Idea for balancing the Sniper

What about a laser pointer that activates when the Sniper uses his scope? It might not give you much of a warning but it might just be that split-second you need to turn a headshot into a body hit. The laser pointer would make the Sniper highly visible when hes aiming through his scope but most Snipers only quick-scope anyway.

It would be a good way to warn you if a Sniper is constantly aiming for the openings on Steel Peel.


What do you think?

Hey this sounds familiar? Oh yeah we were just chatting about this.

For the little time I have played the PC version it is obvious Snipers are downright deadly. Standing still for even a second can be bad for your health. I like the idea and it's not necessarily nerfing the Sniper in anyway.

I'd like to hear what others have to say before I make my final judgment.

I'm playing Gunner only. So the biggest problem for me is the high fire rate of the sniper because I'm slow. Can't say how it is as Assault for example. For me decreasing the firerate would work. There aren't that much good snipers who are able to make headshots.

Whats about the accuracy when a sniper moved and switched to scope? Accuracy should only be near 100% when the sniper stands still for a while, or there should be a breathe system like in other games. Maybe with a cooldown, when used in a row to much.

But it isn't that much that's snipers are a problem. Normally your already in the loosing team, because theoretically your members can switch to sniper too and show him who is the boss or assassins should visit them in their base. In my opinion my job is to bring our bots and pros into the enemy base and destroy their bots, turrets and pros standing in the way. And I can do the job when there is no sniper who has always the time aiming on me.

Don't hate the sniper if he is killing you to much. Shout to your next assassin or sniper and say him/her, he/she has to do his/her job.

Ah yes, Col_Jessep! Had the honor of playing against you on Racquemis the other day!
On Steel Peel. Was good rounds!

EDIT:

Now here's the thing, aim is something you build up by playing sniper for years or it comes naturally. In my case it came with years of sniper play, and favourably I play a lot better without the CoD adjustments to the sniper rifle. As you said there's few snipers who can manage headshots, but don't punish those who are by doing this. As most snipers already aren't capable of headshots don't make their job harder and give them time to improve.

Best words I've ever heard from a gunner, cheers mate! :mrgreen:

Oh wait, it's you TWICE DEAD. In that case I have to make an exception. :twisted:

I play RTS and Team oriented shooter. Would MNC be a RTS I never would let fight a gunner against a sniper on long distance. It would be my own fault when the gunner is wasted on that way. The only way is to hide for the sniper as gunner, or get close to him. Second can be difficult on some maps...

I would choose a well placed sniper or an assassin.

The sniper like most only seems overpowered in the hands of a good player.

That same player running an assassin or assault etc would probably be violating your team just as badly.

so you want the tf2 sniper thingo? like for when he is scoped in?

Yeah, I think I remember that match. I spawned, upgraded to passive 2, looked around, used the jumppad - and died in like one second...

It's true that there are only a few really good Snipers out there atm (and you are definitively one of them Shurryy!) but on some days I just seem to find every single server with an extraordinary good Sniper!

Crap... xD

I like RTS as well and I would love to see the MNC arena kind of RTS'ified giving you options to upgrade the bots you spawn or something alike, it already gave us turrets so! Well I can only hope. :lol:

Yes! I could totally see upgradeable bots in MNC.

I wouldn't mind a slightly slower RoF on snipers. Being able to HS someone is one thing. Having 4 tries in a few seconds is another. And being able to rapid-fire kill someone when you aim a little to low is a third.

Another option would be a lower HS damage. I don't see why a HS should be an instakill on everything except a fully armoured tank. Being able to shave, say, 80% or more of someone's health from any distance is devastating enough, if you ask me. Especially if you then have 3 rounds left. Shooting headshots with a sniper is not the same as backstabbing with an Assasin and I think it should be less rewarding because it's far less dangerous. I'd say a sniper should only OHK silver/gold armoured snipers/sins and weaker. But that's just a ballpark figure. Heavier classes are easy enough to HS as it is, except for assaults.

*Edit*
And if you think snipers really deserve those OHK headshots, I think every class deserves a 5x damage modifier on headshots :twisted:. Gogo railgun snipe!

Those three last classes you mention would be Tanks, Gunners and Supports. It makes sense that a sniper takes out the heavier classes with a high caliber round from afar, those heavier classes are threats for your teammates up close, so I don't see why the snipers shouldn't be called in to take care of the problem and let the rest push forward.

