Cloaking takes away the fun

Dude, stop.

You are not explaining why the cloak isn't broken. You're trying to mainsplain L2P stuff.

it is not convincing me that the cloak is fine.

It's convincing me that you don't know how to peek a corner. Ask Sometine to spend a coaching session with you. I bet he would. I've no doubt he would teach you some sick clientside-favorable double peek techniques. Protip for now: Do not activate your shield (or ADS) when peeking a corner. Save both for your second (firing) peek. (my god, now I'm mansplaining......I'll stop)

Cloak is broke dude. makes people invisible in a 3d shooter. makes people invisible in this particular 3d shooter where client side network mechanics allow the cloaked player to kill the other one before the network tells them they are visible.

Please instead of the L2P, tell me how this is not broken and in need of fixing.

No, you're thinking of slicing an angle. And no, you don't ever want to do that when you know (or suspect) a sniper is watching. Further, it depends on which side you are going from, as your screen isn't in the centre of your character; if peaking from the left you will be visible sooner than from the right.

?

How is that even remotely going to help you against a sniper that you don't even know is there? And even if you do know there is an Infil watching, there is this amazing thing called movement where they can move even 2 metres and suddenly you are aiming at nothing, all while moving slower due to shield and maybe even ADS if you're extra moronic. So maybe you don't get 1 shot, what are you going to do now? Out shoot an Infil at even medium range? lol.

What are you even trying to say here? So you lived the HS, with Resist (which is not usually used anyway, except for certain really good players), and are stuck back at square 1, minus a medkit. ??? If you pop around again, right after using a medkit, you're going to be 1 shot, and they still get the clientside advantage on your now low HP ***.

And no, there are plenty of drawbacks to moving slowly while turning a corner, side-winder/mobility Mesh included, even when it isn't against a Sniper (but ESPECIALLY SO when it is a sniper).

You either want to slice the angle and outshoot them with the clientside advantage, or you want to peak with speed, not in-between either of these. You do that and you are going to lose against anyone even remotely your equal.

When the sniper has fired he has revealed his position. The sniper has a rechamber time of 1.1 seconds. This is more than enough time to kill him if in a vulnerable position. Good snipers may be a bit slippery though so it is not a guaranteed kill for the HA, but nontheless a fair fight. The HA has the choice; do I chase the infil even at low health (fight) or do I pop the medkit and regenerate shields (flight). If you have proper cover trying to outshoot or at least distract a sniper is certainly possible.

Let's make a list:

- First shot advantage in 95% of the encounters
- Access to high damage weapons
- Effective on every range
- Requires specialized counters
- Has access to countermeasures for the counters (except the flashlight)
- The only real counter (flashlight) is ineffective, bugged and has massive drawbacks for the user
- Often dosn't get spotted during flanking, attacking or even moving by enemies.

This is just another strawman, if you read the post it says:

It is not a claim about you specifically, if anything a tip to introspect your playstyle.

Also shooting from cloak is a unique method yes but the same can be said about all the other classes. Personally I think jumping someone from above with an autoshotgun is more powerful and that is unique to the LA. This way of attack has objectively faster TTK versus a resist shield heavy and does not require as much aim to pull off.

It's a good thing the infil can't just re-cloak right after firing, right? NaC with as much resist as Resist without the slow, and it breaks up vision. It's not like they are already re-chambering on their screen before the heavy even gets hit, right? Or, it's not like if the heavy does stay to fight, that they have a pistol they can 1 bullet kill the heavy with at any range, right?

If we follow your suggestion, removing cloak entirely or making it useless for fighting purposes, what is left? A class with
- 10% less HP than other classes
- 40% less HP than an HA with activated shield
- No access to C4
- No access to shotguns
- No automatic weapons except SMGs and Scout Rifles
- Nothing unique except sniper rifles, EMP grenades, hacking ability, and to an extent the sensor tools

This would be an underpowered class. If not using a sniper rifle, any other class would be better and serve the same purpose without the drawbacks.

The HA resist shield protects from the instakill and provides the warning and opportunity you've complained about. Nothing more and nothing less.What happens afterwards is determined by skill and ain't a cheap fight as in killing unaware players before the network even tells them they are being shot at. The mechanics are unbiased and every class has its own unique strengths. Most if not all weapons in the game can "clientside" an opponent.

