Ideas on how to balance the sniper

No, do not keep it coming. I don't support snipers, it's my worse class. This thread has gone on long enough, either the devs can read it and make their own conclusion, or whatever. If you need me to play beside you every time you play against a sniper, thats fine too. Whatever ends this.

These posts, yours or anyone elses, aren't contributing anything anymore. Sniper counters have been posted 200 times, reasons snipers are overpowered have been posted 200 times. It's good for your post count, but there are some threads in the Off-Topic you can boost that on.

We told you how to counter snipers. You just refuse to acknowledge it. No point in arguing anymore.

All this whining is just pathetic.
I always find it funny how all those complaints about overpowered classes always come from below-average players. The problem is not that the class is overpowered, it's the fact that you are getting owned big time because you suck. I mean really, snipers?

You play a gunner? Your mortar can take out a sniper in 2, maximally 3 shots. If a sniper manages to take you down before you get him or at least scare him away, congratulations, you positioned yourself wrong. If you can't shoot with the mortar for whatever reason, just stay out of the snipers line of sight, it's not like he can shoot through walls.
You play a support? Don't be a dumbass and stand around watching the sniper shoot you, don't build your firebase in an open area and you're fine.
You play a tank? You can outshoot a sniper with your railgun, just don't stand around waiting for an incoming headshot while doing so.
You play an assault? Bomb jump to the snipers location and kick his ***. Also, use the mobility of your class properly and you won't get shot.
You play an assassin? If you have any complaints about sniper, you must suck horribly. Go there and kill him, you are the sniper's counter-class.

Solution to all balance issues currently present in this game? Learn to play.

Actually right now I'm thinking you're a terrible Sniper.
You don't understand even the basics of Sniping and the weapon's features - or what it's capable of.

I am honestly hitting my head on the desk right now.

So are you saying that Snipers will never be able to quick scope?
Are you saying that they will never be able to reliably quick scope?

Because I know a lot of MW2 players who can reliably quick scope. I know a lot of BF players who can do so too. In TF2, they of course patched it, so, less there - but I know a few players who are quite close.

What the hell is your point even?
Assume that a player can reliably quick scope in MNC. As I'm sure will become the case.
Do you think this is balanced?

You're tip-toeing around the issue... what do you think will happen with quickscoping in MNC?

I think you're unaware (and blissfully ignorant) of what Snipers can do.
Please understand that there will be actual situations with map geometry in which indirect fire won't work by the way - forcing the player opposing the Sniper to move. Which means free shots, right?

Also, dodging and such is much more of an issue for projectiles over hitscan. Just if you didn't know.

Really now?
I highly doubt that.

If you don't understand how reliable quick scoping can be in certain games (MNC will be no exception) - I'm forced to assume that you were a career Sniper in Ragnarok Online.

Oh my god.
You're dragging me back here?

The Sniper's effectiveness at his highest levels of human play is GREATER THAN THE OTHER CLASSES.
GOD DAMN IT.

Okay, I'm starting to sense you have no idea on how games are balanced, the meaning of skill ceilings and floors, or the idea of peak skill.

Okay, so say you want to see how good each class is. Are you going to put them in the hands of people who have never played the game? No. You wouldn't get any results - though you may get the one with the highest skill floor.

If you want to measure how good a class is - as in, to what extent it can be played, or its raw power - you're looking at high skilled play. Every single game with an active community and a metagame comprised of tier lists and such WORKS FROM THIS VIEWPOINT. So if you disagree - you're disagreeing with competitive communities across all games. Even Super Smash Bros.

If you have one class at its best, and another class at its best - and one is more effective in all areas - that one's better.
There's no point in comparing noobs (as they may both do completely the wrong things)
Or, comparing regular players who are only decent (as that's not representing a class's ACTUAL POWER. It's representing a PORTION OF ITS POWER.)

Like. I dunno, is there any point of me typing this out?

You don't understand how a 100% pinpoint accurate, long range, instant-killing weapon with a 1 second fire rate (that's before you add Gold RoF yes?) could be imbalanced?

We're done here. There is just no way you're serious.

Yeahno. I asked you to cancel the random variables a and c, not eliminate b.
Durr.

Please explain to me how variables such as player skill and good snipers are kept equally random between everyone.

