I agree with the OP in the sense that the lowest-tier weapon for the Marine (that isn't availible from the start that is) seems to be an all-purpose ass-whooping gun. Shotguns are preferred over flamethrowers and grenade launchers as weapons. Mainly because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are at heart building-killing devices. In my opinion it makes more sense for an all-purpose killing device to be later tier than something which is a dedicated tool.
Let me try put this into purely objective terms, as I see that myself and others have become quite biased in the way we try and explain potential events.
This is how I see the pros and cons of a shotgun.
Pros: Kills enemy players better than any other gun in the game. This is not a "in certain circumstances the shotgun can be good" kind of thing. The shotgun is plain better. There is no situation where a player, upon seeing a shotgun lying on the ground, would think "I should rather keep my LMG". You will always take it because it is always better. It is always better because it always kills enemy players better.
Cons: Price. That's it. The only downside is the economic price one must pay for it. That cost is exceptional hard for a random alien player to appreciate. Especially when they have to die numerous times to nullify it.
I view this as very similar to the situation with the fade currently (or more in previous versions). The fade is simply better than all other life forms, and its down side is only its cost. It becomes almost hellish to fight a good fade, because he will kill you over and over again in a very short space of time, without you being able to do much. This isn't necessarily imbalanced, it just isn't fun.
So none of that really means anything by itself. As long as the pros and cons balance out, it doesn't matter, even if one is direct, and the other is only passively through cost.
However, in my opinion, when you don't balance a major item equally in both direct impact, and economical impact, "fun" suffers. I have no proof for this, I only have my own experiences. Dying 3 times to kill a shotgunner is not fun. It may be fair, but its not fun.
I cannot, and won't try to comment on the subjective fun scale of it, because that is different for everyone (although I agree that essentially no-one likes getting beaten time and time again).
However, LMGs are better for taking out long range lerks, they do more DPS vs structures and onos (better at taking down fleeing onos if you don't have jetpacks, and arguably also better when you do as the reload is so much shorter with the LMG).
Incidentally, I was on a server earlier when it was DFA|Havoc I think said 'does anyone want this shotty 'cos I prefer the lmg.' Now that might have been context specific, but it actually happened...!
The reload time for chasing down oni with jetpacks makes it really nowhere near as good for that final chase, unless it's already fully reloaded.
These are a small minority of cases, but they ARE cases where the lmg is superior to the shotgun. And early/mid game, taking down res towers, especially being able to snipe them from relatively safe spots, is a genuine benefit.
Your point about fun is valid, absolutely. I still maintain that this boils down more to finding one's skill level, as it can be really bad when you're up against a total brick wall. (that said, I enjoy a challenge... I don't think I've killed wob yet in gathers, but one day I might and I will celebrate that day )
I agree with the OP in the sense that the lowest-tier weapon for the Marine (that isn't availible from the start that is) seems to be an all-purpose ass-whooping gun. Shotguns are preferred over flamethrowers and grenade launchers as weapons. Mainly because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are at heart building-killing devices. In my opinion it makes more sense for an all-purpose killing device to be later tier than something which is a dedicated tool.
Remember that marine weapon effectiveness is not tied to the weapon itself, but the weapon upgrades. A level 0 shotgun is not a killing machine, a level 3 shotgun is. It's only fair that you can have early w0-1 shotguns countering carapace skulks and lerks but can't fight effectively against fades before w2-3. This is also a much more elegant and flexible mechanic than having separate weapons in later stages of the tech tree with no other difference between them than fire power.
About the fun factor (which is questionable only in a battle between a skulk and a shotgun, since other lifeforms can easily compete), I think that people just need to understand their role better and start finding enjoyment in it. Skulks are not meant for engagements from w1-2, a1-2 shotguns onwards, they are meant for harassment. At that point the alien team should already have the fades out, and as such the role of the skulk changes from a combat unit to an extractor and phase gate harasser. If people can't find fun in that and only want to take part in combat, then I'm forced to use the "this game isn't for you" -argument. One thing that I like about NS2 is that there are roles with no or very little combat involved. It provides great variety, although I personally think there are way too little of these roles in the game, and too much is reliant on combat.
Now before strofix strikes in and makes his argument of how holding mouse 1 and biting metal isn't fun, I say why is pressing mouse 1 and biting flesh inherently the better alternative? Harassing extractors is by no means a PvE situation (if it was, marines would be doing something very wrong on the homefront), there will always be marines defending those extractors. The cat-and-mouse game of outsmarting your opponent while harassing is at times much more interesting than plain combat, at least in my opinion. Sneaking to the extractor unnoticed, planning your routes, having to listen for marine boot steps while chewing, having to decide whether you can engage the marine or not, and if not, when to disengage from the extractor with having a chance to escape, judging when the defender has gotten bored of you hiding and engaging the extractor again or choosing a different extractor to attack to have the defender bounce between locations... This has much more tactical thinking and battle of wits involved in it than fighting on the main battlefield, and if someone doesn't like it... Well, again I'll have to whip out the "not for you" -card.
@OP RTS/FPS. Not just RTS, not just FPS. Expect to see a combination. Do not expect watering down to either pure RTS or pure FPS. OP isn't exactly true to reality with alot of the statements either.
Live shotgun isn't really that good against skulks to be able to easily take on 3, especially the higher your pings get. With 3 skulks, you need to ohk otherwise your dead, and the only way to do that with a weapon that has an effective range of 1-2 meters (if you're lucky and the animation gods smile upon thee), is to have good movement. Then there are cheap meds, glancing bite, but i think that might be too deep for this thread.
Regarding best skulk vs best shotgun thing, I think its a misleading avenue of discussion. Skulk skill cap in live is so low that it is literally impossible to actually match the 'best' in an 'equally skilled' context. The setup is flawed from the beginning imo.
1. One shot weapons have existed in multiplayer games since Doom. Some examples Include; BFG (Doom/Quake) Energy Sword (Halo) Gravity Hammer (Halo) Sniper Rifles (Call Of Duty/Counter Strike/ Almost any FPS) Knife (Call Of Duty) Rocket Launcher (Call Of Duty) Chainsaw (Gears of War) Redeemer (Unreal Tournament) These are by no means games exclusive to "hardcore fanboys". It is frankly, your opinion that one shot weapons shouldn't exist, and it evidently isn't an opinion shared by most game developers throughout history.
3. Shotguns require skill. Low rate of fire, long reload time, minimal effective range. It seems any explanation I can give will be ignored. An example of a true skilless weapon can be found in Call Of Duty. The akimbo machine pistols, killstreak rewards and the Nuke.
1. Shotguns in those games come with a distinct disadvantage. Try running around with nothing but a shotgun in a game like BF3. You will distinctly feel underpowered and vulnerable. In fact, using said weapons effectively require that you radically adjust your play style, and choose your fights incredibly carefully. This is because, in a game where nearly every player has an effective range of upwards of 100m, your 20m effective range cripples you.
This disadvantage does not exist in any way, shape or form in NS. The only game that comes close to a similar situation is L4D. The difference there is that almost any gun will kill you instantly, shotgun or otherwise. And, also, shotguns were considered pretty damn strong in that game too.
3.Does the shotgun unambiguously require more skill than any other weapon in NS2? Then why does it potentially offer more reward?
Because it costs 20 pres and research from the commander ?
This is as intelligent as asking why a Lerk offers more damage/utility than a skulk.
