Let's have a mature discussion about the Sniper and Balance.

Pointing and quickly clicking the mouse buttons.... derived math....
Hmm.

Also, did you just say that no Sniper is going to get better than rarely getting quickscope headshots?
I would say that's a bit naive..?

Also, snipers can technically instakill almost any class in his LOS.

Yet, tanks, gunners, assault, and assassin can get kills outside of LOS. Around stuff, over top of stuff, and near-instant on snipers.

Truth, just saying.

Besides, I say just nerf him a bit, as well as the assault moneyball damage, so we can break the nerf bat in half and never use it again.

I honestly think you can. The same way other classes are more or less balanced today in my opinion. Assassin stands out a bit in good hands to some extent as well, but this is more than acceptable. I do not translate my failures vs better players into thinking their class is OP. Maybe some pre-adolescent kids do, I don't.

Actually I found out that I can farm pros like mad with an Assassin, that how easy it is. So, being honest, I admit I would not think absurd to nerf the class a bit either. But I will not actively stand behind it, because I realize that perfect balance is not possible. Sniper however is much much more obvious.

While your attitude and general sarcasm could use some work here. I actually feel that assault's bombs do too much damage to money balls (when directly attached they act just like a headcrab on a pro and do an additional 2000damage. And assault is my main class at the moment (though I try and round out the teams with whatever we need if assault isn't needed.)

GL + Juice is also insanely powerful vs moneyballs :shock:

THIS is obvious. Either I am blind, or sniper is not obvious at all to someone that thinks about snipers ahead of time and acts accordingly.

Don't say a game shouldn't be about avoiding a class, either. In that case, take out assault bomb (you have to avoid that if it blocks a path), support firebase (that also has to be avoided), tanks entire gameplay (avoid an area with a lvl3 charge tank like the plague).

Either way, nerf the assault if you are going to nerf anything, just his moneyball damage please. Then, nerf the sniper idfc anymore it's not my class. Then, nerf the assassin and I still probably wouldn't care, though I would STRONGLY consider maining tank and gunner forever more afterwards. Then I hope you can go cold turkey on the "it needs nerf herpaderp" addiction.

Because Snipers doesn't have flak...

Due to inherent map design, other classes take too much work to get into the range to be a threat. Even when they are, flak/traps with a short retreat to base are too much of a deterrent for most classes. It's better to just run away and try another lane.

Honestly, I would rather like to see map changes first before I see sniper changes. A sniper can cover too much. A sniper on high ground is hard to engage with limited jump-pads that are easily defended and highly predictable.

The second issue to look at is armor. Armor adds too much survivability to "the soft classes". The offensive endorsements for other classes doesn't offset it (and I don't think it should). The problem, however, is the low hp classes by default come with high damage output and have too much control on when to engage and disengage a fight.

I still maintain that if anything is done, quick scoping is probably not the thing to change. Adding to his reload speed a little more would provide people with more openings to get in and out of cover and flank a well placed sniper. If someone wants to play a body-shot spam sniper, they can still run reload/armour/clip and have all they need(already one of the better builds), and I don't think it would make them non-viable in competitive play, though I'm sure grimbar would know better.

As for assault's grenade launcher, yes it needs adjustment while juiced against the moneyball, but as a support player I think the juiced shotgun needs some slight adjustment as well. While it doesn't always win the game, it certainly gives us a giant advantage if I can juice rush their moneyball. No one class should be able to reduce the moneyball to pitiful health in a single juice.

Maybe shotgun recieve nerf of 20-10%. That is because letting a support get that close is a fail-team move.

I won a game as assault by doing 100% moneyball damage in overtime from the middle of steel peel. You can bounce grenades off the pillar to the right of the moneyball and bounce them into the moneyball. Default class assault with no skills upgraded either, because the enemy did that to me 2 games in a row so I switched just for overtime. Needs 30% nerf for sure, that weapon has broken moneyball hit capability is the only reason. Bomb needs 40% nerf as well, simply because it doesn't need to stack with grenade damage.

