rebalance infiltrators

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by VeryCoolMiller, May 6, 2019.

  1. Skraggz


    ALL classes can set up an engagement to be in your favor... please stop saying this nonsense. Engi has turrets and mines... LA can flank, Medic can pre med with ability stack... ALL classes can control an engagement, that is not an argument.
  2. TobiMK

    "Let me try". What do you want to try, I play in infantry scrims and tournaments regularly. What I'm saying is the opinion of every organizers and participant of these events. Infiltrators are overpowered and ruin any sort of balanced infantry scrim.

    That is how you waste your potential in the most efficient way. Meatshielding instead of flanking in killing is a ridiculous idea.

    You only turn the overshield on when you're getting shot, who runs with their overshield up all the time?


    The names of the classes are in no way any indication of how to play them, that's about as ridiculous as playing as a meathshield.

    Who is the troll now, lmao.

    As a last point, you're just like every other Forumsider. Quick to discuss any topic, yet have no actual valid experience with anything. Forumside is about the only place where I can go, present the opinions of not only me (after 5000 hours of playtime) but also those of the majority of other veterans and scrim players, and still get called a troll. The disconnect between this place and the rest of the community is quite amazing really.
  3. Scroffel5

    Anything and everything you have said only works "in theory." In theory, the Heavy Assault is the best class that can easily kill MAX's with 3 or 4 hits of a rocket launcher, can easily destroy sundies and aircraft, and can farm infantry for days. That works on paper, but not in practice. You only have a few darts of motion detection which immediately prepares enemies for an attack by infiltrator upon firing. You can play for the worst and hope for the best, but it doesn't mean it will work. You can see the enemies, turn the corner, shoot a shot, miss, and come back around the corner to rechamber and wait to do it again, but you will probably still get killed. Motion detection only shows where an enemy is, but you can guess that if you are any other class. It doesn't help you in actual combat. It can help you prepare for a situation based on their movements, such as getting up higher or more hidden for a sneak attack, but it wont actually help you unless you know what to do when that information is given to you. You have to look at how it works in practice, not just in theory, not just on paper. If it doesn't work, it gets buffed. If it works too well, it gets nerfed. Thats how these things go.

    Here is an example. The Wraith Flash cloak got nerfed for how good it was at killing infantry and tanks and then getting away. It was nerfed to make things easier for the players it hurts, but when that didn't work, it was buffed, but not back to the way it used to be. That was all for balance, and personally, I like it. It makes my Steed feel like I have to prepare more with it and know when to ride him to victory or retreat. The Infiltrator has not been nerfed or buffed, so the developers don't see a need to do anything to it. You can give your suggestions all you want. It probably won't make a difference if you don't make a good argument, which is why I am here. I am here to debunk the things people say or encourage what they say so that change will happen. I don't want people rooting for a stupid idea, y'know? You can't ask for balance to happen to an Infiltrator when it is fine the way it is. Don't get me wrong; it isn't a perfect class. Changes will happen, but you have to find the cause of that problem IN PRACTICE, not in theory. In the situation where you utilize your class effectively and it does a decent job, then things are fine, but when it isn't working well, then we have a problem.

    I have watched Planetside 2 montages of CQC sniping. Its not easy, but they do it so well. They would shoot at someone, miss, rechamber, and back off and wait for the person to waltz in abruptly and make poor decisions. They weren't greedy and got headshotted right when they walked in because of it, and they died. Is that the Infiltrators fault for that? No, because you can do the same thing with any other class. They won't die in 1 headshot, but you still have bonuses as another class to do so. We keep talking about a Heavy Assault. You can post up around the corner and light someone up when they walk in wondering where you went. The Infiltrator just has to hit the head to kill them. The players that do this are probably what you were referring to as positioning, but you still have to pull it off. I don't care how well you position yourself to do the maximum amount of damage; if you couldn't actually do it, then all you were was a great tactician and strategist. You beat me at a mind game, but you lost to me when the execution mattered.

