Shotguns and elitists

Are you implying MAXes are underpowered because they don't get overshields, secondary weapons, medkits and can't adad spam as well as regular classes?

Because that would be the ******* height of stupidity in an already massively stupid thread.

The classic "My way isn't bad because I play that way."

A fine place to stand and I do not begrudge you your style of fun, but the point remains. Shotguns replace skill with circumstance. You stand at 20m with a shotgun using buckshot and trade fire with *me* and you are going to die. That's just how that's going to go barring some exceedingly lucky dice rolls on the RNG on your part. By contrast, stand at 5m and do the same and you'll win assuming, you know, enough competence to put the crosshair over the rough center of my avatar.

That is what I mean when I say it replaces skill with context. Yes, there is skill in trying to ensure the proper context, but it is not a mechanical skill. One does not need to chain headshots with buckshot in the right circumstance - simple accuracy will suffice.

That is why a shotgun is a frustrating weapon to face - when you meet them in their element, you fight from an extreme disadvantage. All those times you face them outside their effective range you get to ignore because you probably survived the engagement easily. That is also why most high skill players dismiss the shotgun - the last word in point blank firepower is toothless long before you exit common combat ranges and if you carry slugs, you in effect choose to have a mediocre mid range weapon bested by a half dozen other choices.

Functionally, the reason new players favor shotguns is the same reason veteran players tend to dismiss them. It is easier to manage skill than it is to manage context as a veteran but a new player with little skill is better served relying on circumstance when they have little skill to exploit.

For me, it isn't that I'm above using a shotgun - far from it. It is that in 95% of bases, I'll do better carrying something else.

I can make a few arguments for this actually

The "My way isn't bad because I play that way." ive had more times in every MMO ive played than i can count.

Lets use an example from the last forum i joined. On warframe it was generally thought that a warframe called Valkyr couldnt survive against lvl 100+ enemies without her god mode (Literally no damage can be taken) and i was called out for saying that was wrong. And i made a video going up against enemies at lvl 110 with a team and then alone for 10-15 minutes before i died.

On mabinogi i was called impractical and inefficient because i used melee and bolt magic (Basic stuff) and solod end game content without the cheesy skills and it came down to "Youre an oddball" which was probably more of a compliment than anything

TLR Whats considered best isnt always whats best for you

That being said

Shotguns require you to not fight out in the open because you will be destroyed

You have to use situational awareness because the simple truth is

"95% of bases, I'll do better carrying something else."

In most areas of most bases the shotguns give you a disadvantage that you have to make up for by playing knowing youre at a disadvantage unless you close that gap

^ Classic. You call being close to the enemy "circumstance" and aiming at the enemy "skill" or "mechanical skill".

I disagree with that separation. Getting close to the enemy IS a part of skill. Sure sometimes one can get close to the enemy by accident, just like it's absolutely possible to score a headshot by accident.

Performing consistently is what defines skill.

You make it sound like PS2 is a series of engagements where the distance to the enemy is picked randomly, and when by sheer chance the distance is 5m, the cheesy shotgun user gets a free win, by paying for this with losing every other time.

Such utter nonsence, though I guess to a typical ground pounder who doesn't use shotguns this is exactly how it looks. "Oh, that guy across the roof has a shotgun, welp, free kill for me. Oh, that guy around the corner had a shotgun and now I'm dead. Welp, cheese as usual, I'll just respawn".

They think that without seing the positioning game behind the scenes.

Positioning game is a part of the whole game, and it's played before the firefight part. Winning at positioning always puts the player at an advantage. A shotgun just capitalizes on that advantage more.

With good aiming skills, it's possible to climb oneself out of a loss in positioning, and that's why a lot of players focus on aiming so much, because let's be honest here - PS2 is a pretty frantic and chaotic game, with unregulated number of people in all fights, cloakers and jump jetters, and it's not hard to lose at positioning.

Just as it is not that hard to play out of the positioning disadvantage due to long TTK.

They are absolutely skill leveling weapons like Rocket Primary or the old iteration of UBGL's though to a lesser degree. Specifically they skew the balance between position based knowledge and mechanical skill. All weapons require a degree of both of these things to be successful. Shotguns however, place most of their emphasis on the former while allowing them to largely forgo the latter. (Positional based knowledge is pretty self explanatory - how and where to move so you can shoot dudes without dying. Mechanical skill is HP/Shield management, weapon recoil control, magazine / reload management, crosshair aim, target tracking, microburst / FSR control, etc. )

If you make any attempt to actually push battle lines in a fight there are countless situations where through the simple act of pushing forward you open yourself up to getting into a situation where you do the work of "getting into position" for the shotgun user. If you only sit back and camp or let someone else to the pushing then it is a non issue, but then you are more farming kills than anything else.

