I check all of these complainer's stats and it's no surprise snipers are at the bottom of your kill feed. It's also no surprise that nearly every time your overall stats are garbage too You simply hate what you can't do well and want to penalize those who have better hand eye coordination than you. I mained sniper since day 1 and get out sniped all the time and I never blame the aim assist or flinch mechanics or whatever when it happens. I accept defeat in that duel and move on and hope for a chance to get payback. Some people are just good. Especially considering player attrition in year two and SBMM. You will encounter better snipers more than before... Even though the mechanics and flinch have changed in year two. So, why do you feel you have some insight on imbalanced mechanics exactly? What makes you an authority when you can barely do well in the game, let alone the weapon in question? Why should bungie look to ineffective players for advice on balancing? Give me a break... You were probably the people complaining about thorns slow reload time in year one when I assured people it was perfectly fine considering its powerful perks. You are just projecting your own inadequecies on to others and hoping bungie penalizes them for having better awareness and aim than you. Get over yourselves. There are just some people out there who are better than you. Big deal, that's life. I've been outplayed too, but I don't blame the game or whatever they had equipped. It was my own choices that led me to their bullets. In this highly mobile game with sardine can sized maps you can't have snipers be effective any other way than they are currently. Snipers must be quick and mobile to be effective. If all the maps were like first light then maybe you'd be able to have sway and other mechanics but everyone complained about the big maps in year one. So, we got maps like cauldron, burning shrine, exodus blue, and anomoly which were initially 3v3 exclusive maps moved into 6v6. And that became the standard sized map. What do you expect from snipers when the maps are this small? Of course it'll be mid range engagements most times. Stop bottlenecking into obvious sight lines if you get outplayed so much. Use map cover to your advantage. Whenever I derp around with sidearms or some thing I can punish snipers without an issue because I know exactly where they lurk. Try to frame the engagement before it happens. It's what all effective snipers do.

To play Devil's advocate. We're Reincarnated beings (Human,Robots,Aliens) that have been imbued with a seemingly unlimited potential to tap into the luminous magical power of a giant floating orb in the Sky. We can jump many times our own height, tear effortlessly through time and space, and survive a multitude of attacks and explosions that would otherwise disintegrate any normal citizen. Should we fall in combat, our ghosts can simply revive us. Beyond our physical capabilities. Our Guardians can unleash a wide range of devastating metaphysical abilities by drawing from said Light. Void Shields, Lightning Earthquakes, and Solar Cannons among other things. Our Armor is built from a combination of a reprogrammable data particles (Glimmer), highly futuristic armor materials, various planetary resources, and is augmented by the powers of the light. It comes standard with various combat perks designed to improve our guardians effectiveness by multiplying our ability to draw upon our Light, or enhancing our muscular strength and reflexes through an integrated system of neuro-transmitters. Our weapons are no different. Thousands of years of Golden-Age technology have culminated to bring us the absolute most lethal arsenal known to any of the various races in our solar system. (Delving into some theory here, based on real-life tech and weapons systems that already exist. Google dat shit, yo) [spoiler]Our Sniper rifles are likely built from an incredibly sturdy alloy that combines the needed structural rigidity with an uncompromised weightlessness. Just looking at their profiles, these rifles are considerably more slim than the Snipers we're familiar with today. (Look at how iPhones are packed with MORE tech every year, but continue to grow thinner) Thanks to the skilled hands of Master Weaponsmiths. The stocks and barrels likely "float" in a hydraulic shock absorbent chamber that reduces the severity of highly explosive recoil. An array of built in sensors collect information regarding wind speed, humidity, elevation, and even planetary rotation if necessary and use that data to adjust the sights accordingly. Gyroscopic stabilizers, with the help of our physical strength nearly eliminate any side to side weapon sway and also counteract the effects of gravity, wind, and recoil. Advanced targeting systems that link our weapons to our helmets can lock targets, determine distance, and delay trigger pulls to ensure maximum accuracy. (Think about how different it would be to fire a rifle on the Moon or Mars compared to on Earth or Venus, and imagine all the necessary tech that would be required to make a single weapon fire consistently on every planet.) [/spoiler] Basically, logic and the laws of reality as we know them no longer apply in this future. As a civilization, we've become so advanced that we're only a few steps shy of Godliness. Technically, we are Gods in the eyes of one particular Alien species. Lol Not to negate the validity of your point, just showing some of the many insane reasons why such an act could very well be possible in the destiny universe. :D -MAD X H0USE

