The following is basically a copy of what I just posted on the Steam forums:

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Right, I have seen threads about the Dead Ringer, a poll, rage, etcetera, and then I had an idea.

You people may hate it, you may like it, and if it gets enough of a positive response I will email it to Valve for their thoughts.

Right now, the Dead Ringer does what it says it does. The way I see it, it is currently an escape weapon. Allowing you to survive the damage of those attacking you and escape.

The Dead Ringer is particularly 'in its element' when ammo packs are plentiful (such as payload maps). However, I must be fair, it is spammable. Get shot, de-cloak just before that ammo pack, and instantly have the Dead Ringer out before you are even fully de-cloaked. It is fun to use, and a pain for the people trying to chase you, but how 'spy-like' is that, honestly?

Also, a persistent pyro can chase you down. And with the decloak noise, it is impossible to use stealthily to any real extent, although you may still be able to kill a few people.

The Dead Ringer is a good escape weapon, but I think after much testing that it needs tweaking to ensure the spy can infiltrate as well.


My proposals are the following:

First, some sort of 'ammo pack' of cloaks that you have on your hud, of cloak-at-wills (which you can only replenish with a resupply cabinet, or partially charge each ammo-chunk (part of a single cloak point) with ammo packs, however none should fully add a new 'cloak-at-will' point.

The damage reduction should only be active for the first half of the cloak time. However bumping into people or taking damage does not make you flicker for the full duration of this 'pretending to be dead' mode.

Note that when cloaked at will, it behaves just like the normal cloak in terms of flickering when bumping into people, etcetera, except for how long it lasts (under this I include the fact that the Dead Ringer's cloak time is partially movement based).

In addition, when de-cloaking, whilst you can de-cloak, collect ammo and 'die' instantly after, the damage-reduction aspect should take around one second to two seconds to be usable. In other words, whilst you can appear to die from taking any damage straight after de-cloaking and collecting the ammo pack, you take full damage.

Along with these tweaks the cloak sound should be halved. Further, the 'lightning' de-cloak noise should only be used if you cloaked from taking damage (pretending to die). For infiltration purposes, the 'cloak-at-wills' should use the normal de-cloak sound.

This is not like a souped up default cloak watch, as you have to remember, the cloak time is around half that of the normal invisibility watch.

TOO LONG DID NOT READ:

* Introduce a 'cloak ammunition' system. Say, three of these 'cloak-at-wills', allowing you to infiltrate behind enemy lines with the Dead Ringer.

* Ammo packs restore part of a 'cloak-at-will', but never a full one.

* 'Cloak-at-will''s can be fully recharged at resupply cabinets.

* The damage reduction should only be active for the first half of the cloak time.

* You can pretend to die the instant you de-cloak and pick up an ammo pack, however the damage reduction factor does not come into effect until 1-2 seconds after de-cloaking.

* If you do 'pretend to die' before the damage-reduction has fully recharged, the damage reduction does not come into effect.

* Dead Ringer 'fake death' de-cloak sound should be halved but remain the lightning sound.

* Cloak-at-will de-cloak sound should be the sound of the normal cloak.

I realise there are quite a few points here, so sorry about that. However if you do not take the time to read any of this, please do not post. Thanks.

I am open to comments and suggestions.
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http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... p?t=960725

I want to gauge the opinions of people on here as well. Thoughts?