Fixing Damage Falloff

[Cytobel]

I realized that I've put in more than my fair share of gripes about damage falloff, all without actually starting a thread about how to fix the issue.

 

1. Primary points against Damage Falloff:

 

     First off, I say "fix" because damage falloff is an un-fun mechanic that was created in responce to Hek-sniping.  Shotguns in general used to be preferred weapons, due to massive short-range slaughter potential backed up by long range damage comparable to any other gun, save the Snipetron.  With the arrival of Damage 2.0 I had hoped to see this "fix" go the way of the dodo bird.  Instead, this non-viability stamp continues to mar an entire family of weapons, and now it's spreading.

 

     Damage falloff is a realistic principle of ballistic physics.  It does have a major effect on the projectiles of shotguns in the real world.  Unfortunately, the system expressed in Warframe is nothing short of a ban on shotguns seeing play at ranges beyond the melee envelop (the distance at which you can effectively slide-attack into a group of foes and start true melee), and does not reflect any attempt at adding a form of realism to the game.  As it stands, falloff not only hurts the guns it screws, but it also makes a mockery of every melee weapon that isn't a shotgun.  What other melee weapon is as good as a Strun Wraith or a Brakk?

 

     As it is, damage falloff is an invisible yardstick that ruins fun at any real distance without reducing damage or making shotguns any less broken within optimal range.

 

2. Potential solutions:

 

     -1. Kill it.  Round-file it.  Make it just stop.  Let it end.  Then actually go through and comprehensively redo shotgun damage, spread, crit, and proc from the ground up.  Bring shotguns into the new age, where combat occurs beyond arm's reach.

 

     To start with, it may be useful to compute shotgun damage by the pellet rather than by the shell, and then divide it among x number of pellets.  To find a good starting damage value, work backwards.  Rifles have 540 rounds in reserve, which is 4.5 times as many as shotguns have (at 120).  Therefore I recommend starting with a damage per shell about 4.5x greater than a comparable rifle shot, and dividing that up among the pellets to set a starting point.  From there, build your damage model per pellet.

 

     The advantage to this method is that while shotgun damage caps far, far lower due to the comparative weakness of it's damage mods, you have more flexibility for adjustment of secondary effects (such as proc or crit), as well as the option to buff those damage mods later.  Also, it builds the shotguns off of existing weapons, rather than reworking all other guns.  *Note:  The Grakata is a pathetic and horrible joke, and not a rifle.  I don't know of another weapon in the whole game that doesn't out-perform this piece of trash.  As such, I DO NOT recommend balancing ANYTHING against this "gun". 

*Note Edit:  This is no longer the case.  The Grakata is significantly better now, and a worthwhile gun.

 

     -2. Nerf damage falloff.

 

     If damage falloff caps between 20%- 35% (for long guns, for pistols I'd recommend capping at 50%), and falloff is no more than ~1%/m, then many of the current shotguns would...  well...  still need a damage reduction, but at least the mechanic would stick around.  If you were to graph falloff, it should describe a curve that drops more steeply as it progresses.  It currently looks more like a square wave.  I don't hate the thought of falloff, but the way it's applied is heinous.

 

     -3.  Apply damage falloff to everything.

 

     I'm serious here.  What I actually mean is this: determine an optimal range and a falloff range for each gun.  A given shot from a gun would travel to the optimal range with no falloff whatsoever.  At that point, falloff begins to affect the projectile, and damage begins to decrease at a gradually increasing rate (or it just stops, as with a flamethrower; that's an option in this system too).

 

     I think that this idea is by far the worst of the three, because (despite the awesome realism of it) the amount of math that would them have to be computed for each and every single gun would probably destroy Scott (and I don't really think he deserves something quite that mean...), not to mention the effect on future content would be just as terrible as damage falloff has been for the shotguns.

_________________________________________________

 

     There you go.  My thoughts on how to make it all better.

 

Points, counter-points, or ideas anybody?

Edited December 13, 2013 by Cytobel

[Feam]

Couldn't agree more. Falloff is one of Warframe's many Elephants in the room that are being ignored, and I really hope that something is done about it soon enough.

 

You may have your favorites among your 3 solutions, but I see them all equally as helpful, if used properly.

It might be more dangerous and hard to put Falloff on every weapon and balance it, and it probably still is the worst choice of the 3 presented, but I think that there is still a way to make it valid and fun.

