Snipers not willing to get in close for their precious OHK's aren't worth catering to. You can play it safe from way off on the horizon line, but it's unfair to expect to be able to one shot from there. "Oh, but it takes skill to head shot at that distance!" It takes skill to not get killed by the dozen threats any other class has to put up with WHILE also aiming at targets that won't hold still. Other infantry MAXes Mines VTOL Tanks Ambushers (remember to check corners) Ambushers (the cloaked variety that can actually be hard to see when there is a mess of VISIBLE guys shooting at you already.) Ambushers (high points, typically LA, sometimes podders) Snipers Getting surrounded. -Or flanked. Bad friendly tank drivers. What do long range snipers have to worry about? Snipers. VTOL. Tanks. Flankers. The first one turns into a game of hunter hunting hunter, the next 2 are only relevant if the pilots are even aware there's a sniper threat (they're often blissfully unaware,) and the third is easily countered with a simple tool provided to the sniper: their motion sensor dart, and proper cloaking generally f***s with all four. So really, it shouldn't come as any surprise why no one but the snipers are getting involved in the constant, self-entitled circle-j*** that is the whining over no long range OHKs. Present your "skill" and survive in a sub-75m range combat environment with your OHK head shot rifle. Coincidentally, outside of BF3, snipers in most FPS' operate at even shorter distances.
For every player like you, there are 99 other snipers who are afraid of dying a virtual death. For those players, KDR is everything.
1. We have limited amount of recon darts. 2. Recon darts max detect radius - 50m. It's not much u know. 3. Cloak/uncloak sounds are loud and give away your position. 4. Pair of eyes is enough to spot cloakers up to 50m. Lack of logic. Those people who survive headshots from sniper rifle due to NW2 (11 certs) or NW3 (61 certs) don't whine about that on forum? Soooooo weird. However i know a lot of people (non snipers) who think NW is not balanced. kk Most of those players who are afraid of dying use vehicles or play as HA. I'm infiltrator most of the time. Currently i refuse to use SMG and pretty often i'm the first one who enter the room full of enemies cuz allied HAs too scared.
Oh good, you've just proven you're fine with working within the danger zone, and thus anyone else with the cajones and the willingness to learn can too, so I guess there really isn't a problem with NW after all. Thanks for proving my point. You're example of the ability to do so doesn't change the weight of your opinion in the debate. Pretty sure you don't need them to hear or see vehicles sneaking up on you. They're mostly for the oft more subtle infantry climbing around for a positive ID and a good shot. Here's the problem most whiny snipers have: they're self-absorbed. There's a difference between "skilled play" and "competitive play." One-shot sniping someone from a distance they can't realistically retaliate from might required skill play, but it isn't competitive play. Simply moving around as the target isn't competitive play in regards to engaging the sniper, just competitive in regards to engaging other hostiles within their strike zone. If there is no danger for failure - that's death - then it's not competitive play. A PvP game must be built for competitive play. Competitive play naturally brings out the skill. Before you mention something about tanks versus medics, that tank naturally has to put themselves within range of someone's rocket launcer, or hostile tanks. Snipers don't have to put themselves in direct danger to do their work, but as a result, there are some things in game that prevent them from being oft rewarded for it. To the rest of you, follow Granderil's example, and learn to f***ing play.
I understand nobody LIKES being headshotted by a sniper, but by that logic, we should remove death from the game altogether because nobody likes dying to another person. Who here likes being shot in the back? Again, with the logic that nobody likes it, maybe the backside of a soldier should have twice the armor. I was having a bad day a few days ago, and the same guy killed me five times in a row in the span of 45 seconds. I could have cried out that he was hacking or was overpowered because he was vanu, but I congratulated him on literally kicking my butt that whole time because he was taking advantage of my mistake, which was being blinded by my desire for revenge- I had been just rushing right towards him every time. Back to sniping, I have never, ever been headshotted by a long range sniper while I was consciously trying to avoid it. It's possible at 50 meters, and even 100 meters. At 300 meters, you are lucky or aimbotting to get a shot like that. You use the cloak to get into a good position, I understand, but that doesn't change what the bolt action is. You MUST aim at the head to get a one hit kill. It's easier to do so when the enemy makes themselves a good target by standing still or moving in a straight line. Also, keep in mind the disadvantages to possess the power of a bolt action. You lose the opportunity to have an smg. You lose any close quarter capabilities short of your pistol. You are the opposite of any spray and pray mentality. You make yourself a priority target. Missed shots are punished more by a BASR than by any other gun in the game. Plus, a missed shot gives your identity away- a missed shot from an smg is different than that of a sniper. You lose peripherals. If someone sneaks up on you, you're almost totally defenseless. The only advantage to a bolt action, really, is the ability to do one hit kills. Now that this is gone... why do we have snipers? You can't reliably take out targets anymore. I thought sniping was "not an asset to the team" as some people put it. Sniping doesn't do anything, they said. If you strip the sniper of killing potential... was this part of the plan or something? It was balanced just fine before. If anything, until they fix what I am deeming a glitch, the close range bolt actions are more valuable- within their effective ranges is where the higher damage tiers reside, so you will reliably get one hit kills. You know, it really wouldn't be hard to fix this. If they'd simply increase the headshot multiplier of a bolt action to 2.5 or something, or increase minimum damage by 100, that'd solve the issue. The end. Simple.
