740 réponses à ce sujet

[Mazandus]

I use the Piranha because its DPS and low weight simply make it superior to the other "light shotguns" (and arguably every other weapon in the game ) like the Disciple and Wraith. Period. End. Of. Discussion. The weight + damage + auto fire make it a better choice for power heavy classes like Adepts, who often have abilities to handle long range foes thus negating the need for an accurate long range weapon, and being fully automatic, the Piranha will spit out tons of damage when coupled with Geth or Soldier powers. Oh and it weighs like nothing. Did I say that already?


Derek, I know you said: "And don't give me, "Because the other shotguns suck!" That will just get you ignored."

But...The other shotguns don't suck, but the Piranha's DPS is still better than almost all of them in most situations, and its low weight means its a good choice for any class. IMO, It cannot even be compared to something like the Disciple (which is one of the weapons you are comparing it to) given the vast valley of damage inequality between the two weapons. The Graal is a good gun, but the spikes are vulnerable to lag (on the ps3 anyway) which interferes with the precision nature of the weapon. The Wraith simply doesn't have enough rounds before reloading to justify taking it over the Piranha. The Reegar (while doing more damage and with less recoil and spread) weighs vastly more.

For weight cost vs damage output, the Piranha is king. The GPS is no slouch, and everyone knows how powerful the Claymore is, but when you need to melt the armor off a Brute or Prime or Banshee, the Piranha will serve most classes best, most of the time, while also providing the some of the Soldiers classes and both Geth with tremendous firepower when combined with their powers.

Modifié par Mazandus, 19 septembre 2012 - 09:23 .

[N7-RedFox]

Derek Hollan wrote...

Here's something to consider when tossing around balance ideas.

You can't just buff all weapons.  There is a concept known as a damage economy.  This works just like other economies.  If a company gives all their workers a raise, then they have to raise the price of the goods they are selling.  The new cost of the items means the workers all need raises to afford them which, then means the price of the goods have to be raised.  Inflation, in other words.

Similarly, if you need to keep a game challenging, you cannot just raise all the weapons because then all the enemies will require buffing.  Then we are caught in a viscous cycle of inflation again.  The trick is to keep the game challenging while ensuring all weapons have equal footing.  Common weapons for Bronze, Uncommon for Silver, and so on.

So, no...you can't just buff them all.  It's complicated and delicate.

Cheers

So you nerfed the Krysae 6 times and buffed the enemies 3 times? Where was the logic in that? Inflation is an understatement here.

Damage nerf 1
Damage nerf 2
More Recoil when zoomed
More Recoil when not zoomed
Less ammo capacity
Huuuuuge Rate of Fire decrease  <---------------------- This one made the gun unusable. Entirely.

[UpirNoir]

Easy:
- It doesn't have to be charged up (Graal, GPS)
- Has the highest RoF
- Is one of the lightest but still does a bunch of dmg unlike the Katana/Scimitar/Eviscerator/Disciple
- Big Clipsize
- Call me a noob, but I just suck with the Claymore (wich by the way is soooooo heavy)

Now I do use the Wraith now and then, but then I realize the Piranha just is better (higher RoF, Clipsize...)
And I do use the Disciple every now and then on Paladin and the Cerberus Adept, but because the Piranha is so light, there is just no reason to do it.

[Beerfish]

You don't need to buff them all, just the one or ones that compete with the gun in question that is running rampant. The main thing that makes the gun useable for a lot of classes is the weight. As I said in my earlier post I would use the gun that seems to be designed for light weight shotgun that being the discipline if it stacked up clip wise to the Pirhana, not even damage wise, just shots per clip.

My class example is the Paladin, I want good recharge because I spam snap freeze but I want a shotty to go along with my shield bash. Thus I need a light weight SG. I would take the Discipline if it was bumped up a bit but right now it is just too much of a poor sister compared to the Pir.

[Topographer]

I don't use it ever because I think it's the least fun and there are other guns that are about as good. But I would guess a lot of people use it because it performs especially well against bosses and can be used on any class with great efficiency.

A gun that makes just about any class better is going to be popular.

[Asebstos]

Derek Hollan wrote...
So, no...you can't just buff them all.  It's complicated and delicate.

I totally understand that, but... maybe you guys should take a look at the Disciple and Wraith and possibly the Eviscerator and Scimitar. I'm not saying that balancing the Pirahna is wrong, but its hard to ignore that a good chunk of the shotguns appear to underperform as weapons, not just compared to the Pirahna, but compared to almost everything else available.

