Now, I hate being one to rant but... Infiltrator has to be the most gimped, useless class in the game. I play infiltrator an awful lot, but I'm starting to get really annoyed at how the class is being treated. The developers probably won't read this, I am a lone person, so who cares what I type, right? First, the cloak is awful. I'm aware that it is camouflage only, and that you still appear but that's the problem. It is entirely dependant on what settings the other person is using. It's easy to see at low settings, it's easy to see at high settings, it's only really useful in the middle. In order to get the most use out of it you have to duck down and let it go into third level cloak mode, I have no problem with that, but you only get 12 seconds of it. What's the problem with that? Well, if you want us to sit still to get the most use out of our cloak then why give it a 12 second timer that forces us to keep moving!? I believe that the hunter cloak should be invisible, period, should not render at all unless you are running. That would justify the 12 second timer and clear up all this nonsense with people using different settings to see it. Second, the noise from the cloak. That's just...not a good design choice. I get what they were going for but the moment someone knows an infiltrator is there - the moment we decloak or cloak - we are suddenly fighting for our lives since the other classes have far superior firepower and health, and will actively hunt us. Third, Nanoweave, clearly the people making this game haven't thought about power creep. That's where if something is very good, everyone will have it in the end, this includes nanoweave, shotguns, smgs, and anything else that people would consider worthwhile purchases. So when everyone has nanoweave 5, sniper rifles will no longer be extreme range weapons, they'll be medium or at most long range. My favourite part is where you snipe someone repairing a tank, and they shrug it off, instantly enter the tank with no delay, and blow you up. It can't be meant to work this way, our main weapon can't be getting made redundant can it? Fourth, other things for the infiltrator to do. We kill people, we hack vehicle terminals and we hack turrets. That's it. Now, with the advent of nanoweave and the fact that our cloak is very visible to anyone without tunnel vision, all but the best of us will kill people less. Ztiller, Mustarde and the others - they are the best, the exception to the rule, but I bet they're getting pissed off with this stuff too. So that's one down. Hacking terminals and turrets is entirely dependent on whether they are there and have not been blown up. If they have, you're useless. We need more things to do! There needs to be a worthwhile reason to play an infiltrator, to help out our squad or faction in some way. If they can't think of that, they might as well remove the class entirely. I've heard about the update coming up. I really hope it fixes some of these things. If it doesn't then it'll be clear to me that the class has not and will not receive any love from the developers, because they just don't know what to do with it. Anyways, rant over, needed to get that out of my system. - Braddigan
We feel your pain. I just use Wraith Flash with fury now - so much more rewarding. (until it gets nerfed)
I hate infiltrators, yet I do truly believe that they need a big buff and that they can't do enough yet. I can easily spot cloakers and I want to see an infiltrator, see him cloak and go "FML, going to need friends take this point with me"
Read your complaints. Heard it all before (no pun intended). I DO agree with some of your grievances and frustrations, but i just dont think you get the point. common complaint common complaint common complaint After all you wrote, we're left with this one thing again. Your summary of the 'essence of the class' or some such......what is just so wrong with this? That's it? AGAIN! Again a career-infiltrator who does not mention (and it seems, even care for?) the Recon Dart. When will it END? When will you guys truly start to embrace this aspect of your class? Infiltrators ALWAYS have 'things to do'. They have a TOOL they ALWAYS should be putting to best use. Use your recon-darts dude, they are the soul of the class and your very purpose. Everything else comes second. I really mean this. If you play infilitrator and dont consider using recon-darts as you PRIMARY FUNCTION, then im sorry i have no other words for you then start certing up another class more suited to your sensibilites. Use the darts and you are ALWAYS helpfull. There is literally never a situation where a recon-dart is wasted. You shoot one: a) You light up enemies? Ok this helpfull, I quess all will agree. b) You dont light up enemies? OK - area is most likely clear. This is helpfull, I quess all will agree. Understand and embrace the potential of the recon-dart and all your team-mates will be eternally gratefull. I promise you! Im sorry if i sound harsh, but this issue is bugging me alot. Yes, the class has issues, but STEP UP YOUR GAME PEOPLE - spam those darts! I can sympathise with things you say about bugs and frustrations and nanoweave-issue with the class. But DONT come with that "oh buh buh, there's nothing for us to do, i feel so useless' talk. Its not truth. /rant over
Completely agree with you on the power of the recon dart - now if only they'd let me stick a suppressor on that as well...
