Guys please

Discussion in 'Infiltrator' started by Scienta, Sep 26, 2013.

  1. Scienta

    Do something for me. Discard the misconception that our cloak can in any way make us OP. There is already a class in the game that can do what we do, and better, its called LA, and it has C4, flashbangs, and 100 more health.

    I swear its like you guys have a caged kitten and are screaming "**** GUYS IF WE LET IT OUT IT WILL KILL US ALL"

    We are broken.
  2. AnuErebus

    I won't say our cloak doesn't have problems and that it couldn't be improved, but I think disregarding the idea that it could potentially make us OP is silly. A cloak should not be a perfect ability for getting past every group of enemies. If someone is paying attention they should be able to spot an infiltrator. That way there's still an element of skill involved and infiltrators have to rely on more than a button to get them into an ideal position to kill the enemy.
    • Up x 5
  3. Dr. Euthanasia

    The cloak being completely infallible is not fine, sure, but nor is it being visible all the time. You can't have a meaningful stealth system in a competitive game if that stealth is reliant on visual effects which are merely difficult to see. That puts absolutely no control in the hands of both the developers and the players using the cloak - it simply guarantees that there will always be players who see through the thing, no matter how close to transparent it becomes.

    One correct solution is to make detection skill-based but binary. In other words, when the cloak is not supposed to work, it absolutely does not work, and vice versa. Of course, such an idea will almost certainly meet resistance here, because a distressing fraction of the playerbase apparently cannot fathom the idea of complete invisibility ever being fair or balanced, even if that invisibility is highly conditional, short-lived, and weighed down by dozens of countermeasures and drawbacks which ultimately still leave it ineffective as a tool.
    • Up x 1
  4. Hoki

    Honestly if I could trade in the cloak for 100 more shields and an assault rifle I would.
  5. Van Dax

    I recommend the medic.
    • Up x 9
  6. harmypants


    Reminds of the cloak from Tribes Ascend, which had it's own slew of limitations and was for the most part balanced. The real difference between the 2 games is the TTK.

    In planetside, catching an infiltrator just as they're about to attack a team mate means the infiltrator kills the team mate and then you kill the inf. With the SMGs and the inherent TTK of all weapons in this game, an infiltrator getting caught uncloaked can still mean a key team member getting taken out.

    In other games it's a bit different, as there's no guarantee of a kill as an infiltrator-y class if you've been caught. There are usually bigger health pools, very fast kills are more of a singular mechanic of the class rather than a staple of general combat system and the class is otherwise defenseless or at least very weak.

    I don't think the problem is that people don't want to go up against full invisibilty, as much as they don't think it's appropriate for the game (which I'd agree with). If I was going to buff any part of the infiltrator class/cloak nonsense, if would be to have less shimmer in truly dark areas while on the move. Just something more contextual than full invis.
    • Up x 3
  7. Darkelfdruid_LOL

    I bet 300 certs the next cloak thread will be in 14 hours 23minutes



    :D
    • Up x 1
  8. PolishHamm3r

    I will take you up on that offer and say 2days and 29.

    Well what did you expect when so many people abused the cloak since the start? Players have caught on how to detect us from the sounds our cloak makes to responding to any movement they precive. The reason light assaults seem to do it better is because they had to learn how to sneak without aids and have gotten good at it. Also barely anyone looks up which helps.
    • Up x 1
  9. hansgrosse

    I like how Battlefield 2142 did it. The cloak given to their recon class was truly and completely invisible past 30 meters or so, at the expense of being almost completely worthless up close. Between these two extremes were the expected varying degrees of visibility. Of course, 2142 Recon soldiers also had to have a cloaking tool out to be cloaked in the first place... which gives me an idea.

    What if we make cloaked infiltrators much harder to see past around 10 meters and invisible past 20 in exchange for having that cloaking ability attached to a tool that must be used like a repair or healing gun? You get much better stealth, but you have to drop the cloak and switch the tool out for a gun before you can actually attack anything. Or just use the knife.

    I believe that this would keep such a change balanced while still keeping the ability viable.
  10. Dr. Euthanasia

    My only point of contention with the Tribes: Ascend cloak was scrambling effects. Not their existence, necessarily, but the fact that the Sentinel could deploy a pack which made stealth in the area impossible with no commitment on their part, and it even worked through walls. Entering bases stealthily could be made completely impossible through the use of a number of deployables, at which point there was really no reason to even play the class until the enemy team's generator was already dead and ripe for the camping.

    That said, partial invisibility with drawbacks does not belong in any game. It works in Halo because everyone is using the same hardware, and you don't lose the ability to shoot or carry specific weapons for your unreliable stealth advantage - you're prepared for the event of it failing. In PS2, if you get caught while cloaked, which is an inevitability with the way it performs, you're unable to shoot, suffering a 100 shield disadvantage, and lacking in strong mid-range combat potential (or a victim of crippling overspecialization, your choice). While the SMG mitigates this problem, it's still forcing the class into a mockery of the stealth role that one would come to expect, both due to the game's predecessor and the open-world nature of the game itself.

