M107/AS50 and Skill; do they go with one another?

[Obsolescence 129]

Recently I've decided that I'm no longer going to focus on getting or using the .50 cal snipers, because I'm bored with how easy they are to kill with. Switching back to the DMR/M24/CZ, I realize what a piss-poor sniper they made me. Getting a headshot at 600m-800m to me seems much more difficult, and thus satisfying, than just hitting the target anywhere. If the .50 cals weren't zero-able I might not feel so cheap when using them, but as they are now it feels boring, lazy, and not nearly rare enough to justify the disparity in ease-of-use.

However, because of the prevalence of M107s and AS50s, and there fantastic ability to shoot down choppers and through walls, I find it hard to just leave them. So I was hoping the DayZ community might discuss whether or not most players like them being in the game, how rare you think they should be, and whether or not you think they take any skill.

Personally, I'd like to see only spawn at choppers maybe half as often as they do now and make it so ammo for them only spawns with the gun itself 0-3 clips.

Please rant, rave, flame, and give beans. Thanks.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Obsolescence

[Beanus 61]

anti-material rifles aren't needed as its not like your trying to shoot tanks in DayZ or anything, A normal sniper is enough against normal vehicles

Edited August 24, 2012 by Beanus

[silas@mellor.dk 1]

Personally i'm torn. They can be a lot of fun to use, but i agree that it is certainly less challenging (and not entirely realistic) to be able to oneshot people at 1000m. Also, the amount of AS50 ghillie snipers you encounter is insane, it seems to have become one of the most commen sniper rifles by now (no doubt due in part to hackers spawning them in). I doubt it will be removed completely for this mod but i hope they skip it in the standalone. I don't see the need for any other .50 cal sniper than the M107. It is sufficiently powerful, but somewhat balanced by the fact that it is a true aggro magnet and very audible for players also, so if the game really needs a .50 cal sniper, i think it should be the only one.

[Titanic3 16]

It's fine where it is right now. The only reason you see so many is because of duping and the fact that more people play, more .50cals will be found, used, die with, and then gets re used. It's the only guns where combat loggers have no defense against and therefore moan and whine every time they get killed by one. If you don't want to get killed by one, learn how to scan areas. If you got nailed in the middle of nowhere, most likely you were running in an open field.

[KarinjaNinja 80]

As for the skill of using the M107/AS50 it really depends what your doing with it. If you are sniping noobs in cherno/elektro at 500m than my grandma can do that too. If you are up by the airfield and capping people from 1200m than you sir can have my beans, not exactly pro sniping skills but not as easy as point and click.

I would prefer it to be much more rare and the AS50 used to be really really rare where I have found the M107 at multiple heli crashes legit. Almost every tent base you find there will be multiple AS50's and the amount of people around cherno/elektro with these weapons is just plain ridiculous. I would love a database reset so that all the duped tents filled with AS50's and ghillie suits were gone.

[The2ndLink 156]

The M107/AS50s aren't the problem.

Duping is.

[twitch13 49]

anti-material rifles aren't needed as its not like your trying to shoot tanks in DayZ or anything, A normal sniper is enough against normal vehicles

AMEN BRO BCUZ ANTI-MATERIEL RIFLES R ONLY 4 SHOT TANK IN IRL

.....ohwait.

[Shaimou 49]

If you can do 6th grade math, point and click then it should not be hard. Antimaterial rifles also make good shotguns in this game. So not really, no. No skill needed.

[sostronk 334]

I like iron sighted single shot bolt action rifles, you can't deny skill there. There is a bit of disparity between some of the high end sniper rifles and every other weapon in the game. Id rather see the likes of the AS50/M107 removed or to fill in that gap between these with other weapons that aren't so weak. Honestly though, the AS50 is game breakingly OP right now.

[Delta Smoke 01 765]

The as50 and m107 are much harder to use than say for instance, the dmr. Without a rangefinder, the .50 cal snipers are not as good, and therfor require more skill to use.

[callmesarge 79]

The M107/AS50s aren't the problem.

Duping is.

This.

Skill wise, it's interesting. The noise and recoil on the M107 make it a challenge to use. The as50 is definitely easier to use.

In my opinion,these weapons take skill to use at their intended ranges.

When do you need a .50 sniper? When your target is over 1000m away. Hitting a moving target at 1000m takes skill. Anyone want to argue that?

