Disparity in Weapon Type Scaling (why high level snipers suck and suggestions)

[stark olive]

Problem:
Snipers scale like other weapons by increasing damage, noise, recoil, and sometimes ammo per reload. While other weapons benefit quite a lot from increased damage, for snipers this is not really important since you are one-shotting most enemies anyways. This is because the sniper skill tree provides many nodes that increase crit chance, stealth crit chance, and tech, with the idea of raising crit % to high enough levels to be reliable. For example, guaranteed killing a low HP, no armor target with Skullshot to get +25% crit chance for the rest of your turn. My current build has around 70% base crit chance which increases to 95%+ after killing someone with skullshot (more because of kill streak).

There is a threshold damage that a sniper needs to be useful to one-shot at base, and then anything over becomes less useful. Instead, the auxillary stats such as lower noise, better optimal range, more ammo per reload, and less recoil become much more important to the usability of a sniper. Snipers actually become worse in these areas at higher levels.

For example, the level 5 legendary sniper rifle has 30 recoil, more noise, and fewer reload size in compensation for higher damage and longer range vs the level 3 sniper. It's pretty rare that you get a map where you can engage an enemy from that far away due to obstacles, and the super high recoil means you can't hit multiple enemies a turn such as with Skullshot -> Skullshot -> Regular Shot -> Rapid Ready -> Deathwatch.

Compare this to Assault Rifles, which seems to be the best weapon type with high damage, full auto, good range, and pure damage on some blueprints like the dragonroar

Solution ideas:

• introduce nodes in the Sniper skill tree (as separate from the crit path as possible) that decreases noise and recoil
• skewer shot: make each sniper shot an arc shot with a very small arc such that overkill damage is carried through to the one after

Skewer shot would be different from full auto since you only apply the overkill damage to the next target rather than a different shot to all those in your arc, and would benefit from the higher damage, increased range, and more crit damage of higher level snipers.

[sand igloo]

I think you do have a point here on the Sniper scaling. I've seen it noted a couple of times that a level 1 quieter sniper with a high tier suppressor is as, or more, effective/versatile than a high tier sniper in general. That does feel off.

I want to caution one note here regarding the lack of 'hard targets' on average currently. If high tier snipers are part anti-material rifle in concept as part of their scaling, then as we get more drones or heavy armor opponents in the mix (or anything with active Crit suppression while armored, which I fully expect may be in the mix going forward), that would counter some of your arguments here pretty significantly I think.

Saying that, I think your assessment given what we can compare to right now, is pretty accurate.

I like the 'pass through' solution you propose and think that could also then be applied to shotguns as another loud and nasty option (always good to look for build once, use often structures imho). It fits the motif but I have to admit is likely still pretty limited. Even if not pass through as you describe, more 'puncture' like on the Rail Dart and Railguns (I'm theorizing) so cover is non-protective. There are options here.

Would it be more contained and 'Sniper Rifle Specific' if their noise value wasn't climbing at the same rate as with other items (or much more shallowly than currently, if they already don't follow the same curve?) Higher rifles naturally being built for greater built in compensation?

I think AP efficiencies at the Same damage would also be potentially more on point, if noisy. Sure, makre more noise per shot but making more shots is a good trade off consideration.

I'm not sure I have an answer I like here yet, but I agree with you this could use some tweaking as the current progression does feel misaligned with the gameplay intentions for snipers and firearms relationship in general.

Good call out on this, thanks for the thread.

[stark olive]

I think harder targets may not be suitable for snipers as they are. Against drones, even if you crit you are not killing them in one hit due to their high armor and HP. You need either:

• pure damage
• armor shredding via multiple hits since you can only shred 1 point of armor per shot
• anti-drone abilities like for scourge and agentX

Armor shredding via snipers is very bad because it takes 3 AP per shot and has high recoil. I have pure damage on AR and SMG while there is none for snipers

Best way to deal with hard targets is via smoke + melee right now since melee has extremely high armor shred

[cunning shoal]

Skewer shot is such a cool talent idea

Also I generally agree with your point re: snipers overkilling a lot. There are plenty of enemies that just cap out at like 350 HP and 40% armor, so you never need more than ~600 pre-mitigation for like 1/2 the enemies in the game.

