Shotguns Should Not Have Damage Dropoff.

[TheDandyLion]

DE has been talking about fixing the balance of snipers and shotguns lately, so this is my view. It's just not a very good design choice. Doing little damage at distance just because of arbitrary weapon class is pretty bad. Several of the shotguns have pretty low spread as well. The way I see it, the Detron did it right, almost. It does not have damage dropoff, but it is also not too formidable at range since it spreads so much. That is true range depreciation. Even so, it is still worth firing into large clusters.

[Voratiu]

I honestly agree.

That's one reason I've not used the Boar Prime after I crafted it.

Another being the fact that I can't equip mods because they're on my sentinel already...

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[-Mr.Meeseeks-]

Agreed. I would really love the ability to use my Strun Wraith again without feeling like i'm weakening the team in higher level missions.

 

I mean it doesn't even make sense. It's almost as if in the Warframe universe all shotgun pellets lose their velocity after 10-15 meters and just fall to the ground. I don't care if an enemy was 50 meters away, if he was hit with a single piece of flying metal that's coated in fire and corrosive acid, it's going to hurt like hell.

[Liacu]

Well, that used to be the case back then and everyone used the Hek as if it was a sniper rifle. However a lot of things have changed in the past year so maybe the devs should do another review on shotguns? I've always kind of disagreed with damage fall off, preferring a more natural way of implementing shotguns like increasing the spread and amount of bullets fired.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Liacu

[tveeggad]

I'm partial.

 

Sure, here I go talk about the laws of physics in videogames, but.. That's how shotguns work!

BUT it doesn't mean that enemies should mistake a buckshot for a fistfull of gravel thrown at them at a distance of more than 15 meters. The damage falloff doesn't even affect ALL shotguns (Bronco, Detron), but the ones that are affected? Oh boy, might aswell call my Tigris a melee weapon, right.

 

But, removing falloff wouldn't work. I hope that someone else remembers when Hek was the king.

(EDIT: Hey, Liacu! Down here! Those were the times, right?)

It had close to no spread, and no damage falloff. There was no reason to NOT use it, so.. I'd say the falloff could be made a lot more comfortable, but spread could increase in general too.

Edited July 11, 2014 by ConcretePie

[(PSN)Count_Dante]

My guess was to implement some real life-ish behavior to make different classes of weapons behave differently. Certainly you couldnt say that a mossberg 440 is as accurate as m-16 at 200 meters. 

 

Not to say that Warframe is or should be based on reality, but my guess is this was the motivation. 

[-Mr.Meeseeks-]

My guess was to implement some real life-ish behavior to make different classes of weapons behave differently. Certainly you couldnt say that a mossberg 440 is as accurate as m-16 at 200 meters. 

 

Not to say that Warframe is or should be based on reality, but my guess is this was the motivation. 

 

Well no, a shotgun is not going to be very accurate at 200m meters. But say at 50 meters (most tiles in warframe are never any bigger than that) even if you get hit with a single one of those pellets, you aren't just going to shrug it off as if someone had tossed a tiny rock at you. No you would still likely need a trip to the hospital for the piece of metal lodged into your flesh.

[tveeggad]

Well no, a shotgun is not going to be very accurate at 200m meters. But say at 50 meters (most tiles in warframe are never any bigger than that) even if you get hit with a single one of those pellets, you aren't just going to shrug it off as if someone had tossed a tiny rock at you. No you would still likely need a trip to the hospital for the piece of metal lodged into your flesh.

Exactly this. 

 

It seems adding falloff to shotguns was a.. cute attempt by DE to separate shotties from sniper rifles, considering effective/intended range. But really, a shotgun would still hurt like hell in real life at 50m. It would probably leave a dent at 200m too, but so would a rock... If you can manage a 200m throw, with a VERY heavy rock. Dayum! 

 

At the very least, the falloff should probably exist, but not reduce the effective range to within an Orthos' range.

Edited July 11, 2014 by ConcretePie

[(PSN)Count_Dante]

From 50m, a pellet from, say again, the Mossberg, might break the skin... Maybe. A slug, you could push 100m if you were a hell of a shot and able to handle the arch from the drop off. But even a slug wouldnt hit ya at 200m.

 

On the other hand a M-16 round from any range to 500m will bounce around inside ya like a mexican jumping bean. We were always taught the effective range of shotties should be factored at 25m. 

[Tarille]

I think this may be relevant:

 

 

Buckshot being tested up to 40 yards. With penetration that is still very effective (On a Balistic Gelatine, which simulates flesh) and the limiting factor being mostly the spread rather than the penetration.

 

While falloff is to be expected, it's not as harsh in real life as video games make it out to be (Games basically make shotguns spread and falloff essentially useless after like ~10 yards or so...)

Edited July 11, 2014 by Tarille

[DoomFruit]

See here: http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/748

Edited July 11, 2014 by DoomFruit

[NevanChambers]

Well no, a shotgun is not going to be very accurate at 200m meters. But say at 50 meters (most tiles in warframe are never any bigger than that) even if you get hit with a single one of those pellets, you aren't just going to shrug it off as if someone had tossed a tiny rock at you. No you would still likely need a trip to the hospital for the piece of metal lodged into your flesh.

Retracted I'm not sure what the point I was trying to make was.

Edited July 11, 2014 by NevanChambers

[Azawarau]

50 meters is rather far for a shotgun ist it?

