[Suggestion] Snipers can't be cloaked with a sniper rifle equipped

Recently there were a few threads about snipers with sniper rifles being to effective at cqc and cloak being to cheesy with bolts overall, considering clientside. So how about this idea: any cloak can only work with a pistol or an smg in hands.
This way a sniper has either to re-equip a sniper rifle before making a shot, which mitigates clientside effect for the victim, either to sacrifice constant invisibility to dish out more dps. I think it might add a new layer to sniping and counter-sniping, while not nerfing any weapon or changing any other mechanic.

Sniper rifles only make a small portion of the cloaker problem - Commissioners, Underbosses or Tengus are as lethal as CQC bolt action weapons.

The problem is the cloak, granting the ability to pre-aim, lurk around corners without being seen and making it extremely easy to dodge fights if they don't go to plan (only to jump from another unecxpected angle).
And we can start the typical back and forth on that topic, but the main problem with the class is and always will be their cloaking ability.

Sneak mans need 1 body shot kill with rifle against any class lighter than a MAX if you take cloak away. Change my mind.

Just fix the decloak on fire duration. Someone looking dead at where the infil is should NOT get shot without having a chance to react first. This is the BS that needs fixed.

No.

MAX and vehicles are supposed to be the classes for bad players. WE can't make an everything OP crutch.

Whats so bad about cloaked snipers? You get killed, you immediately see where they are via killcam, rez and blow them to bits in 1 to 2 shots with a slight cold. When I'm playing ambush infil, if I even so much as twitch one pixel, I am immediately seen and blasted into dust in nanoseconds.

having snipers invisible isn't really bad, as long range combat isn'T possible 99% of the time anyways. But having the cloak not working on a certain distance, say 29 meter, would prevent sneaky knife kills and BS stunts like point blank executions

But cloaking is like the absolute signature feature of the class. Would be like Engies not being able to repair or something. Infils die just as much as anyone else tbh.

Remove "decloak on fire" setting. Its dumb and unnecessary. Then you can increase the decloak by 0.5 seconds and it lets people react. But preaiming a sniper's nest as an UNCLOAKED INFILTRATOR or in fact, any class, would be possible and 1000x more effective if you remove preaiming as a CLOAKED Infiltrator. Think about what that means for BASRs. You won't be able to achieve the OHK because you would die before you pulled your weapon and aimed it. You'd get blicked too fast by anything non-bolt action, such as a semi auto sniper rifle or a battle rifle. Obelisk mains would rejoice. It would reduce the KPM and KDR of snipers and make them unusable in CQC as a last resort, making Commissioners even more used. Plus, CQC combat with a sniper isn't very easy. And people are making it out that the cloak the unkillable way of escaping a situation and repositioning, when you only have it for 12 seconds, you most likely already used some to get to your target or the position where you got ambushed, your run speed is the same as the enemies chasing you, they can see you in close range, and if they lose track of you, they'll find you in less than 12 seconds, when your cloak turns off and makes a beep.

If you want to go ahead with this change, you need to give cloaked Infiltrators some buff so that you can get away when you have a sniper, or at least reposition quickly to avoid countersnipers (instead of waiting in the same spot for 12 seconds to recharge your cloak, since you can't peak the corner and/or run away without being picked off).

Oh, and you do NOT want to let SMG Infiltrators also have their weapons equipped when they decloak too. Thats far worse.

Are cloaked infils really giving people this much trouble?

If you die to an infiltrator, 9/10 times you were out in the open standing still, or they got a skilled or lucky shot on you. Or they're 5 hexes into your owned territory and the death meant very little in the first place. Infiltrators have a lot to contend with, being squishy and very noticeable to anyone with half-decent headphones in the first place.

Never gonna happen, the class was designed that way going all the way back to early beta. Infils don't have the same function as they did in Planetside 1 which is why they were given the option for snipers.

I think having unique equipment rather than some abilities would be better - they have motion sensors, access to sniper rifles and can hack terminals and turrets. What do they need a cloaking ability for on top? And don't say for "Infiltrating" - 95% of the time it's to play predator and pull of sneaky kills

(Same with the heavy shield - I'd buff the launchers to make them stand out against other classes)

When masses of them storm a cap point - yes. (Actually one of the most successful ways to attack). Or the single infiltrator capping a base over and over again, caining people to play hide and seek instead of fighting real battles.
And it's not only getting killed by them what's annoying. With their motion sensors they can limit others as well, either because they show your position to the whole enemy team or force you to crouch to avoid detection.

