Slashdot Mirror
On FPS Sniping And The Ruination Of Gameplay
An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has a great article today which puts forth the claim that sniper rifles in multiplayer FPS games have made the genre infinitely worse. They take the time to explain why, and what improvements need to be made. It's definitely not the standard 'I hate campers' article." The editorial argues: "Every... 'reason' for the existence of sniper rifles - realism, historical accuracy, weapon diversity, giving players identifiable roles - is a lie", concluding that "...in games, snipers are given a ludicrous advantage over everyone else."
and as the server falls down on its knees, ten thousand slashdotters yell proudly - "headshot!"
Not true...in America's Army (My FPS of choice)...the sniper rifle is a very difficult weapon to master, and leaves you very adept to attack...there is almost no way of defending yourself at close range.
It's definitely not the standard 'I hate campers' article.
,,,,.
Sounds more like the standard 'I hate snipers' article to me. I, for one, like snipers, I would welcome our new sniper overlords, if there were any, that is
Anyway, I included the article text, firingsquad.com doesn't sound like something with a lot of bandwidth.
Why like them
Sniper rifles suck
There, I said it. Deal with it. Let me say it again - sniper rifles suck. Don't like it? Tough, because odds are that if you're annoyed, you don't have the skills to use any other weapon. So go back to humping the dirt in Call of Duty or camping the bridge on de_aztec with all your l33t skill.
That sniper rifles are the bane of first-person shooters is an indisputable fact, yet people choose to dispute it anyway. Why? Because everyone has the little fantasy of being the lone wolf, the deadly, stalking sniper who hits without being seen, goes 10-0 every round and by the time the map is over he'll be hailed as living god by the peons he's slain or saved from certain death. Sniper rifles exist in games because they appeal to the Munchkin inside all of us, because we all want to run around with the BFG 9000 and lay waste to earth, heaven and hell. And make no mistake about it, if there is a BFG 9000 in a game, odds are it fires one shot at a time and has a big huge zoom on it.
Every other 'reason' for the existence of sniper rifles - realism, historical accuracy, weapon diversity, giving players identifiable roles - is a lie. There's nothing realistic about sniper rifles as they appear in games, nothing historically accurate, they not only don't improve weapon diversity they make it worse, there is NO skill involved, but yes, scoped weapons do give a new role to players - the dirt-humping camper.
So let me dispatch these myths and send them to hell before we tackle the reasons why sniper rifles should never, ever be implemented in any other game again.
1. Realism. No, sorry, there's nothing realistic about taking a shot every second with your scoped Mosin-Nagant or Springfield. They're bolt-action rifles and need to manually load the next bullet, meaning losing sight of the target. The guns also aren't one-shot kills. If they are, so would be the MP44 Sturmgewehr or AK-47 at shorter distances, which use similarly sized ammunition. As it is, most games set sniper rifles to be the Finger of God - simply look at your target, twitch your finger and boom, he's dead. Forget that it's called "sniper rifle" and imagine it's called "Finger of God" - would you implement a weapon with that name, as a designer?
2. Historical Accuracy. Sorry son, the battlefield just isn't comprised of 50% snipers. Yes, limiting their use to 1 or 2 people per team is possible, but that has other drawbacks, like making 1 or 2 people on each team 5:1 kill ratio gods, while everyone else suffers.
3. Weapon Diversity. No, when a sniper rifle makes it into a game, everyone wants to use it. All other weapons lose a tremendous amount of appeal. Who wants to rush with the MP40 or AK when you know you're going to run into a veritable wall of lead - why not just snipe back?
4. Skill. Yeah, right. Sorry buddy, but poking your head out every few seconds to take a cheap shot before moving to a new location isn't skill. All you need is the most basic semblance of aim and reflexes to get a sniping kill. In a sniper duel, it's just a matter of who's faster and more accurate - just TWO basic, basic abilities get exaggerated in importance.
... in games, snipers are given a ludicrous advantage over everyone else." ... in real life. Snipers are a bitch. It takes very real work to take out a sniper in a battlefield, especially a good one. Snipers are hated in reality because of the real, significant damage they can do to a battle scenario.
... the 'detached delusion' of opiated players looks to have some interesting consequences ... of course snipers suck. That's reality!
Welcome to realism. Killing people is not as easy as your average Game-Junkie might think it is.
I find it moderately ludicrous that such an analysis can be made, in all seriousness.
If anything, this article demonstrates just how big the fantasy world most gameplayers live in can be
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I thought rocket launchers were the flavor of the week to whinge about.
The rocket is the sniper's bane. Any serious sniper will soon have half the opposing team on his ass lobbing dozens of rockets at him.
Its only the newbies that complain. Once you get into skilled gameplay (think leauges), no one complains. The awp in counterstrike costs $4725, way too risky unless you have the money to back it up. You can take out an awp with ak or colt really easily to, or you could just keep the awper flashed/smoked and they won't be able to hit you.
Play the game, don't cry about the game. It's more fun once you learn how to play.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Yes, 'campers' have always sucked.
Been complained about a million times before. But, you can't win by camping alone.
Sorry, little fella, you're not going to be able to run Counter-Strike on that OS/equipment.
Coming from the standpoint of a real life shooter, I agree. The sniper rifle, and the role of the sniper in games is fairly inaccurate. Games like 'Global Ops' and 'Day of Defeat', or 'Wolfenstein Enemy Teritory' are not accurate.
There needs to be a whole lot more work put into the sniper role in games. A real life sniper is a well protected guy. A small team of people watching his back. becoming good takes a lot of practice, and even a seasoned vet misses.
My rifleShooting pics.
Now this, is long range. (700 meters)
Pretty Pictures!
This article was nothing but an ad hominem rant. I almost never play sniper, and suck at it when I do. I do fairly well otherwise. So apparently there must be some skill that snipers possess that I do not.
;) Just because there is one class that you cannot beat as easily as the others, this does not make the class "bad" or "low skill". In fact, it usually means the opposite.
I don't like snipers either. But neither do snipers like spies that stab them in the back
There is a reason for every class. In Team Fortress, Heavy Weapons and Rocket guys would be the only classes anyone played were it not for snipers.
AA (america's army) does a very good job at making the sniper have a real disadvantage. You cant hold the gun straight while standing up, only when your lying on the ground can you get the gun to be steady. While crouched its less steady, but can be used. To get the scope to almost stop, you have to put down the bipod on the gun, and that takes even more time. The other thing it does well, is it takes a couple of seconds to reload the gun. If you find yourself in close combat (guy runs up behind you), it takes several seconds to switch to a pistol or a machine gun. But of course, the one big advantage is you can kill someone with one shot from very far away
I think the author of the article is a pissy CS player. CS has a poor implimentation of the AWP, you can shoot the gun and IMMEDIATELY switch to your pistol. You can even switch back right away and your rifle is reloaded. You can run around and when you stop moving, you have instant accuracy.
I totally agree with the one shot one kill for a sniper in FPS's, but you have to give big disadvantages at close range and while moving. The role of the sniper is not to run around. You set up somewhere far away. They even have spotters there for close combat situations.
This article sounds like it was written by a teenager throwing a tantrum about "Waaaah! I can never win when someone has the sniper rifle! WAAAAH!" Anyone who's played a number of online FPSes recognizes this syndrome. Penny Arcade even discussed it.
Basically, any weapon in the hands of a skilled player can be 'teh P!MPZ'. If you don't like the sniper rifle, don't play with it. I guarantee that shortly thereafter you will be writing an impassioned rant about "WAAAAH! The is BULLSHIT! It doesn't take any skill to use! It's ruining the genre! WAAAH!".
El riesgo vive siempre!
Too many people with sniper rifles? Then limit the amount available. Problem solved. Oh no, they fire too quickly. Well, that's easily solved with a change to the reload variable. Problem solved. Boo hoo, they take me down with one shot. Well, duh, that's the whole purpose of a sniper rifle. This simpleton doesn't take into account that a sniper rifle round fires at a much higher velocity than a AK47 and does much, much more damage. Hey, it might not kill you, but it damn will incapacitate you which in a game is pretty much the same thing. Waaah! They have more points at the end of the game. Well, put a ratio penalty on the rifle. Sniper kill is worth 1/2, MP40 worth 1 and a knife kill worth 2 points. Problem solved!
Good grief, why not write an article about how health packs are unrealistic and how in WWII they didn't have medics running around healing and poisoning other soldiers. If this whiner has a problem with it all... then stop playing and find a game that plays by "your" rules. Gah! FiringSquad needs better editorial control rather than let this drek hit the web.
