Sniper with Suppressor is Unhealthy for the game.

[Sukha]

This thing trivializes massive parts of the game.
Before I learned to abuse this guy I was sneaking around hiding, using motiontracker and drone noise to help me stealth around aliens.
Inevitably I would mess up or the Alien AI that I've seen take the same route 3 times decided to actually check my room for once and ♥♥♥♥ would hit the fan.

Well no more...
Now I just Snipe everyone and steamroll with green alien activity for the majority of the level.
This thing should have never made past game-design phase. Aliens don't even care when they see one die right next to them from sniper fire lmfao.

I am playing Nightmare Ironman as my first run of the game btw.
My next run I'm definitely going to limit myself to not taking suppressor.

[caracal]

I completely avoided using the recon class, because the character looks like a fortnite character with the stupid cape. That class should not be in the game at all. Alongwith the plasma rifle, because the alien franchise is not supposed to have laser weapons.

Also later in the game, as marines level up, they get more hitpoints, which leads to marines with 10 hitpoints instead of the starting 5, and if you are more experienced with the game, it makes the game too easy, as you can play more carelessly because you have more hitpoints top absorb damage.

It is a very good alien game, however the late game power increase of marines removes the sense of danger you get early when the game starts

[pyremind]

It could be OP but at the same time it was a huge hassle because the recon guy is always out of position.

[Pancakus ante Omnia]

Sniper is very helpful outside, but he is quitequestionable inside caves and structures. Feels like detection time depends on the range to the spotter, and i oftentimes dont have time for a silent takedown inside wavy coridors and moderately sized rooms. He does trivialize drones in stasis thou.
I dont think its an absolute must have per say, but it is a ver big QoL to speed up exploration and oneshot maps.
And if you dont have a silenced sniper, mines do the same thing with some preparation. You can even install them at the ingress points to heavily stall scout influx on the map.
Enemies not caring about being gunned down with an ARC thou... Funny but somewhat dissapointing.

[DragynDance]

It is wild that that experience is completely and entirely different from mine. Recon is only able to snipe sleepers and eggs for me, and only after fiddling around with them to get them in position. Drones out in the open they fail to snipe before getting detected every time. In my experience Sergeant has been the OP class, and in fact if you want to completely trivialize the game you just bring 4 or 5x sergeants.

[Nathan]

I haven't played around with recon for too long, only have one, but to me so far they don't seem too overpowered, there's the delay of lining up the shot and that's really tense with also the detection, the risk of do you get the shot before the enemy spots you, then there's the command point cost which puts a limit to sniper spam, and just environmental and accidental factors, how much space do you have to move around in and such.
Sniper feels great when it works, but I've ran into many situations where I need to get the proper distance and that's always a risk/reward thing that doesn't always pay off depending upon many factors outside my control (enemy patrols, numbers, where I get cornered)

Then there's the inevitable increase in planetary infestation level and other difficulty factors that show up later in the game.

[Sagit84]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

It is wild that that experience is completely and entirely different from mine. Recon is only able to snipe sleepers and eggs for me, and only after fiddling around with them to get them in position. Drones out in the open they fail to snipe before getting detected every time. In my experience Sergeant has been the OP class, and in fact if you want to completely trivialize the game you just bring 4 or 5x sergeants.

I must concur. For stasis aliens and some lone walkers sniper is great providing the distance is long enough. During the hunt or in close quarters (like Montero) he is almost useless.
Yesterday as an experiment I took 3 sergeants + gunner + tecker to the Montero mission and I simply bullied my way through the ship. I just move from room to room mowing everything in my way. Obviously in the end the hive aggressivness was high but it didn't mattter with basicaly unlimited command points. The only concern was the ammunition. I also got ton of exp due to I think 3 or 4 onslaughts and level 2 xenos. No sneaking, no fancy drone recon and mines. Only "let's rock" and moving forward.

[Skoll]

Don't take it if you don't like it then. My only real objective to the class is how stupid it looks. I really wish they gave you the option to have your Marines look standard issue instead of this stupid ass cape, etc.

