Well now that the accuracy of the semi-auto rifle has been nerfed a tad, a sniper should be added.

The sniper should be able to peer through fog to some degree, to give it a real long-range effect. Also the accuracy should be perfect. However, then the issue of balance comes up.

I think that to limit the power of the sniper, it should do 125% as much damage as the semi-auto rifle. Also, shots should be delayed 2.5 to 3 seconds apart.

The clip could hold 5 rounds, with 20 to spare.

Please comment if you have ideas. And i want the developers to see this.

@beastosaur: Or, since Ben already has the code for the "old" rifles, he could just cancel the new implementation and return to the old one.

I'm pretty sure he's said he intends to tighten down the cone on the rifles a lot, actually, although why they shouldn't just be pin-point accuarate at the short ranges present in AoS (maximum is about 100 meters or so) I'm not sure. Either way, the addition of a sniper rifle would make either the sniper or the normal rifles pointless.

i mean, i would think he added the cone of fire because the rifle is semi-auto.
i like beastasaur idea for a gun. the scope cuts through the fog, and you can actually snipe. those structures people randomly build at the back of a map will have some use now.

@Devilfish: Sniping with the old rifle implementation was possible, practical, and more importantly, a lot of Fun. Nothing's quite like getting randomly headshotted and having no idea where the round came from, except maybe doing it to other people.

Besides, I don't see how the semi-auto feature would make it that much less accurate. In fact, the rifle's actually fully automatic, and it's less accurate than even an AK-47.

@1337101
oh GOD NO. i already get randomly sniped enough as it is. besides, i think the cone gives the person getting sniped a chance to move or something. saved my ass a few times, even let me get the drop on the guy.
this is one guy who likes the cone of fire, adds some unpredictibility to the game, which is something i like. ;-)

I simply can't stand the "luck factor" in to getting off a shot. I mean, the rifle should be a handy weapon for long-range fighting. And, Ben will hopefully just tighten the cone, not remove it entirely.

Why not have the sniper have a a cone that starts out big, but the longer you stay scoped it shrinks. Say two or three seconds until perfect aim?

People. Please think about the balance for a sec. If the Rifle had a perfect, spot-one accuracy, how would the other weapons fare? The SMG will be useless, the Shotgun will be useless, everyone will be using Rifles and as soon the other side gets the advantage, it's almost game over for the other team. The small spread is a great balance factor and makes the game more fun for everyone.

Alright look: Sniper gets a 1-bullet mag with a decent reload time and the shot has a cone of 3 heads wide at 20 seconds walk time distance and a max vision range of 1.3x normal fog distance, how's that?
Improve on this, GO!

hes already changing it back i think

@Texas

We don't want the rifle to be pin-point accurate (at least I don't.), but I want the cone to be reduced. Anyways, the SMG and shotgun are useless at long range anyways.

The SMG will be upgraded to be a medium-range weapon, while the shotgun takes over for CQC.

The rifle is not an easy gun to use in close quarters without spraying, especially when you're surprised. The shotgun and SMG would fit those "spray-'N-pray" roles rather nicely.

Also, if you're a fan of the SMG, check out any server hosting Favela (map). It has a lot of close-range areas.

@Texas: The rifle has had perfect accuracy for every single update until .54.

IIRC, Ben said that he wants to make it like this: the first shot from the rifle would be perfect, but then the cone would get bigger for each shot fired until you stopped firing.

or he could make the rifle the sniper and make an assault rifle, id like the assault rifle more than the sniper but if the rifle becomes the sniper i guess its ok

@DUCK

The SMG would be used for medium ranges, so it could be used as an assault rifle when the next update comes out in 2-3 weeks.

Mechanics that can be added later to fine tune all weapons are quite like Drewgon13 described:

Spread cone starts out at a "default" angle and shrinks to a "minimum" angle over time when standing still, shrinks faster when not turning, jumps instantly to "maximum" angle when walking and slowly expands to "default" angle when turning.
SMG gets much wider cone maximum and the same cone minimum, and faster accuracy loss. It should have less recoil that pushes your view up and instead more recoil that affects the spread cone.
Though as it is, the view-tilt recoil is fine for the Rifle IMO.

personally i think the rifle should be nerfed to make it 80 damage for a headshot and then make a sniper rifle that can make one shot head shots but have a 3 to 4 second delay between shots. But i dont think it would be fare to see further into the fog so why not extend it a little further for every player? ALso i think every class should have advantages and disadvatages. like the SMG class can run faster than a rifleman class etc... just throwing out ideas.

@Devilfish

saved my ass a few times, even let me get the drop on the guy.

And that, my friends, is exactly why I hate the cone. I spend the extra one or two seconds lining the crosshairs up directly on my enemy's head, just to have the perfectly-aimed shot miss due to some bullshit randomness. Then the son of a bitch that I was just shooting at randomly gets lucky and nails me with one shot.

So, for taking the time to use what skills I have and line the shot up perfectly, I am rewarded with a bullet to my own face. Not cool.

I absolutely hate when I'm at a good distance from someone else and I'm trying to plink them right in the head but I miss. 20 fucking times. I don't know if it's the cone or my resolution or what. I'm playing with the default 800x600 on my 1280x800 native monitor and when they're far away standing behind a wall in between battlements (I think this properly describes what they're doing) with only their heads up. I try and get my crosshairs on them but it always misses. Move one pixel to the left or right and I'm aiming at the battlements. Should changing my resolution fix this?

slayer think of it like this, if you change it and it doesnt work, you can always change back

I just want it to be:
"first guy to shoot perfectly at head with proper timing wins",
not:
"everyone roll dice repeatedly till one wins"
which is how it is now.

Implementing spread-cone-recoil instead of view-recoil
fixes this and I can't think of anything that fixes it better.

The cone system sucks. This game shouldn't be about getting luck and hitting the guy who just aimed 5 sec and emptied his clip at you w/o a single hit, it should be about skills.