"Why Gjallerhorn is overpowered" (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, August 15, 2015, 17:28 (3485 days ago) @ CyberKN
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Saturday, August 15, 2015, 17:31

"It's funny, there's an interesting reaction, which is the opposite of what we wanted, because we're actually trying to create more viable options so you have more choices to pick from," says senior designer Sage Merrill. "There was a bug late in the development of Destiny where the trails didn't appear for the sub-munitions of Gjallarhorn, so you couldn't see what it was doing and it wasn't this spectacular display that it is now. However, the bug didn't get logged as, 'This doesn't look awesome." It got logged as 'isn't powerful enough.'"

This fun story gives us some insight into one of the reasons that Gjallarhorn might have become a dominating force among the Destiny community. Merrill went on to describe the intricacies of weapon balancing and why developers find it so tricky. A designer can't always trust the cold math that dictates a weapon's DPS, because our own human perceptions tinker with how a game feels balanced.

"I can overpower a gun just by adjusting the audio," says Merrill. "People will say, 'this gun is useless,' but then we change the audio to give at this huge sniper boom and the next day people will say, 'this gun is completely broken and overpowered.'" All we did was change the audio. It doesn't matter if guns are really balanced, it matters if they are perceived as being balanced. I could have a gun that is completely underpowered, but if everybody assumed it was really strong because it felt badass, we would probably still have to do some balancing to it."

I don't believe a word of this. The Suros Regime sounded like it was firing Ping-Pong balls, but was still considered one of the most devastating weapons pre-nerf.

I agree that hard math isn't the end-all of balancing, but "I can overpower a gun just by adjusting the audio" is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

I believe that some people would provide feedback like that after their first 15 seconds with a weapon. But after using any gun for a mission or two I think most people get a sense of how effective a weapon truly is, regardless of visual and audio traits. (* edit - of course, anyone actually involved in game testing/development would have a way better idea than I do... this is just my assumption)

The part that makes me raise my eyebrows a bit is the implication that Gjallarhorn's insane damage output was somehow a mistake or surprise (worth mentioning that this might not be at all what Sage was trying to say... but it comes across that way because of how the article frames things). I knew the moment I fired my Gjallarhorn w/ wolfpack rounds that it was doing nearly twice the damage of any other rocket launcher I'd tried. It isn't a subtle difference that would only surface through millions of players logging thousands of game-hours. It is instantly apparent to anyone who uses it during higher-level PvE activities.

I'd always assumed that Bungie wanted Gjallarhorn to be as powerful as it is. I believe the impending nerf has more to do with the negative trends taking hold in LFG sites than anything else.