give me your best ideas

[RocKwell]

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

I fugure I should actually propose a real non-QQ idea.

Right now the current problem with snipers in competitive play comes down to this IMO:

1. The best scouts can conc past the best snipers 3/5 times.

2. One word: TIME. Even when snipers DO kill incoming offense, it isn't that big of a deal because snipers are only killing midmap. They spawn instantly to try to get past the sniper seconds later. Take this in contrast to a soldier who kills offense while they have already wasted all the time needed to actually get to were they need to be in the base. A scout that dies to a sniper has only lost maybe 4~10 seconds of his time. A scout that dies to a solly or demoman has lost 30~40 seconds of his time.

3. These two problems together creates the problem why snipers are often considered underpowered by top players: Soldiers, HW's and demomen STOP offense, while snipers only temporarily slow them down.


So what I would do is this:

-Split the current sniper rifle into 2 different weapons.
-Remove the nailgun. Snipers dont need the nailgun.
-Give them more Shotty ammo, 150 max.

Rifle #1: Assassin Sniper Rifle. This is the one snipers will actually use to kill with.

-Bullet hitbox: Same size as the currently implemented Sniper rifle.
-Forced to walk stance while zoomed in
-Remove all abilities other than doing damage. No more tag, no more cripple, no more needing to hold down the button.

-Round size: 1 shotty
-Reload time: 1 second
-Damage: 125 to body, Instant kill to head.


Rifle #2: Trick Sniper Rifle. This is where it gets interesting.

-Bullet hitbox: about 4 times bigger than the currently implemented Sniper rifle. This makes it much easier to hit with. Good snipers will hit much more concing enemies with it, however...
-Forced to walk stance while zoomed in
-Hold down completely removed

-A buffed form of tagging. Sentry guns are able to lock onto them 80% faster. Range buffed to 1500m. This would also come with a change to fortress points. Whenever an enemy tagged by a sniper is killed by one of the snipers allies, the sniper would get a "Tag assist" bonus of 50 points.

-Can also cripple via leg shot, so the prospect of crippling a target with this rifle and then switching to the Assassin rifle for the kill exists.

-"Armor crack" A body shot causes this effect. Causes the targets armor to absorb 10% less damage.

-"Dizzy" would be the same as conc effect but only lasting 9 seconds to all classes. Caused by headshot.

-Round size: 2 shotty
-Refire rate: 0.7 seconds
-Reload time: 1 second
-Damage: 25 to body, 50 to head. Ouch! big nerf, but consider how easy it is to hit with and all the special effects.



My reasoning for this is something I noticed when playing Sniper during some OvD CTF play. Tagging targets seemed more helpful to the team than actually killing them, because it gave my teamates a huge advantage to snuffing them out in base. Tagged targets would sometimes hide or be more careful and in the end this actually caused the scouts/medics to lose more time than they would have if I had killed them.

Well thats an idea from off the top of my head. Don't know if anyone else cares.

Devs, please use this for the next patch.
Not only will this allow the class to be a pub favorite like always with the insta-kills, the trick rifle could allow some different strategies in competitive play, maybe making the class a kind of "debuffer" before the enemy reaches the core defense. Like what was said, completely eliminate the nailgun. Maybe reduce the frag grenades to two (is it four right now? I forget) and give him 2 flashbangs or caltrops for additional debuffs.

Before someone comes in and explains that snipers aren't supposed to be played like that, remember that the class has been crap in competitive play, for what, ten years now? Change him up a bit and make him adjust to the flow of the game.