Basically, if you are a fade, or a Lerk, you do not take on shotgun marines in melee without expecting to die.
WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game? You have to
be a pretty terrible fade going up against a marine with really good aim
+ upgraded weapons if you're dying to one or two marines on a regular
basis. Not to mention you should almost never be engaging by yourself,
unless it's a 1v1. Fades will almost always win 1v1's, until the marines
are w3/a3, and even then you still should very rarely die, but you'll probably have to run away.
Fades are incredibly strong, and can kill a marine with no upgrades in 2
hits, and IIRC it's still only a 3 hit kill until they get a3 where
it'll take 4 hits, but just barely. If you're playing correctly and
engaging the marines as a group, the fade should almost never die unless
going up against someone who has exceptional aim.
If you're getting OHK'd by shotguns as a Lerk, you either got baited/amubshed around a
corner, or you got cocky and decided to go in for a bite when you
should've been spiking.
Skulks are countered fairly hard by shotguns, but
once leap gets up it becomes entirely possible to win a 1v1 against a
shotgunner, and unless the shotgunner has exceptional aim I would say
the skulk has a chance of winning nearly half of the time. Especially if
you have adrenaline or silence.
I think one of the most telling things about the shotgun though, is that there are a lot of guys out there who would just rather use an LMG. There are 2 guys on my team that will only get a shotgun when they need them to counter fades, because they can kill skulks, lerks, structures, and to some degree onii from a longer distance/safer vantage point. If the shotgun was objectively better in every way than the LMG, that wouldn't be happening.
Basically, if you are a fade, or a Lerk, you do not take on shotgun marines in melee without expecting to die.
WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game? You have to
be a pretty terrible fade going up against a marine with really good aim
+ upgraded weapons if you're dying to one or two marines on a regular
basis.
This is where the discussion goes in circles because player skill plays the biggest part, just like any other FPS game. A really good Marine with sg will kill a Fade every time since he does 200+ ranged damage per hit and can dodge.
ratios like requiring 3 zerglings to beat 1 zealot are fine in RTS games, but not in an FPS game where there are actual players running up and getting instantly killed by someone who isn't even looking at them.
factoring in player emotions / reactions is very important. players like to feel useful, or like they are contributing at all points during a game. once shotguns come out, skulks are little more than fodder. it's not fun to play.
hitting res and avoiding shotguns is not the answer. again, this is not fun nor is it intuitive. from the viewpoint of a (new) player, I want to kill other players, not bite structures.
Therius said this well, but I'll try saying it too.
Players need to understand that the game is not about individual success in shooting, but about team success in achieving objectives. If the best way (in some specific circumstance) for the team to win is for you to run up to a shotgunner and die after getting in one bite, and then respawn and do it again and again and again, well, that's part of the game.
Not everyone will think that's fun. Okay, maybe almost nobody does. But some do. The challenge at every point in the game is not "can I hit my target" but rather "what is the absolute best thing for me to be doing right now in order to ensure the team's success, and how well can I accomplish that thing?" I find that challenge fun, even when the answer is "bite the shotgunner". I honestly believe that this is the core of NS2 gameplay and is something that sets it apart from so many other games out there. I believe that the NS2 community will be better off the more we can help potential recruits understand this point and embrace it for themselves.
But I think you know all this and I think you probably agree.
I agree with your point (and, I suppose, the OP to some degree) in that playing skulks when shotguns are out is not as fun for most people as most people would want. And while I want to say "that's not what NS2 is about" and "you should have fun anyway like I do" and "maybe this game isn't for you" - I'm not sure that's the best answer. Perhaps there's something that could be done to make that part of the NS2 gameplay more, um, "shooter friendly". More attractive to the wider audience we want to recruit without compromising the core concepts inherent in the game.
Basically, if you are a fade, or a Lerk, you do not take on shotgun marines in melee without expecting to die.
WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game? You have to
be a pretty terrible fade going up against a marine with really good aim
+ upgraded weapons if you're dying to one or two marines on a regular
basis. Not to mention you should almost never be engaging by yourself,
unless it's a 1v1. Fades will almost always win 1v1's, until the marines
are w3/a3, and even then you still should very rarely die, but you'll probably have to run away.
Fades are incredibly strong, and can kill a marine with no upgrades in 2
hits, and IIRC it's still only a 3 hit kill until they get a3 where
it'll take 4 hits, but just barely. If you're playing correctly and
engaging the marines as a group, the fade should almost never die unless
going up against someone who has exceptional aim.
If you're getting OHK'd by shotguns as a Lerk, you either got baited/amubshed around a
corner, or you got cocky and decided to go in for a bite when you
should've been spiking.
Skulks are countered fairly hard by shotguns, but
once leap gets up it becomes entirely possible to win a 1v1 against a
shotgunner, and unless the shotgunner has exceptional aim I would say
the skulk has a chance of winning nearly half of the time. Especially if
you have adrenaline or silence.
I think one of the most telling things about the shotgun though, is that there are a lot of guys out there who would just rather use an LMG. There are 2 guys on my team that will only get a shotgun when they need them to counter fades, because they can kill skulks, lerks, structures, and to some degree onii from a longer distance/safer vantage point. If the shotgun was objectively better in every way than the LMG, that wouldn't be happening.
What I should have said (and I'm pretty sure I did say) is expect to die. Not DIE, but expect death.
That is, if your team cannot afford you to die, then you should not take that shotgunner on. 9 times out of 10, you probably will get him, or atleast you will be winged once or twice and have the time to simply run away. But once in a while (quite frequently actually), you will simply take 2 shots directly to the face and die within a second of engaging.
The risk if death is just as potent as actually dying, because it prevents you from engaging.
Basically, if you are a fade, or a Lerk, you do not take on shotgun marines in melee without expecting to die.
WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game? You have to
be a pretty terrible fade going up against a marine with really good aim
+ upgraded weapons if you're dying to one or two marines on a regular
basis. Not to mention you should almost never be engaging by yourself,
unless it's a 1v1. Fades will almost always win 1v1's, until the marines
are w3/a3, and even then you still should very rarely die, but you'll probably have to run away.
Fades are incredibly strong, and can kill a marine with no upgrades in 2
hits, and IIRC it's still only a 3 hit kill until they get a3 where
it'll take 4 hits, but just barely. If you're playing correctly and
engaging the marines as a group, the fade should almost never die unless
going up against someone who has exceptional aim.
If you're getting OHK'd by shotguns as a Lerk, you either got baited/amubshed around a
corner, or you got cocky and decided to go in for a bite when you
should've been spiking.
Skulks are countered fairly hard by shotguns, but
once leap gets up it becomes entirely possible to win a 1v1 against a
shotgunner, and unless the shotgunner has exceptional aim I would say
the skulk has a chance of winning nearly half of the time. Especially if
you have adrenaline or silence.
I think one of the most telling things about the shotgun though, is that there are a lot of guys out there who would just rather use an LMG. There are 2 guys on my team that will only get a shotgun when they need them to counter fades, because they can kill skulks, lerks, structures, and to some degree onii from a longer distance/safer vantage point. If the shotgun was objectively better in every way than the LMG, that wouldn't be happening.
What I should have said (and I'm pretty sure I did say) is expect to die. Not DIE, but expect death.
That is, if your team cannot afford you to die, then you should not take that shotgunner on. 9 times out of 10, you probably will get him, or atleast you will be winged once or twice and have the time to simply run away. But once in a while (quite frequently actually), you will simply take 2 shots directly to the face and die within a second of engaging.