Cause as far as I know - little random facets of random player skill lead to the very different team synergy styles in competitive TF2 across the world. Go look in to that.

I live in Australia - maybe there are more good Snipers in Australia, maybe I happen to play the same servers over and over, as do some good Snipers.

Also, I think when it comes to the Sniper, this thread is split somewhat evenly in number. Though, I do happen to know that a lot of players defending the Sniper play Sniper almost exclusively.

I don't think you understand what I was trying to say - I have played good players of every class - but it's the Snipers that I have issues with.

Well, that just demonstrates that you have a poor understanding of projectiles - especially ones that bounce - while sure, you can bounce grenades into Snipers, just a small different in the aim (say you had to strafe to dodge a shot) or a small movement by the Sniper and you get radically different results in trajectory and damage.

Hitscan versus projectile... Hitscan versus projectile...

Ah, see now I get you.
You actually think that the Sniper's highest human skill level is equal to the other classes.
LOL.

That's a little presumptuous isn't it?
Like, Team Uber had to adapt the Sniper for PC right? That would be assuming that the four bullets lots in the clip (?) actually perfectly balances the change in aiming ability for PC.

Also, it's completely dumb.
Accurate hit scan. Goddamn.

You're saying really stupid things now.

I'm gunna go ahead and use the fact that quick scoping is a notorious enough skill to be known across many games and even to developers - and the fact that many recent competitive shooters have completely removed or severely limited quick scoping to be an example of why Snipers have higher effectiveness at peak human skill.

I do assume that game developers understand what they're doing...

Oh, and... of course... it's general knowledge. You know. Hitscan... perfect accuracy...
Again, is this all necessary? It's plainly obvious.

Kinda funny, I already addressed all that in my previous post - you know, the one you changed the subject on.
Try again.

As you know, you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that lowing the Sniper's Rate of Fire would completely gimp him and make him useless/

Also I like how you're stating that Snipers rely on bodyshots now - and that it's too hard to get headshots.
You must certainly suck, and you're basically saying that the Sniper should be balanced to low level play.

You're actually proving that you don't know a thing about the game.
Yep. Let's balance all the classes to low level play.

Sniper = OP

Solution 1: Mortar is not hitscan speed, sniper rifle is, and also sniper rifle can potentially be shot from positions the mortar has trouble getting to.

Solution 2: Pretty much 100% correct, except on ammo mule where *almost* everywhere is open.

Solution 3: Railgun is a decent deterent to the sniper, its by far the best item for fighting them. Unless the sniper has an armor endorsement, then its pretty much a fight of "who can get 3 shots off first" since the sniper can't 2shot a tank who has max health + gold armor.

Solution 4: Once again, hitscan vs projectile. If the sniper has good enough aim you can easily get picked off in mid air before you even get to him.

Solution 5: 100% correct, assassins are designed to counter snipers, if you pay enough attention to find his traps, and are careful when moving you should be able to get him easily. Still with enough practice a sniper could potentially see the cloak outline and kill an assassin from long range before they even have a chance.

Once again it comes down to a matter of potential ability vs practical ability. If a sniper is good enough he WILL win almost every fight before it even starts. However in practice this will rarely be the case.

has this been mentioned before?:


sniper headshots needed to kill a light class at full health = 1
sniper headshots needed to kill a medium class at full health = 2 (unless the first was a crit- not really sure how that works or if possible on a headshot)
sniper headshots needed to kill a heavy class at full health = 2

a small update like that would not make sniper useless would it?

Taste, that is about how it works currently.

A sniper headshot does 500damage iirc. So unless you're packing armor endorsements then its 1 shot for light, 1 for medium, 2 for heavy.

When all the experienced players are basically saying that to you, maybe it's time to take the hint.

225 base scoped, 5x multiplier for a headshot.

30 pages......wow........

I have to point out, experience doesn't always = skill or even understanding.

I played Starcraft for years but I've never been good at it.

On the flipside, the first time I played Counter-Strike was at a lan party in a 100person tournament, and I took 3rd place.

Another good fix by me.

Apparently the experienced MNC players on here have the skill to not die to snipers enough to whine about it on forums.

I think that's the important thing to take out of all this.

This is going to last forever isn't it? :|
Meh I'm gonna stop contributing to this thread... Just let it die already.

