My Sniper rant

Disclaimer: This is going to be a long read that borderlines or ends up being a rant, Some opinions are presumptions based on perceived game history with updates and balancing acts in the past, Ultimately everything discussed could ultimately be made null and void, Take with a grain of salt and a open mind…

Hey all I’m Hereticus of Connery TR, Primarily I’m a vehicle player but a overarching theme for me is my passion for long-range combat. I don’t claim to be the wisest or most skillful of players as my stats might show but I like to think I have a solid conceptual understanding in the principles of combat in this game and others. When I’m not out Tanking then I’m sneaking around the enemy army to find that perfect Snipers-Nest as a Infiltrator.

Now with the niceties and modesty of introductions out of the way, lets get to the meat and potatoes of this thread! There’s a few threads out there already both here and on other forums talking about what’s going to be known or misconceived as “The Sniper Nerf” depending on what actually ends up making it into the game and I’d like to collect the various thoughts and conversations on the topic with the goal of making a change for the better, I don‘t want to see Long-Range combat concerning my favorite play style get royally messed up. I hope some dev reads not only my thoughts on the topic but the discussions I hope to crunch together in here.


The thing that stands out to me in Planetside 2 is the fact that we can have these HUGE Continents that you can choose to employ almost any strategy and tactic known in real wars, One of those strategies is Sniping, as above mentioned I love to do it and I know there’s a healthy chunk of Players who love it to and don‘t want to see such a drastic restriction to a Snipers range.

I don’t know about others but through the games history sense Beta, launch and through to today I have consistently seen nerf after nerf to long-range combat in general under the excuse of technical performance and weapons balancing but one excuse remains the same: That they want more bodies tightly compacted into one zone instead of spread out to create a more epic feeling battle.

Well we have optimization now so at least one of the excuse of technical performance and limitations is knocked off the table.

Now back in early November SOE put out this Balance Pass announcement that had a bunch of goodies in it, NONE of it is “official set in stone, this is what’s going to happen!” but it certainly gives you a rough idea of what kind of direction SOE is interested in going with it. So here’s a link for it.

forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/balance-pass-post-2-nanoweave-and-related-features.157414/


In brief there’s two things about this, the Nanoweave and Snipers and I’d like to talk a little about that…

Nanoweave

The Nanoweave change essentially redefines Nanoweave from a general purpose flat 25% health increase that can be used in just about any situation to a more balanced purpose in that it does NOT increase your health, instead it just gives you varying degrees of resistance against bullets and small arms fire. The kicker being that you would have no resistance to head shots, at all.

To give some context to this as far as suit slots go for all Infantry classes you have 3 defensive choices:
Nanoweave, Flak, and Advanced Shield Capacitor.

What I understand from the Nanoweave change is that it creates a rock paper scissors dynamic to fights. Instead of rolling with one all purpose loadout you have to change your gear depending on the situation. Flak protects when hunting vehicles but makes you vulnerable to Infantry, Nanoweave protects from infantry but makes you vulnerable to vehicles, the ASC s far as I can tell is a modest balance between Flak and Nanoweave.

Competitive gamers will in my experience tell you specializing for various situations will usually be better then gearing for a all purpose build, but the rock paper scissors dynamic remains the same and adds a certain flavor to fights.

The problem being that regardless of your choice, a Head shot from any weapon still deals 200% extra damage in most any situation this guarantees a instant kill sense you have zero protection around your head.


Snipers

Currently all Infantry stop rendering at 350m, 850 if the Engineer is on his deployable turret. This means if the Sniper can see you, he can shoot you in the head, the famous Sniper creed “One shot, One Kill”. With the new change the Snipers One Hit Kill headshot is reduced from 350m to less then 150m. Anything further then 150m requires 2-3 headshots to kill the target.

To give context on average between one facility to the next in a lattice lane is roughly around 500m, give or take twisting roads and barriers. On a average 3 objective large facility you have roughly 130-150m between the objective points.

Presumably the intended goal SOE has here is to encourage more bodies into the breach to make the battle larger, more exciting and give Sniper victims a chance to see the attacker in vain hope that they can flinch and change the outcome of a head shot. Possibly to even encourage players out of long drawn out sieges and stale mates by forcing more bodies to fight and make a more noticeable difference around the objective points.

The problem with this is that is kills diversified strategies and tactics, forcing a more arcade like feel to battles as well as eliminating the role of the Sniper entirely.


There’s been a ongoing argument concerning more pros and cons of the above mentioned changes.