[stark olive]

Yup, and one other thing to consider for increased max range is that often killing at long distances can be bad for strategy due to not having revealed enemies beyond that range. This can lead to unintentional alerting of enemies

[cunning shoal]

I mind that one less, since I can opt into it, but yeah you can Noise/Corpse in front of guards you don't know about yet.

[lime grove]

good point about high level sniper rifles not needing more regular damage or range. in other games, when there is what you called "skewer", I find it awfully hard to use. Especially for snipers who are a long distance away, the narrow cone makes it awfully unlikely to cover a second enemy. Instead, what about giving the higher rifles a much higher percentage of pure damage? then they can still get a single shot kill against armored targets. to me, that makes more sense than adding shred to a sniper shot.

[stark olive]

Yeah, the skewer is a cool idea but it would likely be hard to use effectively (although positioning would become even more important in that case so I think it's still interesting) - getting ways to introduce pure damage would be nice. For example just having more of the balistic damage proportion be pure damage

[cunning shoal]

Cone could be easily tuned FWIW.

Personally I feel like snipers should be good against high-armor enemies, but that may completely not fit the intended strength/weakness profile of the class. Conceptually I feel like "oh yeah, of course sniper rounds are bad against mechs" but also, those are high caliber rounds and thus pretty good vs. conventional body armor? IDK how you thread that needle.

I suspect Railguns are meant to do that long-term and be a contextual weapon-swap for snipers once they come in.

[stark olive]

Yup, I think for more targeted suggestions, we'd need more information about the intended use case for snipers vs railguns and the incentive for both to switch to higher level blueprints

[lime grove]

anyway, we seem to agree that adding ballistic damage and range to higher level sniper rifles is not helpful, while swapping ballistic for pure would be helpful.

[sand igloo]

If the logic there is pure is 'penetrating damage'? Then that sounds on point overall I think.

[lime grove]

yes, in this game the name for damage that skips armor is "pure"

[jaunty nebula]

I disagree with the premise here. The original post outlines a situation where upgrading to the top sniper rifle does not make sense. But that is only true with a particular sniper build and playstyle. Not everyone plays that way and they don't have to. Dismissing it as a "bad sniper build" is belittles a player choice. They don't have to play it your way--it is perfectly legitimate for them to get that top sniper gun and play it a different way. This entire game is designed to allow many ways of buillding a merc and a team, many styles of play. To suggest they are doing it wrong is insulting

[stark olive]

The implicit premise is that there is an objective way to evaluate effectiveness. It's not laid out and difficult to evaluate, but it's related to average turns saved per mission which comes from different factors per mission type. For stealth missions, which most missions start out as, this is influenced by the ease and AP cost of silent takedowns.

[stark olive]

You can disagree with evaluating builds on an objective level, but it seems other people agree with me that this should be considered

[jaunty nebula]

I don't try to "save turns" the way you suggest

[stark olive]

The fundamental point of the game is to have fun. I have fun when I become more effective through leveling up, getting loot, and learning more about the game

Other people may have fun by not caring about effectiveness

That is fine

This entire thread is only for those who care about being more "effective", which boils down to being able to clear missions more easily / quicker

[jaunty nebula]

so I'm not welcome here?

[stark olive]

And I imagine that's a large part of the player base of a tactical shooter gamer

You are welcome, but we disagree on how to have fun in this game so I don't think there's much we can talk about

[lime grove]

maybe this thread should go on "slow" mode for a little while?

[stark olive]

Also I disagree with the essence of your disagreement being that the problems I've pointed out are only relevant for my build.

Your main argument for why this weapon is an upgrade is that it has increased base damage, correct?

Even if you don't try to maximize crit damage, you should end up with enough base damage to one-shot the lowest HP type enemies. For enemies that have higher armor or higher HP, you can't one-shot them without crit anyways, even with increased base damage from this weapon. The gap between enemies you can one-shot and those you cannot is big. This gap can be bridged by critting, but not by increasing base damage.

[jaunty nebula]

I don't generally waste a sniper rifle on lower level enemies.

