Ideas on how to balance the sniper

I think you are being biased here, which is fine. But saying thigs like (you dont have to step into a freeze trap because its binary) is rediculous. Its also not visable and placed BY THE SNIPER, so its only really binary to him, as the rest of us don't know where it is, and a good sniper will move it after every attempted attack. There is NO solid counter to a sniper, except a better sniper, thats not right.

Freeze Trap is far to spammable and far too reliable, that plus the fact that there is no scope shake while taking fire and the godly damage from flask, and sniper is good at ALL RANGES, this is a problem.. hes also good at killing pros and bots (but so is sin, so not that big of a deal, but worht mentioning) There is NO other class in the game that is THAT good at ALL ranges. Only the sniper. Mortars might work, except the sniper has invisible (see through) walls to hide behind, where he can sit scoped looking through wait for you to fire a few mortars than pop out right ontop of your head and pow (unless you stay behind a wall your self.. but wait a minute, moratars have a max range too.. oh damn..

I'm not saying there is not a skill celing, i'm saying that when a player REACHES that celing with anyother class, they are still threatend by their counter class. When a SNIPER reaches that skill celing, he has no viable threats on the battle field, (other than multiple enemies, and being jumped by 2 people is NOT a counter.


You can keep saying that we need to spend more time with it, or that hes fine the way he is, but we are going to keep saying that he is not.. and eventually the devs are going to decide for themselves.

Major issues

1) long range KILLER
2)Medium range KILLER
3) Close Range KILLER (and defended by icetraps flasks)

Walls for cover are great against sniper, but they are see through, he can litterally track you through walls and wait for you to poke a head out, this also makes approaching him very difficult as he will 80% of the time SEE YOU COMING, unless you come from below.. but below means you have predictable approaches (jump pads) unless you are a sin or an assault, and for assault that means starting the fight at 3/4 health from the bomb jump. Anyone else is jump pading right into a Freeze Trap.

No Scope Shake means that even getting the jump on him from any range but GRAPPLE RANGE is dangerous because a skilled sniper can still 1 shot you. and if you are close enough to make quick scoping impossible hes gonna grapple you (if you arent already in his freeze mine). So you essentially have to try and get right on top of him and grapple. But again FREEZE TRAPS make grapple difficult as he is going to put them in places that make approaching that range impossible. And they (take away your ability to move, but thats ok because its a sniper tool right grim?)

The ONLY effective way to kill a sniper RIGHT NOW, is to play as a SNIPER (which makes no sense, because that just means the team with the best sniper wins, maknig him the MOST important class in the game, which would be 100% the best argument for why he needs changes), or to play as an assault, find a way to get to him FROM BELOW, without being killed by his teamates who are pushing lanes, than BOMB JUMP up to him, go into a hover to avoid his ice trap and than use CHARGE 2 (cant use 3, it does no dmg from a hover) and than finish with an assault rifle while hovering.. Do you have any idea how high the assault skill celing is? Its huge from what I can tell, ive been playing him a lot lately and i'm just barely starting to get decent with him, I played sniper for maybe 10 rounds, and i have litterally SPIT all over the enemy team with sniper when ever I used him, I just felt untouchable. And that alone says to me that he might need tweaking. Because I already know that as good as i felt, a real sniper would have to feel like a god.

Fun fact people told me I was one of the "god complex snipers" on pub after quickscoping them repeatedly.

Bravo, you figured it out!

What does that have to do with anything? It only serves my point, sniping is too easy, headshots are too easy, you have too many tools to defend your self with, are too good at any range, are the best pro killer and the 2nd best bot killer (and those are interchangable, you could easily be considered the 2nd best pro killer and 1st best bot killer)

you can build juice and money from a distance, by killing bots between pro kills, you have see through walls to hide behind, which benefit you FAR more than they benefit the person trying to get to you (pop out while scoped for the already aimed headshot).

you have penetrating rounds that also explode to deal AOE dmg and you have a decent grapple which can be used from your main weapon.

WOW with all that i'm shocked you are a good sniper.

not QQing, I'm really not, with a xbox controler as an aiming device I could easily see why all that was needed.. but I dont think Uberent really built the sniper tool bag around a mouse and keyboard, and now its starting to show (as more skilled snipers start to really learn the class, and get better with him) he starts to pull away from the pack at a very fast rate.

Ahah, you're going defensive. Means you're starting to lack confidence in your own arguments.

Anyways... No, it's not everything, but it's the most important part. A sniper that isn't in a good spot, isn't farming (or is very exposed, both are good).

