Shotguns are fundamentally broken

[EdEdEdEd]

After messing around with the WeaponInfo.xml file and making crap script mods regarding weapons, I have come to the conclusion that Rockstar were doing a pisstake with shotguns in IV. It's like they did everything in their power to make them suck as much as possible.

Let's get the minor stuff out of the way. First off, the blindfire animations make no damn sense. In base IV, some animations are longer than others meaning that the rate of fire when blindfiring is entirely dependent on your position. For example, when blindfiring from low cover and facing right, Niko would shoot the gun and cock it instantly with no problem at all, but when you face the other way, he does this slow ass animation, taking his sweet ass time cocking the thing and takes forever to shoot. They thankfully fixed it in TBOGT by essentially remaking all the animations. However, they didn't fix the biggest issue with blindfiring shotguns in this game: the player cocking the gun regardless of whether it is pump action or not. It's such a massive oversight in the base game, but becomes an even bigger issue in the DLCs. I seriously can't believe nobody at Rockstar bothered to fix this considering that they introduced even more semi-automatic and even fully automatic shotguns in TLAD and TBOGT. But then again, these are just the least of my issues with these damn shotguns.

 

Probably the biggest problem with shotguns in video games is how they obliterate everything within 10 meters but everything beyond that gets a mere tickle, and that is very much the case here. They have disgustingly low range and most of the pellets hit around your damn target most of the time because they just have too wide of a spread. The worst offender of this is the sawn off from TLAD (Seriously, what an awful f*cking weapon). At least the crap blindfiring is just one example of IV's "questionable" weapon animations and could be chalked up to limited time (or maybe the devs knew that nobody uses the cover system in this game so they didn't bother fixing it). What really ticked me off into thinking that Rockstar wanted the shotguns to suck ass (aside from the crap weapon stats) is with the hardcoded BS they specifically applied to shotguns.

 

For one, the way the shotgun pellets work is just nonsensical. Basically, the "pellets" parameter in the WeaponInfo is a scam. IV shotguns will always fire a minimum of two pellets, even if you set "pellets" to one. The "pellets" parameter is the number of extra pellets aside from the two original ones. The two original pellets are what I like to call the "real" pellets since they're the only ones that actually reach the specified weapon range. The other pellets are "fake", disappearing past 40% of the weapons range and you can't do anything about it. For example, if you want the shotguns to fire 9 pellets and have all those pellets reach 40m, the best you could do is set the weaponrange parameter to 100 and "pellets" set to 7. The two "real" pellets will reach the full 100 meters, while the seven "fake" pellets disappear past 40 meters. Also if you're wondering, setting "pellets" to zero makes the gun shoot the default number of pellets (which is 18). In vanilla IV, the pump shotgun has a weapon range of 35m, meaning that the "fake" pellets disappear past 14m. Fourteen meters! Everything past that takes 2 pellets worth of damage maximum. WHY? JUST WHY? I doubt it's for optimization and it's definitely not a limitation of the RAGE engine because from the tests I've done, the game had no trouble rendering all 18 pellets at 50m and even if it did, Rockstar could've just reduced the number of pellets. It's so baffling when you remember the last GTA title before IV was VCS, and that game had awesome shotguns (at least from what I can tell from videos, admittedly I haven't played it). Whatever, at least you can somewhat remedy this issue by editing the WeaponInfo.xml file. You know what can't be fixed?

 

Riddle me this Ratman! Why is it that unlike literally every other gun in the game, shotguns don't instantly kill enemies with headshots? I understand that realistically, one pellet to the cheek isn't enough to take down your target, but a point blank shot to the face? C'mon now. When even weak NPCs survive a shot to the face from the combat shotgun, you know you've f*cked up.

To summarize: Shotguns? More like sh*tguns, amirite?

Edited October 12, 2024 by EdEdEdEd

[Max Payne]

I felt that shotguns felt like toys in this game depending on different situations. Pump Action and Combat shotgun felt like jokes. The ones that actually felt less like toys were auto shotguns from DLCs and Sawn Off when used on a bike(that thing is like the worst nightmare of cop cars that are close by).