This guy is dead wrong. Why wouldn't one shot from a armor piercing 30-06 or a .308 kill? Remember the sniper in Virginia/DC/Maryland. Granted armor would minimize 1 shot kill to an extent but not completely.
I do agree however that AK's etc should do more damage. However, if that were the case kid's would never get a learning curve.
"If you're a CS fanboi (aka, an Asian), you call that weapon the AWP."
or AW/M if you wan't to be accurate, the current model is still that of the magnum, ConditionZero(ritual) had a AW/P in it, but that doesn't count.
"Most hacks for it are just aimbots that work with AWP."
No. Most hacks are simple wallhacks (you can write a basic toggled wallhack in only a page and a half of code, mostly small asm). All aimbots compensate for different gun accuracy with vector files and anti recoil. The days of the awp only aimbots left with retail cs.
"I feel the game is ruined."
Tens of thousands feel otherwise.
"But then again, I don't drive a Civic."
Good call.
""oooh you got AWPd wtflol i am teh winz u are teh sux!!111""
^_^ U GIEV SOJ ?!
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Like every other aspect about every single game ever made, it's not that the sniper rifle exists that creates problems, rather its implementation and the surrounding environment.
Original UT- Sure, sniper rifles sucked, because they fired a round a sec, allowed people to move as fast as they would normally, let them use it as a close range weapon, and gave them plenty of places to hide where sniping was the ONLY counter.
BF1942- You have to lead your target, stay still, and hope nobody drops a fscking bomb on you or got within 50 yards.
It's not the rifle's fault the developers can't properly balance weapons. That's why most of the players who are interested in games of skill and teamwork have moved on from UT/CS/Q3.
What does the guy mean by nerf? I don't remember the rifles becoming foam, but then I don't actually remember any significant changes to the sniper rifles in CS, so I'm lost as to this bit. Good article generally though, sniper rifles do spoil CS.
Yup was the common snipers suck rant, anyway he gave us a much better link at least :D
Muchkin
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
This article gives no basis to its arguments whatsoever.
I fashion myself a bit of a sniper, thats the roll I play for the most part in Battlefield 1942. I also take part in competitive long range shooting IRL.
The truth of the matter is the military employs snipers for two basic reasons: 1 or 2 well placed snipers can hold down 50+ troops. And snipers can create a sense of fear on the battlefield, that any second your head is going to be whisked off your shoulders by an unseen enemy. This same fear is what makes multi-player FPS games fun.
Like it or not, in the real world a sniper rifle is "the finger of god" also.
symetrix. We are building a religion, a limited edition.
In other words, I think the problem is not the guns, but the fact that they are treated just like any other gun, which they are NOT. Fixing that would probably make things better, but it wouldn't be that fun so why include a sniper rifle at all.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
In a sniper duel, it's just a matter of who's faster and more accurate - just TWO basic, basic abilities get exaggerated in importance.
Isn't that all counter-strike is, speed and accuracy? It seems to me that slower, less accurate players will be killed more often no matter what the weapon. Maybe this guy should stick to Animal Crossing.
This is just biased rant against particularly awful implementations of sniper rifles. Plenty of games feature real reloading, instability, losing focus after shooting, whatever. It may well be that sniper rifles are bad in general in computer games for specific reasons but the author fails woefully to prove the case.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The elephant gun isn't fair in CS, but that's because they decided to make it more quake-like after beta.
:)
A plain assault rifle, at the ranges involved in a CS game, is as good as a "sniper" rifle. When the M4-A1 was super accurate, in the early betas, there was much less reason to use a sniper rifle.
In real life, with practice, you can shoot someone very accurately from very far away with an M16 or AK47 type assault rifle. One or two shots will take them out of the "game". But Valve decided that games were too hard for beginners when everyone was that accurate, so they drastically increased the recoil effect and made it very difficult to fire accurately while not crouched. And they decreased the damage dealt by assault rifles and sub machine guns.
They decreased the damage done by everything except the BFG. No wonder people complain about it. You get no props from me by sniping in CS unless it's with the scout. (And I loved sniping with the scout on public servers. That 1 kill per round is fine with me, 'cause it feels so so good
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
2. Historical Accuracy. Sorry son, the battlefield just isn't comprised of 50% snipers.
The battlefield isn't comprised of 90% virgins living in their parents bedrooms either, but that doesn't stop us from playing.
Not Counterstrike, just Diablo II. And some cheats.
" it's just a matter of who's faster and more accurate "
Um... someone tell this whining child that's the whole point of most FPS games. He just can't stand to lose, so he has to whine about snipers.
more like a forum rant than a well thought out 'article'. But with that being said, he's got some good points, snipers in FPS are used offensivly on the battlefield, instead of supporting an area from a safe distance. Especially game where the maps are relativly small. (and not having one shot kills is like saying the bullets are defective. it's meant to go kill a person, not tickle them to death)
What I know about snipers comes primarily from experimenting with Half-Life/CS. Snipers (and especially cheaters) make the game is unplayable because I cannot survive long enough to learn how to play.
First round, I walk out of a building and BAM! I'm dead -- one shot from about 200m away.
I wait until next round, walk out of the start zone and BAM! I'm dead again. This time I got to return fire before dropping.
Next round, I actually saw him first and hit him three times including a head shot (hey, I'm getting the hang of this!) but he doesn't fall. He spins, looks at me funny and BAM! I die again.
So, I don't play anymore. The lousy, cheating wannabe jerks can have their stupid game. I'm just glad I didn't pay for it.(*) (if I had, I'd have returned it with extreme predjudice.)
[(*) Just to clarify: by "didn't pay for it", I mean that I **PURCHASED** Half-Life single-player and **DOWNLOADED** CS for free instead of paying for the CS retail version. I don't want anyone mad at me!]
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Maps aren't laid out for useful sniping. In the "real" world, snipers don't use scoped rifles to hit man-sized targets at 50 yards.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I can see that this individual has certainly dealt with some frustrating experiences with sniping opponents. I will have to disagree with sniper rifles being the "bane" of first person shooting though. It seems to me like I've read more about cheating being the bane of online FPS games more so than sniper rifles. Also, just because I would contend against this writer's arguments doesn't mean that I can't use any other weapons. Truth be told, in a FPS I am actually lousy with a sniper rifle and prefer to use other weapons. I have always been a fan of the sniper rifle though and certainly feel that it should be included in first person shooters.
Secondly if his argument were an "indisputable fact" then there wouldn't be much discussion going on here now would it. It's kind of risky to try and turn one's opinion, or even a summation of multiple opinions into an indisputable fact.
Arguing against the sniper rifle's lack of realism in FPS is kind of a moot point. I mean most weapons in FPS aren't realistic, unless of course the game is trying to be true to life. In that case I'd say he had a point, but only in the case of FPS that are supposed to reflect realistic weaponry. Games like Halo, Quake, and Unreal Tournament however would fail the realism test when it comes to most every weapon involved.
All in all I'd say this article was an enjoyable rant which obviously reflects a gamers' frustration which they are entitled to have. I can't agree with it being an indisputable argument however and nor can I side with their opinions. Oh well, five years from now (preferrably much sooner than that) it won't matter anyway.
that needs to be beaten with a Physics textbook.
That was the biggest, smack-my-face-due-to-sheer-idiocy point in the whole article..."Oh look, these bullets are the same size, they should do equivalent damage."
Well, why isn't an AK-47 used for sniping then, dammit? It fires WAYYYY more bullets. The velocity is way different! F=MA.
Geez...more like the Fired Squad.
Sniper rifles require less skill and that isn't realistic with real life...so you think the reason they were giving them to 10-year olds in Somalia is because those 10 year olds were crack Commandos? Hello?! They're supposed to be easy to use, and they're supposed to be effective at killing their targets. That's why they FIRE SO DAMN SLOWLY!
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I've given up CS.
It needs longer reload time
It needs aim time, like Ghost Recon , now there is a game with decent sniping, almost.
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
From time to time I like to snipe. It can be a fun challenge to find the right spot to pick off opposing players. I also recognise how unbalanced sniper rifles are in most FPS.
The unbalanced game play is the real issue. More often then not it is easy to play a sniper and rack up huge kill ratios with no real skill. Too many game maps are sniper havens with long clear lines of fire. Once entrenched it can often be near impossible to remove the sniper. A few snipers can quickly slow a game down making it boring for all players but the snipers. Snipers are rewarded for making the game fun for themselves, as opposed to contributing to the fun of all the players. In online games insuring that all players have a good time is probably the most important aspect of the game to get right.
All of the complaints in the article are valid for multiplayer situations: nobody likes a camper in that situation.
