Plains of Eidolon: Sniper Review!

[NovusKnight]

a neat way to buff snipers to make them more unique than "big damage slow rate of fire" would be further increasing locational damage

sniper shots to a leg cause forced knock down, sniper shots to an arm disarm enemy. No other weapon class can do this, and it would make them infinitely scale into end game because in case damage on it's own starts failing, their utility doesn't, plus said utility still requires proper aiming.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

@[DE]RebeccaRebeccawRebeccaRebeccaRebeccawRebec

What about bows?

[TheGrimCorsair]

Er, other than the combo counter reduction maybe being a bit excessive, it all looks fine to me. Should alleviate 99% of the QoL issues with sniper rifles in non-PoE game types. Glad to see them keeping hipfire spread. If you want huge burst damage at close range without scoping, pick yourself up a shotgun.

[CpTKugelHagel]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

@[DE]RebeccaRebeccawRebeccaRebeccaRebeccawRebec

What about bows?

do you mean the dmg falloff or the weapon stats change?

[Yargami]

   Yeah, honestly I can think of circumstances where I'll miss the zoom, but for the vast majority of the game this is a uniform buff.

edit: Except possibly the combo duration, but I'll have to actually try out the decay rate in game to make a decision about that. Either way, decay is better than just dumping the entire pile of stacks.

[Jobistober]

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

• Combo duration reduced to 2 seconds for all snipers apart from Lanka which is reduced to 6

• Damage fall off begins at 400 meters and ends at 600 meters with damage reduced to 50% past 600 meters.

With the huge expanse of play area on the plains and thus a much more spread out enemy, the the hit to combo duration seems like it could hurt. I'd also like to see the damage falloff start at 600 meters or more --OR-- SBRs and light machine guns damage falloff much quicker to give sniper rifles a sizable advantage outside.

Still, thanks, Reb and everyone at DE. These are all really good changes and a step in the right direction. Getting very excited for the update!

[ADDgamer45]

Here it is again don't decrease zoom.

 

[Antiphoton]

The only change that would make me use snipers is the removal of the combo system and the unscoped penalty.

[Zoroark974]

Love these changes! Juste something i would like to see is better changes for the snipetron vandal compared to the regular one.

[warthogrecon]

Oh my, Level zoom reduced. I have a habit of using 2nd zooms for scouting in large areas.

 

[DatDarkOne]

 

 

2 hours ago, koorinosekai said:

I would honestly love to hear about the logic behind both changes from someone involved into making those decisions, either as a forum statement directly or by proxy. As usual I expect none, but I will save judgement to once those changes evolve from a preview of a proposal to the finished product rather than going, like some, crying out that the changes are crap, hitting their rage-driven fists on their desks and upsetting their trolljuice mugs. Have a nice day.

I would love to hear them also.  :D

2 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Alright, lots of nice really changes here.

Some pre-feedback:

All of the stuff from the OP are great stuff, no doubt!
Punchthrough, reticle sway removed again, scope bonuses changed to headshot bonuses (to most of them), reduced zoom levels, slightly increased rate of fire, Vectis Prime 2nd round quickened chambering... all of those are exactly the kind of things they need!
Even if I think the combo thing doesn't fit Snipers to begin with, the changes to it (making it more "Sisco-style") is still a very nice improvement to its system. I might actually enjoy the combos now, we'll see!

However, there are still a few things that bother me:

1. Critchances are too low. Relying on RNG for slowfiring, lowmagazined weapons with really long reloads and poor short range fighting capabilities... yeah, no thanks, RNG really ought to be nicer here. A base of at least 40% critchance (so you have 100% critchance with Point Strike alone) would be very nice, at least for all the upgraded version (like the Primes, Wraiths, Vandals etc, and maybe also the Rubico)
   Imo, I'd grant those boosts to critchance with the removal of the sniper combo system (as a trade-off)

I agree with most of this post.  **Snipped the other parts of the quote because those don't worry me as much**  

The Crit Chances and zoom levels worry me the most.  Also looks like all the other sniper rifles were buffed to match the damage of the Rubico, while the Rubico itself got a serious nerf to zoom in comparison.  Unless the Combo counter boosts crit chance up to 100% or more, I'm a little worried about the overall state the Rubico will be in.  It's main advantages were high zoom and crit damage.  

