The Sniper Debate - Once and for All!!!

[CDaws]

Dragoon412 from what I know of military knowledge, and if I'm wrong let me know, snipers don't go into combat alone as you have said. They do have a spotter to watch there back so they can complete there mission. If you ment alone as in no backup your right there, depending on the mission, and unless there also acting as advance scouts. But, no a lone sniper does not go into combat alone. You talk about how some snipers are nut cases, going in alone by themselves would make them like that over time. As far as Planetside is conserned one-shot-kills should be left to light and maybe med armor with a headshot or chest shot, nothing less. Heavy armors maybe a little damage but, not one-shot-kills. As for the Max armors very miniscule damage, nothing more than an anoyance to hear a bullet bouncing off metal. That's why there's anti-armor and anti-vehiculer weapons. I still think the sniper thing in some games is very over rated. You get some players that they think one-shot-kills to the head should take out everyone like there some kind god or over whelming force that they decide when and where a player gets fraged or not. Thoes are the real nut cases. As far as the scope sway issue goes probably the best example I can give is the Return to Castle Wolfenstein setup. You can't go prone, it does take a few seconds for the scope to almost stop swaying, and if you croutch the scope sways even less. After each shot you have to reposition your scope and wait for it to almost stop swating again to get a good shot. Ok I will get off my soapbox now. And oh yeah let the flames fly, it's cold where I'm at.

[Camping Carl]

I don't think it'll ever end, even after PS is out.

[CDaws]

Bet your right Carl. Some people are never satisified.

[Hamma]

[Zatrais]

nah, keep iy going... lets see how manny dead horse picks hamma has

[Navaron]

place youre bets, I say he has 14 more...........

[mistled]

Ok, I'm all for seeing how many pics Hamma has, so on we go.

I'm all for an incredibly slow reload time. That would keep people with no skill from taking multiple potshots on a group.

I'm also all for making the bolt driver require a cert that's really difficult to get.

Also good is the idea that snipers can only carry their rifle and a pistol.

The way I'm hearing it, the entire problem people have is that no one (including me) wants to see a hoard of snipers running around. If you make it very difficult to hit anything and almost force people to kill in one hit, that should help. If done properly, it could get to a point where it is not a thing of a sniper 'can' kill in one hit, it's that they 'have' to kill in one hit. Make the reload time slow enough (and don't let people using sniper rifles in max armor for the love of all that's holy) and force some skill to be involved and that should help alot.

If these things were put into play (slow reloading, difficult cert, and limited weapon selection), I don't see how you could still require multiple face shots to kill. The way I see it, and I think many will agree, snipers should only be used for demoralizing troops (and then sparingly) and for assassinations. In real life, it's going to be very rare for the target of an assassination to be in heavy body armor. Look at the world leaders today. You never see any of them in armor, much less head armor. That will be completely different in Planetside. I can't imagine a general in Planetside who won't be in at the very least medium armor. If medium armor requires two head shots, you just eliminated the entire use of snipers. I know that's the point for some of you, but some of us will never wear a max and wish no one else did either, but you don't see me whining about how the max should be stripped of all that makes it cool just because every noob who wants to be able to run (well... jog) into a firefight without dying right away will wear one. (and no, I'm not trying to reduce a max here, I'm trying to get a sniper rifle that works right. If you want to survive a shot between the eyes, get in a tank, where I can't see your eyes to hit them.)

Here's a thought (one that would probably never be done, but could work). What if you had to be given sniper missions?? What if there wasn't a sniper rifle for the general populace (or maybe just the weak ass one people seem to want)?? What if someone of high rank (I don't know how hard each rank is to get, so I don't know how high a rank this should be) had to give you a sniper mission (and thus, the gun to use on it)?? What if (this could be harsh, but it could be tried) the sniper could only shoot his target with it (have the gun coded to the target and only enable when that person is in the crosshairs). That would prevent people from getting an assignment and then just running around with the gun.

Thoughts??

[Navaron]

Just a note.....MAX wearers can only use one of three sets of weapons, ANti Air, ANti Tank, and Anti Infantry (Is that right, it doesn't seem right). Now the Idea of a higher powered rifle, that has a "victim" is a great one. That would symbolize the real life threats that icons in the military face. Waxing them would be very hard, and would greatly disrupt the flow of the battle. I like that idea alot. Plus you still have to get the hell out. I also hope the crosshairs aren't static (or at least immediately).

