Infiltrators - when will you balance them?

I couldn't find a particular instance of what you're referring to in regards to Killzone 2 (Haven't played it, and youtube isn't being helpful)

However, Infils already have a distortion to their cloaks up when on the move. They're really easy to see, especially if facing a SMG cloaker. The only time they're not is when they're standing still, especially crouched.

not in my experience (exceptio for NSO infiltrators for whatever reason). A lot of this, for what I can see, has to do with lag (not mine I have 20/39 latency on Cobolt) and poor rendering optimisation/synchronisation (i.e. even non-infils right infront of you may not be rendered sometimes).
They only distort when taking damage.
Search for scout class. The also had a saboteur class which loosely disguise as a friendly. Both were easy to spot and visually track once knowing what to look for.
Personally I would prefer infils to be more visible but give them more health. This would mitigate the rendering performance too a degree imo

You say that, yet every single thread in regards to Infiltrators boils down to some kind of hate-train. Most of which are just anecdotal, and opinions from frustrated players who are a stone's throw away from just rage-yelling or rage-telling an infiltrator in game.

What you want is to hear, is people agreeing with you.

Because in your eyes the only people who "Understand the issue" are those who agree with you, that's not how arguments work, or the world for that matter. Like who defines 'experience', and what defines being 'good' in planetside. A high K/D, in a strategic/objective based MMOFPS?

I heard what he has to say, and concluded that he has no idea what he's talking about as his general argument is: High KD = good. And that's all he has to say, it's simply unproductive. He has experience, but if that experience is summed up by farming a Sundy with an LMG for 5 hours a day. Then frankly, I don't think that constitutes to much.

The point is, everyone who thinks FISU stats or some other K/D or accuracy metric constitutes being a good player in Planetside2 need to work on themselves.

We're playing a tactical, and strategic MMOFPS. I know a player, and a good friend with 0.5 KD, yet they're considered one of the best Squadleaders/platoonleaders of the outfit because he knows tactics, he plays 5d chess with enemies during alerts, and when he's leading people including public players flock to his squad because he's calm, collective, leads entire platoons to an Alert win.

He knows that his KD isn't good, but doesn't care because he's providing 11 others or as platoonlead 47 other players with a good time and leading us to victory. He doesn't brag, he doesn't whine about infiltrators, he isn't toxic in yell-chat or on forums.

Now, that is a good player. Because he knows there's other facets to this multifaceted game, other than point gun at enemy and shoot. He thinks in objectives, not KD ratio to brag about to his friends.

Trying to validate yourself as good by hiding behind a KD ratio whilst playing PS2 as a casual arena shooter game, really doesn't add any value to any argument, it's like saying "1v1 me".

All of it is subjective..

"I FEEL like it's unfun to fight against."
"I think the cloak is unbalanced."
etc..

The only objective argument I've seen coming from these threads in general is that the ability suffers from latency issue when de-cloaking.. BUT, you never heard the mention that it also happens on re-cloak, or that it happens to other classes/players as well.

Why? Because the former is but a symptom of players with a bad ping.

You can't treat a symptom by punishing the entire class of players for a few bad apples, or for network issue that are server-side. We all suffer from it.

I'm not sure if you're on EU or NA, and but on EU server (Miller) things were fine until the russian based server got shut down. Suddenly, we get an influx of players with higher ping than usual.

And mind you, this is not their fault. They're just trying to find a server closest to them because they want to play the game too.

However the result of which is huge latency discrepancies between players, which saw a huge spike in clientside related issues pop up. One of which is "shot by a decloaking infil", "shot around corners", "hit detection being wonky", "dying 0.5 sec later to the same person you just killed".

Again, this is a product of that I mentioned above.
A light assault killing you whilst still mid-air? On his machine, he's already in front of you with a shotgun to your chest.

It's a symptom that is caused by lag, especially when the fights get bigger.

You know how many times I've knifed a person on my screen, and can literally see the blade animation hit them, as well as sparking coming off their armor/head and they do not die?

