Sniper Balance Thread Thread - Red Alert 3 Paradox mod for C&C: Red Alert 3

Currently, I feel that Snipers are somewhat poorly balanced in the beta, especially when used with fire-port transports.

I feel that they can be made to fill a balanced and interesting niche in the game-play, but I think that some tweaks to them are required.

A chief balance concern of mine is Snipers in fire-port transports: as an example, putting a Marksman in a Transport Truck is currently so powerful, versatile, and difficult to counter that it is somewhat invalidating other Confederate support options by being so much better.

If you have an idea on how to improve Sniper balance, post it here. If you think that they are fine as-is, feel free to speak your mind here.

These are my tweak ideas- not necessarily meant to be all used at once:

1. Give Snipers a minimum range.

Reasoning- Whether its a Sickle jumping to a Transport Truck with a Marksman in it or Sniper firing at Infantry right in front of them, I feel like Snipers lack a weakness at close range that would help balance them. Giving them a minimum range would encourage using other units as line-backers to keep enemies away from them, encourage using quick units to rush into their dead zone, make them less of a more effective more costly basic infantry, and give more options to countering them in transports.

2. Reduce Sniper range when in a fire-port transport.

Reasoning- I feel that a key part of Sniper balance is that they are slow and low on health, but putting them in a fire-port transport removes both natural weaknesses. I think that putting them in a fire-port transport should be less of a requirement and more of a tactical option. Anyone who has fought against a Marksman in a Transport Truck can attest to how difficult to impossible countering them on the ground is. If they had to come into or close to normal combat range to fire, they would be considerably less frustrating to counter.

3. Reduce Sniper firing speed slightly.

Reasoning- As of now I think that Snipers generally pay for themselves in Infantry kills too quickly, and that the Marksmen stuns vehicles a bit too frequently.

4. Require a brief time not moving for Snipers to fire out of Fire-port Transports.

Reasoning- Fire-port transport kiting is one of the most frustrating things to counter for a commander without a heavy air presence. Requiring a brief time still for Snipers to fire out of them would mostly not harm full retreats while keeping them from edging into range, taking a single shot, backing up before the enemy has any time for a serious response, and then doing it all over again.

Edited by: Galgus

Surely what makes the Marksman/transport so unbalanced is its ability to stun vehicles. Could just preventing them from using the antivehicle rifle inside transports work? That way land vehicles could at least soft counter it, depending on what else it carried.

Your ideas all sound good, perhaps even a couple of them combined, maybe slower fining and minimum range could help balance them.

They have already noted these and will have them balanced (you've brough this up about 20 times Galgus!)

How about giving them a long set up time?

The Anti-Infantry aspect for fire-port transports is currently unbalanced, not just the stun aspect of the Marksman/ Transport Truck combo.

Anyway, this thread is for community discussion for potential solutions to the balance problem: not just for me to say my ideas.

i'm fairly sure there was a strong opinion of a set up time, a long pre fire delay rather then a long reload time.

I think that sniper money, strength and range should go way up, but the sniper should have massive recoil, which also means a very low fire speed. Also, when in a transport, reduce the accuracy and make the sniper reveal on shot. Lastly, snipers should have a low movement speed, and very low acceleration, while also being fragile.

I thought we already covered this on another thread, but anyway just a long setup time after moving would remove hit and run capabilities (if you want to take that out but Confed's are supposed to use dirty tactics). Low rate of fire would make it easy to remove the problems above while allowing the marksman to still be used as a stalling tactic in confederate style.

Edited by: norm0616