we aren't funny

Why sniper isn't even close to being overpowered. (1/2, reddit doesn't allow me to write comments over 10000 characters):

What you’ll find in this post is an abbreviated look at the many different aspects of what goes into “balancing” the Sniper class. By the end of it, you’ll be annoyed that you read through it. But you’ll at least be able to link any disobedient kids that decide to complain in the future straight back to this post instead of having to put effort into responding. I’m doing it for you.

We’ll cover everything from the game engine to common design practices to vocabulary fundamental in discussing balance. Oh, and of course why Sniper isn’t the bogeyman of TF2 everyone makes him out to be.

TF2, the father of Class-Based arena shooters

To understand the role Sniper has in this game, we have to first understand the game. Or at least the core of it’s design.

Team Fortress 2 started as a quake mod from way back when before being released as TF Classic and then eventually came into its own as a pioneer in the game industry. Doom is the OG FPS game. Quake is the grandfather of arena shooters. Team Fortress 2 is the father of class-based shooters. You can trace this lineage via game engine from iD Tech 1, to iD Tech 2, to GldSrc, to Source.

In addition to further splitting the roles of TFC and giving them their own identity, TF2 heavily relies on the physics of the source engine. Source has become known for the “extreme” methods players have found to manipulate game physics to increase mobility throughout levels. Bhopping, rocket jumping, sticky jumping, surfing, edgebugging, airstrafing, etc. all exist because of the way the physics engine operates. Without Source, TF2 simply wouldn’t be what it is, and likely wouldn’t be anywhere as good as it is.

This also means TF2 is fast-paced. It’s faster than every other class based shooter. It’s in some ways faster than quake, depending on the class being played.

As far as class-based goes, TF2’s design intentionally separates roles and mobility options as a method of balancing. Some mobility options (like needle jumping) were removed for balance purposes. There are a lot of flaws with balance of weapons, pyro as a concept, etc. But when it comes down to mobility and the game engine, well, it’s the shining beacon of hope for Valve’s unloved child.

Functionality of a Sniper Rifle

The standard Sniper in TF2 is capable of dealing 150-450 damage on a headshot, 50-150 on body shot based on the current level of charge. If unscoped, the rifle will always deal 50 damage.

In order to headshot, as well as begin charging the rifle, a sniper must aim down sights. For 0.2 seconds after scoping, it’s impossible to land a headshot and the bar does not start filling. After this, the rifle charges linearly over 3.3 seconds. This meter resets to 0 on a shot, or on leaving scope.

While scoped, the Sniper’s Field of View (FOV) is limited to 20. Standard FOV is 75-90, so it’s a restrictive view. Additionally, Sniper moves at 27% normal speed, or less than 2% when crouched.

All of these are important details for later when we get into the discussion of balance. It’s important to note the restriction of movement speed as a balance decision here.

Skill Floor vs Skill Ceiling

Skill Floor refers to how difficult it is to perform at a proficient level with the class/object/thing. It’s the barrier to entry, essentially.

Skill Ceiling refers to how far the limits of the class can be pushed. Generally speaking, the higher the skill ceiling the greater the disparity between “Bad”, “Mediocre”, “Good”, “Great” and every other qualitative descriptor under the sun.

Pyro has a low skill floor and low skill ceiling. It’s an easy class to pick up, but it’s very limited in how effective you can be playing it.

Sniper has a high skill floor and a theoretically limitless skill ceiling. The barrier to entry is high enough that it’s obvious who is and isn’t proficient by looking at a scoreboard. The ceiling is so high that as players approach it they start to become functionally indistinguishable to aimbots. It’ll never get to that point simply because we’re human, but it doesn’t need to for a great sniper to dominate. It demonstrates extreme range of skill that can be displayed.

Simplicity, Complexity, and Difficulty

In order to ensure that we all understand each other, we’ve got to go to English class. It’s cool though, you’re not being tested on any of this. We’re simply clearing up any misconceptions.

