Snipers continue to get nerfed

AlphiB wrote:

They had made sniping way too easy

AlphiB wrote:

One of which was the sheer number of useless snipers on each team

So first it's "too easy", meaning it's too effective.

Then it's "useless", meaning it's not effective.

So which one is it?

Too easy to get kills, useless to team play and capture objs. How did you not get that? This tension is at the core of sniping, there's no point talking about the details of the sniping mechanics if you don't first get how it interacts within the general game flow. 

The problem here—and I say this with all due respect—is that no one is a god capable of consistently landing headshots with sniper rifles. The fact is, these rifles have had limitations since the game launched, such as the "sweet spot" mechanic. That mechanic is supposed to balance snipers and cut down on complaints. We’ve already endured a massive nerf, yet people still aren't satisfied. They want snipers to be so weak that they keep pushing to limit the sweet spot—as if automatic rifles didn't have their own sweet spots, on top of the advantage of being automatic. The limitations imposed by that major nerf were already severe enough; they shouldn't have to suffer another one. What do they want—for us to shoot air pellets or something?

They'll never be satisfied, because the complaints are rooted in pure sentiment, not facts and logic. I've seen the 🤡logic complaints myself, and I still see them almost daily both here and on the discord channel. A summary of the most ridiculous ones I've seen:

• Sniper rifles should be suppressed whenever shot at and should not be able to aim accurately, but all other weapon classes should not suffer any such penalty and should remain accurate well beyond their optimal range.
• Snipers should flinch whenever they get hit, because it's crazy how you can hit a sniper and he still manages to shoot you, but never mind the fact that this is the case for all other weapon classes too, only snipers should suffer flinch.
• Sniper rifles should not be good at their optimal range, because it's "too easy" and "not fun". Meanwhile all other class weapons can easily be good at their intended ranges because that apparently is "fun".
• Sniper rifles should only deal damage when landing headshots, meanwhile all other weapons can shoot limbs all day and still do great.
• Sniper rifles should only be good at long range, but snipers at long range are "useless" yet also "too easy" to kill the enemy so nerf their muzzle velocity so that they're not good at long range.
• Sniper rifles should not be able to ADS whenever a bullet comes near them.

I hope the developers come to realize that sniper balance is one of those topics where community feedback should be very heavily filtered on common sense, statistical data and logic.

So you're saying it's too good at killing enemies, yet somehow taking enemies out of the equation does not help with team play and capturing objectives... It's mind boggling how you don't even see the contradiction in this logic. But then again, people who keep complaining about snipers aren't exactly known for their logic.

edushadow wrote:

The fact is, these rifles have had limitations since the game launched, such as the "sweet spot" mechanic.

That's not a limitation, that is something that has been added from previous iterations and is clearly a buff - you get to one-shot opponents under certain circumstances even when missing the head. 

edushadow wrote:

as if automatic rifles didn't have their own sweet spots

They don't. Unless you're trying to make a parallel with other guns going to the head? With the mechanics as they stand, at most distances most guns need two shots to the head to make any difference in how many bullets it takes to kill. That's hardly the same. 

The limitations imposed by that major nerf were already severe enough; they shouldn't have to suffer another one.

To be clear, I'm not of the opinion that sniper rifles need more nerfing right now. But the question of whether sniper rifles are too strong or not are not just linked to whether the guns are good or not, but rather, as I was saying below, how they fit in the overall game flow.

By their nature, sniper rifles have always been a bit apart in BF games. To put it bluntly, many snipers play a complete separate game: they engage at distances where no efficient return fire is possible, but as a cost, they often don't play with their team and don't go for objs.

This is not bad in small doses. It's an alternative that players enjoy, an additional wrinkle. It's a problem when it takes over the game. When BF6 released, sniping was so easy that I had games where a full third of my team were snipers camping on roofs. While that may have been fun for those 10 players, it was miserable to everyone else. To the opposing team, who kept getting killed by people they could nothing about unless they switched themselves. And for their team mates, who were now trying to capture objs with considerably less man power. 

Let's be clear: it did not feel good to too many players, and when that happens, something has to change. There's no choice here. 

What limited the number of snipers in previous games was simply how technical it was to be a good sniper. That may sound elitist, but it's not particularly exceptional in BF games. Not everyone is good in a tank, or a chopper, or a jet: there are many aspects of the game that everyone can dabble in but are ultimately the preserve of those that know how to do it well. It's not a bad thing for sniping to be in that category. 

This is what we are back to. It of course feels like a complete nerf to anyone who started sniping in BF6, but really, it's just a course-correction after a bad experiment. How far it should go from here is merely a question of if snipers are still overtaking games. I really don't think it's the case anymore. Sure, some maps are really poorly designed in this regard, Liberation Peak will always be sniper paradise, it's an original sin that would require serious rework. But overall, snipers are still killing well enough but are not overbearing right now. 

It is hard to believe that, following the previous update—which increased bullet drop and lowered optimal range thresholds and damage multipliers—DICE is still evaluating sniper rifles for future Season 5 updates. I hope that if they do decide to make changes, it is to buff them rather than nerf them further; they already feel weak as it is. If they do opt for adjustments, they should consider other options—such as visual modifications via suppression—without altering damage or optimal range. If they keep cutting those stats, what are we going to be firing: chickpeas?

Complaints about sniper rifles will never stop until they're nerfed into an extreme niche. The complaints on the forums here seem to have decreased, but on discord I still see many complaining about sniper rifles being good at long range, especially not having flinch and suppression. They want sniper rifles to suffer from additional inaccuracy penalties, while all other weapon classes should stay perfectly accurate and stable while getting shot... Yes this is the kind of 🤡 logic we're dealing with and that's where the obvious anti-sniper bias becomes very evident.

It's obvious they're trying to mold to game to their personal preference of a sniper free experience, but I'm very curious to see if the devs are actually going to cater to those ridiculous complaints. There's a significant chance that they will, as I've seen this happen many times before in FPS games.

There’s also talk of removing the "sweet spot," though that’s a minority view; the main discussion is about suppression. But people seem to forget that machine guns have their own sweet spot. Of course, they always want to nerf the sniper rifle, yet nobody dares touch their own weapons.

I've seen quite a lot of people complaining about the sweet spot. However that is one particular subject that I actually agree on, as it never made any sense to me why only sniper rifles start with lower damage that increases as the bullet loses kinetic energy. I expect them to say it's because it's a long range weapon, but then why don't they apply that very same logic to LMG's, DMR's and most AR's too as most of them aren't designed for close range either. It's a weird double standard.

Sniper rifles should start with maximum damage like any other weapon class and gradually lose damage over distances, like the classic (most logical) damage model. Quicker for the closer range ones like the scout and sv-98, while slower for the heaviest ones like the PSR and that last one they added. While they're at it they should increase the muzzle velocities too, having some LMG's, DMR's and AR's surpass sniper rifles in muzzle velocity is one of the dumbest balance designs I've seen in this game.