Ideas on how to balance the sniper

200 Damn posts. Dude! If you can't find me a sniper that can beat me, then never post here again. NEVER!

http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/0911/blow-smoke-up-ones-***-no-wonder-richard-gere-loved-watching-demotivational-poster-1259336335.jpg

Any assault, even a n00b, can stop a good sniper from being able to do much, if they fire grenades from max range. Perch to perch on GrenADEIII is max range. Grenades blow up automatically. Unless the sniper gets a headshot off in .7 seconds (what a silver rate grenade launcher would kill him in), he won't win. He can't move in time, it's not possible, a sniper's walking distance with bronze speed is LESS than the grenade's AoE.

Again, if the sniper is absolutely instantly perfect, then he is OP. Few snipers are even good enough to pose a threat to assassins, let alone assaults though. He has a OHKO, but it's not just able to be used at will. The gunner's mortars can hit anywhere on the map, they are more overpowered (considering they also aren't useable like they can be technically on paper)

The sniper getting an aim nerf so they can't bodyshot spam is one thing, probably not even necesary though. A rate of fire change prevents the sniper from being useable though. A sniper being the weakest class gives the gunner reign over most. He will be overpowered and also nerfed. Then comes the support and assault, this isn't a good pattern. Can't you come up with a nerf that doesnt **** up the game, is all we ask?

I'll weigh in on this as a new MNC player (been playing for about three days):

Snipers are naturally the most frustrating class to play against regardless of the game you're playing (that's right, it doesn't only apply to MNC) because they have the ability to instantly kill you from all the way across the map without the slightest warning. I have seen Assaults, Gunners, Tanks and Supports do equally as well and curb stomp pubs because they are better players, but it's about half as frustrating because those guys are there in your face -- you see the effort they make to rape you, the clutch charges, grapples, positioning or skill uses that snuff out your little noob ***.

But the Sniper? Everything about the class is doused in rage inducing mechanics. The biggest factor is the fact that you must go to them to engage; they do not have to come to you. Being killed by the Sniper because you stepped on his ice trap/got grappled/got SMG'd a mere few feet away and being whisked back to your spawn after you've worked your way across the entire map, ignoring everything else specifically for the sniper is enough to make a seasoned lumberjack cry. In fact, the addition of the Huntsman by Valve to TF2 was specifically acknowledging this frustration that players feel when facing the Sniper (being killed by someone I can't even see without any warning whatsoever is not fun, and the Huntsman brings the Sniper to the players).

Does it surprise you that the Assassin elicits similar levels of frustration as the Sniper and the same numbers of complaints are raised against Assassins as they are against Snipers by new players on these forums? Because it shouldn't. They both function off of similar mechanics -- they kill you without warning, and that is frustrating, that is, the feeling of being completely helpless against your opponent. Setting emotions aside and looking at the cold hard facts may render a picture of near balance at the moment, but when you take into consideration the feelings of players in MNC it would seem that both the Assassin and the Sniper massively outweigh the other four classes in terms of raw power. Is it true? Not necessarily. But we should remember -- this is a game first and foremost, and if there is a particularly ANNOYING element of the game -- something that almost makes you want to slap your own grandmother with a meter stick -- it should be addressed.

To be honest there is nothing wildly unfair about the Sniper. I've seen good Tanks or Assaults or Supports just DESTROY pubs. But this is not a matter of balance. This is a matter of addressing a massive source of frustration within MNC. We don't necessarily need to nerf or buff the sniper in obvious ways as much as the mechanics of the class need to be addressed and tweaked.

Take the Assassin for example, the Sniper's partner in rage inducing crime. There are elements of the Assassins design to give you the heads up on WHEN she's there -- both the blur and the hum of the cloak, the dust from her sprint, and the sound of her flash bomb. Although good Assassins can still prove frustrating opponents, it's still not as frustrating as a Sniper. Botched Assassination attempts can end an Assassins life. Botched Snipes don't do anything but give away your position all the way across the map (which is silly).

What we need to do is add blur, hums, dusts and sounds to the Sniper. We need to add repercussions for missing shots that provide a level of relief to the Sniper's targets. These changes do not make big splashes in terms of game balance, but they do everything to stem the UNBALANCED levels of frustration that a good Sniper can cause in pubs.

I'm extremely fond of the idea of a bolt action rifle as was discussed on the first page that was mentioned by the Devs. This adds the missing repercussion for Snipers missing shots. Players who are shot at -- and missed -- now know there is a Sniper, and have a few more precious seconds to react to the threat rather than the Sniper lining up a second shot almost instantly and ending it there. It also allows players to more easily engage Snipers from long ranges, like the Assault, by bobbing in and out of cover, without the sniper spamming the corner and nailing you the third time you come out. Good players will still be able to place good shots, but bad players won't be able to spam luckshots and good players won't be able to spam headshots all over the place without just a tad of time in between their disgusting slaughterfest.

