Now that OSOK are confirmed, Should Sniper Work/Sacrifice for it?

[Dreamcast]

Reload times and accuracy seem to be winning.


I picked all of them as sacrifices but my favorite one is them having weaker armor and being able to be headshot it by all snipers.

[Lunarchild]

One thing that I think might be important. If this game supports silencers (and I think it will), snipers should NOT be able to one-shot people with one of those ^^

[Treerat]

Personally I don't mind one-shot kills as long as it takes a hefty amount of actual setup. And snipers should be (and usually are) all about setup. Finding a spot where they won't be immediately noticed (and nuked by a vehicle or artillery, perforated with bullets, or chopped up by a cloaker with a knife soon after). Locating targets that are only visible for short periods of time due to their movement and a very restricted field of view. Picking out targets standing still or moving slowly/ predictably enough that it's possible to actually hit the head (which is a much smaller target than the body). Then avoiding being found after the shot when everyone and his dog (who probably is smarter and a better person than the human) is foaming at the mouth to kill the "noob" that had the balls to dare to kill someone outside of a "run and spray" gun battle.

Plus there are lots of tactics for avoiding snipers that work - just none that people want to use because they require cooperation and mean having to forgo padding a kill count for a bit. Things like traveling in a transport instead of running around on foot,and looking for possible sniper nests before blindly running towards an obvious objective. Or the time-honored approach of planning your route of advance based on the cover available to you and a potential sniper instead of the shortest (and thus most likely) route from a known or suspected starting point to a target point (ex back door) that the enemy is certain you'll attack. If you're really desperate, there is the old standby of... *gasp* calling in the artillery you loath or getting better snipers. All those tactics are used in games and/ or real battles and believe it or not they work.

So how about this? To get a one shot kill requires the sniper (or anyone using infantry weapons) to actually hit the head hit box (not by a cert/ skill but by actually aiming for that spot). Also remove the on-screen sight from the rifle (and preferably all weapons lacking a laser sight or camera with an optical link to the soldiers HUD) so that the use of the sights (scope or iron) is required. Finally, require (just like PS does now) a degree of time for the sites to "settle" before it has any degree of accuracy. With those limits getting a one-shot kill is very much a matter of skill, certainly more skillful that the drooling, HA-toting, mossie-dropping idiots who seem to characterize the large majority of sniper-haters (and BFR haters, and AA-haters - pretty much all the ones who hate anything that isn't fodder for a Mosquito or someone toting HA).

Though now I am starting to see why PS got so bad that SOE opted to basically kill it and restart the game instead of carry out a massive overhaul. It was abrupt failure of the population levees due to the sheer egomania of the "vets" who couldn't tolerate anyone kiling them but another "vet" using a "community approved" play style (ie. reaver, mossie, or sweeper/ HA spray). With the sort of attitude I'm seeing here, I'm not surprised that Planetside died; I wouldn't want to stay in a game where 90% of my time was spent having to "defend" my preference of equipment and play style from self-proclaimed "elites" either. Especially when I can go to other games where if that starts to happen an admin comes in and starts swinging the ban hammer until the "elites" get the message.

[dm Akolyte]

As a player whose preferred play style in PS was easily sniping, I'm concerned about how it will translate to PS2.

PS is the only game where I spent a large ammount of time snipng. I normally stick to high mobility play styles in other FPSs.

What made sniping so enjoyable for me in PS, was it was so different from other games. Instead of being about 'twitch' aim, travel time and the way CoF worked in PS made sniping much more about planning and prediction.

Landing the first shot was trivial. Outdoor infantry combat was much more static than many other games. The lack of OSOK weapons, and the overall high TTK overall, meant that the accuracy benefit of standing still was worth being an easier target.
So with the first shot often being a virtual guarantee, the skill in sniping came in the second shot: hitting a moving target before they got to cover. Bullet travel time meant you had to lead your target, and because your accuracy would suffer greatly from changing where you were aiming, you had to plan ahead for which way you thought the enemy would run.
Pulling off these difficult finishing shots was what made sniping rewarding.

OSOK head shots will mean killing a stationary target will be trivial, bunless a ridiculous amount of ADS sway is added, but with bullet travel headshots on moving targets will be hardly anything more than luck unless the target is running in a perfectly straight line.

OSOK head shots won't make sniping any more 'skillful,' it will just make standing still outside for any amount of time a death sentence.

[Traak]

How about making the bullets very light, thus easily swayed by wind and velocity degraded by drag, so accuracy falls off drastically with distance.

And making one-shot executions of snipers with a pistol or knife to the head just as valid.

