Shotguns and OPness.

To relieve the striker thread of shotgun posts, let's try and talk about shotguns here.

The question I would like to see answered by the anti-shotgun crowd: If shotguns are such cheap OP cheese murder machines, why are so few people using it? SMG's see about as much use as the entire shotgun category and they are just watered down CQC versions of automatic weapons with great hipfire!

Because apparently Forumside does not know the difference between a noob-friendly weapon to a overpowered weapon;shotguns are noob-friendly due to its ease of use (recoil is not a problem;neither is accuracy due to the pellet spread). Which does not make it overpowered.

The Answer is simple... Headshots. All these weapons have way too low of a skill floor when it comes to Headshots.
Their power EXPLODES in magnitude when even 2 shots land on the very generous Head Hitboxes in this game.

We're talking as low as 380milisecond TTK accross the board; in which case the differences between them is so slight as to be negligible and indistinguishable. Aiming down sites is just a stylistic preference (as is Slugs) when you have a game like this that literally overlaps its average Latency directly along side all Randomness Margin of errors +plus+ Flinching... while it's still waiting for the Interpolation and Extrapolation to catch up by the time you've been instagibbed on the enemy player's Screen from AROUND A CORNER.

TL'DR: The gunplay is sh** and it always has been. That's why they had to start introducing DESERT EAGLES & 1HK knives just for the pistol game to get anywhere near to being in visual proximity with the Auto/Shotty Meta. ...and it works though, ON CONSOLE. ...on Console this is all perfectly balanced and also explains why millions of Kids are super Hooked on Fortnite currently. It worked in COD and Counterstrike on Xbawx because the skill Floor is still gummed up by their terrible input options and underpowered CPU/Bus perf.

But here on PC... you actually have to look at games like Quake classic...Tribes, TF2, and Overwatch to see the proper model of a TTK and Critical system that was DESIGNED with the realities of PC masterrace framerates, Control Sensitivities, and Netcode all in mind. And Planetside2 was never that game in infantry-side (only in Tankside ... and occasionally in Sky-Knight-Side)

With a 1,5x headshot multiplier? And a COF that means that aiming at the head will miss pellets?

And how does this explain why people aren't using it?

I'm really interested in seeing that happen, because I haven't so far.

Again, how does this explain why people aren't using it? Because if what you said was true, everyone and their dog would be using them, but they get about as much usage as SMG's.

Desert eagles and OHK knives as counters to shotguns?

I'm not asking for what reasons you think shotguns are OP, I'm asking why shotguns aren't used as much despite you thinking they are OP.

As far as I'm concerned PS2's TTK system is pretty damn awesome. It's not the spray&pray heavy system many games use and promotes a ton of alternative skills beyond aiming with all the COF control, recoil control, different effective ranges etc.

And again, I see nothing about why shotguns aren't used everywhere all the time.

Please don't claim you see them everywhere, because the usage numbers never have at any point in PS2's history shown shotguns to be used more than any other. Well there was one exception: During beta when shotguns were briefly available to Infiltrators.

shotguns are far from OP. Really, try using one and achieving the same average k/d that you usually would have. And i guarantee you, it will be lower.

Shotguns feel unfair if you get killed by one, as if you are in the death Zone of the shotgun you have a very low Chance of Survival unless the shotgun user screws up by missing you somehow.

All shotguns become unusable at any Engagement past 10 m and are only really deadly at Point blank range under 5m.
This is a very low Engagement range, any automatic weapon or Sniper outside of this circle is your death every time.

So how can something that cripples your range to that extend be overpowered.

Players that complain About shotguns are just Angry, but if you die to a shotgun then you have been not careful enough by letting that shotgun get that close to you.

I NEVER implied that, and that was never part of my argument. Nor did my argument impugn PS2's TTK in every scenario.... it only did so in the ranges that shotguns and mobility "jousting" should have had distinct advantages over SMGs & LMGs ... which they do BTW, but only on CONSOLE. ...as to why this is the case.....

...Well... you immediately rejected and dismissed my Technical expertise on the matter and you refuse to engage me on that crucial part of this puzzle. I'm left to assume it's only because you've never actually programmed (and/or animated attack intervals) in such small increments of time so you just don't appreciate the nuances, OR you can't even conceive of what the average player with their average Rig is experiencing and being overwhelmed by in all those situations


IF you're interested in a real PC-client solution to this issue though, I DO have one but I don't think you're going to like it because it borrows heavily from older Mechwarrior multiplayer mechanics

I'm on the fence with this one, but I'll try to answer the question first asked, which would be perception.

A lot of people have always had the 'shotgun op noob cheese' mentality in most online fps games. In some cases because they receive pellet face more often than they like, in some its because the weapon is overtuned.

