How is sniping in scum?

[Enkar]

I'm wondering, i see these scopes that have a 20x zoom, integrated telemeter, and can be ranged to 1000m, but on the other hand there's the whole "players dissapear from view with camo" and the whole perception interaction, which makes me wonder if you can even see someone that's 1Km down your scope. So i'm asking yall scum vets here, is sniping any good in the game? Do you have to heavily specialize your skills to be efficient with it? Or is it just not worth the trouble to try and engage/cover allies past the 200-300m mark?

[Driblus]

Originally posted by Enkar:

is sniping any good in the game?

Yes.

Originally posted by Enkar:

Do you have to heavily specialize your skills to be efficient with it?

No, but there is a sniping skill in the game, that 1) allows you to range find further and quicker and 2) hold your breath longer/decreased sway. Not sure if there are any other benefits, someone might add to that. This means, that for very long range sniping - it would be beneficial with high skill as you can zero accordingly. Normally however, most engages happen at a shorter range, so you'll probably rarely need more than basic "range finding".

Sniping skill is very easy to level.

Originally posted by Enkar:

Or is it just not worth the trouble to try and engage/cover allies past the 200-300m mark?

Depends on how effective you are with a sniper.

P.S. M82's are a kill no matter where you hit on the body, it has very low bullet drop and is as far as I know unaffected by wind. If you have em, use em.

[Redemptionist]

Sniping is awesome in scum, with the small problem that puppets don't render in until a fairly short range (150-300m? Somewhere?) compared to players for performance reasons. The camo invisibility only really applies when not moving. The range it starts varies depending on camo skill, clothing bonus, stance and cover. Think of it more as an anti-hack feature than a combat concern, although you can sure use it for scouting and ambushing if you can set it up. Awareness helps but isn't that huge a thing. Skill is pretty much just a slight edge other than getting faster ranging data, a tiny bit less scope wobble maybe and breath holding. Sniping is also really easy to train up right now. If you make kills looking down an x4 ACOG or better that counts as sniping, not rifle. Rifle needs a non-zoom sight or irons.

Someone shooting at you from a tree or moving in the open at 500m is going to be pretty visible, even at insane ranges where they're just a few pixels when they peek over a ridge or around a tree you'll see it if your watching for it. You will struggle to locate them if they've set up in a good place but the crack and impacts will hint at what direction they are at least. If you've played PUBG in first-person mode your gonna be real familiar with scums gun combat from the outset.

Bullet drop and flight time is a big thing outside of 200m or so - you can strap a x20 scope on an assault rifle and plink away at 500m+ but the bullets are sluggish with serious drop and don't hit that hard at longer range while the M82 is pretty much still a death laser. Damn thing is so heavy you can't actually hold it aimed for that long unless your prone, actually using one needs planning. Wind is a thing, although it's mostly a case of adjusting between shots since the wind varies and you'll constantly be moving around most of the time. Some players have def mastered shooting from the data scopes give.

[Doc Holliday]

As an opposing view, sniping is in a terrible place in scum :( here's a post I put up a while back that has only got worse I think. I can only hope it improves with 0.5

.......

State of medium to long range in scum

TL/DR - it's not good.

So, this has been niggling at me for a while as I thought something was different and last night's event on server showed me I was right.

I'll try and keep it short but there's a lot to cover here.

Last few weeks I have seen/shot players that I didn't think I should be able to see at various ranges eg. behind cover, in grass, in 'camo' effect etc and it all felt a bit off to be honest. As an experienced sniper in the game I know what I am looking for/can't see and all that so I had a fairly good gauge of normal to go on.

First example that really surprised me was a medium range (2-300m) engagement in the D3/D4 city. It was a 1 v 1 sniper, sneaky affair and I was in the top floor apartment of a 5-6 floor building. My enemy saw me on the roof (?!!) in the constant falling animation and I was an easy target. Incredibly frustrating as I was 4-5m below where I rendered to him and behind a window and shutter. Strange!

Second example was a lot worse, sadly. Sunday's event was a 'capture the admin base' type deal based around the C2 radio tower location where the admins had built a base to defend against the players. 6 of us came in from different angles and were easy pickings for the admins in the base because of various serious issues.

1. 90% of scenery not rendering in. I know there have (and have had to be) a lot of optimisations lately but this fight saw videos and screenshots from both sides where ALL bushes, rocks and large parts of the mountain didn't show to the enemy at all. This obviously made for easy kills on a completely white field for the defenders.

2. (and probably the worst one so far) some players were either showing higher than they actually were or large sections of the mountain were not rendering in. In one of the examples of this, two players were taking shots when they were not only behind cover but were behind the ridgeline of the mountain. When we looked at the video and screenshot footage from shooter and victim afterward, it showed almost completely different scenery and contours over the area.

3. The camo skill. This has been changed recently and to be honest, I am not sure it even works at all anymore. In the first kill of the event, a player with max camo skill and full camo gear was hidden in a bush at 820m scouting the admin base. They hadn't moved and camo was 'ticking' away (showing it was active) but they got one shot from that range by a player with medium awareness with them showing clearly in their scope with no scenery and no camo skill active. There were examples of this at much shorter ranges as well.

4. Colour at range seems to be skewed toward black. Even when wearing full white camo (including bright white raincoat) the player shows as black, not helpful in the snow!

5. Built objects not rendering. Some of the base build items do not render unless you are 100m or so away which is a mess for anything at longer range than that for obvious reasons. Wardrobes were built to store items in and give cover but to the attackers at anything over 100m nothing was showing.

There's a lot more around coma system, claiming kills etc but this is long enough as it is! Devs, please show a little love to us longer range snipers at some point. I think the above has forced me to take a break from the game until things improve. A sad state.

Cheers

[Enkar]

Thanks for all of the feedback lads, i was a bit worried i just woulden't see any enemy past a few hundred meters, now i know it won't be the case :)