    I am going to say my apologies now, because this is a lot of reading to do for my posts, but I try to answer fully in my posts.
  4. TobiMK

    Are you being intentionally dense? The infiltrator can exactly see where the enemy is, other class can not. This is a big advantage. Also you can't pre-med with the medic ability, you can't go above 500 HP.
  5. Scroffel5

    The names of the classes can be changed, but they give a basic loadout for the basic job description. Basic Infiltrator loadout slot 1 says "LONG RANGE SNIPER" and it is built for that. That can be changed, but the devs gave us that description as to what they were trying to do with that slot.

    I never said you run with the overshield on all the time. However, once you get shot and turn it on, it only hinders your ability to escape as you are moving slower. That leads to you getting shot more times, instead of tanking as much damage with your player shield then turning on your overshield, which is still pointless as you still get shot. Basically I was debunking your whole point about running away with the overshield. It isn't built for running away is my point.

    When I say "shield your allies", I am talking about being up in the front when you are pushing. When you are up in the front you take most of the damage, but you are built for that as a Heavy Assault. What I do not mean is standing infront of allies getting shot and not firing back. Your mates can handle themselves, but your job is to absorb the damage and dish it back out, as that is what your class is built for.

    I don't have the most hours, I will admit that. I only have about 600. However, I play a few hours a day and try to immerse myself in the game. I look at what is good, what is bad, and what needs work. However, saying you have 5000 hours of playtime doesn't make a difference than you saying you had 1000. Its just more time for you to become complacent in your thinking, to lose what you enjoyed about the game because you focus on problems than how the actual gameplay flows. Then you, you come here and complain about things that aren't founded on basic things, even logic. I don't care if you speak for veterans, competitive players, your squad, your outfit, or the President of the United States. You don't use logic, and that disproves what you say. Any argument anyone makes has to be logical, or it disproves itself. EVERYTHING HAS TO MAKE SENSE LOGICALLY OR IT IS MOST LIKELY WRONG!!! You can't say that we don't play the game and see problems, and you can't hold yourself as a higher criteria of judgement just because you played longer. Thats like saying older people know more about current work as an Electrician than younger people do. To the most part, that is true, but it doesn't mean they know how things work currently. It doesn't mean they know the codes and regulations now, and it doesn't mean they know the new things that happen now. Just because you have played longer doesn't mean that we aren't qualified to judge the game as we see fit as well. It doesn't mean we are wrong!

    I am just going to ignore your point about squad leaders roleplaying for the sole reason that you mentioned it. I don't mean roleplay as like "It has been a hard long year on Auraxis. Rations are low, moral is low, ammo is low, and health is low. I don't know if we can make it much longer." Just use your reasoning abilities to reason on what I may mean by roleplay.
  6. Skraggz


    Did you just assume no one else in this game has motion darts with the bolt? Also is caprice medics not a thing.

    https://planetside.fandom.com/wiki/Detect_Bolt

    Also throwing insults is usually a sign that you have absolutely no argument and being aware of it so you discredit some one that opposes you by belittling them.... Js
  7. Scroffel5

    Stop insulting people. It brings your criteria of judgement down even lower, and that is why very few people here respect you. An Infiltrators ability to use recon devices does not determine how suited he is to defeat the enemies. Just because you position well and can move well doesn't mean you will win. Recon devices are for teamplay too. They help your allies see what is going on. You could play without it or give it to another class, and you would still complain about the Infiltrators.

    Say there are 10 enemies on a point in a bio lab. You spew some recon, count em all, and position yourself accordingly. You walk in to the point from the airpad entrance, get your knife ready because you are ready to go on a killing spree, and you get shot in the back. The 10 enemies turn around and light you up. You die.

    What happened? You only used recon on the building. At the airpad was another enemies walking towards you, but you didn't see him on your minimap and you died.

    Picture another scenario. 10 people on a point in a bio lab. You spew recon, count em all, and position yourself accordingly. You walk in the entrance to that building from the airpad entrance, check your back, get your knife ready, walk up the stairs, get lit up, and die.

