"The Sniper Problem" (Game Design Discussion)

[BinoAl]

Ever notice how everyone seems to be a sniper in any first person shooter nowadays? It ruins the game for a lot of people, and almost forces others into sniping (Or stealth, in some well balanced games). While sniping is a legitimate and fun feature in many games, it's potential for instant kills and distance makes it a bit overpowered in most games. How could a first person shooter balance/nerf sniping, while not removing the fun (or preferably making it more fun), or making it near useless? It's something I've thought about a lot, and have never came up with a solution that seems effective.

[Gilberreke]

Good map design seems to be the general solution.

I haven't encountered good map design in any new FPS games though. Left4Dead 1 was the last one I played with good map design, that complemented its gameplay.

[FlowerChild]

It's not really a game-design solution, but in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I used to help rectify this problem in game by shooting the snipers on my team right on the top of the head with a tracer dart as I ran by them to assault the enemy lines.

I hate snipers :)

[BinoAl]

Good map design seems to be the general solution.

I haven't encountered good map design in any new FPS games though. Left4Dead 1 was the last one I played with good map design, that complemented its gameplay.

Map design certainly helps, but it seems more like most developers now make the maps specifically for sniping. Big, open areas, with tall buildings to the sides to snipe from are far too common. TF2 balances well, but a map like this makes the sniper far too powerful even then. Spies still serve to counter snipers quite well, as do some scouts. In a weapon-based game, with no classes, it would be much more difficult to counter snipers this way.

It's not really a game-design solution, but in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I used to help rectify this problem in game by shooting the snipers on my team right on the top of the head with a tracer dart as I ran by them to assault the enemy lines.

I hate snipers :)

I lol'd, thinking of some 13 year old kid screaming and calling you a faggot TK'er :D

[Gilberreke]

For a game-design solution: make a larger splash radius for rocket launchers. Camping a position is quickly remedied by firing a rocket in its general direction. This also solves the problem of games where rocket launchers are over-played. Because of the larger splash radius, more friendly fire damage will be the result, making them less useful as an all-purpose heavy weapon.

Adjust damage rates for increased splash of course. You'll probably have to slightly nerf base damage because of the extra area damage.

[FlowerChild]

In all seriousness, I've always thought the proper solution to the sniper problem was more accurate ballistics modeling, and I have been somewhat gratified to see some of those ideas work their way into games over the years.

Having to properly control your breathing, account for drop, and account for wind drift, all would help a great deal. Sniping is fucking difficult in RL, and the closer you get to that level of difficulty in a game, the less of a problem this will become.

[BinoAl]

In all seriousness, I've always thought the proper solution to the sniper problem was more accurate ballistics modeling, and I have been somewhat gratified to see some of those ideas work their way into games over the years.

Having to properly control your breathing, account for drop, and account for wind drift, all would help a great deal. Sniping is fucking difficult in RL, and the closer you get to that level of difficulty in a game, the less of a problem this will become.

I do like more RL-esque sniping, but when your within a certain distance, it's still generally point and shoot, with leading targets occasionally. Map sizes normally aren't big enough for the player to have to make major calculations, and it would turn into trial and error, for the most part. Plus, giving sniping that sort of depth and not doing the same for every play style seems... almost wrong. Making first person shooters more realistic tends to be a slippery slope, as realism can completely ruin an otherwise good game

[FlowerChild]

Oh, and smoke grenades. Seriously I won so many bloody games for my team in BF: BC2, especially on assault maps, by just sitting back and spamming smoke while everyone else assaulted, and even more so when the enemy team was sniper-heavy.

My score would suck when I did that, but it was very gratifying knowing that all the snipers were probably swearing there asses off.

Oh...and it works great on your own guys as well when your team spawns too many bloody snipers ;)

[FlowerChild]

I do like more RL-esque sniping, but when your within a certain distance, it's still generally point and shoot, with leading targets occasionally. Map sizes normally aren't big enough for the player to have to make major calculations, and it would turn into trial and error, for the most part. Plus, giving sniping that sort of depth and not doing the same for every play style seems... almost wrong. Making first person shooters more realistic tends to be a slippery slope, as realism can completely ruin an otherwise good game

I tend to play BF mostly, which definitely has wide open maps, and I have no probs with difficulty for specialized tasks (like flying helicopters). To me, that kind of challenge in adopting a specialized role increases long-term play value as it gives advanced players something to do once they've otherwise mastered the game.

You can build it into every weapon really, it just doesn't play as much of a roll in RL shooting when you are up close with automatic weapons.

I was primarily a machine-gunner in the army btw, and I can tell you that I rarely had to worry about breathing technique or wind velocity ;)

[Kwilt]

It's not overtly complicated to explain really.

Snipers tend to be high damage output classes, no matter how you use the weapon. Staring down the scope and no scoping both deal the same amount of damage.

