Snipers in PS2

[ArcIyte]

How do you want them to function?

They are easily my #1 pet peeve with Battlefield 3. No one wants them on their team, and no one wants to fight them. Sniping in BF3 is also very easy, so even the average joe can be incredibly annoying and put a huge damper on an otherwise fun game.

Snipers in modern FPS games are assclowns. Some 15 year old kid who just watched Enemy at the Gates. I think they should expand on the role of supporting marksmen instead of the "lone wolf" sperglord sniper. I want to see it played as someone who gathers intel for their outfit/empire and can help a firefight from long range.

They mentioned Infiltrators getting some kind of spotting efficiency certs. That's a step in the right direction as far as teamwork goes. An idea of mine is maybe they can fire special "tag" rounds that function kind of like a SOFLAM in BF3 or tracer dart in BFBC2, so that lock-on AT weapons have reduced or no lock-on time.

[Conq]

I hope they function more as support. Finishing off targets, spotting, suppressing other snipers, ect. Maybe let them headshot other Infiltrators but I think a Heavy Assault should survive a few hits, at least.

Typically it's just too easy of a class and the only time I really enjoy them is when they are harder to play. Tribes 2 and SW: Battlefront come to mind as two games that required two headshots with long reload/recharge pauses between. You had to work for the second shot as players freaked out, zig-zagged and darted for cover. I never played PS1 so I don't know how they functioned there.

[Lonehunter]

Be nice if Sniper's where the only ones who could spot people

[StumpyTheOzzie]

I wonder how much of a PITA it would be code it so the rounds are affected by wind, elevation, temperature, planet rotation etc etc and also to not have the bullets be instant travel.

it's too easy to just line up the sights and click. If they work hard enough to be able to do it properly, then they deserve 1 shot kills.

[Warborn]

PS1 did it perfectly by making snipers more of a support function than anything else. You could still get kills as a sniper, but your main use was suppression, taking out deployables or other important targets, and so on. If they make it anything like BF3 the game will probably be fairly terrible for infantry. The huge, open areas of Planetside would mean that unless you're fighting in a base, you'll be having headshot wars with guys too far away to effectively engage with shorter range, less accurate weapons like cyclers and so on.

So, ideally, no one-shot-kills, difficult to aim, and maybe with more of a spotting/suppression role. Maybe even make them fire shots that inflict status effects in addition to doing a moderate bit damage. So bullets that slow a target, cause some effect to a vehicle, mark a target to be visible on everyone's map, etc. Making snipers powerful would do a lot to kill the outdoor infantry combat game, so frankly I'd rather they underpower them than let them have any chance of being dominant.

[Cricetinus]

I imagine the role of the sniper in PS2 to be taking down squishy VIPs like medics and engineers. That is in addition to counter-sniping and general suppression fire of course. I am very intrigued about how the scouting aspect might work though, marking enemies through scope for alternate methods of elimination sounds pretty sweet.

I remember a few battles in PS around some giant bridges though, I had a lot of fun sniping during those.

[ThirdCross]

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

I wonder how much of a PITA it would be code it so the rounds are affected by wind, elevation, temperature, planet rotation etc etc and also to not have the bullets be instant travel.

it's too easy to just line up the sights and click. If they work hard enough to be able to do it properly, then they deserve 1 shot kills.

Bullet drops/speed are going to be in PS2 so no hitscan snipping.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Warborn

PS1 did it perfectly by making snipers more of a support function than anything else. You could still get kills as a sniper, but your main use was suppression, taking out deployables or other important targets, and so on. If they make it anything like BF3 the game will probably be fairly terrible for infantry. The huge, open areas of Planetside would mean that unless you're fighting in a base, you'll be having headshot wars with guys too far away to effectively engage with shorter range, less accurate weapons like cyclers and so on.

So, ideally, no one-shot-kills, difficult to aim, and maybe with more of a spotting/suppression role. Maybe even make them fire shots that inflict status effects in addition to doing a moderate bit damage. So bullets that slow a target, cause some effect to a vehicle, mark a target to be visible on everyone's map, etc. Making snipers powerful would do a lot to kill the outdoor infantry combat game, so frankly I'd rather they underpower them than let them have any chance of being dominant.

You don't necessarily have to remove 1 shot kills to balance them. Add a charge function to them like TF2's sniper, make it much longer of course. Relegates sniper rifles to sniper role and limits the amount of killing they can do within x time period without limiting the top most strength of the rifles. You can effectively make them very powerful like this but limit them from being stupidly annoying like Battlefield.

By doing this you can completely limit the sniper to a glass ceiling of strength when played perfectly. Added benefit is that they lose all awareness of their surroundings in being forced to play like this too.

In conjunction with giving lower power none charge rifles, and closer range rifles, the infiltrator can serve both long range and squad level roles depending on how people want to cert it, and the snipers in game can be limited in their annoyance level.

