The devs have said they want to fix range compression in infantry weaponry...

Sounds like a massive HA buff, and we dont need that at all.......

I never said you would never get them, However, I feel it is an issue that doesn't belong in this thread. Do understand.

Well... Its either meat-shields, or getting very good at longer ranged sniping/hiding with a suppressor.
No TR soldier expects to live forever.

As long as you stay undetected, make good use of concealment, and hell... Maybe even put up a decoy grenade, you probably would be able to pull of closer ranged sniping.
Suppression will very likely be a difficult thing to deal with, but I am expectantly waiting to see the various solutions infiltrators cook up to counter it.

In response to this, I asked "Is having more shields worth having even less health, because.... That would be practically the only way to balance it."
Otherwise, I could only imagine having more shields then health be a special suit slot. Albiet, One of the other suggestions was "Make it so nanoweave gives 33% health, and make it so advanced shield capacitors gives 33% shields in addition to its bonuses."
I cant remember if that was me, or someone else... But those two changes would both be fairly well balanced in the new shield economy. Taking the second would be very good for an infiltrator who is frustrated by the changes.

Its weird, people were saying "It sounds like it would make medics far more important," as their main detraction on the first two pages.

I don't see how HA's, who have the highest recoil, and fairly low recoil down...... Would benefit from this the most.

Teams with ample engineers, and medics would benefit more from this then HA's.
Most HA from this generation call the Nanite mesh shield (AKA, the true overshield, a second shield,) useless....
If they have a sudden change of heart on the subject, its more a symptom of them hurting, then anyone else....

Sorry, leave your sniper bias at the door.

You must have a different meaning of "heavy" assault.

Both sides underestimate the amount of skill it takes for the other side to use their weaponry.

One has more drop, less velocity.... The other only fires twice per second.



I'm fairly surprised that infiltrators are not interested in the massive improvement their semi auto snipers would see.....
But I suppose they may be far to infatuated with one shot, one kill mantra.

You wanna fix ranged combat? fix the stupid sensitivity bs on 2x+ scopes. Don't go screwin w/ health n shields.

That's because they're worried about trivial things like k/d or xp farming. I don't care if there are sniper rifles in the game, they are called infiltrators because they need to... infiltrate. Not sit on a mountain 400m away being useless.

If I had to be completely honest, I would say that there is definitely merit to the idea. It would work for pretty much every class involved in the battlefield except infiltrator. The only reason I say this is because the class is so situational and, at the moment, is plagued by a variety of bugs and draw backs that make it an already handicapped class.

Infiltrator Bug thread (shameless plug) --> http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/all-the-infiltrator-bugs.116934/#post-1596575

I only make a big deal out of this because I spend 90% of my time playing infiltrator and all of that time sniping. At the moment it is already difficult to deal with the lack of shields and other bugs plaguing the class. Any changes to battlefield dynamics without a complete revamp would make the class a nightmare to play. Assuming all other things are equal, I think that a higher shield to health ratio would make snipers and cqc infiltrators ultimately more viable (due to the ability to soak more damage before being injured).

No, infiltrators are not bad at infiltrating; you are bad at infiltrating. Please don't group those of us who have spent a great deal of time and energy practicing and perfecting the shadowy arts together with those who haven't and blame the class. I think Walrus is really on to something here, and I'm happy to give him/her (shkler?) my support.

However, might agree with your suggestion about inverting the bonuses and penalties. I suggest applying the infiltrator's 100HP penalty to health, as opposed to shields, giving them 650/250 vs the normal 750/250.

In addition, removing damage drop off all together would not be the best change, I don't think. Instead extend the maximum damage ranges as well as increase damage drop off rates. In my mind, this would allow guns to have obvious range specializations. For example, the Gauss SAW LMG could deal 200 damage per bullet out to 80 meters and reach full damage drop (167 damage) at 110 meters, but the Mercenary's (A mid-ranged carbine) maximum damage would only extend to 30 meters and reach full damage drop off at 50 meters. (These numbers, of course, are only to demonstrate a concept.)

EDIT: Also, the additional health levels would certainly encourage combat medics being medics, not "undertakers", but an additional encouragement could be simply to increase the amount of time it takes to revive a dead player. It really should be a post-firefight job.

This might be one of the best compromises.

While the bugs are disconcerting.....
We shouldn't balance around them,
That is like accepting that they will exist forever.

Would you compromise with less health, same shields? For a total of 900 hitpoints (Same as it is now?)


Edit: Sorry for stealing the 69th post.

Honestly, I still wonder why the infiltrator has less effective health to begin with. In theory it sounds alright, but I'd really like the opportunity to test that setup out with current iterations of nano weave and shield boost before I commit to a hard "yes". Right now the TTK for most battles tends to be so low that it's hard to gauge how the dynamic of health vs. shields works.

From a technical standpoint, the infiltrators either take 1 fewer bullets to kill (Due to damage level balancing.... Being kinda cheesy) or...

With nanoweave 5, as many as a nanoweave 1-5 anyone else.

Assuming they both soak damage the same, I think I'd rather have increased shielding. If I'm going to have 100 less effective health than everyone else, I'd rather it be recharging health. Depending on how it worked out, I might drop my nano weave for faster shield recharge...XD

Well, In the theoretical new model....

You would technically get far more from nanoweave with higher health, especially with nanoweave being buffed to a 33% bonus, as a few have said would be best, to compensate for the wounding economy. (+250 heath, or enough to soak one bullet, and stop another from killing you....)

Even with the higher shield bonus from the new ASC, you would only end up with 950 effective shields as an infiltrator in the same 750/150 model... (Not enough to soak an extra bullet from anything larger then an SMG with total health... But enough to stop a single NC-6 gauss saw bullet for your health.)
With the 650/250 model....... The infiltrator would end up with... 325 shields in this case.... Which is enough to absorb two point blank bullets from the SABR without health damage. Three from most popular weapons nowadays post falloff.

It's how you ensure the infiltrator loses most toe-to-toe fights. Knowing that you'll lose face to face is a great motivator for "getting the jump".

Basically, if infiltrators started going toe to toe with everyone else on a flat floor shootout..... There would be problems.

Good idea. Give it a go on the test server SOE!

That's my concern. Severally wound me.

It's not hard hitting with one of those weapons. And seriously, if I am in the open long enough for him to shoot twice. Shame on me. If he can't hit me in the head, shame on him.

But really. I'll get mowed down like nothing if I lose HP with every hit. What would it take? 3 shots if I let my shields recharge? Less?

I donno if you're TR or not. But my god, there's so many snipers on NC and VS

I am TR...

However, part of the point is adding value to long range weapons that can retaliate against enemy snipers, and medkits (As opposed to PDWs, and C4.... Which would make the infantry play more varied, and the combined arms play less C4 obsessed.)



Think about it like this: If you hit someone with a sabr burst, in the new order....
They have lost health.

If you hit them with two, they lost a lot of health.

Chipping your enemy at ranged combat would be a dozen times more viable.

Make shields absorb 3/4 of the damage of a shot. 1/4 Leeching through to damage health. This allows for a small amount of softening enemies up whilst not changing TTKs or the value of an ambushed attack.

In tandem with this and for balance. Change Adv Shield Capacitors to "Hard Shields" and add a NanoRegeneration suit that slowly regenerates health.

You then have 4 viable armour choices.

Flak vs Explosions
Nanoweave for CQC where you want an edge in 1on1 engagements.
Hard Shields for Mid range where you want to preserve your health.
NanoRegeneration for Long range where you want to disengage and regenerate your health.

And you have choices, which always leads to more interesting game play.