https://www.bungie.net/en/News/News?aid=13147

I just...don't even. They continue to not get it. Their solution for everything seems to be "well this is popular and overpowered so let's nerf it into oblivion rendering it useless". I know people will say "wait and see", but judging by past history we all have every reason to worry.

Some nerfs don't even seem necessary. I can understand making something that's super powerful a bit less so, but with their track record I just can't have faith. It's great auto rifles are getting a much needed buff again. Handcannon changes were needed, but they will become useless. Honestly a lot of this just reeks of nerfing the things people love so they can play with the new stuff in The Taken King, and not just rely on the old stuff. A lot of people like that old stuff though and put in a lot of hours to obtain them. Hell I just got my first Gally the other day (so of course now it's gonna get the nerf bat).

They've talked about this idea of having "weapons of the month" and whatnot and I just hate that philosophy. For me though, the thing that angers me most is PVP is what causes all these changes and as a result they nerf a weapon in PVE as well, when it's not required. Suros suffered because it was king of PVP. Their response was to nerf auto rifles, not once, but twice. Wanna nerf it in PVP? Whatever go for it. But why in PVE? They need to start looking at those things separately. Hopscotch Pilgrim seems to be the new up and coming craze and it's a sought after PVP weapon. I don't hear much about it for PVE, but if that thing gets nerfed I can bet you it'll make it even more useless for PVE.

Anyways it's a pretty extensive write up. What are your thoughts?

I haven't played Destiny in a long time, but my initial reaction to seeing that post is that it's A TON of balance changes to be making all at once. Maybe Bungie actually has enough QA staff that they can manage it, but it seems like you're just asking for brand new balance issues if you try to do all of that in one update.

Best part is that Thorn was good and then they nerfed it and no one was using it anymore. Then they buffed it and people were happy again. Now it's getting nerfed again and everyone will probably ditch it, again.

Welp, guess I need to finally go on one of those Destiny sites to get a couple people for the Thorn strike (final step). Then I can go on a rampage before it gets nerfed.

@kishinfoulux: The balance changes on the whole are weird but adjusting a few overwhelmingly popular weapons seems like a fine decision, those graphs are pretty hilarious and point to how boring the playerbase is (and most modern playerbases to be fair); of course something else will take the place of the nerfed guns.

All of these changes are absolutely fantastic. Thorn was overpowered and needed to have it's PVP time to kill slowed (it's actually getting a slight PVE buff). Gjarllarhorn completely breaks end game PVE and it needed to be taken down. Despite what some ill informed people may say, Gjallarhorn is in no way being killed. All rockets of the same attack rating do the same base damage. The only reason Gjallarhorn is so much better is because the wolfpack rounds do bonus damage on top of the base damage. Since the wolfpack round damage is being reduced and not removed completely, Gjallarhorn will still do more damage than any other rocket launcher in the game. (Dragon's Breath and cluster bomb legendaries may have quirky scenarios where they do as much or more damage than Gjallarhon, but neither are remotely consistent whereas as Gjallarhorn does full damage every time.)

They also seem to be learning that they need to balance PVE and PVP more separately, since several of the weapon types are getting changed differently for PVP and PVE. As someone that plays more Destiny than is reasonable, I can't see a single adjustment in these notes that I disagree with. Not to be insulting, but my knee jerk reaction about anyone upset by these changes is that they don't want to see their crutch overpowered weapons made less powerful.

Destiny has serious balance issues in both PVE and PVP at the moment, and these changes will go a long way towards fixing most of them.

Thorn has never been nerfed in the past. It was decent with many drawbacks in vanilla, and then it was buffed. It took people a while to realized exactly how good it was, but once it became common knowledge it was everywhere. Also, based on the changes outlined in the update, it will still be very good (as it should be). Many people will move to other weapons, but it will still be a popular PVP weapon.

I think all of the changes are smart. As far as stats go, I guess we'll have to get our hands on it to really say. Thorn is actually stronger, you just need more hits to get the full effect. Hopefully Gjally isn't nerfed too hard, but it is kind of ridiculous how overpowered it is.

I think it's fine that certain guns are more popular than others, but those graphs were pretty telling. Every weapon should be "equal" but different.