The cloak simply makes it harder to crutch on vision but the infiltrator is not immune to sound, general awareness, and motion sensing equipment. It's not like they're that hard to see either unless you play on the lowest graphical settings. If someone got the drop on you, you might learn from it and improve.

So, name one thing an Infiltrator can't do in this game? They even have limited AT capacities with the Hunter crossbow and explosive bolts (works for every class btw). They can snipe, they have automatic scout rifles and SMGs, high power revolvers and with the Tengu an automatic shotgun of some sort.
They litteraly are the jack of all trades class with invisibilty and no real counter.

Motion sensors? - Just crouch or use the implant that makes them invisible to them
IR sights? - They got changed so that they don't show cloakers (no implant to counter required)
Flashlights? - Work only on knife range and when close enough don't even show the cloaker properly
Higher settings? - The game isn't really optimized for modern hardware, and even with the setting it's completely hit and miss if they can be seen.

We could make a comparison to the counters for the other 4 classes:
- Get a gun and aim for the head

So you dont insult me by saying I am less skilled, you just rip my desire for all classes to be more or less equally viable solo out of context and tell me I have a skill issue if I want the Medic to solo tanks without interference. So now you add to ir by claiming I made a strawman!

No this is not a strawman. Also you say "just another strawman" which is rich coming from you since you've dodged giving actual arguments several times and telling others "this is just a skill issue" is quite literally a strawman by itself.

Personally I think you are the one with a skill issue if you protect the fire-from-cloak method. You once again dodge the issue with a half-argument, in this case by pitting an auto-shotgun LA against a resist-shield HA, while ignoring that the Infil has all his snipers and its SMG's that are easier to pull off than an auto-shotgun LA getting the drop on someone, and with less risks due to the cloak letting you dictate when and where and then reduce the chance of death by recloaking.

This is also once again a dodge because you are now ignoring the Medic class for example not having similar capabilities. No his teamwork capabilities do not make up for it.

Also you have to have read that I already claimed that I have little issue with cloakers because of how lazy the class is and people prefering to fire at easier targets than me, and that I can find and kill most cloakers with ease. That does not mean I cannot recognize how easy and powerful the class is compared to the rest.

So correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like you've at least moved past "does the cloak have a problem" and into the "what do we do about it."

I would not want to wreck the fun and playstyle of anyone. We do need some sore spots fixed so others can have fun too though.

I would not want to remove it entirely nor make it useless. Search previous posts of mine if you wish but for now let's just call that a strawman and move on from it.

Your list above doesn't seem to show a underpowered class. The 10% is one bullet. Engies and medics don't have an HA shield and the HA can't run it 24/7. The EMP is hands down the best grenade in the game, and you've got a plethora of one shot kill weapons, the hacking ability, and... free radar always! (want to see OP? Give that last one to any other class)

The class would be fine.

Not passing the straight face test here. To turn on a shield the class has to first have one. You want to pretend this so your point works. And they have to know there is a threat. Nobody is running around with a resist shield turned on all the time.

And the clientside thing. NOTHING clientsides like a OHK weapon.

Yes a carbine (for example) can clientside someone. You have to actually have a corner. Then know an opponent is around that corner and roughly where. And it has to be within the fast TTK range of your weapon. THEN you'll have a clientside *advantage*. This is where that shield you mention can actually come into play. Not against your OHK weapon. No. But against every other weapon there is time to get it up. The heavy is still likely to die but at least both players get to have a fun contest before it happens (reminder: "fun" is in the OP here)

The infiltrator does not need a corner or need to predict where a target they can't see is at They can "clientside" at will in the middle of an open field if they want. And it's OHK so no shield gets to come up. And if you're a bolter, any range is fine.

If you hit, the enemy skill is negated. The other player doesn't get to even try. not fun. See the difference?

We already know these things. We already have awareness. It is not enough.

You're trying to do the L2P thing again and throwing desperately silly things out there. You can't put your crosshairs on a sound man.

I think some cognitive dissonance keeps forcing that thought in. We want to blame the victim because it's plausible and in some cases true. So it's any easy alternative to the reality that the cloak is broken and has been. Infiltrators are indeed skating by in the game with great advantage. I'm sure that doesn't sit well with folks that wanted to chock it all up to their own skill.

