Snipers currently are massively overtuned

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
61

It’s a good thing that quote is regarding blessings, not snipers.

I see the trend of continually misquoting and/or cherry picking one line from me continues. Good job guys, maybe at some point we’ll go a single day without somebody doing this.

But, for your personnal problem, it is related to the network. Surely a part of the DT code… and surely a part of your own connection (ping in game).

Snipers’ fire rate inconsistencies occur offline as well, though latency just greatly exacerbates it.

As I’ve stated, my largest overall issue with their design is the lack of audio cue on spawning in, bugs/server issues notwithstanding. I do think they need other tweaks (Not necessarily nerfs) but an audio cue on spawn in would go a long way.

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Must say that I think that it would reduce their threat. So, I would not agree.

Sorry… misread it. Was thinking you were back to the topic.
But doesn’t change that I think that snipers are fine. The network is not. Yesterday I stopped playing cause I had a ping of 69 and the game was lagging too much and I was disconnected every 10 minutes.
Here, sure, a sniper is a big threat…

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63

You have to just ignore him and the likes. He does that all the time:

Trying to explain how you are not having issues with the overall difficulty of the game is like talking to a wall. He’ll just go on about the overall difficulty and how he finds the game too easy. :roll_eyes:

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64

Fair enough on the elaboration, although I’d like to note that issues like what I noted are frequently highlighted in other threads or even get threads of their own.

When I said “other netcode related nonsense…”, that kind of stuff is encompassed by this one, among other server shenanigans, like feeling like enemies are teleporting on you, melee rear attacks happening without sound warning, unresponsive key inputs, etc. Bugged behavior like what I just noted and you noted above is driven by netcode/server issues and have nothing to do with balancing.

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65

I would argue it increases their threat. When I know there might be a sniper around, I feel threatened and I play much more cautiously. It’s like hearing a Poxburster in the distance, everyone slows down and becomes very wary. It may make them less dangerous but it certainly doesn’t make them less threatening when they can come from just about anywhere, even behind you.

Imagine if similarly dangerous specials such as the aforementioned Poxburster or Trapper spawned without an audio queue and you only had the brief moment of their wind-up sound to react. Sometimes this does happen for one reason or another and it just feels unfair and frustrating. It’s only because this thematically fits the sniper that we find it at all acceptable.

66

If your threat level relies on essentially being a jumpscare requiring players to be 100% on guard for it for a 25+ minute mission, I’d say that’s a pretty crappy threat from a design perspective. Part of well designed enemies/levels is that there’s an ebb and flow to them. Snipers right now circumvent that due to not ever being 100% sure if there’s one up or not. You’re either always on guard for one (which is honestly not mentally health to be that tightly wound, especially for multiple rounds in a row) or you have to accept that you might randomly get shot because you dared to take a sip of water or some such.

That is crap design. If that reduces their threat, by all means give them something else. (As I said) Regardless of that, everything else in these types of games gives you a chance to prepare if you’re aware and understand the various audio cues.

I wouldn’t say it necessarily increases their threat, but I get what you mean there. Like I said above, if an enemy in these games relies on giving you a half second to react, with the ability to totally bypass your shield, damage your health directly, from pretty much any range as long as they have the slimmest of lines of sight to you, while potentially giving you zero forewarning you need to be prepared for it if the laser is not in your FOV for the second or so as it locks on plus fires, then that’s a pretty poorly designed enemy.

Imagine if similarly dangerous specials such as the aforementioned Poxburster or Trapper spawned without an audio queue and you only had the brief moment of their wind-up sound to react. Sometimes this does happen for one reason or another and it just feels unfair and frustrating.

Why’s that door open…?

It’s only because this thematically fits the sniper that we find it at all acceptable.

Yeah, when some of the counter arguments are just that “Snipers are supposed to snipe!”… Ugh. Beasts of Nurgle should also make the psykers go insane if they look at them, wouldn’t that be a fun challenge too? Trappers really shouldn’t be practically salivating over their hunt and using a gun with a giant crankshaft (or whatever that sound is), could easily make them silent too for more challenge. I sure don’t miss the era of silent hookrats in VT2. Game design and thematic design should coexist when possible, but when it comes to making something a genuine challenge over just being frustrating/annoying, they need to divorce themselves from each other. Having a simple audio callout when a sniper has spawned wouldn’t suddenly take away from them still being a sniper. They can even just use a similar concept to how gutter runners (Vermintide) fake you out with their initial spawn callout and it’s not actually directional.

67

Snipers are fine.

Usually, for me at least, either you or your party members character (AI) voice line will warn you about a Sniper’s presence before you can even see them.

The one thing that I am still a bit confunded about is that other Veteran players seem to be scared of ‘wasting’ their ults.

Esp. in ‘Sniper Gauntlet’ and ‘Hi-Shock’ I usually hammer my ult as soon as it’s off cooldown (I have CDR on curios as well) so we won’t get suprised by baddies hiding around corners.

If we are pinned down by lots of shooters I also activate the ult so my group can position themselves out of the fire squads view.