 

Regardless, I just hope something is done at some point. The current system is kind of a mess.

[QuiteCrazy]

agree with post except for №3 

 

     -3.  Apply damage falloff to everything.

 

     I'm serious here.  What I actually mean is this: determine an optimal range and a falloff range for each gun.  A given shot from a gun would travel to the optimal range with no falloff whatsoever.  At that point, falloff begins to affect the projectile, and damage begins to decrease at a gradually increasing rate (or it just stops, as with a flamethrower; that's an option in this system too).

 

no need fallow to every weapons, but instead make a shortgun spreadstart to increase rappidly after the range where fall off should start. that would prevent sniping, but still will do some damage by the pellect that hit the target

[Silvershadow66]

Just make damage falloff follow a linear line rather than a stepped one. e.g if damage starts falling off at 10m and reaches 0 at 20m then it would be at 50% at 15m.

 

From a gameplay perspective it might be better to have a 2 stage process. A variable ranged component then a set one to give some extended range capability. e.g. From 10m the damage falls off to 20% at 20m then dropping 1% for every extra meter. That would provide a lot of flexibility as longer range weapons could be given something like 100% to 20m falling to 75% at 100m then losing 1% thereafter giving it a maximum damaging range of 175m.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Silvershadow66

[Ctrax]

I agree, damage falloff is a curse at the moment. Every gun that gets the damage falloff modifier receives a big black mark in the forehead. I mean, truth be told, when I was farming for Nekros parts from Lephantis it wasn't even receiving full damage! What am I supposed to do with a shotgun, if it isn't viable in killing a big fat head!?!

 

On to your post now. It's good to see that others feel the same way about the damage falloff, and I'm glad that you took this up! A big hug for that! I'm totally agreeing with the first two solutions. Third one.. Not so much. It is just THAT much fun to snipe with various weapons.

 

Lastly, if you really want to see some actually working weapons, get some Team Fortress weapon developers on-board. Team Fortress 2 might not be the most balanced game there is, I get that, but they make so innovative weapons, that actually work! Best of all, the stats aren't just 5% extra charge damage, 10% lower swing speed.

 

Hopefully I didn't have a brainfart.

 

Edit: I mean cmon, just look at how fun sniping with a pistol is! 

Link doesn't take you to the right time, ugh. Look at 2:45

Edited December 9, 2013 by Ctrax

[Sixty5]

Shotguns are extremely good guns in this game, all of them, even the Strun are great.

The falloff mechinic harsh as it seems balances them out, as they are now.

Also most are effective close to mid range, given the short sightlines in this game, so really the falloff isn't a huge hit in most cases.

Also you are ~4 updates late to the party on this one.

[Cytobel]

Another burr up my craw:  Isn't spread a mechanic to create damage falloff based off of accuracy?  Spread kills some of the assault rifles, and yet shotguns get not only the worst spread in the game (not to mention that spread has kept getting worse as time goes on), but also this very special middle finger?

 

Spread seriously needs to be reviewed as well, should damage falloff get reworked.

[Cytobel]

Shotguns are extremely good guns in this game, all of them, even the Strun are great.

The falloff mechinic harsh as it seems balances them out, as they are now.

Also most are effective close to mid range, given the short sightlines in this game, so really the falloff isn't a huge hit in most cases.

Also you are ~4 updates late to the party on this one.

I have been around for them all.  I kept hoping somebody would mention to the king that clothes don't usually let in so much of a draft, but no dice it seems.

 

Also, your definition of "midrange" is what I refer to as "one jump away from melee bisection".

Edited December 9, 2013 by Cytobel

[BetaZerker]

I think they should just increase the spread a bit and remove damage falloff.

[Sixty5]

I have been around for them all.  I kept hoping somebody would mention to the king that clothes don't usually let in so much of a draft, but no dice it seems.

 

Also, your definition of "midrange" is what I refer to as "one jump away from melee bisection".

I mainly use the Sobek if I want a shotgun, and yes I know it has less of a falloff, but it can take out enemies a fair way away

And melee jump is a bad way to measure distance since berserker buffed zorens will send you halfway across the map.

But can you give me one genuine reason why the falloff needs to be looked at?

[CubedOobleck]

I'm also very annoyed by the damage falloff, it should be present on all guns (except maybe lasers) or it shouldn't be in the game at all.

