Shotgun
1dominator1
Join Date: 2010-11-19 Member: 75011Members
Join Date: 2010-11-19 Member: 75011Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Who misses the NS1 shottie?</div>Am I the only one who thinks that the shotgun in NS2 is a neutered rabbit's willie compared to the beast it was in NS1? In NS1 it felt like an actual shotgun. You'd point it down a corridor, pull the trigger and things would die. It had massive spread (like half the screen on occasions), but did craploads of damage to anything it hit and when one was using it one felt TRUE POWER! And dont even get me started on the sound it made, the new shottie's got nothing on it. The new shotgun to me feels like a glorified rifle, it has too little spread, too much range and not enough stopping power. I realize that we will probably never see the NS1 shotgun in NS2 because of the resource model, player bought weps, the different model proportions, hallway sizes etc but surely one can still dream?
Comments
1) shotgun spread needs to be wider in terms of degrees from center of screen. Should be less effective far away as a result and therefore more of a trade off (instead of the "ofc I'm getting a shotty!" Mentality occurring) and no need to create these artificial fall off distances being used currently
2) the spread needs to be far more even if the pattern is to remain randomized, as currently your pellets can group too much to create a sort of slug and this is partly how you end up missing up close targets when you shouldn't.
1) shotgun spread needs to be wider in terms of degrees from center of screen. Should be less effective far away as a result and therefore more of a trade off (instead of the "ofc I'm getting a shotty!" Mentality occurring) and no need to create these artificial fall off distances being used currently
2) the spread needs to be far more even if the pattern is to remain randomized, as currently your pellets can group too much to create a sort of slug and this is partly how you end up missing up close targets when you shouldn't.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What about the damage? :o Any tidbits there? Damage and rof generally means fades can tank kill sg marines... >_>
The damage values can be adjusted after those fixes are done. Still though I think fade swipe damage is too much, and regen is too fast / too effective, so shotgun damage changes should be further down the road. All my opinion ofc
So yeah, what ironhorse said
So what you're saying is the actual size of the spread was too small, right? Because memorizing a fixed spread doesn't actually let you land more shots outside close range. That's sorta the definition of a shotgun attack.
When they fix hit detection, random spread will <i>become </i>an issue (the way it was with scouts in competitive TF2 before Valve listened and added fixed spread). You'll aim at one side of a skulk (say the top as it runs ahead at you), have your pellets all dip to one direction away from the skulk and then get killed. Or, if there's some sort of crappy stopgap in place so only X% of the pellets are outside Y area, then you can reliably get <i>some </i>damage while random spread is screwing you over. When that happens, I'll be back to ask "Why couldn't we just have a fixed spread in the first place?"
I agree. I especially miss the high rate of fire and perfect responsiveness of the NS1 Shotgun.
When shooting, it just felt instant and fast.
At least that's what we need to balance them into
Shotgun should be good at close range and an absolute beast at point blank range to make up for no longer having an axe in the above suggested loadout
Any improvements to shotgun would be greatly appreciated as it is no where near that status currently
When they fix hit detection, random spread will <i>become </i>an issue (the way it was with scouts in competitive TF2 before Valve listened and added fixed spread). You'll aim at one side of a skulk (say the top as it runs ahead at you), have your pellets all dip to one direction away from the skulk and then get killed. Or, if there's some sort of crappy stopgap in place so only X% of the pellets are outside Y area, then you can reliably get <i>some </i>damage while random spread is screwing you over. When that happens, I'll be back to ask "Why couldn't we just have a fixed spread in the first place?"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That may well be even though I doubt the significance of the damage difference, besides fixed spread wont magically improve your aim. If your crosshair isn't on the skulk you will still miss most of the pellets. But if the difference really is significant why not derandomize it? Even though I do not think memorizing spread patterns or painting dots on your screen to be a very high level of skill or even something that should be rewarded in the public game.
EDIT: It also occurs to me that random spread (or at least varied spread) is one of the reasons a shotgun is ineffective at longer ranges (without relying on bizzare fall off mechanics where your bullets just vanish). With a fixed spread the shotgun's effective range increases considerably because you know exactly where your bullets will go and while you cant hit with all of them odds are you can get at least several of the dots to lie on the enemy before you pull the trigger.
