Infiltration Rework Ideas

[WhyteDragon]

Firstly, just wanna say I have been gone a while so I'm basing a lot of this information upon experience prior to recent updates -- though I imagine that the overall feel hasn't changed too much since most of the patch notes relate to other aspects.

I love infiltration. It's a fun idea, it's exciting to try and execute, and I feel like it's something that generally seems like a very interesting thing to do when being introduced to the game. However, I feel like it's at a point where the risk/reward ratio is too high. Yes; infiltration can be incredibly powerful. C4 bombings and resource theft are scary. Yet, in a way, somehow this feels... maybe a bit off? Let me sort of try and explain my reasoning.

C4 Bombing
At the surface, it's a sound concept -- you drop C4 around the enemy BC to try and disable or block a part of the ship. If they don't notice, then hey; you get it off, stealthily as intended! However, going unnoticed feels very rare. By the stage you'll probably want to be infiltrating, delayed primarily due to resource reasons, there'll often be someone just sitting on nav or power -- a constant view of 'potential intruders.' So, this means there'll usually be a reaction to the infiltration and, by consequence, to the C4 planting. This pretty much ends in one of two ways;

1) The C4 is dropped by the infiltrator and he keeps running. It only takes a few shots to diffuse, so often people will just clean it up quickly before picking up the chase again.
2) The C4 is guarded by the infiltrator and a more direct fight between the invader and the crew begins.

To me, neither of these situations really scream 'stealthy.' I like the C4 mechanics as they're straightforward and easy to understand, but I do feel as if something is missing. Furthermore, in the case that you do get the C4 off, you essentially cripple the enemy ship to an absurd degree -- to the point of winning the game even. Doing it is hard, but it's ridiculously potent. Working around this makes infiltration a very tricky concept to balance, as while it's unrealistic to expect results from it most of the time it easily has the potential to win a game by itself.

Frequency Nullifier
While I understand the necessity of implementing an item like this, such that ship turrets hold meaning, I almost feel like this is too big of a hit. It's essentially a full offset to nanodoc gloves, which means that the moment an enemy team also decides to pick up the item as well you are instantly disabled from winning any real fights on the ship. I don't feel like this is an inherently bad concept, but because there's no true methods of evasion while infiltrating, fighting becomes a necessity in order to perform an successful infiltration. Furthermore, since you're constantly taking damage, it also further prevents you from healing via your marine abilities, so it becomes a double-whammy of sorts in terms of health maintenance.

Photoadaptive Disguise
Alright, just going to say this outright -- does anyone even use this item? It's a neat concept, but it's functionally useless unless you can make some ridiculously well placed mouse clicks to swap equipment while also somehow dodging ship turrets. You can't even use it to hide more often than not, since even though your unit is blurred you still appear clear as day on the minimap.

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IN SHORT: Infiltration, despite having a bunch of items geared towards 'stealthy actions,' is not very stealthy. So, with this in mind, I'd like to toss a few suggestions out there.

Marine Cloaking: I feel as if infiltration could be bolstered by a short term cloak for the marine -- something that lasts, at best, no more than 2-3 seconds as a brief form of misdirection. My personal take would be to add this as an extra function to the Frequency Nullifier, perhaps as a marine ability that even costed health to perform. (In order to give incentive in using it as an escape mechanism rather than a battle oriented one)

Player Disguise: Rather than what the current Photoadpative Disguise is, I feel as if it could be leagues more useful if it was used to disguise yourself as a random player on the enemy team. Allowing the turrets to immediately distinguish the difference could still be a thing, but I feel as if something like this forces a team to pay a bit closer attention to who's doing what.

Infiltrator Stealth Mechanism: Rather than just a 'phase shift,' I feel as if the Infiltrator could greatly benefit from gaining a true stealth period during that phase as well. It allows the actual potential to 'sneak up' on an enemy battlecruiser without them knowing. I understand this is potentially very dangerous, which is why I would further suggest one more thing...

C4 Detection: Understanding the potential dangers of C4 alongside the above mentioned changes, I think a ship announcement that an attempted bombing is about to occur could potentially counterbalance these alterations. It also gives the infiltrator a sort of threshold to cross which can't be turned back upon since it alters the enemy team to their presence, despite all of these new mechanisms that have been added.

