*please read this all before making any form of comment, and if i did any calcs wrong please say so in a friendly manner, but according to balance.txt and the damage sim, they are indeed correct, thanks in advanced*
I've got a very vanilla opinion here but I think the SG is just fine. sure it's powerful in the right hands, but if it were overpowered, then a comm dropping his team 8 shotguns would be GG.
I'm not much of a 'twitch' alien. my bhopping sucks and I've never been that excellent at knowing what angles to run at a marine w/o getting mown down. the games I actually come out of with a good score are the games I use stealth, which is the biggest counter to SGs imo. running headlong at a sg marine and getting blasted in the face is not frustrating, it's stupid. falling on his head or decloaking next to him or setting up an ambush = smart. the end.
as for the hive killing ability - sg rushing a hive is a beautiful thing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. :p the fun of being part of a rush definitely beats the annoyance of being an alien and watching the hive disappear in 5 seconds, IMO.
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what? you just contradicted yourself there. if its overpowered..8=gg.. then you say 5 second hive rushes are perfectly fine? yet thats 80 res for a <5 second instant win. not to mention it can kill EVERY SINGLE LIFEFORM EXCEPT ONOS IN ONE CLIP, CARA OR NOT, AT ANY WEAPON LEVEL(against 1 hive, but seriously, how hard is it to have sgs against 1 hive aliens with them dropping hives in a stupidly overpowered amount of time?)
in all honesty, you can't call shotguns balanced. you can say you like it as is sure, but it is impossible to argue it is balanced in any way shape or form. i already see the: BUT HOLY, IF A FADE CANT KILL A MARINE IN 5.2 SECONDS THE FADE SHOULD DIE ANYWAY! but bob, if theres >1 shotgunner, the time gets multiplied significantly. level 0 shotgun, 4 shots. 4 marines, 4 sgs, dead fade. 40 > 50 res, instant death. or lerks! they barely live through a good sg shot(with cara, instant death at l1 weapons, especially with a pistol hit) skulks never ever live through a sg shot unless some bad luck happens, due to the lesser hitboxes/various issues with their hitboxes.
as well, sgs are close range. every alien is basically a melee unit, you can't realistically expect any of them to fight off a marine at range(gorges spit.. but i doubt a gorge is going to solo a sg rush anytime ever) as well, as i've stated various times, a shotgun clip soloes mostly every lifeform except onos at hive1. as well, marines get ranged weaponry to top this all off, so they can hit close with a shotgun then the hmg/lmg can finish off the lifeform as it attempts to escape.
my main concern is not that this happens every single game, i'm not saying it will. i'm saying that it is POSSIBLE. as you may have guessed by now, i really hate shotguns. hive drops in the following # of pellets, in order of upgrade(0-3); 412,375,344,317. thats 41 hits, 37 hits, 34 hits, 32 hits. random extra pellets not really mattering, its a hive, if you miss it...yea. so lets do some math rq. 41 hits.. 8 shots per marine.. 8 16 24 32 40. 5 marines, hive has no health left, pistol, knife, tk, anything, its dead. that takes about.. 11.7 seconds. at level 0 weapons. so 50 res, 12 second dead hive. thats usually not enough time for aliens to arrive and change the situation at all =/ marines get beacon and phasegates, and the ability to relocate on the fly. aliens get.. 3 preset hive locations. so basically they really lack the kind of counter for a shotgun rush that is needed, unless they spend a stupid amount of res on OCs, which may give some reaction time, sure. but as upgrades increase: about same time for level 1, but does go down quicker with a team of 5, level 2 gives it 34 hits basically, so 40 res of shotguns and a lmg+pistol can take it down in 12 seconds. level 3.. 32 hits, 4 sgs indefintly take it down in 11 seconds.
now i'm sure someone will also come up with the arguement that you need to add upgrade costs to the cost of the rush, and phasegates, etc. well if you think for a moment, if you DIDN'T get those things, could you win WITHOUT shotguns? no. those are basically required, they just amplify the overpowered-ness that shotguns have. 30 res bacon+pg, say 50 res for shotguns, dead hive before aliens can react, and in other servers where structure distractions are okay, throw another 20 in to distract ocs with a CC, 0 reaction time <12 second dead hive.
okay summary is this: shotguns are blatantly overpowered with all of the things marines get. we've all seen it, we know how it goes. the only fix is that sg's get removed totally, there are no other realistic fixes. maybe nerf the damage per pellet, which would also be another option, but i'd prefer something to add a new flavor rather than just nerfing sgs into the ground, something maybe SOLELY anti structure(does crap vs lifeforms by itself) so marines get their "early game structure counter". i don't know, i'm not the best at thinking up ideas for things like that. all i know is sg's are completly overpowered, end of story.
