Why are morons all snipers?

[Darth Smiley]

In almost every online FPS, the morons invariably gravitate the the sniper class or weapon set.

Not that all snipers are necessarily morons, but for some reason when there are a ton of morons the sniper position gets filled quickly. So what is it about being a sniper that appeals the the dimwitted? The (presumably) easy task of "stand there, shoot anything that moves"?. Do morons have a "oh yeah, I'm a badass sniper" complex?

Discuss.

[Pulp Hero]

I think you hit the two biggest reasons on the head.

Plus sniping can usually rack up the highest kill-death ratio (if not the highest number of kills) with little danger. Also the meme that the rarest weapon/weapon with the most damage per bullet is the best means that new/stupid/young players all automatically fight over having the sniper rifle, and then fight over who is the best at it.

I have seen lots of good snipers (as in helpful to the team, not just gets kills) in public play, but they are usually on games where sniping is legitimately harder or in class based games where bad players can get booted out their class (some old DoD servers would allow this, so the servers usually ended up with good snipers on maps where sniping was important).

[Tolya]

It's actually pretty easy. Sniper is the only position when you a) don't have to concern yourself with this strange concept of "teamwork" which is apparently very difficult b) you can legitimately tell everyone who wants to complete a set objective to f* off and just go fragging.

[Gramzamber]

It's the power trip too I'll bet.
A sniper with a good aim can sit there and pretend he's a god, deciding who lives and who dies (well mostly who dies) with little threat of retaliation. Well, at least that's what they think.

[Commander 598]

In RO I would often see a whole wall full of people trying to snipe (Many of them without actually being a sniper, which is doable and I've done it too) and completely not noticing the enemy sniper across the way that I can clearly see which makes me feel a need to take the situation into my own hands. Also, I usually find that it then becomes an addictive game unto itself.

Annoyingly, you inevitably end up with someone shooting you over hogging the sniper rifle because they think they think you aren't doing anything useful or more accurately because they want a scoped rifle. Honestly, it's hard to tell if snipers are even doing anything at all half the time...

I like to think I do pretty good as a sniper... Anyway, I generally play a sniper in RO because I find it more entertaining than getting shot an uncounted number of times by someone wielding an SMG from the hip while you're behind cover aiming with a rifle.

[open_sketchbook]

It's also really annoying when you are a good team sniper. I was the designated sniper for my CoD and Battlefield clans back when I actually played video games regularly, so I got pretty darn good at playing sniper in a way that benefits the other players; shooting the opposing snipers, the guys on machine-guns, vehicle drivers, sneaking up ahead of the group to camp spawns, and going overwatch on flags or points, that sort of thing. I got increasingly annoyed with the way everyone would jump on the sniper class; it got so bad I eventually gave up using the rifle in BF2142 and went assault class for the rest of my time with the game, which paid off wonderfully as every time I got in close I would basically slaughter the entire team's worth of annoying sniper rifle spammers (the EU Assault Rifle with the underslug multi-ammo gun is still my favorite FPS gun, bar none. It's just so freakin' useful.)

I personally think it's a gaming culture relic of Counter-Strike, a twitch shooter where the single-shot superpowered weapon would give a good flick-shooter instant domination of the match. A lot of people forget how insanely popular that game was, and I think it really influenced the impression of weapons in future FPS games.

[Zixinus]

Because sniping requires the minimum amount of adjusting. After all, its universally pretty much just "point and click". Usually, the other methods require a little more thinking and practise. In TF2 for example, you have to approach situations differently with each character.

EDIT: Let me try this another. Ignoring teamwork, sniping is the most easily learned way to rank up a lot of kills. You could do the same in different classes in TF2, the Heavy or Pyro certainly, but that would require a lot more risk and a lot more luck. While sniping careless players requires neither.

Just to add one among many already mentioned.

[CaptHawkeye]

It turns out gamers are just attracted to minimum effort classes? For every complaint about "nerd snipers" their's a complaint for "SMG rambo retards". The big problem is that their is no way for most people to oppose the sniper class due to a lack of things like suppression, shell shock, other disorienting effects in arcade shooters. So what you ultimately have is a class that can operate from complete safety doing little more than filling a kill list.

Personally it seems pretty clear to me that most developers dont even know what actual snipers *are* or what they *do*. (IE: They don't have a 1:1 or even 1:10 ratio with other infantry on the field, and they don't actually spend a lot of time shooting at enemies.) The "Video Game Sniper Class" as we know it is 100% Quake-holdover. It's too bad because their are way better ways to approach the design than "guy with headshot gun". As long as class selection games have a freely available "Sniper" class, I don't think we can look forward to this ending anytime soon.

[Korgeta]

Because there are some (such as i) who hate effort in trying to kill someone, hunt them down, get involved with idoitic teammates and you get killed because of that thing called teamwork. Espacilly when 8 times out of ten that people generally don't know much about tactics. Hell i don't but I know plenty of hiding places and how players generally think. I proudly snipe online (well use to) because it's fun

[Oscar Wilde]

I snipe rarely, and even rarer is when it works.
When it works, I rack up the kills though.