I'm just going to quote this post from page 16 to point out where most of the agression towards snipers comes from. Yes, a lot of people have been complaining about OHKOs. I think they should learn to deal with those. However, there have been several posts that DID actually adress valid points and which got completely washed out by the amount of crap in this thread. Even one of the prime snipers of this forum agrees that there is a problem around the transistion of the sniper from the Xbox to the PC, which is the entire point of the whole debate.

So let me say this again: an easy fix DOES exist and I presented it various times only to get completely ignored time after time. Every time someone proposes a lower RoF on the sniper to make spamming shots less valid, a sniper brings up the bot killing capabilities. But is it really so hard to just increase the damage vs bots of both the bullets and the explosions to compensate for that? Really, that's all I'm asking for: a sniper that doesn't get *edit* 4 OHKOs each 3 seconds. */edit* (there, happy now?) A lower RoF would hardly affect good snipers at all. They make their shots count anyway. But in pubs, it would make the snipers a lot more fair and rage-inducing.

The only reason I posted this, is because I want to have a real answer. Every time I bring up this suggestion, some sniperhater posts and all snipers jump on him, completely ignoring my suggestion. Believe me, I'm not stubborn. If you present me a valid reason why lower RoF and higher bot damage (and probably higher juice gain per shot) is a bad idea, I'd shut up.

This is pointless. You keep ignoring whatever points don't fit into your crazy theory in lieu of circular logic (It's OP -> because I say so -> because it is -> because I say so... et) ad nauseam.

I can assure you, I know how to play a sniper. I know how to quickscope. You can still do it in TF2, I sure do. I know how quickscoping works, I do it all the time. I fight against it all th time. I'm telling you, it's fine. Here's the kicker, since you seem to be all caught up in comparisons with other games, even though according to your definition of "peak human" the Sniper in TF2 should be the ultimate weapon (one hit kill on most classes, 1 headshot + a quick body pop for most others), he's rarely used in competitive play. He's generally passed up for both the Scout, which he can one-hit-kill with an headshot OR a full charge body shot; the Demo, which has no hitscan weapons, die to one headshot and 1 body shot IF not damage, generally to a single headshot; the Soldier (same story as before) and the Medic (1 headshot).

According to what you seem to think is reality, the TF2 sniper should be a staple of competitions. Yet he isn't. He's used something, by the really good players, but rarely, even for them. Yet, classes that should be instantly dying to him, do not. In fact you'll rarely see a Scout lose to a Sniper of equal skill.

I'm gonna just, reinforce the idea once more even if I'm perfectly aware you won't get it. Simply because you don't want to get it. You're clinging to this comfort idea that it's not you that sucks, it's the sniper that's op! Off course. Funny enough, look who's backing your point up: people like tinygod and taste, who don't even know the game mechanics they comment on (hell, taste even posted that hilarious video of him getting headshot 5 or 6 times in a row, in the EXACT same spot, before he realized "mhh...maybe I should try something different!". At which point he killed the sniper). At any rate, I'll lay it down: Other classes have their own tricks up their individual sleeves you can exploit. If you don't, it's your own damn fault.

It's funny, because the people generally recognized as good players around here, are all the ones that came into this thread saying "nah, it's fine". It's all the newbies and the substandard players that go "OMG OMG OMG! SNIPUR IS BRO-KEN!". Hint.

I can't help you anymore, because you don't wanna be helped. When you're ready to let go of the comfort pillow of denial, we can talk. Maybe try playing against a good assault (isn't statement an Aussie? Not sure, ask him) Till then, enjoy getting killed by good snipers.

You can't solve it for the common variable you idiot... Neither should you. You get nothing from it. The objective is to eliminate what they have in common, leaving only the only consistent variable - player skill...

That's impossible.
The sniper's firing rate is not 0.25, neither 0.33, it's at it's fastest 0.7, so he can't score 3 consequent headshots in one second, he can do two headshots in one and a half second!

Great, but you still didn't answer my question why it would be so bad to lower the rof and increase damage vs bots. Stop nitpicking, that was a writing error. I meant 4 OHKOs in 3 seconds (and that's still a freakin' lot, just saying). Now give me a real answer. Every time I post something, the most important part of what I say gets dodged and people start picking on details.

I suggest your 4 teammates spread out a bit.