If you don't use that to your advantage (either to destroy the enemy base, farm their bots or move up on the map), then, as you'd say, you're a tard. A sniper aiming at a wall, or camping their spawn, isn't really a useful member of his team, as you go on to, ironically, agree bellow:

Irony. It is delicious.

Apparently you DO need someone to teach you what things do, otherwise you wouldn't say this:

Either you don't honestly realize each class's potential or you're living with some comic book style fantasy of what "human capacity" actually is. Human capacity isn't omniscience, let alone instant reflexes. The average human reaction time is 200 ms. If you train REALLY hard, and I mean like, your entire life doing exercise, you can drop that down to maybe 150 ms. That's a 25% increase, at most, to someone who spends their entire life doing nothing but training. Clairvoyance and bullet speed are not included.

Pretty much all other good players I've seen can do it. You can't. Logical assumption is that it's you.

Ok, goodluck avoiding mortars and grenades while getting headshots on a moving target that keeps getting closer. And remember, you have about 2 or 3 seconds before eating a veritable cluster of explosives. Particularly interested in seeing you do it on someone who knows how to move and lay down suppressive fire properly.

Do it consistently.

Yeah...

I've gotten insane headcrabs and ground zeros. It's called "**** happens".

That said, I can get headshots while moving. I usually can't do it on smart targets, while moving and avoiding well placed enemy fire. I'm forced to retreat (or die), letting the enemy move.

You do realize what balance means do you? Being better than the other player defining who wins is EXACTLY what balance is. If you gave the sniper 7000 HP you wouldn't have to be better than the other player, the other player would have to be criminally incompetent, which is different.

A class is unbalanced when your skill is less relevant than your enemy's, which doesn't happen in this case.

You're not a scientist are you? Thought so.

There are a lot of "random" variables. They're all eliminated once we consider that they're random for everyone (everyone gets shitty teams, everyone has good and bad days, everyone has awesome teams...etc). If the results remain stable (i.e.: everyone but you can deal with it, you can't), then the remaining variable is you.

Care to offer a different theory?

Do you know what denial is?

"It's not me! It's everyone else!"

Apparently you don't. Railgun is hitscan, thus it's not a question.

Grenades and Mortars have AoE, thus increasing their effective range as the time the enemy has to travel to avoid them is increased by the distance they have to move to get off the radial damage.

Finally, if they're getting out of the way, that leaves you space to move in... win-win.

Ok, wait, as the second least mobile class in the game you have no problem nullifying encounters with snipers, but you do with everything else?


...What?

Cheers

Not really, you're assuming that because you clearly don't know how to apply and make the best of suppression.

And while the latter is true (that we're still getting better), it's true for everyone, and every class.

See, you seem to understand that the Sniper has all these tools, but you're completely unaware that other classes also have tools of their own.

You seem blissfully ignorant of anything you can do with other classes other than walking forward and shooting, apparently.

That's the problem, you don't understand other classes' capacities. You only see what the sniper can do, not what every other class can do. Which is why you need to get better.

Finally. Give everyone, yourself included, time to get better, in every class.

^^ that was a TON to read.. but I can argue it with 2 points

1) See through walls, benefit Sniper more than the snipie (making approaching the sniper nearly impossible, unless done from below, and below means dealing with bots/teamates and ulimately using a jump pad (right into his freeze trap) or using a bomb jump (3/4 health at fight start) or a Smokebomb jump, and praying not to land on the other two freeze traps.

2) Sniper needs Scope Shake from being him, to make headshots much harder to get at close range, forcing him to rely on the SMG and Flask over headshots. Or quick scope headshots need to not kill instantly (LIKE TF2 does). This is the major problem, over map design.. Currently I think most maps are what make snipers so godly above all other things they have.. They have HUGE ranges and clera visability without being exposed thanks to see through walls. Sure you can say that means we see them, but unless you are a sniper, seeing them means nothing, since you cant engage them.. hell even mortars have a max range before they expolode.

The max life of a mortar is 20 times greater than a nade from the Assault's launcher, just sayin'

ive played FPS all my life (i'm 30) and I sniper in some dont in others, I know HOW to sniper, but i'm not a SUPREME sniper like some may be.. however with all that said, in this game I make 90% of my headshots, and when I miss I finish them off with a 2nd shot that is usually a head shot within half a second.. I don't know how to put this any other way. I feel like a good 60% of my headshots are BS, like I didnt really make them..

ALSO: I can't confrim, but i'm pretty sure that explosive shot, is counting as a headshot when it hits your body CLOSE ENOUGH to your head for the AOE dmg to hit the head.. I think this may be the problem, as I cant think of another reason that headshots are so easy.

