Vassili jump-snipes: suggestions for better reworking and less RNG

(ProfPlump) #1

One of the changes in the recent update was that now your ADS accuracy while in midair is completely innaccurate, even for scoped weapons. Now, I’m all for preventing people from crouch bunny hopping side to side while spraying bullets downrange, but personally I think that the MOA and the FEL-IX should still hold onto their accuracy while jumping, as Vassili was already slightly underpowered in competitive as it is, and jumpsniping gave him a special trick that he could use every now and then to surprise an enemy and kill them - which is also one of the most entertaining things to watch as a spectator.
Now, if jump sniping really was OP, then I think that nerfing it is fine, but NOT through adding in massive spread that just makes it impossible to do - it should be made HARDER, more RISKIER, and therefore more impressive, rather than just downright RNG-reliant.

Splash Damage, if you want to nerf the MOA/FEL-IX’s abilities to jumpsnipe, here are some much better suggestions than just adding bullshit RNG spread:
[First off, remove the ADS spread while in mid-air on the snipers, and THEN…]

  • Make it so that, each time you fire a bolt action bullet while in midair, you TAKE a bit of damage from that shot (say, around 25 damage?) - I think this would add a much more risk/reward to the mix, because it would actually make the Vassili much more vulnerable IF the opponents can figure out where he’s shooting from, and return fire. If he’s taken a couple of jumpsnipes already, he’s down to at least 50 HP, leaving him VERY vulnerable for his next shot where he will peak, then lose another 25HP and will be on INCREDIBLY low health. As well as making him vulnerable while doing jump snipes, it would also mean that he would be only able to take a max of 3 shots before needing to be healed. Also, this would prevent CONSTANT jump sniping - you could only use it a few times and then you would need to stop, meaning that your opponents wouldn’t be as pinned down as they used to be. This would also make a fair bit of realistic sense as firing a sniper rifle while not bracing for the recoil would probably break your shoulder.
  • Make it so that the MOA/FEL-IX have more drastic scope sway while jumping (perhaps while you’re in the air there is a STRONG pull in a random direction, and the Vassili has to quickly counter that, then line up a shot, then take it). This would require MUCH more skill to do than before, but wouldn’t make it solely luck-based like it is right now.
  • Make it so that, one a bullet has been fired while in the air, the user cannot rechamber another round until his feet have touched the ground once again. This would HUGELY reduce the effectiveness of jump sniping.

(Any and/or all of these changes could be added)

Now, again, this is just my opinion. I use Vassili a LOT and I know that jumpsniping was one of the most tricky, satisfying, and entertaining (for spectators) abilities/tricks in the whole of Dirty Bomb. It’s currently quite hard to do, but I think making it harder (but not impossible), as well as adding in punishments for failing (taking mid-air damage from the kickback) would only make it MORE fun to do and MORE satisfying when it works. I think that my suggestions would not extinguish this incredibly fun feature from the game, but it would reduce how often it can be used (only 3 shots before needing health, possibly only 2 shots if you’ve been tagged while shooting).

Feel free to comment, but don’t be a dick about it - we’re all friends here.
Except for Motherlandz… Fuck that guy :wink:

(CCP115) #2

I didn’t read in depth but I do agree when you say that MOA and FELIX should retain the jump shotting ability. As weird a mechanic it is, it’s part of their “identities”.

(Frogteam) #3

I once got a double long jump mid air double kill from above to prevent a defuse on Dome. I support Vaseline jump sniping rights.

This is a real Signature.

(Sinee) #4

This is fucking horrible and is game breaking for aggressive snipers.

Sniping in this game requires skill, more than anything else. People will cry and say Vassili is overpowered, but the fact of the matter is, is that something that is OP means that just anyone can randomly give it a whirl and be good at it (like shotguns). But Vassili takes so many hours to master; the sniper rifles are very unforgiving. YOU. MUST. BE. ABLE. TO. AIM. ACCURATELY. QUICKLY.

Being able to nail people while constantly moving requires skill. Now it’s just RNG, like everything else in this fucking game. But for some reason Splash Damage is taking this game SO far away from being something that pushes skill and caters to casual, low skill gamers, with casual low skill weapons.

But since Vassili users are a minority (because he requires skill), it doesn’t matter how much people speak out against changes against him. The majority that hate being killed by him will always get their way.

