Snipers are OP?

[wolfstriked 143]

If anything get rid of the range finder as that makes snipers OP.Its amazing how Dayz is set up to be a high end military simulation for douchebag snipers sitting high on the hills fighting against people with lower tier weapons.This is supposed to be done to instill anger and emotion but in reality it reduces game down to just being sniped IMO.For long term gameplay I think Dayz should steer away from this concept by doing what is beging suggested by many here.....take away the .50 caliber snipers(use rockets against vehicles),get rid of NVG and thermals and add some wind into the game.;)

[WisdomSnork 42]

Dayz is set up to be a high end military simulation for douchebag snipers sitting high on the hills fighting against people with lower tier weapons.

Wrong. Weapons in Day Z aren't tiered. This. Isn't. WoW.

Which weapon takes the least headshots to kill someone? All of them take one :P

I say seeing someone first is OP and if someone sees you, you should be notified, so as to make things fair ;]

Edited July 30, 2012 by WisdomSnork

[Teo (DayZ) 6]

Wrong. Weapons in Day Z aren't tiered. This. Isn't. WoW.

Which weapon takes the least headshots to kill someone? All of them take one :P

I say seeing someone first is OP and if someone sees you, you should be notified, so as to make things fair ;]

Not sure, but Makarov might take more than 1 shot ^^

[fritigern 9]

Sniper rifles are too common in the mod, and too far ahead in terms of technology in comparison to the other weapons people are using. This is one of those touchy tinkering points in balancing the mod, where brutal realism needs to be maintained (You're dead before you even know it), while also balancing the "fun" factor of a video game. Yes, sniper rifles should be powerful, but they should be like a golden egg, so insanely valuable that it becomes nonsensical to sit on a hill over Cherno shooting at unarmed people and risking being axed in the back (Yes I axe a lot've people doing this, just yesterday in fact, and it was hilarious). But this is apart of a larger problem Rocket needs to address with the mod, where every weapons availability needs to be shuffled around a bit, to have a smoother progression of fire power to rarity.

I know Rocket has a loose tie to the ShackTac Arma 2 community, and I hope he eventually adopts their philosophy on scoped weapons, because I think it'll eventually become a necessity. After killing people so many times with a sniper rifle, you quickly get over the emotional impact of robbing someone of their time and effort, which is something Rocket has acknowledged himself, with the stagnation of play and the eventual human-hunting that is to follow, but even that gets boring. Where is the true conflict in a military game? It's up close and personal. My heart has never pumped so hard as when I was 50 meters away from my enemy, trading bursts with assault rifles. I was in mortal danger from my enemy, and from zombies, with only my skill and wits to see me through. Then the question becomes how do you keep the streets of Electro and Cherno from becoming a CoD fest? My answer is that it is already, but you can reduce that even further by further stretching back the availability of assault rifles ever so slightly, so that weapons like shotguns and pistols become the meat of a coastal survivor, and with more rural weapons things take on a slower, more methodical pace.

[Rowrin 2]

Killed 3 of 4 snipers in a group yesterday out on electro. They were on the hill behind the fire dept and shot at me as i was running up. All I had to do was go around the hill, and come up behind them from the top. ezpz. I ended up with a silenced m4, silenced m9, as50, night vision, rangefinder, and all the kewl gizmos/gadgets.

It isn't hard to kill off a sniper if you know there they are, just don't be stupid and charge them from across an open field.

[Vellarain 73]

That because in real life if a 50. Cal bullet hit you it would rip you appart, http://video.google....920080174465066

That is fucking nightmare fuel for any soldier. A 50 cal is not just powerful but it highly accurate and can reach targets far further than any other sniper rifle easily. What a beast of a weapon.

[WisdomSnork 42]

Arken, your solution lies in eventually scaling back the availability of all weaponry.

Not sure that's going to help the fun-balance of the game, unless your fun has mainly been ruined by other players.. in which case, well, you know what to do :P

Listen to this...

Where is the true conflict in a military game?

You give a response to that question as if it's the only true and engaging response. It's clearly not or snipers wouldn't choose to snipe. They aren't doing it for gain, as they generally don't even loot their corpses.. they've decided that sniping is fun for them.

Why should your dislike of long range combat end in a game-wide removal of sniper rifles?

The new patch limiting ammo will handle it entirely. PvP this game is balanced, I really don't understand all the complaints. Sniper rifles and assault rifles are meant to be un-equivalent, not balanced. Equitable, not equal.

[Disgraced 1123]

Sniper ammunition is not rare.

Nothing is rare.

Unfortunately, item duplication is rampant such that innocent players find it easier to just loot other people's camps which are full of duplicated gear. I found a bunch of M107 mags and 7 nv goggles in a bus yesterday.

Sure, this could have been the fruit of the labours of twenty people working for weeks.... But I doubt it.

