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Destiny |OT33| Hey Luke, What's the Theme for King's Fall? (Unmarked Spoilers)

T

Twilight Gap

Member
yoooo this auto rifle is insane. almost as good as prenerf Suros Regime was

6HjODlu.jpg
 
R

Raybunny

Member
Now that I got time to write a little.

Good morning Gaf how are we today? Any particular plans regarding destiny in mind?


On my side, will have to finish the Gunsmith test weapons and the warsat pieces gathering for the Core in two characters. After that I am free to do whatever.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
GGs to crucible train. Didn't realize how late it got but gonna have to call it there. Will try to start it earlier next time.

Played some good games. I think worst game of the night for me was that laggy mess on Vertigo.

We did get very philosophical towards the end though. Will maybe attempt to summarize some of the discussion and post about it tomorrow.
 
E

Eppy Thatcher

God's had his chance.
Figure it's worth one last time before the end of the night...anyone down for raid? Have checkpoints? I need fragments and would be willing to run that bad boy till the wheels fell off for them...

Psn: silkysm00th
 
F

Future

Member
Warsat stuff definitely hits a standstill on Mars. Holy shit. Events rarely happen and that event schedule is inaccurate
 
M

mehrmantrout

Member
Future said:
Warsat stuff definitely hits a standstill on Mars. Holy shit. Events rarely happen and that event schedule is inaccurate
Click to expand...

I spent that long on skywatch (according to destinytracker 1hr40mins) I managed to collect 8/10 materials for the exotic sword so swings and roundabouts. It got to the point I was there so long I daren't leave in case it happened :d
 
M

maomaoIYP

Member
Future said:
Warsat stuff definitely hits a standstill on Mars. Holy shit. Events rarely happen and that event schedule is inaccurate
Click to expand...

In my experience the event schedule is ridiculously accurate for all green rated events. You know how the event schedule works right? When the timer hits zero and no players are in the region the event will not spawn. When the timer hits zero and there is at least one player in the region, the event will spawn, but as late as -5 minutes. As long as the event is rated green it is basically guaranteed to occur, but if you are leaving as soon as the schedule shows 0 minutes left you are basically screwing yourself over.
 
F

Future

Member
maomaoIYP said:
In my experience the event schedule is ridiculously accurate for all green rated events. You know how the event schedule works right? When the timer hits zero and no players are in the region the event will not spawn. When the timer hits zero and there is at least one player in the region, the event will spawn, but as late as -5 minutes. As long as the event is rated green it is basically guaranteed to occur, but if you are leaving as soon as the schedule shows 0 minutes left you are basically screwing yourself over.
Click to expand...

It worked exactly like that for earth and moon. Mars I was in scablands and buried lands way before the timer with other players, and no event spawned at all besides taken corruption. In the barrens it was just eliminate the target when it did happen with long delays for the next potential events

Definitely one of the worst mission types in destiny. Rng based on simply waiting around in an area :/. You aren't even motivated to do the wrong public event because it wastes potential time for racing to the next areas event

Nah whatever. Sleeping on it. Will finish later in the week
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
Actually I'll go ahead and post about what me, Zocano, Unstable and Drizzay were discussing while it's fresh on my mind.

I think Crucible as a whole has a major problem that has never been properly addressed.

Primary Weapon Archetypes
At a fundamental level, most of the weapons in Destiny are very similar hitscan projectile weapons. The outliers are few and far between and almost always Exotic weapons. This isn't anything unusual, especially since the game plays somewhat similarly to modern shooters such as Call of Duty and Titanfall, which are more "militaristic" in their weaponry; however, when we start to compare the sandbox to Halo and other more fantastical games, we see that there is a distinct lack of exploration being done in the majority of Destiny's weapons.

From Common to Legendary tier, the only difference between weapons within an archetype are the perks they come with. When you compare the 4 primary archetypes based on the following attributes:

  • Their function within the Sandbox
  • Their reward potential and skill investment

They all behave very similarly to one another. You shoot, they hit the player (or AI), and they die. The nuances are mostly focused around DPS and the tactics used to deliver that damage is inconsequential. Bungie has decided that all of the weapons are poor at hip firing, ineffective outside of their niche, and easy to use across the board.

The exception to this rule are the Exotic weapons, which have special properties beyond their archetypes that makes them desirable. Exotics are meant to look and sound overpowered without being overpowered. Bungie wants Exotics to be something that caters to a specific way of playing the game or excels in a specific situation. They're also taking care to make sure they aren't "be all, end all" weapons that are automatically better than everything else. And this is a philosophy that I think is fine to an extent.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason I've gone through and broken down the sandbox this way is because I want to highlight how all of this relates to weapon balance, and the inherent problem with Bungie's approach to designing the primary weapon archetypes for PvP.

