SNIPERS: A Nightmare for Developers and Players

it's Arch production every first person shooter has a multitude of weapons to choose from pistols shotguns rifles snipers rocket launchers and so on but among those many weapons there's one so fundamentally broken that even the biggest FPS game companies in the world don't know how to solve the issue and the many different attempts made to balance the weapon can only be described as desperate the weapon I'm talking about which you most likely already deducted from the title of the video is one the sniper [Music] let's face it a competitive shooter is not complete without at least one sniper for the player to choose from the often gluttoned magnified scope with the seemingly missing damage drop-off allows the player to quite easily pick up Targets on any range in all day Shooters we often get to pick from two different kind of snipers semi-automatics often shrouded by The Marksman rifle name a fancy term for snipers that are able to put multiple shots downrange and have attitude of quick succession compared to its counterparts the Bolt's action snipers heavy hitting slow firing often one shotting monstrosities created by mankind and this part is where the issue seemingly no one can solve begins to understand the issue better let's say we are making a game we finish the maps iron out the movement and now it's time to balance our game's iconic Armory a weapon can be balanced in seven different ways damage headshot damage fire rate range vehicle control mobility and handling games often don't show all of these stats when showcasing a weapon for simplicity's sake but this is basically where it comes down to so let's make an assault rifle this assault rifle will be the core of our entire game so we have quite the responsibility to Bear if you decide to give the gun a super strong time to kill then we will have to balance all the guns around it in the same fashion same if you decide to make the gun weak then the other weapons have to be on the same weaker side too it's important to make this gun feel as nice as possible so let's make it so it takes 4 Shots to get a kill one headshot with a body shot to kill average fire rate average range easy to control also average Mobility which basically means movement speed when equipped and finally handling which stands for aim down side speed and other handlings of the guns awesome the M4 is now done but before we head over to another gun category let's make an alternative to the assault rifle for the place to play with and like every other game does we will make a Kalashnikov super original I know but for some reason the players never get enough of it stats wise we shouldn't make it much different from the M4 as it's within the same gun category but still different enough to make it feel distinctive and not just a cheap copycat so we up the damage and to make it distinctive we also make it so you can one tip of the gun like you would with the AK and CS go and envelopment to keep the time to kill relatively the same to the M4 we also have to lower the fire ant and boom our second gun is done now we create the submachine gun for our game same damage numbers as the M4 and even higher fire raids but at a cost as the range is considerably worse and for good measures here is another submachine gun let's also make a marksman rifle for our game high damage slow fire rate and Incredibly far damage drop-off not quite a sniper yet but let's not get ahead of ourselves before we make the sniper we have to make its counterpart the shotgun super strong damage capable of one shoting even the tankiest opponents in close range and it has to be on close range because our range is hilariously bad the faster mobility and handling helps the shotgunner close the gaps where needed making the shotgun a force to be reckoned with finally we have the problem child the sniper let's have a look at the stats shall we yeah so here is the issue the sniper is just like the shotgun A1 hit machine but the major difference being is that the sniper is a one-hit machine on any range while the shotgun can only do its own Close Quarters but is this really an issue with the sniper class and if so how big is it and how can we possibly fix it on long range You could argue that it makes sense the slow paced play style of the sniper who waits for an unexpected soul to walk into the sides would be frustrating to play if you wouldn't kill your opponents with one hit however like I learned from my recent course I took you can't always create a solid conclusion with just looking at it from your own perspective ask yourself this question is it fair that the moment you peek into a sniper's line of sight you die the seemingly undying player base of Team Fortress 2 actually struggles with this question for a long time the sniper like the name I suggest is made to snipe in TF2 a game where you attempt to kill is pretty week especially on longer ranges fighting against the sniper can be downright infuriating if you are on one side of the field and the snipers on the other side you just lose I even asked my community on my other channel if anyone had a good answer to the solution and most people just outright gave up people know that picking a sniper is a lost cause if they are holding you down from far away is this fair you could argue it is after all that's what snipers are made for but the counter argument is that the mere presence