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cock hero flux posted:has recently been singled out like he's unique in this matter. He hasn't been recently singled out, the design has always been problematic. Like it's not hard to figure out. The skill floor is so low and the ceiling's so high, significantly more than anyone else. People don't like instant kill mechanics, and getting shot by a guy in another timezone feels cheap because there's nothing you can do-- you just have to respect the guy's entire field of view. Everything else you listed has reasonable counterplay from awareness or skill but there's only so much you can do against a really good sniper. Like it's no accident that his later sidegrades tried to make him a team player with piss or tried out a more medium range playstyle with the bow but whoops the stock's still best
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Aug 27, 2023 06:01
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Abroham Lincoln posted:The skill floor is so low and the ceiling's so high, significantly more than anyone else. Could you please elaborate a little on how the skill floor for Sniper is significantly lower than for any other class? That makes zero sense to me.
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Aug 27, 2023 06:07
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Does "actively dodging when you're in a sniper's sightline" count as "awareness" and "skill" or no?
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Aug 27, 2023 06:20
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Ariong posted:Could you please elaborate a little on how the skill floor for Sniper is significantly lower than for any other class? That makes zero sense to me. The skill floor being lower just means that a player of minimal skill contributes much less than if they were playing something that doesn't require precise aim or advanced execution. I meant "significantly higher" in reference to his skill ceiling though, because I'd lump Spy right in there as having an extremely low skill floor-- but Spy's ceiling is also much lower thanks to 15 years of player awareness keeping him in check. Jabor posted:Does "actively dodging when you're in a sniper's sightline" count as "awareness" and "skill" or no? Sure, but it's in that "there's only so much you can do" camp. Frantically smashing wasd and praying the guy's not good enough to hit you isn't really engaging imo but maybe that's just me Abroham Lincoln fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Aug 27, 2023 |
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Aug 27, 2023 06:21
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Abroham Lincoln posted:Sure, but it's in that "there's only so much you can do" camp. Frantically smashing wasd and praying the guy's not good enough to hit you isn't really engaging imo but maybe that's just me guess you probably hate playing Scout then
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Aug 27, 2023 07:53
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i havent played for literally 10 years and i was thinking about getting back into it but i didnt think I could be bothered with being bad again and configs and binds and learning the new maps and whatever had happened with mvm or contracts or whatever other crazy rear end money extraction had been added but then i loaded it up anyway and started a game and got a scout spamming "need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here! need a dispenser here!" and it was like i'd come home again 
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Aug 27, 2023 08:19
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Vizuyos posted:guess you probably hate playing Scout then Nah Scout's really fun when you actually get to move and dodge around enemies you can actually shoot back at and kill. Movement tech's really fun. My preferred dopamine injection used to be rocket jumping but I've really been getting a kick out of trimps with a hybrid knight loadout lately. Nailing direct pipes rules
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Aug 27, 2023 08:23
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Lotta people itt that can only walk in straight lines.
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Aug 27, 2023 09:28
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cock hero flux posted:This is a major exaggeration, really. Quick-scoping certainly isn't weak, but it can only kill light classes without buffs. If your push is reliant mainly on scouts and engineers and you don't have a medic going around slapping extra health on them I'm not sure it's much of a push. And if an enemy sniper is able to sit there with impunity and blast you while you try to defend, your defence isn't that solid to begin with. Sniper isn't underpowered by any means but the ability to delete scouts is hardly unique. I feel, again, like this has a lot to do with the maps people have decided are good. Upward in particular I hear get held up as one of the best maps and it is literally a sniper's paradise, full of sightlines that are so absolutely giant and open that things start to look foggy because you're fighting at the maximum draw distance. most things you die from you can learn about and learn from. you can learn to pre-shoot players whom you haven't seen fire their weapons and also try to avoid elevated parts where a spy could potentially jump down from. sentries have a small delay before they shoot so as long as you're quick on the draw you can backpedal and take maybe like 2-3 shots. you can't learn anything from getting headshot from someone that's a dark pixel hiding in a small dark area while trying to fight other people in your vicinity.
