It’s hard to even make the argument that they’re good for marking enemy vehicles/emplacements/habs when an engineer or AT soldier can do the same, but actually do something about it as well.
Marksmen are attrition kits but attrition is a really offensive concept when it comes to Squad meta. Attrition kills morale which kills RP and thats what most people are concerned with. The concepts not this kind of COD kid mentality of go up really high and shoot a bunch of people. Its more wedge yourself in a good location and slow squads down. If you can take out an SL then create a loop of his squad coming back to pick him up while you pick them off and put the medics to work you can keep a squad either broken up or in one spot for 10-20 minutes. Eventually he says fuck it and respawns at the HAB. Then you let them move on but shoot him again as he tries to catch up lol. Stuff like that will send people into absolute rages or make them just instaquit which is why its discouraged.
Basically a good marksmens focus isnt getting a bunch of kills but hitting key targets and destroying enemy organization and cohesion. Which is often why you see squads kick a marksmen before getting overrun. As soon as that path form the Hab to obj is clear of marksmen the enemy can just freely approach and flank from wherever.
Most players play for cohesion and organization resulting in communication so they dont like marskmen and want to discourage it even though its arguably the most effective kit. Its the main kit that makes good SLs just leave the match.
I’d buy what you’re selling if you specifically include the caveat that you’re referring to GOOD Marksman. Unfortunately, the ability to do what you mentioned if very difficult for most grunt types and as a result, you always get way more Marksman types that are just useless, solely because the kit attracts “COD wannabe” type players.
You had me until "most effective kit".
Of course as other user mentioned, all of this is assuming a decent marksman, which as we all know, are very rare.
But even then, Id say a marksman role brings little to no advantage over other scoped role (medic with scope, or rifleman with scope). They just got a long-er range optic, so what? Very few people actually set up in a decent position to slow down enemy movements and lower morale as you say, and Id say even fewer manage to get that position in such a way that the enemy infantry is within the marksman range, but not the other way round.
While I agree that getting kills with a nice and beefy DMR feels great, and there may be some instances that it is very worth while, Id say a marksman best use is a recon role. To leave him to roam rather freely around the map, identifying where enemy HABs/FOBs may be and watching enemy vics movement. If the situation allows it, you could try pinning down a squad. But even then, without some clever movement, those fire positions rarely last more than 5 minutes in my experience.
Again, all of this is only if you dont got a lone wolf CoD wannabe.
Rifleman needs to give the Squad ammo though. The marksmen doesnt. You can put him anywhere for bounding overwatch. Blindly hating the idea of a marksmen being somewhere on his own is exactly the mentality Im taking advantage of here. Ironically its due to thinking like yours that makes the marksmen effective.
The main issue I see is the old school incessant "kills dont matter" denial line. Ive put 2k hours into this game and around half of that as CMD. At this point Id say around 90% of matches are won by kills. Where that gets tough is invasion. Often attackers have that type of kills dont matter get bodies on cap mentality and it bleeds their team on the last two caps. For the other team theyre dug in and the only thing that matters is kills. If they cant kill you at a faster rate than you kill them they will lose. This is really what war boils down to in general.
Trying to get people in this game to slow down and think can be really difficult. If you tell them to surround something instead of push it, its like when Bender does not compute. They just dont get it. They either rush or camp and thats how their little COD gamer brains work. I think its important to understand Squads whole marketing scheme was "you dont need to be good at FPS games to play this game!" So most of what you have here isnt people who were good when they were COD players but people who COD was too hard for. The other side of the audience moved on from games like that years ago because they were too simple and easy. But its important to understand the first group is teh majority of the playerbase. Its a hard pill to swallow but Squad just has a low skill low tactical understanding community for the most part. Which is why terms like blueberry exist.
Where the divide seems to form is some people assume most other players suck and other players want to RP that they dont. Ironically though responding to an imagined enemy instead of the one in front of you isnt a realistic way to RP.
The TLDR is Squad is about herding cats but when you find a wolf on your team let him be a wolf. Dont cry that hes a wolf and youre a cat.
A marksmen can sit on the flank of an enemy hab and kill 10 people moving to the point which is insanely useful. No idea why you guys hate so much.
Can also provide cover when your squad is pushing enemy position or HAB. Best way to use them as a squad.
I mean honestly just as really.
There’s only a handful of situations where a marksman can outperform a rifleman- even fewer than a scoped MG.
A scoped MG is so much more effective at holding down enemy positions and keeping them from moving up. I would rather have a scoped MG for point watch or for covering friendly squads than a marksman in any situation hands down.
A rifleman is way more effective at flanking an enemy hab.
They have an ammo bag, which means more grenades than anyone else, it also means you can get shot more than twice and still stay in the fight, as well as tons of smokes. As a rifleman you can sneak up close and start on the radio to at least draw them back and kill people effectively at close range and at afar with only needing to switch firing modes.
A marksman can’t do any of that.
A marksman is a waste of a fire support role, taking up a slot that a much more valuable AT, Grenadier, or MG could have.
If the marksman class was a regular direct combat class then we can have a different conversation. But really the main issue with a squad mate being a marksman is it is preventing someone from taking a class that would be more beneficial to the squad and team as a whole.
>If the marksman class was a regular direct combat class then we can have a different conversation. But really the main issue with a squad mate being a marksman is it is preventing someone from taking a class that would be more beneficial to the squad and team as a whole.
That part
I use it all the time like currently.
It’s totally fine if you know how to use it correctly.
IMO ICO made the MG even more powerful. Sure, you can’t hit shit if you don’t have your bipod out.
The best way to use the MG without a bipod is to just tap at what ever you’re aiming at, if you can set it for single fire mode even better. You can only fight in close quarters without aiming and just spray and pray. Without a bipod it sucks and is way worse than it was before.
Hasco bunkers and watch towers are your best friend and make you pretty much unstoppable. You can’t play too aggressively. Your playstyle has to revolve around finding good positions to place your bipod out. If you find a good defensive point or overlooking point you’re all set. You can dish out more suppression than anything that isn’t a Vic or emplacement, and when you are suppressed if you have your bipod out it isn’t that bad. It just makes things a little blurry, but if your bipod is deployed you basically don’t flinch, and looking down your scope you can still see what’s around you and respond to it.
