Upcoming Release Balance Discussion (SVN)

[Panic]

Sniper pistol combo is perfect now, don't change it <3

[Nightmare]

Sniper pistol combo is perfect now, don't change it <3

Its definitely fun :)

[Panic]

is overpower compared with AR and your recoil, But anyway, I wouldn't change :)

[Stupefy]

Considering the amount of effort and skill that goes into using sniper + pistol (compared to the other weapons that can easily sustain themselves), and how easily it is screwed-over with even the slightest amount of armor....I've always felt snipers should be better rewarded. In the end they are still rewarded only 1 frag, the same as that trigger-happy SMG'er beside them.

Also factor in that the overwhelming majority of match maps are short/mid-range maps, where snipers are already heavily limited to which areas/paths they can maneuver around.

Was 85 damage too much?

Also another topic (sorry for asking here) but is Knife damage lowered by armor? If it is, please consider allowing it to fully ignore armor. I know it's only a support weapon but again this ties into Snipers, who RELY on support weapons to get the job done. When a sniper + knife doesn't kill my opponent I feel like crying :(

[#M|A#Wolf]

In my honest opinion, I think 85 damage is/was too much, and the sniper should be somewhere in between 1.1 and 1.0.4 (speaking about damage). Haven't played the SVN recently, so correct me if this has already been done, but I think it would be better that without armor a sniper needs 1 pistol shot, with 15 he needs 2, and so on. I think the solution for this was to make the damage 82 or 83, not sure.

[Nightmare]

Considering the amount of effort and skill that goes into using sniper + pistol (compared to the other weapons that can easily sustain themselves)

I'm pretty meh, but I thought it was definitely the easiest kill out of the beta's weapons. Bang-Bang-Good Game.

[Roflcopter]

Considering the amount of effort and skill that goes into using sniper + pistol (compared to the other weapons that can easily sustain themselves), and how easily it is screwed-over with even the slightest amount of armor....

It certainly has a longer learning curve but that shouldn't be the means to balance a weapon.

And also, snipers really aren't "screwed-over" with high armor levels. I believe the effective sniper-to-pistol switch-time is around 120ms (and have taken it to be so in these calculations) -- it's certainly not far off. That makes the minimum time to kill with each weapon:

Shield . SMG . Sniper . AR
000 ..... 480 .... 120 .... 480
025 ..... 560 .... 280 .... 600
050 ..... 640 .... 440 .... 600
075 ..... 720 .... 600 .... 720
100 ..... 800 .... 760 .... 720

(Hopefully the formatting turns out OK on your system! I'd also appreciate anyone able to confirm/ refute my values doing so.)

As you can see, the sniper is significantly quicker to kill if you can hit your bullets, except with 100 shield -- even then it's close second to the AR.

[Nightmare]

^boost time.(or nerf but eh..)

[#M|A#Wolf]

120 ms to kill is crazy. Make that shit slower, seriously.

[castiel]

Is there any way you could make it longer to kill other than increase weapon switch time?

[#M|A#Wolf]

Is there any way you could make it longer to kill other than increase weapon switch time?

Damage?

[Viper]

It is and will always be harder to land a sniper shot than one from any other weapon. Chances are that in the time it takes to hit the guy, especially at close range, and switch to pistol you will be dead 50% of the time. Leave it the way it is.

[Stupefy]

I've lost count of the number of times I've killed someone with Sniper + Pistol only to die from their delayed SMG/AR fire....latency is to blame of course, but I believe latency is very much a factor when it comes to weapon balance.

[V-Man]

I found it odd that, as armor increases, AR and SMG are tied for kill-time, then SMG leads, then AR leads, then they're tied again.
http://baconbukz.co.cc/up/uploads/Minkill%20Graphs.zip
For anyone else who got curious about that.

[jamz]

That 0.12s is a nice time, but it's only a theoretical minimum based entirely on reaction time. I captured (at 60fps) some test shots and produced a best time of 44 frames scrolling and 34 frames with a keypress switch. So, the time taken to switch and fire, in a no-pressure, no-aiming situation, is closer to 0.5s.

[V-Man]

like, 0.480? :D

[Roflcopter]

That 0.12s is a nice time, but it's only a theoretical minimum based entirely on reaction time. I captured (at 60fps) some test shots and produced a best time of 44 frames scrolling and 34 frames with a keypress switch. So, the time taken to switch and fire, in a no-pressure, no-aiming situation, is closer to 0.5s.

Good AR players don't get much more than 40% accuracy too (excluding rifle sprinting etc...). The point is that snipers can still overpower AR/ SMG players at close range if they hit their shots accurately -- often even before I have fired 3 bullets!

Balance sniper with a larger scoped area, bonuses against shield, and larger pistol clip (already done). More unscoped precision and damage is the wrong direction.

[Nightmare]

@roflcopter you said it last page but yeah...the spread needs to be much less, more accuracy, to promote skill over spray and pray. Totally agree. Especially with the AR, which is seen on most fps as an all around weapon. The beta's version is bleh at long range.