It just… sucks. It sucks so bad. Because sniping in DB is such a challenge that when you do land a perfect headshot, it feels so rewarding because of the effort it took to get it. The time spent, the time learning that was invested.

People will argue that you shouldn’t be able to snipe while jumping either. I say a lightweight girl shouldn’t be able to jump or run with a double barrel shotgun realistically. Lasers shouldn’t be called down from Neptune realistically.

Removing headshot gibbing was bad enough. But this breaks Vassili and aggressive sniping entirely.

I love Dirty Bomb. I’ve invested hundreds and hundreds of hours in it. I’ve defended it, and tried desperately to keep my sniper partner in it to play with me. But now I just don’t have anything to say to him. Except maybe, what other game can we play? I’m not usually like this. But I know the amount of time and effort INVESTED to be GOOD with Vassili in maining him, and now SD has negated a huge majority of that with one single fuck ass patch. I’m just so upset. Jumping and sniping is muscle memory for good snipers. Now it’s just RNG. This is so… so bad for anyone who mains Vassili.

(ProfPlump) #5

I admit that the crouch bouncing sniping is a little bit stupid, where you just hold crouch and sidestrafe while jumping and aiming, but part of the fun of dirty bomb was that Unreal Tournament element of doing acrobatics and shooting while flying through the air and bouncing over objects to attack from unsuspecting directions when your enemy is unaware.

But regardless of my reasons, Vassili was STILL underpowered (competitively) before the nerf to one of his most unique and helpful abilities - so why should he get nerfed.

(Amerika) #6

I honestly think this has to be an oversight on SD’s part or they are simply trying to push in a change they already tried to push in and was quickly rejected. For you newer players, Vassili (before Redeye came out) got hit with a nerf to his accuracy while jumping. As anybody who plays him in an aggressive manner knows you have to do this to compete as a kill orientated merc. It also raised the skill ceiling and was interesting and you get to see a lot of highlight reel style shots.

I haven’t tried him myself since the patch yesterday but I’ve read enough to know that either SD completely forget to test sniper rifles or they are trying to sneak this nerf in again. I know Exedore personally hates jump sniping so it wouldn’t surprise me if either reason for it making it into the game is true.

It’s weird…Sparks is finally toned down a bit at range which buffs the usefulness of Vassili and Redeye but then they immediately get nerfed in the one thing that kept them relevant.

(LifeupOmega) #7

It’s a stupid change really. They took away the instagib, which needed to go, but then, instead of leaving him in a fairly decent place and adjusting the PDP/Redeye and Sparks, they add fucking RNG sway to his scope while jumping. This means that you can no longer be highly mobile, which was the appeal of playing Vas.

Honestly, if they keep this they need to at least remove scope sway. Because all this piled on top of each other just leads to Vas being a useless merc on the same par as a Phantom.

(ProfPlump) #8

[quote=“Amerika;143241”]I honestly think this has to be an oversight on SD’s part or they are simply trying to push in a change they already tried to push in and was quickly rejected. For you newer players, Vassili (before Redeye came out) got hit with a nerf to his accuracy while jumping. As anybody who plays him in an aggressive manner knows you have to do this to compete as a kill orientated merc. It also raised the skill ceiling and was interesting and you get to see a lot of highlight reel style shots.

I haven’t tried him myself since the patch yesterday but I’ve read enough to know that either SD completely forget to test sniper rifles or they are trying to sneak this nerf in again. I know Exedore personally hates jump sniping so it wouldn’t surprise me if either reason for it making it into the game is true.

It’s weird…Sparks is finally toned down a bit at range which buffs the usefulness of Vassili and Redeye but then they immediately get nerfed in the one thing that kept them relevant.[/quote]

I swear the devs have such a hard on for sparks… “Oh FINE we’ll nerf sparks already - still gonna nerf all the other snipers at the same time tho”

(Merci1ess) #9

SD is dumbing this game down patch after patch. This pretty much ruined my aggressive style of play with Vassili and that’s pretty much all I played. It’s the only merc to me that feels rewarding when you manage to get kills. I was mad about the instagib being ripped out of the game… but with the increase of the snipers’ rate of fire I learned how to live with it since it made it easier for me to gib right after getting a headshot. Now I’m basically a sitting duck, strafing at 0.2 mph left n right. My only way of trying to dodge incoming fire. It makes me such an easy target it’s gross.