    Basically, the infiltrator feels like it was designed for an arena shooter with fixed team sizes, and then over-nerfed anyways. It can't actually employ misdirection on the scale of Planetside 2 because of the sheer number of observers all but guarantees you'll have your cover blown if they so much as look at you, and the only thing it's truly competent at is killing other players, even though there's no such thing as Deathmatch here. Add to this the fact that every subsequent change to the class serves to further cripple its ability to go undetected even in ways unrelated to the cloak (it doesn't matter if this was intended, you can't deny that it's happening), and... well, here we are.
    • Up x 1
  11. CuteBeaver

    I still want to see LA's get Molotov Cocktails. We all know how fun C4 is imagine the fun you could have with fire lol.

    Getting back to the OP, you can't assume cloak isn't capable of making us OP. Anything that increases our time to live can have an effect on statistics. The plethora of drawbacks attached to cloak right now make this feel like an alien concept but the truth is some drawbacks have to exist. Otherwise everyone and their grandmother would play infiltrator because their KDR would be higher just based on being able to survive more.

    We are so very far away from this... I know it sounds strange but bear with me. I am not saying cloak is fine, because its got more drawbacks then I think it deserves. Regardless I shall continue.

    Since we don't truly have access to which classes perform best overall, its hard to comment on this. The only glimmer of data we actually have is by using player ranking systems and seeing which classes the top tier players use most. Even then this is wonky data because in many cases an engineer is going to be using a vehicle or having the support of a Maxx near by. A Medic will usually have team members around. Its difficult to tell exactly how much of an impact cloak has in a 1 v 1 setting.

    I probably should not be picking at you, because I can see you have good intentions for the class and moving it forward towards a stealth roll. I just want to illustrate the point above because a game needs a balanced cloak which is fair otherwise it will be abused.
  12. harmypants

    Yeah, it had limitations. Good. It needed it.
    With the Close combat perk you could 1 shot Lights and Mediums from complete invisibility too, so the counter had to be there for the Techs and the mostly stationary Sentinels.

    The thing with Tribes though, is the Infiltrator was 1 of 9 classes, and 1 of 5 that you'd conceivably send to take out a generator. A lot of tribes (unless you were dedicated to a role for whatever reason and not willing to change) is adapting to the needs of the team and what the enemy brings to the table. You never farmed or camped unless you were up against some very green players.

    With Planetside, it's 1 of 5 from the start. And while it's the only class that can never take on armour, only the HA starts as an AV infantryman. The infiltrator cops a lot of flak for not being the quintessential 'lone wolf invisible no-scope solo bad***' people hope for it to be, but at the end of the day it's pretty gosh darn similar to the rest of the classes.


    I disagree. To me the Infiltrator is a support role that can flank on the ground and remain effective from a distance with long range rifles, to stay at close range with dart coverage and AP mines and much smaller flanking opportunities. And much like every class, it can solo to some extent.
    I mean, if you're getting picked off while cloaked behind enemy lines you're either not using darts correctly or they've bugged out (which isn't a class balance issue regardless), OR you've overextended and then whinged on the forums because someone noticed you.
    • Up x 1
  13. EmperorZ

    Very true, although depending on player skill you can make the infiltrator the " lone wolf invisible no-scope solo bad*** " , for the most part though infiltrator is much like heavy assault just a more mobile version of it - very similar to the other classes.

    Best comparison is that INF has resist cloak opposed to the HA's resist shield.

    The cloak actually works fine as it is, just most people don't understand how to fully utilize it.
    There's a certain kind of method to movement which you need to be successful.

    And then there is the issue of players overusing their cloak.
    • Up x 1
  14. Dr. Euthanasia

    Wrong. A counter had to be there. It didn't have to be one that required no maintenance or attention from the player using it, and it sure as hell didn't have to work through solid walls. Motion sensors could very easily make an impossible stealth situation for invading infiltrators, but they had to be constantly replaced by defending techs. Raiders patrolling the halls with their scrambler packs on could likewise spell death for you, but they had to be there patrolling.

    The sentinel's pack was, quite frankly, useless at protecting them from infiltrators. Its radius wasn't large enough when placed outdoors, and it didn't alert them to approaching enemies. Scrambled or not, you could see the tracers from miles away and run up to backstab the guy unopposed. It was a counter that never belonged, given to a class that couldn't benefit from it.

    The whole point of the T:A infiltrator was that it could survive in very hostile environments far longer than any other attacking class, if played by someone of sufficient skill. I could tie up around four enemy players at a time in their generator room without becoming concerned about them repairing that generator, and once the heat became too great, I'd leave the base and harass the flag stand for a while until people caught on to the fact that I was no longer there, only to return and raise hell again.