The risk if death is just as potent as actually dying, because it prevents you from engaging.
I have no idea what you're even trying to say man. The risk of death is there in every single engagement for every single life form. Always. That's why you engage smaller groups of marines with larger groups of aliens whenever possible. The important part of what you're saying really boils down to "Don't engage when you don't have the advantage," Not "Don't engage shotguns." If a fade will beat a shotgunner 9/10, then isn't it possible that maybe that 10th time, the marine was just better than you?
If you're having trouble with it, the easy way you beat shotguns is by overwhelming them with lifeforms, lerk + skulks, lerk + fades, fades + skulks, doesn't really matter. Shotgunners go down to packs of aliens almost just as easily as LMG's do. If you plan your engagements correctly and act as a team, you're going to come out on top unless the guys with the shotguns are better than you, in which case you deserved to lose.
Yes, it's easy to kill skulks 1v1 with a shotgun, but if it wasn't then what would be the point of the shotgun to begin with? Why spend 20 res for a shotgun that doesn't OHK when it's already pretty damn easy to kill a skulk with an LMG? It's what, ~1 second of accurate fire to kill a skulk? There's around 1 second between shotgun shots, too. So if you aren't killing skulks in one hit with the shotgun, then they're actually going to die more quickly to LMG's.
I have no idea what you're even trying to say man. The risk of death is there in every single engagement for every single life form. Always. That's why you engage smaller groups of marines with larger groups of aliens whenever possible. The important part of what you're saying really boils down to "Don't engage when you don't have the advantage," Not "Don't engage shotguns." If a fade will beat a shotgunner 9/10, then isn't it possible that maybe that 10th time, the marine was just better than you?
If you're having trouble with it, the easy way you beat shotguns is by overwhelming them with lifeforms, lerk + skulks, lerk + fades, fades + skulks, doesn't really matter. Shotgunners go down to packs of aliens almost just as easily as LMG's do. If you plan your engagements correctly and act as a team, you're going to come out on top unless the guys with the shotguns are better than you, in which case you deserved to lose.
Yes, it's easy to kill skulks 1v1 with a shotgun, but if it wasn't then what would be the point of the shotgun to begin with? Why spend 20 res for a shotgun that doesn't OHK when it's already pretty damn easy to kill a skulk with an LMG? It's what, ~1 second of accurate fire to kill a skulk? There's around 1 second between shotgun shots, too. So if you aren't killing skulks in one hit with the shotgun, then they're actually going to die more quickly to LMG's.
I'm not quite sure what the relevance of the player potentially being better than you in that one in ten encounter. Would that player then beat you in every single encounter possible? The answer is obviously no, in which case why does it matter? There are uncontrollable factors in every fight, and a lot of stuff comes down to luck. That's why we don't consider skill when talking about balance, or when conceptualising the game. You just reduce it to a base line, and say that out of every 10 fights, x go this way and y go that way. Skill is irrelevant.
Aaah yes, the overwhelm them approach. If you need 2 skulks for every shotgunner, and they get 7 shotguns, does that mean you automatically lose? I mean, you need more skulks than you have access to in order to kill them, so what can you do?
You obviously don't lose, otherwise we would see a 7 shotgun rush in every single game. This illustrates that your simplistic way of viewing this situation doesn't really work.
As for why one would buy a shotgun, I think it is this way of thinking that highlights the core issue with the shotgun. An issue with UWE have tried, and evidently failed, to address. When you buy a welder, you don't say "why should we buy a welder when we have..." because then you quickly realise that nothing else welds. When you buy the flamethrower you don't say "we can just burn away spores using..." because nothing else does it. The shotgun's role is performed by the LMG, so if it wasn't definitively better, there would be a problem. However, this creates a certain kind of balance issue, which I have talked about previously.
If the LMG is balanced economically, then in order for the shotgun to be balanced economically, it must have a cost, hence the 20 res.
If the LMG is balanced in terms of pure gameplay, and in terms of enjoyment, then what is the shotgun?
I have no idea what you're even trying to say man. The risk of death is there in every single engagement for every single life form. Always. That's why you engage smaller groups of marines with larger groups of aliens whenever possible. The important part of what you're saying really boils down to "Don't engage when you don't have the advantage," Not "Don't engage shotguns." If a fade will beat a shotgunner 9/10, then isn't it possible that maybe that 10th time, the marine was just better than you?
If you're having trouble with it, the easy way you beat shotguns is by overwhelming them with lifeforms, lerk + skulks, lerk + fades, fades + skulks, doesn't really matter. Shotgunners go down to packs of aliens almost just as easily as LMG's do. If you plan your engagements correctly and act as a team, you're going to come out on top unless the guys with the shotguns are better than you, in which case you deserved to lose.
Yes, it's easy to kill skulks 1v1 with a shotgun, but if it wasn't then what would be the point of the shotgun to begin with? Why spend 20 res for a shotgun that doesn't OHK when it's already pretty damn easy to kill a skulk with an LMG? It's what, ~1 second of accurate fire to kill a skulk? There's around 1 second between shotgun shots, too. So if you aren't killing skulks in one hit with the shotgun, then they're actually going to die more quickly to LMG's.
I'm not quite sure what the relevance of the player potentially being better than you in that one in ten encounter. Would that player then beat you in every single encounter possible? The answer is obviously no, in which case why does it matter? There are uncontrollable factors in every fight, and a lot of stuff comes down to luck. That's why we don't consider skill when talking about balance, or when conceptualising the game. You just reduce it to a base line, and say that out of every 10 fights, x go this way and y go that way. Skill is irrelevant.
Aaah yes, the overwhelm them approach. If you need 2 skulks for every shotgunner, and they get 7 shotguns, does that mean you automatically lose? I mean, you need more skulks than you have access to in order to kill them, so what can you do?
You obviously don't lose, otherwise we would see a 7 shotgun rush in every single game. This illustrates that your simplistic way of viewing this situation doesn't really work.
As for why one would buy a shotgun, I think it is this way of thinking that highlights the core issue with the shotgun. An issue with UWE have tried, and evidently failed, to address. When you buy a welder, you don't say "why should we buy a welder when we have..." because then you quickly realise that nothing else welds. When you buy the flamethrower you don't say "we can just burn away spores using..." because nothing else does it. The shotgun's role is performed by the LMG, so if it wasn't definitively better, there would be a problem. However, this creates a certain kind of balance issue, which I have talked about previously.
If the LMG is balanced economically, then in order for the shotgun to be balanced economically, it must have a cost, hence the 20 res.
If the LMG is balanced in terms of pure gameplay, and in terms of enjoyment, then what is the shotgun?
How the fuck are you going to balance an FPS based entirely on numbers and statistics? You can't say a fade wins 9 out of 10 times and factor out skill... if there are people playing the lifeforms, then skill is a factor. Are you assuming that there is 100% accuracy then? 30%? 50%? Balance in a FPS is done by playing the game and seeing what works, this isn't an RTS or an RPG where you can balance around stats and random number generators. Skill is ALWAYS a factor in an FPS. Of course the marine that beat you that 1 time out of 10 isn't going to beat you every single time. Better isn't necessarily a static thing. He could be playing better than you during one engagement, and you could be playing better than him the next.