Hey, Brutes... you highlighted the problem of not having a real counter against snipers... and you also mentioned special ammo... ...that somehow started an endless thought cycle in my head, i just couldn't get rid of over the last days, until i sudden came up with the following idea:

what, if you could switch to a very special ammo on certain (probably new) sidearms, available to all classes but infiltrators, LAs and maxes, that would reduce the mag size automatically to a very small amount (let's say 1 - 3 rounds?), enabling you to fire "PAIN FIELD darts", that do slowly damage over time, like the Pain Spire construct, denying sniper holes, vantage points, windows, etc. to the snipers for a period of a few minutes??? These darts could have the same characteristics as the recon darts, with only a much smaller area coverage in diameter, would disappear after time themselves, be destroyable and couldn't be spammed, because shooting one dart only replaces the last one, and darts shot by other players, overlapping fields, quit the older field immediately. I CAN imagine, this ammo could (will) be abused by troll squads (for ***** and giggles), denying smaller bases completely to everyone, but if the pain fields do affect THEMSELVES, too, that drawback could be also a disadvantage, because in reverse, the pain fields could again be countered by a new suit slot, let's call it "fire resistant coating", available to ALL classes BUT infiltrators, so, everyone that's uncomfortable with pain fields around capture points, could easily circumvent it and snipers could still get scared away from their eagle's nest 60 metres up the rock by a single dart shot, making their job much more difficult than actually...

I believe, the impact on actual gameplay could be lesser than the dozens of snipers, transforming whole hexes into point & click farming hell, and probably even add new, interesting ways (problems) of general area denial...

Good for you? Anyone?

I second that. Shouldn't have happened. Bought that crossbow with certs, AFTER the nerf, just to find out, why i got killed so f**cking many times by it with such an ease, and was shocked, how cheesy to use it is. It renders half the infil's weaponry obsolete! Considering, it can also be used by LAs, that damn thing is definitely still OP, even after the "nerf"! Getting nailed repeatedly from 80 metres uptree straight above you on Hossin is a daily annoyance for everyone below. It should better be removed and refunded asap, for the sake of all! Devs...? (...radio silence...)

Totally disagreed, 'cause your arguments are all totally off:

1. Every player of every class flanks, not only infiltrators, and considering, as sniper you want to reach the flanking position before the fight's over, or enemy's directing fire suppression onto that position, you often have to RUSH there in time, before that happens, thus sacrificing deep cloak, when running, jumping, and experienced players catch up cloakers by plain eyesight with ease anyway, even more NSOs, which cloak is totally broken, so a "minimum risk" it definitely isn't! Even during non-prime time i often got shelled by tank grenades even BEFORE i was able to reach vantage points, as soon as i was in LOS of tanks or enemy snipers, sometimes even when i tried to sneak up there with utmost caution! "Minimal risk"??? On what moon server do you play? Gimme a hint. I want to join the same one. Sure, it wasn't VR???
2. If it's just for 1 or maybe 2 quick, consecutive kills - well, that's possible. But with the mentioned guns??? Serious? I like the Spectre and the 99SV, really - though i have to confess, they're not really reliable, considering a double-tap HS is needed to get a kill, and most good players - and that means, the majority, since most are BR 100+ - are ADADing CONSTANTLY anyway, while clientside, input lag and sometimes unstable internet connection averts you to shoot lagless, so many engagements simply fail, because the target leaves your LOS dancing the ADAD wounded, but laughing... Shooting targets only 20 - 30 metres away might function, despite the fact that even a 6x standard scope on both guns force you to tunnel-vision, while others probably see and shoot you. However, that's a one-trick-pony, even against average players, since the deathcam was introduced, so after your first kills your death is an inevitable fact if you don't abandon your flanking position asap, if you don't want a brick of C4 as surprise gift from above, or just a simple HS form another "easy-mode flanking position". But if you just meant sniping unaware NOOBS only from medium distance, on almost deserted continents during non-prime time, when they don't have the support and guidance of better players - yes, that's certainly easy to achieve everyday. I just hope, that's not your favourite style of gameplay...
3. Thank you for sharing your all-embracing wisdom with us, clarifying us all the very basics of sniping in PS2. Weird is only, you somehow totally forgot to tell us, we should better recloak after the shot... I assume you just forgot it, 'cause otherwise it wouldn't be no more "easy mode", yes? I dare to state, most of your victims are clueless BR20s, when you say, you get repeatedly killstreaks on "flanking positions" that usually last usable only a minute at maximum. (read above)

