Shotguns..
Beast
Armonkyi Join Date: 2003-04-21 Member: 15731Members, Constellation
Armonkyi Join Date: 2003-04-21 Member: 15731Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Good? bad? need nerfing or not?</div> (disclaimer: I did search, but couldn't find any dedidcated threads on the shotgun that apply to this version that had any relevence to what I am talking about o.o)
After a long break from NS I have returned, I left last time due to 2.01 onwards balance problems; the main one being the shotgun.
I've noticed it still hasn't changed much. Each shell still does 170 damage max on level 0. And its very easy to empty 8 shells very fast. - 1360 damage in less than 3 seconds or so.
One shottgunner I feel is not the problem, it's when you get more of them. THose damage numbers go up VERY fast when the numbers increase:
2 shotgunners: 2720 damage in less than three seconds
3 shotgunners: 4080 damage in less than three seconds
and so on.
These are only theoerical numbers, only some of the pellets usually hit, but there are 10 pellets per shell, each doing 17 damage. So total of 80 pellets per "clip", 160 pellets for 2 shotgunners, and so on.
It's not that hard to use the shotgun - especially anyone with some FPS expereince, a notible example, the Unreal tournament series - IE the flak cannon.
There are some drawbacks to the shotgun, namely, only 8 shells, and given the "spammy nature" of it, those 8 can go down quickly, which renders the marine with said shotgun vulnerable to attack... asuming he is alone. If he isn't, there is a good chance he will end up injured, but still alive if attacked.
I'm unsure exactly how balanced they are, as a marine, I feel they make it a "bit too easy", as a alien, well, yeah, I hate them XP. I'm unsure if that's the way it's supposed to be however they are, or if they do need a tweak. The best idea i've seen so far, repeated by coil today was to reduce the rate of fire - My own suggestion is to reduce the damage each pellet deals as range increases, which would still make it good at short range, but not that good in the medium to long range area, giving aliens a better chance, specialy if they need to close the distance in a hurry when they hear the marine needs to reload. Another suggestion is to increase the price, so there are fewer of them.
So, comments on the shotgun? Does it need nerfing or leaving? or should the aliens have a better defence to it?
After a long break from NS I have returned, I left last time due to 2.01 onwards balance problems; the main one being the shotgun.
I've noticed it still hasn't changed much. Each shell still does 170 damage max on level 0. And its very easy to empty 8 shells very fast. - 1360 damage in less than 3 seconds or so.
One shottgunner I feel is not the problem, it's when you get more of them. THose damage numbers go up VERY fast when the numbers increase:
2 shotgunners: 2720 damage in less than three seconds
3 shotgunners: 4080 damage in less than three seconds
and so on.
These are only theoerical numbers, only some of the pellets usually hit, but there are 10 pellets per shell, each doing 17 damage. So total of 80 pellets per "clip", 160 pellets for 2 shotgunners, and so on.
It's not that hard to use the shotgun - especially anyone with some FPS expereince, a notible example, the Unreal tournament series - IE the flak cannon.
There are some drawbacks to the shotgun, namely, only 8 shells, and given the "spammy nature" of it, those 8 can go down quickly, which renders the marine with said shotgun vulnerable to attack... asuming he is alone. If he isn't, there is a good chance he will end up injured, but still alive if attacked.
I'm unsure exactly how balanced they are, as a marine, I feel they make it a "bit too easy", as a alien, well, yeah, I hate them XP. I'm unsure if that's the way it's supposed to be however they are, or if they do need a tweak. The best idea i've seen so far, repeated by coil today was to reduce the rate of fire - My own suggestion is to reduce the damage each pellet deals as range increases, which would still make it good at short range, but not that good in the medium to long range area, giving aliens a better chance, specialy if they need to close the distance in a hurry when they hear the marine needs to reload. Another suggestion is to increase the price, so there are fewer of them.
So, comments on the shotgun? Does it need nerfing or leaving? or should the aliens have a better defence to it?
Comments
I mean, sure, a really good shotgunner can take out 8 skulks, but that requires luck, and skill of the highest caliber. Most really good people can take out about 5 skulks using the same shotgun clip.
They can take about 3-4 skulks with an LMG as well.
I don't see any threads that says "omg, lmg is teh strongzorz".
Look at it this way, the LMG is the most accurate weapon besides the pistol, it reloads substantially faster than the shotgun, though it can't do as much damage per clip.
You pay 10 res for the "upgrade", and while the shotgun is much better in many situations than the LMG, it's a fair trade, and there's no need to nerf it.
prehaps buffing aliens accordingly would be good?
If the devs listen to the community on beta 6, I believe that the skulk class will receive a nice buff, certainly enough to take some of the edge away from the shotgun.
I would prefer they leave everything but the shotgun's range of fire alone.
