Completed Nerfing Sniper on VSH (2 Viewers)

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Matth

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Hello. I'm here to make an important suggestion for VSH: Nerfing Sniper. In particular:

Change "All rifles do 3x dmg bodyshots" to "All rifles do 2x dmg".


Initially, I didn't even realize we had this big issue, cause I never play as Hale. Then, during days and weeks, I've got several complaints by definitely too many people on the server who asked for nerfing snipers. I analyzed the situation carefully and understood they were right. I promised them I'd have made a suggestion thread on the forums and so here I am.
Before writing this, I also chatted with many VSH regulars in order to understand what should have been the kind of nerfing to apply on Sniper, all the pros and cons, in order to have everything balanced (also, thanks to all people who contributed to this suggestion, like @Skorpieo @Racer911-1 and @Pilon99 to mention few of them).

Actually, Snipers are too overpowered. Besides the 3x dmg bodyshot, they can climb with every melee, and the cozy camper gives them health regeneration while being able to have SMG as well (without crits).
The result of this is snipers being a total nightmare for Hales in wide maps (like dustshowdown or weaponsdepot, 2 classic maps), with top damages belonging mostly to snipers and many Hales swearing cause they can't do much. Let's remember that snipers have no class limit on VSH, we can also have 7-8 snipers and that's kinda hell for most of Hales in big maps.
Another idea would have been keeping the 3x dmg bodyshot but removing the climb or disabling the cozy camper, however that would have not granted self-defense to snipers.

Gonna repeat, I totally never play as Hale so that doesn't bother me at all. But I can't ignore so many people requesting this, and that's a matter of fairness.

Thank you all for reading. Have a great day.

@Kevin


- edited after suggestions below
 
"The result of this is snipers being a total nightmare for Hales in wide maps (like dustshowdown or weaponsdepot, 2 classic maps), with top damages belonging mostly to snipers and many Hales swearing cause they can't do much."

This is a real problem and the hardest thing is that snipers have a lot of knockback, which can fuck up your jumps towards te sniper or other gamers, which makes it even harder to kill them.
also you can just call this the anti-Skillerz thread :)
 
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Sniper is a powerful class for sure and if utilised correctly can deal big damage on pretty much any map, although the maps stated in the OP definitely are overpowered. I think totally nerfing Sniper back to 1x damage is a bit too much however as it just won't really be viable to play any more as other classes can deal damage so much faster.

I'd suggest something to balance it out a little more, maybe 1.5x damage on bodyshot, and 3x on headshot to reward the more skilled players - although this would just bring everybody to play with the Sydney Sleeper so I'm not sure how or if it'd really work at all. That being said, the Sleeper is currently broken as the only rifle in regular TF2 to not be able to deal headshots, actually can headshot on VSH dealing ~612 damage with a fully charged headshot - maybe this is something that needs to be addressed first before completely nerfing Sniper as the Sleeper charges 25% (0.5s) faster than the stock rifle, meaning it can deal big damage even faster.

I'd also like to put my opinions on the melee climbing mechanic and Cozy Camper. Removing the melee climbing will make Sniper completely unplayable, once they escape from a vantage point, it's pretty much certain death assuming the team won't come along to help but usually the best Sniper places are away from the team so it's unlikely. However, I like this idea of nerfing - or even removing - the cozy camper. Auto-heals for Sniper aren't exactly totally necessary with the melee climbing, giving the Sniper extra mobility should allow him to navigate to health packs smarter and quicker, and I'm unsure why he gets an SMG anyway, isn't the point of using the Camper to replace the SMG in the first place? Seems a bit silly to just give him the weapon he's substituting (not to mention a little more powerful as it causes bleed too???)

Just my thoughts on this, open to discussion on any of the points I've made above.
:nekoheart:
 
Thank you man, you gave a concrete contribution.

About the Cozy Camper, remember that if you pick it you also get SMG, ok, but with less damage and without crits, differently if you pick SMG.
Also, it's good to remember that medics can't heal snipers holding melee, and I lost the count of the snipers I couldn't heal and then died for this, even if they had Cozy camper.
(Ye, sometimes they could switch weapon in time but not all players have the same experience in gaming, we know). The main focus is not on defense, but on the attack, imo.

1.5x damage on bodyshot, and 3x on headshot

We can find a good compromise on this, to make it easier for Kevin to implement.
How about a global 2x dmg on all shots? If a Sniper deals 3k hp dmg now, he will deal 2k after this change with the same shots.

I'm gonna change the suggestion in the poll every time we find a better compromise. As always, be free to change vote if you agree.
 