Shotguns are the exact same idea. No matter what, a shotgun will be less effective at longer ranges. "How much" that is true just depends on the angle and distance of each pellet in the spread. Randomized spread positions doesn't actually achieve this goal, and can in fact make it worse (by biasing all the pellets toward a close proximity so they all hit closer together than they ought to at range). If you want to see good implementations of fixed spread shotguns, I suggest TF2, Warsow and Quake Live.
You know exactly where the pellets will go, but it's map dependent. If you aim at a sloped staircase, some of the pellets will go farther 'ahead' than others (and in that time they deviate more from the crosshair on their spread angle). Picture yourself standing in Computer Lab on Summit, and aiming down the tunnel toward Flight Control. All the railings, stairs and other set pieces can block shots and change the effectiveness of your shotgun. Again, random spread can mean that your pellets all hit the stairs at the bottom of the crosshair, or that they all magically miss the stairs and kill a skulk from absurdly far away. Stuff like this lead to the shotgun changes a few builds ago (where the lerk became playable).
Do you have black armor? With black armor it kills like a champ! Maybe green armors are just nerfed with the weapons.
At least that's what we need to balance them into
Shotgun should be good at close range and an absolute beast at point blank range to make up for no longer having an axe in the above suggested loadout
Any improvements to shotgun would be greatly appreciated as it is no where near that status currently<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
youre kidding right? currently shotgun does own cqb. when exactly isnt it dominating cqb? vs a fade? onos? just about anything else dies unless they have a high ping, in which case they get a little more play with the shotreg.
unupgraded marines are SUPPOSED to die, thats the whole point of marines getting the upgrades, and the exosuit which isnt even in the game yet. so youre proposing you make the fade obsolete vs non-exo marines and a waste of res after marines get exosuits?
they shouldnt have unlocked lifeforms from hives, and left lerk and skulks alone as they were fine the way they always were. now you get balance issues because whats currently in place doesnt work and probably never will. they should be focusing WAY more on marine movement as its blocky as hell, but they probably will not touch it for quite awhile, and when they finally do itll break all the "balance" achived beforehand lol.
I find myself pretty much always going for LMG or GL since the LMG and GL are good against everything.
As far as the randomness goes, I would like to see this remain as it will give a slight downside to using the shotgun. However, a significant majority of the pellets should go right around the cross-hair. Will probably require a new algorithm to make sure that a decent majority of the pellets are distributed to each quadrant equally in a 10 or so degree cone to make sure that if you aim at a target your are going to get most of the inner pellets to hit. The remainder of the pellets can be distributed equally to each quadrant in a 10-20 degree cone. The numbers of the cone and amount of pellets can be changed or moved around but the general idea is to keep the randomness but decrease the effect it has on the reliability of the weapon.
A side topic that this brings up is the fact that the weapon damage type and armor system in the game is very complex and most people don't know exactly how much damage they are doing to a target. I would like to see both the armor system and damage system simplified to make the game more accessible for new players and even people who have been playing the game for a while. This however, is a different topic and really shouldn't be discussed here.
Yea this is similar what matso was saying for a fix, that the best approach is to have a minimum distance requirement between each pellet, but of course this number depends solely on the fov or degrees of the spread itself to determine which ratio is correct.
The argument against having a random pattern is an interesting one!
Pellet crosshairs is not something i considered...
I guess for that reason alone it should remain random, but the spread should be increased and more equidistant.
Anyway, addressing the topic: I don't like the feel of the Shotgun currently but that's mostly due to poor hitreg. While I agree the NS1 shotgun was satisfying to use, I didn't like how it was The Ultimate Weapon, plowing through aliens and structures alike - and now that players can buy their own without impeding tech growth, the NS2 shotgun would break the game if it were that powerful. The damage reduction mechanics vs Onos are dodgy, but I wouldn't want to buff its damage against anything else, especially not before seeing what difference improved hitreg will make.
Pellet crosshairs is not something i considered...
I guess for that reason alone it should remain random, but the spread should be increased and more equidistant.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How are the pellet crosshairs actually a problem, though? The spread still means that fewer pellets hit as the range increases. You can use whatever crosshair you want, and it won't inflate the skulk to five times its size, because it can't.
The only practical difference between random spread and fixed spread (when done properly) is the lack of irritating 'corner cases' where you do no damage, or do way too much damage, and the fact that you aimed didn't matter at all (which is <b>bad for the game</b>).
I've never heard anyone in TF2 or Quake Live complain about a 'pellet crosshair' or even discuss using one. I really don't see what everyone's afraid of.