Do shotguns need more effective range?

It's a shotgun, using RNG.
It's designed for closer-ranges, and hitting harder the closer the target is, due to the sheer number of projectiles.

When the thing has the range of a standard rifle, obviously the RNG will be hell.
Slugs while powerful, also make the shotgun less of a Close-range spread weapon, and more of a heavy-one-shot rifle.

So in short, how about we make them more effective at closer ranges, Less RNG prayer, rather than trying to extend a close-range weapon's range..

Na shotguns are fine. They own in close if you got aim and timing. It's what their meant for not long range farming.

If you give Shotguns more range they impede on SMGs.
Just like you cant give SMGs more range without moving into Carbine territory.
At least thats the general idea with balance (range wise) of the Shotgun/SMG/Carbine weapon classes.

NO!
some people (not to name anyone but there were some very vocal proponents) wanting more range was the reason shotguns are now pretty dreadful at what they are supposed to be doing, dominating things in qcq.
DBG decided to listen to these vocal folks and make shotguns far weaker at their intended role,
but as compensation they made ADSing let you tickle people from across a room...great...

it now takes 10 of the 12 pellets to get a two shot kill (against a non-nanoweave, non-shielded target),
it used to be 8, if even 3 pellets miss now you're looking at a 3 shot kill,
in which case your TTK is worse than pretty much any primary in the game,
at the range shotguns should be dominating...you'd be better off hipfiring an LMG.

side note, one of the most vocal proponents of ruining shotguns to give them more range seems to have stopped using them now that his mission is accomplished, thanks Iri...whoops, no names!

sorry if that got rantish, but we've already had shotguns ruined by folks wanting more range,
we don't need them to be made even worse!
use a carbine/smg if you want range flexibility,
you're probably better off for CQC with SMG/carbine anyway sadly, shotguns are pretty dreadful at the moment.

what shotguns need is absolutely NO range, they need to be the monsters of CQC,
it shouldn't be left to the RNG gods with fairly bad odds that you'll win against a guy with an LMG.

As one of the vocal proponents, I have to interject that the purpose was increasing shotgun range without nerfing its cqc capability.
Personally I even vouched for increasing the versatility. Allowing players to swap to slugs by ADS'ing or a simple fire-mode switch, giving shotguns the versatility at range but not dominating range.

The biggest problem is that players are hypocrites. If you pick a CQC LMG or Carbine no one complains if you won a CQC battle with it, thats just using the weapon at an appropriate range. But when you pick a shotgun, which massively handicaps you outside of effective range, its suddenly unfair? Yeah its unfair! A CQC Carbine can still be used somewhat effectively outside of its effective range and can achieve the "OHK" feeling of a shotgun by killing you before the first hitmarker arrives, but it can do so from longer range, with more consistency and easier reward for aim.

it was the definitive king of CQC weapons, it was utterly useless at range and that was fine, because by using it you opted to play in an aggressive style, pushing in, ambushing etc, if you were caught in the open you died, but if you could reach your target then you'd (usually) get the kill, that to me was perfect balance.

it was obvious that DBG were never going to simply increase their range,
you can't have something that blows people away in CQC getting ranged potential without consequences.

i'm not sure why people felt the need to change it,
if you were wanting flexibility then you shouldn't have been using a shotgun, shotguns had one role and they did it well.
we already had weapons that were almost as good as shotguns in CQC but viable at much longer ranges, SMGs.
i'll never understand why you folks didn't just use an SMG?!
now i'm left using an SMG because you broke my shotguns!

Shotguns barely outperformed Carbines, and it was (is) easy to get shafted by RNG causing you to get outperformed by Carbines and other CQC weapons. Paradoxically shotguns require picture-perfect aim to get enough hits on target compared to "hold trigger and look at opponent" automatic weapons.
SMG's and Shotguns both are CQC weapons. Both have different roles to play, but that doesnt mean they cant both be versatile.

I use both the Uppercut and the Barrage. They're fine leave them alone.

shotguns weren't versatile, nor should they be, as i said previously, they had one job and they did it well,
if you wanted something more versatile you should use an SMG/carbine.

The only thing I would change is the firing sound slugged shotguns make. Currently, there's no way to identify a slug/buckshot shotgun user until he shoots you. A sound give-away that tells me what I'm up against would be nice instead of trying to out-range slug users that still maul you at mid-range with their pseudo semi-automatic snipers.

"I hope he shoots at my allies first?"

This is another example of missing combined arms principles.

Squads are made up of shotguns and rifles. Shotguns for the close work, or where alpha damage is needed (blowing handles off doors, Fire For Effect, etc), and rifles for long work.

The weapons don't need to be changed. The way players think about the weapons needs to be changed.

Cant you:


Tempest

Custom-built for Sigma Squad's infamous Hossin Rebirth mission, the unique Tempest SMG performs similar as a carbine at long distances.
http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Tempest

Shotguns should have been one of the most versatile weapons in the game, capable of carrying the most types of ammunition and being configurable in the most ways possible.
They had one job and they did it reasonably well, but not as well as you might expect when compared to other weapons. Their drawbacks were too great.

Also if you want to point the finger at anyone, point it at all the hypocritical people who hated shotguns, creating a stigma that shotguns are supposedly noob weapons that require no skill to operate even though shotguns require a much higher skill of SA and being able to predict/play your enemy, and even at the top of your game shotguns are heavily RNG/luck based. It's not just having pellets hit your target, it's also about calculated risk of when and where enemies will be and look and how fast you can approach them before they look in your direction again or someone else happens to approach you.

No, as mentioned a lot of times, shotguns are meant for up close fights, and due to their long before time and randomness​, they will never be viable at range. Shotguns however would need a buff in come of fire, for those of you that understand shotgun mechanics you'll know why. I would also like to see the laser sight actually do something other than revealing your position and being a waste of certs.

I'm going to say don't quote me on this but wrel mentioned the possibility of making laser sights function differently on the NSX submachine gun and possibly shotguns, namely that hopefully when placed on a shotgun, not only do they "lower the cone of fire" but also lower the pellet spread size, in this particular video:

at 45 seconds in


That said... this is subject to the whim of the devs... which isn't exactly stable.

Lies. Tempest is garbage at range compared to a decent non-CQC carbine.

LOL never said it worked, just that it was the balance intent
It was just a joke anyways, nvm.

Laser sights have nothing to do with the way pellets travel out of a shotgun barrel.

I had a Remington 870 once. Great gun. At 25 yards, the spread was not effective for dealing alpha-type damage.