Infiltrators - when will you balance them?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by UberNoob1337101, Jun 6, 2022.

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  1. UberNoob1337101

    Topic has been done to death, but with the class more broken than ever and with no fix in sight, I feel like it's necessary to beat the dead horse one more time.

    Update after update they kept getting indirectly buffed for no reason, getting tons of weapons that they didn't need at all, and it has all culminated in a class that is invisible and kills you in half a second or less at any range.


    Bolters

    insanely strong at any range, and IMO needs a nerf in close range effectiveness. CQC bolters in particular are unfun to fight against and only add tons of cancer to the point that players rather push MAXes than bolters.


    Semi-auto snipers

    were balanced (i.e requiring good accuracy to get short TTK) until arsenal update massively overbuffed them. Now they're a 3-shot kill at every range, 2HK infils within 50m and attachments that fix half of their issues. You can wipe half a squad in seconds with semi-autos now.

    0.5 TTK without headshots at every range, 0.25 TTK vs other infils within 50m, just what? Why does a long range weapon have DPS on par with CQC weapons?


    SMG infils

    biggest cancer in the game, if you see one you're already dead, they have every advantage imaginable unless you use shotguns. At least before nanoweave got nerfed you needed to aim to get kills, now fights are flooded with invisible ****ters who just spray their massively OP no skill SMGs and print certs. SMGs should get nerf hammered into oblivion or outright removed from infiltrators. Whoever had the giga-brained idea to give high DPS laser beams to infils, shame on you.

    If you want maximum skill, Canis with Unstable Ammo is disgusting. Even brainlets can't **** up 1v1s with it.

    Don't believe me? I have ~40% accuracy on SMGs, and my accuracy typically sucks.


    Cortium bombs

    troll weapons that losers put in spawnrooms and so infils have anti-vehicle capability, try to remove one and you'll be killed 5 times over before it's defused. Remove them from the infiltrator or better yet, remove them from the game. Making crossbows deal AV damage comparable to AMRs is also laughable and makes infils the 3rd best AV class in the game, which is ridiculous.


    Wraith flashes

    go behind MBTs while smoking to brick them with Fury, roadkill planetmans and MAXes and spam 1-shot shotguns and be invisible, all for 50 nanites, fair and balanced.

    With Composite armor it can even get hit by a Decimator and Python AP and still live, what the heck? Infils will just continue to rack up easy kills by exiting the burning flash, and just pull another one 'cause they're basically free.


    Pilot

    0.34 TTK for a sidearm, fair and balanced. I thought infils weren't allowed to have shotgun level TTK, much less in their pocket?


    EMP grenades

    Thanos snap healhbars in half. And it's instant. And it has huge AoE. And it usually affects you through cover. I don't think it's possible to do more damage to big groups if you used anything else, and it's easily abusable in 1v1s. If you struggle to kill full health targets, this will make your job much easier.



    Now, let's do some math, if average reaction time is 200ms (higher if player isn't expecting damage), and most weapons have 0.5s TTK (less with headshots, even lower with certain weapons), that means you need to be a headshot god to even survive an encounter with an infil, and even then your HP will be very low.

    It's at a point where your skill barely matters in these encounters and it's entirely up to the infil shooting you - if he's bad you'll live, if he's good you'll die.


    And at least before, if you didn't have good accuracy, you'd be stuck with ~1s TTK versus most infantry, which meant quick death in most scenarios. It meant that you had to setup fights very well or else you'd die, you actually had to use cloak to set up favorable engagements to the fullest and actually sneak around, and have good accuracy. Currently, when almost every single one of your weapons kills within half a second with bodyshots only, it has driven the skill floor to rock bottom where you just run and gun with invisibility and broken weapons.


    If you run suppressors (now have barely any downsides) and Sensor shield, you cannot be detected on the minimap at all, making stealth trivial.


    But this is all from a non-infil POV, right? Wrong. I've played this class for hundreds of hours over the years and it's completely broken now.

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    Just look at this ****. I'm not even playing passively, not even putting in much effort, constantly rushing opponents with my .4 seconds TTK firearm and barely headshotting too, and going on insane, consistent killstreaks within a short timeframe. If you take a close look, you'll notice that almost all my deaths are, surprise surprise, other infiltrators with CQC weapons no less.

