Snipers, Enemy Squad Sizes, and Rate of Fire

You're not really interested in balance for all armies, are you?

Balance of armies? Is that sarcasm. Soviet doesn't have to have fast rof because they have 2 lives. You can be totally careless compared to Ostheer

Been watching some streams, replays lately besides playing the game (Price and Von). One game Ost sniper had 100 kills (1v1), while many attempts failed to take him down (for example baiting with shocks..chasing down on retreat)

Ost sniper has insane RoF which should be nerfed along with his 82?! HP...USF has no counter against him, soviets only if they are lucky...well brits NDA. He is just performing waaaaay over the top.

Soviet sniper is fine because of the slow RoF.

Balance of armies? Is that sarcasm. Soviet doesn't have to have fast rof because they have 2 lives. You can be totally careless compared to Ostheer

Yet they in many cases have less durability then the ostheer sniper.

Soviet snipers have 48 hp each, while ostheer one has 82. This means that mortars and light vehicles that do only 80 damage will never one hit ostheer snipers, while a direct hit on the soviet one will most likely kill both members at once.

On top of this the ostheer sniper has faster aim time, Rof, camouflages faster, and retains camo after moving out of cover for a short time.

The ostheer sniper is undoubtedly better then the soviet sniper in every single way.

i believe that some of you underestimate how ridiculous the ostheer sniper can be

i believe that some of you underestimate how ridiculous the ostheer sniper can be

Can you blame them?

They haven't been put against it even once.

Being one army hero is tough at times.

Since everyone goes all Stephen Colbert on this problem (going with one's gut feeling), I took the liberty to look at the stats to maybe provide some material for a more informed discussion.

I think only a very few will argue that the ost sniper hasn't got more survivability than the soviet sniper, so what one needs to look at is how fast do they kill their intended target.

Please find the stats and formula used below
Show Spoiler

So with the stats and formula out of the way, we end up with the following comparison.

[now with the right magazine sizes] Thanks to Cruzzi and TensaiOni

Time to kill 1 squad

			soviet sniper	ost sniper
against	cons/grens	far	45.65	43.5
		mid	32.9	32.74
		near	18.75	19.88
	rifles/volks	far	57.06	36.25
		mid	41.13	27.28
		near	23.44	16.56

Time to kill 2 squads

			soviet sniper	ost sniper
against	cons/grens	far	96.55	90.75
		mid	71.05	69.23
		near	42.75	43.5
	rifles/volks	far	119.38	72.5
		mid	87.5	54.56
		near	52.13	33.12

The ost sniper outperforms the soviet sniper on a time to kill squads basis even in the intended matchup, the difference is rather small though for 1 squad(ignoring the near value, because the sniper wouldn't survive it). When the need to reload kicks in (against 2 squads), the gap widens slightly. A better example to illustrate how powerful the 10 round magazine of the ost sniper is, would have been to add a table for 3 squads, because it requires only 1 reload for the ost sniper and 2 for the soviet sniper.

As we go over to the alternative matchup (USF/OKW) we see the soviet sniper's performance significantly reduced. The difference is at over 20 seconds to kill a squad of equal size (5 entities). As we go over to 2 squads the benefit of a 10 round magazine, which can snipe 2 squads, becomes apparent as the performance gap widens.

Now with some new knowledge, I invite you to discuss

Time to perform 1 entity kill:

	soviet sniper	ostheer sniper
far	11.41	7.25
mid	8.23	5.46
near	4.69	3.31
magazine size	5	10
reload time av	5.25	3.75

With this table you can do the calculations for different squads.


If anyone is interested, I could probably make a google doc out of my spreadsheet and then you can play around with the squad sizes and see what happens.

How about we just mirror soviet sniper and Ostheer that way you lil whiney bitches can't say anything?

Why so needlessly caustic?

Ostheer sniper could probably stand to take a small hit on rate-of-fire, accepting the fact that the ost sniper is weaker vs. soviets but is still great at bleeding their elite infantry. If release Brits struggle unnecessarily against ost sniper (remember that release should still have many changes compared to alpha,) Relic can simply lower the ost sniper's ROF at that time.

@Sherlock.

