The snipers aren''t too powerfull in CounterStrike at least. The heavy sniper rifle is very expensive, has awful reload times, has manual reload, so the scope view is turned off and then on again after each shot, has a severely restricted view in scope mode and very bad accuracy without the scope. And in many instances a single shot doesn''t even mean one kill anymore.

All in all, I prefer the 2x scope auto-fire rifles, but those don''t make me a real sniper.

As for a sniper needing to shoot at 1000 meters, have you ever even played on a level with firing distances longer than 100-200 meters? At 100 meters the wind and gravity don''t matter at all.

quote: Original post by RandomTask
Play smart. If you run out into the open you deserve to get sniped.

While I agree with the statement 100%, I have to point out that this is where we may be expecting too much of the typical FPS-junkie. While a run and gun deathmatch round is good for the adreaneline, I would much rather see people slow it down and do cooperative tactics, etc.



Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

I think people are missing my point about snipers being too unrealistic. True snipers are very effective, but they are also rare. In RTS''s games, you have to "pay" for very powerful units, but in a FPS game, you just chose to be one. It makes things very lopsided. A real sniper is very skilled and hard to come by. Sure you can give someone with just a decent skill at a weapon and tell him to snipe, but he won''t be as effective as someone trained how to do so.

I wonder how many people here have ever done any target shooting? Try and hit a non-moving target the size of a human head at a mere 100m with a good rifle. It''s a crap load harder than you think. Now imagine the incredible stress that you will be under knowing that people could very well find your position and rain lead all over your little hiding hole. It''s WAY more diffucult than games make it out to be. But in our safe little gaming chairs, all we have to do is hover our mouse cursor on the guy''s head and pull the trigger...and blammo...he''s dead. Not too realistic at for one shot one kill. And in real life, if you don''t kill your target, he can tell his teammates where you are. Which is another thing...even the best sound cards can''t do justice to situational awareness. In RL, you will have a pretty good clue of where the shot came from, but in lots of games, its nigh impossible to tell where the shot came from.

The street fighting that took place on Hue (from which Full Metal Jacket was taken) was an ugly affair. So was Stalingrad, so was Arnhem, and so was Berlin. But real war models fighting differently than First Person Shooters. It extracts alot of detail to make the game "fun", but too much was extracted when modeling snipers to the detriment of gameplay and realism.

Snipers arnt half as bad as unbalanced weapons. Like it Elite Force, some idiot gets the photon burst, and BOOM! your dead! most of the tim you done even see it because it flashes! that gun just pisses me off >: ( Ive deleted that crap-o-matic game 3 times already in disgust

UnrealFortress is good because its hard to kill someone, even though a lot of balancing needs to be done

quote: Original post by Cybertron
...UnrealFortress is good because its hard to kill someone...

I suspect you have overestimated the good of a feature like this one. It really and truly depends on the context and transmission (FPS?3PS?RTS?RPG?) of the game, whether or not any feature is good or bad.

I remind you all that if it works, it''s balanced, and it belongs in the game (meaning it does not seem out of place) then there is no reason to remove a feature.

What Cybertron mentioned about elite force is a good example of an unbalanced and unsuitable weapon (for a multiplayer game). Sniper rifles are usually (and rightfully so) inserted into most games with great care. To use counterstrike as an example, the AWM is very powerful, and very accurate, but it reloads slowly, costs a bundle, and is terrible for fighting at close quarters (unless you''re REALLY close). Despite what most people think, using it is hard, especially when playing with opponents who aren''t stupid.

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

I don''t see where you people get off saying sniping in games isn''t realistic because in real life your heart is beating and its windy and your scared and all, I mean, you''re right, but then why is it justified that you can shoot a .50 Desert Eagle (which if you''ve ever held one in real life, they are heavy, even unloaded) while running at top speed jumping off a bridge and hit some other guy jumping over a rock spinning in circles? I don''t play the realistic half-life mods (but I''m trying to get better at firearms) because with my lag anyway, it doesn''t matter what hits me, be it sniper rifle, shotgun, pistol, or flashbang, or what distance it''s from, one or two shots (that I can see) kills me, I''d rather be taken down by a sniper because I feel that it''s actually more realistic.

I play TFC, and I think it''s the greatest game ever. Yes, if the other team has 8 snipers and yours has none, or if they have a super-l33t sniper and you have (7)Player, it can be unbalancing. But if both teams have snipers to keep the other snipers busy, it can be a delicate balance, but balanced nonetheless. I find it more frustrating to be a sniper and have two or three soldiers rocket jump at you (which is the most unrealistic thing I''ve ever seen in an FPS, but I think the military should start working on it, because it''s very effective, not to mention scary) and death-from-above your unarmoured butt.

I think that level-design does have a lot to do with how balanced/unbalanced the game feels, I know that in TFC anyway, most maps have places where it is really nice to have a sniper, but there is usually another route that can be taken if a sniper-alley is created. Anyway, thats my two cents.

__________________________________________
We get signal.
There are bombs exploding all around us!!

I think more game should incorporate sniper restrictions with level design. In some maps, they are tolerable, so it would be balanced to allow several people to play as snipers. But in large, open areas where they get about 20 free shots on you before you can even locate them, they should be limited to one per team or none at all.

Snipers can cause me to loss some enjoyment, but thats cause im more of a dueler. I hate more than anything for some redeemer or sniper fire to kill me or the enemy ive been danceing around with dueling for the last 5 minutes.

More than anything id say I hate any instant kill area effect weapons that take zip skill to use. Ill take snipers any day over a redeemer type weapon.


Edited by - zenroth on February 2, 2002 2:10:03 PM