I think OHK head-shots would go a long way to solving the class problems. It would at least make the class SEEM like it has a niche. This update should be increasing mussel velocity on bolt-actions, better choices for weapon attachments (removing the useless ones,) and increasing damage on Infiltrator specific weapons. *All of these things are done without adding anything new to the game" My only hope is that SOE doesn't make the Infiltrator worse.
That's pretty clever mate. I remember having a hell of a time trying to find a guy that was preventing me from switching the point at Scarred Mesa Skydock who was hiding in a bush that was just inside of the capture radius. I doubt that it will be the most glamorous way to use the Stalker, but it would probably very effective to crouch in a corner while your enemies run around confused.
Its pretty sad that there is no mention of new hackable targets, for example why they wont they give us possibility to hack enemy engineer turrets? It could be really useful to kill AV turret engineer behind enemy tank column and then use his turret to attack tanks from the behind. Ammo towers could be also made hackable, so we could cut down enemy ammo supply or provide ammo for friendly tanks withing enemy territory.
Seems redundant to me. If I want to recon I can: 1) Check the map since it already gives me an estimate of enemy and friendly numbers in the area 2) Pull a scout radar equipped Flash, or fly by with a scout radar equipped ESF 3) Survey the area from cover or while cloaked through the 12x scope on my sniper rifle 4) Approach the area while cloaked, use recon darts 5) Communicate with people in squad, outfit, etc. "I'm on the western wall and we got incoming armor over here" 6) New motion sensors I mean a drone sounds cool, but I still don't see much use for it with what we already have. In fact, I'd much prefer the Devs implement some ways to counter all that recon and radar than keep adding more of it.
These are my thoughts exactly. I like the idea of a Recon Drone, but in practice I really can't see very many legitimate uses for it. Now if it had weapons (even weak ones), I could at least use it to destroy hard-to-reach squad beacons, pepper snipers & AV turret engineers, harass entrenched enemies, etc. I still would hesitate to give anything up for it full time, but as a situational equip I could make it work. I'm interested to see how it functions on the Test Server when the time comes, and I hope I'll change my mind at that point.
Agreed. Hacking MANA turrets that were abandoned by their owner would be fun. And even though vehicle jacking doesn't look like it'll ever make it in, I'd love for Infils to be able to "dissolve" enemy vehicles with a REK. They are made of nanites after all. They could force the nanites to go dormant, causing damage to the vehicle until it eventually just crumbles around the driver. If someone could attach C4 to it you could then use it to fly over to an enemy camping vehicle or deployed AMS and blow it up. And with a camera you could tell what classes enemy troops were playing rather than seeing just a bunch of red dots on a minimap. That could be useful when planning to storm/retake a cap point. But otherwise yeah a drone by itself isn't that useful given the (lack of) metagame in PS2 and the proliferation of already-existing methods of gathering intel (Radar, spotting). I love the idea of a drone too, but unless it has other built-in abilities (scout radar, sensor disruptor, EMP field, self-destruct, pea shooter, etc) its utility is rather limited.
I'm curious if people will be able to stick C4 to it. Depending on the range of the drone this could be awful/awsome, depending on which side of the remote control you are standing. Active MAX hunting with flying C4 bricks, exploding hovering ESFs over the spawn room, dropping it into a bunch of people who think they are save out of LOS while the zerg is spawncamping.
Stalker cloak would be more interesting if it prevented you from showing up in the enemy count on the map. As it is you can hover over a map area and see "1-12 enemies." So trying to ninja cap an area where no one is becomes somewhat obvious. Plus with the lattice system you lose that bit of creative capturing that you could do before. Many times I've tried to slow an attack by running off and capping as many 'close enough' bases as I could, forcing them to shift some resources back to take it back. Make it difficult enough (control the turrets, vehicle spawn, etc) and they'll send more than one person.
Okay so how about this to fix the infiltrator class: increase the headshot multiplier for bolt action sniper rifles by 0.5 and give the ability to one hit kill using the knife from behind. Sounds good?
I really do not get the reasoning for us having less shield. So we are lightly built? How much stuff is more obviously unrealistic in this game? If we are going to have low defense we should have higher offense. We trade so much for just the shield. They will never ever EVER make the cloak less visible or give it even a 5 second boost. Doing so would just make us balanced.
