Anyone who has tried to play the short range infiltraitor is going to find out a few things very quickly. 1. Cloak is terrible in close quarters to the extent that it does not actually hide you well at all, makes a very easy to identify and place noise (Which, honestly, I am perfectly alright with.) And most frusterating, will get you killed when someone sees you and you need to waste time de-cloaking before you can fire a round off with poorly optimized close range weapons. 2. That of the weapons available both of them are incredibly poor. The semi-auto rifles have a slower rate of fire then the battle rifle pedaled to the engineer and Heavy, and those are still poor guns to use as is. Combined with yawn-worthy damage and you'll find that if you don't peg some light assault in the head when you turn a corner, you'll just get mowed down with his spiffy carbine. Wait, we have auto-magical firing weapons too! The scout rifle! WELL. The only thing magical about these guns are the way they will make you die. 25 bullets from a medicore damage gun that you need to land all your shots to kill, and so help you if you run into a heavy with shields, isn't doing anyone any good. The handling on it feels right, the damage is just pathetic...and seriously, 25 rounds? I've had more success with the manticore pistol. Also, with the semi auto, the gun actually fires to the left and down more then straight as is...not sure if that's how it is for other people. This thread spells out alot of good points. However, it's a touch aggressive. And, it leaves out a vital part, I feel, about how this class is not meeting it's goals. As a sniper, the class is very well off. I feel that the only sniper rifle worth shooting is the v10 if you are Vanu, l80, if NC and so on. The bullet speed in general in this game I find is laughable but with this rifles it's managable. The guns themselves are fairly deadly in the hand of a well trained sniper and with some coordination with a squad you can do some very neat things as you cover your allies and spot for them. The Recon tool needs some tweaking. The thing feels useless, to me as a sniper, due to me being so far away the damn thing is hard to land where you need it to be. The life-span of it is so short, and with only two shots, I'm usually wondering if we can't get a buff on either the projectile speed and distance or something. Decoy grenades...sort of a let-down. What I would rather have is a rifle-grenade style sticky-grenade that transmits these noises so you can effectively shoot them from a distance and mess with the enemy team your allies are advancing on. Still, despite this, they do their job well, really, they do! It's when we get close that a few problems are evident... Infiltrator - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infiltrator This is a very different meaning then sniper. We hack turrets and consoles, we hack nothing else. Why can't we hack other things? Why can't a fully upgraded hacking tool steal vehicles/and/or/ sabotage the vehicles for a short time? Why don't we have c4 like every other class besides max and heavy? You'd think the cloaked troops would be hauling those things around 24/7 and seeking out sunderers (Which are still ridiculous. For the amount of armor they have, they are simply a nightmare to destroy despite having the ability to limitless pump troops out without a "wave" style re-spawn. Arguably, better then hard-spawn points.) to destroy them and cease one of the many troop producing units? Anti-personal mines are good. But how about a way to interact with armor? Plenty has been done to deal with air-craft. There are very few options to deal with tanks. Don't have rockets? No anti-tank turrets? No Fighter to rocket them from behind? Sucks to be you. In most cases, even having a rocket launcher isn't good enough since the main tanks can take four or five rockets. I think that the limited range of things to deal with tanks is a problem. Infiltratiors that can sneak into the tank lines and detonate a few would be a welcome and needed position in breaking the tank zerg that dominates this game harder then any "Air-rush" ever could. "But light assault has c4 blocks!" Good for them. They also have jet-packs and access to guns that are optimal for their job. They also have speed increases to sprinting and are a valuable addition to the game. They support a faster ambush style then heavy and can do some neat things. I still view them as under-powered in usefulness compared to classes with clearly defined roles that go beyond shooting. (Heavy: Anti armor heavy shielded anti personal infantry unit. Medic, light combat support, revival, medical aid, awesome healing grenades, engineer. Turrets, ammo, solid guns, mines. Don't even get me started on how it's BS engineers don't have an anti vehicle turret option anymore.) Infiltrator supports sniping and a very sub-par close combat style. Hacking is a joke