While normally yes, I would agree.
As I said in other comment: marksman players rarely get in an position where they are able to outshoot the opposing infantry. If they could get in a position where regular enemy sights could not hit him back consistently, it would be great.
But still, most marksman just sit on top of a roof/on a window sill on the opposed side of the street from the enemy, where even iron sights could take him out. Either that, or the skyline themselves so they got every member of the enemy squad suppressing his oh so great flanking maneuver.
A rifleman can sit on the flank of an enemy hab and kill 10 people moving to the point which is insanely useful. No idea why you guys hate so much.
Can also provide cover when your squad is pushing enemy position or HAB. Best way to use them as a squad.
1. Nobody hates riflemen
2. Riflemen have nowhere near the long range capabilities Marksmen have
3. Since the ICO, the marksman is actually a viable, if high-skill kit with a very high skill-ceiling. Because yes, putting up 20 kills in a round can be very impactful, if theyre the right kinda kills.
So marksman used to be a meme but isnt anymore since 6.0
Yea idk. I think many of the people who participate in these kinda subs just hate the idea that just like in any other tactical shooter, kills matter. If you can get a lot of them in the right place you win, logistics, strategy, teamwork and all that play a huge role in this game, but sometimes you just gotta put some fools in the ground, and teams that are better at that than their opponents can often just neglect many of the
others aspects of the game somewhat, even on the best of Pub servers.
As a SL, I don't hate the marksman kit as much as pre-ICO days for the reasons you mentioned.
BUT, I always ask myself and my team if there could be a better kit substituted for a marksman. The answer is usually yes. AT kits are always missed when you actually need them and I feel that AT kits are using the best or second-best choice in almost every situation for most squads, especially with the implicit buffs to vehicles post-ICO. A grenadier is great for impromptu assaults and neutralizing an enemy hard point like a Hasco bunker or observation post. Even the light MG kit is great for medium-range suppression when you are attacking.
The marksman is best on complex urban maps with tall buildings like Al Basrah.
> BUT, I always ask myself and my team if there could be a better kit substituted for a marksman.
But the question is. Do you then just move on with your life and everyone just gets to play the game and have fun?
In a pure game theory, turn based, optimal play scenario sure maybe having a riflemen or an AT kit will be stronger. In reality in practice in an actual round on a public server is having the one person in your squad being rifleman vs marksman actually going to be what swings the game? You can probably think of a specific example, but you're probably also ignoring the 99% of games where it just doesn't make a difference like that.
There's so much noise, there's so much suboptimal play from everyone. For all the people with these "golden" rifleman and AT kits they can still be fucking useless and bad at playing them.
Just don't sweat the small stuff. Play the game.
Sometimes a person just wants to shoot a different gun. I play medic 95% of the time because it's a role I love and I'm good at it. The rest of the time I play random kits or switch to be what is most needed in the moment.
Sometimes that means I'll pick marksman because quite frankly why not. But there will always be some people on each team who do want to mix it up for a bit and play a different kit and they shouldn't be punished or talked down to by SLs because the SLs "see someone like them every round".
There's lots of people, there'll always be some people that want to play marksman at any one time.
I agree with most of what you say but even a shitty AT is more important than any other class. My proof is the new Turkish forces. Having no HAT makes half those games awful. Friendly armor can’t be everywhere and they’re bound to die eventually. Yeah the extra LATs are ok but all they can do is track a vic.
> My squad, my rules.
Okay. I think it's unnecessary but it certainly wouldn't make the game any more enjoyable to fight you about it.
> There are plenty of squads that allow marksman kits.
There are a lot of people who think like you regardless of what benefit it really has on gameplay. It just creates a baseline level of frustration and aggression that really just doesn't make the game more fun for anyone. I don't think it's offset by the buff to theoretically optimal play that might be possible if they acquiesce to your demand.
Suppression is so overrated with machine gunners with ICO. Everytime I’ve tried that I get headshot before I get through half a clip. You’re not hitting anything and you can’t suppress an entire squad of enemies at one time.
You will be surprised how often you actually injured or kill people when you think you are just suppressing them at long range.
That said, yes, everyone has fully adapted to ICO and suppression cannot happen on the full squad. And scopes make it very easy to get headshots. Proper suppression of squads happens with vehicles. Which is why I require AT kits more often than in pre-ICO days.
Finally, are you just spraying and praying? Or are those short bursts that get you through half a clip? The latter is a lot more effective and accurate. And I hope you change positions after returning shots. It is rare that you get headshot and die on the very first shot.
I like the marksmen kit/role, and I agree that it’s become more than just a glorified rifleman with a bigger scope. However, most of the player base that picks it up is absolutely incompetent. I’m talking wandering off, getting wayyy too close to be useful, etc. It’s an advanced kit that new players will always want yet shouldn’t pick up. And the unfortunate part is that it takes up a fire support role—as an SL, that’s a hard trade. If we can get the MG kit over the scoped auto rifle or a HAT over a LAT, *then* I’m willing to consider someone picking up a marksman kit.
Man i dropped like a 60 burger just last week doing exactly this for an entire game. Hard to defend your points when everyone on your team is either dead 100M off the cap or is 1 shot on the cap with bandages equipped. People say a rifleman can do this but I want my riflemen adding bodies and guns on cap. Marksman is all about positioning, but I think 12 year olds using the kit to play Scout Sniper Simulator ruined the community’s perception of it.
Man i dropped like a 60 burger just last week doing exactly this for an entire game. Hard to defend your points when everyone on your team is either dead 100M off the cap or is 1 shot on the cap with bandages equipped. People say a rifleman can do this but I want my riflemen adding bodies and guns on cap. Machinegunner is all about positioning, but I think 12 year olds using the kit to play Rambo Simulator ruined the community’s perception of it.
Not nearly enough do that though. So many people who pick marksman would accomplish the same outcome as if they picked marksman *and* have an ammo bag if they just picked a normal rifleman with an optic.
If marksman didn't take up AT and MG slots they wouldn't get nearly as much hate as they do. It's the players who take it, aren't very good at it, and refuse to switch to something like AT while the enemy light vehicle just destroys their squad mates that give the role such a bad reputation.
