Balance Is the Shottie too OP for its price?

[des1206]

- For only $100, runs faster than rifleman and officer, has 60hp/60armor.

 

- Really good DPS vs MCTs, only behind Shockies and Flamers (just by a couple of seconds for the latter) in the whole game.

 

- Damage vs. vehicles is actually pretty good too.

 

- Primary's overall range is actually not that bad and effective and medium distance. Sergeant's alt slug makes him actually great at distant fighting.

 

 

I get most all other infantry are significantly different/niche enough for the shotty to not overshadow their roles, but still for $100 this unit feels like a heck of a bargain. Does this unit need a price boost, or maybe a speed/health/range nerf? For the record in terms of bringing down a building from the inside I would love to see Soviets use more flamers and Allies bring a medic.

Edited August 29, 2016 by des1206

[Alstar]

Shotgun is a RNG weapon. You can stay far away and hit someone, you can get close to them and still not hit the wide side of the barn. About Serg's alt slug, you gotta be really lucky to hit with that. I dont see a problem with them.

 

 

 

For the record in terms of bringing down a building from the inside I would love to see Soviets use more flamers and Allies bring a medic

First wont gonna happen, since flamer would possibly kill himself with his shots. Allied teams with medics are already a thing on some maps.

[Einstein]

Right, the shottie is definitely a RNG weapon and also requires slightly more skill to use than other weapons like the flamer (for me at least). I definitely don't want to see a nerf on any of his current stats. He feels good. If anything...MAYBE a slight price bump. But even then I would say no more than 150-200 purchase price.

[Voe]

Shotties ale super strong. I've seen people with shotguns inside buildings taking on 5 or more enemies one after another and win. His power level is comparative to captain as of now I would say, with slightly more firepower and slightly less health. The RNG is its only downside, but if someone's lucky...

Right, the shottie is definitely a RNG weapon and also requires slightly more skill to use than other weapons like the flamer (for me at least). I definitely don't want to see a nerf on any of his current stats. He feels good. If anything...MAYBE a slight price bump. But even then I would say no more than 150-200 purchase price.

He feels good because he's super strong. How about removing 1 bullet out of his spray and see what happens?

[Pushwall]

He feels good because he's super strong. How about removing 1 bullet out of his spray and see what happens?

Removing 1 of his 8 pellets places his anti-MCT DPS 5% lower than that of captains and about 1% higher than that of kapitans, so in addition to the intended slight nerf against infantry, they wouldn't even have an edge in building destruction anymore. Keep in mind that they can't outrange defenses like a captain can. If you mean to also have his damage increased to match what it originally was with 8 pellets, less pellets = more RNG (unless you also have high accuracy i.e. slug). In Gamma they had 15 pellets so their accuracy was pretty reliable but I had to reduce it to 8 in testing due to issues with the sound engine.

 

I've really only noticed the "can kill armies in buildings easily" aspect with starshinas and their altfire; I'd like to hear some suggestions regarding that too.

For the primary I could reduce penetration vs infantry armour; this would make them less overpowering against combat infantry without making them any worse at assassinating technicians or wrecking buildings. Thing is I've adhered to a strict 12.5% tier system for inf armour potency, a change here would go from 62.5% penetration to 50%, which means a whopping 20% damage drop against non-techie/sniper infantry; this'd have to be balanced out by something else. Perhaps raising accuracy as well as the chance of inflicting burn damage (currently at 10% per pellet I think) to reduce the RNG aspect?

[devilslayersbane]

I think 8 pellets (#00 buck) is fine for the standard fire. I think the reason the Shotty is so effective is A: It's extremely easy to close the gap between you and your enemy and most people want to (whether you have a captain or sergeant). The only thing I see is that there's very little benefit to longer range firefights for most other infanty, as there's no ballistic simulation that carry's the rounds past the designated range. That being said, the Shotgun is supposed to be a an excellent short-range weapon and a damn good mid-range weapon. The Grenadier, flamethrower, and rifle soldier (alt-fire for soviets) should all have a decent chance against an allied sergeant. As for the Starshina, any medic-rifle/cap/sergeant/tanya combo should be more than enough to take on one or two of them. Nerfing their armor penetration removes makes it easier for them to be killed. I think that nerfing their heavy/light vehicle armor penetration would be fine.

[des1206]

I just did some testing:

 

Sergeant's slug shot is even better than officers when against medium tanks (kills it 3 secs faster) and also against building exterior (killed repair pad a few second faster). Of course, sergeant is better vs. MCT as well. At an effective range of 60 meters versus rifle's ~100m, it's pretty darn good. Don't forget also sergeant runs faster than both officer and rifles.

 

Shotgun vs MCT is actually BETTER than flame trooper vs MCT. I was wrong in my assumption before. This makes shotties the second best projectile infantry in the whole game to kill buildings. Flame trooper's saving grace is that he is better against vehicles vs. sergeant's slug, and he doesn't have to choose between damaging the MCT vs fighting off defenders when inside a building. Is there anyway we can make flamer do less splash damage to himself?

Edited August 30, 2016 by des1206

[Raptor29aa]

The shot gunner should be adjusted based on alligence NOt Overall.

Allied shottie secondary was meant to kill Tanks, not buildings (or snipe, lol). (8 in 1 hitting MCT across the room, lol) EDIT: and flame soldiers/ shock troopers since they where almost unstoppable.

