Current Destiny PvP: I must admit, it's growing on me (Destiny)
Ran some Iron banner last night and I gotta say, the new pvp balance has grown on me quite a bit.
Last time I played, it was the worst PvP experience of my destiny life. Nothing but UR and NLB with sidearms, and I couldn't land any shots with my "allegedly still good" hand cannons.
Fast forward to last night, where I said screw it, I like Iron Banana, so I'm going in. I did some research first and found that the Hawksaw archetype is still good. Well hey, I have a great Hawksaw that i love! Let's do it. And it was a VAST improvement in player experience.
First: I only won 2 of 6 games last night. Didn't matter. I had fun the whole time and every game (but one) was competitive. Never felt the need to jump lobbies even after a 5k point loss. The matchmaking felt solid.
I didn't encounter a single UR or NLB all night. Lots of good primary weapon gunplay where the difference was often who landed more crits. There was a bit of lag, but it was short lived and the damage referee seemed to be doing it's job (if you hit someone lagging, they still took damage, the only risk was them teleporting away while your rocket was in the air, which did happen to me once). And I found that the special ammo was much easier to get to that last time i played.
I'm not sure if the last round of PvP I had was just unlucky to get matched with superpro players far above my skill level or what, but this time around felt good. Even in matches where my team lost by 5k points, it didn't really feel one sided. There were no moments at all where I declared shenanigans on someone killing me (possibly a destiny first for me). Most importantly, the guns felt right to me. Primary weapons were used primarily. Special ammo was common enough that you could usually pick some up, but not so plentiful that you could run your shotgun all day. When I died unexpectedly, it was always clearly someone's good shot or grenade, and not once was a killed through a wall or around a corner from the shooter.
So anyway, I think the game's balance has moved into a good place. The new nechrochasm is pretty awesome (I don't have it, but I certainly got killed by it enough to recognize it), hawksaw pulses feel great, some people tell me hand cannons are still good (I just don't have the practice with the new aim/range/whatever to land my shots), and scouts like MIDA or VoC are pretty good too. Specials no longer dominate, and as much as the losing all ammo for them sucks when you die, I've come to respect that decision.
I retract my earlier opinions of this pvp balance. It's pretty fun right now. And it feels pretty fair, too.
I have played limited PVP, but I think you're right
by Funkmon 
, Saturday, April 15, 2017, 18:26 (2560 days ago) @ Kahzgul
I don't like it. I much prefer the PVP at launch, but the crucible does seem much more fair, isn't a special fest, most of the guns are balanced. I think Bungie is doing the right things for their game, even though it makes me like the game less.
I have played limited PVP, but I think you're right
by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, April 15, 2017, 18:37 (2560 days ago) @ Funkmon
I don't like it. I much prefer the PVP at launch, but the crucible does seem much more fair, isn't a special fest, most of the guns are balanced. I think Bungie is doing the right things for their game, even though it makes me like the game less.
One could definitely argue that a perfectly 'balanced' games is a worse game than one with imbalance. If 'fair' means shifting the focus to primaries and sharpshooting, then it definitely makes the game worse in my opinion.
I don't like it. I much prefer the PVP at launch, but the crucible does seem much more fair, isn't a special fest, most of the guns are balanced. I think Bungie is doing the right things for their game, even though it makes me like the game less.
One could definitely argue that a perfectly 'balanced' games is a worse game than one with imbalance. If 'fair' means shifting the focus to primaries and sharpshooting, then it definitely makes the game worse in my opinion.
My big problem with the game as it goes on is that it's slowly removing variety from its guns and gameplay. All the guns are the same, it's getting slower, et cetera. I hate this. However, there are fewer and fewer people complaining online about it.
On the other hand, if you are a maniac and order pizza with olives, I'll bitch about it, but maybe 80% of the people will like it, some will like it a lot. If you just order a cheese pizza, a couple people will be like "WTF," but shut up and eat it, it's inoffensive and lame.
Or with cars:
Destiny came out as a Lamborghini Countach. Loud, impractical, you can't see out of the rear window, designed with a ruler. Destiny is going out as Porsche. Still energetic, still fun, but more practical, less offensive, but also far fewer posters on teenage boy walls.
Yeah, definitely.
by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, April 15, 2017, 20:13 (2560 days ago) @ Funkmon
I don't like it. I much prefer the PVP at launch, but the crucible does seem much more fair, isn't a special fest, most of the guns are balanced. I think Bungie is doing the right things for their game, even though it makes me like the game less.
One could definitely argue that a perfectly 'balanced' games is a worse game than one with imbalance. If 'fair' means shifting the focus to primaries and sharpshooting, then it definitely makes the game worse in my opinion.
My big problem with the game as it goes on is that it's slowly removing variety from its guns and gameplay. All the guns are the same, it's getting slower, et cetera. I hate this. However, there are fewer and fewer people complaining online about it.On the other hand, if you are a maniac and order pizza with olives, I'll bitch about it, but maybe 80% of the people will like it, some will like it a lot. If you just order a cheese pizza, a couple people will be like "WTF," but shut up and eat it, it's inoffensive and lame.
Or with cars:
Destiny came out as a Lamborghini Countach. Loud, impractical, you can't see out of the rear window, designed with a ruler. Destiny is going out as Porsche. Still energetic, still fun, but more practical, less offensive, but also far fewer posters on teenage boy walls.
After playing a decent amount of Iron Banner this week, my feeling is that the emphasis has moved away from "the guns" and towards the fundamentals of aiming & shooting, movement, map control, etc. Those elements have always been important in the crucible, obviously. But I'm seeing fewer cases of "don't go to that hallway because there are 3 snipers covering it" or "they have 4 Thorns so I guess we should just quit now". Yes, the weapons themselves do feel more homogenized. And while I agree that's bad for PvE, I think it actually makes PvP way better.
The changes to special ammo are interesting. I think they've found a clumsy and problematic solution to the issue of crazy-dominant secondary weapons... but it is still a net positive. Special ammo is readily available, but it's just kind of a pain to keep looking for a crate and waiting for it to pop. So when I do go out of my way to grab some, I feel pressure to really make the most of it. As I said, it's not ideal, but I do think the crucible plays much better now than it did a year ago.