Ah the good old "L2P" suggestion. Try to grasp the following, little man. There is no problem with nanoweave, apart from it to totally nullify Bolt-action rifles when they are used from ranges they are apparantly designed to be used from. Your point didn't need proving, because it was already apparant that Infiltrators can do quite well in CQB. As a matter of fact, I do much better in CQB, than I ever did sniping, and that is not because I am a bad sniper. The point is that Nanoweave currently totally renders Sniping, wether it be good, or bad sniping, an non-viable option, since there's no point in having your targets run away and heal up after you've shot them. It's about choice. If I choose to be wanting to snipe, that choice should be equally as viable and effective as any other role I'd choose to play. The current situation is forcing me to play like featured in the vid above. I might not feel like wanting to play like that all the time. I might want to use a Heavy Assault, or a Combat Medic, who preforms that role much better. Infiltrators take alot of specialisation. Alot of practice, and alot of certs to become rather good. If you think good sniping takes no skill..... well then I'm afraid you just don't know the diffrence between a sniper that is at the right place, at the right time, and the sniper that does nothing but stand on a hill farming kills. *sigh* I'm already wondering why I'm even bothering trying to explain this to you...you clearly have no idea what you are talking about... and seem to be the typical ignorant 2nd gen gamer that SoE is catering towards.
Thankfully, those who have actually studied and/or worked within the industry know 'logic' such as this grossly simplifies the principals of game design. There's a huge difference between the perception of 'fair' and 'unfair' loss. Granted, some folks will always feel their play-experience to be cheapened by loss. For everyone else there is a discipline dedicated to providing perceptibly 'rewarding' and 'fair' gaming 'experiences'. The key term is 'Perceptibly'. A standard technique is to include clear, reliable signalling, from which the player can 'learn' the language of a game. This process attempts to empower the player as they invest time in learning the game. Now, the game can be rigged from here until Sunday and yet, if there is a perception of fairness, a perception of a ''language' that can be learnt and from it new, better choices made, then the player has the opportunity to feel a little better about things like losing. The lack of clear, reliable signalling makes for a poor gaming experience, one that the player feels as if they can never 'learn' the language of the system, one where they can never apply understanding - gained through exposure, attention and deduction/comprehension. It's also why Mario Kart is an absolute pig to play if you don't know the tracks and your mates do. While we can (probably?) never eliminate frustrating gaming experiences, clear, reliable signalling has been proven to be a useful tool in attempting to do so. The 'problem' with 'OHK seemingly from nowhere' is they provide nothing, zero, zilch, in terms of signalling from which the player can learn. The closest we have in the game, currently, is the benefit of Nanoweave X, which, upon recieing a non-fatal headshot, clearly communicates 'YOU COULD HAVE DIED. YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE VERY QUICKLY IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING. MOVING MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA.' Again, this does not mean there should never be OHK from sniping - I'm simply trying to get it into your head *why* designing games that involve systems like OHK sniping can be so challenging, where the goal is to provide an enjoyable experience to as many people as possible. Oh, will I remember: Higby and Co (that should probably be Co and Higby, since someone else was mannign the comms) said that they've finally cleared up the rendering of objects while flying. Again, an attempt to provide a better gaming experience through clear, reliable signalling.