If it’s a 1 vs 1 and I miss my first shot I consider myself lucky if I can manage to pull away and fire a second shot. But if that second shot does not hit my opponents head then I’m pretty much done.

“New players don’t tend to play Vassili… So we are going to fuck him up the ass and make it harder for those who main him. To give the noobs a chance at killing you and make them happy because they’re the majority of our playerbase and we LOVE them!!” -SD

Fuckin’ joke.

(triteCherry) #10

Wait what? Nearly every game I see new players playing Vaseline, it’s really obvious too.

(ProfPlump) #11

Wait what? Nearly every game I see new players playing Vaseline, it’s really obvious too.

[/quote]

Yeah but they haven’t gotten to the point where they learn the value of jump sniping yet, and that might be why they’re nerfing him in this way - they’re nerfing only the best players, but leaving the inexperienced noobs none the wiser. It’s basically dropping the skill curve and making Vassili even more underpowered with one nerf. Fucking SD…

(Sinee) #12

Wait what? Nearly every game I see new players playing Vaseline, it’s really obvious too.

[/quote]Noobs will try him and give up quickly. That’s why you see how-to articles on Steam on how to use him and be effective with him. He’s practically the only merc that takes time and dedication to be good with. Learning to aim accurately, twitch and snap to people, get headshots while constantly moving… It takes a lot of technique, muscle memory and hand-eye coordination. Casual noobs aren’t going to do that. DB’s sniping demanded more skill than sniping in a lot of other games. Even the AWP in CSGO can one-shot on the body, making it a lower skill demand than yes, rifles in DB.
That’s skill that a lot of new players coming from other FPS’s aren’t going to care enough to invest the time in. They try Vassili thinking they can be a badass sniper, then see how difficult it is to be effective unless you “get good”.

(Merci1ess) #13

Wait what? Nearly every game I see new players playing Vaseline, it’s really obvious too.

[/quote]

I don’t know where you play bud but I don’t see them much and if I do… They’re not so great. People tend to buy him first because he’s only 30 000 credits but quickly switch to another merc after noticing how difficult it can be.

What @ProfPlump is saying is absolutely true. It’s come to a point in which SD is actually trying to nerf the players more than they are actually trying to balance the mercenaries. All the ingredients of a game in dire straits are on the table at the moment. It went from a competitive “This game will kick your ass” game to a painfully average casual game in which anyone can hop on and do good.

In the latest patches we’ve seen snipers get nerfed and shotguns get buffed. Not only buffed once or twice… 3 times. Even before the changes, to me personally, shotguns were and are the easiest thing you can use in this game. It was powerful then and even more powerful now. Yet it keeps getting these buffs.

(ProfPlump) #14

Wait what? Nearly every game I see new players playing Vaseline, it’s really obvious too.

[/quote]

I don’t know where you play bud but I don’t see them much and if I do… They’re not so great. People tend to buy him first because he’s only 30 000 credits but quickly switch to another merc after noticing how difficult it can be.

What @ProfPlump is saying is absolutely true. In the latest patches we’ve seen snipers get nerfed and shotguns get buffed. Not only buffed once or twice… 3 times. Even before the changes, to me shotguns were and are the easiest thing you can use in this game. It was powerful then and even more powerful now. Yet it keeps getting these buffs. It’s come to a point in which SD is actually trying to nerf the players more than they are actually trying to balance the mercenaries. All the ingredients of a game in dire straits are on the table at the moment. It went from a competitive “This game will kick your ass” game to a painfully average casual game in which anyone can hop on and do good.[/quote]

I never said anything about shotguns not needing buffs to be fair… Don’t misquote me =P
In fact, judging by the still consistent lack of shotgun use in competitive play, I’d say that shotguns are still needing some kind of fixing to make them actually viable (not necessarily by buffing them - often it’s an inconsistency problem, like accuracy - in my opinion they should be pinpoint accurate (except slightly off while jumping)).

And I’m not assuming anything about SD’s intentions in this nerf to Vassili - it could have been that they just forgot to consider Vassili’s much higher reliance on jumping accuracy than all the other mercs when they nerfed the jumping ADS accuracy of all weapons at once, but it could ALSO have been an intentional effort to keep jump-sniping from the game, and it could ALSO have been that they STILL think that Vassili needs nerfs… I don’t know what to assume, but I hope it’s that they got careless and forgot about Vassili while nerfing jumping accuracy of all guns/mercs.