[Haersvaelg]

I use the Claymore, Reegar Carbine and Geth Plasma Shotgun a lot, the Graal Spike Thrower somewhat less (though it is really fun) and don't use the Disciple, Crusader or Wraith. I hear good things about the Wraith, but the slow rate of fire makes me not like its feel and the Disciple's niche of being the light shotgun is filled much better by other options for CD conscious classes last I tried it. Crusader I've have only tried a few times and it didn't really feel like a proper shotgun, so still considering what it should be used on.

The Piranha I use on the Paladin and the Vorcha Sentinel and not really on anything else at the moment.

With the Paladin I find it synergizes well with Snap Freeze and the close combat while being light enough to have decent cooldown. For other casters that are more dependant on their powers for the direct killing, I prefer other weapons due to the limited damage at range, even with smart choke and Falcon/Scorpion is much better for crowd control. But since the Paladin relies on powers to weaken and weapons to kill, it goes really well on him, I find.

For the Vorcha Sentinel, I play without Flamer and the Piranha goes well with the close combat style + clusters, has a bit of crowd control and the good boss killing potential making him able to deal with most things. But since he does not care about cooldowns, I switch it up with him as well since being able to carry two weapons without issue can give you a DPS and a CC weapon like the Scorpion or Falcon, depending on what you want to carry as your main.

[thegamefreek78648]

The only time I take the Piranha is when I need to keep an eye out on my weight. It does decent damage and has decent ammo for how much it weighs.

Honestly I would rather take the Geth Plasma Shotgun, Graal Spike Thrower or N7 Crusader when I take shotguns but sometimes they are just to heavy.

[Unbroken Unbowed]

I use the Piranha for it's excellent damage output, shockingly low weight, and for the fact that it is more forgiving than the Claymore. Missing a Piranha shot is far less of a danger than missing a Claymore shot.

Don't get me wrong, though, I love my Claymore.

[Das Rouse]

I use it because it's light, critical to CD time. My destroyer carries it but hardly uses it over the PPR. If the Nerf goes as planned, I won't be too disappointed with it.

[prog_bassist]

All of the bad shotguns are still going to perform poorly if you nerf the Pirahna. People are just going to want to make their Pirahna perform better.

[Agros6473]

because its just like in the expendables that one scene, that guys super aa-12 that annihilated all the enemies, same feeling with the piranha. you just hear a BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM and everythings dead....

otherwise wraith(which could use rof boost) and claymore are my guys when i want a single powerful shot.

[sudocloud]

reeger is not strong against armour plus very close range which is dangerous against instakill enemies, claymore is very unforgiving if umiss plus alot of effort to make the dps good by reload canceling.gps is goood due to homing and power.

[Rib0flavin]

This is an easy answer to why the Piranha is used more. It has the right amount of everything, but range of course(depending on the class) . It has a great fire rate, packs a nice punch, nice sized clip, and is light weight so every class can use it.

Most of your caster types can't afford to use the GPS, Claymore, Reegar or even the Crusader because they hinder your powers CD too much. The other shotguns are just too weak in all aspects compared to the others. Thus they don't get used by the majority of the classes and species.


So instead of nerfing a great gun like the piranha to make people not use it as much, try this. Buff the other weaker light weight shotguns. Make them worth bringing to the battlefield. As of right now the Eviscerator, disciple, Wraith, Katana, and Scimitar are just not up to par with the others.

[N7 Whiskey]

Derek Hollan wrote...

Ok,

So, you have a Claymore, a Geth Plasma Shotgun, a Graal Spike Thrower, a Disciple, a Reegar Carbine, a Piranha, a Wraith, and a Crusader. All gold plus the ultra rare and promo shotguns.

Why are you using the Piranha?

And don't give me, "Because the other shotguns suck!" That will just get you ignored.

Cheers

Derek, I first want to thank you for opening some dialog with your fans.  I know that I really appreciate an opportunity to voice my opinion on this subject and I really hope you guys will strongly consider my proposals.  With that said, on the meat of the discussion:


Honestly I use all of the shotguns you listed and more, and I use shotguns pretty much every game.  As a shotgun lover and shotgun user in pretty much every game, here is how I see it:


Disciple: Potentially a great caster shotgun but the requirement of pellets to hit to cause stagger kills this weapon.  I think it requires all 8 pellets to hit which requires Smart Choke for anything other than ultra close encounters.  If this requirement was reduced to, say 4 pellets hit for stagger, it would drastically increase the utility of the Disciple without adding any extra damage. We'd be able to use it at longer ranges with the Smart Choke and Vanguards could use it without SC.  That in combination with a 6 round magazine would make the Disciple a perfect low weight, medium damage shotgun for caster classes.


