Snipers! They don't belong.

[SSCUJO]

Originally Posted by Bridget

My main concern is about Sniper's range advantage and the fact that he has the most powerful weapon (with really fucked up special abilities) in the game to exploit it further. Would you agree the Sniper has a huge advantage with these two aspects?

Originally Posted by SSCUJO

one has to ask then. is the only acceptable solution to remove the snipers long distance ability? does that not just make him a short range insta gib class? only solution to that would be to lower his damage, but then what the hell class would that be, right?

does the speed and close quarter nature of this game not counter balance the snipers distance advantage? earlier we were talking about effectivness at range. is it fair that 90% of this game is close quarters and fast, and yet the sniper is one of the worst classes in both those situations?

[Bridget]

Semantics is not an argument. The speed and close quarter nature of this game are the defining points, and the Sniper is exempt from them. He is the most powerful class in the game with long range to back it up. Is it fair that he gets raped in close quarters combat? Well, yes and no. Yes, I think he should currently because of his long range advantage (though I don't see that as a huge downside, because the player has to get to him first, aka bypass his strength to get to the weakness.) and no, I don't think the Sniper should get owned at close range. I think he should have a fair chance at fighting back with other classes, when he gets a weapon that isn't overpowered and isn't raping people across the fucking map, that is.

[VentuSag3]

But what you fail to understand Bridget, is that all you have said up to this point are semantics.

The reality is, if Snipers were broken they would be breaking the competitive game. They aren't. Anything you have to say past this fact is arbitrary.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

The reality is, if Snipers were broken they would be breaking the competitive game. They aren't. Anything you have to say past this fact is arbitrary.

Null argument detected. Power does not beget usefulness.

[Bridget]

Cool story bro.

[Bridget]

The Sniper is not useful in competitive play regardless of his power. I think it was mentioned to me that you said (in this thread) that sniping was useless in competitive play because the delay on offense wasn't enough. The stream of offense would be too overwhelming for the Sniper to hold back. No matter how powerful he is, he wouldn't be useful enough to hold them back. Power and usefulness are two different things. So, continue posting your pictures and pretending you have an argument.

[TheKing]

There is no way I'm gonna go through this entire thread and I'm 100% certain that all of my points have been thoroughly discussed, but here's my opinion anyways for whoever cares:

The sniper is underpowered
We really need to give it some more power so that it's used in league play guys.

That being said, any class (even the underpowered sniper) in the right hands is frustrating and 'overpowered' because the player might be really really good. Yeah I feel like CUJO makes the sniper overpowered in the same way that some of the soldiers that I've seen make that class overpowered. They're really fucking good. If you've been playing a class for 10+ years you're probably gonna annoy people.

The sniper most definitely has counters
Try avoiding spies on congestus. The counter to the sniper does depend on the map, but spies are an excellent counter to a sniper on 95% of maps (see next point).

Stop pointing out Aardvark
It seems like this is the only example of a map where snipers are sooo powerful that you can't get past them. First, practice your conc jumping and you really will get past me >= 50% of the time on aardvark (and that's if I'm only worrying about you AND you're only a decent conc jumper); I've got one shot on the fast classes and if I miss it's already too late to get off another. Second, all classes have particular maps that are ideal for their particular skill set. If aardvark is your only major example for the sniper then I think I can live with that.

The sniper punishes you for going after them with magical radiotags and legshots?
Yeah, the soldier punishes you for going after him with a rocket down your throat and the pyro by setting your ass on fire. 'Go after' any class at your own risk.

The sniper doesn't 'fit in' because it's a long range class
The pyro doesn't 'fit in' because it's the only class that can burn you. The medic doesn't 'fit in' because it's the only class that can infect you (as a side note, the only counter to a medic's infection is another medic). Just because a class' unique abilities are frustrating doesn't mean they don't fit in. Fuck yeah it's frustrating to get infected, burned, stabbed, conced, sniped, etc. Remove all of those abilities then because they are both annoying and unique to a particular class (or two for the conc).