    I never complained about any of the counters to stealth except for the jammer pack because they all required some kind of effort on the defender's part and they all had ways of being destroyed or circumvented, even if they made my job impossible or extremely difficult in the meantime. Frankly, I wish things were the same in Planetside 2. If I actually had any kind of staying power due to a functional cloak, I'd welcome all kinds of counters to it so long as I could see them before and/or while they countered me, and had some way of opposing them without switching class.

    I'm sorry, but how do the darts have any interaction with the cloak? They let you see where enemies are and avoid lines of sight, and since the cloak doesn't do anything unless you're in an enemy's line of sight, using darts well means avoiding situations where you need to use the cloak at all. This is the right thing to do, yes, but only because the cloak is so bad at its job that sneaking around like every other class in the game produces better results. Were it not for the fact that the rendering distance reduction it provides helps us snipe and close large distances, I really would be saying that the LA is simply a better stealth class in the presence of allied radar coverage.
  15. harmypants

    Whenever I played Sent I never really ventured too far out unless i needed to get a follow up shot on a capper on a map like Katabatic, and even then the claymore was a much more effective anti-inf measure if you were going off on your own.
    The Jammer pack was a counter in the sense that the team becomes alerted to an enemy infiltrators presence and protects you while you take out cappers, not for you to go killwhore mid-map and feel safe. And no Raider ever wanted to run with the scrambler and **** themselves; they had to dedicate to countering infs.


    The cloak is reasonable at doing it's job, and could use a buff. It is and will likely always be terrible at doing the job you want it to do though, because it's not meant to do what you want it to do, and your idea doesn't fit with the design principle.

    You're not supposed to be undetectable and only reveal yourself on your terms, or have the ability to become completely lost in a crowd of skilled players, or escape consistently once you've over-extended just on cloak alone. You have darts to synergise with your cloak; to help you choose where to go to be effective and reduce the possibility of being spotted. And that's exactly what the cloak does. If an enemy can spot you in peripheral vision and you don't have cloak engaged, they will always spot you. But the cloak helps prevent that scenario and allow for a safer ground-based flank.

    The infiltrator is not a stealth based class that's no good at stealth. It's an infantry class that is better at ground based flanks, long-range sniping, map-based support and approach/escape.
  16. harmypants


    I've actually started using nano-armour cloaking more, and really liking it. You have to use it a lot more sparingly and it's kind of useless in true outdoor areas with no cover, but it definitely forces you to think about your use of cloak more. Plus it works pretty well with ASC and i'm too cheap/opposed to cert nanoweave.
  17. Dr. Euthanasia

    You know what I would honestly call a class that did these things, if I heard this description from someone?

    Light Assault.
    • Up x 1
  18. harmypants


    -Ground Based
    -Sniping
    -Map-based Support

    Yep, definitely light assault.
  19. Zerran

    IMO, the nano armor cloak is in a pretty good spot in the mean time. Used to be utter garbage, but with the buff it feels nice. Pretty much worthless for remaining undetected, but the added survivability combined with being slightly harder to see makes it perfect for escape after you get caught. The sound it makes doesn't matter in this circumstance, the short duration is fine because by the end of it chances are you've escaped or died already. Overall a good cloak for escape purposes.

    Hunter cloak, however, I feel has absolutely no use. For escape, the nano armor cloak is almost always better, and for infiltration, the sound will give you away to anyone paying attention (assuming they don't just outright see you anyway). The LA's jetpack is just better in almost every scenario for getting into an area undetected, and they can do more damage than an infiltrator in many cases.

    I can't speak for other people, but I have utterly no trouble seeing cloaked infiltrators, whether they're crouching and still or running around. I've gotten a number of tells from infils after I kill them long distance while they were cloaked accusing me of hacks or asking me how I saw them. Quite simply, I just don't have any trouble seeing and shooting them. This is the problem with only having partial invisibility, as Dr. Euthanasia pointed out above. How effective it is has very little to do with the skill of the operator, and a whole lot to do with the skill of the viewers, which is silly.


    What I think would be interesting would be a cloak similar to how a stealth bomber works in EVE.

    Pros:
    - unlimited duration
    - perfect invisibility

    Cons:
    - Extremely fragile (in EVE, these are small frigates, in PS2 this could correspond to infils with this equipped having no shields and only pistols)
    - Forcibly ejected from stealth when too close to an enemy (or in EVE's case, too close to anything, but that obviously wouldn't work in PS2)
    - Cannot fire weapons while cloaked
    - Cannot reload while cloaked
    - Cooldown after exiting stealth before it can be re-activated.
    • Up x 1
  20. Dr. Euthanasia

    You're getting confused with the LA which already exists in this game. My point is that roles like flanking and recon are not representative of an infiltrator - stealth is, and anything else they do should be secondary to that. The very fact that you didn't even mention how infiltrators are supposed to get past defenses and sabotage **** as their primary roles just goes to show how much is wrong with the class. Meanwhile, everything you did mention is something that a light assault could be justified in doing very easily.