I think I'll just respond to these together since they are effectively the same thing. One of my oldest arguments here has been that using the cloak in the presence of an enemy player puts your success in the hands of something functionally identical to luck. You as an Infiltrator have no way of measuring how alert that player is, nor can you see yourself from his perspective or gather any real idea of how exposed you are to him. If you run into a crowd with your cloak active, you are making the conscious decision to put yourself at risk without even so much as a reliable estimate of the odds against you, let alone a guarantee of any sort of positive result. Am I supposed to encourage this reckless behavior just because someone can provide recorded footage of it working? No. The effects of running past an enemy player undetected and being falsely identified by that player as an ally used to be indistinguishable. Now that you can't hide behind this ambiguity anymore, the weakness of the cloak is apparent to everyone. In fact, remember this? Given how much you've clearly learned from Ztiller already, I find it strange that you would ignore the part where he nearly quit the game because the misdirection which carried him to success during CQ infiltration was ripped out from under his feet, and he was left with nothing but the highly visible shimmer to "protect" him. It's actually amazing how well this quote fits with everything I've been saying since the beta ended, huh? Are you going to argue that a video means anything about how likely something is to happen? Furthermore, are you going to argue that countering turrets isn't easy when they exist inside a base which your faction controls without opposition? For all your attempts to make these counter-arguments seem whiny and baseless, they seem at least as legitimate as your fixation with the flaws of Scout Radar as a replacement for Recon Darts. Uh, excuse me? How does a video prove that the cloaking sound isn't easily heard? Because the Infiltrator used his cloak and wasn't immediately executed for it? Just like with the cloak's visual effect, you're insinuating that the lack of sound is the cause of a given result (being ignored) when it could be any number of things. Maybe someone heard it but chose to ignore it, or maybe they went looking for the Infiltrator but never caught him anyways. You don't know that the sound wasn't heard at all, only that it didn't result in the player being caught that time. Here is a clip from one of Ztiller's own videos, where the cloaking sound undeniably gets him killed. Here is footage of someone else specifically abusing the cloak sound to hunt down and kill other Infiltrators. Unlike a video where someone uses the cloak and nothing ill happens to them, these actually serve as compelling evidence because there is no ambiguity about why something is happening. Every class is combat-capable in this game. The TTK is so low that human reaction times compounded with the delays caused by lag will guarantee that the player with the better position will almost always win, and if not, it comes down to twitch aiming skills and little else. Anyone who argues that the Infiltrator isn't good enough at shooting people is an idiot, and I'll thank you not to associate me with them. Yes, the class is relatively less capable than a Heavy Assault, and lacks access to specialized tools like shotguns, but this difference is insignificant - I prove this every time I win a fight that begins and ends with me using my sidearm. You're the one being ignorant here. You refuse to see the truth simply because it's unpleasant. I can prove every claim I make, and I can invent dozens of new arguments to enforce my position, while you're the one resorting to logical fallacies to get your misguided point across. Again, I must reiterate - it's not about me being right, it's about what is right, and you have utterly failed to demonstrate that my beliefs differ from the truth. Go ahead and leave. If I see you preaching this nonsense in another thread, I promise you that I'll be there to answer it just like I have here.
Hi all, long time PS2 player, first time forum poster. I play infiltrator as my favorite class, and people's opinions on the class vary as widely as the targets I take out. This group says that enhancements to the class will make it overpowered or encourage bad habits, while the other group says that fixing the problems with it are essential to making it a useful class. I agree with that sentiment. The two biggest problems with the class are the low graphics cloak bug and the cloaking sound. I don't think the infiltrator needs ultra powerful weapons- if that were the case, why do we have the infiltrator when it'd be easier for the devs to give the heavies an optional cloak themselves? Besides, my cyclone does just fine putting bullets into TR heads. What I think should happen to the infiltrator is: 1. Fix the cloak visibility bug. The near invisibility works fine (I play on higher settings, so I see the infiltrators the way they were intended to be seen) and I think it's perfect in that respect. Actually, it reminds me of stealth soldiers and stealth tanks in command and conquer renegade. Sneaky little buggers, they were. It provides me a fair bit of nostalgia. That being said, it helps blend in very effectively but the wary soldier sees that slight waver that gives it away at close range. Seeing as how the cloak basically unarms you... you're a dead infiltrator. So once this bug is fixed, the cloak itself will be just fine. 2. Make the cloak sound upgradeable. What I mean is that the cloak sound shouldn't make noise 90 meters away when it doesn't DEAFEN you 5 meters away. It's not logical. The default noise should be 20 meters, but you can add certs into it to reduce the noise to 15 meters, then finally 10. I think that would be fair. 3. I don't know about everyone here, but sometimes, if I have a narrow window of opportunity, I start opening fire but I don't uncloak- it's just that one extra button that I forget to press in the haste of a battle. I think that, if you fire your weapon as a cloaked infiltrator, you automatically become uncloaked before the bullets start to fly. Doesn't really mean anything, it's just something I'd like to see out of sheer convenience. Thoughts?
