Shotguns, Tradeoffs and Marine Pres
statikg
Join Date: 2012-09-19 Member: 159978Members
Join Date: 2012-09-19 Member: 159978Members
NS is supposed to be a strategy game. Right now I feel that one of the major problems watering down marine strategy is the strength of shotguns and the abundance of marine Pres.
Shotguns are very good against every lower life form and about break even with lmgs against buildings and onos. They have no downside other then that you have to pay for them. You would think then that maybe the trade off must be using your res for early game strength leaving you with less late game strength. But unfortunately this is NOT the case.
Marines always have more res nodes then aliens, thus they have way more Pres available throughout the game and marine Pres investments are generally cheap. I can buy 2 shotguns or a shotgun and mine pack in the early-mid game, and by the time jetpacks come out I can definitely afford jp shotgun. (the ultimate loadout for marines).
The research for shotguns is also cheap and doesn't require any additional buildings or anything out of the way.
There needs to be some sort of downside to marines to buying shotguns in the early game in order to balance their strength.
Edited in from my response below:
The problem in my opinion is that unless your saving straight up for double exo, or you die all the time (can't balance around incompetence), then there is NO REASON not to get a shotgun or maybe even two shotguns in the early-mid to mid game. You give up nothing for this extreme increase in marine killing power.
Why I think this is a problem:
1) Waters down marine strategy. Creates a clear tech path which is always best. Its ALWAYS the best strategy to get shotguns because marines can get them with Pres with next to no loss and it only costs the commander a small amount of Tres to give the team a big boost. Its ALWAYS the best strategy for each marine who is competent to buy a shotgun even if they are also getting mine packs.
2) Compare this to aliens who give up quite a bit when they go gorge or lerk, a 19 or 30 res investment. That investment means you are setting back your ability to become a fade or a onos with Pres by a VERY LARGE time period. This is partly because of the high cost of higher alien lifeforms and party because of the low res income of the alien team. A marine who loses a shotgun or even two, can probably still afford to buy a jetpack shotgun when the time comes.
My suggestion to deal with this problem:
1) Reduce marine Pres Income. I think that marine Pres per game is too high because of the fact they are constantly holding about 5rts vs aliens who usually hold about 3. This means the marines can just buy whatever and not worry about it unless they are saving for exos (which are rarely used in competitive play). I think it would make for alot more thought if marines had less disposable income
2) Somehow nerf the shotgun jetpack combo. This might involve increasing the cost of jetpacks, might involve nerfing shotgun spread, I'm not sure.
Shotguns are very good against every lower life form and about break even with lmgs against buildings and onos. They have no downside other then that you have to pay for them. You would think then that maybe the trade off must be using your res for early game strength leaving you with less late game strength. But unfortunately this is NOT the case.
Marines always have more res nodes then aliens, thus they have way more Pres available throughout the game and marine Pres investments are generally cheap. I can buy 2 shotguns or a shotgun and mine pack in the early-mid game, and by the time jetpacks come out I can definitely afford jp shotgun. (the ultimate loadout for marines).
The research for shotguns is also cheap and doesn't require any additional buildings or anything out of the way.
There needs to be some sort of downside to marines to buying shotguns in the early game in order to balance their strength.
Edited in from my response below:
The problem in my opinion is that unless your saving straight up for double exo, or you die all the time (can't balance around incompetence), then there is NO REASON not to get a shotgun or maybe even two shotguns in the early-mid to mid game. You give up nothing for this extreme increase in marine killing power.
Why I think this is a problem:
1) Waters down marine strategy. Creates a clear tech path which is always best. Its ALWAYS the best strategy to get shotguns because marines can get them with Pres with next to no loss and it only costs the commander a small amount of Tres to give the team a big boost. Its ALWAYS the best strategy for each marine who is competent to buy a shotgun even if they are also getting mine packs.
2) Compare this to aliens who give up quite a bit when they go gorge or lerk, a 19 or 30 res investment. That investment means you are setting back your ability to become a fade or a onos with Pres by a VERY LARGE time period. This is partly because of the high cost of higher alien lifeforms and party because of the low res income of the alien team. A marine who loses a shotgun or even two, can probably still afford to buy a jetpack shotgun when the time comes.