Now, I know that is not what the OP meant. But I reckon I am right. Yes, shooting someone at 100m with a light fifty is pretty easy. But that's not what the tool was intended for.

[Erik (DayZ) 61]

All I can wish for is that they would make these really good weapons just a little bit more rare.

[sostronk 334]

The as50 and m107 are much harder to use than say for instance, the dmr. Without a rangefinder, the .50 cal snipers are not as good, and therfor require more skill to use.

Don't know about that. The AS50 feels like its shooting a bullet the size of an apartment building to me. Even when its not zeroed right.

Edited August 24, 2012 by sostronk

[Draxx (DayZ) 61]

If the issue with ALT-F4 is handled I would love to make this kind of rifles extremely rare. But until then it is the only way to kill an enemy. Under the conditions right now you only have one shot and it has to be lethal otherwise the opponent is insta quitting and in the worst case server hopping.

[Baneat 5]

The as50 and m107 are much harder to use than say for instance, the dmr. Without a rangefinder, the .50 cal snipers are not as good, and therfor require more skill to use.

No, no they're not.

First, use your trigonometry if you have no rangefinder

Second, use your zero

Thirdly, if they do have different muzzle velocities (not sure) the error correction in distance for the fifty would be less than the 7.62 rifles.

The DMR has no zero function so you have to manually work out the drop based on newton's laws which takes forever

I like iron sighted single shot bolt action rifles, you can't deny skill there. There is a bit of disparity between some of the high end sniper rifles and every other weapon in the game. Id rather see the likes of the AS50/M107 removed or to fill in that gap between these with other weapons that aren't so weak. Honestly though, the AS50 is game breakingly OP right now.

I can. the Lee-enfield appears to have no bullet drop. line up with top of sight and click not difficult.

Do the fifties have a higher muzzle velocity or something?

One thing I would like to see changed is that these (HEAVY) fifty cal rifles be practically unusable standing up, you should have to be prone to use it properly. that's why they come with bipods.

[bazbake 456]

@Delta Smoke 01

The kill reticule for the AS50 and M107 isn't a dot like it is for the DMR or any of the other sniper rifles. It's more like a square the size of the person you're aiming at. Killing with the AS50 or M107 isn't sharpshooting, it's skeet shooting or plinking cans in the vague shape of people.

@OhShitSarge

Here's an open secret about the AS50 and M107. A one-shot kill for a DMR at 800 meters requires a headshot but for a .50 caliber it requires at most an extremity shot. At 1200 meters, the profile of someone at 800 meters will be 45% the size, or roughly half as big. So if a sniper rifle requires a headshot for a one-shot kill at that range, it's half as effective at 1200.

But an AS50 or M107 only requires an extremity hit to kill, and a person's head is 1/6th the height of their body. This makes a one-shot kill by an AS50 or M107 at least 6 times (a pretty conservative measurement) as easy as any other scoped weapon within its effective range. So even at 1200 meters, where the human silhouette would be 1/2 as large as the human silhouette at 800 meters, a kill on a stationary target with an AS50 or M107 is still more than 3 times as easy than one with, for example, a DMR at 2/3rds the distance.

Furthermore, a moving target at 1200 meters only appears 2/3rds as fast as a moving target at 800 (you can do this experiment at home...close one eye, focus on a point directly in front of you, and hold two objects in your hands, one directly in front of the other with the tucked knuckles of one hand touching the back of the other hand...then move both hands together back and forth on a plane...notice how the object in front seems to move farther than the object behind it even if your hands never break contact). Add that in and one-shotting someone running from 1200 meters with the M107 or AS50 is 5 times as easy as one-shotting someone running with, say, the DMR from 800 meters.

So it's 5 times as easy to one-shot a moving target with an AS50 and M107 at 1200 meters as it is to one-shot a moving target with a DMR at 800 meters.

If you can do 6th grade math, point and click then it should not be hard. Antimaterial rifles also make good shotguns in this game. So not really, no. No skill needed.

The M107 is five times as powerful as a shotgun. The AS50 is 30 times as powerful. So, yeah, this...times 5.

Sorry, but these guns are a joke.