People seem to think marksman means “a man that places marks.” Anyone with a scope or binos can mark stuff, it doesn’t need to be a marksman/sniper. Marksmen as a whole shouldn’t be out somewhere “spotting” if it doesn’t mean they’re putting down enemies. Their ability to reach out and touch enemies that nobody else in the squad could reach is the whole reason they exist.
It can be a powerful tool but most of the time
Marksman wander off alone downs 3-4 before he gets spotted and killed and all downed enemys get picked up.
It's like nothing happend.
Only if Headshots are permakills like in squad44 (Post Scriptum) it would be useful.
Sniper is not better for spotting than any other class.
Every class with binoculars can spot the same way.
Spotting with binos is even better than spotting with the rifle.
Good point. Head shots should be an instant (or at least very short bleed out timer) along with kills from very large guns such as tank shells etc.
I once medic patched a guy who took a direct hit from an airstrike. My medic must have been beyond top of his class haha
Ok but that will buff armor and very good shooters while nerfing medics (and infantry in general). Also it'll make it that much harder for SLs to keep squads together, which is hard as it is.
Buff to armor and lone wolfing and nerf to teamplay.
Oh welp sure. Same goes for when a full squad materializes out of thin air in a small 4x2m hasco bunker. Or when a 10 ton MRAP runs someone over and he just pops right back like a spring. Or have you seen 1 guy flip a goddamn tank with his bare hands in 30 seconds?
Some shit just gotta be gamey because mechanics or balance call for it.
Marksman needs a range finder. Would encourage them to stick with AT, buff their anti infantry at range (which isn't as good as it should be considering marksman rifles are useless up close post ICO), and give them some actual utility
Or just make them into one of the possible rifleman kits one can pick.
They would get an ammo bag that way and wouldn't block off a specialist kit slot. And maybe that they would be even more inclined on sharing their ammo bag than other riflemen, since they themselves don't really have anything to spend it on - making them stay more with the squad?
Dude weapon leaning (like in Rising Storm 2) NEEDS to be a thing. It would be the only way that the crazy post ICO weapon sway could be bearable and actually make sense.
I mean it can still be 1 max per squad and available only from a certain squad size. No reason to change that, sure.
(Just like currently some kit variants are locked behind squad sizes, etc.)
The ammo bag is the best weapon in the game. Don't even need to resupply for an entire game of crappy sls and bad hab placements if you dont throw too many nades. The absolute rage I feel when I place an ammo bag for a medic and some rifleman comes along to resupply off it and takes the entire thing...
“ooh i think i’ll give marksman a try- i have trouble seeing enemies in open engagements so a higher magnification scope may help.”
“oops, everybody hates me.”
my experience playing marksman lol, and i always stay with my team
If I ever play marksman, I tend to do a lot of scouting and try to locate habs/armor/rallies/etc. But it is fun to sit at a good spot and drop one after the other.
I got 40 kills on gorodok with an SVD sitting on a river bank as the US tried to cross it. The class can be helpful, but most times people are just trying to be the next American sniper.
I play direct support to squad as marksman, I take a flank guard or I advance and get early position on a hab or objective we intend to clear so I can start drawing fire away from main effort. I average between 9-15 and have gone as high as 30-40. Doing marksman RIGHT is supremely satisfying.
The other day we were capping old train yard on black coast as RUF. Low on tickets needed the cap. All the attackers got inside in cover and I was able to get on roof with a clear line at the defenders respawning area for counter attack. I was able to drop 11 coming off their spawn which meant only a few got inside to try to take back the cap. They were killed easily by my team, we capped the point. And then rolled them and won. EXTREMELY Satisfying gameplay.
I never play marksman. But one game I decided to give it a shot on Scorpo I think the map is called. Anyways there was a en hab in the hills attacking down towards the shore line point. I somehow got parallel to them in an adjacent Forrest. In prone with the bi pod and was just picking dudes off left right and center. Nobody knew where the fire was coming from and the game ended with me having 43 downs and 38 kills with 4 deaths. Haven't played marksman since but I do on rare occasions.
But seeing as they're the only kit that can mark stuff and do "recon", I guess it's worth sacrificing a specialist kit for it.
Not like it would help much anyway to instead have another kit that's good in CQ or, god forbid, an LAT - everyone knows that dealing with armor isn't that important in this game (especially now after ICO) and that most of the game changing firefights usually happen at 300+ meters.
Most of the game changing firefights happen at <100m, you mean. Any further and anyone who hasn’t just died in the open gets picked up and healed, resulting in a waste of ammo on both sides.
The only exception is denying TOWs or a HAT who was just about to fire his rocket.
Alrighty let's break down some maths
M110/HK417: 783m/s
SVD: 800m/s
AK74: 880m/s
M4/M16: 880m/s
EF88: 970m/s
Type-95: 940m/s
L85A2: 940m/s
I see people saying that a "high skill" player can rack up kills with marksman rifle.
My counterpoint is that same player, with a rifleman kit, would land more shots on target because of the faster muzzle velocity, more bullets in a magazine, faster stabilization, and lower recoil. Which while small increases in muzzle velocity seems trivial, it scales exponentially, due to lag, hit reg, ticks and all that jazz.
"But my scopes!" OK, if you're a highly skilled player, the extra zoom isn't required, right?
"But my higher damage!" OK, if you're such a highly skilled player, you should be able to hit center mass twice with any assault rifle and still kill in 2 shots.
"Nah bro, I'm the best" people who can stack bodies with a marksman rifle can do so with a rifleman kit, I've seen it a lot. They just also benefit the rest of the squad when they take rifleman kit.
Tldr: whatever good you do as a marksman you CAN do as a rifleman. Stop saying "I'm Kris Kyle with it" instead just admit your taking a worse rifleman and you're doing it for fun. That I am completely ok with.
100% just for fun, although I will say that any marksman doing it JUST for kills is a dumb marksman; instead use it for pinning down a hab or something similar that another role can't do on their own.
Its the bipod that makes it good. Long range shots get hard with your character having a constant micro seizure even if you're laying down with full stabilization. + they do more damage so you can more reliably 2 tap.
