Extra Pistol Slot for Infils

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Jagd

Sandtrout you're right, that was a little over the top. Madcow you're a fucking idiot dude, sorry to break it to you like this.

That's funny, for some reason I thought the person who has been proven wrong repeatedly would be the idiot. I guess you just never know.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Doppler

Yes but then i whouldnt be invisable now whould I?

No, but then you'd have armor on wouldn't you?

It's a simple point. You say that 2 certs is all an infiltrator needs, and anything else is up to player choice. I say 0 certs is what a grunt needs and it's up to player choice after that if that's the case. You made a bad point and I called you on it, you and Jagd should be getting used to that by now in this thread.

[DramaticFanatic]

I think everything is fine the way it is. (Yes I have played Infil)

[Doppler]

Originally Posted by Madcow

No, but then you'd have armor on wouldn't you?

It's a simple point. You say that 2 certs is all an infiltrator needs, and anything else is up to player choice. I say 0 certs is what a grunt needs and it's up to player choice after that if that's the case. You made a bad point and I called you on it, you and Jagd should be getting used to that by now in this thread.

To paraphrase JMS:

"How convenient, arrogance and ignorance in one tidy little package"

You try to make the argument is that infiltration is a way of life requiring an enormous ammount of certs to be effective. I am trying to make a point that to be combat effective, an infiltrator needs no cert points. The benefit of stealth coutns for a lot, but you spend so much time downplaying it it's a wonder you play an infiltrator at all. I will not deny the boons in having other certs because the more variety you bring to the battlefield the better. However since this will be my final post on the topic because theres a general prohibition against continuing a battle with a opponent who is woefully unequiped for it. By trying to claim circular logic and claiming that everyone who doesnt agree with you cannot grasp the true feel of an infiltrator you are showing how unsportsman like it whould be for me to keep engaging your hunting knife with my abrams.

Finnaly I will state that while the facility link benefits do put infiltrators at a disadvantage it is neither insurmountable nor life changing. Deployables are quickly defeated by jammer gernades which have the benie of knocking out those pesky darklighters. If you choose not to utilize either of these low cost methods then i dont know what to tell you, other then perhaps another carreer choice for the time being might be a good move.

/rant off

[Madcow]

What's funny is that you actually believe you're coming off as intelligent. Damn, where's Elf gone off to? At least he's able to call me on being smarmy and make a good point at the same time. Sweeping metaphors is wonderful rhetoric in junior high to be sure, and it does eliminate the need for pesky facts so I say get on which yo bad self. In the meantime I'll go ahead and point out that 10% of infiltrators have traded in the suit across all empires over the course of the last month. That seems to be just about the time of the last patch. Wow, what a cosmic coincidence...

I'll miss all of your amazing points since that was your last post in the thread, Doppler. Hopefully somebody else will pick up the banner and fight the good fight of showing how stupid I really am.

[Jagd]

Originally Posted by Moroniccow

In the meantime I'll go ahead and point out that 10% of infiltrators have traded in the suit across all empires over the course of the last month.

Prove it.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Jagd

Prove it.

Considering your amazing wit and originality in such mental endeavors as changing people's names (oooooooh, funny!) I'm sure you can work it out on your own. Here, I'll even give you the first step because I'm a nice guy.

http://www.thottbot.com/planetside/

[Jagd]

Hmm, it says infiltration is on the rise by 0.5% for TR and NC, with a 0.3% increase by the Vanu Sovereignty.

http://www.thottbot.com/planetside/2003-10-05/1/

So, basically you're either a pathetic troll who invents statistics to bolster your claims, or are so completely inept at reading numbers that you really oughtn't be allowed on a computer at all.

Get outta town, loser. If you hate being an infiltrator so much, get some new certs and go cry to your mom about the mean kids on the interweb.

[SandTrout]

You try to make the argument is that infiltration is a way of life requiring an enormous ammount of certs to be effective. I am trying to make a point that to be combat effective, an infiltrator needs no cert points.