My suggestion to deal with this problem:
1) Reduce marine Pres Income. I think that marine Pres per game is too high because of the fact they are constantly holding about 5rts vs aliens who usually hold about 3. This means the marines can just buy whatever and not worry about it unless they are saving for exos (which are rarely used in competitive play). I think it would make for alot more thought if marines had less disposable income
2) Somehow nerf the shotgun jetpack combo. This might involve increasing the cost of jetpacks, might involve nerfing shotgun spread, I'm not sure.
Comments
i can't hit ANYTHING with shotgun, least skulks, i just end up missing all my shots againts that celerity walljumping bouncing skulk and lose 20pres, with lmg i usually get 4-7hits before i die.
but then again... i'm such and awful marine player.... i have never problem when i play as skulk, i usually hit everybite and can avoid whatever it's lmg or shotgun fire and kill those marines, if i'm alone vs 3-4 marines well not then ofcourse.
If UWE were to experiment with lowering the damage or turning it to light damage, the cost of the SG would have to be reduced.
The problem in my opinion is that unless your saving straight up for double exo, or you die all the time (can't balance around incompetence), then there is NO REASON not to get a shotgun or maybe even two shotguns in the early-mid to mid game. You give up nothing for this extreme increase in marine killing power.
Why I think this is a problem:
1) Waters down marine strategy. Creates a clear tech path which is always best. Its ALWAYS the best strategy to get shotguns because marines can get them with Pres with next to no loss and it only costs the commander a small amount of Tres to give the team a big boost. Its ALWAYS the best strategy for each marine who is competent to buy a shotgun even if they are also getting mine packs.
2) Compare this to aliens who give up quite a bit when they go gorge or lerk, a 19 or 30 res investment. That investment means you are setting back your ability to become a fade or a onos with Pres by a VERY LARGE time period. This is partly because of the high cost of higher alien lifeforms and party because of the low res income of the alien team. A marine who loses a shotgun or even two, can probably still afford to buy a jetpack shotgun when the time comes.
My suggestion to deal with this problem:
1) Reduce marine Pres Income. I think that marine Pres per game is too high because of the fact they are constantly holding about 5rts vs aliens who usually hold about 3. This means the marines can just buy whatever and not worry about it unless they are saving for exos (which are rarely used in competitive play). I think it would make for alot more thought if marines had less disposable income
2) Somehow nerf the shotgun jetpack combo. This might involve increasing the cost of jetpacks, might involve nerfing shotgun spread, I'm not sure.
Its mostly a tactical or economic decision by the Marine. Believe it or not, buying a shotgun has its own advantages/disadvantages. Lmg is much more forgiving.
Every missed shell is normaly = a bite.
Lastly your argument that Marines have too much res is absurd. You arbitrairly decided that every game Marines comtrol more resnodes...what? Honestly what are you talking about?
I wouldnt mind a slight price increase on jetpacks. Its not a gamebreaker or unreasonable.
>fail to mention the range or spread or randomness as downsides in the thread about shotgun "tradeoffs"
>fail to address 20 pres -- passingly describes it as "cheap"
At the higher levels of play (which everyone is trending toward, some faster than others), the LMG is about as effective as shotguns in most situations. In competitive games, it's gotten to the point where you only want a couple shotguns in your push team. More times than not you'll have an LMG push or a mix instead of a full shotgun push. Why's that? If shotguns were as powerful as claimed than why do we see more packs of mines bought than shotguns in nearly every competitive game?
I think the biggest complaint about shotguns is how effective it is vs early game skulks. The problem is -- everything is effective against early game skulks, even more so if you have a pres-something. Hell, just look at lerk vs lmg marines. They're very effective. Look at mines vs skulks. Again, very effective.
1) Reduce marine Pres Income. I think that marine Pres per game is too high because of the fact they are constantly holding about 5rts vs aliens who usually hold about 3. This means the marines can just buy whatever and not worry about it unless they are saving for exos (which are rarely used in competitive play). I think it would make for alot more thought if marines had less disposable income
2) Somehow nerf the shotgun jetpack combo. This might involve increasing the cost of jetpacks, might involve nerfing shotgun spread, I'm not sure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While I disagree with a lot of your premise in the OP, I find myself partially agreeing with your solutions. I think they stem from different problem(s), though.
