So... SMG infiltrators

If you lose in a 1v1 with an infil as a HA consistently when you know that he's in your general area, you're either doing something wrong, he's better than you or you're playing on low graphics. If I catch even a glimpse of an enemy infil or hear one cloak/uncloak, I will flip my **** and not stop until I've hunted him down and killed him. You essentially get all the info you need to know that an infil is trying to kill you and pinpoint where he is in relation to you before he gets to shoot at you, as long as you're paying attention. Activate the overshield, turn around and blast him. Sure, you might still lose, but the situation in this story is one where these players likely didn't react to the sound of an uncloaking infil. Of course they'll be owned.

They are annoying as HELL but i don't think they are op, once that person is spotted then there is no chance of survival.

ITS SO BIG!

One enemy Infiltrator with Recon Darts and you would not have made it anywhere near the cap point, if they were watching it.

SMG Infils are not OP, however, to players with little to none situational awareness, they might seem that way.

Indeed.

I get into situations where there's an enemy SMG Infiltrator running around killing people. All it takes is listening for the cloak/decloak sound, fire a recon dart, and he'll have nowhere to run or hide. Well... he could hide ofcourse, but once his blip disappears from the map, I know exactly where he's located.

That said, in the right situation, you can kill tons of enemies with an SMG, if you play it well and the enemy are oblivious.

But that's just damn good skill getting rewarded. And lack of awareness and skill being punished. (in the enemy)

So your reaction to having a good fight with infiltrator is "holy crap nerf me"?

I could probably do better as an HA, adding the MAX as a fatality also.

SMG infiltrators not such a problem if you position yourself where they can't sneak up behind, It's the VS/NC suicide mine droppers that are a pain. One directional TR claymores don't come close to the same impact.

The only issue I have with the SMG infiltrators is when they decide to have a grudge against someone, especially in reasonably sized battles, because unless you dedicate yourself to defending against them then it is pretty easy to target someone, cloak, and gank them from behind.

True, the infiltrator may frequent die soon after but they can just respawn and come back looking for you. Does this have a big impact on the flow of battle? Not really, I would not think so but it can be really frustrating when you realize someone is just hunting you. Yeah, you can try to defend yourself against this one person but if you do not then they will be able to single you out fairly easily and if you do then suddenly you are playing a different game that you may not find as entertaining.

IMO, the difficulty in balancing the infiltrator is somewhat different than other classes because even if they are designed in a way that is not OP from an overall battle perspective it is really not enjoyable to be taken out by someone you cannot see and if someone decides to hold a grudge because you ended a streak then they can harass specific players in a way that no other class can.

Infiltrators with SMG's are definitely way too much as things stand.

The only problem with infils before SMG's were introduced was how visible they were. Now that simply isn't the case. Even though they can sometimes be spotted whilst running, it's still very difficult to track and shoot them reliably at the best of times (all they need is for the opposition player to lose track for a split second - they don't even need to be totally invisible). In the heat of battle it's nigh on impossible before they make good their escape. Sometimes it's possible - but so it damn well should be!

Anyway, I can't see SOE removing SMG's from infils now (although they should), so the only ways I can think of to try and balance them would be to make them more visible, at least whilst running, or introduce PS1-like 'darklight vision' implants.

I love guarding cap points against infiltrators, regardless of what weapons you're carrying.
Like regular infantry, you can be seen when moving, your approaching footsteps can be heard, and your approach routes are usually predictable. However, infiltrators are easier to detect because the (empire specific) sound of your cloak/uncloak can actually be heard from farther away than footsteps.

"Too much" of what exactly?

Have you even tried playing an SMG infiltrator once, or did you collect your wisdom from youtube montages and being mowed down from behind a few times?

It's so easy to hunt them down it's not even funny.
Only one of the people you kill needs to respawn as an infiltrator and spam some sensor darts and you'll be done for.

But instead of doing that they cry for nerfs on the forums if a skilled SMG infiltrator repeatedly got them by surprise

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you spent the entire fight avoiding a head-on confrontation with anything?
If so I don't see what the problem is. If you were charging people with an SMG Infiltrator and winning that would be a problem, but ducking in-and-out of sight, kiting the MAX, and whatnot? That's just Infiltrator business as usual.

See this is funny because I feel like this should be the case at this point. The class has little utility outside of the one needed for Recon Darts, and has no bearing on vehicles whatsoever unless you can manage to find a turret that is undefended and still functioning. A skilled Infiltrator is an infantry killing machine in CQC on par with Heavy Assaults, I don't dispute that, but that's really all we can do. If you took this away from us without giving us adequate compensation in the utility department you would quickly find the class become mostly hill humping snipers again aside from the ones needed by outfits as a replacement Scout Radar.