I just wrote a very long reply to this to try and counter the points you made, but I decided to just tell you how I see your comment. Almost every time I debate the issue of OHK people bring up a lack of counter play as the justification for nanoweave's ability to block headshots, and almost every time I end up having to explain to people how to effectively counter a sniper who is sniping from range. This issue is pretty much just going in circles for me and always ends with me trying to explain all the ways to stop a sniper from killing you. I am not your mommy, and I am pretty much done trying to list out all the ways to be effective against snipers (besides pulling another sniper). I can tell you, however, that there is a long list of things that can be done to make a sniper's job harder and effectively compete with them at their own game.I am close to just sending tells to everyone I headshot to explain how they could have avoided that situation, but I am done explaining it on the forums to people who are not listening. To address your last point though about Snipers not putting themselves in direct danger I will say that >100m from your target almost never means >100m from danger. I would also like to say that, to me, the debate of nanoweave is not about rewarding skillful play. Nanoweave is a problem because it makes Bolt actions an underpowered weapon class. I don't care how easy or hard it is to snipe from long range, because there is a limit placed on its effectiveness by low rate of fire, low mag size, and scope sway plus breath hold. These things make it so that even if you are the best sniper in the world, and it takes no effort to snipe from long range, you can only be so effective. Nanoweave adds another factor to that list though that makes snipers less effective, but it was not adjusted for in the design of bolt action rifles. Maybe if they got rid of scope sway and bullet drop nanoweave would make sense, but right now nanoweave is an unbalanced disadvantage to sniper rifles.
Don't you think it would make more sense to integrate some kind of hints bar that is selected based on what killed you though? Instead of giving players nanoweave (which has an actual impact on balance to solve a percieved problem), a hint that says "to avoid sniper fire try to stay moving as much as possible," or when dieing to a tank shell "seek cover indoors to avoid the explosive damage of tank shells" these kind of tips seem like they offer more than nanoweave would to clear and reliable signalling. For people who are not very good at the game, or do not know that being headshot is probably their fault for standing still, nanoweave just seems like an inconsistent way to provide reliable signalling. Sometimes you survive, sometimes you die and either way you are offered no insight as to how to prevent that situation in the first place. I get that this game is massive and overwhelming, but changing the balance of weapons to fix a problem of people's perception seems like a shorterm solution that will have impacts on large portions of the community down the line, when they figure out that things that used to seem fair to them are actually not balanced at all.
I think their are many things that can be explored! However, it's not on me to do so. (Which I'm thankful for - it's a tough job and American companies can be real slave drivers!) We can all provide options. However, without testing, we wouldn't know how well they would be received. I'd personally be a little wary if I started to believe that I 'knew', with utmost certainty, what x thousand/squillion gamers would find exciting. Testing is always required. There is no 'one' solution - all we can hope for is refinement and improvement. If it helps, we can all take heart in the knowledge that the designers of Planetside 2, our current gaming experience, seem strongly committed to refining and improving the experience, to the best of their abilities. Personally, I like to think of every game as an experiment in entertainment engineering. It's an experiment, an experience - one hell of a ride for designer and user. Sometime we might not like where the ride is going, sometimes we might not like where the ride ends up but ya know? That journey.. can be so.. fun!
I think IIXianderII approach is awesome. Because let's face it, getting head-shotted is the fault of the guy who gets shot 99% of the time for not moving. The rest is people who have figured out how to kill moving targets which in this game is very hard.
Well, I haven't lost that much faith... I just believe that we may have a case of a purely run and gun oriented development crew that doesn't understand the mechanics behind sniping and how it's balanced. So, they have nothing but the typical frustration that every other run and gun oriented player has towards it...so they don't want it. Hopefully, our endless banter about it will ultimately change that viewpoint and ensure that the unique play style sniping provides isn't lost. Haven't you been reading? If it's balanced, it's balanced. You're only complaining about it being annoying and have no actual basis for your complaint beyond that. As we all stated, there are plenty of things that annoy us...even when we're using other classes, sniping is the last on that list. You really need to actually read what people say if you even want to attempt to understand... I went on to explain that we are not balanced like run and gun oriented players, you can not balance sniping off kill to death in the way that you would run and gun oriented places. It doesn't work. We are balanced by time. We don't die as often as you do. We don't kill as often as you do either. That's the point. It takes us MORE time to kill someone, on average, than it does you. The time it takes to set up position. The time it takes for players to enter our killzone. The time it takes for a player to stand still. If you want to understand easier, make yourself an NC alt and take the default Bolt-Action into the field...start sniping. No, it hasn't until the new age kids began crying about it because it "frustrates them." (...and you're telling us to play a less stressful game, and ironically telling us to go play a game that requires intelligence and actually is stressful when you get to the higher levels...making your comment even more absurd.) That aside, you're telling every dedicated sniper to piss off in a game that already has population problems. That's one hell of a brilliant idea you got there kiddo, deplete the population even further over a playing style that you just "don't like."
Last? You want to take a poll? Because I will bet that it isn't last on the list of most annoying things. Haven't you been reading? I said it's unfair to go up against and forces people to go indoors where people have to go up against shotguns, which will piss people off. If we are talking about balance game-wise, then yeah snipers are fine, but I'm talking about player balance. There will always be annoying stat padding snipers who make it worse for the aggressive snipers who like to get closer to the action.
