Would it have been better to just remove crits for AR's? (Destiny)

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 20:11 (3773 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

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.