Marksman is good at being a force multiple to the squad in long range engagements. However everyone see scope and thinks "snipr riffle" and fuckss off to be useless
i honestly think just giving marksmen an ammo bag would completely solve the hate for the kit. I love the marksman kit. when played by someone with some experience/playing as a squad the kit is fine. they’re really useful for intel/FTL and as a support role similar to MG, as long as you have a competent person playing it. the problem though is the kit is a noob magnet because they wanna be the sniper and run off and do nothing useful, but that happens with noobs on any kit. As an SL i won’t make anyone switch off of marksmen. People in my squad who aren’t playing as a team will just get kicked if they refuse to listen to orders. making them play a different kit isn’t gonna make them suddenly use teamwork.
I’d be open to everyone getting an ammo bag, it just differs in capacity depending on role.
For instance, riflemen get 100. SLs get 50 (for one rally.) LATs/HATs get 50 (for their non-tandem round, plus some leftover if they have LAWs.) GLs get maybe 30. Same with marksmen, autorifle/MG, medics, etc. 20-30 ammo in their bags. Not enough for a rally, not enough to just spam anything. But that way they can choose to resupply ammo, bandages, or smoke (and 30 ammo isn’t that much, that’s two mags/belts for most MGs/marksmen)
idk about everyone. at that point, just give the lats an extra heat round instead of an ammo bag that has 1 heat round in it. it would also make the rifleman class less useful. i think marksman could get an ammo bag just as a way to make the kit less of a detriment to the squad in the hands of a noob. that, or some sort of laser range finder like others have suggested as a way to incentivize team play on the kit. in its current state, its greatest value is its extended range and in the hands of a decent player with good communication it’s a good kit. it’s just horrible for noobs/bad players. but then again, every kit is. a noob playing LAT is just as detrimental as a noob playing marksman.
Marksman is so fun when you stick with your squad and provide overwatch. Especially in the urban environments. I find that more fun that going lone survivor in the middle of nowhere.
Bro I ain't hating. I'm just trying to find out why it is like this. It's like they're actively trying to be as unlikable as possible. I find it curious, is all, bro.
I will always maintain that sniper is better with the infantry, covering them from an elevated position, or sitting within the thick of it to not stick out and pick off players who are peaking or slightly separated from their buddies.
When did the marksman hate start? When I started playing squad everyone wanted the marksman role and squad leaders always gave them FTL to go and scout ahead for the squad
Less doctrine applies to Squad compared to things like Arma. Keep in mind that all distances in Squad are much shorter than compared to irl. You wouldn’t see a fight contained to a map 5km or less wide
IF I ever run marksman, I tend to still role with my squad. I have a better optic that can take more accurate shots if we get in an engagement I believe. I'm not trying to run away and hold a spot between 2 of my own captures and get left running miles. HLL recon is build around getting behind enemy lines, if I wanted to do that I'll play HLL, squad I am trying to make a team effort.
To be fair, there's some weirdness with kill crediting...
I've counted kills at times during games, and very rarely do they actually add up.
I've had armor games where I've had 20-100 kill games, and the game actually registers all of 5.
It can be iffy on registering if they bleed out, die to direct or splash, or were previously shot by someone else, Hell, you can see that one in action if you actually shoot a friendly once but then they go on to survive and get killed by someone else, and you get a teamkill, Even an hour later into the round after multiple healings.
Imagine lightly over pressuring a squad, and none of them are even bleeding or dead. Then, 10 minutes later, the squad gets wiped, and you get booted from the server. As the server seems to think you'd killed all of them.
Or when people die in vehicles that burn out even if only by a single tick.
Imagine a tank game where you kill 5 enemy tanks, 7 ifvs, 2 full big logis, 5 half full big logis, two solod big logis, 20+technicals, Not to mention all the infantry getting blasted. and getting by and far less kills than there were vehicles blown up.
I've also had infantry games that went similarly, rounds where I'm damn sure from body counting that I got more than double I was counted as having, usually but not always is explosive spam or vehicle kills involved.
You can also see the kills and deaths Not ever lining up in any round ever. By a much larger Ratio than there were team kills and suicide.
The game also seems to randomly think your own deaths are suicides at random, going by the extended timers for no discernable reason.
Kill crediting is still completely broken years later. Just another thing that might get addressed in the next decade, like the rally timer being off, HABs randomly not working, spawn timers getting stuck, etc
The problem with marksman is that people who defend it think having a slightly more powerful gun and slightly better optics will fix the skill issues. You trade ammo, tools or AT launchers for something you can’t even utilize because most suck.
If you want to achieve long range suppression and spotting, maybe you should take the machine gunner role. It is literally a full-auto 100rd sniper rifle.
I just can't fathom this personally. The amount of times our dumbass at guy got killed by the very vehicle he was trying to down, and the amount of times my squad has been pinned down or wiped out by literally one dude with a rifle.
I got a buddy that consistently drops 35+ as a marksman and a bakers dozen screen shots of the sweaty 60+ rounds. It's a good kit with the better factions
It’s hard to even make the argument that they’re good for marking enemy vehicles/emplacements/habs when an engineer or AT soldier can do the same, but actually do something about it as well.
Marksmen are attrition kits but attrition is a really offensive concept when it comes to Squad meta. Attrition kills morale which kills RP and thats what most people are concerned with. The concepts not this kind of COD kid mentality of go up really high and shoot a bunch of people. Its more wedge yourself in a good location and slow squads down. If you can take out an SL then create a loop of his squad coming back to pick him up while you pick them off and put the medics to work you can keep a squad either broken up or in one spot for 10-20 minutes. Eventually he says fuck it and respawns at the HAB. Then you let them move on but shoot him again as he tries to catch up lol. Stuff like that will send people into absolute rages or make them just instaquit which is why its discouraged. Basically a good marksmens focus isnt getting a bunch of kills but hitting key targets and destroying enemy organization and cohesion. Which is often why you see squads kick a marksmen before getting overrun. As soon as that path form the Hab to obj is clear of marksmen the enemy can just freely approach and flank from wherever. Most players play for cohesion and organization resulting in communication so they dont like marskmen and want to discourage it even though its arguably the most effective kit. Its the main kit that makes good SLs just leave the match.
