Dark times are coming for Infiltrators with ASP release.

Carbines in primary slot are awesome, but battle rifles, shotguns, SMGs and LMGs in secondary slots have terrible consequences for Infiltrators and (lo lesser extend) Light assaults.

First of all, most most classes will bring 2 main guns, one for long-range engagements, second for CQC. And here is the nightmare:

• Lots of people will start bringing Battle Rifles and will definitely snipe and counter-snipe. Even now lots of assault rifles, LMGs and even carbines are quite decent at ~100-150 distances.
• But even more people will equip shotguns as secondaries, equipped with darklight flashlights. I already feel the pain when you try to assassinate a heavy, but he turns on overshield, swaps to shotgun and murders you with oneshot.
• Light assaults may find themselves in a similar situation, when an ambushed enemy swaps from his LMG to shotgun.

So yeah, carbines for infils sounds OP, especially if you take into consideration how it will make obsolete most semi-auto sniper and scout rifles. Heck, this system will actually expose weak spots of so many gun and even gun types (why use carbines when you have assault rifles, why use SMGswhen you have carbines). Maybe it's even for good, because some weapon types were desperately in need of update anyway, but chances are than none will ever update anything and just focus on releasing new guns once in a while.
As an Infil main I'd gladly trade my future carbine slot for something more unique, for example:

• Toggled IRNV
• Built-in rangefinder and HP bar
• Less noisy cloacking\decloacking sound
• Recon devices won't be displayed on minimap
• Ability to carry 2-3 types of grenades
• Unique class-specific attachments (for example, suppressor that lowers bullet speed by 20% only for infils)

In general, just look what class-specific suit slots, abilities and implants are used the least and add them as ASP perks. This way you create "prestige classes": anyone can play any class, but everyone has his favorite ones. So an ability to add an edge to favorite class(es), IMO, is more valuable than adding primary weapons in secondary slots.
Another question that is burning in my mind: right now when I look at player I know what primary weapon he uses. I didn't have to know what secondary one is in hos pockets. But don't you think that shoguns, LMGs or even SMGs are too large to be carried in a pocket and it would be a good idea to alert people that this guy has a shotgun as his secondary?

i like the ideas:

• Toggled IRNV
• Built-in rangefinder and HP bar
• Less noisy cloacking\decloacking sound
• Recon devices won't be displayed on minimap
• Ability to carry 2-3 types of grenades
• Unique class-specific attachments (for example, suppressor that lowers bullet speed by 20% only for infils)

however I would like NO crossclassweapons at all, after pts i think all did agree that it should be deleted.

Me neither, because it's a huge can of worms in terms of classes' balance.

I'm sorry but the darkest time Infils are going to have is having to content with many more friendly and enemy infiltrators trying to steal kills/kill them or the crapstorm of complaints about them.

Those "secondary" shotguns with darklight? First off shotguns are BARELY better than normal weapons. Second darklights are extremely short-ranged and if someone actively grabs his flashlight and you arent blowing their brains out by the time that thing becomes a threat, you did something horribly horribly wrong.

Countersniping: you are still vastly superior in accuracy, range, ability to avoid return fire anywhere on the battlefield. I dont see the problem here. Especially since Carbines is a direct firepower upgrade and an extra primary is a an increase in versatility but not firepower.

If anyone swaps out his LMG for a shotgun, the LA is going to have a free period to shoot the HA and kill him as he's swapping, and the lost DPS from not shooting his LMG in that time is going to be so large that the marginal DPS boost a shotgun gives IF YOU HAVE 100% ACCURACY is going to be impossible to regain. And to get a OHK you either need a CQC pump-action shot with high accuracy and RNG, or another shotgun with an extreme CQC headshot and good RNG.

So no, this isnt going to be a problem in the way you describe.

I like the alternatives though

Given the time it'll take to change weapon you'd probably be taking too long to finish him. . And I just read the PTS patch notes - HA does not get option of shotgun secondary.

Personally I only go for HAs by head-shotting from a decent distance with a Blackhand atm (as a stalker). I hope the pts change - max damage range from 5m to 20m - makes it through PTS!

I quite like the idea of using a carbine to keep a bit further away but then some of the latest bunch of SMGs seem to pack quite a punch as well - not that I've used any of them yet.

I don't think Battle Rifles will make much difference. I've countersniped plenty of infiltrators with my trusty Blackhand, which is also getting a slight buff to its damage drop off.

I feel it will also bring less commissioners with Dark Light. Infiltrators will eventually get buffed.

Still this cross-class weaponry is crap, it has the potential to harm the game right in its weak point: new players retention. That's true in particular for HA, more than Infiltrators.

People running around with Lmg, a Jackhammer, a Rocket Launcher, medikits and the shield.... How can this be good for the game? Oh wait, they have longer equip time!

/facepalm

Instead of commies people will equip jackhammers with darklight flashlights as soon as they are alerted.