But sniper rifles are great in single-player FPS games, which are often the very epitome of lone-wolf style gameplay.
The big mistake the author makes is claiming that his argument holds up for the first-person shooter in general, and it just plain doesn't.
If anyone has ever played Americas Army, they'll know what I'm talking about. For everybody else, let me just say that having a sniper rifle in AA does not give any great advantage. The game developers spent a LOT of time getting the weapons feel, accuracy, speed of reload, etc as close to the way they are in real life as it is possible with today's technology. There is an annectdote where the programmers had real US weapons master sargeants check the weapons in game, and had them tweak them a lot of times untill they were realistic enough.
In this game all rifles (M4s, M16 and variants), sniper rifles (M24, M82), machine gunes (M249) and their russian counterparts move in the rithm of the character's breathing, movement and a few other factors. The character position (walking, crouching or prone) also affects accuracy, as does the health level (forget about sniping if you are red, almost dead).
In fact, it is sometimes easier to shoot long range with an M4 or M16 than it is to shoot with a sniper rifle (m24 or M82). The sniper rifles are very hard to shoot because they have very long reload times between shots and they shoot one bullet at a time so if you miss you might die. The m24 is the easier of the two, because the m82 requires refocusing after every shot due to recoil. Not to mention that your accuracy goes to hell someone shoots close towards you, even if they don't touch you.
I'm a fairly decent player (60 honor points), and I can shoot well enough that I can take out most snipers with my m4 or m16. Unles, of course, the sniper is at least as good as I am, which doesn't happen too often to ruin the game for me. And even then there are ways to get close enough to a sniper to put him at a great disadvantage.
If in any game the sniper rifle gives an unfair advantage (as it used to in CounterStrike), that game is not very well designed.
The problem is in bad game design, not in the concept of a particular weapon itself.
When accurate modelling of the power of a sniper rifle is not accurately offset by its shortcomings, it's bound to unbalance things. the shortcomings being chiefly - refire rate, recoil, bulk, required stances (prone, propped or seated), range falloff, spotting, support, etc.
Sniper rifles in video games often ruin balance because they don't model those things at all, or effectively enough.
They don't have falloff over distance, so the primary skill of sniping is obviated.
They don't slow you down when moving (in cstrike, just switching to the pistol negates the penalty, allowing you to jump and move unrestricted).
They don't require you to take a prone, propped or seated position for accuracy. (AA excepted)
Furthermore, the 'damage' modelling for a sniper rifle is simply a linear scaling of the ambiguous 'damage' applied to the single hitbox on a target (subsets of the hitbox only model increased damage, never decreased as in, for instance, grazing shots).
Also, when games accurately model even modest anti-sniper technology (eg smoke grenades, thermal imaging) the usefulness against nonmoronic enemies plummets. Particularly given the relatively small spaces rendered in a game.
Ironically, counterstrike chooses to more heavily restrict the use of smoke grenades than sniper rifles: you can only carry 1 smoke grenade, but you can run and jump with the rifle without too much ill effect. (granted that is likely due to their original fairly high resource consumption)
Complaining that cstrike should allow more smokes per soldier, or thermal/nightvision imaging is reasonable. (whatever happened to nightvision goggles in cstrike? oh yeah, unfair gamma settings) Complaining that campers own you when you aren't even leveraging the tools at your disposal is akin to bitching that shotguns have an unfair advantage over knives.
There is always a trade-off in gaming (shooters particularly): reality vs fun. A 'real' sniper rifle would require proper positioning, spotting, support and cover. People don't find that fun. That's not something you can manage in most 'pick-up' FPS matches.
IMO removing 'sniper rifles' is a moot point - so long as i can fire off headshots over any distance with a stock AK, the AWP isn't necessary to upset balance. All one needs is a precise mouse and a high resolution. They'll likely even still call it 'sniping'. Removing a single weapon or lowering its damage just hides the true problems.
(bad balance and game design decisions)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I'm an avid DoD player, and snipers are a way of life. I don't complain too much about them, mainly because I'm skilled enough to kill them.
And frankly, if I decide to "snipe", I'm usually using the Kar or the Garand, depending on the side I'm on. I'm MUCH faster and MUCH more accurate with them. As well, I have more flexibility, and more grenades, which is important in that game.
Only if you can find a sniping spot that gives you good views of a high traffic area and doesn't leave you vulnerable. While you're zoomed in, you can't see what's going on around you very effectively. In my experience, only a few poorly designed maps actually have spots that are surefire sniping heaven. All the others, you try to camp, anyone who's familiar with the map can figure out where you are, sneak up on you from another direction and put your sniping to an end.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
is this not just another "I hate campers" rant? I guess I wasn't supposed to read the part about the "chickenshits" who use sniper rifles all the time.
Someone who is this concerned with kill ratios and winning in a video game probably needs to find something better to do. It's a game. Get over it.
The problem's with their implementation.
Sniper rifles in most games are, as the article describes, fingers of God. Point them at where you know a target's going to be, click fire as the target moves under the crosshairs, he's dead. Then near-instant repeat.
A couple of really simple additions would level the playing field, bringing sniper rifles back to more realistic levels...
Variable Cones Of Fire
Most sniper rifles aren't that fast to fire. Ghost Recon does a great job of this with a cone of fire that expands the more you move. Those things fire large caliber rounds to try negating wind effect so have the thing recoil heavily, throwing the cone of fire waaay off for a second or two.
Slow Reloading
Now add a slow reloading animation for WWII era rifles. You end up with a weapon that can be devastating but can't clip off entire squads in a couple of seconds. Again, Ghost Recon does a great job: Modern rifles do use clips but, because of their large caliber, you only get half a dozen shots before you have to slowly change clips.
Wind
Just like golf games, add wind effects. Put a wind gauge or whatever on the screen. Now the sniper requires genuine skill to factor in the wind speed and distance of shot as the crosshairs are now just a guide.
Combine a cone of fire that widens as the player moves and now it takes real skill to balance tracking a shot to compensate for wind changes with moving it smoothly enough to not lose your accuracy.
Wind can also become a balancing factor. Make it a server config option. Sick of snipers? Make it a very windy, gusty day. Feel like there aren't enough snipers, calm the wind right down.
Slow Focusing
Have you ever tried moving your eyes, from something close to something far away, really quickly. It takes a moment to adjust. Make the responsiveness of scopes somewhat slower and you take out the ability to sit zoomed largely out, watching the wide angle, then zoom in for the kill. All of a sudden you need a spotter, just like many real world sniper teams who watches the wide angle, tells you where people are coming from, and guides your shots.
Mix all of those in and a sniper rifle can still be truly lethal. But it takes a genuinely skilled marksman, with a smooth aim, the ability to factor in wind and distance, and a spotter working with him - and he kills one at a time. The unbalanced 4:1 ratios stop and normal players stand a genuine chance while rushing them.
The sniper-rifle has been included in so many games because it serves a role in an infantry unit. That's one simple explanation. I think it's simpler to say that the sniper-rifle is included in these (primarily) multiplayer games because there are people out there who like to use it, and simply wouldn't enjoy -let alone buy- the game if they couldn't be snipers (poor things).
A lot of the comments have talked about the lack of realism of sniper-rifles in these games, but I think it's not so much the sniper-rifle itself or even the ones who wield it. The problem, in my opinion, lies in the level-design which empowers and elevates snipers to their godlike status. The answer is fairly simple, then: Foliage, or at least alternate means to travel from one place to another, which doesn't involve running through open fields in which they would very likely become sniper-bait. I suppose that another part of that problem is in the way that a lot of "sniper-friendly" levels place the two bases at the very ends of the map, thereby not allowing for any sort of infiltration other than of the head-on sort.
To clarify, I'm not looking to totally marginalize the sniper into a virtually useless role on the multiplayer battlefield. There have also been some very good comments on this board regarding the difficulty of sniping in certain games (America's Army, for example), which is also a valid point, though a number of the snipers out there don't want that much realism; they just want to be kill-gods, and probably will end up (figuratively) shooting down my idea as well, but I think this is a valid concept for making shooters fun again for this guy over at FiringSquad. As to whether those maps get generated and adopted for particular games is entirely up to the community.
OTOH, more seriously, while snipers in games get irritating, I've never had a problem dealing with them. Lay down some cover fire, create a diversion, etc. Snipers are an obstacle just like any other.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Is it just me or does the author come across as little more than a "whiney bitch". Seriously! Seems like if he had so much mad skillz or whatever that he'd be able to avoid sniper attacks. Now it sounds like a lot of the problem is with CS...so shouldn't the article be titled "How Sniper Rifles Ruin CS?". Lots of posts above detailing how the author's whining doesn't apply to various other games...
