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Sniper Role Overhaul

29 Apr 2018, 10:31 AM
#1
avatar of Serrith

Posts: 783

Snipers are potentially getting a bit of a shake up in the newest patch, particularly the soviet sniper and naturally there is heated discussion about it. One thing I read stuck out in my mind though, and that was this:

jump backJump back to quoted post22 Apr 2018, 08:20 AMKatitof

However the problem is existence of snipers in CoH all together.
I never understood why they went with super expensive very high risk and reward unit for early game instead of specialized squad or light vehicle.

PE ATHT anyone? Now THAT was a sniper done right, potent, very counterable, fun to play with and unique.


So I lay in bed wondering what could change the snipers role but still keep them useful, and came up with this.
I'll first lay out the changes, then explain my reasoning for them.


-----
All snipers now cause 4 seconds of suppression to the unit they fire upon
All snipers deal 20 damage per shot to infantry.
All snipers have a cost reduction to 240 MP.
All snipers receive a critical hit chance on targets below 75% hp.
All snipers have a 400% damage bonus to units in garrisons.
-----

Now let me explain.
The key revolves around the mechanic that keeps a suppressed unit suppressed as long as it is taking continuous fire. When the sniper fires upon a unit, it no longer acts as a primary damage dealer, instead, you must capitalize on the momentary suppression by moving up one of your mobile infantry squads to keep the enemy unit pinned down.

This is important especially for the wehr and soviets. For the wehr, it gives them a tool to be more aggressive on the offense, as now you can suppress a defending squad and move up with your infantry without having to wait for a mortar to get into place to lay smoke. For the soviets, it gives them an alternative on the defense to the maxim which is locked behind tier 2(and still sorta sucks).

Because the suppression lasts less time then the reload of the sniper, the sniper will be incapable of keeping an enemy squad suppressed indefinitely by itself.


Snipers will have the secondary role of clearing garrisons hence the 400% damage increase to garrisoned units.

Because their potency has been reduced, and because they now require combined arms to function, it is necessary to decrease their cost as well.




Overall these changes would reduce the costs of snipers making them easier to field, reduce their potency but give them abilities that work well with combined arms, and offer a potential alternative to existing units without invalidating usage.
29 Apr 2018, 10:45 AM
#2
avatar of zarok47

Posts: 587

You obviously put a lot of thought into this and I would be happy to discuss it with you.
However, the question no one can answer, should be asked here:

Do we need snipers in coh?
29 Apr 2018, 10:59 AM
#3
avatar of Esxile

Posts: 3597 | Subs: 1

jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:45 AMzarok47

Do we need snipers in coh?


To me, the answer is no. But Reco squad such OKW Jaegers or USF Pathinders have their place in the gameplay.

The only thing I would keep from the proposal is making sniper only being able to snipe models below a certain % of life. The suppression proposal smell OP, remembering me old kubel.
29 Apr 2018, 12:59 PM
#4
avatar of Serrith

Posts: 783

jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:45 AMzarok47
You obviously put a lot of thought into this and I would be happy to discuss it with you.
However, the question no one can answer, should be asked here:

Do we need snipers in coh?

We don't "need" snipers, but if there's an opportunity for us to include a unit that works well in combination with other units rewarding a diverse troop composition then i don't see why having that extra unit would be bad.


jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:59 AMEsxile


To me, the answer is no. But Reco squad such OKW Jaegers or USF Pathinders have their place in the gameplay.

The only thing I would keep from the proposal is making sniper only being able to snipe models below a certain % of life. The suppression proposal smell OP, remembering me old kubel.


The idea of the change is actually to remove snipers ability to do tons of attritional damage, but still give them a good role to play. This is why I thought snipers should not get guaranteed kills on units outside of garrisons.

As for the kubel comparison.
My suggestion is that snipers only cause 4 seconds of temporary suppression. Snipers have almost 10 second reload between shots, so the suppression will wear off well before the sniper gets to fire again.

Also, snipers don't move as fast as kubels, and are far more susceptible to small arms.
29 Apr 2018, 13:43 PM
#5
avatar of ferwiner
Donator 11

Posts: 2885

jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:45 AMzarok47
You obviously put a lot of thought into this and I would be happy to discuss it with you.
However, the question no one can answer, should be asked here:

Do we need snipers in coh?