you have to spend well north of 1500c to max the damn tool in the first place, all for 10xp a pop and a gratitude that buys you nothing in the game shop. And it's like saying "Engineers, don't worry you have no real utility beyond spamming ammo packs. Ammo packs are good and people love you for that so it's ok!", the difference being engies are actually as far from being useless as possible. They are uncontested kings of anything mechanical (half of the game) and infs are what, exactly? Did i mention that most engies prefer to pewpewpew than to supply you with ammo so you can spam those darts? I have to stick to sundie or spawnroom to be able to do that reliably. Really fulfilling.
Most of the issue is the lack of viable role choices with meaning. Hacking is really poor because there is hardly anything to hack and is very situational. We can't do anything else other than kill infantry; either CQC or sniping. However, both of these we are relatively poor compared to other classes based on kill/hour; especially sniping with the influx of nanoweave. We are very poor at holding or capturing objectives. We are impotent against vehicles (air and ground). What we need isn't a recon drone, or a motion sensor, or new weapons (unless they are actually as good as other classes). What we need is more things to do - more things to hack, more reason to exist. We need to be able to penetrate otherwise very difficult defences and we need to be able to cause long lasting damage - to do this we need a more effective cloak at non-combat infiltration and we need SOE to use all that time they kept bumping back the infiltrator update to actually add things in for us to hack. Add in doors (moderately resilient) and shields (highly resilient) that could be destroyed, however, allow infiltrators to sneak past (via alternate infiltrator-only access points) and find control panels that we could hack thereby saving a lot of time (and possibly breaking a heavily entrenched enemy). Add in sensors that detect motion at short range but have to rotate direction frequently, along with cameras - these could be part of a sneaking challenge (not moving at right time defeats sensors, cloak defeats cameras). Make detection by these devices cause auto-turrets to shoot at that area with high damage. These auto-turrets could be destroyed by AV weapons from other classes but would be very resilient due to fixed-position entrenchment (along with the high damage output), hence providing a reason to try to knock them out in an alternative way. This could be an infiltrator hacking the control panel (which naturally is behind the defences), causing them to be turned off (for a set amount of time like 15mins). The infiltrator would have to get past the cameras and rotating motion sensors to do this. Lose the gen timer (or make it really quick). Consolidate the generators into position deeper into bases (past these defences). This will make holding the front line easier and more effective than holding these places. Then we would have a chance to cause havoc by sneaking past these defences and the enemy and blowing up generators if no one bothers to defend them at all. Loss of power would cause deactivation of defences (doors, shields, Add in a command centre that has screens that show what the cameras can see, along with a map that shows sensor detection and defence status. Allow infiltrators to take control of this if a group of them manage to get in and take out the people guarding the room and hack the Master Control Panel (MCP). In addition, if successful, defences would now turn to the faction that hacked the MCP. Finally, put in a roof over most of the huge bases (like the bio-labs have) so that people can not just drop-pod past the front line. Make weapon-fire go through said roof if needed for air vehicles. ~~ Surely there is more SOE can do than add a recon drone, fix a grenade, and (possibly) give us new weapons? The stalker cloak is a good start, if it actually works (which pretty much requires full invisibility at slow movement). We still need the actual reasons to exist though in the first place.
Think you'll find I used my recon dart all the time. Didn't mention it because there are an abundance of radar devices aside from the dart in this game. This is not something only the infiltrator can do, though it is something they can *all* do at a moments notice, which is good. However, one radar flash or ESF in the area you're in, and we're back to square one again. Seriously, of all the things I expect from this update, more radar was not one of them. - Braddigan
Also useful would be a 'Stealth' Suit slot cert line. Rank1, makes you not show up on prox. radar; 2 stops you from appearing at over 25m to scout radar; 3 to scout radar at all, and 4 makes you not show on recon darts. Of course firing an un-silenced weapon will still reveal you as normal.