[UmiRyoshu]

All in all looks pretty good. My concern is that you've lowered the zoom on most of the snipers, which is amazing for regular missions, but a little less so for PoE. Also, I get that the headshot damage is ridiculous now, but I kinda felt like the different zoom stuff made each sniper unique, even though all the raw damage numbers were changed to headshot damage with absurd numbers making my argument invalid. Maybe a different buff or additional something to make each one a little different or incentivize using not the Vectis Prime and Snipetron Vandal. Also, maybe increase the raw damage a little, or buff crit/status chances to make each one properly consistent. I foresee (discounting rivens) situations where a player is far away from an engagement and attempts to headshot an enemy that would die with a crit, but doesn't because chance didn't let it. Is this dumb and also the point of crit chance? yes. Would buffing chance to 40 for stronger/upgraded rifles make them more reliable? also yes. Maybe something like that would give us a reason to use them, and make them more unique outside of ridiculous headshot numbers. I realize this would make snipers really strong, but I feel like that's what they deserve since they're supposed to be precision weapons and single target, not room clearers like the Arca Plasmor and Ignis Wraith.
IDK just some ideas I've had mulling about for a while.

 

[ADDgamer45]

So I am posting my ultimate why decreasing zoom is a bad idea.

 

This is the zoom on a 12x on ⅓ of the distance a sniper starts to fall off.

If they decrease max zoom it will look more like this.

People saying you can add +zoom mods I made here.

 

Overall if they go through with the zoom changes snipers will be completely useless for the ranges DE is even designing them for. Let alone most modern day snipers can hit easily over 1000m, 1/9th of the POE map. The longest recorded sniper shot is 3540m. There are better options like leaving the high level zooms and decreasing the low level ones. In the end I hope DE doesn't mess with the longer range zooms.

[tbeest]

18 hours ago, (Xbox One)Tucker D Dawg said:

probably because the zoom was too extreme to begin with

edit to add: ESPECIALLY if sway is removed.

300m at 6 and 12x zoom (max FOV)

[CuChulainnWD]

6 minutes ago, ADDgamer45 said:

So I am posting my ultimate why decreasing zoom is a bad idea.

 

This is the zoom on a 12x on ⅓ of the distance a sniper starts to fall off.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/883126950413258884/DD54A0D41918441209CB36D2C4D8D8EFB15A831A/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|2048:1229&composite-to%3D%2A%2C%2A%7C2048%3A1229&background-color=black

If they decrease max zoom it will look more like this.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/883126950413258586/82F71C713390298347A71777D57319837F732D74/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|2048:1229&composite-to%3D%2A%2C%2A%7C2048%3A1229&background-color=black

People saying you can add +zoom mods I made a post about that here.

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/849327-plains-of-eidolon-sniper-review/?do=findComment&comment=9015681

Overall if they go through with the zoom changes snipers will be completely useless for the ranges DE is even designing them for. Let alone most modern day snipers can hit easily over 1000m, 1/9th of the POE map. The longest recorded sniper shot is 3450m. There are better options like leaving the high level zooms and decreasing the low level ones. In the end I hope DE doesn't mess with the longer range zooms.

That should be 3540m. Don't short change them 😉

17 hours ago, Rekalty said:

Will this work for Vectis Prime too, when using Depleted Reload?

That aside, why are you lowering the zoom levels, and having combo duration be only two seconds, that doesn't make any kind of sense, aren't you supposed to take your time with shots, rather than just using them like semi-auto assault rifles?

 

[ADDgamer45]

9 minutes ago, tbeest said:

300m at 6 and 12x zoom (max FOV)

Saving those

[DarkSignal]

The removal of Sniper Sway and the innate punch through are undoubtedly great benefits to snipers. I don't really care about the hip fire being unchanged because that's not my problem.

While the lower bound for damage falloff has been improved, the upper bound still needs to be raised to the effective range of modern snipers, which would be about 800 to 1000 meters on average. I know the TAC-50 has an effective range of 1800m approximately.

While I also like how the combo stacks decay rather than flat out disappear, the default 2 seconds is too small a window for a sniper to readjust for a new target. The snipers should have as much time as the current Lanka does rather than trying to hamfist rapid fire by increasing the fire rate.

