[Suggestion] Sniper feels more and more useless

I know this has been posted in the forums before but I just want to get SOE's attention to this matter...

With the new Nanoweave buff, almost everyone is using it making the infiltrator feel more and more useless as long range sniper .. If I can't kill a person with one shot with a 50 cal, then what can?
Many people are gonna cry "Sniper OP omg nerf qq" .. but really .. consider all this :

• Since all bolt action have similar stats for the most part, one faction doesn't have the advantage
• A bolt action has one of the slowest ROF. Considering the pump actions for short range, one trigger pull can kill in one hit with a higher ROF in the body center, a sniper should at least be allowed to one hit kill with a frigging headshot!
• Me and too many others have spent too much time honing their sniping skills to be backhanded like this with nanoweave .. which doesn't even require a lot of certs (compared to 1000 for the 50 cal sniper + attachments)
• Pulling off a headshot is a feat in itself, specially if the target is moving even a little .. Most snipers would agree that stationary targets are the only ones we feel confident about hitting (unless you have insane skills)
• Using a bolt action w/out suppressor for long range makes us sitting ducks as we show up on the minimap. The pistol is the only other alternative and lets face it .. the default ones aren't good enough, and anything else costs 1000 certs.
• If someone does come up to you, you have to switch to your pistol, take aim, fire it (and lets face it again, pistols are hardly the best weapons), and pray that your enemy doesn't notice you right away. People might suggest cloaking but right now, you can hear a cloaker nearby even if a tank was firing shells right in your ear. Also, the cloak is far from good for hiding at close range .. anyone looking for you can find you + you can't shoot.

To be honest, this seems more like a ploy to make people buy SMGs and go to cqc .. Just increase the headshot damage multiplier for bolt actions only so that other benefits of nanoweave still stand. Hell .. reward people for getting the highest nanoweave rank by giving them ability to survive headshots .. but right now it is ridiculous.
I hope you consider this SOE.
To those who wish to reply, please use LOGIC to explain your response (I know it is considered heathen in these forums but still, i insist).

Even though I don't play as an infiltrator (let alone sniper) that much, I do think that the heavy duty expensive snipers of this game (RAMS .50 for TR and equivalents for NC/VS) should be able to one shot kill infantry and not even require a headshot. In order to compensate for such power, they would need to be "deploy only" weapons - i.e. they have bi-pods - and so one cannot fire whilst on the move.

First, there is no 'sniper' class. There is an infiltrator class.

Second, sniper rifles should NOT be OHK. Unless - you have rifles unable to be fired unless looking down the sight and/or a large delay between raising the weapon and being able to fire. Without these things you would just end up with 80% of players taking a sniper rifle and 'quick-scoping'/using the rifle as a shotgun everywhere.

2 hit kills are fine.

OHK headshots are fine. OHK bodyshots would be too frustrating as it's not that hard to hit a moving target if 'anywhere on the body' is your only constraint.

okay then. take away pump action shotguns. since 2 hit kills are fine, no?

sniper headshots should always be ohk

Nope. Shotguns have range limitation. Introduce OHK sniper rifles and there is ZERO range limitation. People will use them at ALL times (unless you put in constraints on sights and delays in bringing the weapon up etc).

- Edit - I should add, I use neither shotguns nor sniper rifles, so I'm not some kind of shotgun defender or anything.

In a game with such short TTKs, anything that players can do to protect themselves from one-hit-kills is a good thing. Besides, nanoweave 5 is expensive, so it should be able to protect the wearer from one-shot sniper kills otherwise it wouldn't have any effect, and that's rediculous.

It would be great if players who die from a headshot could not be revived, if a bolt action sniper rifle was used. It would greatly improve the usefulness of being a dedicated sniper, since shooting down more important targets would actually matter, because they wont be rezzed by five dancing medics as soon as they die.

im talking about OHK headshots. nothing more frustrating as a sniper than needing to get 2 sometimes 3 headshots to get a kill.