 

In this game I'd much rather they scrapped damage falloff and opted for a different way to balance the range of shotguns. For example the pellets could be really inaccurate (or even exponentially inaccurate) so that even with an initially tight spread the pellets become unreliable beyond a certain distance.

Edited December 9, 2013 by CubedOobleck

[ThePresident777]

I realized that I've put in more than my fair share of gripes about damage falloff, all without actually starting a thread about how to fix the issue.

 

1. Primary points against Damage Falloff:

 

     First off, I say "fix" because damage falloff is an un-fun mechanic that was created in responce to Hek-sniping.  Shotguns in general used to be preferred weapons, due to massive short-range slaughter potential backed up by long range damage comparable to any other gun, save the Snipetron.  With the arrival of Damage 2.0 I had hoped to see this "fix" go the way of the dodo bird.  Instead, this non-viability stamp continues to mar an entire family of weapons, and now it's spreading.

 

     Damage falloff is a realistic principle of ballistic physics.  It does have a major effect on the projectiles of shotguns in the real world.  Unfortunately, the system expressed in Warframe is nothing short of a ban on shotguns seeing play at ranges beyond the melee envelop (the distance at which you can effectively slide-attack into a group of foes and start true melee), and does not reflect any attempt at adding a form of realism to the game.  As it stands, falloff not only hurts the guns it screws, but it also makes a mockery of every melee weapon that isn't a shotgun.  What other melee weapon is as good as a Strun Wraith or a Brakk?

 

     As it is, damage falloff is an invisible yardstick that ruins fun at any real distance without reducing damage or making shotguns any less broken within optimal range.

 

2. Potential solutions:

 

     -1. Kill it.  Round-file it.  Make it just stop.  Let it end.  Then actually go through and comprehensively redo shotgun damage, spread, crit, and proc from the ground up.  Bring shotguns into the new age, where combat occurs beyond arm's reach.

 

     To start with, it may be useful to compute shotgun damage by the pellet rather than by the shell, and then divide it among x number of pellets.  To find a good starting damage value, work backwards.  Rifles have 540 rounds in reserve, which is 4.5 times as many as shotguns have (at 120).  Therefore I recommend starting with a damage per shell about 4.5x greater than a comparable rifle shot, and dividing that up among the pellets to set a starting point.  From there, build your damage model per pellet.

 

     The advantage to this method is that while shotgun damage caps far, far lower due to the comparative weakness of it's damage mods, you have more flexibility for adjustment of secondary effects (such as proc or crit), as well as the option to buff those damage mods later.  Also, it builds the shotguns off of existing weapons, rather than reworking all other guns.  *Note:  The Grakata is a pathetic and horrible joke, and not a rifle.  I don't know of another weapon in the whole game that doesn't out-perform this piece of trash.  As such, I DO NOT recommend balancing ANYTHING against this "gun".

 

     -2. Nerf damage falloff.

 

     If damage falloff caps between 20%- 35% (for long guns, for pistols I'd recommend capping at 50%), and falloff is no more than ~1%/m, then many of the current shotguns would...  well...  still need a damage reduction, but at least the mechanic would stick around.  If you were to graph falloff, it should describe a curve that drops more steeply as it progresses.  It currently looks more like a square wave.  I don't hate the thought of falloff, but the way it's applied is heinous.

 

     -3.  Apply damage falloff to everything.

 

     I'm serious here.  What I actually mean is this: determine an optimal range and a falloff range for each gun.  A given shot from a gun would travel to the optimal range with no falloff whatsoever.  At that point, falloff begins to affect the projectile, and damage begins to decrease at a gradually increasing rate (or it just stops, as with a flamethrower; that's an option in this system too).

 

     I think that this idea is by far the worst of the three, because (despite the awesome realism of it) the amount of math that would them have to be computed for each and every single gun would probably destroy Scott (and I don't really think he deserves something quite that mean...), not to mention the effect on future content would be just as terrible as damage falloff has been for the shotguns.

_________________________________________________

 

     There you go.  My thoughts on how to make it all better.

 

Points, counter-points, or ideas anybody?

 

I guess I generally agree here.  I don't think that all weapons should have damage fall off because this is a sci-fi game so there should be weird weapons and some without fall off could be it.  