Besides I've managed to save quite a few grappled teammates by sniping their grappler, and that's something I'd rather not have removed. Our bane would be other snipers, but they'd have to be capable of scoring headshots on you before you headshot them.

As for the assassin: I saw an assassin get 73-(4 or 6) kills in a round... Name started with Saaa... something. That just proves how deadly they can be and I think backstabs are just rewarding enough, as mentioned before: In the hands of a good player.

As for tanks, 4 bodyshots is not enough to down one. I've tried and I left him with more than 5-10% left and he ducked into cover. Probably had gold armor like the rest. xD

That reminds me! If anything, buff the Tank's Railgun!

I mean, JUST a smidge, because it seems EVERY time I counter-snipe a sniper with the railgun, I land two shots on him, and his health is empty but he's STILL running around. He must only have like 1 or 2 HP, so just a tiny itty bitty buff would be greatly appreciated thanks.

If a headshot from a sniper would leave a gunner (with gold or silver armour) with, say, 10-20% of his health, snipers would still be a great threat to gunners. No gunner in his right mind is going to push forwards when he just lost 80% of his health, knowing a second bullet is coming any moment. The sniper would still be able to do what you described. A gunner that has only 20% left is going to back out and the sniper's team mates can push forward and probably even finish the job.

Tanks might be able to shrug it off a bit, but not much. Giving him a headshot would still drastically decrease his chances of survival if he pushes onwards. It would still make him think twice before charging into the fray. And since tanks can't really fight at midrange, he'd have no choice but to back off. Mission accomplished.

The difference between OHK headshots and crippeling headshots is that with OHK headshots, the sniper simply turns half the arena into a No-go zone. Even if you practiced sniping for two years, I don't think that's fair. With crippeling headshots, half the arena would still be a no-go zone IF his are teammates around. If anything, it would promote snipers to cooperate with their team.

*edit*
Okay, I'll be fair. I don't want to outright nerf snipers. I just don't want a class that can lock down a whole team, even if the skillcap to do so is high. A sniper has 4-8 shots, each of which can be a OHK against nearly everything from any distance. That's just not fair. What it'd like to see, is a bit more elaboration on the role for the sniper in the team. Traditionally, good snipers are always one-man armies in almost every game that has them. Just because it requires a lot of skill they think that's fair. I think that is false. Especially this game has the potential to eleborate on the sniper as a team player. Let's see what he can do:

- Snipe heads
- Kill bots from any distance quite effectively
- Grapple Jackbots
- Do heavy burst damage to turrets with flak
- Close off corridors with traps
- Scramble the enemy team (again with flak) and get them out of strategic positions
- Ringout people with grapple
- A bunch of other stuff I'm too lazy to think of right now

What do most snipers in this game do? Mostly just the thing on the top of the list: sniping heads. All of the other things he can do are all incredibly effective in combination with the rest of the team. Snipers always seem to use freeze traps in selfish ways, but they can actually help the whole team. I'd like to see the sniper in this game becoming more than just a head shooter like in every other game. After all, the Assasin is not just an Assasin and the Assault does other things than assaulting. So why shouldn't the sniper have more roles that make him fit in the team?

The thing is, it's only possible to elaborate on those roles if the sniper is not such a killing machine with his rifle. The most effective sniper right now, is a sniper that shoots heads. I'd like to see a sniper class that is designed such that the most effective sniper does all sorts of stuff and cooperates with his team. Much in the same way that the most effective Assasin is not just a pro-hunter (literal assasin), but a bot-pusher, turret killer AND pro-hunter.

Meh I don't support it. Sniper should be capable of OHKO headshots both realistically and in game. The reason most people go for headshots is because its a OHKO, making that OHKO move no longer OHKO makes it less rewarding to achieve headshots and hence lessens the motivation, so snipers would probably just go for bodyshots at that point. The reason snipers can guard a lane is because pro's know he can kill you with one bullet, which forces them to rethink your strategy. Snipers are not invisible, but when left alone we can deal serious damage to the other team and shut down an entire lane. What the game really lacks is communication, a more comfortable chat system would be nice since messages only stays up for like 3 seconds, then disapear. You have to open the console to see what they were saying and that's just silly in my book. Like the assassin can OHKO backstab, the sniper can OHKO headshot. While the sniper has a smaller target, the assassin has a closer distance to go.

