Aren't shotguns a bit too OP?

(Dispenzor) #1

Like seriously, I’m tired of these Auras super-jumping into my face and 1 hitting me with their kuckgun

(Mr-Penguin) #2

Move unpredictably. It makes it harder for them to hit you.

(cornJester) #3

Then shoot them and kill them first. Auras are pretty squishy… For the speed at which they fire they can take 2 or more shots already without headshots. Compare this to fully automatic guns that shoot far faster but do far less damage and I say it’s balanced. You can’t afford to miss much with shotguns. High risk, high reward. As it should be.

(Dispenzor) #4

No seriously though, they come from most unexpected places and jump into your face and blast your head off, perhaps they might be better than me but even if so I feel like the shotguns are a bit too strong

(cornJester) #5

That sounds like skill to me… Play more and maybe their approach will be less unexpected.

(Dispenzor) #6

That sounds like skill to me…[/quote]

The fact is that there is nothing you can do when you get matched with silvers while you are a gold 2, enemies are higher rank and there are like 2 station Auras on their team camping around and you are the only person who is actually trying to carry the team. Trust me… the matchmaking gives you a lot of pain in this game.

(watsyurdeal) #7

So in other words they’re using a high power close quarters weapon for rushing the fuck out of you…sounds about right.

(gg2ez) #8

They’re pretty hard to use when your opponent knows how to move well. A couple of walljumps usually does the trick.

(CCP115) #9

Aura + Remburg = really strong.

Doesn’t matter how good at the game you are, the raw damage and flanking capability is insane. It’s only rivaled by Proxy and Vassili in terms of annoyance when you get killed by it.

But I don’t really think it needs a change, flanking Auras are rare enough, and it only tends to work once, then you start watching flanks.

(ProfPlump) #10

The amount of utility that you lose when you pick the shotgun over an SMG as Aura is ridiculous. Your effective range drops so drastically and whereas you can usually sit on your healthstation and engage people at medium range with your Blishlok, with a shotgun it’s almost not even worth firing shots at people at medium range and your pistol isn’t going to be that much better.

If you’re frustrated by Aura + Remburg, put her in uncomfortable situations - keep her at medium range and start falling back if she’s getting close. Or be sure to wall jump around which makes her shots incredibly hard to make.

(gg2ez) #11

[quote=“ProfPlump;95995”]The amount of utility that you lose when you pick the shotgun over an SMG as Aura is ridiculous. Your effective range drops so drastically and whereas you can usually sit on your healthstation and engage people at medium range with your Blishlok, with a shotgun it’s almost not even worth firing shots at people at medium range and your pistol isn’t going to be that much better.

If you’re frustrated by Aura + Remburg, put her in uncomfortable situations - keep her at medium range and start falling back if she’s getting close. Or be sure to wall jump around which makes her shots incredibly hard to make.[/quote]

I can vouch for this. I once tried to tussle with @ProfPlump as a SG Proxy. It’s so hard to use the shotgun when the enemy is wall jumping around you like crazy.

(jazevec) #12

There are no shotgun fragmovies.

(Eox) #13

Shotguns are, at a competitive level, the worst weapons you could go with.

Competitively, Dirty bomb is a game where most of encounters begins at mid-long range, and range is exactly what Shotguns lack. With shotguns, your DPS will decrease exponentially over distance, and headshots won’t be effective unless you are litterally hugging your opponent due to the pellet spread, where a SMG will still be able to unload all of its clip on your head (or at least most of it). It’s even at a point where bodyshots are more rewarding than headshots, because you’d miss so much pellets by shooting the head it’s much more worth it to shoot the body instead.

For pub play, where only few are able to catch you from across the map, it’s a fine wepon. But as soon as players gets a little skilled, prepare yourself for a very hard time.

(jazevec) #14

Why do they have both the damage falloff and the spread ? Give shotguns the same damage falloff as pistols, and keep the spread. Then you can balance them by having Ahnuhld having tightest spread, etc…

(terminal) #15

[quote=“Eox;96059”]Shotguns are, at a competitive level, the worst weapons you could go with.

Competitively, Dirty bomb is a game where most of encounters begins at mid-long range, and range is exactly what Shotguns lack. With shotguns, your DPS will decrease exponentially over distance, and headshots won’t be effective unless you are litterally hugging your opponent due to the pellet spread, where a SMG will still be able to unload all of its clip on your head (or at least most of it). It’s even at a point where bodyshots are more rewarding than headshots, because you’d miss so much pellets by shooting the head it’s much more worth it to shoot the body instead.

