209 New Shotgun Spread
Jayaris
Join Date: 2012-03-24 Member: 149321Members
Join Date: 2012-03-24 Member: 149321Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How did it make it through playtesting?</div>Skulk Movement got a thread and Skulk Movement don't mean jack to me. Here's how it is :
You decided to increase Lerk Health and reduce Shotgun damage in the same patch (you are such development baddies).
I shoot stuff with the Shotgun, nothing happens.
I'm by no means a Shotgun sniper, but I normally hit half the time on average across all lifeforms - And that used to be fine, but now when I shoot aliens they just laugh at me.
Unless I press the gun to their temple I can't seem to deal any damage at all, it's a little ridiculous.
Shotgun was the only reason I played this game and though I do like the new Grenade Launcher it's just not enough.
Fighting a Fade/Lerk with a Shotgun used to be a Gentleman's Challenge - Now you got no chance.
You Playtesters are baddies, UWE need to learn how to increment.
All that's left for me to do is to play on the Alien team, win 100% of my games and say 'gg' when an Onos rush takes out the power in three seconds - As if I'm somehow good at the game.
You decided to increase Lerk Health and reduce Shotgun damage in the same patch (you are such development baddies).
I shoot stuff with the Shotgun, nothing happens.
I'm by no means a Shotgun sniper, but I normally hit half the time on average across all lifeforms - And that used to be fine, but now when I shoot aliens they just laugh at me.
Unless I press the gun to their temple I can't seem to deal any damage at all, it's a little ridiculous.
Shotgun was the only reason I played this game and though I do like the new Grenade Launcher it's just not enough.
Fighting a Fade/Lerk with a Shotgun used to be a Gentleman's Challenge - Now you got no chance.
You Playtesters are baddies, UWE need to learn how to increment.
All that's left for me to do is to play on the Alien team, win 100% of my games and say 'gg' when an Onos rush takes out the power in three seconds - As if I'm somehow good at the game.
Comments
You should try half life 1 severians´s mod if you play a game only because of shotgun.
Another thing you need to know is that Playtesters are not a single-minded entity that agrees to all changes you see released. Specially imaginary ones.
The shotgun will probably change more in the future to address the issues it has.
You probably should know that the actual problem is that the shotgun is Light Damage (reduced damage vs armor) so it takes all 10 pellets to kill a carapace skulk, which is exactly why you feel it takes 300 shots to kill a skulk.
But you may be happier thinking it's a conspiracy against you to make you worse with the shotgun.
PLAYTESTER ENTITY LOGGING OFF.
I'd like the shotgun to have the same pellet spread as it did in NS1, but obviously, or maybe not obviously to some, the developers don't always agree with everything we tell them or complain about.#
Please don't blame all of the playtesters and all of the developers for changes that you don't like, because as Mendasp said, there is a lot of disagreement between the playtesters and the developers. Cory, for example, wanted to add a freezegun to the onos, but fortunately there were a lot of complaints so it got removed.
He did. It's called stomp.
By the way I noticed no change at all in how often I kill things with the shotgun in this build. In theory a wider spread on the shotgun might be BETTER. A wider spread = easier to land hits up close (It was wider spread in old builds and it was WAY better). You're complaining about a non existent nerf. The wider spread is what you want on the shotgun dude makes it more deadly up close which is what you want. You are experiencing the placebo effect.
So am I, unfortunately effective range has gone from a foot to knife range. So any shot not in melee range looks and feels ineffectual, making the Shotgun terrible.
By the way I noticed no change at all in how often I kill things with the shotgun in this build. In theory a wider spread on the shotgun might be BETTER. A wider spread = easier to land hits. You're complaining about a non existent nerf. The wider spread is what you want on the shotgun dude makes it more deadly up close which is what you want. You are experiencing the placebo effect.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nice psychology degree bro, care to explain how I noticed it before I even knew the change had happened -
Use Shotgun
After 15 Minutes
"Did Shotgun get nerfed?"
"Yes."
It's a bit like saying I'm having a plucebo effect when I have a seizure and after it take a tablet.
UWE has stated they want differentiation between weapon roles and i dont believe light shotgun damage is necessary to achieve this. If relative damages to onos are a concern, you could work off the hide armour mechanic by increasing number of pellets and reducing pellet damage while keeping overall damage.
Sadly the Fade can deal three swipes at the same rate you can dish out a round with the shotgun. Considering Fades can still kill you within two-three successful hits with armour 2-3 it sucks :< It forces you to work with at least two other marines to be actually 'deadly' to a Fade (although you can still kill a Fade-player like me if the marine is agile enough or you have weapons 1 and the Fade still doesn't have carapace.)
Really I've only killed Fades as of late because there were more than one attacking a group and one would be too careless or greedy with their 'killstreak' and be destroyed by the shotgun/rifle combo.
That was probably me last night....I had a hell of a time trying to kill you as a fade. You and your dam JP just kept jumping around. :)
Come on man, that's just completely wrong.
Wider spread means more pellets will miss (or greater chance of pellets missing) when you properly aim at your target.
Older versions of the shotgun had a smaller range penalty which is why they were better than recent shotguns. IE current shotgun may do 10 damage per pellet at 10 meters and 5 at 15 meters, but previously did 10 at 15 meters and 5 at 20 meters, increasing the effective range of the shotgun. The numbers there are made up, but the trend of the concept is the same. Old shotguns were better because of a higher effective range.
