Too many Infiltrators in fights

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BlackFox, Jan 31, 2021.

  1. pnkdth


    Yes, I can see that, that's the main reason I want to limit the 1v1 capabilities without destroying the class by over-nerfing it. Minor adjustments since there is no data, not kills, not KPM, not KPU, which suggests infiltrators are over-performing. After that we can judge if the infiltrator needs other buffs since by then they will be stuck with a lot of weapons which are balanced with the cloak in mind.

    This is why I distinguish the argument from a balance and a game experience standpoint.
    • Up x 1
  2. That_One_Kane_Guy

    I made the tool in my sig specifically for this reason. Plug in your Player ID and sort by category. If you die 1 in 10 times to a sniper infil it's a lot, most people die much less than that. It's annoying when it happens but it doesn't happen nearly as frequently as you think it does.

    If your issue is with instakill weapons I'm afraid you've been losing that argument for the last 30 years.

    Same goes for the rest of you. I'll let you all get back to your circle-jerk, now.
  3. JibbaJabba

    *sigh*

    It's literally an invisible class in a 3D shooter.

    It's broke AF.

    And the janky netcode of this game allows them to often fire while still practically invisible.


    What infiltrators are to me:

    Hey want to go play hide and seek? (stalkers around or something, maybe shoots you in head, who knows..)

    Um no. I want to do all these other things in the sandbox..



    C'mon play hide and seek! (keeps ghost capping a point when the game has moved on)

    No, I'm trying to get a spawn setup so like 200 people can have some fun over here..

    C'mon... HIDE AND SEEK, HIDE AND SEEK! (Like really, you'll never cap the point, and the handful of folks you are distracting isn't swinging a battle somewhere..)

    No, this **** is so boring you have no idea. I don't want to focus on you, I don't want to darklight, or pull a counter infil or any crap..

    C'mon.. YOU HAVE TO PLAY WHAT I WANT. (sits for like 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing to help teammates, then kills one enemy...starts vehicle terminal camping or something)

    Fine. ... F'ing kills you because it was boring gameplay and broken mechanics keeping you safe, not skill like you thought.


    So yeah, broke. It's never been balanced. It's an adopted playstyle though and people would quit if you changed it so they let it go. /shrug, is what it is.

    Am I in favor of changing it?

    Mmmm, probably no. Some people just really need a way to play where their opponent can't fire back at them. They'll lose and have a crappy time otherwise. HESH v Infantry folks do this. And we all know folks that crutch on Maxes constantly. It's just a thing and without it the game would collapse.

    If I did change something it would be this:
    Make the cloak better. Yep. Pure invisible, make it last a lot longer too. Get rid of darklights. F those guys.
    Then put the cloak on a newly added weapon slot next to the spawn beacon. Yep. Folks have to switch to it to use it and can't do it at the same time as a weapon.
    • Up x 2
  4. Thalestr

    I think there are far more creative ways you could approach this particular issue. I'll rattle off a couple off the top of my head:
    - Buff darklight flashlights and (maybe) make them auto-spot cloakers.
    - Dramatically increase cloak shimmer when shot or when bullets travel near the cloaker.
    - Cloak disables when infiltrator takes damage while cloaked.
    - Cloak requires shields to be 3/4 to full to be activated.
    - Reduce the power of cloak when sprinting.
    - Shield disables when cloak is active - your suit can only power one at a time.

    There, just a few random ideas that would force infiltrators to slow down and be more cautious while still allowing them to keep their class ability.
    • Up x 3
  5. NotziMad



    yeah, but then we go back to the first argument :

    the raw data will show global stats, and those stats principally illustrate 8pm to 11pm (3 hours a day) because during that time, the pop is so much higher, there's so much more fighting, on all bases everywhere, there's that much data created.

    My point is, those 3 hours are pretty well balanced and if you look at the data it will fit, but that's because the "low pop" data gets drowned in the prime time data.

    So if you look only at that data, you will adjust classes, gear, vehicles, whatever, according to that data and those 3 hours.

    If you're not seeing any "data" that "suggests infiltrators are over performing", I think it is simply because infiltrators don't over perform at prime time, that's all there is to it.

    They over perform in low pop environments, and they are (more or less balanced) in higher pop fights, but the data won't show that, unless you look very closely (like, include the "at the time population")

    The fact that the "low pop data" doesn't represent a significant portion of the data means it is overlooked, and because it is a "small portion", devs think it doesn't matter. Thing is, it does matter, for the rest of the 21 hours in the day. Even if all the players of most of those 21 hours represent less, or much less than all the players online at prime time. You can't just ignore 21 hours of game play.

    ____


    There's other angles too, another way of looking at it is to ask yourself :

    You could very well say "We want small fights to be dominated by snipers and stalkers", I wouldn't agree, but it would be a legitimate idea.