For pub play, where only few are able to catch you from across the map, it’s a fine wepon. But as soon as players gets a little skilled, prepare yourself for a very hard time.[/quote]
I’ve seen some pugs where people used the Ahnuld and Revolver on Fletcher (crookk).

(Amerika) #16

Shotguns can be used effectively in CQC. They are not a very good range weapon due to how much power goes out with each shot. For example, from your posts you sound like you’ve played Aura. Which means you have most likely sat with a shotgun doing the peak shoot method as it is highly effective. You can put out a ton of damage in a single shot while not leaving yourself vulnerable for long. Now think of what you proposed where range would be increased by a decent amount. The game would be filled with people sitting behind corners and pot-shotting with little risk for themselves with a lot more reward. The Ahnuld seems to be SD experimenting with something like you propose but the results have been mixed.

Other games I’ve played have had that issue and in most of them the shotguns were changed to remove that type of play. There is a reason why most games don’t have shotgun frag movies…they tend to be the “new player friendly” weapon that grants power but only in very specific situations. Or they would get out of control and abused similar to my example. It would be as boring as a Vassili movie where the player simply sat put in a protected spot shooting people the whole time (those exist sadly).

(jazevec) #17

But when you have spread, shotguns naturally deal less damage from further away. Quake 3 did that, it has a predictable pattern.

Shotguns aren’t limited to peaking. They shine against wounded enemies, nice finishers. Fletcher is good at this - one sticky at 3 people, switch to shotgun and fire three finishing shots as they scatter. And when I hear a teammate die nearby, I take out shotgun because his killer is probably wounded.

Back when I played Aura, I preferred Blishlok. It has a good synergy with hstation:

  • hstation is harder to destroy
  • you are harder to kill outright
    So you win by attrition, until Vasili shows up.

Lack of shotgun fragmovies - I’d say it indicates a balance problem. If a weapon is as severely limited as shotgun, it should compensate for this by shining in other situations. There are melee fragmovies! So why not shotguns ?

(Amerika) #18

[quote=“jazevec;96255”]But when you have spread, shotguns naturally deal less damage from further away. Quake 3 did that, it has a predictable pattern.

Shotguns aren’t limited to peaking. They shine against wounded enemies, nice finishers. Fletcher is good at this - one sticky at 3 people, switch to shotgun and fire three finishing shots as they scatter. And when I hear a teammate die nearby, I take out shotgun because his killer is probably wounded.

Back when I played Aura, I preferred Blishlok. It has a good synergy with hstation:

  • hstation is harder to destroy
  • you are harder to kill outright
    So you win by attrition, until Vasili shows up.

Lack of shotgun fragmovies - I’d say it indicates a balance problem. If a weapon is as severely limited as shotgun, it should compensate for this by shining in other situations. There are melee fragmovies! So why not shotguns ?[/quote]

Shotguns were only ever used in Q3 when people were extremely low HP or if it’s all you had (if playing DM instead of RA3). One of the reasons why we turned forcemodels on is so we could hear the really low HP “scream” from the model and use something that is a bit easier to hit…like the shotgun. And the Q3 shotgun was also pretty terrible from range but it would hit for 10-20 damage pretty easily if you were even in the ballpark of their model which is why it was used as a finisher often after you hear that model scream.

I didn’t say shotguns were limited to peaking. I gave an example of where they are very strong and how that same strategy could be used if the range was increased. Think about it. With any other weapon you have to step out into the pocket and shoot at somebody and potentially have them and others shoot back. With the peaking method you minimize that and DB suddenly becomes very much filled with people peaking from half a map away taking pot shots. You might enjoy this style but I know I wouldn’t as per experience with previous games that had it at one point or another.

Shotguns are the only weapons besides a sniper rifle where you can kill a person in one shot. No gun offers this. And even if you don’t get one shot you can still be two shot by it on most mercs. The trade-off, as always, is range. Having that much power in a single shot can’t be properly balanced if you can shoot it reliably at high damage from across the map. Does anybody here remember when you could fire shotgun slugs across the map without any drop at all or loss of power back in Bad Company 2? I do. Peak, shoot, peak shoot from any range. I know you aren’t asking for that but at some point you simply have to reduce the power from a shotgun while also keeping it powerful for new players who aren’t confident in their aim yet to be somewhat successful with.

(jazevec) #19

Are there any amazing shotgunners in the comp scene ? I would be very happy to watch one. I see more Rhino than shotguns.

(Matuno) #20

I’m pretty sure shotguns are hardy ever - if at all - used in competitive loadouts because of their unreliability in different situations. If the first shot doesn’t kill (and it rarely does), you can be sure the enemy’s aim is good enough that you won’t get to fire twice.