Sniper Rifles need the same treatment that AOE weapons got

[Alphas]

AOE weapons like the Zarr and Bramma had their ammo economy nerfed to match their extreme power, and I think Snipers could do with a similar buff.

Instead of having them function as a high damage single-target weapon they should function as a weapon that specifically brings the pain whenever you shoot it.  Rubico Prime holds 72 rounds in its reserves which is arguably 60 more than anyone would ever need given the current ammo economy.  By dropping the reserves to 2-3 spare magazines per-weapon (with adjustments made to Vectis since it's a single/dual round loader) and increasing the damage accordingly, Snipers can act better as high-health killers for Eximus units as well as open the doors for a utility option.

Plenty of Secondary weapons can completely obliterate whatever the game can throw at them, so having a Sniper that adds utility like energy from Sharpshooter would be nice.  That would mean a greater expansion into the Exilus slot similar to how the Grimoire functions with the Invocation/Canticle mods.  There can be effects like charging and shooting a round that embeds into a surface/enemy and causes a strong grouping pull to gather enemies up for heavy melee/ability damage.  Another could be a similar effect as Marked For Death where you target an enemy with an extremely large health pool like a Bombard/Eximus unit and then deal the same amount of damage it takes in an AOE around it connecting to other enemies.

 

There's a wide amount of design space that can be carved out for snipers to move into and I think it's time they actually be given a role in the game outside of existing to kill Eidolons and to be used in Sniper Only Sortie missions.

[Zakkhar]

24 minutes ago, Alphas said:

I think Snipers could do with a similar buff.

That was a nerf not a buff. The buff you are talking about was caused by the existence of Primed Fulmination  (which was also nerfed in the process)

Dont know how you use your Snipers but I think they are perfectly fine where they are.

24 minutes ago, Alphas said:

they actually be given a role in the game outside of existing to kill Eidolons and to be used in Sniper Only Sortie missions.

They do. Just because you dont know that or do not use them that way doesnt mean others dont. Also you can kill Eidolons with pretty much anything these days. Full amp, melee, secondary, primary, Archgun, Arquebex.

Edited January 6 by Zakkhar

[Alphas]

3 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

That was a nerf not a buff. The buff you are talking about was caused by the existence of Primed Fulmination  (which was also nerfed in the process)

Dont know how you use your Snipers but I think they are perfectly fine where they are.

They do. Just because you dont know that or do not use them that way doesnt mean others dont. Also you can kill Eidolons with pretty much anything these days. Full amp, melee, secondary, primary, Archgun, Arquebex.

It didn't take long for the elitist forum poster to chime in with the classic comment "you clearly don't know what you're doing, therefore this entire class of clowned on weapons shouldn't get changed."

[Tiltskillet]

34 minutes ago, Alphas said:

By dropping the reserves to 2-3 spare magazines per-weapon (with adjustments made to Vectis since it's a single/dual round loader) and increasing the damage accordingly, Snipers can act better as high-health killers for Eximus units as well as open the doors for a utility option.

I don't think they need a damage increase.  Depends on the sniper, maybe.  For instance, I'm not sure what Snipetron Vandal is good at.  But offhand, the only blanket buff I want--if you can call it that--is for Harkonar Scope to be exilus.

There is a problem with the sniper role.  But that's an overarching issue with game design and player damage versus enemy durability, with very few "roles" to go around.  Snipers would have more of a role if there were tougher units that didn't throttle damage input from single target weapons.

Edited January 6 by Tiltskillet

[Zakkhar]

42 minutes ago, Alphas said:

It didn't take long for the elitist forum poster to chime in with the classic comment "you clearly don't know what you're doing, therefore this entire class of clowned on weapons shouldn't get changed."

Well do you? Cause looking at your own post it doesnt seem so.

I got Rubico Prime on 2nd place and Vectis Prime on 6th place in Primary usage. I also frequently run Komorex (top15). What do you have?

PS: Notably Komorex has insane ammo issue. I do not see what buff it would need to get after reducing its max ammo. Can you propose one?