If they have 7 shotgunners, and you only have skulks, then you either already lost or you got cheesed. Shotgun rush is no different than a full team base rush as skulks. Yeah, if they shotgun rush you're pretty much fucked. But when else other than a cheesy shotgun rush are you ever going to have to fight a marine ball with 7 guys in it? Are you playing on 32 player servers? The game isn't balanced for that shit.. it's balanced for 9's at the most and if you have 7/9 guys in the same spot, you're leaving huge portions of the map unoccupied. I don't think trying to balance around 7 skulks vs 7 marines even makes sense. The marines obviously have the advantage, they can start doing damage from further away and will likely kill some of the skulks before they even get close enough to bite. Shotgun or LMG it won't matter, the skulks will still lose that fight. You might also want to read the part of my post where I said overwhelming them is the EASY way to do it. The hard way is to get better than them and play to your life forms advantages (i.e. ambush them as a skulk)
If you engage when the marines have the advantage, you will lose, and that's fine. 1v1 skulk vs marine, unless the skulk gets a free bite off because of the marine not noticing him, the marine will likely win. That's kind of the whole point of the game, the marines are the head to head, aggressive fighters. The aliens are the sneaky ambushers and harassers. The marines are supposed to win in a head on fight. The aliens are supposed to rely on numbers, speed, and stealth.
And there is a reason to buy the shotgun right now, it's a powerful close range weapon that can kill a skulk faster than a rifle can. That's why it costs 20 res. If you make it so that it can't OHK, then it's not killing skulks faster than the rifle anymore and becomes obsolete, except for maybe against fades because they're harder to track than skulks. It's not objectively better than the LMG. If you're looking at pure damage output, I think the LMG might actually edge out the shotgun. I don't know the exact numbers right now and a quick google search didn't turn them up, but I'll see if I can find the damage values somewhere to verify this.
*edit* It looks like according to the wiki rifles have a potential DPS of ~100-130 while shotguns are ~170 with the caveat being shotguns have a much lower range (30 vs 250) and slower rate of fire (every .1 seconds vs every .9). Assuming point blank and 100% accuracy, the shotgun does more damage. Outside of those parameters, the LMG probably does more consistent damage. I have a feeling that the wiki hasn't been updated in a long time though.
Seriously, what are you trying to argue? It seems like you're just arguing random points not connected to the OP for the sake of it...
More than 99.9% of games go by without people coming to the forums to complain about the shotgun.
Does this thread in any way raise a new, as yet undiscovered point that makes us all go 'Oh yeah, he's got a point there, that makes perfect sense; we need to change the shotgun?' The answer to that question is no. We have covered this topic before here in some detail, although a while back. As I recall, the bottom line was that the shotgun is fine, leave it as it is.
It's unfortunate for the people who don't agree, but that would appear to be the majority opinion here. None of your arguments seems to have persuaded anyone of its validity, and we're beginning to go round in strofix circles again...
How the fuck are you going to balance an FPS based entirely on numbers and statistics? You can't say a fade wins 9 out of 10 times and factor out skill... if there are people playing the lifeforms, then skill is a factor. Are you assuming that there is 100% accuracy then? 30%? 50%? Balance in a FPS is done by playing the game and seeing what works, this isn't an RTS or an RPG where you can balance around stats and random number generators. Skill is ALWAYS a factor in an FPS.
The video you linked is very interesting and informative, but it applies to when you are actually designing and balancing a game, not when you are analysing the balance of a game. Skill plays n part when analysing balance for the following reason:
Say I came to you and said that the shotgun was completely overpowered, and I could prove this by showing you how a player beat me time and time again and I couldn't do anything about it. Now lets say you weren't immediately put off by the fact that I was offering anecdotal evidence as proof of imbalance, but you then found out that the person that beat me over and over again was Fanatic. Would you listen to me any further at that point? Of course not, you would discard it as a better player owning a worse player.
Similarly, if I told you that the shotgun is underpowered because I did a shotgun rush that was completely ineffectual, but you found out that the alien team was nexzil, the same thing would happen.
This is because you cannot analyse balance anecdotally. Individual experiences mean absolutely nothing. You need a broad array of many difference experiences from many different players to analyse a situation. Once you do that, everything returns to a base line. Skill goes to the absolute average for a particular skill bracket, and that's when you get proper information.
Seriously, what are you trying to argue? It seems like you're just arguing random points not connected to the OP for the sake of it...
More than 99.9% of games go by without people coming to the forums to complain about the shotgun.
Does this thread in any way raise a new, as yet undiscovered point that makes us all go 'Oh yeah, he's got a point there, that makes perfect sense; we need to change the shotgun?' The answer to that question is no. We have covered this topic before here in some detail, although a while back. As I recall, the bottom line was that the shotgun is fine, leave it as it is.
It's unfortunate for the people who don't agree, but that would appear to be the majority opinion here. None of your arguments seems to have persuaded anyone of its validity, and we're beginning to go round in strofix circles again...
More than 99.9% of games go by without anyone complaining about anything. Are we to believe that the entire game is perfect as is, and cannot be improved upon?
If this thread wasn't here, how would that mythical point ever be raised? Without discussing the matter, how will we ever come to an understanding so that that point, if it exists, can be brought to your attention? You seem to think that because you have made your mind up, that nobody should continue to talk on the matter, because if you can't be convinced, then surely nobody else worthwhile can be either.
When you stop wanting to listen, it only looks like you're afraid of what you might hear.
The video you linked is very interesting and informative, but it applies to when you are actually designing and balancing a game, not when you are analysing the balance of a game. Skill plays n part when analysing balance for the following reason:
Say I came to you and said that the shotgun was completely overpowered, and I could prove this by showing you how a player beat me time and time again and I couldn't do anything about it. Now lets say you weren't immediately put off by the fact that I was offering anecdotal evidence as proof of imbalance, but you then found out that the person that beat me over and over again was Fanatic. Would you listen to me any further at that point? Of course not, you would discard it as a better player owning a worse player.
Similarly, if I told you that the shotgun is underpowered because I did a shotgun rush that was completely ineffectual, but you found out that the alien team was nexzil, the same thing would happen.
This is because you cannot analyse balance anecdotally. Individual experiences mean absolutely nothing. You need a broad array of many difference experiences from many different players to analyse a situation. Once you do that, everything returns to a base line. Skill goes to the absolute average for a particular skill bracket, and that's when you get proper information.
You're only proving my point further... the guy that beat you with the shotgun every time was just better than you. You couldn't kill him because he out skilled you. If your shotgun rush gets thwarted by nxzl, your shotgun rush failed because you got outskilled. My point was that if you lose your fade to a shotgunner, he out-skilled you.
If you want to factor skill out of the equation, what are you assuming the hit percentage is to make shotgun vs fade a problem? What range is the encounter happening at? In order for a shotgun to be a problem for a fade, you have to assume that the shotgunner has 100% accuracy and only fires at ranges short enough to get full damage. That is not a very realistic scenario.
I honestly don't think that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore, so I'm done with this argument xD
You're only proving my point further... the guy that beat you with the shotgun every time was just better than you. You couldn't kill him because he out skilled you. If your shotgun rush gets thwarted by nxzl, your shotgun rush failed because you got outskilled. My point was that if you lose your fade to a shotgunner, he out-skilled you.
If you want to factor skill out of the equation, what are you assuming the hit percentage is to make shotgun vs fade a problem? What range is the encounter happening at? In order for a shotgun to be a problem for a fade, you have to assume that the shotgunner has 100% accuracy and only fires at ranges short enough to get full damage. That is not a very realistic scenario.
