I'm trying to get back into DayZ these last few days, thus my casual return to the forums. The last few days have seen me burn through three survivors, each of them dying to gunfire that, in my opinion, simply should not have happened.    Let us examine my most recent death today, but moments ago...I was shot in the leg and damaged, exited the tent in which I stood to face my aggressors in combat. In my hands?   A shotgun. An MP-113 with a pistol grip. Truly a potent weapon for close range encounters, right?   http://imgur.com/G2UBoD8   Wrong.   I made this gif fairly high quality for your viewing pleasure, slowed it down so you can see the 12 gauge shotgun shell impact this player at near point blank range.       The player not only survives the shot, but continues to run towards me in Call of Duty fashion, raising their gun and firing at me with their friend. This gif is perhaps a perfect example of the perfect shot made in third person. The target was lined up so perfectly on the curve of the reticle, height was perfect... I was certain they would be dead, and you even see me move my reticule to the next enemy player. I'm ready for a fight, I have my gun up, and a fleshy target foolishly rounds the corner sprinting into my line of fire.    There is no logical reason why this human being should not be incapacitated either by death or sheer trauma from a point blank shotgun shell.    Exhibit B...   http://imgur.com/R76FDcK   Player eats a 12 gauge shotgun shell at point blank range, it ruins his shirt, but leaves him both alive and conscious. This one from a double barreled sawn off shotgun.    And yet...if those shells don't kill players, then how does this one do just that?   http://imgur.com/994KtwM   Hip firing a sawn off shotgun kills a guy with one shell at that range.   But perhaps the most egregious offender of all of them is this...    http://imgur.com/uoEqqkY   ...and moments later...   http://imgur.com/cY6mwXf   After the target was blasted at point blank with this sawn off shotgun, rocks and debris come out of his body mysteriously. Perhaps the pellets all hit his Derringer pistol in his hand and missed him? Then he is hit at point blank range while stationary in the side of the body, and still is able to walk away seemingly unscathed. The body squirts blood but the player still survives.    I am sure that everybody who has used shotguns has questioned their reliable effectiveness. I understand the nature of a scattergun is random at times, but these examples are ridiculously unpredictable. Players show a resilience to damage that rivals a Halo Spartan in what is supposed to be a realistic game. Shotguns are deadly. Shotguns are not close range only killers. They are weapons of awesome destruction that can kill easily a target forty meters away. Unshielded fleshy humans wearing cotton and polyester should not be able to survive shotgun blasts at point blank, and Chernarus is a large enough playing field that the damage of shotguns can be afforded to reach out to sizable distances.    There is no reason why I should tell myself "Don't use a shotgun in close quarter combat because it's not lethal enough". I understand that hitboxes and desync are big issues in DayZ at the moment, but when these problems are resolved...it is important that 12 gauge buckshot is not relegated to a "niche" role in firepower capabilities. A shotgun should be consider a high risk/high reward weapon, punishing misses with reload times and rewarding hits with massive damage.  Shotguns will FUCK UP YOUR DAY. The low capacity of the shotguns in this game should be balanced by longer reload times but a very high damage output and spread matching the barrel lengths of the weapon.    Yes, I understand that balance is not a priority at the moment, but the existence of threads like this will keep such notions in the minds of players and Devs so that it is never forgotten or relegated to a secondary priority when the Beta arrives in 2016.