Complexity and Difficulty are not synonymous and the difference is very important. Complexity refers to the level of conceptual thought involved, while difficulty refers to the effort involved.

Something can be Simple and Easy. It can be Complex and Hard. It can be Complex and Easy, or Simple and Hard. Let’s look at two examples in game.

The healing mechanics in this game are relatively complex. There’s overheal, basic healing, critical healing, healing reduction. All of these things have their own rules and logic. However, the actual execution is easy. You point your beam in the general direction of the person you want to heal, the game’s programming does the rest of the work for you.

Grasping the mechanics of Sniping is about as simple as it gets. You point, you click, you hit or miss. The execution is the difficult part. This is one reason that a sniper is either performing or dead weight. You either hit your shots or you don’t.

”But clicking heads is easy!”

Bo4r? Is that you buddy? No? M4risa, Jake, Axiomatic, jukebox, Shp, Comanglia? Also no? Someone who competed at that level, then? Even harder no?

In that case, my child, be seen and not heard.

You’re aligning a small portion of a moving target with an even smaller dot by moving your arm in such a way that you traverse a two-dimensional plane to overlap something moving in three dimensions.

Sniper and the opportunity cost of Mobility

The major disadvantage Sniper has is that he is incredibly immobile. He has to sacrifice his movement in order to gain the ability to headshot.

This does a few things. First, it makes him easier to hit. Second, it prevents a sniper from being able to easily rotate AND exert pressure at the same time. Third, a Sniper maintains that immobility for a short period after taking a shot which in turn promises death or severe damage if under fire.

Just like your Dad doesn’t like to get up from the tv once he’s sat down, Sniper doesn’t like to move once he starts aiming. Take advantage of that fact to avoid an ass-beating. From Sniper I mean. You can’t run from the belt.

Aim vs Mobility

We then get into the second part of mobility, the enemy players. Sniper has to give up all mobility to take a shot. This is only true of one other class, Heavy, who operates under the opposite principles of sniper. He stands still because he dishes out an obscene amount of damage at close range, and is meant to soak damage too. Sentry guns too, I guess, but those are buildings.

Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demo, and conditionally medic all have some form of advanced mobility beyond moving and jumping. Some more than others. Spy is unique in his mechanics, and allowing an invisible person to also move super fast is kind of a bad idea. But we have that with the big earner anyway, go figure.

Heavy does not have advanced mobility. Engineer doesn’t have reliable advanced mobility, because his design is oriented around building stationary defenses that slow the pace of the game. The only way he can be mobile on his own is by sentry/mini jumping for a majority of his health.

Which brings us back to Sniper. Not only is he limited in movement, but his entire kit is based on precision in a game where mobility is king. Aiming becomes that much harder based on the nature of movement within the Source engine.
Why sniper isn't overpowered (2/2)

Map Design and Sightlines

Tf2 map design has an important guiding principle known as the rule of 3. That is, there should generally be 3 ways of getting from one contested area to the next. Most maps in rotation follow this principle.

For Sniper, this means there are at least three sightlines that need covering. If a sniper is watching one, the other two are exposed. If a sniper is in a position to watch all 3, he’s in a bad position and should be killed.

On Payload maps, a sniper typically watches the path of the cart or the path of the enemy team’s push. It’s almost never both, unless people are botting down the track, and almost always exposes them to another angle.

Dont Be Predictable

This is my personal pet peeve. Almost every single person that complains about Sniper makes this mistake and they don’t even realize it. They don’t respect the class, and consequently are punished extremely hard. Like, “go get me a switch” hard.

The following are prime examples of how to disrespect a sniper and disappoint your father:

Walking in a straight line Walking through a sniper sight line Walking in the open Standing still

All of these things make you predictable. Being predictable makes you dead. That’s a universal truth of the game, not just for sniper. A scout that wastes his double jump becomes predictable and dies to a rocket. A soldier that doesn’t airstrafe gets air shot because they’re predictable. A spy that walks to the nearest health kit while invisible is an easy read and cleanup kill.

