The writing is on the wall : LA and Infil are not used by High BRs in Squad OPS compared to Heavy

I'm going to have to agree with the majority of responses here, OP. You can't gauge a class's relative power based solely on team use percentages.

It's just like what was said before; every single class in the game is useful and valuable, but some classes scale with numbers better than others. This doesn't mean that the class that scales better is more powerful, it simply means that what that class brings to the table is volume dependent whereas what some of the other classes bring to the table is not (or at least not to the same extent).

Heavy assault is the class tailor-made to take punishment and dish it back out. They're your frontline troops. They're this game's version of real-life infantry soldiers, which the majority of most fighting forces is going to be made of, and so it makes perfect sense that there are going to be more of them than anything else. I personally see no issue with this.

Every ability that's different will have an envelope of effectiveness that allows it to come into its own. This post was about how useful it was on the average of situations.

Since a lot of the situations are farms, and players tend to try everything in the beginning, the usage for experienced players in squad ops will be even less.

The% is the percentage of total playtime for that outfit. The high values for engineer are just vehicle usage - PS2 stats provided by SOEs API doesn't differentiate. The low values for Max are due to the resource timer, and lack of mobility not being fun as I mentioned. They don't in anyway disagree with LA/Infil being neglected overall.

I was just being lazy to make a tedious text table and didn't see how they'd matter (this was on reddit a while back, and I thought these points would be recognized).

The stats don't really show the true extent because of LA/infil being fun to play in farms, stat bias from players being new, sniping etc.

It affects both LAs and Infils when using their mobility to advance.

It affects both Ammo and Heal systems. The issue is the way heal system are designed. (e.g. no tag based long range healing, inability for LAs to heal/resupply from enemy terminals unlike infils, inability to pick up ammo from enemy ammo drops etc.).

I'm not gauging relative power of the special ability as such (as I've said without the special ability all classes are essentially the same).

I'm saying that in a well designed game where certing takes massive effort/time: each of the special abilities should be equally effective overall (have similar number of situations that call for them),have similiar effectiveness/skill graphs, and have similar cert gain/skill graphs. If they don't have those I pointed out several areas which can be tweaked fix it.

I'm not concerned about experienced HAs being effective, it's the rest I am talking about when I say the effectiveness/skill relationship might be an issue. Again it's one of several things.

So you're saying that LA and Infil don't do well in large fights? Hmm, not sure about that. However, assuming it were true then it should be should be addressed assuming a full peak-time server and lattice (which creates a limited number of places to fight promoting large fights).

Heavy Assault is supposed to be the meat 'n potatoes of a platoon, they were purposely given the most combat potential. Further more, the effect of all the other classes (minus the MAX) is diminished when you have too many of them. If you have too many Infiltrators and Light Assaults, then your enemies will probably be searching perches and corners that are frequented by these classes, making their lives difficult.

Not sure about infs, but LAs are anything but underpowered. A well played LA with a shotgun is a force of nature, especially in tower bases. They are simply not as mainstream as HAs and Medics, and (especially in LA's case) their class abilities are intended for personal use, not directly supporting the team. Hence why the outfits prefer other classes. But are they UP? Hell no.

Not the best choice of words. By saying the special ability is underpowered in most situations, I really meant not as effective per level of skill over the spectrum of squad ops (non-farming) situations.

I was contending that the special ability shouldn't only be more effective per level of skill than HA in a small part of the spectrum of situations that occur in a game like PS2 - because of the time/effort/certs required to cert a class.

LA and Infil fill the same role in the squad - recon/harassing. Of those two, I'd say infil is more versatile due to viable weapons for all ranges, hacking and darts. The LA is like a more primitive version of infil with a jetpack instead of a cloak.

You rarely see outfits harassing infantry - why should you, if you can do a counterpush and take out the AMSes proper? If you want to harass the enemy on a meaningful scale though, get everyone to pull ESFs and libs. Having your vehicle destroyed puts you on a timer and eats at your resources, in addition to having to double back to the nearest vehicle spawner if you'd like to pull another one.

