News: News on Nanoweave Armour and Sniper Rifles

[OCNSethy]

Originally Posted by synkrotron

Hmmm... I've recently purchased an EM4 Longshot with a 10x scope with a view to trying my hand at sniping. Would a 10x scope now not be worth it at that range? Bit of a noob question I suppose, but I've not been checking out the distances I've been sniping at (and wouldn't know how). Other games give you a headshot distance but PS2 does not appear to.

Next time you snipe, drop a personal way point on the target area. It will tell you how far you are. Not laser accurate but it gives you an idea. 10x scope will be still useful at 150m

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by synkrotron

Hmmm... I've recently purchased an EM4 Longshot with a 10x scope with a view to trying my hand at sniping. Would a 10x scope now not be worth it at that range? Bit of a noob question I suppose, but I've not been checking out the distances I've been sniping at (and wouldn't know how). Other games give you a headshot distance but PS2 does not appear to.

This isnt meant to be flip but why dont you just try out the scopes in VR - or buy them they only cost 30 certs each, and try them.

Every player is different so just try them yourself and see which allows you to shoot better at your preferred range.

[typhaon]

I don't buy the drama... just yet.

Because you can't OHK full shields/health people beyond 150m = useless!?!?

Right now - my stats show I'm no head shot marksman with sniper rifles... and yet, I find myself far from useless at range... still getting plenty of OHK and otherwise doing plenty of damage when I snipe.

People let's see how it plays.

[Edfishy]

I do a lot of my sniping with the Longshot at well past 150m, usually just at the render distance. You look for a ridgeline of engineers, snipers and HA with missile launchers and wait for them to hold still. The battle of calculating bullet drop and firing arc at that distance is part of the fun, and getting lucky enough to nail that guy with a single shot is so fist-pump worthy.

Maybe the (realistic) mechanic of one shot head shots can be returned in the future with wind factoring in at over 150m? A little UI indicator that shows the direction of the wind (maybe the little sensor darts can give a reading of wind at location) so there's a little more skill involved?

[Maidere]

Originally Posted by Edfishy

I do a lot of my sniping with the Longshot at well past 150m, usually just at the render distance. You look for a ridgeline of engineers, snipers and HA with missile launchers and wait for them to hold still. The battle of calculating bullet drop and firing arc at that distance is part of the fun, and getting lucky enough to nail that guy with a single shot is so fist-pump worthy.

Maybe the (realistic) mechanic of one shot head shots can be returned in the future with wind factoring in at over 150m? A little UI indicator that shows the direction of the wind (maybe the little sensor darts can give a reading of wind at location) so there's a little more skill involved?

"He is skilled enough so he can lolshot people from any distance" doesn't sound ok for me, sorry.

[AThreatToYou]

How Nanoweave will function soon:

Nanoweave will no longer increase the player’s health pool. Instead, it will apply a percentage damage resistance against infantry small arms and rapid-fire vehicle secondary weapons only.
Damage sources not included in the above, like explosions, will no longer be modified by Nanoweave Armor.
Nanoweave will no longer resist headshots. Against any weapon.
Against the applicable weapon types, max rank Nanoweave will remain the same strength as it is now (excluding head shots).

So you're going to throw a years worth of balance out the window?



I mean, I approve of the sniper max OHK range but please do not change how nanoweave affects headshots.

[Rahabib]

I guess Ill be one of the few. I think that these changes are great. There was never a reason to take anything but nanoweave. Also, the snipers cant OHK from an unrenderable distance. Fine. Useless?? no. just shoot them again. Or dont take shots from 300m out. 150m they said was a starting point. Play it out and see before you react.

[GeoGnome]

Sniping in PS2, is completely worthless. In theory, a sniper should be there to take out medics and engineers, so remove support... but. If I can kill 1 medic, but by the time I reload, he is revived by the 3 other medics nearby. For this reason, all sniping really accomplishes, is to pad stats. Far out sniping shots are great, because it takes a lot of skill, but at the same time again, it doesn't matter because you can only kill 1 person at a time. You can suppress people SOMEWHAT, but you really need to be insanely skilled, probably the top 1-5% of your server. Nothing is being done to fix this core problem. Infact, the proposed changes seem to hint at infantry fights getting shorter range.

Possible Direction SOE is Headed (Or maybe Should head)
Why lower range? The Sniper rifle has one purpose right now, that it can fill: Picking off lock-on users. I find the rifles are most effective at clearing AV clusters. You have a bunch of heavies standing in the open, standing pretty still most times, or moving very little. If the range is lowered so that a Sniper has to get close enough that a BR equipped Heavy can counter them, it's going to make dealing with those groups more difficult, inadvertently giving lock-on users a buff. They still get more range... Unless they wont for long. What if Lock-ons were about to get a range nerf too.

