rebalance infiltrators

Also, for this post, I would much rather hit the target when aiming for the body and alert him of my presence than miss and alert him to my presence. True, you typically aim for the head, but if you are far enough away, you'd rather guarantee a hit than not guarantee a kill. I aim for the head against targets moving slowly, shooting at a 3rd person, or targets standing still, but if they are moving fast, I just aim at them and shoot. Sometimes I hit the head, usually I hit the body, and other times, I just miss.

You also don't need Hunter Cloak, the class could just have no cloak and you could still play it. It would just have one less crutch.

Alright, let's do that then. HA has an overshield giving additional HP (+1), at the cost of movement speed (-1). That means the HA has one upside compared to a fictional "basic class", and then one downside in return. If we'd be really strict, we could add that LMGs are generally worse guns than ARs and carbines, but I'll ignore that.

The infiltrator has cloak (+1) and radar detection (+1). Both of these come with no downside. There is no punishment for activating your cloak, if you want to fight someone, you can simply deactivate it again. And in the case of NAC, having the cloak on during combat (at least while retreating) is actually another advantage. Putting down radar darts or a motion spotter also comes at no downside. You can easily place them somewhere that isn't your location, so that they don't give you away. Of course they do tell that there is an infiltrator in the area, but any competent player should consider the possibility of nearby enemies anyway.

Additionally to those two things, the infiltrator also has the possibility to OHK at any range. The downside is that you can't fire continuously, so you do have to land your shots. But as we've discussed, you have the prior two abilities to help you set up your engagement, and fall back from it should you not land your shots accurately. So, considering this, the infiltrator can dish out OHKs without being at any significant downside for it.

The HA can't just negate his downside. If he wants to make use of his ability (which he of course has to), he has to put up with becoming slower, thus being an easier target to his enemies. This isn't a bad thing, this is how a class is balanced. The infiltrator lacks balancing aspects if played with some common sense.

The problem isn't infiltrators having the high ground, the problem is that they get to choose their position with knowledge of their enemy's whereabouts. The enemy HA can not outposition the infiltrator without actually physically seeing him, so he cannot put himself into a high ground position "for free". The infiltrator can see the enemy without having line of sight, and can already assume a position before ever having established visual contact. That's where the positional advantage of an infiltrator comes from.

And as established before, assuming both parties are at the same skill level, the infiltrator's abilities outweigh those of the HA significantly. He has an advantage before (due to motion spotters), during (due to OHK) and after (due to easy retreating) the engagement.

If I'm sniping I have to stop to reload. Knife welders run through squads with no downtime between kills. In my opinion it's not the same. It takes me three shots to counter a sniper, with the Hunter i don't have a prayer.

Ok now you are just being unfair. You gave a +2 to the Infiltrator for ability and tools, but not another +1 for the HA tools. That is blatant disregard for what the other class has. Also, the Infiltrator has a -1 that you can't shoot while using the cloak. That is a +1 in total for both of them, unless I am forgetting anything else. I wasn't even going to go in depth about the advantages and disadvantages of everything about the class, and you didn't even see the point of me saying that what you add to one side, you have to add to the other.

When I said "high ground", I said "high ground", not high ground. That is a reference to advantage (and Star Wars), not to an increase in height.

You can fall back only if the circumstances suit you, but so could the other class. I have seen countless times where an Infiltrator thinks that their cloak saves them, and the enemy just lights them up despite it. Sure, you can run in a straight line backwards and fall back, but you will get shot for it. You can zig zag and serpentine, but you are probably gonna get punished for it. The best way to escape is to use the cloak to get solid cover, but that means you already played to a situation where you had the advantage if you had cover on your side already. That is why I said you have to keep both sides even to argue about balance. You have to give a balanced situation to argue unbalance.

Yes, Infiltrators have the POSSIBILITY to make OHKs consistently, but the thing is, how often are you headshotted on the first shot by your enemy? That is using an automatic weapon, and you get multiple tries for that because you don't need to rechamber another bullet after every shot!

