Sniper Tweaks

A few ideas for tweaks for snipers intended to make them less of an all-in investment and less frustrating to counter.

• Snipers receive a price cut to about 250 MP. You can afford to get one as a spotter.
  
• Snipers have a 50% chance to miss against units in cover, making them serve an inverse role to mortars. In combination with their price cut, this makes them substantially more effective against units out of cover and a fair bit worse against units in cover.
  
• Snipers have better received accuracy, but don't get a received accuracy bonus on retreat.

Imo it should be the other way round. Sniper should be good vs units in cover garrison.

Sniper now deal 40-60 damage vs all infatry regardless of cover (with all modifier set to 1).

Sniper do 40-20 extra damage vs support weapon.

And thus sniper become a counter to heavy support weapons play.

No idea why you two just won't directly say "remove snipers from the game" as that's pretty much what you both said.

Its bad unit for game like coh, but current ones aren't going anywhere, not getting changed in such drastic way that removes their role, because no one needs 1 man direct fire mortar team.

Imo it should be the other way round. Sniper should be good vs units in cover garrison.

Sniper now deal 40-60 damage vs all infatry regardless of cover (with all modifier set to 1).

Sniper do 40-20 extra damage vs support weapon.

And thus sniper become a counter to heavy support weapons play.

The mortar is already the anti-cover, anti-support weapon unit.

The mortar is already the anti-cover, anti-support weapon unit.

It is anti garrison not anti cover, and it not very good at it. Sniper would more fitted for less static game.

It is anti garrison not anti cover, and it not very good at it. Sniper would more fitted for less static game.

Mortars being bad doesn't change the fact that displacing team weapons is what mortars are for.

If they don't work, they need buffs, not replacement.

Mortars being bad doesn't change the fact that displacing team weapons is what mortars are for.

If they don't work, they need buffs, not replacement.

The suggestion is not to replace mortar but to have alternative better suited for more mobile game.

Having a sniper work basically vs red cover would mean a sniper that loses most of potency in late game when the map is full of yellow cover and there is little cover.

In addition they become RNG machines with 50/50 coins tosses for extra frustration especially in sniper duels.

The mortar is plenty mobile unless you're playing UKF.

Sniper duels being quite random and unreliable is fine. Just don't use snipers to counter snipers.

The mortar is plenty mobile unless you're playing UKF.

No it is not it is the definition of static play, it quite useless if your opponent move and take ages to reposition and fire

Sniper duels being quite random and unreliable is fine. Just don't use snipers to counter snipers.

I doubt people will agree with you especially when skill will have little impact in sniper duel and it will be basically a coin toss.

> Everyone agrees (including Sander93) that snipers are better off as JLI style squads
> Lago makes a thread about costs and accuracy
> 10/10

- Keep current snipe range and cover and such.
- Change Sniper damage from instadeath to 79HP, not affected by cover.
- Let Sniper always target lowest health model of a squad.
- Give Sniper damage modifier against other Snipers.
- Buff RA a bit, cut price and pop.

Now Sniper can't go rambo on lone squads, but always needs fire support from other units.

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- Keep current snipe range and cover and such.
- Change Sniper damage from instadeath to 79HP, not affected by cover.
- Let Sniper always target lowest health model of a squad.
- Cut price and pop.

Now Sniper can't go rambo on lone squads, but always needs fire support from other units.

That’s even worse, soviets have 4 medics in base. What do they do? Spend a minute healing each squad?

That’s even worse, soviets have 4 medics in base. What do they do? Spend a minute healing each squad?

If your opponent would use his high cost 300~ mp Sniper just to damage your squads so you have to heal slightly longer, then that sounds like a bad deal to me. He'd be better off supporting his sniper so it can get easy kills.

I'm afraid snipers are incredibly likely to stay as they are (with the exception of minor changes), even if a very large part of the community (myself included) thinks they are horribly designed units.

Adjusting the way they work is a huge change, and would change a large part of the game, and would lean towards being a band-aid fix that's likely to have non-foreseeable far reaching consequences. Not something that is desirable at this point in the game's life cycle. Changing snipers is something that would have to be done from the ground up with the rest of the game being designed around it with the sniper mechanics in mind, in essence something that should have been done for CoH2 and now could only be done for a new game.


