Infiltrators (except for cloak bug) are ok - but why not better?

To preface this, any time one of these threads come up about buffs to the infi, the usual response is "I GET MAD KILLSTREAKS L2P NOOB!" or "CLOAK'S FINE, I GOT MAD NINJA SKILZ L2P BRO!" or whatever.

Point: I've gotten killstreaks, too. I've snuck around crowded bases and evaded groups of enemies and made people look dumb, too. Infiltrator is fine, I guess.

But why not more than fine? Other classes are more than just fine!

Current infi is weaker than ANY other class in many ways:

• Less HP (100 less)
• Only 2nd best stealth (silent jetpacks that let you bypass terrain and approach from a stealthier angle > ****** cloak with early warning alarm for your enemies built in that stopps your from fighting back until you turn it off) (note: by 2nd best I mean nearly useless - I don't think it even disables your dorito showing up anymore?)
• Worst weapon selection. snipers are ok, scouts are horrible...and then SMG is fine, but everyone gets it
• Only class without C4 - infi has no defense or offense against vehicles whatsoever, even worse if they have IR/NV
• Most limited tool use. Heavy gets 5 rockets, engi gets infinite ammo & turrets. Infi gets 2 darts base that last about 20s, don't work at range, and don't award any XP for spotting, and don't make doritos show up.
• Only class w/o shotgun access.
• Only class with barrel sway
• Class most limited by FPS and render distance, as it's best used at super-long ranges. Bullet drop, travel time, sway, randomly disappearing enemies, etc mean sniping is as frustrating as possible at all time...add in that slug shotguns are almost as good at sniping as proven in NUMEROUS youtube videos and it's just stupid.

As it stands, the cloak makes noise which is highly directional, faction-specific, and can be heard through walls up to 100m just fine. Also, you can't attack while cloaked, or up to 1s after decloaking which, again, plays a loud, faction-specific noise you can hear up to 100m away regardless of terrain.
So, why can't we be actually invisible? Radar darts would show us anyway.
Why can't we have shotguns? We already have to do the equivalent of shouting "HEY I'M STEALTHING!! OK, NOW I'M UNSTEALTHING!!!" when we use our cloak. If you get cauht by surprise with even that, you'd probably be caught by surprise by anyone sneaking up on you cloak or not, anyway.
Can we please have that 100 hp back?
Also, can radar darts spot better and provide XP? Please?
Finally, can you please remove the XP cap on hacking? 1 engi can repair every turret and gen in a tech plant and get XP for EVERY.ONE. Infi sneaks into an enemy tech plants and hacks every turret and console and can only get for the first few. It's so sad.

Hopefully when infil's are allowed to hack vehicles again, we should be somewhat balanced with the rest of the classes.

But as it stands, I agree with you OP. Infiltrators are basically underpowered glass cannons.

We already are immune to NV scopes, just pointing out, but anyway I think the class is pretty much fine after the low graphic bug is fixed and cloaking sound reduced. Shotguns would probably give us too much power, which was seen at the beta, but we do need more hacking options. Having same amount of health would be nice, but what I really would like to see is faster running speed, since majority of games have system where weakest classes are also faster than others, so why not in PS2? Its just utterly stupid that you cant outrun even HA with infiltrator.

I would rather they give back NV scopes but make us even more invisible.

I would not expect much of anything from the derv's here, as they dont like infil, nore play them. I think when they were making this game they looked at a sniper class and infil class, figered they didnt like either so they would combined both and not do much with them.
In an interview with higby and Tray resently, Higby stated, he thinks the cloaks are fine and does not think we need more, But feels tht More Anti-Cloaking is needed in the game as a counter mesure, so that tells you right there not to expect anything.
Not to mention they decided to revamp LA before anything at first, but then pushed it back a bit. Even though they are well rounded at the moment, have no sound to a rocket strapet to there back, can hover and drop C4, nades and under barrle nades from afar. there are expected to get alot more usefull tools durring revam.
I suspect that they will revisit every other class in this game before Infil, and thats suspect even then. Untill they spend alot of time playing this class, and seeing what it accualy stands up like, we can not ever count that things will change. Although most of us can not really agree on ideas and sugestons well, does not help matters any. But this is a hard class to flush out, as we are really a mesh of 2 classes, and not done right with pros/cons could off set ballence easy. although just adding tools or increasing what little we have should not do much.

