Are shotguns too hard to counter attack? [Poll]

[Avalanchee]

Naked marines & Light armor should act like a runner. Medium armor should act like a defender or warrior, and heavy armor is like a crusher. The movement speed also reflects this pretty well IMO.

yeah but this game is based on an asymetric conflict.

[DekoToast]

Your arguement would be valid if marines fought at peak efficiency even while injured, like aliens do. But they become useless after two slashes so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Exactly, marines dont last well under pressure. After the 1st few hits, you have a shaky, stammering, slow, easy target for ambush xenos. Xenos are in full murder-mode until they go into crit. Additionally, it is far easier to heal a xeno than it is a marine, as xenos cannot be de-limbed, have their bones broken, and suffer organ damage, even besides the fact that xenos can be healed by just standing still a short distance from the front lines.

[Gwuhja]

after about 3 rounds playing a shotgun, magharn bayo agrip

rocco, do you know what you're talking about?

i havent stunned any t3 with my shotgun, ive gotten the pb message and everything, but no stun, so ravager just clicks me 3 times and i fall over from paincrit, or prae acid spits and insta-stuns me, or croosher crooshes behind a wall for 2 seconds and is fully healed the moment they come out yesimexaggeratingitstobefunny

i cant "easily 1v1 t3s" like this thread has been saying so, and i shouldnt be able to they're fucking t3s
ravager can click on me once and i drop my shotgun from paincrit a second later
prae can spit/punch/impale/whatever praes do and im knocked down and dead after 4 slashes
boiler can acid and im knocked down while they run behind a resin door never to be seen again
crusher can slash me and stomp me, but most of the time they just croosh away behind a resin door and-you get my point

but as a medic i can say

ive seen 10% of the lurkers and runners i used to see
if they try to jump me, i pb them, click a few times to melee hit, and they're gone, and thats how it should be, they failed their fucking ambush they shouldn't be able to run behind a rock spamming QUEEN HEAL PLEASE every 3 seconds into hivemind

but as some other people said on this thread
fighting ranged sisters is a pain in the fucking ass
boiler nae naes all over you with acid if you dont flank
spitter does their thing and neuros you three times and you fall on your ass
sentinel airburst neuro does the same thing but for the other two ungas with you
queen knocks you on your ass with one, no exceptions, but im fine with that its the fucking queen

anyways, im getting a bit sidetracked
its not this all or nothing god tier weapon guaranteeing 100% marine winrate if they all rocked magharn agrip bc bs shotty, but it is one of the very few weapons that can actually tackle xenos with it's super sexy stun and damage, preventing them from getting away with everything by just pouncing onto some weeds and lying down next to a drone with recovery pheros

[Ausrine]

The super sexy stun you say you couldn't pull off? Urgh, what is your point?

One moment you seem to be saying the shotgun is weak and cannot do anything against higher tiers or any ranged aliens. Then you finish up by saying the shotgun isn't good tier but it is really effective and can absolutely delete ambush castes as well as do damage and stun.

So you're saying it's well balanced? Wow.

"It does nothing against tier 3s but instantly deletes anything else. It's great!"

Yes. Thank you for that insight Gwuhja. Really fucking useful. It's just like a rocket then? They instantly delete anything but the queen. Wow.

[Rocco Ward]

I witnessed a young queen get stunned from buckshot. I have also witnessed a young rav get stunned by shocked doors and die in 1 PB. (that young rav was me, hurp durp) The stuns may be based on maturity.

This is the bottom line. Devs already made xenos evo faster, gave them more larva, boosted their T2 & T3 slots, and marines are still steamrolling most rounds. Again, without the queen's screech or boilers gas spam, marines would have a 95% winrate. Look at how many rounds a queen has to deovi and nae nae the marines with her screech. ITS. EVERY. ROUND.

This has nothing to do with GITTING GUD, or strategy, or individual skill, it's the raw damage output of the weapon being super OP against ALL CASTES in the game. People keep nitpicking about spitters & praes, but that's like me pointing out BUT BUT MARINE SIDE HAS RESEARCHERS WITH OP GRENADES, OMG, NERF EVERYTHING. Ranged castes are NEVER the majority for xeno side. Ranged xenos already have SUPER OBVIOUS WEAKNESS, aka speed, which can be countered quite easily. The reason for marines dominating is because BUCKSHOT is more effective at killing xenos than any other weapon in the game, including spec weapons. There really isn't a counterbalance because it has no weakness even against ranged castes, because marines can outrun boilers/spitters/sentinels.

I would love to see the game architects post a spreadsheet of the game data. It wouldn't have to be raw numbers but it would be nice to see how many attacks it takes to kill someone with something. How many HEDP does it take to kill a defender? How many slashes does it take to kill a marine in heavy armor as a lurker? You would have to generalize weapons and maturity down to one set of conditions. (all weapons have no attachments, maturity for xenos is based on being mature, etc.) That way people (myself included) could stop making educated guesses on stats and be more informed. We would all have universal access to game balance data. Or when players (cough marine mains cough) claim that it takes dozens of PBs to down a crusher when in reality its around 6 PBs before GG.

Anyway back to buckshot discussion.

I think buckshot needs a severe weakness. That weakness should be armor. Any kind of armored caste should be almost immune to buckshot just like ravagers are to fire. This would be a big change, and I think you would need to remove the Queen's screech ability and nerf boiler gas, which I think is a good thing. Also you would need to make other ammo types more effective vs armored castes. I still think buckshot being able to delete ambushing lurkers/runners should be a thing. However vs a defender or warrior, they should be fucked.