in what it nets you. The cloak is awful, your options for style of play are against you as if the developers are scared to give the squishiest class perks to being the squishiest, and you are completely useless in an saturated light/heavy armor situation, and only slightly better off when pushing into a base to complete your hacking role. What we need to see is a buff to the weapons that are available for close range. More damage for the twenty five shot guns, more damage for the semi auto/or faster rate of fire, a better cloak system, C4, and better hack options are needed to make this class a fun and rewarding experience. Until then you're just playing a watered down light assault unless your popping heads from a distance. So please. A tweet, a comment, anything would be encouraging from you developers. ( P.S. Also, light assault needs a little more love. I vote an anti-personal breach-load nade launcher with emp/explosive/and anti-vehicle options. kthanxloveyoubye. )
That is a lot of opinions but I at least agree about close range infl being too weak. Especially with our scout rifles being what they are. Alternative cloak suits should probably be in order. Our nano-armor cloak thing is what some might argue is our close range cloak. But the recharge rate is so slow on it we lose our stealth for outside of combat situations generally speaking. And at that point why be on infl because of our close range weapons being such a handicap. What can we do? We can set claymores which is arguably more toxic for gameplay then making the infl's cloak or weapons effective at close range. And that not really a great feeling for an infl. The best feelings are when you get in the zone and you're a bit lucky and you go on a great spree. You can't get that off claymores you drop two you wait for two people to step on them that's it. And our EMP grenades... They go through walls and knock out our own shields so the nade that was suppose to let us even the playing floor for 1 room at least doesn't really work cause it knocks out your own shield when you use it on a building at close range.
Claymores are about as toxic in the small numbers we have, imo, as grenade spam is. However, the rest of your point is pretty much what I agree with. I just don't understand why the class is so under-developed currently asides from the sniping aspect. The sniping half is great. It's the close range that is utterly laughable. It's like they think that most of the battles are fought between organized heavy infantry forces and not, you know, massive armor spam followed by an uncoordinated and endless sea of bodies. A better cloak, some c4, these wouldn't hurt anything for close range.
Add in more default run AND sprint speed, as well as reduced cloak drain depending on how slow you are moving... And it will be significantly better. It'll still be far from perfect, but it will be far better than it is at the moment, if you ask me.
That was quite a long rant. Someone had alot to get off their chest I feel your pain. 2 words. SHOT.....GUN Inf had it during beta, but SOE screwed it up twice. First it was way way OP and everyone *****ed so hard (rightfully) that SOE got scared. They nerfed the shotgun and it was then balanced pretty well. But SOE already made up their mind to take it away from inf. A few weeks later, they churned out the scout rifles and made the second mistake by taking away the shotgun. Having a powerful CQC weapon was your reward for running your weak, poorly cloaked self across the field, through the base and up to within 5m of your target. All the while you're easy prey for any LA who happens to glance your way. Shotgun + C4 would really make the infiltrator be a viable combat unit.
Actually Heavy Assault can also use C4 on their utility slot. Infiltrator is the only class that doesn't get C4. At least MAX can equip 1 or 2 anti-vehicle weapons.
I bought the Nyx, figuring it would be a viable choice for CQC. I'm starting to regret spending SC on it. As Bags said, I have had far better results with the VS default sniper rifle. The Nyx just feels like it lacks enough power to be a viable choice for medium to short range combat, even 'assassination'. If I shoot someone in the back, they'll turn around and shoot me or round a corner, at which point the window is gone anyway. Unless I land two headshots, I suppose, but if I wanted to kill with headshots I'd be staying out of bases using a bolt-action rifle. As for the cloak, yeah, it's pretty unreliable. You might get lucky and get away with it, but you absolutely can't rely on it as a rule.
My list of wishes for CQC 1) allow attack from cloaked state, ofc do a decloak automatically, but let us land first shot from cloak 2) stop drain of cloak if you stand still, also slow drain of cloak if you are crouching 3) improve one of close reange weapons 4) allow use of C4, which would be our only way of dealing with armor in pretty personal way