[Panda]

I highly doubt that the switching time of trained snipers is as high as 0,5s, my estimate is <0,2s - also you keep forgetting that you regularly have 0ms kill time with sniper, regardless of armor.

[VenteX]

I propose:

Increase unscoped sniper spread, and make a short transition between scoped and not scoped (much like the smoothzoom script) to delay the accuracy boost. Then keep the damage at 85 (heck, maybe even make it 100 if the accuracy differece and scoping time are signifigant enough; armor would surely be a help).

The point in doing all of this? Encourage scoping with the sniper, slow down the time-to-kill of the sniper-pistol combo (or get rid of its need), and, just maybe, make snipers actually snipe.

OBVIOUSLY all of this would be a substantial change, but I think this is how sniping should be.

[V-Man]

Wait...
Did you suggest having sniper damage change depending on whether you're scoping?

[Panda]

delay the accuracy boost

This is already being done.

...

You are proposing a different game.

[VenteX]

Not a change in damage (lol, TF2), a change in spread. The current change is very... insignificant, and I can't even tell when the change occurs.

Also, lol @Panda for snipping a quote into three dots

[#M|A#Wolf]

The current sniper spread change between scope and no-scope is already applied, and I don't see how making that change more significant will help anyone. The only reason I can see in your post is that you can't tell when the change occurs so you would like it if you would notice it, thought I can't really understand why you would want that. What do you mean that you can't even tell when the change occurs? Right-click, scope shows, change has happened. Release, scope goes away, change has happened.

[VenteX]

The current sniper spread change between scope and no-scope is already applied, and I don't see how making that change more significant will help anyone. The only reason I can see in your post is that you can't tell when the change occurs so you would like it if you would notice it, thought I can't really understand why you would want that. What do you mean that you can't even tell when the change occurs? Right-click, scope shows, change has happened. Release, scope goes away, change has happened.

- The whole point in exaggerating the spread without the scope is to encourage more convential sniping methods (i.e.: not using the sniper rifle as a CQC weapon).

- The point in a transition between scoping and not is that the settling time for this concepted accuracy change will become apparent, and it will delay when that change takes place, making an effective spur-of-the-moment shot take a good bit longer (because you would have to take the time to scope in, or just use your pistol).

- Doing both of the above would allow the sniper's damage to be increased to 100, as the gun's theoretical time to kill would be increased by the time it takes to scope.

To conclude, this would apply for sniper:

PROS:
- One shot kill on a unarmoured enemy (awesome!)
- Would be incredibly effective at long range, as a sniper should be
- High accuracy and strategy would pay off in terms of time-to-kill and frags per clip
- Headshots still give 2 frags :D

CONS:
- Delayed time between initial reaction and actually making the shot
- You'd still need to shoot more than once if the enemy has any armor
- Noscoping is just a bad idea
- Missing a shot puts you in for a wait (as it already does)

[Lantry]

PROS:
- One shot kill on a unarmoured enemy (awesome!)

I agree with your overall idea, of trying to stop the sniper from being used in close range, but giving it 100 damage would only increase it's use like this. As it currently stands, only the people who can use the sniper pistol combo well are using the sniper for CQC. if damage was at 100, all the noobs would use it, because even though it is very inaccurate, they are mostly depending on luck to make their shots anyhow. It would just turn into the next shotgun.
I think the best way to make the sniper rifle a sniping weapon would be to have a damage increase if you are scoped in, and have a delay/settling time, so you couldn't scope in quickly. However, i don't think people will like this, because though AC doesn't try to be as realistic as possible, most players like having a healthy dose of realism.

[Nightmare]

unscoped spread is still very accurate @ spread getting crazier for it
2 spread instead of 47 gogogo

[GeneralDisarray]

Weapon switch time is 400ms

[VenteX]

PROS:
- One shot kill on a unarmoured enemy (awesome!)

I agree with your overall idea, of trying to stop the sniper from being used in close range, but giving it 100 damage would only increase it's use like this. As it currently stands, only the people who can use the sniper pistol combo well are using the sniper for CQC. if damage was at 100, all the noobs would use it, because even though it is very inaccurate, they are mostly depending on luck to make their shots anyhow. It would just turn into the next shotgun.
I think the best way to make the sniper rifle a sniping weapon would be to have a damage increase if you are scoped in, and have a delay/settling time, so you couldn't scope in quickly. However, i don't think people will like this, because though AC doesn't try to be as realistic as possible, most players like having a healthy dose of realism.

I see where you are coming from, but the idea is that unscoped spread would be so much, noscoping would be useless.

Maybe slow down fire rate as well? Then the 100 damage wouldn't make the sniper OP'd (although you would still need to take armor into consideration, as it can already prevent a kill from taking one shot)

[Mai Mee Tur]

I think the sniper firing rate is fine as is, but I believe that possibly, sniper should have more spread, to make no scoping harder. Possibly make headshots count for three frags when you haven't scoped in?