Most of these idiots wouldn't be so annoying if they realized they suck ass at sniping and would switch to the shotgun or something.

[Ryan Thunder]

Personally it seems pretty clear to me that most developers dont even know what actual snipers *are* or what they *do*.

I think they have "sniper" confused with "designated marksman". But that does assume that they know anything at all...

[montypython]

In BF1942 my favorite weapons against snipertards were artillery or tanks (warships in case of naval maps), nothing ruins their day better than HE shells slamming into them.

[loomer]

Personally it seems pretty clear to me that most developers dont even know what actual snipers *are* or what they *do*.

I think they have "sniper" confused with "designated marksman". But that does assume that they know anything at all...

I always took that role in BF2 and BF2142, actually. I'd stick close to my squad and split off for better LOS or flanking at most, and take down lone wolf snipers or anyone making use of anti-tank weaponry/whatever (used to drop out a hundred feet before everyone else so I could get a clear shot as soon as they hit the ground. Worked well.)

There were a couple of maps where I'd go dedicated sniper, though, but even there I'd work with my team - if we could get more snipers realizing that they should be laying down supporting fire on advances, it wouldn't be such an issue.

[Sea Skimmer]

Sniping at long range doesn’t require quick movements; I’m not seeing it as being any more complex then that.

[Zixinus]

I think they have "sniper" confused with "designated marksman". But that does assume that they know anything at all...

Or that they have limited or no use in closed environments and being a sniper is easy when you don't have to account for wind, bullet fall, etc.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

Oh I remember the bad old days, as I recall Day of Defeat was one of the worst offenders - snipers in that could rack up a hundred kills easily on the various D-day landing maps. Initially it didn't even have a system to limit the sniper field of view when they zoomed in.

At least the majority of modern games implement some features to make the snipers game more difficult. Almost all have a "scope" graphic when zoomed in limiting the players FOV; plenty of games have scope sway with a breath holding mechanic to require the player to time their shots; TF2 sniper have to charge up their shots and are revealed by their laser pointer. Even with these playing a sniper is still often a road to easy kills with little risk. Perhaps surprisingly (perhaps not) many games that make claims of being more "realistic" actually tend to have easier to use sniper weapons, probably because they snobbishly refuse to use "gamey" systems like those mentioned to balance out the snipers power - OFP, ArmA and Red Orchestra all only had bullet drop to compensate for if I recall correctly.

I think much of the reason for the popularity of sniping weapons is many gamers are just cowards - this seems absurd considering they are playing a bloody game, but the number of times I see people hanging back hoping their team mates will go into a dangerous situation first makes me think there must be some merit to the idea (this problem almost entirely breaks the "sudden death" gameplay type in TF2, for example).

Digressing from the topic slightly - The Delta Force games were the king of sniping in FPS's; for a start every weapon in the game was so accurate it was effectively a sniper weapon (e.g. getting kills at 600m with a surpressed MP5), but the actual specialised sniper weapons themselves were awesome - they allowed kills at multiple kilometre distances, but required the player to compensate for (dynamically changing) windage, use a laser range finder to range the target and then manually enter that into the scope. Sport of Kings.

This thread also reminds me I need to get around to playing Sniper Elite.

[Tolya]

Digressing from the topic slightly - The Delta Force games were the king of sniping in FPS's; for a start every weapon in the game was so accurate it was effectively a sniper weapon (e.g. getting kills at 600m with a surpressed MP5), but the actual specialised sniper weapons themselves were awesome - they allowed kills at multiple kilometre distances, but required the player to compensate for (dynamically changing) windage, use a laser range finder to range the target and then manually enter that into the scope. Sport of Kings.

Oh yeah, I remember those times. The first Delta Force didn't have the wind mechanic or the distance correction on the scope, so you had to correct your aim manually. It took some practice but eventually I was able to score hits on static targets with the Barret .50 BMG over 2km ranges (rangefinders on scopes there were limited to 2km). And I could hit a perpendicularly moving target at about 900m - 1km. With a lag of 300ms (ah, 56k times!).

Actually, FINDING a target over long ranges was much more difficult in DF1 than hitting it once you got some practice. Over the range of 1km any prone target that isn't moving was essentially a brown-green pixel. What's funny, I was never good at spotting pixel sized items in adventure games, though I could find a Barret wielding bastard on a mountain 2 kilometres away and lodge a DPU round right up his jaw. Good times.

Eventually it got to me that in Delta Force games basically every weapon was a sniper rifle, just like Aaron mentioned. Mp5 was useless because of its low damage and no scope. But with an M4 rifle (mounting a 4x scope) you could just rack up kills over medium distances using a simple and crude but effective "one clip one kill" tactic.

[Singular Intellect]

While I understand the irritating nature of some snipers, sometimes it becomes quite a bit of fun to be a counter sniper. I esssentially ignore sniping any players and solely focus on hunting enemy snipers.

