Some considerations on sniper rifles...

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

In the last weeks I have spent a lot of time playing DaiZy, a single player variant of the mod. It is rather interesting and different from DayZ. Playing at max difficulty settings bandits NPC are deadly when sniping. In CQC, they are utterly weak instead (narrow FOV/slow/poor tactics). One of the good thing about DaiZy is that you can experience in a very short time hundreds of firefights with a myriad of different scenarios and weapons something impossible in DayZ.

After playing for quite a few time having a variety of sniper rifles to use,a few things dawned on me:

1) 99% of the times the only way a player (that is, the human) dies in DaiZy is by sniping (not by hunger, not thirst, not zombies, not CQC...), only a far away shot from an unseen enemy making the sniper rifle the ultimate PvP weapon by excellence. In other words, sniper rifles exist only for killing other players and nothing else. They have no role in PvE and are tools used to kill other players in cold blood, nothing else.

2) With practice, one can successfully engage group of enemies at 400 meters and single enemies at 800 meters and above and this WITHOUT using "Finger of God" weapons such as AS-50 or M-107: a DMR, a Dragunov can do it and even poor-man-sniper-rifles such as the M-16 ACOG or the Mk12 SPR (poor-man-sniper-rifles because they are less precise and the damage they deliver is less than half compared to the previous ones), so the conclusion is simple: nobody needs a +12k damage weapons that can one-shot kill even by hitting the left pinkie of someone, except people who haven't learned to shoot properly yet they like to strut around with a giant (maybe to compensate something else smaller?) AS-50.

3) No matter what happens or the weapon used, no sniper will ever kill you in a forest with a long-range shot. This is the most important conclusion: sniper rifles are dangerous mostly to careless (or tired by having played too much) players. You can't be killed if you are not visible and/or watch around very carefully and/or move quickly and in a non-predictable pattern.

TL/DR: Kudos for removing any +12k damage sniper rifle. Any sniper rifle is a 100% PvP weapon, so out of place in a pure "Zombie Apocalypse Survival" or whatever but cool to kill other players if that is your cup of tea. Sniper rifles do not represent a threat if you move in such a way to negate their long range capabilities.

_Anubis_

Edited June 2, 2013 by _Anubis_

[Henryllex~ 407]

+1, but i feel that a skilled player only dies of cqc, because they know where are the areas that snipers like to camp, and know how to avoid being hit by one of them

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

+1, but i feel that a skilled player only dies of cqc, because they know where are the areas that snipers like to camp, and know how to avoid being hit by one of them

Totally true in dayz but in daizy (the SP variant) you have random snipers all over the map appearing around you, no open area is safe.

_Anubis_

[tajjuk 65]

Totally agree on both points, which I suppose sit either side of the 'remove the 50s' argument.

I rarely get killed sniping unless I have been careless or engaged in a sniping battle and mucked up. At the same time using a DMR, M40 etc is not that hard so there is no real need for you one shot 50s.

I also think that the knock out option that the other rifles give you opens up some more interesting gameplay, that the flat out kill of the AS50/M107 doesn't give you.