    Feel free to check out my stats too, esp on the snipers where I have ~2KPM. I'm not a great player by any means, but my stats with infiltrator are busted - apparently I have some of the worst HSR and mediocre accuracy, but have spectacular KPM and good K/D on infil weapons, even playing as a dribbler I go on absurd killstreaks. Point being that you don't have to be good at the game in order to do insanely well as an infil and have incredible game impact as a free class.

    With S12 Renegade Wraith flashes I feel I could've easily had 30+ killstreaks.

    If you want to check my infil stats - here's my account.


    And it's not like I'm not having game impact - it's easy to completely dominate small-mid sized fights just by playing infil :

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    These are actual, real situations in-game, not random farming in the middle of the field, not farming some low BRs just spawning out of the sunderer, actual point clears and base holds with infil and some randoms.

    It's my second most played class and for good reason too, it's completely broken.


    Now, the solution :

    Add back scope sway to CQC bolters and increase accuracy penalty while moving, so you need to stand still and not bumrush enemies with OHK guns. Y'know, SNIPE instead of running up to players to OHK them.

    Snipers lose access to ballistics computers and weighted receivers, no more running and gunning with DMRs.

    SMGs all drop a damage tier, get massive HSR reduction and CoF bloom nerfs or get removed from infiltrators. You'd still have full-auto scout rifles, and you need to be actually good at the game to use them.

    Cortium bombs get removed from infiltrators.

    Sensor shield gets removed from the game or nerfed. Infils need some consistent way of getting detected that isn't an obvious flashlight on a secondary, and sensor equipment working would be great.

    IRNV optics should highlight infils. Again, some way of detection at close range that isn't a blatantly obvious flashlight.

    Darklights should drain ability energy from infiltrators, making escape more difficult.

    Pilot gets a nerf. 0.34s TTK for a sidearm, I mean really? Makes Commissioner look like a little toy.

    Give actual downsides to suppressors, -15% velocity is a joke, especially when before snipers would have a -50% velocity penalty, actually encouraging you to get close and personal in order to stealth to your fullest.

    EMP grenades aren't instant anymore or the instant version becomes much weaker. Now you'll need good timing to make use of it's powerful effect.


    Effectively, raise the skill floor so it's not a free ticket to a killstreak, but require actual thought and aim to play i.e HOW IT USED TO BE.


    And a few buffs :

    Revert the OHK knife nerf, but equalize the sound of OHK knives between factions.

    Hacking needs to become more relevant, and vehicle hacking like in PS1 would be appreciated. I'm not against infils having AV, but giving them mini nukes isn't the solution, and something related to hacking and sabotage makes a lot more sense for the class than dropping tactical nukes that can easily be camped.

    Stalker infil needs to be more practical, right now it's a massive noob trap that reduces your killing potential for potentially infinite cloak, which is weak.

    Remove the death cam above a certain BR, it's only used by petty players looking for revenge.



    The "L2P" ""advice""

    It stuns me not only how tons of infil mains don't see the class as OP, but actively say it's the worst in the game. The generic L2P advice they give is also completely baffling, like "don't stand still", "crouch move when near sensors" bruh it isn't 2013 anymore, what vet do you see standing still?

    What next? I can't believe I've made the classic mistake of playing Planetside 2? I've made another classic mistake of logging in and playing as infantry, SMH.
    • Up x 5
  2. Demigan

    Isnt the biggest problem here that Infils can decloak and lay those weapons into you so fast? So instead of that huge list of changes wouldnt it be easier to just alter the length of decloak?

    As for the infil players who defend it and say the cloak barely works, why is it that every single cloaker makes excessive use of cloak before and after a fight? I mean if its so useless why would you even subject yourself to the decloak time right? Unless... it gives you an advantage.
    • Up x 6
  3. UberNoob1337101



    Tweaking decloak time would be decent, problem is that it doesn't equally and specifically affect each weapon, for example 0.1 second decloak is inconsequential to SMGs and fast firing weapons, but potentially crippling for a high damage DMR or BASR and some pistols, unless the decloak time changes based on weapon or cloak... which is a really good idea actually. Would give more nuance and balancing between underpowered stalker cloak and much more powerful hunter/nano armor cloakers. I like the idea.

