People are quick to cry sneak OP for 2 real reasons:
1. They feel that sneak can attack them without recourse
2. They feel that sneak attacks are too powerful
The first is objectively wrong because sneak weapons have a range shorter than the range their are visible from (on characters with reasonable PE). Sneak doesn't make the attacker invisible until attacking, it reduces the range from which they can be seen. What this does is reduce the reaction time of the defender. Is that OP? Well lets look at the cost, guaranteed 100% (before Armor efficiency) critical bypasses on hits during and immediately after sneaking. That seems more than fair to me.
The second had some merit with the WAKI, but only situationally. The WAKI did OP damage when the enemy was hit in the back from a sneaking enemy within the 2hex WAKI range. The sneaker is completely vulnerable from X-Hex where they can be seen to 2hex where they can finally attack. You know how you countered a sneak WAKI? You closed doors behind you. You know what you did if the sneak WAKI was already inside? You stood with your back to the wall. I have never once died to a sneak WAKI player, because I PLAYED SNEAK WAKI a lot. Its not that I never ran into them, I just knew how to defend myself.
That brings to point the final statement: Can you claim something is OP and needing a nerf without actually understanding its mechanics?
I think not. As far as sneak rippers? I ran into a sneak ripper while looting. He hit me while I was looting from a body. You know how I countered him? I moved and bursted him. My damage was greater than his because every attack was a crit bypass. If being outplayed is OP, then I don't think there will ever be a game that is fair to you.
looks like u didnt played the server much ... guaranteed bypass on sneak was removed long time ago , and spotting formula was changed also , i dont know whats reasonable PE but its not easy to spot them with mid PE like 5 my guess is you need 10 and i dont know if that is some regular amount of perception ... needler got almost no aimtime with aimed shots , requires only 200 sneak skill in comparison to 250 which grands u all wepaon perks with a gifted character that has 7 more special points than regular chars which use all 5 weapon perks ... what does a sneaker risk ? a crafted needler gun , 30 sec , some looted needles from police department , one stim and one leathercoat ... if you would have played this server regulary than u would know whats wrong ... i dont like the colt also but the difference is that u can atleast see the coltuser from some distance i believe from what i have seen recently that a whole squad which consist only out of sneaks wud destroy anything at the moment thanks to the sneak contesting thing also , it doesnt take already long to kill a single guy with 2 sneaks just imagine what 6 sneaks cud do while they are mostly invisible to the enemy team ( i mean u seen the peakpreview already on the omg pvp video and that was just 4 sneaks wiping out a whole regular squad ) , gg and good analysis ...
p.s. its not the players who play the game like they want , its the mechanics which dictate how to play ... sneak cant take much stuff already by mechanics so its true that he risks nothing in the end but gain in the best case everything ... range goes from leatherjacket to spa with many meds and other stuff regular combat chars take because the mechanic is made like that and they are allowed to carry it. so what happens is that someone with almost empty inventory , very cheap equipment is capapble of killing anything ? something is wrong there in my opinion.
if the needler would be t3 and some dedicated not so cheap armor does grand him no auto bypasses then i wouldnt care but at the moment its more than broken ... in terms of gamebalance which is made by mechanics.