of a one-hitting sniper in your match is enough to scare people to avoid taking the big and more exposed routes on a map for the sake of not derailing before getting to the biggest issue it's better to say that it's probably balanced on longer ranges just like shotguns are one hitting on close range there's also a gun that one hits on further ranges and just like the sniper the thirds people from taking open paths a shotgun announcing its presence on the map in its own way detergent from taking Close Quarter Roots so yeah on long range snipers are balanced but only if the shotguns in your game have a zero time to kill on close range and you might have guessed in Team Fortress 2 they do not [Music] now let's take a closer look as in literally closer as we're now on medium range because a bullet can't seemingly do more damage the longer it travels the time to kill is still zero so if someone jumps in front of us with an AK we still win even though his gun is specifically made for medium range engagements and the same as with the SMGs on close range if they're even faster time to kill than the AK SMGs are made to shred people in close range yet the bolt action sniper still wins only if we grab the shotgun there's a contender for us on close range but here's my undoubtfully hot take both action snipers on close range are sometimes better than actual shotguns let's take a look at the recent Call of Duty title Modern Warfare 2 a game with many assault rifles shotguns and one-hitting snipers a map notorious for having almost an entire area handcrafted for shotguns to be dominant in farm 18 can easily be occupied by one bolt action sniper I won't get too much into the shotguns today because that's really for another video dedicated to shotguns as a wall but shotguns are close range weapons because of their bigger pellet spreads and high base damage unfortunately there is one issue with this because the gun is made with the idea to one-hit people in close range only near damage drop-off is often unrealistically aggressive it also doesn't help that if you don't hit at least 50 of your pellets On Target you might just not kill your opponent this is done so in close range you always have a way to contest the shotgun player so how do we abuse its weakness we hold a tight angle but here as well there is an issue the issue being that when holding Titan goes that you often only get to shoot one bullet maybe two before someone runs past the angle the human reaction time just isn't fast enough to immediately register someone running by so when someone runs by we shoot our shot hopefully tag him a bit and then move out of the pixel angle to finish the wounded enemy here is the slightly brigation number four we are playing against the shotgun We Lay Them Up we swing out of cover he turns around and we die he has to shoot us once while we need to shoot him a couple times it's not rocket science just simple time to kill differences but when we hold the angle with a sniper on the other hand we shoot our shot lead him up oh wait he's dead now we one hit kill them and he was never in a position to kill us because of the tight angle right then but Arch I hear you cry that is such a minor aspect of the close range engagement and yeah well that is correct it's also not true if the shotgun and I run into the room simultaneously it's technically easier for the shotgun to win as you don't have to ads with the shotgun to be deadly well you do with the sniper but if I'm already in the room and zoomed in holding a tight angle I will win it's not even close I wanted him and he dies and if he does pre-fire me which he can try it won't kill me because not even 30 of his palettes hit me and don't underestimate how often we hold angles in video games if you are not actively trying to contest a new area you you are holding an angle so I don't think it's fair to cool holding a pixel angle the Pinnacle of the many ways we hold angles something you don't do very often and on top of that if he and I run into the room while in ads it's a fair fight if anything it's easier for the sniper to win because your bullet doesn't randomly spread out like the shotgun's pallets do which with some bad luck can't just get you to lose that is why the sniper could be stronger on close range than even the shotgun a weapon made to be overpowered in the Close Quarters drop it suspect okay let's recollect ourselves A Time to Kill of zero on any range and a sometimes even better alternative for the shotgun this can't be right how do we let it go this far and bio why isn't everyone just straight up playing a bolt action sniper all the time to have a better understanding on why no one is able to properly balance the weapon and whites being a seemingly invisible issue in the FPS industry for dozens of years we have to travel back in time let's have a look at the history of the First FPS titles that included the sniper most old-school Gamers unanimously agreed that Quake or Raditz improved multiplayer only version Quake world started the trend of the multiplayer first-person shooters released in 1996 the game was a huge success on release scoring a solid 9 to 9 and a half refuse all over the place the original game had a multiplayer support and release but there were a lot of issues that made the gameplay feel laggy and unresponsive so just half a year later they released a multiplayer only version with way better connectivity