Edited August 24, 2012 by BazBake

[subtle 29]

I love how within every community, for every game, there always has to be some weapon looked down on and classified as having "no skill" to use, as if it's a bad thing to have a weapon that actually works well in an FPS shooter environment. Here it's the M107/AS50, on BF3/BFBC2 it's the USAS-12, on TF2 it's the Huntsman/Sticky Launcher.

It gets so old reading this same tired shit over and over and over again. I can just see that Marine Sniper in real life saying to themselves "why I must I obliterate people with this .50 cal sniper rifle from 1000 meters away? It just doesn't take any skill. I think I would sleep much better at night if I were to get closer to the enemy and put my life at risk. That would really make me feel like so much more of a man."

Please GTFO with this "skill" nonsense already.

[bazbake 456]

I love how within every community, for every game, there always has to be some weapon looked down on and classified as having "no skill" to use, as if it's a bad thing to have a weapon that actually works well in an FPS shooter environment. Here it's the M107/AS50, on BF3/BFBC2 it's the USAS-12, on TF2 it's the Huntsman/Sticky Launcher.

It gets so old reading this same tired shit over and over and over again. I can just see that Marine Sniper in real life saying to themselves "why I must I obliterate people with this .50 cal sniper rifle from 1000 meters away? It just doesn't take any skill. I think I would sleep much better at night if I were to get closer to the enemy and put my life at risk. That would really make me feel like so much more of a man."

Please GTFO with this "skill" nonsense already.

Ah, reality. In reality you have to hump a 30 pound rifle and the cartridges weigh a shit-ton. In real life you could carry a shotgun, a sniper rifle, three or four handguns, and an assault rifle all strapped to your back with a sack full of ammo for the same weight.

Ah, reality. So we're talking about reality. In reality, a .50 caliber rifle round makes a 1/2 inch hole through someone's arm. In this game, it disintegrates them completely.

Ah, reality. In reality, firing a .50 caliber rifle would rock you back on your heels and take about 10 seconds to sight while standing.

In reality, there are less than 1,000 trained snipers in the military. But in TF2, they average about 10% of your typical squad. Even more than that in Battlefield.

False equivalence.

[Hawk24 94]

anti-material rifles aren't needed as its not like your trying to shoot tanks in DayZ or anything, A normal sniper is enough against normal vehicles

Anti-Material rifles are not supposed to shoot tanks

I define skill by the ability of one to defeat his enemy

If you get sniped by someone using an AS50, he had more skill than you

You failed to prepare for a sniper attack, you put yourself at a disadvantage by walking through his LoS, you died

Not him

Now quit crying about your lack of tactics and stop blaming it on a specific weapon

Edited August 24, 2012 by Hawk24

[vile. 38]

The M107/AS50s aren't the problem.

Duping is.

This.

[xfortune 91]

Who cares if it requires skill? Better weapons are supposed to require less skill. The entire point of the game is finding things to make life easier (vehicles, camps, high end weapons, NVGs, etc.).

[Tatatito 14]

I get what the OP means entierly, but, I will never ditch MY AS50 because I only use it for overwatch for my squad.

I dont randomly shoot people, only if they have attacked my squad, in which case, they deserve to die.

And no, my squad dont shoot random survivors for no good reason either.

[BlindProphet 34]

M107/AS50 can require skill. They can also be fairly easy. It all depends really on what the person is doing with it, and how. Sniping isn't just shooting people with a scoped rifle from distance.

[Tha Fish 1]

It's fine where it is right now. The only reason you see so many is because of duping and the fact that more people play, more .50cals will be found, used, die with, and then gets re used. It's the only guns where combat loggers have no defense against and therefore moan and whine every time they get killed by one. If you don't want to get killed by one, learn how to scan areas. If you got nailed in the middle of nowhere, most likely you were running in an open field.

i tend to agree, the fact that it is the bane of combat loggers seems to be the biggest reason its seen so often. but personally for skill i enjoy the dmr, especially for the night vision capability.

[talkingcactus 11]

Everyone hates on the AS50 until it's them behind one.

But I agree this duplicating and hacking is making them a little too common. I did manage to find an M107 and an Mk48 in one barracks (then lost them because of glitchy tents). And that was my first gun that shoots something bigger than a 7.62. A week or so later i come on a campsite with 6+ AS50's in 2 tents, including some SVD Camo's. Now they could either have been legit and worked hard for to find. Or they were easily hacked in/duplicated. I think we all know the answer.

Edited August 24, 2012 by TalkingCactus