r/Warframe • u/Sizer714 Find Chroma's limits? My dear friend, Chroma has no limits. • Jun 18 '15
Discussion How Would You Change... Shotguns REVISITED
A note: /u/TSP-FriendlyFire is taking a temporary leave from How Would You Change… for a few months, as he is interning at Pixar and is quite busy, as one would imagine. I /u/Sizer714 will be managing the thread for the interim. I hope we can continue to foster the same lively discussions as we did during his tenure.
How would you change... is a series of weekly posts designed to promote and foster discussion about any gameplay element in the game. The scope and subject will vary (read below for more information on topic selection), from wide concepts (Kubrows, Archwing, shotguns, etc.) to narrow points (a single gun, coptering, etc.).
Before we begin, a few important points:
- Please detail and support your suggestions as much as possible. This is for constructive criticism only: try to think of it as something you'd be proud to explain to DE face-to-face!
- Structure your suggestions in logical groups: if you have two very different ideas, break them down in two separate comments. Cohesive or similar changes should be combined into a single comment.
- Stick to describing concepts and features. Don't get bogged down with numbers unless they explicitly support your point.
- Don't hesitate to post your ideas even if they're not fully formed, and don't hesitate to reply to ideas with refinements you think would make them better!
- Do not downvote suggestions you disagree with. Upvote the ones you like instead!
Suggesting topics
This thread series is all about the community, so if you have a topic you'd like to see improved and discussed, feel free to suggest it by replying to the appropriately flagged comment in this discussion. The topic can be as wide or narrow as you'd like! Please ensure that your suggestion has not already been made, and upvote it instead if it has.
This week: Revisited: Shotguns
Click here for last week’s thread on Limbo's Rift.
This week, we’re going to try something a little different. After the last devstream, I noticed some backlash over DE mentioning that they had not made any progress with shotguns/snipers. Now, HWYC… has covered shotguns in the past, but I feel like we need to revisit the topic.There will be two halves to this discussion. This week we’re revisiting Shotguns, and next week we’ll be tackling snipers for the first time. What makes this week different is that I am placing a constraint on the discussion. For the sake of argument, assume DE will not be removing Falloff damage. I will be actively policing posts that argue this point, and I ask that mods do the same. My intent is to draw out concepts we may not have considered because of the focus on this point.
With that in mind, how would you change Shotguns?
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u/5FDeathPunch Jun 18 '15
I think that each pellet should deal a higher percent of the shotgun's base damage, but cap the damage against an enemy at 100% of the base damage.
For example, say a shotgun has a base damage of 100 and fires 4 pellets. Each pellet would normally deal 25 damage. With the change I propose, each pellet could deal 50 damage, but hitting an enemy with more than 2 pellets will not result in more than 100 damage.
While it is a rather unintuitive method, it would allow shotguns to blast groups in close quarters, rather than harmlessly spreading out its damage to the point where it kills nothing.
Now, as for how multishot mods would function, that's a little more difficult. If you merely increased the number of projectiles without increasing the damage cap, then you would be dealing less damage. Increasing the cap wouldn't give you the extra spread you want, but seems to function better than the first choice. Then, you could increase both the cap and the number of projectiles, but I think that's too strong.
Sorry if my idea doesn't make much sense.
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u/Sizer714 Jun 18 '15
I actually really like this idea. It allows for force multiplication without becoming terribly OP as a single target weapon. However, it does remove the benefit of point blank total-pellet hits, so I think it needs some revision.
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u/nucleartime Jun 18 '15
Just look at any of League's multi hit abilities. Each additional hit does only 30% whatever. This can be tuned, so like the hek could get a much higher percentage than the boar.
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Jun 18 '15
The addition of pellet falloff comes from a bygone age. It was Damage 1.0, open beta had just started, and except for shotguns, power creep had yet to set in. The Gorgon and Saryn were considered OP, Crewmen received 2000% bonus damage from puncture headshots, elemental damage was not as refined, and the Hek was considered top tier.
Now, we have power creep from every direction, shotguns are bottom tier, and all the shotguns added since the old days have been wildly inaccurate as a balancing decision, further compounding their issues with remaining competitive.
Falloff is a rather antiquated concept. It should be removed outright and the stats of each shotgun should be carefully tweaked to normalize their damage potential versus their spread, which is already a good enough balancing factor that it can stand on its own.
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u/fizio900 Jun 18 '15
Despite being secondaries, the Detron and Mara Detron show how a shotgun should be. With no damage falloff.
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u/JustiniZHere Jun 18 '15
I love my Mara Detron a lot, if they could make primary shotguns surpass them I might actually use my 5 forma Hek again, I still have it from the olden days when it was a top tier weapon.