[stark olive]

I see, that's fair

My strategy of starting a hit streak / killing with Skullshot to scale crit percentage chance such that you can also one-shot those with 700 effective HP has been pretty successful though. I feel like the sniper skill tree encourages leaning into strategies similar to this, and thus would like for more choices in higher level sniper rifles such that there's at least 1 suited for this kind of playstyle. This could come from:

• multiple level 5 legendary sniper rifles with different focuses
• decreasing the Outlaw's rating of level 5 and legendary to make it seem less of an intended upgrade, and more of a sidegrade

[crystal fulcrum]

Def liking that

I said it on the main thread but will repeat here, it is very common in our EA that we're going to have items and equipment that are out of progression.

That's really valid feedback, even if everybody doesn't agree with it. Please F10 for items that look out of progression and we will take a look at them and try to fix them.

The question on how sniper rifles should scale, as one shotting enemies is a common occurrence given the current HP totals and armor levels of enemies and lack of drones in the game, is a pretty valid thing to be discussing as well. Cool concepts here, hope we can keep the conversation constructive, and looking forward to rolling out some new enemy types soon that should further test these Waters.

[stark olive]

Sounds good - I guess one question coming out of ignorance is whether there will be choices within a weapon category of the same rarity and level?

I've found 2 level 5 rare assault rifle blueprints (the dragonroar and the longshot)

But haven't found any alternatives for snipers

[crystal fulcrum]

Yes, we plan to continue to improve and add more variety to all weapon types, within the rules of their type

Notably, ARS are quite versatile weapon, snipers are more limited. There still will be variations within powerbands

[junior yarrow]

Sidegrades for weapons or couple of extra intrinsic to mod optimal range/noise/ammo etc via crafting would be good.

I hope railguns or snipers would get something like skewer, sounds fun

[stark olive]

I could see skewer shot as a weapon mode like full auto, since you may not necessarily want to hit the person behind

[junior yarrow]

just use the cone from long range camera and done

[lime grove]

the idea of skewer is that the same bullet goes through both targets. Unless you envision the sniper with a little joystick making the bullets turn, the cone has to be pretty narrow.

[stark olive]

Yeah I imagine it will be a narrow cone, unless you flavor it as "ricochet" - you can calculate how the bullet will bounce which would be cool in of itself

[lime grove]

try gunslinger, they have a super-cool bouncing bullet ability. i've only found practical uses a few times but it's fun to play with.

[thick panther]

This is maybe a side thing to the main discussion but I also do not mind the idea that there could be sidegrades or even practically underpowered or suboptimal weapons for their class in the mix, given that we are mostly acquiring these patterns by chance. Maybe you don't like this particular sniper rifle but it's the only one you've found, so maybe you make it anyway and make the best of it. As long as there aren't too many patterns like that, such that the game gets cluttered up, it may just add a bit of flavor having them.

[lime grove]

that is definitely in the game today. there is a huge difference between a drop which is a level 4 rare rifle BP, and a level 6 legendary one. It's disappointing to have two level 6 legendary blueprints, and one of them is obviously worse than the other. It's ok if one L6 legendary has, say +10m range and the other L6 legendary has, say +50 damage; to me those are valid sidegrades. But if one has +5 range +10 recoil, and the other has +5 range +30 recoil, the second one has no real reason to exist.

[eager tendon]

I also don't mind having the lower level item be more useful in some aspects, like the current lower noise and lower damage. Maybe you only need the L6 sniper for the heaviest enemies, or you could keep the lower tier weapon if you don't mind needing to double-tap the heavies

[stark olive]

Are you suggesting to nerf the earlier level sniper rifles (either by decreasing their damage or increasing enemy HP)? I don't think snipers are particularly strong right now, especially in comparison to assault rifles and cyberswords, so balancing through nerfing some of them doesn't feel right. For the heavies, with the L3 sniper I can pretty much still one-shot them if I crit, and would need like 4 hits on them if I don't crit (since so much of the sniper damage is loaded onto extra crit damage).

Needing to reserve sniper for only the heaviest enemies also is kind of the point of this thread. In comparison, higher tier and level cyberswords are strictly upgrades, and the same is nearly also true for pistols (I haven't seen an upgrade that made it less usable), as well as for SMGs and Assault Rifles to some extent. The point is that weapon types with low base noise and recoil benefit the most from how weapons currently scale.