That being said, if I could change them, I would make them high utility force multiplier units (expanding on Pathfinders and JLI concepts) that have a wide range of supporting abilities (mark target, camouflage, flares, sight range, etc.) and either have crit snipers or a snipe for munitions ability. I'd make them quite cheap but squishy (3-4 models with self defence weapons only), so that they'd have a high skill ceiling as getting the best out of them would make them very cost effective and able to turn engagements, while they wouldn't be able to destroy armies on their own.

I personally feel that in the CoH franchise the all important recon element of warfare is mostly missing (units with recon capabilities are usually expensive and primarily used for combat), which is something I'd like to see changed if the franchise ever moves forward. Wargame/Steel Division have integrated recon a lot better with plenty of cheap and useful units being available and serving distinctive reconnaissance roles within the army composition and battle.

The only thing snipers need is higher received damage .

The Wehrmacht one to a much lesser extent though as they are firing on much larger squads.

I would support sanders take on snipers as force multipliers vs what they are now. Hopefully coh 3 takes that model into primary consideration. Could then add snipers as thry are as limited to 1 doctrinal units

Sniper dont need change

dont make another problem

I'm afraid snipers are incredibly likely to stay as they are (with the exception of minor changes), even if a very large part of the community (myself included) thinks they are horribly designed units.

Adjusting the way they work is a huge change, and would change a large part of the game, and would lean towards being a band-aid fix that's likely to have non-foreseeable far reaching consequences. Not something that is desirable at this point in the game's life cycle. Changing snipers is something that would have to be done from the ground up with the rest of the game being designed around it with the sniper mechanics in mind, in essence something that should have been done for CoH2 and now could only be done for a new game.

That being said, if I could change them, I would make them high utility force multiplier units (expanding on Pathfinders and JLI concepts) that have a wide range of supporting abilities (mark target, flares, sight range, etc.) and either have crit snipers or a snipe for munitions ability.

I believe people blame snipers while it's mostly faction design that is responsible for unfun experience. Sniper lifecycle is related to enemy LV, camo, sniper, recon, reinforcements. Some factions have doctrines that can help them camo their MGs or ATGs or infantry or they have early mobile LVs or their top doctrines are rich with recon planes or radio intercept etc. Some factions have snipers in their main tech and some don't have snipers available to them at all. With snipers being a strong bleed tool, they are high risk, high reward type of unit that I enjoy watching in top level games and I wouldn't want them to be changed too much, but I agree that they are not equally fun to play as or against different factions.

If some players don't enjoy playing vs MGs, we are not removing MGs from the game or changing their core role, instead we allow to counter heavy MG play with indirect fire, vehicles, flanking, green cover, snipers etc. If a player decides not to counter MG play, it's his fault. In case of snipers the counters are not available to everyone in equal measure which can create frustration. Current game design is asymmetrical and as such, not everyone has access to the same tools. This also leads to 60 range TD frustration among some wehrmacht players, especially in teamgames when the critical TD mass can be reached.

If your opponent dislikes using sniper because he is bad with it, loses it often or else, it might be a good idea to build your own sniper and have some snare nearby or mines in good spots. Forcing your enemy to play on your conditions is part of a strategy game, but it is not fair when the opponent can't counter it. OKW has doctrinal access to JLI who can ambush a sniper and with their 50% accy ambush bonus and 75% crit they kill snipers very reliably. They are doctrinal unit however and I think doctrines should supplement you and not give you the tools that you should have stock. Having stock JLI is out of question though as that would be OP. I'd give every faction a sniper, bump the cost up to 400 and give more doctrines recon pass/planes. They are extremely useful when trying to kill enemy sniper which would increase the risk of using such a potent unit and give more room to counterplay. Meanwhile recon planes become less efficient in lategame when there is more AA on the battlefield so it wouldn't powercreep recon into lategame.

Some maps in 2v2 like alliance of defiance are pretty narrow and allow for easy sniper play for example as OST vs USF. I have seen top games with single OST sniper reaching 87 kills before being accidentally killed by Scott barrage. Such narrow maps make it difficult to flank or gain other territory as you usually fight around 1 area. In 1v1 you can harass different points more efficiently than in teamgames which makes snipers even stronger bleed tool in 2v2+ but easier to countersnipe, with the countersnipe not being equally available to everyone.

If only units like Paths and JLI were actually used in a supportive role, instead of blobbed with BAR's (Paths) or beating any squad one on one in cover anyway (JLI).

You'd have to completely remove the personal firepower of squads like those and keep the crit before they actually stay true to their role.