Adding random rolls back was a mistake (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, June 11, 2020, 03:25 (1415 days ago) @ Pyromancy

Bungie should have had enough faith in their design to ignore the community on that one. It's only caused more and more problems

What if returning random rolls was strictly an internal decision, "backed" by particular parts of the community but championed by certain employees?
I feel like this was probably a fairly divisive issue internally at that time? I think there were maybe some articles or Tweets that can halfway back up the internal struggle, but I can't point to any specifically.

Except that the weapons ostensibly most responsible for the Sunsetting philosophy (Mountaintop, Recluse, Revoker) are static rolls. Even in the static rolls environment there was clear weapon "overuse" - Uriel's Gift anyone?

Again, I think that putting these pinnacle type guns in game, particularly in their Over Powered state within the Sandbox was an internal decision made by employees who are responsible for managing the ever-changing game world?
Who decided it? Why was it decided? What did they think would happen with these weapons in the Live environment? These guns didn't just magically appear in the game overnight.
IF, these weapons are the most responsible for the Sunsetting philosophy, why does it then sort of feel as if we as players are in a way being "punished" with Sunsetting since these weapons existence stem from intentionally made internal decisions or seemingly off the cuff changes in design philosophy?

Aren't Pinnacle weapons even sort of joked about/commentary between Saint-14 / Shaxx during the end of the Devil's Ruin quest if you hang around and listen?

Saint-14: Shaxx? The Crucible? What have you done with it?
Shaxx: Its not the Crucible by which You and I were forged.
Took Years, but Twilight Gap changed everything. After that day out there the Crucible went from a place where we settled our differences, to a place where we bettered ourselves.

S - 14: I heard you give out some Amazing weapons to your fighters.
Shaxx: Those weapons are earned with blood, sweat, and tears.
S - 14: Are you sure your fighters are bettering themselves, or chasing hardware?
Shaxx: Listen, even Guardians need to get paid ever once and a while.
S - 14: *Heuughh*, When you put it that way you sound like that sad lonely Rat man who lives downstairs
Shaxx: The Drifter? Keep your enemies close right? Watch him for us
S - 14: I was shocked to see Eris Morn again, She is not as she was.
Shaxx: She represents the best of us, Ghostless, and stronger than you and me both
S - 14: Perhaps we could get her a bigger gun? She would not have to carry that rock all the time.

Speaking of guns, ah, tell me more about these weapons you’ve crafted, I’m not allowed to earn them.
I have heard you made one for Young Redrix, ah, Redrix’s Claymore?
Shaxx: Broadsword.
S - 14: Whatever. There was a Handcannon as well? You made one for Josef, ah, Luna’s Howl?
Shaxx: Yes, Luna was his dog. She passed on the moon fighting Hive.
S - 14: Those bastards. I’m glad you killed their king
Shaxx: Are these questions leading anywhere Saint?
S - 14: Yes! The long rifle you designed, The Revoker, whats the story behind it? What does it do?
Shaxx: It shoots bullets, Saint, Its a gun ”

I mean, doesn’t this dialogue sort of parallel our Crucible and “chasing hardware”?
Can we trace back to a Root Cause of any kind? And no, it was not Shaxx.

I know, it is never that simple, nor cut-and-dried. Development as you go, over time, is messy. And there may not be direct cause->effect with these. But why does it seem like in some ways the onus for Sunsetting is passed back to us?

All good points.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that part of what you’re driving at here is the internal conflict, or lack of internal consistency within Bungie. I’m often struck by the way previously learned lessons seem to be “unlearned” not long after. For example, Bungie has in the past posted TWABs that explicitly discussed the problem with having guns that break the ammo economy, and how they can throw a monkey wrench into the entire crucible as well as PvE encounters (this was specifically in response to Ice Breaker and Black Hammer). Fast forward a couple years, and Bungie goes ahead and reintroduces Black Hammer with its original ammo regeneration abilities, followed by Revoker. Sure enough, Whisper of the Worm is eventually nerfed into the ground, and Revoker is held up as one of the reasons why we can’t have Pinnacle Weapons anymore, AND why sunsetting needs to happen.

Another example is the recent Sniper Rifle buff and nerf. Snipers were under-utilized in PvE, so Bungie buffed then. At the same time, Bungie releases a raid that features several boss fights where the boss is 100 feet away, retreating backwards down a hall or way up in the air. Naturally, the snipers are now ideal weapons for these encounters, so players start using them a lot. And Bungie’s reaction is “wait, we don’t like how much people are using sniper rifles all of a sudden, so we’re going to revert the buff”. Like... what? Weren’t they unhappy with that situation just a few months earlier, and now they’re intentionally going back to it?

I have a theory based on nothing more than my gut feelings (so take this with a gigantic grain of salt), but I get the impression that Bungie isn’t particularly good at knowing which of their guns are going to be really great. Hence the discrepancy between the effectiveness of a gun like Oxygen vs something like Recluse. I know there will always be outliers and surprises, but I think the sandbox team could save themselves a lot of trouble if they did a better job balancing their weapons out of the gate. Anyone who got Recluse back when it’s original form could tell within a couple hours (if not less) that is absolutely trounced all other short-mid range PvE primary weapons by a mile. It wasn’t subtle, nor did you have to be a top-tier player to see the difference. But they shipped it, left it in it’s overpowered state for ~6 months, and now it gets held up as one of the other justifications for sunsetting.