User blog comment:TheEvilThing/WEAPONS MASS EFFECT NEEDS AND LOGIC TO SUPPORT IT/@comment-4491632-20120224181906

Ohgod this is an awful idea. I'm going to keep this short; Automatic weapons in general tend to be pitifully unreliable compared to semi-automatic or manual. Automatic shotguns are especially, especially, especially unreliable, and would not be able to withstand the strain in a war of attrition. Weapons are added in the game to add variation in combat while staying balanced enough so that the other weapons aren't overshadowed. With an automatic shotgun, it'd either be ridiculously overpowered or pathetically underpowered. Either Bioware would lower the damage to compensate with the faster fire-rate, meaning it wouldn't deal enough damage to be a usable weapon, or the damage would be much akin to the shotguns already in the game, resulting in a fast-firing, high-powered, pellet-spraying super weapon.dsxc