Lets compare the SAS-R and NC6 Gauss SAW. SAS-R is 700 damage at 10 meters, Gauss SAW is 200. The SAS-R has a chamber time of 1.1s and the Gauss Saw has a firerate of 500 shots per minute. It takes 5 shots to kill with the Gauss Saw and 2 shots with the SAS-R. Using Math, the Gauss Saw can fire 8.333 repeated shots per second, which is enough to kill even past 10 meters. That is supposing all shots hit the body for both weapons, so the Gauss Saw would win. That is in theory, but people don't usually have 100% accuracy.

The recon darts do not give you away, but they don't last as long as the motion spotter. The Motion Spotter does give you away, because you have to place it at your feet. If anyone is close enough to see it and they aren't stupid, they will see it on the minimap being placed. The downside to using tools is psychological, not physical. You rely too much on them and you get tunnel vision, which is what happens to newer players. At least that is what I have seen. You can shoot a recon dart at a wall 50m away for your allies to see the enemies, but that doesn't help you see enemies that are right behind you. If you shoot them at your feet, people look that direction. At least I do. Just because you can see them on your minimap and can set up for them doesn't mean you can beat them. All of that comes with acquiring skill.

The whole argument of your posts is that Infiltrators are unbalanced, but you have to put them on level playing ground to be able to determine that. Lots of the things you are referring to that make the Infiltrator unbalanced are things that a newer player probably wouldn't think of. They are strategies and tactics that players use for that class, kinda like how Engineers will throw a Repair Grenade onto their vehicle, get back in, and drive away instead of sitting there repairing it and letting it get shot, or how Medics run Carapace so they can always be at full health, or how Heavies in squads are sometimes asked to run Carapace so that when they get revived by the squad Medic, they will be at full health. Positioning works for every class. It is just easier for an Infiltrator based on the tools they are provided. Should that be punished and called unfair? No, just don't get caught by the darts or the spotter, and if you do, be aware that an Infiltrator knows where you are and is coming for you. Play the psychological game. Play the mind game.

Ignoring vehicles as a factor is a bit silly, considering a concentrated push in Planetside may include more tanks than the player count of your average Battlefield team. Being able to avoid them is cute, but useless as far as winning is concerned.
Infantry v Infantry the Infiltrator class having an advantage should come as no surprise seeing as how their entire focus is on the elimination of enemy soft targets. This advantage is predicated on the infiltrator both making use of his available resources and hitting his targets, but it is there.

But it's not the goal on Live. The difference between Jaeger and the Live servers is so great it may as well be a different game. You go from Jaeger where the populations are small and dying is losing to Live where the fights are chaotic and dying is constant.

This is an MMO title with one of the more grindy unlock trees of any FPS game. If you don't think the goal of the majority of the players out there is to perform the best (and thus earning certs) I don't know what to tell you.

I was actually high-balling it, IMO. Go onto one of the stat sites and see how few bolt action users hit more than 50% of their shots with any given rifle. The number is not large even if we assume every player on the list is still playing, are legitimate, and are faction unique with no 'cross-contamination'.

But it isn't guaranteed either, and unlike other weapon types, the bolt action user is absolutely dependent on it.

I know how it works, if I'm having a good night sometimes I can even do it. In your case I assume 'unfavorable' means 'not immediately behind hard cover after missing' because any other situation 15m away from a target you just missed means you just received an instant dose of Shot In The Face from any competent opponent, let alone one of equal skill.

After 7 years considering everything that has already been buffed/nerfed/removed/etc. I find the lack of Dev attention in this area to be perhaps due to the fact that it isn't as gamebreaking as you suggest, or at the very least is not apparent enough to warrant attention. Heck, in the last 7 years the Infiltrator has actually been buffed multiple times, so it isn't as though they have been sitting on some NC MAX-level nerf they're just waiting to deploy once they've attended to more pressing matters.

Again, the squeaky wheel gets grease, if it really is a problem on the scale you suggest you're going to need to make it obvious because right now it really doesn't seem like people are aware of it (I'm talking in-game, no one seems to be whining in chat or in voip about anything but aircraft. If there's people on Reddit feel free to link.). It certainly isn't greatly impacting my gameplay and I've spent the last week using the SAW as a DMR.

