Anyone else think that Sniper needs a huge nerf?

I can't pretend to know. First attempt at a PC game, and I get my *** kicked all the same. I'm by no means criticizing, though i see it may have come off that way. I just think it's funny these things have been discussed to death over in General Discussion, and now it comes back up. *sigh* Balance. So elusive.

I don't really play sniper enough to figure out how much of it is skill and lulz, but one thing I am definitely sick of:

FULLSCREEN WIDESCREEN SNIPER SCOPE.

FFS, it's disorienting as **** and it just makes it difficult to see. I'm pretty sure we don't need something crazy like 20x zoom, just 5-10x is enough, and PLEASE, don't do the retarded thing of making the scope take up the entire screen. I know it might be intentional to give the sniper tunnel vision but I don't want a fisheye lens effect to throw me off. Just black out the sides of the screen if you must. The current scope effect is likely only good for if you're playing on a TV some distance away.

For the pc version I think personally that explosive shots should be a little weaker, they can be pretty strong and as said above the explosive ammo makes bot takedowns rather easy.

I've not played for the last 24 hours on the pc but I never ran into any domination snipers so far.

I think this thread is good because while most people agree we may have to wait a little longer before making drastic changes, we all seem to be open to the idea due to the differences between PC and Xbox.

A guaranteed one-hit kill headshot with a perfectly accurate, quickly-refiring hitscan weapon is not balanced in a PC shooter. I understand that it might be fine for the 360 version, but this NEEDS to be changed for the PC version of the game.

Bringing the headshot down to somewhere in the 100-150 damage range would be make it a lot more balanced.

This is one of the few balance changes the game needs, I think. Overall the game is very well-balanced, in my opinion.

the game is balanced fine, people on pc are just better.

Most. Naive. First Post. EVER.

Congratulations on a new internet world record good sir!

BE GONE

Oh christ. Okay, new idea for consideration:

Ice mines affect the Sniper if it goes off in his face.

Just wound up stuck in a losing team with two assassins who couldn't do anything to get rid of a sniper who was using his rapid-fire-explosive-shot rifle to solo steamroll the game from one half the map. He'd sit on a ledge above a lane, plonk two mines either side of him, and he was untouchable except for another sniper, and then you'd just wind up with a sniper war, which is always bad because you may as well just remove the sniper class and lower the server's max player slots by two because there's **** all else those two will achieve.

At the very least I'd have thought putting up glass barriers over the lanes would be a bad idea, since it makes it too easy for the sniper to avoid fire.

The good thing about snipers with one hit kill headshots is that the level of the enemy sniper your facing can dramtically change how you have to approach the game tactically. If hes average then you dont do something stupid like running in straight lines in the open and your probably fine, if hes one of these impossibly good killing machines the game is not broken. You just have to understand that if you step in to potential sniper death territory you are much more at risk than normal. So you change how you play to handle that.

I actually enjoy that because it forces creative solutions to a problem and whilst I havnt played a tonne of MNC yet, having no x-box,but it certainly seems to me like several of the classes can be game-winning in the right hands. Which is great, because again, it forces you to play in response to whats put infront of you this round, not just the same game over and over untill you are bored.

I do think if it reaches the point where there are snipers wandering about freely quick scoping at very close ranges then maybe a solution needs to be found but taking away their power at range would make them unimportant and unthreatening. Especially given the regenerating health. If you step out in to the open and get shot in the head, knowing full well theres a good sniper out there, your punishment should not be having to charge back to cover and chill out for 15 odd seconds.

The explosive shots I cant comment on yet but they sound pretty nasty. Id like to spend more time playing against them before they are nerfed though. The idea that they make enemy bots more dangerous to encounter at close range is interesting though. Perhaps too harmfull to what the assassin is strongest at, which is a shame. Maybe the solution is to give the assassin strengths somewhere else in the game so they dont find themselves without a purpose in a game against a decent team+sniper.

