Why light assault is a better infiltrator than an infiltrator

Developers have 'balanced' infiltrators so much, that other classes became more suitable for infiltration. Take a look:

1. Noise.
Infiltrator: His cloaking device is loud as hell. When has to cloak or decloak, every enemy in the building knows, that he is nearby.
Light assault: His jetpack, which is, basically, a couple of fire-spitting jet engines, is almost silent. You won't hear an approaching light assault.
Conclusion: if you want to infiltrate silently, be a light assault.


2. Night operations.

Infiltrator: by some unimaginable 'reason' developers made infiltrators glow at night. there are lamps and neon cords built in an infiltrator's armor. I cannot imagine why a sane person would wear lamps and neon bracelets when going behind enemy lines.
Light assault: can actually hide in shadows and darkness. Does not glow at night.
Conclusion: if you want to hide in shadows, be a light assault.


3. Sabotage.
Infiltrator: can carry two landmines to cover his back, which is good. By some unimaginable reason, an infiltrator, who is supposed to sabotage, has no access to landmines and C4.
Light assault: can't carry landmines, but can carry two C4's, place tham at a strategically important sunderer and blow it up.
Conclusion: if you want to sabotage, be a light assault.



4. Infiltration.
Infiltrator: has a poorly hiding, extremely noisy cloak, can't hide in shadows, can't take alternative routes, glows at night.
Light assault: can use his silent jet engines to take alternative routes, can hide on roofs an in shadows, doesn't glow at night.
Conclusion: If you want to effectively and silently penetrate enemy lines, be a light assault.



5. Close-range assasination.
Infiltrator: has a pistol ar a 20-round rifle.
Light assault: has a carbine with 30 rounds, smoke, flashbangs.
Conclusion: if you want to infiltrate and assasinate, be a light assault.

Even if I agree that Infiltrators suffer competition with LA, some clarifications are imho needed.

Infiltrators can hide in the dark, just the NC amor for some strange reasons is powered by green neon lights. The real problem is you're less visible on top of a rooftop, than running around with a cloaking device that 1) is noisy like Boing 737, 2) runs out of battery every 10 seconds 3) is vulnerable to one of the most common weapons attachment in the game.

Concerning sabotage, if you mean destroying sunderers, you're freaking right: it seems like every class in this game can deploy C4 except Infiltrators. Ironically even Medics (why? WHY?!?) can have it. Moreover LA can drop C4 from the sky which is very powerful tecnique. If we also consider neutralizing generators part of the sabotage activity, then it's not clear why the hell every class in the game (Max as well!) can overcharge generators, always with the same speed.

Moreover, not only LA can neutralize generators the same way we do, not only is less noisy and less visible, but it's also considerably faster. Just imagine how is it for LA to jump across the Amp Station walls and overcharge a generator, and how long does it take for an Infiltrator to do the same.
To conclude, you mentioned the close range assasination. To be honest we don't have just pistols but also scout rifles that are imho slightly better. Our damage output is pretty low as we're credited to have a good advantage in getting close to enemy, but that's not always the case. One thing is sure: our explosive are pure s**t: EMP grenades and decoy grenades cost too many resources and are not worth, the first is bugged as hell, the second is not effective enough to deceive enemy players.

Just to summarize the well-known situation: the best way to play the Infiltrator is with sniper rifle. If you want to Infiltrate you can do that much better with another class.

Yep. I don't particularly enjoy sniping, so I finally made the call to stop bothering with the Infiltrator class. So I now primarily play Light Assault, and it is a world of difference. The Infiltrator class is in serious need of some improvements. Even the one thing Infiltrators are decent at - sniping - is of dubious usefulness in most situations.

I want to be like those three Infiltrators in the cinematic trailer, not a shoddy sniper.

the sniper rifle is killing infiltrator role, it should be open to all classes (except maxes and infiltrators).
the "PS1" infiltrator was so much more fun, now i don't even bother. i think i'm not using infiltrator since middle beta, despite i still hope it will get some role except doing nothing but harassing infantry.

Don't forget that the LA can cert and equip "Adrenaline Pump" under Suit Slot, so they can sprint faster.
With our 10 second cloaks, being able to dash faster across a base courtyard would actually be nice for us....

yep... honestly SOE should just call us snipers and end this farce.

even if we were to get sole access to smg's , it would't address teh glaring problems this class has.


it wasn't as bad in beta, when pop was low, but now that there are more people everywhere, the infiltrator is as reliant on luck as they are skill to get the job done.

