The Case for a Sniper # Cap [ Edited ]

[SterlingARCH3R]

Most of us dread the lone snipers camping off in the distance trying to amass a high kill count. And we experience that in Operations for both attackers and defenders - you often find your scout teammates annoying for not capping, and the enemy finds it annoying to have to deal with half a team or more of snipers which causes them to focus on counter-sniping instead of PTFO-ing. It's one thing if there are only a handful of them; but often times, I see a disproportionately large sum of them (in BF1) that kills any sort of momentum the game had, if it had any to begin with.

So why don't we limit the number of snipers a given match can have? I mean, there's a reason why we don't have entire invasion forces of snipers IRL, or even a fraction of that - they're nowhere near sufficient by themselves, and they're a relatively small group within the military. Why isn't there a navy crew class, or an artillery class, etc.? Of course, that's rhetorical; but they're just as important, if not more so, and more prevalent in number than snipers in the military. Yet, at the complete dismissal of these distinct and tangible classes, we bloat the importance of snipers and leave them as an unrestricted class.

And yes, there's the argument for a more sandbox approach, thus no restriction on the sniper count. But a win for the team that pushes effectively trumps the high KDR satisfaction of snipers who cost the team a win because there are too many scouts in the back. In other words, I wager that more people will be happier to have an intense match and a chance at winning, over playing a stalemated game trading sniper kills.

But stepping back from all of this, maybe we've been looking at the scout class the "wrong" way, especially when it comes to fostering greater team play. We could instead view them like a "limited" class, like we already do with tankers and pilots. It doesn't have to be that limited, but limiting their numbers somewhere in between them and the core classes seems appropriate (e.g. a quarter of the team count; a full server would be a cap of 8 scouts per team - that's still a lot in my book but that's a good start). By capping the scout numbers in that manner, we won't have to lower the damage done by sniper shots (I've noticed that in Closed Alpha the bullets did around 51 or so damage for a non-hs), and stay truer to a scout weapon's damage stats.

And, to ameliorate other unintended consequences that this scout # cap may have, we can lower the number of scout-based exp requirements to level up. That means that it won't take nearly as much experience to level up your scout class, and so it won't be as much of a grind as the other unrestricted classes. Not to mention, we can still have marksmen rifles for the other three classes - they're some of my favorites for the medic class in BF1 and are really effective. Of course, you'd still have custom servers that can dish out as many scouts as they want, and this would only apply to certain game modes such as for Grand Operations. [EDIT: Keeping the sandbox feel of the game for other game modes is a necessary appeal of the game.] For official servers, a sniper # cap is, to me at least, a sound solution to many players' frustrations.

Just my 2 cents. Any thoughts?

[EA_Atic]

Very long and constructive feedback post, well done! We need more of this! @SterlingARCH3R

I personly disagree with the idea of setting a cap on how many recons you can have running around the Battlefield. Having the freedom of what you want to do on the battlefield in an open and controlled sandbox is what it gives the battlefield feel to the game.

Having too many recons I do see the issue in on having that on the battlefield as a team you should try to work together so that doesn't happen. But it could also be that recons are too rewarding to play to a point where you as a player have the feel of that you need to play recon more.

But then you don't want to discourage players from playing a specific class because they feel less effective or gain less from playing that class.

A random note that I thought off when typing this. I personly would like to see a chaos mode in the game that has no cap on vehicles at all and sees the world get unleashed.

I sent on the feedback to the team.  

/Atic 

[SterlingARCH3R]

That's a good point @EA_Atic and the sandbox nature of Battlefield is a great appeal of the game. I do love to play as scout, too, so I have nothing against scouts, per se. Maybe if it were a higher sniper count that would be a good compromise to preserving the sandbox feel (like max half the team?). Of course, since I play Operations in BF1, the sniper cap would help a lot. But yeah, in a lot of game modes, a sniper cap doesn't seem feasible.

Two things of note is that I do hear at almost every game the complaints against snipers (in Operations game mode), and the lack of complaints of having a limited number of vehicles (except for the occasional "you took my plane only to ditch it to parachute to somewhere", or the frustrated pilot-only players who are really good that wait for the plane to become available).

And, chaos mode actually sounds awesome! I did have an earlier request for a huge cavalry charge mode for BF1, but that didn't pan out. I think if there were a ton of tanks clashing against one another that would be a fun and intense game mode. And, no one would want to play sniper to boot lol.

[blackbeardteach]

question
where is the downvote button??
I am disturbed by the fact that I can't voice my disagreement with you.

I played many games that had classes and did a better job at handling the DPS demand

Call of duty for an example had a bad class system since you would play in a match where players wouldn't have a single anti killstreak available that let the enemy had their UAV up the full time or their Blackhawk, they never handled that and kids simply played on to get that "Good" feeling when they get a couple of kills( which is why the SAM was a good change).

Now overwatch did a fair job by hinting what's missing and let the good players fill in the Meta spot but did not handle the fact that a better DPS could be in match but they still let the noob play with you for 5 more competitive matches.

Final fantasy realm reborn had done an incredible job and had I can't believe they can do any better. Each mission has a class limit and guess what, healer&tank are always in demand and the game reward them accordingly by extra XP and currency.

But since this, a 32-64 player maps a more class limiter system should be in place, and look no further than red orchestra and star wars battlefront ( 2005).
It starts with first come first served and the rest is thrown into the riflemen class( or cannonfodder) and in order to get out of that either wait till the spot is empty( and risk AFK kick) or play the objective, score better than the average and earn that spot.