Huh, didn't see this part. Any who, I do snipe when I feel like it (on VS) and to my knowledge, you still can OHK people, you just have to get closer to them. Silencers along with recon darts and cloaking can keep you off radar, out of sight, and alert. For some strange reason, most snipers think all they can do is stay in one secluded place far off with no silencer picking stragglers off and that people should be okay with being killed that way. I say no to that, get in the action and you will find that you can still OHK people if your aim is good and you are quick on the draw.
Well, that depends entirely upon who's taking the poll. "Us" was used to refer snipers playing on other classes...or example, when I run as an Engineer tossing out ammunition packs and what not. We know how easy it is to avoid getting killed by a sniper, so it just doesn't happen unless we're complete morons standing still for several seconds...in which case, we realize it was our own fault. Otherwise, we're typically quick to simply think to ourselves how damn good of a shot that was. You're not talking about any form of balance, you're talking about frustration. Also, what are you talking about when you say "stat padding snipers." Are you one of those who don't understand what snipers are actually doing for your faction, or trying to do considering nanoweave denies us those kills. I have always been a long ranged sniper ever since Delta Force: Land Warrior. In Planetside 2, a long range sniper is doing the following for their faction. Killing engineers repairing base turrets. Killing engineers using AP or AA turrets. Killing engineers repairing MAX units. Killing heavy assault players trying to rocket vehicles. Killing the engineers repairing vehicles behind cover. Killing combat medics who are healing and resurrecting a clutch of enemy forces. This is what we do, and it's best accomplished from a distance because your field of vision is larger...providing you a much greater killzone and the capability to ensure you aren't picked off as easily while providing this benefit to your faction. For example: There have been countless times that I have positioned myself atop a canyon on Indar while the enemy forces pushed an armor convoy towards our base. Each time a vehicle was damaged to the point of smoking, they would back it up behind a group of rocks and the engineer would leap out to repair. Our forces within the base, and even the "aggressive snipers" are incapable of nailing these targets because their field of vision isn't as great as mine...they can't see over those rocks like I can. I nail the engineer. These types of situations occur readily often for those of us who snipe from long range. Take your Biolabs, as another example, where those massive battles on the landing pads take place...often turning into a standstill for a period of time. Your "aggressive snipers" are often either within the Biolab shooting out at that pad to hit whatever they can see...or atop the dome shooting down. More often than not, the snipers on the dome will get killed before they can do anything too significant... However, I can pick off several combat medics from the ridge across the way looking right at that pad...and I'll remain there picking them off one by one until my faction can push that clutch of troops back to their Sunderer. This is what we do, and you can't really call it stat padding when it's the best possible way to take out these high priority targets. If you can see more of the battlefield, you are going to be able to take out more targets...you are going to provide a lot more befit to your faction by taking them out. If your going to go the "aggressive" front, pick up an SMG because you placed yourself within medium range where a bolt-action rifle isn't going to save you from the weapons that excel at these ranges. Sure, you might get a few kills...but you'll be killed far more often and provide far less of a benefit to your faction because most of these kills will be people in your reduced killzone, which aren't likely to be high priority targets, at least not as frequently. With a smaller killzone, you aren't going to come across as many high priority targets as you would with long range sniping...where your killzone is much larger. Run and gun oriented players don't often realize what long range snipers are doing for them because it's not happening around them. They don't often see the sniper who blew the head off the combat medic who was keeping that clutch of troops alive and pushing you back. Out of sight, out of mind. So we're called "stat padders" and people who "sit out in the middle of nowhere and do nothing to benefit their faction."
Read my last post. Close range snipers aren't nearly as beneficial to their faction because they aren't taking out as many high priority targets. Their killzone is smaller, so they see far less of these high priority targets and die more often. For example... Who do you think is killing more high priority targets. The Infiltrator on the ground who has an exceedingly limited view of his surroundings or the sniper on a mountain overlooking the base that can see every level of said base, the surrounding landscape, and the areas in between each building... The sniper on the mountain is going to see more of these high priority targets, they're going to kill more of these high priority targets. The sniper on the ground is going to kill anything that moves and have a drastically reduced risk of seeing those high priority targets because of their limited field of view. They aren't going to see the combat medic on the second level of a tower healing those downed troops while hugging the wall. They won't see the engineer hiding behind the little wall barricade and healing that AA MAX shooting the aircraft above. Even if they get into a building and atop such, aside from likely picked off the moment they uncloak to shoot...they're still not going to see nearly as much as the sniper on the mountain. They're not going to bring as much to the battle. As I said, people don't realize what long range snipers do...out of sight, out of mind.
You make is seem like sniping is the only way to do this. I'm sure any long range gun plus a silencer and a 4x scope can yield similar results. Why don't you try that out since you like long range engagements.