[Baneblade]

Rather than focus on the sniper end of it, why not do something about the targets ability to avoid a OSOK? Like special helmet options. Perhaps it is only OSOK on a lightly armored helmet.

[Traak]

OSOK only works on snipers who are shooting at other snipers. There. Now they can circle-OSOK to their little hearts' content.

[dm Akolyte]

Originally Posted by Traak

OSOK only works on snipers who are shooting at other snipers. There. Now they can circle-OSOK to their little hearts' content.

I assume you're mostly joking, but that would compound the problem frequently seen with sniper type classes; the most dangerous opponent to a sniper is another sniper. So snipers end up not being able to do anything but look for and engage other snipers, who are doing the same thing themselves. So none of them actually contribute in any way that could equivalently be accomplished by removing sniping altogether.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Treerat

With those limits getting a one-shot kill is very much a matter of skill, certainly more skillful that the drooling, HA-toting, mossie-dropping idiots who seem to characterize the large majority of sniper-haters (and BFR haters, and AA-haters - pretty much all the ones who hate anything that isn't fodder for a Mosquito or someone toting HA).

And yet it's the snipers from Planetside who seem the most vehemently opposed to one-shot kills...

I think Akolyte put it the best. Getting that first shot was always so easy...It was the second shot that took some ability. If the first shot could have killed in PS1, snipers would have been simply monstrous. Now obviously PS2 will be different, but a game of Planetside scale will have unmoving targets, so for OSOK to be balanced, snipers would have to be absolutely horrendous to use.

[Treerat]

No it's the self-declared "snipers" who are saying that. Some of whom I know (from being on the same or opposite side) rarely if ever left their reaver or mossie until the entire fight was indoors, much less for an outdoor battle.

And frankly, you people are just making the case for this being your personal bias and not an actual rational concern stronger. None of you even bothered to counter my point about their being plenty of tactics to defend against snipers, or the earlier poster who pointed out that while you people whine and cry about a sniper being able to kill you in one shot, you are all deathly silent on the other one-shot-kill weapons like Vanguard guns or those "no way out so bend over" matchups like the reaver versus infantry. To me, that screams that you really don't object to a one-shot-kill; you just don't like them when YOU aren't the one doing them with your favorite way of playing. And that is simply not acceptable because your favorite way of playing has no more value than that of anyone else.

Plus this is all a waste of bytes. That one-shot kill capacity is in the game has been confirmed says it is going to stay. Maybe instead of trying to neuter it until it is effectively removed, you should be trying to come out with counters beyond the "shitstorm of forum tantrums until it's removed".

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Treerat

No it's the self-declared "snipers" who are saying that. Some of whom I know (from being on the same or opposite side) rarely if ever left their reaver or mossie until the entire fight was indoors, much less for an outdoor battle.

And frankly, you people are just making the case for this being your personal bias and not an actual rational concern stronger. None of you even bothered to counter my point about their being plenty of tactics to defend against snipers, or the earlier poster who pointed out that while you people whine and cry about a sniper being able to kill you in one shot, you are all deathly silent on the other one-shot-kill weapons like Vanguard guns or those "no way out so bend over" matchups like the reaver versus infantry. To me, that screams that you really don't object to a one-shot-kill; you just don't like them when YOU aren't the one doing them with your favorite way of playing. And that is simply not acceptable because your favorite way of playing has no more value than that of anyone else.

Plus this is all a waste of bytes. That one-shot kill capacity is in the game has been confirmed says it is going to stay. Maybe instead of trying to neuter it until it is effectively removed, you should be trying to come out with counters beyond the "shitstorm of forum tantrums until it's removed".

Oh, nice to know I've been included in your group of "drooling, HA-toting, mossie-dropping idiots who seem to characterize the large majority of sniper-haters", despite never really having certed HA, never having spammed troops in aircav and quite clearly criticized OSOK as the sniper and not the victim. I have to wonder if anyone who disagreed with you wouldn't be put into that group...

And no, one-shot sniper kills certainly haven't been confirmed as staying, hence "Exact balance for this is not final, but that's the general idea that we're going with and we'll tweak as necessary."

And the reasons I didn't reply to your points were numerous. Firstly, no matter what people travel in or what route they take, eventually people will have to approach doorways, often doorways that can't be entered at that moment, which is when snipers would have their way with the target in question. Secondly, the difference between a prowler/vanguard and a sniper is that the sniper is much less visible, much more accurate at long range and doesn't require two people to operate. Oh, and it's not a tank. Thirdly, I've already explained that if sniper one-shot kills are overpowered, there are snipers I can rely upon to make that imbalance abundantly clear to SOE.

