Hypothetical Discussion 1 (snipers)

[Zipknob]

We all know how obscenely popular sniper weapons are in shooters, often justifiably because they are indeed powerful, so heres some food for thought to occupy us while we wait. Also as a thinktank for choosing a class ahead of the power-curve.

Lets say, hypothetically, that the majority of players choose sniper weapons as their main sepcialization, what are the implications of this in huxleys large scale PVP enviroment?

From the point of view of countermeasures:
Are there hardcounters to snipers? (rock paper scissors), and i mean good snipers not noobs that you can dodge the shots of.
Healing might work... all MMOs have healing; so long as you are at long range, snipers wont be able to kill you as you just heal the damage. But i guess nothing stops the other guy from doing it too.

Spam! Ok its been said that gameplay will have similarities to Unreal, and the Huxley weapons are capable of firing rockets/bullets at super highspeeds; so theoretically you could force a sniper to take cover with pure spammage; of course snipers are super-mobile and can just run somewhere else.

Softcounters? Well you can carry 5 weapons into battle, so it seems reasonable that EVERYBODY will have a pinpoint accurate hitscan weapon. Of course this just reinforces the value of a hardcounter to prevent boring sniper-fests; and also hinges on your ability to outsnipe a dedicated sniper.

On a sidenote: do we have any evidence of what ranges combat will involve? As this will be primarily outdoors for largescale pvp, i assume there will be plenty of areas where snipers could be an annoyance.



Before this becomes too long here are some other things to consider (maybe somebody should start another topic to consolidate these). Will we have stealth and stealth-detecting capabilities? What about the consequences of only one side having the ability to stealth? How many can we reasonably expect it to take (and how long) to take down a player? Movespeed vs Armor?
We have very little info, so feel free to make assumptions in the interest of discussion.

[Lucran]

Just wondering were you got some of your information.
Where did you hear that you could bring 5 weapons into battle?
And no this isnt primarily outdoors for large scale battles we've seen alot of info saying battles will be fought in citys, mines, open areas, islands, etc.
And we have also been told that Enforcers are close range, Avengers are Mid. Range and Phantoms are long range so the range of combat will vary.

[187 Phantom]

from what i gather, the most exitement is around enforcers.

and for the sake your discussion, the best countermeasure against a sniper is cover, plenty of which can be found in an urban setting. the second best is another sniper.

[Trigunner]

Originally Posted by Lucran

And no this isnt primarily outdoors for large scale battles we've seen alot of info saying battles will be fought in citys, mines, open areas, islands, etc.

personally i would say all those locations ARE outdoors. As for countering snipers. smoke grenades? sprint?

[naggs]

there are skills like inferred that let you see cloaked guys. rocket launchers will let you take out a sniper that doesnt move often enough. flanking him is usually the best way to get him or you can just be so much better than him that you can take him out with an assult rifle head on! thats my strat of choice.

[Ghos7]

Well, first of all, sniper rifles most likely don't have very high rates of fire. Second, they probably would have pretty high flash, so snipers may be easy to spot, if they don't move often. And third, from what i read, enforcers have such heavy armor, and wear helmets, and have such heavy weapons, then if they spot you, your basically vaporized, smashed, and utterly destroyed.

[zeekgenateer]

That is per say if they get close enough to. There's also the Avengers that will be able to mix it up too.

[Zipknob]

Well unless you're tracking down a lame sniper in a small arena he will do two things. First, only expose himself from cover enough to shoot one target (peeking out like in every shooter), and then retreat to make sure nobody gets close or to put his teammates between you and him.

Also I should point out that sniper weapons arent useless at close range either... at least not in most games. Running backwards and taking pot shots while you are chased around corners is always a good way to retreat. For snipers to be useful, they cant be too heavily outdamaged by other weapons anyhow, and rate of fire makes no difference when you have cover.

In response to above, cover really isnt a counter since its then just a stand off; and using numbers advantage isnt really a solution either. I would say stealth seems very good; is stealth undetectable? In this case one man could pretty much dislodge a front lines sniper with near 100% success. (assuming he doesnt get his wimpy lightly armored head blown off too quickly)

Taking a sniper head on, I'll admit, works well if they are overconfident. Snipers who fight in the open to get off multiple shots end up taking tons of damage themselves (i'm guilty of this as well :o) and they have low hp.

To add something to the discussion, here are my observations on sniper accuracy from UT2k4, which has very few long range encounters (except in onslaught, which has no skilled players anyhow). Not that range effects accuracy anyway.
I am one of the best snipers around outside of a few Pro's, and i hit 40-45% of my shots, and 20-25% of these are headshots.
The typical competetive player, who hasnt focused on learning snipering gets at least 35% accuracy on average, with only around 10% headshots.
(stats recorded through UTcomp mutator)

Anybody have stats for other games to compare?