Again, all of this is amplified by 1 thing: You only see the times where the lag is NOT in your favor, but not the times when it is.

That infil you just spotted and killed trying to hide behind a tree? On his screen he already cloaked, and was in full cover. But again, on your screen it's still visible.

It's a two-way street, always has been.

Alright, lemme be clear on a thing here:

No respectable infiltrator uses the "Decloak on fire" option. It's janky as all hell.
If you press the fire button, it straight up takes 2 seconds to actually fire because again network issues.

Also you act like a cloak gives you straight up invulnerability, it does not.
And there's also a significant delay when you re-cloak, so no you can do it on demand.

Even then, if you are in a long corridor and just got your head taken off by a CQC bolter. Or a shotgunner comes around the corner and kills you, the results the same.

Also the guy with the shotgun does do that, that's why LA Ambush jets exist.

Lemme be clear with you, my issue IS NOT with if CQC bolting it's broken or not. A lot of mechanics/playstyles/weapons in the game are 'broken' due to this.

My issue with you, and any other person who's objectivity and /or experience I question is that:

You cannot nerf an entire class of players (AND JUST THEM, nobody else), and therefor punishing them for a network related issue.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't going to solve anything. As all those other classes/weapons/playstyles/whatever are still broken by that underlying issue which is the network.

Specifically your solution in particular of increasing decloak time, is going to end up punishing players for something that's not on them. You are treating the entirety of the infiltrator class as collateral damage, for a few instances of player deaths that can be attributed to clientside.

- The players who don't CQC bolt? Collateral damage.
- Players who do have a good network connection. Collateral damage.
- The re-cloak period still being longer due to the issue. Not addressed.
- The issue affecting literally every other classes/weapons/playstyles/whatever. Not addressed.

You want to get rid of CQC bolting? Then get rid of 6x or below scopes on sniper rifles.
Even then, this still doesn't solve the issue with point 4: The issue affecting literally every other classes/weapons/playstyles/whatever. Not addressed.

And is still technically punishing a playstyle for network issues.

What? The first line refers to network latency causing issues.

Also, is this you admitting that you can indeed die to an infiltrator when shooting someone else and despite one of the main 'arguments' in this from people (including the one you spoke so highly of) and many many other threads being:

It's considered "UNFUN", and you agree that it is in fact a skill issue.
Because if so, I am glad you've come around to seeing it from my point of view.

However, I do have to say I was referring to players being able to see you uncloaked when you are already cloaked on your screen. Which again, is attributed to network issues.

Not the actual ability of players being able to see you whilst you are shooting someone xD

I didn't say killing someone whilst invisible is fair or balanced.
I also don't think that Deci'ing someone around a corner is fair and balanced.

What I am saying is: that your solution seeks to punish players, treating but 1 symptom of 50 whilst causing collateral damage.

You can't shoot whilst cloaked, you can shoot whilst shielded. The nano-armor cloak, got literally reduced to a worse resist over shield.

"But I would be fine with even 1 second. I'm not after a nerf."

JJ, increasing the decloak time of the cloak FOR THE WHOLE CLASS. Is, in fact. A nerf. You are indeed after a nerf, your solution is a nerf to the ability. Yet this won't resolve the underlying issue.

If we'd answer this underlying issue with nerfs, we'd have to nerf every class/weapon/vehicles/whatever to compensate for this issue. And nobody wants that.

"A full second decloak on fire turns it back to skill." People will still complain, because again the issue isn't fixed.

I heard a similar issue from Demigan, he mentioned that cloakers were too hard to see.
Whilst he was on his friend's system, he had no issue spotting them.

I do think there's an issue with poor rendering optimisation/synchronisation.
A good example is no the "no head" glitch, where enemies render with no heads which as a sniper can be a little annoying. (it's incredibly frustrating).

And yes, whilst mostly at longer distances it happens CQC as well. It's really bad when just dropping in on a base, there's a high chance you'll just die to an invisible non-rendered enemy. Which is DEFINITELY a network issue as it's very common in bigger fights.