I suspect cyberswords to dominate at high levels because of this

[eager tendon]

I'm not suggesting we nerf them, I'm saying that if lower level snipers are strong enough, then why "upgrade" to the higher level? It's like deciding to get the latest version of Windows because the number is bigger.

I'm happy with how the Devs balanced weapons in ST:F. The higher tiers could deal more damage, but it wasn't always worth the trade offs. If you were going against some super tough aliens, then you'd want the big guns, but for everything else, the easier to use lower level weapons were my preferred weapon of choice.
Although, in ST:F, the level 1 weapons are awful. The sweet spot was usually level 3 - level 5.

[stark olive]

Yes, in the current balance scheme and for many sniper builds, I think there is no incentive to "upgrade" to a higher level sniper rifle. However, I consider this a point of improvement in the game rather than accept it as part of intended game design. This is because:

• there should be excitement in looting higher level blueprints due to expected upgrade
• other weapon types (especially cyberswords) almost universally benefit from higher level blueprints and rarities

[eager tendon]

The lack of looting excitement is a good point. If player's favorite merc uses a sniper rifle, losing that excitement isn't good.

Swords seem simpler than a sniper rifle. I think it is ok to have swords get small upgrades each level while the sniper rifle tiers vary wildly in stats and performance.

If the devs have an overall weapon quality metric and that metric is higher for higher tier snipers, I think that's good. Maybe they're overpowered. Maybe they wake they entire dome from the grave.

[stark olive]

Yup, this thread is just bringing to attention that the typical "upgrade" formula of increasing damage, increasing noise, increasing recoil, and (sometimes) increasing ammo per reload works much better for weapons that have low starting damage, low starting noise, and low recoil (cyberswords, pistols, SMGs, and AR to an extent)

Ideally each class should be equally as excited about looting a higher tier blueprint for their weapon of choice

[thick panther]

It occurs to me also, though, that if not all classes scale exactly the same with talents then you may want to limit some of their weapon scaling. This could maybe be done with stat caps, I suppose, though often I don't like those.

So for example, just to read it in terms of flavor, you might have an implanted-to-the-gills sniper who uses an old WWI era rifle because they have literally nothing to gain from fancy additions to the weapon. And another without implants, same level, who uses the fanciest rifle to achieve the same effect

Nothing feels inherently bad about that kind of arrangement to me but I know others have different taste

[stark olive]

That would feel bad to me because you are effectively being punished for getting implants. There would essentially be a low ceiling that you hit quickly either via implants or weapon upgrades. The consequence of this is that the character progression stagnates 30% of the way into the game, which is bad.

The tricky part is to not artifically draw out progression by lowering the curve, which would make snipers just worse than other weapons to play with since they'll feel weaker at all points, while simultaneously not having a ceiling that you hit early

And the problem currently is that we hit the damage ceiling pretty early with snipers, and I'm pointing out that snipers need alternative ways of progression

[thick panther]

I do not think it really is punishing the implants but putting that aside, your argument kind of pushes me along a train of thought that I had already been on, but I know people won't like the sound of: the problem actually seems like the early sniper rifles are too strong rather than late rifles being too weak

I cannot help but feel like an unimplanted, low level sniper should not just be able to pick up a low level rifle and do what they currently do

[stark olive]

Right, so that's related to what I said above - IMO snipers don't feel too strong early compared to assault rifles and other weapons. But if you feel they are already too strong, then the easiest way to balance in this case is to nerf them.

[thick panther]

I don't necessarily think snipers themselves are overpowered, but the strength you get for a literal one point dip, no implants, does feel that way. I feel like some of the power could simply be moved from the rifle itself to the talent tree, and the overall power would be the same. If that makes sense

[sand igloo]

lots of interesting takes in this. But one note I think worth making is I'm not sure snipers are the issue so much as Critical hit logic in general. Snipers really capitalize on the crit system but fact is, you can make sure any weapon is a crit monster as others have stated. So aside from making them about penetrating damage (Pure Damage by notation for CK:F), I find it hard to envision how to scale them meaningfully past big accuracy bonuses (and I mean big), or a bigger recoil penalty on moving that is mitigated on higher quality ones.

