+1, and then some. (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, June 20, 2016, 21:11 (3171 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

When you have 20 choices as you say, another similar one isn't going to make much difference, which is why nothing you get excited you. It's entirely possible that moving forward Destiny just needs fewer guns which are more dissimilar to each other is style.

Completely agree with that.

So the question becomes: How do you make it exciting for people to get stuff?

Getting a weapon that is way better than the one you have is exciting. Getting one a little better is not exciting. But if a gun is way better than anything else, that creates a problem where it's just too good. If you only get guns a little better than what you have, you don't feel good about using it.

The solution I think is to make guns that are locally overpowered, yet globally weak if that makes sense. Then, design situations where the overpowered element can be exploited, but make that a relatively narrow area, with large weaknesses. If the overall situations are such that you need to balance a lot of elements to succeed, then the gun is never going to totally dominate, yet still feel powerful. Add in some all round weapons that don't have weaknesses but also aren't quite as powerful, and you're good to go.

The more overpowered the gun is, the thinner the razor's edge of using it should be.

What you're describing is almost exactly what I've been saying is so great about elemental primaries. Atheon's Epilogue was NOT an overpowered weapon... but there were times when it was the absolute best thing to use. Same goes for many of the year 1 elemental primaries. Fatebringer and possible Vision of Confluence really were the only "overpowered" elementals. All the rest were totally average outside of select scenarios.

An elemental primary would have to be otherwise extremely weak to fit into that design philosophy. Most of them were otherwise very strong.

And Atheon's Epilogue was never the best weapon to use. Ever. :-p