[eomoyaff]

(Imma use this preset because it looked the best :P)

CLASS ATTRIBUTES

* Position: Both
* Speed: 280
* Fragmentation Grenades: 2
* Special Grenades: 2
* Health: 90
* Armour: 110
* Armour Class: Medium


PRIMARY WEAPON

* Type: Original
* Projectile Speed: Original
* Rate Of Fire: Original
* Clip Size: Original
* Reload time: No Reloading / Original
* Damage: Depends on the Charge.
* Available Zoom: Original


SPECIAL GRENADE

* Type: Enhancement
* Upgrades the Snipers sniping abilities for a limited amount of time.
-Increases Charging Speed on Sniper Rifle
-Allows firing on ladders and while in the air.
-Allows the sniper to fully maneuver while Charging his shot (meaning running, and bhopping)


SECONDARY WEAPON

* Assault Rifle.
-Slow the speed on the rifle, but make each hit do slightly more damage then the original amount.

CONCLUSION

I don't think the sniper's weapons need to be changed, but to give the sniper the ability to do more with their sniper rifle, as that is what the class is based around. So by allowing the use of the 2ndary stated above, it will allow the sniper the edge that it didn't have before.

[SSCUJO]

first off, ventu, that idea is amazing, i really like it and it has amazing potential! it really sounds like an idea that can work.

but i do like what eomoyaff is saying aswell

Originally Posted by eomoyaff

I don't think the sniper's weapons need to be changed, but to give the sniper the ability to do more with their sniper rifle, as that is what the class is based around.

overall, im really impressed with the ideas im hearing in here, these are fresh and new and could really make a big change to the game.

[Bridget]

So, a weapon that deals 125 static damage to the body and instant kills to the head. The downside is what? Another rifle that deals less damage (25 body, 50 head), but comes with four special abilities that include:

1. Crippling the enemy and denying him movement capabilities.
2. Having him get shredded by sentry guns before he can react.
3. An armor removal effect to aid the sentry in shredding him.
4. Concussion effect to deny him the ability to fight back effectively.

You know what this would lead to? More people getting owned by the Sniper. That is no surprise, but with the concussion effect and the armor crack, enemies will get downed even at close range by the Sniper. So, are you giving the Sniper a downside or balancing him? Not at all, in fact, you're further breaking him and making him overpowered and easy to ruin the game for everyone else.

If you can't headshot someone and deal them instant damage, you can always hit them in the body. With this 125 damage to the body deal, Heavy Weapons Guy and Soldier die in around 3 or 4 hits to the body. That means that classes like the Demoman and Medic and Spy and Engineer, the Medium Armored classes die in 2 hits. Anything lower than that dies in 1 hit (The Sniper would have a few slivers of health left. If he doesn't have full armor, he's dead in one hit as well.) The armor crack makes little difference here, but if the enemy manages to survive the Sniper, he is raped by the sentry gun when he enters the base.

If the enemy manages to avoid your shots, then all you have to do is pop them in the head to concussion grenade them. This allows you the ability to fight back better at close range, where these classes are supposed to have the upper hand, because you had the upper hand the entire time they were traveling to you. With the armor crack, you can easily kill them before they pose any real threat. You have the 125 damage sniper rifle tucked away in the form of a fragmentation grenade.

No offense, but that was a lame suggestion. I literally laughed out loud when I read it. The current sniper rifle can deal 275 damage from a five second charge. With this suggestion, the static rifle can produce 625 damage in that time window. Five seconds is enough to kill any class in the game, from the safety of some obscure location on the other side of the map, before they can fight back. To complicate it, the Sniper now has a conc effect and armor crack to deal even more damage. That means, at close range, enemies have a more difficult time fighting back (with conc) and die quicker (with armor crack) if not instantly because anyone can snipe someone in the head at close range.

So, you have suggested making the Sniper more broken. Eh?

[eomoyaff]

Might of missed this, but who's post are you referring to?

[Bridget]

VentuSag3's

[Sidd]

CLASS ATTRIBUTES
* Position: frontline defence
* Speed, health armour grens all same as spy

PRIMARY WEAPON
either:
* Sniper Rilfe
* 125 damage
* 2.5 seconds between shots
* hitscan
* scope as an option

or:
* Super Railgun
* 125 damage
* 1 second between shots
* Projectile speed 4000 ( twice ordinary railgun )
* no charging or tagging
* scope as an option

SECONDARY WEAPON
* Auto Rifle
* Twice the damage of current autorifle - BUT
* only damages armour, not health.
* tags on any hit.

