I have almost exclusively sniped, prefer the aggressive 'PTFO' sniping playstyle and this matches my experience exactly, aggressive sniping is impossible in this game. Getting anywhere close to the objective is a guaranteed death sentence, this was not the case in older BF games like BF:BC2, BF4 and BF1. The sniper damage is too low on center mass (just 64 damage 😑) and all automatic weapons are far too accurate and kill too fast at close to long range without any need for headshots.
If they keep it that way, then sniper damage should be a 1HK on any body part up to at least 50m to balance it out, though I'd much rather prefer they just nerf automatic weapons to not be near instant death lasers up to long range and buff center mass damage for snipers to near lethal levels like 90. I'd also drop the whole sweetspot concept, it's an odd damage model that forces snipers into too much of a niche role, only useful within certain ranges and almost useless outside of it.
With fast movement lacking any sort of momentum which negatively impacts snipers the most (this is somehow always overlooked when balancing snipers against movement physics) combined with very fast auto-heal, the hitmarker damage levels means that unless you make an instant kill, you're not making much difference on the battlefield unless you're playing casuals with very poor situational awareness making themselves an easy target.
Concerning the SV-98, it's supposed to be better suited for closer ranges than the starting sniper, yet has a significantly slower fire rate, that's doesn't make sense and contradicts it's role. It's larger mag size does not make up for that, as anyone with experience in BF sniping knows that fire rate, damage and muzzle velocity are by far the most important traits when choosing sniper rifles.
They also gave the final sniper a lower muzzle velocity than the starting sniper, yet it's intended for longer ranges, I'm missing the logic behind that choice there.
