And a double :facepalm: to you, good sir. I'll work under the assumption that you read my entire post, though from your response that fact remains in question.

As I stated, it's not about what you get, but what you lose. You can make sniping as difficult as your kitten heart desires, but it won't change the fact that sniping, by its very nature, is more conducive to a higher KDR than all the other infantry ranks.

And if we assume that an assault with a mid-level suit coupled with a mid-level gun will die 4-8 times a match, a sniper who gets 1 kill by sheer luck (due to the difficult nature imposed by what we'll call the "Sleepy Zan sniper mechanics") will still beat an average AR wielding assault in profitability.

EDIT: I should also note the short-sightedness of your post. Once corps have the ability to take on hefty contracts, this will all be a moot point, as those who win will be bathing in ISK. The profit margin of a lone wolf sniper, though seemingly high now, will be pennies once the game launches.

Haha. Pennies compared to the payouts of nullsec contracts.

Also, I was in the E3 build as well, and everyone took a dropship up onto the towers to camp. The reason they didn't use sniper rifles was because using the turrets on the ships was much more effective.

But I'm getting off topic, and Tinodi is absolutely right. The current matches don't accurately reflect how things will play out with null contracts. That's what people fail to realize, and that's something CCP should look at implementing now to test. No reward means having to increase your own profit margin in other ways.

Edit: And the other reason for fewer snipers in the E3 build was because of RE's. People went 30-3 with RE's. Why snipe when you can just toss an instant "I win" mine.

Yes, which is why if players got 4X as much ISK for winning, you would see a sharp drop in sniper population.

Ha. OK, so make it 20X. Make it 10X. I don't care, I was just throwing out a number, but make it significant. And then, yes, really, it would change quite a bit.

Honestly I have to agree with SingleTap on this one, adding a bigger reward for being on the winning team would cause ALOT(not all) of players to rethink they're strategy. Yes there will always be those players that like to play lazy and sit in one spot all day, and they won't care about a big payout. Most players will however though, everyone wants to level up and add abilities and such, well training books cost a good amount so setting the pub rewards at a low rate and adding a multiplier for the winning team would incourage MANY to seek other methods so they don't have to wait for 200 matches to learn that new skill.

If there are stakes, people will play to win. As there are currently none, people camp. Few play to win now. There is no reason to try to win. Why should anyone try to beat the other team? The object of the current game is to score WP and lose as little gear as possible.

Agreed, sniping 100% needs some sort of difficulty increase, even if it's only scope sway when crouched and in between shots, (which really does need to be there.)

Also, I see quite a few posts about how it's become so much easier between the last build and this build is because they removed scope sway between shots, and that's why we're seeing such an increase in sniping. However you're all forgetting that in addition to that, the render distance has been increased to be far more than what it once was. Before, if you were on objective B on the 4 point map, you wouldn't be able to see anyone on objective C because the render distance was abysmally short. It wasn't that there were fewer snipers because it was intrinsically much harder, it was just impossible because you literally couldn't see farther than 1/3 across the map before everyone just disappeared. Now that snipers can see anyone from anywhere, the incentive is there to shoot from as far away as you can.

And as an aside note, while yeah I could sit back in a militia fit, sniping can get expensive in of itself. My super-duper-snipey-suit costs me around 90k, and even if I do really really well, I'll still be earning barely over 100-120k per match because objectives is what earns the big bucks, so I can't afford to lose more than one before going negative on isk rewards.

Also, Sleepy Zan, I'm really looking forward to the weekend match, hope to see you there man! glhf

I didn't say it was hard. I said it was broken. At it's base the mechanics are broken. Such as the shield flicker I mentioned. Although I do think sniping takes more skill than ARing and HMGing. Always have and always will. Im all for bullet drop and travel distance. As long as when the round hits and I see your shield flicker you take damage. Such isn't the case at the moment. It's more like a lottery at the moment. Will he take damage this time lets see? Nope his shield flickered, I got a hit marker and he took cover, but he took no damage. ******* Bullshit lazy ass coding.

Like I said come Tuesday Ill be a ghost in Dust anyway. This game has great potential but not until they fix about 90% of it and stop rewarding spraying bullets everywhere and balancing a tank to where it can be killed by 1 or 2 foot soldiers. That's ******* ignorant as **** as well. So everyone can think what they want and kiss my ass in the process. Im out come Tuesday for a good long break.