I personally think that we should ONLY allow soldiers and scouts. All of the other classes are 'broken' because they frustrate me when they're good at what they do.

OK that's as dirty as my hands are getting with this conversation.

Flame war continued below
_________________________________

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by TheKing

The sniper is underpowered
We really need to give it some more power so that it's used in league play guys.

Wrong. The Sniper's power is more than sufficient. The problem with league play comes down to two things: (1) No matter how powerful the Sniper is, he isn't useful enough. You can't delay the offense in a competitive scene because it's organized and fluid. The other classes are more useful. (2) Some players refuse to play Sniper, because they see it as a loser's class.

Originally Posted by TheKing

The sniper punishes you for going after them with magical radiotags and legshots?
Yeah, the soldier punishes you for going after him with a rocket down your throat and the pyro by setting your ass on fire. 'Go after' any class at your own risk.

The difference is that when a Soldier gibs you with a rocket or a Pyro converts you into a pile of ash, it is as the result of effort and skill. Minimal effort (shoot someone once uncharged) is required for the huge benefits of radio-tag and legshot. You don't earn those. They punish people for bypassing the Sniper.

Originally Posted by TheKing

The sniper doesn't 'fit in' because it's a long range class
The pyro doesn't 'fit in' because it's the only class that can burn you. The medic doesn't 'fit in' because it's the only class that can infect you (as a side note, the only counter to a medic's infection is another medic). Just because a class' unique abilities are frustrating doesn't mean they don't fit in. Fuck yeah it's frustrating to get infected, burned, stabbed, conced, sniped, etc. Remove all of those abilities then because they are both annoying and unique to a particular class (or two for the conc).

There is a difference here. There is an obvious and expectant pattern amongst the classes. Every class except the Sniper is really limited to close or medium range. He's out of place here. Those 'examples' you mention all take place within close range, where the classes are expected to have a fair opportunity. You can defend yourself against a Medic with a medkit. You can defend yourself from a Pyro running at you with his flamethrower out. He has the opportunity to harm you. You have the opportunity to get away or fight back. You can not, however, defend yourself against a Sniper until you traverse the map and get close.

Originally Posted by TheKing

Any class in the right hands is frustrating and overpowered. If you've been playing a class for 10+ years you're probably gonna annoy the people that you own.

I don't get enraged when a Soldier kills me. I had the chance to fight back, yet he bettered me in the fight. I don't get enraged when I land on a Demoman's pipes and get blown to bits, because I could have avoided that. Hell, if a Scout bashes my head in with his crowbar, I admit defeat, if I can't kill a Scout as a Soldier, then. . . Fuck. You see my point here? Now think about the Sniper.

Originally Posted by TheKing

I personally think that we should ONLY allow soldiers and scouts. All of the other classes are 'broken' because they frustrate me when they're good at what they do.

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[moosh]

Arguing about arguments.


Gold.

[VentuSag3]

Originally Posted by Bridget

pretending you have an argument.

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

If snipers were overpowered, they would be breaking the competitive game.

/thread.


for all your longwinded posts and psuedointellectual banter, you have yet to say anything that even comes close to debauching this.

And guess what?

You never will.


Keep on writing your enormous posts bro. Hell, you could even write a 10000 page bible about why the sniper is overpowered but the reality will remain that snipers get raped in high level/league play and are therefore not OP. No amount of hilariously bad logic you can spew will ever change this. You might as well be bashing your head on a concrete wall while claiming there is no such thing as concrete.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I semi-addressed this earlier (or tried to).

DM is just a part of FF, and long range DM is an even smaller part. Sniper has an unfair advantage in that smaller part. That doesn't make the class unbalanced overall, but it does make the class unbalanced in long range DM specifically (and the same could probably be said about pyro and short range DM).

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

Q_Q

[SSCUJO]

kings right

[Sidd]

I'm surprised nobody has made the distinction between damage and dps. Sure the sniper can do high damage in a single shot, but the dps, which is what matters once you're in a fight, is less than 60.

