DUST Search - Request: Remove the ability for anyone equipped with a sniper rifle....

Aerius Corius wrote:

Mobius Kaethis wrote:

I'm with Aeon on this one. As it currently stands the issue with sniper rifles isn't their killing potential, its the fact that once equipped they don't do enough to support the team or even squad. Snipers are too independent. Additionally their risk reward ratio is all messed up thanks to their ability to hide in the redline.

Snipers need to be forced out of the redline to increase their risk but then given more team focused ways to earn rewards. Nerfing their weapon and/or their ability to see targets does nothing towards either of these ends.

Adding incentives is nice but I get the impression most people (some snipers included) don't actually understand the role CCP has fashioned and how well balanced it actually is. You're not going to wrack up kills and WP as a sniper unless the enemy team is too stupid/lazy to hunt you down and, again, too stupid/lazy to be aware of their environment.

That said - snipers don't kill pad (try it yourself - to get a wealth of targets means you're in range of someone's combat rifle OR the enemy team is idiotically sitting still in the wide open). Snipers control the field, mostly by fear ironically. Here's how I work as a sniper for my team:

1) I find a place to hide out - I don't redline because my aim is not good over 200m usually. What's more, most redline spots that hide you can't see around capture points...so no utility for the team. Lastly, anti-snipers look at the red-line for scouts that are speed-hacking...and find you. Sitting. Very. Still. Not good for your health.

2) My job is three-fold:

A) Kill people (force reduction) - no different from frontline, less risk but far more difficult to accomplish with lower target saturation and much more difficult target hits. Significant SP and arguably isk is needed for an effective sniper setup to consistently net kills, not assists. Head shots are rare - stand still and I might get it. All snipers complain about hit detection and such...that's for another thread.

B) Wound people (force reduction) - it takes me one hit on good days for a scout, two to three for a medium, and I almost never kill a heavy. That said, EVEN WITHOUT A KILL that dude I hit is weakened and running into my team, making him easier to kill. Assist for me (yay!) and the team has an easier time holding ground. Do you want to fight a heavy with or without shields? Yeah - I thought so.

C) FEAR FACTOR (and why I love sniping) - what do you do when you get hit and nobody is in sight? "ERMERGURD! SNIPER!" and you run for cover. I don't get a kill if you're semi-quick and you live. But what does that mean for my team? You didn't run into battle...so you didn't hurt them, and now four guys storming my team just became three. If I'm lucky you run around like a fool and I get a kill - usually I don't. But what does happen is you're alone when my team cleans up the guys YOU were supposed to support but ran away instead. Then they find you, alone, 50% shields or less...who is the coward now?

Force Reduction a la Fear.

This is what makes me, as a sniper, a valuable team asset and force multiplier. As for removing a sniper? Get over yourself and come find me in a scout suit...or heavy suit as one dude did (that ended badly for me...). Will you get less kills? Yup - you're looking for me instead of fighting. Will I die? Almost certainly - I'm a sniper with all dmg mods. No tank. My best defense up close is that wickedly OP...smg. Oops. So you could argue snipers help a team a fourth way - forcing the enemy team to dedicate a player, maybe more, to anti-sniping / sniper hunting.

Point I'm making? We support teams a hell of a lot more than that idiot running into the bunker gun blazing and wasting a clone and maybe denting one guy's shields. Play a sniper and you'll discover you're that guardian angel nobody knows exists except when you get a kill - assists aren't listed accept when YOU die and you invariably assume the guy you just killed at 0% shields was fighting one of your bros a moment ago...not 'sniped' down to size to help you.

Your welcome.
Now please post on the forums about a real problem - I recommend equipment's unreal saturation and spam rates due to ease of fitting and utility.
(20 Uplinks in one room? Schweet! I just got 100 WP for one grenade! Woo!)


