Required Spotter kit to request sniper kit

[PoisonBill]

I think giving players tools to customize any role they wish to play as makes the game more interesting, instead of just having a simple kit/class system you can mix things up, have a sniper in a 4 or 8 man squad or perhaps be alone, or get some help from a spotter. It all depends on the players, the map and the circumstances. Don't make it to darn simplistic....

[Not_able_to_kill]

I think giving players tools to customize any role they wish to play as makes the game more interesting, instead of just having a simple kit/class system you can mix things up, have a sniper in a 4 or 8 man squad or perhaps be alone, or get some help from a spotter. It all depends on the players, the map and the circumstances. Don't make it to darn simplistic....

This is also correct.

Don't make the game too formulaic guys.

[Not_able_to_kill]

then again, is the mod a realism simulation or a teamwork simulation?

It's not a simulation.

It's an FPS with more focus on teamwork and strategic gameplay.

Project Reality will never be a milsim of any sort, except maybe PR:ArmA, but that is a whole different level of PR imo.

[Truism]

99% useless?

They let the sniper get in otherwise unreachable places through the grappling hook.
They have a GLTD to lase targets for CAS.
They are an extra pair of eyes to both spot for the sniper/CAS/INF. (Often it's whoever sees the other sniper first gets the kill).
Extra patches

Therefore, not 99% useless.

The irony of what you're writing is that the sniper used to have the GLTD, radio and extra patches before they took them off him to give them to the spotter.

Forcing someone with a sniper kit to stick to a spotter just so that he can provide the basic functions he always did is a very poor reaction to snipers being "useless" to the team. Right now the only thing a sniper can do is shoot things, which ironically, is the reason snipers have spotter in real life.

In other words, the changes to sniper and spotter made the sniper less useful to the team in the name of making them more useful to the team because of silly carebear threads like this one that complained about lone wolf snipers, and right now the sniper kit is only good for all the things that people have whinged about on this forum for years - long range fire. This is ironic because that's the main thing a sniper needs a spotter for in real life, not all the other things that a sniper is perfectly capable of doing (lazing targets, operating a radio to call offensive support).

In other words, the solution we've come to is both the least realistic and the least appropriate in reaction to claims that snipers are useless to the team.

[Not_able_to_kill]

Exactly.

[risegold8929]

In other words, the solution we've come to is both the least realistic and the least appropriate in reaction to claims that snipers are useless to the team.

Least realistic? No. Snipers almost always have spotters and thus go in a two-man team. Adding in the Spotter makes it more realistic.

Least appropriate in PR? Yes. As you mentioned, the change took away all the teamwork capable elements away from the Sniper and transferred it to the spotter (thus making the sniper less teamwork effective, in an individual way, although it is exactly the same when you consider the sniper will now have a spotter with all his previous capabilities).


Either way, I don't care how it goes between Sniper/Spotter. At least they have someone to keep them company atm.

[Truism]

Least realistic? No. Snipers almost always have spotters and thus go in a two-man team. Adding in the Spotter makes it more realistic.

The problem with this line of argument is that it's only aesthetic realism. Two people sitting together because two people sit together in real life looks realistic, but if the actual functions they carry out have nothing to do with what they do in real life, it's not realistic. Forcing snipers to work in a sniper/spotter pair looks realistic to everyone who doesn't have to interact with the pair, but the more you actually interact with them, the less realistic it becomes:

In the pair, you know it's totally unrealistic.

Communicating with the pair, you know it's totally unrealistic.

Receiving firesupport from the pair you know it's totally unrealistic.

Countersniping against the pair you know it's totally unrealistic.

Least appropriate in PR? Yes. As you mentioned, the change took away all the teamwork capable elements away from the Sniper and transferred it to the spotter (thus making the sniper less teamwork effective, in an individual way, although it is exactly the same when you consider the sniper will now have a spotter with all his previous capabilities).

Either way, I don't care how it goes between Sniper/Spotter. At least they have someone to keep them company atm.