Every additional 0.1 second in reload speed reduces the theoretical damage per second by 1, but it would allow a more leisure pattern at the cost of reduced bot killing capacity. If you offset a change in reload speed by an increase of fodder-damage (to retain the original bot-killing capacity) it could be something.

The obvious question would be "how much is enough for these guys" as the current default reload speed is 2.5 seconds. Every 0.5 seconds extra also make reload speed more viable as endorsement in terms of theoretical DPS gain, it plateaus from 3.5 to 7 seconds afterwards it gets less viable again. Shifting away from RoF or similar endorsements would just promote other endorsement builds (as I've not been using RoF, clip size or reload speed for the past days) and it'll retain our ability to kill stuff.

Such a fix, as I believe, wouldn't appeal to the masses because the Sniper remains a Sniper. You know that guy in base that nobody likes because he's disconnected from the fight etc.

Good points, surely. I could see around 3 seconds working(maybe a little less) if you adjust his ability to clear bots accordingly; a three second gap means snipers will have to either count their shots or run clip/reload, and anyone who's smart and playing anything short of support or gunner will be able to get closer in that time to harass the player, whether they're a bad player or no. Then it's up to that sniper's individual skill to see whether they can defend themselves at mid to close range.

I'm going to be honest here, the more I see you actually comment on sniper balance the more I realise how hard it is to make these kinds of changes. I do believe a change needs to be made to make it less easy for a mid range player to shut down a pub game as sniper, but that's really hard to do without making him impossible to play in comp. I think the issue is not whether people hate sniper, which is always going to happen(as it does with the assassin), but whether he's more difficult to counter than he should be, which I'm starting to think is the case at the higher level of pub play.

I've always found the sniper's damage against bots surprisingly pitiful. Two headshots to take down a blackjack or four bodyshots? A fodder bot shouldn't be taking gold armored tank damage, if you ask me. Bouncers, sure. Blackjacks, not so much.

As a modification to an idea I saw earlier in the thread, perhaps a reverse damage dropoff at much closer to point blank ranges? Headshots would still do the same damage, but quickscope bodyshots would be less of a substitute for the SMG, providing people with their opportunity to take him on if they get into close range, but still providing the sniper with tools to come out of it unscathed.

Side note, what endorsements are you running for sniper if you don't have rate of fire, clip, or reload?

Using your example of 3 seconds we would need to buff fodder damage by roughly 9% which isn't all too much. However an increase of 3 seconds may or may not be enough for a general pubber to close the gap, can't say without testing. Good Snipers count their shots anyway, to position accordingly. Enemies counting shots should be a given, provided they know what kind of clipsize you are running etc.

The SMG does much more damage than bodyshots up front anyway, I mean MUCH more - we're talking about a factor of 2.5.

I guess, help me out here, it's the close-range quickscope headshots that people are annoyed by (as they tend to be not too hard on the bigger targets).

I am currently running Golden Accuracy (for SMG), Silver Armor (to survive facestabs) and bronze skill recharge (best option for that slot really, and more defensive utility in exchange for my reduced primary damage potential is nice)

There are many factors to consider when it comes to these things. I never said "no easy fix" in a light fashion as I've considered these things quite often. My conclusion I already posted, much to the dismay of some.

If I knew a good fix, one that doesn't gimp him too much but still gives the general playerbase what they deem fit, I would have said so by now but alas right now it's pretty much just group A says "you know he's kinda easy to control when you play against him" and the other group says "oh my god he destroys worlds and devours children". Finding that middleground is beyond my capability in design as I've never delved too deply into it - as well as lacking the complete source to make more qualified claims.

The main problem is the people on both sides of the debate overreacting to the issue and obfuscating the argument with half-truths, anecdotal evidence, personal attacks and lack of consideration for the reasons behind why there is a debate in the first place.

I won't point any fingers, but you know who you are.