I looked it up, and I can see what you mean. I'll be honest, I'd love a disguise ability as a friendly, but I think this will result in A LOT of friendly fire xD

As for the visibility, it's pretty much just as you describe on my system. Whilst running it's easy to spot and visually easy to keep track once you know what you're looking for.

Though adding a distortion effect to it as is, would make it too easy to spot. Most players I know, maining other classes say they're having no issue with spotting infiltrators. This gets even easier with lower graphics.

I don't think the rendering will improve from this, but I don't believe more visibility would really help. I do think ways to detect it, through means of minimap sounds pretty solid.

I think if people see a blip on the map and no person or corpse, it's an easy guess it's an Infil. I suggested getting a stationary motion spotter for the Engi might help.

I really don't want to post in this typical infiltrator thread, but when someone from dev team posted something about infiltrator problem after years of whining, i will add my 5 cents to this thread.

1. People whining about infiltrator on the internet are not voices of whole planetside player base.

True. But if we see someone who want to waste time to address something that mean, that person care about that thing.
In that situation people making threads about some problem, suggestion etc. care about this game and want to address their own opinion.

If we compare threads from PLANETSIDE 2 OFFICIAL FORUM, we can clearly see that Infiltrator class have the longest threads and the whaining about tham are constant.

Reddit also gets infiltrator threads constantly and even on the Steam forum, the longest thread is "Game is ruined by infiltrators." (https://steamcommunity.com/app/218230/discussions/0/3187990555109012696/).

That alone should show developers, that something is wrong, and i want to also address, that NEW PLAYERS are not posting on any kind of forum if they dont like something. New players will just abband the game.

SOLUTION: If we really want to know if infiltrators are the problem for players and specially for new players, Devs should (If its possible) make ingame petition about some game designs that are questionable. WARNING! If that will be case, do NOT! I repeat DO NOT Ask any Streamers, Youtubers or sweaty vets, about what question should be in this petition. They all out of touch, what normal players are experiencing in this game.

2. Infiltrators clock mechanic is broken and it only creates frustration and unfair engagements.

I could type about this for ages and i won't come up with something, what alleady was posted. In that case i will use only logic, to address the problem with infiltrator design.

First of all, what is planetside 2? it's a MMOFPS combat arms game, where players in big numbers are fighting against each other in different bases using all kind of equipment from tanks, planes, maxes etc.

This game is one of the hardest fps games to embrace. Why you ask?
1. New players are thrown against old veterans
2. Players can get shot from all directions, from all sort of equipments
3. Overwhelming number of players in such a small area make surrounding awareness even more harder
4. Engine and network limitation due to such a scale of this game, provide only decent experience in terms of frames per seconds and lag, compare to others titles.
5. Very fast TTK compared to other titles

In that case all player classes should be balanced around this game specification and engine/network limitations, but somehow infiltrator cloak is designed exactly to take only advantage to every single aspect of this game.

First, merging Team Fortress 2 Sniper with Spy to create infiltrator is a bizarre idea from the start, but merging those two classes and then removing their weaknesses are beyond stupid.

That operation created THE most broken class in all video games FPS i witness.

We got class that:
1. Is completely invisible from long and medium range, that is ready to engage, so cover does not need to exist for him
2. Is equipped with OHK weapons
3. Can slowly aim without any threat
4. His visible for enemy players only for 1s after shoot
5. Even if someone sees him and put marker on infiltrator, the marker disapers if infil cloak
6. Even the declock time is shorter than Spy from TF2
7. You cannot counter this class, because counter sniping as non invisible class gets you killed by already aimed at you invisible sniper, and even when you as invisible sniper aiming at area where enemy sniper is and then given you only 0.5s time to aim his head its a waste of time.
8. The only tool that is given to players to counter this clock mechanic is Darklight whith is useful for only one type of infiltrator gameplay, with also gives your position, dont work above 10m, and its useless when you sprinting.

