I'm hoping the full game will make me eat my words, because I would really like to see them get crazier with the weapon types. The fiction they've established allows them to make pretty much anything imaginable, but right now, 90% are things we've seen in most every other shooter. I mean, Mass Effect weapons didn't have much more variety, but they also had about ten times as many powers to work with.

Mass Effect 3's weapons ranged all over the place. No trigger-tricky weapons like the Reach Pro-Pipe, but the selection was pretty varied across the board.

But I share your hope. It may just be that the weapons that really change up your play style will be exotics, rather then entire weapon types (which would be my preference). But there's always DLC. They could certainly add in a weapon type or two per class.

Heck, even just new types of weapon upgrades, or existing ones in weird places (like cluster explosions on a hand cannon) would be 8 different kinds of fun.

~m

I'm hoping the full game will make me eat my words, because I would really like to see them get crazier with the weapon types. The fiction they've established allows them to make pretty much anything imaginable, but right now, 90% are things we've seen in most every other shooter. I mean, Mass Effect weapons didn't have much more variety, but they also had about ten times as many powers to work with.

My take on it is that there will at least be a few weapon types we haven't heard about. This is mostly because of the "railgun" mentioned in the past. If it's true that there is a railgun in the final gun that gives evidence they are keeping at least one weapon type secret, and with Bungie's history I would guess that means there are even more we don't know about.

If you mean as far as primary/special/heavy, I don't think there will be any more because of how they let you have extras in your immediate inventory and when you get past 2-4 items it's unwieldy to switch between them with a button (I expect the number only goes up a little if you have two buttons to use). If you mean like "hand cannon" and "rare" and "exotic" and all that, yeah, probably. I feel a little... not good about it, because innovation is good and I want to support it, but what I'm most looking forward to with the weapons is seeing which of their old ideas they've brought back.

Really, really want more of this, too. But one has to consider how it will translate into PvP. I'm sort of expecting that the divide between how the weapons behave in each environment will widen over time, especially since the MLG crowd will almost certainly pare the game down to one particular winning formula for instant or near-instant death.

My guess is that the chance of any weapon with really unique support-style properties is eventually going to be nerfed into oblivion or simply won't be effective in PvP situations.

After all, while weapons with status effects and other sorts of oddball behaviors will undoubtedly come in super handy against hordes of enemies, it doesn't seem to me like they'd be as useful in the short PvP encounters it seems The Crucible is built around.

~m

This is why the reliance on traditional PVP is so disappointing to me. Instead of Leaning into the interesting part of crazy weapon systems, they are pairing back differences.

Ohh well, rest of the game looks great, and the PVP seems fun for what it is, but I can't help but feel that it could have been something far more than what it appears to be.

I really hope they are holding back on showing some unique weapons. So far this looks like a futuristic Battlefield armory. I want to see something that really mixes sci-fi and fantasy. Some kind of weapon that is truly unique to Destiny.

I think we'll get some of that in the exotics, but I'd like to see more woven right into the core fabric of the game.

This, this, this. Everything so far (with the exception of Thorn, which I don't recall seeing in action) keeps to a fairly narrow aesthetic. I'd like to see more Space Magic baked into the weapons, for sure.

I'd also like to see some weapons designed around support more than direct damage. Slowdown, siphoning guns, guns that displace enemies, etc.

Really, really want more of this, too. But one has to consider how it will translate into PvP. I'm sort of expecting that the divide between how the weapons behave in each environment will widen over time, especially since the MLG crowd will almost certainly pare the game down to one particular winning formula for instant or near-instant death.

My guess is that the chance of any weapon with really unique support-style properties is eventually going to be nerfed into oblivion or simply won't be effective in PvP situations.

After all, while weapons with status effects and other sorts of oddball behaviors will undoubtedly come in super handy against hordes of enemies, it doesn't seem to me like they'd be as useful in the short PvP encounters it seems The Crucible is built around.

~m

There are a lot of CQC weapons, but the maps I've seen seem to lean towards close quarter fighting. Even with a crowded armory, I would like to see some swords or other big melee weapons. Maybe an energy sword that needs to be charged with specials ammo?

I really hope they are holding back on showing some unique weapons. So far this looks like a futuristic Battlefield armory. I want to see something that really mixes sci-fi and fantasy. Some kind of weapon that is truly unique to Destiny.

I think we'll get some of that in the exotics, but I'd like to see more woven right into the core fabric of the game.

I'd also like to see some weapons designed around support more than direct damage. Slowdown, siphoning guns, guns that displace enemies, etc.

Definitely looking forward to what crazy weapons (if any) we get to play with.

~m

I'm still holding out hope for some alien weapons...

Me too! I think human weapons are really limiting in a formal sense. Since they are mostly kinetic, hitscan you end up playing with fewer variables. What type of damage do you do, how large is the spread, how big is the magazine, damage, ROF etc. Adding in more alien weapons allows for more craziness. Projectile speed, tracking, combinatorial effects,status effects etc.

I understand why they break things down this way (Enemies with Hitscan weapons aren't all that fun, and using projectile weapons with slow projectiles is challenging, especially in a networked enviroment) but in a game with a large focus on breadth of content, having a narrow set of weapon classes is a bit odd.

On weapon slots, will we be limited to always having a primary, special, and heavy slot? What if I wanted to not carry a special but instead carry two primary weapons? Could that be an option?

You can access your 27 reserve weapons at any time (even while in combat) from the 'Options' menu. Duck behind a crate, bring it up, swap to the weapon you want and get back to shooting. It's not as elegant as if you could just press Triangle (Y), but it achieves the same job.

In the Alpha, you could even switch between Primaries with no ammo penalty.

So basically, you can carry around 10 primaries - go wild!

In the Tower there is 'The Vault' were you can store an additional 20 weapons of any type. Note that it is shared between your characters.

And why can't they give me a cool futuristic crossbow for my hunter?

I hope so. I think they're saving up cool stuff. The Fallen had a weapon that fired slow projectiles that tracked you. A bit like a Needler. I hope they let you try that out.

You mention using the scout rifle. How big of a difference is there between it and the pulse rifle? Is it like the difference between the DMR and BR in Halo 4?

I'll be happy when I can finally experiment with all these.

I never really found a Pulse Rifle that felt good to me during the Alpha. All the Pulse Rifles I used seemed to have poor stability so you'd have to adjust a lot after each trigger pull. I'm sure there will be ones with better stability, but that was my experience. The Scout Rifles tended to have good stability for the most part which is why I tended towards them.