After reading the majority of the comments I am surprised. The fact that you guys are effectively invisible can run around with fully automatic weapons, anti personnel explosives, mini radar and complain about being underpowered confirms to me that this class is not played how it should be.

• Every class has the same health levels. Infiltrators have less shield strength though, because let's face it you aren't wearing armor.
• Light assault and infiltrator have two different roles. Comparing the two is a waste of time. (Pro tip: Cloak before you run.)
• You don't need much to be effective.
• Invisible units with C4 is unbalanced, you and everyone reading this knows it.
• I'll give you the darts only work when an enemy fires. I feel this should be fixed
• An invisible unit with a shotgun. Really?
• Not sure about this claim will have to look into just how much it messes with the class.
• Yes this class is limited by render distance, however provides nothing to the fight at those distances. As for slugs unless you are fighting vanu slugs have a high drop rate and even with chevrons to assist the shooter I know shotgun sniping is nearly impossible to pull off effectively.

Infiltrators are balanced, there is no real debate to it. What you guys should be complaining about is the fact your true role in the battle feild (Hacking) is incredibly limited. The most you can do is hack a terminal or a turret. That has to change in my opinion because you guys are starting to lose focus on what you are meant to do in game. I'm not sure when you guys started thinking that this class was suppose to be a "one man kill everything with ease class" but it's not. You are an unarmored utility class that can become 98% invisible at will. You guys don't need any tools, you need actual objectives to keep yourselves busy on the battlefield.

Ok, it seems the main sticking point of your post is that infiltrators are "effectively invisible." They are not. Not even close. Close-range they are 100% noticeable even on ultra settings, and on low settings they actually LIGHT UP in certain lighting, making them MORE visible than when not cloaking - this is noted as a bug though.

Point stands the cloak is AT BEST reasonably good camouflage...but it is NOT invisibility.

Also, you can't attack at all while cloaked or 1s after cloaking. So you're not 'running around invisible with a shotgun' you're running around SORTA invisible, but not really, and when you're done, you can then have a shotgun, or SMG, or whatever.

Also, the mini radar is a joke as it currently works. It only detects enemies when moving/firing and then only operates as long as you're within range of the dart. So the enemy has to be right on top of you anyway and has to be moving or firing. Also, in any building with multiple floors, it's useless because it doesn't indicate elevation and it doesn't reveal the doritos...or offer any XP whatsoever, unlike every other tool in the game...

Your first point is a semantic argument...you know what I mean. TOTAL HP is 100 lower. Yes, it's shield HP that's lower, no I don't care.

Light assault and infiltrators CAN have different roles, but most often I see people using the LA jump jets to sneak into bases and assassinate people...since they're silent and can get to hard to reach, or see, places. That, I thought, was the infiltrator's job, infiltrating.

Maybe C4 would be a bit much, I accept that. If everything else was fixed, but we didn't get C4 I could live with that...but I think infiltrators should have SOME sort of answer to vehicles...like every other class in the game...if they gave us vehicle hacking, that would solve that gripe...or if EMP grenades worked better on vehicles...

I have no problem with barrel sway, honestly, I like it as a part of the sniping 'minigame' aspect of the class...however, I think anyone entering that field should have the same penalty. Anyone with a scope of 6x or better should get sway, and anyone with less than 6x should not have sway. This would be a good buff on the shorter-range rifles, and a decent balance on the longer range non-sniper weapons which currently don't have any sway.

Also...only being able to hold your breathe for 2s at a time? What is this guy a chain-smoking asthmatic?