 

Itd obsolete quite a few guns to increase range that much

[tveeggad]

50 meters is rather far for a shotgun ist it?

 

Let's find out! Stand still.

Edited July 11, 2014 by ConcretePie

[Azawarau]

Let's find out! Stand still.

I want to make a reference line from that movie but cant remember any QQ

[(PSN)Count_Dante]

50 meters is rather far for a shotgun ist it?

 

Itd obsolete quite a few guns to increase range that much

 

Ummmm... Naw, with a slug 75-100m isnt unreasonable. Some of the Ithaca hunters would hit that easy. 

 

If I am in a hallway/urban bldg environment, you are well served by shotties...

 

Otherwise? I dont need no teenage queen, I just want my M-16.

[RespectTheInternet]

its fairly well known that shotguns aren't actually as depicted in games as having huge fall off beyond a certain distance. The fall off is just to balance the shot gun's higher damage in close range vs rifles that have better long range.

 

Unfortunately, I can agree that rifles in this game outclass shotguns by a more than decent margin . . . giving them better damage at close ranger, or a tighter spread and better semi-distant damage would be helpful.

 

BUT, I wouldn't be throwing around the words "it's like that in real life!"  as if that's a good argument

 

After all, if you wouldn't compare a warframe space ninja (or naruto (>.>) ) to an Actual Japanese Ninja, why would you compare a video game's weapon to the real thing? 

Edited July 11, 2014 by RespectTheInternet

[Azawarau]

Ummmm... Naw, with a slug 75-100m isnt unreasonable. Some of the Ithaca hunters would hit that easy. 

 

If I am in a hallway/urban bldg environment, you are well served by shotties...

 

Otherwise? I dont need no teenage queen, I just want my M-16.

The thing is it has to scale somewhat to the games usual range limitations

 

Like if rifles go 100 meters then shotguns cant go 100 meters

 

Real life logic wont apply in this case

 

Also as another example because i know someones going to shoot that one down

 

If the absolute largest area youll see is 200 meters then the most accurate should be able to hit at that distances with less accurate rifles and shotguns scaling down accordingly

 

Not saying shotguns couldnt do with mor range but weve gotta remember balance or well have anotehr Hek (Boar prime) takeover

[(PSN)Count_Dante]

The thing is it has to scale somewhat to the games usual range limitations

 

Like if rifles go 100 meters then shotguns cant go 100 meters

 

Real life logic wont apply in this case

 

Also as another example because i know someones going to shoot that one down

 

If the absolute largest area youll see is 200 meters then the most accurate should be able to hit at that distances with less accurate rifles and shotguns scaling down accordingly

 

Not saying shotguns couldnt do with mor range but weve gotta remember balance or well have anotehr Hek (Boar prime) takeover

 

Naw, the only mention of "realism" is just as you mentioned for video games... Shottie are awesome close, rifles are awesome far. It is an easy way to make distinction 

[Tarille]

Shottie are awesome close, rifles are awesome far. It is an easy way to make distinction 

 

Now if only Shotguns were infact awesome up close ;_;

 

A lot of rifles do equal or better damage at all ranges (With a majority of them then able to trade effective range for more damage with Heavy Caliber)

 

Currently, the only Shotgun that is good enough to justify it's limited range is the Brakk, which can reach double the damage output of top tier rifles but is balanced by the falloff giving it a severely reduced effective range (Hence why you don't see so many people using it)

[DSpite]

If you all want to tote realism:

 

http://www.bulletproofshop.com/Ballistic-Levels

 

We are not shooting monsters made of bare flesh or ballistic gel. Shotguns rounds have the crappiest damage penetration against anything with armor. "But we have futuristic shotguns!" you all say "Well, the bad guys also have futuristic armor" I say. So basically you can treat that page above as "Futuristic weapons AGAINST futuristic armor".

 

If the argument is "shotguns are not as fun to use as they should be" than I'll be right behind you, and wait breathlessly as DE takes another look at shotguns, but If you all just want damage buffs, I will slap you all like petulant children.

Edited July 11, 2014 by DSpite

[Tsukinoki]

The only way this could ever possibly work is if they tripled or quadrupled the spread of the pellets, otherwise it would start to outclass most other weapons in the game.  We would also need to reduce the DPS a bit.
Without that we would be back before we had damage fall off where the only good weapons were the shotguns and everything else was crap compared to them.  Especially when you consider that you could fit the boar prime with tainted shell and a few other mods and have very tight spread + 17K dps at any range, which is higher than even the Boltor Primes dps, along with a great status chance per shot.

The reason that they put damage fall off on shotguns is to prevent them from making pretty much everything else worthless by comparison.
There needs to be something that prevents shotguns from being the best weapon period, and currently without damage falloff there is nothing that prevents that.

So pick your poison:
-Damage fall off at range
-Massively increased spread at all ranges (and we would need to look at tainted shells values to see if it would need a slight nerf) and a small damage drop on top of that.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[TenshuYuusha]

I'm on the fence with this one. The damage dropoff makes sense with a shotgun yet... you know what, since Warframe was made during the time every company had to have a Resident Evil 4, DE give shotguns the Shotgun Exclusive from RE4 :v.

[Phantasmo]

Naw, the only mention of "realism" is just as you mentioned for video games... Shottie are awesome close, rifles are awesome far. It is an easy way to make distinction 

 

Problem is there's another distinction: rifles don't suffer from pellet scatter.

 

+1 to op.