From what I've seen in the videos and other interviews, the guys have it nailed just right. It looks like there's finally a develloper who knows what they're doing, it's tough to make such choices when these days sales are all that matter. Appeasing all players is usually the way in mainstream games, so they build in perks which allow players who can't get lots of kills in a fair fight, like overpowered snipers or air strikes and grenade abuse.
In my opinion everything that can be abused should be removed, and everything should be able to be countered. If you can't counter it will be abused! Therefor ABUSE = CHEATING!
And if you look at real life where most of these games get there inspiration there wouldn't be snipers in a game unless you have very large maps like Battlefield or Operation Flashpoint and they would handle like Sniper: Ghost Warrior (On hard difficulty). Since Brink is like neither of these games I agree that they had to be balanced down to light rifles.

PS: BEST QUOTE EVER ROFLOL

I stand by your argument 100%. Not every one has to play the same way. That's the point of having classes and body types, and that's only HALF of the style. The other is the way they feel comfortable playing. What I mean by this is if they prefer to rush, camp, go in a group, snipe etc. then that's what is fun to them. They paid for the game so they shouldn't be told how to play.

But if you have PS3, I could be that sniper covering your ass while you complete objectives

(seeing as everyone answered OP already)

tbh I always ended up being the sniper whenever i played with friends in games. They always optd for close combat but could not watch there backs for nothing.
So i would grab the sniper and play Team Sniper, which would be me picking off people behind or around my friends they missed seeing or couldn't get to because there engaged with another enemy.

So its not all about the lone wolf mentality being a sniper, but no one in multi on CoD are doing that. There sniping kills away from another player not supporting him by watching his back.

I find that most people who hate snipers are the ones who are constantly getting killed by them and not learning from their own mistakes.

And I don't know if it's just me but when I play as a sniper in a game, I'm being a team-player, keeping enemies of objectives and off my teammates.

Just because you use a sniper rifle, does not mean you're a lone-wolf and all about kills. Get that out of your head people.

Yes! Oh my gosh! That works so frickin' well it's ridiculous. My friend and I do that in Halo all the time and it works like magic.
He covers me while I fight for my life.
We plan to do the same in Brink.

Snipers can't one shot, but taking every enemy down below 50% health works for me as a assault type player.

they stink! n i hate 'em!

snipers can be the ultimate spoil of fun for everyone if they are one hit kills, not to mention being useless team mates (like in BC2), this is a team based game, and there are very few team based snipers

i'm not really gonna vote (no options i really agree with)

if you had a sniper class purely for sniping then you'd have to have sniper accuracy and power boosters ,giving players the dreaded OHK again. you'd have to give them some sort of cloak or somthing i think if you wanna be a sniper be either a medic or a op. snipers should be in the game and there should probably be a class that has sniper based powers, but a sniper class it self is a bad idea, 20 abilities of sniper upgrades.

Most people dislike snipers solely because they get killed by them in one hit - eg CoD series.

If executed correctly in this game (Head 1 hit, 2 everywhere else) with decent time between shots, and a clearly visibile bullet trailer, then it would be great.

You need to meet new snipers.

There are quite a lot of team based snipers. That is not to say we will sit next to you while you do your thing, how silly would that look, but we are always covering teammates and/or objectives.

What is there to learn about dieing in one shot if you so much as move to kill the sniper? Roll over and let the enemy win? :facepalm:

You cannot flank snipers when they camp in unflankable spots and stick mines at the top of every ladder :banghead: . Also, snipers camp in packs. It may be good for pinning down an enemy, but in most PC shooters I have played, snipers ruin the game for whoever does not get to the best camping spot first :dead: . Sometimes one side is at a clear advantage from the start by spawning at the camper site. In this case snipers are automatically unbalanced if they aren't limited to one or two per team.

In short, skill does not conquer broken mechanics.

I very much like the way SD is handling the sniper issue. Few things are more irritating in a video game than getting killed in one shot by a guy you can't even see, much less retaliate against. Team players or lone wolves, useful or useless, either way people hate getting killed without having a chance to react and possibly defend themselves.

Brink needs to stay just like it is.

I enjoy snipers in games like Call of duty. I think sniping should be in call of duty BUT Never in Brink.

