Snipers

(Joe999) #1

i just read on crossfire:

“yeah, we’re not a 1 bullet = death game, but at the same time, everyone’s not a big meat bag that takes forever to put down. i think we’re at a good compromise between the two extremes”

http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=forum&mode=item&id=24588#comment752956

i’m curious: the sniping behaviour, will it be like in et or like in quake wars? in et if you had 100% health you couldn’t die from a sniper shot. in qw on the opposite you could. for me it took the fun out of the game if some kid kept on killing you from a distance far away while you kept on fixing eg the bridge as an engineer. so no matter if you had a medic with you, it was game over for you. then you had to switch to sniper, snipe him out and switch back to eng because none of your team was seeing the sniper or taking the time to take him out. bad teamplay of course, but still very annoying, unnecessarily annoying. here’s how it was in qw:

http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums/showpost.php?p=184390&postcount=35

imo damage falloff should be in the game, as well as the impossibility that you can die from a single shot. it doesn’t make sense at all. especially when the motto is “gameplay > realism”, i hope it still is :slight_smile:

(darthmob) #2

It has been said that the combats are much more close up than ETQW and maybe a bit more than ET and that there will be no real sniper rifle with 10x zoom for the lonely sniper.

(Rahdo) #3

yeah, currently we don’t have any weapons that can put an average guy down with one bullet. but don’t forget there is the added wrinkle of small body types though, who are supposed to be living on the hairy edge of death at all times. we’re still working on specific weapon balance values though, and will likely be doing so for months to come :slight_smile:

and yeah, while we have some medium distances in a few maps, there’s no super long range sniping like in QW…

and finally, yes, gameplay > realism :slight_smile:

(deadlights) #4

I dunno, I think sniping is a skill and people who hit their target in the head should be rewarded with a kill.

(organon) #5

Don’t know how big the Brink maps are. It’s supposed to be a claustrophobic, overcrowded place after all. So probably sniping isn’t that good of an option anyway.

But I think, some types of weapons, the really slow firing ones, are just useless, if they don’t allow one shot kills. Those one shot kills must take real skill though. The scout and the M3 in counterstrike are the best implementations I know.

(Nail) #6

sniping in computer games is not a skill, any one can hide and wait for some one to walk into their crosshair. Stick with CamperSnipe if that’s the kind of game you like

(Floris) #7

Whether sniping in computer games is skilled based or not is a subject open for discussion. Personally I have seen some amazing snipers in various games like W:ET, CS(:S) and ET:QW, so I definitely think there is a level of skill involved. And just because I can aim my crosshair at a corner and shoot three headies when someone passes by doesn’t mean there can’t be any skill involved with SMG combat either…

(tokamak) #8

Even UT3 had a sniper rifle that could one (head) shot people. I wouldn’t be too hesitant about including it in this game.

While we’re at it. I’ve just been playing Raven Shield and I’m just amazed at how amazingly fun flash-bang, tear gas and smoke grenades are. Suddenly taking just the frag grenades becomes a very difficult choice.

(shirosae) #9

Incredibly, I thought all those hours I spent practising quick-scopes and indoor sniping and timed mid-strafe headshots up close in an effort to simultaneously give my team radar whilst actually being useful indoors in ETQW was skill-based. Well, now I know better, thanks.

(tokamak) #10

I don’t think anybody is denying that some exploits do indeed require skill. I seriously hope they’ll fix that lame scoping-shoot thing in Brink.

(shirosae) #11

Why? Instead of playing rambo med, you could instead play railgun ninja. What’s wrong with that? You only get one shot plus a few blaster shots before you’re dead, so it wasn’t stupidly imba.

Either you got your headshot cause you earned it, or you got a bodyshot and managed to get the next two blaster headshots in before you died, or you just died. Without the quickscope, railgun is useless in close range. What else is an infiltrator going to do, take the Acc.Lac and hope the other player sucks so much that he can’t hit your face?

Or should Infils just resign to lying on hills miles away?

(organon) #12

@Nail

I never was a sniper, I almost always run around with shotgun. Agree though, sniping in computer games is the part that takes the least skill.

(tokamak) #13

[QUOTE=shirosae;197684]Why? Instead of playing rambo med, you could instead play railgun ninja. What’s wrong with that? You only get one shot plus a few blaster shots before you’re dead, so it wasn’t stupidly imba.

Either you got your headshot cause you earned it, or you got a bodyshot and managed to get the next two blaster headshots in before you died, or you just died. Without the quickscope, railgun is useless in close range. What else is an infiltrator going to do, take the Acc.Lac and hope the other player sucks so much that he can’t hit your face?

Or should Infils just resign to lying on hills miles away?[/QUOTE]

Hills or medium range corridors/rooftops.

Yes I do think the quick scope is not the way the rail gun is intended to work. It’s essentially an exploit to combine the (lack of) spread of the scope with the mobility of the unscoped mode.

I really hope a simple fix like not being able to shoot while scoping solves this issue.

(shirosae) #14

[QUOTE=tokamak;197686]Hills or medium range corridors/rooftops.

Yes I do think the quick scope is not the way the rail gun is intended to work. It’s essentially an exploit to combine the (lack of) spread of the scope with the mobility of the unscoped mode.

I really hope a simple fix like not being able to shoot while scoping solves this issue.[/QUOTE]

So at the end of Salvage, for example, should the Infil put up a radar and go afk? Or should s/he swap to some other class and lose the radar? Or should s/he swap to accurised lacerator and hope the enemy sucks so he stands a chance with the reduced firerate?

I may be on my own with this one, but I actually don’t care in the slightest how Railguns were intended to be used.

