Remove Shotgun Fall-Off.

[neKroMancer]

Taking damage fall off away from shotgun will result in higher spread. There is actually no change at all in term of damage since you won't hit anything in rifle/sniper range anyway (or got lucky and get 1/8 damage from landing one pellet which is pointless).  

 

Damage falloff is a game mechanic that force shotgun player to play different from rifle/sniper. Don't expect a real world logic to work in videogame or we will have a hard time explaining how Nova contains anti-matter without carrying a reactor on her back.

[gnat6]

Taking damage fall off away from shotgun will result in higher spread. There is actually no change at all in term of damage

Except we will gain the option to use tainted shell to increase range at the cost of dps if we so chose and more options are generally not a bad thing.

[kaboomonme]

What weapons take a whole lot of thought to use? Shotguns require you to get up close if you want to do full damage. Other weapons don't really do this. Getting rid of fall-off would actually open things up to more variety among the shotguns. Because as it stands spread doesn't really matter much given the fall-off range on most (if not all) shotguns.

Hmm... I see your point. Variety in builds is something this game lacks greatly. I did not consider that.

I hope this doesn't inflate the effectiveness of shotguns though. I remember back in the day, when everyone ran around with nothing but Heks and Gorgons, both of which are supposed to be close to mid range weapons, yet excel greatly in any distance in between.

Edited March 24, 2014 by kaboomonme

[unmog]

I not only agree about falloff damage, but I think Point Blank needs to have 10 ranks. Shotguns are pretty much inferior to everything else in the game currently.

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[kaboomonme]

I not only agree about falloff damage, but I think Point Blank needs to have 10 ranks. Shotguns are pretty much inferior to everything else in the game currently.

Rather than say shotguns are inferior to everything, I think it's fair to say Boltor Prime, Ogris, Penta, Soma etc are pretty much superior to everything else in the game currently. It's all a matter of perspective.

Shotguns modded right still do really well, but *THOSE GUNS* just scale so unreasonably well that it's hard to compare anymore.

Power Creep is real. And right around the corner.

[Rafarix]

The problem is that Hek at its prime will not be op compared to the "OP" weapons in the game now. Also that many rifles can perform very well in short ranges invalidating the shotgun's role.

 

Shotguns have:

- Spread

- Damage Falloff

- Low Proc Rate

- Small Clip or Very Long Reload Time.

*I'm not too sure about crit rate I know strun wraith had a fair crit, but I dunno if It has changed like the procs on shotguns

 

As DE stated shotguns are in a bad place now, and melee 2.0 might just completely put shotguns in a deeper hole when it comes out.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Rafarix

[Oriviagene]

Same opinion here...I don't think dmg fall off is needed...it's not like shotties gonna as strong as rifles anyway...

[Bulletmachine]

Falloff is fine for me (maybe with increased range before falloff takes effect) but Shotguns need a raw damage buff across the board to offset the higher risk in getting close to a group of enemies.

[LukeAura]

Taking damage fall off away from shotgun will result in higher spread. There is actually no change at all in term of damage since you won't hit anything in rifle/sniper range anyway (or got lucky and get 1/8 damage from landing one pellet which is pointless).

Increasing spread so only one pellet hits, in exchange for no fall off, is 1/8th of full damage.

Right now with fall off, to match 1/8th of the whole damage at that range you would need 10 pellets to hit the target. More than you're actually firing to begin with. Fall off cuts damage to all but 10%, roughly. Removing fall off would actually increase damage at range, even with increased spread.

No problem for the Hek to hit each pellet on target, as it throws a densely packed slug like hail of pellets. But for every other shotgun this is impossible.

If we're not going to have fall off removed, its minimum point at least needs buffed up.

Edited March 24, 2014 by LukeAura

[ObviousLee]

I not only agree about falloff damage, but I think Point Blank needs to have 10 ranks. Shotguns are pretty much inferior to everything else in the game currently.

you havent used a phage yet, have you lol,

[Brimir]

you havent used a phage yet, have you lol,

 

Again, Phage isn't a Shotgun.

 

It is a... thing that takes Shotgun mods.