You don't pay that penalty when getting killed as infantry. As such, infantry-on-infantry harassing is only meaningful in really tiny (3v3) fights, ghostcaps.. otherwise beacons, AMSes, galdrops, galspawns, more AMSes, diffusors all render infantry harassing pointless. Sure, you'll reduce the stream of warm bodies somewhat, and get a high KDR doing it, but you'll be otherwise useless to the team.

Not that LAs are useless - half a squad with LA C4 in a gal can take out an AMS and backup in one go. Sometimes it's worth facechecking a position with just LAs - like dropping from the crossroads tower onto C point. Those are situational though, and there's no place for LA in a mixed squad.

LA's ONLY advantage is the jetpack. If you're not using the jetpack, not climbing roofs, flanking, hiding in weird places, you'd be better off using HA or medic. If you are sitting on top of a tree, you're outside of your squad's reach, including your medic's.

Infils are more versatile and useful to a squad - hacking terminals, shooting darts and spotting incoming troops from a ledge is all a one-man job though, and the advantage does not scale with more infils.

Ultimately, LA is a one trick pony lonewolf harasser in a game where infantry harassing is meaningless, Infil is actually useful but you only need so much.

True, on the other hand however, HA's, medic'a and engie's abilities have a very low skill cap, basically it's "press and forget" kind of thing, while infs and LAs can be a lot more creative with theirs. But as we all know, creative thinking causes extreme emotional trauma in most players, so it is rarely utilised

PS2 is a "slug it out" shooter with little need for it's participants to focus on speed or sneaking around.
I appreciate the time and the write-up, I just hope people keep in mind that it's a function of SOE not providing a more diverse environment, not platoons who have figured out some "OMGH4X" exploit.

Nailed it.

Well let's be fair, you shouldn't need a large sample size. You shouldn't need any statistical data at all to understand how LA and Infils have the worst kits for organized play. (Though ironically Infils' kit is great for organized play: so great that you don't even need a second infil!)

Class breakdown doesn't need to be 100% balanced, but the more balanced it is the better. There will be limits due to the nature of class synergy (although breaking some of those synergies is one of the important ways they need to improve class balance -- having the entire game revolve around MAX use and supporting MAXes is way shallower than the game might be.)

Been giving LA a lot more play lately and with the new base designs of the last 6 months they've been significantly better, but still lack a loadout that you'd want to take on a point-hold. They just really need a utility ability that provides the team with a critical piece of support (but where one LA isn't enough to provide it to everyone at all times, which is the core problem with infiltrators' support ability: one guy can dart everything.)

With LAs it's not about revivability. With organized play you want either MAXes, MAX-support, or in the worst case something that can damage MAXes. Which basically ends up settign up the class comp for you:

• Lots of MAXes
• Plenty of med/engineer
• 1 Infil
• Then the rest become HA

Why do we always get someone trying to discredit others' decisions because they prefer to do the same thing differently. It's just like the anti-MAX brigade.

Someone choosing HA as their main class may or may not be more skilled. Their decision to play the class does not make me assume they're crap.

But then what can you do? Give LAs rocket launchers? LMG? Shields?

LAs are very powerful situationally, they just aren't as flexible...... but then if you give them that flexibility you just end up with 25%+ playing LA instead and how is that better?

It's important to show the how issue though.

Engi's might be over represented by vehicles, but that in itself is an important point.

Are MAXs actually under represented?

And where are Medics comparatively?

IMO the biggest issue is LA and Infils are both designed to be played away from the main group, which means they aren't in a position to be revived. If that were fixed I think they'd be as common in platoons as the other classes.

People have floated some ideas along those lines already, like a personal spawn beacon or a deployable respawn point for medics that squad members can bind to and respawn at (as long as it's not destroyed).