Suggestion/hypothesis of the direction they are headed
This sounds more conspiratory than I usually like to be, but consider for a moment that the other Major complaint about people sitting at too far off of a range, is with the AV Mana turret, which was supposed to be addressed in post 2, but is suspiciously absent. Why? What if the range of that weapon were to be lowered to 250? What would this do? If all lock-on ranges and wire guided missiles were to get a range nerf, 150m to snipe wouldn't be quite as bad. It will also mean that tankers and aircraft will have a range at which they can just go around the enemy AA or AV clusters. This also becomes a BUFF to the NC Phoenix, making it the RL with the greatest Range in the game. It can still sit back comfortably away from everything and pummel it into submission. These changes would make sense, as armor sitting back outside of the range of lock-ons and mana turrets, could be used to shell locations.

Guns, Guns, Guns
So, the Sniper rifles as is have 1 starting BASR, 1 faster reloading rifle, 1 powerful rifle that has more accuracy at range, and a couple semi-auto rifles. The powerful rifle (Except for the VS), allows for further off shots. Halfing the effective headshot range means that the starting BASR and the more powerful variant, have no huge difference between them, except one is cheaper. It also means that the semi-auto rifles will get a buff. If you are going to sit back at range, then you use a semi-auto rifle now. This still doesn't help one thing though: the homogenization of the BASRs. I mean what possible role will the new BASR fill? It would be tacky to make it so that the new BASR gain more range at this point. We already have a .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle... the new rifles just don't look bulkier or anything than those. If BASR use is going to be limited to shorter range conflicts than the SASRs, then BASRs need a purpose, and something to make those .50 cals and new rifles worth using

Suggestion 1: Wounding. A hit from a BASR could wound someone so that they have some kind of effect on them. In this way you can use the guns to kill below 150m, but at range they can be used to soften up a position. Reduce accuracy or slow infantry who are hit. It could be a percentage, so you get 50% chance of wounding. To differentiate the guns, the cheap BASR could have a greater chance of wounding at shorter ranges, the faster reload could have a lesser chance of wounding (But faster reload), and the .50 cal could have a greater chance at wounding, but only at the longest ranges. Maybe the new rifle could then have a different type of effect to wound, or it could interact with vehicles somehow.

Suggestion 2: Range finders. Another thing you could do with BASRs would be to make a tool that an infil can carry, that allows the 300m range, on targets marked by the range finder. A marked target would be highlighted and show it's range, the target could be seen through the scopes of all snipers in a 10-15m area around the range finder. This way, the super long range snipers would need a team (At least 2) to be the most efficient. In this way a sniper would gain some teamwork aspect to them, and some help in hitting those far off targets (Range finding). You could then even use those range finders for sighting for tanks and all other kinds of things, highlighting targets. Range finders could be located once they highlight a target too. Thereby people Know where those sniping nests are.

[maradine]

I don't spend much time looking down a scope, but if I did, I'd be pretty cheesed. Snipers are a battlefield reality. What other "poor gameplay experiences" of the battlefield should we strive to eliminate?

That was a rhetorical question.

[GeoGnome]

There is one thing that I am also mulling over now, I kind of understand the hard cap in one way. Right now sniping at a far enough range is all about clientside hit detection and lag compensation. These systems prop it up as at a far enough range your shooting at a spec, it's impossible to tell whether or not you hit the top or bottom of that spec.

That said, If the Phoenix gets that kind of extreme range, why Shouldn't snipers at least get the option, when working in teams.

[Sirisian]

I think this might be because SMG sales were low. They're trying to get people to purchase the close range weapons and the long range infiltrator role already has standard weapons that people have unlocked.

I expect this kind of "balancing" will be common as weapons are introduced. They'll find ways to remove old ones so people move on to other playstyles that require different weapons. At 150m I'm better off using an semi-auto than the Parallax for instance.

I'd be fine with the change if it made sense in the current gameplay, but it doesn't. I love long TTKs, but with fast regenerating shields and the HA overshield it just doesn't work. Nothing is less rewarding than landing a headshot and having the enemy strafe for a few seconds with overshield and their shield is back to full the second they turn it off. There's no permanence to anything especially with medics that can instant heal and instant revive. I think that would be a really good balance move with these changes. Nerf medkits to 50% over 2 seconds and slow restoration to 100% over 5 seconds and rebalance health and shields to 80/20 with slow medic heal. It would require a lot more changes, but I think that's the only way they can sanely balance things so that snipers have an actual suppression effect now that they can't necessarily kill.