    The reason I bring this up is because sometimes I wonder if they ever even have an answer to that question, on this topic, and on others, even though, it strikes me as being absolutely essential.. particularly on other topics, such as : "do we want a game where no one cares about anything and just fights for no reason?" or "do we want a game where people are invested in a mass pvp war?" or "both"???

    It seems to me, over the years, that the devs never really knew or decided what they wanted, that there was no direction, whether for the kind of game PS2 was to be at the core, fundamentally, or for balance issues (such as bastion, colossus, liberator, esf farming infantry or, on topic, the infiltrator)

    ___


    I don't understand what you mean in your last sentence : "This is why I distinguish the argument from a balance and a game experience standpoint". I mean, I understand, but I'm not sure what you mean by that.

    (fyi, I'm sorry, I write a lot, I actually deleted like 3 times what you can read here lol)
  6. Clone117

    Darklight really needs a buff. Infills camping terminals becomes really infuriating at times too basically the only way to take em down is put yourself at an extreme disadvantage by baiting yourself via presenting them with false. FREE KILL signs. Its a waste of effort trying to hunt em down your better off guarding the areas necessary to lock and take next point. Than hunt down an infill. Personnally i find ambusher c4 shotgun la as a bigger annoyance.
  7. OldSchoolD

    Kill cam was probably a step towards ultimately removing cloak from the game. New players are confounded and defrauded by it, they believe they are not seen while cloaked. Things driving over you while cloaked don't belong in the game. Besides, good bolt action CQC snipers do not even benefit from it. Only the bad do.

  8. NotziMad

    PS. you don't see outfits on friday night special ops droping squads of infiltrators from a gal, do you?
  9. JustGotSuspended

    great point

    Oh wait, squads rely on teamwork, which the infiltrator brings none. People who run squads want people doing useful stuff not just sitting or clientsiding people at miserable rates from the cover of their bushes.
    • Up x 2
  10. BlackFox

    I would say that it's less likely to encounter them due the amount of targets they can attack and that a majority of players take other classes than an infiltrator. Also in general more obsticles for them. I see a lot of infiltrators in bigger fights, too but they are indeed very limited in their actions there

    To be honest I find it easier to take on an Infiltrator in a 1vs1 fight. Simple reason: The counters to the class are designed for countering a single enemy. The IF sights have a heavy FOV limit and the flashlight doesn't really helps a lot, there simply isn't a mass decloaking solution for Infantry.
    A funny thing I observed: That crouching prevents detection by motionsensors (beacons, darts and vehicle radars) seems not to be common knowledge. (Despite it being a tooltip on the loading screens)
    ________________

    From a game design perspective it's relativley stupid to have invisible enemies in a PvP game, there aren't really any succesful FPS titles that pull that off. Yet there are other ways of balancing than nerfing that are also easy to implement - buffing the counters.

    If we look at them they all bring the common infantry disadvantages. The flashlight gives away position and eye direction, the IF sight has limited range, low FOV and reduces aim speed and even crouching through motion sensors makes people easier to hit. In general they can make it harder to properly fight Infiltrators
    What I could suggest:
    - Sensors detect cloaks no matter if crouching or standing still, through it's energy signature
    - Infrared Flashlights without visible cone and a little buff compared to normal ones
    - A sensor system for MAX unit equipment slots, acting as mobile radar for allies ( slot could also be used for more stuff)
    - Gun mounted sonars that indicate the direction and range of cloaked Infiltrators within a certain range on the HUD

    Stuff that doesn't show infiltrators that they get hunted would be a good start
  11. Somentine

    Yes, it's a small part of the reason. Most do not snipe from a safe distance. Hilltop snipers are annoying af, but they aren't making up the majority of kills, which means they aren't making enough of a dent in the server KD stats to really make a difference. This speaks to what I was talking about with impact. In general, Infil is just the safest class due to cloak. It also let's infils dictate positioning and first shot. Those two reasons are what inflate their K/D. The higher you go up in skill level, the more the KPM and SPM (impact) begin to match Heavy and LA.


    That was the OP that made the argument about infils everywhere. That being said, kills != class %. It does speak to impact though.

    Never said that.

    Wait, i'm really curious how you came up with how they are 'statistically' not.

    Almost any weapon on an infil can have a low enough TTK to make it effectively a OHK.
    The visibility already does change depending on your states; Crouching lowest, sprinting highest.
    The firing delay has been suggested before, and even a CD for cloaking/de-cloak.
  12. NotziMad


    There was this thing I saw on a player made youtube video explaining latency, lag, ping etc. It was a while ago so I don't remember so much, but isn't there an additional advantage to whoever engages first due to how that works?

    You know what I mean? Like you run to cover, but the bullets hit you, that's because on the other guy's screen, you're not yet in cover. Basically, I'm pretty sure if I jump in front of you, I'll see you before you see me, not sure how that works when cloaked though.
  13. JibbaJabba


    Yeah the super short version is whoever initiates the line of sight will see the other person first.

    How that works out in cloaking mechanics:
    You're cloaked, person comes on your screen (or you theirs... the clientside doesn't matter here), you decloak and fire.