Xeno defense mechanics boils down to three things: Armor - Evasion/Speed - Ranged Ability

In the current meta, buckshot beats all the defense mechanics without a problem. That is the issue.

[Gwuhja]

The super sexy stun you say you couldn't pull off? Urgh, what is your point?

One moment you seem to be saying the shotgun is weak and cannot do anything against higher tiers or any ranged aliens. Then you finish up by saying the shotgun isn't good tier but it is really effective and can absolutely delete ambush castes as well as do damage and stun.

So you're saying it's well balanced? Wow.

"It does nothing against tier 3s but instantly deletes anything else. It's great!"

Yes. Thank you for that insight Gwuhja. Really fucking useful. It's just like a rocket then? They instantly delete anything but the queen. Wow.

what im saying is that the shottie isnt this completely uncounterable force that benos have been saying it is, but its not exactly weak either
i thought that was clear? guess i didnt word it well enough

edit: also, no it doesnt? ambush castes arent 99% of benos
warriors can still one shot lunge me, spitters and sents can do their thing, heck, even burrower can stomp
and thay turns me into an easy cap
which means more ayys

[Gwuhja]

I witnessed a young queen get stunned from buckshot. I have also witnessed a young rav get stunned by shocked doors and die in 1 PB. (that young rav was me, hurp durp) The stuns may be based on maturity.

This is the bottom line. Devs already made xenos evo faster, gave them more larva, boosted their T2 & T3 slots, and marines are still steamrolling most rounds. Again, without the queen's screech or boilers gas spam, marines would have a 95% winrate. Look at how many rounds a queen has to deovi and nae nae the marines with her screech. ITS. EVERY. ROUND.

This has nothing to do with GITTING GUD, or strategy, or individual skill, it's the raw damage output of the weapon being super OP against ALL CASTES in the game. People keep nitpicking about spitters & praes, but that's like me pointing out BUT BUT MARINE SIDE HAS RESEARCHERS WITH OP GRENADES, OMG, NERF EVERYTHING. Ranged castes are NEVER the majority for xeno side. Ranged xenos already have SUPER OBVIOUS WEAKNESS, aka speed, which can be countered quite easily. The reason for marines dominating is because BUCKSHOT is more effective at killing xenos than any other weapon in the game, including spec weapons. There really isn't a counterbalance because it has no weakness even against ranged castes, because marines can outrun boilers/spitters/sentinels.

I would love to see the game architects post a spreadsheet of the game data. It wouldn't have to be raw numbers but it would be nice to see how many attacks it takes to kill someone with something. How many HEDP does it take to kill a defender? How many slashes does it take to kill a marine in heavy armor as a lurker? You would have to generalize weapons and maturity down to one set of conditions. (all weapons have no attachments, maturity for xenos is based on being mature, etc.) That way people (myself included) could stop making educated guesses on stats and be more informed. We would all have universal access to game balance data. Or when players (cough marine mains cough) claim that it takes dozens of PBs to down a crusher when in reality its around 6 PBs before GG.

Anyway back to buckshot discussion.

I think buckshot needs a severe weakness. That weakness should be armor. Any kind of armored caste should be almost immune to buckshot just like ravagers are to fire. This would be a big change, and I think you would need to remove the Queen's screech ability and nerf boiler gas, which I think is a good thing. Also you would need to make other ammo types more effective vs armored castes. I still think buckshot being able to delete ambushing lurkers/runners should be a thing. However vs a defender or warrior, they should be fucked.

Xeno defense mechanics boils down to three things: Armor - Evasion/Speed - Ranged Ability

In the current meta, buckshot beats all the defense mechanics without a problem. That is the issue.

so you're saying you'd give up queen screech and boiler gas if buckshot was nerfed and every other weapon was better?
hmm...i like that idea

[Rocco Ward]

I would nerf buckshot vs armored castes specifically. It would still be extremely lethal to ambush castes that have no armor.

[Ausrine]

I think that would be fair.

Remove queen screech (it's a clutch) and buff queen melee. Give her the praetorian ranged tail attack too. Remove boilers engine and replace them with a fast armoured caste that can run up to cades and directly splatter acid on them in less than a second (you can still counter with nades and massed fire and rockets). Let this caste keep the ground acid spit trail so it has some ranged like the spitter, which it evolves from. They're now the only dedicated ranged caste line with only the spitter truly spitting acid. Make alien melee stronger. Nerf buckshot versus armour, but buff all other marine ranged weapons and buff alien melee damage.

Adjust and rebalance from there.

Oh - and buff the APC gun damage.

[xenofood]

...but buff all other marine ranged weapons.

That's what it all hinges on, really. The only real reason why buckshot is so popular. You can have five marines all firing M41As at something, but as long as that something can just duck behind a corner and heal up, buckshot will always reign supreme, because there is no way to slowly whittle a xeno down (unless it's cornered or you overwhelm it), you have to deal a large burst of damage before it runs away.

Shotgun gives you a chance to stun a xeno, or crit it, preventing it from running away. M41A for example, you can have a xeno run up to you, you and your marine buddies open fire at it, hit multiple times until it's bleeding with sizzling wounds, but without any stun or slowdown it just runs away before someone can finish it, and the whole thing was just waste of ammo.