Sniper combo counter

[(XBOX)alf swarm]

The sniper combo counter buff that came with the plains helped improve a lacking weapon class but removed the incentive for accuracy when using a sniper. Snipers should be high skill high reward weapons where accuracy makes a real impact on damage. Right now pretty much every sniper is just a delete cannon after the combo counter is built up, and its nearly impossible for the combo to ever go down even with very low accuracy. A good sniper build can pretty much outclass any other primary non-shotgun at this point, which isn't in itself a problem, but also having the combo counter be basically no skill required seems pretty unbalanced. I'd suggest cutting the combo count (number of shots hit) in half for each miss, this would require high accuracy, high skill play for snipers to perform as ridiculously well as they do now. But only cutting the count in half instead of completely removing it like was originally the case would provide a more forgiving system, which is important with the sometimes unpredictable enemy movements. My most used weapon even before the buff was the vectis prime, and now after it the weapon just seems so overpowered and unrewarding. To keep snipers relevant, they need to keep their power potential on a similar level to how they are now, but this power needs to be balanced with some level of skill.

Edited February 22, 2018 by (XB1)alf swarm

[[DE]Grzegorz]

Or you know, leave it as it is because:

• AI doesn't care
• Snipers aren't so ridiculously  powerful they completely dominate the game.
  

[(XBOX)alf swarm]

Whats the point of a combo counter if it doesn't count combos? Once you have a combo counter of 2,000 you can miss every shot for 5 minutes and still have a crazy multiplier. If snipers don't dominate, fine, then buff the base stats. Don't make some weird system that just buffs the stats basically linearly though the progress of the mission.

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

You are just arbitrarily making a weapon class weaker for no real reason btw. You are pretending that people magically get enormous counter immediately. They have to aim, if they miss, they lose 1 counter instead of losing everything. 

Do you lose your melee combo the second you miss a melee swing? No? Do you know why? If people lose their entire combo with one missed action, it's frustrating and people focus more on not losing their combo, then they do having fun and playing the game. If snipers immediately lost their entire combo counter, they would either always need to CC enemies, or dramatically slow down their gameplay. They would slowly pick off one enemy at a time in a horde shooter. And would be extremely punishing. Much like how Melee would be if a single missed melee would be in that same scenario. Warframe is about being fast and killing armies. If people want to use a precision sniper rifle, that can't spray and pray, or hip fire crowds to death, why nerf one of the strong points of their weapon?

The Sniper combo is perfectly fine. You lose counter if you aren't constantly firing and unlike the melee combo, you can't raise your crit chance with it. (Atleast not that I'm aware of.) And with Sniper ammo being relatively rare, (melee doesn't use ammo at all so.) you really have to try to build it
 

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

I agree. Sniper combos were overly punishing before POE, but now they're just free damage. I think being able to deal over 10mil sustained DPS with no damage buffs is horrible, if there's no work put into it.

There is very little reason for me to want a non-sniper single-target weapons when stuff like uhh...

That is possible. (I fire slow for most of the video, but show more normal fire rate with the last group of enemies.)

That's to go with the gas build. Momentum refers to arcane Momentum. Console has yet to get the arcane changes, and this was made a while ago anyway.

So I have very little reason to use other single-target weapons. I think sniper DPS potential is perfectly fine, but reaching that potential is way too easy. You could argue that faster single-target weapons perform better at around level 50, but that's AOE territory. Something like Lanka would still have the edge over most single-target weapons, because it has AOE, and in any case where that's not true, a weapon like Ogris or Quanta Vandal would outdo everything with small effect radius anyway.

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

I agree. Sniper combos were overly punishing before POE, but now they're just free damage. I think being able to deal over 10mil sustained DPS with no damage buffs is horrible, if there's no work put into it.

There is very little reason for me to want a non-sniper single-target weapons when stuff like uhh...

That is possible. (I fire slow for most of the video, but show more normal fire rate with the last group of enemies.)

That's to go with the gas build. Momentum refers to arcane Momentum. Console has yet to get the arcane changes, and this was made a while ago anyway.

So I have very little reason to use other single-target weapons. I think sniper DPS potential is perfectly fine, but reaching that potential is way too easy. You could argue that faster single-target weapons perform better at around level 50, but that's AOE territory. Something like Lanka would still have the edge over most single-target weapons, because it has AOE, and in any case where that's not true, a weapon like Ogris or Quanta Vandal would outdo everything with small effect radius anyway.

[kgabor]

It's easy to rack up a high combo count if you separate yourself from your team, not really otherwise with your team killing everything with some no aim AoE. (but i guess that's how snipers are meant to be played in the first place, who wants to ruin their accuracy?)

I think this problem could be fixed just by making combos scale better on headshots and worse on bodyshots by just changing a few numbers btw..

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

5 hours ago, kgabor said:

It's easy to rack up a high combo count if you separate yourself from your team, not really otherwise with your team killing everything with some no aim AoE. (but i guess that's how snipers are meant to be played in the first place, who wants to ruin their accuracy?)

I think this problem could be fixed just by making combos scale better on headshots and worse on bodyshots by just changing a few numbers btw..

