-"Their cloaking technology enables them to become almost totally invisible, allowing them to move around virtually undetected."... -"Infiltrators are far from the sturdiest soldiers, as their suits composed of stealth-compatible materials provide little protection against small arms fire, but many veteran cloakers claim that being undetectable provides for just as much survivability on the field." -Infiltrator class description courtesy of SOE "Dying to a sniper that you never had a chance to see is a poor gameplay experience for everyone on the receiving end." -SOE on Balance issues
You're implying that any in-game descriptions are accurate representation of real gameplay. Hue. I would love them to actually sit down and make all the tooltips state actual numbers we're getting with upgrades.
Actually I'm pointing out the contradiction SOE's perspective presented by them saying that being killed by a class who's key traits (among other things) include being "undetectable" is "a poor gameplay experience". In short: If they believe that being killed by a class "you never had a chance to see" leads to poor gameplay experience, then what was the point of including the infiltrator in the game when it was designed to be "undetectable".
I know, I know. You should remember though those descriptions are just lore-friendly notes, not necessarily containing important or accurate information. But, to be fair, a good infiltrator can remain undetected in various situations, using deceit, overal chaos and via carefully planning which targets to take out...
Selling $7.00 guns for a year? Although snark aside, I think the "vision" for PS2 has changed, and a lot of it is due to MLG. For example, which of these three would be most fun to watch: 1. A sniper quickscoping in a base and getting OHK's. 2. An SMG inf running around ambushing people. 3. A sniper sitting on a hill taking shots of opportunity Also, which one is most easy to narrate/describe from an announcer viewpoint. It's been shown that while there is a large amount of long-range sniper hate in Forumside, there was never a call to reduce or limit the ability. So, SoE has come up with that need based on....something. Sure, it could be that they think Inf's will become way too powerful after the changes to NW.....but that's also something that could be tested by numbers. (Although to be fair, maybe they have looked at the % of headshots from various ranges and have the number to show that without the long-range nerf there would be a problem....we don't know). The only other reason I can think of to essentially remove the playstyle is that it's not fun to watch. More action and twitch play is what is entertaining from a viewer standpoint, and I can't help but wonder if that's something that's influencing the change as well.