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Aug 27, 2023 13:51
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Well, you can learn to play maps that don't do that so badly.
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Aug 27, 2023 13:53
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AtillatheBum posted:Lotta people itt that can only walk in straight lines. Unfortunately the sniper class has the unfair ability of aiming left and right.
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Aug 27, 2023 14:48
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If you shoot someone, for even one damage, their aim will wiggle a bit. That usually gives you an opening at long distances. Imo it's part of the utility of the Scout's pistol or the enemy Sniper's SMG, interrupting the aim of others when you aren't at a good range to fight them.
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Aug 27, 2023 15:05
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Nailing a good sniper from across the map with the scorch shot and talking them out of the fight for a sec while they get health and reposition is one of life's simple pleasures.
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Aug 27, 2023 15:54
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Baron von Eevl posted:Nailing a good sniper from across the map with the scorch shot and talking them out of the fight for a sec while they get health and reposition is one of life's simple pleasures. this. if you guys hate a sniper making the game unfun for you, turn the tables with a scorch shot and laugh at their anger in text chat
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Aug 27, 2023 16:27
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if there's one sniper thing that needs to go it's the darwin's danger shield, honestly, that thing is dumb. every version of it has been dumb and badly designed in some way the razorback is also stupid but unlike the darwin's danger shield it sucks and can't actually save you from spies that remember the revolver exists so it's kind of fine although i don't know why i see so many people bothering to equip it
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Aug 27, 2023 16:52
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The razorback can 100% save you from spies if your positioning is decent. A spy who can backstab you is way more likely to manage a safe escape from the sentries and teammates you've hopefully bunkered yourself around compared to one who has to shoot you three times in close range, and knowing that mant spies will simply not bother if there's other useful targets. Like I 100% will die to a sentry before I 3-tap a sniper if they're near one. It's not a panacea against spies but it's very very useful if they're your chief concern.
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Aug 27, 2023 16:56
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Yeah the Razorback is pretty useful for Snipers that are planning to stand next to a sentry nest or whatever. I never used it much myself because being limited to those sorts of spots was not as fun or effective as moving up into the mid ground and keeping my head on a swivel.
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Aug 27, 2023 17:10
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Is Masterconfig the best to use for optimizing your game? sometimes i get small choppiness and im unsure if it's because i have settings on ultra or if some weird niche option i checked is causing issues somewhere.
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Aug 27, 2023 17:15
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Countblanc posted:The razorback can 100% save you from spies if your positioning is decent. A spy who can backstab you is way more likely to manage a safe escape from the sentries and teammates you've hopefully bunkered yourself around compared to one who has to shoot you three times in close range, and knowing that mant spies will simply not bother if there's other useful targets. Like I 100% will die to a sentry before I 3-tap a sniper if they're near one. And if they're not shooting out of the middle of a sentry nest or their entire team, then it's almost entirely a waste of a slot, since the extra half second it takes to kill them is not going to be enough for anything else to save them. It might deter completely suicidal spy attacks, I guess, but for me that never really comes up since I'd only ever go for those on like, medics anyway. From the perspective of playing spy, the razorback pretty much never stops me from killing a sniper. Maybe from the perspective of a sniper it'd be different, but I don't know because I'd never be willing to give up a secondary slot for that even if it worked.
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Aug 27, 2023 17:15
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I honestly hate the Razorback and think its one of the worst things ever added to the game. I was talking yesterday about how I think Valve's philosophy worked with unlocks and the Razorback is the dumbest possible way of giving the Sniper a method of dealing with his Spy weakness, just nullify one of their attacks with no active play at all on the part of the Sniper, it serves literally no purpose beyond that at all. Its so brainless and crude. I'm sure other people who actually play competitive can speak to this better than me but I've heard its actually kind of controversial in competitive since it just removes one of his main counters and with a reasonably well oiled team a pistol Spy is never really a problem and the Sniper can rely on his teammates to make up for his lack of an actual secondary, is this true?