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Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1310	Posted - 2014.02.23 19:20:00 - [1] - Quote I'm with Aeon on this one. As it currently stands the issue with sniper rifles isn't their killing potential, its the fact that once equipped they don't do enough to support the team or even squad. Snipers are too independent. Additionally their risk reward ratio is all messed up thanks to their ability to hide in the redline. Snipers need to be forced out of the redline to increase their risk but then given more team focused ways to earn rewards. Nerfing their weapon and/or their ability to see targets does nothing towards either of these ends. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1314	Posted - 2014.02.24 03:17:00 - [2] - Quote Aerius Corius wrote: Mobius Kaethis wrote: I'm with Aeon on this one. As it currently stands the issue with sniper rifles isn't their killing potential, its the fact that once equipped they don't do enough to support the team or even squad. Snipers are too independent. Additionally their risk reward ratio is all messed up thanks to their ability to hide in the redline. Snipers need to be forced out of the redline to increase their risk but then given more team focused ways to earn rewards. Nerfing their weapon and/or their ability to see targets does nothing towards either of these ends. Adding incentives is nice but I get the impression most people (some snipers included) don't actually understand the role CCP has fashioned and how well balanced it actually is. You're not going to wrack up kills and WP as a sniper unless the enemy team is too stupid/lazy to hunt you down and, again, too stupid/lazy to be aware of their environment. That said - snipers don't kill pad (try it yourself - to get a wealth of targets means you're in range of someone's combat rifle OR the enemy team is idiotically sitting still in the wide open). Snipers control the field, mostly by fear ironically. Here's how I work as a sniper for my team: 1) I find a place to hide out - I don't redline because my aim is not good over 200m usually. What's more, most redline spots that hide you can't see around capture points...so no utility for the team. Lastly, anti-snipers look at the red-line for scouts that are speed-hacking...and find you. Sitting. Very. Still. Not good for your health. 2) My job is three-fold: A) Kill people (force reduction) - no different from frontline, less risk but far more difficult to accomplish with lower target saturation and much more difficult target hits. Significant SP and arguably isk is needed for an effective sniper setup to consistently net kills, not assists. Head shots are rare - stand still and I might get it. All snipers complain about hit detection and such...that's for another thread. B) Wound people (force reduction) - it takes me one hit on good days for a scout, two to three for a medium, and I almost never kill a heavy. That said, EVEN WITHOUT A KILL that dude I hit is weakened and running into my team, making him easier to kill. Assist for me (yay!) and the team has an easier time holding ground. Do you want to fight a heavy with or without shields? Yeah - I thought so. C) FEAR FACTOR (and why I love sniping) - what do you do when you get hit and nobody is in sight? "ERMERGURD! SNIPER!" and you run for cover. I don't get a kill if you're semi-quick and you live. But what does that mean for my team? You didn't run into battle...so you didn't hurt them, and now four guys storming my team just became three. If I'm lucky you run around like a fool and I get a kill - usually I don't. But what does happen is you're alone when my team cleans up the guys YOU were supposed to support but ran away instead. Then they find you, alone, 50% shields or less...who is the coward now? Force Reduction a la Fear. This is what makes me, as a sniper, a valuable team asset and force multiplier. As for removing a sniper? Get over yourself and come find me in a scout suit...or heavy suit as one dude did (that ended badly for me...). Will you get less kills? Yup - you're looking for me instead of fighting. Will I die? Almost certainly - I'm a sniper with all dmg mods. No tank. My best defense up close is that wickedly OP...smg. Oops. So you could argue snipers help a team a fourth way - forcing the enemy team to dedicate a player, maybe more, to anti-sniping / sniper hunting. Point I'm making? We support teams a hell of a lot more than that idiot running into the bunker gun blazing and wasting a clone and maybe denting one guy's shields. Play a sniper and you'll discover you're that guardian angel nobody knows exists except when you get a kill - assists aren't listed accept when YOU die and you invariably assume the guy you just killed at 0% shields was fighting one of your bros a moment ago...not 'sniped' down to size to help you. Your welcome. Now please post on the forums about a real problem - I recommend equipment's unreal saturation and spam rates due to ease of fitting and utility. (20 Uplinks in one room? Schweet! I just got 100 WP for one grenade! Woo!) I'm sorry to say that all three of the things you have listed as your role are performed better by other play styles. Every other class is better at killing (force reduction), injuring, and creating fear (I'm a hell of a lot more scared by the sound of a shotgun than I am by the sound of a sniper rifle). Heck, I'd venture to say that I am rarely even worried about snipers even if they hit me. They don't dissuade me from going anywhere since they are unlikely to kill me as I move about erratically. Even calling out targets and noticing troop movements is a role better carried out by others. An active scanner is much more informative than someone gibbering at me since I can see it with my own eyes both through walls and on my radar. Currently snipers have no role. That being said I'd like to see snipers have an actually useful role on the battlefield. I'd love it if snipers could mark targets for their squad when ADSing (just for an example) or get some bonus to using specialized equipment (radar jammars, drop-uplink interuption field generators, etc...). As it stands, regardless of how much you protest, even the best snipers in the game (which you are not one of) are little more than an annoyance to other players are far from a major asset to their team. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1320	Posted - 2014.02.25 06:42:00 - [3] - Quote Aerius Corius wrote: ... Wow that is such a wall of crap that I don't know where to begin. Yes, the sniper can do all of the things you have listed. The issue is that it does them poorly. I believe that I said that pretty clearly in my earlier post. I was not pointing out that you are useless simply that the role you envision for yourself on the battlefield is better filled by people running other weapons. The sniper is a role that does note excel in any particular area of the battle field. Its a role that is intended to be specialized but is infact out classed. What is the point of a specialist role if other roles perform its specialty better. As it stands the only advantage a sniper has over other roles is that by virtue of having huge range it keeps its user from loosing suits and clones. This is not something that sould be a selling point. Sure you won't die often but if you never capture a point, can't kill as well as other classes, provide poorer intel than an active scanner, and can't even defend a letter than there really isn't a point to having high survivability now is there. Sure you may make other classes move towards cover but I'd like to tell you that any weapon can do that. Unfortunately because of the pathetic mag size of the sniper rifle, and most of the variants' low rates of fire you can't keep a target suppressed and in cover once you get them there. Any of the rifles will actually do a better job of this (I feel like I've said this before some how). News Flash: You don't seem to understand either my standards or my point. I'm calling for CCP to fundamentally rethink the way snipers are implemented to give your clearly much loved class an actual role on the battlefields of this game. Perhaps you haven't noticed that none of the major corps have included snipers in their PC teams for quite a long time? This is because of their limited ability to affect a match. They are specialized, sure, but as I've said time and again they perform their specialization more poorly than other classes, making them dead weight on the team. I'm trying to promote changes to your choosen role that will make it an asset to a team. I don't see why you feel that this is such a particular threat to your personal play style. If anything I am asking CCP to give you ways to enhance it, which you would be free to ignore if you so choose. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1321	Posted - 2014.02.26 02:08:00 - [4] - Quote Aerius Corius wrote: Mobius Kaethis wrote: Aerius Corius wrote: ... ... ... That is a fair question. How can we make snipers an asset in their core role while still making it fun for all the other classes. Snipers in real life aren't designed to be fair or let their enemies have fun. This is why we occasionally see players calling the sniper rifle UP; they want a realistic one shot one kill weapon. The down side of this, which you hinted at is that making snipers more powerful would also make it much less fun for every other class. Others have proposed increasing sniper rifle damade but giving their rounds travel time bullet drop and windage affects. I would have no problem with this at all. A one hit kill sniper rifle that was a challenge to hit with would seem to be more fun for snipers anyway. The only downside is that CCP has already said they have no intention of adding more realistic weapons physics to the game, citing something about hardware constraints. I'm not a programmer so I'm not going to take up the challenge of battling with the devs on that one. Personally I think adding a constant sway that can only be stopped by holding your mercs breath, an action which would use up stamina, along with increased damage and lengthened reload times would increase the snipers utility at long range killing while still allowing for other pkayers to have a good time. In both of these cases snipers should light up on the radar of players in a certain radius when they fire. Those guns are loud after all. I feel like there should be skills/equipment to help counter this effect to some extent though. Additionally I feel that the snipers need to have an increased risk. It is all fine to shoot people from far away but that distance itself should be the only barrier to people attacking you (or height should you get onto a building). The artifical redline stopping players from flanking and killing snipers has got to go. I know it is there to protect spawns. I was there when MCC camping was a very real thing (REs tossed from the MCC netted me many a kill in those matches where my team got redlined) so I'm not proposing a removal of the redline. It would simply be better for everyone if there was more of a reason to not stay in it such not recieving WP or kills while in the redline or a timer that forces you to move out or face clone termination. I do realize that neither of the weapon modification solutions does anything for increasing the snipers usefulness in high level games. I'll have to think more on that one since you don't like the idea of making the sniper have the additional role of ewar deployment specialist. Fun > Realism