Instant kills with not much risk are what break games, headshots seem to be the only instant kills in modern games that do not follow the method of risk and reward.

Sure the Assassin can insta-kill, but the player must risk being de-cloaked, getting close to a player for the grapple and then running away from players that have spotted that player. the chance of dying is huge but the reward is a clean, easy kill.
The sniper can stay at range, aim, and shoot. there is little risk involved with head shotting a player at range but the reward is a nice insta-kill which is totally wrong.
you cannot balance this with the mentality of "the head is a small easily missed target" as players get better, so will the amount and consistency of headshots.

The point is, the sniper has an advantage over long range distances, but his DPS should never be that high because there is no risk involved with shooting at that distance, the best designed and balanced sniper should play an entirely support role, helping team members push forward from a distance rather than lone wolfing it and insta-killing players.

I've never had an issue with Snipers. I often see their bullet whiz by and then I know where they are. If they can hit me in the head on the first shot, then I congratulate them.

As an Assault, or Support, if I see a sniper I'll usually sneak into the base and Headcrab or ground zero the Sniper. :lol:

I really hav no problem with snipers because if they are there then i avoid or take them out.
Its not hard to figure out

There's still godlike snipers out there that just spoil the fun for all involved by locking down half the friggin map, then moving up into positions he can't be dislodged from, wiping out all turrets and bots with ease.

When we get to the point we can actually remember the name of each arena, then we can start pointing out where a good X class in such and such a spot destroys the game on PC due to k+b.

This has been discussed to death on the xbox version. Wah Snipers are OP wah. Suck it up and deal. There's plenty of ways to counter the Sniper.

Nope.avi

When gamepads cease to exist, twitch hell ensues.

Besides, Snipers were bad enough in normal FPSes. This one has ******* ice traps and flak nades, and can do almost as much damage in a grapple to the assassin that's trying to stop him!

People will always moan about snipers, people even moan about TF2s sniper dispite how much less powerfull he is compared to nearly any other games equivilent. People just dont like being instant killed from across the map because they think there is nothing they can do about it. Unlike many classes you cant just shoot back and make a fight of it, but if that is where your problem solving ends then no wonder you cant figure out how to deal with a good sniper.

Hes good at the game, hes not going to be any less dangerous than a really good assault dont think that he will be. Hes just got different strengths and different weaknesses and different spacing. If a sniper is killing you repeatedly at range and getting the work done its not his job to stop, its your job to figure out how to beat him.

Sure moaning untill he gets nerfed is one way, but its slow and doesnt win you the round.

I hate the assassin and how she can just run up to someone and press a button and kill them, but that was with my few first games of playing. I now know most of the tells of a cloaked assassin and often deal with them before or when they get to me and go about my business.

A huge nerf? No. A small nerf to his damage potential? Maybe.

At this point the majority of players and servers are too crap to really pass much of a judgment. Most are lacking any sort of awareness, don't understand the game conceptually, and are struggling so hard to perform the tasks of their class that more abstract concepts like strafing/dodging are simply too difficult for them. Snipers shine in this environment. It's worth waiting some time before trying to iron out what subtle changes (if any) actually need to be made.

That being said, if balancing must be discussed so early, then it's worth mentioning that the potential for ground-strafing isn't really all that high on most classes without the speed endorsement. A reasonable soft nerf to the Sniper could be increasing the maneuverability of the other classes when they're on the ground. This would obviously need significant play-testing, since, the entire game flow would be altered.

In my opinion, thinking about game mechanics rather personally is not the way to look at things. For example, a player with high skill with class X will probably kill a low skill player with class Y, even if class Y is slightly over-powered. That said, the argument based around the theory that 'class Z is ok because their bullets will usually whizz past me' doesn't really hold much water.

Regardless of this, the sniper is slightly over-powered. "Huge nerf" would be a great exaggeration and at this point, there are far more important things to be even be thinking about than weapon/class balance.