The reduced zoom levels I'm not entirely convinced are a plus for the big update. Sure people have been asking for reduced zoom to improve their versatility on the standard maps, but with those big plains, the current zoom levels are seriously going to come in handy now. Finally conceding to those changes at a time where it would be most detrimental is pretty cruel in hindsight. (The idea of the Rubico having less total zoom than the Vulkar is especially repulsive.)

Granted, it does give eagle eye a purpose in life, and it'd probably go without complaints if serration was removed already like what was once planned. We'll probably have to remove Split Chamber by necessity if that second shot bugs out and doesn't account for the target it hits.

And even then, the abysmal critical chance of snipers is still being overlooked.

While I like some of these changes, I really hope you are not already set on all of them

[Tabot_Soule]

17 hours ago, Sorenxoras said:

Snipers aren't supposed to have good hip fire accuracy, it's not what snipers were made for.  

I dont really see why we shouldn't have it, it would be harmless to almost every one else and help improve the close range a little bit.

I personaly use my rubico in close range all the time and i have no real issue concerning accuracy but short-middle distance encounters suffer.

You may not appreiciate this but there are others like me who enjoy the kind of game play given by hip-fired, dead-center shots. 

This is a weird little game but the kinda gun play we are trying to accomplish is similar to intigib game modes of the past shown here http://store.steampowered.com/app/338170/Ratz_Instagib/.

Truth be told, Im gonna need a a much better reason that beats FUN to not have hipfire accuracy, and "realism" isnt a good enough excuse any more.

ALSO, I take offence to "Snipers aren't supposed-", just stop right there.

We have a amazing plethora of guns, each one more interesting then the last, something innovated, something unique, maybe a tweak, or a system. Hell as of late we got the arca serries, and specificly the arca plasma. They took everything that a shotgun was, alll the ,mayjor points of what defined a pump action style gun. And then they put thier spin on it.

Sure, we could make a pellet shotgun, but that isn't very warframe now is it. No we got something much more inspired. We got a unique wide projectile weapon that influences a unique kind of gunplay where aiming to just MISS the target can and often will get you more hits. The took what a shotgun does effectively and turned it on it's head.

We should be much less concerned with what something should be and instead look at what they could be. And these changes are doing just that.

In stead of focusing solely on nerfs and buffs, they are looking at what is specificly holding  snipers back, what they excel at, and how to improve the unique combo system afforded these weapons.

And each of the improvements given where echoed by the community countless times.

zoom, punch through,combo counter delays/countdowns/decays/ even the miss penalty was community suggested.

Forgive me if i sound irritable, but the entire list of changes made ticks off almost every major problem snipers have had point for point save for the hip fire. At this point i am beyond the belief that snipers are what they should be. 

In fact i don't think any thing in this game should be held to what it should be. This is warframe. there is nothing quite like it, and that is because the devs aren't concerned about what "should be" but rather what it could be.

Long run, if i dont get hip fire accuracy, we will still get these amazing changes, But seriously, realism is a moot @(*()$ point (see most of the PoE update for Christ sake) and worrying about the balancing nature of hip fire accuracy seems kind of dense at this point. We got sway removed, a solely sniper Nerf and mechanic because some one thought that snipers should have been that way.

But look at us now.

 

TL:DR Who cares what snipers are supposed to be for! this is warframe, one of the most unique and innovative shooters out there. Have a little imagination, snipers can have more value outside of just long range encounters, you just have to be creative. Realism is the antithesis of creativity, and warframe is a very creative game.

[13QZXXTTX]

Any Idea when this is "reversed"?

 

If you want "Realism", ya should have just stick to ARMA 3 mate.       ( I DO NOT like Bullet Drop.)

Spoiler

NOTE: Those were about handful of shot, not ONE accurate shot. 