Now that is my 50cent on this and maybe you guys have better numbers and analysis than I do but I kinda doubt it after you guys losing to COD....

Btw I am pretty pissed off that you guys didn't compensate me for premium and gave out the DLC for free

[SterlingARCH3R]

@blackbeardteach  If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that limiting the sniper class will cause people to flock to the sniper class? And, certain players won't be able to counter snipe when they want to due to a maxed out sniper count, so they won't be able to take out a lone enemy sniper?

The sandbox element is one argument to preserve the status quo. However, if the cap were say, half the team, I don't see this really causing players to flock to the limited sniper class. And, players can choose to say, mortar the enemy snipers - with a sniper # cap, instead of focusing on mortaring a dozen enemy snipers, the support player can return to PTFO quicker.

Overall, I've been seeing the exact opposite and literally nearly every Operations game, players complain about the snipers in the back not pushing. In my experience, a majority of losing teams will have a disproportionate sum of snipers. I've noticed that teams that don't PTFO as a whole will cause other players to "give up" and start to snipe as well, causing the sniper count to swell even higher. Instead, if the cap were there, then perhaps players wouldn't be faced with low morale to begin with.

[blackbeardteach]

i meant the community manager EA_atic

[SterlingARCH3R]

@blackbeardteach Ahh I see, so you were arguing for a sniper # cap. That said, I do see what @EA_Atic is saying about maintaining the sandbox element.

The big picture that I think EA and DICE is (or should) be focusing on to make gamers happy, at least for the Battlefield franchise (as opposed to sci-fi, fantasy, etc. games), is to focus on these two tenets, in order of priority:

1. Implement immersion through authenticity / realism.

2. Promote sandbox game play.

IME and IMHO, #2 cannot conflict with #1, meaning that #1 must take priority. For instance, IRL, soldiers are pushing and moving as a unit. If everyone plays as a sniper, it's unrealistic and takes the fun out of the game for many players, as it doesn't feel immersive. That's where the sandbox element of unlimited snipers conflicts. Implementing a cap of 8 is still a lot, but it helps to push the game forward.

Another example going the other way this time is if we were to have say, aliens in BFV with UFO airships, then it won't matter how much sandboxing is done to the game - the issue has to do with the lack of immersion due to the advanced alien enemies. Of course, it's one thing if it's an Easter Egg (which is totally fine), but making it the heart of the game would be breaking rule #1, and many players will feel like they are no longer immersing themselves in an action game, but would now be passively playing since they are consciously reminded that it's just a fictional game.

If, however, a more open-ended sandbox style doesn't conflict with the immersive realism of the game, then they should be sandboxing the game to the max. That's where EA-Atic's idea of an all-out tank-on-tank battle is harmonious with immersive realism. Massive, unlimited tank-on-tank battles have happened, and are a very practical possibility. So there wouldn't be any doubt in the first place to ruin one's immersion of the game at all.

And yes, authenticity is relative - I'm not saying that BF games are supposed to be as realistic as possible; but rather, they are increasingly realistic relative to previous BF titles. Besides the obvious improvements in graphics, one prime example is that with BFV we now have attrition and no longer have aura effects to reload and heal. Examples such as that, the longer revive mechanism, etc. are why I can guarantee that the next BF title after BFV will be relatively more realistic (save for any BF titles that may be set in the future, of course). This whole thing is also why COD Infinite Warfare had such a huge backlash: gamers wanted a more realistic and immersive boots on the ground game, but rule #1 was broken.

Just my 2 cents.

[SterlingARCH3R]

Thank goodness for attrition so that scouts don't camp all day - but that's more of a temporary fix, like applying bandaid to an open wound. I do see that many players via posts on this forum are saying that scouts are still OP. That may be because of the now, non-random shot distribution.

Going back to one of my original points, I think that a sniper # cap wouldn't have a major negative feedback post launch. To test this theory, DICE / EA can literally promote this idea via special servers like we have with "Friday Night Battlefield". You'd obviously name it something else that makes it very clear. You can see how popular it is compared to other servers. You'd also have to advertise this on the main page so that people see it. 

[eI-nombre]

A sniper limiter is desperately needed in bf1. In the bfv alpha and beta, it hasn't seemed so bad but it's very early days. Really there just needs to be far more server controls for admins and mods like there have been in previous titles. Why they ditched them for bf1 is a complete mystery to me. Class caps, weapon caps, ability to kick or ban players, vehicle caps...all this type of stuff should be available for people to customise their servers the way they want to.

[2042isNotBF]

@EA_Atic 

I did play a BFV game 2x with way to many snipers it was nothing but spawn die and not just for me, we could not stay alive long enough to work as a team it was bad and people just quit the game. The thing I hated on BFV was we could not spot them and could not stay alive long enough to hunt them down and find them. I would like to see spotting for everyone not just the recon class. As I see it with recon class able to spot in real time and the rest can't it makes them OP as they hide and spot us and kill us from a longer range and as they are farther away we don't know where it came from as the red outline only works if they are near you. 

I would not like to see a cap on recon all I want is 3D spotting back for everyone and not just recon class. BFV felt more like hardcore with no spotting and I don't see this as a good thing at all for reg mode. As well as spotting now for other classes just shows past area the enemy was in so you end up with a bunch of spam markers on the map and this is very bad. This is just my view on it with over 100hrs in the 2 alphas and 1 beta.