rebalance infiltrators

"Especially since many snipers aren't really part the battle. It is true that I have seen an increase in snipers since planetside's population failed, and no one can deny it is a boring and annoying style of play on both ends. Infils should be removed and recon and hacking be given to the engineer."

This wasn't my take on things, but after reading that I have to wonder what the game would be like with no cloakers, but still have hacking in the game.

I wonder how many snipers there would be in that version of planetside, and of course there would be the boring cat and mouse mini-game.

I think that's what annoys people, most cloakers don't seem to actually add to faction goals. I'll be at the point, and one is there at the point or really near, and never does anything, just lurks, and taunts with starting a control point moving until enough people pull away from the main game and battles to remove the cloaker.

I play on Ultra and they are much harder to spot than before, also, great work on dark light.....
On lower settings they are INVISIBLE, you cant effing see them.
Fix this for the love of God, also, make infiltrator unlockable at lv50, so sick of million and 1 noob stalking around with 1 shot weapon.

Yesterday I was fighting in a Biolab as NS robot, we (NC) were attacking and Vanu was defending.

VS made a kind of desperate attempt to disrupt the attack by sending a wave of stalkers armed with the throwing knife (Amaterasu) and I have to say for 10-20 seconds it was pure chaos, those VS running between the lines throwing knifes left and right but then they were all dispatched, with more than one of us TKilled in the process...

you mean the one were they need to come to butttouching range were you can actualy engage them if you are aware? because any other weapon a stalkerinfil can use is two shot at best ..

Think he meant the one you have to activate and can hear a smile away in the middle of an intense war... I could be wrong though.

Infil is 100% visible on ultra, if you can't see them this is a personal issue. Also darklight will still illuminate the infil, just can't see the flashlight effect, but who really needs to tie up an accessory slot when you can see them...

It does not matter the server you play on. Infiltrators have a bolt action sniper they can use (if you aren't an NS Robot) that can 1 hit kill you at full health IF AND ONLY IF THEY SHOOT YOU IN THE HEAD. From far range, where a sniper is most likely to be uses, hitting the head isn't the easiest task on moving targets. Now suppose you are a still target. It gets infinitely easier to hit your head if you are standing still, but heres the thing. YOU SHOULD NEVER BE STANDING STILL! It is not an Infiltrators fault that you died when you were standing still. Could a skilled infil still hit your head if you are a moving target? Yes, but that is typically if you are moving in a straight line, which you should ALSO NEVER DO! Chances are that if you are moving in a straight line, an infiltrator will miss the first shot and hit the next. When you first get shot at, serpentine. You have to be erratic in your movements to not get sniped. What if you get sniped while moving like a crazy person? Chalk it up to the Infil just guessing and YOU ran into the bullet. He probably didn't lead you well or anything; he just guessed and pulled the trigger. Infiltrators are not the problem; it's the way people try to combat them and how they die to them.

I also saw a post about VS all spawning infils and they all had the Amaterasu and throwing them. That is most likely the work of a squad, but to be fair, a whole giant group of any of the same class would be just as deadly. I will give an example. I was NC, and we were fighting VS. We had over 60% population and VS had 30 something percent. They were beating us because they all chose medics and camped the point. It was hard to beat that, but we did. They were over halfway done capping the base too. How about when the whole side you are fighting goes to Heavy Assault? Chaos. What if they all go MAX and Engi? Chaos. What if they all go Light Assault and fly to the rooftops? C-H-A-O-S! Infiltrators in themselves are not OP. Their ability only helps them to stay stealthy and to be overlooked. It does not help in combat.

I also see posts about Infiltrators not being helpful to a battle. That sounds kinda biased. I have played as every class (not lengthily so I know that I am partially biased) but it is much harder to know where an enemy is coming from if you don't see any dots on the minimap, especially in smaller battles. In larger battles, they typically all come in the same paths in a big force, but the stragglers are what you have to watch out for. Without recon, its harder to find your enemies. Infiltrators help with that. Now lets talk snipers. People say snipers do not add to battle. How many times have you died to an enemy that is camping, and that enemy knows that you can't kill him with your skill and your position? Sometimes you may hear a loud bang, look up, and that enemy is dead. That is how snipers contribute to a battle. They take out priority targets that are spamming bullets your way. They take out the engineers on their little turrets. They take out the medics reviving people. They shoot the heavies in the back when they are taking out your team. They see the light assaults on the roofs and spot them and try to take them out when they feel safe. That is how snipers contribute to a battle. A Heavy may be on AV duty and destroy sundies or on AI and take out hordes of infantry. That is good. A Light Assault may be the king of flanking and taking out enemies and light AV. That is good. A Medic may be on duty reviving fallen allies. That is good. An Engi may be repairing your damaged vehicles and keeping them alive. That is good. An Infiltrator provides information for you to know where the heck any of that stuff is. I can't count the times that I, as an infiltrator, has gotten behind the enemies and found their sundy. I am not able to count the times I have put the few final shots into an inport high priority target. I can't imagine how helpful recon is to those who need it. It is all good.

