General Shotgun Concerns

[chair]

Now, I'm sure that this kind of thread has passed on before, but I feel like it needs to be addressed realistically. Also be aware that I don't want to come up as a bad guy here and am just trying to make Era have a bit more shape to it.

Shotguns have been around in Graal since the early 2000s with PC's version of Era, but I've always felt like there's been a problem with them; the spread and range. I'm the kind of player that loves to PK and base, and every time I see some sort of tactical shotgun I think "I'm done for," and that really is the case in this game. I do just fine with my PP90M1 for all sorts of combat and I'm just not the "spam a PBP on a road all day and get tons of kills" because that really is just boring to me and it probably does better than a BAR... Anyway, in order to not necessarily "nerf" shotguns but to change their style, I feel that they definitely need some realistic changes to them. And yes, of course Graal isn't realistic in many senses at all, but by realistic changes, I really just mean a bit of realism and a lot of tactics, and tactics are automatically built into shotguns in real life hence the physicallity of the,pm and their names "tactical shotguns."

Okay enough of that, lets just get to the point with the general criticism on shotguns in Era. I feel that the spread is just atrocious and needs plenty of tweaking. You could shoot any shotgun of your choice and the width of the spread would usually be 12 tiles... Of course the damage of each individual bullet is low but really adds up when you're firing about 1 round every second. Lets take this case realistically though: In real life, a tactical shotgun will spread about 2 yards wide at most even with a cylinder choke but at most the range would be about 30 yards. The same would go for a pretty heavy-duty hunting gun. Take the width of the "multi-bullet" gun and condense it to around 4 or 5 tiles at most. I feel like much more tactical ability would come into play and even in bases they would be very deadly. And while I've been tying this entire paragraph out I've been wanting to get to range, though a lot of what's up above will make this simple. I'm really not sure what the current range is on the shotguns now, but it seems like the equivalent of a normal gun to me. As I said, one with a cylinder choke on and a 3" shell will go not much farther than 30 yards. Take one with a full choke and you'll get not much more than 45 yards. I personally think that the range in Era of a shotgun just about ruins my day. Personally, I'd say that the range of a PBP should be 25 tiles at most and I really don't think there's much of an argument against that because again, it's tactability. Of course the range could vary from gun to gun but I don't like the idea of a shotgun firing as far as a rifle.

Those are primarily all of my concerns and I'm hoping that this will get taken into consideration.

Thanks!

[Meph]

Hello, and welcome to the forums!

Shotguns have been around since the early days of Era; true.
In fact, the Shotgun was the first gun done on the server.

However, they weren't very intimidating until iEra came around.
They were never used as a 'primary weapon', until iEra revised the PBP to have stacked damage.

This revision was the result of lack in creativity in those days on the part of the Gun Admin.
They needed something to justify the price tag, and I believe they grabbed at straws.
Unfortunately, they were ignorant of the impact such a change would have on the fighting dynamics of the server.

Prior to that, they were used as they were intended to be used:
Shotguns were created to provide support to your assault-gun toting comrades.
It worked well, and facilitated an environment that encourages teamwork.

Early Era had too much focus on skill-based play to provide the handicap of stacked damage.

The first conversation surrounding the idea of 'stacked damage' came up in 2010.
Ironically, iEra was released a couple weeks following.

My reply to that conversation back then paints the picture of the age:

The only way this would work on Era would be, as Salesman already suggested, to lower each shotgun bullet to about 3 damage.

Era isn't a game where shotguns, or any gun for that matter, do damage in that fashion. It just doesn't happen. There's nothing wrong with the way they function now.

On Era, shotguns aren't supposed to be overpowered. They're not a PKing weapon. Their purpose on Era is to bust doors down, to deter or isolate a group of people, and to taunt. It's literally embarrassing to lose against a shotgun. This is the Era we know, and I see no reason for it to change. "Because other games do this" isn't very persuasive.

Clip size and reload speed are already level; and altering the bullet speed of any gun is laughable. It's been done before, and failed miserably. 65% of PKing on Era revolves around dodging bullets. This includes weaving in and out of bullets, matrix-style. This weaving is possible because the bullets move slightly faster than your player. Changing the speed of bullets would ruin this game- period.

And in case you're wondering where I distribute the other 35% of PKing:
25% of it is timing your shot, and 10% is knowing what guns to use in each situation.

CITED SOURCE:
GraalOnline Forums: Suggestions Thread

[ItzTerry!]

Shotguns have their downsides- mobility as an example.

[xXRazorXx]

the stack dmg can be an example too