(Merci1ess) #15

Edited it. Apologies.

You cannot be that stupid about your own product. If, as a Dirty Bomb game developper, you did not know that Vassili used jump sniping as an advanced viability to do well as part of his game mechanic, then that’s no bueno. Either you have absolutely no clue what and how your own game is or plays… or they knew exactly what they were doing and this nerf was directed specifically to Vassili because he was the most effected by this change. Either way… these are both stupid reasons.

(XavienX) #16

Tbh your idea is slightly ehhh, slightly too complicated. I use Vassili the most, and after not playing for a couple of weeks I got back on today. I knew I was really rusty and Vassili wasn’t really the best choice to get back into the habit of headshot tracking. I thought I was going crazy and couldn’t land a single jumpshot.
It’s already very challenging to land headshots to one shot people in a game where mercs run much much faster than other games. Let alone some mercs heads are sometimes quite hard to see. Jumpshotting is something used to surprise opponents since sometimes just facing an enemy with a sniper rifle isn’t the best choice in a game like this. Now that it’s completely based on RNG, there really isn’t anything aggressive Vassili players can do now.
People just call for nerfs because they meet someone experienced. In this case, VASSILIS, there is such a small number of players who main him because people think he is very tough to handle headshots. I really don’t know why people are complaining when they can’t use him and demand a nerf when someone grasps onto how to handle the shots.

(ProfPlump) #17

[quote=“Xavien;143409”]Tbh your idea is slightly ehhh, slightly too complicated. I use Vassili the most, and after not playing for a couple of weeks I got back on today. I knew I was really rusty and Vassili wasn’t really the best choice to get back into the habit of headshot tracking. I thought I was going crazy and couldn’t land a single jumpshot.
It’s already very challenging to land headshots to one shot people in a game where mercs run much much faster than other games. Let alone some mercs heads are sometimes quite hard to see. Jumpshotting is something used to surprise opponents since sometimes just facing an enemy with a sniper rifle isn’t the best choice in a game like this. Now that it’s completely based on RNG, there really isn’t anything aggressive Vassili players can do now.
People just call for nerfs because they meet someone experienced. In this case, VASSILIS, there is such a small number of players who main him because people think he is very tough to handle headshots. I really don’t know why people are complaining when they can’t use him and demand a nerf when someone grasps onto how to handle the shots.[/quote]

That’s the thing - nobody was complaining about Vassili being overpowered in any way. Before the removal of the insta-gib, he WAS overpowered and people did complain, but ever since then I haven’t seen anyone whining about it. At least not in Aus…

(Merci1ess) #18

[quote=“ProfPlump;143416”][quote=“Xavien;143409”]Tbh your idea is slightly ehhh, slightly too complicated. I use Vassili the most, and after not playing for a couple of weeks I got back on today. I knew I was really rusty and Vassili wasn’t really the best choice to get back into the habit of headshot tracking. I thought I was going crazy and couldn’t land a single jumpshot.
It’s already very challenging to land headshots to one shot people in a game where mercs run much much faster than other games. Let alone some mercs heads are sometimes quite hard to see. Jumpshotting is something used to surprise opponents since sometimes just facing an enemy with a sniper rifle isn’t the best choice in a game like this. Now that it’s completely based on RNG, there really isn’t anything aggressive Vassili players can do now.
People just call for nerfs because they meet someone experienced. In this case, VASSILIS, there is such a small number of players who main him because people think he is very tough to handle headshots. I really don’t know why people are complaining when they can’t use him and demand a nerf when someone grasps onto how to handle the shots.[/quote]

That’s the thing - nobody was complaining about Vassili being overpowered in any way. Before the removal of the insta-gib, he WAS overpowered and people did complain, but ever since then I haven’t seen anyone whining about it. At least not in Aus…[/quote]

Alot of people I played against called me out saying I was a hacker or that I was a complete noob for playing an “OP” mercenary in US servers. “Killing with Vassili is ez” <- Heard that JUST before the patch or “Jump sniping is a noob tactic”. Thing is when you ask those people to show you how “OP” he really is they just can’t seem the be able to put their money where their mouth is. They won’t do it. Instead they rather cry about it, give you a couple of slaps and run off to the devs. Pretty much how Phantom got ruined although… granted, Phantom was not as complicated to use as Vassili.