Yes, HA is extremely unfair in any face-to-face CQC encounters due to his overshield. Giving them even more staying power and versatility means that there is little to no point any other class in CQC.

Jack of all trades, master of everything

Much depends on how good the new d0ku's BRs are

this is why i think the shotgun secondary perk is trash for engineers, others may argue that other classes can equip a shotgun in their primary with another primary, but they get the choice of secondary, engineers get a binary choice. the worst weapon class in the game in my mind is not worth replacing a pistol, even one of the TR soon to no longer semi-automatic pistols.(AA change and pistol semi-auto nerfs make this feel like a CAI 2.0 to me)

TR is supposed to be the dakka dakka faction but it seems as always they steal our armament designs to give to others then nerf ours.

shotguns would not be so bad if they had ether COF or a spread pattern, not both. i mean it is really that hard to design a spread pattern that works for a particular range?

While I personally think that it's great that the upcoming changes are addressed and discussed in a reasonable manner by the community (not like in some threads in the Steam subforums... eh) I guess we have to see how things pan out in live. Some things sound OP and at the end of the day they might just be an exceptionally rare nuisance (minor cloak anybody?).

Personally countersniping would not really annoy me with the upcoming changes. Most people sadly play not too great with BRs (or semi autos snipers and SRs) right now on live. I myself can just advise any infiltrator who's up to learn something awesome (sometimes really skillful and sometimes not; depends on the situation) to grab the CQC bolt-action rifles like the SAS-R the TSAR-42 or the Ghost with the 4x red-cross scope and straight-pull bolt. That's atleast what I'm doing 'cus IMHO nothings better than to fend off some pesky tryhard Orion or MSW-R heavy assaults with a nice, clean headshot (and because taking on heavy assaults as other classes often feels like running into a brickwall... with rusty barbwire on it... which is on fire).

From a stalker point of view, a lot of pistols seem to be getting buffs(like my own) and that's a huge QoL change for me at least. It's not like we haven't seen heavy assaults equipped with this or that either, and it's one of my goals to be able to deal with a HA no matter how much cheese they're carrying

The entire "class" system creates far more problems than the problems it (supposedly) solves.

It would be so much better to have "soldiers" + "backpacks" or Maxes.

The "backpack" is the equivalent of the old class. HA (overshield, different models), LA (jet thrusters, different models), MD (Medic, built-in healing system), ST (Stealth, different models), EN (engineer, built-in repair system).

Each "backpack" has a number of carry points to be filled accordingly:
many different weapons (thus requiring different kinds of ammo) --> less equipment
lots of equipment --> less weapons
balanced: weapons and equipment but no so much ammo
...

The gameplay will balance itself because everyone can have the same choices: if a combination is "OP" --> then get it and be "OP" like the others,

I'll give up my primary and secondary weapon slot for a suit that is immune to darklight to counter this.

darklight is garbage, you illuminate to any infiltrators around that you are looking for them from many angles, the actual range and angle of detection is short and narrow, making it easy for any above newbie infiltrator to ether escape detection or kill the searcher while they have their less effective non primary out.

meaning that anyone searching with a darklight on their secondary is still highly ambushable, is at a combat disadvantage on weapon selection and anyone running darklight on their primary will be at a disadvantage vs everyone else they encounter that is not a cloaked infiltrator.

No. Just no.

I don't even want to hear it. Infiltrators are nearly game breaking as it is. You guys utterly slay the growth of the game.

New players must deal with "invisible" players. No other game does that ****. Now don't be obtuse and tell me about shimmer or recon devices or whatnot. To new players you ARE an invisible class.

Now we put up with this because there are limitations in place. The lower health and the weapons restraints.

Now we're going to give frickin' carbines to an invisible player? Let that sink in.

I see no problems with AR in secondary slot for medic and engineer, the SMG on LA is also not a big deal even with shotgun primary: both weapons are for CQC anyway and kinda redundant.

We're pulling both the Infiltrator Carbines and Heavy Assault LMGs as options from the ASP System, so these won't be available on live.

I think heavies with overshield are much more punishing for n00bs.

Do you realize that while croaching, you are invisible to spotting devices? Catlike-4 reduces crouching movement speed penalty by 75%

I'm against carbines for infils as well. the whole point of my post is that the idea of cross-class weaponry is a perfect example of a lazy gamedesign.

Look, who uses Adrenaline Pump (increases sprint speed), Chameleon Module (removes shimmering while hit while cloaked) or Auxiliary Shield on regular basis? I bet a very small percentage. My initial idea is to "refurbish" the least used implants or suit modules into meaningful choices in ASP.
Another approach might be a set of class-specific enhanced weapon attachments, like "advanced laser sight" or "advanced suppressor".

And, thus, everyone complains about too much HA. That's not a solution to a problem that you are proposing - that's blatantly ignoring that it's a problem. I'd feel bad for all of the other equipment no one would use in your scenario.