Make this an unique suit ability for the infiltrators with a bonus of +0.5 seconds of cloak per level and it should balance out with the other choices. Now you can trade off sneakiness with ability to take damage.
You're either ignoring a very significant part of this community or completely misrepresenting its goals. I can't tell which. I am of a mind that the class is very weak right now, barely capable of performing the tasks that are expected of it when put under any kind of stress, and possessing little advantage over other classes at these tasks besides. This has absolutely nothing to do with "ultra powerful weapons", too; among the many things I would gladly sacrifice to improve the situation, I can think of nothing I would miss less than my ability to carry even the sniper rifles and SMGs we currently have access to. First on my list of problems with the class is the cloak. No, I don't care about how different it looks between low and medium/high graphics settings, because right now it sucks so much on both that my gameplay has evolved to avoid using it for almost everything that a reasonable person could expect it to help with, and in the only two situations where running around cloaked isn't a detriment to me, its visual effect means nothing. Those two situations, for your benefit, are "when at least some of the enemy players looking towards me are beyond the distance where my cloak stops me from rendering to them" and "when a player is likely to try and spot me, thus alerting his teammates to my presence". Some people like to compare Hunter Stealth to a form of camouflage and argue that "it's not supposed to make you invisible", but to them I say this: actual camouflage doesn't make noise, prevent you from firing your weapon, or wear off after 12 seconds, and neither it nor our cloak are even close to effective when you start moving - something that you will always need to do when your timespan is so short. But even ignoring all of the above, there are two questions I would like you, and anyone else who thinks that bug fixes are the only thing that the Infiltrator needs, to ask yourself. They are as follows: Can I use my cloak and other tools to enter and traverse buildings without being caught? If yes: How much more difficult would it have been if I were another class? If no: Isn't that something Infiltrators should be able to do? There's a lot more wrong with the class, but I want to avoid writing another essay, so I'll get to that later. Let's just address this one issue right now, since the cloak is one of two class defining mechanics for us.
First off, no, it's difficult to infiltrate a building with any real population because the present infiltrator carries a freakin' gong around with him. Besides giving away your position, it's also an indication to nearby soldiers to hunt you more, because that means there's a 50 percent chance that you've essentially disarmed yourself. Secondly, fixing that bug is the most important thing. If all I have to do to see enemy infiltrators is change a setting, something is wrong. I refuse to lower my graphics setting because I feel it's tantamount to cheating. It's pretty much an exploit that isn't meant to be there. Since the infiltrator's cloak actually makes him stick out more, the infiltrator has going for it... 100 less armor. Why are you advocating so strongly for a completely invisible cloak? So you can charge headfirst into an opposing fortress and hope nobody sees? The point of the cloak, and you said this yourself, is that people shouldn't notice you, and it works almost perfectly well. However, the point of the infiltrator is to get into a facility and sabotage it, or assassinate a few people and disappear. No, I cannot do these effectively because most people playing planetside 2 use low graphical settings and most people playing planetside 2 can hear a loud, empire-specific cloaking sound. If these were dealt with, then the cloak would be more than sufficient to do my dirty work. That said, I could see the cloak in general probably needing a buff, but nothing in the way of a perfect one. That'd just be silly. Having a slight glimmer/distortion that only the most observant person can see wouldn't compromise the infiltrator, but that's part of the effect! It makes the opposition panic that every little beam of light is masking an infiltrator running to get behind them and end it. That psychological effect that your foe is everywhere and nowhere... that's a weapon more powerful than any smg.