EDIT #2 Single slug secondary kills flame towers quickly, if you have adequate cover.

Soviet shottie secondary was meant to kill Tanyas, not clear out allied buildings (which used the flame soldier's job, lol).

The primary fire of both infantry are fine as is. (As in need to stand close to MCT to get all 8 to hit)

Possible Solution:

Allied shotgunner: make secondary less building effective? So allied shottie has to be near the MCT.

Soviet shotgunner: no idea (it's an anti Tanya secondary it has to be infantry effective)

Primary fire... No idea maybe less building damage

Edited August 30, 2016 by Raptor29aa

[JigglyJie]

For the things this unit can do at this price? Yes. Decent anti-vehicle? Yep. Excellent anti-infantry? Yep. Speedy as well as have extra health and armour? Yep. Great anti-structure? Sure. He can even deal do decent damage to aircraft. Granted he can't do much about defences but that is minor. The point is, this unit is a bit too cheap for all the things he is capable of doing.

[Voe]

Making him more expensive is not the answer. Look at the grenadier - he was upped from 160 to 500 and he's still silly RNG overpowered.

[des1206]

Drop HP/Armor down to 50/50, nerf the Sergeant slug damage vs. vehicles and building exteriors so it's on par with the Officer, also nerf slug effective range.

[Pushwall]

nerf the Sergeant slug damage vs. vehicles and building exteriors so it's on par with the Officer

 

Slug is already way inferior to the Officer when it comes to shooting exteriors. So if you want the slug to do 63% more damage to exteriors, I can totally do that

[Pushwall]

Unless you mean defenses which are a completely different thing to building exteriors.

[des1206]

Unless you mean defenses which are a completely different thing to building exteriors.

Just tested it out again. It took 59 seconds for the slug to kill silo, officer took 64 seconds to kill silo.

[Pushwall]

Silos don't have interiors, of course they take damage like a defense or it'd be near impossible for any smallarms (sans rangers/hinds) to take them out. Try an actual building exterior.

[Pushwall]

Helipads are actual buildings, but yeah the rest are all "vehicles" which is why you don't need to kill them to win by base destruction. That doesn't stop them from having whatever damage resistances you want though, I could easily make ore silos take the same damage as an MCT or building exterior if I wanted, but neither of those would be well balanced (to give an example, with MCT resistances an ore silo would die to 1 engineer C4, and with exterior resistances it'd take 7 engineer C4 to take out); defenses and things with its armour type are simply partway between an MCT/exterior when it comes to C4 and non-explosive damage.

[Nodlied]

Talking about helipads, it takes more than 2 engi C4 to kill them.

[ChopBam]

Same with silos afaik?

[FRAYDO]

They're fine as is, in my oh so humble opinion.

I'm with Mack on this one.

[Raptor29aa]

The shotgun single slug was to help the allies when they lose the barracks and the soviets decide to mammoth steamroll. Officers are laughable against a mammoth and its reneragtion rate. While a gang of shotgunners using slugs stands some chance against a single mammoth.

I don't think the vehicle damage should change.

But I do agree they kill FTs / silos quickly. (Hmmm...)

I firmly believe the secondaries are strictly for end game

(The Soviet shotgunner secondary is for when they lose the barracks and get flooded with Tanya.

Anyways I do have an idea the damage could be decreased 10% and the magazine could get 2 extra rounds, not sure if that would do much other than change the DPS.

[Voe]

Anyways I do have an idea the damage could be decreased 10% and the magazine could get 2 extra rounds, not sure if that would do much other than change the DPS.

Then you effectively increase the damage from 8*x to 10*0.9x

[Pushwall]

I'm thinking of just increasing the shotgun's reload time a tad. Say, by 0.33 seconds. This would give a very marginal decrease to DPS (about 3%, so he'll still be on top when it comes to wrecking buildings) but more importantly make him easier to overwhelm by groups or time, like with Volkov.

[Pushwall]

Also as a side-effect of some economical changes, buying a sergeant at the start of the game will mean you won't have enough money for a medium/heavy on first dump (unless you get enough damage credits to compensate for the sergeant's cost) for all maps, not just the ones with fast dumps.

[Einstein]

Thats Oh-Pee

[des1206]

Does anyone still use the flamer? I feel he's overshadowed a lot by other units in the game. For inside buildings, the shotty has higher health, is cheaper, moves faster, has no splash and kills MCT faster. For outside buildings, the RS is better vs. vehicles and buildings than him.

[FRAYDO]

I feel the flamer still gets good use. Who needs to aim when you have splash damage?

[des1206]

I guess the flamer is one of those all-around, jack of all trades but master of none units. He's pretty decent against vehicles and building exterior, but not as good as rocket soldiers, pretty decent against MCTs and in close quarter combat, but not as good as Starshinas, pretty decent mid range anti-infantry unit, but not as good as officers. But given his slow speed, maybe up his health/armor a bit to help with survivability?

Edited September 17, 2016 by des1206

[des1206]

To help out the flamer, can we make it so that infantry suffering burn damage get reduced accuracy?

 

 

[Pushwall]

Know who else inflicts burn damage? The apparently OP sergeant.

 

Also not possible since the guy who did the "stuff that causes accuracy penalties" code is gone.

[ChopBam]

Can burning people still not place flares? Is that "intentional" now? I wonder if it's at all possible to stop burn damage from taking place when a player walks on "underwater" material.