I'm done with Crucible

Yes, Professor Chaos is done. It's just lame now, to be honest. Since the most recent "patch," Crucible has become predictable and boring.

First, the lag. My God, the lag. And this isn't even in Iron La...Banner.
Scenario: Get killed by Thorn or a pulse rifle. Scores show up. 9/12 players with red bar latencies...sigh.
Next, Dr. B is on hiatus, so...what's the point?
C. The nerfing. My once Crucible-shredder, SUROS Regime, can't even live up to the second half of its name anymore. It isn't the king of anything! Exotic AR...more like fancy Airsoft gun.

This is not me quitting Destiny. I still have fun raiding and dicking around with you guys (and gals), but until there are some serious changes...no more Prof. Chaos and his fluffy minions fun time.

/rant

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As one of the three exotics I don't have, (i've never had an exotic auto rifle drop, but Crota's given me 5 No Land Beyond), I'm happy to see the Suros is no longer the majority armament in the Crucible.

I've complained in the past that all I saw in normal play were Titans and Sunsingers running the Suros, and that the suros was easy mode. Good at any range, with a excellent time to kill and healing to win close matchups.

Now there seems to be a much larger variety of weapons, and a bit more interesting fights.

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I was just using Suros Regime this morning and had no trouble shredding guardians as usual. Maybe you just had a few off games?

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Even before the nerf I felt like 80% of the people I played against were using Handcannons (Thorn and TLW, unsurprisingly), not ARs. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw more than 1 or 2 ARs in a lobby (Iron Banner excluded), let alone on the top scorer. As Cody will attest, Handcannons are just better weapons, and I see them even more now as the update has limited options even further.

I suspect Bungie looked at the number of players bringing ARs into the Crucible but not the number of AR kills. Lower-level Crucible might be chock full of ARs and I wouldn't know, but at least at mid-high level Crucible play all the best players seem to use Handcannons, not ARs. That suggests to me that ARs must not be that overpowered, or surely everyone would use them?

Tl;Dr Considering ARs are so overrepresented (and supposedly OP), I never see them. Handcannons on the other hand, are everywhere.

Edit: That said I'm still running a Vanquisher, I just seem to be the only one. I definitely can't keep up with my Thorn-using friends any more though.

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Even before the nerf I felt like 80% of the people I played against were using Handcannons (Thorn and TLW, unsurprisingly), not ARs. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw more than 1 or 2 ARs in a lobby (Iron Banner excluded), let alone on the top scorer. As Cody will attest, Handcannons are just better weapons, and I see them even more now as the update has limited options even further.

The exotic hand cannons are beasts, but even vanilla hand cannons rock. The Devil you Know that was available from the vendor had send it, and its range is INSANE. It's like a scout rifle, even after the range nerf. If you can roll send it on a hand cannon that doesn't need field scout, you have a guardian killer in the crucible.

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Handcannons are definitely superior. Im not even good with Handcannons and I never go below 1.0 with them.

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[*]C. The nerfing. My once Crucible-shredder, SUROS Regime, can't even live up to the second half of its name anymore. It isn't the king of anything! Exotic AR...more like fancy Airsoft gun.

I don't blame you for stopping, but I think you really would wreck people with Last Word or Thorn, man. Last Word especially; I don't know if you have one, but you need to use it a few times and see what you think. Although I understand that it's less about being effective and more about how much you loved that gun.

He really loved that gun.

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I have yet to get Suros Regime and would still like to have it one day, but am sad that I will never know it as the wrecking machine it was. Since the patch, I've really struggled to find my form in the crucible, too. I used to use an Up For Anything and a Do Gooder in the Crucible. They didn't wreck, I had to hit good shots, but I wasn't getting torn apart either. If I started hitting you before you hit me, I was gonna win. Same time, coin toss. After you, I'm gonna lose. And that sounds really fair to me. Now, I've got no hope. TTK for other weapons is too fast to even try using an AR. Bungie has said that ARs are meant to be close range chainsaws, but you can't create enough damage quickly enough to make that happen. Especially now that PRs can be 2-3 hit kills. Thus, I've resorted to hand cannons again. I was using them before, but it feels like I don't have any options now (until I get a PR upgraded).

A few things I want to add. 1) I don't think Bungie interpreted their data correctly. While there were probably lots of people using ARs in the Crucible, I think they should curved the data to look at what weapons the better players use and adjust accordingly. For the most part, the best players in the game don't run with ARs that often anymore and haven't for a while.

2) I was looking at DestinyTracker.com and viewing some of Crucible stats. One of the more interesting stats you can get when you look at specific matches is your average distance of kill on a map. Maps can have significant differences in this average distance. I enjoy sniping a lot so on some maps, my average kill distance is close 50-60m where as on Asylum or Anomaly my average kill distance is less than 15m. While I didn't look at this until recently, I know this distance coincides with what gun I bring into the match. Auto Rifles used to be great for 20-30m encounters and now they aren't, and I've yet to find something to fit that range. A scout rifle is actually effective at a slightly longer range. A pulse rifle may work, but is intended for longer range than an AR as well. I guess what I'm also saying is it might be necessary for me to not only switch weapons, but change tactics and adjust my distance of engagement as well. Maybe other players need to make adjustments like that too. Just some food for thought.

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I retired my beastly roll Shadow Price and rock a Hawkmoon now, though I actually use my sniper rifle to get most of my kills. On close quarters maps that don't have sweet sniping lanes, I actually change everything and roll with a blink shotty bladedancer instead of my normal hunter.

Part of the issue for me is that gunslinger's trance has much more tangible benefits when using an autorifle than any other weapon. Once I got that first precision kill, my weapon became a complete laser. Now I only see it really helping with heavy MGs. I guess the effects are useful for all guns, but it's just not as obvious.

I'll miss the old days, but I don't mind the new. TBH the other weapons all feel like they require more skill to use than the ARs, and for that reason alone I feel like I'm better off now (I consider myself a high skill player) than I was before, as enemies have a harder time killing me.

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I have yet to get Suros Regime and would still like to have it one day, but am sad that I will never know it as the wrecking machine it was. Since the patch, I've really struggled to find my form in the crucible, too. I used to use an Up For Anything and a Do Gooder in the Crucible. They didn't wreck, I had to hit good shots, but I wasn't getting torn apart either. If I started hitting you before you hit me, I was gonna win. Same time, coin toss. After you, I'm gonna lose. And that sounds really fair to me. Now, I've got no hope. TTK for other weapons is too fast to even try using an AR. Bungie has said that ARs are meant to be close range chainsaws, but you can't create enough damage quickly enough to make that happen. Especially now that PRs can be 2-3 hit kills. Thus, I've resorted to hand cannons again. I was using them before, but it feels like I don't have any options now (until I get a PR upgraded).

A few things I want to add. 1) I don't think Bungie interpreted their data correctly. While there were probably lots of people using ARs in the Crucible, I think they should curved the data to look at what weapons the better players use and adjust accordingly. For the most part, the best players in the game don't run with ARs that often anymore and haven't for a while.