Bungie's intention is for each weapon to have its "age" where it's fundamentally better than everything else. This is something they have mentioned on several occasions, and it is painfully obvious when we look at how the game has played out over the last year. From last June up until December, Auto Rifles were the king. From then on until last month, Hand Cannons were in fashion. And right now, Pulse Rifles are the best weapons to run.

The reason this is a fundamentally flawed concept is because it renders the concept of a sandbox supported by player loadouts obsolete; there is no reason for the game to balance itself around the hundreds of weapons when there are only going to be a select few worth using. It would be incredibly ignorant to say there will never be a meta centered around a select few weapons based on this philosophy, whether they're Auto Rifles, Hand Cannons or whatever else.

Bungie has to change their thinking full stop. What they have to do instead is balance each weapon archetype the same way they balance the Exotics, and then maximize their efficiency based on how difficult they are to use.


  • Auto Rifles are the weapon you use to throw up a wall of bullets. This gives you massive stopping power for an enemy rushing towards you, and if you land shots, you can take out several players per mag. But using this weapon requires sustained stationary fire and doesn't take much effort on part of the player to aim well. This weapon should have an advantage in its effective range, but will have the lowest reward potential.
  • Pulse Rifles should be the next in line where you want to throw up a wall of bullets in burst, but also would like to free up your horizontal movement so that you may strafe around cover. These are great for tracking targets in mid ranged encounters and are forgiving when it comes to missing shots. Their reward potential should be higher than Auto Rifles.
  • Scout Rifles are the weapons you use when you want to throw off your opponent's aim. These should take the stagger ability away from Pulse Rifles because they require more precision to use effectively. It also makes them viable counters to Snipers because they naturally have longer ranges. Currently, Scouts overlap with Hand Cannons without having much of an identity of their own ( nerfing Hand Cannons hasn't seemed to change that). Scout Rifles should have more reward potential than Pulse Rifles.
  • Hand Cannons have been in a weird state since the Alpha and that ties into the idea behind reward potential and skill investment. Just like how Autos should have good stopping power, Pulses should have good target tracking and Scouts should have good stagger, Hand Cannons should be good for mobility. These weapons should not be sniping players across the map - that's what Scouts are for - but Hand Cannons should be the weapon the player uses when they want more control over the axis they engage the player on, allowing them to fight on or around cover. The only weapon that was ever able to do this was The Last Word. Therefore, 1.0 TLW with Soft Ballistics was the weapon with the most reward potential and skill investment.

Now before somebody mentions the fact that I am "a biased Hand Cannon user", let me explain why I gravitated toward Hand Cannons and what I mean by "Reward Potential and Skill Investment".

Both of these terms are just fancy lingo describing the ability of a weapon to directly produce results based on how good you are with it and how difficult it is to use. An Auto Rifle is easier to use than a Pulse Rifle; therefore, given two equally matched players, the player who is using the Pulse Rifle should have an advantage over the player using an Auto Rifle that is greater than the advantage between the niches of the weapons themselves (except in extreme cases).

This is how game design works because it puts control in the hands of the players, and not in the hands of the weapons they are using. The encounter is primarily decided based on the skill of the players, and is not arbitrarily forcing an even playing field by making the weapons the same. Because what always happens is that there will end up being weapons that are better regardless of how good you are, and everyone will then gravitate towards it. Making the overall sandbox "weaker" is a placebo meant to disguise this fundamental flaw.

Why does this problem exist? Well, it's part of a philosophy that is also very explicitly on display by Bungie. They want to distance themselves as far away from Halo as possible, which includes its "Skill-Based" combat. I don't blame them considering how toxic and elitism that community became at times when it came to putting "skill" on display; nevertheless, I do not think a toxic community is an excuse for designing a bad game. When I look at the maps and I look at the way they're handling weapon balance, I see designers who are forcing everyone to be on an even playing field and intentionally making the game shallow. By doing this, the game will never be balanced.

That is the problem I have with the current state of Crucible. Pulse Rifles are hilariously overpowering the Sandbox because of their aim assist, ability to stagger everyone's aim, and the fact that you can miss bullets and still get quick kills. It's too easy, it's too rewarding, and it removes any amount of skill or input from the player. Instead, Bungie has told players that this is the age of Pulse Rifles, just as they told players earlier this year to use Hand Cannons and the year before to use Auto Rifles. This is not good game design and it's disappointing that they will never change it.

Destiny should not be Halo, but for the creators of Halo to throw out the best part about Halo's gunplay and produce a multiplayer as hollow as Destiny's is frankly embarrassing.
 
M

mehrmantrout

Member
Slammin_Hammon said:
Moldering shards are such a troll. What a useless item, especially since when redeemed you're likely to get 2 more or a low light thing.
Click to expand...