C4 Cost/Potency: One of the largest drawbacks to infiltration is its cost. Between the Ship, the Nullifier, the Nanodoc Gloves, the Weapon, and the C4, it gets pretty hefty pretty fast. I feel as if infiltration could be made a lot more accessible by altering the cost of C4 to be a bit lower (20r?) in exchange for a bit of its power -- I.E. lower the debris field, drop the damage to 500, and make it more oriented about disabling a particular point (I.E. a console) rather than 'an area of the ship.' Maybe even make it 'smaller debris' with less health, just to put a bit more emphasis on a temporary block rather than 'a game ending hoard of junk to break through.'

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Honorable Mention - Resource Theft
Just want to say, it is incredibly satisfying to make a well timed infiltration drop and steal kermiculite. Most people understand how to get around that, but it is neat.

[bbot]

I haven't done infiltration more than once or twice due to the difficulty and low reward from doing it, so I don't have much experience to draw on here. Still, I love CC and love discussion on game mechanics, and towards that end I have two ideas:

1. I think the turrets are too powerful, and should make less damage than a marine, and also be placed in positions where you can board and do your thing and survive without needing freq nullifier.
2. I wish there were a few more things an infiltrator could do, such as disable consoles (consoles have hp?), raise core output, place predator trackers, or steal ships from hanger.

[slapshot]

I wouldn't nerf the C4, but perhaps add cheaper alternatives instead - like say a power surge kit that causes people to disconnect from a console for a couple of minutes after it's used on a console (similar to how you get kicked off when core is low, but less frequently) - or the ability to cause a loaded missile to detonate in the bay, causing the damage/effect that the missile would have done to backfire, or the ability to drop a sabot in the refiner such that it locks up until a player repairs it (repair kit?) - perhaps even the ability to manually attack items on the ground to destroy them (i.e. remove repair kits that have been spread out)

I do agree with the infiltrator gaining a cloak, similar to what the wraith has - that was it can actually dock without alerting the other team, and may even give the infiltrator something to use its energy on.

if the turrets did less damage than a marine, then an infiltrator could sneakily destroy them easily, and thus they wouldn't do much.. (they already can via the long range lightning gun..)

[Siretu]

I reduced the cost and power of C-4 slightly. I removed a lot of turrets (basically just covering upgrade console and up as well as the power console (heavily guarded).

The Adaptive photo disguise no longer costs green and it disguises you as an enemy player while equipped.

Infiltrator's phase shift also cloaks you now, but just for 4 seconds.

I'm thinking about making the frequency nullifier give the marine a cloak ability, but we'll see how this goes first.

[slapshot]

Infiltrator's phase shift also cloaks you now, but just for 4 seconds.

so.. it's still impossible to actually from escape an "armed (AI on weapons) BC with the infiltrator? does the infiltrator even keep its items after boarding (i.e. if you loaded flares or shields?)

[Siretu]

Well, the cloak is on the same buff as the phase shift, so that's why it's just 4 seconds. If you want to increase the buff duration, we can discuss that.

I don't remember if normal ships lose their items when they crash. I think they do? In any case, it's the same for the infiltrator.

[slapshot]

I don't remember if normal ships lose their items when they crash. I think they do? In any case, it's the same for the infiltrator.

normal ships lose items when crashing.. but the infiltrator doesn't really die/crash when it boards the enemy BC.. thus the ability to re-launch the same ship (as opposed to waiting for a reconstruction).. so it's not really a good thing (more of a bug)

[Degra]

Ships losing items is meaningless in an infiltration, as you aren't equipping any items on your ship.
The important thing is that the pilot keeps the items, so you could steal some kerm, launch, die in an infil ship, and respawn on your BC with kerm.
Which doesn't make much sense but I think is fine, since removing that would eliminate one of the uses of infiltration.

[slapshot]

Ships losing items is meaningless in an infiltration, as you aren't equipping any items on your ship.

but the reason people don't equip any items on the infiltrator (i.e. flares, shields, etc.) is because they get bugged and disappear, not because they wouldn't be useful

[Siretu]

Are you saying that if the infiltrator launches, boards the enemy ship and then launches and goes back to it's own BC, it will have lost its items? In that case, it's a bug.