Sniper: Removal from CTF maps?

[Jiggles]

Which is one of the problems with the current sniper: too long of a delay between shots means a single miss often results in never even damaging a target.

Right now, I think the sniper is too binary: you either kill/almost kill your target or they get by virtually scot free.

[Hirohito]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Which is one of the problems with the current sniper: too long of a delay between shots means a single miss often results in never even damaging a target.

Right now, I think the sniper is too binary: you either kill/almost kill your target or they get by virtually scot free.

I agree. In a game where one class can help the team in multiple ways (like the Medic. He can cap, conc, heal and take out Sentries), the Sniper seems way too flat. All he can do is take out enemies from afar, and even then it's all or nothing. At best he can be a Sniper and a very poor man's HWGuy with his Auto-Rifle. I think he needs to be reworked from the ground up if you want him to be as dynamic as the other classes.

[SSCUJO]

the only problem is that making him more versitial would be at the cost of his one shot kill, which is needed. a sniper is useless without it, no matter how much its reworked...

[Jiggles]

I dunno. I know I have been in situations as a soldier, demoman, pyro, HW, medic, etc where I was fighting at a longer distance than my weapons were really effective. For example, rockets are easy to dodge beyond a certain distance, pipes don't travel all that far, IC rockets are pretty slow, etc. So, what do you do? You fall back on your shotty, which is a little better but still not all that great. I think the sniper's fighting effectiveness could be tweaked to be most effective at that range. Currently they are not because their uncharged shots don't deal enough damage (unless you are super-mega-awesome and score all headshots while dodging), but their charged shots render the sniper too slow to dodge incoming fire and also slow down their rate of fire too much (meaning misses penalize you harshly).

I don't think losing some of their insta-kill capability would ruin them, though. If they can deal significant damage (but not kill) 4 enemies as opposed to killing 1 enemy 80% of the time but only slightly wounding the other three, then your team is actually better off.

[slay2rr]

halo style sniper rifle FTW

[v3rtigo]

Give the sniper rifle some kind of blast radius where the center (as large as the bullet is now) has 80% damage. HS don't blast radius and could deal full or 120% damage.

Or, allow over-charging of the sniper rifle, which makes your aim skip like hell the more you 'over-charge', but a full over-charge can seriously damage a soldier when shot in the chest. Gives the sniper some close-range ability but would be a pain to use effectively.

Or, allow the sniper to blind people somehow (maybe the laser blurs/distorts your vision?) when aiming for their head.

Just tossing something in.

[SSCUJO]

see the best thing aobut a sniper class is that it is made to fight in the range were most weapons are ineffective. and trust me if your across the yard at ardvark, i would hit you three times with half charged shots before you did serious damage to me with a shotgun. the only problem is that now 3 half charged shots don't kill anything... in 2.0 the enemy can take those shots, and still walk up to the battlements and spam nades or whatever and the sniper then has no chance.

the sniper becomes useless if he can't kill them... because in most situations it is literally a race... they are comming for you, you kill them before they kill you, and as soon as they get close its over, so a kill must be secured at a distance. strong shots are a must.

simply put, 4 shots to kill a solider is unacceptable, not only will the solider under question be harrasing you, but other people will aswell, including other soliders. and spending so many shots/time on one target will get you killed. in 1.11 (even tho the rifle was strong enough) if you know your in a hopelessly out numbered situation, even from across the yard you could atleast take quick radio tag shots on each player and you would know that they would come in handy later. now with 2.0 those radio tags are gone before the enemy even gets across the yard.

[Mudfrog]

Well if the one shot kill is a big deal then rework it so if you hit the person with a full charge then it will gradually kill the person like aids does with a medic. At the same rate. Maybe allow medics to hill the sniper wound so they will stop bleeding to death.

[betterschindt]

ya whats up with the fuckin short radio tags...

60 sec to 15?
why not just remove it, if ou hate it so much, even though its one of the coolest additions to ff. but lets make it almost useless, k.

i sure can think of a number in the MIDDLE that would be more fair...
i still dont get why you nerfed the sniper rifle, sure nerf the ar, hell take it away who gives a shit. we need a good sniper rifle.