The biggest mess is that they don'T have any effective counter - flashlights take away a weapon slot, point out your position and don't even work porperly. Graphic settings to make them more visible also depend on the circumstances, when it's dark they are completely invisible

About Infiltrating,

I play infil to do exactly that..infiltrate an enemy base, hack vehicle terminals so they can't spawn, hack turrets to stop them being used against friendlies, get in a good spot to Q spot enemies and also hunt down enemy busses and q spot them for my team. I get killstreaks as an ambush infil but when I look at PS2 players, the heavies have just as many killstreaks as I do. About the only ones that don't are the true support classes such as Medic and Engineer but they both have decent score per min. Not including vehicles of course.

Infils are never completely invisible, even in the dark. Even when not moving and crouched. All I have to do is literally move by the merest fraction and I am seen immediately if an enemy is nearby.

I play heavy and infil in pretty much equal measure, yeah I get knifed occasionally but usually because I've got separated from the team and am at a disadvantage. Snipers are all over the place and have been since launch but the killcam effectively negates the problem since as soon as I get 1 HS I know exactly where they are so I just respawn and blow them away.

If your looking for issues, it has to be the roadkill. Cloaked flash/harassers just mowing down entire squads in one pass over and over again plus A2G spawn campers - though they are less of a problem since they get scared if their ESF paint is even slightly scratched.

I see two options:

1: make the cloak a third weapon slot you can switch to. Means you cant ADS while cloaked and need to switch while decloaking to use a weapon. Adds some necessary skill to actually using decloak+fire, and also targets the very easymode SMG infils as wells as sniper users.

2: the better option as far as I am concerned. Lengthen the decloak to 2 seconds. It pushes cloak to what it is supposed to: a tool to get into position or out of a hairy situation, rather than a tool that lets you decloak&fire before your enemy has a chance to react.

You want Infils to have something for CQC? How about the ability to place recon devices to detect enemies in advance in combination with the ability to cloak and get away unharmed, even get a leg up at ambushing the people trying to kill you? That would be a pretty damn powerful tool for infiltrators to have right?!

Also if BASR's get a way to better deal with CQC, then CQC weapons need to be equally good outside their effective ranges at dealing with long-ranged players like a sniper right? Because why should a supposedly dedicated long-range weapon get boosts in CQC, when that same long-ranged weapon is already better in CQC than a CQC weapon is at long-range?

This is way different then up to 5m-30m away instakill at 20% visibility and 5% the decloak noise dying frame 1.

What the heck are you talking about? I don't recall saying that at all. I recall talking about the change OP suggested and saying that it would make a sniper impossible to use even as a last resort if you were placed in CQC. I recall saying that if you want to go through with the change, you need to allow a way for a cloaked infiltrator to escape, maybe giving a speed boost while cloaked. But I do not recall saying anything about buffing BASRs.

Also also, don't pretend that choosing to use a spotter or recon dart guarantees you can get away unharmed or at all. If you place the spotter in advance, that helps you know where the enemies are. But again, when you recloak, you give them a bead on your location and you run at the same speed as them, meaning they can chase you. You would need to reposition within the 12- seconds you have without running into them, and if you have the reequipment delay suggested here, you are a sitting duck without weapons in that time you are recharging your cloak, with these guys right on your tail.

Say you decide to play around cover instead. Your cloaking is going to give you off big time, and you still have a delay on top of that. It means that even if you get behind your enemy, you can't necessarily do anything about them. It will raise even more so the use of Commissioners to get around that delay.

O M G

Infiltrators are a cancer to the gameplay. You can't counter them in any way (the dark light is simply not enough, and if they equip deep operative is absolutely useless). A single infiltrator can simply stop a squad with the right cover if the base has narrow passages.

It is toxic, especially when mixed with a flash or an SMG and force the player to pick an another infiltrator to counter it if it is a sniper.

If you played all the class, like me, you simply cannot understand why that thing has been put in the game.

You can counter them by paying attention. If one guy in a squad gets killed by an Infiltrator, why would the rest of the squad do the same thing that leads to their death? If the Infiltrator is using a sniper, legit, don't peak snipers, because if they hit you in the head, you are dead, regardless of the cloak. Then you go and mention "narrow passages". Are you trying to die by coming up against a dude with an OHK on headshot weapon? If he had an SMG, you can stomp him. So I'm guessing you are talking specifically about snipers, as in line with this thread.

You do not need a hard counter to everything in the game to play against it. You don't need to be able to see the Infiltrator that decides to fight you before you decide to not make yourself an instantly killed target. That said, I am not against a buff to the flashlight or adding other hard counter tools into the game. But what we have is sufficient if you learn how to deal with it. I can go on and relate how that simple point plays in with other games and balance, but I'm not gonna write an essay today.