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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.
... 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. --
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.
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 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.
Moreover, most modern games don't get one aspect of scopes right - you can look AROUND the scope, to maintain situational awareness.
The way the old Outlaws game did it was pretty correct - you saw the zoomed view through the scope, but could see the rest of the scene around the scope. As such, if something moved out of the scope you could re-aquire it, and you could look around while waiting for that "prefect shot".
Modern games basicly "cheat" by altering the zoom ratio of the renderer and masking the display. I'd love to see a game do it right - render the zoomed view, render the scene, then put the scope view in the middle of the main view.
Also, take time-of-flight into account - the real issue with most games is the sniper rifle bullet is moving instantaniously from muzzle to target - there is no hang time of the round, no time of flight, no windage.
Add these, and watch the sniper rifle become much less useful.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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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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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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