Cloaking Weaknesses - 100 point shield reduction. - Cloaking and Uncloaking sound that can be heard from around 200m away even during chaotic situations. - Implementation of a direct Hard Counter in the form of Darklight, the only hard counter for a class ability in the game. All that, and this is what we get on medium to ultra settings: Oh sweet Jesus, hide your children...the all mighty invisible Infiltrators are coming to getchya! Watch the video past the initial scene and you'll see what I mean. With that said, and I'm reiterating here, you should really look at someone's post history before you start white knighting for your class due to a misconstrued notion of negative intent. 1: I have never pushed for any nerfs to the Light Assault. 2: I have supported the removal the ADS nerf and see absolutely no reason why this was implemented at all...let alone to Light Assaults. 3: I have suggested Napalm grenades for the Light Assault update as a means to deny enemy factions access to a given area by causing a temporary pain field...and generally causing panic. 4: I have, and still am, pushing to shift our recon capabilities to the Light Assault so that we can gain some of our stealth capabilities back in other areas and gain further emphasis on hacking as our new defined role while simultaneously providing the Light Assault with an actual tool. With that said, there have been a few Infiltrators who have said "Go for it", but it seems that you just kind of glazed right over that... I want every class to have an enjoyable arsenal of weapons, tools, and a role within the game that's as exciting as it is balanced...despite the fact that I main Infiltrator and only use the MAX and Magrider on the side. You seem to have a negative view of the Infiltrator community...but look at your own brash behavior. It's kind of comical that you're aggressively defending something that I haven't even attacked under an assumption that every Infiltrator is out to get Light Assaults. I've often defended the Light Assaults needing a lot of work...yet you automatically assumed this thread was some sort of alert geared towards rallying Infiltrators to the cause of denying the idea proposed within the linked thread. It wasn't...I'm on the fence regarding the matter. Truth be told, I've been leaning towards being one of those who says, "Go for it." simply because I like the idea of the Light Assault taking on a bounty hunter type of feel. I have no desire to ever play the Light Assault, as I said...I just like the idea of every class being fully fleshed out and having a multitude of options at their disposal. Don't be so quick to judge.
Even after all that time I still don't get why they were removed from Infis. All the arguments for the removal can be said for anyone else, too. The few arguments for it that made any sense have since been made superfluous by game updates. (direct or indirect Infi nerfs since beta)
Dude, live in denial all you want. SOE thinks your 100hp is a tradeoff for cloak. And yeah because you literally made a thread to spur people to complain about it. This isn't politics bro, when you want to ***** about something, just own it.
Ok, firstly, let me lead this by saying if you don't read the ideas and suggestion forums, you may not have seen me, I'm a fairly new voice to forum side, iv played the game since beta, but i haven't seen fit to join the discussion here. If you look me up, you'll see I play almost exclusively Infil, the only consistent change to that is when I am leading a large unit for my outfit. Secondly, please, someone of you, ill not call any names, are turning this into an antagonistic conversation. If you have not read the linked threat by the OP, or your opinion can be summed up by "stupid LAs shouldnt have my stuff" then please, leave the thread be. Ok, now, Tenebrae, I respect what yer doing here man, but many people will not read your link, and in doing so I have to come here and explain my argument in that thread all over again, im not picking a fight with you, I'm just asking that in the future if you do this kind of thing, make a thread with just a link, no summery, with live in a TL;DR world, and you provided a TL;DR escape, much of the debate here hurts from the fact that it shows no sign of the posters having read the original debate. Here we go. Light Assault is a class based around mobility, excelling in rapid repositioning and flanking. Their Jet pack allows them to reach unique locations and strike from un expected angles, this is their role. They are largely limited by range, being largely incapable of fighting beyond 50 meters, in fact, they are the shortest ranged class in the game by far for this very reason. No one is interested in upsetting this balance to any series degree. Scout Rifles, are a series of short to mid range weapons who collectively lose most of their functionality beyond 75 meters. While carbines do this because of cone of fire and projectile velocity, semi-auto scout rifles do it because of damage fall off and projectile velocity. Scout rifles are also probably the least used weapon class for infiltrators, more of us use SMGs and Sniper Rifles than ever even touch a scout rifle, those who do use a scout rifle, often use it as if they were a normal soldier who just uses cloak to advance, in many battles the cloak becomes a pointless thing when fighting along side your fellow soldiers. These are generalizations, you may