Shotgun Balance Details

[Selali 1003]

Hello everyone,

 

For the next set of balance changes on shotguns, we are moving the testing from Financial and into Asylum to get better testing in close range. From all the feedback that we got from this last round of testing, this was the most requested change, by far. This round of testing we are going back to having both an A and a B testing districts. For reference on the first major round, please head here: This will give you some context as to what this round of changes is based on. 

Prototype District A:
In this district, we are reducing the damage that they do overall but leaving ranges intact. The one additional change that we are making is to also slow down the CSG but not by as much.

Prototype District B:

In this district, we are keeping the damage the same and bringing in the range of the shotguns slightly. We are also trying to expand on the differences between the CSG and the JG so we are slowing down the CSG and we are making the JG much closer range but slightly increasing its fire rate.
 

 

We aren’t going to surface the exact stat values at this time because we feel we want you to get the feel of the changes instead of theory-crafting based on the values. These values will be divulged in a subsequent post, after everyone has had a chance to get into Asylum and run these changes through their paces.

 

Thanks,
Selali

[WorldDominator 61]

I'm all in for expanding differences between csg and jg but let's not forget that the csg is also a shotgun and if it happens to face a jg head on in close ranges with no covers it should be on par with the jg in terms of firerate otherwise jg is almost guaranteed to win in a high tier match no matter what with the extra damage, wider spread, and faster firerate. 

(accuracy should be the deciding factor in that kind of fight not weapon stats)

Let's hope you balance those two shotguns properly this time.

[Hexerin 1140]

9 minutes ago, WorldDominator said:

-snip-

That's literally not how game balance works.

[ExoticZ 131]

1 hour ago, WorldDominator said:

I'm all in for expanding differences between csg and jg but let's not forget that the csg is also a shotgun and if it happens to face a jg head on in close ranges with no covers it should be on par with the jg in terms of firerate otherwise jg is almost guaranteed to win in a high tier match no matter what with the extra damage, wider spread, and faster firerate. 

(accuracy should be the deciding factor in that kind of fight not weapon stats)

Let's hope you balance those two shotguns properly this time.

I agree with WorldDominator on this one. I've always thought to myself that CSG/JG should be equal when it comes to rate of fire.

[SmilyFace 300]

6 hours ago, Selali said:

Announcement..

Mhm.. alright, im going with it.

Hope we can get a better balance of these type of weapons.

[Arcane 33]

Increasing jg's fire rate sounds like a bad idea like isn't it too fast already..

[Ellix 415]

Please TOUCH the shredder 

It needs some love

[Lign 361]

I don’t like shotgun buff because it completely removes the reason of using smg in cqc but I think csg should have the same ttk as jg. The only difference should be damage and how jg more forgivable at bad aim comparing to csg

Edited January 28, 2020 by Lign

[CookiePuss 5379]

4 hours ago, ExoticZ said:

I agree with WorldDominator on this one. I've always thought to myself that CSG/JG should be equal when it comes to rate of fire.

I agree as well.

[nikitos5 51]

I would make the fire rate of JG and CSG = 0.70. Ray scaling should be also tweaked so that if you hit an enemy, the shotgun deals more than 500 damage. What I mean is: if you hit an enemy with a shotgun at 5m or closer, then the enemy should die from 2 shots, not 3 or more

[SaRzer 3]

6 hours ago, WorldDominator said:

I'm all in for expanding differences between csg and jg but let's not forget that the csg is also a shotgun and if it happens to face a jg head on in close ranges with no covers it should be on par with the jg in terms of firerate otherwise jg is almost guaranteed to win in a high tier match no matter what with the extra damage, wider spread, and faster firerate. 

(accuracy should be the deciding factor in that kind of fight not weapon stats)

Let's hope you balance those two shotguns properly this time.

I agree with this aswell. But if there is to make the guns different the csg would need a buff of some other type to justify the loss of firerate. The obvious buff is then to increase the damage of the Csg accordingly which would make it more forgiving by the fact that not completly on target shots would deal more damage giving it a advantage on longer ranges. Anyway this is my opinion. Im sure others will have different ones. The best thing is revert it to how it was in the last prototype district from my standing point.

But great to see you are doing your best to listen to the community! 

[CommandantSteele 52]

I've got an idea to potentially increase the ability for shotguns to duel automatic weapons, though it would probably require nerfing their damage a bit.

 

What if, while ADS'ing with a shotgun, you slam fired the shotgun? You'd have to give up mobility and so on due to ADS'ing, but it'd give them an edge should someone with an SMG get the jump on them.

 

Could even make it an exclusive red mod for shotguns since they only ever really use Improved Rifling, which would help the Thumper keep it's unique trait since it already does ADS stuff.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Freewind

[Tragia 12]

or just stop trying to put your own awful "LO" changes and put them back to how they were and call it a day.