The cloak is actually only loud for the CLIENT using it... for everyone else it's only slightly louder than footsteps.
Other than that, OP makes some excellent point.

The biggest issue which still completely centered around the cloak was missing however. IoW: It's ridiculous visibility on higher graphic setting at not just close range but medium-long ranges too & how it shows up in NightVision. Thermal is fine, thermal has a shorter range than NV and detects compressive residual energy signatures instead of longitudinal waves like NV. But since the Cloak bends all wavelengths AROUND itself or mirrors what behind it, NV should NOT detect cloaked INFs.

Answer: because I felt like doing something different today, and I hate playing medic!

I agree. When I way the benefits that I would give my team by going Infiltrator, rather than say Heavy Assault which I am good at, I can find absolutely zero reason for going Infiltrator. As an "Infiltrator" I believe that I should be able to do more than just snipe people poorly from a distance or behind. In cqc I get absolutely destroyed as an Infiltrator. The pistol is a joke. Sure you can snipe, but when there's nothing to snipe what do you do? Needs more options.

I'm guessing you don't play using headphones? I hear other Inf's cloaks from a good distance and can also tell where they are from it, if anyone cloaks in the smaller bases, there's a good chance I'll find them, even more so that they then have a really easy to spot glimmering effect all over them.

Sadly we are a sniping class and should have been named so, they could then have released an Infiltrator class which could... well maybe... infiltrate

HM I agree with most of it but there is nothing more disconcerting as hearing a cloak pop behind you and dying too two knife blows before you can move. Whilst a LA is pretty noisy if you listen but its picking them out from the low flying aircraft thats the problem.

Absolutely agreed with the OP, LA is better at everything except extreme long range engagements (which is some of the most difficult combat in the game because the spacing between breath mechanics and the fact that you can't interrupt it on top of draw distance issues and a naturally unforgiving shooting system. BTW, I'm actually fine with the drop and lead and all that, it's one of the reasons I love sniping in this game so much, it's a challenge, but the breathing thing really screws me around). One thing you forgot to mention though OP: LA also get access to shotguns, should put that in the "Close-combat" section.

EDIT: Forgot to add, the cloak is a complete joke. If I see someone cloak I can follow them through my scope from hundreds of meters out, that should never happen. Can't sneak around with it because it's so blaringly obvious at closer ranges and at longer ranges it's usually not even necessary if you're doing your job correctly.

I headshot cloakers that are cloaked, all the time, no problem seeing them from 200 meters away
in comparison, PS1 cloakers you can only see if they run

So, PS2 is a sniper, not infiltrator like in PS1

I was playing the infiltrator 95%+ of the time.

I just now started using the LA and my goodness, they're so much more fun.
Can do many things with them.

I still like the infiltrator, but I know I am gimped....
So lately, I've been using the LA most of the time.

double post

I think they should have just called the infiltrator by a different class name. Maybe Spec Ops or something. It is a specialized role afterall, it excels at hacking things and sniping.

Cloaking in general just needs buffed. Needs to be more like it was in PS1 where it was unlimited, you were relatively easy to spot while running, pretty hard to spot while crouch walking, but completely invisible while motionless. In PS1 you could stealth right through big battles if you were cautious and took your time, it was incredibly rewarding. In PS2 your cloak has a time limit which completely nullifies this and it seems like you're way easier to spot.

SOE also seems to have forgotten that in PS1 being a cloaker was important because hacking was a WAY more vital mechanic in that game, one person in an inf suit with all the hacking certs could flip a base solo or go in and flip a bunch of terminals and turrets before the rest of their outfit rolled in. You needed hackers in PS1 and the cloaking suit fit that role perfectly. In PS2 nobody cares much about hacking, at best it is a convenience to be able to flip a terminal so you can pull some vehicles, but it's not that important. If you flip a turret it just gets killed very quickly and alerts everyone to your presence.

We're certainly on a different gameplay level with both cloaking and hacking now. This isn't PS1 where you could send 2 cloakers into an empty LLU base, snatch the LLU and hack a vehicle pad and have the other person drive the LLU carrier. This is PS2 where hackers aren't important anymore and sneaking into bases is done more for killing people than it is anything else. Oh, sure, you can sneak in and try to sabotage a generator, as if that won't have 10+ guys swarming the location in a few seconds.