play differently, but these are the norm. Now, many of you have expressed worry of "stealing" a role from the infil, LAs with scout rifles will do no such thing. Many of you have expressed a view the scout rifles hit harder than battle rifles and there for LAs should have battle rifles. The issue here is that Battle Rifles have a significantly higher Projectile Velocity, and would allow a LA to attack from over 100 meters without difficulty. If you nerfed the Battle Rifle's recently buffed velocity, you would remove its value to the HA and Engineer, both of which use the weapon as a long range option, and keep in mind HA LMGs tend to have velocities exceeding 650 meters a second, aso as it is the LMGs are already better long range weapons than the battle rifle. By comparison, the Vandal has a 540m/s projectile velocity, which is barely over that of a standard carbine, and where as many carbine have access to High Velocity ammo, the vandal does not. This means that giving the LA a Vandal will have only a small effect on their combat range, a skilled LA will likely be able to keep pace with a HA at range. All this does is open up a play style that already existed for LA and make it more acknowledged and enjoyable. We wont see massive changes in the battle field dynamics, only more players being rewarded for being skilled marksman. Something this game sorely lacks outside of the Infil class. Now, as a final note directly to a unique argument I saw here. In my opinion, Infils are NOT long range specialists. We are not so simple and pathetic as to simply be the kings of long range combat. We are infiltrators, we stealth specialists, our role is to fight dirty. We aren't here to make massive amounts of certs, or go on huge murder sprees, we don't have a whole heck of a lot of fire power. We don't need it. The reason I play infil is not for those head shot sprees, and not for my KDR, but for those moments when i analyze a fight, see an opportunity, strike down only a couple of medics, engineers, turrets, the crew of a tank, whatever, and watch the battle lines shift because i found the lever, the place where i could apply my meager fire power and completely shift a fight. We don't need exclusive guns guys, we need more tools, more ways to provide information, more ways to deny the enemy information, more ways to sneak behind enemy lines and cause chaos, more ways to disrupt the enemy and enforce our teams hold on a fight. If we are to just be "snipers" sitting back and fishing head shots, then personally, i don't see any uniqueness between this game and a hundred other fps's with sniper rifles.
Yeah... I don't see it working out either. The only way that it could be done is if they dedicate it to a new weapon type; I suggested Uzis...but it didn't fly on the Reddit or the Forums here. Wish I would have stuck to my original plan and suggested it for the new SMG, but I figured I'd try tossing it to the Light Assaults because the development team seems so eager to do the whole duel wielding thing. The new SMG is so overwhelmingly dull and just barely different from its predecessor...would have loved something more unique. I think it's just a matter of principal at this point. The development team are run and gun oriented players...hopefully we'll get something more interesting in terms of melee weapons with the melee update coming up. ...and I'm the one living in denial.
I normally get a fairly good turn out when it comes to cross linking threads, but understandable. With that said...as I was telling Decian over there...I'm still on the fence regarding the entire concept. I can easily see how it would help the Light Assault out because it gives them some really nice mid-ranged capabilities; I can't even begin to count the amount of times that I've wanted the jet pack for any of my rifles. Furthermore, it may take some of the heat off Infiltrators themselves...which Decian is doing a great job at demonstrating what I mean. Having another class with some very mild mid-range sniping capabilities will spread that hatred out a little bit, and hell...it would be a nice break to have another class loathed for a change. Ultimately, I'm left only with the exclusivity and my slight distaste for losing such. Ultimately, that's why I brought it here to the Infiltrator forum. If the idea was favorable amongst the majority of Infiltrators, or even if enough apathy was expressed, I would have included it in my future revamp of the following thread: The Infiltrator Update: An Extreme Idea. The true dark intent behind my interest in what Infiltrators thought about Light Assaults gaining access to the Scout Rifle. Obviously my desires listed in that thread are a bit controversial amongst the Infiltrator community because it means a shift in our role from recon to full on Hacking. We all want hacking...desperately so...but most want to see a lot of changes before they would ever consider seeing our recon capabilities go to the Light Assault. Personally, I feel that the changes I mention in that thread could have one hell of a positive effect on both our classes...but that thread was rushed and needs fleshed out with much more detail and additional concepts, like the Napalm grenade for the Light Assault. If people like or are apathetic towards the Light Assault gaining access to the Scout Rifle...it's another idea I was considering highlighting in my thread when I manage the motivation to make it.