    Making sure infils have to use cloak more creatively instead of a simple 200ms advantage over players would solve a lot.
    • Up x 1
  4. Somentine

    Just going to chime in and say that Stalker is not UP. It is more difficult to get the higher KPM that comes with having a mainhand, but the ability to stay functionally invisible and choose targets with the (as even you admitted) strong af secondaries (and LOL 500 damage instant quick knife, which is equivalent to the average maximum EMP damage) makes them absolutely brainless.

    https://ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=mehtr0x&show=weapons

    This dude, for example, is absolute cancer to fight against. In order to reliably kill them you have to be playing Infil yourself and bait teammates to get them to show themselves. The dude isn't even that good at aiming, but BR ping + clientside + permanent invisibility = trash gameplay with effectively no counters.
    • Up x 3
  5. AuricStarSand

    Because of " Invis rant " threads I now have to push my cloaking button TWICE just to decloak once, after uncloaking. I have to spam hit it, just to start cloaking when it should immediately cloak, after a decloak.

    Thanks invis threads or qcq bolters for ruining it for pistol mains. Nothing else more to say. Other than SMG infils are easy to fight or rare to see anyways. Tho the sniper stuff has always a debate. Still I'm not going on killstreaks with pistol, knife, or smg that often, quite average a few kills here or there nothing outstanding. & I'm the best front line Infil for my server, so.. As I notice who is also a front line Infil, it's pretty obvious, most people aren't.

    Tho sniper stuff isn't my forte' so laters.

    & Ye I still want REAL ASP SKILLS for Infil, tons of new pistols, ammo types, given all the new utility mines, make the new mines cost 50 nanites & not 75, as a flash mine barely scores 1 kill, & Yes I want 100 new ability skills for my Infil class as a Infill class main, so simplifying the Infil in anyway will make me play this game less. I want trip wire, dodges, rolls, new knife skills, a wrist energy shield, 2nd tactical slot, 3rd implant slot, new sneaky abilities, & so on. To evolve the entertainment of a front line infil. All Yes. More the merrier.
  6. That_One_Kane_Guy

    Just going to point out that posting stats that are explicitly in the top ~0.05%-2% and pretending like that applies to the typical player is about as disingenuous as it gets when it comes to making an argument. In fact it quite explicitly indicates that those kind of statistics are anything but representative of average. It isn't as though they're some sort of outlier for you either -your LA with Carbines puts up similar numbers. So claiming to be achieving these kind of results while "not being good at the game" doesn't pass the sniff test.

    I'm a little puzzled by some of your change recommendations. Not necessarily opposed to these, I just question whether they are going to accomplish what you think they will.
    1. Adding back scope to CQB snipers is effectively do-nothing, since you aren't spending a great deal of time ADS'd with these weapons.
    2. Moving ACC penalties for bolt actions is already significantly greater than other weapons, meaning any headshots you land while shifting around are either luck or a result of being so close to the target it effectively doesn't matter.
    3. Maybe it's a server thing, but running and gunning DMRs is something I have literally never seen. Also triple-tapping Planetmens is something (almost) every class has been able to do for a while now.
    4. Darklights aren't for countering Infils, they're for hunting Stalkers. If you've lit up a Stalker he's probably already dead, but if some reason he survives long enough to rabbit he's
    a. already draining his cloak, and
    b. probably not in your darklight beam anymore
    Again, I don't see how this change makes a big difference.

    Can't comment on SMGs, I don't use them often enough to have an opinion on their use. On the receiving end I mostly experience getting shot from behind and from close range, which as far as I'm concerned should be fatal the majority of the time regardless of the gun unless the other guy screws up.

    I would much rather have a limit to the amount of motion detection available in general, which is by far the greatest asset an Infil player brings to the table for his team, requires absolutely no skill at all except for remembering to use it, and can benefit an unlimited number of teammates immediately. This would limit the power of the SS while making everyone more stealthy in general.

    As long as it had a max range of ~25m or so I'd be fine with IRNV spotting infils. I've also suggested multiple times adding a laser sight with a darklight effect that had unlimited range, so long as you were aiming right at them.