Strafe-jumping wasn’t intended. Rocketjumps weren’t intended. Lots of things that are awesome weren’t intended. Railguns offer a viable skill-based close quarters weapon and alternative playstyle to rambo-technicians solely because it’s possible to have one accurate fast shot with them.

I wish people would stop pretending that emergent gameplay is somehow a bad thing.

(tokamak) #15

Strafe-jumping was most definitely intended. I remember some SD developper saying it somewhere in an interview. There’s also quite allot of parts in the map that are obviously made for strafe/trick jumping.

Exploits are always a form of emergent gameplay, just giving it a prettier name and shoving it with more admirable emergences like meta-game tactics doesn’t stop the quickscope from being a blatant exploit.

And rambo-techinicians or medics aren’t doing anything wrong. Don’t use them to justify using exploits. You might as well start using them as an excuse to use cheats to offer ‘viable alternatives’ to them.

So at the end of Salvage, for example, should the Infil put up a radar and go afk? Or should s/he swap to some other class and lose the radar? Or should s/he swap to accurised lacerator and hope the enemy sucks so he stands a chance with the reduced firerate?

The accurised lacerator isn’t the pea-shooter you try to make it out to be. Even the railgun is powerful enough if used as intended in the long hallways of the Salvage base. And it definitely strikes me as odd that you don’t seem to be unable to think of disguising and going on a stabbing spree. Especially at the final Salvage phase stabbing the disarming engineer can be the deciding move of the match.

(shirosae) #16

Your argument was that Railguns weren’t intended to be used as a close quarters weapon, and so shouldn’t be used as one.

Strafe-jumping wasn’t intended in quake, but they put it back in after realising that it was awesome. What works is more important than what was intended.

Calling it an exploit doesn’t stop it from being a perfectly valid alternative to joining in with the rambo-tech hoarde.

Let me make sure I understand this logic properly.

I said that close quarters sniping is a valid alternative to rambo-techs. And somehow, this means that I disapprove of rambo-techs.

And clearly since I apparently disapprove of rambo-techs, I must condone hacks!

…

I didn’t say that rambo-techs were doing anything wrong. What I’m saying is that if the single best way to play is clearly rambo-tech, you have a problem. Taking away a useful alternative option is dumb. Doing it just because that playstyle wasn’t intended is extra dumb.

If I use an acc.lac up close to someone of equal skill with an assault rifle, I am going to lose, because they’re going to get the headshots before I can. I didn’t spend ages honing my aim with the railgun just to be obtuse, it was so I could actually be useful indoors.

Well that’s a good six spots I can camp incessantly for the last third of the match then. Glad that’s settled.

I generally don’t play against scrubs.

So I get to be useful within an eight second-ish window every both (a) my team manages to successfully plant and (b) fails to defend it? Awesome!

(tokamak) #17

Not entirely. My argument was that railgun (and sniper rifles) weren’t intended to be used trough the quickscope.

Strafe-jumping wasn’t intended in quake, but they put it back in after realising that it was awesome. What works is more important than what was intended.

Exactly. And the up-close no-spread head shots clearly are working too well.

Calling it an exploit doesn’t stop it from being a perfectly valid alternative to joining in with the rambo-tech hoarde.

Nope it indeed doesn’t. Nor does calling it a perfectly valid alternative to joining in with the ramo-tech hoarde justify it’s existence.

Let me make sure I understand this logic properly.

I said that close quarters sniping is a valid alternative to rambo-techs. And somehow, this means that I disapprove of rambo-techs.

And clearly since I apparently disapprove of rambo-techs, I must condone hacks!

I didn’t say that. I said you are (and you are) using them as a means to justify exploits. You might as well use them to justify hacks.

I didn’t say that rambo-techs were doing anything wrong. What I’m saying is that if the single best way to play is clearly rambo-tech, you have a problem.

Definitely. Lucky there’s a myriad of other ways to play that don’t involve exploits.

If I use an acc.lac up close to someone of equal skill with an assault rifle, I am going to lose, because they’re going to get the headshots before I can. I didn’t spend ages honing my aim with the railgun just to be obtuse, it was so I could actually be useful indoors

That would depend on the range of engagement. And I honestly don’t care how much time you spent perfectioning the exploit just like I don’t care how much time someone spends in trying to jump trough a wall or door to get to the objective before anyone else can get there.

Well that’s a good six spots I can camp incessantly for the last third of the match then. Glad that’s settled.

Six spots seems about enough yeah.

So I get to be useful within an eight second-ish window every both (a) my team manages to successfully plant and (b) fails to defend it? Awesome!

At least, yes. With a bit more tactical insight and experience you get to be useful throughout the entire game! Imagine!

(acidrain) #18

I’m going to have to side with Shirosae on this one. There’s a huge difference between camping in the mountains with a sniper rifle and playing close quarter combat with a sniper rifle. The latter requires far more skill than even regular SMG combat.

(Floris) #19

It’s funny, in previous Quake games the Railgun has always been like a bolt action rifle, in ET:QW it’s a weapon designed for sniping. Considering ET:QW takes place earlier than all the other Quake games, we could consider that the people using the ET:QW railgun as a bolt action rifle are like the strogg which invented the railgun of the future.

Personally I loved using the railgun in close combat, sometimes it was just as effective as the strogg rocket launcher (obliterator right?). And sometimes it was just as effective at trying to knife someone from 10 feet away :stuck_out_tongue:

(tokamak) #20

True, the one is an exploit and the other isn’t. No other weapon allows you to one-hit kill people up close without limitation. Even an obliterator/rocket launcher has a delay added to make the suicide-bombing a little harder.