[Teo (DayZ) 6]

Sniper ammunition is not rare.

Nothing is rare.

Unfortunately, item duplication is rampant such that innocent players find it easier to just loot other people's camps which are full of duplicated gear. I found a bunch of M107 mags and 7 nv goggles in a bus yesterday.

Sure, this could have been the fruit of the labours of twenty people working for weeks.... But I doubt it.

So... Duplicated sniper ammo and items that spawn rarely make those items not to be rare? Is that the logic? IMO its just bugs and exploits, nothing else. When these bugs get fixed, do you then accept these items as 'rare'? Edited July 30, 2012 by Teo

[WisdomSnork 42]

The duping will never get fixed, as stated by rocket and I quote.. it is "impossible". I don't have a tent or a vehicle and I don't do it.

However, if he keeps discouraging it, and even if he doesn't..

I think it's rare enough to keep rare things rare and common things common.

Edited July 30, 2012 by WisdomSnork

[BlksnshN 127]

I shot a guy twice with the M24 yesterday. The first shot went through his neck and he went prone. The second shot went through his thigh. He then stood up and ran into cover, bandaged himself and disconnected.

[WisdomSnork 42]

Why no third shot while you watched him do a fifteen second bandage animation? lol

Edit: My bad, apparently my ADD is too bad to miss the final sentence saying he managed to run to cover :]

Edited July 30, 2012 by WisdomSnork

[unconsciousobjector 69]

This forum needs a "eating popcorn" icon thingy.

[fritigern 9]

My fun hasn't been ruined by other players, and you trying to make some kind've quip about it only makes you look like a bit've a tool. I am a bandit, I am the guy who takes the corner and puts a bullet in your back, who sits in a tree and waits for you to stop and check your map before ending you. I am ripper, terror, slasher, gouger. I am the teeth in the darkness, the talons in the night. And even with all that said? Sniping is weak sauce, and that is from the perspective of someone who has the most to gain from a sniper rifle.

Are there other people out there who enjoy sniping much more than I do? Yes, of course, and I have absolutely no problem with that style of game play (I never said sniper rifles should be removed). The problem is not that the sniper mechanic exists in the game, the problem is that snipers DOMINATE the game. And the name "sniper" itself has no heroic, or skillful annotation here, because any idiot can find a sniper rifle and kill ten unarmed players before being axed in the back. Since weapons aren't distributed according to someone's worth or skill, it is left up to luck, and people are far too lucky to be given the keys to the golden goose.

I don't even know why you brought up ammo as some kind've counter point. You trip over DMR mags, they can virtually be found anywhere. I usually have stockpile of them before I even find ammo for an AKM. So that stops somebody on a hill, or out on the wilderness from refreshing his magazines? Oh, that's wonderful, so some incompetent who had been shooting like he's Rambo is finally punished (maybe) and is.. forced to go looking for more? That detour to the nearest shed will really hinder things, I'm sure. If you are a good sniper (and I am), you will never need more than 3-4 magazines over the course of your characters life, and that is taking into account racking up 10-20 ARMED player kills before you're done in.

There is a wall here that the entire mod and community is eventually going to run into with the current weapon spawn system, and Rocket will have to address it. It should be done now while things are still early, before the game reaches its stand alone phase.

[Robert Shannon 27]

Run in Zigg Zaggs in the direction of the sniper, pray he doesnt have another weapon he can switch to from his backpack. Snipers are just about useless close up.

[BlksnshN 127]

Why no third shot while you watched him do a fifteen second bandage animation? lol

Edit: My bad, apparently my ADD is too bad to miss the final sentence saying he managed to run to cover :]

I was also dumbfounded by the fact he just stood up and ran away. lol.

[hatfieldcw 184]

Maybe they should make the sniper rifls way rarer than normal M4s or M16s,

Until the duping exploits and gear-spawning hacks are well and truly addressed, rarity of gear will have no impact on the behavior of these players, since they didn't get an as50, which has a 1-in-115 chance of spawning at a helicopter crash site once per server restart, just to use it to camp a hill near elektro and farm murders. The vast majority of such weapons are obtained illegitimately, and the whole grief-sniper playstyle is predicated on the equipment being trivial to acquire. .30cal sniping takes a lot more effort and yields a lot less success than .50cal sniping, and when the .50s and their ammo stop growing on trees the anti-materiel snipers will be about as common as helicopter pilots and there's no reason to begrudge the chopper its might.

In the meantime, lousy snipers are always a great source of gently used second-hand rifles.

[Trapalicious 77]

Claiming that you "just need to use cover" is inane and avoiding the actual problem.

I constantly prone most areas I go and always use the tree lines, yet nearly every player death I've had is from a sniper, doesn't matter where you are.