    What happened? The enemies saw you put up recon devices, watched the stairs and floatie pad, then shot you when they saw the distortion of your cloak. They knew you were coming and just waited.

    The recon devices do not show you which way the enemies are looking or if they are standing still. They only show fast moving targets, as it brings out in the description. They also don't show crouch walkers. You only have information if they are moving towards you. That is useful information, but it only helps you prepare for an engagement, not fight it.
  8. pnkdth


    I'm not talking scrims but competitive minded players.

    Infiltrators scale very poorly since Live play is much more chaotic and you do not win engagements with a well-placed shot like how you can do in smaller scrims (at which point I'd rather play a game such as Counter-Strike than PS2). HAs keep firing after ressed, they soak damage and they can push heavily contested areas where classes such as infiltrators and LAs have to hit and run (and therefore not able to capitalise on openings OR keep up a sustained defence.

    I agree on flanking. It is very powerful and if you can you should do it though I wouldn't call it "the correct way" since it should be at the back of everyone's mind. What's great about the HA is that you can do that and take hits like a champ in a face to face slugfest. This, combined with large capacity weapons makes them ideal for attack and defence and when supported by medics/engineers they can keep going. Infils, by contrast, are utterly f***ed if a MAX shows up and they will.

    I also agree that you can have a more open and flexible mindset in squads but you aim to do lots of pushing and point holds you really do not want more than the bare minimum of infils and preferably no LAs at all. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to achieve an objective and have one or two glory hounds run off and leave your squad at reduced strength. There are players able to thrive well in these types of squads but they're nowhere near as resilient or can take on greater numbers than themselves in the same capacity as a the balanced squads of mostly HAs and support.

    You definitely want one infil for recon darts/devices though + the rest of the squad allows the infil to hide in place sight and pick off targets. I mean, I like the infiltrator class but most of the time, even on fire, the people you nail with your BASR shot is revived moments later because in order to keep on the pressure I need to pretty much have 100% accuracy and HSR to actually pose a realistic threat whereas as a HA I can use my shield to take on 2-3 people and still come out alive. Sure, I might die more often, but in PS2 dying is cheap and those who win are the ones who's better at grinding the meat than the other faction. Least in terms of infantry gameplay. That, and as a HA I will usually die in a good place for a revive meaning I'll be back in the fight.

    I feel I must return to the point earlier, where is the proof infiltrators are so powerful you suggest?
  9. TobiMK

    The HA can't get any shots off if the infiltrator simply uses his motion detection and cloak to come up to the HA without him noticing. Then he shoots him once or twice and the HA is dead without being able to do anything about it. The infiltrator would have to massively screw up to lose against a HA that didn't have prior knowledge of him.

    All your comments so far suggest that you don't have a realistic view on infiltrator's because you haven't mastered the basics of the class. I'd bet if you invest some more serious hours into it, you'll see why a large part of the community rightfully calls infiltrators unbalanced.

    I can't fathom how this is not obvious. Nano Armor Cloak is a straight upgrade to Hunter Cloak. You get 100 HP for free and you ignore 35% of incoming damage when cloaked. The small cost is a bit of cloak time. You are literally stronger with NAC than with Hunter. And you should always be running it unless you are (for whatever reason) playing long-range sniper on a hill. Really not sure what more I can say.

    BUT THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT ABOUT SNIPERS! You say SMG infiltrators can catch you off-guard, but snipers do the same but with only a single bullet. That is the entire point. And not only do they just need to press the button once, they can do it from virtually any range, rather than just within 25m.
  10. LordKrelas

    Why is the Overshield being paraded about as a Skill-based ability?
    There is no situation past Running for your life, where activation at the first instant, is a bad-call nearly.

    If an HA or any player, Can't notice Recon Devices, pay attention to their surroundings, nor have their own, or allies...
    They'll die as any Class.
    The Player that can properly use their tools, against an Opponent that can't notice Glaring sensor-pings, lets themselves be engaged without any work to safeguard against it, is someone who was going to win as any class.
    The one who so easily dies to an Infiltrator, typically was out-maneuvered.