If you don't like us, distract us, kill us, target us in some way. A distraction is all thats needed. Assassin Shurikens for instance, those hurt ALOT if youre hurt and will get snipers strafing, unsteadying their aim and more aware, constantly checking their backs.

In the end any sniper can be taken down as long as a plan is made, without a plan there's not much you can do and if you have already been pushed back to spawn there's probably little you can do anyway.

The rest of your post I already adressed in my edit. I'd like to respond to this and then call it a day:

So I need to cooperate with my team to deal with a sniper, but a sniper does not need to cooperate with HIS team be effective?

I don't know, they can effectively control lanes, but the same thing can be said of the gunner and tank.

As the gunner, you can shutdown a whole lane by having accuracy. Having that allows you to shoot from so far it's not even funny. The minigun deals alot of damage and if targeted to a pro, they have to escape or the pro dies and and gives the enemy about 75 bucks. It's alot of money. Then they go bot kill farming and push into the base.

The tank, while slow, is a deathmachine on legs. He burns pros to a cinder with its jet gun. blinds you with a well placed product grenade and charges at you with the jetgun blazing. His power to kill multiple bots with one spin is a devastating attack. He's also the only class that could survive an OHK from a sin.

This is where the sniper comes in. He can kill those tank classes with ease since they are so slow. Headshotting that shouldn't be a problem. He can deny their control over the map.

However, a sin can ruin our day pretty easily. Since the sniper's usually focused on targets more than any other class. His freeze trap is supposed to scare enemies that go after him, but is very limited in its usefulness. the range on it might be good for chokepoints, but since they can be activated by shooting it, its use is very limited. Another thing is the sniper's health, which is one of the lowest, if not, THE lowest, of the whole game. Just one someone targetting the sniper, and we have to escape or pull off a headshot. If we don't, we could escape within an inch of our life to heal and still get killed because they suicide run the sniper.

Good players can and WILL hunt good snipers. And we'll have a tough time killing them at close range. Our SMGs aren't going to do the trick. By your suggestion, all snipers will have to get RoF, or they're going to be useless. Right now, we could go without it if we're good enough shots to pull off headshots decently. Without them, We might as well just be turrets with manual aiming.

My opinion is that HS should stay. To me, pulling that off is such a hard task I'd need those years of practice to get headshots consistently. taking that away will nullify all that work. I really think players should be rewarded for having the skill of headshotting.

You do realize that the plan thing was not a one-sided suggestion right?
The reason you can't approach the sniper is either because...

A: You're not trying.
B: The Snipers team is pushing you back so hard you cant get to him.
C: The Sniper is constantly moving from place to place making it harder to find him before he finds you.
D: You're running at him as a gunner or tank. If he spots you from afar, you will not get close and he probably won't let you.

The reason to a snipers success in MNC is because he is LET ALONE. Nobody deals with him, and those snipers on the other side can't take him out due to the difference of map control hence they can't safely deal with him. And if the enemy sniper is a notch better than the other that makes it all the more hopeless. Again, the sniper is let alone and has a free playground, he can move wherever he wants and shut down the enemy bot spawns while shooting pro's.

Once I played a round I didn't do nearly as good as I use to, simply because I was constantly bothered by an assault that was hunting me and his support friend behind him. I was never given time to concentrate pushing lanes or shooting pro's pushing because I was held in check, I couldn't move out of spawn and THAT is not good since the enemy is so close to your spawn, you will have an EXTREME zoom up to their eyeball and it's impossible to track anything like that without quickscoping, and quickscoping is easier said than done. Then we pull out the SMG, fight a fight but probably die.

I'll respond to this.

The effective sniper is a sniper that shoots heads:
Yes, and no.
Being able to shoot heads is just a + in the book, The effective sniper in this game shoots bots and pushes them all the way back to their spawn garage.
He locks down a lane so that the other teammates can either safely defend the other lane, or push on the lane he has cleared out. If threats turn up on that lane, he takes them out and tells them to go elsewhere.
The effective sniper is not a sniper that shoots heads, thats just a new players wrong impression or preferred playstyle. Running around hunting pro's is not going to help your team, pushing the lanes is. If you pay close attention, most snipers tend to be on the losing team because they're not pushing the lanes.

I think that slowly but surely, snipers will get into the right habit of assisting their team in a more suiting way than hunting for pro's. But if you are a hunted sniper, you would rather become the hunter than the hunted. A good sniper is also all-time aware of his surroundings in order to be able to work in peace.