CONCLUSION
Meant to be played front line defence.
Use the sniper rifle / railgun at long range.
Autorifle everyone entering the base to tag and strip their armour.

Against scouts, not very effective as they don't have much armour.
Against medics, better than a front door hw.

[SSCUJO]

sidd great idea aswell, i like the armour stripping idea, could really help out the team.

as for bridget please just shutup, you are hell bent on making the sniper no longer a sniper. a sniper has 2 defining features long range and large damage, you hate both of them, therfore you no longer want a sniper class in this game, therfore this discussion is not for you.

if the sniper class stays in this game as a sniper it WILL have 1 hit headshots and it WILL have long range. cuse thats what a sniper is, stop trying to change the definition of a sniper, if you want a new class to replace the sniper then talk about it in a different thread.

this thread is about how to make the sniper viable in league play, and as of right now the class is useless or underpower'd in league play and needs to be buff'd, that is the discussion that is going on now, if you want to make the sniper worse then it is now, leave this thread, we are trying to make it better here so it can be used in all types of game play.

[RocKwell]

Originally Posted by Bridget

You know what this would lead to? More people getting owned by the Sniper. That is no surprise, but with the concussion effect and the armor crack, enemies will get downed even at close range by the Sniper. So, are you giving the Sniper a downside or balancing him? Not at all, in fact, you're further breaking him and making him overpowered and easy to ruin the game for everyone else.

Who is getting owned by snipers in league play? You mention over and over again that the sniper is overpowered. What are you basing this on? Fighting a different class in an open field? Please don't say Aardvark battlements. No offense to the great snipers out there, but the game is simply too fast to make the class a true threat. VentuSag3 nailed on the head with the time aspect.

If you're sperging that much over the sniper rifle, how about this: Head shot is a head shot, damage everywhere else has been dramatically reduced. Leg shots removed and added to the debuff-rifle-thing.

[eomoyaff]

Again, I say we don't need to change the Snipers weapons at all, but give the player more abilities for their rifle that would give them the edge. I personally think the sniper isn't underpowered if used right. by advancing their abilities, this would add to that right use.

By adding a different weapon or changing the existing one will take the skill of being a sniper out of the picture. That's like adding an advanced feature to allow the Heavy Weapons to not be phased by concs. Or Soldiers to not get injured by rocket jumps. It kills the learning curve of the class completely. If you're an HW and you can conc aim well, that's an achievement. That's skillful, and you're recognized by that. That's golden. As for Rocket Jumps, it can do various damage on a Solly, but to know how to get around a map using Rocket Jumps at causing minimal damage makes you a good maneuverable Soldier. And you've worked on that.

So in conclusion, I say giving the sniper the ability to jump and fire, allowing them to shoot while floating in water and on ladders, and to have a faster charge on the rifle while being able to fully run or bhop in the process, for a limited time even, would make it easier within that limited time to do just a little more then what you would be able to do without. It would still acquire a certain learning curve and practice, (by means of how and when to use that skill), BUT if you work hard at it like some of the top end snipers, like King, and Zelenjava, not only will you be THAT good, but you'll have the abilities listed above to make that much more of a difference.

This game was meant for a learning curve. And once you've learned it, it really does show in the end.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by RocKwell

Who is getting owned by snipers in league play? You mention over and over again that the sniper is overpowered. What are you basing this on? Fighting a different class in an open field? Please don't say Aardvark battlements. No offense to the great snipers out there, but the game is simply too fast to make the class a true threat. VentuSag3 nailed on the head with the time aspect.

If you're sperging that much over the sniper rifle, how about this: Head shot is a head shot, damage everywhere else has been dramatically reduced. Leg shots removed and added to the debuff-rifle-thing.