This would exacerbate a different issue, drawing less skilled snipers toward the weapon, and instantly out-class all other weapons at mid range and up.

A more elegant solution is to give bolt action rifles a 2.2x head shot multiplier to reward skill over spam. It changes nothing else about the performance other then enabling 1-hit head shots at its max range through nano-weave. This could also be extended to Semi and Scout rifles without without affecting its the overall number of shots to kill.

This post is by the devs. So before we start lets take a look at what was intend.
"You didn't hear from me, this is either a bold face lie or a bug. Read it and decide."

WEAPON OVERVIEW: LARGE CALIBER SNIPER RIFLES

Date: 2013-01-09 10:09:00

Weapon Overview (Longshot, RAMS .50M, Parallax):
You are crossing a bridge on Indar when a shot is fired in the distance. As the sound registers in your mind, a bullet wizzes by your head, missing by an inch. Your heart races, your palms sweat, and you dive for cover in the nearby supports. Carefully, you take a glimpse at a building behind and see your your attacker, a friendly sniper on the roof holding a rather large rifle. Before you can wonder why your buddy is shooting at you, another shot rings out. This time you feel the wind of the passing bullet as it blasts home. There was someone behind you.
Spinning, you see a headless enemy cloaker, his head smashed into tiny granules. Indeed, the friendly sniper saved your life. You may have inhaled another person's disintegrated eyeball in the process, but that's a small price to pay compared to a knife lodged deep into your spinal cord.
You might wonder, how can I become this viciously accurate killing machine? This savior of men? This Cadillac of a soldier? I'll tell you how: with a really big gun. And maybe a few tips from good ol' Slugger.
Rifles and Upgrades
Let's begin by listing our shiny new rifles: The TR RAMS .50M, NC Longshot, and VS Parallax. Their high damage butslow reload begs for headshots, and only a Heavy with his shields turned on has a chance to survive a hit to the face from one of these bad boys. This means that as long as you can control your aim, the kills are sure to roll in.
As for upgrades, because you rely on pin-point accuracy over long distances, I would immediately look for a x12 scope (smaller scopes are better for closer distances, but that's not where you'll be using this rifle – we'll talk about that later.) I personally find other upgrades to be unnecessary. For example, an underbarrel grip attachment seems pointless for a manual weapon. A silencer is always a nice option, though considering the range you might be using this gun from, it could do more bad than good. A flashlight is... well, not ideal for a class that dwells in the shadows.
You Are Best At Long Range
When carrying this weapon, try to remember your strengths and weaknesses. Snipers are generally considered vulnerable at close range, and these weapons more so than others. Keep your distance and if you're spotted, consider cloaking and moving out. To avoid enemy snipers picking you off, try flanking. Snipers often look towards the frontlines when picking their targets. Remember, the Infiltraitor's stealthing ability is perfect for getting into a solid or unexpected position without being spotted.

Aim Small, Miss Small
Engaging a moving target as a sniper – especially when seeking headshots – is no easy business. A beginner should expect to miss more often than hit. I suggest you wait until your target finds a reason to stand still before opening fire. All you need is a second of stillness to install a new eyesocket in your target's skull. Adjusting for bullet drop can also be challenging. Try to always aim at the tip of the soldier's helmet. Unless your target is a seriously long distance away, you should find yourself a hundred points closer to a new cert after squeezing the trigger.
Did you get all that down? Great! Now wipe your visors and stretch your trigger-finger my sharpshooting friends. There are enemies about with their juicy heads waiting to be popped, so show them the meaning of fear and aim for their pensive smile.

there are these delays and artificial obstacles like sway and limited hold breath already. Quickscoping known from the other games doesn't really exist here. Even if you try to do something like this as fast as you can, the other dude sprays you already.
Hitscan doesn't exist here either (quite the contrary, bullets are rather slow) so bunch of dudes bunnyhopping around with counterstrike AWPs and owning everybody can't happen here.
It certainly wasn't a problem back then, after the release, when bolt actions oneshotted people reliably, why would it become one now?

there might be no range limitation but
- the target you fish for is 1/20 of the body while pump action is just peachy aiming in the center of the mass
- delay between shot and hit is non-negligible which means importance of leading - no such thing with pump actions - and even target evading bullet that is halfway to his head
- followup shots are much harder than with PAS with 1/3rd of the fire rate, not to mention you are forced to rechamber which means losing track of the enemy followed by target acquisition from scratch.