EDIT: also:

Yes, that one's Vanu, yes I've seen others. That's part 4 in that particular series.

If you think my main sticking point is invisibility you should re-read my post.

You're first comment:

"Close-range they are 100% noticeable even on ultra settings, and on low settings they actually LIGHT UP in certain lighting, making them MORE visible than when not cloaking - this is noted as a bug though."

Exactly it's a known bug. Expect it to be corrected. Close range infiltrators are certainly not "100% noticeable" and even if you think you see one any competent player will lose you in a heartbeat. Unless you are in a wide open field with zero cover, which should be rare.

"Point stands the cloak is AT BEST reasonably good camouflage...but it is NOT invisibility."

So you want complete invisibility? You don't find something wrong with that request?

"Your first point is a semantic argument...you know what I mean. TOTAL HP is 100 lower. Yes, it's shield HP that's lower, no I don't care."

Actually I don't know what you mean. From the sounds of it you want just as much armor as everyone else. Am I wrong in this assessment?

"Light assault and infiltrators CAN have different roles, but most often I see people using the LA jump jets to sneak into bases and assassinate people...since they're silent and can get to hard to reach, or see, places. That, I thought, was the infiltrator's job, infiltrating."

There roles are meant to be different. Currently Light Assault are more of a utility that are needed to take out mobile spawns and scout. That is what they are meant for. As for the infiltrator they have no effective role because as I stated before they have a extreme lack of hackable targets. This MUST change.

"Maybe C4 would be a bit much, I accept that. If everything else was fixed, but we didn't get C4 I could live with that...but I think infiltrators should have SOME sort of answer to vehicles...like every other class in the game...if they gave us vehicle hacking, that would solve that gripe...or if EMP grenades worked better on vehicles..."

Agreed, again its a lack of hackable objectives that ruin the class right now. However as of right now I really don't know how successful a vehicle hack would be considering the rather large amount of vehicle spam in the game. If you managed to hack a tank you'd be blow to bits instantly. EMP grenades in my opinion do nothing. I've been hit by them but didn't stop me from using my iron sights or hip firing. On that I agree also.

"I have no problem with barrel sway, honestly, I like it as a part of the sniping 'minigame' aspect of the class...however, I think anyone entering that field should have the same penalty. Anyone with a scope of 6x or better should get sway, and anyone with less than 6x should not have sway. This would be a good buff on the shorter-range rifles, and a decent balance on the longer range non-sniper weapons which currently don't have any sway."

Currently do to render distance there is no reason to get any scope higher than default. It's just overkill and messes up your aim on closer targets anyway. Again I can't say I've noticed sway at all when I infiltrate but then again I rarely need to use my rifle.

"Also...only being able to hold your breathe for 2s at a time? What is this guy a chain-smoking asthmatic?"

If im not mistake it's 3-5 seconds, but again I don't use this either because it's only needed at extreme ranges.

As for the video, it's cute and I've seen it done but the reality of the matter is you will have more down time do to limited ammunition. If the guy in the video had a brain he would of used a regular rifle and probably would of done a lot more damage than 7 measly kills. If that where any other faction they would have gotten little or no kills do to the slugs high bullet drop.

Now my argument is that most posts that deal with being underpowered are usually people that want a class that they can sit and pad their KD ratio. Now what I've gotten from this thread so far is:

I want better invisibility
I want the ability to take out vehicles
I want as much armor as the other classes
I want less barrel sway
I don't want to be heard cloaking and uncloaking

These are the basic complaints of someone that is all about KD ratio as opposed to actually making a class better.

Now I won't take away from issues that actually do harm the class but it was only brought up once I started posting.

Lack of hackable objectives.
Render distance.
Infiltrator tools not working how they should.

I'm not ragging on you or anyone else, everyone is entitled to their opinion on their favorite classes but as I said you can see when people truly want their class improved and those that just want to have a beat all class to boast their KD ratio. This game isn't about who has the most kills, it's about conquest and teamwork. Something that KD lovers and stat padders simply don't contribute to. I love this game and I'd like to see it improved in ways it's should to be improved as opposed to those that just want another team death match kill fest.

