Why are morons all snipers?

[Laughing Mechanicus]

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

There you are.

Oh yes, I see it now - there's me claiming the listed games were less complex than the DF series. Oh wait, no it's not and you're just grasping at straws.

The point I was making was that sniping in games that bill themselves as realistic (tip: the DF series did this too) tends to be easier than in others, because they limit themselves from using gameplay devices like "charge up" shots, visible bullet trails etc... which introduce extra challenges to sniping.

Hence my reaction. That is the only reasonable interpretation, that you are some demented fanboy.

Yes, that seems reasonable - whenever someone says to me they think something is the "King" of XYZ in a video game I always assume they mean "most realistic implementation" too even if it is totally at odds to what they just bloody said.

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.

This is indeed good fun. A "generalist" enemy sniper will almost always be pathetically easy to surprise because they lack any awareness of things not directly in their scope. In TF2 it is good sport to take the Snipers new bow weapon and use that for plinking oblivious enemy Snipers from unexpected directions. Alternatively every time you are killed by a Sniper immediately switch class to Spy and go and clear out their (likely undefended) nest; repeat until the Snipers are so pre-occupied looking out for Spies that they aren't sniping any more.

[Edward Yee]

This is indeed good fun. A "generalist" enemy sniper will almost always be pathetically easy to surprise because they lack any awareness of things not directly in their scope. In TF2 it is good sport to take the Snipers new bow weapon and use that for plinking oblivious enemy Snipers from unexpected directions. Alternatively every time you are killed by a Sniper immediately switch class to Spy and go and clear out their (likely undefended) nest; repeat until the Snipers are so pre-occupied looking out for Spies that they aren't sniping any more.

Whereas I would call this "generalist" a good shot but not a good sniper. (Confession: I've been guilty of this.)

[Adrian Laguna]

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).

Hee, this is so true. I'm so cowardly and panicky in FPS games that I can't even kill someone who is standing still, right in front of me, and facing the other way. Instead I lost my nerve and sprayed bullets everywhere, which alerted the enemy to my presence and allowed him to turn around and shoot back. That was better than my usual performance, since at least I was shooting at the enemy. Most of the time I get shot before seeing the enemy at all, and half the times I do manage to open fire on enemies it turns out they're actually friendlies. Amusingly, I'm such terrible shot that my allies never seem to notice I'm firing at them.

I like sniping because it lets me feel safe and avoid firefights, which scare the shit out of me. If someone finds my hiding spot then I'm usually dead before I know what's going on, sparing me the unpleasantness of panicking.

Every so often I get in the groove of the game and get my bravery back, which is nice because it makes me feel like I'm contributing to the team, since I stop hanging back and shooting at friendlies. That's when the game is really fun. Ironically might also be when I'm the greatest liability; since I still don't get any kills and die more often. However I like to think my value as a distraction makes it worth it.

[Gemini-Preserver]

From my last experiance of being the victim of a sniper. In one out of a million cases there a sniper moron becuase they think its funny.
We were at a freinds playing a mulitplayer grab the flag game in TFP. I decided for added fun value to be on the team oppisite my two freinds. Fun was the last thing that happened for myself or my other freind becasue the jerk decided to get a good camping spot on the other side of the map and a sniper. He killed my character 158 times because he found the the respawn area for my AI team and then just waited untill one appeared that didnt move the way all in AI charcters did.
I admit to start with it was amusing, then tedious, then down right boring. The thing that made him a jerk is he honestly thought it was 'clever and tactical and well fun' his words.

[Solauren]

Morons are not all Snipers/Marksman.

They are morons, and just easier to notice when they are Snipers/Marksman.

I mean, can you really tell the difference between a moron doing a heavy weapon spray for shits and giggles, or a non-moron doing a heavy weapon spray as a way of laying down suppression fire?

[Ritterin Sophia]

My problem with morons is when I'm actively suppressing the enemies' snipers and they come and start shooting right next to. Good going dumbass, draw more attention to the sniper everyone's pissed at for whiping the whole team with an airstrike!

[bobalot]

I find snipetards take the fun out of pretty much any FPS online. Once some douche starts sniping and getting a crapload of kills, it eventually forces everybody to start to snipe and camp because its the only way to get kills and then it just becomes fucking boring.

A bunch of them will cover the choke points on the map or simply spawn camp and the game turns into "who is going to get bored first".