Sniper is just the class that takes the most advantage of people that don’t use movement in a movement based game. So start using those legs... or explosives.

Fighting a Sniper

Remember all the finer details of how the sniper rifle functions? It all goes into the balance of the class. Let’s do a brief look at the strengths and weaknesses of the class:

Pros: * One hit kill headshot potential * Unlimited range

Cons: * Half second reload between shots * Limited mobility when aiming * Massively reduced field of view while aiming * Charge time to reach max damage * Tied for lowest health

With this all in mind it should start to become clear that Sniper isn’t a class that you nut up and walk at. A good sniper will always take advantage of people that play to his strengths instead of his weaknesses.

So play to his many weaknesses. Sniper is immobile when trying to snipe, which means as long as you avoid his sight line he can’t magically murder you. His FOV is limited, so if you don’t come at him from head on he’s going to be fighting reactively and at a disadvantage. Limited FOV also makes it harder to hit shots at close range. He’s squishy, most everyone can 2-shot him.

Come at him from the side, get up close, and beat his ass. Scout, Soldier, Demo, Pyro all have mobility options for it. Scout also deals maximum flinch at all ranges. Spy literally goes invisible. A sniper that gets an off angle wins because it’s an assassination and not a duel. Medic shouldn’t be fighting a sniper, Heavy shouldn’t be fighting a sniper unless they have the element of surprise, and an engineer probably shouldn’t ever be in a sniper sight line unless they’re pushing the payload. Pyro can spam him and be a jerk with flares, though it’s a toss-up on getting dunked for the effort.

Health Breaks Matter

The Sniper can kill a full health Scout, Medic, Engineer, Sniper, and Spy with an uncharged headshot.

A sniper cannot kill anything over 150 health with an uncharged headshot / fully charged body shot. Every class in the game can be overhealed above that threshold. The Machina does 173 damage on charged body shot, which still won’t 1-shot a fully overhealed light class.

The more health someone has, the longer a sniper has to stand still and charge before being able to 100-0 them. Get overhealed. It’s important and part of the game for a reason.

Quickscoping, Or Accepting You Screwed Up

There are some truly insane quickscope flicks that happen. That’s not usually why someone eats a flat 150 to the face. The majority of people that get upset about getting headshot at close range are the same people that don’t respect sniper.

Just because you get the jump on a sniper (Or any other class in the game) does not mean you are going to win. If you stand still at close range, or move predictably at close range, you can and will be punished for it. Don’t be predictable, minimize the chance of getting styled on. Maximize Papa’s love for you.

To be clear. If you get quickscope headshot, you are either predictable or got out-aimed. Neither of which is a fault in Sniper’s class design.

Get overhealed and this non-issue becomes nonexistent. You can laugh as they remove most of your health and then stand there at your mercy while you blow them away. The joy of hearing that sweet headshot noise is immediately replaced with the despair of realizing that it’s not going to stop them from getting gibbed.

Blame Matchmaking

Seriously though, it’s a large part of the problem. Casual Matchmaking is straight up garbage. The players are usually not much better than the matchmaking. Community servers are generally a step above, but your mileage varies.

Bad players and matchmaking leads to mediocre shots coming out looking like gods, when in reality they’re just shooting bots on easy.

The Sniper vs The Team Behind Him

On the topic of matchmaking and team balance comes the important point of how to mitigate the Sniper’s weaknesses.

Teams compensate for their glass cannon by putting him in the middle of the people that don’t instantly explode when touched. They don’t magically make him stronger, but they do make it harder to get to him.

If the enemy team is organized enough to be doing this, your team should be organized enough to work around it. If it’s not, see the above subsection on Matchmaking being garbage.

In conclusion, players are quick to scapegoat Sniper as a class rather than taking time to understand the complexities of the game that impact balance. There’s almost always an answer to the class.

Is Sniper a powerhouse with the potential to run away with the game? Yes. Is that all there is to it? Nowhere close. Argueing "you can't do anything against sniper" is stupid and foolish.