Infiltrators - when will you balance them?

I know it's just an anecdotal statement, but sometimes it's just impossible to play as infantry on Miller during prime time because every battle is just flooded with infiltrators. And if there is no way to get a fun gunfight with an enemy, why even bother?

The networking "issue" is not solvable. Clientside is the nature of how this game engine was architected.

It is a reality that must be lived with. Make a plan to fit the situation rather than do nothing waiting on the situation to change.

Some places where this crops up are going to be tough to solve. For example: Vehicle collision mistiming, Moving C4 detonation location vs Damage location.

Other places are not. The "firing while still invisible" for example.
....Make decloak on fire 2 seconds long (kludgy, effective, low code cost)
....Put the cloak on a new weapon slot (eloquent, effective, high code cost)

Some sort of nerf here is unavoidable but remember we want a problem fixed, NOT a nerf.

So leave all the OHK guns alone, leave the SMG alone, leave cloak visibility levels alone, etc. Just touch the decloak on fire because that's the network-broken bit.

And because this does result in some manner of nerf, simply give a buff in some way that doesn't reintroduce the original problem. Or mitigates new problems introduced.

If a long 2 second decloak on fire is chosen, that really ruins ambushes. Let Deep Operative or some implant grant a 100% silent decloak to then make those ambushes effective again.

Perhaps my idea sucks, please share others.

But the ideas have got to face the immutable reality of clientside in this game.

Does not suck at all JJ

Definitely remove the automatic decloack on fire option

Two seconds to actually fully decloack sounds like a long time but I for one agree that it should at least be tried

As long as a class attracts the Bob Lee Swagger types who sit on the fringes of a fight picking off easy targets that class will have an inflated KDR, cloak or no cloak. Distance is its own camouflage, and this game has that in spades.

And yes, recon 100% needs a nerf. Trimming that spam back and introducing counterplay to motion detection will probably solve multiple issues at once.

In lieu of proper class statistics or playercounts/class to give context KPH is the best measurement of a class's potency, since it indicates the enemy's perception of a thing. They will notice dying to that thing, they will not necessarily notice how often that thing dies. As a measurement of impact, KDR is transparent to them.

You mean the video where I specifically state happens while Connery was on the fritz with unusually high latency? The one where I point out specifically as an egregious example of something that does not happen nearly as often as people claim? I hope it's not that one.

Baloney. The further away you get the less it matters whether you can see them or not, because you don't have the range to do anything about it. For all intents and purposes the benefits of the cloak past about 150m+ is for killing other snipers.

I'm not responsible for the inattentiveness of others, and lumping every example shown into the 'duh, stupid enemy' category is strawmanning. Of course the cloak is effective, but it's also not magic, and if you know what cues to look for you can usually get a pretty good idea of when they are around and where they are, which is why I often end up in a good position to kill them. If others can't or won't be bothered to learn it is not my fault.

If he had waited I would have killed him.

Pretty darn sure.

Cobalt

Connery

Emerald

Miller

No Soltech because it's dead right now.

This is from ~1:00PM PDT. Four populated servers ranging from almost dead to fairly active, and there are exactly three (3) cases where a faction has more kills with infiltrator than anything else, and none of them on the same server.

No, I am arguing that as a function of KDR cloak plays less of a role than you assume. I said they would still tend towards a higher KDR than their peers due to their kit sans cloak, and I stand by that statement. Unsurprisingly the class with access to free spotting and long range weaponry will tend to die less than those that do not.

I have. Split Hunter into two distinct cloaks, one of which is meant for use in CQB and one which is meant to be used at range. The one meant for close combat is much lower profile but has a delay to avoid your latency issues. The other one is only effective at longer ranges but with less delay, so you can still countersnipe effectively but are significantly more vulnerable if enemies get close. If it comes to it you can even restrict weapons based on cloak type but that might cause issues with other areas of the game.

Also reduce the number of active recon darts per player or introduce portable jammers or some form of counterplay to motion detection.

I feel like I need to put these things in my sig at this point since I end up saying them every time this topic comes up but by the time we get to this point everyone already has their fingers in their ears la-la-la-ing away.