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Just don't do it on FF2 please. Yes, I know you specifically said on VSH, but somehow I get the feeling that this would also get applied to ff2, which is not a good thing since snipers are already fragile and can't escape (They can't climb)

Btw, 3x on headshots and 1x on bodyshots? It's kind of punishing people with bad ping... I, myself, always headshot when my intention is to bodyshot, and bodyshot when my intention was to actually headshot.
And in FF2 most of the bosses are really fast, and if you know how ping + speed work, it'll really be bad.

But again, if this is gonna be applied to VSH only, then it's okay I guess.
 
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A Normal Sniper Rifle needs 3.3sec to fully Charge, so 60/3.3=18.18 shots a min, so 18*450=8100~dmg in a minute of a Single Sniper if every shot hits.
Sydney Sleeper can make(2.8sec) 21 shots in a minute and even has the change to make a 603dmg hit. So arround 10k dmg of a Single Sniper in a Minute.
Now imagen 3-4 Sniper or even more.

But this needs to be nerfed.

Also Hale needs most of the Time 20sec to get to the Sniper Places on the Maps(with good Luck)
A Class limit would just Piss off Players and/or(im not sure) make the Server instable.

I would even say no 3x/2x at all because a Headshot would still do the Same as now, people just have a Smaller Hitbox to hit.
All other Classes needs to get close to the Hale to do Dmg and then even Risk to get caught in the Hales Rage.
The Ragemeter where the Snipers even boost Hard.
 
I agree to the most points above. Sniper class is way to strong he has health regen, mobility with his melee jumps, really good dmg (with not that much skill involved) also he is in no risk of dieng since u can just camp somewhere. With other class u need to be close to do a lot of dmg and u get rewarded for it (backstabs, market garden, demo, heavy, scout goombas, etc) but ur also in hales kill and rage range. As sniper thats not the case u can just shoot him from a long distance. I definitely agree to the 2X DMG nerf and i also agree to white tigers suggestion to nerf/remove cozy camper. Snipers
should pick up health packs to heal like almost any other class. ~ Syntex
 
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While we are at it, can we finally get rid of razorback? I don't even play spy and I'm sick of seeing it on Hale's back.

As for nerfing sniper, I would just heavily reduce his knockback. Honestly, knockback from most hitscan sources could be toned down. It feels really bad to get your momentum stopped by something you can't really dodge.
Another way to nerf sniper could be to make him deal normal damage when cozy camper is equiped, like how equiping bushwacka to wall climb used to work.
OR equiping cozy camper makes you unable to wall climb more than once without touching the ground in between. I believe hhh has a mechanic like this which prevents him from wall climbing infinitely so it should be possible to implement.
 
Maan I don't play on the VSH servers since a lot of time ago... like 2 years or more.. before the ranks were resetted I was in top 10... sigh.
btw I always told you snipers were OP since then.
Hope they get nerfed since I was full of anger when fighting vs one.
I remember Skorpieo choosing Sniper to piss me off when I was Hale :rolleyes:
 
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A Normal Sniper Rifle needs 3.3sec to fully Charge, so 60/3.3=18.18 shots a min, so 18*450=8100~dmg in a minute of a Single Sniper if every shot hits.
Sydney Sleeper can make(2.8sec) 21 shots in a minute and even has the change to make a 603dmg hit. So arround 10k dmg of a Single Sniper in a Minute.
Now imagen 3-4 Sniper or even more.

But this needs to be nerfed.

Also Hale needs most of the Time 20sec to get to the Sniper Places on the Maps(with good Luck)
A Class limit would just Piss off Players and/or(im not sure) make the Server instable.

I would even say no 3x/2x at all because a Headshot would still do the Same as now, people just have a Smaller Hitbox to hit.
All other Classes needs to get close to the Hale to do Dmg and then even Risk to get caught in the Hales Rage.
The Ragemeter where the Snipers even boost Hard.


DISCLAIMER:
Some peeps dont understand this what i wrote. (may bad :3)
I wrote this to show how easy it is to make dmg as sniper,
OF COURSE a single sniper doesnt make 10k in 1 min with the Sydney Sleeper.(would be insane aim or aimbot)

Lets take myself(sniping for memes), Kikka (dam nice Sniper) and Skillerz (one of the Top Sniper Players with 5-7k dmg per sniper round despide the acc)
AGAIN THIS IS JUST PURLY STATS AND NOT REAL GAMEPLAY (all stats are taken from the Hlstats Vsh side)

-Me with 70% acc
-Kikka with 54% acc
-and Skillerz with 7% acc

We 3 on Dustshowdown.

all with Sydney Sleeper and good hiding PQ (9600dmg per min rounded up because there will be a 603dmg hit)
With those % and the dmg output of the Sydney Sleeper:
We would do in the first minute.
-Me=6720dmg
-Kikka =5184dmg
-Skillerz = 672dmg
Together we would have done 12`576 Damage in the first Minute, befor he even gets close to us 3 Snipers
A Hale has 23-24k Health at the Start.
Even if 3 Sniper would only hit 40%=3840~dmg per Sniper Player in the first Minute, this is still to high.

