I'm Curious...
Teflon
Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20289Members
Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20289Members
<div class="IPBDescription">What is the balancing factor...</div> ... of a shotgun?
I just want to know what part of the shotgun makes the devs say 'this is balanced compared to the rest of the gun'.
Slow reloads? No, you can interrupt the reloading, so it effectively has a reload period of one second (What's even funnier is it reloads faster then the animation. Watch the counter and watch how many shells the hand inserts into the gun).
Short range? This doesn't matter, because almost every alien relies on melee attacks, and NS maps are narrow hallways at close quarters.
Low ammo? No, no, not that, because the ammo efficiency to kills ratio is very VERY good (Somewhere around 3 shots - 1 kill on average). Even with 8 / 40 ammo, that equates to a lot of kills if you're only a halfway decent shot (This assumes you dispatch shotguns when the aliens don't have any res to tech to onos)
Structures? No, the thing is pretty much a 'Grenade launcher lite' vs. structures...
Low availability? Nah, you can get them as soon as you drop an armory.
High price? Please, 10 resources?
I'm just curious here...
I just want to know what part of the shotgun makes the devs say 'this is balanced compared to the rest of the gun'.
Slow reloads? No, you can interrupt the reloading, so it effectively has a reload period of one second (What's even funnier is it reloads faster then the animation. Watch the counter and watch how many shells the hand inserts into the gun).
Short range? This doesn't matter, because almost every alien relies on melee attacks, and NS maps are narrow hallways at close quarters.
Low ammo? No, no, not that, because the ammo efficiency to kills ratio is very VERY good (Somewhere around 3 shots - 1 kill on average). Even with 8 / 40 ammo, that equates to a lot of kills if you're only a halfway decent shot (This assumes you dispatch shotguns when the aliens don't have any res to tech to onos)
Structures? No, the thing is pretty much a 'Grenade launcher lite' vs. structures...
Low availability? Nah, you can get them as soon as you drop an armory.
High price? Please, 10 resources?
I'm just curious here...
Comments
Meh, it's fine to me.
That's not a big reduction in ammo, not at all. Considering I'll usually die LONG BEFORE expending my entire 'reserve' ammo, the commander can DROP ammo, the reduction in 'reserve' ammo is trivial, and from 10 to 8 is pretty rediculous, because all I have to do is reload after every couple shots (Takes only one second or so) and let my buddies frag the aliens. Then I'm back in action.
The only time I ever completely run out of shotgun ammo (In the gun itself) is when I'm blasting structures apart or I'm blowing holes in an onos.
BTW: I don't give a rat's *ss if you think it's fine, the shotgun is the equivilant of making the parasite do 200 damage. It's an incredibly over-effective weapon that gives the OPPOSITE TEAM an 'edge' in what YOUR team is supposed to be good at (Melee for aliens, range for marines).
I want to know what the hell Flayra was thinking when he made an anti-skulk anti-gorge anti-fade and anti-onos weapon that's available less then 30 seconds into the game, and really can only be stopped by throwing yourselves at the enemy over and over.
Lerks are the shotgun counter.
Long range accurate spikes and spores for LA sgers. Umbra with 2nd hive also helps.
As for onos, if you use stomp they can't shoot you and stomp has a far longer range than the shotguns effective range.
Not that any of that will stop you complaining...
When the opinions are baseless, factless, and opinionated? Anything I've said so far NOT true?
Lost of people say that redemp - devour is 'fine' but apparently it WASN'T
Lerks are the shotgun counter.
Long range accurate spikes and spores for LA sgers. Umbra with 2nd hive also helps.
As for onos, if you use stomp they can't shoot you and stomp has a far longer range than the shotguns effective range.
Not that any of that will stop you complaining... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lerks are only effective in certain places on maps. You'll never see a lerk 'pwning' shotgun users in half the rooms in origin (Most noticably around the Biodome hive) because there's no where TO lerk. Furthermore, every shotgunner has a pistol, the 'spikes' of the marines that can kill the lerk just as well as lerk spikes kill marines.
EDIT: Grrr this was supposed to be added to the prvious post.
You also need to keep in mind that lerk spores stand a very good chance of being nerfed or moved to hive 3 due to overwhelming support. And you still haven't addressed that one pistol clip = gg lerk.
As for shotty "rushes" - on pubs at least, most of the shotties end up getting lost as the constant alien threat whittles down their numbers. 10 res may not be much, but 30-60 for a shotty squad is. Especially for marines, who need every single res point they can get.
I just get to the point and say 'It's fine' because guys who post topics like these are never going to change their mind.
As for shotty "rushes" - on pubs at least, most of the shotties end up getting lost as the constant alien threat whittles down their numbers. 10 res may not be much, but 30-60 for a shotty squad is. Especially for marines, who need every single res point they can get. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
So what's an HMG for then? Shotguns, if they're for midgame, why are they early-game tools? They're a hive 1 free onos for marines. Sure they'll die eventually, but they just shouldn't have them so early.
And I said it again, a lerk vs. a pistol = dead lerk.
They're fine as they are.