At least that's my policy.

Snipers always use Freeze Traps for selfish reasons:
Well obviously? Or else I wouldn't be able to push the lane in peace would I?
Freeze traps scares everyone except maybe good assassins or assaults. Nobody wants to run into a freeze trap and that's the reason they spam it around them. It's like an alarm clock that says "HEY! Someone's coming to get you!!!" It wakes them up and prevents them from going down without a fight. That fight can last for 30 seconds for all you know, and 30 seconds without fear of being headshotted is a heads up for your teammates to get out there. Distractions can do the same. You can keep a sniper on his feet for several minutes as an assassin and he won't be able to concentrate in fear of being stabbed. The moment he gets careless the assassin should strike, more and more assassins tend to forget that they even have a shuriken launcher.

Grapple Jackbots:
Yeah I tend to do that when im not in danger of being shot off the jack bot, somewhere along the lines when it's safe to go out and grapple it should an assassin not do it. Im sure more snipers think the same way, as the assassins grapple we're not careless with it and jump into a gunners minigun just to grapple a jackbot.

Heavy damage to turrets with FLAK
I tend to get into a position where I can shoot it instead... Safer.

Close off Corridors with Traps
Already answered. If there's no point to protect yourself though I'm sure they throw a random freeze trap in the enemy-bots walkpath for what it's worth.

Scramble enemy teams with Flak
Works like a charm~

Ringout people with Grapple:
Now you are asking us to run up to the face of a gunner and grapple them? Sure if he's unaware and Im in the middle of reloading I might do it but never on regular basis when my primary job is to track their heads and prevent them from getting closer.

Assassins are another thing though, they're the easiest to grapple considering you're about to be grappled yourself. Like most grapples, it's just an emergency skill should the enemy get up to close and personal...

After all, the Assasin is not just an Assasin and the Assault does other things than assaulting...
And the Sniper is not just a Headshooter.
Like the Assault and Assassin, he is a bot-pusher, a turret killer, a pro-hunter and a base-turret upgrader, because like the support: He sticks in to the back. If a support plays passively, a sniper can assist that support by upgrading his turrets as the support hacks them. Spawning Bots? Snipers don't do that for a very good reason... The only thing he doesn't do on regular basis would be go for the annihilator when there's action in the middle. I don't know what snipers you've fought against/with, but they sound like they are completely new to the game or just doesn't care about teamplay and there's little we can do about the last one. If he's a headshooter he probably won't change his mind and will just post a suggestion of removing the bots all together and whine that his teammates aren't holding the bots back. A sniper has to realize that if he's going to snipe in peace he either got to clear the lane he's standing in for bots so his teammates can push forward and keep him safely in the back, or he has to stand somewhere very exposed for enemy fire.

The assassin comparison is a pointless one, both classes will oneshot most classes when played properly, and both classes will fail to oneshot certain classes who are running armour. And to make the comparison even fairer, the sniper has range with which to do this, the assassin has stealth.

What you're essentially asking for here is to nerf a class because some people play it well, which is just silly.

A good player can lock down a whole team as any class, probably a lot easier than as a sniper.

Okay shurry, thanks for you time and perspective. Maybe you're right and I've only seen the Counter Strike snipers who shoot heads and do little besides infuriating me . It might also be because of the well known issue of team stacking (which is solved now) and if you're on team Suck, then there's really not much you can do against a pro CS sniper. Sometimes I play sniper myself and try to be a credit-to-team sniper as much as I can by shooting bots and eliminating the occasional gunner. My twitch shooting sucks, so I consider myself to be an eliminator of stationary targets when I play sniper .

Anyway, just a question: do you support the idea of buffing the sniper in medium/short range combat and nerfing his sniping ability a bit? Because that was what I was getting at for the most part. It doesn't really matter how (TF2 style charging headshot or something, you can keep the OHK headshots if you want. Any nerf you can think of counts), it's just that snipers tend to infuriate players because getting shot from a long distance feels so wrong . And it would encourage CS-style snipers to do other things than rack up kills and do something useful for their team instead.

Also:

You should try spamming freeze traps in the little corridors on Spunky where bots won't set them off. You'll effectively deny the enemy one or two entrances to the middle of the map if the rest of your team is also paying attention. Frozen enemies in a corridor + friendly Tank = Nom nom nom.