I was referring to the Jaeger experience vs Live. As I pointed out above the two have so little in common that using one as a reference for the other is impractical at best. Things that are incredibly powerful in a small controlled fight can find themselves made vanishingly irrelevant in a larger, chaotic one. See the impact of an ESF in small vs large fights for a good example. In Live your ability to tailor every possible encounter with an enemy is incredibly reduced.

I use it on my SMG class because that is the only Infiltrator loadout I have where I plan on getting shot back at, but 9/10 times I find the Scouts more useful so I rarely use that loadout. I find that when I die as an Infiltrator it is where NAC wouldn't have made a difference anyways, but there have been plenty of times where the extra cloak has made a difference. It's certainly not fair to say to choose one or the other is a reflection of one's competence.

Again Tobi, I said you don't NEED to play it with Hunter cloak. It is essential to the class being an Infiltrator, just as the Nano Armor Shield thing for HA is what makes an HA an HA as opposed to a Medic. Without it, it wouldn't be an infiltrator. NAC is a non-essential purchase. You don't have to buy it to be able to play Infiltrator. It is just an option for if you want a different playstyle. Hunter is just the basic Infiltrator playstyle, which is why I call it "essential." I do not call it essential because you can't play without it, because you can.

I've been reading this for a while, but there have been some points which I feel were not addressed or points which were not raised. So here's a collection of them.

Obviously this generally isn't true. Maybe if only ever shooting stationary fools out in the open. In point-blank to short ranged combat two bodyshots takes a lot longer to kill than most any other weapon would. There is also the assumption that the player does not miss nor that the player is shooting a shielded heavy, whom would require three shots.

This is blatantly false. If we were to oversimplify the infiltrator into three subclasses, namely stalker, sniper, and SMG/scout/1-4x rifle, the facade falls. Stalkers obviously can't use Nano-armour cloaking.

Long range snipers generally have little use for this, as not only do they want to never be shot at, the lower cloak time reduces the time they have available to aim, and on top of that the longer recharge time means more time spent sitting in cover and not aiming or shooting.

Short-ranged infiltrators would be the only ones in a practical position to use NAC, but again it's not an upgrade. Less time spent cloaking, more time spent visible. Obviously stealth is the main point of the cloak, and being able to remain in stealth for the most and longest time is generally more broadly useful. Furthermore, an auxiliary shield increases the shots to kill of most infantry weapons by one just like the shield boost of NAC.

The damage resistance boost is nice but does not stack with anything (such as nanoweave) and is only active while cloaked. This favours very aggressive short-ranged playstyles, whereas hunter cloaking general prefers all other ranges and opts for stealth over damage soaking. It's wrong to say there is only one choice, even for an aggressive SMG infiltrator.

Not everyone has access to the uncommon implant, nor would ever choose to use it. But more importantly CC only trigger on a headshot kill. In a fresh engagement shooting the enemy in the chest will take the same amount of time to rechamber and if fighting multiple opponents at once if the user can headshot them both before dying to their volume of fire they probably weren't a very considerable threat.

I actually laughed a bit when I first read this. If anything, heavies require the least positioning, awareness, movement, and aim. The shield covers all fronts against an opponent without one. Inversely, a sniper without good positioning cannot get good shots, without awareness will be counter-sniped, shot by nearby enemies, or killed by tanks or aircraft. Without good movement he will be trapped and boxed in, and if he cannot aim... Well that one speaks for itself.

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Drop the elitist attitude please. There are numerous examples of your comments like this. I'll be the first to say most people in-game seem to be as dumb as bricks but that doesn't make everyone else some special caste.

This whole thing is pretty irrelevant to PS2, but if I understand correctly "snipers rarely aim for the head" is about real-life marksmen. Aim for a button on the guy's shirt, a pattern on his clothing. Don't aim for the head, don't even look at his head. You're not aiming at a person, you're aiming at a button.