I honestly don't think that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore, so I'm done with this argument xD
I see that you too are worried about what you might hear, so you've stopped listening. Anyway, I'll reply in case someone else may want to discuss this.
You say that the shotgunner outskilled the fade. Ok, but what does that mean?
If you were to put two guys across a room from each other, and give each an AK, and they fired and one died and the other didn't, I would say that that was a pretty unambiguous example of someone being outskilled (not entirely unambiguous, but good enough).
But when a fade, a mobile, teleporting, melee attacking humanoid, dies to a shotgunner, a close range, relatively slow marine? How can you even begin to know what that means? The interactions between all these complex mechanics are simply to unpredictable to it down simply to skill.
To make it simpler. I'm pretty sure you said that a skulk should not go head on into a marine with a shotgun. Ok, well lets say the skulk does, and the skulk dies. Did the skulk get outskilled? Did the skulk ever stand a reasonable chance? Was the player with the shotgun better, or simply better equipped? How often will the skulk win?
If you simply assume that every encounter won is won because the victor was the better player, then you will never find imbalance in any game you analyse. You will need to go far deeper than that.
You're only proving my point further... the guy that beat you with the shotgun every time was just better than you. You couldn't kill him because he out skilled you. If your shotgun rush gets thwarted by nxzl, your shotgun rush failed because you got outskilled. My point was that if you lose your fade to a shotgunner, he out-skilled you.
If you want to factor skill out of the equation, what are you assuming the hit percentage is to make shotgun vs fade a problem? What range is the encounter happening at? In order for a shotgun to be a problem for a fade, you have to assume that the shotgunner has 100% accuracy and only fires at ranges short enough to get full damage. That is not a very realistic scenario.
I honestly don't think that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore, so I'm done with this argument xD
I see that you too are worried about what you might hear, so you've stopped listening. Anyway, I'll reply in case someone else may want to discuss this.
You say that the shotgunner outskilled the fade. Ok, but what does that mean?
If you were to put two guys across a room from each other, and give each an AK, and they fired and one died and the other didn't, I would say that that was a pretty unambiguous example of someone being outskilled (not entirely unambiguous, but good enough).
But when a fade, a mobile, teleporting, melee attacking humanoid, dies to a shotgunner, a close range, relatively slow marine? How can you even begin to know what that means? The interactions between all these complex mechanics are simply to unpredictable to it down simply to skill.
To make it simpler. I'm pretty sure you said that a skulk should not go head on into a marine with a shotgun. Ok, well lets say the skulk does, and the skulk dies. Did the skulk get outskilled? Did the skulk ever stand a reasonable chance? Was the player with the shotgun better, or simply better equipped? How often will the skulk win?
If you simply assume that every encounter won is won because the victor was the better player, then you will never find imbalance in any game you analyse. You will need to go far deeper than that.
The skulk shouldn't have run into that shotgunner by itself. Maybe it wasn't "outskilled," but it died because it made a terrible choice and put itself into a situation where it was impossible to win.
Regardless, a skulk is not a fade, so I don't really see how that example was even relevant.
Or maybe the skulk kills the shotgunner... I've done that (and lost shotguns!) plenty of times, and not always where there's a skill disparity. Sometimes, I can pull off mad strings of kills with it, then in the same match fail horribly to one of the same skulks. It means nothing, and doesn't change the argument.
I haven't stopped listening, it appears that you've just stopped producing any actual arguments for your position here...
The Circle of Strofix® continues round and round.
Just what is the problem with the shotgun as it is? Succinctly in 1 paragraph if you can, please!
I'll have to agree with strofix here, for reasons that I think are rather obvious. When talking about balance, you have to take the most clinical and analytic approach possible, and yes, that means outfactoring skill. This is very difficult in a game with such loose rules and physics as any FPS, let alone a complex asymmetrical game like NS2, but it has to be tried if any progress in balance is going to be achieved.
But man, do you two have off-putting ways of presenting an argument. Strofix with his pseudo-intellectual self-righteous jargon and ritualsacrifice with his perceived hostility and a distinct lack of understanding of strofix's points. Also, it doesn't look good in ritualsacrifice's book that he's using 'abuse' on someone he disagrees with, and I don't think the moderators approve of this either.
@Blarney_Stone : What strofix meant is that ritualsacrifice is trying to reduce strofix's points into scenarios of "you just got outskilled", which strofix pointed is rather absurd seeing as he himself claimed that no skulks should attack shotguns head on, which is certainly a statement that doesn't take skill into account (as it shouldn't)
You're only proving my point further... the guy that beat you with the shotgun every time was just better than you. You couldn't kill him because he out skilled you. If your shotgun rush gets thwarted by nxzl, your shotgun rush failed because you got outskilled. My point was that if you lose your fade to a shotgunner, he out-skilled you.
If you want to factor skill out of the equation, what are you assuming the hit percentage is to make shotgun vs fade a problem? What range is the encounter happening at? In order for a shotgun to be a problem for a fade, you have to assume that the shotgunner has 100% accuracy and only fires at ranges short enough to get full damage. That is not a very realistic scenario.
I honestly don't think that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore, so I'm done with this argument xD
I see that you too are worried about what you might hear, so you've stopped listening. Anyway, I'll reply in case someone else may want to discuss this.
You say that the shotgunner outskilled the fade. Ok, but what does that mean?
If you were to put two guys across a room from each other, and give each an AK, and they fired and one died and the other didn't, I would say that that was a pretty unambiguous example of someone being outskilled (not entirely unambiguous, but good enough).
But when a fade, a mobile, teleporting, melee attacking humanoid, dies to a shotgunner, a close range, relatively slow marine? How can you even begin to know what that means? The interactions between all these complex mechanics are simply to unpredictable to it down simply to skill.
To make it simpler. I'm pretty sure you said that a skulk should not go head on into a marine with a shotgun. Ok, well lets say the skulk does, and the skulk dies. Did the skulk get outskilled? Did the skulk ever stand a reasonable chance? Was the player with the shotgun better, or simply better equipped? How often will the skulk win?
If you simply assume that every encounter won is won because the victor was the better player, then you will never find imbalance in any game you analyse. You will need to go far deeper than that.
It's not like giving you a shotgun means that you will kill a skulk.. the shotgun is like the n00b tube in the extra credits video i showed you. It makes it easier for people that are low skilled to be able to hold their own against people that are better than them. If a skulk runs headfirst into a marine and dies, then the skulk is bad and is not using his tools correctly. You can't balance for "skulk running head on into a shotgun", the same way you can't balance for "skulk running head on at an LMG". If a skulk engages ANY marine head on, he will die, unless he is better than the marine. A marine will always win in a head on fight, 100% of the time, unless the marine is out skilled. Hence the "if your shotgun rush is countered, you got outskilled" part of my last post. The shotgun just raises the skill floor for skulk vs marine, making it even easier to fight head on.
If you can't even begin to know what it means when a fade dies to a
solo marine, then let me help you: it means the marine outskilled the fade. The same as if a solo skulk kills a solo shotgunner, the
skulk out skilled the shotgunner.
I can know what a shotgunner killing a fade means because apparently unlike you, I actually play this game enough to understand how it works. I know that if my fade dies to a shotgunner, the only factors in the equation that matters are skill level and maybe luck. The ONLY time I've ever lost a fade to a solo marine was during combat practice where we don't allow retreating, or if I fucked up and tried to solo someone who was better than me. The only times I ever kill a fade solo are if he's bad, or if he fucks up and I get lucky. One shotgunner does not kill a fade even 1 time out of 10. Maybe 1/20 times. Maybe.
