Marcem Rants: Instant Kills

[Marcem]

What's with modern FPSes?  Where did the skill go?  I've noticed a lot of games that include a game breaking sniper rifle in it, what's with that?  It takes some skill to snipe, right?  You scope in, you aim for the head, you shoot.  Nope, not anymore.  It's simply ridiculous now, there are a lot of them that are instant kills on the torso up.  Look at CS's awp.  It may be realistic to have that kill you because of the fact it's used on loving tanks, but I'm talking about video games.  I joined a CSS server today, I counted over 5 people out of 20 using AWPs, and this was mid round!  It was completely unfun to run into office building just to be killed by a terrorist wielding a long BFG.

Whenever I say anything about this, people just go all "UR A PUB cigarette N00B".  I don't get it with these "pros" and thinking these things are fair.  If you watch any professional gaming event including an FPS other than quake, you almost see everyone using a sniper rifle and quickscoping/noscoping the stuff out of people.  This seems completely unfair, but "promods" that are supposed to be balancing the game only make them STRONGER.  What the forget? 

What I consider a fair instant kill is something like a Black Ops tomahawk throw.  For a tomahawk kill, you need to work out the angle to throw it, where to throw it, and all that.  That's how instant kills SHOULD be.  Also take Bad Company 2's sniper rifles as an example.  You get a huge amount of satisfaction for getting a one hit kill there.  Bullets take a while and also drop as they go along.  It takes a bit of skill to use a sniper rifle, but it's about the same amount of skill to use an assault rifle though.  Take Quake's instant killer 9000, the railgun, as an example.  The game is so fast paced so it's incredibly hard to go on a big streak with it.

CoD players seem to think these things are great though.  The games that they like are CoD 2 and 4.  Every video I've seen or round I've played of them are full of dudes running around with sniper rifles.  Then when Black Ops killed off a lot of quick scoping, these people whined.  I don't see why.  Is it that people just want instant gratification or something?  In fact, I suggested using an assault rifle to a dude trying to quick scope, then he gets the highest score in the server before switching back to a sniper rifle the next round. 

TL;DR: Marcem is an idiot complaining about how game devs don't get how to balance a sniper rifle.

[Ad Bot]

[Tom]

I hate it when people squeeze points with sniper rifles. It's unfair because they can kill you long before you get a chance at hurting them with another gun.

[naturemon]

It's actually extremely easy to prevent any kind of quick scoping but some devs are too dense to notice it, if you delay the accuracy of the sniper rifle for 2 seconds (meaning if you were to shoot within this time period it would be the same as shooting without a scope) it makes it literally impossible to quick scope.

[Bushido]

my thoughts on instant kills

they should be PERFORMABLE, but based on things the guy with the weapon cannot count on

like, you know how my military sniper has a tracer that does 1 damage and a headshot that does 99?

you cannot COUNT on the tracer hitting the person because you can't COUNT on the person either standing stock still or wandering back into the tracer, but you CAN count on doing high damage if you score the headshot

similarly you cannot COUNT on crossbows hitting because they're big, vibrant and distinct- it's like staring down a rocket launcher, basically. there's things you can do to prevent getting shot

[brickybob]

I personally think snipers should be a 2 hit kill, regardless of were it hits.  It balances out and makes aimbots less useful.

[Qwepir]

The best way to balance a sniper rifle is to remove it all together.

[Messes]

Or someone should invent an entirely new way how snipers are used in a game, making it completely different from just pressing a button to scope in, and a trigger to fire.

Someone original

Something I can't describe because no one has done it yet. It doesn't matter if it's not "realistic", it'd make it balanced.

[ChexGuy331]

There's plenty of awp-disabled servers, but yeah. They're annoying as hell.

Also, the Railgun in Quake III is only an instant kill if the target has no armor and 100% hp or less, but I think it's an insta-gib in Quake II.

[naturemon]

Or someone should invent an entirely new way how snipers are used in a game, making it completely different from just pressing a button to scope in, and a trigger to fire.

Someone original

Something I can't describe because no one has done it yet. It doesn't matter if it's not "realistic", it'd make it balanced.

How about making the sniper rifle into a weapon of chance? For example you can headshot the person, HOWEVER instead of that person dying there is a percentage (that increases the farther away the target) and this percentage is used to decide if the headshot is an instant kill or not.

Example: Player 1 is a sniper, he shoots Player 2 at point blank range(literally, almost with their models colliding) in the head, Player 2 takes regular damage (about 45 damage/100 so a player cannot spam fire in hope of kills) due to a 0% chance of a headshot. Player 1 is all the way across the map (max headshot percentage being 90%) and shoots Player 2 in the head, player 2 will have a 10% chance of survival, and a 90% chance of instant death (This of course being the most extreme condition of the weapon and is not likely to happen at such a range).

[Marcem]

There's plenty of awp-disabled servers, but yeah. They're annoying as hell.

Also, the Railgun in Quake III is only an instant kill if the target has no armor and 100% hp or less, but I think it's an insta-gib in Quake II.

I thought it was headshots do 100 hp.

[Messes]

How about making the sniper rifle into a weapon of chance? For example you can headshot the person, HOWEVER instead of that person dying there is a percentage (that increases the farther away the target) and this percentage is used to decide if the headshot is an instant kill or not.

Example: Player 1 is a sniper, he shoots Player 2 at point blank range(literally, almost with their models colliding) in the head, Player 2 takes regular damage (about 45 damage/100 so a player cannot spam fire in hope of kills) due to a 0% chance of a headshot. Player 1 is all the way across the map (max headshot percentage being 90%) and shoots Player 2 in the head, player 2 will have a 10% chance of survival, and a 90% chance of instant death (This of course being the most extreme condition of the weapon and is not likely to happen at such a range).

Yeah that's good. I like no-insta kill kind of snipers from up close a lot. The chance of insta kill regarding how far away the enemy is is what people need to do.

Also, when devs make bolt action snipers, It's like they ignore the semi-auto ones. So stupid. They overpower the bolt-action ones, and "attempt" to balance it by making you have to pull the bolt back everytime, but everyone knows they are never long enough.

[ZB]

I think all sniper rifles should do instakills on headshots, but otherwise about two hits to kill and slow fire rate.
That's the other thing I don't like in sniping weapons. When they give them a high fire rate. I especially hate it when they then balance that out by giving lower damage, because then it's not really a sniper at all.

How about making the sniper rifle into a weapon of chance? For example you can headshot the person, HOWEVER instead of that person dying there is a percentage (that increases the farther away the target) and this percentage is used to decide if the headshot is an instant kill or not.

No. Making any weapon in a game a weapon of chance is beyond stupid, it forgettarded. That takes any need for skill out of the game, gives more luck to those without skill, and is just insulting to those with the skill to line up and pull off a perfect headshot across the map, but to no avail, simply because a developer said "lulz 10 parsnet is 2 smull 2 care"
Frankly, I'd rather have insta-kill rifles than that.

[Shortcut]

One thing that could stop quickscoping/noscoping is have the damage increase as the bullet travels further, but then decreases after the peak damage (100) is hit.

[ChexGuy331]

I thought it was headshots do 100 hp.

there ain't no area-based damage in quake, gtfo.

[Sirrus]

Knifecigarettes in CoD4 also piss me off.