    Now for the Sniper:
    That is a long-range shot, against a target.
    That means accounting for range, bullet-drop, velocity, cover, and any target motion.
    If your target refuses to move, consider cover, or that an sniper could fire, They will die to an LA or any other class just the same.

    Why is that: As every gun benefits from accurate fire.
    A sniper however, does not as casually have a large margin for Error, and that is why they are hundreds of meter away from the target.
    If closer; The single mistake, and they are dead.
  11. TobiMK

    All your scenarios make it sound like the infiltrator in question ignores his motion detection and common sense. In the first scenario he dies because he doesn't watch his minimap, in the second he dies because he doesn't.. have eyes? Not sure what you're trying to show there if I'm honest. The motion detection isn't a free-out-of-jail card, but it's a very powerful ability that takes away a lot of the required awareness that other classes need.
  12. TobiMK

    If the combination of infiltrator abilities (which I've explained like 10 times now I feel) plus the ease of playing an infiltrator on live isn't enough evidence, there isn't much more I'm afraid. Last thing I can offer is stats, which for many good players will show an increase in KD over the rest of their classes, resulting out of the lack of risk. E.g. my recent TSAR-42 is at 140 Kills per hour and 8.4 KD while my NS-15 is at 120 Kills per hour and 4 KD.
  13. Scroffel5

    Thats not true. The moment you decloak, a skilled player will just turn in your direction because of how loud it was. You have a sniper in close range, and you will probably die to the HA because he turned around, overshielded, and saw you then lit you up. It doesn't matter with a sniper. I was ALSO TALKING ABOUT A FACE TO FACE BATTLE, y'know, the situation that favors an HA. If the situation is one that favors the other class, they will most likely win. That is true of any class if both are of equal skill. You are suggesting it is easy to do that. All of your comments so far have a warped view of the Infiltrator without examining how it works in practice, and you aren't even trying to understand where I am coming from.

    The Nano Armor Cloak is not a straight upgrade to the Hunter Cloak. A straight upgrade would be having more cloaked time or less visibility in your cloak or ignoring 35% of damage while cloaked without losing anything. That is how a straight upgrade works. You get more by spending certs on it. You have a shorter time of cloaking at an NAC infiltrator, which means you are basically just another Infantry unit with worse guns. You are a LA without a Jetpack, an HA without an Overshield, a Medic without a reviving tool, and an Engineer that can't repair anything. Your upside is that you can cloak, but only for a few seconds at a time. I think it is 6 at default but I don't remember. And to add to that, your only ability, that being cloaking, only gives you your buff of 35% damage reduction if you are cloaked, AKA while you can't attack. It helps you when you are being shot at. You could argue that you could use it in close range when you are reloading, or you could have just switched guns.

    And yeah, snipers catch you off guard too, but that is because they are farther away typically and you don't notice them like someone who is in your face. You get sniped because you didn't notice them there. As an Infiltrator, you can't stay cloaked forever if you want to snipe, not even if you use Minor Cloak. You eventually have to come out to snipe, and when you do, you are visible to every other class, just not noticed. The thing about SMG Infiltrators is that they get up in your face, and when they are closing ground you won't notice them because of the cloak, which I agree is unbalanced because of how powerful an SMG really is. I suggest for SMG infiltrators that (get ready for an unpopular opinion) SMG's be removed from Infiltrators and then to buff Empire Specific Auto Scout Rifles in fire rate and headshot multiplier to reward Infiltrators more heavily for headshots.

