Let's talk PvP Weapon Balance (Destiny)

by squidnh3, Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 01:04 (2927 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Cruel and Cody got into an interesting discussion in the "it's not over" thread, and rather than trying to show up late to that party and also attempt to derail the conversation, I figured this deserved its own topic.

PvP weapon balance. This is a beast with two heads right now. On the one hand, the weapon balance since the last patch is the best it's ever been. Most primaries are about the same as most other primaries. Most secondaries are about the same as most other secondaries. And most heavies are about the same as most other heavies. On the other hand, the balance is frustratingly awful. Primary weapons are outclassed at every turn by secondary weapons.

Good idea, I've been meaning to post my thoughts about this as well, which seem to diverge somewhat from everyone else's.

I think we are overcomplicating this. Weapon balance within each class may be good, but the current state of PvP is considerably less fun than it was in Year 1. As you point out, the main reason for this is the general nerfing of primary weapons.

However, I think the reason that primary weapons are worse now is not so much that they aren't as powerful, but that they aren't as versatile. Bungie has espoused a new philosophy that each primary weapon type should fall into a range class, and not be very effective outside of it. Trying to make primary weapons fall into these niches over the past year has steadily increased the relative power of special weapons, as well as continually exposed new "overpowered" primaries, like MIDA and Doctrine. What these "overpowered" weapons have in common is that they are versatile and usable at a variety of ranges, allowing them to counter both snipers and shotguns.

Bungie has tried to counter this by limited special ammo, which only accentuates the overpowered specials, causing an entire new problem. The logical result of this is that we are playing mostly with frustratingly underpowered, homogeneous primaries, camping around waiting for special ammo to respawn - in other words, Halo, and there's another game that does that just fine.

What was wonderful about Y1 Destiny was the pace and rhythm. Kill times were fast, but not so twitchy that tactics weren't important. Guns felt powerful, and you got to use them much more often. That's what I'd like to see Bungie return to, and I think the best way to do it is to reverse the pigeonholing of primary weapons. Make every primary effective at mid-range (which I would describe as the distance between the outside Heavies and the T-junction on Shores of Time). Virtually all engagements in Destiny happen at mid-range. Maybe make certain archetypes within primary weapons skewed toward short or mid-range (probably mostly Scout or ARs). Let people decide what primaries to use based on feel, not range requirements. I think those philosophies would go a long way towards making PvP was fun as it was in Year 1.