Community Manager
L115 - It seems the only circumstance I would ever use it over the Mini Scout is at 120+ meters. From what I can tell, it is CONSIDERABLY worse in literally every other way. And at 120+ meters, it having the lowest bullet velocity of any sniper feels a bit odd. Not suggesting it should be as high as 1000 or anything, but it just seems like a bit of a confusing design for me. A sweet spot at this range is awkward given how few maps have consistent, relevant sight lines at this distance. A lot of people are focused on the on-paper strength of the mechanic and not the fact that most maps seem to have been tailor-made to PREVENT you from taking advantage of it. Sweet spot kills are extremely infrequent in my experience, on both sides of the engagement.
Progression comments, related to the new sniper: Locking the straight-pull bolt behind like 30 levels is ROUGH. I'm fine with it being unlockable, but after having gotten Sv-98 to rank 50, switching to the new L115 was a nightmare. It is so so so important to the feel of the sniper (and its firerate!) and I think it would be a lot more fun to have it moved up in the skill progression tree.
Gadgets, C4! Requiring 4 to kill a tank from full health is...whatever. Sure. But C4 feels WILDLY inconsistent in this game, even when I throw 4 at the tank. I think this might be due to the anti-mine gunner upgrade which seems to delete C4? This interaction needs to be removed. C4 SHOULD be a viable method of taking out a tank, and it is ALREADY risky. It takes ages to stick 4 C4 on a tank, you are totally expose while doing so, the gunner has to not see you at all, and then if you want all of them to go off you have to retreat away safely. That's too much to get countered by a big indicator flashing on the gunner's screen and them pressing "clear mines". Same thing with the IR smoke. It just makes C4 way too inconsistent for how MASSIVE of a risk it is. Also likely makes C4 jeeps not functional against these countermeasures, which is a really sad change. C4 jeeps ARE battlefield. Now that we finally have maps big enough to let us do it, don't give them a get-out-of-jail free card. I think you need to have a discussion with whoever it is at the team really hates C4 and wants it to not kill tanks ever. If you get killed by C4 in a tank, it is YOUR fault. That goes for every battlefield game, even prior ones without all these countermeasures. You beat C4 by paying attention and positioning properly. This is a crucial part of recon's kit in this game, and it has way too much additional, unnecessary counterplay to the point it almost doesn't feel functional.
Also, I'm not sure if this is still the case? But I know you could previously use the suppression gun while in a heli to block missiles coming to it. If that's still the case I'd hope that'd be removed because wow you could just become invincible super easily with one friend to help. Blocking those rockets while on the ground is cool, being able to sit in the scout or transport and block them forever from above is not. Even if people don't take advantage of this now, as the game goes on, people will learn.
Additionally, I disagree with those talking about removing the sweet spot! It's a fine mechanic, the game tells you when you're in a sniper's sweet spot (rainbow glint, very obvious) and you can choose to change your pathing around it. I think something important for you all to remember is that the average BF player's ideal role for snipers is that they are completely worthless and don't do anything ever, because they don't like being killed by them (just look at people in this thread advocating for BF3 SUPPRESSION to return...they want to win engagements with a sniper just for shooting in their general direction!) People suggest it makes sniping too easy, but I haven't really seen that reflected in the scoreboard at all!