In any case where you can kill that fast with AOE, there's no point to using a single-target weapon though. At any point where a single target weapon can be more useful than AOE, snipers vastly outdamage the competition.

[kgabor]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

In any case where you can kill that fast with AOE, there's no point to using a single-target weapon though. At any point where a single target weapon can be more useful than AOE, snipers vastly outdamage the competition.

Which is like, 10% of game content? At most.

[Eirshy]

If you're not running Harkonar Scope, the combo duration is hyper short. Sure the decay is only one by one without accuracy, but the refire rate is fairly slow (even on a Depleated Vectis Prime build), the multiplier ramps up extremely slow past x2-x2.5 (it's exponentially more combo per damage bonus increase), you won't have enough enemies to really get your multiplier above x2-x2.5 if you're in a group, and most of all

Literally no competent sniper build needs the combo multiplier to oneshot on headcrit up through lv60 content.

The combo multiplier serves three purposes:
1) Giving Snipers that aren't the Lanka a way to make up for their difficulties in getting reliable crits
2) Giving Snipers a way to not be utter garbage when taken into content they can't innately oneshot
3) Giving Snipers a way to compete in the DPS field when target switch time is less important.

 

As such, the meter is damn important. And yes, the numbers you can put out are absurdly high.
It doesn't make them any less limited by the fact that it's still a sniper rifle.

Your target switch time is garbage and this game is a horde shooter.

If you find the best hitscan sniper too "easy" to use, might I suggest you upgrade to the Queen of Snipers, the Lanka? Massively higher minimum damage, a base damage type designed for modding for your target (pure electric, so you can go 280% coro/radi/mag in two mods), and both a charge time and projectile speed to manage. She's been *my* most-used weapon since I got her back in u8. And if not for the Eidolons, I'd still have her mostly benched and be using my Strad, Argonak, Tenora, or Baza primarily.

The snipers are good, the combo meter lets you get absurd numbers... But at the end of the day, this is still a horde shooter, and the biggest aoe you can get out of a sniper is a 3m gas proc.

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

7 hours ago, kgabor said:

Which is like, 10% of game content? At most.

How weak the enemies are is a whole new issue, IMO. I'm just saying, in any case where they're actually strong enough for single-target damage, there's very little reason to not use a sniper.

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

How weak the enemies are is a whole new issue, IMO. I'm just saying, in any case where they're actually strong enough for single-target damage, there's very little reason to not use a sniper.

Except that Snipers are really slow single target. Most Shotguns can be single target and have faster target switch. 

Keep in mind, that without the sniper rifle, having fantastic single target ability, it has no redeeming qualities. Which people want to nerf for some reason.

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

22 hours ago, (PS4)UltraKardas said:

Except that Snipers are really slow single target. Most Shotguns can be single target and have faster target switch. 

Keep in mind, that without the sniper rifle, having fantastic single target ability, it has no redeeming qualities. Which people want to nerf for some reason.

Maybe in terms of burst damage, but when you have an AOE Lanka 1-shotting about 1.4 times per second in AOE with punch through, or Vectis Prime 1-shotting things 3-6 times per second (depending on how many Arcane Momentums you have) with punch though, both in sustained terms, it's hard for even something like Vaykor Hek to compete.

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

Maybe in terms of burst damage, but when you have an AOE Lanka 1-shotting about 1.4 times per second in AOE with punch through, or Vectis Prime 1-shotting things 3-6 times per second (depending on how many Arcane Momentums you have) with punch though, both in sustained terms, it's hard for even something like Vaykor Hek to compete.

Hard to compete, unless you take in consideration that Sniper AoE is more medium range sniping lanes. Anything at close to medium range, when it comes to AoE shotguns like the Corinth or the tigris vastly outperform in terms of kill count. Weapons with spread and punch through effect a much larger area then a single bullet with travel and charge time (such as the lanka) or a hitscan bullet such as the vectis. You don't even have to really aim with some shotguns. Assault rifles with high fire rate and through on a riven with punch through can much easily burst down squads, before switching over to the next target. 

Snipers act, like they should. A high caliber bullet that fires slower should have that feeling of power behind it, doing massive damage to everything in front of it. For this reason, Snipers are much more punishing if you miss a shot compared to the other weapons. Miss a shot with a lanka, you got to recharge and deal with the travel time. Miss a shot with the vectis, you have to deal with the reload and the fire rate. Something shotguns and assault rifles never have to worry about. Soma misses a bullet, I got 199 more in the clip before I have to worry about anything. 

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

3 hours ago, (PS4)UltraKardas said:

Hard to compete, unless you take in consideration that Sniper AoE is more medium range sniping lanes. Anything at close to medium range, when it comes to AoE shotguns like the Corinth or the tigris vastly outperform in terms of kill count. Weapons with spread and punch through effect a much larger area then a single bullet with travel and charge time (such as the lanka) or a hitscan bullet such as the vectis. You don't even have to really aim with some shotguns. Assault rifles with high fire rate and through on a riven with punch through can much easily burst down squads, before switching over to the next target. 