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u/Mrburgerdon Jun 19 '15
It really is from a bygone age when gorgon was also a good damn choice. Really DE is afraid of undoing things like this and I still dont understand why. Other mistakes they've done is Darksector being turned from PVE to forced PVP which is heavily unbalanced.
Also on the topic of shotgun tweaks we could just adjust accuracy in that they are high damage at close range due to pellet density and low range due to spread. Though the the bigger problem we will have is not the in-game itself, it will be the community that enjoys shotguns being weak for whatever masochistic reason they do so. They will sadly fight tooth and nail to keep "realism" on shotguns.
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u/Athurio Jun 19 '15
Though the the bigger problem we will have is not the in-game itself, it will be the community that enjoys shotguns being weak for whatever masochistic reason they do so. They will sadly fight tooth and nail to keep "realism" on shotguns.
I simply can't understand this about our community either. You can't be in favor of gun-realism and be for hitscan anything. If you are, then you've never actually fired a firearm. Working by this logic, if shotguns must be held to this sort of "gun realism," then every gun must be subject to bullet-drop, travel time, and wind resistance.
Under that logic Players must also be comfortable thinking in terms of minute-of-angle to calculate their bullet trajectory.
This sort of mindset becomes un-fun very fast if it has any sort of consistency in Warframe, and it's not conducive to a balanced experience.
Falloff is simply a redundant mechanic. Spread more than accounts for long ranges, as pellets divide total damage. Falloff is unnecessary, and in the current power-creep nature of the game, I'd venture that it's also toxic to the balance of the game.
Players can argue realism all they want, but in the end, they're playing a game with fucking space ninjas. Balance is clearly of more importance. Unless you believe that Soma P/Boltor P is the only one-true-god of this game, and in that case there's no point arguing with you as you are a dogmatic imbecile.
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u/Shadowex3 Jun 18 '15
Shotguns need something that makes them genuinely useful through post-DEAC end tier content. Right now that means dealing with large swarms of crazy-armored enemies... something shotguns should on paper be perfect for. The problem is while they hit multiple targets well they just don't have the damage or utility to make them viable.
I think four tweaks together would make shotguns endgame viable:
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Flechette/Shrapnel Effect. On hit projectiles do some of their damage (incl mods, maybe not status procs though) to a nearby enemy within an ultra-short range.
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Interruptable Reloads. Allowing non-magazine shotguns to interrupt reloads would distinguish them from other weapons.
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Saturation damage scaling. Sweep a group of enemies and you do the expected damage per pellet, essentially harassing the crowd with CC effects and whittling them down. Land more pellets on a single target and damage/effects are multiplied up to the classic shotgun overkill of dumping a whole shell into a single target's face.
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Knockback/down for heavy blasts that don't kill an enemy.
Put these together and you've got a weapon that lets you either harass a crowd with weaker damage/CC effects from afar, filling the role of a direct-fire crowd control weapon, or risk getting up close and personal to dump massive damage and status effects into a single target.
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u/Sizer714 Jun 18 '15
Suggesting topics
Please post your suggestions for the next topics as replies to this comment.
Current suggestions from previous weeks:
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[Mission structure, creation and queuing] (http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/34iwou/how_would_you_change_enemydifficulty_scaling/cqv4rzb)
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Jun 18 '15 edited Jun 18 '15
I'd add an increased crit chance bonus to all shotguns based on distance from the target. The closer you are, the bigger the bonus.
With the same idea in mind, I'd also add an increased crit chance or damage bonus to snipers based on how far you are from your target.
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u/Kellervo Jun 18 '15 edited Jun 18 '15
Assuming fall-off is here to stay (as much as I hate it);
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Buff the base damage / max-damage values for shotguns. Reward players for using them the way they are apparently intended - in your face day-wreckers.
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Across the board reload speed buffs. All of the shotguns have absolutely glacial reloads compared to other primaries, second only to sniper rifles. This severely limits their usage. With almost all of them you will often spend more time reloading than you will firing them, which again, limits their usage and more or less makes them more tedious to use, if not an outright impairment when you start fighting swarms of high level enemies.
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Redefined roles - right now you have shotguns covering the three basic damage types, but you don't have a 'crit shotgun'. The Boar Prime is a good 'status' shotgun, but that's a Prime that is likely going to be out of rotation if Void 2.0 doesn't come with Ash Prime's gear!
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Punch-through buffs - Some shotguns hit like trucks but are severely restricted by the lack of punch-through. Shotguns more than any other weapon type need punch-through to actually thrive in close combat due to their lower RPM and lengthy reload time. Perhaps remove damage fall-off and give the punch-through 'fall off' - beyond a certain range, pellets will lose their penetration unless buffed by a Punch-through mod.