Take UT2003 - now I'm sure a god like player is going to be death with the lightning gun...but damn that game is soooo fast that I have nothing but respect for someone that can actually snipe! I find myself using a Flak Cannon or something else with a nice blast radius so that I have a chance of actually hitting someone!
And then there's Halo - heck everyone starts with a mini-sniper rifle in that game, but it's by no means the weapon of choice all the time! (Heh in Halo-land it's usually people complaining about "Banshee-whores" - long live the Banshee babies!)
But it just sounds like the author just finished a CS marathon and didn't do as well as he hoped and so instead of realizing that he's not the best player in the world, just plains his problems on sniper rifle using camping noob fags.
Snipers are powerful, yes. That is precisely why people like to play as them. It is very satisfying to pick people off from afar. Since the point of playing a game is to have fun, if they make the game more fun then they are obviously making the genre better.
;)
I've played plenty of games where the sniper is not overpowerful, or even the most useful class. A good example is Quake 3 Fortress.
So, basically, "stfu noob".
Look over his articles. Read them. The man is a hardcore gamer. And he knows what he's talking about.
The CS AWP has been nerfed beyond recognition (and is way expensive, as you mention). From earlier articles, it sounds like he played CS earlier on. In any case, I think his article mostly targets CoD (which I haven't played).
While I'm not an excellent player, I agree with him on most of his points. My FPS of choice is Enemy Territory where, as he mentions, the sniper rifle is well balanced by design (and not just by nerfing cost/damage/accuracy/etc..)
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
1. Realism. No, sorry, there's nothing realistic about taking a shot every second with your scoped Mosin-Nagant or Springfield. They're bolt-action rifles and need to manually load the next bullet, meaning losing sight of the target.
.... the ammunition tends to be the heaviest and most powerful. One shot from a sniper rifle SHOULD hurt a lot more than one shot from a peashooter.
Having target practiced with bolt-action rifles, I can tell you that you CAN keep the target within sight while reloading. It takes practice/conditioning and is only difficult/impractical when standing. Also, I cannot do this with accuracy at a rate of once per second - maybe 1 per 5 seconds (with the weight of the rifle supported by something other than me).
The guns also aren't one-shot kills.
I don't know the stats, but I'm assuming that if the game is to be realistic, one shot to the head should do it. Also, (to maintain realism) since the sniper: 1. is relatively stationary; 2. uses the least quantity of ammo; 3. engages targets that are very long range
[sarcasm] Last of all, if you want realism - try looking for [+20 health] containers while on your typical walk around your house. They're right next to the armor fragments, usually in corners. [/sarcasm]
Sorry, their arguement sounds like the gamers who can adjust. It's like the kid who hates chess because he doesn't know how to use the knight effectively.
This is not my sig.
... and boy does someone sound bitter. Been hit one too many times by snipers have we? Some running into wide open areas in a straight line? Someone standing in one strategic place with a straight shot from anywhere in the battlefield (and usually up high to supposedly get position on everyone else)? When you're playing these games, and you're really into not getting killed every 5 seconds, you learn things you should do, and shouldn't do. You have a very accute awareness of where a sniper is most likely to hide. You learn not to go in those areas without backup and a scout hunting for them. That's what teams are all about. Merely storming your objective isn't the name of the game if you want to win. And the sniper battles, yeah, those can be real too. Let's take Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. That's an excellent want to start at for sniping. Certain levels lend themselves to having one sniper on one side of the battlefield (North African beach level comes to mind). Being an allie in that level really lends to having one sniper. You need to get position on the bunker and gun turrets or, the allies can't storm the beach, get up the rock face (by building the stairs) and eventually get into the bunker. That scenario I guarantee was custom made for one sniper to clear the bunker.
I'll agree that having 5 or more snipers on your side is a pain in the butt when you're in a game of 20 people, but, that is realism for ya. If you have 5 snipers at 5 key positions, you've just given your team one hellacious edge. It's the other sides job to sniff out the snipers and eliminate them, secure the position, report back to your teammates, and get a sniper there in the fallen one's place. Simple strategy.
Do I think snipers and their weapons are given too much weight in these games? HELL NO!!! It's a real part of warfare and a real danger. If you're looking for pure fantasy, play Jedi Knight, Mario Racing, what have you. If you're playing these FPS games in period settings with real weapons, get used to it and shut up. You look like a damn ranting lunatic that can't hack it so you blame everyone else but yourself....
CliffH - Proud sniper
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
Delta Force is the only game I have personally played that gets this anywhere close to right (a single shot tends to take a victim out of combat)
Yes, you aren't dead with a single shot to the leg - but you are in pain, not participating in combat anymore, and in fact are taking one or two other squad members to bring you out of combat - I always loved the older FPSes that allowed you to run away after having a magazine of ammo into your chest... that is why I quit playing FPS - maybe I can go back now
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
There were M-1 garand sniper rifles that did have
a high tech realistic touch called a "clip". Springfield bolt action rifles are from 1903.
Garand rifles came about 1936.
I must kind of agree with the article when it comes to most modern games. Counterstrike being the *prime* example.
However, sniper rifles have been used properly in games without being totally imbalancing. Take the original Quake Team Fortress modification. Before the prevelance of broadband connections, the sniper was extremely well balanced. Their role [and really, their only role] was to provide suppressive fire over open ground. Snipers were easy to counter with your own snipers, or via spamming [no, not silly idiotic spamming, but firing a fair amount of unaimed ammunition to make the snipers pay attention to that rather than you...].
The growth of low latency connections made the rifle a bit too accurate, and powerful.
UT's sniper rifle is very well balanced [albeit a little weak on most every map imo]
Q3a's railgun is very well balanced [albeit a little powerful on most every map imo]
But these games are all "unrealistic". Realism is not good game design. In fact it's usually the antithesis of good game design.
Lead Time
Bullets are not lasers, they have to take time to travel to thier target, which may move. In most FPS games, bullets instant-hit, there is no travel involved, just a laser drawn through the air.
It sounds like this guy, along with a lot of Slashdotters, are just not very good at playing CS. A lot of people have said any "newb" can pick up an AWP and become an instant killing machine getting incredible kill ratios. This is horribly false. It is not easy to get the hang of the AWP at first. Everyone is strafing around which destroys accuracy and makes you an easy kill. I have played on cal-m teams for CS. My brother still does play on a cal-m and with cal-i teams, so I think I am qualified to talk a little about good and bad players. A good player, like my brother, can take an AWP and really destroy the other team. A regular player with an AWP can take out bad players and maybe get lucky on a few good ones. Why? Because there are strategies to use when you face a guy with an AWP that you don't use when facing a different type of gun. You do not squat down to increase accuracy, you do not stand still and fire. You try to get as close as possible and strafe constantly. If you can get them to shoot once and miss, he's dead. I think the two biggest problems with CS deals with cheating. Cheaters make the game pointless and frustrating. On the other side, people who suck and whine about people cheating is almost worst. I can't count how many servers my brother and I have been banned on by admins who are unable to tell talant from hacks. The whole article is clearly written by one of these people who is unable to play the game well. If sniping was such a problem, then the answer would be for you to snipe since any newb can do it and get an awesome kill ratio. Please, buy the AWP, try to shoot me and I will take you down with my AK. I will then pick up your AWP, drop it for my brother who will kill 4 out of 8 people on your team every round BECAUSE HE IS GOOD. I enjoy CS because of its high learning curve. When you get good at the game, you can make a huge difference for your team. If you want a game more suited for people with bad reflexes and the inability to be patient and learn strategy, then CS isn't the game for you. All that being said, I know how frustrating it can be when your team is being slaughted by a good player. I hate playing against my brother because he is tough to go after. I offer a solution though: get better. It is either dominate or be dominating. And also, nothing beat the feel of taking down their sniper. If you keep em down, they can't afford to buy another:) One final note, a good team can take down any individual...and that is the beauty of CS and is the whole point of a multiplayer experience.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
the biggest question to ask is, can anyone just grab a sniper rifle and dominate a game? and of course the answer is just 'no'. its no different from games with a shotgun or a rocket launcher.
this guy sounds like the standard online FPS player, who just runs around with a gun and shoot anyone that you see mindlessly, or grabs a sniper rifle and sits in the one spot. he sounds like the kind of person that you meet a lot in online FPS games, that are easily killed just by using a basic semblance of tactics or strategy. and then probably whines that you are cheating.