Maybe no one cried about it to the devs… I don’t know. All I know, from experience, is that there were alot of people whining and crying about how Vassili was OP in-game when I was using him and usually, in the Dirty Bomb community, if you cry enough you seem to get what you want in the end.

When you give a kid what he wants for the first time… He’s gonna remember that. He’ll come around again at some point and ask you for something else… if you say no… he’ll cry about it. If you give the kid what he wants then… he’ll remember that aswell. He’ll cry more next time just to get what he wants. This is basically the majority of the Dirty Bomb community. Alot of tears are behind these patches.

(ProfPlump) #19

[quote=“Merciless;143447”][quote=“ProfPlump;143416”][quote=“Xavien;143409”]Tbh your idea is slightly ehhh, slightly too complicated. I use Vassili the most, and after not playing for a couple of weeks I got back on today. I knew I was really rusty and Vassili wasn’t really the best choice to get back into the habit of headshot tracking. I thought I was going crazy and couldn’t land a single jumpshot.
It’s already very challenging to land headshots to one shot people in a game where mercs run much much faster than other games. Let alone some mercs heads are sometimes quite hard to see. Jumpshotting is something used to surprise opponents since sometimes just facing an enemy with a sniper rifle isn’t the best choice in a game like this. Now that it’s completely based on RNG, there really isn’t anything aggressive Vassili players can do now.
People just call for nerfs because they meet someone experienced. In this case, VASSILIS, there is such a small number of players who main him because people think he is very tough to handle headshots. I really don’t know why people are complaining when they can’t use him and demand a nerf when someone grasps onto how to handle the shots.[/quote]

That’s the thing - nobody was complaining about Vassili being overpowered in any way. Before the removal of the insta-gib, he WAS overpowered and people did complain, but ever since then I haven’t seen anyone whining about it. At least not in Aus…[/quote]

Alot of people I played against called me out saying I was a hacker or that I was a complete noob for playing an “OP” mercenary in US servers. “Killing with Vassili is ez” <- Heard that JUST before the patch or “Jump sniping is a noob tactic”. Thing is when you ask those people to show you how “OP” he really is they just can’t seem the be able to put their money where their mouth is. They won’t do it. Instead they rather cry about it, give you a couple of slaps and run off to the devs. Pretty much how Phantom got ruined although… granted, Phantom was not as complicated to use as Vassili.

Maybe no one cried about it to the devs… I don’t know. All I know, from experience, is that there were alot of people whining and crying about how Vassili was OP in-game when I was using him and usually, in the Dirty Bomb community, if you cry enough you seem to get what you want in the end.

When you give a kid what he wants for the first time… He’s gonna remember that. He’ll come around again at some point and ask you for something else… if you say no… he’ll cry about it. If you give the kid what he wants then… he’ll remember that aswell. He’ll cry more next time just to get what he wants. This is basically the majority of the Dirty Bomb community. Alot of tears are behind these patches.[/quote]

Well in Australia nobody cries about Vassili being too good. People get annoyed at Fletcher, Nader and Rhino, but very rarely Vassili. Sad to hear about the crybabies in the US =P

(LifeupOmega) #20

[quote=“ProfPlump;143416”][quote=“Xavien;143409”]Tbh your idea is slightly ehhh, slightly too complicated. I use Vassili the most, and after not playing for a couple of weeks I got back on today. I knew I was really rusty and Vassili wasn’t really the best choice to get back into the habit of headshot tracking. I thought I was going crazy and couldn’t land a single jumpshot.
It’s already very challenging to land headshots to one shot people in a game where mercs run much much faster than other games. Let alone some mercs heads are sometimes quite hard to see. Jumpshotting is something used to surprise opponents since sometimes just facing an enemy with a sniper rifle isn’t the best choice in a game like this. Now that it’s completely based on RNG, there really isn’t anything aggressive Vassili players can do now.
People just call for nerfs because they meet someone experienced. In this case, VASSILIS, there is such a small number of players who main him because people think he is very tough to handle headshots. I really don’t know why people are complaining when they can’t use him and demand a nerf when someone grasps onto how to handle the shots.[/quote]

That’s the thing - nobody was complaining about Vassili being overpowered in any way. Before the removal of the insta-gib, he WAS overpowered and people did complain, but ever since then I haven’t seen anyone whining about it. At least not in Aus…[/quote]

The only people I ever heard complain about Vas post-instagib nerf were pub players who weren’t even level 20. Says a lot.