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#feedback

Edited by Rethal Sepsis: 7/29/2014 2:42:32 PM
196

Why does everyone hate snipers?

After playing the beta essentially nonstop from Tuesday to Sunday, I can affirmatively say I like the game with really only one overarching complaint, and a bunch of little specific comments on that. My complaint is this: people hate snipers. I mean, look, I get it. No one likes campers. I personally like camping, because that's how I like to play my games (and I thought this game was about "playing it your way," but I digress. Still, no one likes that guy that sits in the corner and murders you six ways to Tuesday. I am often not well-liked, and I accept that. But sniper rifles have it rough in this game. Again, I understand wanting to discourage camping. But I think that, as primarily a sniper, some of the gameplay choices, especially working in concert, make the guns almost unviable. -Killcams. I understand these, very Halo-esque, not a big deal on their own because they sort of just give a general direction. I thought these were pretty well done. -Radar. This one is sort of rough on everyone. It's almost impossible to get the drop on someone from anywhere nearby because you always appear. Again, to prevent camping, but the sheer range that it goes out to makes it easy to expect and prepare for someone at essentially any range. -Glowing Eye. This is... Unique. It's hard for me to argue with it, but it's hard for me to justify it as well. With everything else anti-sniper, giving away my position just for scoping in isn't great. As someone who likes to play stealthy and on the outskirts, not even camping necessarily, this is clearly anti-sniper, not anti-camping. -Shotguns. No, I don't have a problem with shotguns being in the game. But for as much as people hate snipers, you'd think all the special weapons would get equal punishment. The effective range of a shotgun is almost nil, sure, but just having one doesn't paint a target on your back. In fact it's impossible to know that the enemy you're trying to kill with your close-ranged primary is going to blast you, whereas a sniper is a beacon from clear across the map. Accuracy. Maybe it's just me, or being used to Halo, but the effective range of sniper bullets seems to drop off the charts as soon as you can't see the enemy's name any more. Even against NPCs, a clearly lined up shot isn't necessarily the headshot I expect. This is one of the things I have least problem with, but for giving away my position so long for having been lining up my long shot. No Scopes. So long range is hardly viable with a sniper because all you do is entice enemies with a bright beacon for however few kills. At mid range, quick scoping is the way to go. But if, for example, an enemy spawns near you or does get the drop on you, the sniper is not even effective as a self defense weapon, unlike both the Fusion Rifles and Shotguns, only because scoping in is the only way to achieve any accuracy whatsoever. In fact I'm not even sure what sort of consistency the sniper has while not scoped in. But I would say that adding that reticle and huge no-scope luck would fix that right up. That's really my main complaint and all its parts. Everything else I think could be improved on is minor: for example, not starting a match with special ammo and perhaps vehicles, so map control is more important. And the others... -Postgame Screen. I'd like to see my number of deaths but expect that in the deathmatch screens. Moreover, though, I'd like to see a medal screen where I see what I earned and what it was for. -Loading times. This could just be from the beta but I felt as though getting into matches, and each consecutive match, was just an exorbitant amount of time spent waiting. Same with going to the tower and even sometimes getting into a mission. However I fully expect this will be fixed simply by nature of the game actually releasing, so this is hardly a complaint. -Mission Objectives. This is barely a problem but pulling out my ghost every time I want to see where I want to go, or needing to be on my Sparrow, and then having that objective disappear so quickly just gets slightly in my nerves. The thing is, though, this was just a beta and these were literally the only things I could find to complain about. And a lot of those I'm confident will be fixed in the full game, a lot of which stems from certain stealth related abilities in the Bladedancer and possibly hidden subclasses, as well as a certain announced exotic sniper rifle. That's extremely impressive for a beta. I'm not saying everything here needs to be changed, I just hate that it all seemed necessary to "nerf" snipers so much in the first place and think that maybe it was a little over the top. Perhaps a good change would be that you could only see the gleam of someone's eye when you yourself are also scoped in? I don't know. And I think handcannons are not a great choice in multiplayer as they are now, but explosive rounds may help. In any case, tl;dr: I think snipers could use a little buff, with some other comments. Thoughts on my thoughts? Concerns of your own?

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