Why Cod Is Bad, The Myth Of "shotgun Sniping", And Can We Love The Gorgon Again?

[FightLikeAKrogan]

Realistic ranges on a video game about space ninja fighting clones and corporations make me laugh.

[Ferriwind]

Does balance in a game also make you laugh?

[ShimmerDoll]

I would have to agree with this suggestion, but it's too easy to scope in and out in warframe. Maybe if the recoil during aiming would be more noticeable....like with the bronco...

I don't know, you can scope in and out in alot of games and the mechanic works that way. Those games are actually competitive though and this one is not.

 

Right now they nerfed the damage and range and I always scope regardless. So I am just further punishing myself by reducing my mobility and field of view when I am taking aim.  So they forked that up for me and makes it look like a really poorly thought-out nerf that never needed to happen to begin with, or not that harshly. Reducing fall off isn't going to solve the problem. They might as well remove the ability to hard-aim then since people don't know hard-aiming/scoping/looking down the sights is cosmetic, are just hurting themselves.

Edited April 27, 2013 by BloodDoll

[Ferriwind]

I too always scope. I find it is better than not scoping since I can always headshot enemies and kill them much more quickly. For some reason the gorgon's accuracy was better scoped when I had it back when. idk.

 

Anyway, I think the problem with fall off damage was because it starts taking effect at distance 1 meter and beyond. So people are noticing that they are doing sh*t for damage at 5 meters away.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Stygi

[ShimmerDoll]

Realistic ranges on a video game about space ninja fighting clones and corporations make me laugh.

Yeah it is too bad they can't just make the game fun. Fun and video games don't mix anymore it seems, or they are teaching different things in different schools, since that's not how I learned.

 

I was really hoping DE would break that bad habit of nerfs and just fix things that aren't fun, give the other shotguns more characteristics so everyone has a gun that fits their playstyle and just move forward into the future.  I mean even with this nerf the other shotguns have zero personality. The Bronco should work more like Xm26lss and the Hek like a Spas 12 with long range slugs or something. Scoping would make more sense then.

 

Just trying to play again with the Hek or Gorgon it's so awful, it's entirely undesirable to use either now. Especially with weaker frames. Higher end content I could just barely do before, I just can't do at all now. I get overwhelmed and just have to sprint again through the whole level because a gunfight with either of those guns is genuinely not fun anymore.

Edited April 27, 2013 by BloodDoll

[ShimmerDoll]

I too always scope. I find it is better than not scoping since I can always headshot enemies and kill them much more quickly. For some reason the gorgon's accuracy was better scoped when I had it back when. idk.

 

Anyway, I think the problem with fall off damage was because it starts taking effect at distance 1 meter and beyond. So people are noticing that they are doing sh*t for damage at 5 meters away.

Yeah I don't get why the damage is so bad. It's so clearly visible from space that it's horrible now.  Anyone playing for the first time who can't unlock these guns anyway, but would grind away to do it, would be severely disappointed. Especially solo people.  It's like you are getting a salary increase as you work your way up, but when you finally make your way to a higher position you find it pays off less.

[FightLikeAKrogan]

Does balance in a game also make you laugh?

Incredible anger over missteps in balance in a video game makes me laugh, too.

[Ferriwind]

Incredible anger over missteps in balance in a video game makes me laugh, too.

We can be friends. :)

[Xtorma]

Shotguns can hit a target at long range. But realistically, due to the energy distribution among pellets, each pellet should do much, much less damage than a single regular rifle bullet. Shotguns do the most damage at close range, that's a given. Even if DESteve reduces the effect of damage falling off over distance, shotguns should still give unsatisfying damage at long distances but they should produce devastating results at a close distance.

Energy distribution? what do you mean?

[Ferriwind]

Energy distribution? what do you mean?

The energy from the gunpowder exploding is more or less the bullet's kinetic energy. Because the pellets spread, each pellet has less energy than if you fire one bullet. Altogether the pellets would have the same energy as a single slug fired from the same shotgun with the same amount of gunpowder, but an individual pellet does less damage so accuracy has a presence. Sorry for the crappy and probably somewhat erroneous explanation, but I ain't an expert in this.

