Possible new feature for snipers

[MarKr]

Hello,

in a different topic Devilfish mentioned in one of his arguments that there is no way to select high priority target in enemy squad. This gave me an idea to make an ability for snipers that would enable you to select specific soldier in a squad to take a shot at.

The main advantage would be the option to target e.g. a soldier with bazooka when he dies, the weapon passes on another soldier but he needs to aim again (gives you 2 seconds for e.g. retreat your vehicle) or snipe the soldier who fires MG (gives you few moments before another soldier from the team mans the weapon) or a very specific case in AB HQ squad you can aim for the captain (without him the command aura doesn't work) or the sniper (to prevent counter-sniping).

The disadvantage would be the fact that the ability would be very micro-heavy because you would need to select the sniper, probably zoom in to find the soldier you want to shoot at, zoom out and do whatever you want to do next.

So it would be also very situational ability, not something you would use every single game.

As for other factors - I think the ability would keep same accuracy as the normal shots of sniper rifle (so there would be chance to miss), it would also have standard sniper shot range and would either be free with longer cooldown (let's say 60 seconds) or for small ammo cost with lower cooldown (15 ammo and 30 seconds) - these are not necessarily final features, just my thoughts so you have better idea how it would work.

The rest of the dev team think implementing such an ability would not be worth it but are not explicitly against the idea. I don't want to work on something that people wouldn't even use in the end so I ask you if you think such ability would be useful and if you would like to see it in game.

So...thoughts?

[JimQwilleran]

It sounds nice but also very micro heavy, as you say. I don't think I would use it often in the middle of the battle. On the other hand it could be very useful in killing right man of Mg squads and combining it with inf assault.
Lol sniper already has abilities that are never used - healing (the amount of healed life is a joke) and fast shots (who would risk enemy getting that close? He always misses during that ability anyway)

[Mr. FeministDonut]

My personal opinion is - I don't really care, since snipers were the support units that helping other friendly squads to wipe out enemy one's.
Ehhh, are you planning to fix sniper being able to shoot through smokes or misses when shooting HE shots?

Lol sniper already has abilities that are never used - healing (the amount of healed life is a joke) and fast shots (who would risk enemy getting that close? He always misses during that ability anyway)

Im feeling that vet sniper is always better at fast shots than usual one

[sgtToni95]

It could be a nice feature, I know about players who use manual firing on tanks to kill those squad members handling AT weapon, so it would be something similar.

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

Im not sure if it worth your efforts, you are right saying that this ability will be extremely micro-heavy, the only real use will be to snipe out an mg gunner.

[Devilfish]

I'd would be a cool thing, but as you said very situational. So I think it's down to how much effort and time would it take.

[MarKr]

Ehhh, are you planning to fix sniper being able to shoot through smokes or misses when shooting HE shots?

I am not sure what you mean here...Any unit can shoot through smoke but they have heavy accuracy nerfs when they do that. What do you mean by "misses when shooting HE shots"? What sort of HE is available to snipers?

[Redgaarden]

Snipers are op they way they are.... 140hp, it will literally survive direct hit from 25 pounder and still have 15 hp remaining. But i must agree it would be nice if they killed the soldier you were clicking, it would help me in alot of situations.
I would also love if they could buff the anti top gunner thingy on the sniper. My current experience with it trying to snipe a panther G gunner was catastrophic, first 2 hits misses 3 hit hits but doesn't kill, 4th shot kills the mg gunner, Lost 15 men in that time span resulting them not even getting close to the tank.
Sent 3 more squads, all dead before even getting out of max range of the panther G. That was the day I learned that it wasn't the top gunner that was dangerous it was the coaxial....

[Mr. FeministDonut]

Ehhh, are you planning to fix sniper being able to shoot through smokes or misses when shooting HE shots?

I am not sure what you mean here...Any unit can shoot through smoke but they have heavy accuracy nerfs when they do that. What do you mean by "misses when shooting HE shots"? What sort of HE is available to snipers?

Snipers are litteraly has 100% accuracy even through mortar smoke
Tank's HE rounds, ya.

[MarKr]

About sniper accuracy: They have high accuracy (85% at max range) but still suffer -75% against targets in smoke. That makes 21.25%...which is far from "literarly 100%"...I can check it in the game but before I do, can someone else confirm this extreme accuracy of snipers against targets in smoke?

About HE: I don't know what this has to do with the topic or snipers but OK. Again I am not sure what you are talking about. Permanent and timed HE shots are set the way that they miss sometimes. Single HE shot abilities are fixed in the current beta (people say they work good now)...so are you talking about 4.9.5 or is there problem in the beta?

[Krieger Blitzer]

single HE shot abilities are fixed in the current beta (people say they work good now)

Not with the Tiger1

Oops, yes.. I know it... I am already repeating it for a thousand time as well

[kwok]

I use smoke to counter snipers often, I don't feel they have high accuracy in smoke.

I don't know if my micro is ever enough to use the ability, but I can't speak for others since my micro is barely average.

But, assuming that it is easily used, the only balance issue I see is PE inf will suffer the most because of the general lack in sniper counters it has. I think the best sniper counter PE has is the SS squad which is a high and expensive buy in. Other than that, early game schwimms, flame mortars, any heavy artillery, and doctrine dependent counter sniping with a single sniper are one of the few only options. But then again... the PE price reduction might greatly change things as well... it's hard to think this through because so much is changing this upcoming patch.

[MarKr]

People say they would probably not use it very often so let's drop the idea

[kwok]

Can we get an ability that changes priority? So like support weapons over regular inf?

[MarKr]

Well...weapon crews have, I think, same armor type as other infantry and targetting priority is set against armor type so I don't know how to make them prioritize weapon crews unless we define special new armor type for them...which would mean editing all existing weapons in the game to add into TTs the information of the new armor...that would be a lot of work for little gain, especially when you can click on support team and thus make sniper target it.

[kwok]

Ah got it. Coh2 is nicer there then.