Splinter Cell SvM Strategy: WiNG & Xiant turn off the dark

OK
So after I’ve seen this, here are my thoughts.

First of all: WiNG, just let us hear the strategy talk and put text on the screen for commentary. :)

Now, onto the actual game: I have a very mixed feeling about the spies in this game. Before, being a good Spy meant to be able to let your opponents run around in the dark, incapacitating them in inconvenient spots, delaying them as much as possible to either get your teammate more time to hack, or yourself. Killing mercs, while satisfying, was not always an optimal way of doing things:
Yes, if they were idiots (or at least one of them) you could depleat their limited (3) respawns, basically transforming a 2v2 semi-tensed match to a 2v1 tea-bag exercise.
Against more skilled oponents, killing was hardly optimal. There was a backpack upgrade for mercs that could replenish grenades and mines, but only once a LIFE. Once the mercs were out of mines and grenades, that was it! Killing them became suboptimal then, as with every respawn they came back with full equipment. So if you did not have to, or were convinced to be able to kill the same merc thrice, you would rather go for the stun.
Telling from this short clip, I think stunning has become suboptimal, simply because a kill takes the mercs out for longer and spawns them back in further away from your current position. I’m not sure if I like that.

2ndly, Hacking: Staying stasised for hacking in CT was always a major inconvenience. The hacking system in Double Agent required you to log into the terminal using your Hello Kitty bracelet and staying on target. The further away you were, the slower the hack commenced. I actually liked this a lot, because you could, judging from the current situation in the match, either sit right next to the terminal for a quick grab, whilst other times playing it slow, somewhere far back in a vent. You could also revisit any terminal within one life as a spy, making bouncing back and fort between positions a valid strategy.
Here, as I gathered, you have to get close once, and then just ‘stay in the genreal area’. Also, not sure if I like that.

3rd: Mercs feel underpowered. I don’t know if that was because of the items you chosed to bring, but you died a lot. Now maybe that’s just me being used to get stunned rather than killed, butI think this further discourages real stealth. The Spies Job was always to acquire data, not go on a killing spree.
In PT and CT stunning the merc with your pistol rendered them unable to move for 3 secs, but they were also immune to neck-breaks. In PT you were able to tazer mercs and then jump them for a stun, in CT they removed that feature, making tazered mercs invulnerable to stuns and instead stunning spies who jumped them while tazered. This meant that dealing with a merc, EVEN IN CLOSE COMBAT, would mostly end with your digital parents attending your digital funeral.

So, in summary, I think they took the old concept and Call-Of-Dutied it too far. Now that might be just my first impression, and I do not claim to understand the new (albeit arguable less stealthy) meta-game, but I am nontheless intriqued to see more.
As I won’t be back at my real computer for the next 5 motnhs, if your coverage convices me and my teammate is still up for the challange, I might just pick it up in the steam holiday sale and join the fun.

As of now though, I am kinda dissapointed.
I’d like to see more real spy action (you won by default so quickly, and nothing is more boring to watch than a merc round were the spies are terrible – now more than ever). Show off some equipment and strategy for maps and maybe show us a match against 2 guys who now where it’s at.
thanks

PS: Without actually seeing it, I think I agree with your assessment of the 4v4 mode. Although, as I outlined above, I think this SvM is far from being ‘classic’