You must be an idiot there is a delay in which scopes come up for sniper rifles you can't "quickscope" get that call of duty mentality out of this game its already demolished it.

Snipers should one shot kill to the head without question.

The whole problem is getting support from 95 % of the players, as snipers are almost hated as much as being forced to stay inside buildings by liberators.

In all honesty, i can't stand snipers too. They just stand there, 500 + metres firing at you while you can do nothing but cry and try to flank them, because attacking them from far away means they'll just cloak and change postions. Every day when fighting people there is always one sniper on a mountain somewhere annoy me and my friends. Want to spawn a vehicle, check the entire continent for a sniper. Want to fight infantry, stay inside 24/7.

Sniping is boring too, in my opinion. Sure, you'll get a good K/D and such, but other than that it's just aiming and shooting, aiming and shooting.

I understand the need for snipers and how important these OHK on the head are as they're not as easy to pull of as shooting someone with a PUMP ACTION SHOTGUN, but, gaining support from ground infantry... that is going to be hard. For the same reason everyone hates aircraft.

This game should stay where it is supposed to be, combined arms, tanks, aircarft, infantry and snipers and even though i hate saying it... snipers, bolt action ones, should become a one hit kill in the head again on nanoweave 5 closer than 100-200 metres again.

...For now, grab an SMG and face me close range, the only way for you to be viable.

I recently found the joy of playing sniper infiltrator. Its fine as is. Learn to shoot. Its easy to shoot people in the head even when they are running (if they do so without changing their vector) and if someone is in the open running its more than viable to land 2 body shots. Just be more liberal with the amount of shots you take, extra ammo certs are your friend. Sniping is about location location location dude. Also its very situational. Sometimes there is no viable place to play sniper on a continent. sometimes there's lots of opportunity. That's why you can spawn as another class.

I do not agree with 1HKO body shot but the 1000 cert bolt action should be different and kill in 1 headshot against those with nano weave.

and Bolt Action Rifles have the exact opposite limitation, they are useless in CQC and the infiltrators are ineffective against vehicles.

They should change dumb fire rocket launchers then to have an " arm " range so they can't be used as OHK shotguns

Agree with the OP

Okay, first of all, the game would be incomplete w/out snipers .. second.. perhaps the fault lies with you standing still for way to long. Everyone would agree that it's extremely difficult to shoot a moving person .. As soon as you fire a shot that comes near the enemy, they realize it because of the sound .. and start zig-zagging making it impossible to kill them.

Second, there are so many alternatives to simply "flanking" snipers. For example, calling an air strike, tank shells, using the battle rifles, counter sniping etc.

Third, sniping is most certainly not boring.. your opinion on this matter is entirely subjective. I thoroughly enjoy sniping key targets such as a heavy assault about to take down a friendly tank, or an LA standing in one place deploying c4 etc.

Fourth, if you want me to face you with an smg head on, you must think I'm stupid. Infiltrators have the lowest "health" of all and SMGs are not the best weapons out there. Even for CQC.

I don't even know were to begin.

1. There is a delay b/w hipfire and ADS.
2. The scope sway is unpredictable and you will probably end up aiming somewhere other than the enemy's head
3. If the enemy fires even a single shot at you , you will suffer from extreme scope sway making it impossible to aim
4. It is very hard aiming at the head of a fast moving target with a 6x zoom .. once you lose sight, good luck regaining it..

Seriously guys .. this is not Counter Strike

I bought a phantom (close range sniper) and it's less accurate than my beamer. Shame.