The Pump-Charge Shotgun is just way too good.

[JuggaloAntifa]

And it's for one single reason: The ability to cheese the overload mechanic. As we all know, its explosion is massive and deals a ton of damage, making it incredible at cleaning up fodder and tanks alike, but the fact it's MEANT to deal huge damage to you as well was supposed to pose a major drawback to this power.

Ostensibly it was intended to be a high risk, high reward weapon, where you could utilize its incredible power every so often if you felt bold and had health to spare. But as everyone knows, since you're invincible while dashing, you can fire mid-dash, setting off a nuke point-blank and getting away scot-free. This technique is powerful, spammable and, most importantly, low effort/skill, thanks to the generous invincibility dash frames.

This, coupled with the huge single-target damage/shotgun parry/blast knockback utility make the Pump-Charge Shotgun the best option for just about any combat scenario, to the point where you could quite comfortably disregard most of the other weapons in favor of it; I know I do.

Sure, weapons like the railcannon and the marksman will always have their place, but the pump-charge shotgun has dumbed down combat to a degree I honestly find a little disappointing.

When I first got this game it kicked my ass, and I looked forward to studying and mastering its mechanics in-depth to give myself the best possible chance of beating the hordes of hell. Now I've discovered that "gitting gud" isn't much harder than unlocking a single weapon.

[Marioalexsan]

Don't cheese it then. Take the damage like a true robot.

[JuggaloAntifa]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Marioalexsan:

Don't cheese it then. Take the damage like a true robot.

That's like creating a button that gives me a million dollars if I press it and then asking me to try and earn the money myself.

[Marioalexsan]

Początkowo opublikowane przez JuggalosAgainstRacism:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Marioalexsan:

Don't cheese it then. Take the damage like a true robot.

That's like creating a button that gives me a million dollars if I press it and then asking me to try and earn the money myself.

You do you. It's a single player game and all that stuff.

[JuggaloAntifa]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Marioalexsan:

Początkowo opublikowane przez JuggalosAgainstRacism:

That's like creating a button that gives me a million dollars if I press it and then asking me to try and earn the money myself.

You do you. It's a single player game and all that stuff.

Games are most fun when they present a challenge, and challenges are most engaging when they require you to better yourself in order to overcome them. A challenge that allows you to instantly win it through some easy, arbitrary condition is inherently less engaging than one that does not.

If you are going to give a game player a challenge, and then present them with a set of tools for solving that challenge, then you should incentivize them to use all tools at their disposal, otherwise, the player will automatically gravitate towards using only one or two of the tools you've worked on, resulting in all the time you spent developing the others wasted.

In addition, if the player is no longer incentivized to engage with all the tools you've given them then it's possible they are not getting the most out of the game experience either, and are, as a result, having less fun than they otherwise would.

In short, games like this need to be challenging in order to be fun; Giving players an effective insta-win button defeats the point.

[Marioalexsan]

Being able to "cheese" challenges doesn't substract value from doing challenges in the "hard" way. You choose your own challenges, according to your skill level, and ULTRAKILL aids you plenty in that task with the equipment and difficulty selection.

If you don't like the overload cheese's impact on the game, don't use it. You still have 8 other weapons you can use, and the pump-charge that you can use in the "intended" way.

[JuggaloAntifa]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Marioalexsan:

Being able to "cheese" challenges doesn't substract value from doing challenges in the "hard" way. You choose your own challenges, according to your skill level, and ULTRAKILL aids you plenty in that task with the equipment and difficulty selection.

If you don't like the overload cheese's impact on the game, don't use it. You still have 8 other weapons you can use, and the pump-charge that you can use in the "intended" way.

Again, that's like giving me an insta-win button and asking me not to press it. My point with this post is that I want the game to challenge me, not using some arbitrary limitation I put on myself, but instead using its own rules that it enforces in order to both encourage and reward high skill gameplay.

Games are fun BECAUSE they don't let us tackle their challenges using tools that render those challenges obsolete, even if those tools are optional. (I don't think Dark Souls would be anywhere near the major hit it was today if it gave all its players noclip by default, for instance).

[Plumber]

at the highest levels of play, pump overcharge is just another option instead of the answer to everything; look at speedruns and see the variety of tools they use. I think the Greed layer was a pretty good answer to the "meta" as it's been developing. A lot of spawns are spaced deliberately so that pump overcharge ISN'T the best answer.
If you can't self-moderate your own limits, you can set your own personal goals. Your question of "why would I not use the win button?", which is paralyzing you, can be dodged by changing what it really means to "win". Try going for the fastest possible P ranks and you'll at least find something new to gripe about in the process.

I don't think Dark Souls is a good counterexample due to the wide variety of cheese those games feature.

Games are fun whether or not there is an obvious best solution. There's an art to making something else work anyway. I don't think Monster Hunter would be anywhere near the major hit it was today if it focused purely on flattening the performance of its weapons instead of making them uniquely different to play.

[Challenges]

Just be like me, don't use the green shotgun. Because i 100% agree with you, its fun, but the reward for risk is way too high, at first its fun and satisfying. But then you realize its not that hard to get good with/or use it.

CG is way more difficult without the green shotgun, but also way more satisfying. I don't use the green shotgun, and my highest wave is 58.