With that said I can almost guarantee you that, at least on these forums, the vast majority of Infiltrators would be happy to give up their SMGs for utility on par with Engineers & Medics. Unfortunately rather then take the route paved by PS1 that was undoubtedly balanced, SOE decided to turn the class into an ambushing flanker class which is an almost universally hated concept across all games I've played that have them (Rogues in WoW, Rogues in NWN, Operatives/Assassins in SWTOR, etc).

A lot of us do not and did not want to be that class. We wanted to be the saboteurs that can hide from opponents, damage their ability to attack/defend, and generally be a more useful class to teammates. But like you said it is unlikely SOE will take SMGs away or stray from the design direction, so your best bet is to learn the ways to combat Infiltrators rather then complain about it.

Run with a competent group, cover your flanks, and watch your back. If you're going to run solo or run with a clueless group you're going to get killed by the class that best exploits those weaknesses. If you pay attention and have a friend that you can trust to watch your six you're not going to have nearly as much trouble as you do.

Raraldor, Don't underestimate yourself. I play on low settings and infiltrators are pretty hard to spot but most die way too easy. When I play against you I have to pay lots of attention or I know you will kill me (you've sobered me up a few times as well ). With that being said I have seen lots of decent kill streaks from you, your assassination of an amazing infiltrator and lots of other great players as well. Kudos for not bashing those 3 guys in the OP, but they were indeed bad and you are better then you think.

I do dislike the concept of the SMG infiltrator though. The only reasons I dislike them are that the cloak's visibility isn't uniform on all settings and the latency between when your opponent decloaks and when you're able to see it on your screen. There has been countless times I would instantly die as I saw an infiltrator decloak.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I reading the story. In fact it's what we did at a Tech plant once. had a guy who was just farming troops and blowing generators so we mined one Gen, destroyed both terminals, then my friend stood at the point as a max and I hid in a corner out of LOS. We could hear his foot steps and knew what side he'd pop up at. Eventually he stopped bothering with us and messed with 2 other guys who were sitting on the second gen.
What bugs me about the situation is that in cases like that you just can't get rid of them and you get trapped into a hour long struggle against one guy. I'm sure he enjoys it but personally I find it annoying so I have to make a choice on if I want to bother or just let him take the base.

My other thought would probably be to grab my harasser with prox radar and just sit by a door or slowly patrol. It's not like a single inf is going to do anything to that except maybe grab a ESF from the gate.

The point at the farm is more like a shed on the opposite side of the field from the spawn room. It has 2 doors, one facing in the direction of the spawn and one facing towards the only other building present. The point is in the corner perpendicular to both doors. In the other corner is a 2 step shelving unit that anyone can climb to get a higher vantage point. There's enough of a gap between that and the right side door to stick one claymore and the other door is open enough for the second claymore. Other than that there are a few crates by the point but if you stand there you stand a good chance of being shot.

I play Infiltrator with a SMG occasionally and get nice streaks from that class but I don't consider it "skill". If you are skilled in FPS games then it carries over to all classes. Even good players that aren't oblivious can be easily taken down by an infiltrator with a SMG. It only takes using your recon darts, not cloaking constantly to make them aware of you and knowing when to go in and kill them as there are usually tons of distractions on the battlefield that can make people seem oblivious but really you're just using your team mates as a distraction and leeching kills.

They were idiots. If they put one dude crouching in a corner of the control point room with a MAX bodyshielding him, you wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing about it.

Can't trust anyone when there's an SMG infiltrator around. Often some guy just came right behind me even if there were five randoms there. Watch your damn flanks, at least because someone is counting on you to do it...

Only thing that has to be done IMHO is make them more visible on low settings... annoying bastards appear out of nowhere!

Why change a weapon for the sake of one class that can abuse their short range and short TTK. Infils probably shouldn't have smg available and need to stick with the currently displaced scout rifles, or the infamous sniper rifle+knife move if they want to do combat in close quarters.

You played well against an unorganized 'team'.
You effectively created a situation where you were against 'one opponent multiple times' instead of 'multiple opponents at one time'.
Seems to me this speaks to the effectiveness of a limited toolset in the hands of a skilled player. I'm Infil 75% of the time and I RARELY get runs like that.

I vote not OP.