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Aug 27, 2023 17:31
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it does make him weaker to enemy snipers and spam since he can't be overhealed or pocketed as effectively while he has it equipped, so it's not totally free in competitive. i can't speak for others but i watch a good amount of comp and don't see it used that often in highlander
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Aug 27, 2023 17:47
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The only time I care about the Razorback is if the sniper is being covered by a sentry. Otherwise, just shoot him 3 times, even with the L'Etranger. I pretty much only play YER spy, and it rules for picking people in front of sentries. Razorback stops that, so the sniper becomes completely immune to spies if they stick around a sentry. Well, you could suicide pick him, but if you do that on defense he'll respawn way before you.
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Aug 27, 2023 17:51
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Countblanc posted:it does make him weaker to enemy snipers and spam since he can't be overhealed or pocketed as effectively while he has it equipped, so it's not totally free in competitive. i can't speak for others but i watch a good amount of comp and don't see it used that often in highlander The heal nerf is relatively recent (er, in TF2 terms, 2017 so for 8 years the razorback didn't have it). Was that added specifically because of the competitive concerns I mentioned since a medic could just overheal a good Razorback sniper and he was a real pain in the rear end to get rid of?
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Aug 27, 2023 18:01
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khwarezm posted:The heal nerf is relatively recent (er, in TF2 terms, 2017 so for 8 years the razorback didn't have it). Was that added specifically because of the competitive concerns I mentioned since a medic could just overheal a good Razorback sniper and he was a real pain in the rear end to get rid of? Correct.
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Aug 27, 2023 18:17
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khwarezm posted:The heal nerf is relatively recent (er, in TF2 terms, 2017 so for 8 years the razorback didn't have it). Was that added specifically because of the competitive concerns I mentioned since a medic could just overheal a good Razorback sniper and he was a real pain in the rear end to get rid of? Pretty much. In Highlander, he could park himself next to some teammates, and a Sniper is a high value target to get rid of. With the Razorback, a Spy is forced to use a revolver to dispose of the Spy, and a Medic who overhealed one recently can make the Sniper an even bigger pain to get rid of while forcing the Spy to expose himself in the process. And Spies already have a very tough time getting things done in Highlander. With Razorbacks preventing overheal now, that basically toned down that secondary heavily in that context.
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Aug 27, 2023 20:25
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so when is the next big meaningful update?
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Aug 28, 2023 00:28
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never
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Aug 28, 2023 00:44
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Dizz posted:so when is the next big meaningful update? haha that's a good one
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Aug 28, 2023 00:58
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i simply do not enjoy the type of gameplay added by snipers in games like tf2 and would prefer the role be handled in some other way
Improbable Lobster fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 25, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 00:59
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Improbable Lobster posted:i simply do not enjoy the type of gameplay added by snipers in games like tf2 and would prefer the role be handled in aome other way i think that video upthread pretty well showed that the role they serve in the "tf2 ecosystem" isn't particularly meaningful to begin with. without snipers players get a little more clustered around the main chokes but not so much so that explosive classes are a major deterrent to doing that. heavies piling on a cart are tougher to stop until they hit a corner where explosive classes can murder them off, and then once they're off the cart it's still difficult for a critical heavy mass to get back on the cart again. i can't imagine these are problems that must be uniquely solved by the sniper, if they even really warrant "solving"
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Aug 28, 2023 01:42
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It's worth noting that the same youtuber did a different experiment where Sniper's sightlines were always visible, and it seemed to be mostly a global improvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehlrUPrvFuk
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Aug 28, 2023 01:55
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That beam as presented is an extreme max technical slider, min aesthetic slider solution to Snipers. I'm sure it "works" but it looks really cheap and hacky.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:02
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Considering that TF2 takes place in a rather desert like environment, it would be natural if there was always some dust in the air that would highlight laser scopes.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:02