A players kill potential is limited because of the RNG factor of the CoF - simply put you can lose some fights inside effective range because of the RNG. Where as with a full auto weapon if you can aim, target track, manage recoil and micro burst it takes RNG out of the equation and rests the outcome on a players mechanical skill. (By extension of this argument, if the RNG favors you, you can have significantly less mechanical skill than your opponent and win an encounter. Which is again, why people tend to hate shotguns)


The second way kill potential is limited is through sheer range limitations and targets that you can not engage. If I have a shotgun and I see a target 1 m, 5 m, 25 m, and 45m away. I can kill 2 of those targets and maybe get the attention of the third. With auto weapons you kill all of those targets if you can out shoot your opponents and manage your HP/Shields between firefights. You can argue that you could technically just run 45 M to get to the last one, but he or she may be camped behind the front lines and thus out of reach. (Ultimately limiting your potential kills over using an automatic).

If you take anything away from this TLR it should be this - players tend to hate weapons that negate reactionary actions to encounters (OHKO) or weapons that negate mechanical skill in gameplay. Shotguns do both of these things.

Just to second this with a separate example:

I'm ******* terrible as infantry. I've been gaming for 20 years, but this is actually my first shooter, and I only started in late October. I'm way behind the curve, and I'm old by FPS standards to boot, so I'm slow. I will probably never be a high aim player, but time will tell.

That said, I use other things to my advantage. Patience, attention span. I routinely lay prox mine/claymore traps with my stalker and get kills with them. Why?

I gauge how long until they come looking for me, which direction it's likely to be from, and I place mines accordingly. I do this before I shoot a single person.

Then, when the salt shaker spills and they come running, I've already moved to my next position (which has great visibility of the last one, and the approach if possible) and I watch them find my mines with their faces. If they're running flak, I can finish the job if I'm lucky. Hell, I even use enemy mines if they're silly enough to mine a terminal in a way I can shoot them. THAT is amusing.

Can I win a straight up speed/aim contest 1v1? Probably not consistently, maybe ever. But it's like my uncle always taught me growing up:

Age and treachery overcomes youth and skill.

Laying a trap and correctly guessing strategic movement is a skill of the mind, not reflexes, but it's often dismissed out of hand.

This exactly. Tactics and strategy, as well as the "rpg" element of the game - different classes using different tools and abilities.

There's so much to PS2 beyond just "2 guys shoot guns at each other".

Again pointing to the thing people tend to hate - it is a skill (positional knowledge) to get into an advantageous position, but is a skill that applies to all weapons depending on their RoF / Damage model. However, shotguns are exclusive in that it allows players to substitute positional knowledge for mechanical skill (Aim / Tracking / Recoil control / etc) where as automatics rely on a balance of both. (To perform consistently well - as you said.)

I have a better analogy for you this time, no sports! Say you have a 750RPM / 143 dmg carbine that has 100% damage degradation after 15M. However it has a special feature that any enemy struck inside of 10 M, it will automatically track that target for the user. (So all you have to do is land 1 shot and it will then track any any required follow up shots).

Objectively, people would loathe dying to this weapon because it allows a player to forgo mechanical skill at the cost of a greater emphasis on positioning. Some would defend it saying "well it has a limited range" or "It doesn't have as much DPS as 845 / 143 weapons" and they would be right. However, it doesn't change the fact that it would ultimately dumb down CQC engagements. This scenario is basically a skewed version of how shotguns work only you get more DPS and rather than pure auto aim, you get very lax mechanical skill checks to get kills.

I would agree, except for the problem that shotguns actually can be quite difficult to aim in CQC.

As I posted before, Iridar's video well demonstrates why, since they are low RoF semi-automatic weapons in CQC where ADAD spam is the meta. If your mouse isn't on target when the gun you have is ready to fire again, you get little to no damage. Even the mechanic of pellet spread doesn't help you, because in reality the only shotguns with a pellet spread large enough to have this effect, still suffer from the fact that if you don't get a 2-shot kill your TTK is worse then SMG TTK.

Now, I'm not saying it's harderr then getting headshots with an LMG in CQC against an ADAD strafing target. But at least an LMG has the ability to engage outside 5 meters as well, and it still can get headshots in CQC, thus giving it shotgun level TTK.