its amazing how easy it can be to kill a lot of players online just by using a little bit of smarts to just run another unexpected way, or feign a door open, or by the biggest unused way - and the easiest way to get called a cheat - by actually LISTENING to whats going on around you, and acting accordingly.
half the skill in sniping well is knowing when to move and knowing when to stay put. i would say about 75% of the time in a game if youve been sniped you have a fair direction of where its come from, a ratio which goes much higher if the first shot didnt kill. so you obviously dont wanna hang in the same spot for too long, otherwise that 5:1 ratio he hangs onto is going downhill pretty quickly as some pissed people lends you a few bullets in your hidey hole to keep you warm.
sniper rifles have just as much weakness as SMGs, if you miss, there is a second or so reload time before you can deal any more damage at all, so you dont wanna miss. and in some games, you have to hit head or upper chest for a one shot kill anyway, you can drop someone with a well placed round in their foot. meanwhile an SMG is taking away 40-60 points of damage a second. at short range its much harder to use the gun obviously, as a lot of the time you dont get a recticle unless your looking down a scope. some scope views swing slightly to make you check your shot before just zooming and firing. you also tend to run slower with sniper rifles in some games.
all this adds up to something that you cant just give anyone and let the dominate. ive occasionally use the sniper rifle in games with amazing success, but never thru just sitting there and waiting for people to walk into my scope. you have to shoot a few times and move around places. think a bit. and other times ive been totally owned because i either played the rifle badly, or just because its not the stupid 'finger of god' this guy makes it out to me.
and besides, if the sniper camps the entire map and ends up with 10:0 score like this guy was complaining about, im sure all the people on 40-50+ kills on a standard 15-30min map cycle really couldnt give a shit.
'articles' like his sound exactly like all the n00b whinging on sever forums and the like about something they dont like, mainly a knee jerk reaction to that fact that they just got dominated by some one much better than them in the game they just played.
I usually find snipers to be a fun challenge. I have rarely come across one that I can't eventually get to. I have also been in a few games where it created a sense of solidarity amongst the others which lead to a glorious and viscious man hunt.
I find it depends on the people you are playing with. But I agree there are guns that usually unballance things and are best done without. I remember when my friends and I would play Half-Life we had an unspoken rule against the Ghost Busters Backpack. We didn't yell at anyone or get pissed we simply hunted the perpitrator down mercilessly and eventually they quit using it.
It's amazing how spiritual an elaborated beer commercial can be. -- Philip K. Dick
Just because two weapons use the same sized ammunition doesn't mean they deliver the same kinetic blow.
First, bolt-action weapons don't waste any energy on blowback/rocker/whatever action to automatically cycle the next round into the chamber. This adds a whole lot of energy to the bullet as nothing is diverted from its purpose of propelling the bullet (this is why snipers still use bolt action weapons when newer technologies are open to them).
Then you have the difference in barrel length, which means that more of the energy of the gunpowder is utilized. (Ever fire a snub-nose magnum pistol ... that huge jet of flames coming of out the muzzle may look cool, but it is all just wasted energy).
Then there are all the different powder loads you can put behind a bullet of the same caliber. This is something that games don't visibily take into account because it would add too much complexity (note the ability in Counter Strike and other games to simply put a silencer onto a weapon without using reduced load/subsonic ammunition. The game still makes the weapon do slightly less damage, but you don't need to buy or change ammo).
...in games, snipers are given a ludicrous advantage over everyone else.
I think you will find that in real life, snipers also have an advantage over everyone else.
Day of Defeat has done a good job with the sniper rifles. The sniper class is only as valuable as their shoddy pistol while on the move, but painful when in position.
Its very balanced, and you can see a wide diversity of player classes at the top. There's several reasons for this. Firstly, the game is about taking ground, not holding it. Snipers are good at closing off routes, not at capturing flag points. Secondly, machine gunners often fit better. They can keep down a whole squad, while the best a sniper can do is scare a squad off and maybe reduce the infantry movement to a trickle. Third, there really aren't any choke off points. It might take two or three campers to hold a position in place, which will really start to eat into offensive progress.
Really, there's always a counter to a camper in the game. A squad of infantry can clear out a sniper by force. A single infantry can clear out a sniper with a grenade. A single sniper can put the hurt on a machine gunner. A machine gunner can ream infantry as well, but a well placed grenade will doom one.
Unfortunately, DoD can be really hard to get adjusted to; its very easy to become a casualty. The author of the article claims that being shot with a sniper rifle can't kill you, but even if thats true, you certainly won't be moving much. Personally, I like playing as your basic grunt and sniping with that. Just lying down on the ground and crawling gives you plenty of accuracy boost.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
...like several games have already. Meaning, your aim will waver and make it difficult to hit distant targets unless you're lying prone.
First off, I'll admit that I like playing the role of the sniper in games. I have a certain fascination with snipers and their trade, and that naturally transfers to my game play. However, I should note that I am just as proficient (or even better, depending on the game) as an average foot soldier with my M4 (or whatever is appropriate for the game at hand).
:)
Now, my biggest problem with sniper rifles in games is that they are too easy to use. A real sniper has to be an elite marksman to hit targets at a distance reliably. There are three things that contribute to this:
The first is bullet drop. Bullets fall like a rock. They just happen to be going forward really fast, so they go far before hitting the ground. So as a target is farther off, you have to aim up more.
The second is windage. The wind causes bullets to drift to the side. Actually, even without wind, the spinning of hte bullet causes it to pull to one side.
Putting these two together, the bullet would only pass through the crosshairs at the calibration distance (which is usually around 200-300m). When the bullet it closer, it is higher and to the right (or left, depending on spin direction) of the crosshairs, and when it is farther, it is below and to the left (or right) of the crosshairs.
The last thing is that, regardless of the need to load, the recoil of a shot throws your aim all out of whack. Just your *breathing* sends your aim out of whack. So how are you going to be able to automatically recover to the same place after a shot?
I think the incorporation of one or more of these elements into games would cause sniping to be much more difficult, and hence cause less people to be snipers.
I also want to mention that in real life, snipers usually carry their sniper rifles in a drag bag and use a light assault rifle like the M4 as their weapon until they reach the target location.
I'll save my rant on camoflouge and the lack of sniper guille suits for another time.
(note: I'm talking about the TF mod for Quake, not the Half-Life version.)
As one of the best snipers from the days of QuakeWorld Team Fortress (certainly not the best, but I was known), I have some expertise on the use of the sniper rifle in that game.
I don't know if this sort of implementation has been used elsewhere, but here's how the sniper rifle in that game worked. There was no zoom function on it, though a simple FOV script could solve that. A player had to stop moving or change direction while holding down his attack button. This would charge his sniper shot and the longer he held it down, the more damage it would do. While his shot would charge, his running speed would be drastically reduced (by about a factor of 1/10). He would release the attack button to fire it. A pretty good design, I'd say:
1) His chances of a one-shot kill would be pretty low if he was firing quickly, since his shots would never charge. He would need to have about a second or so to guarantee it (and even then, he'd have to hit the head or possibly chest to get it.)
2) The sniper class had low health, so getting close to him gave an opponent a good opportunity for a frag.
3) The maps often made it very clear from where the snipers would be shooting. Snipers never liked to expose themselves too much, and preferred to occupy fairly obvious but somewhat safer locations than less obvious but more dangerous places. In addition, most maps had alternate routes that would allow players to bypass snipers altogether (and the snipers would seldom waste their time defending those less-travelled routes.)
So, to sum up, Team Fortress did it pretty well. :)
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
The real problem is not the existance and use of a particular weapon, it's simply that most maps make sniping very profitable, with large open areas with little cover.
There are ways to dumb down sniping (breathing, reloading, bullet speed, etc), but the reality is that a level with few walls and a few good hiding spots favor the sniper. In a real war they would be favored. In a real war those spots would be covered by other snipers and artillary
So, yes, snipers suck on maps which favor them. What's new?
Build your own map.
-Adam
Having spent a chunk of my 20's crawling around in a gilly suit with a hideously expensive rifle with an even more hideously expensive targeting system strapped to the top, I feel its fair to say that snipers *DO* have a huge advantage.
A huge ammount of training goes into teaching you to correctly use your firearm, that is assuming you have the raw skill to use one in the first place. Targets are engaged down range with insanely accurate weaponry without the pressure and uncertainty of direct engagement.
Of course, sniper vs. squad with assault weapons at close range is one very, very costly and difficult to replace corpse.
Whilst realism dictates the use of snipers; they will always destroy game balance. Just as including the M214 (The Amazing Rotary Machinegun As Used So Effectively By Blain In Predator, to quote the literature) would unbalance gameplay.