I get that people don't like snipers and feel they add nothing to the game though. It's a playstyle that's a tad out of place in objective based games. Maybe it would be easier if they just removed bolt actions from the game completely to avoid any confusion?

[ChipMHazard]

My guess is that the devs are a bit concerned that we might start seeing sniper death squads, taking out groups of people at long range. Or just a lone sniper taking out groups of people at long range.
Basicly my guess would be that they are concerned with infiltrators having a more dominating presence at long range than before.

[GeoGnome]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I think this might be because SMG sales were low. They're trying to get people to purchase the close range weapons and the long range infiltrator role already has standard weapons that people have unlocked.

I expect this kind of "balancing" will be common as weapons are introduced. They'll find ways to remove old ones so people move on to other playstyles that require different weapons. At 150m I'm better off using an semi-auto than the Parallax for instance.

I'd be fine with the change if it made sense in the current gameplay, but it doesn't. I love long TTKs, but with fast regenerating shields and the HA overshield it just doesn't work. Nothing is less rewarding than landing a headshot and having the enemy strafe for a few seconds with overshield and their shield is back to full the second they turn it off. There's no permanence to anything especially with medics that can instant heal and instant revive. I think that would be a really good balance move with these changes. Nerf medkits to 50% over 2 seconds and slow restoration to 100% over 5 seconds and rebalance health and shields to 80/20 with slow medic heal. It would require a lot more changes, but I think that's the only way they can sanely balance things so that snipers have an actual suppression effect now that they can't necessarily kill.

I get that people don't like snipers and feel they add nothing to the game though. It's a playstyle that's a tad out of place in objective based games. Maybe it would be easier if they just removed bolt actions from the game completely to avoid any confusion?

That has as many holes in it as anything else.

For example:
Why would SMG sales be worse now than they were before?

Why would you nerf weapons of the least used class, to boost the sales of a weapon available to all classes?

Why wouldn't you nerf Shotguns instead of sniper rifles, as they compete the most for SMG money?

Why would you change the movement animations and nanoweave to compensate for the Sniper rifle change, if you were doing all this for SMGs?

[Edfishy]

I'd be fine with the change if it made sense in the current gameplay, but it doesn't. I love long TTKs, but with fast regenerating shields and the HA overshield it just doesn't work. Nothing is less rewarding than landing a headshot and having the enemy strafe for a few seconds with overshield and their shield is back to full the second they turn it off. There's no permanence to anything especially with medics that can instant heal and instant revive. I think that would be a really good balance move with these changes. Nerf medkits to 30% and slow restoration by 20% and rebalance health and shields to 80/20 with slow medic heal. It would require a lot more changes, but I think that's the only way they can sanely balance things so that snipers have an actual suppression effect now that they can't necessarily kill.

Well, what about a snipe to the head over 150m causing the same effects as a stun grenade? It'd give time for the bolt action to zoom out, pop in the next round and attempt to finish him off while still acting as a medic/HA/engy suppression.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by OCNSethy

PlanetSide 2 isn’t a typical FPS game and neither of the above is a valid limiter given the size of our world and the scale of our battles. The massive size of our continents means snipers can be a threat from all directions, and a visual callout on each individual sniper isn’t possible considering the amount of players we render at one time.

On the other side, giving snipers a 360° one-shot kill with unlimited range against all other players is not something we want to introduce into the game. Dying to a sniper that you never had a chance to see is a poor gameplay experience for everyone on the receiving end.

My play time has already started to fade drastically but this change may just make me quit all together and not even log in for certs.
These assumptions about snipers in PS2 are crap.
A) you still have to look out for other snipers and vehicles.
B) Countered by somewhat limited lanes, not like a small instances map but you STILL have to find sniping locations where you are somewhat safe AND can see targets.
C) Bullets are projectiles with drop and travel time. Granted not a lot of drop and fast travel but FFS a target at 300m just has to move a little to not be hit.
D) The current Nano-weave system already balanced it some, if you don't like getting killed from extreme range cert nano-weave.
E) Show me on this doll where the bad sniper hit you.

This re-balance of nano-weave is a direct buff to the grenades and AV weapons against infantry. I don't know exactly how I feel about that but I just don't see where the current system of nano-weave and sniper headshots needed a change.
On a personal note, sucks because that means I will still want nanoweave on my CQC infil but it is worthless as a sniper.