1) Marine pres income is so high because of the RT count, which you identified. It is like this because basic marines are so much more powerful than basic skulks. A lot of this boils down to fat skulks (easy to hit) with mediocre movement system (current wall jump). As players skill up, marine's aim improves greatly where as skulk movement improves modestly. When it takes an LMG less than 0.5s (actual number) of concentrated fire to kill a skulk, it's going to end up bad if that skulk doesn't have the tools capable to juke shots. By comparison, it takes a little over a second to land 3 bites. At higher techs, this favors marines even more (9->10 bullets vs 3->4 bites, add jetpack voodoo into the math if you wish).
2) This is, imo, a problem with jetpacks. And the problem with jetpacks actually comes full circle back to a problem with aliens. Skulk's leap is mediocore for hitting jetpacks. It doesn't really go up so much as it goes forward. When the jetpacks are high in the air, the skulks can't even use leap to close. Oh yeah, and you have to execute leap->bite 4 times because they probably have at least armor 2. And they're getting medpacks, so it can easily climb to 6+ perfect bites to kill a marine. That marine kills your carapace skulk in 0.55s of sustained hits.
Fades and lerks do alright at combating jetpacks. The problem is fades are very low in health for their cost (35 LMG bullets should kill a carapace fade -- ignoring Dragon's fade-flinch-bug). Lerks are rather out scaled by the time jetpacks come out. It's still alright to have one to plink, but realistically you want him going onos or fade asap. Weak fade -> strong jetpack anything.
>fail to mention the range or spread or randomness as downsides in the thread about shotgun "tradeoffs"
>fail to address 20 pres -- passingly describes it as "cheap"
At the higher levels of play (which everyone is trending toward, some faster than others), the LMG is about as effective as shotguns in most situations. In competitive games, it's gotten to the point where you only want a couple shotguns in your push team. More times than not you'll have an LMG push or a mix instead of a full shotgun push. Why's that? If shotguns were as powerful as claimed than why do we see more packs of mines bought than shotguns in nearly every competitive game?
I think the biggest complaint about shotguns is how effective it is vs early game skulks. The problem is -- everything is effective against early game skulks, even more so if you have a pres-something. Hell, just look at lerk vs lmg marines. They're very effective. Look at mines vs skulks. Again, very effective.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for pointing out some holes in my argument, mainly ignoring the difficulties with range and random spread of the shotgun when used at range. I would amend my argument by agreeing that there are indeed some situations in which lmgs are sometimes more effective. Fighting lerks, repeatedly applying pressure to hive rooms are the ones that I can think of, maybe shooting at retreating fades and aliens who expose themselves at range.
Saying that the LMG as almost as effective as shotguns in most situations is an exaggeration. While its dps is similar, the burst damage nature of the shotgun as used against the ambush/hit and run tactics of most alien lifeforms make it far more effective when you have little chance to fire before the aliens have closed range or when against a life form that may not run until it starts to lose health (fade, biting lerk).
As to why mines are used more, I would say that is a testimony to the effectiveness of mines, the mobility advantage of the aliens and the risk of a complete loss of a room which causes base defence to be a more pressing issue then increasing the combat effectiveness of a single marine in the field.
I use the term cheap, as a reference to the implied conclusion that shotguns (or perhaps it is the jp/sg) in the context of the entire marine game, seem to be under priced in terms of opportunity cost. Where aliens have to make choices with their Pres that impact their ability to enter the late game, the marines don't seem to be faced with similar opportunity costs.
The same conclusion can be applied to the growing popularity of offensive mine use, without significantly undermining my argument.
<!--quoteo(post=2023420:date=Nov 14 2012, 10:42 AM:name=Kopikat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kopikat @ Nov 14 2012, 10:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023420"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And here I am, wondering what the tradeoff is between going Onos or staying Skulk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The tradeoff is of course that you were unable to go for another life form earlier in the game
Shotguns are a massive deterrent to lerks biting and fades in general though, but that's more an issue with the lerk being squishy by design and fades being too weak at the moment (and in any case shotguns will always be the anti-fade weapon for mechanical reasons).
