When you write tests, you generally mock your data, so you don't really write tests for it. You write tests for those functions/classes etc that receive, manipulate, and output your data. Examples: The Rangefinder nerf did the opposite of what it said it would do, this could have been found with a test. If they had tests for all perks, when testing the Hungering Blade nerf they would have seen broken tests for all the other classes that got accidentally nerfed.

Yes, Exactly! But also, no. What I'm saying is that they likely have units tests for the ADS code, and it works correctly <edit>with their mocked up data</edit>. However the actual data that modifies the time to ADS for the rangefinder perk is probably NOT embedded in the code (and thus would not be caught by a unit test) but found in a data file somewhere. The rangefinder 'bug' is likely in the data file, not the code.

(Side note: apparently it's up in the air if this rangefinder bug is indeed a bug, apparently they said in the livestream that ADS would be faster, but in the patchnotes that it would be increased (poor choice of words there, when I read it I was like, "wait, so is it going to be slower or faster?")).

I actually agree. I've ALWAYS thought Truth seemed out of balance stats-wise, from the first day I got it. I mean, ALL of its stats are upper-tier, even without taking its tracking into account. Having a huge blast radius, or mag size, or reload speed are all fine, but usually you expect if one or two of those are good, the others will be reduced to balance it out. But Truth didn't do that. And anyway, Truth's reload is so quick that I doubt I'll really notice that much.

I'm (potentially) much more annoyed with the magazine changes to Universal Remote. It might be that the base damage increase combined with it still having precision damage will mean that it's just as effective with 3 rounds as it used to be with 5. We shall see. But if it isn't, it'll be another instance where a weapon I liked got ruined because it was a menace in PvP, which I don't play.

I have a feeling that you're right. Universal remote, especially after the latest changes to special ammo, is too damn good in pvp.

Yes because everyone was running truth all the time in PvP and Trails. Oh wait, they weren't.

Exactly my point in asking "WHY?" for this change. :-/

Wait... really? My team always switched to all Truth, all the time for heavy ammo round in Trials. Granted I've only gone to the lighthouse once, but i've played my share of top teams and everyone did this (seriously, Lucky and Buttwipe are insanely good).

Alright. I'm done. ;P

(Seriously though, I'm as surprised as the rest as you lot. The three in the slot was what made it exotic for me.)

In Y1 they buffed the mag from 1 to 3 in order to make it even remotely usable. Now everything is so bad that they had to change it back and it's still the best rocket in the game.

I'd argue that my iron banner vendor Tormod's Bellows is now the best RL in the game. 3 rounds in the tube, fast rockets with big explosions and G&H. It's pre-nerf Truth without the tracking. And it's legendary, so you can use an exotic in a different slot.

But the fact that this is so top tier also concerns me. It was purchased from an IB vendor over a year ago. That means the barrier to entry for players who missed it is incredibly high. You're talking about an insanely lucky roll on a legacy engram (or can you even get legacy IB guns from those engrams? I've never paid much attention to them, so I'm unsure)

I like aspirational PvP, but when the ability of have-nots to get into the upper echelon of gear is so extreme as to be practically exclusive, well, I don't like that very much at all. Your path to getting a good gun should not be "go back in time 16 months."

Of course I should probably just shut up so bungie doesn't read this and nerf the bellows as well. Lord knows they'd rather nerf an existing good gun than add a new better one.

I was just chatting with a former game developer in the UK about test driven development (we were talking specifically to web development). He told me he got so into TDD now because they never did it for game development.

Once you start TDD and writing unit tests, it's hard to go back, and you easily avoid this stuff because you see exactly what you broke with each change.

Just based on this observation, it seems they likely don't have unit tests to know when they break one. Testing does take up a considerable amount of development time, so they may feel they don't have that kind of time to spend. The trade off being you break things inadvertently and spend time later fixing what you broke.

They could probably hire a slew of interns to write unit tests for their code base and avoid this problem in the future.

Oh, I could see them having good test coverage with unit tests for their code, but not for the data that makes up the weapon/armor/ability stats(data?) <edit> and the cascading effects a change can create </edit>. I imagine that's really the root cause of these bugs. It appears they don't "unit-test" their data, looks like they should.

What I don't like is loss of universal remote as a fun gun, and it really shows they don't care much about non-crucible.

They have buffed shotguns in the normal game, which is fine, and seems like a decent trade off, but they absolutely annihilated the most fun thing in Destiny: primary burn extra jump damage universal remote nightfalls.

I mean, way to make nobody ever use a gun again in the real game, Bungle. Universal remote is now out of my life.

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/12433/7_Destiny-Update---12012014
- Increased Magazine size from 1 to 3

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/13474/7_Destiny-Update---09082015
- Blast Radius distance slightly increased
- Grenades and Horseshoes perk proximity detonation distance reduced to 1.3 meter (was 2 meters)

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/45661/7_Destiny-Hotfix---21417
- Reduced Magazine size from 3 to 1

We just went full circle and now worse than when it started.

See what I mean about the pendulum balancing Bungie does?

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/13474/7_Destiny-Update---09082015
- Blast Radius distance slightly increased
- Grenades and Horseshoes perk proximity detonation distance reduced to 1.3 meter (was 2 meters)

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/45661/7_Destiny-Hotfix---21417
- Reduced Magazine size from 3 to 1

We just went full circle and now worse than when it started.

What they didn't make clear is if sidearms only got ammo from their intrinsic perk of ammo upon spawn or if they were completely left alone from losing any ammo upon death.

I'm (potentially) much more annoyed with the magazine changes to Universal Remote. It might be that the base damage increase combined with it still having precision damage will mean that it's just as effective with 3 rounds as it used to be with 5. We shall see. But if it isn't, it'll be another instance where a weapon I liked got ruined because it was a menace in PvP, which I don't play.