Veneficus wrote:
And to be even more critical about the LW2 sniper, why is the spotting skills not on a shinobi? A sniper in visual range as a support to a ranger defies belief...Especially since a ranger can fire 3 shots at incredible accuracy at the very edges of visual range, with damage output that makes the sniper look like they need to go back to the range and learn to shoot.
The LW2 Sharpshooter (not Sniper!) class is a mix of the LW1 Sniper and Scout classes. The scout class was like a sniper without squadsight and using a Marksman Rifle (lighter sniper rifle that can shoot after moving). With that in mind, a spotter job perfectly makes sense and the holotargetter seems like a natural tool even if such a build badly misses the LW1 Marksman rifle. They are not snipers at all, sniper is just a specific build of Sharpshooter, scout is another one. From a pure gameplay PoV, the holotargetting officer makes low Aim sharpshooters (if you're playing with NCE) viable while they would otherwise be a total waste.
If you build a real sniper (which is perfectly viable) they have better Aim and Damage than a Ranger so not sure what you are talking about for the last part.
it is really starting to feel like the designers are saying if you don't play in the way we like to optimize then you don't have a viable game.
OK, i don't want to be rude but if you don't like the way they design
their game, nobody is forcing you to play it.
That comment is neither nice nor fair and won't help start a constructive discussion. I
think i understand what you mean but that's not really the best way to say it.
They are not trying to force a particular build in every class, they are trying to make all of the builds valid. This requires a lot of testing and tuning. Big companies would do a lot more internal testing and still fail to deliver a balanced product at release. LW2 is only a few months from release, give me an example of a recent game that was perfectly balanced a few months after release. Give them time to tweak what they need to tweak. If you don't like the current state of the game, don't play it and wait a few more months until it's in a more polished state.
ndessell wrote:
... yes quite a few mechanics work they way they do because of jonnylumpy's personal head cannon.
Every game is influenced by the developer's head cannon, i don't understand what's strange or wrong in this. Obviously the developers are the one who choose the mechanics of their games. They choose them based on gameplay and lore reasons. It's easy to say that gameplay must always come first (and i agree to a point) but without some lore we might as well just move colored cubes and shoot at colored shperes on a map made purely of geometric blocks. Unlike most lead developers, jonnylump is actually active on his forum and sometimes explain why he decided to include or not some mechanics. This makes it more visible that sometimes he made a decision just because it fits his view of the world.
Once again, it's their game and they design it the way they want to. If you really don't like it, nothing wrong with this, just find a game that you like more. If you think you have an idea to improve the game, explain it (but remember it's the developers privilege to accept it or not). Criticizing the developers for doing what every developer does however won't help improve the game.