Snipers and you

[Zhukov]

Luckily that last hasn't frequently occurred in Overwatch as of yet. Sure, I've had some terrible team comps but on the whole people have been pretty good about picking suitable roles.

Then you'd hate me. I play Bastion on offense. Though I'm actually good at doing it and I don't mean just sitting on top of the payload. Especially if I have a Reinhardt on my team.

Oh no, I don't mind unconventional picks. I've seen some perfectly good offensive Bastions. I've had my arse handed to me by offensive Widowmakers. I've seem a defensive Genji wreak havoc.

No, it's people refusing to play the objective in an objective-based mode that pisses me off. If someone wants to play deathmatch then they should choose a game with deathmatch and go play fucking deathmatch, the grubby peasants. Leave us aristocrats to our sophisticated objective mode for mature thinking adults damn it!

 

[verdant monkai]

I have to stay practised to be any good at shooting games. Back in high school I was actually pretty good at Halo, I'd play a sniper with stealth camo or at long range with a battle rifle. I was made by force to play Destiny years later and I am now awful.

I don't like multiplayer games any more like capture the flag or team death match, I find them too monotonous and more than a little pointless. I don't even like games where you do a lot of shooting any more either, but if I ever come across a sniper rifle in a game I will definitely use it. Doubt I'll ever use or get killed by one in a multiplayer context ever again though.

 

[Dedtoo]

Honestly, I think people who dislike snipers actually dislike the feeling of disempowerment that comes from being taken out by someone you can't see and thus (supposedly), can't fight effectively.

This is, more often than not, the case. And frankly, that's the point of a sniper.

They're not just a tool for taking out the enemy at long range. They're a tool designed to literally demoralize the enemy.

An effective sniper does both. If you feel angry about dying to a sniper in a game, barring the sniper weapon/class being woefully unbalanced, then you're simply suffering from what the sniper was created for. Disliking them is the intended goal, and it shows that the sniper is doing her or his job.

Spoiler

That might be true. But it's kind of a negative thing if it demoralizes me from playing the game, now isn't it?

And yes, it's the one-hit kill from a range that I have no chance of retaliating that i dislike the most about it. If it wasn't a one-hit kill, it would probably help quite a bit. As long as it's then not rapid firing. That kind of negates the lack of damage again.

 

[ecoho]

love to play them but always get called a camper when I play because I tend to get 30 to 40 kills in a choke point around an objective. which btw is what your supposed to do as a sniper, make the other teams life horrible and cover your squad taking the objective.

 

[DeadProxy]

To sum up, Sniping is my favourite thing in shooters, with bolt action snipers specifically, but quickscopers in CoD ruined my enjoyment of that series, while Battlefields sniping feels great and actually rewards skilled shooters. Getting shot by a sniper is usually pretty disheartening too, depending on how much you could have avoided it or not, but I don't have any bad memories of my teammates "ruining" a match by playing like sissy babies and camping corners in a Battlefield game, where as I have far too many bad memories of bastards abusing CoD's controls and being quickscoped, camped on, spawn trapped and so on.

I also always use the sniper class to learn level's/maps. If you're a good sniper, you'll be in places that offer a good view of the map, and over time you learn choke points and most commonly traveled routes, which is very useful for when you aren't sniping or are using a different gun entirely, so you know which area's of the map are the most dangerous and when to watch your head.

I love being a counter-sniper though, you gotta be on the lookout for the smallest movements at crazy distances sometimes, and there's the rare moment when you and an enemy sniper are looking directly at each other, and a "sniper war" as I like to call them, happen. Sometimes it's over almost as soon as you see each other, sometimes you end up pinning each other down and force a stalemate as you both find new spots to shoot from.
-----wall o text of some personal experiences----

Spoiler

I haven't been a part of the FPS scene for a while. The last time I was was when Titanfall came out, and even then I was losing interest in the online parts of shooters, but when I was an active player, the Sniper class was almost always my first choice.

I really only played CoD and some Battlefields on consoles though, so that's where all my good and bad experiences were with snipers.