Those players are annoying, but again, you aren't seeing Engi do that even with spitfires and/or recon dart x-bows. The absolute fact is that long range weapons are already better than anything else for long range and that giving them the ability to be 100% invisible at range on top of that is beyond ridiculous. Throw in the near instant cloak and de-cloak, and you have a class that is undeniably the only class that can truly counter itself at range.

While it largely ruins open field fights for anything that isn't Infil, hilltop snipers aren't really the main issue, just a symptom (again, do you fear the hilltop Engi?) It is at distances where they are still invisible (or effectively so) but can actually hit players reliably. At distances where you take fights and have something that pops out of nowhere deal half your health instantly or has one of the easiest handling weapons to mow you down without ADS. Losing the cloak would not allow them to keep playing as they do, not even the hilltop snipers.

While I see where you are trying to go with this, I gotta be honest, it's pretty flawed thinking. Ignoring the other problems with this, while frequency is certainly a factor, the biggest perception is the 'how'. Take some extreme examples, like being killed by someone obviously cheating; how that can get people to quit playing almost immediately, even if that's the first time they've seen a cheater in a long time. Think of how pocket orbitals have such an impact despite being negligible KPH.

Why does almost no one complain about LAs (as infantry), despite them being roughly even KPH to Infils, and yet we can't go half a month without 1-2 Infil threads popping up on these dead forums (typically started from newer posters and then gang-piled by the regulars)?

I'm no wordsmith, but I just started a petition to remove cloak, and it would be fun to see how many players actually would be willing to put their names on it.

I have no hopes of ever actually making a change here, and while I made it mostly for ***** and giggles and to have something to spam ingame, it would be really cool if we actually would get a proper response from the playerbase on this.

https://chng.it/vpKfNJSZ4S

cloak doesn´t need to be removed, what needs to be solved i the issue of the decloakpriod so affected players can have a fair reactiontime ... and i do not belive in petitions ..

I like it.

I don't particularly care about someone having an instant decloak on fire at range. Their efforts to establish the range itself means my skill will already be negated.

Similarly I don't care about someone who leverages the cloak to get behind me. Good use of the ability, well played.

I do find it rage inducing for someone in my field of view that I would have accounted for to kill me shortly before my network tells me I can see them.

So for me:
Add a second *after* the decloak before fire, or put a weapon-switch-length delay and I will be 100% OK with the entire infiltrator class.

And if there is some way to still allow instant decloak fire at range.. I'm fine with that too. Split the cloak into two types? Sure. it might be tricky to implement. We already have people using long range weapons in CQC.

And I think a delayed decloak on fire should also mean a delayed decloak sound. If an infiltrator uses the cloak to get behind me they should get the reward of negating my skill. If they miss their shot, then we play.

Thank you, I'm glad to hear that's the case.

I'm more curious about Construction, as there were changes planned however they never got through?

Thing is, what defines OP in most peoples eyes?

There isn't a universal answer, and frankly I believe should you try and nerf/fix a thing it would just shift the complaints from one symptom to another, and this kind of feedback loop will just continue.

The main cause of such symptoms in most players eyes, seem to stem from the Clientside of things.

Now, I think we can all agree that less localized servers contributed to these issues. When the Russian-based server got shut down, there was an immediate spike in clientside(network) related issues.

So those players who are now effectively without a server, ended up joining other servers where their ping serve as pro and a con.

The issue with high-ping? It favors aggressive playstyles, so more aggressive players get more pros out of it than cons.

Which falls back on the decloaking issue, as that is just a symptom of using the cloak offensively. But the cloak is not alone in this. Weapons and abilities in general. Such as dying to a shotgun ambush LA, before he's even touching the ground, the other day I died to a scatter max 2 seconds after I was in full cover.

So offensive use of the lag benefits the user A LOT, this includes bolting. Bolting is the most offensive use of the cloak as Infiltrator.

The issue here, again it's a symptom that won't really fix the overall issue with dying behind cover 2 seconds after the fact. Not to mention, by nerfing the cloak:

This would result in the defensive use, being absolutely horrendous. Whilst currently, defensive use of the cloak is already suffering due to high-ping. As users see you re-cloak way later than you actually did, meaning they see you for longer.

So to answer your question, no. I can't handle that, because having to wait 2 whole second for a decloak is a literal eternity. Especially when we have abilities in the game that instantly trigger such as the Heavy shield. That wouldn't be fair or balanced.