Does it requires more or the same amount of skill as an HeavyAssault for example ? YES! - Equip a LMG of your choice, Resist Shield, Nanomesh Armor, Nanomesh Specialist, and Mobility Mesh, and "Voilá!" - press F to win pre-fight and you wipe the floor with over 80% of all Infiltrators that you encounter! It requires really A LOT OF SKILL even for the remaining, more experienced cloakers, to get the drop on them and kill an adequate equipped, average HA in a 1 vs 1 - that's fact! ...and you really worry about the majority of subpar infil snipers, that do not nearly have enough impact on the objective gameplay - in the end, the only aspect, that matters - while the majority of super-powered HAs, supported by CMs, LAs, MAX/Engi-combos, capture and hold points and conquer base after base, mostly unaffected by the majority of snipers? Really???
Should it stay in the game ? The answer is obvious: Yes! - Read here why, sonnyboy:
I confess, the snipers ARE in fact annoying, right, but just because so MANY planetman play infils, and that's just because of the fact, that after EVERY spawn into a new hex immediately hell breaks loose, because of the sunderer blowing up the same moment they arrive, a delivery of pizza or C4 kills them instantly, while about 20 tankshells, synced by a bunch of Dalton grenades raze the ground plane, where the next harasser takes care of the sole survivor, roadkilling him, while at least a handful of A2G-ESFs support him contemporaneous! Many players just turn infil to have at least a CHANCE to get out of Hamburger Hill and into a position, WHERE THEY CAN DO AT LEAST ANYTHING, BEFORE THEY DIE TO VEHICLESIDE, at least kill a single enemy - probably. If you need to worry about something really serious, then it's tanks, libs, harassers, and the constant abuse of superior killing power with easy-cheesy cannons on almost undestroyable platforms, that can only be countered with a few selected weapons and by larger highly coordinated groups - something, the average player's doesn't have, and/or is not part of! So if you still want some noobish targets you can kill from your "easy mode"-flanking positions over and over, i suggest, you leave them ingame, many of them beeing noobish Infils, because they otherwise wouldn't last that long to even make it even into the FOV of your Spectre/99SV scope, where you wait for them on low-pop maps, okay?
If the "cancerous" Infiltrator class doesn't meet your personal "standards", annoying you sooo much, why don't you just leave the game? Thousands of others just like it, as it is - i believe most of them pilot tanks, libs, harassers, that like the fact, Infils generally have 100 HP less than any other class, and are even easier to kill, when they wait for prey in "easy-mode flanking positions"...
[sarcasm off]

Hmm... i agree to all you said about the cloaked vehicles. True. Period.

About Deep Operative... well... If there wasn't the problem, ultra-graphics players already have the advantage of spotting out cloaker a LOT easier than low-graphics players, the fact, that the NSO Infil's cloak is so broken it's almost useless without Deep Operative, and that cloak bugs are still happening daily, i really don't think, DO is OP. If the general graphic problems would be solved, though, DO would be obsolete. I agree, learning to sneak around the hard way, helps to improve cloakers, and the (non-NSO) standard cloak is viable enough, no DO crutch needed. Using DO for a few times, i experienced really HILARIOUS run-by situations, where the enemy not even stopped to take a second look for me! That's what I would call "easy-mode", and wrong in the hands of pro-stalkers, making them an almost uncounterable threat.

FYI - i don't main Stalker really, but compared to the other classes, relatively often play it...

This post is going to be a long one, so TL;DR: you guys are wrong.

I am going to preface this essay with the fact that just about every post I have made within the past year have been during a time when I couldn't even run the game. In fact, for the years I have been playing, I ran at such low FPS even on ultra potato graphics that I was always at a disadvantage, even when I should have been advantaged. That means for every single post I have ever made, I was just blowing air. I didn't have the fullest idea of how things worked, and I constantly doubted if I was actually right or not. Maybe I could have been wrong. Maybe Infiltrators are super OP and the plague of society.