But like I said, not very relevant to us right now.

These two go hand-in-hand. Firstly, we as players cannot dictate our own reality. There will always be situations where victory isn't possible, and situations where there is no "good" position to be in, except only to be not in such a situation.

Secondly, what's to stop the enemy from taking a better position?

No cloak, no sniper. I'm sure you'd be fine with that though.

Cloaking and de-cloaking makes a very loud and distinct faction-specific noise. This both tells the enemy an infiltrator is there and where he just was. If the player needs to deactivate the cloak to fire, he'd be putting himself in a position of vulnerability for a brief moment.

Radar detection again tells the enemy there's an enemy infiltrator and where he just was. Darts don't have to be right on top of the player but if they are going to help him directly they're going to be at least nearby. Spotters obviously kind of need to be right next to or very nearby to help the infiltrator.

Furthermore, crouch-walking (with/out catlike) and/or sensor shield invalidate radar's bonus.

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Ultimately it is conveniently overlooked here quite often that infiltrators don't exist in a vacuum. Enemy radar can come from other infiltrators or various vehicles, there are always places where someone has to be but does not want to be, and there are always engagements a player will not win. There is not always a place to run or hide. Everyone dies and dies.

Is the infiltrator a powerful class? Yes. Is it well-suited for it's role? Yes. Is it overpowered? No. Does it negate player skills? No.

I like all of your points. You mentioned a ton of stuff I forgot about when I was talking to Tobi. Thank you for your reasonable comment.

Actually they do not, they have less shields, which makes them weaker much weaker. In a sentence, they must strike first to win a fight if nobody misses. Which is half the reason people hunt for the Carapace Implant. It may kill the shield but it replaces the lost shield points.

Nano Armor Cloak gives the infiltrator +100 HP at all times. Carapace on infiltrator is awful, since you run restoration kits with infiltrator. But those do not work when you're cloaked. So, Nano Armor Cloak is the logical choice to go with.

You may have more shield when cloaked, but the less cloak you have, the more time you are going to spend fighting. In a situation where the class is especially made for, such as sniping, you would go with Hunter, which is logical. When you get into closer ranges, sure, you could go with Nano Armor, but you would spend more time being shot at and a longer time recharging your cloak. I say they have worse CQC weapons because they typically do. They do have SMGs, but those are for all classes. I mean class specific weapons.

I would expect infils to have the best KDR. They are the most useless class for holding/taking capture points and fighting at choke points. People are obviously going to use them for getting kills more than anything.

Exactly, that is the issue.

Planetside players seem uniquely uncompetitive. The vast majority of players surely is not playing to perform the best. Their playstyles, loadouts and settings of choice do not at all fit into that idea.

Not sure what this is supposed to mean if I'm honest.

As explained, the sniper is absolutely not dependent on it.

You can be on Jaeger, miss a shot at 15m, and still retreat comfortably. If you can do it there, you can do it on live that much more. If you didn't get away in time, you spent too long standing still.

I'm not suggesting that this is game-breaking or that it needs immediate fixing, I'm saying there is an imbalance here that should be looked at.

Frustration of dying to things with no counter remains, no matter the size of fight.

Well, the majority of good infiltrators uses it, so that says something about it. Good players (usually) use what's best, and for good reason.

You can easily reposition if you miss, and use the Clientside advantage to get off a second shot very quickly.

Well, it's long range sniping. It's already extremely low risk. Type of cloak really doesn't come into effect when you've removed yourself from the fight.

Managing your cloak time is a skill to be acquired, sure. But it's not a big price to pay for the health boost and the damage reduction.

No one except for new players uses auxiliary shield though (for good reason).

Not saying that it is the only choice, but it is the logical choice and the choice of every good infiltrator player I know. The meta usually does not form by accident.

Most people don't turn around if you're shooting all the allies around them. This, in addition to the intel of your motion spotter, makes it surprisingly easy to kill multiple people per magazine in quick succession.