The snipers are overpowered side contends that a dps of 60 at long range is too much, as other classes at that range do 0 dps in return.
The sniper are underpowered side contends that a dps of 60 at short range is not high enough, as other classes at that range do 120+ dps in return.

[chilledsanity]

Bridget: You've probably mentioned this, but I've lost track in this thread. You obviously have strong feelings about the sniper. What would you propose as the solution to the problems you see with the class?

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

/thread.


for all your longwinded posts and psuedointellectual banter, you have yet to say anything that even comes close to debauching this.

And guess what?

You never will.


Keep on writing your enormous posts bro. Hell, you could even write a 10000 page bible about why the sniper is overpowered but the reality will remain that snipers get raped in high level/league play and are therefore not OP. No amount of hilariously bad logic you can spew will ever change this. You might as well be bashing your head on a concrete wall while claiming there is no such thing as concrete.

Lol really?..

You can't make that statement and expect it to be Logical, at all. Because Fortress Forever wasn't based around High Level/League play. This games idea was to have it played by a fully populated community. That's the reason the Sniper exist. And I am willing to bet that if you practice well enough with a sniper in league play, it's actually deem itself useful. I've put this to the test, and it's actually done some good more then you could probably imagine. The sniper actually does make a good mid to close ranged class. If you want details, ask me later.

[Circuitous]

I just like how Bridget starts arguments and then consistently drives the thread into the ground until everyone's on the same level.

Now it's a lot of childish back and forth, coupla memes thrown in for good measure, and we wonder why nothing ever gets done.

Y'know what would help, I think? Just look at the TF2 Sniper for some inspiration.

1. Only charge while zoomed in. Consider lowering charge time.
- This is a biggy. The Sniper wouldn't be able to just cold chill with a fully-charged shot, spot a target out of the corner of his eye and go to town on his ass. He'd have to actually follow a target for a while, or focus on a relatively small area.

2. Reduce zoom level.
- Easiest way to reduce effective range without going the bizarre projectile route.

3. Reduce FOV while zoomed.
- Like 1, but on steroids. I'd only do this if you also reduced the zoom level.

4. Increase refire time.
- Learn to fucking juke, Bridget. If his shot misses and you can spring away, the other changes will make sure you're in the clear, and you can finally quit whining about a game you don't even fucking play.

Pick any three out of the four and I think everyone will finally be able to shut the fuck up.

[Bridget]

I haven't driven this thread into the ground, people who just don't get it have done that. Not surprising, your arguments are the same as theirs. It suggests minor changes to the class that doesn't address what I set out to discuss: That the Sniper's core mode of gameplay is different from the other classes, which all follow an obvious pattern. This leads to a break in consistency. You can't kill a Sniper until you get close, yet he has all the opportunity in the world to kill you.

This doesn't happen with the other classes, at-least not a 1-0 comparison. Each side has something it can do to defend itself, something intuitive and effective, unlike these desperation tactics everyone keeps pumping out that are mere workarounds for something broken. They're settled upon because they're the only viable options, and I'm saying they're shitty terrible options that are more of a hassle, burden, and waste of a time than a skillful counter that has you enjoying the game.

I'm a little enraged because no one seems to get the point. It flies right past their head, and they make lame suggestions to only parts of the whole problem. Perhaps discussing the 'irrelevant' posts drove it further away from the topic, but whatever. The problem with all these suggestions to 'get good' is that none of these 'getgood' suggestions are valid. They're not legitimate tactics. They're workarounds to something that is unfair. Is there any skill in cloaking as a Spy and inching across the map? Is it intuitive to drain 3/4 of my health pipe jumping across the map or chaining rocket jumps to get to the enemy? Not at all and what for? Spend all that time and effort killing a Sniper who respawns instantly and finds his 'zone of comfort' right outside his spawn where he can kill people immediately, while it requires I put in time and effort getting to my 'zone of comfort'? Fuck that.