GPS & Graal: I like the GPS but I LOVE the Graal.  Only problem is that they are very difficult to use off-host.  I used the GPS last night while playing with UKStory & Ryoldschool (both frequent & respected BSNers) and I'd bet that 40% of my shots went right through the enemy without causing damage.  This is fine for Bronze and Silver, but Gold and Platinum this is a death sentence (as evident by my going down 25+ times in 11 waves).  That said, while hosting both are absolutely great weapons but the Graal should have enough innate penetration to go through Guardian Shields. Do that and it would be perfect (as host).


Claymore: This is probably my most used weapon in the entire game.  It is perfect as it is right now and if I absolutely, positively had to kill something quick, I would always choose the Claymore over the Piranha. The only real weakness of this gun is the single shot capacity because if you miss, you could be screwed. However, the damage dealt balances this out.


Reegar: IMO this weapon wipes the floor with the Piranha.  If I am going to limit myself to extremely close range (as with the Piranha), this is the gun I'd choose.  Its modifier vs shields makes it a better choice plus it looks ****g awesome!


Wraith: This is probably my 2nd most used weapon in the game and while it has some serious drawbacks, it is also very fun to use.  If I had the power to change this weapon, I'd do the following: 25% RoF increase, 3 round clip & enough innate penetration to pierce Guardian shield.  This would make it different enough from other shotguns for more people to use it as well as making it worthy of its UR status.


Crusader:  I love this gun but it has TWO major drawbacks, weight and weight.  The fact that it doesn't bypass shieldgate like other shotguns wouldn't bother me if this thing didn't weight as much as a Peterbuilt rear axle.  This gun is limited to the Krogan Sentinel, Destroyer & Demolisher.  Using it on any other class is seriously gimping yourself.  Since it fires a single slug and thus doesn't bypass shield gate, there is absolutely no reason for it to weigh so much.  If it was somewhere between the Graal/GPS & Wraith weights, it would be just right.


Eviscerator: I know you didn't ask about this gun but I'm going to add it into the discussion here if you don't mind.  This gun, according to lore, fires wedge shaped projectiles designed to pierce armor/cover and have better terminal ballistics at longer ranges than traditional shotguns.  I know you guys don't feel it is necessary to stick to lore with the MP weapons, but this is one weapon that should be an exception.  Give it a tighter spread, say 40% tighter, .25 meters innate cover penetration and a 4th shot per clip and you have a Gold/Platinum viable gun without increasing damage or RoF.  The upgrade to the Eviscerator, the Wraith, would then be a more powerful version of this gun with a wider spread, faster RoF and one less shot per clip.  Both weapons would be perfect.



Now, for the elephant in the room:

Piranha: I get why people use it.  Full auto shotgun with high DPS and 8 round magazine.  I can't deny it is an awesome weapon, but I will never understand the claim that it is overpowered.  Simply put, in order to get the most out of this gun you absolutely must use the Smart Choke and even then you have to get within melee range to deal full damage.  Obviously there are exceptions; Marksman, Devastator & Hunter Modes drastically increase the effective range of the Piranha, perhaps making it much better than you guys intended to be.  But the real problem here is the, and God I hate to say this, is the Geth Infiltrator.  His weapon damage bonuses combined with increased accuracy from Hunter mode & Proxy Mine debuff simply take the Piranha to a whole new level of awesome.

With that said, I think a more appropriate change to the Piranha would be to give it a +50 damage modifier versus armor which would reduce its effectiveness versus the boss units while still keeping its utility versus bipeds.  I really wish the guys on the Balance Team would give this proposed change a week and see how it goes, then if it isn't enough make the changes that were posted today. 




Thanks for taking the time read this and hopefully you'll take some of these suggestions to your next Balance Roundtable discussion.



Whiskey

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

1) The embarrassing reason: Bamb- Bamb- Bamb- Bamb! Sounds great.

2) The practical reason: I love the Piranha on my Shadow, because if thing go sideways, I can just spray and dodge until I get clear or wipe out the baddie. Or die. Granted, I'm trending toward the Hurrican these days, but the Piranha X was my best friend for the first few weeks of Shadow-having-and-using-times.

