(tl;dr at bottom) Hi guys, I'm going to try keep this short. I've played inf a lot in PS2, but also tend to bounce around classes so I don't think i'm too biased. I'm a game dev myself so like to think I know a thing or two about balancing, and the pitfalls that are often fallen into. To put it simply, the problem arises when these mechanics are compounded. The devs seem to have added these one by one, and have been balanced individually without thought that they would affect each other. This is actually a problem with other mechanics in PS2, and is not exclusive to Infiltrator. Infiltrators get: -Cloak -Sniper rifles -Hacking The 'balancing'/counter mechanics are: -Imperfect cloak (and gets even worse when moving), -Short timer on cloak, -Loud noises on cloak/uncloak, -IRNV*/thermal negates cloak, -Can't fire or perform actions while cloaked (plus a delay on uncloaking), -Can't regenerate shield or resupply while cloaked, -100 less HP, -Lack of weapon options (the SMG is a step in the right direction), -Exaggerated sniper bullet trails + distinctive noise, -Sniper scope sway, -Extremely short breath hold, -Only class not to get C4 (No AV/AA at all), -Most useless tool on the game (and gives 0xp), -Flinching (affects all, but Infiltrator by far the most), -Nerf to spotting x2 (again affects all but arguably Inf most), Already we can see that infiltrators pay a much larger price for their unique assets, and the bad far outweighs the good. 13/15 of these are also exclusive to Infiltrator. When certain mechanics are added together, it gets even worse: -Imperfect cloak + Cloak/bullet Noise or Bullet Trail -> This is the biggie. People hear/see your approx position, turn in your direction and spot you easy. One or the other would be fine, but this completely screws Inf's biggest draw; the cloak. -Scope Sway + Short Breath Hold -> No other class needs to deal with this, snipers are balanced already by bullet drop + time, slow ROF, low clip size and bullet trails. Again, decrease sway, or increase breath, one or the other. -Less HP + Uncloak Delay + Noise -> With less HP, Inf needs to get the drop on people. With this combo, against a decent player this rarely happens. One of these needs to go for Inf to have a fair chance in cqc. -Less HP + lack of cqc weapons -> Smg mostly makes up for this, but without it, Infiltrator has a real hard time infiltrating. -Thermal + no AV/AA -> Thermals negate Infiltrator's only defence against vehicles, and vehicles are not in short supply. Neither are thermals. -Can't fire cloaked + decloak time -> Makes two seperate delays until you can fire: hitting decloak and waiting for the delay. (Thanks Obie) *Cloak Shader -> There is no need for the cloak shader to become more visible when moving, when a distortion shader already shows up movement by its nature. Even with fixing these, I think Inf will still be slightly underpowered due to the large number of 'balancing' or counter mechanics, but that's a topic for another Thread. Thanks for reading. -M tl;dr - Infiltrator's cloaking and sniping are hugely over counter-balanced. This is largely due to how these counter-balances affect one another rather than the mechanics on their own.
Don't forget to include the latest addition: Fire delay after decloaking. See the enemy Infiltrator who popped his head out for a second when you're cloaked? Too bad now you can't pop his head off and since good players are always moving you've missed that VERY NARROW window of opportunity due to fire delay. Did I mention we have to spend time to decloak first as well? This is double dipping and truly senseless.
How could you miss the obvious contradiction between having movement scaling our cloak's visibility, yet the cloak having a fixed duration? One second of hiding is worth one second of full-tilt sprinting as far as resource management is concerned, but only one of those is effective while the other is not.
Yeah, I agree. I think the Infiltrator needs some serious love. Not just in terms of how balanced/underpowered they are, but in terms of their options. They currently feel like glorified snipers, and I feel they need some more capabilities/options to make them better fulfil the idea they're meant to represent.
I think I did mention that. You're right though, it is a pain. Sorry, you're right. You have to wait for your reaction time to hit 'f' + the decloak time. I agree with you, but I was really only making connections between compounding mechanics.
I would like to add also that there is no need for the cloak shader to become more visable when moving, when a distortion shader already shows up movement by its nature. (Added to main post)
If you put up a list like that, you can make any class seem ******. At least try to be objective about the whole thing.
How is this not objective? I think you're missing the point of the post. It's just a list of Inf's unique assets and a list of the mechanics to counter balance them. The point is to show that some of these compound to be more effective than the dev's realised and planned for.
Pros and Cons about writing a list: Pro. - It gets information nice and organizedCon.- I have to write the list- Each entry has to be unique- The list may conceal important information- I have to double check the list after I wrote it, to see that I didn't forget anything- Wear and tear on keyboard- wow, this list is longer than I thought. Get my point? -- The only design oversight I can think of as it relates to the infiltrator is the EMP grenades. Their use appears slightly buggy, but more importantly, if I EMP a room-- and my allies mop it up-- I get no share of the XP. -k
Maybe we have a difference in opinion but I believe the devs designed each mechanic with only that one mechanic in mind, forgetting how they will affect each other. For example it appears to me that the devs thought to make the cloak imperfect because invisibility would be overpowered. They also added a loud noise thinking that people would hear it and keep an eye out for infiltrators trying to sneak attack. The effect however is that people know how easy infiltrators are to spot cloaked, so when they hear the cloak, they just hunt them down and easily find and kill them. Each sound good on their own but together make cloaking infs an instant easy target. This is the point I was trying to make. I don't think it matters how the post is laid out. Lists beat a wall of text anyway in my book. And in case you're implying, it's not a pro/con list. It's just the infiltrator unique features and the mechanics intended to balance them.
The sad thing - he is being objective about the whole thing. That's what Infiltrator currently is. Given mechanics that **** their own usability and being one of the noisiest classes (while supposed to stay hidden by design), it's a good example of how bad design works.
I totally agree that they made the INF piecemeal without considering the whole, SOE buffed and then nerfed and forgot about the overall role. You forgot imbalance of EXP, every other support class gets exp over time for their support tool role, INFs only get it once they complete a hack. which might I add, to do usefully in a team effort is a lot, lot harder (jumping out of a damaged tank, hitting 3 and then firing vs not being spotted for 1/2 an hour, not firing a shot, sneaking past countless enemies in a choke point, decloaking without behind heard, standing behind enemy lines in one of the most exposed spots for 20 odd seconds and then having a showdown with an ex turret pilot.) Having INFs be useful once the actually get inside a base would be nice.
i find kinda hilarious that the devs are putting us ahead a class that is perfectly fine the way it is the LA an anti everything class that can infiltrate better than us but hey let's give them akimbo weaponry and make them even stronger!
