One shot, one kill (or, if you’re the majority of players, like two to five shots, one kill). Most snipers tend to miss more shots than they land, but when that one shot connects with your head, there’s a good chance you’re not going to feel thrilled about it. The second time it happens, you might even feel a little bit annoyed (especiallyif it’s by the same person). And for many of us, after the fifth or sixth time you get your head popped by a sniper, you’ll start feel like your real-life head is going to explode.
It’s normal for video games to affect us emotionally, and one of the most common emotions while playing competitive multiplayer games is rage. But why is it so much worse when you get taken out by asniper?
More often than not, I’m on the other end of that experience. My favorite hero inOverwatchis Widowmaker. My favorite gun inHalois the sniper rifle. And I absolutely love popping heads with theGears of WarLongshot. If the game has a hitscan sniper rifle in it (and not a terrible one likethe sniper rifle in Goldeneye), I’m the player way out in the back scanning the horizon for your head. And I’m the one you’re likely to tunnel-vision on so hard that you forget about the rest of the match entirely, because the sole purpose of the game suddenly boils down to: kill the sniper that killed you.
I’ve experienced this unbridled aggression so many times; sometimes it’s annoying, while other times it’s downright funny. Usually its accompanied by one of them rushing straight at me without thinking, them getting no-scoped, heading straight for me again after spawning, then rinse-and-repeat until at long last I lose the 1v1 and am subjected to a truly impressive display of repeated tactical crouching.
Then I just respawn and get right back to popping heads.
One explanation for this behavior would be that the anti-snipers have simply recognized a major threat and want to eliminate it. If that’s all it was, I’d say “well played,” and never give it a second thought. But far too many times I’ve been messaged about how “trash” I am after winning a match where I decimated the opposition with my trusty rifle. Far too many times a Tracer player has gone all the way into my team’s spawn zone to prevent me from posting up, while my team easily finishes the objective way across the map. And so often my killing spree has come to an end followed by multiple enemies shooting and emoting at my corpse as though they’re celebrating a happy new year.
I know being sniped isn’t the most fun thing in the world. But part of shooter games is dying, usually about as often as you get a kill if you’re an average player. So why is everybody raging way more when they get sniped? Why don’t the machine gunners get all the hate? Or those players getting all their damage using turrets or cheesy cooldown abilities? What about the player driving around the map in a tank, or the one who is always waiting for the next rocket launcher to spawn?
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Could it be that all those things take very little comparative skill, and what really makes us rage is knowing that someone else is better at the game than we are? Because, this is the part where I admit,I do it too.I hate when there’s someone on the other team that’s a great shot, especially if they’re successfully counter-sniping me over and over. It becomes a duel in which I feel the need to prove I’m more talented than they are, andend up sticking with Widowmakermuch longer than I probably should. Even if it’s detrimental to my team’s success. Maybe it’s not rage as much as simple insecurity.
Perhaps another reason snipers make us stop thinking clearly is that we don’t feel like we’re really able to play the game when they’re picking us off from the no man’s land way across the map. It could be that being in the center of the action feels more honest, and a sniper is viewed as a coward who’s unwilling to jump into the fray. Snipers are often able to rack up kills without putting themselves in danger. It can feel a bit unfair, and make the game feel out of our control - like there’s this rogue element threatening to ruin the flow of a game at any moment.
The solution to this is as simple as recognizing what’s happening, and see it as an opportunity to learn and grow? Maybe next time a sniper picks you off from across the map, don’t run straight at them in rage-fueled attack. Take a deep breath, exhale, focus. A sniper is actually quite easy to deal with if you use a little stealth and patience. Crouch down low, sneak up behind them, and just bonk them on the back of the head. Or better yet, do what the pros do and just stay out of their line of sight. It turns out all that cover is on the map for a reason, and most games don’t have a sniper rifle that shoots through walls, like Perfect Dark’s Farsight.
Or you know what? Just ignore the perfunctory advice. Sniping is one of the most fun things in shooter games, and I’m fine with everybody standing out in the open like scarecrows so that I can pick them off. It’s players' blind rage and lack of clear thinking that makes a match a veritable sniper’s paradise.