Snipers act, like they should. A high caliber bullet that fires slower should have that feeling of power behind it, doing massive damage to everything in front of it. For this reason, Snipers are much more punishing if you miss a shot compared to the other weapons. Miss a shot with a lanka, you got to recharge and deal with the travel time. Miss a shot with the vectis, you have to deal with the reload and the fire rate. Something shotguns and assault rifles never have to worry about. Soma misses a bullet, I got 199 more in the clip before I have to worry about anything. 

2 Arcane Momentum sets and Primed Fast Hands bring the real time to about .25. That's surprisingly even better than I thought, giving 7-8 shots per second. That's pretty redicuous, considering its other stats. Missing a shot isn't very punishing when I can fire at least 6 more that very second, especially given that a Muntitions build usually allows body shots to 1-shot just about everything, unless you're fighting stuff above sortie level.

[(XBOX)alf swarm]

I'm not arguing that snipers are too strong, they need to be able to one shot stuff otherwise they're useless. I'm just saying that the combo count as it stands right now doesn't make much sense. Why give a combo that just keeps building up with little risk of ever decreasing instead of just buffing the weapons base stats and using a more skill based combo system

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

48 minutes ago, (Xbox One)alf swarm said:

I'm not arguing that snipers are too strong, they need to be able to one shot stuff otherwise they're useless. I'm just saying that the combo count as it stands right now doesn't make much sense. Why give a combo that just keeps building up with little risk of ever decreasing instead of just buffing the weapons base stats and using a more skill based combo system

Already answered. Cause it makes the game fun.
 The combo counter would be too punishing. Anyone sniping would focus less on fun, and more on keeping their combo up. The focus is no longer killing enemies, and is now not losing their counters. At that point, the combo counter takes away from fun. Slows down the gameplay for an odd mechanic that does not help you kill enemies any quicker, when people are carefully aiming their shots, trying not to miss

Combo Counter works fine. Why give Melee people combo with little risk of decreasing with Bloodrush and any variation of body count? 

How does changing the combo system make snipers any more fun? What is the benefit of making missing shots frustratingly punishing? What if a teammate ran infront of you and you missed a shot, or killed the enemy you were looking at? 

Your changes don't improve the experience at all. Just adds a level of annoyance to the weapon.

1 hour ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

2 Arcane Momentum sets and Primed Fast Hands bring the real time to about .25. That's surprisingly even better than I thought, giving 7-8 shots per second. That's pretty redicuous, considering its other stats. Missing a shot isn't very punishing when I can fire at least 6 more that very second, especially given that a Muntitions build usually allows body shots to 1-shot just about everything, unless you're fighting stuff above sortie level.

.
You seen to be confusing reload speed for fire rate, despite putting in A lot of work, and significant sink in mod capacity and a mod slot just so you can reload faster. Unless you are modding for Fire speed on a vectis ( You would need about 160% fire rate, or about three fire rate mods or a fire rate riven, along with primed fast hands). This seems a huge waste as four mod slots or a riven are solely going to turn the vectis into basically a 4 mod slot Latron Prime. The Lanka with 250% fire rate would only hit 3.5 bullets per second. This is all in exchange of damage of mods, and would extremely weaken the guns damage potential. 

Edited February 25, 2018 by (PS4)UltraKardas

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

2 hours ago, (PS4)UltraKardas said:

You seen to be confusing reload speed for fire rate, despite putting in A lot of work, and significant sink in mod capacity and a mod slot just so you can reload faster. Unless you are modding for Fire speed on a vectis ( You would need about 160% fire rate, or about three fire rate mods or a fire rate riven, along with primed fast hands). This seems a huge waste as four mod slots or a riven are solely going to turn the vectis into basically a 4 mod slot Latron Prime. The Lanka with 250% fire rate would only hit 3.5 bullets per second. This is all in exchange of damage of mods, and would extremely weaken the guns damage potential.

No. Imagine is Tigris Prime's reload tie was .25. Vectis Prime has a slightly faster base fire rate, so if that seems OP, welll... We basically have that already. And that reload speed on Vectis only requires 1 mod slot. It's not much different from me having Vile Acceleration on Lanka. In fact, it's less of a loss, techniclly, because it doesn't directly reduce damage. I still have room for Serration, Split Chamber, Munitions, Primed Bane, and and a few crit mods. I replace one of those with a crit chance and multishot riven or damage and multishot riven, then it's all good. Alternatively, Primed Fast Hands can be removed to fire about 6.6 times per second, and that slot could go to another crit mod or something.

[(PSN)BlueBOMBS4u]

A Tigris prime's reloading may seem slower compared to a vectis, but you have to realize that you are comparing a back to back 2 shot gun vs a 1 shot gun, you get more shots of with the Tigris prime than a vectis prime.

Edited February 25, 2018 by (PS4)BlueBOMBS4u
Had very poor grammer

[(PSN)BlueBOMBS4u]

Also, I'm talking about vectis prime builds with depleted reload, without it, yes it has a faster fire rate and reload

[elviani]

How about changing it so headshots count as 2 toward combo and body hits for 1 and misses count as -2. Rewarded a bit more for skill full shots still will have a somewhat succesfull spray and prey mechanic but will slightly narrow the power

Edited June 13, 2018 by elviani