I see it as if you put snipers in people would start to have a cod mindset and it wouldn't work, and besides the game was made so it didn't need snipers.

The maps are small and allowing snipers in would completely throw the gameplay off

I used to be one of the baddest, most hardcoe snipers on COD4 and MW2. There wasn't a match where I wouldn't use my sniper rifle because I loved doing it so much. Hell, I can remember the exact moment on COD4 when I decided to become a sniper! But, as shocking as this may be, I do NOT think sniper rifles should be in games like COD and Brink anymore. I've seen them get abused over and over. I'm to the point where I don't even have a sniper rifle in any of my custom classes because I just don't want to get lumped in with all these quick-scoping punks who have no respect for the game..

I think SD has it worked out, but I still see potential for abuse. Imagine a light guy who just scales up a structure that other body-types cannot. He could just plug away at them as no matter what they do, they are out of reach.

Honestly, if you plan to abuse elements of the game and act like a [censored], please do not waste your money on Brink because you're not wanted. :celebration:

That argument goes both ways. There are many players who can aim very well, but aren't good at coordinating aim and motion so CQB is effectively them having no chance to defend themselves, but you put them at range against another ranged player and they bring the guy down 9 times out of 10.

The only thing that will stop you from being killed by someone you can't see or have no chance to retaliate against is being able to see everything all at once. There will always be somebody that gets you because you didn't see him, whether with a SR or a knife in the back.

That said, there are "sniper" rifle set ups in the game and from the map footage that we've seen there is going to be good use for a few good "snipers", but people are worrying too much about them overrunning anything since there will be heavy need for various classes and weapon sets.

Sniper class?
Yes.

One hit instant kill headshot?
No.

Instant kill headshots reward skill, yes, but that also means profusely skilled players can go around completely dominating a match. Non-skilled players that want a nice casual game will suddenly have thier face filled with lead within seconds. They'll ragequit. I know I've ragequitted after one too many super-skill headshots or rocket juggles.

Rewarding skill also punishes those without skill.

But with CQC you can at least say to yourself "I need to be more observant. I could have killed that guy if I had done this, this, or this." When you get killed by a sniper, however, there's really nothing you could have done to prevent it, aside from not being in that area of the map. And that's not always an option either, whether you're getting spawn-sniped or objective-sniped or whatever.

If you seriously have that hard a time killing a sniper then maybe you should stop playing FPS games altogether.

Seriously, not that hard. Lob a grenade up there or work together with your teammates. There is always a way.

And if there really are unflankable spots in a map, shouldn't you be blaming the map designer?

In maps that are designed to equally use all playstyles, flanking a sniper is easy if you know where he is.

In maps that are designed to reward long-range sniping (Such as the stereotypical desert battlefield), the sniper will always win.

First let me say that spawn killing is inexcusible, regardless of the weapon or tactics involved. The unforunate exeption is that now games like CoD use spawn points that move to the action (which is, according to developers, for the benefit of mainstream players, so nobody gets bored moving to the action) and there's no way I'm not going to shoot a guy who just popped up next to me while I was fighting just because he popped up next to me, otherwise I'm dead.

I don't see where you are able to make the distinction between someone who is close and incapable of defending himself in CQB, and those that are at range and incapable of defending themselves at range. Both are helpless players for their flaws within the mechanics of FPS gaming.

You can't limit the options in a game in the name of "fairness" simply because one group is incapable of dealing with certain situations without then taking the "fairness" out of it for another group that was capable of dealing with those same situations.

I use the exampe of football again. If one team has no success stopping the run, but the other team is a great run team you can't expect the run team to come out and just pass the ball in the name of fairness, particularly if they aren't any good at passing the ball.

Yes, you want the game to be fun and you need it to feel "fair" to you for it to be fun, but that doesn't mean that it will be fun or "fair" to somebody else.

And again, I'm not trying to argue that they need to change the way Brink is now, but I think people are seriously overestimating the gameplay changes that are currently in place. When the game hits stores and people are still able to snipe successfully there's going to be a push to change the mechanics even further.

At what point does that stop and how fair is it to people who buy the game, accepting what it is right now, and then get it changed out from under them into something they no longer can play.

EDIT: to the post above, the beauty of games is that we get multiple chances and I have never met a sniper that "always" wins.