I mean, ya pretty much nailed it there.

Most of it is based on Reddit and Yell chat, it has been left unchecked for a while on Reddit, forums and especially in-game. Rageyells, and ragetells eventually start affecting the playerbase and embolden a loud minority to seek out and spread a more 'cleaner' version of their perceived frustrations.

Most players across communities/outfits where actual surveys and more productive debates are held tend to see nothing wrong with infiltrators.

However, they do agree there's a big issue with latency and shutting down regional servers causing people who are now without a server, to join other server with their high-ping causing an upsurge in clientside related symptoms.

This isn't to say it's on the people with a high-ping, as they're just looking to play the game. But high-ping combined with an aggressive playstyle, such as Infiltrator, Light Assault and Heavy Assault can inflate issues bigger than they actually are.

Combine that with say emboldening of non-productive opinions against infiltrators in-game, Reddit and the forums, and that's how a vocal minority came to be. Now mind you, this is a vocal minority if you compare it to the Planetside 2 community as a whole, meaning that they'll appear larger than they are in small spaces like Reddit or here on the forums. In-game generally people who rageyell such things, are met with a sigh from the community but again it does encourage negative behaviour.

Truth is, most players can't be asked with Reddit or the forums because of that vocal minority and rather just play the game.

In fact the only reason, I ever joined the forums myself was because there was a change made to Powerknifes that was so outrageous, that I could no longer stay silent. As it felt that without opinions from the general public all the devs would see, is that vocal minority, and once that starts dictating the game the Planetside 2 community has been enjoying, it becomes a problem.

I don't feel like there's a need to apologize for this, though I understand where you are coming from. I for instance, know that you're not trying be derogatory when you call something a "Vocal minority".

I also don't mean it in that sense, I'm simply observing and analyzing where certain opinions are cultivated to then be able to understand them and address their concerns. However, I think the reason as to why this term might invoke defensive behavior is because on of the main arguments presented by those who 'attack' infiltrators is:

"The Plansetside 2community doesn't like infiltrators" or "New players get frustrated with infiltators".

So by saying that, you're essentially conveying that their argument isn't correct. Which it isn't, as there's straight up no discernible metric that would indicate as such. Even if there was, just because x amount of players say that infils are OP in a sense, doesn't mean it's a valid argument especially in a competitive PVP FPS, because naturally the people opposing a class are going to outweigh the people defending it, as 'nerfs to other classes make me better', so there no incentive for other players to defend something they don't really care about.

Now, I'd like to talk about this. Because this is also my take on things, and generally a lot of the community. And admittedly, this is what causes that vocal minority. Not saying this be be accusatory, but it's more of cause/effect.

If the community stays silent in regards to feedback, it will end up with that vocal minority dictating the game because that's all the feedback they get.

So keep doing what you're doing!

It's really all about how you approach the game, and frankly love those kind of moments they're surprisingly wholesome. Often when an infiltrator dinks me in the head, I simply tell them it was a nice shot.

To add to that, I had a funny moment where I was in a consctucted tower, nearly cleared it out. Got down to the button, suddenly. I see a split second of a Anti-personal mine drop into my screen and I explode. Only for the cam to pan out and I see him up the strairs where he dropped a mine on my head, I told him how my surprise and we had a nice chat.

And then there's that, unfortunately :/ Which is what I touched on earlier, I wish there were more moment like the former rather than the latter.

Somebody suggested, more recon options for other classes. Or in general, I think the engineer class should have the recon darts on the Xbow extended. Because it's very short. Or just extend the life of the Xbow darts.

I do think it's a little bit silly that the thing that's very good at detecting a hard to see class is a tool, that's only available to that very same class.

Maybe give the motion spotter to the Engi? Ya know, that makes a lot more sense than a recon dart.

It allows Recon darts to still be useful, but also allows another class to use a stationary one. Which fits really will in the overall idea of Engineers fortifying a point with such tools.

I'm not interested in what's OP in most people's eyes. This isn't an opinion or popularity contest (trust me, the infiltrator would lose that). I want to hear from people that are experienced at the game. I want to hear from people who are good. I want to hear from people who understand the issue.

I know you got at loggerheads with sometine but fact is he's a really good player, knows the game, and is a fantastic infiltrator to boot. So I want to hear what he has to say. You should too.

