Okay, I have been playing Planetside 2 for a couple days..... just a couple, and I love playing the Infiltrator. I've read a lot of the threads about them and I'm not tainted by any previous experience with the Infiltrator in what it was, or what it was like, etc. So, I'm going to give you my perspective of playing an Infiltrator, from a newbie! First, I use the S7+12x+Silencer. Yes, you do have to compensate quite a bit and learn to lead your targets based on mutual elevation, whether or not they are moving or standing still, running up hill or downhill, and even what direction... but, like everything else that is a skill you have to physically and mentally learn as you play and 'train' yourself to be a sniper. Eventually, you will get to the point where compensation isn't even a issue, you just do it, naturally. I've only been playing about two or three days, and I already have no trouble hitting stationary targets in the head at 300-400m with a silencer, and for moving/jumping/running troops I usually hit my target about 30-60% (elevation depending) of the time (so I get a lot of assist kills), and I probably get head shots of moving targets at that distance about 10% of the time.... yes, you can compensate and head shot a moving target at those extreme distances with a silencer.... if you have time and patience to practice and realize that you're not going to do it overnight. I love the sniper in other games, it's my favorite class, so I tend to pick it up compensating rather quickly. And hey, at least here, snipers don't need to dial in sights or adjust for wind direction, etc, so that makes it easy to learn. Second, I've seen some people say, "Oh, you don't need a silencer, if you're using a bolt action and that far away from the enemy they're not going to see you anyway." Ahem, what? You did not just say that!? Yes, that might be a valid point if you were fighting one on one with no other enemies..... I may be new, but lemme tell ya, I will never, never, never make that assumption. In my mind, if I am that far out of my way on the battlefield, I'm going to assume so is someone else doing the same thing I am, maybe even more than one or two someones; and maybe those someones are not even friendly and they want to shoot me, especially if I've been seeding the brains of their buddies with bullets. So, suddenly, my weapon becomes more than a killing machine and a secret love toy on those cold Canadian winter nights, it suddenly becomes a homing beacon. And, I've read it said that, "Well, you're an Infiltrator, a good Infiltrator would sneak away and not be found." Well, let me tell you something that I have often noticed even in my short few days... ...when you are sniping at an enemy and they are having a hard time finding you, a couple of them will often volunteer as an oddly obvious decoy for your sights, while unbeknownst to the Infiltrator intent on shooting them, a hunting party has been dispatched to hunt 'em down. So, while the poor unsilenced Infiltrator is sniping at the guys who are sneakily trying to get the Infiltrator's attention, the guys who don't want the Infiltrator's attention are heading directly for that incredibly loud and bright beacon of a weapon. And every time you shoot and move (like a good little Infiltrator), you are wasting a lot of time. I suppose, this is fine if you want to play hide and go seek all day and night, it certainly won't help your cert count though. So, what is a poor little Infiltrator to do? Silence your weapon. Once you are silenced, you can easily become the hunter, even if the enemy knows your general area, you can move less and shoot more, take out enemies near and far even if there is a hunting party specifically looking for you; and of course, this helps you gain more certs, faster. For instance, my favorite thing, happened today just before the disconnect.... I was sitting in a crevice on a rock, hiding from a tank driving by, trying to sneak into the enemy lines when more and more tanks appeared, and suddenly they all just rolled up to my area.... backing up the front lines. I even ended up with a couple enemy snipers right on the ledges above and next to me fending off any incoming infrantry, and infantry running back and forth on the ground below me, but they had no clue I was even there as they were too busy focused on the front line. The enemy Sunderer was setup just about 80m from me in absolute clear sight, and tanks were rolling around everywhere, luckily I was high enough and shadowed in the rock crevice so I didn't even need a cloak to hide, as nobody saw me. What an opportunity.... so, instead of shooting at the targets which were right in front of me or trying to run away and drawing attention to my little old self in the midst of a hornet's nest.... I was pulling off head shots as they ran toward the fight on the front lines. So, despite having an entire enemy squad all around me in every direction (some literally almost right on top of me), I was able to kill their front lines freely from within their ranks thanks to the silencer I carry. Some of the front liners must have caught on which direction the shots were coming from, but they had no idea the shots were coming from right in the very middle of their mobile base, they kept thinking it was behind the line and running off to nowhere looking for a sniper that was never even there. It was a sweet, sweet sniper setup..... and then we all got disconnected. But, this is something that would never have ever been able to happen if not for the silencer, and no other class would have lived to pull off more than a single shot. And these are the situations I always look to get myself into as an Infiltrator; hiding where they would never expect to find you. And I probably shouldn't say this, but.... I've even hidden underneath enemy Sunderers parked at odd angles or on dips which left just enough room to crouch under and sniped distant troops as they've offloaded and run off to the battlefield. And yes, a rifle may shoot a little slower with a silencer, maybe an extra second or two at extreme distances, but again, a good sniper watches before shooting.... learning the patterns of behavior for his/her target, and then timing the shot. I've shot a number of people in the head by predicting when and where they are going to pop out by watching them.... people are creatures of habit, and usually, they'll repeat the same motions over and over. I suppose, sometimes, it takes a certain mindset to be a sniper though; you need patience, and lot of it, knowing when to pull the trigger and when to "let that one go." So, lemme tell you.... even with the borked cloak on low detail, the Infiltrator + silencer is a powerful tool not to be taken lightly.... and not nearly as useless as people would claim it to be. Considering there have been battles where I've gained a dozens of kills/assists and ran out of bullets multiple times long before even being killed once.... it says a lot about the ability of the Infiltrator. Sadly though, I'm not very good with the close combat yet..... run and gun, face to face, I was never very good with, but I'm getting there. But, just wait until I get enough certs to slap a silencer on the SMG, I'll likely be not found in bases much more often. But, my first day, was pretty much getting killed over and over and over and over until I learned enough about Planetside to start surviving.... and then thriving and killing, and now, thanks to the S7+Silencer, there are times I can get 10-50 kills/assists before I find my way to death (and oddly, I think I kill myself more than the enemy does by misjudging cliffs while sneaking around, lol). But yes, that's my opinion on the whole Infiltrator thing as a new player who loves the Infiltrator. The bottomline: If you have the time and patience to learn to be a proper sniper, you will be a much deadlier sniper for using a silencer than not, and it is absolutely worth it in every practical sense of the word. And the Infiltrator is far, far, far from the useless.