Edited January 6 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 6 minutos, Alphas dijo:

It didn't take long for the elitist forum poster to chime in with the classic comment "you clearly don't know what you're doing, therefore this entire class of clowned on weapons shouldn't get changed."

But he's right.

Snipers have their combo system which grants them a final damage multiplier, the damage output is already crazy good on the better sniper rifles if you are building them properly, but that won't fix the issue of not being good options for most missions for a plethora of reasons.

Like, lets face it, we don't have missions where far-ranged combat is used, nor where there's one main most important threat you need to deal with outside of Eidolons, and then, you can do those with anything that is also more effective in all other parts of the game. Snipers are well balanced for the game we play, they don't need a buff, nor a nerf, although special mods like the Sporothrix just got or the forgotten (& horrible) Lanka augment are always nice.

[Zakkhar]

17 minutes ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

Like, lets face it, we don't have missions where far-ranged combat is used,

But we do. Whole open world bounty system on 3 open worlds. The new murmur maps are pretty open too (as in opposite to tight spaced corridors).

There is Circuit/Orowyrm. You can use them to kill Demolysts in Disruption. Or just quick scope random targets on all the mission for your pleasure.

24 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Depends on the sniper, maybe.  For instance, I'm not sure what Snipetron Vandal is good at.

Yes, certain weapons in the category are mastery fodder, doesnt mean category is in a bad place.

Edited January 6 by Zakkhar

[Tiltskillet]

13 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

Yes, certain weapons in the category are mastery fodder, doesnt mean category is in a bad place.

To be clear, I didn't say Snipetron Vandal meant the category was in bad shape. 

You're right though about the fodder point.  It's just that snipers have been so close to a curated category compared to probably every other weapon class, that Snipetron V. really sticks out to me.  Whereas I don't spare a thought for Secura Dual Cestras and their ilk in the rest of the Arsenal.

 

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 9 minutos, Zakkhar dijo:

But we do. Whole open world bounty system on 3 open worlds. The new murmur maps are pretty open too (as in opposite to tight spaced corridors).

While it is true open worlds possess the size to make one consider a sniper rifle a good option, the objectives we have to complete are much more comfortably done with fast paced hitscan ars, AoE weapons, or even shotguns, crazy as that might sound for someone outside of Warframe.
The new Murmur zones, although indeed some are very open, snipers don't really gain any advantage over any other hitscan / beam.

So to me at least, we still don't really have a place where snipers will excel over other weapon classes, which is a bit of a bummer, but not a major concern.
I've used snipers on Kuva Survival and they did their work perfectly fine, so I would even argue that small zones aren't really a weakness to them despite what one would expect out of sniper rifles, it's just that they are very methodical and practical for single targets, while the game is not really about that.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

I don't think they need a damage increase.  Depends on the sniper, maybe.  For instance, I'm not sure what Snipetron Vandal is good at.  But offhand, the only blanket buff I want--if you can call it that--is for Harkonar Scope to be exilus.

There is a problem with the sniper role.  But that's an overarching issue with game design and player damage versus enemy durability, with very few "roles" to go around.  Snipers would have more of a role if there were tougher units that didn't throttle damage input from single target weapons.

Agreed. Sniper rifles just don't have a place to shine in warframe. This excludes sporothrix and komorex which are both amazing weapons.

Snipers really need infinite body punch through. If some shotguns and bows can have it why not snipers?

[Tiltskillet]

44 minutes ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Snipers really need infinite body punch through. If some shotguns and bows can have it why not snipers?

It would help, although a much higher priority for me is all or most single target weapons getting some punch through.

[Zakkhar]

11 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Snipers really need infinite body punch through.

They already have some punch through, but it seems to be on paper, because they cannot penetrate the Grineer Blunt for some reason.

[Alphas]

On 2024-01-06 at 4:14 PM, Zakkhar said:

Well do you? Cause looking at your own post it doesnt seem so.

I got Rubico Prime on 2nd place and Vectis Prime on 6th place in Primary usage. I also frequently run Komorex (top15). What do you have?

PS: Notably Komorex has insane ammo issue. I do not see what buff it would need to get after reducing its max ammo. Can you propose one?