As far as blurs, hums, dusts, etc are concerned, I personally think that the Sniper's ice trap is annoyingly hard to see. Every other deployable object in this game has some sort of loud beep or warning that you're going to get screwed except for the Sniper's. It's just irritating to work your way all the way over there only to miss this tiny little square that instantly screws you. The ice trap will still be effective if its able to be noticed by an enemy player, just as any other deployable object in the game is still effective with its loud beeping and notification, just far less often. Which means more crappy snipers will die to players who do a good job at sneaking up on them. Believe me, you're still going to step on the retarded trap if the Sniper NOTICES you coming and starts shooting at you and you have to start dodging and make a misstep.

So, in conclusion

-Bolt action
-More notification that an ice trap is there
-Problem solved

I just skimmed over the last pages and I like how people jump on the little statement regarding my aim. I've been a comp gamer for well over 10 years, I'm trained in my equipment, I maintain my equipment.

I made the change from delayed hitscan and projectile based weaponry to nigh exclusive Hitscan this year and have practiced that with intensity.

Go figure, good players adapt.

The burden of proof regarding the longevity of a mortar shot is delivered in a file called hostilebalance.ini. I said factor 20 bare that in mind when you take a look at the numbers.

Also a skill ceiling is the maximum amount of feasible genuine skill with a class where I come from but you're as entitled as to your definition as I am to mine.

My point stands, as does BroTranquilities. Y'all can't deal with decent snipers, the burden of adaption lies on you (to borrow a figure of speech)

Yup, it's not that hard to avoid headshots. The few ones I take are because a little lack of attention.

I also have to say I have started to play Assault a lot these days and seriously... They are really OP vs Snipers Why isn't anyone complaining about them! I want my "Assault is OP" thread!

Theres no harm in making changes that affect the pub scene more than it does the competitive scene. If you guys are so good at placing shots then whats the problem with a bolt action mechanism that slows the rate of fire of Snipers in order to add a time-based repercussion to a missed shot? What's the problem with adding more notification to the ice trap mainly for pub player benefits if almost all competitive level players are actively scanning for the little bugger the second they enter the Sniper's vicinity?

These changes are literally so small but make such a large impact on the pub scene which is where the majority of Uber's profit margin lies. The fact that everything is balanced "on paper" does not translate well into real scenarios of twelve players of differing skill levels thrown together on a random server together, and this needs to be taken into consideration, not just outright ignored "because it's balanced".

Hickwarrior, are you saying that any complaints or arguements about balance should be ignored? You'd make a hell of a gamedev.

BroTranq, I don't know if you're good. If you are, cool, you can probably beat most average snipers. Nobody here said that snipers can't be countered - only that in order to beat a sniper, you have to be way better than him. Face off with an equal sniper and you'll be devastated. Even if you personally can avoid him and perhaps kill him a few times, that doesn't take away the fact that he can still punish your less skilled teammates like no tomorrow.

I still can't see the problem with reducing sniper RoF while increasing it's damage against bots. The only thing that'd do would be making it harder to kill someone with just bodyshots. Is it really good gameplay when a sniper spams a clip of bodyshots into a gunner? Sure, maybe the gunner was bad for staying in the open, but so was the sniper for not being able to score a headshot on a gunner running around in the open. The point is, if a sniper can't score headshots, he doesn't deserve to kill an opponent from the other side of the map.

And grimbar - my problem, yet again, isn't the fact that I can't deal with snipers. My problem is that when I play sniper, other classes can't deal with me, despite the fact that I'm a bad player (not 10-years-competitive-bad, but genuinely bad). Sure, every once in a while, a GREAT player can shut me down, or even a sniper with a decent aim. But I know that the players I'm dominating aren't any worse than me. If I play against them as other classes, I feel equal to them. But as soon as I go sniper, all hell breaks loose.

I do value your opinions though. It's good to have arguements from both sides. The only comments I consider plain stupid are the ones claiming that issues like this should not be discussed. If you don't like discussion, stay off the forums. Don't expect players to wait for half a year for the metagame to adapt to snipers and whatever. That's the developers job. I don't expect any sort of balance adjustments for atleast two more months, the situation is not THAT bad. The developers should lay low and see where the discussion goes, but it's our responsibility to voice our concerns should we want to see changes.

Whatever, bedtime. Try to reach page 30 before morning, mkay?

Only that isnt problem solved is it, because then snipers are extremely underpowered, without the ability to farm bots they cant upgrade their skills, they get stuck at the back even longer unable to push lanes, only able to catch the occasional kill on the noob gunner who stands midlane.

