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  • Quite literally this very observation/argument has been going on since the original CS, and critiques along these lines have more or less led to mods/games like Insurgency, Project Reality/Squad, Red Orchestra 1/2 and many other less well known mods.

    Basically, the conclusion was... you actually can make viable games out of more realistic versions of firearms, and a lot of people (though nowhere near as many) find them enjoyable.

    You can keep a sniper rifle massively damaging but also gameplay negate this massive damage by further emulating other real world drawbacks of a sniper rifle: its actually quite difficult / essentially impossible both in the real and in a game to basically quickdraw and quick scope a sniper rifle after hopping around a corner if you emulate the process of sighting a scoped rifle and punishing or limiting some of the unrealistic physical capabilities of the fps player's avatar.

    You could make the reloading process more involved or time consuming for the player, or design other game mechanics that allow for and incentivize firing from a supported position such as prone, or using a bipod or a window sill or ledge.

    This approach does work, but creates a different kind of gameplay. More complicated, Less rewarding to those with pure tactile control mechanism proficiency and less tactical awareness.

    Anyway, ita funny to see this still going on. Maybe try out some milsims or tactical squad based shooters of yore, or some of the games/mods I mentioned if you wanna see how those games feel.

    I would like to think that at this point the 'CS gameplay /is/ realistic' crowd has finally given up and realized they actually just like old school fps combat with realistic looking settings and weapons, but not actually realistic gameplay mechanics.

    Note: None of this is to say that any of these kinds of gameplay are inherently better or worse, but it would be nice if gamers were even kind of capable of actually accurately describing the games they enjoy without saying obviously false things about how they work or function.

  • Even IRL snipers are hated. Part of their training is to pretend to be a regular soldier if captured to avoid being tortured. Turns out people don't like being shot at by someone a mile away who immediately runs and hides after taking the shot.

    • IRL real snipers do not generally run away and hide after taking a shot.

      They nearly always engage from either a distance that the enemy cannot directly engage with without either their own sniper or air support or mortars or artillery, and/or from a position of concealment and/or cover, so you generally do not have any real certain idea of where they are.

      CS GO maps are on average something like 1 tenth to 1 twentieth the distance that an actual sniper usually engages from.

      Snipers generally remain concealed as long as possible, and only relocate if they believe their position is compromised, and even then, do their best to remain concealed as they withdraw.

      The actual behavior you are describing is more common to say basically these days any infantryman with a scoped rifle, or a DMR.

      While its common parlance to say that someone in window or nook or cranny of a dense, often urban combat setting is 'sniping'... they almost always are not, unless they are engaging a target something like 2km+ away.

      There are recorded instances of this, but they're definitely not the common kind of mission an actual sniper team is usually deployed for, more often happening in 'shit has already unbelievably hit the fan' scenarios.

      Or, as was seen in Iraq, basically an individual or sniper team as part of a well orchestrated ambush or taking shots at a static FOB. This works because on average most cities in Iraq do not contain too many skyscraper tall buildings, and the cities are usually built on pretty flat terrain, thus there can actually be some decent sight line.

      They usually run afterward because they know they are at an absurd technological and force disadvantage, that if their position is discovered, it wont be long until the entire building they are in explodes, and also because running away and hiding is far, far easier in an urban environment than the vast majority of battlefields militaries typically engage each other in/on.

  • Except that if you miss your shot you are left exposed for 2 seconds. That's the whole point, high risk high reward (also costs a fuckton of money so even higher risk and the enemy team can get it) It's genius game design

    • So then you upgrade to SCAR and hold down the mouse button as you spray like an AK47 but from a map away. No risk all reward.

      • Scar is way worse than people make it look like. Costs more than awp for less damage, and most maps have no good spots for it. Also with the new cs it requires you to remove another weapon from your loadout, and all of the others are way better choices for 99% of rounds.

  • Doesn’t play battlefield. Can hit someone 2-4 times with a sniper rifle and not get the kill unless you manage to headshot every time or use the anti-material rifle, and even then that’s no guarantee. Meanwhile, someone farts in your general direction with an SMG at 50 yards and drops you.

    Fair to say these games really pander to certain weapons, and “realistic” shouldn’t be uttered in the same sentence with them.

    • This sort of dissonance happens in battlefield games because of how basically the games are torn between being marketed as generally realistic, include realistic graphics, but also want to encourage various viable forms of gameplay styles.

      The basically nerfing of snipers in more modern BF games happens because, while one shot one killing someone is fun for a mass audience, /being/ one shot one killed, is not.

      The actual mechanics of combat are not really realistic at all. But everything else in your brain is telling you they should be.

      But if they were, half of the gameplay would not actually work.

      That is, unless you seriously rework a lot of the gameplay, as Squad has.

      But then that means you need actual teamwork, and battlefield players still seem to be mostly in it for their KDR, very rarely engaging in actually useful team work.

      Basically I suggest you try out some other less popular shooters that certainly do have much more realistic firearms related gameplay, though that necessarily means said gameplay is fundamentally different.

      • I've got thousands of hours in the BF franchise, easily 10k+, so I'd call myself more than just a little familiar with the gameplay. It's wannabe CoD at this point with big maps...the "little" guns overpower LMG, automatic fire is far too accurate at distance for small guns and far far too shitty close up for big guns. Basically they've reduced hp to bullets on target in the shortest time with complete disregard for caliber or energy. You can get the drop on and be face f***ing someone with an LCMG and they burst with an AC9 and win the fight. Can't stand that. Might as well remove 90% of the guns, people only use a 6-8 of them regularly.

        Yeah, it is a big FPS, so that still means most players are lone-wolfing for KDR, being useless and hanging back sniping instead of playing the objective, or avoiding supporting other players for self-preservation purposes. Too many players working game mechanics to their advantage...but that's how it goes.

        Got any suggestions for shooters that maintain a level of action not disrupted by too much by overrealism?

        Edit: went and clicked thru Steam for FPS shooters, filtered for "realistic" and CoD was in the list, along with "Obama Boss Fight", whatever that is. Useless filters. SMH.

  • Am sniper

    Chilling on a hill

    Kill like 10 dudes

    They're scared haha

    Dudes suddenly find the direction of the shot

    10 dudes are running towards me

    Distance is closing and that was my one advantage

    Mfw:

    Or the opposite:

    I am a sweat.

    I don't care about gameplay I want high kd.

    I die over and over again

    But I get two kills before I die.

    I quickly check a third party site to see if my stats are atleast above 2.0

    I sigh in relief as I realize I'm comfortably at a 2.1

    Rejoin the lobby and blame the dog

46 comments