2) I was looking at DestinyTracker.com and viewing some of Crucible stats. One of the more interesting stats you can get when you look at specific matches is your average distance of kill on a map. Maps can have significant differences in this average distance. I enjoy sniping a lot so on some maps, my average kill distance is close 50-60m where as on Asylum or Anomaly my average kill distance is less than 15m. While I didn't look at this until recently, I know this distance coincides with what gun I bring into the match. Auto Rifles used to be great for 20-30m encounters and now they aren't, and I've yet to find something to fit that range. A scout rifle is actually effective at a slightly longer range. A pulse rifle may work, but is intended for longer range than an AR as well. I guess what I'm also saying is it might be necessary for me to not only switch weapons, but change tactics and adjust my distance of engagement as well. Maybe other players need to make adjustments like that too. Just some food for thought.

Yeah, my Vanquisher isn't my go to Pocket Infinity pairing anymore for this very reason. It used to absolutely crush at mid, but I've had to switch it out for vision of confluence (which, paired with a shotty or FR, is a great gun that I highly recommend).

If you're looking for an AR replacement, I still think Bad JuJu is the way to go. Fires full auto, and with hip fire, it handles like an AR, too. The super regen is a nice bonus. It's a good all purpose gun, and it can be right at home with a shotty or a sniper depending on the map. Maybe the most versatile gun available at the moment.

I always pair a sniper with the Last Word, though, because even with the range nerf, it still wins everything at mid- and closer. It's even more OP now that AR's can't compete with it. It's really a shame, too, because I never really feared the AR's before anyway, and never understood the constant nerfs. AR's got more kills because everyone used them. Bungie needed to consider % of kills with x weapon by % use of x weapon by the player base. They just went with total number of kills because Pulse Rifles were so unused, and now they've just created an equal swing in the opposite direction.

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WC....%Use....%Kills...LoOP
AR......50.......40........0.8
PR......30.......35........1.166666667
HC......19.......24........1.263157895
SR.......1........1.........1

Where WC is Weapon Class, %Use is the percent of the player base that uses it, %Kills is the percent of crucible kills in total by said weapon, and LoOP is the level of Over Poweredness. These numbers are fake, they're simply meant to be illustrative.

Even though AR's could be used the most and kill the most, they wouldn't necessarily be the best compared to Pulse Rifles and Hand Cannons. Bungie just decided that the gross numbers of use and kills was the issue, not the quality of those things. LoOP should be determining what is nerfed; in an ideal world for Bungie, every weapon should have an LoOP of 1.0, right?

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And start reading my posts and the Bungie update prior to posting more. You're fake examples are just that, fake. Bungie gave out a fair number of REAL statistics using REAL guns to back up their changes. Included in that was the fact "Looking at raw DPS [damage per second], the Auto Rifle is the most lethal primary weapon class across all of Destiny’s activities. ".
That TTK stat has nothing to do with total number of kills, or total number of players using the weapon. They even filtered it by good players and bad, by players that won the game they took the data from, and players that lost the game that they took the data from.

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And start reading my posts and the Bungie update prior to posting more. You're fake examples are just that, fake. Bungie gave out a fair number of REAL statistics using REAL guns to back up their changes. Included in that was the fact "Looking at raw DPS [damage per second], the Auto Rifle is the most lethal primary weapon class across all of Destiny’s activities. ".
That TTK stat has nothing to do with total number of kills, or total number of players using the weapon. They even filtered it by good players and bad, by players that won the game they took the data from, and players that lost the game that they took the data from.

I know we responded elsewhere so this may be moot; just wanted to reiterate that we didn't get to see the raw DPS measurement or how they got it. There was an earlier thread about a reddit analysis of exotic weapons that's worth a look on the subject.

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I know we responded elsewhere so this may be moot; just wanted to reiterate that we didn't get to see the raw DPS measurement or how they got it. There was an earlier thread about a reddit analysis of exotic weapons that's worth a look on the subject.

Raw DPS is just part of the equation though. What's the raw DPS of a shotgun at 0 meters? Effectively infinite, because the guy on the other end of the barrel always dies. So what's the TTK of a shotgun at 0 meters? About 0 seconds. Does that make the shotty OP? Of course not. What Bungie can do, and what I don't see the community doing (even in that reddit post, with all it's great use of combinatorics) is to define TTK at different distances in real world scenarios.

For example, Bungie can see:
The TTK of any shotgun, given any distance, in a real world fight. You can imagine that the real world use of a shotgun is not used as effectively (compared to the perfect scenario) than say a scout rifle, because given the optimum combat distance for both weapons, your target will appear to be moving faster and changing direction quicker in the case of the shotgun. There for the real world TTK of a shotgun is not going to align with the firing squad TTK scenario. And the real world TTK of a shotgun is REALLY not going to align with the DPS.

I love stats and predicting things more than the next guy. I've written a number of simulators of favorite dice and card games in my language of choice. But it's important to always recognize when you only have an approximation of reality, and why that approximation exists. I think this is actually where other gaming companies get it so wrong. They look at the base numbers and say "All guns are equal", when in the real world they aren't even close due to factors that are not part of the base damage of a weapon.

I also do not buy that Auto Rifles are zomg worst thing evah! when the AR took a 2.5% reduction in base damage. I bet I could flip that switch on and off all day on 99.99% of the community and they'd never know. The almost 10% increase to the pulse rifle though, that's some good shit right there :)

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I also do not buy that Auto Rifles are zomg worst thing evah! when the AR took a 2.5% reduction in base damage. I bet I could flip that switch on and off all day on 99.99% of the community and they'd never know. The almost 10% increase to the pulse rifle though, that's some good shit right there :)

This is probably why the AR nerf is so keenly felt, too. The fact that "Pulse Rifles can outshoot AR's at any range" might be more confirmation bias than people are admitting. I know, as someone who doesn't use either very often, that PR came up a lot more than AR in the last couple weeks on my death cam; but that could be, after all, a result of nobody using AR's.

Exotic Handcannons still come up most often. I don't have issues killing PR and AR users with those, and never really have.

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I also do not buy that Auto Rifles are zomg worst thing evah! when the AR took a 2.5% reduction in base damage. I bet I could flip that switch on and off all day on 99.99% of the community and they'd never know. The almost 10% increase to the pulse rifle though, that's some good shit right there :)

This is probably why the AR nerf is so keenly felt, too. The fact that "Pulse Rifles can outshoot AR's at any range" might be more confirmation bias than people are admitting. I know, as someone who doesn't use either very often, that PR came up a lot more than AR in the last couple weeks on my death cam; but that could be, after all, a result of nobody using AR's.

Exotic Handcannons still come up most often. I don't have issues killing PR and AR users with those, and never really have.

Precisely. If the entire game was AR vs PR one could make the argument that the AR took an 11% dive. But instead people seem to feel that hand cannons are doing all the killing, before and after the update. Since hand cannons were nerfed a little too, I'd say the AR nerf is even less than 2.5% because of who you face the majority of the time. While I die to PRs more than I used to, if an AR is in the game I still die to it. Maybe I'll pick up my AR and take it for a spin again. I stopped using it before the update because I found killing with a SR far more fun and effective for my style :)

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Handcannons have always had a better TTK than ARs, despite lower DPS

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Currently Scout rifles can two shot with head shots. Does that make them OP?