We can suggest implementations that give players the ability to fight back with the Sniper at long range, but I think that makes little sense. If you have a clock with a broken mechanism, do you fix the mechanism or smash all the rest of the clock to be equally broken? This game thrives at close range and sometimes medium range. FF would be absolutely terrible to play if every class had a viable long range option, because no one would want to get close. No one would willingly dive into close combat (which is what makes the game fun) because, why do that when you can sit back and damage people from afar?

The solution is to get rid of long range classes and rework them for at-least medium range. Everyone should have to take a risk to use their strong points. The Medic takes a risk infecting the enemy team, but it can prove pretty damn annoying and distracting when the infected defense is trying to break incoming O. The Spy takes a risk bhopping around the enemy base disguised and takes an even bigger risk trying to sabotage dispensers and sentry guns. One peek by an Engineer, and the dispenser's going off.

The solution is easy but the workings are hard. The Sniper has to be made a medium range fighter. People have to feel they can defend themselves, and I don't mean giving the Sniper an insta-gib railgun and putting him at medium range. People have to feel as if they can defend themselves effectively just as much as they feel they can defend themselves in general. Now, who gives a shit if that's no longer a Sniper? For starters, the definition of a Sniper seems wrong. Here's some definitions via the web:

1. : a marksman who shoots at people from a concealed place (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
2. : a marksman who shoots at people from a concealed place (dictionary.net as well)
3. : a skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place (answers.com)
4. : (VERB) intr.v. sniped, snip·ing, snipes 1. To shoot at individuals from a concealed place. (thefreedictionary.com)
5. : (VERB) 1 : to shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage (webster dict)

These makes no mention of distance and power (edit: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sniper makes an appeal to distance. I forgot about that one.), only concealment. If you want to argue semantics, at-least get it fucking right. If the Sniper could at minimum conceal himself as an ambush class with a high-damage rifle that rewards consistency as opposed to just dumping a huge amount of damage from single shots, then in the formal sense at-least, he is still a Sniper. But, this doesn't mean anything to me. If something improves the quality of FF for the whole, then I am all for it. Keeping Sniper in his current state appeals to only a few people.

Here's a point I made yesterday to a development team member: If you want to snipe, you can go play the over nine-thousand games available that include a Sniper class for attraction. The gameplay I get at FF is unique, even compared to the other Fortress games. Why should unique gameplay be sacrificed or diminished because of something so generic and widespread? Is it a threat to remove Sniper? More a threat to FF's core with him in? Shit, make a decision, because Sniper and all the other problems have been turning players off for a while now. Do you want a populated public game or a 'tumbleweed inspiring' scene full of niche players who cling to specific aspects of FF because of 'nostalgia' or 'ignorance'.

Want an example of nostalgia raping people's decision making process? The Mirv deals 725 some points of damage. Doesn't that seem a little excessive? That's five framentation grenades in one with each grenade going off with a delay making it more effective than if it went off all at once. No one can survive that. No buildable can survive that. No overhealed and armor hogging heavy could. Does anyone actually recognize how fucking unbelieveably overpowered that is?

Of course not, Bridget, that's not something we worry about. Why not? The MIRV was in Team Fortress Classic, so that must make it balanced. Here are some suggestions for avoiding Mirvs:

• Never leave your spawn. Take that, Demoman.
• When you see a Mirv, quit the game. See, you didn't get hit! Now you're countering the demoman!
• When someone on the enemy team switches the Demoman, go spectator!
• Play Spy and remain cloaked the entire game. If Mirvs hit you, accuse of hacking!

Get what I'm sayin'? The suggestions for bypassing Sniper are almost as stupid and counter intuitive and game-play reducing as those silly suggestions. Get what I'm sayin' now? (Spoiler: no, you don't.)

[FEDOR]

Originally Posted by VentuSag3

/thread.

Your posts always say the same damn thing and you do not make any new arguments, which have constantly been refuted time and time again. If you want people to answer your vaginal "/thread" posts then read what has been said closer. I will guarantee you someone has touched upon whatever argument you keep making.