The recent shotguns (last 10-15 patches) were flat out nerfed by the increase in bullet spread. It's noticable as you will rarely 1 shot skulks in b209.
You never want more bullet spread. Bullet spread is a negative attribute unless for some reason you want to AOE damage many entities. There is no situation in NS2 in which bullet spread is an advantage over pinpoint accurate fire. In fact, that's why bullet spread exists on the shotgun -- to weaken the incredibly high damage of it.
If we look at how the shotgun has evolved over the patches and see how many pellets you need to kill a skulk with and without carap:
1. Old style: 18 normal damage per pellet. 5/7 pellets to kill
2. Medium: 24 light damage. 5/8
3. Current: 20 light damage. 6/10
The fourth stage was when aliens got free upgrades. Prior to this, lots of skulks didn't buy upgrades because it was insanely expensive to upgrade a skulk - average skulk lifetime is about 1 minute, so skulks paid an insane amount of pres for upgrades compared to any other alien lifeform.
Stage five is now - increased, semi-random spread (its the same spread all the time, just rotated). This means that there is now zero chance of getting a lucky shot that takes out an undamaged carapace skulk at medium range - you will miss with a few pellets.
But of all the stages, the current one is the smallest nerf. If you look at the numbers, the biggest shotgun nerf was free alien upgrades.
How to avoid making carapace the no-brainer upgrade and thus forcing aliens into the Crag hive path is the subject of much discussion. Expect future changes.
Not only do the pellets themselves do less damage the farther away the target is, now they spread even more than before. Shouldn't it be one or the other and not both? Shotty feels overly nerfed, this is shotty nerf, what, #9 or 10? :/
How to avoid making carapace the no-brainer upgrade and thus forcing aliens into the Crag hive path is the subject of much discussion. Expect future changes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While it may be true that the current nerf is the smallest when looking at raw damage output, that isn't true when considering TTK.
Previously, in every build, the shotgun was 1 shotting carapace skulks from close range (2-3 meters) rather reliably, save for hit reg issues. That is rarely happening now. So in effect the shotgun vs skulk battles have gone from 1 shot kill (previous builds) to 2 shots kills (current build), assuming very high accuracy.
The shots-per-kill of a shotgun vs skulk has been effectively doubled (1 -> 2).
Other lifeforms are harder to analyze, but it is a big nerf for the shotgun against everything except for the onos, which is a trivial nerf.
Start a listen server
open the console. type
cheats
j1
give shotgun
trace b
Close console. Fire shotgun.
The spread is _much_, much larger than in previous patches. However, it should be modelled after the NS1 shotgun spread, if I understand things correctly.
Seems like the LMG is better for long range fights and the Shotgun is better for close ones. Combine that with the recent GL detachment and the Marine weapons are really starting to seem balanced with respect to each other in accordance with the design doc's philosophies. Might need to nerf Kharaa damage across the board if these new vulnerabilities cause Marines to get rolled though; only time will tell.
Seems like the LMG is better for long range fights and the Shotgun is better for close ones. Combine that with the recent GL detachment and the Marine weapons are really starting to seem balanced with respect to each other in accordance with the design doc's philosophies. Might need to nerf Kharaa damage across the board if these new vulnerabilities cause Marines to get rolled though; only time will tell.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LMG is better for both close and long range now.
The only advantage left for the shotgun is it's ammo size.
That would be an improvement, but preferably they would just remove all the behind-the-scenes damage types and armor types that are invisible to the players. I don't understand how this is supposed to be an improvement over the NS1 system of armor absorption being based on amount of hives. If anything, they've made NS2 even more confusing than NS1.
<!--quoteo(post=1940482:date=May 31 2012, 05:23 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ May 31 2012, 05:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940482"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not only do the pellets themselves do less damage the farther away the target is, now they spread even more than before. Shouldn't it be one or the other and not both?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. They're both methods for limiting its efficiency at range, but there's no need to use both. Preferably the damage dropoff should be removed, as at least the spread is visible to the players.
<!--quoteo(post=1940481:date=May 31 2012, 05:22 PM:name=matso)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (matso @ May 31 2012, 05:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940481"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How to avoid making carapace the no-brainer upgrade and thus forcing aliens into the Crag hive path is the subject of much discussion. Expect future changes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, that's pretty easy to figure out. Just have a look at NS1 -- movement chamber (shift) was the most popular chamber throughout versions 3.0 to 3.2 (mid 2005 to now).
The shotgun had an absolute falloff distance from what I remember. You did the same damage at any range, until you got to a certain range where it did zero damage. I thought that was pretty silly as well, but it's better than gradual falloff. Agree with the rest.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/jEETP.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
It definitely needed to be widened.
It wasn't acting like how you would expect a shotgun to act, effective and strong when up close with a tight grouping, and weaker with large spread at a distance.
Changes to account for this change / future adjustments will need to occur, more than likely with more pellets at less damage. So that there aren't large "gaps"in the spread that weren't noticeable when it was a smaller grouping
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/jEETP.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
It definitely needed to be widened.
It wasn't acting like how you would expect a shotgun to act, effective and strong when up close with a tight grouping, and weaker with large spread at a distance.
Changes to account for this change / future adjustments will need to occur, more than likely with more pellets at less damage. So that there aren't large "gaps"in the spread that weren't noticeable when it was a smaller grouping<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That NS2 picture is actually exactly what I would expect from a shotgun.
For reference, here's what the spread currently looks like (it's insanely large):
<img src="http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/8069/2012053100006.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7715/2012053100005a.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />