DUST Search - Your AFK fix, stinks!!!

lrian Locust wrote:

CCP LogicLoop wrote:

Poonmunch wrote:

Lots of the new sockets are completely enclosed. This is ok but many of the doors, entrances and areas around them are hidden or are impossible to see from large parts (and often all parts) of the map. I guess this means I can't cover my team when they jump in for a hack or cover the site after it has been hacked. Isn't that sort of what I'm supposed to do?

I find this comment particularly interesting. I understand entirely what you mean and will take this into consideration on future designs.

I would however like to ask if you had considered that you could be protecting from say people entering into those closed off areas? This way you are still assisting. You just may not have your own men in sight. Granted this opportunity may not be extremely obvious or exist in ideal locations for a sniper as well. But I still do wonder if you had considered it in general.

Covering an entry/exit point doesn't work well, because:
a) As soon as the enemy drops an uplink inside, uplink spamming starts and the fight is continuously walled (especially during domination matches)
b) These entry points are often hard to cover from the distance (100+m) that a sniper needs to stay alive. Once he's seen within this distance, he's usually dead.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 6 post(s)
Poonmunch Sanguis Defense Syndicate 348	Posted - 2013.09.10 20:32:00 - [1] - Quote Well boys, dedicated sniper here. I think some of you know me because I'm on so many of your in-game hate-mail lists (it comes with the territory when you are a sniper). I'd like to offer a few thoughts. I believe one of the best solutions to the sniper problem is to move the redlines out, so they they overlap more. I'm not a fan of redline sniping myself. It seems unsporting and artificial. Anyone in the game should be able to CQC me when I'm sniping. Also, make playable areas bigger in general. Man, I'd love to get behind an enemy team and snipe them from an unexpected direction. Big risk to me but potential big payoff for my team. Maps where the CQC is in a bowl completely surrounded by mountains are bad, bad, bad, in my opinion. Some broken terrain with hills or outcrops here and there would be better. A few maps have stretches of terrain like this but there are no objectives on them. These areas are wasted space. The absolute best defence against sniping is counter-sniping. A ton of my kills are other snipers. It is a whole meta-game in itself. I love it when the guys in my corp ask me to hunt one down. Or when two snipers know each other are out there and it becomes a grudge match interspersed with sniping the red CQC guys. A second excellent defence against snipers are scouts with shotguns. Or anyone who cares to walk over to me with any weapon. I'm usually always scoped in. Boom! Sniper paste. I haven't found any ladders or otherwise climbable tall features on the new maps and there are lots of wide open spaces. There may be some perches but I can't control the map rotations to give myself a chance to find them. This doesn't mean I'll give up looking, though. The dropship solution is not a bad one but unless the pilot is on comms I can't ask to be let off on a building or mountain. He may not even realize I'm a sniper. And let's be honest, blueberry dropships are usually a place where you wait around, doing nothing before you die. Lots of the new sockets are completely enclosed. This is ok but many of the doors, entrances and areas around them are hidden or are impossible to see from large parts (and often all parts) of the map. I guess this means I can't cover my team when they jump in for a hack or cover the site after it has been hacked. Isn't that sort of what I'm supposed to do? I'd like to help scout for my team but the new scanners (the ones I've used) don't have the range I need to snipe and scan properly. Sniping is usually done at a range of about 400m. There may be some scanner variants that can scan up to 400m, so I might be wrong. I can still use my eyeball but I can't really take in big movements, now I'm usually just reporting stragglers, snipers or people at the fringe of the map. Very occasionally I can spot a bigger group that my team isn't aware of. To be clear: I don't want squad vision back, I'm just pointing out things I notice. Lots of the hackable stuff is inside the new sockets, on top of structures, underground or on hills. It's dangerous enough for snipers to hack the old types of objectives because when we do it we are behind the action with no-one to cover us. Now it is a bit more of a gamble because I have to run up or down stairs and around corners. I always seem to run into sentinels with big, nasty guns and worse attitudes. HTFU you say? Ok, that's fair. I'll stay put until I can grind myself to a decent skill level with a CQC weapon. But wait, that means I can't also carry my sniper rifle unless I use a commando drop suit. Commando suits aren't noted for their big slot arrays, so I can't fully prep the suit for either role. HTFU you say? Ok, that's fair. I'll stay put. Snipers aren't usually packing the top of the killboards to my knowledge. Are we that big of a problem? Players just need to move randomly. It's a pain in the keister to snipe them when they randomly shift around. I think everyone knows this, if not I just gave away the biggest secret in the game. Sorry other snipers. But the big thing is that almost all of the CQC combat seems to be taking place inside the new sockets. Most of the new slots are enclosed nearly completely. This means that most of the players are inside the new sockets for fair stretches of the game. It can get a bit lonely outside the sockets. I sometimes feel like I'm AFKing. The only difference is that I'm not rubber-banding (and never will) and cooking a souffl+¬ (and never will) instead of playing. Having said all of this I'm going to reserve judgement. I need to play these maps for a few months to see how things shake out. As the Dev posts seem to indicate, the changes will be monitored and I'm sure they will be revisited if they are a problem. Munch
Poonmunch Sanguis Defense Syndicate 369	Posted - 2013.09.16 05:31:00 - [2] - Quote 2100 Angels wrote: Snipers camping on top of roofs "dominating" sockets, are 100% the easiest targets on the field, and is why I haven't used the "gimme" sniping locations provided by CCP in the past 2 builds. Amen bro, amen. Guys in those spots are begging for lead between the eyes. Which I'm happy to provide. 2100 Angels wrote: Now, this comment is coming from a generally dedicated sniper, so I can see the argument that their only counter is from other snipers; which is true. But is the solution to that really to limit snipers from gaining vantage points? Or is it to make those vantage points easily accessible to other classes? I fully agree that sniper vantage points should be accessible to anyone. 2100 Angels wrote: I am absolutely astounded that level design has been designed specifically so that CQC takes place in an enclosed space protected specifically from sniper fire and hack points are safe zones from snipers. I was surprised by this as well. 2100 Angels wrote: You take away any effective ability to defend and/or control a point? This was essentially the only thing that could be done well within game mechanics (not including obvious things like intel/spotting) aside from killing. This is a critical point. Hopefully they are listening to our feedback. If we keep it reasonable and well thought-out, we can hope to get reasonable adjustments. 2100 Angels wrote: This has disheartened me a lot. I absolutely loathe playing the new maps with either of my primary roles (shotgun or sniper), and I will often leave and just wait for a game on the old maps. This has caused me to play a lot less, because these maps just aren't enjoyable. I hear you. When a new map pops up I'm starting to think about leaving the battle, find a new contract and wait for an old map to pop up. ********** CCP LogicLoop has been responding in this thread, so don't lose hope. Keep the feedback reasoned and constructive. Munch
Poonmunch Sanguis Defense Syndicate 369	Posted - 2013.09.17 03:36:00 - [3] - Quote Looking back on all of this, I wish they had told us that the "new direction" was going to sniper-proof big parts of the game (NULL cannons, etc) and to promote CQC inside closed structures. Perhaps they could have gotten some feedback from us before such changes were implemented. BUT ... We have what we have and it is what it is. So the way forward is to be constructive. Post in the DUST 514 Map Feedback ---> Outposts forum. Here. But guys, please keep it constructive or we will all get tuned out. Munch
Poonmunch Sanguis Defense Syndicate 369	Posted - 2013.09.17 04:08:00 - [4] - Quote lrian Locust wrote: CCP LogicLoop wrote: Poonmunch wrote: Lots of the new sockets are completely enclosed. This is ok but many of the doors, entrances and areas around them are hidden or are impossible to see from large parts (and often all parts) of the map. I guess this means I can't cover my team when they jump in for a hack or cover the site after it has been hacked. Isn't that sort of what I'm supposed to do? I find this comment particularly interesting. I understand entirely what you mean and will take this into consideration on future designs. I would however like to ask if you had considered that you could be protecting from say people entering into those closed off areas? This way you are still assisting. You just may not have your own men in sight. Granted this opportunity may not be extremely obvious or exist in ideal locations for a sniper as well. But I still do wonder if you had considered it in general. Covering an entry/exit point doesn't work well, because: a) As soon as the enemy drops an uplink inside, uplink spamming starts and the fight is continuously walled (especially during domination matches) b) These entry points are often hard to cover from the distance (100+m) that a sniper needs to stay alive. Once he's seen within this distance, he's usually dead. Yah, one uplink in an enclosed space with an objective pretty much nails it shut. If someone gets within 100m of me, I need to run like heck because I'll die in 20 seconds if I don't. Munch