HappyKitty BunnyPony
Certificate of Participation
7
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Posted - 2013.01.18 04:47:00 -
[1] - Quote
Being that I've been playing a big fat Heavy lately, I'm a popular sniper target. That having been said, I don't really die to snipers that often, not because of my legendary tactical awareness but because I run in terror to cover any chance I get. I find snipers annoying, and I consider many snipers parasites that do nothing but pad their kills at the expense of their team, but I don't curse their existence.
I primarily play Skirmish, and the main issue I have with snipers is that I want to play the game as I believe it is intended -- capture and hold the objectives -- and I think snipers often distort that purpose. Snipers can play a legitimate role in Skirmish by defending/denying objectives, spotting enemies and relaying them to their team, etc., and that's all good and well. But a lot of snipers are clearly just looking for kills, and don't really care what the point of the game is, as evidenced by snipers that let their teams lose because they can't be bothered to leave their cozy camping spots.
It's not that snipers are unbeatable -- it's that stopping what you're doing to avoid or attempt to kill snipers has nothing to do with the point of Skirmish, in my opinion. It's kind of like someone bringing a baseball bat into a football game and randomly hitting people with it -- the issue isn't whether it's effective, the issue is that it has nothing to do with the game, and it reduces the fun of trying to play the game when someone else is playing another game in the middle of your game. (And yes, I know that reducing enemy clone counts and generally disrupting their ability to capture and hold objectives does contribute to your team winning -- let's just not pretend that most snipers are doing it because of their brilliant strategic planning).
I agree with the point of the video -- as it is, being killed by a sniper feels random, and it doesn't make the game more fun, unless you're the sniper. But my main issue is simply that their presence too often makes the game about avoiding sniper fire or killing the snipers, which isn't a very interesting game to me. Obviously it's a matter of what you consider fun. |