Right, the class with literally free awareness, undetected movement thanks to cloak and OHK without the requirement of recoil control is somehow harder to use than the one that has an overshield. Levels of delusion you'll only find on Forumside.

The previous quote about HAs does prove my point pretty well.

The lack of motion detection, informing them of your every move.

Would certainly make the game more enjoyable for everyone. But it's not necessary to be so extreme.

Using the spotter to bait enemies into your position is a very common strategy.

Right, but no one unironically crouch-walks across the place just to avoid an infiltrator.

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Sure, but that doesn't mean that we can't still improve balance and reduce sources of frustrations. Especially to new players. An invisible guy with every conceivable advantage will be a lot more frustrating to encounter for a new player than a normally visible opponent that they can at least see and face.

What does the motion detection do then, if not reduce the need for awareness (one of the most fundamental skills in PS2)?

With appropriate use of cover and through the knowledge of your enemy's position, you can counter the disadvantage of shorter cloak very easily.

That is irrelevant though. They have access to SMGs, so they can use some of the best CQC weapons in the game. Them having other guns doesn't add anything to the argument.

there should be a gun lock for 3 full seconds when exiting stealth, its really stupid that a infl can unstealth right infront of a heavy with full overshield on and get a 1 shot kill

stealth shouldnt be for cheap no skill kills, it should be for its intedended purpose which is scouting or ambushes from behind, infil has no risk stealthing up to the frontline and unloading like a goon

If you let an infil walk straight up on you and one tap you as a full heavy with a shield up (which I'm not 100% sure what weapons can do that much damage, unless it is the nerf to shields) then that says way more about you as a player than the class infiltrator.

It's not the cloak, but some kind of victim mentality that seems to be the problem. Whenever I switch to light assault and keep using a sidearm on my primary slot, my enemies rage all the same and just come up with different excuses.


"Boohoo, you have a jetpack"
"Wah wah I hope your PC explodes"


Add some tactical mastery to your gameplay and stop ultra whining here. Let rage commence.

There are usually a lot more players around on Live. 1v1s and tiny battles is a player-made situation on Jaeger and if you feel X or Y class is better for a particular scenario then use that instead of expecting the game and players to bend to your preferences.

As the number of players increase the opportunities for movement gets limited (might be vehicles, several places where crossfire occur, a stalemate effectively blocking you off, and so on). In these situations the hunter cloak can often be life saving since those extra seconds might be the difference between making it to the next piece of cover unseen. Similar story for long range sniping since you usually have to cover more distance to find good lines of fire and cover/terrain. Carelessness in this regard will make you a very easy target since an infiltrator sniping is already one of the easiest targets for air units to identify and take out + harassers will often say hello in a most violent and rude manner.

As an infiltrator, for instance, I do not expect to be able to beat 450 nanites worth of MAX suit or a tank so I either 1) avoid them 2) desperately try to whittle them down before dying 3) hope someone else either as HA/LA/Archer Engy shows up. As a HA you probably don't even think like this since you got every piece of kit to deal with any kind of threat. I guess that's why it can get upsetting when someone suddenly puts you in a position where you (as a HA) has to adapt to the situation or, indeed, can put up a proper fight.

In competitive scrims you often see factors you have to deal with on live removed for different reasons. Naturally, when you remove certain threats you will upset the balance and inter-class/vehicles interaction which leads to certain classes being more favourable than others (and since the "scrim community" created this problem on their own it should not dictate game balance).

Plus, on live you should assume you always on someone's radar and move accordingly and your own side probably putting down darts/devices as well. It is a part of the game as much as every other piece of gear/ability.

So TL;DR: If infils are such a problem in small scale scrims restrict their use in THOSE settings + stop trying balance the game for scenarios only a tiny portion of the community are interested in engaging in.

Personally I do not think so. It has terrible duration and you cannot fire while you are cloaked, so the moment you drop your cloak to fire, you are back to being weaker. In a word it is useless in a fight. It only helps you to escape. 100 hp only translates to taking 1 extra shot so it does not even do its job all that good. I only use the full-life kits so Carapace will benefit me well whenever I find that implant.