Then ofcourse the assassin, another class you have addressed as a very annoying class will be able to avoid snipers traps even easier, and without the cash flow snipers have to buff flak and traps high enough to defend themselves they are a sitting duck, a free 50 dollars to the nearest assasin.


So in conclusion, no, not problem solved you just took the class out the game, and its when developers start making choices and decisions like that based on the hysterical crying of a few noobys that the game goes down the toilet.

This game hasnt been out long enough for ANYBODY, not even the early beta players, to be able to see the overall effect of each class when played against skilled and decent players, and somebody whose been playing for just 3 days? Please...

Why can't you increase the amount of damage the bolt action does to bots to maintain the level of DPS against bots that Snipers have now so that their farm goes unaffected? That's not hard, so lets not start blowing everything out of proportion like a slower rate of fire instantly neuters any use of the class whatsoever.

Why does the ice trap have to be impossibly hard to see in order to be effective? Doesn't good positioning mean anything? And what of all these Assassins making a beeline for the Sniper -- you have no teammates to help cover you, no other skills to use against the Assassins except for your precious freeze trap, like your eyes and ears and just being aware of your surroundings for the nearby humming whirring death blur coming at you? The only thing easier to see traps punishes are bad Snipers relying ENTIRELY on the trap itself to protect them 100% of the time. You certainly make it sound as though its the only thing they have to use against Assassins, as if you can't keep an eye about you and not shrug ALL of your personal safety off on a small, cold, square trap.

Well said BroTranquilty

Silly how people think bolt action won't affect gameplay at all. It'll force bad snipers to be good! No, they'll just be worse. Watch as multiple opposing gunners destroy your team. Then there'll be a 20 page thread on nerfing gunner. Gunner gets nerfed. Then another class becomes OP. Endless cycle. The balance is quite good right now.

Like I said in my suggestions,

I would like to see hit boxes fixed first, but if you are unable to do that (make it harder to get headshots) than you have to make the sniper weaker in close quarters, and the only way to do that is to raise the skill celing (hits only skill floor is getting headshots). the best way to do that without breaking the sniper for competative play is the give him scope jerking when being hit..

the pitful max range on most weapons will leave him intact at the ranges he should be which are 3/4 to 4/4 range. (2/4 is the range an assaul rifle hits at consistantly)

that said, I agree with all points above, one man who admitadly never sniped because of aim, saying we should all be quiet and give it time, is example enough of why this class needs looking into..

its far too easy to get headshots as a sniper in MNC ( i blame this on him being blanced for joypad controls and not mouse, which is totaly acceptable), but perhaps the PC version of the game needs slight changes made to sniper..

Not after 3 days, but this game is not even 10% as complicated as say (just for example) World of Warcraft from the "class balancing" point of view, its easy to grasp the overall picture here. In fact, in that family picture Sniper stands out pretty clear.

I mean, 6 classes, two primary weapons, 3-5 special abilities, one or two map tricks - how much more complicated can it get from here ? This game is awesome because of that, its not as straight forward as any given FPS and not as complicated as an RTS or MMORG.

making headshots only possible when passive is lvl 3 would be a nice start. or removing headshots completely.. i mean the ROF and lack of recoil make it easy enough to get a few shots off to begin with, why do you need it to be a insta kill.

I don't understand how nerfing the RoF makes Gunners instantly overpowered. Why are spamming bodyshots necessary to take down a Gunner? Can't you aim at his head? And if he has the deploy head shield, are there not other classes (like Assault) that do well in pegging a fat, immobile target?

This X COUNTERS X way of thinking has always been the plague of balance discussions regardless of what game is being discussed. If X only countered Y then X would only kill Y. I've killed plenty of Gunners as classes other than Snipers -- I'm pretty sure the balance will maintain if Snipers suddenly have their rate of fire cut.

Because increased bot damage dosent help at all, with my current endorsement build, even with increased bot damage i would be required to use 3/4 bullets to clear a starter wave, and thats assuming the slimbots stand in a nice line for me.

As for the ice trap, It is powerful but also useless if detected, assasins lunge, assaults charge or fly, tank charge, gunners fly, all of these ablitilys allow them to completley bypass our icetraps, our only hope to catch a good player in these traps is for them to go unnoticed, or to be otherwise forced into them, and due to the decreased cash flow we sure as hell wont have flak to do that.

And that only just covers people travelling OVER icetraps, not to mention skills such as assaults bomb which can 1 shot a sniper without armour, and even with armour it has a massive chance of ringing you out or detonating your icetraps, but you know why that skill isnt overpowered? Because its balanced against snipers skills, just like every other skill in the game is.