My message with this post is to stop blaming infiltrators for your death to them and to recognize their value to the game. Can you play the game without recon darts and infiltrators? Sure you can, but you can also play it without a medic. Who needs people to revive you when you can just not die? Who needs a Light Assault when you have a Heavy Assault? Who needs more ammo from Engineers when you can just get ammo printer and who needs repairs when you can just get Auto Nanite Repair? However, without these things, would Planetside be what it is now? I doubt it.

if you start to shoot to a third target you stand still... is when infiltrators kill you.... so please, let's stop with that thing of "don't stand still" because as soon you aim you become an easy target .

And about the value of being one shotted from something i can't see... sorry... but it's more or less the same value of being farmed by an airhammer while I'm fighting against nc

Well there is the problem.... I can still see them, I try to pay attention and I listen for their calls or stealthing, maybe that's just me? Anyone else feel helpless to a cloaker? like a complete naked newb? I am curious.... I typically don't have an issue with them but that comes with awareness.

i play on medium and with deep operative they are not visible at all ... you can see only a blink , a light distortion , not enough to aim , especially since dx11

It's not a personal issue... there is a plenty of ppl in this thread that share this issue, and not everyone want to play on ultra... or can.

First of all, it is a personal problem if you can't play on ultra... I didn't build your PC. That said, you only need graphics quality at a medium or better rest can be low. That will make them look like they did in dx9, and if you had a problem then, well then it is 100% a personal problem.

It's not a personal problem. The fact you love the infiltrators doesn't mean is fun to play against it.
They are not visible and you are contradicting yourself when you sustain that they are: if they were visible, why would you use the cloak ?

Spot a glitch in a wall doesn't mean that i can aim to it... I know only that there is an infiltrator in the room... and while I'm searching the infiltrator I probably going to die by him or another guy that will take advantage of me running around with a stupid darklight.


This game has plenty of toxic mechanics:

Harassers (and i love them, but they are actually toxic)
Anti Infantry ESF nose guns (airhammer , banshee, and vanu ball thing)
Infiltrators (all variants sniper, stalker and smg)
Battle Rifles (same problem of sniper... just a bit less frustrating because less common)
Liberators (that in proper hands become the counter to esf... this is a problem in air game since release)
The recent vlg valky
Hesh tanks spamming inside an infantry fight.
Kobalt (Vehicles should fight indirectly against infantry, destroying their spawn points, not killing tons of ppl that have no real counter).

Therese mechanics are toxic, prevent new players to enjoy the game and are hardly counterable.

Infiltrators are , anyway, the reason because any outdoor fight simply die as soon someone spawn 1 infiltrators because not even vehicles are so deadly vs infantry at range.

Infils are 100% visible. Again, you can stick your head in the sand, plug you ears and scream all you want. The bug only happens when below medium on graphic quality settings. Also you have made a tremendous assumption thinking I love infil as I perform better stat wise on ha, or even la for that matter.

I play on medium and if you call that glitch effect 100% visible you are crazy.
It's less visible than with dx9.
Visibility isn't anyway the only problem of the infiltrator.
For sure dx11 buffed indirectly the infiltrator, and it didn't need it at all.

Starting to fully understand your gripes.... good luck out there, your gonna need it.

I notice the complaints are not necessarily about infils but when they are paired with sniper rifles.... bolt actions to be more specific.

Ultimately they are the most annoying thing in the game to deal with.

--You can't really check for them because they are at ranges where their cloak is fully invisible and when they are not cloaked they just duck behind cover.

--With things like lag and reaction time you are basically dead even if you do see them uncloak. Since it has instant kill potential there is no reacting after they shoot you.

--You can't equip anything to survive that headshot kill like equipping flak to not get insta killed by mines. (If they added a reinforced helm option to reduce headshot damage everyone would use and we all know it)

-- Everyone is using BASR because they are in fact the most easiest and effective of the snipers. No dealing with recoil, player reaction, and minimal uncloaked exposure from having to fire one shot. if people wanted to use a gun that put them at a disadvantage people would be using the Tengu.

--Then to top it all off even if you do see them and they miss that shot you can't really do anything about because they are at a range where they can easily fall behind cover before you can kill them.

Basically BASR are anti-content. They subtract from everyone's enjoyment except for the people playing them... and even then some people play them simply because they felt like they had no choice but to deal with the other snipers. So you having a drain on your team who is putting a drain on the other team and both are primarily causing frustration for everyone else.

It's a bit late to do anything like removing or even a large overhaul of BASRs. Though I would like to see a NS bolt action that does 475 damage with no damage falloff and a special scope that highlights infils when they are cloaked regardless of range. Since they are always going to be a part of the game at least give a weapon to counter them with that isn't as good for anything else (the Skyguard of sniper rifles).

Oh and BASR are aimbot magnets.

The amount of salt in this thread makes me happy.

Since no one bothers with data/evidence in this thread I'm just going to flat out claim everyone who are whining in this thread are HA easy mode farmers who are upset they can't dominate every aspect of the game without even trying. Just to keep it on the same level of intellectual honesty, you know.