At close range the cloak is poor regardless of settings when it comes to anything more than a getaway tool (which it helps with to some degree because of the increased difficulty in accurately positioning us & because it removes spotting). The fact is that anyone can see it (before full invisible range), the only question is how easily they can follow you with a stream of bullets, which for the purposes of remaining undetected is not helpful. The low settings difference just makes it all the more poorer at the one thing it can do (the bullet evasion). Until recently it did have additional purpose - causing hesitation in the enemy by causing them to have to determine whether you are friendly or hostile. They still knew someone was there, they just didn't know who was there. That has been removed, thanks to a totally-needed-because-absolutely-noone-asked-for-it "quality of life" change. The one thing the cloak has never helped with is remaining undetected (before full invisibility range). This is without all the negatives attached, which turn it from "not helpful" to "outright hindrance". This include the infamous long-carrying faction-specific sound on both entering and exiting cloak (seriously, why entering?!). The inability to shoot while cloaked just makes the punishment all the worse when you are detected (and you will be). Like Dr. Euthanasia, I am a strong supporter of full invisibility at all the ranges we are expected to use the cloak at - anything less is leaving it up to luck on whether you get spotted when using it. Outside of buildings I am more than capable of remaining undetected by not using the cloak and instead using cover, bushes, and shadowy areas - as any class, even a MAX. Inside buildings these do not exist and this is where I would expect to be able to rely on the cloak - but I never can do because it fails whenever it is needed. Again, like Dr. Euthanasia, I would be more than willing to give up primary weapons and have other negatives added into the (new) cloak for this. I would even be happy with this cloak only working in and around buildings since I can do fine outside of them anyway (as any class).
running up the 24-48 tower stairs blindly, 3 guys didn't see me, 4th MAX halfway through did. Respawn. Going to hack amp wall towers, running in cloaked. I stumble upon enemy taking the same stairs in the opposite direction (exiting tower). Respawn 0.5s later. The only solid way of infiltration is drop. Cloak is a leg-it-and-pray G-A-R-B-A-G-E, ruined even further by IFF. I hope you don't want to tell me that dying 5 times en route for 1 successful infiltration, maybe, is working as intended. That's an awful lot of legwork and downtime with very questionable ROI. drop from ESF on the top floor of the tower, hack AA turret.... 10 seconds later boom, C4. Next attempt on the same tower, this time AV turret. 15 seconds later defensive mine goes off without killing anybody and instant C4 it is, again. Apparently i am doing it wrong because C4 bricks find me like bees honey. I don't remember last time i was allowed to own 3 vehicles, not to mention 5+. Yes, allowed. Bro, do you even headphones? It's like saying TR colors are ok because people having ****** monitors don't see them either way. And too bad the game is not all about big battles. Show me another class ability that gets you outright KILLED when used. Just today a bunch of TR deployed sundie above the broken arch, 2 allied tanks finally get their ***** there and it's tubing HAs vs vanguards. Seing they are busy I flank, use cloak, HA who was working his tube hard just few seconds earlier locks on me without problem and shreds me to pieces. Remote engineer who exploits his AV turret from 200m behind the front line - forget about using cloak 50m when flanking him, it's quiet enough for the decloaking sound to stick out like a sore thumb. Whenever i did that they bailed out of their turret and things went south fast. Now i just run uncloaked and pray no ESF flying back and forth will intercept me.