I know the original Doom was here three years earlier but that version of Doom does not allow you to freely look up and down so I'm not going to get much into the details let's have a look at the sniper in quake and if it was already this broken back in 1996 wait no sniper and overwhelmingly positive refused game that doesn't have a sniper rifle players like to call the original Quake a child of the Doom series and it's kind of showing Doom 1993 didn't have a sniper and Quake didn't go out of their way to make one either so which title set the unspoken rule of always having a sniper rifle in the FPS game the next major title that the majority of the player base agrees on that shaped the FPS genre is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six released two years later in 1998 is a game focused on realistic gameplay and enemies only taking one or two bullets to drop a game like this priced for its realistic gameplay surely must have a sniper rifle available for the SWAT officers well no they do not shotguns assault rifles SMGs pistols all of them were already mainstream available during the early days but the sniper apparently not yet I tried doing some research why and I couldn't find a good reason aside from a good guess older games are made are some Hefty limitations render distances had to be near close for playable 30fps and if you're lucky 60. by having players run with a sniper with a massive Zoom it would mean that the game has to render things further away which slows the game down to an unplayable 10 FPS if the player doesn't have a PC that isn't at least a thousand dollars it might also be that those games are just honestly better off without a sniper as it takes one to two bullets to drop a terrorist anyway okay this game must have a sniper Counter-Strike no not Global Offensive Source or condition zero just Counter-Strike released in the year 2000 it was just like the previous games I covered it's a massive success and better yet it didn't launched with one sniper not two but three distinctive snipers to choose from to bolt action and one Auto sniper or like the csgoers call it Silver's best friend let's have a look at the two bolt action rifles the scouts and the awp they are both guns that barely got changed over the last 22 years even in CS go the newest title on the Counter-Strike installment the guns are basically identical the scouts being the avp's cheaper brother that can't want his people on the body but does provide more Mobility because of this it's not really a popular choice and only gets bottom rounds where they would like to low buy anyway to save money for the real guns like the awp our lovely one hit machine on any range okay interesting even in the first big FPS title that includes a sniper it saved one hits Wonder meaning the sniper formula hasn't gotten changed after all these years the thing is though it's not really unbalanced in these years ago every team in CS plays often one awp and 4 AKA storm 4S for some odd reason they don't go for 5 avps while the gun has an instant time to kill compared to the M4 and a case what is going on here to understand the issue at hand we have to do a jump back too early in the video where we Define the seven values of the sniper let's see what we can change to make the gun balanced starting with damage instead of instant killing someone why not lower it so it doesn't want heads in the body anymore like make it so you do a straight 99 damage one point of damage below one shotting someone it would mean that the time to kill is now roughly 2 seconds but this would make sniping extremely frustrating there is nothing more on annoying than dealing 99 damage to your player just to die to him just after it's just not fun plus it would make the bolt actually sniper a horrible Choice over its semi-automatic Brother The Marksman rifle as they also two hits but shoot a lot faster so damage we shouldn't really change unless we want to make the bolt action snipers underpowered which technically solves the issue but also not really fire rate is next and yeah what can we do here we can slow the fire rate from once per 2 seconds to once per 5 or even 10 but we kind of create the issue like we did with the damage idea you shoot your opponent and kill him instantly because you attempt to kill is still 0 Ms and then you have to wait 5 or 10 seconds to shoot your next bullet meaning that a second guy that runs in within this time frame will kill you without a doubt you can't defend yourself after all does that sound fun and fair I mean on close range I guess it would punish snipers that get too cocky but on long to medium range where the sky diaper is supposed to shine it makes for an awkward moment when you pick someone off and then have to wait before you can shoot someone else slowing your gameplay down by a lot and forcing you to sit as far away as possible to make sure you can reposition when you kill someone it would slightly balance the sniper but it makes them a lot less fun to play not to mention if you are a confident aimer it doesn't matter how long it takes to shoot your next shot because you never miss any way there is never a possibility where you can get multiple kills quickly ported sweet dopamine hit that we all play games for because of this I think it's better to leave the fire raid where it is now as it's by far the slowest in the game already while keeping the gun engaging