<!--quoteo(post=1882597:date=Oct 29 2011, 03:51 AM:name=Kurrine)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kurrine @ Oct 29 2011, 03:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, his numbers are pretty off, but either way the shotgun damage falloff and range isn't right at the moment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It could definitely be tweaked but I think right now they are focused on more important things. If you want to hit something long distance then pull out something that's going to do long distance damage instead of worrying about a couple hp's worth of damage from the shotgun . The shotguns main purpose is close range damage and that's what we have a close range weapon that will eventually be improved. I would expect when the upgrades like carapace\regeneration are added the weapons are going to be tweaked again. No point in wasting time tweaking something now when it's going to get tweaked later.
<!--quoteo(post=1882599:date=Oct 29 2011, 01:15 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Oct 29 2011, 01:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882599"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you mean realism- or gameplay-wise?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Both... a real shotgun with a tight choke can be effective (not just "stray pellet kills someone" effective like that 200m stated earlier, but actually reliably hazardous to human life) out at 40 meters. I'd like to see the shotgun's grouping tightened up somewhat, and the max range increased. I don't need a ridiculous amount of damage at long range, but being unable to inflict damage on something (due to it being out of range) that's in the same room as me is a bit much.
Hey, maybe that's what secondary fire on the shotgun can do... tighten up the choke? I'm not sure I'd ever use it on wide, personally, but some people seem to like shotguns that scatter...
At short range, yes. We're proposing a range-extending tweak to it. If it's deliberately supposed to be limited to short range only work, that's one thing, but if that's the case I'm gonna want something else to upgrade to (extended-mag LMG or something along those lines) pretty often.
<!--quoteo(post=1882623:date=Oct 29 2011, 07:49 PM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Oct 29 2011, 07:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882623"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What of game balance? The shotgun is quite strong already.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The shotgun is a melee weapon currently, its strength is entirely binary. Either you use it at point blank or it's next to useless.
Extending the range but dropping the damage a little means that you can shoot it in more situatons, but you also need to shoot it in more situations, essentially it makes it a more useful gun, while at the same time requiring it to be more useful.
The overall balance effect is that it should favour good positioning and teamwork a bit more, as putting obstacles between the alien and you gives you more time to shoot, and working with other marines means they can shoot at things attacking you. The very short range on the shotgun kind of hinders both of those at the moment, it just requires you to try to melee fight an alien which is designed to melee fight everything else, resulting in an effectively random chance of one of you annihilating the other. I would prefer a bit more grey in my combat outcomes rather than 'shoot alien in the face and it dies' or 'get bit in the face and die' which is how it tends to go currently.
How about having a cone of damage instead of individual pellets? Consistent damage and could be visualized as a 100 pellets flying out of your shotgun since they wouldn't represent actual calculations by the server.
<!--quoteo(post=1882714:date=Oct 30 2011, 10:20 AM:name=Forss)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Forss @ Oct 30 2011, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882714"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about having a cone of damage instead of individual pellets? Consistent damage and could be visualized as a 100 pellets flying out of your shotgun since they wouldn't represent actual calculations by the server.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While this is possible, IMO it is an ugly solution. Part of the nature of shotguns is a bit of randomness. Sometimes you fire a bad spread, life sucks, and a skulk eats your face. A damage cone implies that as long as you have the enemy centered when you fire, you are going to do max damage.
Also, how would the game then generate the random impact effects that each pellet makes?
<!--quoteo(post=1882882:date=Oct 31 2011, 10:03 PM:name=thefonz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (thefonz @ Oct 31 2011, 10:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->While this is possible, IMO it is an ugly solution. Part of the nature of shotguns is a bit of randomness. Sometimes you fire a bad spread, life sucks, and a skulk eats your face. A damage cone implies that as long as you have the enemy centered when you fire, you are going to do max damage.
Also, how would the game then generate the random impact effects that each pellet makes?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My suggestion was aimed at the comments complaining about the shotgun being to random as an alternative way to adding more pellets. You could see it as the shotgun shooting 100 pellets making the damage pretty consistent.
Same as now but client side. With enough "pellets" it won't matter that the hit pattern doesn't represent the actual hits.
I think the range is okay, but the damage is too low IMO. I feel much more confident with the rifle. The shotgun used to be a great weapon but now it's been nerfed too much.
<!--quoteo(post=1882903:date=Oct 31 2011, 11:47 PM:name=Forss)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Forss @ Oct 31 2011, 11:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1882903"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My suggestion was aimed at the comments complaining about the shotgun being to random as an alternative way to adding more pellets. You could see it as the shotgun shooting 100 pellets making the damage pretty consistent.
Same as now but client side. With enough "pellets" it won't matter that the hit pattern doesn't represent the actual hits.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your right, when the number of pellets is big enough you should replace it by a continuous cone (with weighted damage). But what do you do when you hit something? you have to compute the area exposed, and to remove this area from the cone, so anything behind do not get hit. I guess it could be done, but it's not so simple I think.