I complain about the HMG since I play Onos a lot, and I find it a bit silly how ONE marine with an HMG can actively challenge the almighty Onos.
I think the shotgun needs a damage reduction by about 25% so you need 7 pellets to kill a skulk at lev0 (2-3 shots at a medium range, 1-2 at close).
Or make the spread random but thats gonna need <u><b>alot </b></u>of balance testing.
Although it can be aggrevating for aliens that the shogun has a discrete number of projectiles, and that at least some of them are not random at all (making it surprisingly useful as a distance weapon), to anyone who doesn't know where the projectiles actually go (and if they actually make them random at some point), there is the very real possibility of actually MISSING almost completely or completely at fairly short range with what is meant to be a weapon that compensates for aiming problems. In other words, a shotgun is meant to take a lot of the guesswork out of aiming and deal damage to almost anything in front of it... a lot at very short range when the entirety of its kinetic energy is dissapated in one target.
My point is, it would be interesting if the shotgun behaved more like a real scattergun: lethal damage up close, light to moderate damage across a large area at moderate to near-moderate range, and almost none at any range beyond moderate. The ns shotgun as it is allows for significant damage at range or almost none in close quarters depending on how it is used.
The implementation of what I (purely in the spirit of conjecture, of course) propose would be to skip the projectiles and guage shogun damage as a function of distance and amount of target area exposed to the weapon's cone of effect.
Maybe I'm wrong about shotguns and their pellets actually stay close together even across range. I'm sure some gun enthusiast could correct me.
Obviously... Not changing the spread to random would be kinda stupid considering the number of "pellet Xhairs" are out in the community.
There should be some way to prevent this from happenning. It's wery sad that the hive can go down before anybody notices that <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
- Garo
1) Decrease amount of pellets
2) Increase damage of each pellet to compensate
3) Increase the spread of the pellets.
Increasing the spread and making less pellets gives a lower chance to hit at a longer range, while damage at close range will remain high, the way it should be (although I gotta argue its frickin obscene how fast hives go down with 3-4 shotgunners)
Just some food for thought, for all you "realism" enthusiasts.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As marines the idea is to sneak past the defence of the aliens establish an PG and take out the hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very rarely do you see marines "sneaking" by aliens- most of the time their most viable option is attempting to plow a path.
In effect, we're going to give the shotgun a "Focus" trait. Let's say we make the shotgun do about 75% more damage than it does now per pellet (so an increase to 30 damage per pellet) and we also halve its ROF. Now, the shotgun, over time, will only do 87.5% of the damage it did before (so it'll kill buildings even a bit slower than now).
Marines on average will take out only half as many skulks coming at him because "effective" damage to skulks stay the same (one shot, one kill if the marine is skilled) but the rate at which he can fire at a new target once the old one is dead is now 50% of what it was.
Perhaps also reduce the range of the shotgun by just a bit, so those people who always say that the shotgun can be used for "sniping" will be satisfied. Really though, the pistol can snipe a heck of a lot better than the shotgun can.
I know this has just about zero probability of ever happening, but it would make me happy. If the Shotguns gonna stay where it is, I think it should be slightly weaker and/or more random, as suggested in this post.
I mean, sure, a really good shotgunner can take out 8 skulks, but that requires luck, and skill of the highest caliber. Most really good people can take out about 5 skulks using the same shotgun clip.
They can take about 3-4 skulks with an LMG as well.
I don't see any threads that says "omg, lmg is teh strongzorz".
Look at it this way, the LMG is the most accurate weapon besides the pistol, it reloads substantially faster than the shotgun, though it can't do as much damage per clip.
You pay 10 res for the "upgrade", and while the shotgun is much better in many situations than the LMG, it's a fair trade, and there's no need to nerf it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
what he said.
also with the shotgun its not a guarenteed kill with lvl 1-2 weapons, you still need a direct shot to kill the skulk, so imo its fine.
One bug i have noticed is that if a skulk is right pointblank next to the player the shells seem to go through and do nothing, might be a bug but i dunno.
Y'know after word that the shotgun blast was fixed and slightly offset to the right, I got myself one of the many shotgun fixes out there. Never had a problem with "damage not registering" anymore. So I hardly believe this whole bugged shotgun thing anymore. But I do acknowledge the HMG >> shotgun. HMGs are scary. <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/nerd-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Tightening the cone would only be viable if the randomization comes back in. Right now its really a 5 pellet railgun + a 5 pellet randomcannon.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, all the pellets are accurate. Only that the outside pellets only mean something when aiming at something large like a fade up close, an onos at midrange or a hive.
(Edit : For the slow ones here - this means you aim with the center 5, because you have tremendously good odds of landing those. If something comes close enough to catch the extra pellets too, thats just a bonus. Which is exactly the way you'd use a crosshair with truely random behavior. )