Well, last week, I got a nice, high end computer. I run at 145-ish frames per second in big battles, and let me tell you, its so much easier to play at that than 15 FPS. You run so much more smoothly! Let me also tell you another thing: no, I wasn't wrong at all. I was right. Infiltrators are not OP. Wraith Flashes aren't OP. None of this crap that you guys are complaining about here is OP.

I usually played Infiltrator because I had to. With a low FPS, your weapons fire slower and the game is clunkier, so having the ability to cloak so I can get behind people, even though I still died most of the time, or being able to be at range, was a playstyle I really liked. However, now I am opened up to many more classes and playstyles. I have thoroughly enjoyed Light Assault and Medic, and they are what I have mostly been playing. I still play Infiltrator, but not as much as I have been playing LA. As an LA, I felt OP. Infiltrators would sit there and camp a doorway, and all I had to do was fly over to the roof and shoot them. Even the CQC bolters in close range couldn't really kill me. The thing is, you know exactly when they are gonna shoot. You know exactly what they are gonna do. All you have to do is jump when they go to shoot and they will hit you in the legs or the body or not at all. And when you are an LA, you can literally just use your DEFAULT JETPACK and fly into the air while shooting at them, and what are they gonna do? Die.

In fact, almost every single time I died to an Infiltrator, it was because either had multiple people shooting at me, either in a biolab fight where we were outpopped and being camped on or just in a big fight, or when I had just beat one dude and then the Infiltrator comes up and finishes me. Those were ALMOST the only times. My worst threat was literally a Stalker who was on like a 9 person kill streak, but I ended that quickly. I haven't bought a Darklight before, so I just watched to kill cam, respawned, threw an EMP grenade at him, and finished him. If the NS-45 Pilot wasn't so silent with a suppressor on, I wouldn't have died to him without knowing I was being shot by someone behind me twice.

But every other Infiltrator, be it a sniper or SMG, didn't really stand a chance. If they were infront of me, they just died. If the SMG Infiltrators had any range on them, they couldn't do enough damage to me. I'd outshoot them. If it was a sniper, all I had to do was swerve when they were getting ready to shoot on my screen or just jump, and they wouldn't insta-kill me. And if they were still in cloak, they were automatically dead. They couldn't decloak and kill me fast enough. Even my little brother, who gets literally 40 FPS, didn't have a problem with Infiltrators. He said, "Lol, they are so easy." I am constantly talking about the idiocy I see on the forums and annoying him with it, so when he got to playing again on a halfway decent computer, he had no issues at all.

Then people are complaining about cloaked Flashes. Y'know what I did during this past week? I listened to the game! If I heard a Flash but didn't see a Flash, I said "Oop. We got an Infiltrator." Then y'know what I did? I waited for him to show himself. For the past week that I have played, I have died to maybe 3 different Flashes, and 2 of them weren't even Infiltrators. And the only reason I died to the Flash Duo was because I was an LA going after the Chimera who was trying to blow up our Sundy. If anything is OP, its that thing. We couldn't finish it. We just deterred it for a little bit, until it came back like 4 times. Seriously, that thing is a force to be reckoned with. Anyways, the thing that all of those Flashes had in common was that they were Renegade Flashes. They weren't roadkilling people while cloaked, as only one of them had a cloak. He always used it to get away. The other dude was using turbo! And I had to tell my fellow blueberries to wait on the hill since they keep doing the same exact thing, and then shoot at them like that. Even when the 2 Flashes switched loadouts, they couldn't beat our sundy, not until the Chimera kept coming back. It was silly!

Even if you want to regard the Renegade Flash as OP, which I can understand, shouldn't it be so? It would obviously feel that way against Infantry, as that is exactly what its made for. To illustrate, just yesterday we were at an AMAZING big battle at the Ascent, and there was this annoying TR Harasser main who was just camping INSIDE A TUNNEL with his Kobalt Harasser. That thing wiped most of our team, but I am not an idiot two times in a row, so I didn't overexert myself the next times I saw him, and I ended up being the one to take him down. Then he came back again and again, and I kept using the same strat to deal heavy damage to him, and it went pretty well. The Kobalt feels really OP against Infantry, but thats exactly what it is supposed to feel like. Its made specifically to take them and only them down.