I see you like to kill Eidolons.  That doesn't mean your opinion on the rest of the game is relevant when other weapons are far better at killing.

BTW Rubico Prime is my #1 most used primary, so I wouldn't throw around usage stats like that makes you the end-all-be-all expert in the matter.

 

On 2024-01-06 at 4:25 PM, Zakkhar said:

But we do. Whole open world bounty system on 3 open worlds. The new murmur maps are pretty open too (as in opposite to tight spaced corridors).

There is Circuit/Orowyrm. You can use them to kill Demolysts in Disruption. Or just quick scope random targets on all the mission for your pleasure.

Yes, certain weapons in the category are mastery fodder, doesnt mean category is in a bad place.

You can't justify snipers existing in a godawful state because they work well in the three long abandoned content islands that are virtually irrelevant to anything we do today in the game.

 

My entire reasoning is that they should be better everywhere else and not as "the tool you use to kill an Eidolon and do Open World bounties with."  Why does an entire class of weapons get relegated to two hilariously irrelevant aspects of the game?  Why does their usage in those areas mean they can't have any kind of benefit in normal play?  My entire point is that the benefit that snipers give in their role and use should be as beneficial as massive, comical AOE damage is to that weapon class.  Snipers can't compete in killing potential, but they should still be able to give an immense benefit in their own way.  Right now they don't, but moving mods like Sharpshooter to the Exilus slot and expanding that slot's arsenal with powerful augments would do a lot to make them an appealing choice to players over something like a Zarr, or a Torid Incarnon, or any of the other "point this vaguely in the direction of some dudes and watch them evaporate" weapon.

Edited January 11 by Alphas

[Tiltskillet]

9 hours ago, Alphas said:

but moving mods like Sharpshooter to the Exilus slot

Oh, right, move both that and Harkonar Scope to exilus please.

9 hours ago, Alphas said:

...and expanding that slot's arsenal with powerful augments...

Do you mean making all sniper augments exilus?  If so, it doesn't seem to me like they should get that treatment over other weapons.  Maybe Voltage Sequence...but I'd rather it got buffed.  Same with Meticulous Aim.   Lasting Purity seems fine taking a regular slot.  Volatile Variant getting made exilus would be goofy.

If you meant new augments, I'd like to see an example or two.

9 hours ago, Alphas said:

My entire reasoning is that they should be better everywhere else and not as "the tool you use to kill an Eidolon and do Open World bounties with."  Why does an entire class of weapons get relegated to two hilariously irrelevant aspects of the game?  Why does their usage in those areas mean they can't have any kind of benefit in normal play? 

Why do you see it as a sniper problem rather than single target problem?

If AoE weapons didn't exist, and the game wasn't so horde-focused, snipers would look much, much healthier.  As it stands there is a lack of content that's appropriate to single target weapons, and an extreme lack of content that pleads for ST burst damage potential.  Even the priority targets we have that seem like they'd be candidates for it aren't so much really, largely due to power creep and damage attenuation.

[Zakkhar]

11 hours ago, Alphas said:

I see you like to kill Eidolons.  That doesn't mean your opinion on the rest of the game is relevant when other weapons are far better at killing.

You see wrong. Everything else you deduct upon that false statement is also false. You may need to check context next time

 

11 hours ago, Alphas said:

BTW Rubico Prime is my #1 most used primary, so I wouldn't throw around usage stats like that makes you the end-all-be-all expert in the matter.

So you DID or do use Snipers extensively to something more than Eidolon hunting. Isnt that a bit contradictory to what you wrote before?

 

11 hours ago, Alphas said:

You can't justify snipers existing in a godawful state because they work well in the three long abandoned content islands that are virtually irrelevant to anything we do today in the game.

I cant? I just did. Funny how it works: I cant justify snipers, with arguments and experience, however you totally can criticise them without arguments and with irrelevannt experience. Double standards much?

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

1 hour ago, Zakkhar said:

you DID or do use Snipers extensively to something more than Eidolon hunting. Isnt that a bit contradictory to what you wrote before?