 

I think damage fall off should be less severe.  The damage fall off Warframe has now is, I hate to say it, just ............. really really terrible.  Let's just say that it's unflattering.  It's like someone just hurried up and got it done before going to bed Sunday night.  It's, quite the disaster really.  And it reflects, very very very poorly on the individual responsible for it.  It's rather uninspired, typical video game rubbish trope.  Dull, in the extreme.  It's actually quite insulting that some one didn't take the time to respect the game and the player base enough to provide the entertaining solution that we deserve and just rushed this off the cuff generic garbage at us.  I'm disappointed.

Edited December 9, 2013 by ThePresident777

[Cytobel]

I mainly use the Sobek if I want a shotgun, and yes I know it has less of a falloff, but it can take out enemies a fair way away

And melee jump is a bad way to measure distance since berserker buffed zorens will send you halfway across the map.

But can you give me one genuine reason why the falloff needs to be looked at?

True to the dual zoren.

 

As for reasons, I brought up several in the OP, and here's a few more:

 

-Brakk.  Yeah, it certainly needed the damage cut back, so no arguement there.  But 100 missions to get the damn thing, plus any Formas folks spent on it...  for what?  Yet another ammo-consuming melee weapon?

 

-Growth of the game seems to be dying down, and there are a slew of folks dropping out.  The top three complaints I've actually heard are "same-y gameplay, not much difficulty, and the weapons feel wonky."  When I ask about that last point, damage falloff always comes up.

 

-Damage 2.0 was supposed to fix the damage problems the game had.  This was a chance to use past data to construct new damage models for literally everything in the game.  Shotguns had their damage divided up, a few choice nerfs applied (so I hear, haven't used them much as of late for some reason), and then they were thrown off to a side to molder quietly where the Devs don't have to look at them.

 

-Actual missions bear out a simple pattern:  man with shotgun dies a LOT.  The only way to use these weapons without the sure knowledge that range will be the death of you is to run MASSIVELY under your level, or use Iron Skin/invisibility.  That's it*.  I've seen a few people who had quite a bit of skill run through equal-level Infested runs, but my experience in-game suggests that "good vs. Corpus" shotties are not.  Kind of makes the impact-oriented damage model on them questionable (although kudos for realism there).

 

*Note: I know there are other ways to make good use of the weapons afflicted with the Falloff, but I haven't seem them

Edited December 9, 2013 by Cytobel

[Sixty5]

Gameplay in general is not the fault of damage falloff, nor is what happened to the Brakk.

I was in the top 1000 for the event and I couldn't care less about the Brakk, still haven't even got it to 30 yet. So feeling entitled to an OP exclusive weapon just seems like poor form.

As to shotguns power levels, with dmg2.0 it is really about how yoy stack on the elemental damage that matters.

Shotguns get a total of 3 mods to directly boost their already high base damage.

The Boar prime has the highest sustained DPS in the game as well, even if it is at low range.

Having used every shotgun weapon except for the primes, I feel that overall they are still the best class of weapon. The Hek got a buff as a puncture shotgun, the Sobek is even nastier now, and the Tigris excels at turning infested into mincemeat.

Sure it isnt fun to lose one of your toys, but the fact remains that damage falloff just helps to keep the boomsticks under control. Though perhaps a range mod might be nice for them, as a comprimise.

[Cytobel]

As stated, I'm looking for options to fix the falloff.  I actually don't mind the fact that some of us don't think this is the issue I find it to be.  What bothers me are the number of people who do have problems with this mechanic, as well as how I feel about it personally.

[ThePresident777]

Gameplay in general is not the fault of damage falloff, nor is what happened to the Brakk.

I was in the top 1000 for the event and I couldn't care less about the Brakk, still haven't even got it to 30 yet. So feeling entitled to an OP exclusive weapon just seems like poor form.

As to shotguns power levels, with dmg2.0 it is really about how yoy stack on the elemental damage that matters.

Shotguns get a total of 3 mods to directly boost their already high base damage.

The Boar prime has the highest sustained DPS in the game as well, even if it is at low range.

Having used every shotgun weapon except for the primes, I feel that overall they are still the best class of weapon. The Hek got a buff as a puncture shotgun, the Sobek is even nastier now, and the Tigris excels at turning infested into mincemeat.