we have to keep in mind people that fun and balancing factors are two completely different values that we have to justify if we would implement this change we would barely Nerf the gun while ruining the fun factor a bad trade in my opinion range is another value that I don't feel like we should touch if we would lower the range stats we would only add insult to injury as we would discourage people to use it for longer ranges and encourage them to use it for close and medium range as we won hit on that range only reinforcing the issue at hand so it's better to leave the Statin touched so how about Rico let's just increase it by a ton oh gosh darn Dilly it's just that easy this is called sarcasm by the way the mobility stats is I guess something we could change the thing is though the gun already has a horrible Mobility stat and lowering it even more where you would basically run like a snail it's not fun neither necessary for balancing guests our final hope is to balance the sniper using the handling stats and yeah we kind of could actually the slowest guns to areas with in most games are the light machine guns and the snipers and we could make it even slower for the snipers so in close range you can't quickly ads to counter someone suddenly running in but I know I'm repeating myself here this also would make playing Sniper feel really unresponsive AKA not fun if this was also the way to Banner snipers in games every game would be doing this but they do not envelopment and Counter-Strike aiming down sights is basically instant and even in titles where it takes longer like in the Call of Duty games it's honestly not that bad plus keep in mind that the moment we are scoped in we are the same one hit monster as before so well I guess that's it we can't balance one of these stats or the gun would be annoying to play or straight up underpowered but we can change some variables Pop Quiz what is the one thing a sniper almost always comes attached with tick tick tick tick tick a magnified scope a scope is a funny thing it makes it easier to pick off Targets on further ranges as she basically creates a bigger hitbox to shoot but at the same time makes it way harder to track on the close range engagements in the game valorent the problem shot of this video is called the operator which is often regarded as the noob gun because of the one shot issue but the truth is if it wouldn't come with a scope attached to it everyone would play it because she no longer gets a disadvantage you get when playing with a scoped gun a disadvantage with the scope how is that possible Right it makes everything bigger making them a bigger Target that's amazing and yeah well that is true on long range on close range it's actually downright horrible when you zoom in you don't actually move your camera closer to the Target instead you decrease your fov which stands for a field of view the higher the field of view the more you see around you the lower the less the downside of having a lower fuel of fuel is that you see less around you you get tunnel Visions if you are looking at the door frame and holding it with a sniper you basically force yourself to really focus on that door frame so if someone picks you from anywhere else plus if you are positioned on close range distance of the door and someone swings you they move incredibly fast across your screen because of how zoomed in you are on that spot just take a look at this example here here our opponent is moving relatively slow while if you hold the door with an operator he moves insanely fast which is insanely hard to react to by forcing players to have a scope on the gun you encourage long range engagements while discouraging the close range ones perfectly balanced I digress it does make close range engagements for snipers harder but if you are playing against a skilled sniper player they won't be in close range distance anyway because any experienced sniper player backs off from an angle as much as possible anyway even if it's a close quarters area they will stick to the back wall to make sure they have enough time to react and keep in mind if that was the only thing needed to balance the sniper to match the assault rifles or the situational guns like shotguns the amount of money needed in games to buy the sniper would be either the same as the M4 or cheaper the difficulty getting a gun is also a variable we could change however this changing the price tag is also the seemingly only way developers know how to balance a gun just slap a really hard price tag onto it and call it today or if you're making an arena themed shooter just place the gun in a high hard to reach spot okay this doesn't have to be bad maybe developers want certain guns in the game to be overpowered and in return reward those who saved enough money or risk getting the gun in the hard to reach spot with an easier time but that isn't the case in most Shooters and it just feels like a cheap excuse of a balancing tool because they couldn't figure out a better way to balance the sniper also what if the game you're playing in sponge in with a gun of your choice something some relatively smaller titles like um Call of Duty or Battlefield do if you don't have a gun spawn or economy system in your game this way of balancing is just not possible not to mention while we try to prove having a forescope does balance the gun from Super overpowered to just overpower it those games do