Ah, I see what your problem is, Blue Moon. You attribute the cloak's failings to its state on low settings. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but the cloak is actually more visible indoors on high. Here, have a comparison shot from before it was "fixed" by making Infiltrators stop rendering while cloaked at long range. You only need concern yourself with the first two panels, which demonstrate quite well that (excusing the fact that the low settings cloak changes color based on the time of day) having diverse textures behind you while running on high settings is far worse than being a gray silhouette. You're also greatly exaggerating the cloak's audibility over its visibility. Yes, I've seen the videos. I've used them to advocate that the sound is a problem, too, but it doesn't excuse the fact that anyone who looks at you will know that an Infiltrator is there, and since allied Infiltrators glow, they won't even have to look for the IFF arrow to know that you're an enemy either. No, my friend. When I use the cloak right now, "hoping that nobody sees" is already what it forces me to do. This is the inherent flaw in any partially visible cloaking device, and it is anathema to good stealth gameplay in a competitive game like Planetside 2. Don't mistake "completely invisible" for "completely invisible with no counter-play". What I want is a cloak that works under circumstances I can understand, and doesn't work under circumstances I can avoid. Consider the cloak as it is right now. When you have it on, you don't know what will happen when someone looks towards you. Assuming you're within the very generous rendering distance, you can be sure that they have a chance to see you, and this chance is influenced by factors like the time of day, their own alertness, their graphics setting (don't expect this to ever be completely fixed, by the way), and the environment around you. Three of those things are completely beyond your control and two of them are something you cannot ever know. This is absolutely unacceptable. Simply making the cloak less visible is a lazy solution which won't even come close to fixing the problem of Infiltrators having no chance indoors without also making them blatantly overpowered in every other situation where the cloak is used. The goal here is also to make the Infiltrator properly aware of when he's in danger of being seen. You want to prevent me from charging headfirst into an enemy fortress? Fine, I can easily think of a solution that fits these criteria. How about a cloak which reduces your rendering distance much further than the current one, based on how fast you're moving? When you're sprinting, it's somewhere around the current range, but walking, crouch-walking, and standing still reduce it more and more until you can actually sit in the corner of a room and be certain that the enemy you're sharing it with won't spot you unless he gets closer. Furthermore, within this dynamic rendering distance, we can dispense with the idea of changing the cloak's shader effect (the angle of refraction on high settings and the transparency on low) to be more visible based on movement, and instead make that dependent on distance from the viewer. That means that people crossing this "rendering threshold" won't see you pop into existence, but smoothly fade instead, and if they're right on top of you, you'll be sure that they know you're there. Obviously we can also make the partially visible cloak within this threshold easier to see than it is right now, if that's actually a problem.
Well, today I was able to actually charge through a ton of TR infantry as an NC infiltrator while cloaked. That was fun. It was also the stupidest thing I've ever done in game, but worth it. Well, I'm not letting go of the fact that the sounds are just too loud and need to be toned down, since entering a facility and cloaking means every single person in it can hear you. Now, about the visuals, Dr. Euthanasia, you do have a point. Render distance could be a good fix for this. However, I personally want to have infiltrators be more easily detected in certain environments where the sheer fact that there's a body there would give someone away at close range (but further away they would be almost invisible). In a shadow or other dark area, on the other hand, they should be even harder to detect at close range. It would make choosing spots a lot more tactically important rather than just being tempted to crouch and cloak in the middle of a field. The environment should matter, is what I'm saying, and should be an important consideration for any infiltrator (not that it isn't already, but a gray shadow is hardly good at blending in, you see). One thing we can agree on, though, is that the cloak just doesn't function as intended. I think that's clear both by what we've said here and by the picture you showed. One thing I do need to mention, though, is that infiltrators have a much easier time hiding at night, as I've been surprised by them more then. Just something infiltrators here should keep in mind.
