Axis_Sniper

Enough to know that any type of movement, or fire, equals 50+ rockets will be in your face in a matter of seconds. Or you constantly hear the word, "Clear!", everywhere you go.

I know my ideas won't probably work, but I just like thinking of news ways to defend or attack an area. I just this time, the Sniper will find its place on TG.

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FROM THE PRIMER:
Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team.

Xbox Live GT: KrunchMastaFlex

FL1Pmode

If they made headshots instagibs and not revivable, I could see snipers (especially good ones) becoming useful. But as it stands, in most cases, snipers are unable to influence the tide of battle. Notice the word "snipers", not recon. Recon with RDX and mines can be very useful in clearing out flag zones (like on Berlin Crossroads) or stopping a rush with APMs.

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Lunien

A sniper in a squad wouldn't help much since the sniper won't be able to effectively fight in places the rest of the squad follows (unless on defense), but a sniper SQUAD would be very beneficial for a team. The CO would have to keep them on a string though - can't have them sniping willy-nilly. 6 snipers defending one area - say boat on big Tunis, is scary as hell though, especially if they're all decent shots. Just go for body shots then, someone else in the squad is bound to get them.

MDFubar

Unfortunately, a squad of medics will take the snipers down and with no way to revive the snipers...they just get wiped. Even the best shots wouldn't be able to keep a squad of medics down. Maybe on a pub server, but not here.

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Lunien

That's true, although hopefully it'd slow down the attack enough for backup, snipers aren't meant to be in the thick of things.

BigMcLarge

A sniper, on the TG server, can be a benefit to a squad in my opinion, but it must be played correctly. Picking a spot, laying down, and just popping enemies in the head over and over is a sure way to die on our server for sure, and it doesn't gain your team/squad any kind of tactical advantage. It takes a sniper with a much different mentality to be worthwhile on our server, thus the reason that the 55th recruited Chris Hooper. As anyone who's played with him knows, he's a dedicated recon player. But in a lot of ways, he's almost more like a long range assault style player, because he follows these basic tactics:

1. If the squad is moving, recon moves with the squad. You're no good to the squad in a tower halfway across the map. While moving, keep spotting distant troop movements. If our squad is moving to an objective, the enemy is either already there or on their way there too, and who's better to start engaging them and disrupting their movements from a long way out than the sniper while the assault/support crew moves in? True that a squad on the move is going to be reviving their fallen, but it's going to slow them down a little.

2. If the squad is defending a position, the sniper is a good, long distance set of eyes able to watch incoming enemies, and again, slow them down while notifying their squad of their position. Also, depending upon the flag, I've seen the tactic of laying RDX at the flag, planting a few APM mines, and then moving off with the squad work pretty well in wiping out an entire enemy squad. The sniper is off with the squad somewhere else entirely, sees that they get a kill off their APM, flips to map quickly to check no friendlies on the RDXd flag, and then <BOOM!>....potentially wiping out an entire squad.

3. Stay within revive range of the squad unless ordered otherwise to avoid just giving away your ticket when killed. But there have been several occasions where our sniper has been the only one left standing because he was just a bit off from the rest of the squad, maybe overhead, or on a building 2nd floor, etc., and our squad gets destroyed and the sniper is able to jump in, pick up an assault kit and start reviving.

I'm not trying to say that the Recon kit is the answer to everyone's prayers at TG, but that it does have a place if played in a way that benefits the team. These tactics don't necessarily always work, and don't have much benefit on some maps, but the same can be said for some other kits as well. In my opinion there is a time and place for the recon kit around here, but I think that over time, the TG community has developed the blanket attitude that snipers are just stat padding lone wolfs.

Keep in mind the original question was can a "good" sniper help a team.

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Axis_Sniper

Oh yes, I've played with Chris. That guy does work with a sniper. He charges with the damn thing and still manages to do as good as a Voss Rocketteer.

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FROM THE PRIMER:
Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team.

Xbox Live GT: KrunchMastaFlex

Reaperassault

nope, wrong wrong wrong...

a sniper might get as many kills as a assault but will never pick up revives so is automatically less valuable than even a poor assault shooter, at least on conquest

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pred011586

I've actually loaded up a sniper kit during a round of baby tunis, with the objective of finding some kind of useful advantage for it. There's a couple of things I've noticed:

- If you see an enemy rocketing, in a small cluster of people, then shoot him. If he's standing still, go for the headshot, if he's moving slowly (he's rocketing, keep in mind, not running), go for the bodyshot. Why? If you go for the headshot, you gain a temp advantage of having 2 rocketers down (one dead, the other reviving). This can be the difference between a friendly advance working or not.