Furthermore, the use of a sniper scope allows you to see the enemy before they see you. Highly advantageous.

Combine this with the fact that war games nowadays try to be 'realistic' and you have your answer. What is that answer, you may ask?

Humans should've stopped fighting in wars years ago. We're just to squishy.

So, simply put, everybody is being a sniper so that everybody can play a fair game. You have power, you have range (as well as a pseudo-defense), and you have realistic ballistic damage. Give me a better class, and everybody will just move over to it.

[BinoAl]

So, simply put, everybody is being a sniper so that everybody can play a fair game. You have power, you have range (as well as a pseudo-defense), and you have realistic ballistic damage. Give me a better class, and everybody will just move over to it.

And that's exactly the thing I don't like about snipers. Most modern games nearly force players to go sniper to be successful.

[Kwilt]

So, simply put, everybody is being a sniper so that everybody can play a fair game. You have power, you have range (as well as a pseudo-defense), and you have realistic ballistic damage. Give me a better class, and everybody will just move over to it.

And that's exactly the thing I don't like about snipers. Most modern games nearly force players to go sniper to be successful.

Yeah. And it's unfortunate.

I was actually playing TF2 yesterday and while defending on Payload, I was basically told that snipers were useless. Granted, about four of us switched quite literally at the same time, but really, it just furthers this point.

If you're gonna snipe, you should really know how to snipe. I've been looking down a 4x scope for the past decade or so, and I can definitely say that I've probably got a good idea as to what I'm doing when I'm holding a position with a well-oiled team. But, unfortunately, the general scrubbery has basically ruined the name of any good sharpshooter, and it shows. (IE team killing recon/sharpshooters because they're 'not doing anything')

(Also, if anybody is wondering, I'm not trying to be elitist or anything. I am in no way a scope pro, but that's mainly because I've played controllers all my life. I haven't honed my skills on the PC as of yet, but maybe in another half a decade I can actually call myself a semi-pro sniper.)

[FlowerChild]

If you ever find a glowing beacon flashing on top of your head, I probably put it there ;)

[Mrchaim]

The prbolem with snipers tends to go like this - they're a very high diffculty, very high reward class.

...And in nearly every case of a sniper i've seen, this makes them hideously hard to deal with, as in the hands of a bad player they're useless, and in the hands of a good player they ream everything.

Stuff like giving the sniper a bow (From TF2), or having a class that can sneak up and gank them often help. There's other options as well, including lower lethality across the board, such that it takes multiple headshots to down a player - this can actually work quite well, and shifts the emphasis even more heavily to skill, yet removes the "luck" factor that makes bad snipers so frustrating (The knowledge that they only need to get lucky once to end you).

[Kwilt]

If you ever find a glowing beacon flashing on top of your head, I probably put it there ;)

Oh don't worry FC. You're still awesome. Not everything you do is awesome, but I must say that Battlefield's use of the beacon is fairly hilarious in some situations. Much more creative of a death than a simple team kill.

[FlowerChild]

Oh don't worry FC. You're still awesome. Not everything you do is awesome, but I must say that Battlefield's use of the beacon is fairly hilarious in some situations. Much more creative of a death than a simple team kill.

Honestly, I only reserve those tactics for when I'm playing with my friend (whom I love to torment in creative ways), or for situations like when I'm playing Rush on offense and most of the team is just sitting back and sniping while 2 guys try to actually take capture points. Nothing motivates them to switch classes and advance like a big ass wall of smoke in front of them, or constantly getting picked off due to the glowing beacons on their heads.

EDIT: Speaking of torment, one of my biggest lol moments with the friend in question was when he was sniping from a hill-top and I landed a HIND right in front of his FOV.

[DaWhiskers]

It's not really a game-design solution, but in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I used to help rectify this problem in game by shooting the snipers on my team right on the top of the head with a tracer dart as I ran by them to assault the enemy lines.

I hate snipers :)

Its even more fun to do that to an enemy sniper though, especially with a squad mate on TeamSpeak playing as an engineer ;)

[MoRmEnGiL]

Heh, the ever present sniper problem :]

Map design is one major thing, but not the only one.

1)Designers shouldn't have sniping vantage locations that are with perfect coverage, little cover outside, and one way to approach, lol.

2) It should be a team effort, not a one man show. So if a sniper becomes a problem, outmanoeuvring him should be easy once you spot him, but spotting him should be the hard part in the first place. Like real life situations, an unsupported sniper is pretty much dead if spotted, thus he must relocate often and pick targets carefully.

3) Sniper guns themselves tend to be op, and firing mechanics unbalanced. A glancing hit in the arm should not be one hit kill, moving targets should be damn hard to hit, and as people have said, wind, breathing, heartbeats, and shaking hands should all be a factor.

4) Visibility should not always be perfect. Having the sun against you, should for eg discourage sniping, by impairing visibility and the danger of reflections giving you away. (can't remember the game that actually had those both, was it far cry?)