[Furyoushounen]

So, yeah, recent changes to shotguns and the Gorgon, plus a new weapon; I have no opinion on the new Glaive as I don't have it yet. Some people love it, and others are having problems. Whatever, the game is a beta and bugs will crop up with anything new and introduced no matter how much money you throw at quality assurance. It's the nature of PC gaming, you can't possibly know all the bugs before they happen.

 

But, the shotgun and Gorgon nerf? Yeah, that's something I definitely have an opinion on. I'll cut to chase of this little treatise and traipse out the thesis now: I'm not happy with it. Here's why.

 

Shotguns do not work like they do in Call of Duty, or at least they didn't before the patch and that was a marvelous thing. Warframe is not Call of Duty, it should not be Call of Duty, and it should not cater to Call of Duty fans. Why? Well, the obvious commercial answer is because Call of Duty fans already have Call of Duty. They won't be interested in something that isn't Call of Duty.

Oh, I'm sorry, were you expecting me to rant about how CoD is "ruining the modern-day shooter" or whatever? Yeah-no, I have more important points to make. Like how shotguns worked like their real-life counterpart before the patch, how shotguns were practically the perfect weapon for many of the tile sets in Warframe, and how that was a good thing. You see, much of Warframe is fought in relatively close quarters right now, and recent tile set expansions notwithstanding, the game is sometimes claustrophobic. Narrow corridors open up to sealed chambers, or fenced-in gantries without a lot of ready cover. Now, stop-just-just stop! Do not add a cover system! This isn't Gears of War, and Warframe shouldn't be Gears of War for the same reasons it shouldn't be CoD. The point is, however, that the distances that you fight in about maybe 70-80% of the time are really close. Like, stupidly close; heavy-urban-combat-close; so-close-that-I-could-reliably-hit-them-with-a-pebble-close, and it's these ranges where a shotgun excels. Really, they do, it's what they were made for. The hypersonic pellets remain hypersonic and deadly from modern-day shotguns up to and exceeding 60-70 meters at the lower gauges and heavier, denser shot-types . . . and I just ran a Corpus Defense where I was doing 10-15 points of damage at about 15-20 meters with a level 24, catalyzed Boar fitted with all the elemental damage mods, plus a mid-range Point Blank damage mod.

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to have spent both money and hours on a shotgun that is suddenly useless at close-ranged combat? At no time should my sprays of heavy-guage, armor-piercing people-shot be reduced to sprays of peas and pearl onions! I want to kill my target, not garnish them when I shoot them in the face!

The concept of "shotgun sniping" is as stupid and it is factually and semantically incorrect. Sniper rifles are designed for ranges up to half a mile and in many cases beyond that. We're not fighting in environments where true sniper rifles are a factor. Warframe takes place at SMG/Shotgun ranges, and I'm guessing that most of the complaints about shotgun sniping are mostly being made by whiners who either aren't accurate or aggressive enough with their tactics and weapons. Or, perhaps they're just too hung up on being lone-wolf killing machines with the biggest gonads ever in their online co-op experience, and don't appreciate a quick resolution to the Heavy Gunner that's had them pinned for 10 seconds.

 

On to the Gorgon!

Why for did you screw up my 90-shot semi-automatic rifle with hose attachment? Was it the way it worked a dissonance against what you intended it to be? Before the update, it was really good at what I just described it as being - a heavy semi-auto with an 'oh crap!' option. Now it's... not. I don't know what roll the Gorgon can play now. AI isn't capable of being suppressed. Ammo drops, even with an artifact, are too stingy to support spray'n'pray, and its spin-up (and new inaccuracy) means that it's useless in bursts. And how is this inaccuracy supposed to work in the lore, anyway? Warframes enhance speed, strength, endurance, and expand their senses. You're telling me that this heavy, massive gun in the hands of a spess mareen is somehow too flimsy to handle the recoil of one bullet? That-uh . . . that makes my head hurt.

