This is a weak argument considering how I've been talking about the cloak indoors, where almost every important objective is located. Also, how do you know what the range is where you start rendering? Yes, it's consistent, but I can also assure you that it you won't be able to abuse it for anything but sniping and approaching bases unharmed. Is that your idea of the ideal stealth class? Someone who can get outside of a building without being seen, who has no hope of moving inside of it undetected? I don't argue that the shotgun would be overpowered, I argue that it wouldn't be necessary. More killing power is the last thing this class needs. It's a waste of development time that amounts to tossing shiny new guns into a bottomless, empty pit. In this metaphor, the emptiness represents our class's blatant lack of purpose. Are you even paying attention? We're not talking about the tanks. We stopped talking about the tanks at "That doesn't happen often enough to balance an entire class around it". If you guys want to continue talking about the tanks, try answering that first rather than assuming we're making up new arguments to something we already answered.
I'm heading off for the night. I'll check again in a few weeks, see if any progress has been made. Have fun.
I mentioned before that I am in support of our class getting some more purpose. Right now what I would like to see is bug fixes, spot bonus for the infiltrator dart, and being able to hack unoccupied vehicles to start. The last one is optional. More purpose is completely welcome but some people make us out to be completely and totally broken/useless. This I don't agree with. I think we can use a few tweaks whereas others ask for completely overhauls. You stopped talking about tanks at "It doesn't happen often enough to balance the class around it." You keep taking the individual things that make us decent and isolating them in order to make your point. I have used tracer darts to good effect, making people aware just as they were leaving that new enemies are approaching our objective. I have hacked turrets and put them to use against the opponents team or denying them to be used on our own. I've hacked vehicle terminals and pulled sunderers or tanks into the enemies base or allowed my team to enter them and switch to Max units/whatever and storm up taking the objective above. Finally yes our cloak being useful in getting to a base is.. pretty useful. Tracer darts allow us to maneuver in the base without being seen when cautious and minimizes the influence of luck. Furthermore our cloak allows us to get out of spot when we are noticed. We still have proximity mines/bouncing betties/claymore to add on top of that utility. While we're not the only class with them it's another tool in our belt. I also employ Nano Armor Cloak which I prefer over hunter cloak which HAS enabled me to take enough hits to survive that I wouldn't have otherwise. Thanks to my tools I have both held, helped held, and taken objectives. I have broke enemy lines. Denied the ability to use turrets for anti air/ground. Denied the ability for them to reinforce themselves with armor and more. Also if our cloak does not influence stealth at all explain why I am more effective at killing and holding/capturing objectives on my infiltrator than I am on my light assault? There's been noticeable improvement ever since I switched over to infiltrator. Both in close quarters and longer range. I consistently flank enemies a lot more on my infiltrator. Either for some reason whenever I play infiltrator my luck goes through the roof or there's something else at work. P.S. I do not oppose of the idea to get stalker cloak.
I use my tools so that I don't have to rely on Hunter Stealth. I do this because they are always reliable. I know how my recon darts work - they'll tell me where to go to avoid lines of sight. I have those at rank 6. I carry two Proximity mines. They always explode. My hacking is also maxed out, because time is precious and even though some bases don't even have hacking objectives and many that do aren't in a state where I can abuse the objectives they do have, I still acknowledge the power of a hacked turret. And you don't? Please don't make me go back and compile a list of every argument I've made that you or Ztiller has completely ignored. I would rather concede this point to you than waste the rest of my night digging through archives just to have one or both of you dismiss everything I'd find in a matter of seconds. I don't know, maybe because you don't own a shotgun or a radar flash? I've said before that one's predisposition towards stealth is a psychological effect that comes from playing Infiltrator. You're playing the stealth class, so you should flank people, right? You'll do this whether your cloak is helping or not, and then you'll assume that the class and its tools were responsible. The truth of it is that Hunter Stealth prevents spotting and keeps distant enemies from interfering with whatever you're trying to do. When you're getting behind someone outdoors, this is actually somewhat powerful - they won't be watching their backs because there's a horizon dotted with allies in that direction. It is also, however, the exact limit that you should credit Hunter Stealth's effectiveness. Everything else is on you, and none of that is class specific. Neither of those things come into play indoors. An undeniably huge portion of this game takes place indoors.
Sometimes outdoors is important. I have used my stealth (which you admit is good outdoors) to pick off the light assault trying to destroy the sunderer. In fact, there's been times where I'll do just that. Kill anyone who attempts to destroy our deployed Sunderer. Sometimes I find that is the best use of my abilities especially in the more open areas. I try not to dismiss any of your arguments. I have also never mocked your arguments. I don't know about Z-tiller but I find you a really good player and rather intelligent. We clearly don't share the same views but you are well versed on the subject and do know what you're talking about. Personally I think you dislike my playstyle and want more options. Which again I support. I also support class tweaks but not overhauling. More options/things for us to do isn't needed for an overhaul. The thing is that it isn't just psychological. One of the reasons I succeed so well at Infiltrator as opposed to other classes is the tracer dart. It's also great to be able to go out in the open and get to a base (when a sunderer is deployed a bit away from a base say.. ti alloys) and not get gunned down by aircraft, tanks, etc because they're simply too far away to see me. This enables me to get in and actually do something useful. The ability to hack terminals I find great and even you acknowledge the power of a hacked turret. I will say this. I do not rely on the power of a turret to do damage. It is unreliable by itself. I think it's all our abilities that enable us to succeed in various situations. I also do enjoy picking off high priority targets. I do enjoy both indoor and outdoor fighting. I too have maxed out my tracer. I do feel it is easier for me to do things like pick off engineers/medics as opposed to other classes. I do believe killing such targets is useful. I have moved in from the open and came up a sunderer killing all the targets around it so the light assault can blow the thing up. Again, I don't try to dismiss your argument.