 

 

[tarfeef101]

ugh... why did you have to cater to the masses? Let snipers actually be snipers. If people don't like them, they can not play them. but this is not the direction I wanted things to go

• Removed sway
  • So basically, you want to make them even less skillful to use. It's already way easier to snipe in warframe than almost any other game. This was not needed. A hold breath mechanic for super long range kills would've been far better, and kept the integrity of sniping intact. This just encourages people to run around like chickens with their heads cut off quickscoping S#&$ (which you could still do before, but with some amount of skill at least)
• Punch through
  • Yes, thank you. This was sorely needed; now not every build needs shred
• Combo changes
  • Interesting, seems like you may be able to stack A LOT, but if that's intended, cool
• Falloff
  • idc, need to test it to see how it really impacts gameplay
• Vectis, snipetron, vulkar
  • idc, i use the variants
• Vectis Prime
  • fire rate is nice, now with the punch through i can remove shred
  • kinda liked the dmg, but this is fine, more in line with sniper theme of headshots
  • zoom level was IMO perfect, really sad to see catering to the masses without the skill or even desire to snipe, as most comments asking for lower zoom also asked for no sway, perfect hip fire, iron sights, etc. All the stuff that makes a sniper different from a latron
• Snipetron Vandal
  • Fire rate increase is nice, it is a bit slow w/o fire rate mods
  • Again, bonuses are cool with me
• Rubico
  • With this and the punch through, i can remove shred. awesome. especially since i used primed fast hands, I was hurting for mod space
  • I liked the base zoom at 5x. Still usable on any tileset for me, and made it unique
  • Okay, this is dumb. From 12x to 6x??? We just got bigger tiles, and now you want to make it harder to zoom from far away?!?!?!
• Vulkar Wraith
  • Fire rate is fine with me, again, I can remove shred now
  • Again, bonuses are cool with me
  • Second level I actually like the change, i'll probably use that as my "base" zoom now.
  • Third level zoom is at least better than the rubico, but I still would've preferred 10 or 12x
• Lanka
  • Charge rate decrease is nice, even vile made it still a bit slow
  • 5x is nice for 2nd level, again I can use this all the time. 7x was also kinda weird for me, too much for running around but not enough for super far targets
  • Again, 8x is a bit low to me for max zoom.

 

Dear all haters who want snipers to be basically latrons with more upsides (longer range, better dmg profile, scopes for long range), I am probably not going to reply to your baseless crap. I've engaged on other posts enough with that crap. If someone has anything to add, or critiques that aren't founded from those who simply don't want to have to have any sort of skill to use snipers, or just want them to be super powerful even though they're already balanced, and take me just as far in missions as anything else.

 

P.S. RIP to all of us with sniper rivens, cause disposition is gonna tank. Goodbye 100+% crit chance vectis, rubico... you will be missed.

[tarfeef101]

12 minutes ago, nicholas224 said:

TL:DR Who cares what snipers are supposed to be for! this is warframe, one of the most unique and innovative shooters out there. Have a little imagination, snipers can have more value outside of just long range encounters, you just have to be creative. Realism is the antithesis of creativity, and warframe is a very creative game.

People care because snipers are already balanced. buffing them just because they don't fit your use case perfectly in every situation is dumb. We're not buffing all shotguns to have infinite range, or all melee weapons to have ranged attacks. Everything comes with upsides and downsides. The downsides to snipers are they suffer at close range due to having to deal with a zoomed in target right in front of you, and having poor hip fire. the upsides are amazing long range performance, and the ability to kill many enemies in 1 shot with punch through (which happens a lot, esp in the small tiles or in bottlenecking areas). By asking for no sway, easy hip fire, decreased zoom, etc you are ruining the balance.

[tarfeef101]

35 minutes ago, ADDgamer45 said:

Saving those

and that is why i wish they didn't nerf the last zoom levels on everything...

[tester616]

As much as you may have had good intentions, this post actually ended up killing a large chunk of my plains hype in one fell swoop. Why? Well let me explain.

After the initial announcement I, like many others, started planning and preparing for the release. What to use? Oh yes, I need a good sniper rifle with strong zoom now that they are finally about to get a proper use. After finding an old rubico riven and confirming it to have the tied longest zoom in the game the rolling began. Some rolls later I ended up with a build exceeding 100% crit chance, making for some solid shots considering rubicos critical damage. I didn't manage to get more zoom on it, but that's rivens for you, can't expect to have it all.

Next came the formas. 6 to be exact. Gotta have space for all those mods. Now I'll just have to wa- wait, what's this? A thread about planned sniper buffs for plains? Count me in! Fingers crossed my dear rubico got some... thing......... good..? B-b-but... what... how? Why?