After reading the ideas posted here I think its fair to say a few things:
1) Give the shotgun a longer range, even if the damage it deals at long distances is tiny. Tiny damage may be the difference between and enemy escaping or dying. This magic BS of my gun not working past 20m is confusing as hell. I am not bringing a damn measuring tape with me every time I use the shotgun. While switching to the pistol is a good option, it is not viable in many situations. Multiple enemies means switching is just a time consuming way to get killed. Furthermore, the speed of many aliens means that they often can get away before you can switch. It would be much better to fire off a shot with your current weapon.
2) Performance problems probably represent a large portion of my (and probably many other people's) issues with the shotgun. I get crap performance, so I get crap results. Particularly in close combat where the shotgun is designed to excel, my performance is usually the worst (under 20 frames frequently, sometimes close to 10 - reported via fraps).
3) The current distribution seems acceptable at close range, but terrible at long range. This will be especially true if the range of the shotgun is increased. Possible solutions include: Modifying how the distribution is determined; Increasing the total number of pellets with a proportional damage decrease per pellet.
So, all that said, can I get some more feedback from the community?
Yukki has been playing around with the shotgun, check out his post too see what he's been doing. Maybe he will be willing to consider some suggestions to test.
Comments
As for NS1 being more rectangular, don't we have regular ol' hitboxes in NS2 as well?
It could definitely be tweaked but I think right now they are focused on more important things. If you want to hit something long distance then pull out something that's going to do long distance damage instead of worrying about a couple hp's worth of damage from the shotgun . The shotguns main purpose is close range damage and that's what we have a close range weapon that will eventually be improved. I would expect when the upgrades like carapace\regeneration are added the weapons are going to be tweaked again. No point in wasting time tweaking something now when it's going to get tweaked later.
Both... a real shotgun with a tight choke can be effective (not just "stray pellet kills someone" effective like that 200m stated earlier, but actually reliably hazardous to human life) out at 40 meters. I'd like to see the shotgun's grouping tightened up somewhat, and the max range increased. I don't need a ridiculous amount of damage at long range, but being unable to inflict damage on something (due to it being out of range) that's in the same room as me is a bit much.
Hey, maybe that's what secondary fire on the shotgun can do... tighten up the choke? I'm not sure I'd ever use it on wide, personally, but some people seem to like shotguns that scatter...
The shotgun is a melee weapon currently, its strength is entirely binary. Either you use it at point blank or it's next to useless.
Extending the range but dropping the damage a little means that you can shoot it in more situatons, but you also need to shoot it in more situations, essentially it makes it a more useful gun, while at the same time requiring it to be more useful.
The overall balance effect is that it should favour good positioning and teamwork a bit more, as putting obstacles between the alien and you gives you more time to shoot, and working with other marines means they can shoot at things attacking you. The very short range on the shotgun kind of hinders both of those at the moment, it just requires you to try to melee fight an alien which is designed to melee fight everything else, resulting in an effectively random chance of one of you annihilating the other. I would prefer a bit more grey in my combat outcomes rather than 'shoot alien in the face and it dies' or 'get bit in the face and die' which is how it tends to go currently.
While this is possible, IMO it is an ugly solution. Part of the nature of shotguns is a bit of randomness. Sometimes you fire a bad spread, life sucks, and a skulk eats your face. A damage cone implies that as long as you have the enemy centered when you fire, you are going to do max damage.
Also, how would the game then generate the random impact effects that each pellet makes?
Also, how would the game then generate the random impact effects that each pellet makes?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My suggestion was aimed at the comments complaining about the shotgun being to random as an alternative way to adding more pellets. You could see it as the shotgun shooting 100 pellets making the damage pretty consistent.
Same as now but client side. With enough "pellets" it won't matter that the hit pattern doesn't represent the actual hits.
Same as now but client side. With enough "pellets" it won't matter that the hit pattern doesn't represent the actual hits.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your right, when the number of pellets is big enough you should replace it by a continuous cone (with weighted damage). But what do you do when you hit something? you have to compute the area exposed, and to remove this area from the cone, so anything behind do not get hit. I guess it could be done, but it's not so simple I think.
1) Give the shotgun a longer range, even if the damage it deals at long distances is tiny. Tiny damage may be the difference between and enemy escaping or dying. This magic BS of my gun not working past 20m is confusing as hell. I am not bringing a damn measuring tape with me every time I use the shotgun. While switching to the pistol is a good option, it is not viable in many situations. Multiple enemies means switching is just a time consuming way to get killed. Furthermore, the speed of many aliens means that they often can get away before you can switch. It would be much better to fire off a shot with your current weapon.
2) Performance problems probably represent a large portion of my (and probably many other people's) issues with the shotgun. I get crap performance, so I get crap results. Particularly in close combat where the shotgun is designed to excel, my performance is usually the worst (under 20 frames frequently, sometimes close to 10 - reported via fraps).
3) The current distribution seems acceptable at close range, but terrible at long range. This will be especially true if the range of the shotgun is increased. Possible solutions include: Modifying how the distribution is determined; Increasing the total number of pellets with a proportional damage decrease per pellet.
So, all that said, can I get some more feedback from the community?
Yukki has been playing around with the shotgun, check out his post too see what he's been doing. Maybe he will be willing to consider some suggestions to test.
Also, Yukki, if you're not a guy, my bad.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115247" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=115247</a>