To those that don't appreciate the potential a drone//another layer of radar/recon. Redundancy. There is a reason why it is essential when designing critical systems. If we're relying on Scout Radar, and it gets taken out - we're going to have to rely on darts/drone or haul *** to pull another Scout Radar, which may or may not be possible depending on the flow of the battle. Consider the time constraints on a decisive mission, where pulling, parking and keeping-active a Scout Radar will slow the team down and often be left behind when the team moves out. The Scout Radar is effective. And a luxury. Happy to have one around and cannot rely on it staying around, unless we're bogged in an extended zerg fest.
Agreed, The Yautja style of cloaking is not going to be sufficient enough for medium to close ranged situations; this is especially true when we're devoid a primary weapon. While excellent for sniping, this type of stealth isn't at all adequate for infiltration purposes...nor justification for the removal of our primary weapon. Anyone who has any experience with games like Starcraft and Starcraft II has already adjusted to this method of stealth and are capable of distinguishing the threat with relative ease. Everyone else has already begun their compensation. If all we're getting is some sort of alteration to the mechanics of Hunter Cloak, then you're right...what took them so long? I hope they don't mean our secondary weapon, pistol; that would be strange...and pretty unjustified, in my opinion. I kind of did...but I proposed a very different sort of recon drone. You can see what I mean by looking at the thread: The Infiltrator. If they mean a OHK designated melee knife, I care very much...
Redundancy is something you put in when everything else has already been put in. There are far more valuable things that could be implemented with that time. This is especially true when the class is performing weakly and a lot of players are unhappy - adding more of the same doesn't help solve either of these.
I believe you'll find I was addressing those who couldn't grasp the value of multiple layers of recon and/or critical systems. Everything else you've mentioned is a repeat of larger rhetoric, one that I happen to generally agree with, within the context of 'ideal situation.' Unfortunately, until people stop giving their money for unfinished products, we'll have to endure gaming with unfinished systems. Or, ideally, we could stop paying and playing. Personally, I'm having to much fun to stop paying or playing!
I find the update as it stands now to be underwhelming. Let's analyze exactly what is being done here. The decoy grenade is getting fixed, something that should have already happened. A cloak that lets you remain cloaked indefinitely is coming to let you infiltrate, but you cannot have a primary weapon. I hate that idea. If I want to infiltrate using a cloak designed for it, I cannot use a gun designed for it, ie the smg? Instead I have to use a weak sidearm or a gun that sounds like a bomb is going off? Instead of doing that, why not just make it so that moving and sprinting increases the RATE of nanite depletion, and if you let that thing run out, you're uncloaked? All the while it can retain that obnoxious sound it makes, while the hunter cloak makes a quieter sound so that these options are balanced. That to me is a real balanced item. The new suit slot? Kinda pointless. Number one, claymores stick out like a sore thumb so their example is moot- everyone knows claymores are the worst AP mine in the game. Number two, there aren't enough people (in my experience) who use mines for it to replace my lvl 4 nanoweave armor, something that actually WILL save me consistently. When this comes out, even fewer people will use mines. Its usefulness will fade into obscurity over time. Crossbows. Because they make sense in warfare in the 28th century. Works for me. =/ NS smgs. Extremely pointless. Every faction already has two smgs that, news flash, every class can use, so it shouldn't even be in the infiltrator update. They'll probably end up being mediocre, but I won't judge just yet. I'm getting to why I don't like this idea... Motion sensor. It sounded like an awesome idea until they said that, over time, it would become a beacon to alert the enemy of the presence of the infiltrator. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be the one who stays in that one place for that length of time anyways. If it lasts for two or three minutes, that would make it quite effective, so I will concede that this is overall a good thing. Straight Bolt. I'm a good sniper, but I don't do it anymore as I found it too boring. If this is your thing, eh, go for it. Recon Drone. This one is indeed the best part of the update, especially when they implied this drone could be armed! I hope it doesn't end up just becoming an easy target by being too noticeable. Something nice, small, and quiet to rain silent death or spy on people would just be excellent. I give this my approval. No vehicle hacking. Their reasoning for this was... poor. No other way to put it. Their reasoning is that it would somehow be too hard to code, and doing so means missing out on so many other great awesome things! Yeah, you know, like crossbows and mediocre smgs! We must have those! The infiltrator class will be doomed without those! I've said it before and I'll say it again, what about a short-ranged, large throwable object that an infiltrator could throw on a tank or plane that would make it malfunction like misfiring, going in the wrong directions or slower, etc? And an allied infiltrator or engineer could fix it. Why is that harder to program than anything they're putting in now? It sounds like a cop-out to me. And then mentioning that these things could be overpowered. ha. And don't get me started on their not even mentioning the sound issues that come with the cloak. Overall, the way I see it, it's underwhelming at best. HOWEVER, I will concede that some of this is my opinion and there are even some gems in this update, lackluster as it might be.