3)

[najzere]

Derek Hollan wrote...

Here's something to consider when tossing around balance ideas.

You can't just buff all weapons.  There is a concept known as a damage economy.  This works just like other economies.  If a company gives all their workers a raise, then they have to raise the price of the goods they are selling.  The new cost of the items means the workers all need raises to afford them which, then means the price of the goods have to be raised.  Inflation, in other words.

Similarly, if you need to keep a game challenging, you cannot just raise all the weapons because then all the enemies will require buffing.  Then we are caught in a viscous cycle of inflation again.  The trick is to keep the game challenging while ensuring all weapons have equal footing.  Common weapons for Bronze, Uncommon for Silver, and so on.

So, no...you can't just buff them all.  It's complicated and delicate.

Cheers

That would make sense if you could take all your weapons into a match to make it easier, but you can only take two. So buffing all weapons up to the top two weapons' level wouldn't change anything, you could just take different weapons into the match to get the same results. I'm not advocating buffing everything, but your logic is flawed. Money paid to employees is a zero-sum game, there are no resources in-game being depleted by buffing a weapon. As long as you don't make something more powerful than the current most powerful weapons, player efficacy won't change.

You should be worried about player perception, not balancing to an ideal game model. No one likes getting something they have taken away from them, especially when it's such an arduous process to get weapons in this game with the nature of the random pack store. Think more about player enjoyment and less about game theory, because ultimately we're here to have fun, not participate in a math experiment.

Modifié par najzere, 19 septembre 2012 - 09:32 .

[Teranin]

I see the piranha vs other shotguns comparison as basically like the holy hand grenade vs one large group of Arthur's knights.

Sure, chances are the rabbit(sharp, pointed teeth!) is going to die eventually with the onslaught of knights, but the chance of a pile of allied corpses by the end of it is a lot higher. The holy hand piran...err... grenade on the other hand, you basically count to 8 (3 sir!) and chances are something has been turned into tiny bits.

<,<
>,>

Sorry. I had to throw a monty python reference in there. No, I'm not saying the piranha is stupidly overpowered.

My actual answer would be:

Claymore - The reload time even with cancelling is a bit of a pain. Especially reloading after every shot :/ ... Heavy as well.
Graal - I don't tend to play as host much. Aiming this one and having the shot register where I intended can be a bit of a pain unfortunately. Charge up time on bosses ... It just takes a while.
Disciple - Gives wet noodles a run for their money for impact... but that's about it :/, fires slower, and I don't usually need a reliable stagger on any of the builds I play.
GPS - Doesn't hit wonderfully hard on armor, charge up time for decent damage definitely slows things down. Not a bad gun to use though. I did use it for quite a while prior.
Reegar - Incredibly heavy. Eats ammo. Far too easy to burn through all of my ammo quickly, yet the piranha, not so much. Hits reasonably hard though.
Crusader - Eh ... Not really tried this one out much.

Wraith - Several ranks in Indra, Talon, BW, Javelin, Paladin ... and still no wraith yet.

I guess ... my main concern with the other shotguns is that they don't have the world's most wonderful impact on Armor (bosses) that the piranha does - either due to time cost in shooting, or weight cost (rough for a vanguard, shadow, fury to use up close if powers can't be used quickly), or even just the fact that I don't want to be close to something for any longer than I have to - and the piranha allows me the largest amount of damage in the shortest period of time.

[Bhatair]

because I'm using a class that benefits from rate of fire and can compensate for the recoil and lack of accuracy like the Turian soldier, the geth infiltrator, the N7 destroyer, or the N7 Paladin.

I'm an avid shotgun user, I try to use shotguns on any class I can. I use all of those guns you listed on one class or another. I use the graal on my Batarian soldier, the wraith on my vorcha, the disciple on adepts, the reegar on the kroguard, the claymore on more classes than the piranha, crusader on the krogan sentinel etc. etc.

In fact, I hardly use the piranha anymore. On the turian soldier I use the hurricane, on the GI I use claymore, the Destroyer I use the particle rifle and on the paladin I'll use the scorpion and hurricane.

[Osmethne]

I generally use the Claymore.

I want to like the Wraith.

It just feels bad when compared to the Claymore.