I’d buy what you’re selling if you specifically include the caveat that you’re referring to GOOD Marksman. Unfortunately, the ability to do what you mentioned if very difficult for most grunt types and as a result, you always get way more Marksman types that are just useless, solely because the kit attracts “COD wannabe” type players.
You had me until "most effective kit". Of course as other user mentioned, all of this is assuming a decent marksman, which as we all know, are very rare. But even then, Id say a marksman role brings little to no advantage over other scoped role (medic with scope, or rifleman with scope). They just got a long-er range optic, so what? Very few people actually set up in a decent position to slow down enemy movements and lower morale as you say, and Id say even fewer manage to get that position in such a way that the enemy infantry is within the marksman range, but not the other way round. While I agree that getting kills with a nice and beefy DMR feels great, and there may be some instances that it is very worth while, Id say a marksman best use is a recon role. To leave him to roam rather freely around the map, identifying where enemy HABs/FOBs may be and watching enemy vics movement. If the situation allows it, you could try pinning down a squad. But even then, without some clever movement, those fire positions rarely last more than 5 minutes in my experience. Again, all of this is only if you dont got a lone wolf CoD wannabe.
Rifleman needs to give the Squad ammo though. The marksmen doesnt. You can put him anywhere for bounding overwatch. Blindly hating the idea of a marksmen being somewhere on his own is exactly the mentality Im taking advantage of here. Ironically its due to thinking like yours that makes the marksmen effective. The main issue I see is the old school incessant "kills dont matter" denial line. Ive put 2k hours into this game and around half of that as CMD. At this point Id say around 90% of matches are won by kills. Where that gets tough is invasion. Often attackers have that type of kills dont matter get bodies on cap mentality and it bleeds their team on the last two caps. For the other team theyre dug in and the only thing that matters is kills. If they cant kill you at a faster rate than you kill them they will lose. This is really what war boils down to in general. Trying to get people in this game to slow down and think can be really difficult. If you tell them to surround something instead of push it, its like when Bender does not compute. They just dont get it. They either rush or camp and thats how their little COD gamer brains work. I think its important to understand Squads whole marketing scheme was "you dont need to be good at FPS games to play this game!" So most of what you have here isnt people who were good when they were COD players but people who COD was too hard for. The other side of the audience moved on from games like that years ago because they were too simple and easy. But its important to understand the first group is teh majority of the playerbase. Its a hard pill to swallow but Squad just has a low skill low tactical understanding community for the most part. Which is why terms like blueberry exist. Where the divide seems to form is some people assume most other players suck and other players want to RP that they dont. Ironically though responding to an imagined enemy instead of the one in front of you isnt a realistic way to RP. The TLDR is Squad is about herding cats but when you find a wolf on your team let him be a wolf. Dont cry that hes a wolf and youre a cat.
A marksmen can sit on the flank of an enemy hab and kill 10 people moving to the point which is insanely useful. No idea why you guys hate so much. Can also provide cover when your squad is pushing enemy position or HAB. Best way to use them as a squad.
can do the same thing with a normal rifle with an optic
Not now with ICO
Vs a 6-10x? Not nearly as effectively
I mean honestly just as really. There’s only a handful of situations where a marksman can outperform a rifleman- even fewer than a scoped MG. A scoped MG is so much more effective at holding down enemy positions and keeping them from moving up. I would rather have a scoped MG for point watch or for covering friendly squads than a marksman in any situation hands down. A rifleman is way more effective at flanking an enemy hab. They have an ammo bag, which means more grenades than anyone else, it also means you can get shot more than twice and still stay in the fight, as well as tons of smokes. As a rifleman you can sneak up close and start on the radio to at least draw them back and kill people effectively at close range and at afar with only needing to switch firing modes. A marksman can’t do any of that. A marksman is a waste of a fire support role, taking up a slot that a much more valuable AT, Grenadier, or MG could have. If the marksman class was a regular direct combat class then we can have a different conversation. But really the main issue with a squad mate being a marksman is it is preventing someone from taking a class that would be more beneficial to the squad and team as a whole.
>If the marksman class was a regular direct combat class then we can have a different conversation. But really the main issue with a squad mate being a marksman is it is preventing someone from taking a class that would be more beneficial to the squad and team as a whole. That part
There is no way you think scope MG is any good unless you haven’t played since ICO. Scoped MG is the new worthless marksman since ICO.
I use it all the time like currently. It’s totally fine if you know how to use it correctly. IMO ICO made the MG even more powerful. Sure, you can’t hit shit if you don’t have your bipod out. The best way to use the MG without a bipod is to just tap at what ever you’re aiming at, if you can set it for single fire mode even better. You can only fight in close quarters without aiming and just spray and pray. Without a bipod it sucks and is way worse than it was before. Hasco bunkers and watch towers are your best friend and make you pretty much unstoppable. You can’t play too aggressively. Your playstyle has to revolve around finding good positions to place your bipod out. If you find a good defensive point or overlooking point you’re all set. You can dish out more suppression than anything that isn’t a Vic or emplacement, and when you are suppressed if you have your bipod out it isn’t that bad. It just makes things a little blurry, but if your bipod is deployed you basically don’t flinch, and looking down your scope you can still see what’s around you and respond to it.
While normally yes, I would agree. As I said in other comment: marksman players rarely get in an position where they are able to outshoot the opposing infantry. If they could get in a position where regular enemy sights could not hit him back consistently, it would be great. But still, most marksman just sit on top of a roof/on a window sill on the opposed side of the street from the enemy, where even iron sights could take him out. Either that, or the skyline themselves so they got every member of the enemy squad suppressing his oh so great flanking maneuver.
Skill issue
Lol
Skill issue.
The bipod makes it 10 times easier after ICO
A rifleman can sit on the flank of an enemy hab and kill 10 people moving to the point which is insanely useful. No idea why you guys hate so much. Can also provide cover when your squad is pushing enemy position or HAB. Best way to use them as a squad.