The issue wasn't just that more people used Autoguns. The issue was that autoguns were very forgiving. Ample clip sizes, good stability and the fastest reloads are the halmarks of the class.

TTK assumes you make all your shots. The low recoil on the Shadowprice made it very easy to land a large number of headshots and win out over the other weapon classes even at their preferred range. Suros was the same way, with lifesteal added on.

Hand Cannons had long reload times, slower firing rates and small clips. Scout Rifles had larger clips but fired even slower. Thorn and the Last Word are powerful precisely because they have some of the fastest fire rates in their class. Both classes need skill to win because a single miss would mean an Auto Rifle would win out. You were also more vulnerable since the reloads took longer and were more likely in a sustained fight.

So ARs require less skill to use, and had greater benefits for skilled players since they could land headshots and get the first shot in more often. If you are not getting head shots, then TTK is the same for AR and HCs, and longer for SCs.

Based on the data, if you can't get headshots, don't use anything but ARs. The game plays just as you want barring that, and I don't think you want to say that people who take the added risk of the HC and SCs should suffer without any benefit.

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So ARs require less skill to use, and had greater benefits for skilled players since they could land headshots and get the first shot in more often. If you are not getting head shots, then TTK is the same for AR and HCs, and longer for SCs.

Based on the data, if you can't get headshots, don't use anything but ARs. The game plays just as you want barring that, and I don't think you want to say that people who take the added risk of the HC and SCs should suffer without any benefit.

This is very true, and one of the points that doesn't get made as often. But whether you can or can't land headshots now, AR's aren't really competitive. Suros is actually one of the worst AR's in the game now. 1.1.1 really nerfed AR's, I think too far. They definitely don't outshoot everything now if neither player can hit headshots; the real question is whether they can outshoot anything.

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So ARs require less skill to use, and had greater benefits for skilled players since they could land headshots and get the first shot in more often. If you are not getting head shots, then TTK is the same for AR and HCs, and longer for SCs.

Based on the data, if you can't get headshots, don't use anything but ARs. The game plays just as you want barring that, and I don't think you want to say that people who take the added risk of the HC and SCs should suffer without any benefit.

This is very true, and one of the points that doesn't get made as often. But whether you can or can't land headshots now, AR's aren't really competitive. Suros is actually one of the worst AR's in the game now. 1.1.1 really nerfed AR's, I think too far. They definitely don't outshoot everything now if neither player can hit headshots; the real question is whether they can outshoot anything.

Balancing the lethality of an AR in a skilled users hands with the penchant for less skilled players to use AR's seems to be the biggest issue with this weapon class, likely from the start. Would a better move have been to keep the original base damage, and just not have AR's do bonus headshot damage at all?

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Balancing the lethality of an AR in a skilled users hands with the penchant for less skilled players to use AR's seems to be the biggest issue with this weapon class, likely from the start. Would a better move have been to keep the original base damage, and just not have AR's do bonus headshot damage at all?

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that would be a good thing. One that that head shot damage does for a player is
1. Allows them to fight better if they're playing better
2. Give them a noticeable way to measure how well they are improving their gunplay.

If ARs effectively had no bonus to aiming, the difference in a good vs bad fight would be much smaller, and a player would show little combat improvement as they got better at aiming.

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Balancing the lethality of an AR in a skilled users hands with the penchant for less skilled players to use AR's seems to be the biggest issue with this weapon class, likely from the start. Would a better move have been to keep the original base damage, and just not have AR's do bonus headshot damage at all?

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that would be a good thing. One that that head shot damage does for a player is
1. Allows them to fight better if they're playing better
2. Give them a noticeable way to measure how well they are improving their gunplay.

If ARs effectively had no bonus to aiming, the difference in a good vs bad fight would be much smaller, and a player would show little combat improvement as they got better at aiming.

It would definitely be a tradeoff; but I think once most players start to improve their aim, they gravitate towards guns that reward that aim more anyway. The alternative they went with seems to have led to a switch from AR's to Hand Cannons and Pulse Rifles, so you might see the same result regardless. What we really need are stats post-nerf; otherwise all of this is ultimately arguments in confirmation bias :/

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Balancing the lethality of an AR in a skilled users hands with the penchant for less skilled players to use AR's seems to be the biggest issue with this weapon class, likely from the start. Would a better move have been to keep the original base damage, and just not have AR's do bonus headshot damage at all?

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that would be a good thing. One that that head shot damage does for a player is
1. Allows them to fight better if they're playing better
2. Give them a noticeable way to measure how well they are improving their gunplay.

If ARs effectively had no bonus to aiming, the difference in a good vs bad fight would be much smaller, and a player would show little combat improvement as they got better at aiming.

It would definitely be a tradeoff; but I think once most players start to improve their aim, they gravitate towards guns that reward that aim more anyway. The alternative they went with seems to have led to a switch from AR's to Hand Cannons and Pulse Rifles, so you might see the same result regardless. What we really need are stats post-nerf; otherwise all of this is ultimately arguments in confirmation bias :/

AR's basically don't have a head shot bonus. At x1.5 extra damage (correct me if I'm wrong) with a bullet hose AR, it's more often than not a better idea to aim for center of mass, because you are doing the same amount of damage if you get 50% more bullets on target.

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AR's basically don't have a head shot bonus. At x1.5 extra damage (correct me if I'm wrong) with a bullet hose AR, it's more often than not a better idea to aim for center of mass, because you are doing the same amount of damage if you get 50% more bullets on target.

It is 1.25 now, but used to be 1.5.

Probably true in PvP, but in PvE non major enemies have lower defense values on their heads, so you do double the base damage with headshots, THEN you add in the critical multiplier for even more damage. You could miss half your shots and still come out ahead over shooting the body.

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AR's basically don't have a head shot bonus. At x1.5 extra damage (correct me if I'm wrong) with a bullet hose AR, it's more often than not a better idea to aim for center of mass, because you are doing the same amount of damage if you get 50% more bullets on target.

It is 1.25 now, but used to be 1.5.

Probably true in PvP, but in PvE non major enemies have lower defense values on their heads, so you do double the base damage with headshots, THEN you add in the critical multiplier for even more damage. You could miss half your shots and still come out ahead over shooting the body.

People keep comparing the skill it takes when dueling AR vs HC/SR/PR, and the skill level is based on how well you can get Criticals. I don't think that is true when it comes to AR's. In my mind, a skilled AR user is one that can get into it's range without getting shot down. That includes too close (because nothing sucks more than getting shotgunned in the face). And this should be a the true skill level of an AR. However, these nerfs have made it so that even if you get in close, to the ideal AR range (excluding SUROS), you still don't always have the better chance. That more than anything bothers me.

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People keep comparing the skill it takes when dueling AR vs HC/SR/PR, and the skill level is based on how well you can get Criticals. I don't think that is true when it comes to AR's. In my mind, a skilled AR user is one that can get into it's range without getting shot down. That includes too close (because nothing sucks more than getting shotgunned in the face). And this should be a the true skill level of an AR. However, these nerfs have made it so that even if you get in close, to the ideal AR range (excluding SUROS), you still don't always have the better chance. That more than anything bothers me.