Do I really need to spoonfeed you? Perhaps you should review every post I make in every thread about the Sniper to the get the picture. I have repeated myself over and over hoping that maybe, at one point, you people would go 'Ah, yeah, now I get it.' but my efforts seem failing because every thinks superficially.

• 546 potential damage after five seconds of charge.
  • This means every class except Soldier and Heavy Weapons Guy die in one hit from body shots. No class survives a headshot. I like to use the comparison of the Lightning Gun and the Railgun in the Quake Series here. The Lightning Gun, I would argue objectively, takes more skill than the RG. The LG requires that, in order to deal damage, one must be consistent and on their target — actual accuracy. The RG works different. It's a hit-scan weapon that deals massive damage just by putting the crosshair on someone once and 'pulling the trigger'. The LG user has to do what the RG users does consistently to deal the same amount of damage. (Is the RG more efficent than the LG? Fuck yeah it is, but does it take the same threshold for skill? No. Let's also remember the LG has a falloff range, whereas the RG does not.) This is like the Sniper in FF. Anyone can do that. Therefore, anyone can insta-gib people left and right, long before they can fight back, from across the fucking map. Is that difficult to comprehend?
• Range advantage over every class
  • Every other class has a near fair opportunity to fight back with one another. If a Spy and a Medic are at long range, they can attempt to super shotgun each other with the same level of success. At medium range, the same thing is true. Up close, the Spy might have an advantage with tranq and knife, but the Medic still holds his ability to deal effective amounts of damage to defend himself. Another example? Engineer vs Heavy. Now, besides the point that Engineer was not made for combat and naturally falls to a Heavy, the Engineer is still at a range that allows him to use his weaponry at their maximum potential as well as grenades. He can defend himself. It is fair at-least to the point of equal opportunity to fight back. Scout vs Heavy is a different scenario, because Scout is not a combat class, but you could still argue that at-least the Scout can defend himself at close range, however poorly.
• Broken abilities that punish players who try to fight back:
  
  • Radio-Tag: This effect lasts fifteen seconds and activates when you are hit by the Sniper and survive. As far as I can tell, there is no 'threshold' to where it becomes active, you can hit someone for the smallest amount of damage and introduce a radio-tag. What does radio-tag do? For those fifteen seconds, you are broadcast to the enemy team THROUGH WALLS. It's a fucking developer-implemented WALLHACK. It punishes the player who manages to bypass the Sniper. He becomes open to an expectant defense. He gets gibbed by a grenade around corners. He gets pre-fired by a charged railgun shot. Then, he has to spend round after round trying to bypass the Sniper again. Why should he be punished for managing to make it past the Sniper? He should be REWARDED, if you think about it.
  • Legshot: In order to fight back against a Sniper, you must close the distance. With every other class there is usually equal opportunity to fight back at various ranges. This is not the case, as I've said a million times over. The Sniper has the immediate upper hand. You are at the mercy of luck until you get close to him. But, he has legshot to make that even more of a challenge. Yep! Just POP someone in the legs and they become crippled, unable to move at their full movement speed, snailing along across the yard open to a headshot or creating a window for a charge. If that isn't bad; it stacks becoming more and more slowing! The slowest offense classes — the ones that have a hard time as it is getting past fucking Snipers — are further punished by being reduced to a snail's speed before a headshot. WOO! What a great fucking class, huh? So cool, that Sniper. God.

The Sniper isn't used in League Play, but that doesn't make him underpowered or 'fine' in general. It's an objective fact that the Sniper is overpowered and way out of the element of Fortress Forever. It's not a 'pub' thing. It's not a 'league thing'. You can argue strategy all day, but it comes down to arguing strategy as a workaround to a broken class.

[Ronzui]

I believe by simply copying the TF2s sniper "scoped in" version would improve the difficulty of hitting offensive players. By snipers having it the way it is now they can see everything thats about to happen in their peripheral vision, with this taken away I feel will snipers will be reactive instead of proactive, but still letting them have their fun concentrating on enemy snipers. Maybe Im wrong but it seems that would help to me.