The _only_ effect is forcing the sniper to do nothing but shoot. Given that all the QQ over the years about lonewolf 1337 snipers, forcing the sniper to add nothing to the team apart from accurate long range fire isn't a solution to the perceived problem of snipers not integrating into the team properly. If you're grabbing a sniper kit to, you know, snipe, there's still no reason to grab a spotter and there's also no potential segue at any point in your PR career into being an interactive teamplayer with lases, contact markers or area attacks.

To put case in point, I almost never see sniper/spotter pairs in servers, because, believe it or not, players aren't stupid. The spotter doesn't actually make the sniper any better at his job, and the sniper doesn't make the spotter any better at his job. What I see are the same lone wolf snipers and marksmen I always saw, and CAS squads now being composed of officers and spotters instead of officers and snipers.

I still see good snipers who aren't trying to roleplay their sniper as some kind of SF assassin assigned to kill the nebulous "HVTs" which don't exist in PR contributing meaningful battlespace effects to a team, like suppressing fixed targets, denying freedom of movement along movement corridors and denying key ground to the enemy, all the while sapping morale and tickets. I still see them in a wookie suit, dislocated from a team, and I still see them routinely achieving KDRs >10.

That's all fine. That's OK. That's actually much closer to what snipers do in real life (ie. realistic).

What's not OK is that the sniper had a bunch of parts of his toolkit taken off him for the spotter class. You have to view anything in a video game as a cost, a risk and a reward. The cost of a team having a sniper is 1/n where n is the number of players on the team, as well as the restricted kit itself. The player, the kit and the time can't be used for anything else while the sniper doing whatever. The risk of sniping is generally very low, but follows an undesirable curve where higher risk behaviour often correlates to disproportionately higher returns (for example, placing a sniper on a flank or behind the enemy's axis of advance allows him to fire on unsuspecting immobile enemies, which is disproportionately desirable in PR because the sniper rifle deviation code makes firing on targets which move more than once every 8 seconds (ie. nearly all targets who consider themselves in contact) impossible). The rewards of sniping are variable, but generally quite low. The kit has no way of actually killing enemies unless they make a mistake (you need to kill someone in the open, and then kill them while being revived, which relies on someone being stationary out of cover, and then relies on an incompetent medic and squad), and instead, all the rewards are "soft" rewards - denying areas, slowing movement, punishing poor teamplay and reckless movement by the enemy and so on. Almost any kit other than the sniper kit has a much higher kills:minute potential, and a far, far higher capacity to complete objectives. Basically other kits dictate play to the enemy and rely far less on enemy mistakes.

The issue, therefore, that I have with trying to force a sniper and a spotter to become umbilical brothers and don wookie suits together to use codewords with each other and pretend to be something they're not, which is basically harmless in itself, is that you double the input investment - double the player time, double the kit overhead, double the risk, but you don't even nearly double the potential rewards. Having a spotter doesn't come close to doubling the effectiveness of a competent PR sniper in shooting; if I were to estimate, I'd say having a spotter makes a PR sniper roughly 0-3% more effective by seeing more potential targets. I also don't really think it doubles the overall effect of the sniper in the hide because I think there's an inherent friction between being in the best locations to snipe (well concealed with view onto only a few key areas, ie. generally low ground with a few fire lanes) and being in the best locations to spot (command of the ground, vantage onto many possible locations where OS might be needed, or mobile to achieve the second ie. usually high ground, or just plain attached to infantry).

In other words, the current situation isn't realistic. It looks a bit realistic to people who don't know the division of responsibilities in a sniper pair or sniper quad in real life, and it looks realistic to people flying into Muttrah on a Huey and seeing two people lying down on a building, because it looks sort of like something they saw in a movie once and read about on wikipedia, but it's not realistic, it's not even vaguely realistic.

