Community 'Poll' About Sniper

[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