As for shotty "rushes" - on pubs at least, most of the shotties end up getting lost as the constant alien threat whittles down their numbers. 10 res may not be much, but 30-60 for a shotty squad is. Especially for marines, who need every single res point they can get. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So what's an HMG for then? Shotguns, if they're for midgame, why are they early-game tools? They're a hive 1 free onos for marines. Sure they'll die eventually, but they just shouldn't have them so early.
And I said it again, a lerk vs. a pistol = dead lerk. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
In early game you won't have enough res to send a shotty squad unless you cripple your res expansion. And one shotty can't kill 3 people that rush him at the same time. And as for lerking, you're supposed to stay out of sight. If you get hit by 10 pistol bullets as a lerk you deserve to die.
as lerk. as soon as the first bullet hits you, you MOVE! else yes, you deserve to be killed fast.
if you can hit a moving lerk with the majority of a pistol clip your the best NS player out there or your lying.
i mean, this topic gets pretty complicated if we start adding upgrades into the mix, but assume were talking about 30 seconds into the game, so aliens have first upgrade, marines are Lv0.
lerk vs shotgunner, if players are equally skilled lerks will win most of the time, should the shotgunner win, live with it! if this game had totally predicatable outcomes from battles it would be command and conqure, not NS. (*methinks you looking at this from a commanders point of view, yes?*)
A rabid dog is running after you, it has a terrible bite and it faster then you. It is running up to you and you have no way to defend your self, oh wait yes you do! You take out the shotgun and kill it.
Make that in NS and you got:
A skulk is running after you, it has a terrible bite and it faster then you. It is running up to you and you have no way to defend your self, oh wait yes you do! You take out the shotgun and kill it.
Shotguns are used for upclosing combat, not long range from one end of a hall to an other. It is balanced out as it is. Lethal, upfront combat. Scattered, long range that doesn't do much damage. It has its ups, and its downs.
Make it so aliens can't charge headon without feeling the hurt.
Believe it or not, shotguns have many of the same weaknesses LMG's have:
They can be ambushed, and if the skulk gets the first bite, they will have the upper hand. If you are fast enough, you can kill the SG before he gets the medspam to turn around and finish you off. Then the Marine team is down 10 res, lost a marine on the field, and the skulk just got 1-3 res. SG's are still a risk.
Shotgun's can be outflanked. 1 SG vs. two skulks, the skulks can win by having one skulk run from behind, the other from the front. The one who has the SG's attention can just dance in front of the SG'er, while the one from the back closes in. If the SG chooses to ignore the skulk in the front, then that skulk will close in also. If the skulks are good, the SG is screwed. If the SG get's meds; great, he may win, but it will easily cost around 6 res at the very <b>least</b>; which is nearly the equivilent to another shotgun.
A group of shotguns are effective, but risky...
The easiest counter to a group of shotgun is one-two lerks spam spores at them, making them die easy to skulks and wasting TONS of res to medspam on the marine side. If the comm don't heal the marines often enough they may die in one bite... which is just ****.
If the Shotgunners pull out their pistol to kill the lerks... GG Shotgunners! At this point, the skulks should be rushing in to confront them. If they pull out their SG, they will have to deal with around 1 second of pullout time... which is more than enough time to kill a couple of SG's. The lerks should either pick off weak marines with spikes or continue sporing. If all the skulks die, the lerks pullout, wait for more skulks to respawn, and rinse and repeat the process. The shotguns should get owned if the skulks are good.
Actually, one LMG marine should be in any shotgun squad.. simply to fend off lerks. If they have an LMG with some Shottys, NOW you have a more serious problem than you did before. It will be much harder to kill them off if the lerks are driven off too soon.
If the SG squad dies, then the marines will suffer a major setback that could easily cost them the game. Now do you understand why this isn't overpowered?
If there is one thing I think is unfair about SG's are three things:
- SG reloads to fast. Fix this and the SG will be much more fair.
- SG tears apart alien buildings. This is stupid on how fast shotty's kill buildings. Currently the shotgun deals just about as much damage as a grenade launcher, but only to one target. When the target is the alien's hive, it falls really fast. The Shotgun should deal something like "spread" damage, so that it only deals 2/3 as much to buidlings as it does aliens.
- SG has a really annoying reload bug other than the one listed above. Right now, sometime's it <i>doesn't</i> reload for a good 5 seconds after you hit the +reload key. The SG should be reliable, not random. This needs to be fixed, so the shotgun is more effective towards keeping it's ammo count high at all times against aliens.
Shotguns are one of the very few viable game winning options the marines have in the early/mid game, removing that would be disastrous for balance.
So why are they also mini-grenade launcher with regards to structures?
Why are they so effective against everything BUT a lerk?
IMO Shotguns should do 'lite' damage AND 'piercing' damage. They'll be useless vs. structures (Gee, a counter! Shotgun rush? Drop a few O chambers!) and advanced critters.
For whoever said a shotgun behaves like it does IRL: To a degree yes. But a shotgun's killing power comes from the force of those little bellets shredding you, not because it's an aerodynamic teflon jacketed hollow point round. In other words, if I shot you with a shotgun, it'd snuff your candle quickly. But if you were wearing a kevlar vest, it may knock you on your ****, but the pellets will literally bounce right off of you. Furthermore, if I shot a car with a shotgun, it ain't gonna do ANYTHING to it. At modest range, it probably won't even blow out a window.