My drops are starting to piss me off. Across all 3 characters I've had 2 helmets drop/decrypt above 290 light, one of them is that ugly ass Hunter raid helm, admittedly it was 310 but it looks terrible/crap perks so I'd infuse it but my next highest helmet is 293 so would lose too much.

Hunter is max 306 and is missing raid chest
Warlock is max 302 and is missing raid arms and helm
Titan is max 301 and only has the mark, though it dropped at 310

Still no pulse rifle either

Edit this was last nights "haul"

Totem - Shards
War Priest - Sublime engram. shards
Golgoroth - Boots shit stats/perks and lower than mine, shards
Sisters - Shards
Oryx with 20 shards - 300 bond, AR for infusing, shards
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
mehrmantrout said:
My drops are starting to piss me off. Across all 3 characters I've had 2 helmets drop/decrypt above 290 light, one of them is that ugly ass Hunter raid helm, admittedly it was 310 but it looks terrible/crap perks so I'd infuse it but my next highest helmet is 293 so would lose too much.

Hunter is max 306 and is missing raid chest
Warlock is max 302 and is missing raid arms and helm
Titan is max 301 and only has the mark, though it dropped at 310

Still no pulse rifle either
Click to expand...

Raid drops were pretty awful the other day when I did the raid with you guys. At least someone got the machine gun from Warpriest. I got a lot of shards.
 
T

Tecnniqe

Banned
Zoba said:
Actually I'll go ahead and post about what me, Zocano, Unstable and Drizzay were discussing while it's fresh on my mind.

I think Crucible as a whole has a major problem that has never been properly addressed.

Primary Weapon Archetypes
At a fundamental level, most of the weapons in Destiny are very similar hitscan projectile weapons. The outliers are few and far between and almost always Exotic weapons. This isn't anything unusual, especially since the game plays somewhat similarly to modern shooters such as Call of Duty and Titanfall, which are more "militaristic" in their weaponry; however, when we start to compare the sandbox to Halo and other more fantastical games, we see that there is a distinct lack of exploration being done in the majority of Destiny's weapons.

From Common to Legendary tier, the only difference between weapons within an archetype are the perks they come with. When you compare the 4 primary archetypes based on the following attributes:

  • Their function within the Sandbox
  • Their reward potential and skill investment

They all behave very similarly to one another. You shoot, they hit the player (or AI), and they die. The nuances are mostly focused around DPS and the tactics used to deliver that damage is inconsequential. Bungie has decided that all of the weapons are poor at hip firing, ineffective outside of their niche, and easy to use across the board.

The exception to this rule are the Exotic weapons, which have special properties beyond their archetypes that makes them desirable. Exotics are meant to look and sound overpowered without being overpowered. Bungie wants Exotics to be something that caters to a specific way of playing the game or excels in a specific situation. They're also taking care to make sure they aren't "be all, end all" weapons that are automatically better than everything else. And this is a philosophy that I think is fine to an extent.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason I've gone through and broken down the sandbox this way is because I want to highlight how all of this relates to weapon balance, and the inherent problem with Bungie's approach to designing the primary weapon archetypes for PvP.

Bungie's intention is for each weapon to have its "age" where it's fundamentally better than everything else. This is something they have mentioned on several occasions, and it is painfully obvious when we look at how the game has played out over the last year. From last June up until December, Auto Rifles were the king. From then on until last month, Hand Cannons were in fashion. And right now, Pulse Rifles are the best weapons to run.

The reason this is a fundamentally flawed concept is because it renders the concept of a sandbox supported by player loadouts obsolete; there is no reason for the game to balance itself around the hundreds of weapons when there are only going to be a select few worth using. It would be incredibly ignorant to say there will never be a meta centered around a select few weapons based on this philosophy, whether they're Auto Rifles, Hand Cannons or whatever else.

Bungie has to change their thinking full stop. What they have to do instead is balance each weapon archetype the same way they balance the Exotics, and then maximize their efficiency based on how difficult they are to use.


