tl;dr version: For the most part the damage in this game is based on consistency. Snipers derail this.

You are biased to hell. Understandable, of course, since this is probably the only class you really love, but the truth is the truth -- sniper really is out of place. No class consistently gets instant kills across maps, save snipers. That is out of how many classes again? The spy is the only other class that has a solid gib weapon, and yet it happens to be an in-your-face thing that requires patience. Never mind the fact that anyone who is used to the game has a good chance of spotting and countering spy movements, but that is a different argument.

Fuck, change rifles to fire African tribal monkey poison frog darts that damage over time 5x as much as medic poison and travel fast enough to require a little bit of prediction. Remove most of the fully-charged rifle damage and make the victims suffer penalties, such as extra explosion damage taken or something. These are just random bull-shit ideas to counter the main problem at hand: Instant kills from across the map belong in the more realistic war games like CSS, MW2.

The weird hit boxes do not help the problem much, either.

If there is to be any nerfing of the sniper's ability to kill at range, two problems have to be fixed:

1. The hitboxes.
2. The binary nature of the sniper. With the speed this game is played at, one miss and the sniper is useless. Problem #1 makes this happen a lot more than it should.

If you want to play TF2, then play TF2. I dislike the "scope" concept, no matter which game it's in. TF2, DoD, or whatever.

I would rather take the "scope" zoom, and fill the screen. I don't give a shit about the range of the zoom, but FFS don't black out 3/4 of my screen. It pisses me off.

I had a thought on the sniper situation:

It seems this is mainly an issue for pub games. Leagues think they're useless, so it's kind of a non-issue there (though correct me if I'm wrong).

You can't remove the sniper. He does have uses in non-CTF games, plus you're basically saying "hunted" shouldn't exist either.

I think Credge is right in saying a lot of the problem is map based. Snipers often immediately have their best spots right out of spawn, and the only counter is another sniper. If people really have a problem with this, why not make "no snipe" zones, the way you have "no build" zones now for engineer? This would do two things. First, it would make the sniper more exposed, since he would have to get closer to the yard to do some damage. Second, it would decrease the frequency of being sniped, because he would have to spend more time running to where he needs to be, rather than just walking out of the spawn.


EDIT:

Even easier idea: This would only work if there's a large consensus, but why not remove the sniper on maps that he's considered useless or too problematic, but leave him on maps where he adds a real function to the game? Waterpolo already does this.

SPIES



Enough said.

Sadly enough, spies can be seen practically anywhere as long as they are cloaked and moving. Can easily spot them from their side even in Aardvark. If it was on a ff-enabled server, a sniper may be more hesitant to shoot someone he thinks is an uncloaked spy. Negating this is the fact that a sniper can just use a non-charged shot and tell if it is friend or foe via the tags. 9/10 players would not let a spy get close to them regardless of cloak or disguise. This is why Fortress Forever spies have become a null factor against snipers.

If you can't get across the yard in ff_aardvark as a spy, you're not playing the class properly.

Or the sniper can see cloaked spies across the yard.

Also what the fuck is with this bullshit "as soon as you get close, you instagib the sniper in return, so it's fine!" That is the worst argument I have seen in this thread (aside from all of cujo's). Does a soldier lose his ability to aim rockets when a medic shotties him? Fuck no. Neither do snipers. I die just as much when I'm trying to juke snipers as when I'm just getting through the yard.

And yes, I'm constantly "messing up their aim", don't think of using that again. It doesn't work. Neither do concs, at least against the AR (which is too fucking strong as well).

Let me spare someone the feeling of rage while he plays a broken class that enrages pretty much everyone else. Yeah, that makes a fuck-ton of sense. Let me consider your feelings. I know, it's tough being a Sniper. It's tough having the ability to cripple an enemy's movement capabilities, it's tough having a native wallhack, it's tough being able to kill people from across the map while they are helpless to defend themselves, it's tough with a Sniper Rifle that can deal 500-600 some damage maximum. Oh man! Snipin's tough work, tell me about it.

/strokes chin and nods, pretending to care.

Anytime you want to play sniper, and I'll play every other class, just to show you how wrong you are..... let me know.

That's an irrelevant implication. The unfair advantage is still there whether or not I could capitalize on it. If I manage to miss every single shot on you, I would still have taken those shots from a safe distance long before you could effectively fight back. They would have still had a high amount of intended damage and the potential to cripple you and leave you broadcast to my team if you would survive. So, no, that's a bad argument or implication there.

Though, learning to take hold of these unfair advantages requires minimal effort and a few hours of practice. These advantages are not the benefits you get from being 'skilled' or 'experienced' with the class. They're broken gameplay mechanics (at-least for Fortress Forever, maybe some other game like Call of Duty 4 would be more welcoming of them.) period.

Thank you for proving my point.

What point would that be? My response was that, no matter how I play the class (badly, well) the advantages that make it cheap and ruin the experience for everyone else are still there. I wouldn't be raging people, because I can't aim for shit using the Sniper (I never argued it didn't take skill) but when I got around to doing so, I would be killing people before they could defend themselves and with minimal effort.

Even Elwood could probably easily be spotted by anyone with a clue. I can spot most spies moving as far as aardvark and express without scope, so tell me how their cloaking is fine? Moving and stopping for an hour to get to a base entirely unnoticed should not be required in this fast of a game, either.

You still proved my point. If Sniper is so easy to learn, then even you(who claim to suck at it) should be able to easily dominate me as any other class. The fact that you won't step up proves otherwise.

The sniper rifle is a hitscan weapon. Point and shoot, hit or miss, all in an instant. As 'skill' increases, accuracy approaches 100% regardless of range. There is no downside to being far away, nor even close. The weapon works the same regardless.

The rocket launcher is not a hitscan weapon. It takes time for rockets to reach the target. As a soldier's skill increases, his ability to hit a sniper from base to base on aardvark does not follow suit. He must get closer to his target to operate effectively.

The super shotgun is a hitscan weapon, but it weakens as the bullets spread out. A hit from across the yard will do about 5 damage, and barely faze an opponent. Better shotgun skill will help land the shots, but they are almost neglible at such a long distance.

Do you not get the point?

I play everyday, & I have noticed that 90% of the time if something is unbalanced, everyone seems to balance it out.Also I tend to play scout more that anything else & if i didnt have a good sniper, there is not one class that can stop me from at least getting into your base. So imho I think that the sniper has a useful role in keeping the onslaught of scouts/medics to a minimum. But also you have to remember that the sniper is just in the pubs where all the noobs start off, its a good class to keep new ppl interested.

leave sniper alone.

make yards smaller.

getting shot by sniper is not a problem.

what is annoying for non medic/scout class is trekking 2000 miles across the yard over and over again.

I'm removing myself from this thread. Seems to me some people just can't see things even if you circle it in red.

Any snipers that can't kill in 1 bullet is a bad sniper :P
If you nerf the sniper's damage, it removes the core of the 1shot 1kill mechanic of the sniper. honestly, this thread doesn't belong here.