Half of the zoom gone, JUST. LIKE. THAT.

From tied best zoom to tied worst zoom. What's not to like?

But hey, increased fire rate, amirite? Shoot them grineer bastards faster, right... RIGHT? Sure sure, if memory serves there's currently a small downtime between each shot and having some extra fire rate could give it a nice rapid fire feel and- oh by the way, did I already mention the second positive of my riven roll? Yes, increased fire rate, which with the current version of the weapon is enough to eliminate the downtime between shots. So now I'm left with this... thing, capable of emptying its clip faster than your average fully automatic assault rifle, all the while jerking its aim towards high heavens to ensure nothing actually dies except for that one unlucky bird. And yes, I WILL slap on a stabilizer to one of my loadouts just for the hell of it. It's still going to eat up a mod slot and you know it. At this point I could try rerolling the riven. But what would I honestly even be looking for? Zoom? Yeah, good one.

I don't even know what to say anymore. Thanks? Guess I'll stick to guiding lanka shots around the plains from a local bush with ivara, hoping faraway enemies are rendered as needed. And as for those moments I'd really like to zoom in on a faraway target, I'm just going to have to dust off my seer and max out that zoom riven, easily outzooming every sniper rifle in the game. What? Why are you looking at me like that? No, wait, no weapon by that name even exists, I swear! Just have a look at the usage statistics! WAIT! NOOO...

[-CM-NineFingers]

Really not a fan of the combo duration. Also would like the scope augment levels to stay as they are, would love the vulkar's x12 scope in the plains D:

Just... just leave the visual of the scope as is, change the effects, but leave us the zoom. Please.

And why lowering the combo to 2? That forces us to shoot nonstop, instead of aiming properly. Plus, by what we've seen on the plains, the enemies tend to come in groups of three, negating all possibility of getting a decent combo.

Please, take a second look at this.

[motorfirebox]

5 minutes ago, tester616 said:

As much as you may have had good intentions, this post actually ended up killing a large chunk of my plains hype in one fell swoop. Why? Well let me explain.

After the initial announcement I, like many others, started planning and preparing for the release. What to use? Oh yes, I need a good sniper rifle with strong zoom now that they are finally about to get a proper use. After finding an old rubico riven and confirming it to have the tied longest zoom in the game the rolling began. Some rolls later I ended up with a build exceeding 100% crit chance, making for some solid shots considering rubicos critical damage. I didn't manage to get more zoom on it, but that's rivens for you, can't expect to have it all.

Next came the formas. 6 to be exact. Gotta have space for all those mods. Now I'll just have to wa- wait, what's this? A thread about planned sniper buffs for plains? Count me in! Fingers crossed my dear rubico got some... thing......... good..? B-b-but... what... how? Why?

Half of the zoom gone, JUST. LIKE. THAT.

From tied best zoom to tied worst zoom. What's not to like?

But hey, increased fire rate, amirite? Shoot them grineer bastards faster, right... RIGHT? Sure sure, if memory serves there's currently a small downtime between each shot and having some extra fire rate could give it a nice rapid fire feel and- oh by the way, did I already mention the second positive of my riven roll? Yes, increased fire rate, which with the current version of the weapon is enough to eliminate the downtime between shots. So now I'm left with this... thing, capable of emptying its clip faster than your average fully automatic assault rifle, all the while jerking its aim towards high heavens to ensure nothing actually dies except for that one unlucky bird. And yes, I WILL slap on a stabilizer to one of my loadouts just for the hell of it. It's still going to eat up a mod slot and you know it. At this point I could try rerolling the riven. But what would I honestly even be looking for? Zoom? Yeah, good one.

I don't even know what to say anymore. Thanks? Guess I'll stick to guiding lanka shots around the plains from a local bush with ivara, hoping far away enemies are rendered as needed. And as for those moments I'd really like to zoom in on a faraway target, I'm just going to have to dust off my seer and max out that zoom riven, easily outzooming every sniper rifle in the game. What? Why are you looking at me like that? No, wait, no weapon by that name even exists, I swear! Just have a look at the usage statistics! WAIT! NOOO...

I mean... they said they were reviewing snipers, man. Not their fault you jumped the gun, pun intended.