  • Auto Rifles are the weapon you use to throw up a wall of bullets. This gives you massive stopping power for an enemy rushing towards you, and if you land shots, you can take out several players per mag. But using this weapon requires sustained stationary fire and doesn't take much effort on part of the player to aim well. This weapon should have an advantage in its effective range, but will have the lowest reward potential.
  • Pulse Rifles should be the next in line where you want to throw up a wall of bullets in burst, but also would like to free up your horizontal movement so that you may strafe around cover. These are great for tracking targets in mid ranged encounters and are forgiving when it comes to missing shots. Their reward potential should be higher than Auto Rifles.
  • Scout Rifles are the weapons you use when you want to throw off your opponent's aim. These should take the stagger ability away from Pulse Rifles because they require more precision to use effectively. It also makes them viable counters to Snipers because they naturally have longer ranges. Currently, Scouts overlap with Hand Cannons without having much of an identity of their own ( nerfing Hand Cannons hasn't seemed to change that). Scout Rifles should have more reward potential than Pulse Rifles.
  • Hand Cannons have been in a weird state since the Alpha and that ties into the idea behind reward potential and skill investment. Just like how Autos should have good stopping power, Pulses should have good target tracking and Scouts should have good stagger, Hand Cannons should be good for mobility. These weapons should not be sniping players across the map - that's what Scouts are for - but Hand Cannons should be the weapon the player uses when they want more control over the axis they engage the player on, allowing them to fight on or around cover. The only weapon that was ever able to do this was The Last Word. Therefore, 1.0 TLW with Soft Ballistics was the weapon with the most reward potential and skill investment.

Now before somebody mentions the fact that I am "a biased Hand Cannon user", let me explain why I gravitated toward Hand Cannons and what I mean by "Reward Potential and Skill Investment".

Both of these terms are just fancy lingo describing the ability of a weapon to directly produce results based on how good you are with it and how difficult it is to use. An Auto Rifle is easier to use than a Pulse Rifle; therefore, given two equally matched players, the player who is using the Pulse Rifle should have an advantage over the player using an Auto Rifle that is greater than the advantage between the niches of the weapons themselves (except in extreme cases).

This is how game design works because it puts control in the hands of the players, and not in the hands of the weapons they are using. The encounter is primarily decided based on the skill of the players, and is not arbitrarily forcing an even playing field by making the weapons the same. Because what always happens is that there will end up being weapons that are better regardless of how good you are, and everyone will then gravitate towards it. Making the overall sandbox "weaker" is a placebo meant to disguise this fundamental flaw.

Why does this problem exist? Well, it's part of a philosophy that is also very explicitly on display by Bungie. They want to distance themselves as far away from Halo as possible, which includes its "Skill-Based" combat. I don't blame them considering how toxic and elitism that community became at times when it came to putting "skill" on display; nevertheless, I do not think a toxic community is an excuse for designing a bad game. When I look at the maps and I look at the way they're handling weapon balance, I see designers who are forcing everyone to be on an even playing field and intentionally making the game shallow. By doing this, the game will never be balanced.

That is the problem I have with the current state of Crucible. Pulse Rifles are hilariously overpowering the Sandbox because of their aim assist, ability to stagger everyone's aim, and the fact that you can miss bullets and still get quick kills. It's too easy, it's too rewarding, and it removes any amount of skill or input from the player. Instead, Bungie has told players that this is the age of Pulse Rifles, just as they told players earlier this year to use Hand Cannons and the year before to use Auto Rifles. This is not good game design and it's disappointing that they will never change it.

Destiny should not be Halo, but for the creators of Halo to throw out the best part about Halo's gunplay and produce a multiplayer as hollow as Destiny's is frankly embarrassing.
Click to expand...
Can't say I agree on everything but on most points it's sounds solid.
Also plis give BR Bungie. You know you want to.
a real BR, not this pulse thingy :)
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
Tecnniqe said:
Can't say I agree on everything but on most points it's sounds solid.
Also plis give BR Bungie. You know you want to.
a real BR, not this pulse thingy :)
Click to expand...

They should make an exotic based on BR55. No scout or pulse I tried feels like that.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
Tecnniqe said:
Can't say I agree on everything but on most points it's sounds solid.
Also plis give BR Bungie. You know you want to.
a real BR, not this pulse thingy :)
Click to expand...

I don't expect everyone to agree, but I anticipate Trials and Iron Banner to very quickly show which weapons are superior to the others, and why blanket nerfs are not the way to go about adjusting the sandbox. When it comes to Destiny's meta, whether it's PvE or PvP, it will never be balanced so long as DPS is what decides encounters.

I could see how some people might disagree with the Auto vs Pulse example but it's something I highlighted throughout the post. If A is easier to use than B, why would you use B? Conversly, if B is better than A and just as easy to use, why would you use A?

It needs to be skill based because skill itself is the best equalizer.
 
G

GutZ31

Member
NoHeDidn't said:
Sigh now Earth is being a dick with these Warsats mothyards keeps dumping extraction and the rest nothing.
Click to expand...

I feel pretty lucky after all these horror stories about people waiting hours for warsats.
Still puts me in disbelief every time I hear someone having trouble getting a warsat, because before we were all looking for them, they dropped every goddamn time.
Now, it seems like they are on vacation.
 
B

Bogeypop

Member
The wait for reset is torture. I'm too tired to want to play games or do anything else, but if it's Spindle Day I can quickly wake myself up and be ready... Just need to wait 25 minutes to find out my fate...
 
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