TheVille

I have no idea how to play as an effective sniper. I mainly hang back but my aim is really bad so I can hardly get any headshots in. Eventually, I give up and just charge at the enemy with the SMG. I have my sensitivity at high (~7). Though, I don't know if that's affecting my gameplay.

If anyone has some time, would you kindly lend me a few tips?

That's a very broad question and somewhat hard to answer...the best way to learn any class is to keep playing it.

Though for starters, the most important thing is to memorize head heights and track your dot on that height. For starters, let people walk into your dot and take them out as their heads cross into it. As you get the timing down, it might be easier then to move on to trying to hit moving targets.

Precision aiming can be difficult, it just takes practice

[quote="TheCarpe";p="180889"]
That's a very broad question and somewhat hard to answer...the best way to learn any class is to keep playing it.

Though for starters, the most important thing is to memorize head heights and track your dot on that height. For starters, let people walk into your dot and take them out as their heads cross into it. As you get the timing down, it might be easier then to move on to trying to hit moving targets.

Precision aiming can be difficult, it just takes practice
[/quote]

I came prepared! No worries!

The first requirement is to disable accelerated mouse. It's a feature on windows (?) machines where your cursor speed depends on how fast you move the mouse. So if you move the mouse quite quickly a certain distance... the cursor will go much farther than if you move that same distance at a much slower pace. You need to deactivate it so you can build muscle memory and have some consistency when sniping. As for how... uhhh... it should be in the mouse settings somewhere?

Then read this.

Should I also check the box that says "Enhance pointer precision"? My mouse's speed is at the 6th tick.

AAAAA

Disable THAT it's the devil!!!

I had that on, on my laptop and it screwed up my aim!!!!

Just did; it turns out that is acceleration and I haven't been using it in game either.

If the Pointer Precision box is unchecked you're already set. That's apparently what I was referring to.

With regards to sensitivity, I doubt it matters. I know snipers with high and low sensitivities. I've sniped with sensitivities ranging from 14 to 6. I find it's harder to track sticky jumpers with low sensitivities but my aim feels a bit more solid (even though I miss more). You'll grow accustomed to whatever you set it to.

From what I've read it is better to have a low mouse sensitivity when you play as a aiming class. Though it's really about comfort.

Warning: BAD SNIPER ADVISE AHEAD

I'm a bad sniper, but what I find helps me is to identify parts on a wall that are about head height and keep my mouse at about that level. This makes it so I don't have to move the mouse as much and over compensate on the y axis.

EDIT: For anti-spy use jarate. Whenever I hear the spy go, "Jarate?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" I laugh too much and die.

LINKS:

This article is based around RTS gaming but it does have some comparisons to FPS that are a little interesting and might help you with mouse function. http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/thread/4 ... ouse-guide

I found this map on the steam forums but so far it seems semi useful. It has bots that run around frantically that you try to shoot. http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/94902

In truth it is hard to compare mouse sensitivity between different snipers, since everyone has a different basic built-in Windows mouse sensitivity, hence your sensitivity settings in game will depends of the one you have in Windows.

Not sure my explanation is clear though

I understand what you mean. Though, it does not affect your overall gameplay in TF2 as everyone tends to adjust to their own sensitivity.

Recently, I've been increasing mine because I'm sick of having to reset my mouse so often.

What I find helps when sniping is to move up towards the frontlines, don't just hang all the way back. When you're hanging back at the last point you may be getting kills, but you are not helping your team as much as if you are near the front. This will probably be easier for ou though once your aim is better and you can pop around corners to take quick shots before taking cover again.

Though I don't use the sniper anymore, here are my tricks:

For starters, sensitivity is all personal judgment. I've used 14 ever since valve started making games with sierra. I prefer high sensitivity all all FPS, basically so one flick = 180. I never understood how people could aim when they have to keep picking up their mouse, but like I said, everyone is different.

Second, don't use SMG. I never found that gun to do much damage, and with the snipers low health, if you're close enough to do damage with that you are dead either way. Get your aiming to a point where you can no scope. Some people put tape or dry erase where the crosshair goes, problem is monitors have debth and the slightest angle can change this. But I think they added crosshair... or was that just a bug?

My downfall of sniping. The problem with computer games is preferential vision. When you scope you lose even more. Try to remain unscoped, target, scope, then while waiting for the appropriate damage charge aim again. If you scope to see your enemy because you can't see that far, you shouldn't play sniper. Try messing with your resolution and graphics.

Thankfully, the bow came out, now I can snipe without zooming in. This is giving me a lot more kills and less assists because I don't have to no scope so much.

Hope this helped, if it didn't oh well.

Think he made a hit, I got a post somewhere about latency and registering. But as a sniper I realized if you keep the laser locked on the target before and after a shot you are more likely to register then if you wait for the target to cross the laser. This is just works bests for me, haven't tested on other IPs and computers.

[quote="Carnot";p="180992"]I understand what you mean. Though, it does not affect your overall gameplay in TF2 as everyone tends to adjust to their own sensitivity.

Recently, I've been increasing mine because I'm sick of having to reset my mouse so often.[/quote]

You sound like a candidate for a trackball. I use one, with reverse y-axis checked to simulate the ball as your virtual head/torso. Trackballs are stationary and don't need to be reset and can have less elbow/arm movement for RSI injuries.

Normally people reduce their mouse sensitivity in game when you need more control for sniping. As an example of when you want more sensitivity is in DOD Source mg/bazooka/panzerschrek when deployed. Personally I use the same sensitivity on tf2 for everything because I can already snipe well enough but there are times I wish I could easily lower it on the fly. You could maybe bind a couple keys to some different mouse sensitivity settings to quickly try some out. try this in your user.cfg (replace the sensitivity numbers with something you are used to.)

bind "7" "slot7; sensitivity 1.0"
bind "8" slot8; sensitivity 1.5"
bind "9" slot9; sensitivity 2.0"

low mouse is ok .... but once u get good ur gunna wanna go high for flicking so id just stay at a decient speed so u dont have to ajust later...

my tips : stay on the same ground level as the people your shoting ... much easier to deal with 2 dimentions then 3

always go for headshots....(you dont have to ...thats just kinda my sniper moral thing ... its really not as fun if u dont)

like carpe said let people run into your dot (unless u can flick)

if there are other snipers shoot them first ... theyll be the ones to get ya

i cant thinkof anything else right now .... its early....happy camping