- Everybody hates snipers! Pop out once, pick off the slowest moving target, and he'll come back with a vengeance for you, it's even better if his entire squad starts looking for you, snipe from a distant location, get one kill, then move back with your squad, I've noticed doing that caused the enemy squad to launch a volley of rockets on my old position, lightening the suppressive fire on my own side. On baby tunis, this was just enough for what I believe was Unload's squad to make a push across the no man's land and establish a foothold on their side of the river.

You can notice a difference when the teams are uneven numbers (24 vs 22 for instance). If the teams are even, or close to even, then distracting 2-6 enemies for 5-10 seconds gives you a small window to take advantage of uneven numbers and make an advance.


Now, the cons of sniping:

- If you're at all in danger of imminent close quarters combat, don't bother. The sniper rifle is beyond useless in CQC, and the pistol..... ya, just don't go sniper if in danger of CQC.

- Lack of a defib. Now this one's an interesting problem. When one person goes sniper on a team (me, in the round above's case) I noticed that a few more people also switch to the sniper kit. This monkey-see monkey-do effect greatly hurts the team. One sniper per squad that sticks together, is the most we should ever see, and even then, only when the situation calls for it. You shouldn't need to worry about the lack of a defib if there's not many. I personally go with the Support kit over the Assault kit as a SL 90% of the time. Support lacks a defib just as much as a Recon does.

- Tunnel vision. I noticed that I was starting to zero in on targets. I was playing mind games with three assault kits rocketing my teammates for awhile. Because of this, I didn't even realize there was a breakthrough on the north side. Luckily someone else was there to guard Living Quarters. I recommend that you don't snipe as a SL. Also if you're a SM, practice practice practice avoiding tunnel vision. Try to focus only on mission critical objectives, such as stopping a rocket barrage, or slowing an advance. Don't look around for easy kills. I noticed that I was shifting my focus onto a support guy who was grenade spamming from behind cover. Took me awhile to realize that I was just waiting for him to pop out. Don't let that happen to you. If your contact is hiding behind cover, it means he's afraid to pop out. If he stays under cover for longer than it would take to reload a Ganz, then assume he believes he's pinned and move on.


TL;DR version:

Overall, the sniper kit can be useful, but only in rare situations. Unfortunately, in those rare situations, going sniper often causes others to go sniper, which in turn is detrimental to the team's defib count. Losing one or two defibs won't be noticed, but losing 5-6 could severely destroy your team's chances of winning. In the end, know your surroundings, and know your team. If you have alot of non-TG regulars on your team, stick with your rockets. If they aren't recon already, then if they notice you sniping, they might start sniping also. If your team is mostly TG-regulars, like that night we had only 3 non-SM on the server, then check if your team has any non-SL recon already, and then decide from there if the situation calls for a sniper.

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Axis_Sniper

Well, I was referring good as in kills-wise. But thanks for being an ass about it.

__________________
FROM THE PRIMER:
Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team.

Xbox Live GT: KrunchMastaFlex

Tigerblitz

Look Axis,

He was just correcting you.

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|TG| Sproge "Tiger how did you flip that tank?!"
|TG-SC| PM07SNV "We need another world war to base more games on..."
|TG-AIR| DrBeat: "I just dropped my propane tank in the fire again"

Axis_Sniper

We settled it in PMs. No worries.

__________________
FROM THE PRIMER:
Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team.

Xbox Live GT: KrunchMastaFlex

Marcuspartacus

In my opinion....Certainly, a sniper can be a great benefit to the team. I've recently started playing Recon and spend far more time spotting for the squad / team than I do actually shooting. Just last night (Tunis) I cleared a path for my team to an opposition flag. I took down two PAC soldiers (repeatedly until one stopped reviving and made a run for it) camping their flag, allowing my own side to take possession. I also spotted all the way along their route to the flag to prevent ambushes.

We won the game but it didn't reflect in my own personal score which was quite low.

TrippyD

I've found that on larger maps, especially ones with lots of tall sniper perches, a sniper or two is valuable for countering other snipers while attacking, then while defending they are good for spotting incoming armor. But on most maps their role is limited and can be better filled by other, more multifunctional kits.

EDIT:

I hadn't thought of that...that would be really interesting though imo. Particularly if a sniper could shoot someone in the body so that they could still be revived, in order to lurer other players out to help them. Then headshot all of them. Not only would it make snipers very valuable but it would add a new layer to the game as a whole imo.

Razcsak

I think I've been sniped going for a revive...five times at most? And at least a few of those I had body damage on me so there's no guarantee I was headshot.