An infiltrator, by nature, is not "combat effective" if he spends five minutes sneaking around to shoot one sniper in the back with an AMP. Yes, he got the kill, and yes he is an infiltrator, but no, he is not combat effective. He killed one, maybe 2 soldiers in the amount of time it can take a soldier with a cycler(equil cert cost, BTW) to get as many as 5-10 reasonably posible kills against people that might actualy acomplish something.

A "combat effective" infiltrator doesn't spend all its time assassinateing people with a pistole, but rather, plays a fire-support role by proforming sabotage and hacks inside the enemy base.

Yes, jammer grenades do disable deployables and darklight, but you can cary a maximum of 5 total grenades and still have room for your REK(never leave home without it.). In combonation that when holding the fire botton to throw you are at 100% of posible visibility(which is practicly glowing), and the throwing range on grenades is fairly low, which means you are likely within the turret's range if the turret is within your range. If you are within the turrets range within an SOI, the turret is shooting you or at you.

Even assumeing that you carry just 3 jammer grenades to disable deployables(it would take about 3 to clear an area around a door that was deployed around), you only have room for 2 other grenades. It takes 2 plasma grenades to kill a non-max soldier, and you are either holding the fire botton shortly and close to or within the grenade's radius, or holding it long, risking being seen and killed.

So, the infil gets maybe 1 kill for all its effort to get into a base before it has to resort to it's knife. You might claim that the knife can be effective in the hands of an infil with melee-booster, but I've spawned at hacked facilities, began a hack on a terminal and been jumped by an infil with meleebooster. He turned on secondary mode and had the jump on my standard-armored self. Unforuneately for him, I pay attention, and as soon as I heard that knife turn on, I canceled the hack and killed him with a suppressor before he could hit with another swing. The knife is not a weapon for an infil that wants to remain alive for more than 1 kill.

To be combat effective, an infiltrator must invest some signifigant amount into a support cert. Just about all infiltrators than make a difference on the battlefield poses adv. Hacking, a total of 5 certs to aquire. The infil can then choose to just be a hacking infiltrator, which is not always effective if there is a MAX with DLV gaurding the CC(which there commonly is), or the infil can choose to be an adv. medic, another 5 certs, in order to revive people on the battlefield. Most people automaticly release anyways, which results in the very low numbers of adv. medics. The infil can also choose the sabateur mode via CE, another 5 cert points to go with Hacking. Math time.

A "combat effective" infiltrator must therefore possess a minimum of 7 cert-points worth of certs, and commonly as many as 12 or even 17.

Then again, our versions of "combat effectiveness" may differ.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Jagd

Hmm, it says infiltration is on the rise by 0.5% for TR and NC, with a 0.3% increase by the Vanu Sovereignty.

http://www.thottbot.com/planetside/2003-10-05/1/

So, basically you're either a pathetic troll who invents statistics to bolster your claims, or are so completely inept at reading numbers that you really oughtn't be allowed on a computer at all.

Get outta town, loser. If you hate being an infiltrator so much, get some new certs and go cry to your mom about the mean kids on the interweb.

Jagd, I understand. Math can't be everybody's strong point. See, I said over the course of the last month. Maybe you missed that part. In order to actually figure that out you'd have to scroll back a few weeks and see where it was a month ago, and then figure that against the current numbers. Talking about what happened over the course of a single week doesn't actually tell the whole picture now does it? I will thank you for pointing out they ran new numbers on the 5th, those weren't in the last time I actually looked at the numbers (Monday) so it was news to me that infil actually had a gain for once. At any rate, the percentages this week are an average of 21.43%, last week was an even 21%. From a month ago (22.9%) it has dropped (as of this week) 6.9% since the base benefit and from the numbers I initially ran 8.9% (I never actually ran the numbers when I said 10%, but a drop around 2% when only ~20% of the population actually holds the cert is actually pretty easy to figure out, but I'm sure you knew that). See, here's the other tricky part Jagd. You don't take the number of the overall population to figure out the percentage up and down, you only take the number who had the cert originally and who have the cert now. Get it? Good. Hopefully you'll do okay on that test next week.

[SandTrout]

Madcow its right Jagd.