    Commie kills with 1HS+1BS at 8m which is a whopping 0.01s more than your number for the Pilot, which is itself only achievable with a near-perfect burst at point blank range. Quite the toy you've got there. By this metric every starting pistol in the game is a monster. Exaggeration on this scale makes it very hard to take your claims at face value.

    The suppressor change I called out when it happened as being too good, but it's not as though it's some unique buff to Infils. Arguably LA's get more use out of it since their ability is quieter.

    EMP grenades got exactly this change last patch. One variant is instant with less radius, the other is delayed with the old range. Not sure if these recommendations were made in light of this or not.

    Again, make your case without pretending the class is a free ticket to wins and huge killstreaks requiring no thought and zero skill. This is demonstrably false and does your argument no favors.

    Knives reverting would be fine. don't use them personally but I can see they aren't worth it in their current state.
    Hacking being relevant at all outside of an occasional terminal would certainly be helpful, and would already do a lot to increase the usefulness of the average Stalker player. I don't really think Stalkers need a combat buff, though. The issue is that a genuinely skilled Stalker is incredibly rare, with the vast majority either making zero impact on a fight or getting killed while trying.

    I'd feel a lot more sympathetic to this point of view if I didn't regularly encounter players in fights perfectly willing to stand around barely taking evasive action while I double-headshot them with an AMR.


    I can't speak to anyone else, but I will frequently flicker the cloak after peeking to clear any potential doritoes, which gives the appearence of frequent use. Against a skilled player who knows you are there, it's better to simply peek and not bother with the cloak at all.
  7. OneShadowWarrior

    He nailed it in this post. In the first Planetside cloakers hacked stuff, vehicles, capture points, doors, they carried a boomer which was like c4 but you had to plant it to detonate it, they pretty much carried a pistol. Melee did not really exist. Sniper rifles were common pool used by heavy assault, medics, light assault. There were other variables you could be an advanced medic as a cloaker and revive people if you carried a medical applicator. We always had a counter to cloakers, the darklight implant.

    I been saying this for years the scout rifles and sniper rifle to a class that can cloak is way out of hand. If they can carry such weapons and that includes submachineguns, they shouldn’t be able to cloak. Pistol carry only to cloak.

    The wraith should have unlimited cloaking when engaged but no weapons on it are allowed and if it tries to run people over it passes thru them like a wraith or ghost should.

    They’ve nerfed knives substantially. I have less issues with them then times past.
    • Up x 1
  8. BlackFox

    But we still have the Commissioner, Underboss and Pilot - stuff that kills as fast as those rifles do
  9. JibbaJabba

    This. This is THE problem with the cloak.

    It triggers the "fairness" psychological reaction in humans and causes frustration. This does not occur when losing a fair contest. It is OBJECTIVELY not fun for one of the players.

    We cannot control clientside but the game must be designed with knowledge that it exists. Cloak design decisions do not take clientside into account at all. As a result players can decloak, fire, and kill another player before that player can actually take action. A terrible situation in game design. Terrible.

    It's a problem that has festered for a decade unmitigated. Who knows what the revenue loss has been.
    • Up x 1
  10. That_One_Kane_Guy

    As a ballpark guess? Almost none. With certainly it's less than people pretend.
  11. BlackFox

    March 2020 : 10.352 peak players
    May : 6.535 players (34.88 % drop)
    September : 4.615 players (average player count over the years)

    Of course those aren't all driven away by infiltrators, but the potential purchase power lost from people not sticking around is probably very high
  12. Somentine

    I can see Infils being a reason, among many, or even the straw to break the camel's back, but I doubt more than a very minor amount quit almost purely because of Infils.
  13. JibbaJabba

    It's in the top X list of **** that makes the game not fun for new players.: bugs, cloak, maxes, a2g, spawn camping zergs, etc..

    Impossible to measure, but also impossible that it hasn't impacted the game. Just festering problems left to rot for years. Some things are not preventable. This is.
    • Up x 3
  14. Demigan

    I don't see how it's that binary?

    A DMR or BASR wouldn't be used in such close proximity that it matters. In the cases it does the weapon shouldn't be used for that range except as emergency.