[Sidd]

CLASS ATTRIBUTES
* Position: Backline Defence
* Speed, health armour grens all same as spy

PRIMARY WEAPON
Sniper Rilfe or Super Railgun
like before, rifle is hitscan, railgun is fast projectile but much faster fire rate.

SECONDARY WEAPON
* Pipe Cannon
* Similar to the demoman's pipe launcher
* Fires much further so you can set a trap a long way away
* Not as powerful as the demoman's pipe trap.

CONCLUSION
This is kind of a replacement demoman for some big open flagrooms like mort, phantom, aardvark. This disadvantage over a demoman is that the pipetrap isn't as good. The advantage is that you can cover an entrance with your primary weapon at the same time, kind of doing two jobs at once.
So in say phantom you might have a sniper in the far corner, with a trap on the flag and covering the long wide entrance to the flagroom. On a map like monkey with a small flagroom a demoman would be much more useful.

I'm aware this will be very powerful in avd, might disable the pipe cannon for those maps.

[caesium]

sidd, why do you think that a revamped sniper should be better suited to defence than offence?

[Sidd]

I think an offensive sniper would just reduce to going up and killing the front line defence from long range. It could be useful sure, but not fun for the soldier or hw as there's nothing they can do about it.

Good maps like destroy would be spoiled if you could just repeatedly kill the ramp hw with a sniper.

[Hammock]

That's why the sniper should be designed to be most effective at medium range.

I'd rather see the sniper revamped for offense, since there's already an abundance of D classes, and even more people who play D. In pickups and such, the two main O classes are scout and medic, then you got maybe a spy or demo... maybe. Otherwise it's like 90% medics and scouts.

Whereas defense has the HW, demo, solly, engy. 2 standard O classes, and 4 standard D classes. So honestly as far as competitive play goes, we're set for defense, so a sniper designed for D in matches would be moot, people are going to pick the stronger defensive classes no matter what. Sometimes even picking the same class 3 times, like on SD2 it's not all that uncommon to have a 3 solly 1 engy line up. I just don't see any sniper class being used on D.

But there's much potential for the sniper to be on O. You can't have him doing instant kills to the enemy defenders at long range, it would be infuriating to play against. That's why I'd do away with headshots, and scope.

The power in the sniper redesigned for Offense, should be good damage at close-above medium ranged, his shots should be hitscan (so instant damage), he should have no charge on his rifle, and he can fire while moving (he has to be mobile for offense).

Since this is a thread for pickups/league style play I can tell you now that the way the sniper currently is, it is refused to be accepted as a viable class, not just because of its weakness for the speed of the game, but because it's considered a "lame" class. People see no honor or competition in being killed from a distance with no chance of counter attacking them. Thus any suggestion to take the current sniper and just remake him a little bit but keeping his core playing mechanic the same, is a wasted suggestion since it's his core mechanic that turns people off from him.

To be played competitively he would need a complete over hall. No more sitting back in the distance killing people without them ever having a chance. No more making him immobile to shoot, he has to be designed for close - medium range, he needs to be quick and he has to serve a function simliar to what the medic can do, only keeping him unique with how his weapons and nades work.

The way I would see him fitting in, added to our O line up, then would be (we know how the scout and medic already work).

The sniper should be as fast as the medic at least, but less mobile because he won't have concs. That means he should be more productive once inside the enemy base. His deadly accurate weapons (since they're still instant hits), should do more damage than the super shotty, and will be far more accurate (since there's no spray like the shotty). It will fire at about the same rate though

He should out perform the medic in larger rooms, and since his primary weapon requires precise hits, his 2ndary should balance that by doing less damage but is some form of sprarying type weapon that doesn't need to be dead on. The AR somewhat works to fill this role actually but I'm not a huge fan of automatic weapons that instant hit like that. I'd much prefer a time delayed weapon (that works like a shotty), or a projectile type weapon that takes time to hit (like the NG). But I'd rather see something completely unique if we were to revamp the whole class.