 

The fact that the rubico is their most ran primary actually gives them a good insight into what is viable to run with a sniper, so their opinion is appreciated because they have actually tried to use the weapon for more than just a one trick.

[Zakkhar]

1 hour ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

The fact that the rubico is their most ran primary actually gives them a good insight into what is viable to run with a sniper, so their opinion is appreciated because they have actually tried to use the weapon for more than just a one trick.

And yet they write this:

13 hours ago, Alphas said:

You can't justify snipers existing in a godawful state because they work well in the three long abandoned content islands that are virtually irrelevant to anything we do today in the game.

 

[Zakkhar]

On 2024-01-06 at 10:39 PM, Alphas said:

they actually be given a role in the game outside of existing to kill Eidolons and to be used in Sniper Only Sortie missions.

And this. Which means they must have ran only Eidolonns and Sortie Sniper Only missionns their whole playtime OR they do not use other Primaries for some reason OR they werent active in between Eidolon hunting spam and today OR many other possibilities that do seem to contradict their statements.

I do not take away his right to post his opinions at all. I simply disagree with them and undermine his reasoning.

Edited January 11 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

3 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

And this. Which means they must have ran only Eidolonns and Sortie Sniper Only missionns their whole playtime OR they do not use other Primaries for some reason.

Or maybe they are saying that because that’s what they’ve seen, i can’t really speak for them but still they can give a good insight into snipers getting a bit of attention.

Edited January 11 by (PSN)FrDiabloFr

[Zakkhar]

6 minutes ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

but still they can give a good insight into snipers getting a bit of attention.

Sure but nothing he wrote in the initial post makes any sense. He wants to cut the Rubico P spare ammo by 80% in favour of giving it more base damage. That solves nothing that make Snipers niche at the moment. It actually makes them even worse (damage attenuation mechanic).

And especially Rubico. Whole stick of Rubico P is that it shoots fast, reloads fast and gets to high combo counter fast (compared to eg. Vectis or dreadful Lanka).

Komorex has 40 max ammo and it goes brr out of ammo faster than Zarr.

Edited January 11 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

2 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

Sure but nothing he wrote in the initial post makes any sense. He wants to cut the Rubico P spare ammo by 80% in favour of giving it more base damage. That solves nothing that make Snipers niche at the moment. It actually makes them even worse (damage attenuation mechanic). Whole stick of Rubico P is that it shoots fast, reloads fast and get to high combo counter fast (compared to eg. Vectis or dreadful Lanka).

I get you, i’m just trying to look from another angle maybe Alphas will comment again and give a through explanation idk.

[Zakkhar]

9 minutes ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

maybe Alphas will comment again and give a through explanation idk.

I am not looking forward to it, he seems to be preoccupied with arguing. The best idea of making Snipers better was the punch through one (not his) as it would free the slot off Primed Shred if you want to run it as room clearer with grouping tool (which is possible on Komorex due to radial attacks) or general quality of life.

In my opinion the Single target bolt action rifles (eg. Prisma Grinlok) are in far worse spot, not only they have similar problems as Snipers, but they also lack Scope buffs and Combo mechanics. Prisma Grinlok you can get to some ridiculous cc/cd stats and it still sucks.

Edited January 11 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

4 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

I am not looking forward to it, he seems to be preoccupied with arguing. The best idea of making Snipers better was the punch through one (not his) as it would free the slot off Primed Shred if you want to run it as room clearer with grouping tool (which is possible on Komorex due to radial attacks) or general quality of life.

In my opinion the Single target bolt action rifles (eg. Prisma Grinlok) are in far worse spot, not only they have similar problems as Snipers, but they also lack Scope buffs and Combo mechanics. Prisma Grinlok you can get to some ridiculous cc/cd stats and it still sucks.

Agreed the vulkar could really do with some love, I honestly have never actually seen a person use it i have it formaed but it just can’t hold up in the slightest even the wraith variant 

[Tiltskillet]

20 minutes ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

Agreed the vulkar could really do with some love, I honestly have never actually seen a person use it i have it formaed but it just can’t hold up in the slightest even the wraith variant 

If you're willing to use a riven on it, the Wraith is pretty good--for a slow single target weapon--because of Lasting Purity, +70% headshot damage, and that killer dispo.  Makes for a great gas sniper.