    Your client determines when the kill happens. (server confirms that your client isn't lying of course but it's your client that determines the time).

    But at that exact moment in time the client you shot at has only now been told to start the decloaking visuals.

    Net result: you fire while still invisible to the other person.
    • Up x 3
  14. Somentine

    It's clientside and latency.
    -Every multiplayer game has latency.
    -Every server has tic rate, which is how often it requests info from the clients.
    -PS2 does a lot of checks and calculations on the client's computer, and only a few on the server (clientside)

    So, not only are you basically seeing everything in the past, you are able to influence that past. A player may appear standing still on your screen, but moving on theirs; if you kill them while standing still, they still die even though they might have been moving and should have dodged some bullets on their screen.

    What this means for infil and peeking: Assuming the infil wasn't seen, and they pop out of cloak, on the infil's screen everything is normal, on the other player's screen they are dead/have taken damage before they even see the player. Same goes for peeking around walls and rendering in general.

    The opposite of this is that it means on your screen if you run behind cover, you can still die because on the other person's screen you weren't, and the server trusts the client's calculations.
    • Up x 2
  15. DarkQuark

    In my mind infiltrators are OP at least moderately so. But that conversation aside there ARE too many infiltrators in fights. And I mean from a strategic point of view. If more people were fighting on or towards the point and not sitting back just staring through their scopes more fights would go the way we would want them too.
  16. HexJei

    As someone who loves sniping in practically every FPS, especially battlefield, the invisibility in PS2 always confused me, logically. Every other game understands the advantage snipers have by being hidden, far away from the battle, and having a high powered rifle. Games try to balance this with extreme bullet drop and scope glares that give away your position. PS2 on the other hand just makes you completely invisible, granting you the ability to hide in plain sight and even move to new positions whenever you're made by other snipers.

    I can't say infiltrator snipers bother me because they're ultimately harmless and ineffective. I'm more so bothered by the invisible dudes running around one shotting everyone with a knife, which is a pretty lame meta.

    The best fix in my opinion would be making sprint/jumping disable your cloak, and any movement in general decreases the transparency of your cloak. As for snipers, just make it so you cant focus your scope while cloaked, so they have to uncloak to focus (giving anyone more than enough time to spot them, creating more genuine sniper fights).
    • Up x 1
  17. pnkdth


    I wish the infiltrator would have their recon devices be stuck to them, e.g. you switch to you recon device and fire off a pulse and it stays active for X amount of time. Forcing them to close the gap to benefit themselves and their teams. Expand on different kinds of scout rifles, and simply make the process for a long range sniper sitting a tree harder and even less rewarding. A good sniper would still be dangerous but the meh players looking for easy kills are going to find themselves getting a very small return (certs) and look for something else to do.


    That was my sole objective, to illustrate impact since the claim seemed to be that they got dunked on everywhere, all the time.

    In every single "infiltrator is OP" thread you always get opinions and reasons why infiltrators are OP but never actual data beyond "sniping gets you a good KDR." For this very reason the class cannot simply get a flat nerf since, apparently, it is relying on their arguably broken toys to keep up. Remember, it is a pure infantry hunter and in most metrics is is only ahead on KDR while being blown past, t-bagged, and laughed at in terms of KPM and, as we've seen, doesn't really impress in overall kills/impact.

    I'm, however, willing to explore ways to improve the class (both in playing and facing it) but not a straight up nerf.

    1. Not if you change the cloak.
    2. You can tweak it further if need be.
    3. Yes, and I was echoing the ideas I think made the most sense.
  18. ZDarkShadowsZ

    What it needs, is actually fixing.

    I've posted about this bug pretty recently: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...klight-flashlight-doesnt-work-3m-away.255689/

    It's still not fixed and this bug has been in the game for well over 18 months now.

    Even whilst playing Stalker Infiltrator, enemies have put their flashlight on me and walked off because I didn't light up as I was too close. At this point, I don't even think people realise it's actually broken. Especially newer players.
    • Up x 1
  19. Thalestr

    It does need to be fixed, I can agree with that.

    But it won't make it any more useful. It's way too situational and usually just gets the user killed more often than not.
  20. JustGotSuspended


    Yeah you brought up pretty much everything.

    I don't even use darklight because of how broken and unreliable they are. Faster to just walk around the edges of the room until you bump into something invisible (9/10 times a buggy wall) or just shoot around at everything until you maybe hit an infil.

    As for the clientside issue it could be solved in 2 ways.

    a) Make nanoweave apply to headshots, or at least remove the hs multiplier/reduce hs damage from sniper rifles so they don't 1hk (like before).

    b) let infils keep their 1hk toys but add a delay before cloaking/decloaking. This way it's harder for people to get clientsided before they even see the dude uncloak, and it gives them a chance to fire back. In short, it would make infils actually have to work a bit to score a kill. They would have to time their cloak/decloak properly.