I play LA 40% of the time. Yes, you have no "I Win" shield. Often No medics around to rez you. But it's the most fun you can have in the game. It is a great class for squad lead and team play. One reason I started playing it in the first place.

I disagree. LAs are golden for taking out entrenched troops form high up. A brick of C-4 & shotgun to the face does wonders. Also - whichever side takes control of the roofs first is likely to keep it for the remainder of the battle and that gives an extra layer to lay down accurate fire from and limit access routes.

Lastly - sometimes it's via a Battlebus convoy, sometimes it's Gals, but as an outfit we often rely on redeploy to reinforce critical battles swiftly and we all know what happens to those expensive MAX units once that countdown ticks down...

Here's a few ideas for LA:

1) Courier adrenaline pump
Running speed ramps up from 100% to 150% over 6s, similar to MAX speedup but longer. Running at >125% starts to increase weapon draw time up to an additional 0.5s at max speed.

Potentially useful down the line when alerts introduce new CTF functionality.

2) Laser-targeting station
Leverage LA's jetpack to deploy items in hard-to-access locations - ideally forcing opponent LAs or ESFs to clear the deployable out.

It could be a laser-painting auto-targeter with similar mechanics to BF3, but other deployables would work. While it may seem like an overly squad-dependant mechanic, this fits right into the concept for LA teamplay - teamplay at a distance.

3) Contrail Ropeladder consumable item (~200 inf res)
After LA consumes the item and starts the jetpack, the trail left by the LA will act like a gravity tunnel, allowing players to get sucked in at the beginning and spat out at the end.

All players can use this gravity tunnel, it can only be entered at the start, but it can be left at any point by wiggling enough from the preset path.

It lasts 10 seconds, all infantry except MAXes can use it, use is manual (press F), with a little animation of putting on the nanite equivalent of a zipline.

Fuel usage should be increased for the period when ropeladder is active so that it doesn't get too long.

This allows the LA to play in a team by enabling other squadmembers to follow, at least in part, in LA's footsteps.

4) Disassembler Vampire Gun

A CQB anti-armor gun. Range of 2m, very ineffective against infantry, shot dissipates after 3m, effective against tank rear armor and MAX armor. Damaging an enemy vehicle or MAX will imbue you with a temporary small shield or health buff, damage resistance or any other benefit that'll make you survive an additional shot or two.

Vehicles are the rock, heavy infantry are the scissors and LA is the paper. So far LA anti-vehicle was limited to C4 - it's fun, but an alternate anti-armor mechanic would be welcome and it'd allow for better fleshing out and adding some differentiation.

1 infil per squad is about right. 1-2 LA depending on the fight. The rest should be some form of HA medic and engie.

I laugh every time I read some thread about snipers being useless. Keep telling yourselves whatever you want.

Yeah I'm not saying LA issues shouldn't be addressed (dual wielding pistols and SMGs is supposedly in the works).

It's just that SOE likely find themselves in a very difficult situation with LAs where in some cases they are utterly deadly and in others not so useful and have to be careful they don't just create an utterly deadly everywhere class.




But, yes, there a quite a few ideas for improving LAs (personally I think LAs should have adenaline pump run speed as standard), although they have to be a bit careful with too much run/movement speed (as with prior drifter jets) and netcode, as it quickly breaks over too high a level and results in serious problems.

People seriously underestimate these two classes and their jobs.

I mean you're right, that sniper sitting back taking pot shots is totally not being helpful. Someone clearing the walls of snipers shooting back at your team... Definitely not helpful. Picking off tank drivers when they think they're safe to repair? Absolutely not helpful. It's always really annoying to hear that a sniper isn't helpful. Do there need to be a ton of them? No, but a few help counter the enemy teams snipers and don't let them have free rain. I was so angry when a squad said they were going to kick anyone out who went infiltrator... I don't play it much, but I do play it when I start getting annoyed at being sniped a ton.

Light assaults are way helpful! Main squad has to enter the base through choke points... LA gets on the roof top and disrupts them from above. Few people look up. I dunno...