[Zatrais]

Yeah MAX's can only have 1 wep configuration at a time and you need a cert for every one of them.

and 1 shotting MAX's... won't happen.. As hamma said MAX's are walking tanks.

[Dragoon412]

SPecialOp,

Yes, spotters often go with snipers in assassination missions, but that's not necessarily the case all the time. In fact, in most cases, it's not. For assassinations, the spotter makes the mission more likely to be successful, but usually the spotter is a trained sniper, himself, and in the case of demoralization (which can more or less be treated as indiscrimminant killing of the enemy in a certain area), you're much better off with two highly-trained snipers that have guns that're capable of covering more area than one with a gun and one with a pair of binoculars.

[zMessiahz]

*yawn* Snipers are an inconsequential bore. They appeal to people who enjoy sitting back and waiting for targets. People who shy away from going toe to toe. Then they talk about skill... yeah sitting there and shooting someone under zoom while you don't have to move takes oh so much skill. Let them have their 1 shot kills on small armor. Big whoop so they will get lucky and kill you once in awhile. Still I'll get more free kills from them whenever see one.

[orogogus]

well, at the risk of seeing yet another hamma dead horse picture (is that really a risk? =p)... and having lurked for a good long while and not recalling seeing a suggestion like this before (even though I'm sure the idea will get buried in the signal to noise on this post) I'll just throw it out.

I thought the Splinter Cell on the Xbox had a good system for aiming while sniping... the crosshairs are always floating, and you hold down another button to 'hold your breath' which drains a bar that slowly fills back up again when you aren't holding down the button (left trigger in case anyone out there cares what the xbox controls are =p). While this bar is draining, the crosshairs don't move and you have pretty close to pixel perfect aiming... just takes some time to get on target (and aim with a fugging analog controller). You probably have ~5sec of steady aim on a full breath, and about 1.5x to fill the bar up again from empty after a shot (assuming you use the whole bar). Pretty decent system IMO, especially with the analog system which makes it a bit harder to line up the shot after you start to hold your breath for the shot.

*edit cause spelling is... hard

[mistled]

Originally posted by zMessiahz
*yawn* Snipers are an inconsequential bore. They appeal to people who enjoy sitting back and waiting for targets. People who shy away from going toe to toe. Then they talk about skill... yeah sitting there and shooting someone under zoom while you don't have to move takes oh so much skill. Let them have their 1 shot kills on small armor. Big whoop so they will get lucky and kill you once in awhile. Still I'll get more free kills from them whenever see one.

Three things.

One... Since you obviously have no respect for any sniper, why can't they have one shot kills on anyone? If you are so confident that they will get 'lucky' only 'once in a while', what is the harm of letting them kill you when they do get 'lucky'?

Two... Did you notice that you said sniping takes no skill and then immediately said that snipers would only get lucky once in a while?? If there is no skill involved, why would anyone have to be lucky??

Three... You mention snpers who sit and wait for some random person to cross their path. I agree that the lone sniper who sits in a random location to cap random people is stupid and defeats the whole point of being a sniper. Snipers should never be set up in random locations. They should either be set up to defend a location (or an object... like the briefcase in an infiltration game of sof2.... I know it's annoying, but hey, learn to out shoot them ), or they should be set up to assassinate a particular target. Any other time, a sniper will be trying to get where he is going (usually deep into enemy territory) without being seen. He should be anywhere but some random place taking pot shots at grunts. Let grunts shoot grunts. Snipers have generals to kill.


By the way, I haven't seen much mention of the idea that a leader of high rank would have to give out specific sniper missions. What does everyone think?? (Or should I just make that a whole new thread??)


I like most ideas I've heard about adding breathing to the game for the snipers. It could even be something as simple as America's Army did, which was allow you to hear yourself breath. When you pause for a breath, the cursor stops for about three fourths a second and you shoot. It's the only game that has ever forced me to turn up my speakers to make expert marksman.

I also want to mention (I forgot to my last post) that the only legitimate argument I've heard against snipers is that they respawn, thus taking away the fear of death that being surrounded twenty to one brings. But I can levy that same argument against anyone who has ever played a capture the flag game by just sending a steady stream of guys at the flag, knowing that everytime someone grabs it, it comes a bit closer and that eventually, the flag will be captured, even if the whole team has died three times.

mistled

[Navaron]

I freakin loathe snipers but I can't argue with that logic. I still like the Idea of a special rifle to wack certain VIPs. (Like Hamma)

[mistled]

Hey Hamma,
You could see if someone would assign you a sniper mission to go take out that lake.