Potential Stalker Upgrade

If it's passive then the whole scenario you are describing doesn't make sense. As all the Stalkers would be cloaked.

 

no read the quotes below

since stalkers are not all produced at exactly multiples of 10 seconds in time the cloaking would be out of sync with each other

 

Ah I see more clearly now. I think though that if you are going to randomize it per stalker you might as well randomize the amount of time it cloaks for as a 5-15 second gap would make this much more passive and uncontrollable as giving a 10 second cloak no matter what would allow abuse of this I feel.

 

randomized time period introduces the luck factor, which many people are against. so it would be a compromise. i think as long as the period between switching is small, it wouldn't be abusable, if you try to wait until most stalkers cloak before launching an attack, by the time they have reached their target, the cloaking would have all changed

 

that accually would be a pretty neat idea. It would drain the terran's comsat energies a lot.

 

Sorry I was out and couldn't answer questions regarding the concept, but he ^^^ got it perfectly. The concept is not about giving the Stalker ambush or sneaking ability. As I imagined it, the Stalker would continue to cloak in and out, at a set rate - like every 4 seconds or so, as a passive ability. The only benefits this would accomplish are exactly as BnechbReaker listed: confusion in the enemy concerning the Stalkers numbers and enabling the Stalkers to survive engagements longer - provided there wasn't a detector nearby.

Plus, it would look awesome to see a large contingent of Stalkers so equipped.

If it seems a bit too powerful, perhaps to further illustrate the Dark Templar's difficulty, let the cloak period be a shorter time span than the uncloaked period. So maybe 4 seconds cloaked, 6 seconds uncloaked.

EDIT: It might also be good to see this be a per unit upgrade, to further balance it and to increase the cool factor of a large group of Stalkers phasing in and out.

 

I don't know, it just seems weird to have no control over it. Without control over it is random and helps the noob player rather then the micro-manger. Sc and Sc2 is supposed to cater to both without overbalancing to one group of players or the others. The Stalker as it is right now without this add-on is simply amazing for micro players. Perfect chaser/runner/ambusher/interceptor/etc. however for the noob or maybe even average player the blink is just a means to get somewhere faster or a better way to save units(also the old Hydralisk run in run out trick they used to do for the Zealots is now reversed ).

The point is though the way this cloak is being suggested is wrong. If the person can't control it doesn't help anyone and games of chance suddenly come into play. Because be honest, who here can count to 10 over and over again non-stop to the exact beat of a second for each and every unit for the entire length of the life of the unit? It would be easier if all the stalkers appeared at the same time or only half did so that the countdown was possible but otherwise implementing the cloak like that puts a huge game of chance into the mix. And SC isn't built around that.

Edit: A shadowmeld-like ability would actually be better for the unit strategically then this.

 

this thread is fun but blizzard is never going to use this :-\
they haven't done anything about the mothership issue even though every one on this site has had a fit over wether
it should be a super unit or not

blizzard employee 'i dont think the fans like the mothership'
blizzard executive 'o well the character model makes up for it'
blizzard employee ' :no: :bad:'

 

no shadowmeld is boring, it's was in wc3 and it was next to useless. this idea is brilliant, it wouldn't be random and there are no chances involved because the periods of cloak and uncloak are fixed, the stalker don't have to count the seconds because it's just the natural limit on how long they can maintain the cloack, when the limit is reached the stalker would no longer be physically able to maintain it and would automatically decloak. when it has rested for a period and refocused it's energies it would cloak again.

it wouldn't only help noobs because the micorer can blink while cloaked, then reappear in another location when the cloak wears off. causing even more havoc and confusion. imagine the following senario:


| |
| stalkers marines |
| 1/2 of them cloaked |
| |

the cloaked ones blink behind the marines, the picture becomes

| |
| 1/2 of the stakers marines other 1/2 of the stalkers |
| |

this would be an awesome tactic

 

i already posted that...

 

i know, just explaining it to ace again

 

o sorry didnt realize that...

 

no control over it? why should players get control over it? Invisibility is a generic ability that all Dark Templar have... you don't have control over regular DT's cloaking.... they just automatically do it - you might as well say there should be a button to make your own DT's visible if you want... following that logic we'd end up with 468 unnecessary button icons

And just because you can't control when the DT exerts his will, doesn't mean you can't take advantage of the ability. As BnechbReaker listed... you could still use tactics to take advantage of the upgrade

You couldn't plan in advance exactly which Stalkers to use which way... but that's what micro is about anyway - reacting to the changing state of the battlefield.... so a player could get EXTREME amounts of micro out of Stalkers thus equipped, if they were capable of reacting to what they saw on-screen quickly enough

 

i always had the problem of misclicking :-\
it would definitly be imba but it would be awesome to be able to like... syncronize them so
that they all cloak / decloak at the same time ;D

 

I think the main issue that I have with this idea is that, lore-wise, it doesn't make sense. Why would the Dark Templar inside the Stalker continually recloak if he knows he's just going to lose it 6 seconds later? Especially if all he's doing is walking towards the Battlefield. Dark Templar themselves can cloak permanently, so they have no reason to ever stop. But Stalkers can't, so it seems like the Dark Templar inside them would want to wait until the right moment to cloak themselves, no?

I think I would prefer just giving the Stalker the standard "Cloak" ability. However, it would be interesting if the Stalker only had, say, 25 energy. The ability itself could cost 5 energy initially, and then it would tick down as normally. That way, it still maintains the whole "Dark Templar can't hold the field as long on this huge machine" idea, while still making sense.

Regardless, I like the idea of a unit having only the cloak ability, but with very little energy. Nothing else to spend energy on, it recharges fast, but doesn't last very long. Thoughts?

 

the game mechanic is more important than the lore, we can make up all sorts of "logical" explanations but at the end of the day mutas still fly in vaccum.

personally i like the passive ability better than energy based active ability because with an active ability you would cloak all your stalkers at the same time and it wouldn't create the random effect that we are looking for, plus energy cloaking is a old terran mechanic and it would be boring to give it to the protoss, this new "part-time cloak" is refreshing and i actually think that the player having no ability to control it is one of the main points of what makes this mechanic exciting.

 

Yeah, if you can control when to cloak - then it gets used as a standard sneak & ambush weapon.... but if you can't, it opens up a whole new area of tactical ability

 

lol funny

and zerg breathe in space

 

they fly farting in vacuum by using gas they got from the planet, their skin is used as a compressor for the pressure and for any long distance flight they use space time rifts

 

I can't say I'm sold on the idea.