Greetings fellow Guardians,
Last night I put up a post and poll grading weapon tuning for each weapon class which can be found here:
https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139266548/0/0
It was late and I ran out of space to get to the second half of the update dealing with Exotic Weapon Tuning, but almost immediately started getting requests to discuss it. Besides it being late, I also wanted to take a bit of time to really let these changes sink in and think about how I really feel about them. I'm only going to focus on the fallout from the 4 weapons I've used extensively,
[b][u]Thorn Fallout[/u][/b]
[quote]•Changes:
◦Reduce base damage of Thorn’s Mark of the Devourer DoT (Damage over Time) to roughly 1/3 of what it was in PVP and PVE
◦Allow DoT to stack up to 5x across multiple landed projectiles
◾This is a net buff for Thorn’s DoT, but reduces the lethality of the weapon in PVP[/quote]
I will admit right now, that I was a Thorn defender and made my share of posts denouncing nerfs. But if it was going to be nerfed, I'm not sure this was the answer. Thorns DoT was never the issue with the weapon and messing with the DoT takes away from the character of the weapon in my opinion. Yeah it is probably what pissed people off the most when they died, but if you were dying to Thorn, it was more likely from 2 to the dome than from the poison. The 2 to the dome just didn't need to be from quite so far out.
I think a slight range reduction was all that needed to be applied. This weapon is SUPPOSED to be great. It has the most intense bounty chain in the game to acquire and has made a hundred thousand Guardians cry. Those that soldiered through deserved their beast.
[b][u]Icebreaker Fallout[/u][/b]
[quote]•Changes:
◦Increase recharge time for Ice Breaker rounds to 1 every 8 seconds. Was 1 round every 5 seconds[/quote]
I'm going to tell you a story. It's not going to be a good story or a fun story or have anything remotely well thought out or clever in it and honestly it's probably the stupidest thing you'll read today. In fact, it's so dumb; I'm going to let Bungie tell it for me
[quote]Hunker down in the back of the map with your lunch box, picnic table, a sci-fi paperback, and Ice Breaker. Kill all the enemies, wait for more to show up, kill those ones too, put a few shots on the boss, make a sandwich, finish the strike, and then collect your reward-that-isn’t-Hawkmoon and move on. The recharging ammo of Ice Breaker has become a staple for the PvE game. We don’t want to completely destroy that, because a really great thing happens when all of a sudden you need Ice Breaker and you’re still waiting on that next round to show up. In that moment there is an interesting tension at play; you need to think about how you spend your next few seconds while it recharges. We are going to amplify that tension by increasing the recharge duration by a few seconds.[/quote]
Hey Bungie, do you want to know how I spend the next few seconds while my Icebreaker recharges? BORED.
Hey Bungie, know what players do when they get bored playing? They play other games.
So gloating and making jokes about how long it takes for the sh*t to recharge and then upping the wait doesn't make you clever, funny or avant-garde, it makes you pretty much clueless.
[b][u]Black Hammer Fallout[/u][/b]
[quote]•Changes:
◦Increase ammo inventory to 18 rounds
◦White Nail perk now pulls ammo from your inventory[/quote]
I get where you were going with this. You don't want players endlessly shooting a boss with infinite ammo, but the White Nail perk does require precision and rewards those who can land their shots quickly and efficiently. You had to know that this was going to piss people off and I'm not sure how you come to this as the best solution to what you perceive as a problem.
The only place this can really be an issue is on endgame bosses because they're the only ones you program to pretty much stand still firing while we shoot endlessly into the bullet sponges that they are. Honestly the fault isn't in a weapon that grants free ammo, it's bosses that don't require any more "strategy" than pulling a trigger as many times as you can.
I would have suggested that a better or at least more reasonable solution would have been to not allow the perk to proc 2 times in a row. Therefore if a player landed 6 consecutive rounds, they would be required to reload before trying to land 6 more.
With this system, you still get free ammo, but can only get enough to double your inventory instead of extending it indefinitely.
Fair and reasonable? I think so, what do other BH owners think?