the complete opposite they allow you to take off your magnified scope and replace them with the default iron sights or red dots they even encourage taking off your scope as having a scope adds a massive sniper glint and a major Nerf to the ads Speed The Balancing teams of the bigger titles are so unsure about what to do with the bolt action issue that's completely different balancing teams developed a completely different opinion on the scope's effectiveness Shooters like CS go fortnite and valorent argue Scopes do add to the better balancing of the weapon while titles like Call of Duty Battlefield and pubg argue it's the complete opposite and having a big scope actually makes the sniper even more overpowered so they were worth players with better handling if they run a null magnified scope instead after brainstorming for a couple hours I came up with three possible solutions to balance the sniper in a way that it shines in the situations it should be shining Solution One originally I was thinking why not slow the Eds so much down so you force people indirectly to not push anymore but then it hit me remember when I said CS go players rather run one bolt action than multiple on a skill team it's the same environment and other team-based Shooters you never run multiple bolt action guns because well it's hard to push an area with while the gun does have a faster time to kill it also has a slow movement accuracy recovery time which is something CS go applied to all weapons in the game and in a game where you can get headshot once after by guns like defender or Sheriff the bolts action sniper kind of looks balanced if you force your place to stand still to shoot increase the price of the gun together with if you agreed at a scope Nerfs the gun a scope with the slow accuracy recovery and widely available guns that can one had to kill you in the head and ability slash possibilities to quickly move the Dutch bullet makes it kinda balanced but that is if the sniper is pushing as an attacker if he holds the side or area the only thing that beats a sniper is an incredibly skilled shot or a flash coordinator to the peak not many choices to beat it on defense here but apparently it's balanced enough for those titles you might notice I'm not really too settled on this I know there are better ways to balance a sniper than just making it harder to get and forcing every gun to be an accurate while moving but yeah the first solution is basically changing your entire game to be just like CS go or like valorent then the sniper goes from overpowered to current player base acceptable I don't like to call it balanced because I don't think the majority of the Casual players in those games know how powerful a one-hitting sniper is or they aren't skilled enough just yet to use it to its Max potential think about it yourself if you play a sniper you have to position yourself differently focus on Crosshair placement even more are unable to free fire angles you have to really hit your flicks etc etc you have to play and use skills you don't utilize to the same extent with the other weapons anyway this solution won't get it for me you would have to change way too much to your game and if you don't want to make another CS go ripoff it just doesn't work I want a solution where it's in the price slash availability range of shotguns and assault rifles while not being as deadly as one on close range Team Fortress 2 Sniper which I mentioned six pages ago holy has an interesting mechanic hitting a headshot always does triple your damage but the base damage scales with the time spent aiming down sights when scoping in it starts at 50 damage so it's 150 a headshot which means you are able to one shot six out of the 9 classes in the head on any range if you take 4 seconds to gradually fully charge you wanted anyone on any wrench in the head as your base damage is now 150 meaning you can also kill once again 6 out of the 9 classes but now also in the body before on it this mechanic of aiming downsides longer to charge up your shot is in my opinion a pretty good balancing tool here is what I'm proposing the price of the weapon if you want an economy system in your game should be the same as the shotgun you always one shot your opponent in the head no matter what range or charge me the level but now the juicy part the longer you ads the more damage a shot do on close range this concept is something I haven't seen before in the game instead of charging your shot for all ranges or just long range we do it for close range hear me out it takes let's say 4 seconds to fully charge your shot the first second it doesn't charge and you do 100 damage on the longer ranges which Yes means you won't hit enemies but that is once again completely fair if your shotguns are one shotting too uncharged we do 75 damage on medium and 50 on close range one second later all damage is increased by 25 so the long range damage is 125 medium on 100 and 75 ohm close meaning if we take two seconds to aim before contesting we can one hit kill the assault rifle that can test us on the medium ranges and two seconds is almost the same as their time to kill the fourth and final seconds all deal enough damage to one hit in the body I know this sounds like a very wild and somewhat unrealistic idea but I think any form of less bullet damage in close range is actually really balanced and discourages players to not push in close range all