Gunsmith Test Weapons: Why are they all so bad? (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 16:53 (2908 days ago)

In every video game ever, the experimental prototype weapon is always the best most amazing awesomest gun evar. Until now. Bungie has made the gunsmith a purveyor of pretty decent weapons, but his test weapons are pretty clearly crap. I'm not sure what he's testing. There's not a new damage matrix, no new weapon archetype, no new unheard of effect (though when the gunsmith started, some of the weapon perks like enhanced radar were new)... Bungie has a built in platform for testing weapon design changes in a limited capacity (just make the weapons expire on a timer or when they hit 100% and you won't even have to worry about whether or not a gun is OP since it'll just disappear after a while) and they're not using it *at all*.

The crucible test weapons are the most obviously bad guns. Does the gunsmith really want to test to see if a rocket launcher that only holds one rocket and only gets one rocket per brick of heavy ammo is any good in the crucible? Or is he actually testing to see just how willing we are to stab ourselves in the dick in order to get those 250 rep points?

Or that shotgun. Point blank it still doesn't always 1-shot. The test is failed - this is a shitty gun.

Personally, I'd love to see the weapons actually seem like they were testing something. Either a perk that doesn't normally land on that archetype (shotguns with explosive rounds, a full auto hand cannon, or maybe a sniper rifle with a Sureshot IS instead of a scope), or something even more extreme (a shotgun with vortex, "find more special ammo", and performance bonus, as well as full auto, for example, or a bullet hose auto rifle with minimal stability that uses skip rounds and has a massive clip... Stuff like that.

My point is, in the realm of the game world, no gun manufacturer would ever need to test to see if a shittier shotgun was any good, or if a rocket launcher that holds less ammo is worth using. In the realm of the player world, these weapons simply are not fun to use; they're just chores. Chores suck.

I hope the future brings test weapons that actually test something in order to make both the game logic behind their existence make sense, and the experience of using them fun for the players.

On a game balance note: It would be pretty easy to make test weapons for the crucible be meta-shifting in their design in order to see if they bring K/Ds to a balanced point, or shift the meta in ways that Bungie likes. The current system of them always being crap, combined with SBMM in crucible means using them always hurts your team. That really shouldn't be the case. You don't want disincentives for your players encouraging them *not* to use your game's mechanics.