[b][u]Gjallarhorn Fallout[/u][/b]
[quote]•Changes
◦Reduce damage of Wolfpack Rounds[/quote]
Okay, pull up a chair because shit just got real.
Before I go further, I want to say that I think it is interesting that Bungie gave pretty detailed percentages for every other announce change, but only state a generic "reduced damage" here. What does that mean? By how much? 5%? 25%? 50%
We don't even know how to begin to contemplate the possible ramifications. My initial reaction when I first read it was eh, it's wolfpack rounds and they're overkill anyway. Gjallarhorn is the only weapon in the game that can kill pretty much any endgame shielded enemy in one shot no matter what element shield they have, because the rocket knocks off the shield and the WP rounds finish them.
Honestly do I think nerfing Wolfpack Rounds will be game-breaking? Unless the nerf is substantial, no. Honestly I don't think any of these changes are gamebreaking, but they're just annoying and pointless. Why do it? What is the end game, because it really doesn't make a lot of sense.
Which brought me to my second thought after sleeping on it. I kept coming back to this statement by the DeeJ
[quote]the essential dream of playing Destiny is that you’re always becoming more powerful[/quote]
No matter how many times I read that, I can't figure out how any of these changes support that claim. How have we become more powerful by nerfing hand cannons, shotguns, fusion rifles, pulse rifles, TLW, Thorn, Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn? Oh and btfnw, they're nerfing base weapon stats going forward.
Has anyone out there fit those puzzle pieces together or connected those dots yet?
I have a very interesting thought that's been percolating all day and maybe it's time to pull out the tinfoil hats, but riddle me this.
What if TLW, Thorn, Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn's nerfs won't be so game changing because TTK is going to bring shiny new weapons to take up those mantles? You won't need your Gjallarhorn when you have the Oryx Ball Buster 3000. You'll never miss your Icebreaker with you Taken-killing Soul Salvation HK117 sniper rifle.
So it will all be okay, right?
...Until you contemplate the motivations of a Developer for nerfing the best weapons in the game right before an expansion that they maybe are sweating whether or not people are going to actually re-up for.
[quote] our goal is to compel you and to inspire you to see new and more powerful things that you need to embrace, you need to learn, you need to upgrade and you need to master so that you’re always pursuing that next way in which your Guardian is more powerful. Be it a new ability, a new way to channel the powers of the traveler as a weapon towards your enemies or just the weapons [themselves].
-DeeJ[/quote]
Until now, Gjallarhorn was the end-all-be-all endgame weapon. Now, if we buy TTK, maybe we can get something better. The question is, is it actually better or is it better than Gjallarhorn post-nerf?
If the reason they are nerfing these weapons is to help sell more copies of TTK by tapping into people desires for the best gear, I'd say Activision are running more than we thought. What else could the reasoning be?
Are Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn changing the competitive balance of PvP? No.
They excel as PvE weapons and they're FUN. In fact the point of the game is to have FUN. Do Bungie hate FUN?
Considering we are running yet another Nightfall and Weekly combo with no burns, I'd say they despise FUN. Nerfing shotguns isn't more FUN. Killing shit with Gjallarhorn? FUN! FUN! FUN!
Bungie actually gave reasoning for Gjallarhorn and I saved this for last because this is the funniest shit I've read the last 6 months on this forum:
[quote] What we did not intend, and what we unfortunately saw, was pick up Raid and Nightfall groups gating participation based on whether or not players had this weapon. Gjallarhorn was so strong that for many people it had become the only answer to getting through tough encounters, and therefore they were less willing to spend time with other players that didn’t have it.
In the new world Gjallarhorn is still worthy of its legacy as an exotic Heavy Weapon, but we hope it promotes inclusive behavior rather than exclusivity. [/quote]
Know what solves that problem, Bungie?
[spoiler]OPTIONAL IN-GAME MATCHMAKING OR LFG.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Worried about inclusion? https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/126184301/0/0 [/spoiler]
[spoiler]I wonder what people will play after the Fallout from these 4 weapons?[/spoiler]
---Edit---
Final thoughts: I think Bungie are lost at sea. There are too many issues that they fail to acknowledge and the ones they do fix, they create 3 more problems for every two they address. Their biggest problem with weapons being that once you get on the nerf train, it's real hard to stop.