[Kittaa 18]

I believe the CSG was just in the right and perfect condition for it, after years of struggling to fix it's "Ghost Shots", It's Damage was too high when it came out at 800 hitpoints, then nerfed to 650, then 600 which was when the Shredder was introduced, then buffed again to 650 hitpoints which I have no complaints about whatsoever.

 

The main Edge of the CSG is its Range, having 20 meters of effective Range is its strongest point and has its own gameplay advantages.

While the JG has higher Damage with slightly lower Range, offering a unique taste to each weapon, each having its own scenarios to shine.

 

This change makes the JG a far better pick than the CSG for an Increased Damage and an Increased Chance of landing more pellets because of its wide spread at such a Range, without the necessity of perfect accuracy while also shooting faster. Even Though the CSG-PR1 offers Improved Rifling 3 to increase the Range to 27 meters, it's still not worth sacrificing the Increased Reload Speed on the CSG-RT1 for the PR1, which is totally needed in close quarters encounters.

Main Points:
1. JG Shotgun now having an edge over the CSG by having more damage, better spread at close range, ability to put 3 modifications on it while the CSG either you go for Range and pickup the CSG-PR1 but sacrifice Reload Speed (which the JG will still have because it can be modified) or go for CSG-RT1 which will give you faster Reload Speed but still Outshined by the JG because it can be modified.

2. The added delay to increase the Time-To-Kill on CSG, I think is totally unfair for a gun that cannot be modified, while it's expected to rival the JG, and all SMGs which can all be modified, And its only Edge which was Range and 0.68 TTK over these weapons is now gone.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Kittaa

[Running Eagle 16]

On 1/27/2020 at 9:27 PM, Selali said:

Prototype District B:

In this district, we are keeping the damage the same and bringing in the range of the shotguns slightly. We are also trying to expand on the differences between the CSG and the JG so we are slowing down the CSG and we are making the JG much closer range but slightly increasing its fire rate.

From my playtesting, the changes that have been made in this district fall well short of their intention.  JG with IR3 still beats CSG with Ir3, Strife with IR3, and Shredder (unmodded.)  And NFAS is actually MORE overpowered than it was previously.

 

If the intention was to move shotguns back into their niche of JG at point blank and CSG being somewhat range-capable, it was not achieved.  CSG still feels more or less useless compared to the JG with IR3.  And Somehow, now the NFAS is actually equally as viable with CJ3 as it is with IR3.  Doesn't feel like these changes hit the mark you guys were aiming for.

 

Stil waiting for District A to populate so it can be playtested.

[SkittyM 287]

37 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

From my playtesting, the changes that have been made in this district fall well short of their intention.  JG with IR3 still beats CSG with Ir3, Strife with IR3, and Shredder (unmodded.)  And NFAS is actually MORE overpowered than it was previously.

 

If the intention was to move shotguns back into their niche of JG at point blank and CSG being somewhat range-capable, it was not achieved.  CSG still feels more or less useless compared to the JG with IR3.  And Somehow, now the NFAS is actually equally as viable with CJ3 as it is with IR3.  Doesn't feel like these changes hit the mark you guys were aiming for.

 

Stil waiting for District A to populate so it can be playtested.

That's a rather odd statement since the current B testing going on in Jericho denotes that the CSG is top dog.

[DonBlack 59]

just leave it as it is 

[Iazer 204]

Right, so this isn't going to be too long as I only had 4 shotguns to choose from: CSG, JG, DOW, Strife (Yes I am aware I could have bought an NFAS) remainders are influenced by others using them.

 

Prototype A:

 

CSG:

I like the state of the CSG in live more than I do in the test district as other shotguns other than the Shredder dominate the shotgun scene on range.

 

JG:

The state of the JG in this district in my mind is perfect, it fits the shotgun category perfectly being the CQC weapon that can only be used in close quarters.

 

NFAS:

The state of this weapon in this district is almost there for how it performs, in my mind it still fires a little too fast considering how many pellets you have to hit (considering how many it puts out effecting performance of the game)

 

Strife:

The strife in here feels like the same out of place shotgun that it did years ago. It has little to no range and has an appalling fire rate making everything better than it so a slight fire rate increase would be nice to see.

 

Shredder:

The shredder in here is more on the CSGs territory and the SMGs with its ability to auto-fire with its high amount of pellet output and ~20m 3 shot. This I feel could do with a similar change to the CSG with a slight decrease in range to the overall range.

 

Dow 'Thumper':

This weapon I feel is in a fine state, it has a decent fire-rate and a range that I would say is fine for a shotgun being just ~12m.

 

Prototype B:

 

CSG:

The CSG in here feels awful to use with its slow fire-rate and overall I don't feel would work well within actual gameplay.