Again, I don't care if people complained about the Gorgon being overpowered. They're coming from la-la logic, and it's killing my immersion, enjoyment, and murderection. In this game any and ALL guns are overpowered with enough use, anyway; not only through modules, but also through familiarity of use. Even the old Mk 1-Braton becomes a killer in experienced hands and good mods are added so what's the point? Are you going to turn that vicious head-hunter into a hunk of junk, too?

 

Please don't be CoD, because you aren't CoD, so give me back my useful shotty. While you're at it, ignore the whiners and give me back my ballistic cat penis (THE BARBS!), too, alright? I miss it so much, and I'm not even 4 hours into the new update.

You are my @(*()$ hero right now!

[Dusklite]

What I would like to see is the Hek working with slugs instead of pellets or with a very very limited number of (bigger) pellets. Screw conventional gauges - this is sci-fi!

This way it could stay a shotgun, stay a sniper rifle of sorts as well and all would be good. Reduce the damage a bit, but also greatly reduce damage falloff at medium range. Decrease accuracy for hip-firing - making it a close quarter weapon that is worse than e.g. the Boar in that area because of low fire-rate and ammo clip, but keep the accuracy when aiming down the sights so it can compete with e.g. Latron in that area.

TL;DR: I'd like to see a reversion of behaviour to pre-7.9.0 but nerf the raw damage instead.

 

Like many others I haven't got my Hek to dominate everything. I've got it because I like the feel of a highly accurate shotgun.

[Furyoushounen]

New weapons for them to level up for the mastery and ditch in favor of the Hek if they actually want to be serious would have been more accurate. There was zero reason to get any weapon beyond the Hek prior to this patch. It was largely renowned as the best gun in the game, because it had the damage of a point-blank shotgun blast, at distances that trumped rifles, at the cost of a single shotgun shell.

 

Removing the broken, overpowered weapon now means that players will have to branch out and choose other weapons, now that the clearly established "best gun in the game" has now been fixed. If nothing else, pre-patch Hek WAS the limit; you either had it and abused its broken strength, or you fiddled around with guns inferior to it until you wanted to do REAL higher-level content, at which point you immediately switched back to your Hek. THAT was limitation. Being encouraged to use other weapons now that the Hek isn't the be-all-end-all gun isn't a limitation.

Except that they destroyed ALL of the shotguns, not just the Hek. So effectively, they limited my choice to NO SHOTGUNS

[Onite]

The energy from the gunpowder exploding is more or less the bullet's kinetic energy. Because the pellets spread, each pellet has less energy than if you fire one bullet. Altogether the pellets would have the same energy as a single slug fired from the same shotgun with the same amount of gunpowder, but an individual pellet does less damage so accuracy has a presence. Sorry for the crappy and probably somewhat erroneous explanation, but I ain't an expert in this.

This would be true except, have you seen the amount of gunpowder behind a shotgun shell? Most rifle bullets have a casting the size of your little finger. Shotgun shells are bigger than your thumb. Its basically like a directional pipe bomb explosion. The recoil from a shotgun is much much higher than a rifle in real life. Being on the business end of a shotgun is the scariest thing to look down at. Shotguns really arent anything to mess with.

[neKroMancer]

Energy distribution? what do you mean?

 

OK, let me explain.

 

Most weapons are about transferring kinetic energy into the target in order to break it. Shotgun has two kinds of ammunitions : Slug and Pellet.

 

Slug is one big piece metal fitted into the barrel and fired from it. It's accurate since it has its own groove and aerodynamic design (not as good as normal bullet but still league better than pellet). The speed and the mass combination make it devastating upon impact.

 

Pellet, on the other hand, use multiple small pieces of leads instead of the actual bullet or slug. They don't possess any kind of aerodynamic property and the kinetic energy from the powder is divided into these pellets. Therefore, they spread in cone and the farther they go, the less damage they dealt upon impact since they gradually lose velocity when they travel through air.