[naggs]

well this game seems to have instant or at least reasonably quick respawns. in a game like that, if a really good sniper is in a really good spot and it would be a pain to get him out, just go around. the guy not being in the fight is just as bad as being dead, sometimes worse. as opposed to, say, counter strike with the rounds makes snipers virtual walls of death where you get to decide weither is worth it to risk sitting the rest of the round out to try to take a position. hopefully the maps will be made in such a way that no one class dominates. people dont realize how important level design is for an fps, it can litteraly make or break the game. some games never really came into their own until the custom maps came out and saved them from lameness.

[zeekgenateer]

That is what the Germans did, bypassed areas of heavy resistance and cut them off as they advanced.

[Dynatics]

That's called flanking..

[zeekgenateer]

No flanking is used in smaller encounters. The Germans formed a pocket around an area and advanced on the other sides threatening the Russian's retreat and supply lines. Flanking was known for a long time but this hasn't the Germans (I'm pretty sure) invented it. Before it was just lines of people shooting at each other and some flanking but not across an entire town.

[Ghos7]

Well,in response to zipknob, rate of fire does make a difference, since the usual tactic for a player under attack by a sniper is to run around so that it would be harder for the sniper to hit you. And, yse, they are not useless at close range, but that still doesn't mean they are as effective as an assault rifle. If a sniper rifle has a low rate of fire, then at close range you usually have only one shot to take before the other person retaliates.

In my opinion, the best defense a sniper can have is manueverability, and patience. In planetside, what i used to do is take on or 2 shots to kill a man, then i move, wait 5 minutes, than take another shot. I used the same tactic with my rocket launcher against mechanized convoys. I would shoot one or 2 missiles against a vehicle, move, wait, and i kill another vehicle. Of course, after a while, the convoy would start sending out search and destroy squads, which is when i would go to my reaver, which i would bring, and start launching missiles at the convoy until someone shoots me down.

[Dynatics]

Originally Posted by zeekgenateer

No flanking is used in smaller encounters. The Germans formed a pocket around an area and advanced on the other sides threatening the Russian's retreat and supply lines. Flanking was known for a long time but this hasn't the Germans (I'm pretty sure) invented it. Before it was just lines of people shooting at each other and some flanking but not across an entire town.

I think it's still flanking because the germans attacked where they did not expect to be attacked, the main focus of the enemy was at the german front line, so if you walk around and cut em off that's flanking imo.
Well it doesn't really matter please lets stay with the topic .

-Dynatics,

[Zipknob]

I would agree with you Ghos, except that killing people at such a slow rate will probably be meaningless for Huxley. I just speak from small server shooter experience that rapid-fire high damage does not give as much advantage close range as you would expect; provided you can move as fast or faster than your aggressor of course. Yes I admit that if somebody does an insanely aggressive attack that the higher DPS weapon has the advantage-- so you've got me there.
Also, you probably wont ever find a stationary target in Huxley anyway, unless sniping requires it. Usually hitscan dodging (short side to side, random movements) dont lend themselves well to an approach. (also if sniping requires you to be stationary then I'd say the threat of snipers has just fallen to a level slightly above meaningless).

The best "strat" for a sniper would simply be to let all the close range builds get shot at while you avoid the enemy snipers (especially those pesky ones who find you personally offensive and go on a vendetta to take your life and desecrate the corpse... you know who you are)

PS sorry for the complete lack of any meaningful structure/flow of ideas in this post :|

[effectivefire321]

I have always been a big advocate of playing a weapon for its strengths and
yes,my usual wepon of choice would be a sniper but the always say in the forces "your equipment is only as good as you make it".I think it al ways good to have a sniper rifle but you have to be really good at fitting your secondary firearm to the environment or your situation and depending on the actual physics engine in huxley(which i dont know if its a true to earth realism sort of thing, or whether poeple will be able to go flying over buldings by just hopping on their tippy toes).But until the actual use or uselessness of the sniper rifle is determined in huxley I would always prefer to tap somebody from a distance.

-Effectivefire321


ps: And I DO hate those studid little vendettas....

[Ghos7]

Hmm, you make some good points effective. In my opinion, I think that huxley will be a game of skill. You must be skillful with a sniper rifle to be any good with it. And the stuff with the engine, I'm pretty sure I saw people flying over buildings when a ship hit a guy in part of the trailer. From what I read, the engine is the Unreal Engine III, which is used in the games Gears of War, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, and the upcoming Unreal Tournement 3.

[MazerK]

Well, along with utilizing cover, items and counter-snipers being used against the sniper himself, teamwork will be a definate advantage against snipers. Since the Phantom class will be fairly popular, I'm 99% sure that stealth will be the number one killer of snipers, once the tactic has been established.

Having a group of phantom stealthers going behind the lines to hunt down the snipers and taking them out at point-blank range with nearly no warning will be highly efficient at levelling the playing field, as any sniper or cloaker from PlanetSide will know.