Community 'Poll' About Sniper

[Bridget]

There was a request on the main Sniper thread for letting the community sort out the Sniper situation, even though it was pretty much concluded by some of the development team members to be somewhat of a problem. This thread isn't for discussion, just drop your opinions into the poll and move along. Others and I would like to see what the community thinks.

State in text whether you think it should be tweaked or revamped, removed or restricted. Spare the discussion. Take that to the other Sniper thread.

[chilledsanity]

You may not want a discussion, but when you only have the options overpowered and underpowered and both apply and you don't want a contradiction, it makes it kind of meaningless.

[Bridget]

Care to explain? I am talking about his potential damage. Do you think it is overpowered, underpowered, or balanced ("I believe that the Sniper is balanced in terms of power.") that he has the potential to insta-gib heavier armored classes? That's the question I am asking there.

[chilledsanity]

Even ignoring range, I think it's a mixed bag. A GOOD sniper will plaster your ass to the wall constantly. If you can't even get out of the fucking spawn without some elaborate scheme, that's overpowered. In big games, the sniper's usually just a nuisance, because there are too many targets to be hit all the time. In league games he doesn't do enough to affect the course of the game. In those situations he's underpowered.

I realize you're looking at the instagib capability, but it takes him time to charge it up, he has to stand relatively still, and he can't go after more than one target. This allows the power to swing both ways, hard. I don't see it as simple as over/underpowered.

EDIT:

You can't look JUST at raw damage. If you do, the demoman with his detpack is the most overpowered class/weapon in the game.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

You can't look JUST at raw damage. If you do, the demoman with his detpack is the most overpowered class/weapon in the game.

That's a good point, and I never really thought about it. Yeah, people would say the detpack's raw damage makes him the most overpowered class in the game by that standard, but generally the demoman is regarded as somewhat balanced. Should I have written "I believe that the Sniper is generally overpowered, underpowered, balanced." instead of focusing on one aspect?

[chilledsanity]

Honestly I'd leave both and just allow people to be contradictory on that. In dropdown and aardvark I think the sniper is just a pain in the ass. In dustbowl I think he can be very functional. In avanti I don't think he does much.

[be_]

I like all classes.
Sniper is my least fav to play.
Snipers do not piss me off to the point of rage quit. Even if they kill me a lot, I do not want them out of the game.
Sniper should be worked on and balanced somehow. I don't know how. Every suggestion I've heard, doesn't sound good. Some overpower it, others are just cool extras that serve no point in making it better (just cooler). Radio tag, I liked. I hear people say "wall hack" regarding that, but that tag was damn useful to me when on d and it lasted longer. I think that was a good step at making him more team-oriented.

In FF snipers are the first defense.
In real life, they are ??? first offense? I don't know what you'd consider them.

This is a team based game though, so I'd try to find a way to make sniper more helpful to the team. The game's usually about capping or defending something, but they seem to take best the roll of yard d. I'm not saying all u snipers are good for nothing, but really, if you're a sniper, that seems to be what you do. You kill people in the yard and you kill other snipers. And you do that very well, but I dunno, maybe you could do more for the team's goals, whatever they may be. At the least, you could alert your team about who's coming into the base and from what enterence, but that is up to the player individually and not controlled by the game.

I would like to see something alternative from the typical sniper. Just as an example, if you really are a great sniper, why don't you plop yourself in the flagroom?

[mervaka]

because it's easier and safer to distance yourself, and use the range advantage. this is the problem.

[Bridget]

The problem with Sniper being a first-line of defense is that his range and safety advantage make him too good a line of defense. In fact, so good that the forward and rear base defenders have nothing but Scouts and the occasional Medic to deal with.

Sniper is neglected in league play (because people prefer to use movement heavy classes like Scout and Medic to get as many captures as possible, and the Sniper can't keep up with the flow of O.) so we have to examine this more from a pub perspective. Pubs turn into DvD amongst other things because of the 2 or 3 or 4 Snipers that hang around popping off any momentum toward a push to the defense on either side.

What one sniper in league couldn't do, two or three in a pub can. This is not just a case of the defense doing well. Take the forward-base defenders, the real 'front-line'. It consists of Soldiers and Heavies and maybe a lone Engineer on pubs. Now, to combat these classes, you have to get close to them. They must be close to you in order to defend from you. Not absolutely the same distance, but close enough.

It comes down to whoever can get close and use smarts and force to tip the battle in their favor, because the opportunity for both players to interact come at nearly the same time. The Sniper's interaction ability is constant no matter his range; The other nine classes only have interaction ability at close range. So, battles with the Sniper come down to whether he gets lucky and hits you or you get lucky and prevent that from happening. You have to avoid his 'session of interaction attempts' to get your own.

It's like playing Chess and allowing your opponent the ability to move ten times before your opening move, which gives him the ability to rig the board in his favor before you even get a chance at moving a single pawn. The other classes? Well, they take turns and level it out by being restricted to close range.

Sniper? No, it's called 'rush across the yard as many times as you can so you can at-least get a position where you can interact with the Sniper to combat him. All the while traversing the map, he has full interaction capability with you and not you with him, so breaking the defense he puts up becomes more difficult than breaking Soldiers or Heavies, because of the extra element of having to PREVENT getting interacted with before you can interact with.

Map design is shit on some maps, because when you combat a Soldier or Heavy, given his positions distance from the spawns and his class speed, you can often take them down and get rewarded with a good window of opportunity for offense to sink in. Killing a Sniper sets him back a few steps and all he has to do is walk out of his spawn. The window of opportunity between kills and reset is so small, that people have to actually camp battlements or stick around to pressure the enemy and allow their team a chance.

[imperius]

i hate the demoman pipe spam more than i hate the sniper, if u remove the sniper, not only ppl are changing the very nature of the game since TF1 but ppl are then transforming it on a new game, and therefore cannot be called the TFC successor.
So, if the sniper is removed i say the demoman should be removed.


peace

imp.L

[squeek.]

This isn't TFC:Source, and never has been.

As a note, the demoman's pipe spam can be removed without removing the demoman entirely. The sniper doesn't work that way. If we change the sniper rifle, we change the sniper itself. If we remove the sniper rifle, we essentially remove the sniper itself.