And this is only a tip of an iceberg.

By sheer logic, after reading only 2 of my points any game designer would think again if this is balanced.
And the biggest problem is when we add those ideas to Planetside 2. The game where the chaos form things that are happening around you is so overwhelmed, that even new players with other FPS experiances, are running around like chickens dont knowing whats going on.

My brain hurts thinking, why such a class it his current state is in such a game as planetside 2? I just cant! I can understand if this kind of class was in small 10vs10 shooter, where players have far less things to pay attention. Almost everything around this class design exploiting and overtake every aspect of this game from gameplay design and game engine/networking capability.

Even after 2000 hours in this game, when i manage to get used to encounter infills, I STILL CAN'T HANDLE THE FACT, HOW UNLOGICAL THIS CLASS IS IN THIS GAME.

SOLUTION: Devs should use Logic to redesign this calss and stop listening to Streamers, Youtubers or Sweaty Vets.

I could also respond to every comment defending infiltrator current state, but my post is already long enough, so i will say only that, that counter arguments from infiltrator defenders, are valid ONLY in small fights (12v12) and not in massive fights, or even medium fight with this game is design for and why most of the NORMAL player are playing this gme for. (For more details i can repost on next posts)

For the last sentence i want to address, that i wasted like 2 hours writing this and translating to english, because YES i like this game and i want to Planetside 2 grow bigger and keep existing, but thers some aspect of this game that are not imperceptible or ignored by developer team.

?

Ya, forgot to add something there lad.

I apologize, clearly I have have upset you by calling you out on that.
However, the point still stands and I stand by it.

No need for the hostility, if you don't like what I have to say. Then don't reply.
You can ignore all the arguments you like to feed your own ideas, but judging by this reply, you're out of ammo for arguments anyway.

But feel free to come and have a productive chat, once you can finally define what being 'good' in Planetside is?
As that seems to be a reoccurring theme.

The edit says everything, I'll just reiterate this :

Cheers, ya had some solid suggestions tbh. (I really wish we had a disguise mode, but it'd be broken xD)
It seems to be rather inconsistent, which from a IT point of view means it's hard to pin down exactly why. I would assume the Devs having the issue of pinning it down as well.

Yeah, I did hear recently of a German member of the outfit I'm in, had to exclude certain hops from their router due to an issue that popped up with their ISP and PS2 servers. After which the issues got sorted out.

And I agree, they should be mitigated in some way. But it has to be done right, it's finding that solution that is hard.
However, unlike some we can't seek to treat a symptom of a bigger problem, by punishing the whole class and ignore the overarching issues that affect every single class.

Issues of this nature tend to occur in bigger fights and over time too, and it wouldn't surprise me if the visibility of the cloak degrades when there's bigger fights around to 'save' resources.

I have a 3070 myself, however I do believe PS2 is CPU heavy. Then again with a CPU like that you should not have those issues.

You're right, me neither. It was fine back then, and there were a lot more players as well.

I am not running it on 'potato' settings. I'd say, give that a go, and see if it fixes some issues. Because I only get render issues in really big fights if I've been on for a couple of hours. Same thing with the strange 'sound bug' that happens when you play too much, where you can't hear some of the sounds in-game.

Let's take into consideration how fast it takes to respawn. I've played this game since 2012 and never had too much of an issue with cloakers. It makes it funnier when they exist to be honest. Sure, wraith cloaking with renegade.. went from ASP2 BR1 to BR100 in 20 days grinding hard during double XP and triple XP with 2x 50% boosting and membership with it but I hardly use it because it's boring.

Maybe have cloakers have 50% less shields? Increase Wraith Re-cloaking time to 5 seconds? Make the Flash have 50% less HP or at least have a 2x damage multiplier when cloaked vs not cloaked. It's like impossible to kill a moving wraith flash that is invis with small-arms.

And then we have people like this.