I tried to take sniping seriously, don't camp for more than 2-3 kills, keep low, try moving around and stuff, but quickscopers pretty much ruined the CoD series for me. Being sniped in CoD was probably the worst feeling in any of those games, because of the massively high chance someone did a no-effort quickscope on you and 3 other people. There is no skill in that "technique," and it more or less ruined the entire series for me after a couple games of quickscoping just not going away and plenty of games where half the other team was quickscoping or just running the current "abuse this before it gets patched" kit. So in CoD, fuck any and all snipers (myself included) because it's literally an all-range weapon to someone who can quickscope, and very few maps in those games accommodates proper sniping.

As for Snipers in Battlefield games, Bad Company 2 specifically, oh man was it magical. You actually had to learn how to shoot in that game with a sniper, thanks to bullet drop, which I absolutely love. There isn't much that can top the feeling of leading a runner in your scope and scoring a headshot from 200,300,400 meters away. Plus you get massive maps with plenty of buildings for cover and hiding spots, walls you can blow up in order to create new vantage spots or lines of sight, so great. You also get a good selection of snipers and tools you can use, so as a sniper, you can be a great support by either raining down mortars on targets or occupied buildings, and if you're someone who likes to run around, you'd get a little portable radar ping-thing to alert team mates if any enemy is approaching. In Bad Company 2, I almost exclusively used the sniper, and was that guy who would spend half the match or something hanging back, but I'd also be spotting any one I could see from there, which is a hard thing to do on a console because to spot as a sniper (without the auto-spot tool) you need to hold down the aim button with one finger, using a thumb to control the camera with the stick, and then use another finger to hold the select button, and doing that means you can't fire your gun simply because your hand is too busy.

 

[SecondPrize]

I like sniping in games where it's hard. I had probably 1000 hours playing as a sniper in BF2. Being able to headshot other players zooming by in a HMMWV is fun, being able to do it every time is awesome. Same goes when their head is a few pixels and you drop them with your first shot. I always go for games that make you learn them and learning the bullet drop and distances for each rifle/scope is necessary as a sniper.

Now, games with laser hitscan are no fun for sniping. You put your reticle over their head and press your mouse button. There's no leading, no adjusting their location in the sights based on range. It's dull. That's even without bullshit like aim assist in quick-scoping.

 

[Tayh]

With the recent opening of the Overwatch beta, I've been playing quite a bit of a shooter again. And before that, I played quite a bit of Dirty Bomb. And before that, it was Team Fortress 2. They're all good games, with lots of fun classes to play.

Eh. Personally, I don't consider those games to have snipers. If anything, they'd more likely be marksmen, but that's just my opinion.
I try to avoid such small, arcade-ish games.

I spent a lot of time playing snipers in games such as Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2; lying a couple of hundred of meters away from the enemy, spotting their positions, calling artillery, taking out stationary AA/TOW's, using anti-materiel rifles to pierce the cockpit of helicopters and headshotting the people within people, etc, etc. Good times.
Since then, games have been becoming increasingly faster and faster paced, and introducing retarded stuff such as kill-cams, that you can barely justify taking the time to find a good position, much less regularly relocating, when you could just grab an smg or AR and actually get shit done.

As for my opinion on snipers, well... The most recent game I played that featured any noteworthy snipers was Planetside 2, in which I thought snipers were mostly useless, partly due to the abysmal rendering distance(expecially during larger battles), partly because it is so easy to disable a sniper's threat: all you have to do is to keep moving, and there's no way they can realistically put a lead on you with their 500ms+ bullet travelling time. Devoid of any other purpose(besides putting down sensor darts which, ironically, require you to get close), they are solely a threat to people standing still for extended periods of time.
I habour no ill will towards them, not even when one miraculously manages to kill me - and if more games actually made sniping worthwhile, I'd surely join them again.

 

[gigastar]

At times i make a point of hunting snipers to make thier lives miserable. In TF2 this meant camping the enemy sniper camps as a Soldier.

However in Planetside 2 when i take sniper duty im always watching enemy vehicle terminals. Nothing quite like capping someone in the time space between them ordering a vehicle and them being teleported into it. Doubly so if the asshat just tried to spawn a Liberator.

