Let's talk PvP Weapon Balance (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 16:58 (3019 days ago) @ Claude Errera

Now, it wouldn't be problematic if special ammo wasn't so scarce, but when you get into situations where you have no special, you're really screwed in this game right now. "secondary" weapons are everyone's go-to guns. They're not specific role weapons at all - they're playstyle defining, and they certainly aren't of secondary nature compared to primaries.

I'm having some trouble with your argument. Either everyone's running around with secondaries all the time, or secondary ammo is so scarce you can't actually use them in emergency situations... I don't think you can have both.

Both of the scenarios you describe are happening now. A team with board control also has ammo control and effectively has infinite secondary ammo. A team without board control has no ammo at all for their secondaries. The result is lopsided contests which are over from 1:30 in, but have to play out for the next 8 minutes in a way that isn't fun at all for the team that can't even get out of their spawn to get ammo. I've been on both sides of these matches, and it's totally fun to dominate the other team, but I think more can be done to at least give the poor guys a chance here.

Making primaries more powerful would allow you to challenge secondaries (while still being at a slight disadvantage), and making secondary ammo spawn more frequently (but start without any at all) would make acquiring secondary ammo easier, while removing the value of controlling the ammo spawns. The present ammo timer of 1:30 at the start gives a team enough time to establish control over all of the ammo spawns before any ammo appears. The original 30 second timer wasn't long enough to do that, so achieving ammo control wasn't a big deal because it wasn't really possible that quickly.

(I occasionally get killed by a shotgunner that spins around while I'm hitting him with my primary after I got the drop on him... but I also occasionally get lucky no-scope snipes on someone rushing me that I have no time to counter with my primary. It really seems to work both ways, for me. It seems 'fair'.)

This is exactly my thesis statement: The game is both the most balanced it's ever been and horribly unbalanced. Secondaries are balanced well for other secondaries. Primaries for other primaries. But the game between the two is massive. Secondary vs. secondary is fair. Primary vs. primary is fair. Primary vs. secondary is not fair at all.

Case and point: It took me 5 games of 10-20 kills per game to actually get 10 hand cannon kills last week. If that had been "get 10 shotgun kills in a game" I could have easily done it in one game, but with a hand cannon, even if I'd intentionally done nothing but hand cannon, I'd have gotten far fewer kills (and my K/D would have been in the basement, meaning my team would probably have lost the close games, too). Even with my best primary, the pulse rifle, I almost never get more than 5 kills per game with it (I know because I've had the same "games with 6+ pulse kills" bounty for over a month). and, again, I'm almost always in the 10-20 total kills per game range. I mean, when was the last time you even bothered trying to complete a "get 9+ kills with x primary type" bounty? In year 1 that would have been a gimmie. In year 2 it's nearly impossible.