Project Reality Forums

Why, of course, all you need is a good HAT/Rifleman AT/Grenadier (if the Grenadier has a SOFLAM-carrying friend, he's as good as any AT kit) to pop that AA gun of doom.

9/10 times, your sniper will be busy sniping random grunts in some corner of the map. Much of other 1/10 of the time, he will most probably be busy sniping random grunts near your sector of the map, paying no attention to the big, bad AA gun of doom sitting on that hill. Only if you are extraordinarily lucky will you see snipers prioritizing, approaching, and neutralizing the AA gunner in the average PR game. Instead, that's usually left to the other, more common kits - scoped riflemen, the AT kits, auto riflemen, etc.

So, to get to the point, the rarity of a good sniper doesn't call for a dedicated sniping kit. Almost every other kit can do everything a sniper can do (even killing HAT, albeit at a shorter range) without the added vulnerability of the sniper. Besides, why should a kit be designed just so someone can reconnoiter an area with a rifle instead of binocs/SOFLAM, or so someone can kill a HAT at extreme range that will probably die before he kills a tank anyway?

I have two ideas that would make the sniper far more valuable to his side/a problem to the other side.
This is one a lot of people will disagree with, but I'm going to say it anyway.
1. Allow snipers to rape uncappables/base's. This really does cause problems for the other side as resources are used hunting the snipers, making the front line of the enemy side weaker.
A lot of people will just say 'well spawn somewhere else', but be honest here, how many times have you respawned back at base just to get revenge on the raper? I know I have, and while I have been doing it, I am of no real use to my team, so the sniper is doing his job perfectly.
I'm sure this idea will get flamed a lot, but in my opinion it is just the job a sniper should be doing, creating chaos, confusion, diversion and demoralisation for the enemy.

2. Make sniper rifles capable of taking down enemy rally points. Again, this creates major problems for the opposing force, and makes defense easier for your side, as all the squad minus the sniper can now concentrate on defense, rather than half the squad getting way too far from the flag hunting rally points.
The amount of bullets or distance to rally point could be set to say 5 shots within 50 meters before it can be destroyed. This way, snipers are a major problem to squads, but are not uber, because they have to take the risk of getting within 50 meters of the target.

I know both the above ideas create a class that are not really squad players, but in real life, a sniper works alone (with a spotter) and is not found right next to the rest of the squad.
A snipers job should be to work for the team, not with the team.
In real life he is a lone wolf, so why try to change that in game? It is called project reality after all.

I generally see the spec ops and sniper classes run off together anyway, so making them more likely to lone-wolf only makes sense to me. Right now I think they are more effective when used as part of a squad, which to me seems wrong, that's the role of DM, which we already have.

I like the idea of being able to take out rallypoints--maybe take 2+ shots though? The more I think about it, the more it seems somewhat unbalanced, but it adds to the lone wolf idea really nicely.

5 shots and 50 meters was only a suggestion, the actual figures need a bit of thinking about. 50 meters is perhaps a bit close as it is probably quicker to just run to it and stab. But it does not want to be too far away that the sniper is not at personnel risk.

I doubt there's a way to control anything but the relative health/damage of the RP and the round, but I agree it should take at least a number of shots.

Maybe a dev could give us his input, and let us know if it is even doable?

Good Post. I too have been thinking these exact thoughts.
Either get rid of the sniper class, which...lets face it, ISNT realisticly an option.
Or Make the Sniper so rare and uber powerfull that it can do a rediculous amounts of damage from a huge distance in order for it to be as notoriously powerful in real life.
You could design obvious sniper perches from which the sniper can choose to use and enemys that have played the map long enough would allready know about, and the mini battle could take 5-10 minutes dashing from cover to cover to kill the sniper.
Give the sniper C4 and a GOOD sidearm, like a close range assault weapon such as P90.
The kit was too dumbed down, if there is gonna be a max of 2 snipers on the map, then give those two snipers the good weapons so they can do their job. they are an elite super trained spec ops two man unit that are created for the sole reason of taking out large objectives and point defence.