[spoiler]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/114553028/0/0[/spoiler]
I don't think that what everyone wanted out of weapon tuning 2.0 was NERF EVERYTHING (that wasn't an AR).
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Edited by CannonSE2: 7/19/2015 7:46:39 PMBUMP All kinds of this, all the -blam!-ing bumps! Stop making cheap changes to the game to push new content (i.e. Make stupids amounts of money, not our fault the development budget was the same, if not larger, than the GDP of a small country) and just give us genuine new content! Changes like this just make me feel you're doing it so in order for people to keep up they HAVE TO buy the new expansions.
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All true. Good post
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The circle is complete, back to ars rekn mates
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I'd rather Xur sell a gally bounty to give everyone an opportunity to get it, than a nerf. You hit the nail on the head about fun. You know what's fun? ARs, Ghorn, rewards for precision sniping and group shotguning Captains and Minotaurs. You know what's not fun? Getting one hit killed by a shotgun 15 foot away by a sliding player, Pulse Rifles in pvp (they are effective and I use them, but they aren't fun to shoot IMO). They need to dream up new ideas instead of screwing with popular pve weapons. Give us flamethrowers, grenade launchers, ion cannons from space, a painter gun for airborne bombing runs, chainguns, railguns, maybe a glue gun for melee finishes, a gun that can do every elemental damage by changing it's perks. Give us different elemental damages; Ice, Acid, depleted uranium/radioactive. I'm one person brainstorming, surely their team can do more than me.
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Edited by J Stevensontown: 7/18/2015 3:52:40 AM[/quote]It was late and I ran out of space to get to the second half of the update dealing with Exotic Weapon Tuning.. [/quote] :-) vault storage? Fallout4? Geez, well. It makes perfect sense that they are trying to make way for the new weapons and gear.. they blew their load 10 months ago, they're done. If the game were actually good, and interesting, maybe they wouldn't have to focus on "weapon balancing" so much. Tlw- slight range/damage @ range nerf, that's all that was needed... Thorn- same as above ^^^^^^ Ice breaker nerf??? Wtf? Ok, if anything, 7 second charge + 1 more in the clip. Black hammer - is this a joke??? You do know it's not easy to land 3 crits while enemies are shooting at us, right?? Is it our fault that the big bosses virtually stand still??? Did u know there is a timer as well, as to how fast u need to consecutively land crits?? Deej, bungie, don't fvcking mock us, call us campers, and tell us, FORCE US, how to play.. I hope your happy with your children fan base, keep it up. Your COD type fans will come and go. Your loyal hard core gamers, may leave... WTF DO U CARE.. U GOT THE $$$, U GOT THE PLAN & SECRETS TO KEEP US HOOKED. LOL! Fusion rifles- Wtf ? I'm lost.. Shotguns - lol. A slight range nerf to shot package and range finder, other than that, what a joke... Gjallarhorn nerf?? Lol w/e. Not one detail about it.. wolf pack rounds hit for 225 each as of now, right? How much were they reduced?? %? You are still not sure. Blink.. did they say they were Nerfing that too??
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I agree 100%. I have my doubt about thorn...the HC nerf will stack up together with the Thorn nerf. I have the feeling that HC would be almost useless in both modes. I really have the same feeling as you, is like they don't want us to be "good" for when TTK comes out. They are afraid we might finish the content in 2-3 days, and after one week or two videos of solo runs of the new raid will come . They gave us shitty weapons with HoW in preparation for this crap. I am seriously considering not buying the dlc.