We have two original factions that are designed around combined arms, which means they need to support their weaker infantry with support units. Mind that out of 3 main support units: mgs, snipers and mortars, its the sniper that is most fun to play. I'm pretty sure everybody can agree that game was in a pretty bad state when mg spam was in the meta. Mortars are brainless and thus they don't really fit top tier gameplay. Removing snipers would mean these two factions are either left with going back to mgs and mortars or spamming infantry. Is that the direction we want to go?
29 Apr 2018, 13:47 PM
#6
avatar of Vipper

Posts: 13476 | Subs: 1

There is no need for suppression from sniper. Sniper could be designed as counter to support weapon critical killing only the support weapon while doing normal damage to main line infantry.
29 Apr 2018, 14:11 PM
#7
avatar of elchino7
Senior Moderator Badge

Posts: 8154 | Subs: 2

jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:31 AMSerrith
Because the suppression lasts less time then the reload of the sniper, the sniper will be incapable of keeping an enemy squad suppressed indefinitely by itself.


Correct me if i'm wrong, but that's not how suppression works. You can't arbitrarily set a time of suppression, you can just set a unit to have X amount of suppression to apply per shot. The time a unit remains suppressed, is equivalent to the amount of suppression the unit received, the stance of the unit (combat or not) and the cover.

With current RoF, suppression should be high enough to suppress any unit in neutral or yellow cover, because as game progresses, it would be useless once there's plenty of cover generated through explosions. What about heavy cover? It would be useless due to RoF. Even an MG42 can suppress a single conscript squad, after some burst due to model count.

Not that the idea doesn't have merit, but it is something more towards a future CoH3. Which in that case, i'll rather they move towards a model on which snipers works with a %HP crit threshold so they must work in tandem with another units rather than been stand alone man power attrition armies.
29 Apr 2018, 14:25 PM
#8
avatar of ferwiner
Donator 11

Posts: 2885



Not that the idea doesn't have merit, but it is something more towards a future CoH3. Which in that case, i'll rather they move towards a model on which snipers works with a %HP crit threshold so they must work in tandem with another units rather than been stand alone man power attrition armies.


This idea has already been tested in WFA and people seem to use these sniper units rarely. In theory they have crit chance, more sniper rifles and lower chance of getting wiped. In practice, their performance if very RNG dependent and they don't let you win your engagement any better than another supporting infantry squad would. This is because they can't decrease enemy dps in whole engagement by sniping one model when it begins like EFA snipers were designed to.

There is much easier way to remove the "one man army" snipers from the game while keeping their support role. All one needs to do is making them slightly slower than other infantry, so they can't soft retreat when unsupported.
29 Apr 2018, 15:54 PM
#9
avatar of ZombiFrancis

Posts: 2742



We have two original factions that are designed around combined arms, which means they need to support their weaker infantry with support units. Mind that out of 3 main support units: mgs, snipers and mortars, its the sniper that is most fun to play. I'm pretty sure everybody can agree that game was in a pretty bad state when mg spam was in the meta. Mortars are brainless and thus they don't really fit top tier gameplay. Removing snipers would mean these two factions are either left with going back to mgs and mortars or spamming infantry. Is that the direction we want to go?


I would say we've got about 0.5 factions left designed around combined arms. Even Ostheer has been increasingly punished for team weapon play; they already are pushed into spamming infantry or mgs/mortars. And against the arsenal of the three allied factions, the ostheer sniper is really only useful against one.
29 Apr 2018, 16:12 PM
#10
avatar of ferwiner
Donator 11

Posts: 2885



I would say we've got about 0.5 factions left designed around combined arms. Even Ostheer has been increasingly punished for team weapon play; they already are pushed into spamming infantry or mgs/mortars. And against the arsenal of the three allied factions, the ostheer sniper is really only useful against one.


Which means we should focus on returning these factions to their initial, superior design, instead of thinking about removing snipers all together...

Also, even if you are going to focus on sniper against usf, mgs against soviets and mortars against ukf, it is still much better strategic diversity than going infantry spam every game.