    Let's say the decloak takes 2 seconds flat. If you come out of a flanking position this can still give you a solid advantage but it won't let you run face-first into someone and hose them down.
    Cloak would then be used as a tool to get around, as it should. Get on the flanks and rear, decloak, fight enemies, cloak to make your escape (only decloak is slower). You can give Infils their lost health back since they would function more like LA's and be visible when starting an attack most of the time.

    It also makes snipers less of a sudden-death machine. A Sniper can no longer line up a shot with ease and without fear of being spotted prematurely, then decloak and fire in a quick motion. Instead the Sniper will have to find a spot where he wont be as visible to make sure they arent spotted too soon.
    • Up x 2
  15. That_One_Kane_Guy

    Ignoring the fact that the giant flying battleships farming every fight for the first few months might have had something to do with it, this would be the population trend following every major patch. Using this as a soapbox for someone to attack their personal pet peeve is laughably transparent.

    Bingo. More commonly I see rage from people who get turned on and deleted by someone they could see the whole time than some infil who in all likelihood would have killed them cloak or no.
  16. Unlimited

    You claim they got indirectly buffed for no reason while also not saying what you are even talking about.

    CQC Bolters are indeed very powerful and about the only thing i can actually agree with you here, HOWEVER they are also fairly difficult to play. It is high risk high reward. Though i can certainly understand the frustration of going against a really good cqc bolter who just always seems to nail your head.

    Really? Semi Autos Snipers are the Bane of you? The amount of times i've seen Semi Auto Sniper Players i can count on two hands. Overbuffed them? They where laughably bad before and their TTK is literally the same since 2018 excluding other infils.

    No... just no... like you say "Don't say L2P it doesn't count" yet you give every excuse for it.
    Pitch a Infil and a Heavy with equal skill against eachother and the Heavy will win 70% of the time reguardless of the circumstance.

    Again... really? Cortium Bombs? If i see you die to a Cortium bomb that an enemy placed in the spawn room i will v6 your corpse right then and there. Also the double wammy the crossbow? It's a secondary. Literally every class has access to it

    If your MBT dies to a Fury flash and the Flash isn't instantly blown up by the Teammates you should be with then thats on you.

    It's a burst fire weapon, that time is very very theoretical and it is also for point blank, it's also once again a secondary. Did you ever actually use the thing?

    They literally just got nerfed. And if you try to use it in a 1v1 you will be dead before you even switch back to your weapon.
    Like seriously now you're just vomiting bile on everything and everyone just because you've been scorned one to many times.



    No.

    Are you out of your mind?

    No

    Are you out of your mind?

    Thats fair. Generally i would say darklights should be more reliable and less of a liability over literally any other option.

    The Pilot is good... it's not that good. If you look at it from purely stats wise sure but in reality it falls in line with other sidearms. If it bothers you so much, sure whatever.

    Turn on your headphones....
    -15% is already noticably plenty but sure if you dont think thats enough. Just to clearify you do realise what -50% would do right?
    This is so absurd that my previous "Are you out of your mind" doesn't even cut it.

    Seriously EMP gernades?
  17. Sumowning

    Another day, another person whining about infiltrators. SMH.

    Why is it always that whenever somebody complains about infils, they get a reply of "L2P"? Ever wonder about that. Maybe, just maybe. They need to actually learn to counter them. There's a reason as to why Souls-like game are known to be unforgiving, and why you get told to L2P in those games. Because the mechanics may seem unfair at first because ya still haven't figured out how to beat the damn thing. Same logic applies here.

    See this guy? At least this wet noodle of a player admits to just not wanting to put in the effort:

    (Seems like screenshots really don't want to be added in replies)
    Summery of screenshot: Dude being toxic, whines about getting killed by infils, admits to the sheer fact he isn't good and just cannot be bothered with them.

    It's the equivalent of going out of a spawn, getting mowed down by a engi turret 6 times in a row and complaining they're OP.
    Or charging into a Heavy Assault face first expecting things to go well for you..
  18. Somentine

    What I find funny is how people resort to 'explaining' 'how to play' to players who are provably far better than them.
    • Up x 3
  19. JibbaJabba

    Don't try it.

    If you're still using the L2P argument to excuse the broken cloak then it's you that needs to L2P.
    • Up x 1
  20. JibbaJabba

    Exactly.
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