Sniping isn't difficult in DayZ, far from it; and frolicing around with a Barrett then shooting people from such distances while standing is insane, and desperately needs to be changed. On top of that, sniping at over 3/4 of a mile has no place in a survival game like this, in no real situation like this would anyone randomly shoot people who obviously pose no real threat at such a distance.

Also, this isn't a "Your gun is more powerful than my gun, NERF IT!" thing which some people defending it are making it out as.

It's a "Killing random people with close to no chance of being seen from nearly 1 mile is BS" thing.

Also, obviously sniper rifles (keyword "rifle", not the sniper himself) are useless at close up. But you seriously expect them to have such gear without a close range weapon as well? Haha, no.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Flameo

[Zexis 127]

If you get into a long range firefight with a sniper, you can't complain about unfairness.

What if it was close-quarters?

[Trapalicious 77]

If you get into a long range firefight with a sniper, you can't complain about unfairness.

What if it was close-quarters?

Well of course, but that's not the problem.

Getting killed in close quarters can be completely justified unlike shooting random people from a mile away, because it's actually a threat.

I have no gripe with getting shot in the face with a shotgun at CQ, at least the other player actually done so out of the safety (or paranoia), and not because he was bored and wanted to screw around a little. Also, CQ is much more of an even playing field.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Flameo

[Zexis 127]

Well of course, but that's not the problem.

Getting killed in close quarters can be completely justified unlike shooting random people from a mile away, because it's actually a threat.

I have no gripe with getting shot in the face with a shotgun at CQ, at least the other player actually done so out of the safety (or paranoia), and not because he was bored and wanted to screw around a little. Also, CQ is much more of an even playing field.

I don't feel we should nerf .50 cal weapons that are specifically designed to be OSOK. Of course not all of them are .50 cal, but still. Am I saying this because I am one of these snipers? Actually, no, not at all. But I have seen other games perform similar nerfs to "level the playing field", so to speak, and it just makes combat boring. Every weapon has an effective range and snipers will do what snipers do. The fact that they're used on newb hunts is a fault of the community, not the weapons.

If ANYTHING, I'd just make the drops more rare. But they're already pretty uncommon as is.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Zexis

[ninjaontour 123]

well, dont go to places where snipers tend to be, or check sniper spots before using routes the sniper doesn't cover

snipers are powerfull, but once they shoot you, they reveal their position and can be tracked down by teammates or yourself, if its a bad sniper (which tend to be an awfull lot in dayZ)

if you get them unprepared and in close combat, they have one shot to get you, or they have a DMR and you're basically in danger the whole time

basically, search places snipers tend to be at, or run and hope its a nooby sniper

DMR isn't even a good rifle, AS50 kills it.

[Duckman404 37]

DMR isn't even a good rifle, AS50 kills it.

Compared to an AKM or a CZ550, the DMR is a damn fine rifle.

Not to mention how common DMR mags are! For a player who's just gotten into the northern areas of Chernarus, a DMR is a good weapon to come by.

---

As for the 'snipers are OP' that the thread topic is... I have to disagree.

I've seen some pretty awful shots in my time playing. To snipe effectively, you have to know what you're doing and be good at it. Recoil recovery, prediction, finding a nice spot to snipe from, knowing when to move and what to shoot... and don't forget that sniper rifles are useless in close up combat.

Scoped rifles, if anything, should be more common in DayZ. Not military rifles, though; hunting rifles. The CZ 550, with it's mediocre accuracy and underwhelming terminal performance, is a good example of one type. Why not add a high powered single shot rifle, in .300 Winchester Magnum? Or a .22 LR scoped semi-auto plinker that is good for headshotting zeds?

If a sniper kills you, then too bad. If he misses, then leg it, zig-zag, and get behind cover! If you don't have a scoped rifle of your own, then keep your head low and wait a while for the sniper to get bored. Or just disconnect. Or wait for friends to come to your rescue.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Duckman404

[Uncle Bourbon 15]

Anyone else think that snipers are OP? It's so hard to fight against a sniper if you don't have a sniper as well, and it makes it hard to even find out where they can be at times. Also if you're being shot at, you'll have to be really lucky to get to cover fast enough. Generally, I don't see any methods of dealing with snipers really.

Snipers are easy to fight. Think preventatively.

Is it a good idea to run down the center of the streets?

Is it a good idea to cross that open field?

If I were a sniper, where would I sit and watch people?

And if you do manage to get shot at, there are some guidelines to follow.

Was it a gunshot? Listen to where it came from, go prone.

Was there a bullet snap? Immediatly run like a fool and serpentine like you were born to do it.

Don't plan on killing a sniper.

If they are good, you'd already be dead.

If they are decent, they'd wait for you to do something stupid and get yourself killed.

If they are bad, they'd probably end up coming to you if you wait long enough. :P

Remember - think preventatively.