Bullcrap; the cloak is a unique mechanic allowing unique strategies. What's next? Are you going to ask for a revamp of the LA jetpack because LA's can blow up vehicles similar to the HA or Engineer? Of course not; that would be ridiculous. About as ridiculous as you sound here. This may be true and is the only valid thing you said.
Well, this is a welcome change. Ztiller thinks I'm bad because I'm not happy with the class (yeah, yeah, that's a simplification). It's been a while since someone has both disagreed with and still shown some semblance of civility towards me. I don't want an overhaul either. I just want something to do in all base types, a way to mess with enemy Sunderers, and a cloak that I can be absolutely certain is working when I use it correctly. Also, I dunno, that new revolver coming out next month. I want that too. Regarding the darts, I know they're powerful. I also really with that they hadn't become broken along with so much else in the latest patch. The thing is, though, they aren't class specific. A Flash does their job better in almost every single aspect except picking up cloaked Infiltrators. It'll even pick up people standing still, and honestly, it's not that tough to bring one everywhere you go even if that isn't necessary as an Infiltrator. ESFs can be equipped an even better radar too, although good luck hiding one somewhere safe. Killing, on the other hand, is not something we have ever been "the best" at. Killing at extremely long ranges, sure, but up close against an enemy Sunderer, you wish you were an LA or Engineer with the explosive power to detonate that thing yourself. It's good that our class is capable of killing other players, yes, but it's also the only class in the game without C4, and we suffer a total health disadvantage on top of that. I find even the killing of specific targets dubious. Most of the time, death is a slap on the wrist with no real repercussions behind it. You have to go out of your way to find a medic far enough away from a spawn location to be really important to his squad's sustainability, for instance. Even then, you'd probably wish you were a MAX if dead infantry were your only real objective. Most combat that occurs outside of a MAX unit's effective range is the playground of tanks.
My argument exists only with people who claim we're "useless." "Useless" and "Could use a few more touches" is a very very different argument. The latter I'm not fighting. Useless to me is a gross exaggeration. I can be useful. I feel useful a lot of the time but I have seen some people on these forums say "Infiltrators are useless." and that's what brought me to post on the forums in the first place. I've also learned from experience the best way to get any fixes, buffs, or additions to your class is for people to post well-reasoned arguments on both the short comings or things that would be really cool to add in. When you throw around useless (not accusing you) it doesn't really tell the devs what we need or want. It really comes off as whining (again not accusing you.). Right now as I said over and over. I want to see bug fixes to our darts, turret ejection, the visual stealth effect (when you first deploy), and maybe a few more things we can do inside bases. Maybe a new stealth for those who want a slower more "intel" type of play style.
I still don't get why you said what you did about luck, Rhyl. Really, I don't get how anyone at all can argue that. You cannot know whether it's safe to move, or even to not move and simply exist, in a given player's presence with the cloak we have now. Meanwhile, if you're not in the field of view, the cloak is doing nothing to help. None of the other classes work this way. Yeah, it's a skill test (or luck test, if you prefer) against every opponent whether you succeed at doing whatever you want to, but as an Infiltrator, your skill doesn't come into it. Nothing you do will make you less visible except stopping dead in your tracks, yet even that doesn't grant you complete invisibility. Your opponent has no such restriction - they always have a shot at seeing you, and most often they do. I've made huge and well-detailed posts in the past about all the reasons Hunter Stealth is poorly designed. From the fixed duration but movement-scaling visibility, to the always-imperfect visibility and weapons lock. Too many of its mechanics contradict each other, and it leads to situations where you get punished for something that was never your fault in the first place. I can say with confidence that Planetside 2 has the worst stealth mechanic I have ever experienced. I won't call it useless, but it's certainly not "okay" either. ...But you can have it, as long as you don't oppose something better being thrown my way. I'll give up nearly everything for it, even. Who needs a primary weapon or shields? I'd rather be invisible. Really invisible, that is.
oh right, Giraffe Camo it was, I knew Camel Camo didn't had the right ring, anyway... I find Ztiller's playstyle hard to take seriously, you need an enemy pack of headless chicken to run through. The fact that some members here will call it "using stealth to its fullest" is pretty jarring.
No, you really just need regular players. I'm absolutely positive that i could pull these maneuvers off just as well against the people here, despite how much they claim to be able to spot and kill enemy infiltrators hiding behind a mountain 3 km away.
I saw you run right through one heavy, uncloaked, and he didn't even try to shoot you in the back, I saw you run next to other players either uncloaked or cloaking right next to them, none tried to shoot in your direction. Headless chicken, all of them.
I don't feel that would have been the case, too bad we're not in the same server are we? Still I don't understand why would you speak about the merits of the cloak when your opponents don't seem to notice you while you're uncloaked or cloaking one step next to them.