I wouldn’t be opposed to a callout sound though. Why not simply use the spawn sound from ‘Sniper Gauntlet’ in all game modes?

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I wish. That’s pretty normal, for them to call it out as it shoots (at) you. (Or just never calling it out at all) Extra bonus points that the dialogue actually muffles the sniper’s wind up sound.

That’s not touching on them spawning in stupid locations, like spots you can’t even reach (and also calling it out as it shoots, again).

You also can’t balance a special around always having a veteran around. (And happening to have them use their ability in the time between a sniper spawning and shooting and also noticing it in the first place)

69

Yeah a lot of weird issues come from the change in server structure, in comparison to VT2. (peer to peer to dedicated servers)
Pretty much no such comparable issues existed in VT2, unless you had high Ping. High Ping in VT2 was 100+ and then you would get the missing audiocues and so on.

The completely f*cked up thing for DTs case is that, this sh!t happens even when you have excellent ping of around 40.

I have just noticed that snipers would very frequently get shots off with delayed warning signs or none at all. And this pretty much never happend before patch 11.

I even got a new ISP of over 30X the download and upload of what I had before so my connection couldn’t possibly be the issue anymore.

All this to say that I stand for “Snipers are fine, if they work as intended”.
Currently they have a strong tendancy to not work as intended and that needs looking into.
Snipers don’t need a “spawn-in sound clue” (if they work properly) and snipers don’t need any other adjustments. All they need to be, is functioning correctly and consistanly.

The way more overaching issue of poor server performance is something that I’m a fraid FS will likely never be able to fix, seeing as it’s a way more complicated issue to tackle and actually fix. (One might even say “immesurably complex ;)” )

I’d like the return to PtP matchmaking but I’d have to ask for a 4th compium dealer to believe that will ever happen.

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70

Not saying it is a problem, but just a general statement that higher speed is not synonymous with a better connection for games. More important for real time stuff/gaming is the route your connection takes and/or any packet loss/major jitter issues. For example, I have good speeds but Comcast is… itself, and routes my internet horrendously for some things, sending it in the polar opposite direction (IE: It routes absolutely all of my traffic several states to the south, even when it’s going north), adding ~30-40ms to pretty much anything at minimum, even within my state if it’s coming back here or going north. Ironically I get better connections to states in that direction over my own.

Thanks Comcast. /aside

Beyond that, I’m genuinely surprised at the general pushback to even just giving snipers a spawn cue. I guess I shouldn’t, because a good number of the people left are going to be willing to put up with that sort of thing, but ehhh…

Also I would kill for P2P back, I figured even before the game came out that this was going to happen since so many of these studios are skimping on quality servers and/or royally screwing up the implementation. Even major studios are doing their best to get away with crap quality servers/netcode. (Looking at you, Apex)

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The only issue with snipers is the sometimes quick-scopes they throw out, usually bc they were aiming at a teammate and snapped you mid lock-on. I’m fine with them doing a buncha damage bc, well, they’re snipers. They’re hella easy to hear. They have a jingling walk, a distinct ACK when they drop / climb, and characters have voicelines that call them out, and you can just dodge the shots.

They’re not nearly as dangerous as say… a single green eye that just broke your shield and is stunlocking you. There’s like a billion of those.

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most of the time if you get a no warning sniper a very specific combination of events has happened, i think it works like this: someone, probably one of your teammates, has drawn sniper fire. the sniper starts it’s firing animation. the current target gets behind cover and is no longer a valid target, and the sniper finds another available target before the animation finishes playing.

it can be you which causes the effect sometimes ie you peek, get into cover and pop out. the sniper will fire and hit the cover or whatever if it can’t find a new target, but if it has a valid one it will (expletive) smoke you. i am not 100% on this but i am pretty sure from observation.

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I know that that’s not how it works but the old one (satelite) was so bad that it was an issue ^^

The thing is: the sniper is in an excellent place, design wise, imho.
He is dangerous in part because you don’t get warned about his presence until he’s on the map / has you in his sights but that point in time is not so late that he’s unavoidable or unfair.

If he got a spawn sound, he would lose his advantage of surprise on you and then he’d be far too weak, if he stayed the same otherwise.

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74

Definitely disagree there. Situations like this don’t feel remotely earned on the sniper’s part. I don’t go “Wow, I mistimed that dodge” or some such, it’s just a “K, that was stupid.” It has nothing to do with feeling threatened by them, everything to do with them not being a satisfying enemy.

I think what’s getting lost in translation or ignored in my posts is that I want snipers to still be a threat, I just want them to be a more consistent threat. Adding a spawn in queue and then giving them something like a debuff while aiming at someone that makes them a priority target for shooters would still make them a more reliable threat punishing being out of position without making them 100% contingent on landing a shot out of the blue relying on somebody letting their guard down for under a second.

The other part that’s getting ignored:

The thing is: the sniper is in an excellent place, design wise, imho.