I think Aznvasions has said it's his favorite Eidolon sniper too, though that's not a subject I know anything about.

[Alphas]

3 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

Sure but nothing he wrote in the initial post makes any sense. He wants to cut the Rubico P spare ammo by 80% in favour of giving it more base damage. That solves nothing that make Snipers niche at the moment. It actually makes them even worse (damage attenuation mechanic).

And especially Rubico. Whole stick of Rubico P is that it shoots fast, reloads fast and gets to high combo counter fast (compared to eg. Vectis or dreadful Lanka).

Komorex has 40 max ammo and it goes brr out of ammo faster than Zarr.

The fact that Komorex has 40 max ammo and is empty faster than a Zarr is a testament to how awful of a weapon it is.  I won't even go into how it's essentially a flashbang simulator where you only get good damage when you zoom way in to get the AOE, but it doesn't even do that much damage. 

I think you're talking out of your ass about the Rubico here too.  Rubico Prime has a wimpy 5 round magazine and a 2 second reload compared to Vectis Prime which is much snappier.  Just because it fires faster doesn't make it more relevant.  Snipers already do crazy damage when they're stacked up with Deadhead and Galvanized Diffusion, so it doesn't really matter if you can fire it as fast as you can click when you're only killing one dude at a time.  The damage stacking also makes the sniper combo counter an irrelevant mechanic because even after 2 kills you basically can't find a single enemy that won't die to a headshot unless they're an eximus unit, or they're lv 400 with an obscene amount of armor (which, when stripped, means basically nothing, and even un-stacked up Rubico can still kill with ease).  You can't justify snipers' current position because they have damage when stacked up.  It's cool that I can nail someone in the head for 1.8 million damage, but that doesn't mean anything when that enemy would die to 13k damage anyways.  That doesn't change the fact that AOE weapons can kill *rooms* of enemies in the same time it takes a sniper to kill one.

The entire point of my post and reasoning behind nerfing the ammo would be to make snipers into their own class of weapons similar to how the AOE weapons are.  They would have limited ammo, be able to kill virtually anything even without needing to build up a combo counter, Deadhead, or any Galvanized setup, and they would also provide utility benefits that are as good as killing rooms of enemies with massive AOE explosions.  I'm talking about benefits like life-steal, energy gains, grouping, crowd control.  Snipers would be able to kill the big dudes that you NEED dead, but would also be able to provide their own benefits to justify not needing to stack them up or use them on every enemy in a mission.  If I want to get energy from Sharpshooter I need to consistently kill enemies in order to keep my Rubico's damage stacked up, and that mostly defeats the reason of even having Sharpshooter on in the first place. 

3 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

In my opinion the Single target bolt action rifles (eg. Prisma Grinlok) are in far worse spot, not only they have similar problems as Snipers, but they also lack Scope buffs and Combo mechanics. Prisma Grinlok you can get to some ridiculous cc/cd stats and it still sucks.

It's totally fine to think that single target rifles are in a bad spot, but you can't just use 'whataboutism' to write off buffs to a weapon class that falls far behind in KPM compared to everything else in the game like beams or AOE.  It DEFINITELY doesn't mean you should be justifying that position because the long-range benefits them in open world content. 

You physically can't make snipers kill as much as an AOE weapon does without making a sniper that shoots out AOE room nukes, so what's the next best option?  You make them into utility weapons that can kill enemies when they need to, but provide bonuses for you to play around in every other non-boss/open world scenario.

 

The entire point of this rework would be to not lean into snipers killing lots of enemies quickly because they're not designed to do that.  It would be to shift their focus to dealing lots of damage when you need it and provide a strong utility to offset it not having a massive body count in missions.  They would be weapons that are powerful enough to kill comically high-level Steel Path eximus units when they need to without build-up, but have ammo reserves that make it so you don't just use them to kill every Lancer you see until you're empty.