 

JG:

It is a similar story for the JG here as the upped fire-rate on the weapon doesn't seem to be that big of an advantage but the damage output of the weapon is still too high to be something that wouldn't get complained about.

 

NFAS:

This is way to powerful in B, even more powerful than live I feel so definitely should NOT be put to live!!

 

Strife:

The strife in here yet again has the feeling of no mans land where it isn't good and doesn't really beat out anything in its class.

 

Shredder:

The shredder in here feels worse than on A and I think it would just be best to stick with what I have mentioned under 'A' for the shredder.

 

Dow 'Thumper':

The DOW feels like it has a bit too much range here but other than that I feel like it would be fine in standard gameplay.

 

 

 

Extra Note: OBIR QS Nerf application when? (After the switching to nades then to the secondary exploit to stop the switching timer is fixed)

Edited January 29, 2020 by Iazer

[kalipsis 5]

After some testing can say, I prefer the jg in a over b and live.

The csg changes i dont like, the csg still gets dominated by the others. I feel like the live csg is in the perfect spot.

also lets just say you shoulve kept the fire rate of live for nfas as it feels like it still dominates all shotguns if not even more than before.
 

[vsb 6171]

23 minutes ago, Iazer said:

Extra Note: OBIR QS Nerf application when? (After the switching to nades then to the secondary exploit to stop the switching timer is fixed)

never hopefully

[Iazer 204]

54 minutes ago, Solamente said:

never hopefully

They already have a planned fix for the OBIRs ability to reverse quick switch so it will be gone eventually just have to fix one little exploit first then it will be gone 

[vsb 6171]

5 minutes ago, Iazer said:

They already have a planned fix for the OBIRs ability to reverse quick switch so it will be gone eventually just have to fix one little exploit first then it will be gone 

i think orbit is plenty aware of how poorly implemented the bolt timer is, which is why its remained in test districts for months now - there are better ways to limit obir qs (which doesn't even need to be limited imo) than a clunky mechanic

 

 

[CommandantSteele 52]

I don't personally like shortening the range on shotguns, especially since people keep wanting to rework Improved Rifling. The main reason I don't like this is that it feels like it'll push shotguns into too binary of a play style in that all they "can" do is just hide behind corners/hide behind cover and abuse lean/crouch/movement to make themselves vulnerable for 0.2 seconds while they attack.

 

Additionally, I don't really like nerfing the damage on shotguns because having shotguns be three shots to kill feels like it would just render them totally useless. Or, if you buffed their rate of fire to allow them to get shots off quicker as compensation for having to hit more shots, they would totally eclipse SMG's in CQC engagements.

 

Personally, I'd like to address Cooling Jacket's downside to shotguns while we're trying to get them figured out and then maybe we can get shotguns figured out a bit better. As it stands the only red mod ever used on Shotguns is Improved Rifling 3 because Improved Rifling has no downside for use on a shotgun. Heavy Barrel is never used on them because the reduction in damage comes with no benefit, and Cooling Jacket isn't used because the increased spread usually means that you just cannot get enough pellets on target to make your shots count.

 

Thus, I would like to propose changing the downside of Cooling Jacket to affect the minimum accuracy and spread of automatic shotguns and not affect the spread/accuracy of pump shotguns. Thus you open up pump shotguns into new ways of being configured: If you slot Improved Rifling, you have a slower TTK but better range to work with so you are not entirely dependent on being in "hugging range" but if you equip Cooling Jacket instead you opt for more speed and a faster TTK in exchange for having to be within that "hugging" range and forcing you to not use cover and corner-pop as much.

 

The other thing I'm worried about is making pump shotguns into 3 STK weapons. I could see making the CSG, with it's improved range, a 3 STK weapon, but the JG feels like it needs to be a two shot in order to not just be totally eclipsed by the CSG having better range while still being two shots.

 

As for the Strife... I'd really like to see it reworked into a double barrel, and to be honest it continually being a gun in a weird place feels like it needs it.

[foolish ninja 59]

revert changes to g1 shotguns

[SkittyM 287]

4 hours ago, Iazer said:

Prototype A:

Strife:

The strife in here feels like the same out of place shotgun that it did years ago. It has little to no range and has an appalling fire rate making everything better than it so a slight fire rate increase would be nice to see.

 

Prototype B:

Strife:

The strife in here yet again has the feeling of no mans land where it isn't good and doesn't really beat out anything in its class.

Really the only thing i have to disagree with.  The SG-21 'Strife' is NOT meant to be a competitive weapon.  Its a clunky high risk/reward shotgun that's rather fun to use when you learn to not care.

 

The Test A SG-21 is worse than the B variant since A only does 750 something per shot.  Though what you mean about range, the SG-21 originally had damage so high it beat even the CSG at 20m.  In actual combat however the CSG wins only because it can shoot so fast.