To clarify, the function of a spotter in real life (the "realistic" function") is the spotter carrying a book with the ballistics for every type of ammunition the sniper could possibly use, hot and cold, wet and dry, acquiring and ranging the target, and then telling the sniper what adjustments to make to his sight to hit the target to compensate for the combination of ammunition type, windage, elevation to target, absolute elevation, range, humidity, temperature, heat of the barrel and state of the ammunition. The one thing a sniper almost certainly cannot do in real life on his own is shoot accurately at very long distances. That's the one thing a sniper can do on his own in PR.

I'm not whinging that sniping is unrealistic, because I'm aware of the engine barriers to fixing sniping in PR. I do think it's doable, but I understand the enormous time investment required to fix it and the relative priority of it. If you implemented zeroing on the sniper rifles, you could add an extremely accentuated ballistics system to the sniper rifles in PR in return for a complete removal of the deviation penalties for changing point of aim. This would make solo sniping impossible while also drastically increasing the overall effectiveness of a sniper pair operating realistically to something a little closer to the real life effectiveness of a sniper team.

I'm whinging because probably the most niche kit in the game with the fewest uses was made less useful because people whinged without understanding what they were whinging about, and ironically, the changes to the kit encourage the behaviour that led to the whinging in the first place. The current sniper/spotter dichotomy is whack, the following statuses are listed in order of my preference:

1: Properly designed and implemented sniper/spotter system based around ballistics.
2: Sniper kit which is able to fulfill all of the functions of a sniper pair IRL with diminished effectiveness representing the capability brick as a single soldier. Spotter kit functions as JTAC/FAC/MFC with infantry.
3: Sniper kit which can only shoot on his own and spotter kit which has no incentive to be with a sniper except for roleplaying.

[risegold8929]

So from what I can gather, your argument against the spotter kit is that it is unrealistic (in every way)?

The problem with this line of argument is that it's only aesthetic realism. Two people sitting together because two people sit together in real life looks realistic, but if the actual functions they carry out have nothing to do with what they do in real life, it's not realistic. Forcing snipers to work in a sniper/spotter pair looks realistic to everyone who doesn't have to interact with the pair, but the more you actually interact with them, the less realistic it becomes:

In the pair, you know it's totally unrealistic.

Communicating with the pair, you know it's totally unrealistic.

Receiving firesupport from the pair you know it's totally unrealistic.

Countersniping against the pair you know it's totally unrealistic.

All of a sudden, by having two people, communication becomes unrealistic? Please expand on this, I'm sorry, I just do not understand how this has happend? Because there is an additional person (who takes over communications from the Sniper) it magically becomes unrealistic?

Also, please expand on how receiving fire support becomes unrealistic? Because there is two people? I'm sorry, I just don't understand how this has happend for the simple reason there are now two people. It's still the same gun firing.

Countersniping against the pair is becomes unrealistic? I don't even know what to think! Honestly? How has this got anything to do with the role of sniper and spotter? What's two enemies together going to change about realism? What the heck is next? Crawling becomes unrealistic?

The spotter doesn't actually make the sniper any better at his job, and the sniper doesn't make the spotter any better at his job.

Yes they do, and you admit later in your post, (even if it is only you're 3% benefit).

if I were to estimate, I'd say having a spotter makes a PR sniper roughly 0-3% more effective by seeing more potential targets.

Really? By having double the vision, you have double the potential targets, which should translate to 100% efficiency increase if you have perfect communication between the two of you. Even if we assume the Sniper manages to miss 3/4 targets called by the Spotter, it is still a 25% increase in kills.

Also, if the Spotter takes the role of communicating with the team (he carries the radio), the Sniper is no longer distracted by Rambling Squad Leaders and can therefore focus of targets while the spotter can translate important information to the Sniper in a small bracket which will lead to an efficiency increase.
Now that the Spotter is in charge of communication, he can easily designate targets via GLTD to CAS squad while the Sniper is constantly acquiring new targets for both himself and further targets for CAS for the spotter to relay onto the CAS squad INCREASING the efficiency of the CAS squad.