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Edited by Unknown Error: 7/19/2015 3:32:13 PM[b]Icebreaker[/b] so you're BORED using your primary and heavy weapons? Ok play the game the way you like (even if it is just using only one weapon) [b]Blackhammer[/b] I agree with your idea and think that would be a less harsh on the community. They'd have to repeal the magazine buff though. [b]Gjallahorn[/b] they're not nurfing it to the ground! You'll still be able to have FUN using it. All that is going to change is the overuse of this weapon and give the player an option to use any exotic without any major disadvantage. [b]Optional Matchmaking[/b] this wouldn't solve anything to do with Gjallahorn. I am in favour of this idea but referring it as the better alternative than the Gjallahorn nerf is wrong. Most experienced players have Gjallahorn by now and adding matchmaking would completely divide the community in two. All Gjallahorn users will use the forum freely with access to experienced players (and non experienced if you're lucky) with Gjallahorn as the key. It stops weapon variety. So unlucky day 1 players are left out because they haven't yet obtained this weapon. Do they not also deserve to play with equally experienced players to themselves?
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You gotta admit though, ghorn is pretty OP
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The fun is being drained from this game super fast for me. How can i cancel my preorder?
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All i see is a bunch if people biching because the games not easy anymore. Have fun with other games
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Edited by spankymebottom: 7/18/2015 6:46:23 AMi'm confused about their exclusivity reasoning. i'm not crying over the gjallarhorn i just find the other heavy exotics lacking and even prefer any legendary over them to free up an exotic slot, however... how big of a problem was this really? there are no numbers to support it (although i have seen the posts). despite the fact that there is no matchmaking they can track how many groups completed any activity but not tally (or even estimate) how many folks were rejected because of not having gally. even if they tallied the lfg requests from the disparate locations: destinylfg.com, destinylfg.net, bungie forums, et al. they could say out of X requests for group members X asked for gallys. and even then you would have to tally that to how many time the activity was completed. I would imagine the numbers to be in the smallest percentages (and in my view always squeakers, join a gally only group and see!). even with that folks also ask for tracking rockets and maxed out burn weapons - isn't that exclusion as well? farfetched i know, but it will always be something. in my view, with matchmaking in place this would be a non-issue. you then would just have to deal with afk a$$hats. i would have preferred for exotic rocket changes: Gjallahorn: Make it Arc. That's it. Truth: I don't even use it on void burns. not worth the exotic slot - i use legendary void with tracking. Make it the void version of Dragon's Breath but with Warlock Scatter grenade! Nuff said. Dragon's Breath: I would prefer to use Dragon's Breath. It's actually a fun weapon. Make the solar grenade stick to the target. With the lack of tracking the sticky would make up for it. If no target then stick to location of impact. Baseline the weapons to be equal damage but with different elements. See? Simple. Everyone will have at least one and all will be viable. Plus there's the added effect that each one will have it's own flavor. in my opinion, I think rockets are fine. I use legendary rockets quite often. I just prefer that they have tracking.
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Edited by I Speedwagon I: 7/18/2015 4:40:37 AMGreat post and thanks for the link to read this. I absolutely agree 100%. At least now I do. I was ticked off by the unnecessary nerf to ghorn mainly because there is so many more alternatives than nerfing an exotic heavy. Isn't it suppose to be godly? The fact that they're also beefing things before TTK is very annoying. Just because they release new exotics and legendarys doesn't mean I'll delete last exotics. Me like many players are collectors am I right? We like to have a wall of yellow guns or a wall of amazing purple guns. I will never drop old exotics for some new shiny exotic just because it's better. As well as having to nerf base content exotics just to make future dlc exotics more attractive is just poor design. Including god awful perks like casket mag or any perk that increases say stability and decreases mag size is the worst idea ever. Maybe for iron banner gear only? But for pve gear or raid gear? That's just ridiculous. Aren't we suppose to feel legendary and powerful? Why the hell can't we just have good guns? I totally agree with you on the black hammer issue! In fact I had the same exact idea! It would still rewards you for being precise and it's not like youd be able to consistently get unlimited ammo. And even if you did hit it every single mag you'd only essentially double your ammo count. Thats not so bad! Ice breaker as well. Having to make you sit around even longer for another bullet to come up is just ridiculous and will bore a lot of players. It seems like they are trying to force players into going guns blazing? Great post. Just realized you're the same guy I made that comment about black hammer proccing once a reload lol.