As i said in an earlier post, the only class that is truely unable to dodge spammed body shots is the gunner, and it would be a much easier and simpler tweak to give the gunner some kind of fast travel get away ability, such as the assasin has lunge, make it short distanced but fast, allowing gunners to cross LoS, or get out the way of body shots whilst still allowing a skilled sniper to ping them with a headshot.

If you're getting destroyed by bodyshots as gunner, you're doing it wrong. It takes 4 seconds. That's a long time. I have never been killed from full as gunner by bodyshots. If you stay in open for 4 seconds while getting shot at, you deserve to die.

Nade spamming from max range would be effective if all the snipers cover wasnt See through, meaning he can see where you are, put the cross hair right where you are gonna pop out, see you MOVING OUT (IE prep his response time because he knows you are about to duck out) than pop your head off.

Sorry but that doesnt work, getting head shots is too easy, yelling at someone and positing pictures isnt an argument..

I understand that you would like to believe that all the head shots you get are because of skill.. as someone who has played many FPS's and who has also sniped in quite a few, i can tell you.. THEY ARE NOT.. this game is giving headshots even when you are like a heads size distance away from hittnig the pros actual head.. that is a problem..

One that would be far less apparent on Xbox, but with a mouse and keyboard, it is VERY apparent.. at least it is to me, both when I snipe and when I dont snipe..

And even if all that was not true, lobbing nades with silver RoF nade launcher will not kill him unless hes unable to react after being hit by one.. and it also requires a very EXACT distance, and scenarior.

So I can counter a sniper if he stands here on this map as this one class, so hes not OP.. that arguement has so many holes I don't feel like pointing them all out

You can SEE and HEAR it.

Again, it boils down to the people who are crying about snipers not being experienced enough to deal with them.

All it'd do is make the game more random.

Everybody knows more random is more good right?!

Exactly!

I play pretty much every class, including occasional gunner and a lot of tank, and I really have no issues with even good snipers. Don't wander around like an idiot in wide open spaces with no cover and they're not a problem.

----

For everybody whining about the snipers in this game, do you notice a pattern here

Everybody demanding nerfs is a player with a bit of experience under their belt, who probably picked the game up post release and is learning their way through it.

Everybody saying it's fine is an experienced beta player who really has no issue with the snipers at all.

I just fired up LoL for the first time yesterday and died to champion X, am I on their forum crying about how it needs nerfing? No, I suck it up and learn how to play the damn game.

Umm, snipers need to kill bots. Its one of thier balance features, they aren't a Team Deathmatch class. They perform the objective task of killing bots and zoning pros (in the process, killing some).

The bolt action thing you speak of, it's acceptable if it doesn't actually slow the rate of fire. It should only make the aiming less consistent and reliable.

I HAVEN'T HEARD OF ANYONE HAVING TROUBLE WITH SNIPERS, unless they play an obviously easy to snipe class. They play a class which is bad against snipers, then they claim snipers can hit ANY class. PLEASE, PLEASE prove snipers can be God before claiming it.

:shock:
So...much...text.

True you can hear them.. but you already KNEW they were there, so not of much help.. and as for seeing them, if you are looking at the ground (ie actively spoting them) you already had the sniper killed anyways.. you could have just put a clip into his back at that point.. I'm talking about trying to assault snipers nest, you are not gonna see that tiny mine stuck to the ground..

as an assault i just toss my bomb in where I htink they are and hope i set one or two of them off.. even than he has 3 to place.. which I think could be reduced to 2 or even 1 as is.. layered mines are alread a problem for sins especially.

That is neither here nor there, the REAL problem here is how easy it is to get a head shot..

if anything the sheer amount of NEW players saying (wow i get head shots too easily) should tell you something..

And new to a game, doenst mean new to gaming.. Ive played enough FPS's in my life to know what a sniper does, and how to counter them..

1) sniper long range killer of players and bots
2) counter = get close and pressure him

problem: pressure has no effect on his ability to get head shots, and headshots are too easy to get as is.

problem 2: he has freezing mines, that create areas of control for him up close..

Yes you can see them if you look for them but if you have time to do that against a great sniper you are already either in a position to kill him regardless or hes shooting you in the face while you look at the ground..

the only class that counters sniper is assault and he does not do so well enough to call him a counter class.. as hovering makes you a headshot target.. and bomb jumping up for surprise takes away your bomb from use, meaning you can't use it to destroy ice mines or kill the sniper.. and a quick scope is still an instant kill, meaning if he hits your head you cant kill him and if he hits your body, he can simply insta switich to smg while tossing flask and spraying.. you still have a 50/50 of killing him..


but hey, who cares.. devs will do what they are gonna do.. i'm sure 23 pages is enough to get their attention.. off to bigger and better things I say.