"Its just funny when other people respawn, also I have no idea how I got that XP because it takes 13.000 extreme menace kills during a triple XP+two 50% XP boosters to go from BR1 to BR100 and I dont even have half that amount in total on my Flash".

A cloak Flash just proves the whole point of how OP cloak is. Without cloak a Renegade Flash struggles to get even 1 kill, and with cloak it suddenly can and very well too. Because cloak is what is OP.
The devs tried to "fix" the sudden burst damage from cloak issue on Flashes already around the time the Starfall came out and started wrecking everything, because mounting a gun with the DPS of a Prowler on a Flash was "surprisingly" a bit OP. Ofcourse instead of stopping the player from being able to decloak and almost immediately fire, which is what the burst fire problem was about, the devs decided to add a cooldown before you can cloak again. If you want proof they dont know what they are doing, this is it.

You're really reaching there.. Because the cloak on a flash works different.
Also AP mines, tank hedges, hardlight barriers exist...

The point of the cooldown was so you can shoot it after it decloaked.
if you're trying to kill it whilst it cloaked, see above.

Renegade flashes are only really good at farming unaware potatoes at a sundy.
Surprisingly all of the vehicles are.. The difference, is that a flash actually needs to get close to deal damage.
Unlike Hesh lightning, HESH MBT's, ESFS, Libs, etc.

In that way, so does a cloaker. You have to get close to "decloak in someone's face" at which point you let that happen.

Nah I'm not reaching. Saying that AP mines (which are anti-personel mines btw), tank hedges and hardlight barriers are very functional against cloak flashes which almost by default go off the beaten path in order to ambush prey and avoid exposing themselves too early (unless you are called Sumowning apparently) is a stretch.

Also why would you only attempt to farm unaware Sunderers? It makes it much easier for players to stop you with the AT mines (assuming no AT mine protection is equipped), tank hedges and hardlight barriers. If not just have too many players spot you after a strike and take potshots.
You are much better off hunting down enemies that roam or striking where you can be useful. For example its not hard to guess where players will try to repair their vehicles near a frontline, which makes it easy to attempt finishing off the vehicle or assassinating the crew during repairs. Since all the mines and barriers are a greater risk to the owners if placed behind their own lines you wont be seeing them much either.

I already pointed out the differences of Flash cloak and why those differences failed to combat what they were supposed to combat. Ofcourse its great to know that the developers quite literally admitted to knowing what made cloak OP: The ability to decloak dump a load of damage in an opponent before they could truly react. Just about everyone thought they would do something to the decloak time or similar because of that, only for them to come up with a solution that made cloak Flashes almost only useable for that purpose.

Its why we know that the devs wont really change anything, why we can have so many threads about cloak and hear that the devs dont intent anything to change despite them knowing ans admitting literally that they know we are right about why and how cloak is OP. They dont want to, no matter how broken it might be.

Edit:
"We let it happen" that a cloaked vehicle, which we cannot reasonably detect and counter in time, gets in our face. You really went there didnt you? Its about as dumb as the "you just got to spot that thing designed to be hard to spot" argument.

"...at which point you let that happen."
You mean by leaving a spawn point?

It's very interesting and new argument you introduced to us. Can you describe exactly, what did you mean by this? I'm curious how exactly its a player fault, that almost invisible class (fully invisible in some situations), in battle chaos around the player, pop up on front of the players face and deliver full mag to player face before even fully rendered? You want to players look on walls, so infiltrators won't decloak on players face but instead on players back?

Sorry that i'm sarcastic, but if you bring that kind of "argument" to the only thread, that after many years was somehow noticed by someone with a touch with devs, then you should better leave this discussion or post some reasonable arguments.

Also it it possible, try to pour out your thoughts in one post (even if it's going to be long posts) and not spamming posts like WhatsApp messages, because if (probably never) devs wanted to read that thread, they should have clear discussion with problems, solutions, reasonable arguments for and arguments against current infiltrator state.

Sorry but thanks to you i also wasted, what could be informative post, only to bring your awareness, that you should somehow slow down and rethink everything you want to post.