 

Normal bullet use barrel's land&groove (rifling which exist in pistols and rifles) in order to create a spinning motion which preserve the kinetic energy, coupled with better design in aerodynamic - they can travel extremely far before losing velocity compared to shotgun. (kilometers, infact)   

 

Therefore, losing damage over range (falloff) is a real life phenomenon for shotgun. Medically - most standard shotguns are not lethal when fired from 40-50 meter away but extremely lethal in close range (10-20 meter).

 

I don't really know where these 'shotgun can kill in 100 meter' ideas come from.

[Furyoushounen]

This times a million.  Why were the Strun and Boar nerfed in response to the HEK being overpowered?  Why was the HEK nerfed in a way that obliterated its primary distinguishing characteristic?  It's like the devs put no thought into this.

 

Like so many of the recent changes? I don't see people complaining about bugfixes at all. They are complaining about the way the game is being stripped of its fun and our playstyles are being muted in favour of sweeping, lackluster coding/development decisions that are not reflective of what the fanbase even wants.

 

Who are they trying to win over with these choices? Does it not make more sense to focus on fixing what is legitimately broken instead of breaking the game balance entirely with these bullS#&$ across the board changes?

 

2 weekends in a row this game has been left a steaming pile of joy-sucking solo farming crap. Where the F*** did the fun go?

[Ferriwind]

This would be true except, have you seen the amount of gunpowder behind a shotgun shell? Most rifle bullets have a casting the size of your little finger. Shotgun shells are bigger than your thumb. Its basically like a directional pipe bomb explosion. The recoil from a shotgun is much much higher than a rifle in real life. Being on the business end of a shotgun is the scariest thing to look down at. Shotguns really arent anything to mess with.

Very true, but a rifle bullet will always be more lethal than any pellet that doesn't come from the most beastly shotgun.

[neKroMancer]

This would be true except, have you seen the amount of gunpowder behind a shotgun shell? Most rifle bullets have a casting the size of your little finger. Shotgun shells are bigger than your thumb. Its basically like a directional pipe bomb explosion. The recoil from a shotgun is much much higher than a rifle in real life. Being on the business end of a shotgun is the scariest thing to look down at. Shotguns really arent anything to mess with.

 

Shotgun pellets lack two things.

 

1. They don't have effect of groove and land in the barrel.

2. The amount of kinetic energy is divided among pellets.

 

Ofc, it's scary being in the wrong end of a shotgun. However, lethal range of shotgun and the power of penetration are no where near rifle.

[Mietz]

Just balance this with a mod.

 

Reverse Multishot: Bullet Fusion/Fusion Chamber

 

Adds accuracy to weapons at the expense of ROF.

[Xtorma]

OK, let me explain.

 

Most weapons are about transferring kinetic energy into the target in order to break it. Shotgun has two kinds of ammunitions : Slug and Pellet.

 

Slug is one big piece metal fitted into the barrel and fired from it. It's accurate since it has its own groove and aerodynamic design (not as good as normal bullet but still league better than pellet). The speed and the mass combination make it devastating upon impact.

 

Pellet, on the other hand, use multiple small pieces of leads instead of the actual bullet or slug. They don't possess any kind of aerodynamic property and the kinetic energy from the powder is divided into these pellets. Therefore, they spread in cone and the farther they go, the less damage they dealt upon impact since they gradually lose velocity when they travel through air.

 

Normal bullet use barrel's land&groove (rifling which exist in pistols and rifles) in order to create a spinning motion which preserve the kinetic energy, coupled with better design in aerodynamic - they can travel extremely far before losing velocity compared to shotgun. (kilometers, infact)   

 

Therefore, losing damage over range (falloff) is a real life phenomenon for shotgun. Medically - most standard shotguns are not lethal when fired from 40-50 meter away but extremely lethal in close range (10-20 meter).

 

I don't really know where these 'shotgun can kill in 100 meter' ideas come from.

Makes sense, but in everything I have read tonight at balistics websites, 40 yards seems to be the maximum effective range of shotguns when used for self defense, as long as the shot is heavy enough. Spread is very simply controlled by barrel length and chokes. I can't find anything that says pellets lose 50% of thier force at 15 yards. Some of the lighter shot, like birdshot does, but that would never be used by anyone who was going into a battle.