[Adamido]

The funny thing is that sniper rifle damage has been lowered(sniper rifle REQUIRES real aim) and soldier rocket has been buffed(which doesnt requires good aim).

[Credge]

Originally Posted by Adamido

The funny thing is that sniper rifle damage has been lowered(sniper rifle REQUIRES real aim) and soldier rocket has been buffed(which doesnt requires good aim).

This is, surely, a joke as both require completely different skill sets.

Edit: The sniper is not useless because of reduced damage, the sniper is useless because he has no area denial. He's a defensive class with single target damage and no auto-lock ability.

He has low health, armor, and speed, no secondary grenade, and has a high risk with the same reward that a well placed rocket and shotty have. He has no secondary means of reliable damage (an example would be the super shotty) nor does he have any real desirable effect on the battle field... both in the yard and in the base.

TF is, and always has been, a game of area denial and speed. All of the other classes have either area denial or speed in some form or another (except for the spy, and he falls short for the same reasons that the sniper does). The pyro even has mild forms of area denial. To make up for this he has 'ok' speed and decent health and armor.

There is a balance to it all and the sniper falls short not because of his damage, but because he has no definable role.

"HE HAS A ROLE! IT'S TO KILL THE ENEMY AT LONG RANGES!"

Very few maps actually have yards that aren't short. Even further, it is much more effective to have a player with some area denial hold a choke point than for a sniper to shoot people in the yard. His role is pointless and doesn't jive with the extreme level of TF defense nor does it jive with the extreme speed of TF O. He's a class that doesn't really flow with the rest of the game.

I want to see him used just as much as demos and engies on defenses on maps. However, it's not up to the map maker to do this. It's up to the devs to make the class non-shitty by giving him utility.

The radio tag thing sucks and is only useful when you have a team that doesn't speak with eachother, and using a class to replace communication doesn't jive, especially since that replacement only lasts 15 seconds and is completely based on skill instead of observation.

The sniper simply needs to be reworked from the ground up.

If this game was TF2 then the sniper would be viable. The biggest things that kills the sniper in FF are the instant respawns and speed.

[SSCUJO]

you obviously havn't read any of the discussions in this thread. or you would understand how important the snipers role is and you would be able to see past the idea of mindless explosions being the only way to kill people.

the sniper when played right, on ANY map can be exemely useful, assuming his damage was uped. i can't count how many times i kill the enemy offence and they stop going for the flag and spend 5 respawns trying to kill me cuse they are mad... now if thats not stopping the offense i don't know what is...

[Credge]

Originally Posted by SSCUJO

you obviously havn't read any of the discussions in this thread. or you would understand how important the snipers role is and you would be able to see past the idea of mindless explosions being the only way to kill people.

the sniper when played right, on ANY map can be exemely useful, assuming his damage was uped. i can't count how many times i kill the enemy offence and they stop going for the flag and spend 5 respawns trying to kill me cuse they are mad... now if thats not stopping the offense i don't know what is...

You obviously lack a knowledge of how defenses work in everything.

Choke points are the best places to defend. This is simple fact. The best way to defend clustered areas are with explosives and heavy objects.

This applies to everything. RTS, FPS, real life, etc.

The worst places to defend are wide open areas.

This applies to everything. RTS, FPS, real life, etc.

Oddly enough, this applies to every TF game. This is why we haven't seen any serious sniping since about 2000 in TF games. This is why every defense under the sun runs soldiers, demos, engineers, and heavies and will not ever have a sniper.

It really is that simple.

There are other things that go against the value of the sniper, such as the recharge mechanic, flow of the game, overall game speed, instant respawns, inability to hide like a real sniper, movement speed while charging, inability to make up for mistakes, low margin of error, high risk low reward, low health and armor, slow run speed compared to his health armor and damage capabilities, lack of area denial, etc.

There are reasons why nobody uses snipers in league play, and haven't in a long, long time.

