Sharpshooter overpopulation

[Nanostrike]

I just had my 5th game in a row today involving 4 or more Sharpshooters with M-14s. And they were winning easily. On Hard and Suicidal. On any map. It's getting a little ridiculous. The ugly ironsights do their job at long range and up-close, the 'hip-firing' laser sight leaves them just as able to shoot as if they were using ironsights. Due to perk bonuses, the recoil is non-existant, the damage (Especially quick, consecutive headshots, considering the firing rate, and recoil absence) is huge, and the reloads are fast.

Other classes barely get a shot in if there are more than a couple halfway decent Sharpies in a game. They'll have things dead before a Support/Berserker gets anywhere near attack range, thin the crowds out to the point where the Demo/Firebugs are useless, and outsweep Commandos. And since they're at a range where they're not getting hit, Medics don't have anything to do either.

Fleshpounds/Scrakes go down in seconds to combined rifle headshots, the 20-round clip that almost always kills in one shot lasts forever, and the massive ammo stockpile ensures that they NEVER run out of ammo. As much as I want to deny it or preach the considerable virtues of the Crossbow, Sharpshooters with the M-14 are basically unstoppable death machines, especially in groups.

Something's gotta be done to fix the class without crippling it (See Berserker of an example of how NOT to do this!). Reducing the M-14's massive ammo stockpile is a good start, but what else? It needs to be fixed because almost everyone is becoming aware of the imbalance and exploiting it. And this is coming from a Sharpshooter FAN who used to be opposed to nerfing them in any way, shape or form...

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

class limitation on servers? ex. max 2 per slot to reduce role spam?

 

[Nanostrike]

class limitation on servers? ex. max 2 per slot to reduce role spam?

A good idea in theory, but they you'll get whining about how a low-level took the Sharpie spot, admins kicking because their clannies want the spot, people rushing to get the class picked first, endless complaining about why "Our sharpie sucks, so we're losing!". More of a hassle than a fix when you think about it.

Plus it doesn't really fix the fact that the class is STILL too powerful...

 

[nath2009uk]

the damage just needs rethinking.

The M14 is ok as it is, IMO it's the FP and possibly scrake that need some serious buffing.
Especially in the head... Why cant weapons not do any extra damage in their heads.

 

[rckrdude]

Agreed. I've used the sharpshooter perk since the game was released long before the M14 was introduced and headshot hitboxes were fixed, but I have to say the weapon really IS broken. Most people just get bodyshots with it and end up mowing down everything in their path. Really takes away from the skilll needed to be a good sharpshooter. I think reducing ammo and drastically lowering damage caused by bodyshots would help balance things.

 

[Monchito]

the damage just needs rethinking.

The M14 is ok as it is, IMO it's the FP and possibly scrake that need some serious buffing.
Especially in the head... Why cant weapons not do any extra damage in their heads.

I think it would be simpler to just balance the M14 because if you just buff and buff specimens then sharpie will be ok but other classes will become UNDEPOWERED and then another problem appears

So if TW doesnt want to do A LOT OF WORK they will just balance the M14

 

[nath2009uk]

If you removed the headshot abilites on a FP, Sharpie will go down to Support level, emptying out 15 AA12 shells into it's body to kill it.
Just like a demo.

 

[Tomcat_ha]

I think the solution is to add some kind of vulnerability to the M14. Its hard to think about a good one though.

 

[Nenjin]

I didn't like this method in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. You'd get in a server, want to get your Squad Leader on....and of course it was already taken. Same with the Mortar crew. I hate getting into game to find I can't play what I was wanting to.

And KF is definitely one of those games where you sign in thinking "I really want to play THIS class today." So I'm against this. I'd rather have appropriate class balance even out the number of SS....not hard caps on what we can and can't play.

 

[Johnyfive]

Drawing on my own experiences I would say the player base in your area favors the m14 quite a bit more than in the area I play in. I used the m14 when it first came out; I'm sure a lot of folks did. The last 3 weeks or so I've only seen 1 sharpshooter not using the crossbow. He was doing a good job of fulfilling the commando's role with the m14, and the crossbow was taking down the FP's.

Something is wrong with FP's. At level 5, in 6-man suicidal, FP's took 3 shots to the head to kill with a crossbow pre level-up patch. At level 6 post patch they only take one, meaning either the damage from level 5 to 6 more than doubles or something funky is going on since the level-up patch with FP's.