However, if your team works as a team and employs effective counter sniper tactics; fps games such as counter-strike are still fun and, in tactical terms, a realistic experience. Unfortunately smoke grenades in such games are simulated far too poorly; a single smoke grenade should create larger, thicker clouds of smoke much more rapidly; and without microwave radar (requiring a non-man portable emmiter), a sniper cant see you through a cloud of smoke.
just my $0.02AUD
err!
jak.
Another one would be "shakey hands"... metal gear solid 2 actually uses this one IIRC. If you get in a "nervous" situation or are holding the gun too long, you start having problems with steady aim.
Of course, IMO, FPS's are the least advanced, plastic-and-cardboard games still being made. When you have the play control of MGS, the customizability/growth of an RPG, the strategy of an RTS (yes I know about Savage), etc., you'll have a game that's not just last decade's best-seller with new graphics.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
People who complain about snipers are confusing real life with game life rules and physics. You can't complain about snipers using real life rules and physics and then in the next breath justify a jumping around machine gun toting player by saying its how the game physics dictate play.
Face facts, its a game. There are certain rules and physics that occur in the game to make it game-like. If it were completely realistic it wouldn't be fun.
1. Realism. No, sorry, there's nothing realistic about taking a shot every second with your scoped Mosin-Nagant or Springfield. They're bolt-action rifles and need to manually load the next bullet, meaning losing sight of the target.The guns also aren't one-shot kills. Funny, in battlefield, you lose your scope, take a good amount of time to reload, and it takes 2 hits to the body or one to the head.
...Who wants to rush with the MP40 or AK when you know you're going to run into a veritable wall of lead - why not just snipe back?
2. Historical Accuracy. Sorry son, the battlefield just isn't comprised of 50% snipers.
In battlefield, there are maybe 1 or 2 snipers in an entire game, because the class takes a disgusting amount of skill to be good at. You have to lead moving targets and have nearly flawless aim. (they also serve a purpose-- they spot targets for artillery to hit.
3.
Keeping moving can keep you relatively safe, unless you run straight in one direction. Not to mention that you're mostly useless against tanks and assault infantry as a sniper.
4. Skill. Yeah, right. Sorry buddy, but poking your head out every few seconds to take a cheap shot before moving to a new location isn't skill. All you need is the most basic semblance of aim and reflexes to get a sniping kill.
See #2
In a sniper duel, it's just a matter of who's faster and more accurate
Sniping in battlefield requires more tactics than most other classes. You have to use cover, shade, and movement to remove your opponents crosshairs off of your face long enough for you to kill them.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
Sure they have an advantage. But it's equaled by the satisfaction of sneaking up and dropping a satchel charge in thier face.
They did.
Up until the current version. By allowing snipers to move around while in the scope, and lifted the 'from the scope' firing point up to the players eyeball.
A sniper can shoot with his shot originating at a very high position, allowing him to hide alll but part of his head behind cover. A player with an ordinary rifle is stuck 'shooting from the hip'.
It's exactly this sort of 'selective realism' that causes the problems of snipers in fps games.
I for one love BF1942 and a good round of Enemy Territory - in those games, sniping actually *does* take skill. Yes, anyone can grab a sniper rifle - but to be good at it, consistently good, requires skills.
I like being a sniper - in BF1942 especially since there are no real "set" routes to get to a point - as a sniper, you do need to look at the terrain, find a suitable spot (i.e. somewhere you can get a shot off without immediately being mowed down), and actually hope and pray to god that those airplanes overhead didn't see you get in position.
In Enemy Territory, it's also not quite as easy as you'd like to think, it's easier though than BF1942.
Both games feature quite realistic action, it takes time to reload, and in BF1942 you actually lose your scope sight. Also in BF1942, a sniper rifle up close is useless. If someone gets close, surprises you, or otherwise hunts you down, you can bet your ass on it that if that player has any skills, they'll kill you.
And sure, you do have the advantage of the 2 shot kills in ET and BF1942 - the 1st shot is usually easy to get, but most people know damn well that if their health drops suddenly, that a sniper is busy aiming for their noggin, and will most likely take cover.
You also need to use some tactics and move around, if you just stay where you are, someone will come, find that you are peeking thru your scope, and will unload a full clip in your head because you never saw them coming.
Oh well, just my 2 cents.
There is no sig...
People playing these games are always complaining about "camping", something that's almost always synonymous with "sitting in one place, waiting for the enemy", "sniping", and, of course, "winning".
The fact that the entire gameplay depends on at least one person moving around at any one time, makes it a bit impractical to include a weapon that enables the player to sit still and shoot from a long distance.
If these game creators were really interested in creating a realistic game world, they would only allow about one sniper per hundred players. Furthermore, in order to play sniper, you'd have to meet a quota of long-range single-burst AK-47 shots from 200+ yards.
E=MV^2 would be more appropriate.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
Snipers only have a significant advantage if the map is designed to give them such advantage. If there is no alternate way to reach the flag/objectives/enemy_bases, and you have to go through a wide open space, then snipers do have an unfair advantage.
If on the other hand, there is the 'main way' to get to the enemy, around the snipers (though having to deal with other enemies), it is MUCH better and more then fair.
When playing Quake 3 Team Fortress (Q3F), I was a bane of snipers. I always played the Agent (the Spy class), and would sneak in the base with half of my mission to be stab snipers in the back.
What I'm saying here is only valid for Team Based Capture the Flag/Attack the Enemy Base/Mission Objective based FPS games.
No matter what though, newbies are torn to pieces by even average snipers.
Jakub, in his ranting listed 4 reasons that sniper rifles shouldn't be included in FPS games. Or 4 reasons that weren't "good enough". But there is only one overwhelming reason anything should be included in any game...
Fun
Plenty of people enjoy sniping, in various games. Sure the sniper rifle(AWP) in CS is a bit over powering, but CS is only one game. The sniper rifle in Unreal Tournament is underpowered compared to the shock rifle, rocket launcher and flak cannon. The railgun in quake is powerful, but plenty of people still use a rocket launcher.
While a camper may take out his or her share of newbies, It takes quite a bit of skill to camp, against very good/great players. All things being equal, a very good player knows all the camping spots and the advantage in any FPS is always with the player who is moving not the one who is standing still.
To camp against a great player, you need better spots, and you need to be smart about where you camp and where the player has looked. You might have to piston jump, or rocket jump depending on the game to take a good spot. That doesn't take skill? Aiming does take skill? Usually you get one or two shots in most games with a sniper rifle before whoever you are shooting at figures out where you are. You had better make them count.
All in all, his argument is pretty poor. I could make a better argument about rocket launchers being low skill but included in most games than Jakub has about sniper rifles.
Just to be accurate...
Ok, for those that didn't RTFA, and for those that did, but still would like a Reader's Digest version, broken down by paragraph:
1. Whaaa, snipers keep killing me,I'm a god, they must all suck.
2. I only care about K:D ratios, therefore that must be all they care about.
3. Sniper rifles in games aren't realistic. People keep killing me with them, I'm a god, therefore sniping doesn't take and skills. I hate campers.
4. I'll justify my position by listing some strawman arguments.
5. Realism, sniper rifles kill people with one shot, this can't be real. Editor's note: Yes, guns can and do kill, or disable, people with one shot. And in this type of game, disabled is as good as dead. For reference, see Viginia Sniper. Also note, that the other guns he lists also tend to kill people quickly and messily.
6. Historical Accuracy, there's too many snipers. Editor's note: People also don't rush into firefights and dance around each other spraying bullets, this is usually called suicide. Realism has little to do with games, other than a basis for the game.
7. Weapon Diversity, whaaa snipers keep killing me so I feel compled to snipe also. Editor's Note: did you even consider finding a way to deal with the sniper, other than a headlong rush?
8. Skill, I'm an Ub3r l33t g@m!ng g0d, they kill me, therefore sniping must not require skills.
Page Two
1. My opinions are now fact, because I say so. Everone wants to use the sniper rifle because it gives a good K:D ratio, and this is all people care about.
2. Snipers make me actually have to think about tactics, I just want to run in like a mad man shooting my gun.
3. Whaa, snipers make me have to think about tactics. They don't have skillz, but they can aim damn well. They make the game hard for me, because I have to outthink them, but they are the ones who don't think about the game. Editor's note: Ok, so they can aim like crazy, but they don't have any skills? Also, they seem to be able to control the game, but they are the one's who don't understand the flow of the game? And they don't know how to survive in a real firefight? Ok, the last may be true, but it sounds like they beat you before they got to that stage, by out-thinking you.