My idea: Add a terminal to the interior and exterior of bases that use vehicle/infantry shields and allow the infiltrator to lower it for a period of time. This would have been kinda op back when they didn't have the no-deploy radius but it works now as you can't just throw an ams in. Its the little things that help flesh out a class. EDIT: actually just make it a sapper-esque device and throw on a couple other uses, maybe like make it used for turret hacking and stuff and uses the cert line for hack speed and sappers carried.
I get where you're coming from and do no underestimate revolver + knife + being in the right places and the right times! If the Stalker cloak makes it to live, I'm really looking forward to revolver + knife style play. Of course, it might be horribly implemented.
I see where you're coming from too, but I do underestimate that. The only time I've ever been killed by a knife has been when something extraordinarily horrible happened (like I get stuck in a corner with low health, no cloak, and out of ammo (that's happened), not in normal play since you have to be in someone's face to knife them. The revolvers are awesome, don't misunderstand me, but they are ridiculously loud and you can't use suppressors with them, so stealth becomes irrelevant. I'm not trying to be a whiner or shoot anything down, but I am saying I think it'd be better to give it some other weakness. Just getting rid of a primary weapon like they did seems... rushed? Or maybe a cop out in itself to avoid anything more intricate? I just think if the stalker cloak ran out at a higher rate while moving, it would be balanced with the hunter cloak. Think of the TF2 cloaks to see what I mean.
It is important to realise the intention of a cloak in order to understand what is useful for it and what can be lost in exchange. The intention of the Stalker Cloak is non-combat infiltration with the idea of remaining undetected while making your way to high-value objectives. Thus, in this case, there is no need for primary weapons. What there is a need for is a very high duration coupled with a reliable means to slip past enemies at close-range (hence the less visible the better because it reduces randomness that the infiltrator can not affect). The problem with the information we have received so far is that there is no mention of a greater reduction in visibility from that of the Hunter Cloak. If this ends up being the case this would fail at the intent of the cloak; the high duration would be rendered useless because the cloak could not be relied upon at close-range (while possessing no weapons capable of being used outside close-range). Ideally, it should be invisible at close range and beyond while crouched (this removes randomness altogether and allows more deliberate counters to be added), but become very visible if the infiltrator tries to run (so that infiltration is highly unlikely to succeed if the infiltrator does not take its time). Counter-measures could include; Posting guards at objectives (since we can't take action while cloaked). Getting very close to the infiltrator (where by the cloak would render at Hunter Cloak visibility, like it does with the Hunter Cloak at closer than long-range). A way of making players aware an infiltrator is in the vicinity (but not specifically where - something like a weak visual static-effect on the HUD, but weak enough not to be debilitating; the visual effect of being hit by an EMP grenade would be ideal, toned down as necessary). Perhaps allowing something like a flashlight to reveal the infiltrator (this is preferred over less obvious methods because the infiltrator knows that the target is looking for them and can take appropriate action themselves, while the use of a flashlight can be quite detrimental to a player because they give away their own position to enemy forces other than the infiltrator and hence it will not be passively spammed). Close-range, rotating, directional motion sensors that the infiltrator has to be aware of less they give away their position by moving when the sensor is not facing them and remaining still when it is. Should require line of sight to detect, or provide some other warning that they exist nearby and which direction they are currently facing. To further prevent the use of the cloak for combat (even if you can only use secondary weapons), increase the fade in/out time significantly and add a loud but very localised (like 15m max., preferably less) audio warning for the duration of the fade. If the target fails at noticing the infiltrator like this then they deserve die! I am sure there are other possibilities too - but I can't do all the work for SOE! Sadly, we also need things actually worth hacking put in as well; no point otherwise!
