This is something I've wanted to talk about for a while so get ready for a big post.
My current idea for a shotgun buff is to make it work better when the medic is healing you so that the shotgun is actually a viable sidegrade for defending you and your medic (and the rest of the team by proxy). The shotgun should be a viable sidegrade (if not straight upgrade) provided you can aim with a hitscan weapon (which most people can't in all honesty).
The gunboats were already powerful in Hale and were made even more powerful by reducing fall damage, a buff that was entirely unnecessary in my opinion. The gunboats and mantreads both promote running away from Hale and your team in favor of getting health as opposed to fighting Hale and supporting your team. Currently, it's pretty much required to use the gunboats or mantreads as the shotgun won't help you survive any better.
In regular tf2, the shotgun is your backup weapon. It's what you use to finish off enemies after hitting them with rockets. It's also valuable for soldier as it's a hitscan weapon. When it isn't possible or viable to attempt an airshot, you will usually either wait for the target to land, retreat, or use your shotgun.
In Hale, you can't finish him off with the shotgun, what you would want to do is fend him off. For the shotgun to be a viable sidegrade, it must help in fending off Hale some way whether it be through reworking the weapon or straight up buffing it.
A buffed weapon shouldn't make a game less fun for other people. My biggest gripe with the mantreads for example is that while it makes the game more fun for the soldier in question, it is essentially a jump across the entire map instantly weapon, which on some maps, is right to a health pack. It slows the game down.
The main attributes I was considering:
- reload time decreased while healed - This makes it a more viable weapon for defending the medic. In addition this could also potentially increase the reload rate for the rocket launcher as well because let's be honest, the rocket launcher is the best weapon for defending against Hale.
- mod medic healed damage bonus - This makes the shotgun a more viable backup weapon. This would give it more knockback as secondary effect.
- health from healers increased - This means medics will heal soldiers faster if they are using the shotgun. This is meant to negate the consequence of not having the gunboats. If you're good enough to defend your medic and keep them on you, it would be pretty weak to die from unavoidable rocket jumping and fall damage.
Other buffs to consider (not all of them):
- clip size bonus - probably unnecessary and wouldn't help much regardless
- fire rate bonus - This would certainly make it a more viable weapon but it encourages a more spray and pray behavior and may be offputting to people who know how fast the shotgun's supposed to fire.
- mod mini-crit airborne - Makes it easier to defend against airborne Hales. If this was used, the reserve shooter would need to be given the "crit on minicrit" attribute.
- health from packs increased - This would increase the health obtained from health packs.
- heal on hit for slowfire/rapidfire - More accurately, getting health when landing hits, not unlike the blackbox. Probably too strong for any significant values.
- rocket jump damage reduction - I'd like to avoid this in favor of the others but this would make the gunboats less special at least since currently they get a fall damage reduction as well.
- max health additive bonus - Make the soldier more durable since he's sacrificing mobility.
- mod medic killed revenge - If the medic is killed before the pocket, they have some power to punish Hale instead of running away.
Other buffs that would require tinkering with the plugin itself:
- shotgun crits or minicrits when using the shotgun and being healed by a medic - self explanatory. The plugin already does this for some weapons.
- medics don't take fall damage when healing shotgun users - would make it easier for the medic to survive the constant jumping
- revenge buffs - This builds on the idea of the medic killed revenge attribute above. This would build on it by providing the buff if the medic was raged/stunned before being killed thereby stopping the healing before being killed. This could also be supplemented by other things such as reloading the ammo of the person being healed.
If it turns out the shotgun is too hard to buff, I propose nerfing the gunboats at least. Their buff was entirely unnecessary as the soldier is one of the most powerful classes in Hale.
22:12
Apr 18 2024
