I'm with Cody here (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Saturday, February 11, 2017, 06:48 (2655 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

because seeing what kinds of problems are caused by the changes at that skill level is very different than seeing the problems at lower skill levels.

You almost can't look at low skill levels when determining balance, because at low skill levels essentially everything is overpowered.

Overpowered is only in relation to two equal skills levels. Something could be considered overpowered to two low skill leveled players but not to two high level skilled players.

But that's not really a problem? If thw solution to something seemingly overpowered is to learn a counter or alternate strategy, then the developer needs to do nothing.

Are you saying that if a weapon is OP when two newbs are playing with it that it's not a problem? OP is OP regardless of skill level and should be addressed.

I guess all basketball hoops should be 4 feet high then.

It's quite basic, if you let people of all skill levels play in the same arena, then you have to balance for all skill levels. If you want to make a MLG subset of the game, then go for it.

Generally I think you want to balance for MLG players. As time passes, players' skill should increase, bringing all players more in line with your design plan, just as their gear, spec, and choice of weapons will refine down to your designed for ideals as well.

It's pretty much a given that a full-auto weapon will have a lower skill threshold than a burst weapon, which is lower than a semi auto weapon. At low skill levels, then, you expect to see a lot of ARs and few pulse rifles or hand cannons. At high skill you want to balance such that the opposite is true. In a perfect world the game is narrow, such that a HC user is only marginally more effective than an AR user, and will still lose fights when the AR user gets the drop on them or is an exceptionally better player in other ways (maneuvering, tactics, use of cover) etc..

The goal, generally, I think, is for players to use the low skill guns until they get a moment of inspiration of "I think I could make a high skill gun work" and then those players should find, after much practice, that they are marginally more successful with the high skill weapons.

I'm of the opinion that Destiny (pre-patch) suffered from having too wide a gap between pulse rifles of the dragon archetype and other weapons, shotguns notwithstanding. I haven't played post-patch, but I dislike the general limitation of usable weaponry from nerfing special ammo availability. I think it changes the game to be even more about map control and camping and less about aggressive assaults and blazes of glory.