Basically, the point of this post, everything being considered, is that you guys are wrong about Infiltrators. You just need to adapt your playstyle. For most of this post, this was me playing a mix of Light Assault and Combat Medic. The only time in this story that I was an Infiltrator fighting Infiltrators was against the Stalker. If you play your cards right, you won't get insta-killed by everyone. I don't care how long you have been playing if you haven't learned anything in that time. I don't care how good you think you are due to the length of time you have been playing. All you have to do is take into account what you are doing wrong. All you have to do is listen to the sounds of what is going to kill you, the footsteps of someone outside a building, the wet noodle blurt of a cloak, the engine of a Flash that you don't see, and then react accordingly to it. All you have to do is think for 2 seconds about what an Infiltrator does to you every single time they snipe you in the face or stab you in the back, and then make your move. If an Infiltrator is within 35 meters of you, you should already know, save for it being a Stalker. If they are in your general vicinity, you should know. Don't fall for a trap! Don't get insta-killed before you can see them. C'mon now! You are supposed to be better than that, as you so believe.

Therefore, in conclusion, stop complaining and proceeding to tear me apart for my findings. Thank you.

I dont think its going to solve the problem.

If its hard to find and destroy then it will wreak havoc on any fight. Fire it at whatever cover or building your enemies are holed up in and you can deny them the best pieces of cover. Better yet is that the dart will be facing you and facing away from the opposition, making it easy for you to clear when you approach but hard for the enemy to remove.
In the meantime unless you are watching the sniperspot you are trying to deny, its much easier for infils to find and remove them. Besides that just about any piece of rock more than 40m away from the opposition is viable as a sniperspot.

I would think that tracer bullets with darklight capability would be superior to at least tracking them down. Also recon equipment would be ideal in tracking them down, but only the Infil has receiced recon equipment. That should change. Other classes should have recon equipment and a basic way to know infils are in the area before they are killed or have to spot a distortion. And "get a good monitor and graphics setting" is never a good solution.

Taking the effort to read your post here and understand it as best I can. I would ask the same. The L2P items you mention have been refuted a few times already and I am not seeing anything added here.

You're pointing out rudimentary suggestions. Nobody needs to be told to listen. And nobody needs it said again and again. Do try to read the thread if you expect folks to read your page dump.

The part how when your framerate was crap you could crutch on the cloak. Yeah, that's doesn't really do anything to dispel the notion that people crutch on the cloak. I feel your reason here was legit but you did just basically confirm it can do that. Hope you can acknowledge this.

And how all the other classes seem so powerful once you tried them..... at the same time you moved to an acceptable computer?

So thanks I guess for your opinion. I do have a different one as you've probably seen. Any chance you'll actually challenge some of the assertions here?

Like the concept that when only one player gets to apply skill to an encounter then only one player is going to have fun? Any thoughts there? Any concerns about how the invisible play class intersects with the clientside nature of this particular game? Or more recent discussion on OHK weapons in clientside circumstances?

I'm fine with the subjective. Glad you subjectively find this to be tolerable. It is objectively broken though. It would be way more constructive to discuss what could be done about it.

A bit academic though. They aren't going to change it.

I made a TLDR for you

I did read this post. And I'm going to tell people to just listen. The cloak works best if they get the jump on you. I used to think that the cloak truly could dictate engagements, but thats only if you are dumb enough to blindly run towards them after they have cloaked for an escape. Thats only if you didn't hear them cloak 12 seconds ago and they are probably running towards you. Thats only if you didn't see that there is recon on the map that isn't your allies. Thats only if you aren't paying attention to EVERY THREAT, not just the ones who you perceive are the biggest threat to you. Also, what does L2P mean?

And I wasn't saying that I could crutch on the cloak. I was saying that I couldn't. I could crutch on the INFILTRATOR. It wasn't solely the cloak that allowed me to get even a single kill. It was the fact that I could use it at a range where my firerate wouldn't matter, at long range, where I just need to snipe someone who isn't paying attention, or someone who is currently fighting someone else. I could either do that, or use the class to wait somewhere for someone to run by and shoot them. The thing is, because of my framerate, I still couldn't do it, and now that I am able to have a higher framerate, I find that I can't dictate when an engagement begins. I can almost dictate when it ends if I run away early enough and swerve, but not really when it begins, because y'know, people can actually see me despite me being cloaked.