Light Assault Dilemma: LA's are designed to be a killing class. They don't have as much AV prowess as a HA or Engineer does. They don't have turrets, or mines, they don't have rocket launchers, and instead have increased mobility. Depending on the player this either makes a world of difference or a mediocre experience. If you think about it LA's offer very little in terms of team support unless they are placing beacons for their team or putting enemies in the dirt by flanking. The major problem for the Light Assault right now is that a Heavy Assault will always out perform a Light Assault. (damage / time to live) The HA has weapons that reach farther, hit harder, and has tools in general make a mockery of the LA in 1v1 combat. Everything the LA can do, a HA can do better. They only thing the heavy cannot do is fly around from unexpected locations and flank (with C4) with such ease. To solve this problem for Light Assault effectiveness, possibly one or two things need to happen. Step #1) CQC Dilemma: The LA's need to overcome the HA's in some manner. Light Assaults need options to be able to breach rooms fast and effectively. Imagine a smoke grenade that actually lasted a significant amount of time for them to use. Or if flash grenades lasted a little bit longer. Just enough time for your cute little light assault to peak in, see whats going on inside the room, and plan for a party accordingly. At the very least such actions of being able to "teleport" via flash, inserting himself into the room would allow for a fantastic method to get inside dangerous locations and begin to work the room or placing C4 suicide style runs. LA's cannot breach effectively with flash or smoke right now. This is broken, and needs tuning in the future. What about HA? In my humble opinion the HA should be a perfect guard, or a be used as choice for AV, but not always the person sent in first for every single situation. Light Assault needs tactical CQC options that NO OTHER CLASS CAN USE. Just like how Sniper Rifles are balanced around infiltrators. At the moment there is absolutely nothing unique to the light assault class minus their jetpack. This is a problem and makes them have every right to feel frustrated and unloved by SOE. Step #2) Range Dilemma Is the suggestion to give LA's Scout Rifles a good idea to consider, and are their complaints valid? Maybe! (Take the bias out / look at the whole picture) Do we want a flanking class that can attack you from medium range from any elevated location with pin point accuracy and very low time to kill? It would mean that LA's would share a Light Infantry weapon with us. It would make LA's more competitive against other classes in the medium to longer range category. Considering their lack of Shield, and common pool weapon of choice being the SMG there is nothing specified saying this is wrong. However I do caution that Scout Rifles were not designed for jetpack or constant access to height advantages in mind. I personally think a battle rifle would be more fair since you would have to learn to aim with it for longer ranged play. If a LA pegs you from a rooftop using a battle rifle a little farther away, he totally deserves the kill because he had to burst fire accordingly. Ultimately I think LA's need designed their own unique guns for this type of thing. I support LA's have some kind of medium range option because they have nothing besides carbines right now. The average building is 12-15 meters high of the ground. (yes I measured) While carbines allow you to shoot down on people nicely they don't offer the LA the ability to reach out and touch people farther out. Many times a light assault on a roof top becomes at risk. In many cases LA's don't dominate the rooftops because the moment they look over the edge, or get into an open location they are faced with classes who can just shoot them down in seconds without the ability to return fire adequately. Since Light Assaults master no weapons, they have nothing unique and nothing that puts them in a competitive place for medium range. Giving them Scout Rifles, would, hands down make them a better overall flanking class. It would improve their core ability. Pretend your a Light Assault for a moment, really, just try your best to picture it. Your main desire is to offer your group the utility of suppressing enemies by shooting down from the top of a building so they can safely navigate bases from building to building. Or maybe your goal changes to keep enemies contained in a location and make them fear stepping out into the open. This gives LA's true roof top superiority. This is something they were promised with their class. Even if it sounds scary for us to be on the receiving end. (YAY CLOAK) If you really consider the action / reaction a change like this would make Snipers required in fights to remove the LA's as well and add in more depth to the game. Bases would be much more interesting to navigate. I feel Light Assaults need SOMETHING to give them a true roof top advantage. There is very little cover available for them on the top of a roof. Light Assaults also have an inability to clear a spot, however, that said we do have to factor in the radar changes as well. Anyone crouched and moving is no longer visible on the mini map. I am not going to lie, there