A shotgun fills the niche of grenade launcher (Excellent vs. structures), it fills the niche of heavy machine gun (Excellent vs. late game critters), and it fills the niche of early game firepower (Kills light critters in one hit, and it's cheap to boot).
The HMG was watered down so it's not so 'bread and butter', but they turned the shotgun into the all-purpose weapon instead?
I don't think the shotgun is overpowered. The biggest thing I think it has going for it is the fast and interruptable reload. If I had to pick a beef with it, it would be that a few shotgunners can drop a hive before any alien has a chance to get there.
The key is strafing. You can't spray all over with HMG and hope to get the kill with a Shotgun. It takes precise shots (well, not really, but you can't just fire everywhere and hope the monster goes away), and unless he has HA, as long as you get off the first bite, you should be fine.
I don't think the shotgun is overpowered. The biggest thing I think it has going for it is the fast and interruptable reload. If I had to pick a beef with it, it would be that a few shotgunners can drop a hive before any alien has a chance to get there. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Precisely. 2.0 is supposed to be about res: Simply put, 10 res should NOT be better then 30, 50, or 100 res. In this case it is. As a fade, I avoid shotguns like the plague. If the guy I attack has any skill whatsoever, one blast and I'm half dead. It's just not worth it. It's even worse with motion tracking. I attack them with an onos and if they're on higher ground (Even a simple railing) stomp is useless and, although I may kill them, they can certainly take a huge chunk out of me.
We played a game of eclipse and lasted for 60 mintues 48 seconds vs 3 hive aliens.
Skulks tried to xeno - We killed them in one hit. A few DID xeno, but the majority died as soon as they stepped in the room.
Fades blinked in - Shotguns sent them away. If we died we just picked up the shotgun or grenade launcher again. Eventually they stopped that nonsense.
Lork in the vent - Grenades killed him quite quickly.
Gorge bilebomb / web couldn't get close enough without someone on the railing splattering his brains all over the floor.
Onos - We killed 30 + Onii in this game with shotguns and grenade launchers.
We had ~6 or 7 turrets, and 2 sieges. We weren't using the armory grenade spam exploit. THe majority of the fighting was just blowing things apart with shotguns.
Anyway, you've heard how I'd balance the shotgun: Negligable damage vs. Structures, and negligable damage vs. Fades, Onos, and possibly Lerks. The shotgun should be the early game anti-skulk. The HMG should be the late game anti-Fade/Onos.
Instead it's the Better-Then-HMG weapon that's viable at every point in the game.
Skulks tried to xeno - We killed them in one hit. A few DID xeno, but the majority died as soon as they stepped in the room.
Fades blinked in - Shotguns sent them away. If we died we just picked up the shotgun or grenade launcher again. Eventually they stopped that nonsense.
Lork in the vent - Grenades killed him quite quickly.
Gorge bilebomb / web couldn't get close enough without someone on the railing splattering his brains all over the floor.
Onos - We killed 30 + Onii in this game with shotguns and grenade launchers.
We had ~6 or 7 turrets, and 2 sieges. We weren't using the armory grenade spam exploit. THe majority of the fighting was just blowing things apart with shotguns.
Anyway, you've heard how I'd balance the shotgun: Negligable damage vs. Structures, and negligable damage vs. Fades, Onos, and possibly Lerks. The shotgun should be the early game anti-skulk. The HMG should be the late game anti-Fade/Onos.
Instead it's the Better-Then-HMG weapon that's viable at every point in the game. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you're saying that you had your whole team in a protected base with 6-7 turrets, 2 sieges, and an undefined quantity of shotguns/GLs and the aliens had trouble dealing with you? With that kind of stuff, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you had HA and full upgrades either, hm?
Well no kidding they'd have trouble dealing with marines in that situation Sherlock. If marines are at the top of their tech tree, you wouldn't expect the aliens to have just an easy go of it.
The real question is.. who won? It sounds like all you managed to do was hold them off for a while, and further, that these aliens weren't even that teamwork oriented. Gorges using web while onos are dying? Dumb alien. Use healspray to keep the onos alive. Fades blinking in to attack at third hive? Have they not heard about the fourth weapon slot? The one with acid rockets? And why is a lerk in the vent? He should be behind the attacking force pasting umbra on the gorges that are healing and spores on the IPs for the marines that spawn.
Now, once all the marines are good and busy, that's when the hive mind sends in the silenced xeno-skulks for the finishing touches.
The only hindrance to this is grenade spam, and then only if you're well turtled into an area that supports it. So you may not have been using the grenade-armory exploit, but how many GLs did you have? After all, 3 GLs can keep up a constant supply of grenades just as well as the armory trick can.
If, as I suspect, you were dealing with a steady stream of rambo aliens, I'm not surprised it took them a long time.
(Side note: For those of you who generally go celerity with your xenocide, you should seriously try silence, it's amazing what you can get away with.)
sounds balanced to me.