Yes, I do think the other classes are more powerful, but because of the computer or because of how they played with my previous experience and framerate combined. I truly mean against Infiltrators. I found that there needs to be pretty exact circumstances for an Infiltrator to have any advantage, because if they dont finish you within the mag or in a few shots of a bolt action or semi, they are dead. If they need to cloak to get away, they are dead, at least for me, but when I play as an Infiltrator, I probably have a 20% higher survival and escape chance than most every other Infiltrator I fight.

And yeah, I can counter those challenges, but I don't really see the need if you just listen to me.

"Like the concept that when only one player gets to apply skill to an encounter then only one player is going to have fun?"

I have plenty of fun killing Infiltrators now. They aren't a big threat if you pay attention to them more than the other classes, if you watch for any sign that an Infiltrator is in the area. Its not about "skill." Skill in video games is such a dumb use of the word. Honestly, its just a dumb word. Skill amounts of knowledge, experience, and the application of it. It amounts to wisdom. If you have the knowledge of how the game works and how the players in it function, good for you, but it means nothing if you don't use it. Experience is good, but not if it doesn't teach you something. So if a newer player is taught what an older player knows, they wouldn't ragequit immediately, which is just a dumb gaming culture move. We'd have more, better players, if us vets built better players, then this issue of "skill" wouldn't be a problem. I guess you could say that a more skillful option is the one that is harder to use, if you want to amount it to that. But if you are insinuating that Infiltrators aren't skilled gameplay because they are easy, I guess it looks easy if someone repeatedly kills you or you, a skilled player, repeatedly kill players of lower skill. But really, it just amounts to wisdom.

"Any concerns about how the invisible play class intersects with the clientside nature of this particular game? Or more recent discussion on OHK weapons in clientside circumstances?"

You won't get caught by these things if you don't put yourself into a circumstance where you will be a victim of it. We discussed how this works, right? If you get killed before they decloak on your screen, that means on their screen, you were moving in a straight line, moving slowly, standing still, or something along that line, so their reaction between their own decloak and killing you on their side was fast enough that the server hadn't registered the decloak, but you are already dead. You have to avoid being already dead. Avoid a threat that you can't see. You guys probably think thats impossible, but no, no its not. And you do it without realizing it. You don't realize how many times a sniper is staring at you and decides not to shoot you because you are moving too erratically at the time. Its when you get lulled into a false sense of security that you decide to just run in a straight line, and thats when you get killed. Its when you are blinded by a control point or a vehicle that you decide to move straight towards it, while unbeknownst to you, an Infiltrator is about to kill you since you are running literally straight towards him. Therefore, don't do that.

Every class other than Engineer has a counter built into it. Medics can keep up sustained fights. Heavy Assaults can take more damage. Light Assaults can fly to avoid a few shots, or at least a fatal one. Engineer's abilities to place down a turret or spitfire won't really help you if you are in a head to head battle with an Infiltrator, but it REALLY helps if you know one is coming and need a tiny bit of cover. But every other class can deal with an Infiltrator getting too close too fast.

So basically what I am saying is, don't die on their screen. Move on their screen, not yours. Act and react on their screen not yours. Get ahead of yourself. Humans don't do that well with reaction, but they do much better with prediction. So don't wait until something is going to kill you before you make your move. Don't try to focus on reacting to a decloak or an Infiltrator popping out. Anticipate it.

Well your examples are about cloakers that fail to use their strengths. Like a cloaker who is positioned where an LA can easily reach him unseen and without using their recon equipment to notice the LA and either engage from a more favorable position or simply relocate.
Which is exactly my point: cloaking is so easy that players become lazy.

It also ignores the premise. You already know the cloaker is there before you get to them, so the cloaker has already used his fire-on-decloak capabilities on someone else. Just because you can catch that cloaker after the fact does not undo the damage he's already done.

Cloakers are an easy class to be powerful with, even for noobs. And that power is what we are talking about. Not how easy you can kill a noob or lazy player after they revealed themselves.

Hell, your story is basically an admission of its power. It was the only class you could play when you were on a bad PC and you thought about the infil being that powerful. So the question is: if its so easy for you to counter infiltrators now, why didnt this stop you when you were crutching it on your bad PC.