 

Sabot rounds can kill at very long ranges, well over 100 yards, but they are slugs.

 

Anyhow, it does not matter in this game. They nerfed shotguns, and that is just the way it is.

[wqnmlb]

I really like the older version HEK and I do hope they would undo this change.

 

What really makes me unhappy is that we spend money and hourst on that weapon, now they just nerf it? I don't like this. Because now my efforts on this game looks so stupid. If this is about the shotgun sniping, they should enhance the performance of sniper rifle rather than nerf that of shotgun.

Edited April 27, 2013 by wqnmlb

[neKroMancer]

Makes sense, but in everything I have read tonight at balistics websites, 40 yards seems to be the maximum effective range of shotguns when used for self defense, as long as the shot is heavy enough. Spread is very simply controlled by barrel length and chokes. I can't find anything that says pellets lose 50% of thier force at 15 yards. Some of the lighter shot, like birdshot does, but that would never be used by anyone who was going into a battle.

 

Sabot rounds can kill at very long ranges, well over 100 yards, but they are slugs.

 

Anyhow, it does not matter in this game. They nerfed shotguns, and that is just the way it is.

 

Effective range =/= lethal range.

 

Effective range simply means that your shots hit the mark. However, will the shots kill the target is another matter. Well, I think it's justified nerf to this type of weapon. 

[Onite]

Shotgun pellets lack two things.

 

1. They don't have effect of groove and land in the barrel.

2. The amount of kinetic energy is divided among pellets.

 

Ofc, it's scary being in the wrong end of a shotgun. However, lethal range of shotgun and the power of penetration are no where near rifle.

 

You mean the projectiles arent rifled. And they dont need to be.

 

and secondly, the amount of energy being divided among the pellets is very large. The lethal range of a shotgun is alot scarier than you think. You could be 40 feet away and die from a single volley from a single shell. Penetration power? Depends on how far away the target is. A shotgun can blast a door off it's hinges. Theres also a thing called flechette as well. The only thing shotguns really dont have hands down is precision. You wouldnt sharpshoot a hostile that has hostages or is using a body shield. and yes, at long ranges of like 100 feet, you cant effectively have the same lethality as a rifle, but even then you have to be a pretty good shot with a rifle as well.

 

Heres some examples if you think i'm full of S#&$.

 

 

And this is a pretty accurate representation of if used on organic targets.

 

(NSFW)

 

And heres some ballistic tests of normal 00 12 guage.

 

Edited April 27, 2013 by Onite

[Xtorma]

Effective range =/= lethal range.

 

Effective range simply means that your shots hit the mark. However, will the shots kill the target is another matter. Well, I think it's justified nerf to this type of weapon. 

Effective range according to the balistics sights I went to , and my time in the Army means lethal range.

[neKroMancer]

You mean the projectiles arent rifled. And they dont need to be.

 

and secondly, the amount of energy being divided among the pellets is very large. The lethal range of a shotgun is alot scarier than you think. You could be 40 feet away and die from a single volley from a single shell. Penetration power? Depends on how far away the target is. A shotgun can blast a door off it's hinges. Theres also a thing called flechette as well. The only thing shotguns really dont have hands down is precision. You wouldnt sharpshoot a hostile that has hostages or is using a body shield. and yes, at long ranges of like 100 feet, you cant effectively have the same lethality as a rifle, but even then you have to be a pretty good shot with a rifle as well.

 

Heres some examples if you think i'm full of S#&$.

 

 

And this is a pretty accurate representation of if used on organic targets.

 

(NSFW)

 

And heres some ballistic tests of normal 00 12 guage.

 

 

1. I know that fletchette exist. However, there is no shotgun in the game currently use it. It's bolt weapons like boltor/bolto that use these type of ammunition.

 

2. Using Expendable as an example? Really?

 

3. They shoot the gun in the third clip from 20 feet - roughly 6 meter away from the balistic gel. Of course it's going to be pretty devastating. In-game distance, you can see Grineer's wrinkle at that range. At that range, the rifle would blow a temporary cavity bigger than the pellets' track.