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Hah, if every sniper had a giant “kill me” line pointing directly at them I would dine on them like a loving T Rex.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:08
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ninjewtsu posted:i think that video upthread pretty well showed that the role they serve in the "tf2 ecosystem" isn't particularly meaningful to begin with. without snipers players get a little more clustered around the main chokes but not so much so that explosive classes are a major deterrent to doing that. heavies piling on a cart are tougher to stop until they hit a corner where explosive classes can murder them off, and then once they're off the cart it's still difficult for a critical heavy mass to get back on the cart again. i can't imagine these are problems that must be uniquely solved by the sniper, if they even really warrant "solving" Its an interesting video, but I think that we should be careful drawing too much from it since it wasn't exactly scientific. An issue I tend to agree with is that Sniper tends to be most obnoxious in maps that naturally lend themselves to difficult chokepoints, especially payload and CTF, which makes him an outsized problem for the players that like to play on things like Upward or Swiftwater when he's less of an issue on more fluid maps like five CP or KOTH (well, excluding Harvest at least). I also think that the general chaos and high player counts cheapen his role in pub servers, he not meaningfully interacting with the overall flow of the game as a pick class when nobody really gives a poo poo about organization and people generally aren't skilled enough to use Medics effectively, and even then when its 12 a side there might just be another medic around the corner to use if the one in front of you gets his head blown off. Sniper gets dramatically more useful in higher skill settings with less players on the field, especially comp where a good one can completely decimate the enemy team and make a counter-sniper almost mandatory if he appears. Reiley posted:That beam as presented is an extreme max technical slider, min aesthetic slider solution to Snipers. I'm sure it "works" but it looks really cheap and hacky. Its just a slapdash experiment by a youtuber, its hardly like aesthetic is that important in that context. I'm sure if Valve ever did something like this they'd make it a lot prettier (maybe the beam would most obvious on the surface the sniper is looking at and slowly fade out as it gets further away?)
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Aug 28, 2023 02:14
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The beam coming out of his face and not his rifle when he is scoped in is probably the major aesthetic problem, even as a gradient if he enters a room it looks like poo poo.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:17
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TF2 already has the visible laser beam effect in the game -- sniper bots in MVM use it.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:30
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I'm pretty fuckin bad at this game and snipers don't bother me.
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Aug 28, 2023 02:37
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khwarezm posted:Its an interesting video, but I think that we should be careful drawing too much from it since it wasn't exactly scientific. sure but i feel like the position "the game is perfectly playable balance-wise without sniper" is a solid one, and the video is a good demonstration of that. it at least shows that the assumption that he has some vital place in the game's ecosystem doesn't play out on a cursory investigation and therefore is in fact an assumption, for which there is equally no real evidence in support of. i don't see any reason to believe that the sniper is in some way "necessary" to team fortress 2 or that his removal would be to the detriment of other players. you can play around him, you can find maps and conditions where he isn't as frustrating to play against, and sure, you can argue that he's "fair" (sure why not, i don't have a horse in that race). but if you aren't playing as him he doesn't really add any positive or fun interactions* to the game, just an obnoxious and frustrating pain point that the game really doesn't need. *bad snipers add a lot of fun interactions to the game, because helpless victims can be funny to mess with, but i can't say i find this aspect to be a terribly good selling point for the class
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Aug 28, 2023 04:56
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I would say Medic is probably the single class that would have the most impact if removed from the game, but I wonder which would have the least impact? Maybe scout? Soldier, demo, spy, and heavy are important for breaking up defensive lines; engineer (and heavy) are important for establishing a defense; medic is always important for pushes: Pyro is important for spy checking, protecting sentries, and ambushing. Sniper, spy, and scout fill similar roles of "pick off important targets" - but spy brings counter-sentry utility, and sniper does it from a safer position. Scout obviously provides better capping power, but with the community's shift toward payload that's a fair bit less important nowadays.
CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 05:11
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