Snipers are ALWAYS a problem (Destiny)

by someotherguy, Hertfordshire, England, Wednesday, December 16, 2015, 16:41 (3360 days ago) @ ChaosSociety

Snipers are, obviously, high skill cap weapons. And skilled players like to feel rewarded. But giving the players with the best aim and fastest reflexes a weapon that can one-shot from long range with no fear of recourse makes them horribly un-fun to play against.

Most weapons have a risk-reward balance, but snipers come with huge rewards and almost zero risk to a good player. The only counters to a good sniper is to outsnipe them (usually not feasible if they're already scoping you), flanking them (assuming they're on their own and/or can't use their primary) or just staying away from them (fun!). At their chosen range theyre unkillable (or close to. Tried using an AR to reliably counter snipe?) with 5/9 weapons, and have an advantage over 3/4 of the remaining ones. Especially as they often have the element of surprise. A single moderately skilled sniper with high AA can lock down an entire sightline if you're not sniping too.

Snipers are great fun to use, of course. It's very rewarding to be a good sniper. They're absolutely no fun to play against though, unless you happen to be a sniper too. Even worse is playing a whole team of snipers - not because it's hard (that depends on how well your team rushes) but because it commits the cardinal gaming sin of being boring.

Tl;Dr - Snipers are all reward, not enough risk. Fun to use, crap to play against. Not a Destiny problem though, it's true of almost all FpS games.