[ObviousLee]

Again, Phage isn't a Shotgun.

 

It is a... thing that takes Shotgun mods.

it benefits solely from shotgun mods, therefore a form of shotgun, is it not?

[Brimir]

it benefits solely from shotgun mods, therefore a form of shotgun, is it not?

 

Not really. It shares no other characteristics with Shotguns other than mod usage.

[ObviousLee]

Not really. It shares no other characteristics with Shotguns other than mod usage.

true, it honestly has more similarities to the flux and the synapse, which are both rifles that use rifle mods lol.

[egregiousRac]

Not really. It shares no other characteristics with Shotguns other than mod usage.

 

It shares as much with shotguns as the Synapse does with rifles. It is a shotgun beam weapon.

 

Shotguns are in a weird place with mods because you can get up to 240% damage with much less consequence than with rifles (and it doesn't use two 10 mods), but it takes three slots. Vicious Spread has no real downside on the Phage, and it has stats that would be ridiculous if it were a rifle, which makes the Phage a good weapon.

[Brimir]

It shares as much with shotguns as the Synapse does with rifles

 

No it doesn't. The Synapse is essentially a re-skinned Flux Rifle in how it works. The Phage is like no other Shotgun. It doesn't even have Fall-off which makes it sorta moot to this entire topic.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Brimir

[Noble_Cactus]

Well, I suppose the Phage is like a shotgun taken to extremes. It has a 'hard' falloff in that it terminates after 20m or so, yet deals superb damage in that range. But for our purposes we should exclude it from our discussion.

 

Taking the fall-off off a shotguns isn't going to grant them high accuracy at long-range.

 

To those saying shotguns are supposed to struggle at long-range, without fall-off (and with a buff to their spread I guess) players would be struggling to get very many of their pellets to land on target at long-range. So they would still struggle. I don't even think the spread buff/nerf (not sure which word to use in this situation) would be necessary.

To the person who asked for a pellet count buff: Are you aware that this could positively affect the shotguns via granting them even more chances at proc'ing and/or crit'ing per shot?

 

For that to be noticeable, shotguns would need a buff to their proc chance. Even the Drakgoon's massive 22 pellet count with a maxed Hell's Chamber doesn't proc all that much.

 

Anyway, if there needs to be some sort of falloff, I'd rather the range be extended to 30-40 meters or so. Even then, I still don't see any threat to the rifles and bows due to the reasons mentioned earlier (shotguns are not crit-centric, and even with the Hek you're not going to land all of those pellets at medium-long range). If they were to see a buff to proc chance, shotguns could become better crowd suppression tools by proccing statuses on crowds of enemies at medium-long range.

 

Or I suppose we could go the other route and further refine the role of a shotgun as a close-range, high risk/high reward tool. Give them innate punch through at 5-9m, increased damage and proc chance at these ranges, something of the sort. I'd rather see DE take the first route, though.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[notionphil]

There's no need for it. Shotguns are already punished at range by spread, which is just fine - it is what you'd expect for a Shotgun in a video game.

 

Spread and fall-off? That is just too much.

 

"But wait!", I hear you say, "Then you could just mod for -Spread and use your Shotgun at greater range!" Well. Yes? Modding is supposed to be beneficial! If you want to spend the mod capacity/slot for it, why shouldn't you be allowed to?

 

I think you missed one thing. Much of the game's combat occurs at the sub 20M range - most shotgun's spread is still very tight within that range, which is why Detron/Bronco Prime fare quite well.

 

I'm not concerned about shotgun "sniping", per se, but if they out DPS rifles (boar P, strun W) significantly in the range where most of the game's combat occurs, that's a problem.

 

If the spread is intended to keep shotguns significantly disadvantaged at range, spread values themselves will need a balance pass, and in some cases be increased, and pellet count reduced.

 

But yeah, that could all make sense if the spread is large enough.

 

Also, Tainted shell would probably need to have a more potent penalty if it's negating shotguns single drawback; I'd go with -damage.

 

Remember, tainted shell would essentially be the equiv of a falloff reduction mod - it's a big deal.