[SSCUJO]

so why are you try to punish the sniper as if it were a league viable class? you know it can't happen, it won't happen, and even if it was effective people would ban it simply out of spite.

there is more to this game then league play and clan matches, just cuse a sniper can't hold a choke point doesn't make it useless, giving the entire team the ability to see an enemy through walls is invaluable. You need to understand that each class helps in a different way, and while you may use your solider or demoman on defense to blow the ever living shit out of everything in site including your teammates and friendly sg's thats fine, but sime times there is an easier way to take care of the situation.

choke points arn't the entire game, if it was there would b no midfield and the entire game would be played in a tunnel, there is more outside that base, you need to understand this.

if you tweak a few things on a sniper it will be as effective if not more effective than an engi or solider. you need to know how to play a sniper, and judgeing by what your saying, you don't

[binky]

If the sniper really has to be changed make it more intersting rather then making it even weaker. Make it projectile instead of hitscan, and have it hit on a percentage based on location and charge time, with a fully charged headshot doing %100 on anybody.

[TACO-BELL]

Originally Posted by Credge

This is why we haven't seen any serious sniping since about 2000 in TF games.

What? There's been game after game TF style with some form of 1 hit sniping. TF2, ETF, TFC has it.

On the other hand-- can you name a single TF game that has a sniper rifle worse than the 2.0 FF rifle? Seriously, I'm curious if theres even one.

Originally Posted by Credge

There are reasons why nobody uses snipers in league play, and haven't in a long, long time.

Should we care? Probably 50% of the people you see on pubs want to play TF for the kill and fun factor and couldn't care less about "league play" or "clan style" nonsense. Compare the number of clan members in UGC with the number of regular FF players. League players are a total minority. The rest of us pub for fun. To me, clan scouts conc'ing around speedcapping against a bunch of disorganized noobies on pubs is just lame.

In my opinion league play is kinda gay and for kids. I want to drop into a game after work and frag some noobis purely for the dueling and thrill factor. League play does not entertain me. If you look at the big picture and compare UGC league player numbers to regular FF'ers, I'm sure there's more people with this perspective on TF style gaming than yours. But with 2.0 the mod is specifically catering to league players only and leaving the rest of us out. And thats because league players are dominating the beta team and having a disproportionate influence on the dev team.

[caesium]

chill, nooblets. FF is still under v heavy development and the sniper is one area that's basically not been done yet due to time constraints. afaik it's now pretty much top of the todo list, and hopefully with a bit of thinking and tweaking we can get a solution that makes playing and playing against a sniper uber fun and actually useful/effective both on public servers and in league play.

after seeing how quickly many other areas of the game have developed, imo it's only a matter of time until all these (to some apparantly game-breaking) remaining issues get fixed, and in the meantime it's probably best to support and bear with the dev team rather than keep pointing out the obvious about unfinished areas of the game and wasting their precious time asking them the same questions over and over. but hey, what do i know.

[SSCUJO]

the whole point of this thread has been to help the sniper become something better than it is currently, we are throwing around ideas to help the dev and beta team so that they don't make the same mistake they made in 2.0

[Dr.Satan]

Originally Posted by SSCUJO

we are throwing around ideas to help the dev and beta team so that they don't make the same mistake they made in 2.0

I am not aware of any mistakes that were made in 2.0...please enlighten me.

[mixer]

Originally Posted by TACO-BELL

.
.
.
Should we care? Probably 50% of the people you see on pubs want to play TF for the kill and fun factor and couldn't care less about "league play" or "clan style" nonsense. Compare the number of clan members in UGC with the number of regular FF players. League players are a total minority. The rest of us pub for fun. To me, clan scouts conc'ing around speedcapping against a bunch of disorganized noobies on pubs is just lame.

In my opinion league play is kinda gay and for kids. I want to drop into a game after work and frag some noobis purely for the dueling and thrill factor. League play does not entertain me. If you look at the big picture and compare UGC league player numbers to regular FF'ers, I'm sure there's more people with this perspective on TF style gaming than yours. But with 2.0 the mod is specifically catering to league players only and leaving the rest of us out. And thats because league players are dominating the beta team and having a disproportionate influence on the dev team.

100% agree