And just lol at King saying Aardvark is not a good example sniper map, yet that is the one he always votes for. Sometimes he even rage quits should a map he will most likely die consistently on be picked. Fucking hypocrites.

As I said multiple times, the obvious fact is that the sniper class is not overpowered. If anything, it is that one rifle. The class itself is both underpowered and useless for anything other than instant kills. The only thing that is out of place is the instant-gib rifle, but the class as a whole needs reworked. Give the class a rifle that actually takes a bit of prediction or persistence (as suggested in Cujo's thread by different people) and change his stats a bit and I guarantee you will have a class (edit: 99% of) people can live with.

[Circuitous]

Originally Posted by Bridget

I haven't driven this thread into the ground, people who just don't get it have done that. Not surprising, your arguments are the same as theirs. It suggests minor changes to the class that doesn't address what I set out to discuss: That the Sniper's core mode of gameplay is different from the other classes, which all follow an obvious pattern. This leads to a break in consistency. You can't kill a Sniper until you get close, yet he has all the opportunity in the world to kill you.

Oh no, now you're missing my point. That being, Snipers aren't a problem. This is why it seems like I'm ignoring your core argument. Because I think it's dumb. Yes, they have the range advantage, yes they can kill you before you ever see them. But dig it, that's all they can do. Once you get past that point (which isn't that hard now, and would be easier with my suggestions), they're a non-issue. It's like they... don't exist.

Eerie.

Dig it, you use my suggestions, right? SPECIFICALLY, only charge shots while zoomed. Just using that one feature would make Snipers USELESS in anything but long range. They could get completely uncharged shots only, which is awful noble of them to let themselves die like that, leaving them with a nailgun and AR to fall back on, neither of which are especially potent, and frag grenades, which are as nasty as anyone's.

With their long-range game harder to be good at, and their short-range game virtually nonexistent, net result is fewer Snipers in general. Fewer instances of poor Bridget getting his head taken off, but when it happens then the guy behind the scope fucking earned it. Fewer instances of you not being able to get in range and get your revenge. Fewer use of "workarounds" (i.e., routes intentionally built into the map to avoid traipsing through the yard, which was intentionally built with battlements that Snipers could chill on).

Anyway, here's a summary of sorts.

1. Nerf the Sniper. Start simple (reduce zoom, shots only charge when zoomed, increase refire time). This would be the easiest to throw into a new dev build and playtest.

2. Ditch the Sniper. This would be lame. Humble opinion.

3. Change the Sniper's core mechanics (such as your ambush class suggestion, which I don't really like since it's basically a Spy with a rifle - good thing you're not set on it).

I'd also like to note that massively changing the Sniper only appeals to a small amount of people, too, where small amount of people = whoever I see posting in this thread, apparently. What, did you take a poll? I don't recall getting a questionnaire to fill out with such questions as "Is the Sniper completely broken?" with the only options being "Yes" and "Probably."

This post is so out of order I don't even know.

SUPER SUMMARY: I don't agree that the Sniper is broken, this is why I keep "ignoring" your point, try some Nerfs first to reduce their long-range game or eliminate their short game, and THEN let's worry about complete overhauls. The Sniper's balance, I feel, should be that he's useless in any situation he can't dominate in. That probably seems weird, but it basically would keep him out of gametypes like CTF, and let him sit pretty in AvD and Hunted like he's done for 15 years.

Whatever you read into this, okay, I don't want to come off like a dick. I'm poking some fun, and that's all. I just genuinely don't think the Sniper is as bad as you (or anyone else) make him out to be. I'm willing to work with you on this but you're just so goddamn crazy about it, and you're one of those dickhole types that always wants his internet arguments to be "proper," even when you don't follow those rules yourself. You're just a very annoying person to deal with in matters like this, and don't bother claiming that you're just reflecting what assholes like Ventu are doing, because we both know that's bullshit.

God I just can't stop ranting. Fucking 5 Hour Energy, man.