He breaks the rules of literally every other special in every other L4D-like. Every single special enemy has spawn in queues, from L4D, to VT, to B4B, to every other special in Darktide. The sniper is the only unit who doesn’t. Even beyond that, there’s a reliable lack of a chance to interact with it in general, everything comes down to a single half second on the whole. (Barring times it’s sitting around a corner with its laser out, many times it doesn’t do that though) The fact that it relies on a 360 no scope most of the time to land shots is frankly just lame.

If I had to guess (assuming it wasn’t intentional or it’s not bugged), it’s because of the way the snipers tend to act more like ambient spawns on the whole, they don’t typically actively chase after people until aggroed (though all they seem to require is line of sight, versus audio for normal enemies), so playtesters might have intentionally tried to hunt down the sniper when hearing a queue/stopped moving forward entirely only for the sniper to be camping up ahead in turn, resulting in a stalemate. Perhaps I’m giving them too much credit though.

I know I sound like a broken record, but ultimately I’m wanting the game to be, bluntly, more fun, regardless of your feelings on balance. If anything I’d ultimately want the snipers to be more threatening on the whole, since right now they’re mostly not a threat, and rely on random surprise jumps every few matches that feel more like the game is trying to cheese me than a legitimate enemy.

75

But that is exactly what happened.
You were under no pressure from other enemies (wouldn’t call that sniper in front of you a threat), had free space to move around and you mistimed your dodge.
You did not pay attention and did not react to the thread properly, so you got punished.

76

Snipers are fine.

Snipers add challenge. Challenge is fun.

Snipers are easily managed by not rushing and paying attention before rushing into a new room.

Snipers are easily dodged with practice.
At a certain point in your darktide career, dodging snipers becomes muscle-memory and you will be able to do it easily, even during horde fights.

You just gotta stick with it rather than asking for snipers to be changed because you don’t enjoy them right now.

Have you considered that there are many other players who enjoy the challenge posed by snipers as it is right now?

Why do you think you are entitled to take away that fun?

If you do not enjoy it, then surely that is a YOU problem?

77

And once again the entire rest of my post is ignored in favor of an attempt at a ‘gotcha.’ I think I’m done if you guys are going to never once respond to any of my points. Have fun with that, I guess.

I love challenge. I do true solos for funsies. I usually try to make games more challenging even on first playthroughs with various limitations because I find most games too easy generally. Snipers are not a currently a fun ‘challenge’ for reasons I’ve already said multiple times. Please do not assume that all challenge is good challenge.

I’m reminded of the controversy with Elden Ring and the delayed attacks and input reading of its enemies.

78

What is your problem?
I responded to something that you said. The rest of your post is not neccessary to understand the part that i responded to.
Nobody needs to reply to everything that you say, to agree or disagree with it.

I absolutely do not care about L4D and i have not played it.
So why would or should i say anything regarding your (imo irrelevant) claims about that topic or comparisons in that regard?

Stop trying to invalidate other people’s criticism of your claims, by complaining that they did not address every single thing you said.

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My problem is I’ve attempted to elaborate and make common ground and it’s been ignored repeatedly. Not to mention attempts to gotcha statements backseat gaming an example clip of gets old. I always debate whether or not to link them despite trying to use them as clarification because I know people will just try to then re-weaponize as you can look at pretty much anything gameplay wise and find ways to criticize it. In the above for example, sure, if you want to be 100% then theoretically I could have had a chance to register it in that less than half second for the sniper laser to show and fire at me. I wasn’t expecting the snipers to be perfectly aligned for a cross fire (or there to be two of them, which is already fairly rare to have up at one time, even in HI5SG) and right after the other sniper’s awkwardly cut off wind up which already was wonky (Which is another matter as well) not to mention having had sniper still fire at me at point blank so my brain was still hearing that sound associated with the sniper dying in front of me. Gameplay clarity is important, which is something snipers have issues with right now.

Stop trying to invalidate my own by going after one part of my post that isn’t even the meat of my post. Again. If you disagree with my post, again, that’s fine, but doing so in ways that just come across as disingenuous like your edited snarky remark about L4D is just insulting.

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You do not need to expect anything.
It was obvious that there was a 2nd sniper, since the sniper in front of you was not aiming at anyone, while a laser was still visible.
The laser from the 2nd sniper was already visible for a moment, around a second before you got shot.

I responded to a part of your post that i do not agree with.
I did not invalidate anything but that part of your post.
You are complaining about something that is not a problem.

Apparently, you do not think that it is fine.
As i already explained, i replied to a part of your post, that stands on its own.
The rest of your post was irrelevant to what you said in that part of your post as well as to my response.

I do not need a reason to only reply to a specific part of what you said, but i was so nice to tell you the reason.
Why would i reply to you saying something that refers to a game that i do not care about and know nothing about?
Instead of simply accepting it, as a reasonable person might, you choose to get mad about it and claim that it is insulting and disingenuous…

Ok.

Funnily enough, you just did exactly what you claim to be a problem when i do it.
You replied to my post, without addressing every single thing in my post.