4. Whaa, I can't deal with snipers so I'm going to call them names.
5. Whaa, snipers get too many kills. Its not realistic. Editor's Note: Yes, we have established that we are playing a game, move on already.
Page Three
1. There are some games that actually have the snipers weaked enough that they don't bother me.
2. I like these games, the snipers aren't a threat to my masculinity.
3. I don't want weaked snipers. I want CoD without snipers, 'case they kill me.
4. Limiting snipers doesn't solve the problem, I still get killed by the few snipers in the map.
5. Everyone would agree with me, if they would only try it. The only way to play an FPS is to do brainless headlong rushes at the enemy.
6. Whaa, snipers make me have to think.
So why is this article more than the standard, "I hate campers" rant? The guy spends three pages complaining about snipers, and only comes up with the solution of removing them from games. Its sounds like he needs to either figure out a way to deal with snipers, or just stick to servers where rushing and spraying is the only tactic. Personally, I'd rather have snipers, they make me have to actually think about what I am doing. Do I want to cover that wide open area, and risk getting shot? Or do I find a more circutiuos route that is safer? Or maybe even figure how to deal with the sniper, and then take the quick route.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I'd say that the reverse is true in BF1942. The sniper is very hard to get many kills with, but many people seem to like playing as a sniper. As long as you don't run in a straight line in the open for too long (which is pretty stupid), you're a pretty hard target to hit.
So you get lots of snipers sitting around doing bugger all for the team, wildly shooting rounds in the vague direction of the enemy team. In the meantime the enemy storms in with assaults and captures all the flags.
Cheaters are. By a long shot (no pun). I sniped on NovaWorld in Delta Force 2 for a year or so... and I don't claim to be awesome or anything. I probably died about half as much as I killed. I especially enjoyed the challenge of going 1 on 1 with another sniper... it made it more like a battle than the typical deathmatch. The only time we ever seemed to have problems in our games was when someone would come in with codes, and ruin the whole match for the rest of us. I think that these games need a way to completely disable cheats in Multiplayer. If they do that, the players will balance themselves out.
It must be Thursday... I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The n00b players are the sniper campers. If you're playing counterstrike...I'm here to tell you, if a player's always camping in the same place, and good player will unload a couple ak rounds and kill them.
I have played as an offensive sniper and I rather enjoyed it. I played de_train as a terrorist and help lead my team to a 10-0 defeat of the CTs on a temple server. Rather than rely on "camping", I spent the majority of the time rushing through the map, using a pistol for close quarters and switching to a sniper rifle in closer areas.
And how is using a sniper rifle less skill? What defines skill anyway? Good aim? I guess not. I guess it must be quake style bunny jumping.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I looked at this article hoping for something insightful, but it was just your average rant.
Sniping's not realistic. Neither are most games, even with other weapons. You won't find an army bunnyhopping.
Sniping requires no skill... Then why can't I pwn like them?
Most importantly, it's the way the game's balanced. If CS wasn't fun due to sniper problems, nobody would be playing it. On the contrary, everyboy's playing it. If it's not your cup of tea, find a new game or find a server that bans it. FPS's are variations on a theme, each one making its own sacrifices and comprimises. Find the one you like. In the meantime, writing an article isn't goint to change the minds of the people having fun.
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
Maybe bullets are instant-hit on your T3, but over here on dial-up you need to lead every shot by a good amount =)
True story.
Ask any combat veteran about how demoralizing it can be to encounter a REAL sniper in the field. A friend of mine who was in Vietnam told me about one night where they spent the WHOLE NIGHT firing beehive rounds from a recoilless rifle into a treeline to take out one sniper.
.50 caliber desert eagle hitting you in the thigh will sever your femeral artery and you will die, quickly. In CS it's not that big a deal.
Carlos Hathcock, a USMC scout sniper during Vietnam has 93 confirmed kills and over 200 probable kills.
He did all of the things that people bitch about FPS snipers doing. He would crawl into position. He would wait. He would kill people before they knew that they were being watched. When they sent people to take him out, he killed them too.
Snipers are a pain in the ass in the FPS world because they are a major pain in the ass in the real world.
Sure CS isn't the real world. In the real world 1 shot from a
But let's keep it in perspective. Dealing with snipers is, and should be ugly business.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
From the article
.338 Lapua Magnum caliber can push a 200 grain
.338 Lapua at 250 grains, we get a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps.
.338 Lapua would slice through it like butter.
"The guns also aren?t one-shot kills. If they are, so would be the MP44 Sturmgewehr or AK-47 at shorter distances, which use similarly sized ammunition."
This idiotic fuck knows NOTHING about external or terminal ballistics. It's not only the SIZE of the bullet that makes it lethal, it's the amount of energy that the bullet delivers.
The MP44 Sturmgewehr fired 7.92x33mm Kurz ammunition, it pushed a 122 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,055 fps. The AK-47 fires 7.62x39mm ammunition, this pushes a 125 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of approx 2130 fps. The
bullet to over 3200 fps.
Or if we were to consider the
Are you fucking high?
It's a heavier bullet (in one case twice the mass) at nearly 150% of the velocity of the two lesser calibers. There is no way under the sun that you can liken their lethality.
The two lesser calibers would bounce off of a target armored to level IV spec, but the
In short, Mr. Jakub, you don't know what in the fuck you're talking about.
I'm sick and tired of people who know nothing about ballistics pretending to be experts when they are trying to bolster a weak position.
Fine, he [whiney little bitch voice] doesn't like campers and snipers.[/whiney little bitch voice], he has the right to his opinion, but don't take this asshole's word for gospel, because that it ain't.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Red Orchestra sounds almost like what you're looking for. Iron sights (you look through a modeled scope), partial peripheral vision (depending on which scope mode you use - theres a textured scope for lower end systems, and a close up view for those who don't care for peripheral vision), and ballistics (travel time and bullet drop). The only things it doesn't have are gun waver (esp. if you're breathing hard after running) and manual bolting; but since its a mod in progress, both of those things are planned for future release (2.0 is supposed to hit in a month or three, and both features are expected to be in by then).
Be warned though, as of now, sniping is a pretty lame affair. Other than compensating for bullet drop, its basically a point and click deal. That *will* be changed though, so don't take current combat as a representation of the final goal.
Otherwise, the game is pretty damned fun. Its not perfect, but considering how early in development it is, the game is amazing. Its a wonderful feeling to carefully line up a distant silhouette in your sights, squeeze the trigger, and watch their shape drop to the ground just a moment before your empty casing goes *tink tink tink* across the floor.
That said, some people tend to be turned off by the hyper-realism attitude (and its only gonna get more realistic as they progress). But if you've got a copy of UT2003 sitting around, and have any interest whatsoever in a realistic (for a game) simulation of the eastern front of WW2... do yourself a favour and check the mod out.
Although...some folks don't like being *killed* by sniper rifles. Anyone can get a little annoyed, but in 2fort5 in Team Fortress, the kind of snipers that surface are simply inhuman. Furthermore, snipers really *do* rack up insanely high kill ratings.
I'd be interested in seeing a reformed variant of a sniper. Basically, in real life, to the best of my knowledge, sniper rifles aren't used because they're significantly more deadly than another type of rifle. They're used because they're very accurate. I'd be interested in just having a very accurate version of the rifle, and other weapons have progressively higher introduced error.
Adding a scope/crosshairs is also a nice idea, but very vulnerable to hacking -- it's much easier to modify a client's game engine so that it has crosshairs or a high zoom than it is to muck with error, if properly implemented.
Another issue with snipers in games is that conventionally, snipers may be exposed if they try taking on hordes of armed people heading their way. To snag a concept from Snow Crash -- a water tower may make a really great place for a sniper to hang out, but it's also a nice, exposed area where people can shoot. So real life military snipers probably don't want to hang about there, even if they could kill a lot of people from there. In a game, the values are significantly different. People are *willing* to gamble their character's life on a lucrative position that may grant high kill count with no escape route.
May we never see th
Unfortunately smoke grenades in such games are simulated far too poorly; a single smoke grenade should create larger, thicker clouds of smoke much more rapidly; and without microwave radar (requiring a non-man portable emmiter), a sniper cant see you through a cloud of smoke.
This is an incredibly true statement. Smoke as-used-to-obscure-enemy-player-view in video games sucks. A lot.
There are a bunch of problems involved. It's hard to make good-looking smoke without blowing a lot of cycles. The more smoke, the more cycles blown, since smoke's usually implemented as masses and masses of alpha-textured polygons.