[Steel]

Digressing from the topic slightly - The Delta Force games were the king of sniping in FPS's; for a start every weapon in the game was so accurate it was effectively a sniper weapon (e.g. getting kills at 600m with a surpressed MP5), but the actual specialised sniper weapons themselves were awesome - they allowed kills at multiple kilometre distances, but required the player to compensate for (dynamically changing) windage, use a laser range finder to range the target and then manually enter that into the scope. Sport of Kings.

Literally what the fuck are you talking about?

The delta force games from DF1 through to 7 or however many there were before Blackhawk Down features precisely NOTHING apart from bullet drop, which you just had to adjust your scope for and then it was a non issue. It was physically impossible to miss any target as there was NO weapon inaccuracy, NO scope wobble, NO wind, practically no enemy movement. You could easily clear whole battalions with the M4 at a few km. How on earth can you say that it has more features than any game more modern than quake when games like OFP actually do have all those features except the windage and a whole slew of games since 2001 have had them, yet DF never did.

The hilarious thing about DF was that you would only start to miss when you got to such extreme range that your bullets are actually falling almost vertically, and thus even having set your scope to exactly the level given by the magical rangefinder it could take 2 or maybe even 3 shots to get the bullet that was by then falling at about 20mph to drop right on their head (and kill them instantly at there was no such thing as a non lethal hit with any weapon at any range against any human target...)

[Laughing Mechanicus]

The delta force games from DF1 through to 7 or however many there were before Blackhawk Down features precisely NOTHING apart from bullet drop, which you just had to adjust your scope for and then it was a non issue. It was physically impossible to miss any target as there was NO weapon inaccuracy, NO scope wobble, NO wind, practically no enemy movement. You could easily clear whole battalions with the M4 at a few km. How on earth can you say that it has more features than any game more modern than quake when games like OFP actually do have all those features except the windage and a whole slew of games since 2001 have had them, yet DF never did.

The hilarious thing about DF was that you would only start to miss when you got to such extreme range that your bullets are actually falling almost vertically, and thus even having set your scope to exactly the level given by the magical rangefinder it could take 2 or maybe even 3 shots to get the bullet that was by then falling at about 20mph to drop right on their head (and kill them instantly at there was no such thing as a non lethal hit with any weapon at any range against any human target...)

Oh bloody hell there's always one: Show me where I claimed that the DF games had "more features than any game more modern than quake"? Did you read me saying "the king of sniping in FPS's" as "most realistic sniping simulator"? Because that would be hilarious if you did.

Even that aside, I am almost certain at least one version of DF did have simulated wind, as I can distinctly remember adjusting it and having the scope nudge left/right as you did so; I could be thinking of another game but let's be honest, the Delta Force games were so ugly it would be nearly impossible to mistake them for anything else.

[Edward Yee]

FWIW, I've experienced the "lone camping sniper who's ineffective for his team" first-hand... as the culprit. Operation7, using a M14 "DMR'd up" (I think DMR parts on a EBR receiver) and got 26 kills to 2 deaths, but the other team won regardless because due to my position (around the rear right corner of a trailer) my field of fire was so narrow and I was not pressing the "advantage" to get the team more kills.

[Isolder74]

tell that to this guy!

[CaptHawkeye]

Simo Hayha's reputation is furthered by the fact that he never used a scope on any rifle he had, and achieved something like 1/3 of his kills with a Sub Machine Gun.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Simo Hayha's reputation is furthered by the fact that he never used a scope on any rifle he had, and achieved something like 1/3 of his kills with a Sub Machine Gun.

Most of his kills were within 300 meters and pratically all within 600 meters, although he did claim one 800 meter kill. If you have exceptionally good eyesight like he did, you can hit targets at 600 meters with just iron sights. The SMG he used was the Suomi, which was very accurate weapon with adjustable sights, and it fired special SMG loaded 9 mm cartridges, which could not be fired safely from pistols. There were plenty of other people who we hitting man-sized targets at 250 meters with the Suomi on a regular basis. Of course all Häyhä's (correct spelling) 300+ meter kills were still with a rifle or in some cases with a LMG, which he also used occasionally.

[Steel]

Oh bloody hell there's always one: Show me where I claimed that the DF games had "more features than [a single] game more modern than quake"?

OFP, ArmA and Red Orchestra all only had bullet drop to compensate for if I recall correctly.

There you are.

Did you read me saying "the king of sniping in FPS's" as "most realistic sniping simulator"? Because that would be hilarious if you did.

Hence my reaction. That is the only reasonable interpretation, that you are some demented fanboy. Consider that you just wrote off a host of games more detailed and went on about how awesome the most basic game on earth was.

Now I do have a soft spot for the delta force games, but calling them any of detailed, realistic or hard is certainly stretching it...

I'd be happy to revise my opinion if you were actually just saying that the DF games were really fun despite being so basic.