away now, before Ghandi pitches an invisibility perk to the development team.

[shaktazuki]

You are completely correct, good sir, in all that you say.

[parryhotter]

The thing is, this will fundamentally change the way CoD is played. Especially SnD, but other gametypes as well.

Dead silence opened up the game. Allowed players freedom of movement. I remember this perk not being OP in CoD 4. And there, you could run bomb squad and stopping power with it !

But now, with no reasonable expectation of actual silent movement, there's NO point in running the perk. Like you state, everybody can get a free dead silence by crouching. So why not have a perk where you DONT have to crouch in order to be quiet? ESPECIALLY if I'm going to have to do it anyway.

By choosing that perk, I give up some flexibility with aiming, or more immunity to equipment. Sounds like a fair trade off, no?

Here's an idea: maybe, since equipment is so easy to avoid anyway, claymores/betties should be buffed. Then, when people would run around fast using dead silence, they would run more of a risk of death by equipment.

Expect SLOWER gameplay, and more tactical loitering.

Is that what you really want ?

[shaktazuki]

I anticipated, and already accounted for, much - if not all - of what you say here in my post(s) (of which there were two) to the MW3 community forums on this issue.

[shaktazuki]

For reference, here's what I said the first time in that thread:

Lastly, it is my opinion that characters who are sprinting with Dead Silence should at least make walking noise. In honesty, Dead Silence actually feels so unfair that I very much want to not play the game as long as it's in. It's as bad, to me, as though Assassin were to get the Ring of Invisibility effect from Quake - because there's only two ways to directly detect a player: by sight or by sound. There does not seem to be a principled reason to say removing sound is acceptable but removing visibility is not.

Gee, if removing sound gives one "freedom of movement," imagine what invisibility would do.

[parryhotter]

All I'm saying is that if people can't move around quietly, there's going to be way more tactical loitering.

And I don't think that makes the game better.

Matches are going to slow down. More rounds of seach and destroy will end with multiple players alive. TDM and Kill Confirmed games won't reach the score limit. You may like that more. I don't, and I would wager that most of the community doesn't either. How often do you read complaints on here about "those effing campers", or better yet, hear voice chat in the game ?

If I'm playing in a 1v1 situation, there are correct times/places to camp, or maybe slow down a little. But more often than not, there are too many places to have to check, and moving around slowly makes me a sitting duck. The faster I move, the harder I am to hit, and the better chance I can come around a corner and surprise you.

What I'm getting from you is that you want a game of full information. You always want to know when someone is coming. Unless they're crawling literally at a snails pace, where you'll be able to see them with plenty of time to react.

I recently played a game of search on Village, and ran under the bridge. Had on Dead Silence. And I didn't know that those birds would fly out when I ran under there. Other guy did know it, and was ready and waiting. So how easy would that situation have been for him if I didn't have on Dead Silence?

Really, outside of SnD its not a huge deal. I'd say once out of every hundred deaths or more I can tell that somebody heard me coming when I'm using Stalker or Steady Aim, which I use 90% of the time in those situations.

But man, playing Search would be no fun if everybody was soundwhoring....

[shaktazuki]

As it stands, apparently, like the e-mags glitch on the shotties, DSP was supposed to be audible to SRP anyways.

As someone who has played a lot of TDM - and by a lot, I mean A LOT - I can say with confidence that despite what you claim would happen in a fixed-glitch Dead Silent world, TDM matches will almost certainly hit the score limit just as frequently they do now.

And yes, there should always be a movement penalty to stealth. You can reduce the cost, but not eliminate it. That's fair. That's why I said sprinters with Dead Silence should at least make walking sound.

Frankly, I'm waiting still for someone to tell me how it is that perfect silence without mobility cost is acceptable, and perfect invisibility without mobility cost is not.

Incidentally, this is precisely why I believe Assassin should counter Marksman - if I'm in ghillie standing in front of a bush without moving, you should not notice me. I'm paying the required mobility price for unobtrusiveness (not quite invisible, but close) and I should get it.

[Megaqwerty]

I'm going to make a list of everything that is presently wrong with Dead Silence. Please bear with me:
Sit Rep Pro does not counter it.

I know that you, shak, primarily play TDM where no one ever uses Dead Silence (versus, say, SnD) so I'm curious as to why you feel so strongly about a perk that was nerfed from its previous incarnation in MW2 while every other perk in the same tier was buffed.

All DS needs is to be countered by SRP.

It is worth noting that DS does not reduces your sound to zero: it is still possible to hear DS users, although good luck with that.

Feb 20, 2012 16:12:09 GMT -5 tmkruelty said:

Did ninja pro allow you to hear other ninja pro users?

Ninja Pro in Blops multiplies noise by 0. 0 times whatever is still 0.

