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...his proposed solutions have multiple avenues of fixing them.

I enjoy and thrive in mid-range encounters and those have been disappearing from Destiny the past while. It's why I like HC's and why I always run a fusion rifle. It's not "fun" for me to shotgun people. I like the challenge, the competition, not the insta-kill that so often goes with shotguns. It's fun a bit for tactics, but not so much for gunfight gameplay. Probably why I also do well at inferno -- I don't love having to anticipate people around corners and such all the time, it's fun to just shoot people and kill with skill as opposed to superior tactics. And yes, I know how that sounds. ;)

https://m.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/52cmwt/massive_breakdown_on_bloom_and_handcannons/

You can probably skip the history lesson, but the rest is well worth a read, particularly the section on ganking range and the "no mid-range" meta.

This brings up the very good and very correct point regarding the ability to close distances quickly. I think it's spot on.

You can probably skip the history lesson,

Especially since he's just plain wrong regarding the history of bloom with Bungie.

One other random thought, why did so many playes assume that design decisions they don't agree with are bugs? TripleWreck originally cast this as a hit registration bug, and there was a reddit post that amounted to "When bungie says this is a design decision, don't believe their lies!" I think a little design literacy goes a long way in these discussions.

Maybe it was a different post, but if you're referencing the one Im thinking of, it was more "Bungie will say this is working as intended. It probably is, but here's why it's still bad design".

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One other random thought, why did so many players assume that design decisions they don't agree with are bugs? TripleWreck originally cast this as a hit registration bug, and there was a reddit post that amounted to "When bungie says this is a design decision, don't believe their lies!" I think a little design literacy goes a long way in these discussions.

Those folks that whine and moan about design decisions are the kind of minority that should really be ignored, IMO. Listening to the most popular streamers and MLG players is what has all but killed the Halo sandbox in 343's hands.

These are the same people that say "Don't nerf my overpowered weapon! Make other weapons better! Also, my weapon needs these buffs...". I think the whole "ghost bullets" debacle is a load of crap. The game is meant to behave a certain way. It's how it's balanced. Does it bend the rules in order to play that way? Yeah. Is it a good solution while better solutions are found? Totally.

People saying "My bullets should always go where I point!" Should play Call of Duty with aim assist turned off (a great feature in Treyarch CoDs). They would get wrecked, because bullets always go where you're pointing, and these same people are the ones who use MIDA and 1KYS, where the aim assist is basically playing the game for them.

I think if these people want all of their shots to fly to the exact spot they are pointing at every single time, they should have all Aim Assist removed, because those two things go hand in hand.

I think a little design literacy goes a long way in these discussions.

Good friggin' luck with that.

I mean, heck, HCs dont even have scopes. You really want to nail something farther out, its going to take a very good eye and very precise aim. If you can pull that off, I can't really fault you.

As much as I love hand cannons, maybe you don't remember back at in the early days of Destiny. With the high range hand cannons, you could pull off quick headshots at absurd ranges. Scouts could not compete with Hand Cannons. You'd outshoot a scout rifle user. Let that sink in.

Its a handheld sniper rifle. Why wouldn't you use it for distance targets?

Them being anything but a handheld sniper rifle is why you wouldn't. Mostly because handheld sniper rifles are just sniper rifles.

I mean, heck, HCs dont even have scopes. You really want to nail something farther out, its going to take a very good eye and very precise aim. If you can pull that off, I can't really fault you.

As it stands, pulling off long range shots with a hand cannon used to be broken until their effective range was substantially shortened. Their easy of mobility and potential time to kill make more sense for a closer ranged weapon. Mix in 3SKs with high impact Scouts you can use now and it is much, much more logical. Because it used to be would get 3SKs at Scout+ ranges with Word of Crota while maintaining the up close potential. It was low risk/high reward in one of the worst ways. Then mix in 2SKs with Thorn at those same ranges, and I might have nightmares tonight of The Bad Times.

On an unrelated to that note, I do wish sights in Destiny were white when you aren't within intended engagement ranges, and only flipped "on" when you were aiming at something for optimum engagement, as Bungie did with Halo. Then you have a cut and dry communication.

I've gotten into a couple of gun battles within the sweet spot of the range for handcannons and have watched people just not take damage, even when doing body shots.

I've had the same experience. I play PvP with Slycrel quite frequently, and I know he often feels like his HC is missing when it should be hitting. Aside from lag, the only explaination I can come up with is that Bungie's idea of HC range is shorter than what many of us "feel" the sweet spot should be.

Maybe it's just a lingering effect of all of us getting used to HC range in year 1, and still not fully adjusting to HC's new range limits (I'd argue this is certainly part of what is going on, and that lack of clear communication through the UI is partially to blame).

But there is more to it than that.

The best example I can think of is on Vertigo at the back of control point B. I would consider the main platform of B to be a nice octagon of death. It's in the sweet spot of Hand cannons (unless I'm mistaken). I've been in numerous gun fights where I would aim center mass and the bullets just would not hit a single thing. It could have been lag, but it's beyond infuriating when a weapon doesn't perform at it's intended range due to RNG.

Again, we have a perception issue going on here. Lag aside, Destiny weapons DO perform within their intended range... The intended range just isn't always the same as you or I feel it should be. I'm not talking about calculated, watching the damage numbers, analytical thought, here. I'm talking about that gut-feeling, in the heat of battle, "this feels like HC range" feeling. THAT feeling doesn't line up with Bungie's current idea of HC range, and I think a big part of that has to do with map layouts.

Let's step back a little and think about the differences between PRs, SRs, HCs, and ARs. Aside from all the nitty gritty details, what is the basic separation between these weapons? SRs and PRs favor marksmanship; focusing in on a specific area, placing pinpoint shots at greater distances. That makes these guns perfect for covering long sight lines, aiming down hallways, overwatch roles. HCs and ARs favor mobility, CQB combat, players who are sprinting and jumping and sliding while shooting. This makes them ideal for aggressive play styles, players who push into the enemy position and engage up-close, brawlers.

So how does map design fit in to this?

Let's use Burning Shrine as an example. Lots of long, narrow sight lines, as well as large open rooms where more chaotic combat takes place. If I'm standing in one of the large rooms, shooting across the map at targets in another large room, that is SR/PR range. But if I move into the same room as the enemy targets, I've now switched gears. I'm no longer playing the role of a marksman. I'm in CQB mode, running, jumping, trying to confuse and disorient the enemy. The layout of the map encourages this shift in play styles as you engage from different positions. When I'm facing a group of enemies who are camping out in one of those side rooms and I push in to meet them up close, that FEELS like I should be using a HC... but my HC's range doesn't match the size of the room. If I'm in one corner of the room, firing at someone in the far corner, I'm still outside of my HC's intended range. The shape of the room and its relation to the rest of the map is encouraging a certain playstyle (which would logically favor certain weapons), but the SIZE of the room doesn't line up with that shift.

This is what happens when weapon tweaks and map design are treated separately. The same thing happened in Halo Reach when they reduced/removed bloom. Most people agreed that the DMR "felt" better to use, but the problem was that none of the maps had been designed to accommodate a primary weapon as deadly at long range as the bloomless-DMR now was. Players were getting shredded right in their spawns by enemies camping out half a mile away. The original bloom mechanics prevented this, by forcing long-range shooters to fire more slowly. The updated weapon mechanics no longer suited the map layouts. I think something similar has happened to Destiny.

Not only that was an amazing shot, he took half your health with a single burst.