This plus Freeze Traps being spammable and allowing multipe out, and him having a grapple that gives distance and well.. sniper is way to powerful IMO..

SWAY is not what i'm asking for, that WOULD raise the skill FLOOR, which might not be a bad thing.. but i'm asking for scope jerking, that would raise the skill celing, as only skilled players would learn to to FORCE enemies to keep distance.. or learn to use SMG and flask when they loose the distance advantage.. or god forbid actually retreat.

I don't want to see sniper nerfed to the point of not being useful, I would like to find a way to reward good snipers but make not so good snipers less of a threat.. right now

1) Rate of Fire and Clip size give bad snipers way too many opportunities to land a head shot

2) Headshots seem to register even when I KNOW I missed them

3) Freeze traps make rushing me very difficult

4) See through walls on every map, let me pick my targets from behind protection while still lining up my shot, popping out and taking it.


way too much going on there.. Either:

1) reduce rate of fire, by an amount that punishes people who spam for lucky head shot, wihtout punishing players who can actualy land them (you dont want to make it impossible for them to get two targets down in a reasonable time).

2) add scope jerking when hit, to allow class's like assault and sin to take them down from 1/4 range without having to deal with WTF lukcy head shots, (again really good snipers can still insta quick scope without dealing with scope shake), or use SMG.

3) make all cover non see through (would change way too much about the game)

4) reduce freeze trap amount to 1 out at a time.

are you sure its 20 times.. i dont think thats right.. it cant have 20 times the traveling distance, I think its more like 20% more.. because if that were true than mortars would trave the entire map.. and they do NOT.. I have seen them die off mid air, if it were 20x's they would never do that.. I cant think of any shots on any maps that are 20xs further than a nade will travel.

To quote someone: You can shoot their moneyball from yours given the right angle.

I'm a bit intrigued as to how scope jerking would raise the skill ceiling (keyword) in relation to a sniper without scope jerking. It would raise the skill floor without a question but it wouldn't even touch the skill ceiling. I'm having some major issues understanding your kind of logic.

Truth be told, I never played Sniper in any other game due to my lack of aim. I played projectile-based classes, I played the Support classes - I've been victim of many Snipers over the years and yet I still stand here with the firm belief that before any of you (no matter who you are) talk about any kind of balance suggestions you let the bloody metagame run it's course for a LONG time to even gather significant competitive statistics.

This is not a given at the moment however and the wise decision would be to remain silent for you lot so that other more relevant discussion may take place and not drown in the mess of flavour of the week OP threads. As far as I read you also have a problem with Assassins - how delicious.

LOL SCOPE SHAKE

Why stop there? Every time someone takes damage, screen shakes and becomes covered with blood!

Bloody screen... SO REAL

I still need to see hard numbers that prove the mortar travels 20 times the distance of an assaults greande launcer, i'm not doubting you got those numbers somewhere, i'm doubting their reliablity, as I play assault quite a bit, and I can attest to the fact that 20xs would be essentially infinate range for mortars. Combined with the fact that I have see mortars fall off, much shorter than max map lenght, on the longer maps.. And I just doubt that this is true.. Again i could be wrong, but I doubt that I am. And since I made the claim that sniper rilfe (has no range) is longer range than mortar (has a time to live), than my claim is true, thusly your claim is the one that carrys a burden of proof

Ok let me break skill floor/celing and explain myself


Skill Floor: The least amount of skill needed to be decent with a class
Skill Celing: The most amount of skill needed to be decent with a class

Mechanic: SWAY (a mechanic that causes the scope to move on its own whille aiming)

Effect: Raises skill "FLOOR" not the celing, this has no effect on the OVERALL amount of skill needed to be great, it simply effects the bottom line amount of skill/learning required to be competent with the sniper (ie: to land headshots)

Mechanic: Scope Jerk (a mechanic that causes the scope to move unpredictable while taking enemy fire)

Effect: Raises skill "CELING", this mechanic forces the sniper to find other means of engaging the enemy when he is taking direct fire, he is forced to find cover, rely on secondary weapons, or make use of traps and flasks to gain distance on the enemy..

The key here is that his ability to land headshots is NOT effected by Scope Jerking, so long as he is not being engaged, his core mechanic, (sniping from great distance) is not effected the way it would have been if there was sway, so his base line entrey level of skill is the same.. however once engaged he must have much more skill than the ability to land a head shot to survive, he has to learn to use all of his skills and weapons to survive. Thus the sniper would take no more skill to be good with (can still snipe) but much more skill to be great with (can fight off enemies at close range).

That is why I worded it the way I did, I hope that clarifies things.