[Sidd]

CLASS ATTRIBUTES
* Position: Offence
* Speed, health armour same as medic
* Grenades same as scout, Concs but no frags.

PRIMARY WEAPON
* Assault rifle
* Hitscan, 80 damage, 0.7s refire delay (ssg is 54 and 0.7)
* No spread, but limited range to about where shotguns become ineffective.
* (edit) no charging required, no restriction on moving and shooting

SECONDARY WEAPON
* Scoped Assault rifle
* Infinite range
* 1.4s refire delay
* Need to be immobile for a short time before and after firing

CONCLUSION
I've tried to keep the long range sniper rifle in to keep the pubs happy but don't want it to actually be used against a front line defender.
Class is similar to a medic, but with a better gun and no grenades. I know medics get most/all of their kills with grenades, so a rifleman type class with more focus on shooting could be good. This gun has to have limited range, either the damage falls off, or there's a hard limit and a graphical exploding bullet or something to indicate this. Should be used on the larger maps in preference to (or in combination with) medics where grenades aren't as useful.

[SSCUJO]

why not have the sniper dominate the front line defense and frustrate the hell out of the other team, after all they are the enemy! this will cause a rethink in stratagy and new ideas and a fresh take on league play. isn't the fact that it pisses the defense off a sign of the class doing its job?

[Sidd]

Combat is fun when it's interactive. You can dodge rockets, feign pipetraps, staythehellawayfrom hw's. Getting shot from long range when you don't have a counterattack isn't interactive and isn't fun.

Edit: Maybe I'm being too cautious, defenders will adapt and change positions to where they aren't so vulnerable. Getting rid of front door hw's might not be so bad after all..

[Hammock]

There's very few FD HW's in FF, it just doesn't work like it did in TFC. Really the only time there's a FD HW is when the flag is FD, otherwise the HW usually is pretty close to the FR at all times.

why not have the sniper dominate the front line defense and frustrate the hell out of the other team, after all they are the enemy! this will cause a rethink in stratagy and new ideas and a fresh take on league play. isn't the fact that it pisses the defense off a sign of the class doing its job?

Getting pissed off at good people and being out played is fine. Being pissed off, because you have no ability to fight back is a different story.

Need to be immobile for a short time before and after firing

I think this is one of the biggest failing points of the sniper in a game like this the fact that he has to be stopped to shoot, the fact that once he's popped into the air he can't fire. This game is just too fast paced to have a class required to be immobile, and his damage is scaled by how long he charges his weapon? To charge the weapon he has to be slowed to a halt almost, one rocket knocks him in the air and he can't fire.

Yet you can't change any of those features because right now he has an unlimited range instant kill with zoom in capability to make it easier. Take away his game breaking cons for him, and he would be super charged.

Personally imo the only way he would fit into a game like this is if you turned him into a mulcher like EVERY other class... seriously every class is a mulcher at it's core, every class interacts very closely with one another, even the engy where is biggest strength is his gun (which can't move) is completely capable of interacting with any enemy around him while his sg is stationary. Even the HW who has to slow down while shooting, is still capable of moving while he shoots, he is a mulcher.

The sniper is not. That's why my suggestions would turn him into a pretty good mulcher. He's going to still require very good skill to be deadly accurat. But since there'd be no charge up, and no miss fires due to being knocked around, he no longer becomes a 1 trick pony, this sniper is going to be running around your base or the enemy base (in both pubs and pickups) and interacting with the enemies exactly how every other single class interacts.

The only real problem I see with changing the sniper this way is that he would not be as effective in AvD maps, but since this thread is about competitive play, and from experience any AvD pickup I've ever done boils down to 5 sollies on O, and whatever the enemy thinks can stop 5 sollies for D, so in this thread AvD doesn't matter.