And there is a great deal of this topic that is not subjective at all.

The degree is subjective but you will objectively experience discomfort if you get a punishing action through no actions of your own. Pretty sure that's just a psychological thing.

Sorry, can't fully agree here. Until you get past around 100ms the network latency doesn't get beyond server latency. Even so the problematic conditions happen between players on 35ms connections. It's a bad situation even if the network is perfect.

The decloak on fire mechanic has a server component to it that simple clientside hit detection does not. As the infiltrator you'll notice really janky decloak on fire mechancis when the latency gets high. But on the target side, you remain invisible through your jankyness. Then when the decloak and fire get to actually happen you will still be partially cloaked when the target is told they are dead.

It's clientside, yes. But clientside is more than just network latency.

Yes this has been mentioned. I'm doing a big circle here. Probably 2nd or 3rd lap.

A corner plus clientside plus shotgun = the same *objectively* un-fun experience, yes.
A high KPM Heavy that can quad-dink your head plus clientside plus LMG= the same.

I'm glad you get that. What I need you to get is this is exactly what the decloak on fire mechanic does. It's clientside on tap. You can drink from that well any time you want. Imagine if the guy with the shotgun could do that. Or the heavy with the LMG just gets his shots in and you only get to fire back if he misses.

This is the pinnacle of the broken mechanic. What is OP? This is OP. CQC Bolting with OHK weapon while you are able to fire while still invisible? This mechanic in any other game would be confused for a cheat So if people have "opinions" on this to the contrary, I'm going to be inclined question their objectivity and/or experience.

Your own target only sees you for longer if you miss. This sir, I am afraid, truly is a skill issue. Other players are able to engage one target while being seen by another. So can infiltrators.

But being able to kill someone while you are invisible is?

You reload while cloaked don't you? 2 seconds is nothing. Try being decloaked in the middle of a 3-4 second reload when someone engages you.

But I would be fine with even 1 second. I'm not after a nerf. I'm after a broken game mechanic. No more firing while invisible.

A full second decloak on fire turns it back to skill. No more crutch. Decloaking right in front of someone on their screen SHOULD get you shot. Don't do that. Or if you do, learn to juke the same as the rest of us.

I want to add: Since 8 years by now. There are lots of threads about cloaking being an issue since early 2013 on several platforms.

Honestly, infiltrators are ruining this game for me. And yes, before anyone asks, I have played one. With the weapons they get and HELLO, INVISIBILITY, it's easy kills. Especially stalkers. Just after I switched over, not even knowing their full capabilities, just the basic key functions(when I wasn't hitting the wrong keys by accident.) I had 7 kills, 1 death, within some 6 minutes in a heavy pop'd battle. It was a cake walk. Sometime later, I happened to park myself in a spot in Hossin, just outside the wall at Nathan. The number of infiltrators I watched pass me by, some in packs of 2 or 3 was INSANE.
My favorite is an engineer. It's the class I started playing the game with. With the new AMR's, really cool to play. I guess over the past 2 weeks or so, I started paying more attention to 'the class' that killed me rather than whom. No shock really, infiltrators. Depending on what I'm doing, style of play at certain battles, I can say with certainty that 100% of my deaths were by infiltrators and not the same one. And those deaths weren't even at the hands of snipers or stealthed flashes(another HUGE annoyance!). It's getting VERY OLD, REALLY QUICK. I haven't been playing as much lately because of it.

You don't see Engineers do that because they can't. Archer is not a substitute for an actual sniper at range, and their recon is significantly worse aside from ammo availability. Give them access to the same weapons and then maybe we'll talk, but no one fears the hilltop Engi because his AMR can't kill you unless you bend over backwards to make it happen. As for playstyle changes Cloak v No Cloak I'll refer you to any Battlefield title from the last decade.

Open field fights are dominated by vehicles. At true long ranges in this game even without cloak snipers would still be the only counter to themselves anyways. The instances where seeing the little dinker on the hill 150m away makes the difference between life and death are negligible. In that scenario 9 times out of 10 the sniper that kills you at range shot you from a place you weren't looking.