a note: hive2 barely, barely improves any lifeforms aside fade, which gets an average of 4-7 extra pellet hits, one more shot basically. ns is balanced for 6v6, so 5 marines hitting a fade at the same time with a sg shouldn't be impossible, especially since the next patch requires "more marine teamwork"(they should be more likely to be together)
secondary note: presumably, hive3 being up and active usually spells doom for aliens, but if marines have the res for a jetpack shotgun rush, you can kiss all the hives goodbye in about 2 minutes tops, with 0 ocs. most likely there would be, but again, for most situations where you can structure distract, they will not matter enough.
edit, as a 3rd note(lol); you have to also realize this, killing aliens IS NOT THE GOAL OF THE MARINES. IT IS KILLING THE HIVES. the aliens DO NOT HAVE TO BE DEAD TO KILL THE HIVE. most people don't seem to get that.
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/me hugs HD :D
Another point I like to bring into this is comparing it to the alien equivlent of a shotgun rush. What structure has above-all importance to marines? The CC. If marines have no CC it is probably a 0.03% chance of winning, and only then if they are fully teched up and suited out about to kill one of two hives.
So how can you kill the CC in under 12 seconds? Five onos. That is 375 res for just the lifeform, just as the 50-80 res for shotguns counts the weapon only, not other tech. On top of this, good luck getting 5 onos to marine start and through the obsticle course of structures to the CC unnoticed.
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probably faster with a bunch of onos, with adren, and cara, and hive3, all charing the cc while goring it, with no marines knifing them(current patch) to move them, and they survive till it dies, and teh commander doesn't have the res for a new cc.
as for upgrades, a direct arguement i had against it is this: if they affected JUST THE SHOTGUN then you could throw the upgrade arguement around, but they don't, so no.
edit:
wanted to comment on legion's statement,
i have wanted damage types ever since i thought about that, so yea i like the idea. setting damage vs armor types for EVERY SINGLE WEAPON would make it SO MUCH EASIER to balance. but i've always wondered if its possible in HL
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the HMG kill any lifeform in one clip as well?
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yes, but it can't drop a hive like shotguns can, and it requires 3 minutes of tech in a specific location, can't just drop an armory anywhere then drop hmgs. as well, kill the advanced armory, no more hmgs. shotguns are a beginning tech, however, so thats not a realistic argument. it would take 6 level 0 hmgs to drop a hive with a full clip, thats a lot longer than it takes level 0 shotguns, and only 5 shotguns(and some pistol to finish it, but still, faster than hmgs) to do it.
edit;
sure, sensory, especially in b6, helps a ton to counter this. but its not really fair when they are trying to open the chamber order to more possiblities to basically require aliens to get sensory first. if they don't, its basically pretty easy for a marine to sneak a pg up and beacon then dead hive.
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should be sufficient enough, with the quotes :o
I think one thing that should make it somewhat obvious shotguns are overpowered is when the commander suits up the entire team with HA/shotty, even though he has plenty of res for HMGs with a couple GLs.[snapback]34088[/snapback]
Then that is a bad commander. HMGs are better than shotguns against every alien lifeform.
The shotgun is a transition gun for when Fades begin to be a problem. They are still higly inneffective in the hands of many players.
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see? The game comes down to fades vs shottie battles.
"ogm! nerf shotties!"
"no, we need them to fend off fades!"
"wth! fades are overpowered!"
"what a nub. Aliens would get completely owned if it werent for fades."
most good clans make sure hmgs are ready by at least 5:00 minutes, they are incredibly important.
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They aren't quite as much a threat to hives however... which is the heart of the issue people have with shotguns...
I think the issue with how quickly shotguns kill hives would be resolved if hives could sense nearby marines. Just a warning like a flashing yellow hive plus "the enemy approaches" would be enough.
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Quoted for genius.
Would have to be 2 or more marines though, ninja is a staple of NS gameplay.
I think the issue with how quickly shotguns kill hives would be resolved if hives could sense nearby marines. Just a warning like a flashing yellow hive plus "the enemy approaches" would be enough.
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Quoted for genius.
Would have to be 2 or more marines though, ninja is a staple of NS gameplay.
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Umm... legion... that defeats the whole purpose of having the hive notice. The problem IS the single ninja into a hive which allows the hive to be shotgunned in an instant.