sigh... i just give up, there is no use :/ I'll just say it one last time. Infiltrator does not really need more stuff to do, because they are never short of 'stuff to do' in the first place. Helping your teams overall awerness is a cool, powerfull and fun aspect. And then i hear all this constant cry for 'more turrets, more terminals, more stuff to hack etc' like that would somehow be a buff to the class? Well obviously it good be just the opposite. Hacking is powerfull partially because of the SCARCITY of targets, not because there are PLENTIFULL of targets. Dont you people realise this? For each new terminal introduced in the world, the overall power, impact and usefullness of every succesfull hack-attempt could diminish. If you have hackable targets every-where, then there would be no real point in hacking any-longer, because that terminal you switched so the enemy cant use it? Well they just use the next 100 meters down to the left. Your not gonna hack them all. Ok it could be cool if they introduced NEW stuff like maybe the hacking-doors and vechicles and sh*t like that. I would like that, but i still maintain dart (+new drone?) should be considered first priority. Simply because, in the end, its such a powerfull team-work tool. Its a no bullsh*it, no gimmick, straight- up- advantage to your whole team if you place them out regularly. Anyway, will end this fruitless crusade ..
Hey, like I said, I used the darts. I agree they are crucial and necessary for the class, they do help your team know where the enemy is, but...like I said, rather than you spamming darts all the time, all they have to do is pull one radar flash. You can't tell me that it would be a bad thing if the infiltrator class had more things to do, had more ways to affect the battlefield and the course of battles like say an engineer or a medic could - we're a support class too, see. - Braddigan
Infiltrators in every game are arguably the weakest class. I agree Nanoweave should be fixed for infiltrators or have the range extended for them. Also vehicle hacking (which the lead team discussed but denied it) and possibly C4 or tank mines would be something that would be welcome.
@ Braddigan : Ok im glad you acknowledge the importance of the dart. I admitt i got hung up over it, simply because you didnt mention them in your OP even when tread was titled 'Infils in general' or something like that. So i got the wrong impression. I also agree with some of you general complaints, but yeah...out.
The cloak is rubbish. The least they could do is turn off the noise rather than have a big giveaway every 12 seconds. If I hear a cloak, I go hunting with my HA - you have to ask why would an infiltrator, a stealth character, carry a dinner gong around with him and bash it every 12 seconds? And what is with 12 seconds? They should reboot the class. Give us the ability to sneak in and support our team with MUCH better recon tools. I personally couldn't give a crap about the weapons but other people like them, so spilt the class abilities to recon and combat. I would like more things to hack but those things to be meaningful things that help out the team. Doesn't everyone else just start think of how to fix all the other issues in PS2 once you start thinking how to fix one thing?
They will never reboot the class. The developers seem to think that some new weapons, a new scouting tool and the like are enough to counter our defencelessness against things like Scout Radar, to offset how god awful the cloak is right now. I sincerely hope that they adjust cloak in general rather than just adding stalker cloak in an attempt to placate us. I'm not particularly hopeful however, I don't even know if they care about the grievances we have. Why do I keep playing infiltrator? Cause I like the idea of it. I like helping my team from the shadows, dispatching targets from afar or suddenly and without warning close up, aiding in battlefield recon, getting behind enemy lines. Then I log on every day to be reminded just how far away from this the class is. - Braddigan
What the class really needs is a player base that is not stuck on wanting their idealized version of the class, and instead one that is willing to utilize & succeed with the class how it is. If you're having a difficult time think about what you're doing wrong instead of thinking about how the game mechanics are cheating you out of victory you know you deserve. Don't think about what you should be able to do, think about what you can do. Look at Ztiller's weekly challenges for inspiration. You've got individuals from all factions & play styles doing well & more importantly having fun while doing it.
Don't be that guy. The class is poor - using it skillfully does not change that. People don't settle on poor - they ask for improvements or they move away.
Think about how out of touch with reality that sounds. "People are doing well with the class but I still think it's bad". The class has a higher skill floor than some of the other classes but that by no means makes it poor. The only thing that I think is poor about the class is the heavy cert investment required to be successful at playstyles outside of sniping.