There's no magic range for ARs where they shine over other guns. At ANY range, there's another gun that will wreck them. Mid range is your best bet, but you'd better hope your target is not good with a hand cannon. You'd have the best chance mid range against someone using a scout rifle I think.

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There's no magic range for ARs where they shine over other guns.

And this is what bugs me the most. I think there SHOULD be a good range for them. In fact, I think there should be a good range for all primaries. And maybe that is what Bungie is trying to do, but I think ARs are getting shafted in this regard.

It's okay if there is overlap between primaries and special, because they are just that, primary and special.

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ARs share the same range profile as HCs and be comparable in TTK. The issue is that the range bands don't seem as important in Destiny as they did in Halo or COD. You can still be effective in most maps with a HC or AR except at extreme ranges.

You can't really include the special weapons in the analysis, since they are meant to be clearly superior at their chosen range.

Prior to the change, as I said earlier, the ARs were too easy to use. You could kill in about the same time with body shots, and you could easily have ammo to kill 5 guys in a row without reloading. The best HCs can get is 3 people. Instead of dropping the damage I would have widened the spread on the gun, but that would highly penalize the "precision" ARs like the Suros, Shadowprice and Cydonia, and not really adversely effect the spray and pray models like Dr. Nope. Dropping the damage pretty much equally penalizes both the accurate and the spray class archetypes. The alternatives, like having a larger range drop off in damage or reducing clip size have their own major drawbacks and would also elicit complaints.

I've got anecdotal reports from IB that it is much more diverse this time around, which we should all consider a win. I hated the first IB where 4-5 of the people on each side would have a Suros. That was a clear indication of something being off, and if everyone is toting a Thorn in the next few IBs there will need to be another adjustment.

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ARs share the same range profile as HCs and be comparable in TTK. The issue is that the range bands don't seem as important in Destiny as they did in Halo or COD. You can still be effective in most maps with a HC or AR except at extreme ranges.

You can't really include the special weapons in the analysis, since they are meant to be clearly superior at their chosen range.

Prior to the change, as I said earlier, the ARs were too easy to use. You could kill in about the same time with body shots, and you could easily have ammo to kill 5 guys in a row without reloading. The best HCs can get is 3 people. Instead of dropping the damage I would have widened the spread on the gun, but that would highly penalize the "precision" ARs like the Suros, Shadowprice and Cydonia, and not really adversely effect the spray and pray models like Dr. Nope. Dropping the damage pretty much equally penalizes both the accurate and the spray class archetypes. The alternatives, like having a larger range drop off in damage or reducing clip size have their own major drawbacks and would also elicit complaints.

I've got anecdotal reports from IB that it is much more diverse this time around, which we should all consider a win. I hated the first IB where 4-5 of the people on each side would have a Suros. That was a clear indication of something being off, and if everyone is toting a Thorn in the next few IBs there will need to be another adjustment.

I think this may all be moot until we get some post-patch numbers on the player base. I'm not seeing many anecdotes from people saying they're still content to run AR's in this thread. Kinda hard to kill 5 guys in a row if you can't get past the first one.

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I think this may all be moot until we get some post-patch numbers on the player base. I'm not seeing many anecdotes from people saying they're still content to run AR's in this thread.

A lot of good players, and myself, abandoned ARs long ago and never looked back. That's why I am utterly baffled by this nerf, since after their first nerf way back when, they lost their effectiveness over other weapons. I'm not saying they were BAD then; you could certainly do well with them, but they were by no means imbalanced or overpowered, or even the best choice most of the time. In fact, I would say they were probably in a good place.

I was there in the Alpha when they were actually considerably overpowering any of the other primaries, in both PvE and PvP. I know what that looked like, and the ARs of a month ago were extremely far from that.

The fact that a bunch of people chose to use them is simply because they are a low skill weapon, and is not indicative of their power necessarily.

Now they are simply useless in PvE and PvP if your aim is to perform.

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I think this may all be moot until we get some post-patch numbers on the player base. I'm not seeing many anecdotes from people saying they're still content to run AR's in this thread.

A lot of good players, and myself, abandoned ARs long ago and never looked back. That's why I am utterly baffled by this nerf, since after their first nerf way back when, they lost their effectiveness over other weapons. I'm not saying they were BAD then; you could certainly do well with them, but they were by no means imbalanced or overpowered, or even the best choice most of the time. In fact, I would say they were probably in a good place.

I was there in the Alpha when they were actually considerably overpowering any of the other primaries, in both PvE and PvP. I know what that looked like, and the ARs of a month ago were extremely far from that.

The fact that a bunch of people chose to use them is simply because they are a low skill weapon, and is not indicative of their power necessarily.

Now they are simply useless in PvE and PvP if your aim is to perform.

In PvE they've been worthless for a long time, but prior to 1.1.1, they were still very effective, due mostly to good perks on legendaries. I know I used Vanquisher with my Pocket Infinity for a long time and only switched to Scout Rifles after the update. Suros with the ADS semi auto was still extremely effective. Now Handcannons are squarely superior (IMO, we don't have numbers); TLW/Thorn are now absolutely the two best guns in the game, with Hawkmoon right there, due to the range nerf effecting it more than the other two.

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I think this may all be moot until we get some post-patch numbers on the player base. I'm not seeing many anecdotes from people saying they're still content to run AR's in this thread.

A lot of good players, and myself, abandoned ARs long ago and never looked back. That's why I am utterly baffled by this nerf, since after their first nerf way back when, they lost their effectiveness over other weapons. I'm not saying they were BAD then; you could certainly do well with them, but they were by no means imbalanced or overpowered, or even the best choice most of the time. In fact, I would say they were probably in a good place.

I was there in the Alpha when they were actually considerably overpowering any of the other primaries, in both PvE and PvP. I know what that looked like, and the ARs of a month ago were extremely far from that.

The fact that a bunch of people chose to use them is simply because they are a low skill weapon, and is not indicative of their power necessarily.

Now they are simply useless in PvE and PvP if your aim is to perform.

I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

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I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

Perhaps it does, but I honestly think a good player who is using a Suros will lose in a fight to a good player using nearly any hand cannon, most of the time.

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I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

Perhaps it does, but I honestly think a good player who is using a Suros will lose in a fight to a good player using nearly any hand cannon, most of the time.

My K/D last night says otherwise :)

As I said in another thread, Hand Canons are certainly more effective than ARs if used with 100% efficiency. But they're also more punishing when you miss shots. One of the reasons I have a hard time using HCs is because I side-step like a madman. I twitch and juke all over the place. This makes it very difficult for me to land headshots with a HC, but it also makes it difficult for other people to hit me. So for my playstyle, painting my crosshair in the general area of my target's head and holding down the trigger with my AR works really well. I'll out-duel most HC users I come across.

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I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

Perhaps it does, but I honestly think a good player who is using a Suros will lose in a fight to a good player using nearly any hand cannon, most of the time.

