Which is them claiming a choice they made was a bug, like Atheon teleporting the farthest 3 dudes.

I mostly subscribe to this in jest, but honestly what's the likelihood of this being the case versus an obvious bug?

I feel like it's most likely that the tail wags the dog here, and that pvp balance takes a backseat to pve design in all cases, regardless of what playtesters say. Furthermore, I think Bungie is far too knee-jerky in their reactions to complaints, and also (still) takes far too long between balance tweaks, opting (incorrectly) for sweeping overall sandbox changes rather than small, incremental changes. The result is things are always wildly out of whack, rather than slowly approaching ideal balance.

Per Deej this morning:

Prometheus Lens shipped with a bug. We’ll address the issue and talk solutions in ‘This Week At Bungie’ on the blog.

Where are their testers? Seriously. We aren’t talking about some obscure edge case here. This shit should be immediately apparent.

I often wonder about their internal testing. It seems to not be anything like what I'd have designed or expected back when I was coming up with test plans. There's no emphasis that I can tell on PvP balance or fun, and perhaps is only related to the barest of functionality. It's also possible that the testers are awesome, but are completely ignored by the higher-ups, which is another unfortunately common attitude, especially at AAA type devs where the size of the corporation means it's easy to dismiss people whom you never actually encounter face to face. Finally, a third possibility exists, which is that their testers have bad habits and don't do a complete or thorough test, don't understand the core design elements of the game and as a result can't come up with best practices for test plan design, or don't give a shit about "meta" bugs like game balance and are spending all of their time looking to see if each character makes the right kind of footprints on each surface or checking armor combos (seriously the shader checklist must be a nightmare to crosscheck).

It's also pretty likely that they're understaffed and lack a dedicated PvP test team.

Or... forth possibility, Bungie knew about the bug, but couldn't get a fix done in time because games are hard. The deadline waits for no one.

They did say on their podcast that they've been in a shitty bug fixing limbo due to having to ensure that PC launched with the same bugs as live in order to not confuse their servers. Still, they've had a month+ and they have a history of terrible pvp balance.

A play test server on PC is easier to incorporate than on console, b/c you don't have to pass MS and Sony QA, and can push out updates on the fly during the testing period.

The play test would be a separate install of the game.

In the Division's case, it would take a snapshot of your character from the main game on your first login. Any additions or deletions of gear made in the play test had no effect on your main character. They gave you tons of loot boxes (engrams) to give you a chance to test all of the gear.

I think with Destiny, you could make a PvP only build, and fill the postmaster with legendary and exotic engrams. Quadruple the XP rate and give everyone 1 bright, 1 legendary and 1 exotic for each rank up. let the community find out the bugs and OP gear combos.

I mostly subscribe to this in jest, but honestly what's the likelihood of this being the case versus an obvious bug?

Per Deej this morning:

Prometheus Lens shipped with a bug. We’ll address the issue and talk solutions in ‘This Week At Bungie’ on the blog.

Where are their testers? Seriously. We aren’t talking about some obscure edge case here. This shit should be immediately apparent.

I often wonder about their internal testing. It seems to not be anything like what I'd have designed or expected back when I was coming up with test plans. There's no emphasis that I can tell on PvP balance or fun, and perhaps is only related to the barest of functionality. It's also possible that the testers are awesome, but are completely ignored by the higher-ups, which is another unfortunately common attitude, especially at AAA type devs where the size of the corporation means it's easy to dismiss people whom you never actually encounter face to face. Finally, a third possibility exists, which is that their testers have bad habits and don't do a complete or thorough test, don't understand the core design elements of the game and as a result can't come up with best practices for test plan design, or don't give a shit about "meta" bugs like game balance and are spending all of their time looking to see if each character makes the right kind of footprints on each surface or checking armor combos (seriously the shader checklist must be a nightmare to crosscheck).

It's also pretty likely that they're understaffed and lack a dedicated PvP test team.

Or... forth possibility, Bungie knew about the bug, but couldn't get a fix done in time because games are hard. The deadline waits for no one.

Per Deej this morning:

Prometheus Lens shipped with a bug. We’ll address the issue and talk solutions in ‘This Week At Bungie’ on the blog.

Where are their testers? Seriously. We aren’t talking about some obscure edge case here. This shit should be immediately apparent.

I often wonder about their internal testing. It seems to not be anything like what I'd have designed or expected back when I was coming up with test plans. There's no emphasis that I can tell on PvP balance or fun, and perhaps is only related to the barest of functionality. It's also possible that the testers are awesome, but are completely ignored by the higher-ups, which is another unfortunately common attitude, especially at AAA type devs where the size of the corporation means it's easy to dismiss people whom you never actually encounter face to face. Finally, a third possibility exists, which is that their testers have bad habits and don't do a complete or thorough test, don't understand the core design elements of the game and as a result can't come up with best practices for test plan design, or don't give a shit about "meta" bugs like game balance and are spending all of their time looking to see if each character makes the right kind of footprints on each surface or checking armor combos (seriously the shader checklist must be a nightmare to crosscheck).

It's also pretty likely that they're understaffed and lack a dedicated PvP test team.

Hope they both died in the storm.

They do in one ending…

r/CruciblePlaybook which is a PvP oriented sub and very helpful for pvp strategy etc. and
r/CrucibleSherpa which is also a PvP oriented sub but for people who will actually go into the game with you and help you out / carry you to the 7th pillar
r/RaidSecrets which is hit and miss but largely interested in puzzles and not so much in bitching and moaning.

and r/lifeisstrange has more ships than a navy harbor!

There’s only one legitimate ship in that entire fleet.

The SS Amberprice.

Wonderfully gay, but no:

HMS Waffle Omelet

There's always the USS HotMustard. Kate's the captain.

r/CruciblePlaybook which is a PvP oriented sub and very helpful for pvp strategy etc. and
r/CrucibleSherpa which is also a PvP oriented sub but for people who will actually go into the game with you and help you out / carry you to the 7th pillar
r/RaidSecrets which is hit and miss but largely interested in puzzles and not so much in bitching and moaning.

and r/lifeisstrange has more ships than a navy harbor!

There’s only one legitimate ship in that entire fleet.

The SS Amberprice.

Wonderfully gay, but no:

HMS Waffle Omelet