the time and hey we don't even need to punish the players for having a scope or rather not having one by taking this approach we make the sniper the complete opposite of a shotgun while keeping the possibility to in the name of self-defense one hit opponents on close range by hitting a headshot and a body shot if you're holding an angle for at least 4 seconds if you aren't sure that forcing to be scoped for longer it's enough to balance the snipers think about it like this if your game has flashes or throwable grenades which let's face it all games nowadays have at least some kind of tactical ability that does that you can force the sniper to unscope to look away or to move meaning they have to recharge their shot it also means that on medium range the sniper's time to kill from unscoped would be the time to ATS plus 2 seconds slightly slower than the assault rifle and that is fine since you missing one shot means game over anyway it keeps that I have to hit my shot mentality while not making it unbalanced and keep in mind if you just hit heads you won't be that no matter what range the Final Approach I have for the bolt action issue is just really simple and that is simply make it so you're magnified even more if you have a 20 times magnification on your gun it will be really hard to focus on close range engagements even on medium it will be quite tough but it will be doable this only works however when you're really inaccurate when hip firing so you have to look through the scope or you want to be able to hit the broadside of a barn I'm not really sure how fun the weapon will be but it is a solution so which FPS game has the worst balanced rifle and which in my opinion has the best without a doubt the most broken snipers are in the Call of Duty series you can choose from many snipers and if you grant the attachment out just a little bit you can watch your opponents while speeding through the air it's ridiculous and just downright feels unfair and frustrating to play against but hey I know it's not much but Call of Duty is known for having balancing issues the best balance sniper in fps is the sniper in TF2 specifically I would nominate an alternative weapon of the New Zealander the bizarre's bargain it takes extra long to charge up the shot which is a mechanic I'm really fond of if you haven't noticed but in return the bigger your headshot kill streak the faster you charge up your next shot with a short masturbation of 1.8 seconds to charge up if you have 6 skills it rewards the players with skill while still giving newer players amp of opportunity to retaliate let me know in the comments section which sniper rifle on FPS you think is the worst and which is the best including the video snipers are an unbalanced hot mess while big groups of players seem to be fine with the boltaction snipers and games like Valor and the Cs go I think and I know there are many out there that think the same that the snipers aren't quite there yet if developers go for my second solution which is the longer charge equals more close range damage idea I think it would certainly remove the frustrations most players have with the snipers meaning more fun while also making the gun more skill based with its always One-Shot headshot mechanic while simultaneously keeping his Casio player friendly with its charge mechanic for close or to medium range engagements I'll be honest it's not the perfect and most realistic idea but will make both action snipers the long bench gun truly made for the long range players Hell by doing this we can definitely lower the cost and update the air speed of the sniper which makes them feel even more responsive and even more fun finally this is the part in the video where humbly asks you to consider subscribing and if you want to be guaranteed notified when upload my next video also consider hitting the Bell button tell me what you liked and didn't like about the video in the comment section I value all of them and if you want to see more Arch content or archment content you can find the links in the comment section I sincerely hope you enjoyed my first video and keep going [Music]

Channel: Arch

Views: 4,136,281

Keywords: sniper, snipers, unbalanced, sniper rifle, airsoft sniper, sniper 101, halo 5 snipers, translated sniper, social snipers, stream snipers, halo 5 snipers gameplay, halo 5 social snipers, sniper overpowered, super sniper tactical ammo, sniper school, halo 5 social snipers gameplay, is sniper overpowered, super sniper tactical, sniper jackals, warzone sniper, modern warfare 2 sniper, battlefield 2042 snipers, sniper op, super sniper ammunition, super sniper ammo

Id: lOebGm_jMLY

Length: 31min 16sec (1876 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023

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[u/Pikawika4444]

Sniper is 10x worse than the AWP in csgo. You have to invest $6k into an awp, sniper you just need to click on the class screen.

[u/-Zerdark-]

No, he's still pretty bad though. Not as bad other games, but there's still some very questionable design decisions. Like how the majority of his secondary weapons are poorly designed. Yeah Sniper is a difficult class to balance. Giving him items that mitigate his weaknesses that are needed for the sake of said balance was a terrible idea, especially the ones that are completely passive and require zero input from the player to function. SMGs? Good. Backpack items? Bad.