I don't believe LA is a better infiltrator than the infiltrator, because the LA can not hack or cloak. The problem is the mechanics around which the infiltrator class is based are not that important and, as well, the infiltrator's ability to perform based on these mechanics is a bit lacking. LA does a different thing entirely and it does it very well. I think the issue at hand is that infiltrators need way more of an incentive to hack things, it needs to be something that the enemy panics over. Remember PS1 where you could install viruses into a base? Or turn people's own automated turrets against them? Or easily flip towers by yourself? None of that applies to PS2, yet SOE has this idea that hacking and stealthing is still important, even though they took away some of the biggest reasons to do these things.

An infiltrator should be able to sneak into a base and do hacking related things that make a defending force panic just as much as when someone overloads a generator or SCU. This provides great reward for cautiously stealthing your way into an enemy structure. Infiltrators should be able to capture things MUCH faster than other classes as well, giving them a huge benefit for solo capping small outposts. They should be able to sabotage a terminal, for example place an "overload virus" onto an air vehicle terminal and it would cause the next person to use it to get blown up and also destroy the terminal in the process or a virus that would disable all terminals in the base for, say, 5 minutes, unless another infiltrator countered the virus. How about a special class grenade that would make people hallucinate? It would be a totally silent grenade with no indicator that would cause those under its influence to see phantom images of the infiltrator, unable to tell which one was real. THAT kind of stuff would be awesome and make the infiltrator a really useful class.

There is a world of possibilities for the infiltrator class, I just wish SOE would see the class as something more than a sniper.

I personally agree that the Infiltrator is just a Sniper who can make himself less visible for five seconds. In PS1, your cloak was limitless. And you were invisible when not moving. Now, in PS2 when you're cloaked, you've got the visibility of an Infiltrator sprinting, but when you're standing still!

Unfortunately SOE has sort of designed the class into a hole here. I was thinking about what I posted earlier and realized how broken it would be to have perma stealth with a sniper rifle. People would just perma stealth and wait for free headshots, then go back into stealth. It worked better in PS1 because with the cloaking suit equipped, at best you could only wield a pistol, maybe with one reload if you gave up a chunk of that tiny inventory (but a REK, construction kit and 1 boomer was basically the standard, so that right there took up your entire inventory IIRC). Here, since we have no inventory panels to manage and make intelligent decisions about, perma stealth would be a bit broken. Now to mention knifing is about 100 times easier in this game, so you could still get tons of easy knife kills with perma stealth.

A simple way to implement it would be to basically make it a new cert, rather expensive, maybe 200+500 like C4 currently is. The new cert would give you PS1 style "perma stealth", at the cost of disallowing you any of the true sniper rifles. You could be limited to a scout rifle of your choice with only one magazine of ammo and your pistol with maybe two magazines. This would discourage using the perma stealth for kill farming. Still doesn't solve how easy it would be to knife people, but then again, you do get about .8 seconds of reaction time between knife swipes in this game, so a smart person knows when their shield disappears out of nowhere, they need to sprint away to gain distance and whip around immediately and start fighting back.

In addition, hacking in general needs a huge buff. It should be something that can genuinely affect a battle and force a defending group to put priority focus on removing the hack or virus. Another need idea I thought of would be a generator virus, that would give no indication to the enemy, but cost 100 infantry resources to use. It would shut down the shield linked to that specific generator for a short duration, very short, like 5 seconds. This way, with a bit of coordination and a skilled infiltrator, a squad could sneak some vehicles into a base during the small window.

Like I said, there are almost endless possibilities to help the infiltrator class, SOE really needs to consider buffing the class, because right now it is just "that class", it's like the sniper or spy from TF2, it's just "that class" that people realize isn't that useful overall, but attracts a lot of newer players because they think it is cool. That's why we end up having tons of lame infil-snipers doing nothing and not pulling their weight during base fights, they simply think it is cool to sit back and snipe. So not only is the class lacking in its ability to contribute to fights, but it also attracts the types of players who are allergic to teamwork. A very bad combination.

Again, there was a cert shown in the beta (never implemented, we could just see it locked) Stalker cloak, which you gained the ability to not lose power while standing still, and regen at higher levels, in exchange for your primary weapon.

i also saw this. it gives one hope.
that said, even IF we had the stalker cloak, what could we accomplish with it? shooting people in the back and stabbing them?
as it stands now infiltration really doesn't have a point, and that makes me rather sad