I'll have to agree with strofix here, for reasons that I think are rather obvious. When talking about balance, you have to take the most clinical and analytic approach possible, and yes, that means outfactoring skill. This is very difficult in a game with such loose rules and physics as any FPS, let alone a complex asymmetrical game like NS2, but it has to be tried if any progress in balance is going to be achieved.
But man, do you two have off-putting ways of presenting an argument. Strofix with his pseudo-intellectual self-righteous jargon and ritualsacrifice with his perceived hostility and a distinct lack of understanding of strofix's points. Also, it doesn't look good in ritualsacrifice's book that he's using 'abuse' on someone he disagrees with, and I don't think the moderators approve of this either.
@Blarney_Stone : What strofix meant is that ritualsacrifice is trying to reduce strofix's points into scenarios of "you just got outskilled", which strofix pointed is rather absurd seeing as he himself claimed that no skulks should attack shotguns head on, which is certainly a statement that doesn't take skill into account (as it shouldn't)
How am I being hostile? Because I use profanity? Sorry if I offended you, but you might want to look around... very few people are silly enough to assume that profanity = hostility. Do I have to rub your balls and kiss you on the lips while I make my point or something? lol
I have complete understanding of strofix's points, they simply just don't apply here. This is not an RTS, or an RPG. You can not factor out skill. That makes no sense. If you take skill out, you're balancing for hypothetical situations where human beings aren't a part of the equation.
Your way of rhetoric is much more hostile than that of strofix.
"How am I being hostile? Because I use profanity? Sorry if I offended you, but you might want to look around.."
You must be able to see the hostility even in this statement, in which you claim to not be hostile. Strofix is keeping his cool while you throw in statements like "because apparently unlike you, I actually play this game enough to understand how it works" and "WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game?". Profanity sure as hell doesn't help you sound more convincing.
Why I stated that you seem to lack understanding of strofix's points is because your arguments are often either a) irrelevant, even though you are trying to be relevant or b) questioning something that has already been clarified.
I'm not going to start quote-walling the either of you, since I don't really want to get sucked into this argument. So far, however, strofix has been more convincing both in the way of rhetoric as well as convincing arguments.
"Do I have to rub your balls and kiss you on the lips while I make my point or something? lol"
I love how you had to edit this bit in retrospectively to show how non-hostile you are and are hoping for constructive discussion.
So, let me make sure I get this right, you do need me to stroke your balls while I'm talking to you? This is a silly internet argument, I'm mostly making fun of how ridiculous the notion of balancing an FPS game without factoring in skill is. You're assuming I'm mad when I'm just lolling. Read this next line carefully, there's an important distinction in it: FPS games are played on computers, not by computers. Skill is the single largest factor in nearly ANY engagement in this game, aside from marine v gorge or onos v marine. There is no way a marine can ever solo an onos, and there's virtually no way a gorge can ever solo a marine unless you count the use of hydras and babblers as soloing a marine.
If you cannot see the slippery slope you're using to factor in skill when it's useful for your argument but factoring skill out when it's not (RTS, RPG, onos vs marine, gorge vs marine), then I cannot help you.
There is no way a marine can ever solo an onos, and there's virtually no way a gorge can ever solo a marine unless you count the use of hydras and babblers as soloing a marine.
See. These are the kind of hard definitions that will get you somewhere.
A gorge will never beat a marine
A marine will never beat an onos
An LMG marine has a 50 50 chance against a skulk
A Shotgun marine has an 80 20 chance against a skulk
etc etc
See, none of this involves skill at all. Its irrelevant. The only things that matter are the numbers.
As for your self defeined, arbitrary definitions of who outskilled who when lifeform x fights weapon y, that is all well and good. You may even be right in some circumstances, but it doesn't matter because you can't prove it. You've got no structure, you've got no logic as to why. You just say that when a fade dies to a marine, that fade was outskilled, and when a marine dies to a fade, thats not outskilling, that is something else and is completely different. Why? Explain to my why.
If you cannot see that it's impossible to balance an FPS without factoring in skill, then I cannot help you either. There is a HUGE difference between how RTS and RPG games work compared to FPS games. In an RTS, you click a unit, tell it to fire, and it fires accurately until you tell it to do something else. It cannot miss. It does X dps, 100% of the time. In an FPS, you can calculate potential DPS, which IS useful for balance discussions, but achieving max potential DPS requires 100% accuracy, which is not realistic. There is no value in balancing around a player that does not exist. Case in point: with 100% accuracy, an W1/A1 marine beats a fade 100% of the time. In reality? A W1/A1 marine loses to a fade, according to strofix, 9 times out of 10.
The only way to balance an FPS is to make guesses on where things should be, trying those things out, and seeing if they feel right/are fun. I'm not saying that the raw potential weapon dmg vs hit points statistics aren't valuable, they just aren't as important as the skill of the players using them. And you cannot balance the game around them, because the only way to do that is to make unrealistic assumptions on how accurate people are going to be. You could probably get it close to right by figuring out what the average accuracy of all players is, but even then you're still going to have to fine tune it by feel.
If a marine solos a fade, he out skilled the fade, plain and simple. The reason for me saying this, is in order to kill a fade in 2 shots, you have to have 100% accuracy. If you have 100% accuracy, you have exceptional aim. If you have exceptional aim, you have an exceptional skill. The reason it doesn't mean the same if a fade kills a marine, is it's easy to kill a marine as a fade. You can teleport. You're one of the fastest moving things in the game. You fire more quickly than the marine, and do comparable amounts of damage per hit.
The reason it's different that marine vs onos, is you basically would have to be blind to not be able to have 100% accuracy against a target as large and slow as the onos. It's not unrealistic to assume 100% accuracy in onos vs marine because onii are slow, huge, and very very easy to hit. The reason it's unrealistic to assume 100% accuracy against a fade is fades are small, fast, and can teleport. It takes much more skill to have 100% accuracy against a fade than it does an onos.
I'm commenting here from my android so I can't really do the maths involved at the moment but I think the shotgun should be given an increase in the rate of fire at the cost of damage dealt. I would think that a 5-10% increase in rate would be appropriate with a 10-15% reduction in damage. This ratio would be an overall nerf (slightly) but would seriously rework the way shotguns work. As a big plus, I think the faster shooting would help rookies get more acquainted with the skill necessary to accurately fire a shotgun.
1. One shot weapons have existed in multiplayer games since Doom. Some examples Include; BFG (Doom/Quake) Energy Sword (Halo) Gravity Hammer (Halo) Sniper Rifles (Call Of Duty/Counter Strike/ Almost any FPS) Knife (Call Of Duty) Rocket Launcher (Call Of Duty) Chainsaw (Gears of War) Redeemer (Unreal Tournament) These are by no means games exclusive to "hardcore fanboys". It is frankly, your opinion that one shot weapons shouldn't exist, and it evidently isn't an opinion shared by most game developers throughout history.
2. I have given specific examples that the shotgun does not make other weapons useless. The rifle in particular has uses against Lerks, hitting buildings from range, doing more DPS to onos etc. I agree that currently the grenade launcher and flamethrower are not utilised as much as they could be, but they have their uses. try hopping into a match on the Combat mod and you'll quickly see grenades being used to dish out insane damage to the hive and surrounding lifeforms. In Vanilla NS2 though, it's a substantial P.Res investment and diminishes your ability to defend yourself in combat. The flamethrower has a very specific purpose, and that is to stop the energy regeneration abilities of aliens. I have lost fades due to being on fire and not having the energy to escape, so it is by no means useless. It doesn't give out a lot of DPS though, so most players avoid them.