My K/D last night says otherwise :)

As I said in another thread, Hand Canons are certainly more effective than ARs if used with 100% efficiency. But they're also more punishing when you miss shots. One of the reasons I have a hard time using HCs is because I side-step like a madman. I twitch and juke all over the place. This makes it very difficult for me to land headshots with a HC, but it also makes it difficult for other people to hit me. So for my playstyle, painting my crosshair in the general area of my target's head and holding down the trigger with my AR works really well. I'll out-duel most HC users I come across.

I think where we started in this madness was more to the point of giving players who prefer AR-centric playstyles a fair shake. Think of the Dr. Nope lovers! That thing needs some love. Look at the steaming pile of the Nechrocasm. There's absolutely no reward for it. I can't honestly say how it's playing in IB but I played a fair amount of plain old fashioned crucible post-patch, and there was pity in my heart for the Atheon's Epilogue users. I might not be a good example either because personally, for me, the Thorn and Last Word are very up my alley. I wasn't losing many gunfights, and I was beating the Suros consistently, which is abnormal. Usually it's more 50/50 with me, and it felt more 75/25.

(Obligatory "moot 'till they give us some data!" comment :/)

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I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

Perhaps it does, but I honestly think a good player who is using a Suros will lose in a fight to a good player using nearly any hand cannon, most of the time.

My K/D last night says otherwise :)

As I said in another thread, Hand Canons are certainly more effective than ARs if used with 100% efficiency. But they're also more punishing when you miss shots. One of the reasons I have a hard time using HCs is because I side-step like a madman. I twitch and juke all over the place. This makes it very difficult for me to land headshots with a HC, but it also makes it difficult for other people to hit me. So for my playstyle, painting my crosshair in the general area of my target's head and holding down the trigger with my AR works really well. I'll out-duel most HC users I come across.

I think where we started in this madness was more to the point of giving players who prefer AR-centric playstyles a fair shake. Think of the Dr. Nope lovers! That thing needs some love. Look at the steaming pile of the Nechrocasm. There's absolutely no reward for it. I can't honestly say how it's playing in IB but I played a fair amount of plain old fashioned crucible post-patch, and there was pity in my heart for the Atheon's Epilogue users. I might not be a good example either because personally, for me, the Thorn and Last Word are very up my alley. I wasn't losing many gunfights, and I was beating the Suros consistently, which is abnormal. Usually it's more 50/50 with me, and it felt more 75/25.

(Obligatory "moot 'till they give us some data!" comment :/)

The problem with both Atheon's Epilogue and Necrochasm is they're high rate of fire/low impact. ARs like that are typically not very effective in Crucible. Weapons like Suros Regime (when zoomed in) are effective because they're lower RoF, higher impact. I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect Abyss Defiant would actually be quite good in Crucible as well.

* Just to be clear, about 99% of my Suros kills are scored while ADS. Hip-firing Auto Rifles is all but useless, IMO.

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I went on a total rampage with Suros Regime last night. Granted, Suros is THE BEST Auto Rifle in the game, but I still think it's unfair to call them "useless". I do far better with Suros than I do with Red Death or Hawkmoon. A lot of it comes down to personal playstyle and skill set.

Perhaps it does, but I honestly think a good player who is using a Suros will lose in a fight to a good player using nearly any hand cannon, most of the time.

My K/D last night says otherwise :)

As I said in another thread, Hand Canons are certainly more effective than ARs if used with 100% efficiency. But they're also more punishing when you miss shots. One of the reasons I have a hard time using HCs is because I side-step like a madman. I twitch and juke all over the place. This makes it very difficult for me to land headshots with a HC, but it also makes it difficult for other people to hit me. So for my playstyle, painting my crosshair in the general area of my target's head and holding down the trigger with my AR works really well. I'll out-duel most HC users I come across.

I think where we started in this madness was more to the point of giving players who prefer AR-centric playstyles a fair shake. Think of the Dr. Nope lovers! That thing needs some love. Look at the steaming pile of the Nechrocasm. There's absolutely no reward for it. I can't honestly say how it's playing in IB but I played a fair amount of plain old fashioned crucible post-patch, and there was pity in my heart for the Atheon's Epilogue users. I might not be a good example either because personally, for me, the Thorn and Last Word are very up my alley. I wasn't losing many gunfights, and I was beating the Suros consistently, which is abnormal. Usually it's more 50/50 with me, and it felt more 75/25.

(Obligatory "moot 'till they give us some data!" comment :/)

The problem with both Atheon's Epilogue and Necrochasm is they're high rate of fire/low impact. ARs like that are typically not very effective in Crucible. Weapons like Suros Regime (when zoomed in) are effective because they're lower RoF, higher impact. I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect Abyss Defiant would actually be quite good in Crucible as well.

* Just to be clear, about 99% of my Suros kills are scored while ADS. Hip-firing Auto Rifles is all but useless, IMO.

This is where I think Bungie could change up their approach (this thread is in danger of becoming sentient at this point). You could really help those +RoF/-Impact rifles, and maybe solve the Vanquisher/Suros problem, by making them more effective for short range and less effective at Scout Rifle range.

(As an aside: it is nice to see someone who still enjoys them in here!)

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I think it would be hilarious if we had a Braveheart-esk PvP game were we all ran around using bullet hose ARs and just ran at the enemy constantly. It would be like a PvP rave. We could even coordinate different element ARs for different colors!

We would lose horribly, but it would become LEGEND!

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Have autogun will travel.

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Balancing the lethality of an AR in a skilled users hands with the penchant for less skilled players to use AR's seems to be the biggest issue with this weapon class, likely from the start. Would a better move have been to keep the original base damage, and just not have AR's do bonus headshot damage at all?

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that would be a good thing. One that that head shot damage does for a player is
1. Allows them to fight better if they're playing better
2. Give them a noticeable way to measure how well they are improving their gunplay.

If ARs effectively had no bonus to aiming, the difference in a good vs bad fight would be much smaller, and a player would show little combat improvement as they got better at aiming.

It would definitely be a tradeoff; but I think once most players start to improve their aim, they gravitate towards guns that reward that aim more anyway. The alternative they went with seems to have led to a switch from AR's to Hand Cannons and Pulse Rifles, so you might see the same result regardless. What we really need are stats post-nerf; otherwise all of this is ultimately arguments in confirmation bias :/

AR's basically don't have a head shot bonus. At x1.5 extra damage (correct me if I'm wrong) with a bullet hose AR, it's more often than not a better idea to aim for center of mass, because you are doing the same amount of damage if you get 50% more bullets on target.

It didn't really ever matter with the bullet hoses in crucible; it was the Vanquisher/Shadow Price archetype that really felt this nerf. The extra damage made a difference with those, especially against the exotics.

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AR's got more kills because everyone used them. Bungie needed to consider % of kills with x weapon by % use of x weapon by the player base. They just went with total number of kills because Pulse Rifles were so unused, and now they've just created an equal swing in the opposite direction.