Don't worry about the people here. Sure, the infiltrator could definetly need some work, but the people here just love to exaggerate to the point where you suspect you have stumbled onto a Conspiracy forum.
Well, if you have a look around, no one's saying the Infiltrator is a bad Sniper, and anyone saying the Infiltrator is a bad Sniper is probably making mistakes him/herself. What people are saying is that the Infiltrator does not live up to it's name. However, great input and nice reading of some first experiences! And I agree that the Infiltrator is a great Sniper... just not a great Infiltrator
The silencer reduces your bullet velocity - this allows more time for changes in the movement pattern of your target which cannot be predicted with any reasonable degree of accuracy. Is that enough for me to say you shouldn't be using one? No, that's still a matter of preference, but it's an important detail you're overlooking all the same.
Nobody has every said the sniping aspects of the Infiltrator are lacking. As you yourself admit, CQC is a real pain. Now, you are fortunate to come in at a time where we now have a reasonable weapon for that in the SMG. However, I think you'll quickly find that the fun-sounding parts of infiltration (like hacking) really never do much. You can hack exactly 3 times before your XP shuts off (that's LESS than a single kill's worth of XP). Most bases barely have anything to hack, and those that do often have the strategically useful ones destroyed. The simple fact of the matter is that most people do not bother to repair anything except the generators and maybe the vehicle terminals after capping a base. Why? Because they know that's the first thing an enemy is going to try to use to conquer the base.
I don't know, I think the Infiltrator is pretty much good as it is; except for the cloak problem which does need fixing. But as it is, I believe there is a good and valid reason for limiting the amount of experience an Infiltrator can gain from hacking a base and here's my logic on it.... if you could get vast amounts of experience from hacking devices what a wise Infiltrator could do is just run around the map hacking devices without having to engage any enemies; there are many, many, many empty and undefended bases when there are battles in core areas going on and it would be way too easy to abuse. In that scenario, an Infiltrator could gain experience and cert up far more easily than any other class without seeing or engaging any hostiles what-so-over. Though, maybe the experience gained in a hack could be leveled based on the # of defenders in that particular base, something like 2 exp point for every defender in that base, so you get higher experience for hacking terminals that are well defended, and no experience for hacking terminals that are not. Wait, a better idea; hacking terminal experience could be based on how much the enemy has used that terminal in the last X number of hours.... this would really give an incentive for Infiltrators to actually do their jobs, and give a reason for defense forces to spread across the map and protect their assets and supply lines. It would be easy for the programmers to do it, you just give each terminal a variable to keep track of which faction has used it, and distribute that experience once its hacked or taken over (and then reset the counter to zero). Easy peasey, lemme see the code, I'll do it for them! But as it is, even hacking despite lack of experience in the matter is not as useless as said, and for this reason... I've used the hacking terminals tactically during Crown battles, but not in the way you would think. Usually, whoever has the Crown often gets its tanks and air support from surrounding bases, tanks particular from the east; so, if the opposition force who is defending the crown is spawning tanks from there, what's the best way to give my attacking force the advantage? I will sometimes ignore the Crown battle entirely, go east, and hack that tank spawning terminal repeatedly.... and without fail another Infiltrator will come by to fix it, and it becomes an easy kill. Then the hunt begins, and the Crown defenders have to waste some of their resources and defenders hunting me down so they can spawn their tanks again. So, I chill a few moments, and then re-hack the same tank terminal causing another bump in the defensive line. There's no major battle going on here, but the bases have nobody except enemy defenders spawning in the building after dying and then blindly running out (without even looking around to see if I'm standing there uncloaked right next to the door) and then they spawn tanks to drive off to the main battle, but what I'm doing is putting a strategic ***** in the armor of defense (or in some cases attack). Am I earning a lot of experience for that? Probably not, and I probably should earn experience based on the usage and hacking of those particular terminals since I am taking my time far off the battlefield doing something which is effective helping my team still. But that said, I do get experience killing the troops sent to hunt me down after a hack (if I can kill them), so there is that. So, to me, the role of an Infiltrator is far more than about directly Infiltrating/attacking the base we are fighting for or for sniping incoming enemy, it's sometimes about ignoring the main battle completely, sneaking far behind enemy lines, watching movement, seeing where air and artillery reinforcements are coming from and cutting off that supply line for the enemy. I've seen it said by someone who wrote an Infiltrator tutorial that an