I''ve been playing a Half-Life modification called Day of Defeat for a while now, and I must say it is an excellent game ( better than many retail games of similar setting ). But there is one thing that seems to ruin the setting and overall fun factor of this game and almost every other FPS. And that would be the sniper. The ability to kill someone from a distance without risking anything except loosing your favorite hiding spot seems to be rather unbalancing. And for the victim, each kill decreases their enjoyment slightly. So my question is, why do all of the popular FPS games include this kind of weapon in multiplayer games? Now I must say that sniping can be fun at times. But something like this belongs in a single player game, or a tournament involving ALL snipers. But whenever playing a game with big guns, explosions, and action of that sort, snipers just seem way out of place. And there is nothing more dissappointing than to charge halfway across a map only to be picked off by another hiding sniper.

Sniping is fun at times and I believe it has a place in every realistic game. Some games, like Team Fortress, will limit the number of players that can be a certain type. For example, you can only have 2-3 engineers (think this is an admin setting) instead of building 10 or more sentry guns. That is usually a good idea.

I agree that there should be a limitation to the number of snipers allowed in a specific game, or make the maps with closer ranged fighting to limit players.

While I agree sniping can seem to bring the enjoyment of the game down for some people, others may see it as any other way of being killed by another player.

I will agree that it dosen't nessarily belong to an FPS. If one didn't have snipers I wouldn't mind, but I'm not a sniper player. My opinion is biased...

If you have a realistic game, snipers might be part of the experience, but for fictional games, FPS developers could give more thought to leaving sniping out of the game. Question is, are you limiting your target audience?

If all that matters is what you get in the end, why go through life?
~Michael Sikora


Edited by - guardian_light on January 22, 2002 5:40:31 PM

I agree to some extent, being a Tribes addict. Snipers can get really annoying sometimes, especially when it seems like when you get halfway across the field, you know you''re gonna get sniped and ya might as well get ready to use a health kit.

But, have you ever tried sniping? Atleast on tribes, sniping can be pretty tough. First ya gotta find a hiding place far enough away so you don''t get noticed, but close enough that you can aim effectively. Then ya gotta constantly check your back. Ya don''t have anyone watching your back most of the times. Then you have to find a target, most of the times, a moving one. Then, accounting for lag, ya gotta hit them. And if you miss, even once, the other team will be very pissed and your target will probably be gunning for you. And whether ya miss or not, ya then gotta jet off to the opposite end of the field, dodging discs, while telling everyone in chat that sniping isn''t cheap.

It''s not as easy as it looks. It takes a whooolllleee lot of time to get to where u can snipe people moving through the air, atleast in Tribes. So, I think the ease of killing with a sniper is balanced out by the amount of skill it takes to effectively use one.

i agree with the omega here; i personally love sniping, and not just the one shot kills kind of shooting either. there is a lot of skill (i think so, at least) in getting those instant kill head shots.

snipers do (or at least should) force the game to slow down. you can''t go running around blindly because there might be someone with their cross hairs on your eyebrow. what do you do (besides complain?): well, use some brains and some stealth to sneak around the sniper and toss them a grenade. or gun them down from behind/the side. the fact that sniper''s cause you so much trouble is truly a testiment to how useful and how terrifying they can be in real life.

bottom line is: don''t just keep running around blind. if you keep getting sniped, adapt your game to counter them; be the hunter, not the hunted.

<(o)>

I love DoD. Sniping is a reality of war, so I don''t see any reason why it shouldn''t be used in the FPS, particularly those that are meant to be recreations of WWII combat scenarios. Sniping is what makes urban warfare so dangerous -- one person can literally hold off an entire platoon of soldiers, because it''s too dangerous to move.

Having said that, the only reason having snipers is an unbalancing factor in games like DoD is becuase there are too many. A sniper is a highly trained soldier with extremely rare skills and physical attributes. They have to be able to withstand tremendous physical and psychological discomfort. They have to possess extremely good vision. And they have to be superb marksmen, and when I say superb, think getting two or three rounds into one hole at 300 yards superb. In the real military, I would wager that snipers are outnumbered by conventional infantry by a factor of 1000:1 or more. So, it seems completely ridiculous to have 5 snipers in a group of 30 soldiers. It just wouldn''t happen.

I agree that snipers can take a lot of the fun out of multiplayer games like DoD, but I disagree that we should get rid of them. They should just be kept to a minimum. Besides, just because you don''t have the ''sniper rifle'' doesn''t mean you can''t still hide in one spot and shoot at people when they come into view. That''s what most people do anyways.

R.

quote: Original post by Tacit
and when I say superb, think getting two or three rounds into one hole at 300 yards superb.

Make that a moving hole at more like 1000 yards and you''d be getting closer.

Well, its things like those ratios which unbalance the game. Also, the accuracy is built into the game ( some new games have fixed a bit though ), and the vision is 20/20, so they already have an advantage. I do agree that sniping is a reality of war, but plays a very minor factor in battles. In games though, they often can dominate certain areas with very little risk to themselves. It takes away some of the feeling in certain scenarios where you are under heavy machine gun fire, or constant explosions going off, and you have to make your way through it. Getting picked off by an invisible assassin can get quite frustrating. I was just suggesting that in the future, some games should take into consideration the advantages snipers have and maybe some ways to counter them.

Some examples I have seen so far are less accurate weapons, unsteady scopes, and in Tribes, it was a lot easier to identify your attacker from the laser beam and easier to track down.

I like the approach that Rainbow 6 used in that, while in "sniper mode" (looking through the scope) you were zoomed in for accuracy... which meant your field of view went WAY down and you were vulnerable to getting whacked without even seeing the enemy coming.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development

I like sniping, and have done since the days of Doom when I used to pick off people from the other side of the level with the rocket launcher. From a defendant''s point of view, I don''t think it''s unfair or unbalanced at all, as I think that learning to move from obstacle to obstacle and staying out of the line of fire is a useful skill and a very fun thing to do. Much more fun than the traditional FPS "run around and circle-strafe everything you see" mindset. But then, I prefer thinking games.

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