The current damage/noise scaling to my mind still feels a bit off conceptually as a default, though I respect why TB wants to minimize guaranteed silent death at range options (as they've commented with Revolvers previously, and for good reason).

I feel like there's a missing characteristic or abstract rule about Sniper use in general that muddies the water here, but I can't nail down what's nagging at me.

[stark olive]

You don't need the sniper subclass for being a sniper though? I don't think you get too much from just having 1 dip in the class itself?

[eager tendon]

What if sniper rifles had a weapon trait that recoil takes two (or more!) turns to expire. Maybe early snipers lose 25% of the turns recoil next turn, and the remaining on the next turn.
This would fit the lore of snipers needing to be settled and careful with their shots.

[stark olive]

The problem is that I don't really acrue much recoil from moving (up to 14 at most), but get like 70 from firing

So the result of that will be that snipers would have to wait a long time in the same spot

[eager tendon]

Maybe make it so movement recoil counts triple for snipers

[stark olive]

Maybe

I don't see how that would make sniper upgrades more exciting or snipers more attractive though

Currently I would say cyberswords and assault rifles are more fun to use and upgrade than snipers already

[eager tendon]

The higher tier snipers could have that as a parameter that is improved. Maybe level 5 snipers have some recoil compensation or automatic targeting magic that lets movement recoil only count as 2x.
Or back to the multi-turn recoil, maybe level 5 sniper rifles expire 70% of the recoil on the first turn.

[stark olive]

Yeah, that's in line with my suggestion of higehr levels managing recoil better

Currently it's the opposite, with higher levels having way more recoil

e.g. level 3 is around 15 I think while level 5 is 30

[eager tendon]

I could see it being both ways, if the devs wanted it to be: each shot generates more recoil, but the recoil wears off faster, so you can take more shots with similar recoil.

I feel like the snipers should have a larger accuracy bonus. Making recoil a crippling effect would allow the sniper rifles to have a large accuracy bonus, say +50% on a high-tier gun, but then most of that gets eaten up by movement recoil when getting into position.

[stark olive]

I see, to have the different weapons feel more different

[eager tendon]

And so any level 1 merc can get into position, wait 3 turns and hit the exposed guard with 100% accuracy, but only an experienced sniper with a good weapon could do that all in one turn to a guard hiding behind cover.

[stark olive]

So this would allow higher level sniper rifles to take more accurate shots per round

Which is fine from a balance perspective

But I feel part of the power fantasy associated with a sniper is being able to do a lot of damage with a single shot

Currently that's true, but the consequence of it is that any overkill is wasted

Hence why I suggested being able to skewer shot

[eager tendon]

I think wasted overkill is fine: the target is 100% dead. There isn't extra credit in murder.
Later on, there will be harder enemies that can soak the firepower.

[stark olive]

I'm not sure if that's ever going to be true though

[eager tendon]

Then the sniper is winning.

[stark olive]

Because for those enemies with like 700 HP that we have now, you have to rely on crits to kill them

There's a big gap between what you can kill via 1 non-crit shot and what you can kill with 1 crit shot

200 HP vs something like 600 HP

But there are enemies with 270 HP, 300 HP and so on

Meanwhile, base damage increases marginally

So the only way to kill those with 270 HP and above with 1 hit is through crit, and not through base damage increase

[stark olive]

This is currently not the case with mechs. They have high HP as well as high armor. You can only shred 1 armor per shot, and sniper rifles take a lot of AP to fire and only shoot 1 of them at a time. You are much better off shredding armor with SMG and AR and taking them down that way rather than through snipers

High armor comes in the form of percentage damage reduction, so sniper rounds actually paradoxically suffer the worst vs high armor

For an SMG round, let's say you do 100 base damage reduced to 30 by 70% armor, so it took away 70 damage

For a sniper round, let's say you do 300 base damage reduced to 90 by 70% armor, so it took away 210 damage

So yeah, percentage damage reduction for armor is very counter intuitive

[cunning shoal]

I don't think that's a flaw with the armor system. The systems to make certain weapons or weapon types "anti-armor" are already in the game if that's the intent.