I dunno. I think that the cloak works exactly as intended, just not in a manner that works the way it should. Forgive me, my faith in SOE has been waning for a while now, especially with the recent addition of possibly pay to win implants. They only care about the money, I've always known that. I just wish it wasn't the case. - Braddigan
Hold on, I need to go quietly celebrate the fact that someone who previously disagreed with me just actually conceded a point. YYYEEEEEEEAAAAAHH! ...Okay. I think I'm good. Like I very briefly mentioned before, I do agree that the sound is a problem. It's not as prevalent a problem as the disparity between settings or constant partial-invisibility of the cloak because it requires specific hardware to be fully abused, but it's definitely a problem. In the first place, it exists to prevent ambushes from stealth, and it's something which I'm almost certain was originally designed around 100%, nigh-unconditionally invisible stealth mechanics. Look at Team Fortress 2 as a relatively modern example - the Spy is completely undetectable unless he bumps into someone, but he can't turn off his cloak too close to people or they're guaranteed to turn around and destroy him because of the noise it makes. The difference here, of course, is that we can't just run right past someone without being seen, and the sound carries so much farther than is actually necessary that it's insulting. The volume doesn't bother me so much as the distance, but either way, I'm definitely not trying to convince you to let it go. Your ideas about using the environment for stealth are ambitious, but I simply don't have faith that the developers of this game could ever do them justice. We're talking about fundamentally altering countless environments around the idea that an Infiltrator is going to be moving through them. Stuff like creating dark areas to hide in and alternate routes to enter buildings and outposts from, which aren't practical enough for the front-line grunts to make regular traffic lanes out of. Do you trust SOE to even show that much concern for the Infiltrator class? Furthermore, do you trust that if they did, they'd be able to do a good job? I'm not even sure they're that great at making shooters, let alone the next Thief title inside their shooters. I can acknowledge that imperfect stealth is good, in theory. The problem is that it's so heavily dependent upon the environment and the observer - two things which lie somewhere between difficult and impossible to control. At night, Infiltrators become significantly harder to see, but we can't just stop playing when the sun comes up, and anywhere with interior lighting is basically going to be off-limits if we're forced to rely on darkness in any way. In a sense this is already how things work, which is to say very poorly. What if you need an Infiltrator and it's not nighttime? The tactical situation and the environmental one aren't going to align for anyone's sake, and it's even worse for those of us who play the class almost exclusively and have to deal with it at its weakest, which is considerably more often than the times when it's strong.
You can do a little cheer for me too. I am now hoping for 100% invisibility when I saw all the negative implants coming out. Something has to happen or why bother with cloak at all. Can we use it broken and weird sure, but the negatives are really starting to mount here if you consider the future landscape coming up. Darts wont provide us any avoidance protection when people don't get picked up. Our saving grace becomes a semi transparent fail cloak. I hope everyone likes pistols because we might have to use stalker for a while if the rest don't get some love. I am with the poster above though. Its a shame because I enjoyed having to use cover to get from A to B, and would have loved for a "crouch" and hide mechanic to be viable for everyone. Sad fact is with the counters to our class I don't think it would be enough.
Hire the Thief developers to redo infiltrator stealthplay. SOE Developers not allowed to interfere. Problem sorted.
I'm not insecure- I'm not ashamed to admit when I think someone else has a good idea. Well, I was talking about the distance, as well. I referred to volume a lot because volume in the real world generally works like this- the louder it is, the further away it can be heard. Since this isn't the real world, though, I should say that I meant it's wrong for an infiltrator's cloak to be heard 90 meters away. I stick by my cert plan to fix this. Buff it to only 20 meters away that can be upgraded to 10. Still can't uncloak right next to someone, but at least you're not announcing your every move. I disagree- there are plenty of places and environments already in the game that could be done effectively. The bio lab is a good example where this already happens but isn't utilized enough. A lot of dark areas, plant life, and wide, bright areas all have an effect on the visibility of the infiltrator. I don't have that much faith in SOE to consider such an idea or impliment it that well, but I do think they're capable if they're willing to deal with the issues. I think we all have a little hope in that, otherwise the suggestions section of the forums would be empty. Oh, no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that for infiltrators that are ready to do something a bit riskier than normal, night time is the best time to take advantage of that. Obviously things do have to happen during the day. While the light doesn't have to affect the infiltrator that much and should still allow the cloak to be potent (as you said, infiltrators then couldn't be effective inside buildings), the infiltrator should align himself with the environment, not the other way around. That is, if there is a bush or a low spot, a corner or what have you, the infiltrator should be encouraged to utilize it with the cloak. All classes can and should use cover, but the infiltrator can do it in a special way. Well, should be able to. Broken cloak, remember? 8D
In principle, but not in practice. The problem with a biolab is that when it is being contested (which is almost always) it is packed wall to wall with enemies. You practically have to walk through a hail of bullets just to get inside. I dislike the biolabs in general because whenever I select Instant Action...that's where I go. Almost all the time. They deal with way more numbers than they are designed to hold. That is a different issue than this one, but it does effect the fact that the more people there are in one spot, the less places there are to hide in that spot. - Braddiganr