 

[Call me Baz]

Sounds to me like your problem is more "Why don't people fill out multiple roles in games rather than picking what they like" than "Snipers blargh", and the response to your problem is already given when it's phrased like that - cause (I hesitate to say most) some people would prefer to play what they ... well, want to. It goes to the whole play to win/play for fun argument which I find neither useful nor interesting any more, as it boils down to many different factors and is ultimately opinion-based.

Ultimately, I don't care what other people play, they do their thing and I'll do mine. If it feels like I'm getting a poor experience because of their choices, I'll leave and join a new server that enables me to have more fun

 

[Call me Baz]

woops doubled down

 

[otakon17]

Hate, hate hate hate hate HATE HATE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE snipers(in rifle and bow/arrow format). They are the bane of my gaming existence in all contexts, from Dark Souls(FUCK YOU ANOR LONDO BUTTRESS DEFENDERS!) to multiplayer games(FUCK YOU CAMPING ASSHOLES IN THE FAR CORNER OF THE MAP THAT NEVER MOVE). In the later I go full anti-sniper, skirting the edges of the map to hunt the fucks down and murder them. Repeatedly.

 

[JaKandDaxter]

I really enjoy sniping. But I rarely use that class cause very few maps cater to snipers well. I understand developers don't want games to just turn into complete snip fests. But that's a reality of true warfare, even in crowded urban enviornments.

The most fun I ever had as a sniper was in Resistance 2. Not only were many of the maps broad and open somewhat. With people liking to run on rooftops exposing their position. The R2 sniper was practically a laser; and it became second nature for me to land headshot after headshot. My accuracy for the sniper in R2 was over 70%. But I couldn't maintain that grove cause I had tons of assignments from college. And it was my first college semester. So that was a big adjustment period for me.

 

[Laughing Man]

As a Battlefield player, snipers can kiss my ass.

But just for Battlefield. In other games, I appreciate the more. Snipers on the Battlefield are a) useless and b) incredibly annoying to be killed by.

Sorry as someone who played BF extensively as a sniper I have to disagree, snipers in BF2 could easily hold checkpoints while the rest of the team was off doing something else, I've managed to hold a checkpoint against a squad of ten other players with zero assistance, that is useful which ever way you slice it. In BFBC2 the addition of the spot feature for snipers gave bonus to helping your team mates capture checkpoints (yes BF2 had a similar feature but from my experience it seemed to very rarely get used), not only could you cover their approach you could inform them of units that they couldn't see. It was only in BF3 that the sniper became less useful, with standard SMGs with add on scopes affording almost as useful ranged attacks without the disadvantage of them being a single shot reload. The fact that most of the scenery could be destroyed along with snipers just being generally easier to spot meant that finding decent cover from which to snipe was much harder in fact it was just better to keep mobile in BF3 in fact BF3 forced a total change where I would spend most of my time with a close range shotgun.

As for their part in games, well it takes skill to snipe correctly and effectively, it's a risky prospect depending on the game and how it is applied, most snipers are a one shot then reload deal meaning that if your weapon ain't silenced and you miss your target you now have a weapon that needs reloaded and your position has been blown.

 

[The White Hunter]

As a Battlefield player, snipers can kiss my ass.

But just for Battlefield. In other games, I appreciate the more. Snipers on the Battlefield are a) useless and b) incredibly annoying to be killed by.

Sorry as someone who played BF extensively as a sniper I have to disagree, snipers in BF2 could easily hold checkpoints while the rest of the team was off doing something else, I've managed to hold a checkpoint against a squad of ten other players with zero assistance, that is useful which ever way you slice it. In BFBC2 the addition of the spot feature for snipers gave bonus to helping your team mates capture checkpoints (yes BF2 had a similar feature but from my experience it seemed to very rarely get used), not only could you cover their approach you could inform them of units that they couldn't see. It was only in BF3 that the sniper became less useful, with standard SMGs with add on scopes affording almost as useful ranged attacks without the disadvantage of them being a single shot reload. The fact that most of the scenery could be destroyed along with snipers just being generally easier to spot meant that finding decent cover from which to snipe was much harder in fact it was just better to keep mobile in BF3 in fact BF3 forced a total change where I would spend most of my time with a close range shotgun.