Just like that tip in the loading screen of maps in PR, "in the Battlefield, two is always better than one."



As you admit, there is actually one thing a "real life" spotter can do for the PR sniper,

To clarify, the function of a spotter in real life (the "realistic" function") is the spotter carrying a book with the ballistics for every type of ammunition the sniper could possibly use, hot and cold, wet and dry, acquiring and ranging the target, and then telling the sniper what adjustments to make to his sight to hit the target to compensate for the combination of ammunition type, windage, elevation to target, absolute elevation, range, humidity, temperature, heat of the barrel and state of the ammunition. The one thing a sniper almost certainly cannot do in real life on his own is shoot accurately at very long distances. That's the one thing a sniper can do on his own in PR.

He has his GLTD and eyes for this reason, (although ranging is not really important in PR, but it helps when giving the location of the enemy in relation to the sniper). Also, a spotter carries the radio IRL (oh, look what we have in PR) for communication.

You're "unrealistic" claims are wild, and I do not understand where they are coming from. PR has reflected the spotter as best as it can in the game.

Personal experience, I was the leader of the CAS squad on Burning Sands, and a Squad Member decided to tag along with Sniper (not that I was really interested but sure, at least it gives me a role when CAS is down).

Guess who found the first targets? Guess who saw the enemy sniper who had just reached a rooftop and had a perfect sight on my sniper? The Spotter. I saved the Snipers *** multiple times. While he looked in one direction, I looked in the other. As he found a few targets on the South side of the City, I found a few MEC on the north which he took down with ease.

By having a Spotter, he was free to engage targets without the worry of not being able to spot the enemy sniper lining up for a shot, or a sneaky ninja lonewolf going for a knife/close range kill because I took over his security. (Say hello to my Assault Rifle).

My incentive for playing the Spotter is to support the Sniper while giving targets to CAS.

I honestly cannot see what's wrong with the current arrangement now.

[MuffinMunchies]

Want more teamwork snipers? Give them their GLTDs and Radios back.

There is no reason to waste one of the precious few player slots (50 per team at best) by forcing someone to use a spotter when the sniper can fulfill both roles equally well, and having both of them adds no benefit. The sniper isn't a jack of all trades, even with the spotter kit's gear (which it used to have, sans grappling hook), and doesn't break balance. By separating it you only needlessly waste another slot that can do something more fun and more useful.

Everyone wants to complain about lonewolves and snipers who just grab the kit to get kills and the ability to say "I'm a 1337 sniper", but then we created a situation in which that is the only role the sniper can fulfill anymore, as was well documented in the last few posts. He can't spot, he can't laze, he can't do anything BUT look through the scope of his rifle. There are precious few situations where he can do more than just shoot people that way, and all of them happen in a full squad with riflemen and ARs, not a spotter.

Spotter is unnecessary, and sniper has been nerfed.

[Darman1138]

that's also stupid, shoting someone in the leg should not actually kill them.

Getting shot in the leg can most definitely kill you or at least knock you down for a while. If the bullet happens to hit an artery it could open it up and you'll bleed out relatively quickly. Also depends on if the bullets are pointed or hollow point and caliber as well as speed are factors. There's also a possibility of the bullet breaking a bone. Again, there's a lot of factors and we're only working with Refractor 2 so this can't be a totally realistic game when it comes to ballistics and damage.

[Not_able_to_kill]

Getting shot in the leg can most definitely kill you or at least knock you down for a while. If the bullet happens to hit an artery it could open it up and you'll bleed out relatively quickly. Also depends on if the bullets are pointed or hollow point and caliber as well as speed are factors. There's also a possibility of the bullet breaking a bone. Again, there's a lot of factors and we're only working with Refractor 2 so this can't be a totally realistic game when it comes to ballistics and damage.

Yeah, except that this is a game.

Dying from a single bullet to the leg in a game seems way too excessive, really.