Edit: as for people who say "just dont use it" is the laziest excuse ever when it comes to game balance. Its literally implying game balance shouldn't exist since you can choose what to use in the end. And yes, i seen people use this logic for ALL TYPE OF GAMES. Part of me says the green shotgun shouldn't be nerfed because this game is a sandbox/creative/style game. But at the same time, i think it should be nerfed since most ways i seen how this community plays is try hard, and the complete opposite of trying to be creative and stylish lol. So its a interesting topic in the end.

[Lambda]

Początkowo opublikowane przez The Tyrant:

Just be like me, don't use the green shotgun. Because i 100% agree with you, its fun, but the reward for risk is way too high, at first its fun and satisfying. But then you realize its not that hard to get good with/or use it.

CG is way more difficult without the green shotgun, but also way more satisfying. I don't use the green shotgun, and my highest wave is 58.

Edit: as for people who say "just dont use it" is the laziest excuse ever when it comes to game balance. Its literally implying game balance shouldn't exist since you can choose what to use in the end. And yes, i seen people use this logic for ALL TYPE OF GAMES. Part of me says the green shotgun shouldn't be nerfed because this game is a sandbox/creative/style game. But at the same time, i think it should be nerfed since most ways i seen how this community plays is try hard, and the complete opposite of trying to be creative and stylish lol. So its a interesting topic in the end.

I find it hypocritical that you say the game is a sandbox game, yet you judge people for having a "tryhard" playstyle.

If it's a sandbox game, then people should be allowed to play how they want, no? Some people don't care for style or creativity, they just want to shoot stuff. Is that really that bad?

[Challenges]

Początkowo opublikowane przez NotJoe:

Początkowo opublikowane przez The Tyrant:

Just be like me, don't use the green shotgun. Because i 100% agree with you, its fun, but the reward for risk is way too high, at first its fun and satisfying. But then you realize its not that hard to get good with/or use it.

CG is way more difficult without the green shotgun, but also way more satisfying. I don't use the green shotgun, and my highest wave is 58.

Edit: as for people who say "just dont use it" is the laziest excuse ever when it comes to game balance. Its literally implying game balance shouldn't exist since you can choose what to use in the end. And yes, i seen people use this logic for ALL TYPE OF GAMES. Part of me says the green shotgun shouldn't be nerfed because this game is a sandbox/creative/style game. But at the same time, i think it should be nerfed since most ways i seen how this community plays is try hard, and the complete opposite of trying to be creative and stylish lol. So its a interesting topic in the end.

I find it hypocritical that you say the game is a sandbox game, yet you judge people for having a "tryhard" playstyle.

If it's a sandbox game, then people should be allowed to play how they want, no? Some people don't care for style or creativity, they just want to shoot stuff. Is that really that bad?

yep 100% its why i said part of me thinks the green shotgun shouldnt get nerfed :)

[Lambda]

Początkowo opublikowane przez The Tyrant:

Początkowo opublikowane przez NotJoe:

I find it hypocritical that you say the game is a sandbox game, yet you judge people for having a "tryhard" playstyle.

If it's a sandbox game, then people should be allowed to play how they want, no? Some people don't care for style or creativity, they just want to shoot stuff. Is that really that bad?

yep 100% its why i said part of me thinks the green shotgun shouldnt get nerfed :)

I see. Sorry about that lol

I think that the only nerf the green shotgun needs is to make it riskier. I'm not sure how it would be done though

[NorionV]

I don't think we should nerf shotgun. We should buff other weapons to make them much cooler.

Taking any of the cool stuff it does away, would - at least for me - detract from the coolness of the game. I LOVE how ridiculous the shotgun is. I don't care if it's 'unbalanced' or 'overpowered'. UK is bloody fun, and also a single player game. Single player games can be what you make of them.

I noticed you used Dark Souls as an example. You also arbitrarily used some ridiculous thing like 'if we gave them noclip it wouldn't be fun!' as if that has the same impact as a sorta powerful weapon. Aside from that silly example, Dark Souls probably isn't a good example for two reasons:

1. It's full of cheese. Why do you think so many rats exist in the multiplayer modes?

2. Challenge runs are popular in that game, wherein players place arbitrary limitations on themselves, like you can't level up, can't use magic, can't use melee, can't this, can't that, etc etc.

Maybe try a challenge run where you don't use shotty, or only use pistol, or only punch ♥♥♥♥. You might find that a lot more fun!

[brennekefan]

The timing for avoiding Overpump self-damage should be more strict.

As it stands now, all you need to do is slam fire and dash buttons together and you are going to pull it off every time. It is easier than Projectile Boosting or just about any parry, to not mention anything involving Coins or sniping the Core Eject - yet, it is one of the most damaging attacks available. And it is not even a weapon combo - only one gun is required.

The Overpump would be more balanced if it would require a truly just-frame timing to escape its damage (closer to what is required for the Mindflayer instakill technique), perhaps by extending the damage window. This way, it would involve a substantial risk of messing it up and dying whenever you are at half health or less.

[Plumber]

that’d clip it’s wings a bit because most people would just start dashing twice instead

[brennekefan]

Is there not a window between dashes that is devoid of i-frames? To my knowledge the chained dashes are not completely safe - the only way to extend the dashes' invulnerable phase is through Dash Storage, a skill significantly more advanced than Overpump + Dash.

The other possible tweak would be moving the damage window a little, so the timing to dashing is not as simple as it is now - something like what the Projectile Boost requires, a slight delay after firing.