Anyone else?

[Darth Neon]

Anyone else think this game has bad design for being a sniping and sneaking game? I mean. The game is designed exclusively around sniping, being unseen, and sneaking your way around to meet your objectives. But it's so stupidly difficult to not get noticed in this game. I mean. In the convoy mission, several enemies spawn in in an aggressive state, and can hear your crouched footsteps from behind well over a half a block away, amidst what is clearly a shelling going on. And in the Museum mission. There are two snipers on rooftops that can see you IMMEDIATELY upon beginning the level if you're even CLOSE to the edge of the windows. The Weldrod is not efficient at anything farther than punching distance. Your sniper is so loud it alerts everyone on the map. And so few maps have environment noise to mask your shot. I get that its WW2, but feed me a bogus line about some experimental tech for silencers! Obviously they have the ability, given that the Welrod is your primary pistol (despite its limited usefulness). And behind most covers, your very visible, and can be quite easily shot too most of the time. Both of which make them not useful cover options. And with such limited path options, pretty much one ever. There's no way to work your way around the enemy unseen. You just have to truck through them. Picking them off one by one as they get closer and closer. You should be able to kill them all without any of the others even noticing. Or at least the entire level shouldn't just be crouch walking from one firefight to the next. Its a sniping game. Why am i so noticable? Anyone else feel this way?

[gay rat dad]

i feel the same way. in sniper elite 3 stealth feels a lot more reliable, here the best way is to just spot all the enemies and take them out fast.

[astro]

I totally agree the designers were clueless and created an awful degign. I find it unfathomable they call it a sniping game when they DELIBERATELY built in features to make sniping next to impossible. That's what's really annoying; they worked so hard to undermine their own goals; I'd fire every single one of them, or re-assign them to children's game development where they might stumble on success.

[gaqo]

Yes it takes a bit of getting used to(depending what you've played before). It's simple; keep low, sneak and crawl, plan your attacks with binos first. Use bomb blasts to mask shot and position, and to cover noise generally. Enemy snipers are hot, but once you know where they are, it's a lot easier. Remeber once they fire they have to reload, and you can fire off three shots during bomb noise cover. I take out snipers by working my way around, until I've got an oblique shot at them. Some I shoot from such distance, they have no idea where I am(eg, Karlshorst mission, where I take out last sniper in church tower). Use the environment. If you hide behind say a rock, and shoot quickly from right side. Or sometime go back a sector, to give yourself more distance(eg, Kreusberg mission where you can go back and attack machine gun position guarding subway, from across the river). The AI gets hotter, the better you become, making you get better. The idea is you use welrod to sneak into a high sniper position un noticed, but once there, no soldier should be allowed to get any where near close. And if they do, you've left a trip to warn you.

[astro]

All great advice but totally missing the point of how terrible and contrived the design is.

[Darth Neon]

Originally posted by gaqo:

Yes it takes a bit of getting used to(depending what you've played before). It's simple; keep low, sneak and crawl, plan your attacks with binos first. Use bomb blasts to mask shot and position, and to cover noise generally. Enemy snipers are hot, but once you know where they are, it's a lot easier. Remeber once they fire they have to reload, and you can fire off three shots during bomb noise cover. I take out snipers by working my way around, until I've got an oblique shot at them. Some I shoot from such distance, they have no idea where I am(eg, Karlshorst mission, where I take out last sniper in church tower). Use the environment. If you hide behind say a rock, and shoot quickly from right side. Or sometime go back a sector, to give yourself more distance(eg, Kreusberg mission where you can go back and attack machine gun position guarding subway, from across the river). The AI gets hotter, the better you become, making you get better. The idea is you use welrod to sneak into a high sniper position un noticed, but once there, no soldier should be allowed to get any where near close. And if they do, you've left a trip to warn you.

While yes, these are good advices. MOST maps dont have any sound covers for your sniper rifle, and no maps have AI far enough away that they won't even be able to hear your shot. Many maps are to narrow to circumnavigate your enemies at all to get any shot at them without being discovered, oblique or not. And the whole thing about "enemy snipers being hot" is exactly the problem. How in blue blazes do they know you're coming? They can see you through the tinies pinhole in a wall it seems. From arbitrary distances, they dont have a viewing distance. And your chances aren't helped by the extremely limited amount and use of cover, given that just about all of it doesn't hide your full body from sight or fire. Furthermore, when firing from great distances (when the rare opportunity presents itself) any second shot from near the position, which is almost always (refer back to difficutly of circumnavigation due to narrow or constircting map sizes and shapes) narrows their search patterns down to within 10 meters, and a 3rd shot gives them pinpoint accuracy to your location. Shadows do next to nothing to hide you either. As for using the welrod, it has little reliable accuracy beyond punching distance, and any distance beyond about 10 meters it's practically useless. Not that you could punch anyone in this game, given how easy it is for them to hear your crouched, padded footsteps amids a city shelling. So sneaking and crawling to high positions isn't an option for most missions unless you're instructed to by plot. And to back that up, the level design declines to even give you high vantage points hardly at all unless it calls for plot to happen that way. Most missions are street level or half to 1 story up. Hardly a sniping advantage.

As for my final point, to quote you again, "plan your attacks with binos first." Which is exactly the problem. This is a sniping game where you have to plan attacks. That shouldn't be the case. You should plan your SHOTS, not attacks. This is not a seige simulator. Its not "Storm the Castle: 20XX." It's Sniper Elite. You shouldn't be engaging in firefights. You should have any and all advantages that being a sniper provides. Distance, cover, silence. Being able to pick out and pick off your enemies before they are even aware their numbers are dwindling.

[gaqo]

I think I've learnt a lot about sniping from this game. I'm not at a high level, at the beginning of the Hitler mission, I don't think the sniper even saw me, but shot at me through a long hanging flag, that's hot! The thing is you get to know where they are, and can shoot them through that crack in the wall. You learn certain tricks, for example in Karlshorst, if you blow up the tank on the road to the right, the smoke coming from it gives you cover from sniper when you leave the building(with documents). I'm not sure, but originally I thought the welrod was useless, but let's face it, the guards you use it on, are either sleepy, or turn and look out the window. Now my welrod pistol seems to pack a real punch(I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but with time; weapons and graphics are improving). I disagree; If I was going to attack a battalion of soldiers, and take out the snipers(who work the angles), I'd plan which to take out first. Landwehr mission is a good example; by taking out enemy in places they won't be discovered, means you have to watch and work out the routines of the guards. Heck sometimes I alert the guards as to where I am, knowing full well they'll run into my kill zone(result:pile of bodies). It's a game, and a challenge. I'm continually evolving my game, to be an efficient quiet killer.(and I play the game while listening to loud techno, sometimes with German voices, confusing if guards are talking as well!)