Set CoF to 0.0+movement penalty Set pellet spread to = the other MAXes' CoF by weapon type (e.g. Hacksaws/Grinders ~= 2.0, Mattocks ~=1.0) Reduce max damage/tweak RoF to equalize TTK with VS/TR MAX weapons. Raise min damage to be in line with other empires. Raise mag capacity to balance kills/minute with other empires. Ta daaaaaaaa. Now instead of filling a CoF of X at Y RPM, you fill it with six pellets at Y/6 RPM (or something). The NC MAX would have an alpha damage advantage, but it would have a RoF disadvantage. And the alpha wouldn't be too important anyway because it wouldn't be one-shotting people and MAXes can't really peek anyway. Or tweak it slightly to compensate. Whatever. Double shotguns are OP because they instakill softies and because they're easy to use at the ranges where they're effective with the aiming crutch of wide pellet spread. Narrowing the pellet spread means more effectiveness at range but more skill is required as well, and removing instakill removes instakill. Or just, you know, nerf TR and VS MAXes too. They're all OP farming equipment anyhow. ...Shotguns are dumb.
Reduce damage to 5 pellets 50 damage at 10 meters, maybe 4 pellets, increase rof and ammo ammount, reduce pellet spread a bit. Oh and then fix headshot damage ratio to x2. Yeah heavy damage weapon it would be then. But rather have gauss tech hands.
Honestly anything's better than OHK shotguns that have to be nerfed more and more at doing anything other than OHKing infantry at <10m so they can retain that specific power. Why is that so damn important to the devs at the expense of literally everything else?
NC MAX shotguns are fine. When you consider their limited range they aren't as useful as the TR's AI weapons. I much prefer the Mutilators to any of the NC's shotguns because you have the option of range, something which isn't much of an option to an NC MAX, because of spread and damage drop off. The TR get AI weapons that aren't as powerful per shot but that is balanced by the fact they are useful over different ranges instead of only when you are within man hugging range. The VS get god mode so they are more than fine as it is
YES, THAT'S THE POINT Once one graduates from FPS preschool, shotguns start to suck compared to autos except in their very limited niche (or if they're totally overpowered). NC MAXes are both great and horrible because of this. Can't they just be.. good?
At this point I'm just hoping they scrap shotgun weapons for NC AI MAXs completely. Once they abandoned the choked modes of PS1 it was always doomed to failure, and they seem utterly intent on nerfing them into the ground as it's impossible to balance shotgun and LMGs together for MAXs. Give the NC AI MAXs a comparable (to TR and VS) gauss style set of weapons.
The point we're trying to get across is, that we don't want shotguns, but if we have to, at least we're asking them to be remade somehow to be comparable with other factions. With amount of crying about this game, sadly, there is no chance in hell we're getting 3 unique factions, but 3 factions with more of their flavor and a bit of other faction flavor.
The PS1 ScatMAX didn't instakill either; far from it, though its close range TTK was still low for Planetside. It's like they forgot all those lessons. And WTB chokes. Apparently the three different barrels on our current MAXes are just weird, vestigal appendages...
Yep it was well balanced IMO, a minor advantage at close range, but capable at longer (or at least medium ranges too).
Anything's better than our current state, where dual Bursters are our best mid-range AI. Oh, and in my OP I meant to balance kills/*mag*, not kills/minute.