In the beta, the Inf had a whole plethora of extra weapons, abilities and unlocks although they never actually let us use/test them.

There was anti-material ammunition (i.e. anti-vehicle), stalker cloak, speed cloak, better pistols (not talking about the one single variant we have now) and other stuff that would have been marginally useful. When the game launched, they gave all the other classes a plethora (a lot) of goodies and extras and Infiltrator got a sniper rifle and bupkiss, i.e. jack ****.

In the grand scheme of things, Infiltrators are practically useless. They're the least needed class in the entire game. They can hack terminals? Yeah sure...but a large assault force isn't going to really be relying on terminal hacking and most of the time, those terminals will get blown up or already be blown up before an Inf can hack them. Sunderers will already provide loadout changes/resupply along with Engineers.

Something you will rarely if never hear in the game...except ironically:

"We need sum Infiltrators over here NAO!!!!"

Better invisibility and anti-armor capabilities don't belong on that list. Enemy vehicles are one of the most important objectives in this game, and the Infiltrator is the only class with absolutely no interaction with them. The ability to cloak more effectively, be it for longer or at lower visibility, enables our class to approach and complete the objectives it needs to more reliably. Neither of these things exclusively relate to combat, and in case you hadn't noticed, plenty of people are more than willing to sacrifice nearly all of this class's combat capability for the ability to Infiltrate in a manner which is actually reliable - something that Hunter Stealth is anything but.

Your prejudice against complete invisibility is unwarranted. There are dozens of ways to balance such a mechanic, as several games have already proven, and it even eliminates problems like the disparity between our cloak on different graphics settings.

Still makes my argument about not enough objectives for infiltrators viable. As it's the classes role in the first place. Giving them shotguns,c4,etc just makes them a FOTM class that they used to be in Beta when they where allowed to have these tools. Devs obviously saw how broken it was to given them that many weapons. The fact you guys have what you have now shouldn't be taken for granted because I am sure they considered just leaving you with just a pistol/rifle like they did in PS1.

That isn't my list. It's my synopsis of this thread so far. In addition I don't have a prejudice against cloakers but if they make your cloak more effective than it already is, then everyone else is going to complain and request a guaranteed way to see you via a special scope or something (which currently there is no guaranteed way to spot you). Then you guys are going to complain, then the cycle goes on. In my experience people ruin their classes by calling for absurd buffs that devs listen to. Right now infil's are at a sweet spot. They are effective in combat, effective at sneaking around, and asking for a buff in those areas would lead to a hard counter against you. This situation has been repeated MULTIPLE times with other balance issues. So why do it to yourselves?

In all fairness, the people who get those replies are usually those who complain that the infiltrator is useless at everything and every other class is better.

And making a list like that, as i have said before, can make any class look bad. The infiltrator have a lot of strengths that other classes do not have. The ability to oneshot people, for example, is rarely brought up.

I believe that while the class could certainly use some touchups, primarily in the team-support part, i still feel that a lot of the complaints about the class are extremely subjective and horribly biased. Few actually give a "realistic" view of the class and its strengths and weaknesses, but rather just blindly bash it.

• Nothing wrong with it. We should be weaker in direct confrontation, and we are.
• And this is a compeltely subjective Opinion. I believe the Hunter cloak surpasses the LAs jetpack by leagues.
• We do not have any worse weapon selections than any other class. We simpyl have weapons adapted to the Infiltrator, while others have more direct-combat oriented weapons, once again as it should be. The others do may have more weapons, but they are mostly sidegrades of eachother.
• Yet we also have much easier avoiding vehicle confrontations.
• The Light Assault does not have a tool either. 2 packs of C4 might blow up a sunderer, or a tank. One upgraded recon dart, with the same amount of SC spent on the Dart as the LA C4, can completely mess up a whole enemy squad. Infiltrators also have an extremely useful Hacking tool and AP-mines.
• For a good reason. We are also the only class with access to high-powered Sniper Rifles.
• Which is easily controlled, and shouldn't interefere in you other than when sniping.
• Shotgun slugs have proven themselves effective within ~50m as snipers. They cannot possibly compare with a Bolt Action in the longer ranges. They do not oneshot enemies either.

