Community 'Poll' About Sniper

[Bridget]

If your appreciation of Team Fortress hinges on one class, then good riddance.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

Well you seemed to have assumed that yourself. I've been on both ends of the rifle, more so on the receiving end and I'm just saying I have no problem with the sniper.

Does this make me the authority on the sniper? No, but it is my opinion. I have played this game since the day it was released, I have played TFC since about 6 months after it was released.

I have been both the sniper and the snipers target as every single class. I would hope that my experience with both games and as every class would carry at least a little bit of weight and not just be dismissed as a disgruntled sniper who doesn't want his one and only class changed or removed.


And like it or not, if the sniper is changed too much or even just totally removed there will be many people in the community who will leave for some other game for good and it won't just be snipers

That's all well and good, but unless you can communicate your opinion and explain why it makes sense, it doesn't accomplish much. Here's my attempt at doing that: http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...&postcount=446

We aren't going to hold off on making the game better because some people like it more when the game is bad.

[xks]

An expected reaction I suppose.

Being sniped isn't much fun, but there are other things that aren't a lot of fun in FF such as being infected, knifed or torched. None of these things receive the same level of hatred though.

There isn't much in FF that's more rewarding than repeatedly killing a single member of the enemy offence before they get anywhere near your base. It's certainly far more fun killing them that way than as a Soldier or Engineer inside your base.

It's extremely easy to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of an enemy Sniper, although it's going to detract from the regular routine. The Sniper will certainly still get kills and if you are the one on the receiving end it will still be annoying, but if you are being harassed it's very difficult to be an effective Sniper.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by Bridget

I can't decide on whether that post was clever parody or trolling or what.

All of his posts seem this way.

[Pixel]

Only time I ever play sniper is to keep the other sniper busy. Then the game just becomes sniper wars. Sometimes I go invisible as a spy and shoot a tranq dart across the map just to annoy them. The sniper in its current state does not fit with the game.

[s0undch4s3r]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

The main problem with the Sniper is his binary nature, as well as his dependence on long range. At long, long range against slow classes, they have almost no chance of getting across a large map. Against fast classes, the Sniper only has a few chances to hit them. It's either shoot an enemy once (or twice), or be completely useless. At close range, he's as good as dead.

.

Yea...FF has this really big thing about BHOPping. I suppose it would
be a challenge for the sniper to shoot a bhopper no matter how far
across the map he is. Eventually that bhopper will get in his face
and it's "Hiroshima time" for the sniper.


I chose "The sniper is balanced".

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Hitting people that are bunnyhopping is not that difficult. Just have to wait for them to go over the dot. When I talk about fast-moving classes I'm talking about concers, which are the main offensive unit.

[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.

[Undesirable]

Here are a few suggestions:

1. If you're completely re-vamping the sniper, their rifle could be replaced with a briefcase containing a sniping kit, complete with tripod, which has to be set up before they can utilise their ultimate weapons of doom. The engineer should also be able to build sandbags or small concrete bunkers mid-map to help protect the sniper's coveted position and not limit them to the usual boring places to seek cover. However, their effective sniping field of view will be reduced to 90° - 180° until they re-mount the tripod in a different position, which would take time.

2. If you're just sticking with the normal sniper rifle, simply reduce their accuracy by introducing swaying (breathing) that is more pronounced when the sniper is standing than when he is crouched. Introduce a new prone position where the swaying is very much lessened (gotta give the snipers something to look forward to). You could also reduce their effectiveness by limiting the angle that the sniper is able to aim whilst the rifle is charging up.

3. Add proper scope effect to reduce field of view to a smaller circle.

4. Replace the autorifle with a fairly powerful silenced firearm, which can score critical hits and is more powerful the closer you are to the victim, but is ineffective at long-range.

5. Give the sniper proximity mines (or directional anti-personnel mines) in his secondary grenade slot, which can be shot or detonated by other explosions nearby, thus not rendering them overpowered.

6. Remove the tagging ability of a sniper and put it on the spy's tranq gun instead.

Edit: 7. Travel time and bullet drop (gravity effects) for sniper rounds.

