L33T or Ch34T? The Scoop on the Quick Scope

Nov 30, 2011

Sometimes, deciding what to write about in my Op-Ed pieces here at the Pork Chop Platoon takes me weeks of ruminating on current events, digesting the latest industry news and then trying to find an angle to make it relevant and entertaining for the older gamer demographic of which I am a member…and then there are the times when it hits me like a .50 caliber bullet fired from a spinning super ninja sniper while he is falling from a second story window backwards…mother fucking Quick Scoping! Like a bad case of the clap it is back in MW3 and after doing some digging it doesn’t look like it will ever go away. So grab your reading glasses, take that heart medication and read on for the scoop on the quick scope!

Quick Scoping (QS) : A style of play wherein a player is able to scope in, shoot for a kill, then scope out almost instantly without having to ensure the cross-hairs are on the target.

-The Call of Duty Wiki

While gamers have been quick scoping and or no scoping in a roundabout fashion for many years in other FPS games like Counter Strike or Halo, the craze we see today most certainly began with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was in this historic title that someone discovered the M40A3 Sniper Rifle, when combined with the ACOG Scope attachment, produced a faster ADS (aiming down sight/scope) effect while also giving a damage boost. And once word got out, snipers around the world decided it was time to shift their talents from a stationary unit to a mobile killing force. The era of the COD QS had begun!

I will be fair and say that the disadvantages of playing as a sniper, QS or not in COD4 limited the overall effectiveness of this technique. Stronger players could easily identify and eliminate these fledgling QSers and they proved little more than a nuisance, mostly because of the bravado and elitist attitude many had, seeing themselves as better than the average player for being able to score a kill while running, spinning or falling with one shot.

When World At War was released, quick scoping was mostly pushed to the background due to the lack of speed all of the bolt actions rifles had when going from hip-fire to ADS. It was here that only the “truly dedicated quick scopers” from Modern Warfare pursued the play style. So while you found them every now and then, they still didn’t prove a problem for most players.

With Modern Warfare 2, we once again saw a resurgence of the quick scoper and it actually became easier to do with the inclusion of the perk “Sleight of Hand Pro,” which increased the speed of the ADS functionality. That meant the existing aim-assist, with the enhanced ADS and the faster modern day sniper rifles which are almost all one hit kills, QSing went from a mild annoyance to a full on assault of the senses. Whole teams of QSers were seen in games and with the explosion of YouTube due to the affordability of home capture devices, every 10 year old Timmy had access to quick scoping instructions, techniques and slow motion montages to drool over.

Black Ops did everything it could to eliminate QSing when it released last year. For everything MW2 had going for quick scopers, Black Ops had a counter. This isn’t to say it couldn’t be done, but like World at War, it took a back seat to actual game play.

And now we have MW3. Not only is QSing back, it is bigger than ever. This is largely due to a philosophical ideology that Infinity Ward has about this technique. Robert Bowling, Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward, has said -

…you can still quick scope in Modern Warfare 3…our philosophy on that hasn’t changed since MW2.

Michael Condrey, VP and COO of Sledgehammer Games has also said in his blog -

While you are at it, please quickscope the %$#& out of Guy Beahm if you find him online.

As you can see, Infinity Ward and Sledghammer Games have no intention of changing the mechanics of the game to fix what they consider a non issue. So while we can say QSing is bullshit and an exploit, the developers of the game say otherwise. Clearly this mindset isn’t shared by all of the Call of Duty development team, Treyarch tries to keep it out of their games, but let’s face it, they are the red headed stepchild of Activision anyway.

So it isn’t a cheat at all. Despite everyone who feels otherwise, like me, that it as an exploit of the game physics due to the fact that the crosshairs essentially “lock on” briefly and allow one to achieve relatively easy one-shot kills, IW says it is not a cheat, a glitch or an exploit. So there you have a definitive answer for the first part of my discussion. Let’s now look and see if there is any merit to the idea that QSing is for noobs and losers with no skill.

While this is highly theoretical and just my opinion, the factor I believe that led to so many quick scopers in Modern Warfare 2 was the players search for a technique in the game which (in their opinion) would be skill-based so they could claim a type of elitism over other players. It may have also been simply a case of boredom. In a game full of rewards for everything, quick scoping may have been a technique that gave some players the satisfaction they felt was lacking from normal play, especially when they had completed all of the challenges in game.

Let us define skill. Skill is the culmination of effort and practice. Let’s also be clear here, however, and point out that talent does not equal skill nor are the two interchangeable.

So does quick scoping take skill? Yes, it does. There shouldn’t be any objections to this statement as clearly, with effort and practice you can become an effective QSer. Does it require less skill than hard scoping or aiming through the scope? I think that is something that can be debated forever and probably will be just like Coke vs. Pepsi. I have played with some amazing snipers, who have the patience and timing that clearly comes from skill. I have seen the epic slow motion montages of elite quick scopers on YT and I assume what they do takes a fair amount of skill and practice as well. Why, then, is the community so split about which takes more skill? I think it has to do with taking the purpose of the weapon out of context. Almost like eating soup with a butter knife, using a sniper rifle as an SMG is just silly. While each weapon tier (AR, SMG, LMG, Sniper) is provided in this game to fulfill a specific role, extreme players like to challenge themselves by using each weapon class in situations that are out of its intended role. Just like extreme skiing thumbs its nose at traditional downhill, so too does the QS community flip off the rest of us.

I firmly believe that it is this unrealistic use of the weapons that pisses off most gaming purists. Maybe it is maturity, maybe it is just my upbringing, but I have always been taught to play by the rules. Dicking around with some bullshit sniper rifle in a CQB situation just makes my blood boil!

So I will give quick scopers credit for putting time and effort into learning how to misuse a weapon and exploit a mechanic in the game. Bravo douche bag for making my gaming experience one of frustration and anger. I will continue to kill you and win the match. I will continue to listen to you go on and on about how awesome you are and how your QSing skills make my Mom weak in the knees. And I will continue to play the game the way I feel it is meant to be played, because at the end of the day that is what matters to me.

So until the next Treyarch game comes out and we see this trend pushed back into the shadows, game on everyone and T-Bag a quick scoper for me!