And this is kinda my point, you are admitadley not a very experienced sniper, yet MORE THAN proficient here.. I mean HECK:

In most FPS learning to snipe to the level of making any shot you aim for, takes years, and it takes a specific mouse pad and mouse combo (without ever switching it) it requires LOCKED Refresh rates (back in the days or CRV Monitors) and mouse speed settings (down to the number).. i don't snipe every game, but I did snipe comptetitively in Counter Strike, and I was decent never the best.. but I saw the level of comitment that took and fell back to my good old AK47.. Point being.. I have sniped for more than a few hours in this game, and I already feel like I could get to the competitive level in a few weeks of real pracitce.. what does that tell you?

Its a little TOO easy to make headshots, we have a very fast ROF, penetration, explosive damage and TONS of tools to stay alive with..

Again you said you werent experienced than you said you are dominating as sniper, than you said sniper is NOT too easy.. I'm NOT trying to insult you, thats not my style.. i'm just pointing those things out for you to consider.. Because while you can say we need to wait for the meta game to develop, I can easily say when its this obvious to many veteran FPS players (and i am a vet, so are you and many others here, and the majority is on our side if you read the forum posts) why wait? Why let the meta game develop with a class that needs tweaking.. why not tweak it NOW than let the meta develop, so snipers dont waist months learning a class that is going to be changed.

Its possible that the explosive damage is effecting head shots.. that needs looking into, and if it is, than thats an easy fix.. if it is not, than the hitboxes are simply too large.. changing either would raise the skill floor, and things would get back to normal. Good snipers would be gods, decent would be decent bad would be bad.. etc..

If thats not possible than mechnics that make him less of a threat at close range (scope jerking) are needed.. and these suggestios are not NEW, these are tride and true tweaks and changes that have happend to snipers in almost every single FPS that has been played competitively..

that is hardly the same thing, Scope shake only effects snipers who are within weapon range, and almost every weapon in the game has a pitiful maximum range compared to sniper.. you would have to stack accuracy on a mini gun or assault rifle to even begin to hit them at 1/2 range, unless you were totaly exposing your self and spraying.. which means you would be head shot. This would mostly effect snipers at close range.

You are just using over exageration and sarcasm to mask the fact that you have no real point to make at all.

And all of a sudden in MNC you became so good ? How ironic. This is exactly the whole point of this thread.

Of course a longer observation period is needed. Believe it or not, the devs will modify the mechanisms of our toons even without threads like this. Unlike our point of view, or I dare say the Sniper player point of view in this thread, the devs have to be objective and will change things to be changed. In the meantime, you can give at least some credit to criticism you see here. I don't see how this discussion is a problem, forums are also for that.

cheers

So you admit to dominating as a sniper in this game with a bad aim? How is that not wrong?

I'm not looking for competitive statistics here. I'm talking about pubs. The sniper is broken in pubs. Sure, if a nerf breaks him in competitive play, fine. I'm all in for that. I don't play competitively. Competitive players are a small minority of all gamers, I'd rather see the game balanced for the masses. When the sniper is balanced in pubs, then you can look at the competitive side. Just don't break the game for the majority here.

Although I totally agree with you in this thread concerning the Sniper topic, I also would say that the only thing relevant is raising the skill floor. We want sniping a bit more difficult and so the access to excellence in that to be a little further.

Wheras : "Skill Celing: The most amount of skill needed to be decent with a class" doesn't make much sense. You cannot have the most amout of skill to just be qualified as decent. If you have the most amount of skill you're the best.

20 pages. Really?
:roll:

you just just made the point of just how easy the class really is, and your point is very valid, you dont even need any skill/experience to be good with sniper. that is how balanced the class is.

i have seen "godlike" snipers go from raping maps with their sniper, to switching classes and then be at the bottom of the scoreboard with the other classes they play.

now, what is going to keep these types of players playing other classes besides the OP sniper when they suck at the other classes? nothing really.

if you raise the skill needed to be decent at the class, then that would be a start.

one of the things that I do not like about the sniper, is the fact you do not need to upgrade any skills/abilities to get that headshot. most other classes if not all will need to invest some cash before being crazy deadly at their strengths, but the sniper is good to go right out of the gates.

Go play cod/bf if you want sway. The balance ideas are getting worse and worse. Please lock thread.

I agree on sway being a bad idea. I can't see why this thread should be locked though. It has tons of opinions from both sides of the table, a lot of possible balance ideas and a surprisingly small amount of insults.

The fact that the thread has already gotten up to 20 pages is clear proof that this is an issue people want to discuss. Locking this thread would just result in another similiar thread rising up.

And I already called them to stop it, since it just goes int ocircles all the damn time. Really, best thing to do is to ignore it...