Way I've always seen it, its a playstyle thing, shotguns are great for run & gun style, and by design in cqc they tend to be beastly. The variants of this are ohk knives and smg mag dumpers. What I've always found interesting is how any of those three can truly differentiate themselves from each other, but they do, and vehemently so.

Tbh I think the problem is people find them too forgiving, and no doubt there is an argument for that, but I'm not fully convinced it applies to this game in particular. But, the perception and labelling of shotgun users has been there since the first days of online shooters, which is 'noob cheese crutch can't aim no skill', which again, I don't fully buy, least not in this game, but there will always be those who don't want that perception linked to them, and there will be those who couldn't care less, cheese or no cheese.

My rambling 2 cents on the matter.

Yeah how about you try fight a dude with his spam shotgun and ambushers making him real hard to hit. He closes the cap, and even if you headshot him at that point ure dead before u can kill him (unless they trash obv)

@Demigan.

Funny bit of history for ya. During WW I.

The American Marines shotguns elicited a diplomatic protest from the German government, claiming the shotguns caused excessive injury(Big hole's/instant death), and that any troops found in possession of them would be subject to execution. The US Government rejected the claims, and threatened reprisals in kind if any US troops were executed for possession of a shotgun.

The hatred of shotguns goes way back.

it's simple to understand why they think shotguns OP.

1) they assume because they are called shotguns they are just as powerful as shotguns in other games.
2) they never use shotguns in PS2.
3) they think never using shotguns makes their opinion of it superior to someone that uses shotguns.

shotguns in ps2 are weaksauce the only unit where it's really effective are NC maxes and that's due to their resistance to gunfire, not the shotgun's power.

in any situation you can use a shotgun, you'd be better off using an SMG, carbine, LMG or assault rifle, not only are they more accurate, they have more effective range on both full auto and single shot.

I'm pretty sure you can achieve the same TTK (or even much faster) with anything that is not a shotgun. Does it make (other weapons) OP? Nope, it does not.
Implying that shotguns are OP means that shotguns outperform every weapon in every circumstance. Which is a fallacy.

Ever used a baron with slugs? Its OP

Ever chain-headshotted someone once with a SMG? It's OP /s

My comment and wording in the last post with "cheese" was into reference that I was running the full auto shotty. I have extended mag on Pandora with ambusher jets on. The combination between ambusher launching you in the room to cqc range and spray and pray gun mechanics is why I used the word "cheese". Also, yes using this setup my K/D is drastically increased on the day, am I doing it for the K/D? No I was just farming shotty directives with LA directives.

I usually carry a low 2 K/D on average, with this setup I usually can run 4~ give or take.

if you want to shoot people at range with high damage you are better off with a sniper rifle then a slug equipped shotgun, because taking slugs removes the one supposed use of shotguns: CQC power.

i'd like to see you backup your assertion that 'baron with slugs is OP' with actual evidence.

inb4 he posts one of those "one in a million tries kill" video -- like taking shots with a pump shotty with slugs is the easiest thing ever at range.
tl;dr: "Overpowered" has become a buzzword. That, or Forumside still does not know what the word "overpowered" means.

Honestly, shotguns are a pain in the rear to fight against that's why people rage at them, but if you try using it you quickly realise how limiting it is. I think I had less than 50 shotgun kills in 2 years before ASP came out. Then I unlocked SMG secondary for the LA and Shotgun secondary for the Engineer.

Now I can carry a Shotty without sacrificing all my range I've learned to get better with them, I'll probably still not use them much after I finally grind 5 Auraxiums out of them.

The problem is likely less that Shotguns are legitimately OP, but that they feel OP and unfair to fight. Take NC MAXes, for instance. Much of their power comes from being in CQC, where if you turn a corner and run into one there is no chance of your survival. Not even much of a chance to do anything to them before you're dead in one or two hits. Regardless of how balanced it really is, it feels unfair. Because you can't react, and the situation is taken out of your control.

People don't recognize when shotguns are being advantageous and when they're not. When you start adding some range to an encounter, you very quickly end up in a situation where you'll need equal or better aim than someone who's not using a shotgun as you'll need to hit with most, if not all pellets and the area in which you can aim to succeed gets smaller.

Sometimes shotguns are cheesy like everything else, but I wouldn't bother arm-chair analyzing shotgun usage too much. All I know is that no one picks them to have an objectively easier time or better stats.

Agreed. NC MAXES dominate simply because most fights are in CQC in PS2 and their ******** design means they kill you before you can even get a decimator round into one of them. At least TR and VS MAXES can be taken down solely by a decent HA, no semi decent NC MAX dies to a single HA