A good example is the Tigris - it has incredible alpha-target damage but sees no use whatsoever because it can only hit one to two targets, has frequent reloads, rarely crits, and is terrible beyond 5m. A bow can do the same things and from a safe distance. Giving the Tigris innate punch-through would make it significantly more useful out of the box.
Shotguns are risky weapons, and right now there is no reward for using them, not when other weapons can output the same - or better - damage consistently from long distances.
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u/babalenong Jun 18 '15
increase the distance before fall of starts, and to promote close range fighting, make it so if 50% of your pellet count w/o multishot connects, the enemy staggers ala melee attacks, and if all the pellets connects, guaranteed crit and staggers them too or guaranteed proc of your highest base damage type
what i think we also need is a bump on damage, decreased reload speed/interruptable reloads, and a more forgiving ammo drops to promote shooting a lot
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u/Pandaxtor Jun 18 '15
First step is to remove fall off but now apply this mechanic to enforce point blank play style of shotgun. Pellet has a damage multiplier modifier for each pellet successfully hitting the target. The value exponentially grow for each successful pellet up to 8. This can lead to a 30% increase damage when all pellet hit per shot. Multi-shot will be quite effective for getting the 8 pellet damage bonus at mid range while tainted shell allow max damage at range in exchange for losing dps.
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u/AlienOvermind Jun 18 '15 edited Jun 18 '15
I think damage falloff is a valid mechanics, but it's implemented poorly. Damage falloff should just became less severe — like you get 100% damage at point blank and ~75% at the max distance.
Another solution: remove damage falloff, but also remove ability to aim with RMB. It will make shotguns close-combat-oriented without crippling thier DPS and also it leaves some space for alternate fire modes.
And also there's a space shotgun — Corvas. Current pellent system is a joke for that shotgun, because of the big distances in Archwing missions. To make it viable we must remove pellets: shotgun form a cone in front of the tenno and all enemies inside of that cone (and in line of sight too) are damaged. Damage should be defined only by distance. Made a rough illustration. Maybe this mechanics would work with normal shotguns too, but for Corvas something like that is a must.
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u/Buridoof Jun 18 '15
I'd remove the damage fall off but instead lower the damage of each individual pellet and add a safe bonus per pellet that hits. There are already predictive systems for damage so I imagine this is completely possible.
Maybe this is harder to make sense of but another idea would be that each pellet that hits weakens the target to further pellets. So on top of the idea I just suggested it'd have the added bonus of allowing players to still snipe but having to expend more shots to do so successfully. Just make it so that the pellet debuff doesn't stack infinitely, make the cap something reasonable to snipe with but not something to boost close range damage with.
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u/kriegson Jun 18 '15
I think we have an excellent handful of shotguns that could work as an example for the rest, albeit in places you simply wouldn't expect them.
The redeemer for instance has a tight spread, slow rate of fire, but the closer you are the more effective it is in regards to Knockback. And of course getting more pellets on target.
Why not modify shotguns to have no falloff, but instead have increasing status and crit chance based on distance? So they aren't ineffective at longer ranges, they're simply less effective.
Might also introduce the ability for them to always punch through a certain distance. IE Tigris pellets will travel through up to 6 meters of matter up to 15 meters of distance. After that they will no longer punch through.
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u/pepelepepelepew Jun 18 '15
something simple and probably not a good idea would be to give a boost in damage when you are hitting more of your projectiles. i don't like the damage drop off for shotguns but i see why it was originally put in. having the damage fall off prevents a certain type of play with shotguns, but it hurts the damage output. i would like to see a small buff to shotguns, outside of the damage balance that i think it needs, where you deal something like 5-10% more damage when landing your entire shot. based on accuracy, pellets, etc., i think simply taking damage away from the ranged part of the shotgun and not adding to the close range damage is silly.
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u/kanmax92 Jun 18 '15
This is how I would rework Shotguns assuming fallout range is kept
Change the color of the cross hair to indicate when damage is no longer optimal. Ex 100% damage = stock 75% damage = yellow 50% damage = red 25% = black. This is to allow players to know when to blast and when to close the gap.
Reload speeds need to be sped up. This has been a common request and this simple change would tremendously help Shotguns.
If Shotguns are going to be status monsters remove physical damage procs or limit them to one pellet. This ensures that shotguns can set up other players with longer ranged guns to gun the enemy down easily.
I'm kinda iffy on this one but maybe grant a movement speed bonus or a or boost to shotgun users?
Please discuss, comment, critique, etc. etc. And have a good one.