Sniper rifles are underpowered

While your right a 1000m shot is often done with sniper rifles I think your looking at it a little out of perspective. If we we were to relate it to real world a 1000m shot is still considered a long shot even for a lot of sniper rifles. The M24 rifle that has long been used by US snipers is rated at 800m effective range and a muzzle velocity of about 2500 fps (the 650m/s you listed comes out to about 2100 fps). So while I agree muzzle velocity in the game is slower than ideal, especially on the regular infantry weapons your not sitting too far off from "average". There is obviously plenty of real world examples of rifles that make that kinda of shot routinely but I just wanted to establish it is a beyond than average shot even for sniper rifles. The other important distinction is that shots that far out would typically not be taken at men running back in forth but at stationary or predictably moving people. I can't imagine many people in the world could hit a randomly moving target a 1000 m out especially reliably hit the and so its a pretty big stretch to say you should be able to in game. Though this a video game and truthfully we don't have to care about the real world and how it relates but just from a balancing standpoint say we make it so you (who I assume must be a decent sniper) can reliably hit people a 1000m out even if they are moving. How is it remotely possible to balance that kind of rifle so that a bad sniper doesn't reliably kill at 300-500 m out which is safe to say outside most infantry's effective range. If they do anything to make it easier for you then they also make it easier for everyone else and while you may sit 1000m out looking for that good shot its the dozens of people sitting 400m out that would worry me.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think people don't render at 1000 meters. This added to client side hit detection makes it impossible to kill people that far, no matter what the weapon ballistics are.

Problem isn't the underpowered nature of sniper rifles it is how rediculously easy it is to completely **** **** up the hitbox with jumping, ADAD, running in erratic circles, etc etc. In other words, the game looks absolutely atrocious when you are sniping in long range as players jerk around in very akward motions making leading target impossible because the models seem to adhere to cartoon levels of movement.

The only thing snipers could do with is increased bullet velocity. Everything else is fine

Agreed fully. Would make a lot of the irritation with infantry play go away. Sure it would reduce the skill level required to play, but for ease of use it would be so nice.

t

thats what snipers do irl ,

They're underpowered...
Especially when a low level nanoweave breaks their usefulness...

in IRL a sniper in a hill can call back and get a B2 bomber to come over head and drop a JDAM square upon their foes head.

No real way to balance snipers in this game. Same with ESFs. If they can function effectively they will ruin the game for everybody else.

My favorite idea for balancing long range weapons is simple. Accurate zoom levels+ sway. Force the sniper to stop and wait to actually shoot accurately. No quick scoping. Like a good 5-6 seconds of being still before you can shoot something with any hope of killing it.

Meh..Recon. For planetside 2, I have no solution. Can't do anything with em. Unless they fix the rendering and twitchy movement. Game isn't smooth enough for COD style sniping. Game is to jerky to allow for BF2 or other more deliberate types of sniping.

Semi-Auto Sniper Rifles are pretty much trash.
All assault rifles do better at the same range.

Infantry doesn't render much beyond 300 metres so these people blathering about 1000 metre shots are talking out of their arses.

I thus far have been pretty happy with the one I use and am getting better with it continually...don't really see a big need for changes to them...it would just mean nerfing something else in the long run.

I can't say for sure either, but I've timed some of the shots I've been taking recently and it takes roughly 2 seconds for the bullet to hit the target, or the ground near the target so I would have to assume that it was around 1000 meters.

I may be looking at it wrong, but at the same time an increased bullet velocity would only reduce the amount you had to lead and the less time the target has to change their movements, as well said by pnkdth

I have no problem with bullet drop, but the more time it takes to hit the target the more ability they have to "dodge" the shot.

@Schwarzpferd

They can if no one is looking. The point was that recon is something that any class can do, and that normally light assaults are better at doing because they can reach high places much easier than an infiltrator can.

Spotting is not rewarding. Any class can look at an enemy and press q, and normally even once you spot someone they don't get killed because the marker over their head only lasts about 10 seconds. I'm not necessarily talking about xp rewarding either. Engineers who do nothing but repair are doing so because they can see the benefit, same for medics. What they are doing is changing the tides of battle. Infiltrators can spot. That way you can see your enemy, just in case you didn't notice that they were right in front of you.

I won't call you crazy for that, but if all you could do was snipe or spot, which would you rather do? Engineers can do something useful in repairing, but infiltrators can't do anything in spotting. The only unique things the infiltrator has is the sniper rifle and the cloak, both of which have flaws. I'm the crazy one for not choosing a more effective class and sticking with easily the weakest class in the game save some special but uncommon occasions.

Retaliate?

How does an infiltrator retaliate against a tank, max, or anything else?

There is just some things you can't fight against, and snipers should be one of them. Only being smart can you not be shot.

That's balance, thin out the idiots who stand around mid battle.

The fact that an ESF rotary and an AP tank can snipe better than a sniper is telling enough.

That's just my opinion.
I feel that there needs to be a drawback to the huge range and that the current balance of the rifles provides that.
I think that using the rifles at these ranges is difficult but also quite rewarding.
A good sniper already IS a thing that you can't fight (unless you're infiltrator yourself) and i believe that it shouldn't get much easier.
No big deal if you don't agree but stay calm, mate.

What snipers do IRL is mostly watch a specific area, and **** in a bucket. Also, they provide vital information and take out important enemy targets. What they DON'T do is sit on a hill a mile from the fight and shoot random enemies.

You can easily hit someone running, if they move in the opposite direction then so be it - They dodged. Instant hit railguns ala quake would ruin the game. If you can't compensate and actually hit running/moving targets you need to practice more

The issue wasn't hitting them, it was them changing directions
I just feel that 2 seconds of travel time for a distance that looks completely reasonable with a 12x scope feels like too much. I'm not asking for instatravel either, I'm just suggesting, and listening to suggestions, about what can be done to make snipers more useful at those distances.

Well I feel if you start making them more "useful" (or making it easier) at those distances you are dumbing down the infiltrator. I'd like to keep the learning curver high so skilled infiltrators stand out and people have something to work for. Right now it actually requires some skill at distances to predict and compensate for bullet drop. I like it and hope it stays as is.

No need for a sniper buff. Thanks.

(Also, the bolt actions fire at 650m/s. A RL bolt action fires barely 100m/s faster IIRC; if you think sniping needs to be made easier in the game when you're already not having to account for real drop, wind speed/direction, or work with a spotter, you're just not meant to be a sniper...)

Only buff(or fix) to snipers is nanoweave not affecting headshots from bolt rifles, but affects body shot to make it fair. As much I hate being hit by a headshot. Its a needed fix.