I often hear people talking about "quickscoping" in the context of First Persion Shooter games. My understanding is that it means looking down the barrel of a sniper rifle quickly in order to get a damage bonus for "scoping", then immediately going back out of the scope mode.
I also heard this does not work in Team Fortress 2 – and while I know you can't get the full damage off of such a maneuver, I know you can still get a headshot without scoping.
What exactly is quickscoping? Why is it such a common term? Why does it not work in TF2?
Best Answer
Quick scope is the act of zooming in or "aiming down the sights" with a sniper rifle and firing almost immediately after.
The term became really famous/infamous with the Call of Duty series, but the action itself goes way back to early FPS like CounterStrike. Sniper rifles do full damage, but were terribly inaccurate unless scoped. As soon as you hit the "aim" button the accuracy immediately became perfect, so staying in scope (known as "hardscoping") wasn't needed.
games like TF2 attempt to nerf quick scoping by making sniper rifles weaker unless scoped (which doesn't really work as it can still one-hit many classes on headshots when it's not "charged"). others make it so there is a "ready time" where the gun is still pretty inaccurate while first scoped.