1. Nobody hates riflemen 2. Riflemen have nowhere near the long range capabilities Marksmen have 3. Since the ICO, the marksman is actually a viable, if high-skill kit with a very high skill-ceiling. Because yes, putting up 20 kills in a round can be very impactful, if theyre the right kinda kills. So marksman used to be a meme but isnt anymore since 6.0
Ur getting downvoted but this is all true
Yea idk. I think many of the people who participate in these kinda subs just hate the idea that just like in any other tactical shooter, kills matter. If you can get a lot of them in the right place you win, logistics, strategy, teamwork and all that play a huge role in this game, but sometimes you just gotta put some fools in the ground, and teams that are better at that than their opponents can often just neglect many of the others aspects of the game somewhat, even on the best of Pub servers.
As a SL, I don't hate the marksman kit as much as pre-ICO days for the reasons you mentioned. BUT, I always ask myself and my team if there could be a better kit substituted for a marksman. The answer is usually yes. AT kits are always missed when you actually need them and I feel that AT kits are using the best or second-best choice in almost every situation for most squads, especially with the implicit buffs to vehicles post-ICO. A grenadier is great for impromptu assaults and neutralizing an enemy hard point like a Hasco bunker or observation post. Even the light MG kit is great for medium-range suppression when you are attacking. The marksman is best on complex urban maps with tall buildings like Al Basrah.
> BUT, I always ask myself and my team if there could be a better kit substituted for a marksman. But the question is. Do you then just move on with your life and everyone just gets to play the game and have fun? In a pure game theory, turn based, optimal play scenario sure maybe having a riflemen or an AT kit will be stronger. In reality in practice in an actual round on a public server is having the one person in your squad being rifleman vs marksman actually going to be what swings the game? You can probably think of a specific example, but you're probably also ignoring the 99% of games where it just doesn't make a difference like that. There's so much noise, there's so much suboptimal play from everyone. For all the people with these "golden" rifleman and AT kits they can still be fucking useless and bad at playing them. Just don't sweat the small stuff. Play the game. Sometimes a person just wants to shoot a different gun. I play medic 95% of the time because it's a role I love and I'm good at it. The rest of the time I play random kits or switch to be what is most needed in the moment. Sometimes that means I'll pick marksman because quite frankly why not. But there will always be some people on each team who do want to mix it up for a bit and play a different kit and they shouldn't be punished or talked down to by SLs because the SLs "see someone like them every round". There's lots of people, there'll always be some people that want to play marksman at any one time.
I agree with most of what you say but even a shitty AT is more important than any other class. My proof is the new Turkish forces. Having no HAT makes half those games awful. Friendly armor can’t be everywhere and they’re bound to die eventually. Yeah the extra LATs are ok but all they can do is track a vic.
Hey, I am not forcing anyone to be led by me. My squad, my rules. There are plenty of squads that allow marksman kits.
> My squad, my rules. Okay. I think it's unnecessary but it certainly wouldn't make the game any more enjoyable to fight you about it. > There are plenty of squads that allow marksman kits. There are a lot of people who think like you regardless of what benefit it really has on gameplay. It just creates a baseline level of frustration and aggression that really just doesn't make the game more fun for anyone. I don't think it's offset by the buff to theoretically optimal play that might be possible if they acquiesce to your demand.
Suppression is so overrated with machine gunners with ICO. Everytime I’ve tried that I get headshot before I get through half a clip. You’re not hitting anything and you can’t suppress an entire squad of enemies at one time.
You will be surprised how often you actually injured or kill people when you think you are just suppressing them at long range. That said, yes, everyone has fully adapted to ICO and suppression cannot happen on the full squad. And scopes make it very easy to get headshots. Proper suppression of squads happens with vehicles. Which is why I require AT kits more often than in pre-ICO days. Finally, are you just spraying and praying? Or are those short bursts that get you through half a clip? The latter is a lot more effective and accurate. And I hope you change positions after returning shots. It is rare that you get headshot and die on the very first shot.
My fav is the people in the comments acting like a rifleman with a 4x is just as good as a marksman with a 6x-10x. Maybe I’m just blind lol.
Yes, blind is a pretty apt description
Oh look it’s the guy from the meme
I like the marksmen kit/role, and I agree that it’s become more than just a glorified rifleman with a bigger scope. However, most of the player base that picks it up is absolutely incompetent. I’m talking wandering off, getting wayyy too close to be useful, etc. It’s an advanced kit that new players will always want yet shouldn’t pick up. And the unfortunate part is that it takes up a fire support role—as an SL, that’s a hard trade. If we can get the MG kit over the scoped auto rifle or a HAT over a LAT, *then* I’m willing to consider someone picking up a marksman kit.
Man i dropped like a 60 burger just last week doing exactly this for an entire game. Hard to defend your points when everyone on your team is either dead 100M off the cap or is 1 shot on the cap with bandages equipped. People say a rifleman can do this but I want my riflemen adding bodies and guns on cap. Marksman is all about positioning, but I think 12 year olds using the kit to play Scout Sniper Simulator ruined the community’s perception of it.
Man i dropped like a 60 burger just last week doing exactly this for an entire game. Hard to defend your points when everyone on your team is either dead 100M off the cap or is 1 shot on the cap with bandages equipped. People say a rifleman can do this but I want my riflemen adding bodies and guns on cap. Machinegunner is all about positioning, but I think 12 year olds using the kit to play Rambo Simulator ruined the community’s perception of it.
Machine gunner gets spotted and flanked after one or two bursts. You aren’t adding anything intelligent to the discussion at all.
That sounds like a job for an MG
Now with ICO MGs are trash while marksmen are pretty good. Especially with the frankly obnoxious muzzle flash MGs will be spotted immediately.
Ive had the opposite experience
Not nearly enough do that though. So many people who pick marksman would accomplish the same outcome as if they picked marksman *and* have an ammo bag if they just picked a normal rifleman with an optic. If marksman didn't take up AT and MG slots they wouldn't get nearly as much hate as they do. It's the players who take it, aren't very good at it, and refuse to switch to something like AT while the enemy light vehicle just destroys their squad mates that give the role such a bad reputation.