That's not even mentioning the various allied 4-man squads like USF weapon teams.

Since everyone goes all Stephen Colbert on this problem (going with one's gut feeling), I took the liberty to look at the stats to maybe provide some material for a more informed discussion.

Why "magazine size" - 1? If nothing has changed, a squad can take "magazine size" + 1 shots before reloading.

Balance of armies? Is that sarcasm. Soviet doesn't have to have fast rof because they have 2 lives. You can be totally careless compared to Ostheer

The soviet sniper team goes down a lot faster than the ostheer sniper in nearly all circumstances that don't involve counter sniping.

Why "magazine size" - 1? If nothing has changed, a squad can take "magazine size" + 1 shots before reloading.

Hmm. I need to check that. Thanks for letting me know.

I've updated the spreadsheet and posted the right values now. Thanks again to Cruzz and TensaiOni who spotted the mistake with the magazine size.

I think you're confusing something here. Cambering (loading a new round into the firing camber) is not the same as replacing the empty magazine with a new one.

If you have a reload frequency of 1, you will fire twice before reload. A value of 0 is a oneshot weapon, any positive value is (1+reload frequency) shots/bursts per magazine.

If you have a reload frequency of 1, you will fire twice before reload. A value of 0 is a oneshot weapon, any positive value is (1+reload frequency) shots/bursts per magazine.

I see. Thanks. I will adjust the formula to have magazines of 5 and 10 then. Thanks Cruzz and TensaiOni for pointing this out.


I've updated the spreadsheet and posted the right values now. Thanks again to Cruzz and TensaiOni who spotted the mistake with the magazine size.

This is the moment you have to stop posting.

How about we just mirror soviet sniper and Ostheer that way you lil whiney bitches can't say anything?

Cause if you do, you are all gonna come here in a second to complain that double SU snipers are OpieOP. You don't really want a OH sniper on the hands of SU.

@Sherlock.

That's not even mentioning the various allied 4-man squads like USF weapon teams.

Or the awesome Vet 1 ability.

My two cents? Just increase the received accuracity for OST sniper while retreating.

That way a cleverly flanked sniper is more likely to die.

Atm it seems the Ost sniper can simply retreat from every situation without beeing hit.


That might be enough to balance it allready.

MIGHT!

Greetz

My two cents? Just increase the received accuracity for OST sniper while retreating.

That way a cleverly flanked sniper is more likely to die.

Atm it seems the Ost sniper can simply retreat from every situation without beeing hit.


That might be enough to balance it allready.

MIGHT!

Greetz

It won't be as long as it have such superior RoF.

Squad difference argument isn't really important anymore as both, axis have 6 men squads and allies have 4 men squads. With brits Ost sniper will be the most overpowered infantry unit in game and for a good reason.

RoF nerf is really unavoidable unless they have changed something significantly about brits, which I doubt.

the ost sniper RoF needs to be a touch longer but for all snipers it needs to be changed so that the RoF is constant at all ranges. Currently the RoF increases the closer you get.

Like HelpingHans said, players need to respond to sniper threats, and the options shouldn't be limited to using a vehicle to find and kill it to avoid casualties. IMO, the ideal infantry counter snipers are whatever largest squad you can use on hand, therefore, any sniper like Soviet Scout Sniper should have a bigger problem facing Panzerfusiliers than Grenadiers. But really, it's the same problem as if that sniper was facing a group of Osttruppen (or at least, the disparity should be smaller).
In any case you'd probably still have the same problem by virtue of Sturmoffizier's Obersoldaten retinue and his two anti-infantry abilities.

It would be cool if Relic gave the UKF a T0 infantry transport like the M3A1. Maybe this could help vs the Sniper?

I have no reason to believe Relic won't have a Bren Carrier unit as UKF variant to clown car. The only faction that doesn't have this is OKW, and they make up for that with Volksblob + T2 forward retreat (and Kubels, if you factor out transportation).

Bren Carrier was a rather staple feature for British in CoH1, I don't see why it wouldn't be stock unit, especially given it's light armour. IMO a call-in Bren would be a dumb idea.

Too bad when ost sniper gets nerfed for brits, it will be garbage vs soviet players.