Man, the bolt action sniper needs a buff badly. First of all, in it's current state, there is no no
no way it's worth 5 loadout points. I'd pin it at 3 at
best. It becomes even more ridiculous when you look at what some of it's modifiers cost. Faster scope-in speed costs
4 FOUR loadout points, making the gun cost 9 in total. The sniper should have faster scope-in speeds by default. That's the only way to shoot accurately with it, and if you're in a standoff across the map with an AR user, they'll be able to hit you before you can even zoom in, shaking your scope and making it nearly impossible to get a headshot and very difficult just to hit the body.
The reload speed is ridiculously slow, it takes like 4 or 5 seconds to reload a five bullet clip.
You have to hit them square in their pin-sized heads to get a down in one hit. If you don't you have to bolt in the next shot, which takes a fat second or two, which means they've either run away or are returning fire and you won't be able to land another shot because of all the damage flinching.
By comparison, take sniping in something like Call of Duty. In the latest one, it's doable, though still generally inferior to other weapon classes. That game is an FPS, so there's less of a change when jumping from first person to scoped as opposed to third person to scoped. It's more of a natural motion. Moreover, there's not a single bolt-action sniper rifle in there that requires a direct headshot to kill. Usually it's just the upper body that needs to be hit. And this is a game where player movements are fairly straightforward. There's crouching and going prone, yeah, but nothing like Uncharted's rolling around, bouncy animations and snapping to cover to make your targets too erratic and difficult to hit. So, despite players being easier to hit, the kill range being more generous, and handling speeds being better in that game, sniper rifles still aren't that great, but they're workable.
Here in Uncharted 4, you have a weak, slow firing, slow handling, small-clipped sniper, and you're expected to hit these squirreliest of squirrely targets that roll and jump around and do sudden 180s and can see you aiming for them around the corner, and you're expected to nail them in the head.
And to put the cherry on top, most of the maps don't even have good sniping positions.
If I were to suggest some changes (not all of these need be implemented, and certainly not altogether, they're just areas of improvement) I'd say...
- Expand the kill range to the neck and upper torso. It's still not an easy hit, but gives you a fighting chance in mid-range combat and lets you properly own long-range combat
- Make the sniper cheaper. 2 or 3 loadout points. Right now it is not at all worth the same as an AK or FAL.
- Increase scope-in speed, increase reload speed, increase clip size
- Give it a slightly smaller blindfire cone to give you a slight chance in clutch close-quarters situations
- Give it a third-person aim and make the scope optional
Right now it's a PoS and I'm lucky if I can get 5 downs in a game with it.