Sure it isnt fun to lose one of your toys, but the fact remains that damage falloff just helps to keep the boomsticks under control. Though perhaps a range mod might be nice for them, as a comprimise.

 

Damage fall off at 300 yards serves to keep the boomsticks under control.  Damage fall off less than that just makes them subpar weapons.

 

If you have a weapon that shoots 1 RPS, has 1 round in the magazine,  takes 1 second to reload, does 10 points of damage per round and compare it to another weapon that shoots 10 RPS, has 10 round in the magazine,  takes 1 second to reload, does 1 point of damage per round, you will see that they have the same DPS.  If the first weapon has a greater damage fall off, then the second weapon in better.  

 

The damage fall off on shotguns now is extremely disappointing.  It's the same dull crap you find in any video game.  DE should have a little more self respect than that, and respect towards the customers too.  Don't take my money and time and give me the same boring S#&$ I already have in every other video game!

[Methanoid]

sounds like the OP wants to make each weapon have stats similar to the ship weapons on eve online, having a 0-optimal range for best dmg/accuracy and optimal-falloff for reduced?

 

i suppose anything that gives guns more unique features is a good thing, atm even with their 3 differing base physical dmg types, the rest of their stats like status/crit/etc tend to be too similar allround.

 

Build variety, thats what i like, in the early days of eve/wow/etc making unique builds was fun, later tho they became static/crap/boring/nobrainers which removed any fun experimental elements they once had.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Methanoid

[Cytobel]

sounds like the OP wants to make each weapon have stats similar to the ship weapons on eve online, having a 0-optimal range for best dmg/accuracy and optimal-falloff for reduced?

 

For energy weapons, that's an amazing way to work things.  For solid projectiles, damage falloff isn't so great.  I've seen it done well enough to be less annoying than this, but it still felt a bit irritating.  The accuracy part, though, sure.

 

 

Actually here's another way to look at matters.  Damage falloff (as it stands) feels like having a minimum range on sniper rifles.  If you're too close, you can't hurt anything.  You press the muzzle to Ruk's adams apple and squeeze that trigger, only to see a 1...  (Oh, wait, now that I think about it, that is how the Ruk fight goes...)

 

People would scream bloody murder about that bit of nerfing, wouldn't we?

Edited December 9, 2013 by Cytobel

[Cytobel]

I'm going to see if I can get this bumped over to "Feedback".  Now that I think about it, that's where this belongs.

[honeybadger]

Having used every shotgun weapon except for the primes, I feel that overall they are still the best class of weapon. The Hek got a buff as a puncture shotgun, the Sobek is even nastier now, and the Tigris excels at turning infested into mincemeat.

Sure it isnt fun to lose one of your toys, but the fact remains that damage falloff just helps to keep the boomsticks under control. Though perhaps a range mod might be nice for them, as a comprimise.

So surprising that the voice of reason comes from a user with 4k+ posts. One begins to wonder why...

To further the point. If you are running a frame that cannot handle being close enough for the shotgun damage falloff, I believe that means you should not be running a shotgun on that frame. I have noticed this with the recent Brakk balancing -- I actually think for a second if I am going to be able to be close enough to level 50 Grineer to actually use the Brakk without dying.

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[Cytobel]

So surprising that the voice of reason comes from a user with 4k+ posts. One begins to wonder why...

To further the point. If you are running a frame that cannot handle being close enough for the shotgun damage falloff, I believe that means you should not be running a shotgun on that frame. I have noticed this with the recent Brakk balancing -- I actually think for a second if I am going to be able to be close enough to level 50 Grineer to actually use the Brakk without dying.

Although your numerical observation skills seem sound, you've missed a rather large point: the massive shotgun damage that severely dampens other melee weapon usefulness.  Effectively, shotguns are the best melee weapon in the game by nearly a full order of magnitude due to the current falloff model.  This is rather problematic.

 

Furthermore, as it stands, there are only the handful of ways to use these weapons.  I don't mind the whole "right tool for the job" idea, but a hammer is a hammer at it's heart; a shotgun (thanks to falloff) is not a gun.

 

Point of fact, the arguements I've seen for falloff aren't about falloff at all.  They're "shotguns are fine as is."  If there are any changes made to them, then the Devs would have to address the ludicrously high damage values they have; while I'm fine with shotgun damage, it does not fit with any other weapon in the game.  I wouldn't mind seeing other weapons rebalanced to the shotguns, but then we would be back to damage 1.0, albeit with more damage numbers to calculate.