is a potential for abuse here. However I can honestly say I understand that being on top of a building (or in a tree) doesn't automatically result in crazy long kill streaks A L L of the time. Enemy Tanks / ESF / Snipers / Other LA's / Liberators / Battle Galaxies can ruin your day very quickly in roughly that order. Bad Points of the Idea? Well for a start where are the drawbacks they have to endure? Not having a tool doesn't count since that will be fixed eventually and they will get one. I think if LA's obtain Scout Rifles, they should also have a shield reduction too. This would force them to flank and take cover as we do. Giving us both the same health pool would even out the flanking popularity tug of war as well, making both classes equally desirable. It also would neatly fit us both into the light infantry classification. We already share the adrenalin pump.Another good question to ask is what is the LA's niche supposed to be? If Rooftop superiority was their intended niche would preventing a change like this be unethical? In all honesty, if this goes through just be prepared, and willing to accept the possibility of dealing with the fact LA's would probably get more mileage out of the Scout Rifles in the vast majority of situations then we would get at ground level. However they cannot clear spots nor can they hide as easily as we can. It doesn't rob us of our ability to use the Scout Rifles to great effect, and in my mind just allows the LA's to use the Scouts in a different way. Peaking from roof tops and backing away for LOS cover trying to take advantage of the short TTK. It allows the rifles to be used differently then our style. Finding A Solution: In short, if you can take anything away from this post, just understand the Light Assault update NEEDS to address their lack of effective breaching abilities, as well as mediocre medium range combat options, every other class can extend out this far including HA, Engineer, and Medic. LA's should also get 1-2 specific class only weapon types. Possibly one for LA only CQC that is balanced, and one entirely focused on mobility / range. Its possible this weapon could be shared with us, since our scout rifle already does both. Call me crazy but I support LA's getting some form of medium range weapon.
I can respect a worry about losing what little is the infil roll, but we should look at all changes as future events, not as, right now, things. I think everyone here can agree the infiltrator needs a LOT of a love. However we shouldn't let this stagnate the expansion and improvement of other play styles and classes. After all if infils are ever to get the love we need, we need the game to be successful and the only way for that to happen is for more people to have their play style be acknowledged and enabled. This is why I am so often opposed to "make stuff more unique" when it comes to factions and classes, because people generally prefer a fluid system where they can make their own play style a lot more than "pick one of these 6 or even pick one of these 30" its harder to balance a non-class based system, but very much worth the effort. Either way, all design directions need to be supported, there needs to be both more cross over in the classes, AND more uniqueness, this means boring guns like scout rifles can be shared, but the bolt action sniper, hacking, recon tools, cloak, and eventual more toys, should remain infil only If we concentrate on making the classes only more unique, we run into the Team Fortess 2 flaw of no middle ground, some people LOVE that, but an equal number HATE it. If we focus to much on similarity design, we destroy the point of classes or even roles all together, the key here is to do both, and right now the forums feel very focused on the former path. We risk encouraging the devs to create a game that is to much rock paper scissors, and not enough chess.(best analogy i got)
so i've been rethinking the Scout rifles on LA's idea, and i'm thinking the answer from me is no. my logic follows People often compare PS2 to WW2. to take that example further, we have the M1 Garand :battle rifle we have sniper rifles and scout rifles : the '03 springfield, and eventually the M14 (many years later, i know i'm mixing my weapons systems here) and we have the M1A1 carbine: the carbines given to LA's and whatever weapon system is given to the LA to extend their range (and i agree that 100 m really should be a hard limit on that, giving them a scout rifle pushes them way out there) it should be designed around that light paratrooper style carbine. as it is the COF is too extreme on the long range carbines (the pulsar c and it's ilk) to justify the 6x scopes they have thought. make carbines LA exclusive. Replace the Engineer's arsenal with either assault rifles, or class specific sub machine guns? then there can be an 'accurate carbine' that excels at longer ranges, but still doesn't push scout rifle territory. also, the line that scout rifles are underused? bollocks i remember seeing some stats that higby posted showing that the SA scout rifles were the most equipped weapon by high BR infiltrators, and that they dominated the score per hour category. really they are the only weapon system that the infiltrator gets that can perform acceptably in a wide variety of ranges.