[Sinj]

Originally Posted by Treerat

...None of you even bothered to counter my point about their being plenty of tactics to defend against snipers, or the earlier poster who pointed out that while you people whine and cry about a sniper being able to kill you in one shot, you are all deathly silent on the other one-shot-kill weapons like Vanguard guns or those "no way out so bend over" matchups like the reaver versus infantry...

The difference is, I can hear those vehicles coming and react accordingly (even if it is only to die running). With a sniper one shot kill there is no reacting, you get the best of both worlds (silent and on shot kill).

If I were able to be instantly killed every time I stepped out of my vehicle to repair it by something I have no chance of reacting to I probably wouldn't have played PS for as long as I have.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by dm Akolyte

...but that would compound the problem frequently seen with sniper type classes; the most dangerous opponent to a sniper is another sniper. So snipers end up not being able to do anything but look for and engage other snipers, who are doing the same thing themselves. So none of them actually contribute in any way that could equivalently be accomplished by removing sniping altogether.

No, I'm not joking. OSK only working sniper-to-sniper means we can go about running and gunning, instead of having a game where 80 percent of the people are cowering behind cover while the god-like snipers are swaggering around dominating the battlefield.

Since when is it NOT the case that the most dangerous opponent to a sniper is another sniper?

There are games that cater to snipers. Planetside is not supposed to be one of them. The focus is on teamwork, maneuver, and face-to-face, vehicle-to-vehicle combat. It isn't on making it so the snipers are like real-world army SpecOps snipers with Barretts, and the rest of us are the unsuspecting Taliban, unable to effectively shoot back.

Maximizing the role of snipers ruins the game for the other 80 percent of the people. Or 95 percent.

So, I reaffirm that having snipers only able to OSK other snipers is great. You will find out how much you enjoy sniping when you are evenly matched against others who are also sniping, instead of being able to dominate the battlespace because the vast majority of people don't want the game to be Sniperside.

The game isn't balanced when you have one class of people being able to pick off others with impunity with little concern for retaliation.

If you like sniping so much, that it is important to you that you can do one shot kills, then play games, such as modded Unreal Tournament games with nothing but snipers on the map. Or do snipers only enjoy sniping when they are relatively invincible, but when they are in danger of being counter-sniped, suddenly it's no fun?

If you are a sniper, then you are the only person who can be one-shot-killed by a sniper. Additionally, due to your lack of helmet, so you can properly use your scope, you can be one-stab-to-the-head executed by anyone, and one-shot killed by a pistol at close range. That is what I advocate.

Most people lobby for what they want. Or against what they don't want, that is understandable. But for the good of the game as a whole, OSK snipers aren't good for the gameplay. And if we wanted excruciatingly realistic combat, we'd just join the real armed forces of our real countries.

I'm an AMS driver. What I want to see with our spawn points, assuming AMSes even exist, is that they are truly invisible, to everyone, at all times, under all circumstances, without the "here I am" flash that happens when they enter your field of vision from afar. Unlike the idea of OSK snipers, my idea doesn't imbalance the game in favor of AMS drivers.

However, were I the more "lobby for what I want at the expense of everybody else" type, I would be saying that we need AMSes to be indestructible, with an energy shield that no enemy can see, penetrate, or even shoot into, and not show up on radar.

But I don't, because my ides of "balance" aren't "I get what I want and everyone else suffers." I actually appreciate snipers. To give them the god-like power to instantly kill everybody else on the battlefield from long distances with no warning isn't "balance."

[Logit]

Originally Posted by dm Akolyte

I assume you're mostly joking, but that would compound the problem frequently seen with sniper type classes; the most dangerous opponent to a sniper is another sniper. So snipers end up not being able to do anything but look for and engage other snipers, who are doing the same thing themselves. So none of them actually contribute in any way that could equivalently be accomplished by removing sniping altogether.

I would be perfectly OK if they removed sniping all together in PS2. I'll always fail to see how sniping in planetside is any fun at all.

No matter your argument, I am completely biased.

When I think of OSOK I think of the original Team Fortress Classic. Yes, I was able to rack up TONS of kills, but it really wasn't all that fun for me. In such a massive game like Planetside, it seems silly that people just sit miles away from the battle with hundreds of people to target that most likely can't do anything to return fire because you've already ducked behind a hill.

With so many targets OSOK will be annoying.

[Timey]

If accuracy is penalized, it would bring shooting with the sniper close to throwing craps. i.e just aim in thereabouts and you still might score a headshot, whereas if the accuracy is pinpoint you'd have to actually be able to aim. So, a big no for accuracy decrease.

I voted for reload / mag size, but I don't really care - they'll be balanced (beta and stuff).

Also, hi.

Edit: maybe add a ½ sec sway when you bring in the scope, I'd hate sniping with that in but meh.