Well since GORGEous' post wasnt to disimilar to mine Ill go with that.
I don't see how that's relevant considering that Exos have a laundry list of drawbacks.
If you were to compare this strategy, it would be like when you have a few Lerks along with your skulks. That way, when the Lerk dies, another skulk can jump into it. Oh...wait...<i>no they can't</i>...
Make sense? Good.
The mechanic stretches further than that though. A marine with a shotgun, for example, is more cost efficient closer to base, to a PG, or to a group of other marines. Cost efficiency goes down the further you press into alien territory. This fits well with the design of the marines in NS in the general sense. Aliens have map control, marines have positional power. The better the position the marines take, the more cost efficient they are.
The real question is do we need this mechanic in addition to all the other ones they have that encourage the same phenomena.
there's probably not much point in arguing about any other mechanic of the shotgun until this is fixed
>fail to mention the range or spread or randomness as downsides in the thread about shotgun "tradeoffs"
>fail to address 20 pres -- passingly describes it as "cheap"
At the higher levels of play (which everyone is trending toward, some faster than others), the LMG is about as effective as shotguns in most situations. In competitive games, it's gotten to the point where you only want a couple shotguns in your push team. More times than not you'll have an LMG push or a mix instead of a full shotgun push. Why's that? If shotguns were as powerful as claimed than why do we see more packs of mines bought than shotguns in nearly every competitive game?
I think the biggest complaint about shotguns is how effective it is vs early game skulks. The problem is -- everything is effective against early game skulks, even more so if you have a pres-something. Hell, just look at lerk vs lmg marines. They're very effective. Look at mines vs skulks. Again, very effective.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You started off so well in that post... lol
Its like you mentioned the issues with the shotgun - which are important as the OP noticed - but then describe how its not really that important and that the same can be accomplished with a 0 pres rifle.... which makes me scratch my head..
I cannot say that even the shooter who does not miss a single shot can kill a lerk or fade as fast as a shotgunner can. Which wouldn't be a problem and the rifle could maintain it's superiority at a distance if only the aforementioned spread was addressed.. otherwise the shotgun is just "better" at most things and lacks the needed tradeoff and skill requirement to use.
Someone said it best the other day on the forums: The shotgun is "easy mode" .. with the LMG you have to track.. with the shotgun you just click and they die .. with distance hardly ever being enough to actually prevent the shooter from wasting ammo and waiting for the enemy to be within range.
That is what will happen when the spread is fixed to be wider, with more bullets, and a more even spread: You increase the skill requirement of the shotgun by having the shooter wait for the enemy to close the distance gap to ensure maximum pellet absorption. <i>This just isn't happening currently, you always fire as the success rate is usually worth it thanks to distance not having a large enough impact. </i>
Obviously adjusting the amount of shells that are available will help too, something like 6.
Oh and mines being purchased is not relevant when comparing shotgun effectiveness vs rifle?? Mines are "worth it" for a multitude of reasons.. but it doesn't by any means make the shotgun any less viable or less of a choice? The argument here isn't "the shotgun is the BEST thing in the game and the only option picked" .. its merely highlighting the issues with the shotgun in regards to role, tradeoffs, soft RPS, and in comparison to the other weapons that you dont "set and forget"
Great observation, btw, OP
Marines may earn more PRES but the commander spends a boat load of TRES just opening up all the tech options. Building the structures, researching them, all very time consuming as well. If a fade wants carapice but the first hive was a shift, it's 40r for a hive, 15 for a shell and 15 for the upgrade. If a marine wants an exo, it's 20 for the com chair (which will likely require an armoury, phase gates and observatory to defend), 40 for the protolab, 30 for the exos research, a minute to research without possibility to enhance that time (vs gorge), then 15, 25 and 35 respectively for the armour upgrades so the exo doesn't play like it was made from the marines sun dried feaces.
All the while he's probably dropping health, ammo and scans.
Frankly the shotgun could stand to cost a little less. I may not be the best at it, but most players i've seen don't even bother with it and save another 5 res to buy grenades or flamers.