Through the Lens: Video Games - Game Design Theory - page 120

Beware the Sniper
I know everyone loves snipers, but this is a great example of something
that players might love but might actually not be in their own self inter-
est—or to put it another way, in the interests of the game. Snipers are
inherently overpowering, and their nature (long range, high damage) is
such that they come with other problems too.
The problem is, either of those characteristics would be enough to
justify the class. A class with long range and low damage would still be
really usable, and a class with short range and high damage would also
be (and is) really usable. So snipers are kind of too powerful inherently,
and their level of power should be balanced out by a really, really strong
weakness (for instance, maybe they can't move for ten seconds after they
fire) The weakness that would be required would probably be greater
than the level that someone would tolerate.
Consider this also: if you're playing as a sniper, part of what makes
you a sniper is that you have an especially long range. That means that
most of the time you, as a sniper, are simply fighting other snipers.
Team-Based? Do Something about It
Since the early 2000s, team-based shooters have really taken off This is
largely due in part to the phenomenal success of the Half-Life modifica-
tion, Counter-Strike . One good thing that Counter-Strike did for team
games was to add voice chat, so that teammates could communicate
with each other in real time. Before that, players had to stop and type
out messages to one another, which is totally impractical in a high-stress
situation.
Developers need to do more of this sort of thing. One avenue that
hasn't been explored much in terms of this kind of improvement is re-
moving personal scores. If soccer players were allowed to see their per-
sonal stats ranked on a big board against those of their teammates in real
time, for instance, it would probably screw up the game. Players would
start doing things that were good for their personal stats, but not nec-
essarily good for their team. But this is how it works in today's popular
shooters such as Team Fortress 2 . Players have two interests that often
conflict—personal score and team score—and the game does not do a
great job of highlighting which is the important one.
In the case of team-based shooters with character classes, such as
the aforementioned Team Fortress 2 , I'm actually going to compliment
asymmetry because it serves to promote teamwork. When each player
on the team has a unique role, it means that players have to work to-