Infiltrator doesn't make much of a difference in a battle at all, and to me that is someone who while they play an Infiltrator, they don't have the mindset of an Infiltrator; Infiltrators are the only class to have the very powerful ability to easily and quickly cut off enemy tank spawning, enemy flight spawning.... these things which can literally be the deciding factor for either side in a massive battle elsewhere. Because you know what's better than killing a tank in a battle for superiority? It's not having to engage a tank at all, and can stop tank production in its tracks. That five or ten minutes of preventing air or tank reinforcement, or enemy Sunderer spawning could mean the difference between an epic conquer or an epic defeat. Infiltrators are also great at hiding behind enemy lines and Q spotting tanks, air craft, and other threats before they hit the front line and take your team by surprise. On a side note: I see a lot of Call of Duty mindset while playing; where all players rush for the same point and try to 'take' that point without cause or concern or thinking about, "What is supplying my target for this area?" "What direction are threats likely to come from, and how can I mitigate that damage?" To me, this is as much a strategy war game as it is a first person shooter.... and the Infiltrator is the ultimate strategy fighter. If I was leading an army to take the Crown from the defenders, I would first take all of the undefended bases surrounding it, completely cutting off all supply lines, even if it was just a few troops doing this (as I said, the bases are always undefended).... and then the Crown defenders have to suddenly redirect their forces to take back these areas to keep their supply lines going or they will simply get overwhelmed by enemy tanks/aircraft, and once they move to try to retake those bases, it opens them up to an easy direct and frontal assault. Every castle falls once you capture the farms and villages surrounding it. Sorry, I ranted!
By all means if you want to snipe with a silencer, do it. Keep in mind it does reduce bullet velocity, which in effect causes more drop. Because of the slower bullet, it is just as easy to look in the direction the shot came from and find you just as if you didn't have a suppressor at all. For me if it greatly increases my chance to miss a shot and doesn't really keep me from being spotted, it's a waste.
No, I'm not overlooking it at all, I mentioned it; I've reasonable predicted movers and "jumpers" and have shot them from 300-400m with a 12x scope + silencer. Movement patterns are just that, if you watch them, you learn them.... and while most people think they are randomly moving, more often than not, they are not, they're just re-playing a sequence of changes they think is random. There is absolutely no such thing as random in human behavior. I can't tell you how many times I've taken out the head of an enemy by shooting into areas they haven't even moved into yet because I guessed that was their next "jump" or run based on their previous movement. As I said, with my silencer at extreme distances, I hit "erratic movers" and get body shots as much as more than half of the time, and head shots upwards to 10% of the time; the only time I miss a lot is when I'm suppressing with a sniper rifle. I'll shoot the edge of rocks and dirt to let the troops behind the rock to stay there while they get flanked. My first day, I couldn't shoot a thing.... I died, literally, 100s of timesl. My 2nd day, I've gotten to be a fairly dead sniper. Within two weeks or a month, I'll expect to be able to perform a head shot with a silencer on a mover at least 20-30% of the time. If I stay here and play this for a year, I can guarantee 400m silenced head shots on runners and shakers and jumpers at least 80-90% of the time with only the best players being able to avoid my bullet, and even then I'm likely to hit the body. My excessive ARMA and former America's Army playing has trained me well as a sniper. I've always had a penchant for war games with some realism mixed in. I think it's just that people put on the silencer, take a few shots, get frustrated because they can't snipe with it in a day or a week or even a month and say, "This suck, it's no good, it doesn't work because I can't hit anything!" and to me that's discouraging to other potentially good snipers because the silencer is an absolutely amazing tool to use and simply makes you a more effective stealth sniper.... and if you're the kind of sniper who can learn that kind of compensation skill, no shot is going to be too difficult to pull off, ever. But yes, there are benefits to not using a silencer too; like, if you're mixed in with a large force, you really don't need the silencer. But other than that, you're really crippling your capabilities by not using one.
One thing I meant to post on that I forgot to mention that I mentioned elsewhere, there is a clear tactical advantage to bullet drop as well. Enemies tend to move around a lot on a ridge, but when they step back to heal or reload, they often stand still. And if they are just out of your line of sight over a ridge, but you can pretty much guess where they are.... you can use the heavy bullet drop to shoot over and behind the ridge of a cliff, effectively hitting targets you wouldn't ordinarily be able to hit in a straight shot.
No problem, I have the exact play style as you do when playing with my outfit. Problem is, a lot of non infiltrators think that this play style has no impact on the battle at all, of course I disagree, but hey, let them think what they think.