As for the Render distance, it is indeed a problem for long-range sniping, although i feel that i have noticed better rendering ranges lately, allowign me for up to 200+m sniper shots at the crown in full siege.

I (as a mainly infiltrator player) agree with most of your points. I focus on picking of the targets at range. Try to use my cloak to change positions or sneak into a camp. And hack almost everything I see(even when I'm not rewarded :'). )

But cloaking at this moment is a big risk. It's fair and square that I'm not gonna kill someone in close quarters, but even suprise attacks are hard to survive cause you're squizy. If you put your gun to someones back and fire it 5 times, he'll turn around and shred you.
If cloaking is a liability and we can't kill someone by suprise in close quarters, most of the infiltrators will just keep their distance.
would say improve the cloak so they can sneak in(I love the sneaking). Make it a bit more silent. For example noticable at 25m. We'll die in a close quarters fight and need to keep to our stealth.

Oh.. and fix the low settings make us visible bug.

Flashlights should do this. It gives them a purpose, and let us see that someone is using a hard-counter to our cloak (whereas the IR/NV scopes are impossible to tell apart from normal ones). The range of their effect is, as with many things involving an improved cloak, totally negotiable.

People ask for many things. Implementing them all would make this class overpowered. That isn't going to stop me from suggesting what I think is the best thing for it - the devs just need to acknowledge that I don't have an obligation to balance my suggestion around the suggestions of others. Not unless I agree with them, of course.

ya we need to talk about vehicles a lot more.. way more than half my deaths are from getting sniped by a tank or a plane far far far away that i cant see, that i couldnt even do dmg to or affect in ANY way whatsoever. this is NOT how you make a pvp game.

my favorite (/sarcasm) way to die is being hunted down by a tank trying to hide behind a tree, where i get 1 shot by the blast radius. and then i read the description of the weapon "does less dmg but has increased an aoe" but it still 1 shots me.... by a non direct hit.... awesome. My options there? only 1. Die.

or planes just hovering. waiting for my 10s stealth to end. and 1 shot me. am i a threat to it? nope. but it can obliterate me from a greater distance than i could without even having to be very precise.

again, not how you make a pvp game. if i could at least disable a tank by having some insane aim and shooting it in a weak point and disabling it for a bit. THEN i could see the need to 1 shot me from miles away. but we pose no threat whatsoever, so anti-armor dmg should not affect us in the same way, other than to annoy us or make us move from our position cuz its impossble to aim while being shelled on. something like that

and i dont know about other servers, but at least on mine, in big fights, its usually a sea of NC infantry storming up a hill vs a sea of VS or TR armor. i have NO targets for so much of these fights.

but i guess given the choice between a fly swatter and an atom bomb, it would be foolish to choose the fly swatter so i can understand why they do that. i just hope the game evolves beyond this..

and im sure this goes without saying, but when im "infiltrating" a base, its pretty much a death sentence running around while cloaked. a 1s head start on dmg against me is more than enuf to either kill me, or ensure i cant hit them since im being riddled with bullets. so you gotta appreciate the irony of THAT

I want better invisibility / I don't want to be heard cloaking and uncloaking

This is sort of the same point. And even with these, I don't feel anyone ever has to wrry about the infiltrator becoming some kind of 10:0 KDR monster. With the limited selection of weapons, and survivability options like jetpacks, shields, heals, etc, you're still not going to be able to decloak in a room of enemies and go toe to toe with a few HAs and/or light assaults. It's just not gonna happen.