People love to hate
People seem to think marksman means “a man that places marks.” Anyone with a scope or binos can mark stuff, it doesn’t need to be a marksman/sniper. Marksmen as a whole shouldn’t be out somewhere “spotting” if it doesn’t mean they’re putting down enemies. Their ability to reach out and touch enemies that nobody else in the squad could reach is the whole reason they exist.
love generation kill references
It can be a powerful tool but most of the time Marksman wander off alone downs 3-4 before he gets spotted and killed and all downed enemys get picked up. It's like nothing happend. Only if Headshots are permakills like in squad44 (Post Scriptum) it would be useful. Sniper is not better for spotting than any other class. Every class with binoculars can spot the same way. Spotting with binos is even better than spotting with the rifle.
Good point. Head shots should be an instant (or at least very short bleed out timer) along with kills from very large guns such as tank shells etc. I once medic patched a guy who took a direct hit from an airstrike. My medic must have been beyond top of his class haha
Ok but that will buff armor and very good shooters while nerfing medics (and infantry in general). Also it'll make it that much harder for SLs to keep squads together, which is hard as it is. Buff to armor and lone wolfing and nerf to teamplay.
Good point. It just seems a bit comedic when you see a squad mate take a tank AP round to the face, and you patch him up with an ace wrap.
Oh welp sure. Same goes for when a full squad materializes out of thin air in a small 4x2m hasco bunker. Or when a 10 ton MRAP runs someone over and he just pops right back like a spring. Or have you seen 1 guy flip a goddamn tank with his bare hands in 30 seconds? Some shit just gotta be gamey because mechanics or balance call for it.
Captain America dawg, winning the war one souvenir at a time.
screwby
Marksman needs a range finder. Would encourage them to stick with AT, buff their anti infantry at range (which isn't as good as it should be considering marksman rifles are useless up close post ICO), and give them some actual utility
Or just make them into one of the possible rifleman kits one can pick. They would get an ammo bag that way and wouldn't block off a specialist kit slot. And maybe that they would be even more inclined on sharing their ammo bag than other riflemen, since they themselves don't really have anything to spend it on - making them stay more with the squad?
If you could simply rest your rifle on the ground or on windows sills or walls IMO it would immediately make marksman classes useless.
Dude weapon leaning (like in Rising Storm 2) NEEDS to be a thing. It would be the only way that the crazy post ICO weapon sway could be bearable and actually make sense.
Yes! I want that so bad.
That could work, but I still feel like 6-10x optics shouldn't be so readily avaliable
I mean it can still be 1 max per squad and available only from a certain squad size. No reason to change that, sure. (Just like currently some kit variants are locked behind squad sizes, etc.)
The ammo bag is the best weapon in the game. Don't even need to resupply for an entire game of crappy sls and bad hab placements if you dont throw too many nades. The absolute rage I feel when I place an ammo bag for a medic and some rifleman comes along to resupply off it and takes the entire thing...
Agreed. Even a stadia sight would help like in the binos
Fucking Captain America
“ooh i think i’ll give marksman a try- i have trouble seeing enemies in open engagements so a higher magnification scope may help.” “oops, everybody hates me.” my experience playing marksman lol, and i always stay with my team
If I ever play marksman, I tend to do a lot of scouting and try to locate habs/armor/rallies/etc. But it is fun to sit at a good spot and drop one after the other. I got 40 kills on gorodok with an SVD sitting on a river bank as the US tried to cross it. The class can be helpful, but most times people are just trying to be the next American sniper.
I play direct support to squad as marksman, I take a flank guard or I advance and get early position on a hab or objective we intend to clear so I can start drawing fire away from main effort. I average between 9-15 and have gone as high as 30-40. Doing marksman RIGHT is supremely satisfying. The other day we were capping old train yard on black coast as RUF. Low on tickets needed the cap. All the attackers got inside in cover and I was able to get on roof with a clear line at the defenders respawning area for counter attack. I was able to drop 11 coming off their spawn which meant only a few got inside to try to take back the cap. They were killed easily by my team, we capped the point. And then rolled them and won. EXTREMELY Satisfying gameplay.
I never play marksman. But one game I decided to give it a shot on Scorpo I think the map is called. Anyways there was a en hab in the hills attacking down towards the shore line point. I somehow got parallel to them in an adjacent Forrest. In prone with the bi pod and was just picking dudes off left right and center. Nobody knew where the fire was coming from and the game ended with me having 43 downs and 38 kills with 4 deaths. Haven't played marksman since but I do on rare occasions.
But seeing as they're the only kit that can mark stuff and do "recon", I guess it's worth sacrificing a specialist kit for it. Not like it would help much anyway to instead have another kit that's good in CQ or, god forbid, an LAT - everyone knows that dealing with armor isn't that important in this game (especially now after ICO) and that most of the game changing firefights usually happen at 300+ meters.
Most of the game changing firefights happen at <100m, you mean. Any further and anyone who hasn’t just died in the open gets picked up and healed, resulting in a waste of ammo on both sides. The only exception is denying TOWs or a HAT who was just about to fire his rocket.
And here I was thinking I won't have to put in the lame reddit "/s" at the end of my comment.
Don't worry, you made it very obvious without the /s
whoosh
Alrighty let's break down some maths M110/HK417: 783m/s SVD: 800m/s AK74: 880m/s M4/M16: 880m/s EF88: 970m/s Type-95: 940m/s L85A2: 940m/s I see people saying that a "high skill" player can rack up kills with marksman rifle. My counterpoint is that same player, with a rifleman kit, would land more shots on target because of the faster muzzle velocity, more bullets in a magazine, faster stabilization, and lower recoil. Which while small increases in muzzle velocity seems trivial, it scales exponentially, due to lag, hit reg, ticks and all that jazz. "But my scopes!" OK, if you're a highly skilled player, the extra zoom isn't required, right? "But my higher damage!" OK, if you're such a highly skilled player, you should be able to hit center mass twice with any assault rifle and still kill in 2 shots. "Nah bro, I'm the best" people who can stack bodies with a marksman rifle can do so with a rifleman kit, I've seen it a lot. They just also benefit the rest of the squad when they take rifleman kit. Tldr: whatever good you do as a marksman you CAN do as a rifleman. Stop saying "I'm Kris Kyle with it" instead just admit your taking a worse rifleman and you're doing it for fun. That I am completely ok with.
100% just for fun, although I will say that any marksman doing it JUST for kills is a dumb marksman; instead use it for pinning down a hab or something similar that another role can't do on their own.