[Raynian]

Originally Posted by Undesirable

6. Remove the tagging ability of a sniper and put it on the spy's tranq gun instead.

This is an amazing idea, I fully support this.

The rest, ehhh.

[Undesirable]

Originally Posted by Raynian

The rest, ehhh.

Well what's wrong with the aim swaying & realistic scope idea? Would make things more balanced if the aim wasn't dead on all the time and a change in posture actually made a difference. Wouldn't need to nerf the damage then.

The silenced firearm would solve the lifelong auto-rifle problem too.

[Raynian]

With the swaying aim/prone position, it doesn't solve the issue of snipers being unworthwhile to target. Most snipers hide out right near the respawn. So you're tacking on what, a second for them to get into prone position? Doesn't make it any easier for offense to get across the yard. The sniper might die quicker once someone DOES get in range, but that means you're delegating one person to take out the sniper(s) constantly. And on maps like well? Ugh.

Hell, it might even make it harder to disrupt snipers. Example - anticitizen, cp3. The sniper's already a bitch to hit when you're at the bottom. If he was lying down, you'd have no chance.

As for the other choices...

1. No. You shouldn't have to modify the landscape for a class to be worthwhile. Especially not if you're just doing it outside spawn, which would still be the optimal area to build at.

3. Maybe. You could just no-scope until you're about to fire though.

4. I thought we were talking about nerfing the sniper? Maybe if it were really weak, say, somewhere between the shotty/sshotty with a slightly longer attack delay, and reduced clip.

5. No.

6. Already expressed support for this! D:

7. Interesting, but would it be worth the hassle to implement?

[Undesirable]

Okay, more ideas:

When no-scoping, the sniper rifle aim should be swaying a LOT, so people don't just use that view until they're ready to use the scope with the proposed new effect.

Make the sniper rifle's laser more visible to everyone, no matter which direction you are looking at it from. This would make it easier to get fix on prone snipers, if that idea were to be implemented. Could even make it so that the laser temporarily blinds people if it is shone directly at their heads... but I guess that's another one in favour of snipers.

The proximity / directional anti personnel mines would add another dimension to the sniper's abilities and make it more worthwhile. I understand why you'd say "no" immediately as if it's overpowered, but there are plenty of ways to nerf them, such as... make it so that they have an audible noise when nearby, similar to sentry guns. Make them prone to being blown up by grenades and concussion grenades, and also make them vulnerable to small arms fire. Make it so that they cannot be set on top of the flag. Oh, and make it so that only one or two can be set at a time.

[Crazycarl]

Undesirable: All those ideas just make the class MORE of a camper and more vulnerable to flanking by faster classes. He'd be more reliant on good sniper spots, and to make the class worthwhile, we'd have to make him more powerful. That's the complete opposite direction we should be going, IMO. It'd be less of a fit for FF than he is now.

[Undesirable]

Okay, so we need the sniper to be more mobile and worthwhile to the team, whilst being less vulnerable to flanking... hmm... tricky one to balance when the sniper is supposed to be long-range support and a lot of the worthwhile action seems to take place in flag rooms (or so I've heard). I know from personal experience that the sniper is very effective in the flag room if he can get there and stay alive long enough to take out all the sentry guns, dispensers and engineers. Of course that wouldn't happen very often in proper matches because all entrances are covered by soldiers who simply use the death cam to locate the sniper's position if they die, respawn and spam missiles & grenades at the sniper's last known location.

How about giving the sniper a "camouflage" ability? Similar to the spy's cloak but it only works for a limited amount of time with a recharge timer, and would allow snipers to get into offensive positions within the enemy's base easier.

Here's another one for you: alternate fire modes!:

Alternate fire on the sniper rifle could shoot EMP rounds, which deal more damage to engineer utilities, but far less to personnel. Normal rounds would, conversely, do far less damage to engineer utilities than they do now.

I have written out ideas for alternate fire modes for all classes, but I'm sure you don't want me to list them all in this thread.

Edit: Here's a link to a thread containing all my alternate fire mode ideas: http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...628#post468628