From the standpoint of strategic diversity the best situation is when agains each faction you can go with more than one strategy without crippling yourself (of course depending on what your opponent is doing) and when you can't do the same against all factions. This situation at least assures the second point.
29 Apr 2018, 17:51 PM
#11
avatar of thedarkarmadillo

Posts: 5279



This idea has already been tested in WFA and people seem to use these sniper units rarely. In theory they have crit chance, more sniper rifles and lower chance of getting wiped. In practice, their performance if very RNG dependent and they don't let you win your engagement any better than another supporting infantry squad would. This is because they can't decrease enemy dps in whole engagement by sniping one model when it begins like EFA snipers were designed to.

There is much easier way to remove the "one man army" snipers from the game while keeping their support role. All one needs to do is making them slightly slower than other infantry, so they can't soft retreat when unsupported.


Doctrinal/nondocrinal. You will always see units that players have natural access to mire than those that require a dedication

I like the idea of crit sniping. It suits the game more however i think they should have a "sniper target" ability that kills the model and supresses the squad (kinda like the ost snipers vet ability now that i think about it) perhaps a short stun woukd be better than supression tho due to the way supression works
29 Apr 2018, 18:32 PM
#12
avatar of ferwiner
Donator 11

Posts: 2885


Doctrinal/nondocrinal. You will always see units that players have natural access to mire than those that require a dedication


I don't think this argument is valid in this case. Think of pathfinders. The airborne commander has been in meta multiple times thanks to its ability to supplement usf tech tree. Yet, pathfinders seem to be used only in troll strategies.
29 Apr 2018, 19:38 PM
#13
avatar of thedarkarmadillo

Posts: 5279



I don't think this argument is valid in this case. Think of pathfinders. The airborne commander has been in meta multiple times thanks to its ability to supplement usf tech tree. Yet, pathfinders seem to be used only in troll strategies.


Iirc pathfinders crit at 40% health or something like that meaning the opportunity to sniper models is less and USF is a faction that any problems you have arw better solved by throwing another rifle squad on the blob over diversifying your units. Why add a unit that can model snipe and little else when you can have a squad you can attack move with the rest and snare and throw grenades and and and and.... You will find any unit that uses a different tactic than brute force will fall by the way side for usf.
29 Apr 2018, 19:42 PM
#14
avatar of ferwiner
Donator 11

Posts: 2885



Iirc pathfinders crit at 40% health or something like that meaning the opportunity to sniper models is less and USF is a faction that any problems you have arw better solved by throwing another rifle squad on the blob over diversifying your units. Why add a unit that can model snipe and little else when you can have a squad you can attack move with the rest and snare and throw grenades and and and and.... You will find any unit that uses a different tactic than brute force will fall by the way side for usf.


Yeah, that is exactly what I said. These units didn't work out, because there is nothing in them that is better than another infantry squad. Now if you had a real sniper doctrinally, you would definitely want it in the mix.
29 Apr 2018, 19:50 PM
#15
avatar of thedarkarmadillo

Posts: 5279



Yeah, that is exactly what I said. These units didn't work out, because there is nothing in them that is better than another infantry squad. Now if you had a real sniper doctrinally, you would definitely want it in the mix.


Again, i disagree. Cons are not rifles, penals (who should be nerfed a bit) arnt even rifles. Having access to a crit sniper might see soke use as diverse builds. In the OP it was suggested to drop to 240mp. So a con and a sniper might be better than 2 con squads at inflicting bleed.

Also units with ~40% health are already running close to having to retreat whereas 75% still woukd have alot of fight in them and starts acting sooner. Thats the huge part especially for units not designed to terminate through everything with minimal effort(see non WFA designs) and conbined arms is important.

Vet reworks could also see these snipers critting units with higher health to the point that a single shot leaves from a support squad leaves them ready to be sniped. It would be like a weapon upgrade but instead of fuel to unlock and munitions to arm its a manpower force multiplier
29 Apr 2018, 21:19 PM
#16
avatar of Esxile

Posts: 3597 | Subs: 1



Iirc pathfinders crit at 40% health or something like that meaning the opportunity to sniper models is less and USF is a faction that any problems you have arw better solved by throwing another rifle squad on the blob over diversifying your units. Why add a unit that can model snipe and little else when you can have a squad you can attack move with the rest and snare and throw grenades and and and and.... You will find any unit that uses a different tactic than brute force will fall by the way side for usf.


hum actually a Pathfinder does bring something Rifle can't, vision. But I agree they are lacklust but this has more to do with the Faction itself than the unit.
30 Apr 2018, 02:39 AM
#17
avatar of MiltToast

Posts: 11

jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 10:31 AMSerrith
Snipers are potentially getting a bit of a shake up in the newest patch, particularly the soviet sniper and naturally there is heated discussion about it. One thing I read stuck out in my mind though, and that was this:



So I lay in bed wondering what could change the snipers role but still keep them useful, and came up with this.
I'll first lay out the changes, then explain my reasoning for them.