The conventional ways of obscuring vision are generally in the form of setting the ambient color (many games do this underwater, and it doesn't work well unless everything is one color), screwing about with gamma levels (doesn't work well unless everything is one color, relatively easy to hack, especially since some video cards may not support gamma level setting), or masses and masses of polygons with a texture with a very high alpha value, which tends to beat up on one's video card.
I'm curious as to what one can do with pixel shaders (which I haven't played with) -- whether volumetric fogs can be approximated. If so, and with pixel shaders becoming more standard, it might be possible to implement a more hack-resistant vision-obscuring effect that looks better.
May we never see th
Leaves me very skilled to attack?
Do you know what adept means?
Well skilled; completely versed; thoroughly proficient.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The point in the article, that sniper rifles (in thier current implimentation) unbalance gameplay in the FPS games they appear in, is a truth. In counter-strike, every weapon has the ability to kill in one shot (well let's pretend anyway, we all know the glock single fire and the five seven won't do that), but only one gun in the game can kill in one shot nearly anywhere. In the article he calls this the finger of god, and that's what it really is in CS. Since it's there though, there's no reason NOT to use it. Your best bet is to go ahead and pick one up. Not just on pubs, clan matches too. Use the damn thing like it's a bigger, fatter, more deadly pistol. It's entirely possible to assault close range with an AWM, it's just not going to be easy. However, until they take it out, or gimp it, there's no reason to bitch about it and not use one. That's just bad form.
But what to do about the 'problem'? Well apparently nothing, all snipers need to go!
Assuming that's what the author meant when he didn't list any alternatives to the gameplay offered by sniping.
I don't think that would be a smart choice, as sniping in games such as these can be a big part. It divides gameplay in two parts, the sniper's game, and the grunt's game, and you get to chose to play either. Close range, generally it's the grunts who win, and long range, generally the sniper. Either way though both classes take a certain amount of skill to play and have their own quirks to master (leading, circle strafing, whatever), but if you go with only one aspect or the other (awp_map, ka_knifearena) the game really goes flat fast. There is some gameplay offered through the interaction of these two "classes."
A previous poster I do believe had a point, theoretically, a good way to get around a sniper would generally be a smoke grenade. However he stated that current games that impliment ones suck. He's pretty much right, in Counter-Strike, I've yet to see a smoke grenade do me much good. Well no, I've had it where a team mate has smoked up a hallway and I could not snipe through, however, running past the hallway on multiple occassions got ME sniped (big surprise there *sarc*).
It's a one sided rant, not well thought out and, in my opinion, is quite stupid. I think I've enjoyed more the discussion that has come out of it on slashdot than the article itself. I guess all things have a purpose eh?
Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
Due to the fact that in team games such as TeamFortrss Classic, *ANY* clans you find in the popular TFC leagues such as STA for example will NOT have snipers as part of their team. They are useless and will get killed quickly enough by a skilled offensive team. Why do you think hardly any clans use snipers on their teams?
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
...Is someone that bitches about snipers. You don't like being sniped? Do something about it. Kill the sniper. All this is, is a glorified "hey no sniping no fair thats cheating".
with that whine? I've been playing CS for WAAAY too long, and in every public server I have ever been in, there is ALWAYS someone whine whine whining about the AWP Sniper Rifle. The difference isn't that its "waaay" overpowered. Put two decent snipers on opposing teams, and they'll flip flop kills for 25minutes.
/rant
The problem (in my opinion) isnt with the guns at all. It's with all the people who are clueless about FPS Gameplay tactics. Most of the people complaining (Which probably includes the moron who wrote the article) probably just rush nonstop on every map with their Colt/AK and then wonder why they get killed every round by a sniper rifle.
It takes plenty of actual SKILL to be GOOD with sniper rifles (at least in CS.) There is a learning curve. You can sit there, wait for someone to come out of a doorway and fire. Real skill comes from the people who can move, stop, fire from behind cover/box or thru a wall using sound, and then keep moving as to not get caught in the open.
Why not complain about the thousands of hackers that exploit the game by removing walls and/or downloading aim instead of an instrumental part of the game that is more then fair for EVERYONE.. Afterall, everyone has the opportunity to be good with it.
Even single player games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein become real easy if you have enough sniper ammo... Zoom in, shot to the head. It's kind of fun in a simulation kind of way, but it's not exactly challenging my action skills.
The complaint portion, anyway.
Let's look at the physics. If you're in a room where a flashbang goes off, you not only get the direct light from the flashbang, but light off all the walls, from your entire field of vision. On the other hand, if you're watching through a scope, you only get the light coming through the scope, and that would presumably be dimmed by distance, and filtered through the lenses.
A magnifying glass in the sun can produce a very bright spot because it takes about say 30cm^2 of light and puts it in a 1mm^2 area. A normal scope, on the other hand, can at most take say 5cm^2 of light and reduce it to the size of a pupil, 2-5mm^2. Now if the flashbang went off really close to the scope's lens, it would be worse for the sniper than for someone without a scope at the same distance, however I imagine the closed room is far worse.
i've always noticed when you first start playing fps games you tend to get picked off by snipers very rapidly, depending of the amount of players/snipers in the game of course. however, after playing for a while you realise if you do a lot of standing around that's how you get sniped, so you start moving around more, maybe even becoming a sniper yourself. in most games it takes a while to get good at hitting your target with a sniper rifle, especially when they're moving, so i think that kind of balances it out.
Four thousand foot-pounds?
How much is that Libraries of Congress?
XIII's single-player campaign has three sniper weapons: the Dragunov SVD, regular crossbow, and a lesser form of the chu-ko-nu (3 bolts per clip instead of 10). All three have one trait in common: when you zoom in, you have to wait and settle down (I think the PSG-series in the MGS games does this too) before taking your shot. Move while looking through the scope, and you disturb your aim; you have to wait for the sights to settle again. For some reason, this trait was never carried over to the multiplayer mode (and neither were the crossbows). Speaking of the crossbows: yes, they were quiet, and a headshot (provided the target didn't have a helmet) was instant death, but you had to factor in lead time for the bolts.
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
Just because something is real (say, MS Flight Simulator, pretending to fly a jet from point to point watching clouds roll by, ho hum) doesn't mean it's fun.
I understand that there are realistic and non-realistic implementations of sniping weapons in FPS games. However, I don't care. When I play a game, I want to have fun. Getting shot by the angel of death is not fun. Ah, but you say "being the angel of death, now that is fun". Well, sort of, but it's really more just annoying the other players and eventually you get sniped yourself and oh how boring.
Games like Halo have a nice weapon set selector where you can pick "no sniping", which, gee, forces the fights to happen in a nice smaller radius zone so that when you are shooting and/or being shot at, you can actually see which of your friends you are playing against! How novel!
For those who insist on sniping, great - hide in the bushes and go play CS. I'll be playing some nice lan party games of Halo myself, and we'll never meet...
Using optical aim does not really give an
advantage because the maps in Counter Strike
are so small that accurate shooting with iron
sights is possible, especially because CS shows
the crosshair in the screen.
Hiding does not really work, small maps are
partly to blame because sniper can not be
far enough from targets. Another factor is
not being able to go prone, so sniper is easily
visible to targets. If the first shot misses,
sniper usually loses because the target can shoot
back faster.
The AWM is a finger of god only to cheaters
using aimbot and wallhack.
The longer the time the bullet is travelling the more it drops. The further the target, the higher the arc, which may be relevant from time to time.
The escape velocity is also an issue. Supersonic rounds are more likely to give away the position, but spend less time affected by wind and gravity. Subsonic rounds can be made "quieter"
Now how to fit these calculations into the game without it slowing to a crawl is an interesting problem.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If sniper rifles were so great, most armies would be 50% snipers, or more.
The truth is, a sniper is very rare soldier, because besides superb sight, just incredibly firm hand is required.
I remember some games from times of Amiga (The Lost Patrol and Hostages come in mind) where sniping was something extremely difficult - because of shaky aiming cross, that was moving all over the target. From recent titles, Hitman and Hitman 2 had some of that - waving the gun vertically, though horizontal aim was firmly set. When I play Unreal Tournament or HalfLife, I can aim at guy's ear, remain in the same position for a hour, and if the guy doesn't move in the meantime, the aim will remain on the ear. This is ridiculous - even best sniper couldn't hold his weapon aimed, without support, for so long. If game authors took into account the minor fact that aiming with a 5+kg gun is not the same thing as aiming with a mouse, and changed aiming procedure to "more shaky", sniper guns would be far less of an uber weapon.
BTW, a great way to include an extra "parameter" for all games with RPG-like player stats. Better hand, less shaky.
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