People also complain when they shoot a heavy in the back and he pops shield, turns around and triple-dinks them with a SAW. I'm not arguing for changing core gameplay but as a new player coming from other shooters I'd imagine that scenario to be far more frustrating than getting killed by a sniper I didn't know was there in the first place.

I never said it was perfect, there are a lot of things the stats don't tell us that would give much needed context. With that being said, in some of those examples other classes are getting nearly 50% more kills per hour than Infil. That is huge. I personally consider that far more important than Infils having ~1.3 KDR, and far more helpful to the faction as a whole.

I don't know, there's been some pretty Nuclear-level butt-frustration over the LA's kit in the past...
But counterplay that starts with simply looking up is much easier to grasp than listening for faction specific decloak sounds and reading the minimap.
Also, there is the whole 'people have been complaining about snipers in FPS games since time immemorial' thing to consider.

For me i believe the cloake should should show distortions when on the move. Like in Killzone 2.
Also remove CQC snipes or make handling sniper rifles harder to handle.

How far away are you talking, then? Because an Infil 200m+ away isn't doing jack all in a fight besides maybe killing other Infils doing the exact same. An archer 1hks up to like 180m, with a muzzle velocity faster than even CQC snipers (which are, by far, the best snipers in the game). If you are further than either the Archer or CQC snipers can reliably snipe, then you are, in almost every case, absolutely useless.

Open field fights are dominated by vehicles, yes, but Infils rule and ruin what little any other Infantry can do. And yes, the sniper probably shot you from a place you weren't looking because they were literally 100% invisible; this also ignores that they can line up shots while in plain sight, and then avoid the vast majority (if not all) of any return fire. Range dominates ranged fights, once again, adding Invisibility to it is borderline moronic and absolutely breaks any balance.

People complain about nearly everything. What is important is listening to people who have credibility; lacking extreme bias, have experience both using and against the mechanic, good general knowledge of the game, can or have backed up what they say with objective facts, etc.

There is only one class that ever gets that much more kills regularly (excluding Engi because vehicles), and it is heavy. In other cases, like in your own screenshots, you have Infils ALSO being able to be nearly 2x the KPH of Heavies while also being 1.5x the KDR. That is huge.

Again, on average, second highest KPH while also being, on average, ~50% higher KDR means that while people are dying less to Infils than Heavies, they are also not able to kill them more.

Look at your own screenshots and total them: Infil 9206 vs. Heavy 10352, a ~12% difference with a 52% KDR difference Infil 15.89 vs. Heavy 10.47.

IF Infil was getting a tiny fraction of the KPH that Heavy was, sure you could say KDR doesn't mean much, but they aren't.

Almost all of it directed at C4 and Rocklet Rifles. A few have been for absurd hipfire weps like Horizon, and a couple about jumping/flying CoF buffs to carbines. Even including the AV threads, it is nowhere near the complaints about Infils.

Bro, please don't go down this route. Ignoring sound bugs, ignoring massive fights, ignoring the fact that cloak removes spots, ignoring sensor shield, ignoring suppressors, you still have to deal with complete invisibility to near invisibility combined with 1hk (or incredibly high alpha dmg) weps as well as clientside + network mechanics that allow Infils to either outright kill you or remove large chunks of your health before your computer even registers the noise or visuals of the Infil.

You all broke what did not need to be fixed like you did with the Exotic Implants of which NONE of them are worth a dime, much less the 80 you all are charging for the 2 that LITERALLY do nothing but change the color of you life bar..... Minor Cloak is the only one still of LIMITED use.... Other than the glaring obvious, and why Infiltrators are no where near the threat everyone here makes them out to be... It is not much more than a pause feature that one uses in order to answer the door, grab a snack, or use the bathroom without turning off your game. If Defectors still had access to BERSERKER in its original form, we might..... MIGHT not DIE EVER 2 SECONDS from a SINGLE BRICK OF C4...... Or at the very least be able to at least TRY to turn the tide in a battle. N.S.O.'s lack of Abilities on the Chimera or anything else, your Base Builder that STILL HAS NOT COME TO PLAYSTATION, the errors with the A.N.T. which will often will not deploy with the Deliverer Module; but instead will BREAK the Turbo so it no longer functions unless you buy a new A.N.T. The Dervish, NAMELY the PIXIE which often bugs when I fly a passenger and will refuse to lock on and fire at an air target, to name but a FEW is what needs the attention, not Oshur, Not Infiltrators.