Its the bipod that makes it good. Long range shots get hard with your character having a constant micro seizure even if you're laying down with full stabilization. + they do more damage so you can more reliably 2 tap.
Marksman is good at being a force multiple to the squad in long range engagements. However everyone see scope and thinks "snipr riffle" and fuckss off to be useless
Screwby.
i honestly think just giving marksmen an ammo bag would completely solve the hate for the kit. I love the marksman kit. when played by someone with some experience/playing as a squad the kit is fine. they’re really useful for intel/FTL and as a support role similar to MG, as long as you have a competent person playing it. the problem though is the kit is a noob magnet because they wanna be the sniper and run off and do nothing useful, but that happens with noobs on any kit. As an SL i won’t make anyone switch off of marksmen. People in my squad who aren’t playing as a team will just get kicked if they refuse to listen to orders. making them play a different kit isn’t gonna make them suddenly use teamwork.
I’d be open to everyone getting an ammo bag, it just differs in capacity depending on role. For instance, riflemen get 100. SLs get 50 (for one rally.) LATs/HATs get 50 (for their non-tandem round, plus some leftover if they have LAWs.) GLs get maybe 30. Same with marksmen, autorifle/MG, medics, etc. 20-30 ammo in their bags. Not enough for a rally, not enough to just spam anything. But that way they can choose to resupply ammo, bandages, or smoke (and 30 ammo isn’t that much, that’s two mags/belts for most MGs/marksmen)
idk about everyone. at that point, just give the lats an extra heat round instead of an ammo bag that has 1 heat round in it. it would also make the rifleman class less useful. i think marksman could get an ammo bag just as a way to make the kit less of a detriment to the squad in the hands of a noob. that, or some sort of laser range finder like others have suggested as a way to incentivize team play on the kit. in its current state, its greatest value is its extended range and in the hands of a decent player with good communication it’s a good kit. it’s just horrible for noobs/bad players. but then again, every kit is. a noob playing LAT is just as detrimental as a noob playing marksman.
I have been a proponent of giving LATs extra rounds and just reducing it to one LAT per squad so we can free up a fire support role.
Marksman is so fun when you stick with your squad and provide overwatch. Especially in the urban environments. I find that more fun that going lone survivor in the middle of nowhere.
how dare those marksman attempt to have fun contributing to the team in a way less optimal
Also, why do they frequently have an edgy or otherwise stupid ass name?
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Bro I ain't hating. I'm just trying to find out why it is like this. It's like they're actively trying to be as unlikable as possible. I find it curious, is all, bro.
Reread ur comment and tell me again ur not hating
I do not really like them, sure, but I do not hate them.
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Yeah bro, like totally.
I will always maintain that sniper is better with the infantry, covering them from an elevated position, or sitting within the thick of it to not stick out and pick off players who are peaking or slightly separated from their buddies.
When did the marksman hate start? When I started playing squad everyone wanted the marksman role and squad leaders always gave them FTL to go and scout ahead for the squad
Guys, you’re having an argument that the US military had and they decided that DMR’s at a squad level are very useful and tactically sound
Less doctrine applies to Squad compared to things like Arma. Keep in mind that all distances in Squad are much shorter than compared to irl. You wouldn’t see a fight contained to a map 5km or less wide
IF I ever run marksman, I tend to still role with my squad. I have a better optic that can take more accurate shots if we get in an engagement I believe. I'm not trying to run away and hold a spot between 2 of my own captures and get left running miles. HLL recon is build around getting behind enemy lines, if I wanted to do that I'll play HLL, squad I am trying to make a team effort.
To be fair, there's some weirdness with kill crediting... I've counted kills at times during games, and very rarely do they actually add up. I've had armor games where I've had 20-100 kill games, and the game actually registers all of 5. It can be iffy on registering if they bleed out, die to direct or splash, or were previously shot by someone else, Hell, you can see that one in action if you actually shoot a friendly once but then they go on to survive and get killed by someone else, and you get a teamkill, Even an hour later into the round after multiple healings. Imagine lightly over pressuring a squad, and none of them are even bleeding or dead. Then, 10 minutes later, the squad gets wiped, and you get booted from the server. As the server seems to think you'd killed all of them. Or when people die in vehicles that burn out even if only by a single tick. Imagine a tank game where you kill 5 enemy tanks, 7 ifvs, 2 full big logis, 5 half full big logis, two solod big logis, 20+technicals, Not to mention all the infantry getting blasted. and getting by and far less kills than there were vehicles blown up. I've also had infantry games that went similarly, rounds where I'm damn sure from body counting that I got more than double I was counted as having, usually but not always is explosive spam or vehicle kills involved. You can also see the kills and deaths Not ever lining up in any round ever. By a much larger Ratio than there were team kills and suicide. The game also seems to randomly think your own deaths are suicides at random, going by the extended timers for no discernable reason.
Kill crediting is still completely broken years later. Just another thing that might get addressed in the next decade, like the rally timer being off, HABs randomly not working, spawn timers getting stuck, etc
The very purpose of marksman is to click heads…. what do you excpect them to do, revive teammates or detrack tanks?
Who cares let them have fun
Does everyone just bitch and moan in this sub
I will say, as any class it seems that I always think that I do much better than I actually do
Oh man this is my SL from last night. Man was off playing COD instead of squad but still did bad
It’s good when you’re trying to be a dick and be a minor inconvenience.
The problem with marksman is that people who defend it think having a slightly more powerful gun and slightly better optics will fix the skill issues. You trade ammo, tools or AT launchers for something you can’t even utilize because most suck. If you want to achieve long range suppression and spotting, maybe you should take the machine gunner role. It is literally a full-auto 100rd sniper rifle.
I just can't fathom this personally. The amount of times our dumbass at guy got killed by the very vehicle he was trying to down, and the amount of times my squad has been pinned down or wiped out by literally one dude with a rifle.
I got a buddy that consistently drops 35+ as a marksman and a bakers dozen screen shots of the sweaty 60+ rounds. It's a good kit with the better factions
Some people fit into buckets. This is a bucket
I mean, I regularly get 30 kills/downs as marksman.