This was a very interesting video to watch for me as I've long held that Medic and especially Sniper are TF2's most flawed areas of design in the entire game. Medic because he's crucial to every...
This was a very interesting video to watch for me as I've long held that Medic and especially Sniper are TF2's most flawed areas of design in the entire game. Medic because he's crucial to every team but frequently nobody wants to play him because healing doesn't feel as impactful as getting frags does; Sniper because he OHKO's you without you even knowing he was there, and unlike the Spy can do so without taking many risks or being easily countered afterwards by paranoia.
This experiment shows that my intuition about Sniper was at least partially correct,1 in addition to the primary and very interesting conclusion that removing Sniper entirely doesn't affect the game much. Now, that said, I should say that I don't actually think the changes are insignificant. The author seems to feel this way and repeatedly mentions how small the differences were, but over a large dataset, small averages are more meaningful, so I still think they matter here.
Even so, the fact that the game still plays so well – in some ways, plays better – is still an impressive thing. I do find it potentially disappointing that removing Sniper seemed to concentrate players towards teamfights more. I find skirmishes fun and useful for variety, and worry that reducing that might make things less generally fun, but that's just a gut feeling so I'm not too hung up on it.
At any rate, this is just another indicator that Sniper does genuinely need rework in TF2. It makes me glad that mods like TF2 Classic have introduced things like tracer effects for the sniper rifle and thereby introduced more risk and counterplay to the class that has so little, but the class is still far from fixed, especially in vanilla. I'm still not entirely sure how best to fix the issues, but at least videos like this give very good data to work off of to recognize the problem if nothing else.
1. That is to say, players seemed to find themselves less frustrated and enjoy the game a bit more with him removed — something that rather indicates that Sniper's design is indeed flawed.
Not too sure how telling any of this is since it wasn't conducted in a competitive format. There are no other class limitations or weapon limitations, so there are many many ways the gameplay...
Not too sure how telling any of this is since it wasn't conducted in a competitive format. There are no other class limitations or weapon limitations, so there are many many ways the gameplay could equilibrate. I don't think the outcome here is the end-all-be-all, at all really.
Just to speak generally about sniper, and maybe more in the context of highlander, which the data analogs KIND OF closely--as a class it's not broken. If the player is exceptional, they can become a problem, but there are tons of easy solutions that a communicating team can come up with to address a good sniper. Spy is in the game for a reason. If the sniper is as good as the other team, it's just something to be aware of. Play the flank, and wait till the sniper is down to peek and push with the medic. This is perfectly enjoyable gameplay.
Edit: Looking at the data from the spy's perspective makes it fairly clear what happened. Sniper players go spy unless they're on defense, in which case they go heavy. This lines up with my experience of class proficiency overlap and offensive/defensive tendencies. Spy metrics go down across the board. Thier kill distance goes up, which is not favorable.. Makes sense. They have no snipers to counter.
If you look at the 6s format's class limitations it becomes pretty clear which classes are broken. The only 3 classes with a limitation of 1 are Demo, Medic, and Engineer. I believe the engineer limitation is just to prevent degenerative play. It's not a broken class. Medic and Demo however, if you were to allow 2 at a high level, the game would just degenerate to 2 medics 2 Demos every game lol. Demo has the best mobility in the game, a large health pool, and the highest DPS in the game. Medic makes your whole team invincible. It's honestly a no-brainer which classes need to be limited.
You're allowed 2 snipers in 6s, and yet sniper only ever gets played at last, and not every time. If the sniper off class rolls out of last after defending, they're reaching. It's a big risk. This is all relative to a team of 6 though. I'm not saying sniper is bad. It's just clearly not broken.
Anyway, I love TF2, and honestly think it's very well balanced. The medic's Uber is the main resource management of the game, so their life is gold. All other resources are aplenty. Nailing direct pills, sticky jump rolling out, and smart sticky traps are all VERY difficult.. Seems perfectly fine to me.