[The Perception]

I quite frankly use the Reegar now. I used my piranha before with good effect until i saw what one person did with the Reegar and now I have switched. The range is about the same to me, but the Reegar is more entertaining to use  and it is very effective. 

I like the Crusader, however the recoil is really bad when I ADS. I came from the COD crowd so I almost always ADS. If the recoil was lower or if the reset time was faster I wouldn't mind.

The Wraith I like because of it's low weight, but the follow up shot time is really too long. In the same time to fire twice with the wraith, I could have unloaded two rounds from a claymore and done much more damage.

The claymore is great. I love it and I would use it on more classes if it was lighter. I would throw her on a female quarian engineer if it didn't kill her CD time :-)

The disciple is supposed to be the caster shotgun. I think I have used it twice and only shot it 4 times. I just did not seem to like it. If it's damage was higher and the accuracy was better I would give it another go.

The GPS was my go to shotgun when i first started out on ME3 MP. I think the charge up mechanics wore down on my index finger. after about two games I would have to take a break as my finger started to hurt.

Graal is cool, I haven't tried it out too much as it's more of a lag dependent gun. I live in Poland so when I play games hosted in other parts of the world, lag is a serious issue. The travel time for the spikes to hit their target with the graal hurt my abilities to evaluate it. But I have seen people effectively use it.

Katana and Scimitar are just too low on the damage ladder to be used effectively.

I hope this helps you guys at Bioware. I love your games. MDK 2, KOTOR, Jade Empire, and now the Mass Effect Series for me. Please keep gaming fun... 

Modifié par The Perception, 19 septembre 2012 - 09:41 .

[bluebeam]

Well, let's see...
Claymore: heavy as hell, only 1 shot and I'm not very effective with it.
Geth Plasma Shotgun: suffers when non hosting, It's heavy but I found some classes to use it with
Graal Spike Thrower: love it, but it fires blanks and it's heavy. I used it with the batarian soldier but the blanks are frustrating and I can rarely host. The Crusader has pretty much the same problems.
Disciple: I tried to use it on some of my casters but it needs a little help. I'd like to be more effective when using it.

The piranha is very good for bosses. I use it on Shadow (for bosses, otherwise she doesn't shoot much), Destroyer (again, for bosses), Batarian Soldier and Paladin because it gives good cooldowns and is effective for tanks.

[Kalas Magnus]

I used it because it has a really high dps. Combine it with the GI and you have the best boss/mob slayer in the game. I can drop a platinum atlas in less than 2 clips(less than 6 sec). 

So, you have a Claymore= Reload canceling is tedious. Missing a shot will get me killed in CQC. It is also very heavy.
a Geth Plasma Shotgun=it is terrible off-host.
a Graal Spike Thrower=it is terrible off-host. 
a Disciple= not enough dps. Doesnt stagger consistently. 
a Reegar Carbine= My GI gets killed after he unloads the first clip. I use it all the time on my kroguard though.
a Piranha=high dps. Great synergy with the GI. 
a Wraith=great for headshots but it needs better ROF
and a Crusader= not enough dps. Really bad recoil.

I prefer the talon nowadays though. Does it count as a shotgun or pstol?

Modifié par Kalas321, 19 septembre 2012 - 09:35 .

[Omega2079]

Derek Hollan wrote...

Here's something to consider when tossing around balance ideas.

You can't just buff all weapons.  There is a concept known as a damage economy.  This works just like other economies.  If a company gives all their workers a raise, then they have to raise the price of the goods they are selling.  The new cost of the items means the workers all need raises to afford them which, then means the price of the goods have to be raised.  Inflation, in other words.

Similarly, if you need to keep a game challenging, you cannot just raise all the weapons because then all the enemies will require buffing.  Then we are caught in a viscous cycle of inflation again.  The trick is to keep the game challenging while ensuring all weapons have equal footing.  Common weapons for Bronze, Uncommon for Silver, and so on.

So, no...you can't just buff them all.  It's complicated and delicate.

Cheers

Is it really about damage potential (what the gun can do), or is popularity (and thus actual damage players output) more important? When the Crysae first came out, I found I could often use other weapons to outscore most Crysae users. PUGers tend to not use their weapons to their full potential, yet it was still adjusted.

Basically, what do you consider balance?

[Derek Hollan]

Ok, so most people seem to agree the other shotguns are good.

How would you propose to bring the Piranha in line with the other shotguns so you, as players have a tough choice of which shotgun to bring to the field, without disrupting the damage economy?