[Jagd]

Ok, listen up meathead. I don't know what kind of fudge factors you are making up to "prove" your point but 22.9% to 21.43% is not 8.9% by anyone's math, it's 1.47% Now of you want to obfuscate things even more and look at it in terms of a percentage of the infiltrator population, let's round the numbers to make it simpler and I'll even round them up in your favour-- 1.5% change divided by 23% that equals the size of infiltrator population shows a 6.5% decline. Not so far off from your 6.9% but bear in mind that I rounded the numbers in your favour, which tells me that you have been lying/exaggerating the entire time.

That being said, don't even let me get started about the (in)significance of statistics, and how they need to be looked at in context. In this case, I would point out that since the interlink patch, we have seen a 2% increase in vehicle certs since they were given shields and functional repair pads. It would appear that people are trading in their cloak suits for vehicles, but unfortunately it is rather difficult to look at a set of numbers and arbitrarily decide what motivated 2000+ Planetside players to get vehicles, and if they are even the same players who got rid of their infiltration suits at all. Even if we could correllate those two groups, the question remains: did they do it because the suit got a small nerf, or because vehicles got a huge buff? Either way, having more than 1 in 5 Planetside players using such a specialized cert still sounds like a significant number to me. Imagine if 2 players out of every squad were infiltrators, it would be more of a liability than a benefit.

So please, I know you think the entire game has been thrown into an upheaval because of interlink benefits, but as you can see the same set of statistics can be used to illustrate (or as you like to claim, prove) a variety of differing and even contradictory anecdotes. From listening to Dallas Dickenson on AGN yesterday it sounds like they are taking note of whiners like you, even though Dallas said the changes hardly affected him at all and he plays primarily as an infiltrator. Good luck again with your quest, and maybe you will meet less resistance with your next half-baked idea if you weren't such an arrogant ass, and presented all of your "proof" in a clear manner right at the start of the discussion. Just FYI, it's standard procedure for someone making a bold claim to back it up themselves, and not demand everyone else go do the research for them.

Have a nice day!

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Jagd

Ok, listen up meathead. I don't know what kind of fudge factors you are making up to "prove" your point but 22.9% to 21.43% is not 8.9% by anyone's math, it's 1.47% Now of you want to obfuscate things even more and look at it in terms of a percentage of the infiltrator population, let's round the numbers to make it simpler and I'll even round them up in your favour-- 1.5% change divided by 23% that equals the size of infiltrator population shows a 6.5% decline. Not so far off from your 6.9% but bear in mind that I rounded the numbers in your favour, which tells me that you have been lying/exaggerating the entire time.

Wow. Again, I appreciate the 50 cent word thrown in with the rest of your crap to make an attempt to sound intelligent. It's got me fooled, although that's no large feat. Now, let's get to my initial statement. 10% of infiltrators. I'll be happy to eat my words in as much that I never actually ran the numbers and went to the easiest round number I knew was right around the fact. The being said, which part of of infiltrators fooled you? Was it the of? That simple statement means that the 22.9% we're starting with actually is 100%. It's 100% of infiltrators. Tricky, I know. Next, the 8.9% was based on the first number (21%) taken, not the newer number.
I will also admit a flaw in my math. It's freeing admitting when you're wrong, you should try it (although it might prove fairly time consuming for you). I was taking the percentage change and putting it into the newer of the numbers instead of the original. So the numbers should in fact be 6.4% and 8.3%. That makes all the difference, now there's nothing to worry about.

That being said, don't even let me get started about the (in)significance of statistics, and how they need to be looked at in context. In this case, I would point out that since the interlink patch, we have seen a 2% increase in vehicle certs since they were given shields and functional repair pads. It would appear that people are trading in their cloak suits for vehicles, but unfortunately it is rather difficult to look at a set of numbers and arbitrarily decide what motivated 2000+ Planetside players to get vehicles, and if they are even the same players who got rid of their infiltration suits at all. Even if we could correllate those two groups, the question remains: did they do it because the suit got a small nerf, or because vehicles got a huge buff? Either way, having more than 1 in 5 Planetside players using such a specialized cert still sounds like a significant number to me. Imagine if 2 players out of every squad were infiltrators, it would be more of a liability than a benefit.

