The real Crux of the sniper issue... (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, December 16, 2015, 18:37 (3500 days ago) @ ChaosSociety

In my opinion, it has very little to do with the weapons themselves. I think the real issue is map/gametype design. More specifically, how various maps and gametypes combine together.

A couple weeks ago, I was playing Trials of Osiris on Widow's Court. WC is without a doubt a very sniper friendly map. But not once did I feel frustrated by the abundance of sniper rifles match after match. The reason? Widow's Court has too many flanking paths and alternate routes for a team of 3 snipers to fully "lock down". Even against very skilled snipers, you always have options on that map (other than counter sniping).

On the flip side, playing a 6v6 game mode on that same map can be a nightmare if you go up against a team of strong snipers, because 5 or 6 players working together can absolutely "shut down" the entire map with a network of sniper fire. It can be infuriating to go up against.

So number of players and general map design makes a huge difference.

In addition to that, there is the way special weapons and special ammo are generally treated in Destiny. There are players in the competitive community who have suggested switching more game modes over to "inferno" rules, where players do not spawn with any special ammo. While this would certainly eliminate a lot of the initial sniper-camping, my fear is that it could easily lead to drastically lopsided matches.
In Halo, there were only ever a limited number of sniper rifles on the map at any given time. Once it spawned into the map, both teams would fight over it, and the team that got it first would gain a bit of an advantage. But in Destiny, the way ammo crates behave means that when 2 teams fight over a special ammo box, the team that claims it could suddenly have a bunch of players running around with sniper ammo, while the other team has nothing to effectively counter them.

I feel like Bungie has painted themselves into a bit of a corner with this system. The only way to make it remotely fair is to make sure everyone has it all the time, or make it extremely limited like Heavy ammo.