And you think that equal swing has nothing to do with the perceived difference in guns, and everyone switching to pulse rifles, and everything to do with the 2.x% drop in damage for the AR? Given everything that Bungie said on it, and knowing they didn't say everything they knew, I'm going to guess that Bungie nailed the math a lot closer than the community correctly reacted to it. You die to pulse rifles more now simply because more people are using them, not because they are OP. I tried the pulse rifle, I have a few 331s, exotic and non, and I still prefer (and do better with) scout rifle+shotgun or AR+sniper.

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someotherguy: I suspect Bungie looked at the number of players bringing ARs into the Crucible but not the number of AR kills. Lower-level Crucible might be chock full of ARs and I wouldn't know, but at least at mid-high level Crucible play all the best players seem to use Handcannons, not ARs.

BeardFade: I don't think Bungie interpreted their data correctly. While there were probably lots of people using ARs in the Crucible, I think they should curved the data to look at what weapons the better players use and adjust accordingly. For the most part, the best players in the game don't run with ARs that often anymore and haven't for a while.

First off, Bungie is the KING of data and analysis. They may do things for the wrong reasons, but it's rarely based on bad data.

To quote them on auto rifles:

Bungie: "Looking at raw DPS [damage per second], the Auto Rifle is the most lethal primary weapon class across all of Destiny’s activities.

Here’s a breakdown of kills by Primary archetype for the top players [filtered to focus on the top-half of the scoreboard] in Destiny.

[...] If you look at the top ten lethal weapons over a period of thirty days, six of them are Auto Rifles."[/i]

I'm sure you guys read the entire thing and just forgot, but go check it out and the fancy graphs to be reminded that Bungie doesn't do anything as simple as "ARs are used the most by all players, so let's nerf it with the goal of getting people to use it less".

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I'm sure you guys read the entire thing and just forgot, but go check it out and the fancy graphs to be reminded that Bungie doesn't do anything as simple as "ARs are used the most by all players, so let's nerf it with the goal of getting people to use it less".

I was actually a little disappointed by the graphs, mostly because graphs aren't the best way to communicate this data. Raw numbers are. The original reddit post made a strong attempt to break these numbers down, and found that a Scout Rifle had the best TTK in the game; why not nerf that scout rifle? I'm still skeptical of what Bungie provided us with because they refuse to give us any hard measurements for what things like Impact and Range actually mean in crucible.

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They told you the data they used, and have even more data than that. Feel free to call them liars, but don't pretend like they are claiming to use simplified stats that they specifically say they are using sophisticated ones.

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They told you the data they used, and have even more data than that. Feel free to call them liars, but don't pretend like they are claiming to use simplified stats that they specifically say they are using sophisticated ones.

I think Bungie probably has better numbers than anything the user base has, and wouldn't really dispute that. What I don't believe, is that they base their decisions purely off those numbers; I think that's the point Beardfade was really trying to make, too. And considering that Bungie's decision-making is decidedly more opaque than their data analysis, I'm inclined to agree with that argument.

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I was actually a little disappointed by the graphs, mostly because graphs aren't the best way to communicate this data. Raw numbers are. The original reddit post made a strong attempt to break these numbers down, and found that a Scout Rifle had the best TTK in the game; why not nerf that scout rifle? I'm still skeptical of what Bungie provided us with because they refuse to give us any hard measurements for what things like Impact and Range actually mean in crucible.

Lowest TTK does not always mean the most effective weapon. Just look at a sniper rifle vs a shotgun they both have identical TTK, but that doesn't mean that they are identical weapons, or even just as useful as each other. The ARs were overpowered because you didn't have to be as precise to get kills as reliably. With a Scout Rifle it tended to be (pre-patch) that if you missed a headshot the AR was much more likely to win because they only had to get a ratio of headshots to bodyshots to win a firefight. And I think this is a big part of the reason they don't reveal all the numbers because people tend to take numbers as the end-all-be-all when they tend to only be one part of the equation. I also would love to see the numbers, but even if we get them we have to take them with a grain of salt.

(Don't misunderstand me though, I do think ARs were overnerfed, just that they definitely should have been nerfed)

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I was actually a little disappointed by the graphs, mostly because graphs aren't the best way to communicate this data. Raw numbers are. The original reddit post made a strong attempt to break these numbers down, and found that a Scout Rifle had the best TTK in the game; why not nerf that scout rifle? I'm still skeptical of what Bungie provided us with because they refuse to give us any hard measurements for what things like Impact and Range actually mean in crucible.

Lowest TTK does not always mean the most effective weapon. Just look at a sniper rifle vs a shotgun they both have identical TTK, but that doesn't mean that they are identical weapons, or even just as useful as each other.

I keep seeing this mentioned and I don't think it's helpful; special weapons are situational, yes, but primaries are what we're really talking about, and for the most part it's just one against the other. It's almost impossible to compare an FR to any weapon in this game because pre-charging makes TTK worthless, for example.

The ARs were overpowered because you didn't have to be as precise to get kills as reliably. With a Scout Rifle it tended to be (pre-patch) that if you missed a headshot the AR was much more likely to win because they only had to get a ratio of headshots to bodyshots to win a firefight. And I think this is a big part of the reason they don't reveal all the numbers because people tend to take numbers as the end-all-be-all when they tend to only be one part of the equation. I also would love to see the numbers, but even if we get them we have to take them with a grain of salt.

At what range? Pre-patch, at long range SR's (good ones) definitely won against that AR; at short-mid, the AR would. I thought the balance was good, I ruined people with Crypt Dweller and VoC at distance and had a Fusion waiting in the AR's range. Maybe AR's needed a range nerf, maybe they needed less damage; it'd be nice to know quantifiably how bad they are now, because it sounds like all the people who did use them have decided they can't use them anymore?

Great point about the numbers though, people get wrapped up in those numbers. There might be too much noise from the PR's getting a buff to really know how they've been effected anyway?

*Edit: christ, this thread has gotten so circuitous that I'm not even arguing the same point anymore. Run Xenos! Escape while you still can!

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I keep seeing this mentioned and I don't think it's helpful; special weapons are situational, yes, but primaries are what we're really talking about, and for the most part it's just one against the other. It's almost impossible to compare an FR to any weapon in this game because pre-charging makes TTK worthless, for example.

I agree with you to a point. The Special Weapons example is just a good way to show that weapons don't function the same in all situations. ARs I found were by far the most versatile guns in the game, short to long range they functioned well if not great. Scout rifles are often only great in mid to long encounters, but I still got picked off more times than I can count by people with ARs even at what I would think would be long range. Honestly I think a lot of this even comes down to map design. Almost every map in the game is more close quarters than anything else so ARs ruled supreme.

At what range? Pre-patch, at long range SR's (good ones) definitely won against that AR; at short-mid, the AR would. I thought the balance was good, I ruined people with Crypt Dweller and VoC at distance and had a Fusion waiting in the AR's range. Maybe AR's needed a range nerf, maybe they needed less damage; it'd be nice to know quantifiably how bad they are now, because it sounds like all the people who did use them have decided they can't use them anymore?

Even in your description I see a problem, which is I think Scout Rifle should be able to compete better at mid range, especially since they do tend to take just a small amount more skill to get kills effectively. I have no idea how to balance it though because I just play the game :)

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Even in your description I see a problem, which is I think Scout Rifle should be able to compete better at mid range, especially since they do tend to take just a small amount more skill to get kills effectively. I have no idea how to balance it though because I just play the game :)

Ack! The edit was too late! I tried to tell you to run before you got sucked in!