[iwtdl]

On 1/2/2025 at 4:12 PM, Max Payne said:

I felt that shotguns felt like toys in this game depending on different situations. Pump Action and Combat shotgun felt like jokes. The ones that actually felt less like toys were auto shotguns from DLCs and Sawn Off when used on a bike(that thing is like the worst nightmare of cop cars that are close by).

Probably just me but I've never really enjoyed using the shotguns in GTA IV and EFLC as a whole. They always felt kind of unsatisfying to use to the point where I mostly just stick with the Glock or the AK-47.

[nl4real]

I really only used the Combat Shotgun because the RPM meant not one-shotting targets wasn't a problem.

[The Grunt 281]

Classic short-range shotgun trope but the other certainly explain things, 40 meters is like GTA V & Online more or less but the shotguns over there aren't stuck to short-range attacks, you have a good chance of hitting that guy at the other side of the room and do more than a tickle.

 

Also the base game has a low ammo count for them, rightfully buffed above the hundreds in DLCs.

 

2 hours ago, nl4real said:

I really only used the Combat Shotgun because the RPM meant not one-shotting targets wasn't a problem.

It could be against the gangsters of high-level vigilante, they die in 3 shots while the other 2-shots them, like in DLCs with their repeatable activity.

Edited January 13 by The Grunt 281

[JetNormalGuy]

Finally someone else acknowledges this problem, SHOTGUNS SUCK ASS IN THIS GAM, they nailed everything about them in terms of presentation, sound effects and even the way the target's satifsying ragdolls when blasting them and whatnot but all this doesn't matter when the guy you just shot in the face just stands up again like nothing ever happened, and even if it did "kill" him, they dont die because they just lay down in the ground a moan and groan and try to limp away even though you put 2 into him. the only way to properly kill someone with the shotguns in 1 shot is to aim for the center of their mass and practically shove the gun up their ass before pulling the trigger because anything else is apparently just a scratch, you can't headshot people with it since most the pellets decide to avoid your crosshair. I could go on and on about how horrible they are which is such a damn shame because I like using them as they look cool and sound even better, too bad you'll have to shoot everyone twice with it if you're actually trying to kill someone with it lol

On 10/12/2024 at 6:28 AM, EdEdEdEd said:

It's so baffling when you remember the last GTA title before IV was VCS, and that game had awesome shotguns (at least from what I can tell from videos, admittedly I haven't played it).

I recently played it and the shotguns on there are a godsend, the worst shotgun in that game plays just like the classic GTA VC shotgun (which is kinda bad all things considered) but it has a decent firerate but it barely is a problem since the other shotguns are more available. The other pump action shotgun in that game should be a text book example on how to make a decent shotgun in a GTA game because anything and anyone you shoot with it is gonna be f*cked up on the first shot and the pumping/cocking animation is so quick and clean you can just keep pouring lead on everything that moves.

 

Rockstar seriously dropped the ball so f*cking hard on Shotgun for IV I honestly have no idea how they thought that was good idea to keep in the game, its only useful in the hands of NPCs at this point lol. Atleast in GTA V they got their sh*t together and actually made the shotguns really good since they can headshot and take down enemies from farther away.

[iwtdl]

On 1/13/2025 at 10:41 AM, JetNormalGuy said:

Atleast in GTA V they got their sh*t together and actually made the shotguns really good since they can headshot and take down enemies from farther away.

I unironically think that GTA V's shotguns are more powerful (in terms of pushing force) than the ones in GTA IV.

[JetNormalGuy]

22 hours ago, iwtdl said:

I unironically think that GTA V's shotguns are more powerful (in terms of pushing force) than the ones in GTA IV.

Thats because they are. Say what you wanna say about GTA V's guns in terms of their looks and sounds, but they did a pretty good job at making the guns feel good enough to use in terms of damage and firepower and they actually have proper animations this time around instead of being a static prop and having the characters pretend to reload the thing lol. I like the GTA IV in terms of the feel of using them and the weapon choices being iconic firearms we see in movies but thats about it really