While I agree with the bomb dmg nerf (really it just needs to have the extra "attach" damage removed for money balls which would be FAR more than 40%.) I disagree with the grenade nerf. The situation you mentioned is more the fault of the maps design. MOST of the problems with snipers also have to do with map design rather than the sniper himself.

Sniper is fairly balanced on LazeRazer (though I personally hate how HUGE his flak is at level 3) he has fewer options but can still control a lot of key lines, but you also have several alternate paths you can take that he CAN'T effectively watch. Sniper is possible to shut down on Ammo Mule as well, though he has A LOT of alternate spots where he can move and still clear waves of bots and harass/kill pros with relative safety, he is easier to approach than on say Steel Peel/Spunky Cola/GrenadeIII all of which give the sniper either FAR too much safety for the amount of area he can cover, or are simply much too hard to approach him without his noticing or you being intercepted by another teammate.

Just as you have teammates whom can be attempting to distract the sniper the sniper has teammates who are attempting to protect him. Assaults grenade launcher is good for annoying snipers to play more cautiously but it has a limited range, travel time, and its only doing what I just said to the snipers. Forcing them to move. Until you get close enough to actually do something (which is extremely difficult on specific maps) then the grenade launcher is like bringing a knife to a gun fight, on average you are just forcing him to change locations. If being hit actually messed with the snipers aim (like how most fps games work) then we might have a different story.

Here is what I would do to the sniper that would hardly effect his bot killing/quick scoping/ect.

Add a damage threshhold system that causes the snipers aim to jitter when taking more than X dmg over X time (this means a stray bullet wont f' up your headshot, but if that gunner is hitting you more than once or twice with the minigun you'll have a harder time shooting back.) It also makes harassing the sniper more rewarding. Obviously this would only effect his accuracy with the rifle.

Remove scoping while in mid air. If you jump you drop out of scope. You can scope again the moment you hit the ground, so its still perfectly viable to quick scope - jump - quickscope - jump but no scoping in mid air.

Do the same for Assault then, since he can aim down the sights without a speed penalty mid-air.

Getting jumping headshots on an assassin trying to hug you is beyond hilarious though.

Never mind, its pointless to give all the facts, they don't get addressed. Let me just say


1) Assault: Add 20% to recharge timer on bomb, across all levels.

2) Assassin: increase lunge timer to 8 seconds, to help reduce the assassins ability to hit and run targets, both pros and bots. This will help the enemy team stop his juice gain, and reduce the speed with which he can wreck bots and bases.

3) Sniper, add .3 seconds to scope animation, to stop INSTANT quick scoping.. this wil only really effect the best snipers, though SURE any sniper can quick scope, but we pretend that they all do it.. THEY DONT.. most times we die to a sniper its because we got out played. However at the higher skill levels, like a excellent assault vs a very good sniper, the sniper has too much advantage at close range. Because the truly good snipers CAN consistantly land instant scope head shots at certain ranges.

ADS and scope aren't really comparable, but this is a trade I'd take any day .

I wouldn't, but if we are going to go that route that do it this way.

Sniper can no longer jump and scope, neither can assault, but assault can still HOVER and scope.

Fair trade.

Not even close to a fair trade since the sniper lacks the ability to hover and jumping is our way to reach harder to reach targets as it is the jetpack that enables that for the assault, besides a gunner isn't meant to be mobile "by design" either yet he has a jetpack (one that used to be the absolute bomb). What gives?

True, but the assault HOVER is an ability. its not like a jet pack or jumping, its not a simple mechanic.

1) each class only had 4 abilities

2) if you are going to say If A changes than B changes, than you have too make the change evenly.

If you limit jumping and scoping/ads'ing, than you have to do so evenly accross class's. While I would agee that if you limit jumping scope shots, than you can limit jumping ads and even JETPACKING ADS for gunners. I would not agree that it is the same to take away the ability to HOVER and ADS for the assault.


Besides ADS does not add anywhere NEAR what scoping adds. Not even CLOSE..