Eh, that's not skill leveling. A sniper does not go into CQC to snipe, an SMG user does not stay at range to kill people. They need to get in the right distance and stay there preferably. Each weapon has their own skillset in identifying where to go and what ranges you'll be shooting at. Shotguns have such a short effective range that you need the most of this skill. That's not skill leveling, that's simply a skill that every gamer needs to be good in the game. Otherwise you could make arena shooters that consist out of two players standing 10 feet apart with their backs to eachother in a completely open room, at the count of 3 they can start moving and shoot eachother with their chosen weapons. The best player is the one that turns the fastest, can dodge the most and has the best accuracy while doing that.
But we don't have that kind of arena shooters, even the most dumbed down game does not have that. Movement, using terrain, knowing the layout, keeping an eye on where enemies are or might be, identifying enemies in the more and more cluttered environment of any game. Those are key elements in any FPS game, have always been and will always be. Yet you call it "skill leveling"? "skews balance"? That's just weird!

Also, mechanical skill might even be more important with shotguns that any other weapon. Holding the trigger or just firing away is a fools errand. Precise timing, clicking exactly when your aim matches up with your enemy, don't do that and any other weapon will quickly be better than the shotgun in terms of DPS and ease-of-use.

What they supposedly lose (they don't) on skill required on other weapons they more than make up for needing exponentially more thought into the positional skill. What's more, with shotguns the skill required to play your enemy goes up as well. With other weapons you can easily engage anyone, regardless of you attacking them straight up front. Shotguns require you to have extensive knowledge of how players normally react. Which corners will they use? Where will they walk? If they are walking, where will they pause or take a bit more time to check their surroundings or a specific doorway? What places will they take cover at, and what direction will their attention mainly be focused at? With Carbines, LMG's, SMG's, AMR's or any other long-range weapon those skills are much, much less important. You can engage them, and you can make it up with... Mechanical skill.
Because you have turned it around. You claim that positional skill and knowledge of your enemy is an inferior skill to mechanical skill. But the thing is: Everyone learns how to shoot to a varying degree and most weapons are fairly point-and-click at their supposed ranges, with relatively little power gain for achieving the skill-ceiling of burst-fire, cover etc. but there's fairly few people who I ever encounter are doing more tactical things and abusing people's habits.
Shotgun users don't just play the game, they play the people in it.

True for any weapon, only other weapons can be used at longer ranges in similar situations, and having RNG mess your shot up is less detrimental for the "mechanical skill" weapons than for the shotgun.
And as I said before, this is also exactly why people should use a shotgun first: It's punishing if you fail to learn how your enemies behave, but when you've learned it you'll automatically be better with the weapon. I've never really been sure of my exact mechanical skill level, like everyone in the world I always assume I'm above average. But I do know for certain that my positional skill is better than most players out there, since I've been able to defeat top-players with it by using that skill as compensation. I learned this skill specifically because top players would construct honor systems where everybody needed to sniper or something, then I would get a weaker and easier to get weapon, flank them and make them watch their backs.

You can lessen the RNG factor, but it will always be there to some extent. Still, shotguns simply do not work if you rely on RNG to get hits. Your DPS will be too low and someone with a pistol would be able to beat you. You need that mechanical skill, that twitch-based shooting to hit that jumping-jack player. Or you need your enemy to be oblivious until he gets that shot in the back, which works fine but works just as well with other weapons. Because, for the uptillionth time, shotguns their main advantage is a huge damage per magazine, almost nothing else.

Wow, really? This is an argument in favor of why a shotgun needs more skill. Auto weapons can kill all those targets with management of mechanical skill alone. A shotgun requires both positional and mechanical skill to finish the job.

Shotguns do not negate mechanical skill, on the contrary. As for negating reactionary actions I've got two things to say:
1: You can prevent a reactionary action with any weapon if you use it like a longer-range shotgun. The thing is that 99% of the players simply engages stuff, which means players have an about equal footing in spotting and starting to open fire so this is rarely noticed.
2: If you get OHK'd by a shotgun user and never got a chance to retaliate, congratulate him on it! You got caught off guard and the player had enough mechanical skill to instagib you rather than the average 2-3 shot kill a shotgun has. Alternatively you can insult them, scream about cheese and be a bitter little lemming. Either option I'll accept as a tribute to the skill with a shotgun.

Edit: As Savadrin said, it's a wonderful thing to use your brain rather than your brawn. I used to be lightning fast, with twitch-based board or computer games it didn't matter, I was the fastest and I was first. Then I started getting passed that magic age of 16 to 20, and my reaction times collapsed compared to the young players out there.
But to say that strategic play is bad? Absolutely not! I learned to play PC games against bots in UT99 for instance, and against a Godlike bot that has 360 degree view and faster reaction times coupled with pin-point accuracy theres simply no winning unless you abuse every bit of bad code they have. I learned how they walked, where they picked things up, where they were likely to go, then I had to do a do-or-die tactic and engage them, prefiring and abusing any weapons ability to get an advantage. Back then I didn't have an internet connection...
When I first hit the internet, I still had my twitch-skills, but my tactics were honed against bots that were completely different than humans. Still, everything I lacked at first in pin-point accuracy I could quickly make up for thinking differently than my opponents by... learning positional skill and playing my enemies.

