Shotgun Squabble

[Orange Madness]

I'm a sucker for Shotguns in any video game. The ability to have so much power within close range, high gib rate---for some games---, and capabilities to 1-2 shot entities or players is just a rush of dopamine. However, I have a few issue to bark about with the shotguns in this game.

• Strange Accuracy: Okay, now I understand that shotguns are meant to be inaccurate bullet spread based weapons and aren't sniper rifles, but the shotguns here make no sense with their spread. Three of my favorite shotguns in the game are---in order from greatest to least greatest---Pump, Blunderbuss, and the Auto. Now I can understand that the Blunderbuss is meant to be an early game gun, and it is meant to be trash, but the two guns I'd like to speak about are the Pump and Auto Shotguns. As strange as it is, using Iron Sights with the Pump---choke or no choke---makes it have less accuracy, but using the Auto---choke or no choke---you gain accuracy? How does this make sense?
  
  
• Damage: You'd think that once you either find or craft an Auto after having a pump, it be a direct upgrade right? Well, in my opinion, I don't feel it. Both the Pump and the Auto both have the same exact damage and exact same number of pellets. You'd think that an Automatic Shotgun, a military style weapon, would do much greater damage than a civilian grade shotgun---the Pump Shotgun---, but it [somehow] doesn't work like this.
  
  
• "Automatic" Shotgun: Yes, the "Automatic" Shotgun is not as the name says. In order for this "Automatic" weapon to be actually be automatic is through a mod. Why the hell is this a thing? The name clearly misleads players into wanting it since it has the words automatic and you'd think it be better than a Double Barrel or Pump; you'd be dead wrong. Hell, the "Automatic" Shotgun isn't even close to being a semi-automatic; that too needs a bleeding mod! The name might as well be renamed to Combat Shotgun or Tactical Shotgun due to it requiring mods to make it either semi-automatic or full automatic.

Don't get me wrong about the Shotguns not being good, they are great and do in fact get the job done; especially with perks and magazines. These facts are just issues I see with these items and I feel should be looked into. As a closing, take this example of how the shotguns should be:

The melee's of this game do greater damage depending on the material it is made of---Steel Club does better damage than a Wooden Club---, but guns all do the same exact thing. Hunting Rifle does exact same damage as Sniper Rifle, Magnum does same damage as Vulture, ect. Make firearms do different damage depending on the material and tier.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Orange Madness:

I'm a sucker for Shotguns in any video game. The ability to have so much power within close range, high gib rate---for some games---, and capabilities to 1-2 shot entities or players is just a rush of dopamine. However, I have a few issue to bark about with the shotguns in this game.

• Strange Accuracy: Okay, now I understand that shotguns are meant to be inaccurate bullet spread based weapons and aren't sniper rifles, but the shotguns here make no sense with their spread. Three of my favorite shotguns in the game are---in order from greatest to least greatest---Pump, Blunderbuss, and the Auto. Now I can understand that the Blunderbuss is meant to be an early game gun, and it is meant to be trash, but the two guns I'd like to speak about are the Pump and Auto Shotguns. As strange as it is, using Iron Sights with the Pump---choke or no choke---makes it have less accuracy, but using the Auto---choke or no choke---you gain accuracy? How does this make sense?
  
  
• Damage: You'd think that once you either find or craft an Auto after having a pump, it be a direct upgrade right? Well, in my opinion, I don't feel it. Both the Pump and the Auto both have the same exact damage and exact same number of pellets. You'd think that an Automatic Shotgun, a military style weapon, would do much greater damage than a civilian grade shotgun---the Pump Shotgun---, but it [somehow] doesn't work like this.
  
  
• "Automatic" Shotgun: Yes, the "Automatic" Shotgun is not as the name says. In order for this "Automatic" weapon to be actually be automatic is through a mod. Why the hell is this a thing? The name clearly misleads players into wanting it since it has the words automatic and you'd think it be better than a Double Barrel or Pump; you'd be dead wrong. Hell, the "Automatic" Shotgun isn't even close to being a semi-automatic; that too needs a bleeding mod! The name might as well be renamed to Combat Shotgun or Tactical Shotgun due to it requiring mods to make it either semi-automatic or full automatic.