I think I've mentioned this before, partly in response to a Cody "AR's have no range" comment. Having a special that compliments your primary should theoretically make up for the weaknesses of your primaries. SR's should be paired with a FR or Shotty; you can counter snipe with the SR, and win the mid-short with your special. AR's should be paired with Snipers or stable FR's; you can gun down approaching melee-shotgun players with the AR, and kill long range opponents with your sniper. If you run around only using one or the other, that gun is the one that needs a nerf (exotic handcannons).

The existence of the Vanquisher/Shadow Price archetype has broken crucible for some time; full auto lazer beams that are more stable than SR's and fire fast enough to kill in near the same time. I thought they'd needed a range nerf and a damage boost back when we had this conversation after ~~1.1.0.4(? I think)~~ (it was this one. echo chamber), and I think it still is the best solution.

The FR range nerf has been a huge success that nobodies talking about, so Bungie can clearly do range nerfs. The Shotty buff is clearly a PvE win. Smash those two all over the AR's head.

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The existence of the Vanquisher/Shadow Price archetype has broken crucible for some time; full auto lazer beams that are more stable than SR's and fire fast enough to kill in near the same time. I thought they'd needed a range nerf and a damage boost back when we had this conversation after ~~1.1.0.4(? I think)~~ (it was this one. echo chamber), and I think it still is the best solution.

The FR range nerf has been a huge success that nobodies talking about, so Bungie can clearly do range nerfs. The Shotty buff is clearly a PvE win. Smash those two all over the AR's head.

I agree. I was surprised that Bungie decided to nerf the entire AR family when I think it's just long range ARs that need to be nerfed. I think they could have even just increased the spread of all ARs and maybe even slightly increased dmg. Thus making them more of a chancy gun, but better as you get closer.

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This is specifically why I chose the word "interpretation", because I have no doubts that they are great at collecting data, but all data requires interpretation, and some interpretations are more accurate or responsible than others.

As you point out, the quantity of kills via ARs would justify a nerf, however, this doesn't take into account who is doing the killing. Let me illustrate. 100% is the amount of people playing Crucible in destiny. Of this 100%, a bell curve would tell us that a small percent of players will be absolutely amazing (5-10%), and a few players will be incredibly bad(5-10%), with most in the middle (80%). I think Bungie made this assumption with their data, saw that this 80% uses ARs and had fast TTK's and adjusted accordingly. The issue with this, though, is that players theoretically will increase in skill over time. The bell remains the same, but the ability to use a said weapon adjusts. As a player improves, their choice of weapons likely change. Anecdotally, almost everyone in here has said they use something else because they adapt as a good player would. Thus, we should more heavily weight the gun choices of the better players as this will be the trend of those players in the middle to move, too. This is why I think the Hand Cannon nerf was acceptable, because the better players were using it really well. The average player doesn't have the thumb coordination to hit a target 200m away with Thorn, but they may improve in that direction given the right amount of time.

That all being said, I'm willing to say that maybe Bungie made the right statistical interpretation and I just disagree. I'm just bummed because now my ARs all sit in the vault because they are pointless to use in PvE (except Atheon's Epilogue against Oracles and that's a maybe). I'd rather they be a viable playing option rather than gathering virtual dust.

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As you point out, the quantity of kills via ARs would justify a nerf, however, this doesn't take into account who is doing the killing.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that, as the quote I gave you specifically called out that fact that Bungie looked not only at the skill level of the player, but also how well they did in a particular game. If that isn't taking "who is doing the killing" into account, I don't know what is.

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Sure, it sounds like that. So I'll admit that Bungie considered "who". That being said, I still think they made an incorrect interpretation of the data. The fact that so many people feel like the game still isn't balanced is empirical evidence of that incorrect interpretation.

I only speak anecdotally now, but I've never had an issue with getting killed by ARs. Most of the players I have faced weren't using them (personally, the only guns that infuriate me are Fusion Rifles. I think they shouldn't exist, but that's my own gripe with them). Perhaps I'm not as skilled as I like to think and I get put in rooms where the skill level of people is such that they don't use ARs. I can't be sure. I still think they didn't need a nerf, they were already in a good spot, and that they just can't kill quickly enough now. ARs are little more than tickle guns now and until they get a buff, I just don't see them being a viable option any time soon.

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I think Bungie's interpretation was correct but I think their implementation was off. ARs were a bit OPed in the beforetimes, but it wasn't too bad. I think that sandbox would be fine if they had just given PRs the buff while leaving HCs, ARs and FRs alone (each of which got a nerf). Instead, they moved too many variables around at the same time and this led to the current sense of imbalance. They nailed the feel of pulse rifle and they now are a viable weapon in a lot of situations, but they are not overpowered. ARs are the only one to suffer significantly.

I have sympathy for the change-everything-at-once model because no one would want to play if they were constantly making tweaks to the sandbox. Doing them all at once reduces the change-fatigue people would feel. But it is a lot harder to test and balance.

One other thought that is being danced around in this conversation: Should Bungie balance around the best players, or the average players? I'll just leave that there because that can be another can of worms.

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One other thought that is being danced around in this conversation: Should Bungie balance around the best players, or the average players? I'll just leave that there because that can be another can of worms.

This is kind of the quandary I wanted to suggest with the "should we just remove AR headshots" question. Durandal raised the excellent point that AR's were really abused by the top players, and that alone is maybe a good enough reason to change them.

I don't know if there's a good answer. Would having ranked playlists solve all of these issues? Or at least crystalize the issues? Or would that potentially make problems like this worse?

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This is kind of the quandary I wanted to suggest with the "should we just remove AR headshots" question.

That is an interesting proposition. I have never really used the AR so I cannot speak from experience but that seams fair. It still wouldn't save Chaos' favorite gun though...

Durandal raised the excellent point that AR's were really abused by the top players, and that alone is maybe a good enough reason to change them.

That may very well be what happened.

I don't know if there's a good answer. Would having ranked playlists solve all of these issues? Or at least crystalize the issues? Or would that potentially make problems like this worse?

I remember when they tried that with Halo Reach and the result was an empty Arena playlist. It turns out that the top players preferred to play against lower level players in regular matchmaking rather than have their rank go down in the Arena. Perhaps most people prefer winning to competition.

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Sure, it sounds like that. So I'll admit that Bungie considered "who". That being said, I still think they made an incorrect interpretation of the data. The fact that so many people feel like the game still isn't balanced is empirical evidence of that incorrect interpretation.

So, do you want a balanced game, or one where the average person thinks it's balanced? Because I'd prefer the first, and think the second one is near impossible. Just replace "lag" with "balance" :)

[image]

Confirmation bias.
I bet if Bungie claimed to increase heavy machine guns by 10% tomorrow, the forums would be filled with how machine guns are OP and now people die to them all the time...even if Bungie never changes anything.

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Sure, it sounds like that. So I'll admit that Bungie considered "who". That being said, I still think they made an incorrect interpretation of the data. The fact that so many people feel like the game still isn't balanced is empirical evidence of that incorrect interpretation.