That's fair! What's not fair is our main class-specific and signature ability being less than it should be. Short range, it should be possible to spot an infiltrator that's cloaked and moving. But I think a stationary infiltrator should be 100% invisible, and a walking/crouching one should be moderately noticeable. As in the average player should spot you if they look in your direction if they're paying attention.

Running should be a deal-breaker anyway, imo. Stealthy/silent OR fast, both seems like too much. Also, duration is currently fine. I like the idea of stealthing from one hiding place to another and infiltrating my way into position. If you could be 100% invisible with running even with same duration as current...it'd be far too easy.

If I could change the cloak to however I liked, it'd be silent, walking would be less visible than running by about 1/2 and stationary would be 100% invisible.

I want the ability to take out vehicles
This doesn't have to be C4, it doesn't have to be 'kill the vehicle'. I'd be perfectly happy with EMP grenades that shut down vehicles for a reasonable duration, or locked their weapons until repaired or something. Or hacking vehicles. ANYTHING. As it stands many many battles are just vehicle spam, and infiltrators just sit around going "wish I could play this game, too." It's lame.

I want as much armor as the other classes
Not really. HAs would still have more. And the other classes all have more diverse weapons options and some have defensive abilities that are much better than our none. All of which is fair. I just see the -100 total hp as overkill really. We're already a fairly limited class, why limit us further?

I want less barrel sway
I never said this. I said barrel sway should apply based on zoom level, rather than class. 6x or higher (all sniper rifle's base anyway) would sway, <6x would not sway. Seem simple. You want a high zoom scope so you can snipe? Then you get barrel sway like a sniper. FAIR.


Oh, and the hold breathe, I'm pretty sure is 2s. I can log in an time it if you want, I guess. But I'm pretty sure it's 2s duration, 2s cooldown.


As for the rest, what do you think?


As in, removal of XP cap on hacking after 3-4 hacks. Darts working at range and/or actually spotting and applying doritos? Darts being the intrinsic counter to stealth? Cloak = Better, Dart = negates cloak?

O-o And don't mention the render to much they did improve that one vastly in the 2.0 Patch you can even change it in settings now.

Increase cloak time ( i just want 5 or so seconds more the thing almost feels nerfed. also should be slower when we are crouched or standing still right now it's 13 seconds yes i timed it it's 3 extra seconds at the end of it if we are not moving)
Improve the Dart's radar ability
Increase hold breath time (i think it's about 3 seconds actually i want 5 minimum)
Faster movement (we are wearing the lightest equipment of all and are meant to survive behind enemy lines this one is a given)
Higher knife damage and behind attack bonus. Gun wont do much anyway when they spot you.
More ammo for the rifles the 50 cal on TR only got 30 rounds i would prefer having at least 15 more.

Give us that to start with and im satisfied

The infiltrator is very tactical and like in real life have very low survivability. But this is also a game so we are much more limited in things. We just don't have to fear death as much.

For near complete invisibility; crouch and take a single step to the left or right. (Smooths lines in your cloak making you MUCH less visible.)
Or
Go up against someone on lowest settings, because you are 100% invisible against them. (Needs to be fixed, it's shooting low end rig players in the knee. Kind of like how tracers seem to be a lot harder to see on low settings.)
Apart from this bug I have no problem with invisibility except for the noise.

They really need to look at sway. My rifle's 4x sways but that LMG's doesn't?

Breath time... Needs work...

These 'darts' what are they supposed to do...?

Faster movement would be cool.

XP for hacking... Really an engineer can get more XP from repairing one turret than I can get from hacking an entire tower?

Bring back vehicle hacking.

Pistols are kind of unfair in my opinion, VS gets a low damage pew pew gun or an NC equivalent. NC gets TWO types of finisher guns and TR effectively gets an SMG. As far as the infiltrator class goes, having a pistol you can hipfire gives a massive advantage.

That's how I feel about infiltrator.

Sticky movement on the walls ala aliens. Yes, it would require new animations, but if people on the roadmap ask about faction-specific run animations, I guess they have nothing better to do anyways.