**Infiltrators used to be able to detect other infiltrators with the M.D. gun. This made them very easy to find and kill if you simply followed the flow of the game. Some one beats you with one, pull one to counter it. Reintroducing this will solve 90% of supposed "Infiltrator issues".** Again. I maintain, Infiltrators are the least of my problems when I play, even when I am on foot, what seems to kill me are H.A. and L.A. (They want to talk balance? For example: Using a Thumper or 2 on my Heavy I should be able to drop a guy with a gun, but noooooo. Literally every gun in the game can somehow beat a GRENADE LAUNCHER to the kill. Why? Because it shoots FIREWORKS instead of grenades.... A pitiful 250 with a 1 inch blast zone just barely big enough to drop a single person at a time, and a grenade that does the exact same damage in both direct and area, is not a grenade at all, it is a failed cannon shell. The weapon is supposed to do nearly ALL of its damage in the area of effect. Direct damage should be icing on the cake giving like 100 extra damage on top of the like 500 damage it would be doing if ANY laws or reality were applied here because a round launched at that low of a velocity would hurt about as much as being hit with a beanbag. Then there are the types of ammo..... They a JOKE weakening the weapon further than it already is.... How does a NAPALM Grenade deal so little damage for such a sort amount of time and yet a PILLAGER, wreak absolute havoc? I assume there is supposed to be some logic because, BULLET DROP! For something that slows the user down by 10% just by HAVING 1, it should be much better than this... Every session I play, I am usually the only idiot TRYING to use one.)

Nerfing combinations on Infiltrators? Why are you all not doing the same thing with real threats, like solo Dalton Liberators? I know you all are slaves to management, but come on..... How hard are you REALLY pushing for them to to see reason? It is like they do not know how much money they are wasting on garbage features, instead of fixing QUALITY. A BOAT with a HUMAN CATAPULT............... OH BECAUSE A GALAXY is not the better option and NEEDS YET ANOTHER REASON TO NOT BE USED!? I want to beat whoever thought that up with my bum leg of my Defector..... Just get B.W.B.L.O.M.D. (The game just ATE a full package of BLUE materials that took 36 hours for me to craft! Collected it and NOTHING, just GONE! But yeah.... BOATS!) I have no doubt that you all are reading, but someone is prioritizing wrong.

Indeed, it's been 8 years now. It's time for people to stop blaming the class, and especially the same ol' threads calling for nerfs to an ability that's only an issue in their eyes.

Especially as those platforms mainly seem to consist of Reddit, The forums and rageyells/ragetells.

Just because you played one, doesn't really lend any credibility to your anecdotal recounts of a few instances where you go on a killstreak. Also, it's not invisibility. It's translucent at best, and whilst running you might as well not be cloaked.

Basic key functions??? You mean aiming your gun in the general direction of an enemy? This is an MMOFPS, it's not really mechanically challenging. Not to mention, if you get in a good position in a Heavy pop'd battle any class can score a killstreak.

Also Infiltrators going on a flanking route? That's new?

I'm glad you enjoy the engineer, since the AMR buffs are really fun to play, and make the AMR a lot more useful.

Aaaaaand.. There it is!

... I mean, that's kinda the point.

"I charged into a doorway and died due to Engineers"
"I went to the frontline and got mowed down by Heavy LMGs"
"I tried going on the roof and got killed by a Light Assault"
"I went for a flank and came across an Infil that put me in the ground"
"I made an honest attempt at going for the backline and got dome'd by a medic"

You went for a specific playstyle, and you're surprised to encounter/die to an enemy proficient in that playstyle?
I'm sorry, but if you're trying to flank, whilst isolated, or if you're not securing your own flanks.. Expect Infiltrators to kill you, that's what they're made to do. Pick off stragglers.

Then, change up your play style instead of coming on the forums calling for a nerf because frankly: "It's getting VERY OLD, REALLY QUICK."

Terribly sorry to hear that, I'd say change up your playstyle.

A suggestion, as engineer: If you have ASP points, put it in shotgun secondaries.
Grab an AMR on your primary, then have a shotty in your secondary slot with darklight attachment so you can light up the infils and happy hunting. I can guarantee, you'll have a better time.