More recently SOE has released a Developer AMA on Reddit announcing new changes, showing off future ideas, and teasing possible ideas as well as dispelling myths on some rumors. More so concerning this thread Higby udner his Reddit name Las0m shed some light with some new information on Nanoweave and Bolt Action Sniper Rifles OHK wit hthe 150m damage limiter. Here’s the link to the full notes:

www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1ryk1u/notes_from_todays_ama_sorted_by_category/

Specifically speaking concerning Nanoweave and BASRs OHK 150m stuff Higby said the following…

“We haven't locked down the distance we'll be cutting off OHKs with BASRs yet, we've been tuning around 150m, but that's not set in stone. Keep in mind with the nanoweave changes that this will mean that all headshots within that range would be OHK, whereas previously it would be much lower based on people's extensive equipping of nanoweave. These changes in concert will end up being a buff to most snipers in the range they generally play in (which is way, way lower than 150m for BASRs), and will make long range sniping less of a dice roll ("hope this guy isn't running nanoweave!") than it is now.”

www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1rxjym/we_are_the_planetside_2_dev_team_ask_us_anything/cdrxx64


Now disclaimer: between now and launch anything can happen for better or for worse, but based on what info has been released to date, I read this response by Higby and I don’t see that SOE has taken any concerns or complaints by the Sniper community to heart as they have so readily proven and done before with the air power balance when they listened to Pilot concerns…

I read Higbys reply and I see “We haven't locked down the distance we'll be cutting off OHKs with BASRs yet” so despite such a large volume of Snipers complaining against this change, they plan to go through with the One Hit Kill limit, just debating how to employ it?

I read… “These changes in concert will end up being a buff to most snipers in the range they generally play in” then I wonder in what world do you think asking a Sniper, a long range player, to go fight up close in a battle a buff? That’s nice that they have no head protection making my job easier to OHK the target but that doesn’t solve the original complaint that CQC players had about Snipers instant killing them.

And lastly I see “which is way, way lower than 150m for BASRs” So of course SOE is privy to stats that we as players do not really have access to, that’s a given, but that famous quote on the Free-to-Play model comes to mind “Players are the Content” freebies come and go and are just content for me to play with/against, to kill, and to farm. Why does freebie content dictate my play style Buff/Nerf? Shouldn’t SOE be collecting feedback from the top competitive Snipers players just as they did the ace pilots during the Air Game Balance update? Shouldn’t they also weigh in the opinion of the competitive players that there are shaping the game around for balance?

Deleted



I need to read before I post :c

I talked to Mustarde about it a few hours ago on TS to get his ideas about it. To tired to post right now. Will do that tomorrow after work if I remember.

It makes no sense if I can bombard a base with a HE Prowler from 350m and do full damage but cannot do full damage as infantry. They either need to amend the changes to include all sources of damage or revert it all together. As far as long ranged combat is concerned...I really am on the fence, but I never really had any complaints about it and don't see why it should be made into a useless tactic.

I find infantry sniping in general in this game to be pretty much be subpar, so I avoid it. Generally speaking about this Nanoweave change I absolutely hate it. I prefer the longer TTK and with this change you will just generally drop more to vehicle camping and stray headshots. With that in mind a mid-range infiltrator might find some good success with a semi-auto rifle, but again I don't see why they have to increase the fall off damage.

I believe the primary reason they are doing this change is because of the overly large battles that have equal sides can often devolve into a massive campfest with many snipers on each side. Usually this results from both factions blowing up each side's vehicles and then most casual people just switch to infantry play with their initial zerg vehicle gone. In those fights usually people just sit around and snipe all day, but I don't see how nerfing the falloff on just infantry weapons will change it. People will just switch to heavies and do the same and vehicles and AV turret snipers will just have more free reign continuing the same while infantry will have an absolutely shit time. In battles like that it's pretty much impossible to try and mitigate dying instantly to random things, it's just going to happen because of all the people. The devs really should try to develop more ways of spreading the fight out rather than further concentrating them like this, however at the same time you don't want them to be so spread that people just sit around all day taking pot shots at each other from 50 miles away. Franky it's usually well coordinated organized pushes that end these things anyway and the devolution to sniping is just a mob mentality, because no one will commit their sundy or tank to try and push forward because "muh cert farm". All in all I think this is more of an incentive and community issue than a "AMG DAT FUGGIN ANOYIGN SNIPA SNIPD MEH NEEERF!" thing.

I would also note that in this game basically all larger infantry engagements that an Infiltrator shines in and is worth possibly switching to (in my opinion)are rendered moot with vehicles coming into the battle from the outside as is the situation many times with non equal battles (most battles). This situation usually happens with Tech plants. Anyway my point is that most infantry battles take place indoors or on mountains that are hard for vehicles to get to (some of the best fights are mountain fights too) and because most of the capture points are indoor long range snipers have little impact on the most important aspect of any fight; the control of the point. Indoor sniping pretty much can't happen and the infantry are indoors, because the faction with the numbers advantage is usually outside in vehicles camping. So as far as competitive sniper balance and play is concerned they have very limited use. They are a good addition to an attacking force with a vehicle advantage, but as defense or in an outnumbered situation they are very screwed. I do find them to be good with defending AMP stations though because of the outside towers and top of the plant itself you can snipe from even when outnumbered it's easy to get there fast and whittle the enemy down while having easily accessible high ground and help choke the enemy positions down. You could of course in any situation try your luck at going way outside behind the enemies, but I never really bother with it as I find it doesn't really impact the battles much compared to doing the same with an AP Prowler and takes too much time.