What I meant was that for the uncoordinated guy who isn't good at CQC, his death could be avoided by improving his skills, or being more careful next time. For a guy getting killed by a sniper, no amount of skill could have prevented his death. And even if he doesn't die, the sniper is still there, safely out of reach. You either have to try to counter-snipe or try to flank the sniper, both of which can be very difficult. No other weapon or playstyle requires that level of countering, where you have to really go way out of your way to try to deal with them.

I 100% agree with Hatter. Snipers in other games just set up a tent and stay there until finally killed. Between the time they set up camp and they get killed they racked up around 10 kills......the other classes have been balanced so that you don't have to be a specific class to deal with another class. You can't balance that with Snipers.....besides, we already have light rifles everyone can use so pick a class and use those if you want to "snipe" (more like shooting a semi auto rifle) people.

First, I feel spawn killing is a design flaw, but it is completely "excusable" to exploit all design flaws available in a game until they are patched. The only methods I don't condone are ones which require outside manipulation (modded controllers/weapons or router manipulation) or ones which only some players have access to (host advantage or character-specific glitches). But if an enemy spawns in my line of fire, I am going to kill them. What should I do, wait until the enemy sees me and raises their sights before firing? Count to "5" before attacking? No, if I have an advantage, I'm going to press it. Any issues that need addressing should have been taken care of while the game was in development.

Second, Brink needs to distinguish itself from its competitors. I think it's been successful in doing that so far (although they need to ramp up the advertising a bit). In addition to the visual style and SMART system, which are just cosmetic features, it needs to prove its gameplay is different. What better way than by saying, "We're not just for the hardcoe gamer"? I can't tell you how many times I played a Halo game or Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and said, "This game would be great if it weren't for the snipers and vehicles." I'm sick of getting into a firefight and having a random person kill me from a mile away.

Case in point: last night, while playing BFBC2, I was upstairs in a house. 2 opponents had me cornered and charged up a staircase after me. A quick close-range battle erupted, and there was about 7 or 8 seconds of us jumping around, shooting shotguns and slashing knives while juking and backpedalling. When the dust cleared, I was alive. And then I died. And as I said, "What the [censored]?" my deathcam showed a sniper across the map reloading. And this happened several times--I'd have someone dead to rights and a helicopter would kill me from 5 blocks away, or a sniper would finish me off after I killed his weakened teammates, or I'd sneak my way into a base and get picked off by someone who wasn't even near me.

I think Brink will change that, and that the game will have more of a measure of skill than people believe. When two level 20 characters fight, it's going to be a test of skill--who has the better build, who is the faster player, who has better aim, etc.. But then, when the battle's over, the winner won't get killed from a mile away. Instead, they'll heal up and press on. To me, that's FAR more attractive than having the ability to headshot someone that doesn't even know where I am.

I agree 1,000,000,000%.

EDIT: @Hatter

And I think we're going to continue to disagree there. I think you're giving the ability of snipers too much credit.

Death from anything can be avoided by improving different skills. In CQB the skills are the twitch skills needed for FPS games, but at range the skills are just obervation skills. Learning where everything leads, and what can be seen from where. I happen to think those are easier skills to teach and learn because they don't require improved relexes, and have gone to lengths to improve the gaming skills of myself, my friends, and even my wife simply by improving the knowledge base.

My friend hates snipers, because he never learned to play in the right way to counter that. We first started gaming together in the early years of PS2/Gamecube, and he would constantly yell at me because I like slipping around and keeping guys at distance when I fight. It was usually a Kar98 or some similar bolt action weapon, so it wasn't like I was hiding miles away, but I wasn't going to win up close against his BAR so I stayed away. I used the BA rifles because I valued aim over movement and could never get comfortable fighting in the strafe and spray battles.

Now my friend has gone from being a strafe and spray player to a much more rounded gamer. It's made on-line gaming more fun for him because even though he still isn't the best, he's learned how to make other players less effective against him and our styles have grown to compliment each other's so we have more fun working together.

Snipers are still going to have an effect in this game, they always will, because "sniping" is a style that isn't defined by OHKs or high powered rifles, but rather maintained distance and minimal exposure. It's also not the only style reliant on that minimal exposure.

I agree mostly with what your saying in the aspect of gaming but just wanted to say that the sniping was invented to be overpowered.