Don't get me wrong about the Shotguns not being good, they are great and do in fact get the job done; especially with perks and magazines. These facts are just issues I see with these items and I feel should be looked into. As a closing, take this example of how the shotguns should be:

The melee's of this game do greater damage depending on the material it is made of---Steel Club does better damage than a Wooden Club---, but guns all do the same exact thing. Hunting Rifle does exact same damage as Sniper Rifle, Magnum does same damage as Vulture, ect. Make firearms do different damage depending on the material and tier.

Melee weapons of the same class all swing at basically the same speed- So greater damage is accomplished through sheer damage number (Exception here is the knives category, the Machete swings quite a bit slower- But has a much higher damage to boot.).

Guns on the other hand have a lot of variables. Fire rate is one of the biggest. The pump shotgun fires once a second, the auto can fire 2-3 per second; While both have the same Damage and pellet counts, The auto clearly has significantly higher Damage per second. The former holds less ammo, the latter holds more, meaning it can sustain the dps for longer between reload downtime; The former has less durability, the latter has more meaning it can fire more before being repaired; etc, etc.

The same is true with the Hunting Rifle, Marksman Rifle, Sniper rifle. They all have about the same damage, But the hunting rifle is single shot with a long reload; Marksman rifle is semi-auto with a with a moderate reload and a couple rounds instead of only one, and fires a bit faster; sniper rifle is semi auto with a larger magazine and a fairly quick reload with more bullets and a faster fire rate still. Same 100~ damage, but 2x as often, or 3x as often with notably less downtime as well.

Pistol and SMG is the same; Both do about the same, but the SMG fires SIGNIFICANTLY faster with a much larger magazine.

Same with the magnum vs the vulture.

Same with the assault rifles.

There isn't only one variable at play. It's not just Damage that matters. And yes; This means you go through more ammo, But, by the time you're playing with bigger better guns, you're in a position to be obtaining significantly more ammo anyway, be it from trading with the trader, or having an easier time looting houses, or plain crafting them yourself.


Regarding shotgun accuracy, That's a bit odd.. Sounds like accuracy calculations for the pump shotgun might be a bit broken.

Edit: I'd also like to add that firerate matters significantly more when you're consistently popping zombie heads in one shot- If you do 500 damage, but the zombie actually dies after 100, then all of that excess damage is essentially wasted. So a gun that does 250 and fires twice as often actually wins out in a zombie killing contest. So it is with many guns in the game due to the dismemberment chances and damage done in the later game around the time you start getting the top tier weaponry; Fire rate wins out in the majority of cases as a lot of damage simply goes to waste on overkill; While simultaneously a higher firerate means more chances at triggering instakills and dismemberments.

[twoxsp]

An auto shotgun with drum mod, full auto mod, and 2 or 3 stacks of shells will decimate on a horde night compared to anything you can do with a pump. Plus it's really fun.

[gregistopal]

Originally posted by Orange Madness:

• Damage: You'd think that once you either find or craft an Auto after having a pump, it be a direct upgrade right? Well, in my opinion, I don't feel it. Both the Pump and the Auto both have the same exact damage and exact same number of pellets. You'd think that an Automatic Shotgun, a military style weapon, would do much greater damage than a civilian grade shotgun---the Pump Shotgun---, but it [somehow] doesn't work like this.

They use the same ammo dont they? so its the same damage! the benifit of the auto is bigger mag size and you can get shots off quicker when you are being swarmed.

[Seftak]

Originally posted by gregistopal:

Originally posted by Orange Madness:

• Damage: You'd think that once you either find or craft an Auto after having a pump, it be a direct upgrade right? Well, in my opinion, I don't feel it. Both the Pump and the Auto both have the same exact damage and exact same number of pellets. You'd think that an Automatic Shotgun, a military style weapon, would do much greater damage than a civilian grade shotgun---the Pump Shotgun---, but it [somehow] doesn't work like this.

They use the same ammo dont they? so its the same damage! the benifit of the auto is bigger mag size and you can get shots off quicker when you are being swarmed.

Exactly. I'd say OP never actually held a shotgun IRL. This line was just totally absurd...

[Azure]

Heavy user of Shotguns and once i am at a decently advanced level i carry both the (misnamed) Auto and a Pump, the pump has Slugs loaded and is also used to breaching slugs when i carry them and the other is just pure buckshot.

That the guns do the same damage isn't a issue at all, it makes total sense that items using the same bullets are doing the same damages (variable on weapon quality by a tiny degree)

What you get between them is the variety to do different things depending on what mods you add. For the Shotguns the biggest factor between them is magazine size.