[stark olive]

I took a closer look at the numbers for armor shred and formulated a more coherent argument in #1314120776789790720

[stark olive]

But the conclusion is that snipers currently are not suited for high HP high armor targets, which was the argument here

I'm personally no longer as invested in this argument because I've decided to respec my snipers 🤣 , don't think they are salvageable at higher levels

[cunning shoal]

Yes, that's accurate that a weapon type with no pure damage and low armor shred is bad vs. high armor targets. I understand the argument. I'm just saying that doesn't mean armor as a system is flawed, just that you don't like (and i agree fwiw) which guns are currently good vs. high armor

I believe that

I've mostly used them for the buff zones

And didn't bother with the crit-stacking talents

[stark olive]

True, it doesn't mean a percentage armor system is fundamentally flawed, just that with the current damage distribution for the different weapon types, it is counter intuitive for me which weapons do well

[cunning shoal]

yeah that makes sense to me

[eager tendon]

I think the idea with high end snipers is to deal so much damage the armor doesn't matter.
@raven condor has sniper crit shots over 2000 damage. If you take away 70%, that's 600 damage.

I agree that the simple % armor system is a bit weird, but it doesn't make snipers weaker. -- the point system and shred system does make snipers a weaker team player: they can't shred the armor for someone else. By why shred armor when you can punch right through?

[sand igloo]

Not arguing but isn't that captured in Crit functionality? And the crit represents a good sniper shot versus a general hit? Edit: I saw your notes on hit pools further down. Drones not being easily sniper targets seems OK to me, even in that representation. Or at least hard to evaluate without the other Drones and drone talents more resident in game.

[thick panther]

I wouldn't mind seeing the sniper weapons have a lower base accuracy with accuracy increases built into the sniper talent tree. So yeah, anybody can pick one up and if they do hit someone with it, it's amazing - but that only reliably happens for those specially trained.

[lime grove]

what if sniper talents converted sniper rifle ballistic damage to pure? i suggested before that sniper rifles should have higher pure damage, but maybe putting it on talents is more thematic. this seems much more appropriate to the sniper role, rather than using talents from other classes to boost crit and then relying on crit.

[eager tendon]

I could see that working to a small extent. If it is a moderate value, then they'd be overpowered and you wouldn't even need to crit to take down a tank.

I like brainstorming complicated ideas. I could see a base pure damage conversion at 2-3%, but allow this % to be increased by critical damage. This would make the critical damage multiplier count twice for pure damage because it increases the total damage and the % pure damage.
This would make the pure damage negligible except for critical hits where it adds an extra ~50-200, depending on the weapon and the critical damage stat.

[eager tendon]

@crystal fulcrum , how does this type of recoil-heavy balancing look?
It could help differentiate snipers, but might be anti-fun by making them more cumbersome to use.
I think assigning an accuracy bonus could help mitigate the recoil penalties to find a balanced state for multi-turn recoil.

[sand igloo]

I see what you're going for there and it does seem to make thematic and structural sense to me. I'd certainly want to have that considered as an option, as it means snipers in anyone's hands? Good long range weapon, capable choice. IN the hands of a Sniper, Capital S version? Delete Button.

[sand igloo]

I do also like the recoil argument folks are making here too. That feels right, balance minded and thematically correct. More identity on the item and inhernetly self balancing.

[raven condor]

So on the topic of recoil, I have to admit that It is almost a non-existant problem once you start cyber upgrading your ankles

I don't know what the exact numbers should be, but with triankles and some kind of minor recoil mods in your weapon (no matter the weapon) you can get recoil down to 0

I have Big Iron revolvers that I was able to cut down to 3 whole recoil after all of the modifications from nano-forge and cyber-ankles with I think a talent and some class nodes thrown in

@eager tendon 🙂 made my day that people remember that. Altho someone with a CK talent that is way OP created a 350% crit build that I can never match without duplicating his exact build and beat my high score

[stark olive]

Whats the base recoil on that? Recoil reduction has a flat and percentage reduction via str and other factors, so I can get base recoil from like 15 down to 0, but not 30

[raven condor]

so of course it depends on the Revolver... the higher you go the more recoil you get but ignoring that if you get a really high strength score (I have 22, so its a pretty big reduction) along with the right traits you can. I am not sure I got a 30 down to a zero but as I said I got it to 3 when shooting

it does not show that on the gun itself