As for their part in games, well it takes skill to snipe correctly and effectively, it's a risky prospect depending on the game and how it is applied, most snipers are a one shot then reload deal meaning that if your weapon ain't silenced and you miss your target you now have a weapon that needs reloaded and your position has been blown.

Snipers are useful in those games but only in small quanitities, you only need 2 or 3, not 15.

I remember most of my losses on BF4 were on teams that were over 50% snipers lying down a mile away stroking their k/d ego and being mostly useless.

And I say that as a career sniper in BC2 (1000+ kills with every rifle, a tonne of knife, revolver, mortar, C4 shenanigins, etc), they were really heavily nerfed in 3 and 4 and I spent the majority of my time there as an Engineer.

 

[Laughing Man]

Snipers are useful in those games but only in small quanitities, you only need 2 or 3, not 15.

I remember most of my losses on BF4 were on teams that were over 50% snipers lying down a mile away stroking their k/d ego and being mostly useless.

I don't doubt that, Snipers have been getting less and less useful in BF as each new game comes along, that's why I ended up ditching the Sniper roll in BF3 as it seemed less useful, not that I played BF4 because BF3 was pretty arse and BF4 didn't look to improve on that level of arse.

 

[The White Hunter]

One of my friends almost always plays a sniper. I play support. People hate us. Him for being able to hit things, and me for murdering anyone who gets close.

During countless hours in Bad Company 2 a friend an I always ran a small cell of snipers, one of us would pack a shotgun or the VSS with C4 for taking out close threats and trapping the area and the other packed the mortar and a solid bolt rifle, we usually ended matches 20-0 a piece with crazy high scores for spotting, demolition, etc.

Man that was a fun game.

 

[Something Amyss]

During countless hours in Bad Company 2 a friend an I always ran a small cell of snipers, one of us would pack a shotgun or the VSS with C4 for taking out close threats and trapping the area and the other packed the mortar and a solid bolt rifle, we usually ended matches 20-0 a piece with crazy high scores for spotting, demolition, etc.

Man that was a fun game.

I die a bit more than that, but it can be fun to effectively lock down an area and have people rush us and try and slaughter us.

 

[The White Hunter]

During countless hours in Bad Company 2 a friend an I always ran a small cell of snipers, one of us would pack a shotgun or the VSS with C4 for taking out close threats and trapping the area and the other packed the mortar and a solid bolt rifle, we usually ended matches 20-0 a piece with crazy high scores for spotting, demolition, etc.

Man that was a fun game.

I die a bit more than that, but it can be fun to effectively lock down an area and have people rush us and try and slaughter us.

I got pretty damn into the game, I quit at around 2000 hours or some shit ridiculous like that, loser that I am but still, I was to be feared in game at the time. Was satisfying to just shut down everybody.

 

[Thyunda]

I had a number of very unsuccessful Destiny Crucible matches with my pulse rifle/sniper loadout, and then changed up my strategy completely. Originally I'd been trying to play conventionally, and unfortunately, since I had very little DLC equipment and was only level 28 (I hadn't played since before the release of The Dark Below) I got fucking trounced. Like, it was pathetic. Bottom of the table every game.

And then I learned to run away. Three Guardians rushed toward me and rather than stand and fight, I turned and ran, Blinking through the air and avoiding the worst of their shots. They stop shooting and start sprinting to catch up, I stop, turn and drop one with my sniper rifle. The other two stop running and start shooting, so I run off again. They never learned.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I usually love being a sniper in co-op but I find that the game I'm best at sniping in is friggin' Borderlands. It's weird.

With the exception of, like, Thorn from Battleborn, I usually avoid playing snipers in PVP stuff though because I like the patience and aim that comes with sniping and I usually lack the reaction time to kill anything in PVP stuff where people run around like ants under a magnifying glass.

But yeah, I love me some sniping.