Chapter LVI: Sniper

Well, this is a class from FFT serie that really would be interesting to see in a MMO. “But what would differ it from ARCs and musketeers or even cannoneers?” you ask…ballistic trajectory. ARCs, musketeers and other ranged attack users actually have no projectiles…they have just the long range…well, Sniper does would have 2 gameplay modes…the default, that is very similar to these ranged attack classes, and the sniping mode, activated while playing in first person.

However, here we would be required to define a weapon…seeing it originally used a bow in FFTA, I’d suggest a bowgun (gunbow?). “Bowgun? You mean crossbow, right?” Nop, I really mean a bowgun…a bow that can change forms to a rifle. The bow would be for the default mode…in this mode it would be very similar to ARC in nearly all aspects…the rifle mode would be for first person mode…by changing to active mode you automatically would trigger a scope vision. In this mode you would be able to hit monsters from way further than twice the ranged attack range, also dealing way more damage per attack.

However, it’s important to say that in sniper mode you can hit allies if you are fighting the same monster of him…and if you do you also take the very same damage you dealt to him. “Why this?” you ask…because of the projectile. While you can deal great damage from an absurd long range to monsters, it will only happen if the projectile actually hit the target, which would means that if someone cross the line of fire, ally or enemy, he’s the one getting hit instead. Also, while I’d love seeing targets with local damage detection (similar to RE5, when incapacitation can be done by targeting the specific spot of the target), here the targeting would, at start, be related to the projectile collision only…so, in short, bigger the target, easier it is to hit in sniper mode.

In this situation, though, sniper would never be able to incapacitate monsters. This because it would be a projectile mechanics to have an incapacitation rate (maybe depending of the bullets/shells used) instead of a WS feature.

About the action names, they would for sure have the Vanish action (similar to thief’s hide and hunter’s camouflage), that resets hate upon usage and leave you immune to sight targeting from monsters for 30 seconds or until you use another action, Conceal, that is the very same of Vanish but that grants the effect in area, the Doubleshot basic action that deals 2 attacks instead of one but consumes 2 ammo per attack (good for incapacitation), Beso Toxico, a WS that can inflict poison to target, Markman’s Spite, a WS that deals heavy damage but the damage is randomly split between HP, MP and TP of the target, Doom Shot, a WS that deals increased damage based on the percent of your current HP (lower the HP, higher the damage), the Headshot (only usable in sniper mode), a basic attack that allows you to instant kill the monster weaker than you and that rewards no SP or XP (made basically for fast cleaning of areas and farming). It can be used on higher rank monsters, but the kill rate goes down as the rank difference goes up and, for monsters higher than you, you do need to literally hit its head with the attack to the kill chance to happen. Also, NMs and minions of those are obviously immune to Headshot, just like eventual headless monsters like incapacitated skeletons.

Some other actions could be the Falcon Vision, which works as scope magnifier while in sniper mode or increase accuracy while in default mode, Lock-on, hat allows you to lock the scope on an already targeted monster so it you won’t need to target again after using actions action. Lock-on grants your next attack to land in default mode (long recast. Effect wears out after a minute or after the usage of a damaging action).

About Scavenge in special (for when running out of ammo)…since ARC already have it, sniper, instead, would have the basic attack Bayonet, using the bowgun’s bladed edge to deal melee piercing attacks. For extra ammo it could just learn as ARC and equip Scavenge or rely on Bayonet and Impale, a 250TP melee WS that deals piercing damage but that can only be used after Bayonet or Impale. In short these 2 actions would offer the class an emergency melee support to finish a fight without ammo.

And the rest would be like this. It would share some basic actions from ARC, like Retreating Shot, Light Shot and Refill, would have many ammo offering piercing/projectile damage, would have traits like Nightvision (to see in the dark. See topic about environmental effects, where I say that areas like caves and night should be really dark so layers would be required of using torches or spells to have light there), Killer Burden (increases stamina cost of attacks to increase damage dealt) and Rapid Snipe (increases scope movement speed in sniper mode).