I think we might see a decline in sharpshooters in general if FP's took 2 to 3 times the number of shots to bring down, if sharpshooters weren't the sure thing when it came to FP's anymore. Or we might see a minimum of three in every game. It's a tough call.

I like the 2 loadouts having different roles. Although I can't claim to have seen the m14 stand out against a crossbow sharpshooter, assuming it does, I don't like the idea of the high ammo loadout being comparable with the big game hunter loadout.

One of the biggest complaints prior to the level up patch was the low amount of ammo that sharpshooters had. I doubt there's much scaling back that will be done there, but they gave the hold-your-breath-and-squeeze class the run-and-gun laser targeting, which probably fits better on the commando's scar, who's reflex sight probably fits better on the m14 performing a truer to form sharpshooting role.

Sorry for going a bit off topic, but to tie it back in, if half the sharpshooters are really playing commando, we might cut down on half the sharpshooters by putting the laser sight where it seems to fit better.

 

[2sBlind]

The main problem I see with the M14 is that SS are running around and spamming, which is the opposite of what a Sharp Shooter is. SS's should be taking a small amount of calculated, but extremely critical shots. But this isn't what you see when they're spamming with the m14.

So how do you fix this, going from spamming to aiming and making your shots count? Well, as I see it, there's three main ways (without lowering the damage per shot).

1) Overall, extremely lower the ammo amount
2) Overall, extremely lower the magazine size
3) Overall, lower the fire rate

I'm in favor of a combination of 2 and 3. The m14 would retain its power and damage per shot it gets from head shots, but now, with say a 10 shot magazine and a much slower fire rate, SS's would actually have to aim and take out ZED's from a distance, because they know that if they come in close, they won't have the mag size and fire rate to effectively deal with everything.


And as a side note, I've always wondered by SS's get a damage boost for non head shots on their weapons. Seems like they should only get it for head shots.

 

[Nanostrike]

Well guys, that's the thing. I don't wanna cripple the Sharpshooter class. And I DEFINITELY don't wanna buff monsters. The problem, really, is the M-14 itself. I'm sad to say it because I LOVE THIS GUN, but it's the core issue.

It's basically an upgraded Lever Action:

Similar damage? Awesome.
No delay between shots? Great
Twice the clip size? Nice!
Massive headshot damage? Sweet!
Enough ammo that you don't need to worry? Perfect
The in-game equivalent of a Crosshair (Laser Sight)? Cool

But when you put 'em together...we basically have a SCAR (Right down to the similar ammo count and clip size) without the auto-fire capability, with a close-range crosshair added so you can "Run and gun", and SIGNIFICANTLY more damaging headshots. Seeing as how the SCAR is deadly even with body-shots, this is problematic...

Instead of a long-range weapon, we get a bunch of run and gun crap with the laser sight more than long-range, precision headshots with the ironsights. Just look at Scrakes! When was the last time you saw someone with an M-14 take out Scrakes with anything but a laser-sighted flurry of shots at close-range?

Agreed. I've used the sharpshooter perk since the game was released long before the M14 was introduced and headshot hitboxes were fixed, but I have to say the weapon really IS broken. Most people just get bodyshots with it and end up mowing down everything in their path. Really takes away from the skilll needed to be a good sharpshooter. I think reducing ammo and drastically lowering damage caused by bodyshots would help balance things.

I agree here. The big bodyshot damage makes it basically like a SCAR with headshot bonuses and (Due to sharpshooter class) almost no recoil. You can kill clots, stalkers, and crawlers with a single body-shot! Gorefasts can be killed with another shot or two. And bloats/husks only take one lucky headshot to down anyway. But I think the Laser-Sight is the biggest offender, hands down.

The crosshair-like Laser Sight only compounds this, allowing them to fire on the run with perfect accuracy. And they don't even NEED the perfect accuracy with the high damage...

