Let's talk PvP Weapon Balance (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, 06:46 (3170 days ago) @ Kahzgul

These discussions always make me feel a little bit like I am playing a different game from everyone else. I agree with handling improvements on primary weapons. I agree that something should be done for the ammo economy (I like the overall Primary > Secondary > Heavy drop discussed elsewhere) and haven't really noticed current scarcity of special being a problem in maining a special weapon on the occasion.

However, I don't feel like I get OHK by specials everytime I come against them. Outliers (quick/no-scope from snipers mostly) are irritating to be sure, and there are ways to counter that (slower/delayed scope-in for snipers or no precision when hipfired, as two examples) with design changes. However, in most encounters where I lose to a special weapon it is because I made a bad play. Such as sticking my head out into active sniper lanes. Or trying to close with an enemy around a corner who is unsurprisingly packing a shotgun. Or being in the open/traveling a predictable path and I get caught by a Fusion rifle.

However, if I'm running a primary weapon I tend to avoid the niche situations where the Special weapons are designed to excell. I don't have much issue with them and I usually win those engagements by playing to the strengths of my weapons and the design of the map. And often enough if someone is poor in their aim with any of the OHK Specials even when they have advantage in positioning I often find one can hold their own. A missed sniper shot or shotgun blast that only partially connects might leave me an easy mop up, but I win a fair number of the engagements. At least fair enough I don't feel they break the game. And often enough when I just don't quite land enough splinters of a Fusion Rifle burst I know it's my fault when I get finished off by a primary.

You're not playing a different game at all. I'm not walking around being OHK'd by everything I see. That being said, I don't like that the current OHK capability of snipers and shotguns (and supers and rockets and fusion rifles) can still deliver ultimate punishment to you if you don't make a mistake. I can get the complete drop on a dude, but it takes so long for my primary to kill him that he can turn all the way around and shotgun my face. That simply shouldn't be possible. 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 find your example amazingly silly. If you're struggling to kill someone with a primary and are so close to them that they can turn around and shotgun you in the face, well... that's on you. Worse is you not wanting to be killed when you "don't make a mistake." If you died and there wasn't cheating or lag involved then more than likely you did make a mistake. It kinda feels like you think you're entitled to win in all situations.

CoD gets around this by making shotguns and snipers primary weapons as well, and restricting secondaries to anti-air or pistols, as well as by giving all guns a faster TTK so that one mistake on either side of a shootout is fatal.

But Destiny doesn't have this. You can land 4 shots with MIDA on a sniper and he can still OHK you even though you were lighting his world on fire. That's not something I can do, because I suck a sniping under duress, but it's been done to me plenty of times, often by snipers who weren't even facing me when I started firing. Similarly, the range on shotguns with god rolls is so large that it doesn't matter if you're backing up the whole time you're firing because they can still close the gap and OHK you. This dramatic power gap is the issue I have. The prevalence of OHKs in destiny is part of what makes destiny's pvp exciting and compelling. I'm not advocating removing them. You'll note I didn't suggest a single nerf to any weapon's ability to OHK. Rather, I want to see a lessening of the gap between primary 2+ second TTKs and secondary instant TTKs.

I'm a big fan of increasing the difficulty of sniping under fire, but if you land four shots with a MIDA Multi-Tool and your enemy is still alive then you missed. As you put it, your one mistake was fatal. I also hate the god roll shotguns, but you make it sound like it's always impossible to kill someone before they shotgun you. Obviously, that's not the case.

Then there's the situations you don't mention. Like when the Sniper misses multiple shots and dies without even damaging his target. Or where the shotgunner does fire outside of their one shot kill range and is finished off by a primary. Or they charge in only to be stuck by a grenade well beyond their optimal range. Comparing sloppy usage of primaries to perfect the usage of secondaries... and heavies... and Supers?! I like a lot of the ideas in the thread. Returning to the days of special and heavy ammo dropping from enemies under limited circumstances, for instance. But I also like the way Destiny currently plays for the most part and I don't find the arguments to boost primaries to be compelling.

My big worry is that under your plan every weapon will kill me in an instant no matter the range, instead of just some of them and only within limited ranges. Maybe some people would like that, but to me it would be absolute hell and force me out of PvP...