Edit2: I don't think your claim how people enjoy the absence of sniper indicates that sniper's design is flawed logically follows. It's a pub. There's no communication. Take spy out and people will say the same, and spy is truthfully not a great class.
So, it seems to me you’re looking at this purely from a balance perspective. That’s fair, but it’s not what I’m doing, nor is it, I’d argue, what the video’s author is doing. When it comes to...
So, it seems to me you’re looking at this purely from a balance perspective. That’s fair, but it’s not what I’m doing, nor is it, I’d argue, what the video’s author is doing.
When it comes to balance, Sniper is certainly fine, I won’t argue that. But what I’m concerned about is whether or not Sniper is fun to play against; here, I steadfastly believe he is not. More than any other class in the game, people get frustrated fighting against him. There’s a number of reasons for this – most boil down to little counterplay or poor interactivity between him and his targets – but I’m not going to get into specifics here.
When it comes to this, it’s not terribly important that these tests weren’t conducted in a competitive environment. Competitive isn’t the end-all-be-all of the game — just a subset, many kinds of which likely weren’t accounted or intended for in the game’s design at all. Pubs are a perfectly valid way to play, and I’d even argue more important to design for since more people play the game that way. In this environment, many people find Sniper unfun, and therein lies the issue.
Frankly, I also strongly disagree with your second edit that other classes would have similar impacts. Even other pick classes like Spy would almost certainly have wildly different results, simply due to Sniper’s unique long-range role and the issues specific to his design. Shounic even did a separate video experimenting with giving Sniper a visible line-of-sight beam akin to in MvM, which I think is the clearest example of his impact on the game, as removing him changes these same things in ways removing another class cannot.
Ok well if we aren't talking about balance here, and purely what's "fun" to play against, I can see where you're coming from. If it's the majority opinion, then I could see how redesigning the...
Ok well if we aren't talking about balance here, and purely what's "fun" to play against, I can see where you're coming from. If it's the majority opinion, then I could see how redesigning the class MIGHT be warranted.. I do however believe that this type of action needs to be reserved for egregious game design flaws, and I just don't believe that's going on here. Sometimes, you have to learn to adapt and deal with frustrating options an opponent is choosing. Maybe that's not how you like your games though.
I enjoy the challenge. It's a gimmick that can be pretty easily addressed. If I'm in a pub, and there are too many snipers or a really good sniper, I just go spy until they either switch, or spend too much of their time dealing with me.
Seems a little rash to be suggesting* game modifications to something that actually has counterplay, just because you don't think it's fun, but everyone can play how they want I suppose.
Yeah I agree with you from an anecdotal standpoint. Whenever a really good sniper joins a casual server it just devolves into "please kill that ultra good sniper or we can't have fun" which always...
Yeah I agree with you from an anecdotal standpoint. Whenever a really good sniper joins a casual server it just devolves into "please kill that ultra good sniper or we can't have fun" which always results in the opposite team losing since they're forced to hard focus the sniper. And since it's casual we can't say "just focus a subset of your team" we both know that won't happen. As you said as an individual there is so little counter play to sniper that he's extremely frustrating to play against. There's no other class in the game that can shut down a casual game as hard as a good sniper. Add to that that it just doesn't feel fair getting insta killed across the map. Spy as you mentioned feels more like a personal mistake if you die to him and you can respect that. But with sniper? "Oh you should've walked better" doesn't work against god tier snipers lol.
I'd personally enjoy the game more if quick scoping was nerfed since that seems to be the major issue with sniper, if he gets surprised by say a spy or a scout and he's good enough he can still win due to quickscoping.
To engage with your idea and not get bogged down with what I thought you meant or what I think lol, a redesign from your perspective would probably look more like soldier in overwatch. All of your...
To engage with your idea and not get bogged down with what I thought you meant or what I think lol, a redesign from your perspective would probably look more like soldier in overwatch. All of your "redesigns" have really just been nerfs, which isn't appropriate. Give him minimal damage spread over long distances, sustained damage, with slightly better mobility and health, and have one of his secondaries be utility, akin to the piss jar, or soldiers healing node. This would allow him to still fulfill his role, while not being somewhat uninteractable.