 

To clarify a point, I mentioned range quite a bit so far.  I break ranges down as such:

 

     Melee: point blank to ~10m

 

     Short Range: ~10m to ~20m (Rule of thumb here is "range at which you can snap-headshot without thought or zoom.)

 

     Medium Range: ~20m to ~35m (Where you sort of automatically zoom for your headshots, but you don't have to.)

 

     Long Range: ~35m+ (For me, long range is the distance where you really need to zoom to see a head well enough to hit; also the range at which you shouldn't connect with a target with more than 1 pellet from a shotgun with regularity {thus, making falloff a useless appendage to the weapons}.)

 

I kept mentioning headshots because of all the @$ing times we need to "get headshots" to proove something in a secondary.  When is a headshot not a headshot?  Whenever you have a mission objective to get them (<--- Less of a joke than it should be, lol).  Also, heads are a small enough target that we're all familiar with, so I thought it'd be a good point of comparison.

 

As has been previously mentioned in other posts, falloff is a game developer fallback now.  It's standard in the industry, and not due to some great viability or intuitive balancing factor.  It is common because it doesn't take much thought or effort at all.  It is a slapdash quick-cover to hide a gaping hole in the system.  This is somewhat of a generalization, true, but all too often exactly on the money.

 

I've only ever seen falloff blend seemlessly into the system when you have large open spaces worth calling sniping zones (or artillery lanes).  Falloff in those situations also came with visible bullet drop after a certain distance, just to make matters easier to notice.  I can only think of a few large rooms where we should be seeing bullet drop at all, and that's only from the shotguns (the Corpus Defence at the dam, for instance).

 

Just to head off the arguement, arrows are not bullets.  One of these things is not like the other...

[ThePresident777]

Although your numerical observation skills seem sound, you've missed a rather large point: the massive shotgun damage that severely dampens other melee weapon usefulness.  Effectively, shotguns are the best melee weapon in the game by nearly a full order of magnitude due to the current falloff model.  This is rather problematic.

 

 

Um, guns always win over melee.  Just ask the millions of ghosts of dead mideval combatants.  The only reason to use melee is just for S#&amp;&#036;s and giggles, i.e., for gaming.  In which case, melee needs a buff.

[Cytobel]

Um, guns always win over melee.  Just ask the millions of ghosts of dead mideval combatants.  The only reason to use melee is just for S#&$s and giggles, i.e., for gaming.  In which case, melee needs a buff.

True.  But then, what's the point of melee?

 

I'm not going to argue that you're wrong here.  You most definitely are correct.  The problem comes from the fact that melee must remain a viable (yet not OP) option somehow.  I'm not for the instant kills via melee doom here (well, not at higher levels anyhow), but you're just as dead whether suffering from sword bisection syndrome or a shotgun rhinoplasty.

 

The thing is that the sword needs to feel on par, and the shotgun also equally needs to have reach.  This is an important difference between guns and swords.  And yet, the shotguns underperform in the reach department while obliterating things in a fashion vastly out of proportion to melee damage, due to damage falloff.

 

I agree that melee needs a buff, but damage balance cannot be achieved as the system currently works.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Cytobel

[Loswaith]

I agree with your points.

 

The trouble with falloff is it is a lazy way to fix the shotguns.  Shotguns loose damage (slugs excluded) over distance because of spread more than distance.   However instead of addressing the spread of the shotguns (particuarly in the case of the original Hek having a spread over 30 metres of less than a foot, which is why it could snipe) DE went for the falloff instead and left the spread alone, effectivly not addressing the actual issue at all that of very tight spreads on shotguns (strun was actually fairly good in that reguard but the drop off kinda destroyed the strun's place in favour of the boar or hek).

 

Sure all weapons have falloff damage, so either use them on everything (though no real point with snipers as no map is big enough to factor that), or given the close quarters of most of the game it can be mostly ignored (personally I think it can work if done well).

 

DE needs to address the spread on shotguns.  They keep getting used as precision weapons (thats what rifles are better for) when their nieche would be better for small groups at a moderate distance or close range precision, though because of the fall off damage, most shotguns fail miserably at this role because they do next to no damage at a range that hitting multiple targets is actually viable.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Loswaith