-----
All snipers now cause 4 seconds of suppression to the unit they fire upon
All snipers deal 20 damage per shot to infantry.
All snipers have a cost reduction to 240 MP.
All snipers receive a critical hit chance on targets below 75% hp.
All snipers have a 400% damage bonus to units in garrisons.
-----

Now let me explain.
The key revolves around the mechanic that keeps a suppressed unit suppressed as long as it is taking continuous fire. When the sniper fires upon a unit, it no longer acts as a primary damage dealer, instead, you must capitalize on the momentary suppression by moving up one of your mobile infantry squads to keep the enemy unit pinned down.

This is important especially for the wehr and soviets. For the wehr, it gives them a tool to be more aggressive on the offense, as now you can suppress a defending squad and move up with your infantry without having to wait for a mortar to get into place to lay smoke. For the soviets, it gives them an alternative on the defense to the maxim which is locked behind tier 2(and still sorta sucks).

Because the suppression lasts less time then the reload of the sniper, the sniper will be incapable of keeping an enemy squad suppressed indefinitely by itself.


Snipers will have the secondary role of clearing garrisons hence the 400% damage increase to garrisoned units.

Because their potency has been reduced, and because they now require combined arms to function, it is necessary to decrease their cost as well.




Overall these changes would reduce the costs of snipers making them easier to field, reduce their potency but give them abilities that work well with combined arms, and offer a potential alternative to existing units without invalidating usage.
30 Apr 2018, 02:42 AM
#18
avatar of MiltToast

Posts: 11

Just a thought is to limit them to 1 sniper, like they do heavy tanks...

Or is that still too much?

It can be pretty frustrating if the enemy gets multiple snipers...
30 Apr 2018, 03:18 AM
#19
avatar of TheGentlemenTroll

Posts: 1044 | Subs: 1



This idea has already been tested in WFA and people seem to use these sniper units rarely. In theory they have crit chance, more sniper rifles and lower chance of getting wiped. In practice, their performance if very RNG dependent and they don't let you win your engagement any better than another supporting infantry squad would. This is because they can't decrease enemy dps in whole engagement by sniping one model when it begins like EFA snipers were designed to.

There is much easier way to remove the "one man army" snipers from the game while keeping their support role. All one needs to do is making them slightly slower than other infantry, so they can't soft retreat when unsupported.


I believe both PF and LJ got used a bit when both those doctrines were more meta based. Not too sure about PFs but LJs were big when scavenge was OP.

Barfinders can be great though.
30 Apr 2018, 08:20 AM
#20
avatar of zarok47

Posts: 587



We have two original factions that are designed around combined arms, which means they need to support their weaker infantry with support units. Removing snipers would mean these two factions are either left with going back to mgs and mortars or spamming infantry. Is that the direction we want to go?


That does not follow at all.
Infact, the opposite is true since ostheer played for about 2 years without a sniper since it's hp was only 42. Ostheer is not known for mgspam. Sov t1 is also not known for combined arms. OkW and USF are also not known for spamming support weapons.

Snipers are not needed for combined arms, they ruin it infact, when they hardcounter both infantry and support weapons.


jump backJump back to quoted post29 Apr 2018, 12:59 PMSerrith

We don't "need" snipers, but if there's an opportunity for us to include a unit that works well in combination with other units rewarding a diverse troop composition then i don't see why having that extra unit would be bad.


But it doesn't reward troop composition, all you need is infantry with snares and you're good to go.
Everything else gets hardcountered by the sniper.

In a game about veterancy, unit retention, RNG, positioning, flanking and cover, a unit that ignores it all (snipers) is broken.
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