I really enjoy reading about Savadrins way of handling the situation. Rather than trying to become as good as the young gamers that will always have their twitch-skill and years of practice against him, he learned to play the game differently and coped with it by playing them rather than their game.

How you guys love to downplay the shotgun aim. Less aim required - that I agree. No aim required - huge exaggeration.

What you're talking about is smart pistol in Titanfall:

Shotguns still require pinpoint aim at center mass. Any deviation from center mass will be punished by increasing probability of pellets missing and the shot not doing the whole damage. One pellet missed - no big deal. Two pellets missed - 2 shot kill goes to 3 shot kill.

Shotguns are hard locked at certain range to be effective. The problem is that this range is so short that if the enemy takes half a step to the side, you're not aiming at his center mass anymore, but at the wall near him.

Basically, the closer the enemy is, the harder it is to aim properly at his center mass if he's moving.

Of course, the same thing makes aiming for headshots with an automatic weapon in close quarters harder. But they're not limited to close quarters.

And there's another thing that makes shotgun aim harder: you can't just start firing blindly, then "zero in" on the target, like you can do with most automatics, albeit it's a bad habit, but it works well to compensate human reaction time.

Sure if ask: "how far an enemy can move during the shotgun 2-shot TTK of 0.26 seconds?" the answer would be "not very far".

Or, to be precise, 2.92m/s * 0.26 seconds = 0.76m for normal strafing speed without ADS. That's still a lot when you're within 3-5m.

Next, we must not forget about human reaction time, which is around ~0.2 seconds.

So how this works: you see an enemy, try to move crosshair over him, then your eye-brain system spends at least 0.2 seconds to make sure the aim is on target. If you don't do that and fire blindly, there's a risk of shot fully or partially missing, which would concede shotgun's advantage.

The funny part is that while this brain processing is being done, the target can move from under the crosshair, and by the time "fire!" command reaches the mouse and PC behind it, the shot might miss. This is exactly the goal behind doing ADADAD.

So aiming is the endless loop of compensating and predicting target movement and confirming crosshair placement.

This is where the snap aim skill comes in (drag shots), the ability to fire accurately without visual confirmation of the crosshair being on target, just using extreme hand-eye coordination. That's a huge skill step that I have only begun tapping into. I'm sure you know Elusive, who basically built a career on dragshots.

The only other weapon that benefits so much from it is CQC sniping, but that's taking a sniper rifle into a gun fight, while a nearly required skill for a shotgun just to be effective within its domain.

Just to be clear, Gundem probably means this video:

Now of course I fully admit I dropped the ball on that one, and I'm not ashamed of it, everyone makes mistakes. I'm not blaming my equipment for it, I'm merely stating that having a shotgun and an enemy within 2m of you is not such a free win as a lot of people claim.

/salute Iridar, said it 50x better then any crap I could've pulled outta my ***.

Yakyakyak? LMAO

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0ESfkacW1UK

I'm soooo stealing this for my shotgun guide. Will link source, ofc.

Just finished Araxium'ing every shotty in the game

I can feel the scrub's tears

Flowing through my veins

Congrats. I'd never have the patience. I'm struggling just with the TR shotgun directive alone, can't imagine how terrible it would be with MagScatter and such.

Hell no, MAXes NEED to be loaded with limits to balance them. In fact I think Charge should be reworked into a travel mode so that a MAX can't use it as a get out of jail free card.


What I was trying to say was 2 things.
1- that MAXes should have the right to choose their weapon type. NC MAXes should be able to use MMGs, TR/VS MAXes should be able to use shotguns, and there should be a middle ground between them. The Flamethrower, I WANT IT. NS, ES, there should have been cross faction AI weapon types for MAXes 3 years ago. They should have been in the game before ******* Beta ended from how impossible it is to balance without.

2- even with all the advantages of infantry added with class perks such as jet packs. People are still finding it hard to get to the exact areas where shotguns require to be. EclecticDreck said it best.

If people have problems WITH all those perks making use of shotguns. Then without them they will only do worse.

Other classes have perks too. Mines and motion spotters everywhere, every third guy is a heavy with almost double HP when shields are active.

I'm not saying jet packs are not useful, but it's not as simple as "oh you can fly have your free wins now".

My point still fits. Even with all the perks infantry have a shotgun user is going to have a hard time doing much from a shotguns exact needs. Fighting without those perks is just going to make things worse.

Yes MAXes have more HP and have charge. But if you suicide in to get just a few kills then you wasted that MAX who costs as much as a freaking MBT. MAXes are stronger than infantry but die just as easy if the enemy is worth a damn.