You Guys still think this is Fair?
 
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I had a feeling this topic would be discussed in the near future, so here is my part of the thread.

To my prior knowledge, I must admit Sniper stands in an odd position between dealing high damage and helpless in close range.
Snipers are good in tracking and stopping Hales velocity while jumping or stopping him entirely while charging at players, which is in my view a bit too much if you add the damage together the class deals in a short time.

Actually, Snipers are too overpowered. Besides the 3x dmg bodyshot, they can climb with every melee, and the cozy camper gives them health regeneration while being able to have SMG as well (without crits).

I wouldn't call Sniper entirely overpowered, the effort of dealing damage comparing to other classes is out of comparison but I gotta agree Sniper has a pool of abilities he can use for his advantage, which in my opinion has to be excluded and seperated into different playstyles.

Currently Snipers can use the Cozy Camper with the SMG as secondary which gives them 4 wearable items for combat, I'd suggest to remove this combo altogether and give the players the choice to either choose the Cozy Camper for quick HP regeneration over time or a more rewarding SMG which gives full Crits without the CC equipped which would make it more interesting.
In my eyes the Sniper needs his wall climbing as he is totally helpless if he approaches Hale in close proximity and cant always rely on Medics or Pyros.

Change "All rifles do 3x dmg bodyshots" to "All rifles do 2x dmg".

I gotta agree with this, lowering the damage of the basic bodyshot wont hurt Sniper too much and actually motivates to charge shots for maximum damage output.

I'd suggest something to balance it out a little more, maybe 1.5x damage on bodyshot, and 3x on headshot to reward the more skilled players - although this would just bring everybody to play with the Sydney Sleeper so I'm not sure how or if it'd really work at all. That being said, the Sleeper is currently broken as the only rifle in regular TF2 to not be able to deal headshots, actually can headshot on VSH dealing ~612 damage with a fully charged headshot - maybe this is something that needs to be addressed first before completely nerfing Sniper as the Sleeper charges 25% (0.5s) faster than the stock rifle, meaning it can deal big damage even faster.

I never played with the Sydney Sleeper but I saw it dealing 612 damage occasionally, perhaps we can tweak the damage output of the Sleeper to match it with other Sniper Rifles.

Just don't do it on FF2 please. Yes, I know you specifically said on VSH, but somehow I get the feeling that this would also get applied to ff2, which is not a good thing since snipers are already fragile and can't escape (They can't climb)

This is only a topic for VSH and (hopefully) wont affect FF as it works entirely different from here, so I think it will only affect VSH

A Normal Sniper Rifle needs 3.3sec to fully Charge, so 60/3.3=18.18 shots a min, so 18*450=8100~dmg in a minute of a Single Sniper if every shot hits.

And there is where Sniper gets powerful real fast, you actually have to take out the Snipers first to have a chance of winning, which dont work everytime as by then you probably lost 40-60% of your health already.

While we are at it, can we finally get rid of razorback? I don't even play spy and I'm sick of seeing it on Hale's back.

Yes please, I have seen it way to many times on Hales back which doesnt make sense (This Glitch occours when a Sniper has the Razorback equipped and is Hale next round) and denies a backstab on first contact with the Hale and is generally an annoyance and frustrating for Spies.

What do you think about this?, I really dont wanna nerf Sniper to the ground but in the current state it is really no effort to deal damage.
 
Havent read everything here but my initial feeling is that a class limit might be a higher priority than reducing the damage, but I'd be willing to experiment with any nerf to start with. A reduction in knockback would also be a good idea, but probably not that much. It's all about whether you want Sniper to have a team role (knockback to help engies) or a solo role (damage). You want to find the right balance, the team aspect is definitely important so the knockback shouldn't be reduced that much (it's a hard balance because it's good while the boss is on the ground, but while airborne it *really* hits hard).

Come to think of it, the damage reduction might already take care of the class limit issue since fewer people would be inclined to play sniper. So I'm happy to experiment with this and see where it takes us, if anything else is needed or whether it would solve the issue.
 
Havent read everything here but my initial feeling is that a class limit might be a higher priority than reducing the damage, but I'd be willing to experiment with any nerf to start with. A reduction in knockback would also be a good idea, but probably not that much. It's all about whether you want Sniper to have a team role (knockback to help engies) or a solo role (damage). You want to find the right balance, the team aspect is definitely important so the knockback shouldn't be reduced that much (it's a hard balance because it's good while the boss is on the ground, but while airborne it *really* hits hard).