Clever. Give me proof, then stats don't matter. I think G.W. might have a job opening for you.

So please, I know you think the entire game has been thrown into an upheaval because of interlink benefits, but as you can see the same set of statistics can be used to illustrate (or as you like to claim, prove) a variety of differing and even contradictory anecdotes. From listening to Dallas Dickenson on AGN yesterday it sounds like they are taking note of whiners like you, even though Dallas said the changes hardly affected him at all and he plays primarily as an infiltrator. Good luck again with your quest, and maybe you will meet less resistance with your next half-baked idea if you weren't such an arrogant ass, and presented all of your "proof" in a clear manner right at the start of the discussion. Just FYI, it's standard procedure for someone making a bold claim to back it up themselves, and not demand everyone else go do the research for them.

Have a nice day!

Just so you know, I already provided the numbers in a previous thread. A thread which you read because you did post in it. The fact that your brain couldn't connect the two of them really isn't my concern.

I get your gig, Jagd. You enjoy making dismissive comments and pretending that you understand things better than everybody. It even works sometimes when you post with 14 year olds, which I'm sure is quite the ego boost. You wore an infil suit for 2 weeks and couldn't hack it. Hell, you didn't even know what 2 of the larger bugs in the entire game are because they're exclusively cloaker problems. You're out of your element, and just don't have the facts of this matter. It's no big deal, there's plenty of PS elements I certainly wouldn't know enough about to post.

And I'm having a great day, thanks for the sentiment.

[Jagd]

I did it exactly as you claimed you did, the second part of my explanation in the first paragraph calculated the net decline of infiltration certs in relation to your standard of the "ideal" infiltrator population, which was the stats as of a week before FLB went live. A 1.5% decline out of a total population of 23% (1.5 / 23 = 6.5) is a 6.5% loss of total infiltrators. See how easy it is, and no extra of's either!

Now you go calculate it for vehicles. Then somebody else can do it for heavy assault, and at the end of the day all we have are a whole pile of numbers and lots of biased speculation as to why they work out the way they do.

How about we just agree to disagree about the severity and impact of the "infiltration nerf" by way of facility link benefits? Ahh, that feels nice.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Jagd

I did it exactly as you claimed you did, the second part of my explanation in the first paragraph calculated the net decline of infiltration certs in relation to your chosen standard of "ideal" infiltrator population (ie: the stats as of a week before FLB went live). A 1.5% decline out of a total population of 23% (1.5 / 23 = 6.5). See how easy it is?

Yes, you did it just like I said. Right after you said:

I don't know what kind of fudge factors you are making up to "prove" your point but 22.9% to 21.43% is not 8.9% by anyone's math, it's 1.47%

See, the concept seems to be eluding you. You may have missed the part where you subtracted 21.43% from 22.9% to get the 1.47%. That's implying that the numbers have been fudged to magically turn 1.47% into 8.9%. It was a silly statement, to be sure, but are you now telling me you never said it? If you said it but didn't mean anything by it, why did you bother saying it at all?

I agree that vehicles have become more valuable in PS (and will continue to do so after the balance pass). A continual loss of people using the infil certification doesn't cease to be worrisome because of that. If more people are turning in their 2 certs for infil than are turning in other certs (which seems to be supported at first glance, although I'm really not interested enough to run all the numbers) then there needs to be concern on why the infil suit specifically is suddenly less valuable than it was 1 month ago for people. Being a selfish player as most people are, the fact that it doesn't impact your playstyle means you immediately discount it because you'd rather attention was given to things which you personally come across regularly. Myself being a selfish player, it becomes more important to me. Pretty simple.
Your argument about the ups and downs of different certifications really isn't relevant, although you seem to believe it is. There is a specific trend which can be pin-pointed to a specific event which would have triggered that trend. There are parties who have witnessed the reasons first-hand and have posted about it. Why don't you let me know besides hard numbers and first-hand accounts what proof you'd like to see. Maybe I can get the tooth fairy on the witness stand or something.