 

[Keaton Fox]

I do think Sharpshooters need to be nerfed. They have way too much ammo, and have plently left over even after spamming. Also, don't high precision weapons(for snipers) fire slowly and have lots of recoil? They can kill Fleshpounders way too quickly. I think they need more recoil, or slower rate of fire, or less ammo. However the iron sights should be fixed, to the point of being usefull, or put a scope on it. =P

Way too many people play sharpshooters. Are they the most overpowered perk? =(

 

[driftwood]

Reducing its damage should be the way to go. Reduce it enough so that body shots won't kill a basic enemy in one shot, but a head shot will. Obviously tougher specs will need more than 1 headshot. Whatever they did to crossbows...just undo it. What you typically see on suicidal now is 1 or two crossbows on the ground in the camping spot. The sharpie drops his M14 and picks up the crossbow every time he hears a FP/scrake spawn. Camping on suicidal is just about fool proof now, and sharpie makes every other class bar commando and medic wonder what their purpose is.

 

[Ruckus]

I don't think the Sharpshooter is overpowered. Just fix the M14. The M14 as someone mentioned is pretty much an overpowered Commando weapon, not a sharpshooter weapon. I say get rid of the laser sight, and put a scope on it. Make it into a sharpshooter weapon, reduce the number of clips to 7.

That's fair right, no longer shoot from the hips rapidly and quickly. Put a slight recoil on it so you can't just spam shots rapidly.

Done, there you go.

Today on hard mode only met 2 sharpshooters using an M14. Rest like myself went with Handgun/9mm + Crossbow. In this situation without commandos, support a sharpshooter would get overrun. Just fix the M14, the class itself isn't overpowered or broken.

 

[Ruckus]

Way too many people play sharpshooters. Are they the most overpowered perk? =(

I don't think this is the reason. Sharpshooter is why we play FPS games. In CoD or any other FPS, with a gun with decent iron sight or scope, go for the headshot. It's just more satisfying to aim and kill rather than throwing a grenade, launching one, or placing a pipe bomb, spray shots with shotgun or spray shooting with submachine or blasting with pyro gun. I'm sure I'm not the only one, tried all the other perks and quickly went back to Sharpshooter, just more fun.

 

[Ebay]

Here's an idea.

Decrease Crossbow weight to 5-6 (enough to get a sidearm) and increase M14's weight to 10-11.

That could do a pretty good job.

The Big head hunters now have a sidearm, and the one hit killers now can't carry everything on them and have infinite ammo. A slight ammo reduction could still be a good idea to balance the m14.

Finally, don't forget that not having a crosshair does not mean its necessary. Somebody can still know where the center of his screen is whatever happens.

 

[Nanostrike]

Whatever they did to crossbows...just undo it. What you typically see on suicidal now is 1 or two crossbows on the ground in the camping spot. The sharpie drops his M14 and picks up the crossbow every time he hears a FP/scrake spawn.

I think that a combination of fixing headshot hitboxes, plus upping the Crossbow headshot multiplier from 6x to 8x made it a bit over-the-top. I've seen the Crossbow/M-14 spam as well. The M-14 is more common, the the crossbow stuff is kinda crazy too. I can understand the Scrake being 1-shotted by it. It's one of his weaknesses. But on the Fleshpound, it needs to be at least 2 shots, IMO.

But the M-14 spam is just...ugh. I had another half-dozen Sharpshooter-filled games where they're barely, if at all, doing ANY aiming short of laser-sighting at close range while running full speed. It looks ridiculous and undermines the whole Sharpshooter "Stand still and pick your shots" concept...

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

guys, some of you are all still overlooking the fact that the guns are modeled after REAL guns. you cannot "nerf" an m14 for the game and have a realistic weapon, which is what TWI has done some of the best work in a video game that i've ever played.....the realistic nature of the game is what makes it what it is compared to other games. it doesn't used compressed air that you could turn down to decrease velocity. you can't replace the .30-06 bullet with a .22 or rework the ironsight. imo, changing the gun itself should never happen and i hope it never does again. they already tweeked some of the other weapons and most of them were really pushing it quite a bit. i don't want to see weapon realism sacrificed to make the game "harder".

so, the only good way to "nerf" the weapon without destroying the weapon is by tweeking the other variables such as specimen health, hitbox size, maybe recoil or weapon wobble etc.... i'm happy to finally see some going in this direction. thank you for using your brains!!

 

[anthracy]

...hitbox size....

\

This is key, keep the weapons, health, everything the same, just make the critical headshot hitboxes harder to hit.

Sharpshooter should take talent, not just hurr hurr hurr xbow hurr hurr m14.

Also, decrease the body shot damage from sharpshooter.