3. Shotguns require skill. Low rate of fire, long reload time, minimal effective range. It seems any explanation I can give will be ignored. An example of a true skilless weapon can be found in Call Of Duty. The akimbo machine pistols, killstreak rewards and the Nuke.
You are still missing it, you are actually missing the WHOLE concept.
players in the games you have listed is on equal footings. the problem rises when "classes" involved. in cs, cod and many other fps you are not bound to a certain class and fight another "class" that is OP over you. the example you are stating is silly, i don't see any skulks capable of carrying shotguns.
besides, in CS,COD,HL,QUAKE one shot killers DEMAND EXTREME SKILL, can be countered easily. bear extreme disadvantages THAT JUSTIFIES THE ONE SHOT KILLING. those disadvantages are not present in natural selection 2. you are one shotting(in every occasion) "class" and that is justified as BALANCe.i don't see anyone RAGE over TEAM FORTRESS sniper one shots. because fetching a oneshot kill REQUIRES DECENT SKILL, AND LUCK. a sniper is countered easily with BRAINS.
i didn't say it steals the role of the rifle. i said shotgun steals flamethrower's and grenade launcher's role. the game is all about rifles and shotguns.
akimbo in call of duty is an addressed issue, just because another game has a OP weapon that doesn't mean all games must have similiar weapons. akimbo served no distinc purpose, it was just OP. nerfed accordingly.
Comments
Remember that marine weapon effectiveness is not tied to the weapon itself, but the weapon upgrades. A level 0 shotgun is not a killing machine, a level 3 shotgun is. It's only fair that you can have early w0-1 shotguns countering carapace skulks and lerks but can't fight effectively against fades before w2-3. This is also a much more elegant and flexible mechanic than having separate weapons in later stages of the tech tree with no other difference between them than fire power.
About the fun factor (which is questionable only in a battle between a skulk and a shotgun, since other lifeforms can easily compete), I think that people just need to understand their role better and start finding enjoyment in it. Skulks are not meant for engagements from w1-2, a1-2 shotguns onwards, they are meant for harassment. At that point the alien team should already have the fades out, and as such the role of the skulk changes from a combat unit to an extractor and phase gate harasser. If people can't find fun in that and only want to take part in combat, then I'm forced to use the "this game isn't for you" -argument. One thing that I like about NS2 is that there are roles with no or very little combat involved. It provides great variety, although I personally think there are way too little of these roles in the game, and too much is reliant on combat.
Now before strofix strikes in and makes his argument of how holding mouse 1 and biting metal isn't fun, I say why is pressing mouse 1 and biting flesh inherently the better alternative? Harassing extractors is by no means a PvE situation (if it was, marines would be doing something very wrong on the homefront), there will always be marines defending those extractors. The cat-and-mouse game of outsmarting your opponent while harassing is at times much more interesting than plain combat, at least in my opinion. Sneaking to the extractor unnoticed, planning your routes, having to listen for marine boot steps while chewing, having to decide whether you can engage the marine or not, and if not, when to disengage from the extractor with having a chance to escape, judging when the defender has gotten bored of you hiding and engaging the extractor again or choosing a different extractor to attack to have the defender bounce between locations... This has much more tactical thinking and battle of wits involved in it than fighting on the main battlefield, and if someone doesn't like it... Well, again I'll have to whip out the "not for you" -card.
RTS/FPS. Not just RTS, not just FPS. Expect to see a combination. Do not expect watering down to either pure RTS or pure FPS. OP isn't exactly true to reality with alot of the statements either.
Live shotgun isn't really that good against skulks to be able to easily take on 3, especially the higher your pings get. With 3 skulks, you need to ohk otherwise your dead, and the only way to do that with a weapon that has an effective range of 1-2 meters (if you're lucky and the animation gods smile upon thee), is to have good movement. Then there are cheap meds, glancing bite, but i think that might be too deep for this thread.
Regarding best skulk vs best shotgun thing, I think its a misleading avenue of discussion. Skulk skill cap in live is so low that it is literally impossible to actually match the 'best' in an 'equally skilled' context. The setup is flawed from the beginning imo.
If you're getting OHK'd by shotguns as a Lerk, you either got baited/amubshed around a corner, or you got cocky and decided to go in for a bite when you should've been spiking.
Skulks are countered fairly hard by shotguns, but once leap gets up it becomes entirely possible to win a 1v1 against a shotgunner, and unless the shotgunner has exceptional aim I would say the skulk has a chance of winning nearly half of the time. Especially if you have adrenaline or silence.
I think one of the most telling things about the shotgun though, is that there are a lot of guys out there who would just rather use an LMG. There are 2 guys on my team that will only get a shotgun when they need them to counter fades, because they can kill skulks, lerks, structures, and to some degree onii from a longer distance/safer vantage point. If the shotgun was objectively better in every way than the LMG, that wouldn't be happening.
This is where the discussion goes in circles because player skill plays the biggest part, just like any other FPS game. A really good Marine with sg will kill a Fade every time since he does 200+ ranged damage per hit and can dodge.
I have no idea what you're even trying to say man. The risk of death is there in every single engagement for every single life form. Always. That's why you engage smaller groups of marines with larger groups of aliens whenever possible. The important part of what you're saying really boils down to "Don't engage when you don't have the advantage," Not "Don't engage shotguns." If a fade will beat a shotgunner 9/10, then isn't it possible that maybe that 10th time, the marine was just better than you?
If you're having trouble with it, the easy way you beat shotguns is by overwhelming them with lifeforms, lerk + skulks, lerk + fades, fades + skulks, doesn't really matter. Shotgunners go down to packs of aliens almost just as easily as LMG's do. If you plan your engagements correctly and act as a team, you're going to come out on top unless the guys with the shotguns are better than you, in which case you deserved to lose.
Yes, it's easy to kill skulks 1v1 with a shotgun, but if it wasn't then what would be the point of the shotgun to begin with? Why spend 20 res for a shotgun that doesn't OHK when it's already pretty damn easy to kill a skulk with an LMG? It's what, ~1 second of accurate fire to kill a skulk? There's around 1 second between shotgun shots, too. So if you aren't killing skulks in one hit with the shotgun, then they're actually going to die more quickly to LMG's.