    You keep saying things that make it seem like it is easy to snipe from ANY range, when in reality it isn't. You have to account for bullet drop if you are far away, account for bullet travel speed, and account for leading your target and hitting the head. That takes time to learn. If sniping was really unbalanced, anyone could do it and master it very quickly. I have fought bad snipers before. They are easy to take down, and blame you for hacking when you do. I have also taken down skilled snipers, and they are much harder to fight. I liken an Infiltrator battle to an ESF battle. An ESF can farm infantry from the skies and back off when he needs to, but the moment another ESF gets into the battle, that is your priority. That ESF will take you down if you let it. Same with Infiltrators. That is how they fight with snipers. Farm up infantry, kinda stopping the flow of battle, but when another Infiltrator comes to get you, that is your focus. Sniping is perfectly fine where it is, because of how hard it gets to snipe the closer you get to your enemies. With a BASR, you have 1 bullet to shoot, hit or miss, then you rechamber another round, with a very limited supply of ammo in your magazine. When actually prove to me that Infiltrators are dominating the game in every aspect and that the whole class is unbalanced, then maybe I will believe you. However, insulting someone based on the amount of hours they have doesn't get you very far. "More serious hours." I played every day for a few hours, then went off to do something else. I don't need to play the game more to see basic problems with it and to see things that aren't problems. I don't play a game 24 hours a day, and that is how hours on Steam should be taken, not by 24 hour day increments but by a few hours at a time to calculate how many days someone has been playing. I got the game in 2016, I believe. I have played for long enough to be able to see these things I post about.
  14. Somentine

    I am almost a 99% infantry player, so I am biased as all hell, but I despise infil the most out of every class. People complain about heavies being a crutch, and I would honestly argue that adren shield needs to be deleted or the shield not working on headshots, but infil is by far the safest and most annoying class with it's tools.

    Recon darts (on any class) is absurdly broken (and imo all spotting/radar bs), EMP is way too strong, 100hp cloak (and invisibility in general) is a straight boost and the invisibility part negates a large part of any skillful play at long range or short, one shot headshots and even 1 HS + 1 body shot from some scout/battle rifles from stealth are busted af and it really isn't hard to hit headshots on people who are either unaware of you (stealth) or are focused on another target (ads movement penalty), and to top it off they can even get mines (which are also obnoxious on every class) should they somehow forget to put down a motion spotter to cover their flanks (though I use health kits but w/e).

    Every part of their kit is straight bs that pretty much guarantees at least 1 kill before you die unless you try to man-fight a heavy without stealth.

    Two of the biggest things I really feel need changed are the scout/battle/sniper rifles working with stealth and all motion spotters (even for crossbow). Oh, also, delete the daimyo. Idk they thought this was a balanced weapon.

    I should also add that I am biased against stealth in -every- game; imo it is an incredibly gimmicky mechanic that is either overpowered or useless, but annoying as all hell either way.
  15. TobiMK

    Not sure how much Heavy Assault you've played, but the way to disengage as Heavy is to shuffle in combination with medkits and overshield, to get maximum protection and lifespan as you move to cover. That means activating your shield intermittently, preferably while jumping to lose as little momentum as possible.

    The HA overshield gives you 450 HP, that means you can take an additional 4 bullets of 143 damage gun. If you stand in a contested doorway, that's instantly gone. A MAX can maybe soak up significant amounts of damage, a Heavy surely can not.

    I absolutely 100% agree that playtime does not equate to skill or knowledge. The high amount of BR 100 without any sort of FPS skill prove that daily. But in my case I have more references than 99.9% of PS2 players. I have auraxed every single sniper rifle, many beyond their auraxiums and many more than once. In total I have probably around 50k sniper kills, if not more. My sniper stats are consistently in the top 0.2%. I have bolted in "competitive" Planetside events against the best players in the game. I'm not trying to flex here, these are just the qualifications that I can offer to support my point.

    This isn't a personal attack, but someone with 600 hours playtime does not have the same insight or experience as someone with 5k hours and explicit infiltrator expertise. I try not to argue from authority, that's why so far I hadn't brought up any of this. But none of the common arguments (which are 100% accepted in the veteran community) are being accepted here. So maybe this is enough to convince people. If not, then there really isn't anything else I can say. But again, ask any other good player whether infiltrator is balanced or if they use Nano Armor Cloak and the answers will always be "no" and "yes" respectively.
  16. Scroffel5