As a stalker with little firepower and health, skilled HAs have been my biggest foes in the game for all these years. They have nearly double my effective HP and much bigger firepower. When they get the shield up, it's tough to overcome the advantage.


But instead of whining 24 / 7, I've practiced RIGOROUSLY to take HAs down either by ambush or in face to face combat when it comes to it. I turned from being able to make 50 kills a day to being able to get up to 900 kills on a record day, not because my opponents got nerfed but because I had to become better.


When HA players' complacent farming gets interrupted, you never know how they'll react. I'd say most are indifferent or even good sport honestly, but I've had at least 3 cases where a HA player has logged into NC to teamkill me (as if my fellow NCs don't do that anyway) because they couldn't rise to the challenge otherwise.


When it comes to bolt action snipers, there are very few who I fear in the game and consider necessary to take down above others. And with one of those I made an unholy pact because enough people log in almost daily to teamkill him, which means that douchebags managed to remove one dedicated threat to a high end bolt sniper just by being lazy and bad. Millerites can probably imagine who this mortal enemy used to be.

First off, you should never stand still, no matter who you aim at. I don't care if it is an infil, a max, a heavy, or a tank that isn't moving. You. Never. EVER. Stand. Still. That is an easy headshot for ANYONE, not just snipers. Here how I think you are dealing with infiltrators.

OP: *stands still to shoot at extreme threat target*
Infiltrator: *snipes OP*
OP: "Aw man. I died to an Infiltrator. No biggie.
OP: *does the exact same thing*
Infiltrator: *snipes OP again and thinks "Is this dude stupid?"*
OP: "Them stupid infiltrators killed me again. Ugh I hate them!*
OP: *stands still once again*
Infiltrator: "Easy shot." *headshots OP*
OP: "AHGUAJLHFJAIHDKLJAHDAHIPOAHDPAOHDPAO I am gonna get these guys rebalanced or removed!!!*
OP: *heads to the forums*

See the problem? When you stand still, you are an easy target. Whether or not you repeatedly get sniped, the problem is that instead of complaining about being insta-killed via headshot from a bullet shot by a sniper rifle, you should have gone after the Infiltrator. A weakness of Infiltrators is their mindset. When they get a good position, get one or two kills, they are going to stay in that position till they run out of ammo, get bored, or die. When you kill an Infiltrator in his snipers perch, he can't go back there. If he does, he is stupid, because when you see your team getting sniped, you just go back and kill him. That is how you are supposed to deal with an Infiltrator, and that is how everybody deals with me. I lay down few rounds, regardless of kills, they come and find me. I kill someone, they come after me, unless they are stupid. I am too close to them? They come after me.

You beat Infiltrators in a mind game, and in turn, beat them in the real game. You can't just complain about how they have 1 hit kill weapons, because in every game, they have one of those. The downside of sniper rifles is chamber time, fire rate, and ammo. Sure, theoretically if a BASR had 40 shots in all, you could get 40 kills. That is only if all your bullets kill, which they rarely do. You'd have to be a pretty good aim, but to be honest, think about how many kills you would get if you were a Heavy Assault or a MAX or any other class if you had that good of an aim. Infiltrators just get the element of surprise. They are made for long range. However, give a sniper rifle to any other class, and they could do just as well. Sniper Infiltrators are not a problem.

Lets talk about Stalkers now. Stalkers can only use a side arm. I think they shouldn't be completely invisible, but that is just my opinion. Stalkers however, rarely contribute to a battle. A squad full of stalkers camping a point does, though, but you have to admire that craziness. The reason I think stalkers shouldn't be completely invisible is that you can't find them without a darklight, unless you see them moving or you see them uncloak. They can rack up quite a few kills for the sole reason of surprise and can cause havoc to a base with hacking everything and camping vehicle terminals, which helps a bit, but I would like them to have like a weird, watery effect for their cloak that takes a trained eye to see, because it could just look like motion blur or something when you are moving. I am not suggesting something extremely easy to see, because that would be detrimental to their playstyle, but not being able to find them without paying 100 certs is kind of a bummer when they are killing your team.

Last, lets talk about SMG Infiltrators. They do pretty well if you have good aim, but they are relatively easy to take down, because of them having less health. Despite this, I would want SMG's to be removed from this class and scout rifles to be buffed. I'd like those to be the only automatic primaries available to Infiltrators. Why? Because they are underused and Infiltrators are a class that are trained for headshots, they should be heavily rewarded to use them. The Tomoe is a great example of a Scout Rifle, but I want that headshot multiplier even higher. I'd like all Automatic Scout Rifles buffed in headshot multipliers and firerate, except for the Tomoe, which I just want a slightly higher headshot multiplier. The Semi Automatic Scout Rifles should be buffed in fire rate, like the Vandal, with their different trade offs.

TL;DR: the Stalker Infiltrators, SMG Infiltrators, and Automatic Scout Rifle Infiltrators in my opinion need work, but BASR Infiltrators are fine where they are. SASR Infiltrators are better on TR and VS side, and should be taken use of. They require even better aim, but have a faster fire rate and no bolt.