Well... I'm still leaning more towards "Go for it." Like CuteBeaver said, there's some obvious concerns to consider...but in truth, the Scout Rifles were the least used Infiltrator weapons prior to the Vandal. Really would give the Light Assaults that bounty hunter feel, wouldn't it Beaver? Really? I don't recall this...do you have any links? Not calling you out or anything, I'm just curious to see the data because I missed it.
Firstly, I admit i made the claim to the scout rifles being under used, simple because I see perhaps two of them in a 6 hour play session, meanwhile ill spot, both from dieing to, shot at with, and seen on teammates, dozens of sniper rifles and smgs. secondly, i disagree extensively both on the 100 meter cap, and on the fact of the scout rifle pushing beyond that. Technically speaking, every gun in the game is able to be used up to render range, I'm talking about limitations. Due to the low velocity of scout rifles, beyond 75 meters, consistently hitting a target who is moving is very difficult, and as long as you ignore the specter of lag (something that should be fixed, not balanced around) any person standing still has plenty of time to respond to a scout rifle hitting them considering it will take a minimum of two head shots or 4 body shots to kill them. Scout rifles have very slow fire rates, and as such that TTK especially when factoring in everything besides raw fire rate and damage, is very very slow, and easily countered by moving and automatic fire.
Bushes are overpowered, trees are pretty balanced. In all seriousness, always look at the trees...always.
I support this 100%. The infiltrator is a class full of tools and purpose already, give a little bit to the light assault too! This won't, AT ALL, hurt the infiltrator class. Besides, scout rifles are not overpowered at all.
Infiltrators got SMGs too right? Yes - please give LA's access to scout rifles, or at least the NS-30 Vandal.
so i was a bit rushed with that last post. i'll admit that i didn't articulate everything i was trying to get across well. re: render range. yes. i should be able to shoot and kill to render range with some logical exceptions. pistols for example. what i meant by 'hard limit' was simply that the mechanics made anything past that difficult, and unreliable. i think the word i should have used was soft cap. re: scout rifle effective range perhaps it's my play style, perhaps it's my rig, perhaps it's my network. perhaps it's because i find myself with my squad in rapidly changing conditions. lately i have found the silenced nyx useable from CQB to about 125 m. i usually run a 4x, and i can peg targets fairly reliably, even with the slow bullet velocity. even with the SA fire mode, i find myself dying about on par with the SMG's, the commissioner, and the FAscout rifle. to each their own, no accounting for taste, etc. the point i was rather trying to make was that i feel that there should be more specialization across the classes as to what weapons they carry, which would, in turn help define the roles they play. the fact that LA's use the same guns as engineers makes me suspect that is part of the problem as far as ideas to keep the class fresh. i have a pad of paper that i've been jotting ideas and food for thought on. i think i might make a thread writing those ideas down. perhaps we can start brainstorming for the next infiltrator revamp
To be fair, as someone who plays infiltrator 91% of the time at BR 92, I think infiltrators should never have gotten SMGs.
OTOH, as someone that doesn't play the infiltrator much at all, I'm so glad they got SMGs... being OHKed by BASRs gets old and no one likes that. I'd rather face an SMG infiltrator anyday, everyday.
