Mini Rant: Big Problem! No two guns are ever the same. (Destiny)

by slycrel , Friday, July 24, 2015, 17:36 (3647 days ago) @ dogcow

Really, what you are asking for is the standard RPG random generated names, where you get names like "Spider slaying sword of fire" or "leather headband of agility". I really don't see that happening for all weapons, and I'm glad bungie is working to solve this head on. I'm interested to see what they come up with to solve this information gap.

Not really. Perhaps I wasn't clear. I want less randomness; I don't want the names to change based on the perks rolled. I want perks that are just that, perks, not gun changers. I do not want more gun names, and I don't want there to be half a million different possible FINAL BOSS sniper rifles. When there are half a million different rolls for a gun with perks that are powerful enough to fundamentally change a gun then the name of the gun looses all meaning.

You're talking about an awful lot here. =)

The name of the gun quickly identifies "what killed you". We all assume it's mostly the gun and a little bit of skill. I think bungie is trying to change this. (At least overall, there will be outliers I'm sure that are best-in-class) From what I see they want "player x killed me" and the gun being an anecdote, rather than "thorn killed me again!".

They also want to offer meaningful choices, with trade-offs, appropriate to where you are in your journey in becoming legend.

Most of the time, the perks aren't really that significant. They are, quite literally, perks right now. Look at hidden hand. It sounds amazing until you realize that it bumps the "accuracy" number by 5. out of 100. That's 5% better for that one stat. It's helpful, sure, but not game breaking. In isolation, which is most of the time, that's totally fine and not a problem. Balanced even.

I think the problem we're really discussing is stacking perks, along with some perks are better than others. When you can take a gun that has 30% or so stability and raise that to 75% stability via the right perks, that's game changing, and dilutes the gun -- you have no idea for anyone with that base gun how much that changes. Some people have 20%, some have 80%. This is definitely a problem, and something they've said they are fixing outright. I suspect you will get your wish -- smaller variations of each gun, with a few outliers that will be similar to what we have now.

Additionally, there is confusion. You shouldn't have to be a destiny gun/lore expert to be great. I think that this will be one of the toughest problems they face -- making both meaningful progression choices in a way that isn't too random or confusing. There's definitely too much of that going on.

If I had to put names to bungie's weapon balancing goals, it would be these:
1) scale appropriately -- someone coming into the game new should have a path from the bottom to the top of the weapon chain.
2) variation -- there should be many different weapons that fit a myriad of playstyles. This, combined with #1, means there will always be clear winners and clear losers.
3) customization -- this is your guardian. Your gear should be as customizable as your class traits.
3a) perks should refine, not determine, playstyle and direction on use.
3b) choices should be meaningful, without being game breaking.
4) balance -- as a general rule, no class of weapon, playstyle, or perk group should clearly be better than another.
4a) groups need to be sectioned out so that progression is possible. i.e. new 20's will have a group of weapons available to them that are comparable, that are in a different tier than even faction weapons.
4b) certain best-in-class weapons should exist for a given playstyle or class of weapons. i.e. people want to get their own thorn becuase thorn is great in PvP. This provides a good goal for people to work toward.

I could go on, but you can see how even in the above list that it starts to get circular, as they play off each other.