If you ask me, a game that had the perfect sniping experience was the original battlefield. Powerful under the right conditions, but totally condition dependant. And took a whole lot of skill to kill people, while it was virtually impossible to annihilate entire squads in short order. And don't forget ammo limitations!

[Stormweaver]

haaah, snipers. Now I'm not generally one for FPSs; I like to be able to sit back and think with my cup of tea while gaming tbh, and as such I don't have any real experience with recent games. But, but since I did waste a good chunk of a couple of years on Red Alert: A Path Beyond, I do have experience with snipers. Just maybe a slightly different experience to most people.

Being based on a C&C, the objective in APB (not all-points bulletin, stupid acronym theft) was to blow up the opposing base. Being multiplayer, this normally involved 8~ people on a team, grabbing tanks, missile launchers, missile launchers on tanks etc to go do exactly that. Except there was a sniper unit. In a game with any form of stats, people tend to like their K/D ratio, which lead to a lot of games ending up playing till the time ran out after one team lost vehicle production and the other team just picked up snipers and other AP weaponry and whored their way to a very, very boring victory. Half the reason I ended up growing bored of it really...which was a shame, cos as free games go it's gameplay was epic. Gonna have to go back if they ever actually release the next version.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in team-based games, snipers are rarely team players. Something that lead to me occasionally picking up 1-hour bans for driving a demo truck over to a friendly sniper nest and...well, a truck armed with a nuke can only ever do one thing...

[Necropolis]

Snipers were pretty well done in Enemy Territory. You had to be perfectly still, moving would screw up your accuracy for several seconds, your cursor swayed a massive amount, and bullets had travel time. The map design was such that there weren't a lot of places you could go that wouldn't be vulnerable to run-bys if you weren't careful, and camping too much might just make an airstrike or artillery strike hit you on your head. Headshots weren't always a one shot kill, and every shot screwed up your accuracy big time for subsequent shots until you allowed time for readjustment. That being said, someone who took the time to get good at sniping and level up their class to get things like breathing control could be devastating.

[Sealhunter]

I think it's actually the hit-scan that is messing things up in games like Call Of Duty. As a result of it just being point and shoot, stuff like quick-scoping is actually feasible as opposed to the player actually having to brace the weapon and line up the shots properly. Another way of fixing this would be to have the scope become unnaccurate (can't think of the word) after stuff like falling and shooting- the crosshairs move so that you would have to re-calibrate the sights every once in a while.

[Deepsniper]

If any of you have played BF3 snipers are actually pretty well done in that game. I have to admit sniping is what I like doing a lot and in RL too on the ranges. In BF3 they actually have set up the entire warfare aspect quite nicely.

Snipers at least most of the ones I use in it are bolt action making you have to un-scope each shot. Either that or you give up the option of having a bi-pod which makes my sniping at 700 points out really tough. In BF3 you need the best scope 12x and a bi-pod plus a target that won't move for a few seconds to kill him at that distance.

BF3 has implemented bullet arking in their design giving you an actual challenge where unless you know how to pin a target's distance and speed based on the scope and actually arrange yourself for that. Bullets ark with all weapons making it interesting.

Another aspect that I really like is the suppression fire. If you shoot in the general direction of an ennemy with any weapon including an assault rifle it will result in suppression fire. This causes people to move slower, not aim strait and makes actually shooting with a sniper really tough.

All in all it actually makes sniping pretty tough in the game but when you do get a 700 point shot based on distance you really feel like a champ. Either that or you actually hit a moving target...

[Brethern]

If you have to move your head to cycle the bolt you're doing it wrong. A real rifle is designed that the bolt can be cycled while aiming down sights.

[Deepsniper]

Yes a strait pull bolt is but I actually like that aspect of unscoping every shot it forces you to make every shot count.

[FlowerChild]

Another aspect that I really like is the suppression fire. If you shoot in the general direction of an ennemy with any weapon including an assault rifle it will result in suppression fire. This causes people to move slower, not aim strait and makes actually shooting with a sniper really tough.

Agreed...I almost mentioned this last night actually. Having been a machine gunner, I've always lamented the lack of suppression fire in battlefield simulation games given that's the primary role of a gunner in most situations to begin with. I think I consider the suppression fire to be the primary gameplay advancement that BF3 has brought over BC2. Being able to spray the suspected area that a sniper is at in order to prevent them from accurately shooting back is both an effective sniper counter-measure and realistic.

I think objective-based gameplay design is also huge in determining the relative power of snipers. Stuff like capture points ensure that people have to get into a specific location and get dirty in order for their team to win.

Unfortunately though, I still don't think relative scoring really adjusts to this in many games, so you wind up with people just sitting back and sniping to boost their own personal score, even if they're dragging their own team into the toilet by doing so.

I always kinda snicker when I see someone with 40 kills and zero deaths at the top of the leaderboards on a team that has lost a round.