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I just got my black hammer and ghorn and I was really liking the black hammer until I woke up and saw this yesterday. Honestly more surprised abut BH nerf more then ghorn. Really disappointed on this patch.
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Best post in the 2.0 thread I have seen...awesome and great details dude. I totally agree with you...I been playing destiny since beta and after this patch I think I'll hang up my gaurdians...it's ridiculous...bungie had an amazing game...and now it's going to shit...it's cannot wait for fallout.
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I thought you were someone reasonable before lost, but now i see that you are another sad and lazy hater that can't see thing in a logical and objetive way. Go and keep bitching about TTK and upcoming updates, while you ignore completely the good things that bungie is actually doing. You deserve a great: GET GUD SCRUB
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Edited by HIGH0NEPIC: 7/18/2015 2:15:06 PMHere's my opinion on the patch. The pulse rifle and scout rifle adjustments, I feel, won't really affect much. They will be better in PvE, and pulses might be a bit worse in PvP, we will have to wait and see. Autos, they are getting a great buff for PvP, making them the weapons they should be. In PvE, they should be monstrous. The range is perfect, so long as it is much longer than the that shown in the picture on weapons like the Vanquisher Handcannons. Now. Everything here was amazing. This is my opinion. But, the mag size decrease might be too harsh. We will see. Shotguns needed this nerf. Felwinters etc were just too powerful. I'm glad they've been changed. The bit about fusion rifles just confused me. I think the faster charge ones might become better, but I really have no clue. Let's wait and see. As for snipers, THEY FIXED THAT STUPID FINAL ROUND. THANK GOD. The grenades and horseshoes nerf is going to add skill to heavy rounds, something badly needed. Hard light and Necrochasm were buffed perfectly, great job Bungie. TLW was handled well in my opinion, they are trying to make it the hip fire beast it should be. Thorn. Well, if the base hand cannon nerfs are severe enough, Thorn should be fine. But I don't think Thorn will be obsolete, it should still be very good. Hawkmoon didn't really get changed at all. It won't even be affected by the Mag size decrease. I see where they are coming from with icebreaker. Rather than waiting five seconds, someone might decide to use the time to actually deal damage to enemies rather than hiding. Icebreaker is designed for infrequent, high damage against bosses or majors, and this shouldn't really change that. Black Hammer was nerfed, I believe, so it doesn't become better than the icebreaker. That's the only reason I could see, as it is only legendary. Gjallahorn needed a nerf. Let's be honest. This nerf will still leave it the best PvE rocket in the game. What more could you ask for? NLB will be still pretty goofy, but better in general. I think that is all, just my opinion. Tell me what you think.
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Wonderful post Im down with your black hammer idea Bravo for that because BH is by far my favorite weapon
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Big bump
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BUMP ,SUPER BUMP ,ULTRA BUMP.
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Another excellent analysis. Thank you Lost Sols.
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Would love everyone's thoughts on this... https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139768540
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[quote]Hunker down in the back of the map with your lunch box, picnic table, a sci-fi paperback, and Ice Breaker. Kill all the enemies, wait for more to show up, kill those ones too, put a few shots on the boss, make a sandwich, finish the strike, and then collect your reward-that-isn’t-Hawkmoon and move on. The recharging ammo of Ice Breaker has become a staple for the PvE game. We don’t want to completely destroy that, because a really great thing happens when all of a sudden you need Ice Breaker and you’re still waiting on that next round to show up. In that moment there is an interesting tension at play; you need to think about how you spend your next few seconds while it recharges. We are going to amplify that tension by increasing the recharge duration by a few seconds.[/quote] They have just made that picnic last a little longer. As for the gally nerf, all they're doing is making it worse. Now I'm not the kind of player that has a "gally only" state of mind and always willing to help people and carry people through the mission to help them get the rewards. The people who are gally only (far and few these days anyway) normally had an allowance where they could allow so many players who didn't have the gally to join, by making the gally weaker they will be bringing back the strict gally only players.