[Sukha]

Originally posted by pyremind:

It could be OP but at the same time it was a huge hassle because the recon guy is always out of position.

You can control Sniper Position pretty well with the Stop action on all your other Marines.

Originally posted by Pancakus ante Omnia:

Sniper is very helpful outside, but he is quitequestionable inside caves and structures. Feels like detection time depends on the range to the spotter, and i oftentimes dont have time for a silent takedown inside wavy coridors and moderately sized rooms. He does trivialize drones in stasis thou.
I dont think its an absolute must have per say, but it is a ver big QoL to speed up exploration and oneshot maps.
And if you dont have a silenced sniper, mines do the same thing with some preparation. You can even install them at the ingress points to heavily stall scout influx on the map.
Enemies not caring about being gunned down with an ARC thou... Funny but somewhat dissapointing.

Drone can hold open doors for you to create massive line of sight even in corridor spaces.
Mines don't oneshot Aliens on Nightmare.

Without the -10% perk and with Pheromones on Nightmare I can snipe comfortably from pretty close distances tbh. Like 1 medium sized room distance length is far enough.

Originally posted by Nathan:

then there's the command point cost which puts a limit to sniper spam

Command points generate really fast with a few perks, Im practically spamming snipes left and right. With 5 points and like +20% point gen perks.

[Nathan]

Cool. You're good at the game and min-max a lot, in other words this shouldn't determine overall balancing decisions of the devs until we see more evidence of actual imbalance for most player experiences.

[Flinz]

I'm little 50/50 with this. My first normal play I went half way mission 6 without any recon. I had no issue with stealth but there it got harder so I thought it makes sense finally get it going. Was it needed for game? Not really no. Very useful tho if you want to avoid things getting your way.

My very first experience was that I thought sniper rifle was primary weapon. It wasn't and here it makes sense you really don't go corridors with sniper rifle front. In that regard carrying rifle just to clear random targets from few meters feels odd. Then again it is as games often have it.

Recon is only marine that stands out with clearly out of squad speciality. It is rather normal that one marine knows some bypassing/computers, combat medicine or has specific weapon/leader role. But recon has weird solo hiding gear instead looking like any other marine with just having accuracy rifle. After all it is just marine with accuracy rifle, not real recon unit gathering forward intel or even securing rear with giving cover.

[Randy Randleman]

I dont want to get drunk any more, but there is beer in a fridge and i just keep drinking it. Haaaalp.

Just because its there doesnt mean you have to opt in. right? like why not leave something in there for players to cheese on hard parts they are struggling with. If you dont enjoy doing it... like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dont use it mate. hahaha

[C.Black]

You can always fight temptation and not use the op build. That's what beta team is for.

[ixinyoka]

Originally posted by caracal:

I completely avoided using the recon class, because the character looks like a fortnite character with the stupid cape. That class should not be in the game at all. Alongwith the plasma rifle, because the alien franchise is not supposed to have laser weapons.

Also later in the game, as marines level up, they get more hitpoints, which leads to marines with 10 hitpoints instead of the starting 5, and if you are more experienced with the game, it makes the game too easy, as you can play more carelessly because you have more hitpoints top absorb damage.

It is a very good alien game, however the late game power increase of marines removes the sense of danger you get early when the game starts

same re. scouts with a cape?! wtf?

[Scar]

Originally posted by Sukha:

My next run I'm definitely going to limit myself to not taking suppressor.

I mean couldn't you just do this instead of making a thread about it?, I mean why would a sniper go loud when they can get whack'd in close range?

[gprimosch]

I had the same feeling as OP. I feel sniper would be less spammy if a sniper shot triggered a hunt if there was another unit near the target to "witness" the attack. That would give sniper a use as a way to thin their ranks as an attack begins and to pickoff isolated units, without being abusable. As it stands right now, you can keep ducking in and out of rooms picking off units one at a time with no risk.

Question: Is what I am describing essentially the experience without the suppressor, or does an unsuppressed shot alert all enemies within earshot even if they can't see the target?