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 18:16:04 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

Ninja Pro in Blops multiplies noise by 0. 0 times whatever is still 0.

Maybe at first, but once they adjusted the audio, ninja pro quite obviously amplified enemy footsteps.

[eLantern]

Per G IH A IN ID II,

"Dead Silence currently has no counter. With SR Pro you should be able to hear Dead Silence users albeit at a diminished volume. A bug in the sound occlusion code is preventing this so we are fixing it."

Sounds as if they will be fixing this issue and that is a good thing, but hopefully that is it. Otherwise, the Dead Silence perk, IMO, is just fine as is.

[tmkruelty]

Feb 20, 2012 18:08:43 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

Frankly, I'm waiting still for someone to tell me how it is that perfect silence without mobility cost is acceptable, and perfect invisibility without mobility cost is not.

Frankly, I'm surprised you need anyone to explain this to you.

[parryhotter]

Well, I too have played a LOT of TDM. ;D

When I choose Dead Silence, I'm giving up mobility.

Stalker allows me to aim AND continue to walk at a normal rate. I remember a time when ADSing and walking SILENCED footsteps. Clearly, they realized that Stalker would be way OP if there was no noise during ADS, and they changed that.

Steady Aim allows me to aim faster after sprinting, and usually without ADSing.

Sitrep means I never need worry about any explosives (so, less checking corners for those)

What you are suggesting essentially eliminates a perk from play. Imagine a competitive game of CoD here.

Player A and Player B both use dead silence : neither can hear the other.

Player A chooses Sitrep while Player B chooses dead silence: Player B is at a CLEAR DISADVANTAGE.

Player A and Player B choose Sitrep : neither can hear the other, because both are always crouch walking.

You can see that there is absolutely choice in the matter. Sitrep becomes the automatic perk. In essence, all you've done is changed the (necessary to be competitive) perk, and in the process slowed down gameplay. I realize that the typical MLG type setup would probably outlaw Sitrep at this point, but that point is moot (for reference, I don't do gamebattles or MLG). You've made the game less exciting, and less fun in the process.


Tell me how thats balanced Or how it's good for the community?

[eLantern]

Feb 20, 2012 18:27:34 GMT -5 parryhotter said:

Well, I too have played a LOT of TDM. ;D

When I choose Dead Silence, I'm giving up mobility.

Stalker allows me to aim AND continue to walk at a normal rate. I remember a time when ADSing and walking SILENCED footsteps. Clearly, they realized that Stalker would be way OP if there was no noise during ADS, and they changed that.

Steady Aim allows me to aim faster after sprinting, and usually without ADSing.

Sitrep means I never need worry about any explosives (so, less checking corners for those)

What you are suggesting essentially eliminates a perk from play. Imagine a competitive game of CoD here.

Player A and Player B both use dead silence : neither can hear the other.

Player A chooses Sitrep while Player B chooses dead silence: Player B is at a CLEAR DISADVANTAGE.

Player A and Player B choose Sitrep : neither can hear the other, because both are always crouch walking.

You can see that there is absolutely choice in the matter. Sitrep becomes the automatic perk. In essence, all you've done is changed the (necessary to be competitive) perk, and in the process slowed down gameplay. I realize that the typical MLG type setup would probably outlaw Sitrep at this point, but that point is moot (for reference, I don't do gamebattles or MLG). You've made the game less exciting, and less fun in the process.


Tell me how thats balanced Or how it's good for the community?

100% Agree. Well explained too.

[shaktazuki]

I would like one thing more than for SRP to counter DS to any appreciable degree - but I'll settle for that.

Why do I feel strongly about it? Because I cannot do anything about it at all, and it alone accounts for a significant proportion of my deaths. Not FMG9s, not T95s, but DSP. It's actually used pretty often in TDM, and, like you said, I am mystified as to why - this isn't SND. (Incidentally, DSP is why I don't play SND, and yes, Stalker and Steady Aim users do outnumber DSP users, and DSP gets a free ride on Stalker's immunity to equipment, which is why equipment is so rare in TDM) And that's why it's used. It has no counter. There's literally no way to undo the advantage Dead Silence gives its users.

BLOPS in its current incarnation has the enemies sounding about 1/2 as loud as your teammates, if you're using Ninja Pro. If you're not using Ninja Pro, good luck hearing your enemies at all.

[shaktazuki]

Feb 20, 2012 18:24:43 GMT -5 tmkruelty said:

Feb 20, 2012 18:08:43 GMT -5 shaktazuki said:

Frankly, I'm waiting still for someone to tell me how it is that perfect silence without mobility cost is acceptable, and perfect invisibility without mobility cost is not.

Frankly, I'm surprised you need anyone to explain this to you.

You are completely correct, good sir. Apparently, I am an idiot, and a Foxtrotting silly one at that. Good call!