Some of your sleazier sniper tape a tiny dot on the center their tv. They aligned cross hairs and boom! No more ADS...

Bump. Sniper rifles are virus that Bungie refuses to deal with.

During Suros and AR meta in vanilla special weapons had no danger ((unless used properly)) this changed when they nerfed AR special weapons started to take the stage. Fusions, Snipers and shotguns Snipers were good choice from the start ((don't kid your self)) but the counters were many. Blink, shotguns, fusions, shoulder charge ((yeah the hit detection was good back then)), a lot of primaries ect..... Now if the sniper is good you stand a low chance of countering him/her. Dose that mean snipers are OP? [b]hell no[/b] the problem is other primaries are extremely weak. They have low TTK, dose not flinch enough, phantom bullets accrue more frequently. Fix primaries and you balance the game greatly.

Well considering its way in the future bullets are probably far more advanced and wouldn't have drop and the sway could be guardian armor helping you be more sturdy or the gun itself having a gyro or whatever those things are called

There's no penalty to accuracy while moving. that accounts for a lot of it. They can keep their aim height at head level and just then quickly scope and shoot. I've spent a bit of time with my daughter watching her snipe (she's much better than me). I see her doing the drag shooting. Aim assist is most obvious there. Seen the quick scope moves. Most result in body shots but at close range they are deadly too. I've argued before that I understand this game can't have uber realism but there should be some things in place that limit these kinds of things. Especially for the more 'aggressive' style of sniper we see. It takes away from the usefulness of primaries.

[quote] I know it's just a game. But there is no breathing, no travel time, no fall, no sway.... [/quote] It's a game where we are undead magic space warriors with sentient robots to help us and not only that but we worship a giant orb that hovers over the earth that has the ability to bring plant life to planets in our solar system. What makes you think this game will have any realistic features past recoil and damage fall off for normal weapons.

At some point in the aiming process, a sniper rifle has to go from -blam!- all accuracy to landing perfectly in the center of the screen. Knowing when that is, and them being able to take advantage of it, is far more difficult than you're making it out to be.

Try actually using quickscoping, especially under fire. Not exactly easy, esp if you want headshots.

It takes a lot of skill to do this regularly with consistency. I use snipers a lot and I still can't do it. Mostly because my chosen sniper doesn't offer a quick-scope option, but it fits my style so perfectly I see no reason not to use it. But for those who do, its more of a reaction/quick twitch thing than it is anything else. Just like when people had shotpackage/rangefinder on shotguns, you quickly tapped the LT to ADS and then immediately hit RT, and you got the bonus even though you weren't fully ADS. Same thing, only with a much smaller retical. You have a higher chance of missing that kind of shot w/ a sniper than a shotgun so hats off to those who can pull it off on a consistent basis. [quote]Can you imagine holding a sniper rifle and sidestepping for several feet and shooting a small Target that's far away @ the same time?[/quote] In the same breath, it would make no sense for the sniper to be non-lethal at point blank range and lethal at 1000 yards. People act like that area of short/midrange combat is OUTSIDE of a the sniper's intended range but it isn't true. The intended range is point blank up to max range, and that includes short/midrange combat. Is it optimal? No. But usable still? Absolutely. Bungie obviously intends for quickscoping to be a part of the game since they've had two opportunities this year to remove the snappy scopes and chose not to do so. So its just a problem we all have to live with. IMO, they really just need to buff shotguns back to HoW era and give back shot package.

It does seem unrealistic, just like a shotgun that can't kill out of melee range.