Highs and lows of sniping play

I posted this in the Steam team fortress 2 forum.

Hello so as I was listening to the developer commentary the other day I heard the developers dicussing the idea of "highs" and
"lows" in gameplay, in the context of ubers. I guess they meant that when you use an uber it is a high point in your enjoyment because you get to go on a killing streak, and it is also a high point for the defenders as they flee in terror and pull out all stops to counter the uber.

There are highs and lows to playing every class. Particularly when you are on a bad team, you are going to have more lows (typically accompanied by frequent death) and less highs (killing streaks). The reason for this is that, as I'm sure you have noticed, the "momentum" (as I like to call it) is much different for losing teams than it is for winning teams. NO MATTER your ability as a player, it seems nearly impossible to do well when your team is getting rolled. In turn, it is almost impossible not to have fun when your team is pwning the other team.

Now to my point: I believe that sniper is a popular class because he is much less affected by the natural "highs" and "lows" that accompany normal play. Consider the soldier for instance: how well he does is pretty directly related to how well his team does. Don't believe me? Check the scoreboard in a match which is heavily in favor of one side or the other. It is no coincidence that the winning team heavily outscores the losing team. This relationship is not the result of one team just having better people across the board: the causality goes the other, because you notice that the same soldier (in terms of skill) scores drastically differently in different situations. Now contrast the soldier's experience with that of the sniper. The sniper is much less affected by his team's fortunes, mainly because he is often removed from the battle. For him, it doesnt matter much whether his team is pushing the opposition back or whether it's the other way around. He still takes the same shots and hits about the same number of people either way.

Secondly, the sniper tends to have less lows in game play on the whole; Every kill is a high for him, but he dies less often than a suicide pyro or a soldier ever would.

Conclusion: People tend to switch to sniper when they are not getting the right balance of highs and lows from other classes because it feels comfortable and safe. Sniping is popular because you can do it anytime and anywhere and not suffer from the problems that come with one team doing very poorly.