    I have checked your player stats under the name "TobiMK." You have been playing since 2014, and your highest score is on your Infiltrator. Your most played class is the LA with Infiltrator in 2nd place. Your accuracy with the Infiltrator is at 38.28%. Lets just say 40%. That means you make 4/10 shots, but you keep suggesting headshots are easy. Your best accuracy is on your MAX, which is actually almost 50%. This is on your NC account. I know you aren't NC because I saw you were talking about your TSAR, but you are a level 65 on this account so I can call you experienced. Your best sniper kill-wise is the Moonshot, with a 4.84 KDR, though you have another sniper with like a 6.81 KDR. Your Gauss Saw S is higher at a 7.44, and your NS-15M2 is even higher at 8.45. Your Godsaw KPM is highest at 2.644 with your Daimyo at 2.141. Your snipers all have the highest headshot ratios, excluding the Archer which I didnt count as you only have 1 kill with it. You have the highest amount of headshots with your Moonshot at 4,827, though you only hit about 50% of your shots. Your lowest shots per kill is with your Daimyo at 2.69 and your hits per kill is 1.62.

    Why did I show any of this? You are actually getting a higher KDR with your NS-15M2 and a higher KPM with your Godsaw at 2.644. You keep making it out as Infiltrators are super unbalanced. There was one stat I have yet to mention. Your playtime with your Infiltrator is 16 days, 21 hours. Your playtime with your Heavy is less than half of that, at 8 days, 9 hours. Look how good you did in that time with a Heavy as compared to an Infiltrator. You actually looks like you did better. Your accuracy was only slightly worse at 36.12%. You did better with worse accuracy. You were saying how Infiltrators are so unbalanced. I was only using pure logic to disprove what you were saying, but now I showed stats. The Daimyo is a semi auto sniper with a good multiplier. A BASR with low damage, a semi automatic system, and a high headshot multiplier. That's pretty good. You got a higher KDR with it, but you had more kills with your Moonshot. Probably due to more playtime. I didn't want to check those stats.

    You can't say how an Infiltrator is better without showing any logic to that or any proof. You had less than half playtime with your Heavy Assault and still did better than with your Infiltrator. What do you think about that?
    • Up x 2
  17. TobiMK

    This is all explained by "TobiMK" being my first character ever and the fact that I started playing Heavy Assault longer after I had already finished the sniper rifle directive. Obviously my sniper stats are low in comparison. Either way, the point wasn't to show specific stats, just that I know what I'm talking about more so than the vast majority of other snipers in this game. I could go through my other ten characters to find more suitable stats that aren't as skewed as the one on "TobiMK" (sniper stats, as well as other ones), but I don't think that's changing much here.
  18. Scroffel5

    I have now checked TobiMKTR, which I suggest is your account. It was made in 2017, so at this point you have played on NC for 3 years and are experienced. Infiltrator has 14h 12min of playtime and Heavy Assault has 3 hours. Heavy has slightly better SPM at 871.07 while Infil has slightly better accuracy at 43%. Your TSAR has the best kills, KDR, KPM, accuracy, HS and HSR, score, playtime, but not SPM.

    The second best weapon you have is the NS-15M2, which you have played about 1/5th less than you have played the TSAR. You have about 1/5th of the kills with it, 0.25 less KPM, 4.3 less KDR, 2k+ more shots, and 15% less accuracy. You make less headshots and less headshot ratio. You have 1/3 less score, and yet still more SPM. That is all pretty good for a weapon you played with 1/5 less with and on a character you played 1/5 less on. The thing is, at this point you are an experienced player, so I am not really understanding how you could get worse with the same weapon you had on your other account. You got worse in KDR, KPM, and SPM. You switched servers, so that may have something to do with it, but I don't know. You can't argue that the Infiltrator is better when it is up to par with your other class.
  19. Scroffel5

  20. Somentine

    Can you please re-read what you just wrote? Every single stat for the Tsar is better than his heavy weapon on that account. Oh, besides SPM, lol?

    KMP and KDR is the largest factor, meaning he is not only killing more, per minute than with a heavy (the supposed best infantry class), but also doing it 2x better in terms of KDR.

    But the SPM (which can be attributed to a large number of events/temp xp boosts) is higher, so the heavy is better?