How the fuck are you going to balance an FPS based entirely on numbers and statistics? You can't say a fade wins 9 out of 10 times and factor out skill... if there are people playing the lifeforms, then skill is a factor. Are you assuming that there is 100% accuracy then? 30%? 50%? Balance in a FPS is done by playing the game and seeing what works, this isn't an RTS or an RPG where you can balance around stats and random number generators. Skill is ALWAYS a factor in an FPS. Of course the marine that beat you that 1 time out of 10 isn't going to beat you every single time. Better isn't necessarily a static thing. He could be playing better than you during one engagement, and you could be playing better than him the next.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t6fVHZFjnmA
If they have 7 shotgunners, and you only have skulks, then you either already lost or you got cheesed. Shotgun rush is no different than a full team base rush as skulks. Yeah, if they shotgun rush you're pretty much fucked. But when else other than a cheesy shotgun rush are you ever going to have to fight a marine ball with 7 guys in it? Are you playing on 32 player servers? The game isn't balanced for that shit.. it's balanced for 9's at the most and if you have 7/9 guys in the same spot, you're leaving huge portions of the map unoccupied. I don't think trying to balance around 7 skulks vs 7 marines even makes sense. The marines obviously have the advantage, they can start doing damage from further away and will likely kill some of the skulks before they even get close enough to bite. Shotgun or LMG it won't matter, the skulks will still lose that fight. You might also want to read the part of my post where I said overwhelming them is the EASY way to do it. The hard way is to get better than them and play to your life forms advantages (i.e. ambush them as a skulk)
If you engage when the marines have the advantage, you will lose, and that's fine. 1v1 skulk vs marine, unless the skulk gets a free bite off because of the marine not noticing him, the marine will likely win. That's kind of the whole point of the game, the marines are the head to head, aggressive fighters. The aliens are the sneaky ambushers and harassers. The marines are supposed to win in a head on fight. The aliens are supposed to rely on numbers, speed, and stealth.
And there is a reason to buy the shotgun right now, it's a powerful close range weapon that can kill a skulk faster than a rifle can. That's why it costs 20 res. If you make it so that it can't OHK, then it's not killing skulks faster than the rifle anymore and becomes obsolete, except for maybe against fades because they're harder to track than skulks. It's not objectively better than the LMG. If you're looking at pure damage output, I think the LMG might actually edge out the shotgun. I don't know the exact numbers right now and a quick google search didn't turn them up, but I'll see if I can find the damage values somewhere to verify this.
*edit*
It looks like according to the wiki rifles have a potential DPS of ~100-130 while shotguns are ~170 with the caveat being shotguns have a much lower range (30 vs 250) and slower rate of fire (every .1 seconds vs every .9). Assuming point blank and 100% accuracy, the shotgun does more damage. Outside of those parameters, the LMG probably does more consistent damage. I have a feeling that the wiki hasn't been updated in a long time though.
If you want to factor skill out of the equation, what are you assuming the hit percentage is to make shotgun vs fade a problem? What range is the encounter happening at? In order for a shotgun to be a problem for a fade, you have to assume that the shotgunner has 100% accuracy and only fires at ranges short enough to get full damage. That is not a very realistic scenario.
I honestly don't think that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore, so I'm done with this argument xD
I haven't stopped listening, it appears that you've just stopped producing any actual arguments for your position here...
The Circle of Strofix® continues round and round.
Just what is the problem with the shotgun as it is? Succinctly in 1 paragraph if you can, please!
I'll have to agree with strofix here, for reasons that I think are rather obvious. When talking about balance, you have to take the most clinical and analytic approach possible, and yes, that means outfactoring skill. This is very difficult in a game with such loose rules and physics as any FPS, let alone a complex asymmetrical game like NS2, but it has to be tried if any progress in balance is going to be achieved.
But man, do you two have off-putting ways of presenting an argument. Strofix with his pseudo-intellectual self-righteous jargon and ritualsacrifice with his perceived hostility and a distinct lack of understanding of strofix's points. Also, it doesn't look good in ritualsacrifice's book that he's using 'abuse' on someone he disagrees with, and I don't think the moderators approve of this either.
@Blarney_Stone : What strofix meant is that ritualsacrifice is trying to reduce strofix's points into scenarios of "you just got outskilled", which strofix pointed is rather absurd seeing as he himself claimed that no skulks should attack shotguns head on, which is certainly a statement that doesn't take skill into account (as it shouldn't)
If you can't even begin to know what it means when a fade dies to a solo marine, then let me help you: it means the marine outskilled the fade. The same as if a solo skulk kills a solo shotgunner, the skulk out skilled the shotgunner.
I can know what a shotgunner killing a fade means because apparently unlike you, I actually play this game enough to understand how it works. I know that if my fade dies to a shotgunner, the only factors in the equation that matters are skill level and maybe luck. The ONLY time I've ever lost a fade to a solo marine was during combat practice where we don't allow retreating, or if I fucked up and tried to solo someone who was better than me. The only times I ever kill a fade solo are if he's bad, or if he fucks up and I get lucky. One shotgunner does not kill a fade even 1 time out of 10. Maybe 1/20 times. Maybe.
How am I being hostile? Because I use profanity? Sorry if I offended you, but you might want to look around... very few people are silly enough to assume that profanity = hostility. Do I have to rub your balls and kiss you on the lips while I make my point or something? lol
I have complete understanding of strofix's points, they simply just don't apply here. This is not an RTS, or an RPG. You can not factor out skill. That makes no sense. If you take skill out, you're balancing for hypothetical situations where human beings aren't a part of the equation.
Your way of rhetoric is much more hostile than that of strofix.
"How am I being hostile? Because I use profanity? Sorry if I offended you, but you might want to look around.."
You must be able to see the hostility even in this statement, in which you claim to not be hostile. Strofix is keeping his cool while you throw in statements like "because apparently unlike you, I actually play this game enough to understand how it works" and "WTF are you even talking about? Do you even play this game?". Profanity sure as hell doesn't help you sound more convincing.
Why I stated that you seem to lack understanding of strofix's points is because your arguments are often either a) irrelevant, even though you are trying to be relevant or b) questioning something that has already been clarified.
I'm not going to start quote-walling the either of you, since I don't really want to get sucked into this argument. So far, however, strofix has been more convincing both in the way of rhetoric as well as convincing arguments.
"Do I have to rub your balls and kiss you on the lips while I make my point or something? lol"
I love how you had to edit this bit in retrospectively to show how non-hostile you are and are hoping for constructive discussion.
The only way to balance an FPS is to make guesses on where things should be, trying those things out, and seeing if they feel right/are fun. I'm not saying that the raw potential weapon dmg vs hit points statistics aren't valuable, they just aren't as important as the skill of the players using them. And you cannot balance the game around them, because the only way to do that is to make unrealistic assumptions on how accurate people are going to be. You could probably get it close to right by figuring out what the average accuracy of all players is, but even then you're still going to have to fine tune it by feel.
If a marine solos a fade, he out skilled the fade, plain and simple. The reason for me saying this, is in order to kill a fade in 2 shots, you have to have 100% accuracy. If you have 100% accuracy, you have exceptional aim. If you have exceptional aim, you have an exceptional skill. The reason it doesn't mean the same if a fade kills a marine, is it's easy to kill a marine as a fade. You can teleport. You're one of the fastest moving things in the game. You fire more quickly than the marine, and do comparable amounts of damage per hit.
The reason it's different that marine vs onos, is you basically would have to be blind to not be able to have 100% accuracy against a target as large and slow as the onos. It's not unrealistic to assume 100% accuracy in onos vs marine because onii are slow, huge, and very very easy to hit. The reason it's unrealistic to assume 100% accuracy against a fade is fades are small, fast, and can teleport. It takes much more skill to have 100% accuracy against a fade than it does an onos.
players in the games you have listed is on equal footings. the problem rises when "classes" involved. in cs, cod and many other fps you are not bound to a certain class and fight another "class" that is OP over you. the example you are stating is silly, i don't see any skulks capable of carrying shotguns.
i didn't say it steals the role of the rifle. i said shotgun steals flamethrower's and grenade launcher's role. the game is all about rifles and shotguns.
akimbo in call of duty is an addressed issue, just because another game has a OP weapon that doesn't mean all games must have similiar weapons. akimbo served no distinc purpose, it was just OP. nerfed accordingly.