Still though, I don't think this is the right decision, as the class's roll would likely diverge to that of a scout/soldier hybrid. I don't think this is advisable, as the game is an attack defense game, and allowing players the ability to adequately defend is important.
I would be interested to see how this would change the game though. I think the medic would only become actually broken broken... LOL
Edit: Even with your suggested "redesigns" I think the medic would be a serious issue.
This was a very interesting video to watch for me as I've long held that Medic and especially Sniper are TF2's most flawed areas of design in the entire game. Medic because he's crucial to every team but frequently nobody wants to play him because healing doesn't feel as impactful as getting frags does; Sniper because he OHKO's you without you even knowing he was there, and unlike the Spy can do so without taking many risks or being easily countered afterwards by paranoia.
This experiment shows that my intuition about Sniper was at least partially correct,1 in addition to the primary and very interesting conclusion that removing Sniper entirely doesn't affect the game much. Now, that said, I should say that I don't actually think the changes are insignificant. The author seems to feel this way and repeatedly mentions how small the differences were, but over a large dataset, small averages are more meaningful, so I still think they matter here.
Even so, the fact that the game still plays so well – in some ways, plays better – is still an impressive thing. I do find it potentially disappointing that removing Sniper seemed to concentrate players towards teamfights more. I find skirmishes fun and useful for variety, and worry that reducing that might make things less generally fun, but that's just a gut feeling so I'm not too hung up on it.
At any rate, this is just another indicator that Sniper does genuinely need rework in TF2. It makes me glad that mods like TF2 Classic have introduced things like tracer effects for the sniper rifle and thereby introduced more risk and counterplay to the class that has so little, but the class is still far from fixed, especially in vanilla. I'm still not entirely sure how best to fix the issues, but at least videos like this give very good data to work off of to recognize the problem if nothing else.
1. That is to say, players seemed to find themselves less frustrated and enjoy the game a bit more with him removed — something that rather indicates that Sniper's design is indeed flawed.
Not too sure how telling any of this is since it wasn't conducted in a competitive format. There are no other class limitations or weapon limitations, so there are many many ways the gameplay could equilibrate. I don't think the outcome here is the end-all-be-all, at all really.
Just to speak generally about sniper, and maybe more in the context of highlander, which the data analogs KIND OF closely--as a class it's not broken. If the player is exceptional, they can become a problem, but there are tons of easy solutions that a communicating team can come up with to address a good sniper. Spy is in the game for a reason. If the sniper is as good as the other team, it's just something to be aware of. Play the flank, and wait till the sniper is down to peek and push with the medic. This is perfectly enjoyable gameplay.
Edit: Looking at the data from the spy's perspective makes it fairly clear what happened. Sniper players go spy unless they're on defense, in which case they go heavy. This lines up with my experience of class proficiency overlap and offensive/defensive tendencies. Spy metrics go down across the board. Thier kill distance goes up, which is not favorable.. Makes sense. They have no snipers to counter.
If you look at the 6s format's class limitations it becomes pretty clear which classes are broken. The only 3 classes with a limitation of 1 are Demo, Medic, and Engineer. I believe the engineer limitation is just to prevent degenerative play. It's not a broken class. Medic and Demo however, if you were to allow 2 at a high level, the game would just degenerate to 2 medics 2 Demos every game lol. Demo has the best mobility in the game, a large health pool, and the highest DPS in the game. Medic makes your whole team invincible. It's honestly a no-brainer which classes need to be limited.
You're allowed 2 snipers in 6s, and yet sniper only ever gets played at last, and not every time. If the sniper off class rolls out of last after defending, they're reaching. It's a big risk. This is all relative to a team of 6 though. I'm not saying sniper is bad. It's just clearly not broken.
Anyway, I love TF2, and honestly think it's very well balanced. The medic's Uber is the main resource management of the game, so their life is gold. All other resources are aplenty. Nailing direct pills, sticky jump rolling out, and smart sticky traps are all VERY difficult.. Seems perfectly fine to me.
Edit2: I don't think your claim how people enjoy the absence of sniper indicates that sniper's design is flawed logically follows. It's a pub. There's no communication. Take spy out and people will say the same, and spy is truthfully not a great class.
So, it seems to me you’re looking at this purely from a balance perspective. That’s fair, but it’s not what I’m doing, nor is it, I’d argue, what the video’s author is doing.
When it comes to balance, Sniper is certainly fine, I won’t argue that. But what I’m concerned about is whether or not Sniper is fun to play against; here, I steadfastly believe he is not. More than any other class in the game, people get frustrated fighting against him. There’s a number of reasons for this – most boil down to little counterplay or poor interactivity between him and his targets – but I’m not going to get into specifics here.
When it comes to this, it’s not terribly important that these tests weren’t conducted in a competitive environment. Competitive isn’t the end-all-be-all of the game — just a subset, many kinds of which likely weren’t accounted or intended for in the game’s design at all. Pubs are a perfectly valid way to play, and I’d even argue more important to design for since more people play the game that way. In this environment, many people find Sniper unfun, and therein lies the issue.
Frankly, I also strongly disagree with your second edit that other classes would have similar impacts. Even other pick classes like Spy would almost certainly have wildly different results, simply due to Sniper’s unique long-range role and the issues specific to his design. Shounic even did a separate video experimenting with giving Sniper a visible line-of-sight beam akin to in MvM, which I think is the clearest example of his impact on the game, as removing him changes these same things in ways removing another class cannot.
Ok well if we aren't talking about balance here, and purely what's "fun" to play against, I can see where you're coming from. If it's the majority opinion, then I could see how redesigning the class MIGHT be warranted.. I do however believe that this type of action needs to be reserved for egregious game design flaws, and I just don't believe that's going on here. Sometimes, you have to learn to adapt and deal with frustrating options an opponent is choosing. Maybe that's not how you like your games though.
I enjoy the challenge. It's a gimmick that can be pretty easily addressed. If I'm in a pub, and there are too many snipers or a really good sniper, I just go spy until they either switch, or spend too much of their time dealing with me.
Seems a little rash to be suggesting* game modifications to something that actually has counterplay, just because you don't think it's fun, but everyone can play how they want I suppose.
Edit:*
Yeah I agree with you from an anecdotal standpoint. Whenever a really good sniper joins a casual server it just devolves into "please kill that ultra good sniper or we can't have fun" which always results in the opposite team losing since they're forced to hard focus the sniper. And since it's casual we can't say "just focus a subset of your team" we both know that won't happen. As you said as an individual there is so little counter play to sniper that he's extremely frustrating to play against. There's no other class in the game that can shut down a casual game as hard as a good sniper. Add to that that it just doesn't feel fair getting insta killed across the map. Spy as you mentioned feels more like a personal mistake if you die to him and you can respect that. But with sniper? "Oh you should've walked better" doesn't work against god tier snipers lol.
I'd personally enjoy the game more if quick scoping was nerfed since that seems to be the major issue with sniper, if he gets surprised by say a spy or a scout and he's good enough he can still win due to quickscoping.
To engage with your idea and not get bogged down with what I thought you meant or what I think lol, a redesign from your perspective would probably look more like soldier in overwatch. All of your "redesigns" have really just been nerfs, which isn't appropriate. Give him minimal damage spread over long distances, sustained damage, with slightly better mobility and health, and have one of his secondaries be utility, akin to the piss jar, or soldiers healing node. This would allow him to still fulfill his role, while not being somewhat uninteractable.
Still though, I don't think this is the right decision, as the class's roll would likely diverge to that of a scout/soldier hybrid. I don't think this is advisable, as the game is an attack defense game, and allowing players the ability to adequately defend is important.
I would be interested to see how this would change the game though. I think the medic would only become actually broken broken... LOL
Edit: Even with your suggested "redesigns" I think the medic would be a serious issue.