I'd argue sniper doing knockback isn't really team role, because it mostly keeps the hale away from the sniper himself. I'd say using the sydney sleeper would help the team out more because of the rage decrease but not really relevant just a thing i wanted to say
 
Saw zlx mention something about a forum post so I looked more into it.

Had to create an account just for this because I do care about this topic and I love playing as a sniper.

I would say most of the complaints have come from there just being too many snipers in a game overall. There have been many occasions where there have been +7 snipers in a big open map, like weaponsdepot, mannqohq, dustshowdown, etc. Because of this it's almost impossible for the hale to win because of the insane knockback coming from all angels.

I would say maybe don't reduce the damage in the beginning, rather put a limit on how many snipers there can be overall. 4 snipers limit in my opinion would be good, this way the hale would have a lot more chance winning because of the reduction in knockback. Then see if the complaints are still coming in after testing this out and then reduce the damage a sniper can deal, if needed.
 
Saw zlx mention something about a forum post so I looked more into it.

Had to create an account just for this because I do care about this topic and I love playing as a sniper.

I would say most of the complaints have come from there just being too many snipers in a game overall. There have been many occasions where there have been +7 snipers in a big open map, like weaponsdepot, mannqohq, dustshowdown, etc. Because of this it's almost impossible for the hale to win because of the insane knockback coming from all angels.

I would say maybe don't reduce the damage in the beginning, rather put a limit on how many snipers there can be overall. 4 snipers limit in my opinion would be good, this way the hale would have a lot more chance winning because of the reduction in knockback. Then see if the complaints are still coming in after testing this out and then reduce the damage a sniper can deal, if needed.
a sniper cap might be a good start, but 4 snipers is more than enough to make Hale's life hell. Usually when you see 7 snipers on a team, a bunch of them aren't good at the class and play just because they see the mains get insane damages. Most good snipers here are donators and can bypass the cap, so I don't expect to see much of a dent in damage numbers. It's actually quite often the case that there's only 3 snipers on an open map and they each do at least 3000 damage in a round consistently. that's more than a third of Hale's max health, taken care of by just 3 players.

I think a sniper nerf would be in place, but I'd rather have (somewhat ironically) the sniper do less damage over long distances over a complete nerf. Sniper should still stay playable in smaller, more crowded maps to satisfy our sniper mains here. I don't know if its possible to code it, but giving the sniper rifle damage falloff after a certain distance could help I think. With this damage falloff comes lessened knockback as well.
To add to this, sydney sleeper could be nerfed by giving it a more punishing damage falloff in exchange for more powerful headshots at close range. Of course I don't know whether or not this is balanced but it's just an idea.
 
After a quick skim of this I believe I've come to a conclusion

We have three options:

  1. Nerf sniper rifle, x2 damage (or whatever caluations, and maybe not just sniper? idk) We need someone to do this for us, if this one is to be possible we need someone to say this is possible. Please do your research into the pluggin, check cvars. If it's not possible in cvars, it's never going to get done without editing the plugin...THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN(unless we get someone who knows what their doing...and dont say 'kevin can do it')
  2. Class restriction on Sniper - Possible. Pretty sure I can find the plugin for it, or really Kevin can handle putting a limiter on sniper himself. Any suggestions for the limit number?
  3. You guys want number 1, but can't get it but you don't like number 2. So nothing happens.

If we want this to get anywhere, I need feedback on the above. Please do not go off topic on what you think is better, I need reports back on if number 1 is possible and what class limit people would consider.

Thank you, and I hope my bolding doesn't come off as too condescending. I'd rather we be realistic. ::panda11::
 
For a limit, I'd say no more than 4. I consider 3 a good option as well. No clear preference right now, I find it very difficult to conclude which would be better taking everything into consideration.

In the meantime it might be good to change the poll so that people can vote on this, or maybe open a new thread if we want this poll to go on even longer.
 
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@EvoWarrior5 done.
As I wrote in the poll: who wants to make this plugin, tell us soon, so in case I can change the poll definitely.
 
That's not really the kind of poll I meant lol. if you make a poll about that it's still gonna take time for people to vote and to take those into consideration etc.. whether we have someone who can arrange the damage plugin is a question, not a poll.

For the poll I meant voting on the class limit. 3 or 4 sounds good to me but it's more about which. Only having 2 options on that feels a bit awkward but 2 and 5 are basically objectively too few and too many, so..
 
You are totally right, sorry. Done.
Btw, I gotta include also people who would never want a class restriction on sniper and prefer to wait. I'd go with class restriction directly, instead.
 
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