Though, really, both methods achieve the same thing, limiting the killing speed, I personally think a 1 hit kill hs charge system is weaker than a 2-5 hit system without charges, if you force them to wait til full charge for every shot with these rifles they're less effective because the lower damage rifles would kill much faster due to wounded opponents going down in fewer hits etc. Not to mention no scope in charge system means they can have full surroundings awareness too.

Not that I'm saying to make it exactly like TF2... Just to use the mechanic as it offers good possibilities for speccing.

Also, the downtime between shots means they "should" occupy that time looking at enemies they can't shoot doing something else, like hitting the spot button for someone else to shoot them.

[Bags]

I heard non-headshots will take 3 - 4 shots in a recent interview. Nothing on how much headshots will do.

Originally Posted by ArcIyte

No one wants them on their team, and no one wants to fight them.

This is 100% how I describe them.

[Thoreaux]

The absolute best thing would be if they straight up copied PS1's system. That is, give the bullet significant travel time (realism be damned), and require the gun to be held perfectly still for a second or so before firing (again, realism be damned). This makes sniping a motion prediction task, not a twitch skill, making it a bit more of a cerebral task requiring an investment of practice to get good at.

Also, I am a big, big fan of a 2-shot kill system. 1 shot kills are.... troubling. I like the idea that the first shot provides a warning, and the second shot is the real contest between the sniper and their prey. Did the target go too far from cover? Can you guess where they'll be even though they're zig-zagging? Do they know how to move randomly to throw you off?

What kept snipers balanced in PS1 was the fact that most snipers were not great at landing the all-important second shot, leading many people to regard the bolt driver as a weak weapon. If you could land the second shot reliably, however, the bolt driver suddenly became a very powerful tool. It took time and practice to get to that point, though.

So key points:

• Motion prediction, not twitch
• 2-shot kills
• xXxL33t5niperGokuxXx decides to change his name

[Bags]

Originally Posted by Thoreaux

=
xXxL33t5niperGokuxXx decides to change his name

Sorry Goku~

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Thoreaux

Do they know how to move randomly to throw you off?

Left. Right. Left stop left. Right stop right stop right. left. Repeat.

Too much Halo.

[Mjolnir]

I think they said in one of the interviews (or somewhere) that the VS would have some sort of energy weapon sniper rifle that did not have bullet drop, but it would do decreasing damage over range or something along those lines. This seemed to indicate that the normal ballistic sniper rifles would be more powerful at range but harder to aim properly.

I personally can't stand all of the sniper hate in modern FPS games; it led to the stupidly absurd scope glint in BF3 that made snipers completely useless at what snipers are actually supposed to do in real life. The sniper class should be very hard to use to keep away "1337 qu1cksc0p3" 12 year old children, but not be completely nerfed into oblivion like in BF3. I would like the sniper class to be able to remain concealed (which is impossible in BF3 because of the ridiculous scope glint, automatic minimap spotting when you fire your weapon, and stupid 3D spotting) and still do a bit of damage; in real combat snipers are used more as psychological warfare than anything else (as well as assassinating officers); if you make snipers unable to properly conceal themselves so they can be spotted too easily or make them too weak then they won't instill any fear in the enemy and just be a slight annoyance.

The devs have pretty much already established in their interviews that infiltrators are going to suck at close range if they choose to equip sniper rifles, so I think they should be pretty powerful at long range, i.e. 1 hit kill headshots against lighter units. However I think there should be bullet travel time and bullet drop.

And to be clear sniping in BF3 is not really that easy; just because a ton of low skill players attempt to use the sniper class does not mean it is easy to use. Most of the snipers I see in BF3 are astoundingly bad and can't land headshots on stationary targets, let alone moving ones at a distance. The fact that all snipers are basically autospotted by the scope glare makes them pretty useless on the whole and not much of a threat, especially since you can usually kill them at sniper range with an assault rifle.

Basically I look at snipers in FPS games as a high risk, high reward class; they should have powerful weapons but landing headshots should be hard. I don't think making them "harder to play" by making it take multiple headshots to kill is the right way to go; I think instead it should be harder to land those headshots. Otherwise snipers end up being at a disadvantage overall, since shooting someone in the head twice with a "long reload pause" inbetween will likely take longer to kill an enemy than just shooting them with some sort of assault rifle at the same distance.

[noxious]

Originally Posted by ArcIyte

How do you want them to function?

As cannon fodder. Fortunately, it doesn't really matter what they do to the class, as it's a failure-magnet in every shooter, so you can always count on snipers to be easy kills. There are the rare snipers with skill, of course, but you don't see them very often.

[Shade Millith]

Never had a problem with snipers in any game.

I honestly can't see why so many people are whinging.