So, do you want a balanced game, or one where the average person thinks it's balanced? Because I'd prefer the first, and think the second one is near impossible. Just replace "lag" with "balance" :)

Confirmation bias.
I bet if Bungie claimed to increase heavy machine guns by 10% tomorrow, the forums would be filled with how machine guns are OP and now people die to them all the time...even if Bungie never changes anything.

I can guarantee you the dudes on reddit would notice.

After looking at the Bungie post again...what is "lethality"? Do they detail that at some point?

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Sure, it sounds like that. So I'll admit that Bungie considered "who". That being said, I still think they made an incorrect interpretation of the data. The fact that so many people feel like the game still isn't balanced is empirical evidence of that incorrect interpretation.

What?

I could just as well argue that the game will be as close as possibly to perfectly balanced when absolutely no one thinks it is balanced. Even if some players, like yourself, are willing and able to actually form an opinion on the balancing by using passionless objectivity and statistical data, many other players would be reacting emotionally, seeing a nerf to their preferred gear as a negative change.

If Destiny could be perfectly balanced by a considered nerf, of varying degrees, to every item in the game, the community reaction would not reflect this. It would be overwhelmingly negative.

You're right-- it's a trust issue. Those who are convinced that Bungie is either dishonest, incompetent, or possibly both, will accept no rational explanation whatsoever for changes which are made, and will continue to hold up their armchair observations about the perfect game that could have been made if only more people would listen to them. It's been going on since the Halo 1 pistol.

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A few things I want to add. 1) I don't think Bungie interpreted their data correctly. While there were probably lots of people using ARs in the Crucible, I think they should curved the data to look at what weapons the better players use and adjust accordingly. For the most part, the best players in the game don't run with ARs that often anymore and haven't for a while.

This is true. In my experience, auto rifles are great at no range. Hand cannons beat them at mid range. Get a little closer, and you die to a fusion rifle. Get even closer, you die to shotguns. Go farther, and you lose to snipers and scout rifles.

I really think other posters have hit the nail on the head: auto rifles were used a lot because they were easy guns to handle, and most people are not amazing at this game.

Auto Rifles used to be great for 20-30m encounters and now they aren't, and I've yet to find something to fit that range.

I checked DestinyTracker, and most of my kills are in the 18-30m range. I use hand cannons primarily.

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[*]C. The nerfing. My once Crucible-shredder, SUROS Regime, can't even live up to the second half of its name anymore. It isn't the king of anything! Exotic AR...more like fancy Airsoft gun.

Fun fact: it doesn't even live up the FIRST part of it's name. It was originally the Arcus Regime.

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D) Being the top scorer in a game while matched with a team of idiots

Sometimes, I accept, this is just how the matchmaking is going to go. But today's St. Patrick's day. That means I've been off my face all day. And I'm still coming top of the team. Thar's not acceptable - I'm playing really badly. Really really badly, at least for me. And I'm still top of the team. That's ridiculous.

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Theoretically, it was also Saint Patrick's Day for all your teammates and opponents too. :p

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- No text -

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That explains why I had such a crappy team my first Iron Banner match last night, & it also explains why I did so well last night. I'm not getting better, everyone else was just imbibing!

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I stayed out of the whole Auto Rifle nerf debate a bit down the page. I hadn't really used an auto rifle in a while and didn't think I had much to contribute. Now I have and I do. I am currently having a fun time using my 307 Suros Regime on my level 31 hunter in Iron Banner. It's not an instant win gun like maybe it was when people liked it, but I'm certainly not suffering for using it. I've been going my usual 1.0+ to 2.5+ K/D. There's been a couple of unfair games and a situation here and there that I'd wished I had my Red Death or The Last Word, but by and large I do not understand what all the fuss is about. I am winning vs Red Deaths and Coiled Hisses and various other guns. I lose to them too a bit... but not more than I win. I'm finding the Suros Regime's faster hip fire particularly interesting for those "oh crap" moments in the same way I'd hold down the trigger on The Last Word. Beat a couple of shotgun sliders that way!

So yeah. I thought the arguments against the viability of Auto Rifles and the overpowering nature of Pulse Rifles was largely confirmation bias. Tell people that you're nerfing their favorite gun and buffing the type of gun that Xur sells a couple weeks later and there's sure to be at least a bit of bias in there! And now, after a couple of hours rockin' the Suros Regime... I think I just might have been right! Red Death is a great gun. I was singing the praises of things like Fair and Square and Three Little Words before the 9.7% damage buff. But as far as the Suros Regime goes... It is certainly a lot better than a fancy airsoft gun shooting marshmallows or whatever. Similarly, I'd guess that the auto rifles I thought of as good in the past (like my 3rd eyed Up For Anything) are still very viable.

As far as I'm concerned.... things are feeling pretty solidly balanced. :)

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I stayed out of the whole Auto Rifle nerf debate a bit down the page. I hadn't really used an auto rifle in a while and didn't think I had much to contribute. Now I have and I do. I am currently having a fun time using my 307 Suros Regime on my level 31 hunter in Iron Banner. It's not an instant win gun like maybe it was when people liked it, but I'm certainly not suffering for using it. I've been going my usual 1.0+ to 2.5+ K/D. There's been a couple of unfair games and a situation here and there that I'd wished I had my Red Death or The Last Word, but by and large I do not understand what all the fuss is about. I am winning vs Red Deaths and Coiled Hisses and various other guns. I lose to them too a bit... but not more than I win. I'm finding the Suros Regime's faster hip fire particularly interesting for those "oh crap" moments in the same way I'd hold down the trigger on The Last Word. Beat a couple of shotgun sliders that way!

So yeah. I thought the arguments against the viability of Auto Rifles and the overpowering nature of Pulse Rifles was largely confirmation bias. Tell people that you're nerfing their favorite gun and buffing the type of gun that Xur sells a couple weeks later and there's sure to be at least a bit of bias in there! And now, after a couple of hours rockin' the Suros Regime... I think I just might have been right! Red Death is a great gun. I was singing the praises of things like Fair and Square and Three Little Words before the 9.7% damage buff. But as far as the Suros Regime goes... It is certainly a lot better than a fancy airsoft gun shooting marshmallows or whatever. Similarly, I'd guess that the auto rifles I thought of as good in the past (like my 3rd eyed Up For Anything) are still very viable.

As far as I'm concerned.... things are feeling pretty solidly balanced. :)

I've had Auto Rifles wreck me in Crucible this week. In particular was a "For The People" that chewed me up at range. People have panicked and jumped ship, so Auto Rifles are definitely a rare sight now, but you can definitely feel their presence when they're around.

I'm happy with the changes. Heck, the variety and pacing has completely changed now, making Crucible better than ever (occasional Last Word BS aside).

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I'm happy with the changes. Heck, the variety and pacing has completely changed now, making Crucible better than ever (occasional Last Word BS aside).

As someone who will give up their Last Word when it's pried from my cold, dead fingers... I say to hell with you, sir!

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I'm done with Crucible (Destiny)

I'm happy suros is no longer mandatory