Edited March 24, 2014 by notionphil

[Brimir]

The Detron/Bronco Prime aren't technically Shotguns though.

 

I wouldn't classify them as such. They are Pistols with Shotgun-like qualities. When I say "Shotgun" I specifically mean guns using Shotgun mods that fire Shotgun shells/pellets.

 

EDIT:

Besides, neither the Detron nor Bronco Prime actually has Fall-Off.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Brimir

[LukeAura]

I think you missed one thing. Much of the game's combat occurs at the 10-15M range - most shotgun's spread is still very tight within that range, which is why Detron/Bronco Prime fare quite well.

I'd find that more a subjective idea. Usually I feel combat happens around 20-25 meters. Might just be me though.

The problem is more that Rifles tend to do very well in that range too. 

Shotguns do only, maybe, slightly better at that point, and exceedingly awful only ten to fifteen meters later. 

[notionphil]

I'd find that more a subjective idea. Usually I feel combat happens around 20-25 meters. Might just be me though.

The problem is more that Rifles tend to do very well in that range too. 

Shotguns do only, maybe, slightly better at that point, and exceedingly awful only ten to fifteen meters later. 

 

True, maybe 0-20M.

 

Also, when you really look at shotgun DPS, it's not significantly higher than rifle DPS to warrant such harsh drawbacks, so I don't think this idea is 'bad' even as is. However, I do think shotgun DPS should be higher in comparison, and they should be less useful than rifles past this optimal range.

 

...Hopefully via spread, and not outright falloff.

 

The Detron/Bronco Prime aren't technically Shotguns though.

 

I wouldn't classify them as such. They are Pistols with Shotgun-like qualities. When I say "Shotgun" I specifically mean guns using Shotgun mods that fire Shotgun shells/pellets.

 

EDIT:

Besides, neither the Detron nor Bronco Prime actually has Fall-Off.

 

Right that was kind of my point - they don't have falloff, so they do well at the range that most combat happens at despite their spread.

 

Thus we'd assume that the spread of shotguns also would be....not much of an issue in reducing their combat-effectiveness

Edited March 24, 2014 by notionphil

[LazyKnight]

 

Also, Tainted shell would probably need to have a more potent penalty; I'd go with -damage.

Tainted shell's current 66% penalty on fire-rate shaves off thousands of dps. Even if the end result was more pellet hitting it would be dumb to use it, and this is because of how the game treats fire-rate as animation speed, and it would cripple Tigris.

 

The only shotguns that could make use of no-falloff would be Hek and to a much lesser degree Strun wraith.

Edited March 24, 2014 by LazyKnight

[Zerethon]

I never understood video game shotguns, to be honest.

 

I've hunted plenty of quail and other fowl with mine, and it is not like the pellets become harmless after a few meters.

 

Quail and other soft bodied game =/= Hard-metal robotics with deflection shields, crewmen in armored suits, and grineer in armored exo suits.

Hek, Even the -infested- have some dudes with serious looking armor because they're just twisted grin/corp peons.

Overall, where the shotguns are -right now- is pretty impressive, fully modded at close range they drop even the heaviest of enemies in a shot or 2, and even with falloff, when you can get them up to some pretty stupid damage points at mid-range.....

[notionphil]

Tainted shell's current 66% penalty on fire-rate shaves off thousands of dps. Even if the end result was more pellet hitting it would be dumb to use it, and this is because of how the game treats fire-rate as animation speed, and it would cripple Tigris.

 

 

Tainted shell's 66% penalty on fire-rate shaves off thousands of sustained or burst DPS. It does absolutely nothing to single shot damage, which is another very common use for shotguns.

 

I'd rather it reduce damage per shot by a far smaller margin, if its going to remove the only drawback of a shotgun.

 

Again, I believe shotguns should have higher DPS within its optimal range than rifles, but be far less effective outside of that range via spread.

 

 

The only shotguns that could make use of no-falloff would be Hek and to a much lesser degree Strun wraith.

 

With no falloff, any shotgun with a tainted spread mod could be quite effective at range...why not? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Edited March 24, 2014 by notionphil