Yeah, the Thorn change is actually really smart. It now has a higher overall DPS in the long term, but takes 1 additional shot to kill in PVP. It's a really smart way to balance the gun for PVP without hurting it in PVE (it is actually better in PVE now). That kind of change shows they have learned from their past mistakes in terms of PVP balance hurting PVE, and they put some serious thought into how to avoid that with future changes.

But why make them useless? If someone likes using "X" gun, why make it obsolete for them? Some of the changes are also just lolwut (Icebreaker and Black Hammer). Like business wise I totally get it. You want people to get Taken King to get shiny new weapons, but if I like using something from vanilla Destiny I should still be able to.

The reason Gally is super sought after is because it makes the bullet sponge bosses go by faster. If they want to nerf Gally go for it, but then nerf boss HP as well. Hell I remember in vanilla Destiny bosses were the god damn worst. Now they seem to take an appropriate amount of time (with or without Gally). Also I think we all knew the Thorn nerf was coming. The Gally one is actually a bit surprising since I don't recall them ever mentioning it and it's also the Unicorn of this game. Nerfing seems to be a weird thing since it's such a carrot on a stick for so many people. A lot of people will lose interest in even wanting one since they'll only have a short time to experience it's "true" power. Ultimately we'll see what happens and I hope they get it right this time, but I feel like we might be in for a shit show.

Those seem like smart changes. Weapons should be great for different scenarios but not go to end game, be-all-end-all crutches. I'm honestly surprised my Black Hammer is still as powerful as it is. Probably because it takes a little more skill to wield.

Unless they completely remove wolfpack rounds (which they aren't doing), it is impossible for the Gjallarhorn nerf to be a "shit show." As I said, the very nature of the weapon means it will pretty much always be the most damaging rocket launcher unless they changed core fundamental aspects of it beyond tweaking damage values; they would have to change the functionality of the weapon to ruin it. Gjallarhorn will still be very good at killing bosses, it just won't be quite as ridiculous anymore. I also don't think they idea that a clearly overpowered weapon serves as incentive for people to play the game is any justification for it to remain overpowered. In fact, one would think it would be in the Bungie's financial best interest to keep the weapon as an elusive powerhouse that people want to keep playing in order to chase, but instead they're doing the right thing for the balance of the game. You'd think that would engender some goodwill, but I guess the Destiny communities outrage at Bungie "taking away their toys" wins out.

I guess I just don't really understand what in this update you take so much issue with. You're talking in generalities about them making the same mistakes again or not understanding what they're doing, but the specifics of the changes being made completely contradict this idea. If you think these changes are so bad for the game, please elaborate specifically which changes you disagree with and for what reasons, I'd love to know.

Most of the changes make sense to me. I even like the flavour of the month weapons, it gives another reason to keep doing the raids/strikes/etc. I have Thorn and Ice Breaker right now so once I get my Gally I won't have a ton of reason to keep doing the PVE stuff just besides to get more materials and for the occasional challenge.

A lot of the outrage I have seen at the Destiny weapon rebalances just seems to be people mad that they can't rely on X gun anymore. It's not like Thorn or Gjallerhorn are gonna be bad or useless anymore either, they just won't be as dominant as they were. I've found Bungie has been pretty upfront with how they view the weapons and weapon types and have been trying to balance them to keep those views. Handcannons are not for long range, Auto Rifles are for mid range, Scout Rifles are for long range, etc. I want to be forced to switch up my weapons mid mission, make it so I can't just hide in a corner and use Thorn and Ice Breaker to chip away at bosses.

This is for the 2.0.0 update, that is a big milestone so of course they are gonna do a huge rebalance. This isn't some minor patch to address some complaints, this is them hoping to refocus how the weapon types are viewed. There is also the fact that with every nerf there will later be a buff because people will complain about things being too underpowered. I would love it if Bungie did big rebalances like this for every dlc, force the user base to switch things up and make room for the new stuff.

Most of the changes are pretty alright but it's troubling hat they're dropping them all at once and I'm not sure what that will do to the current game. I have zero interest in ever playing the game again so doesn't make much of a difference to me. Though let me know if I ever get my Pocket Infinity back that would be the only reason to ever return as I could have fun with that weapon at least.

You know how you fix this? Just Delete Destiny. Free yourselves from the shackles of this mediocre game.

If you don't want to actually talk about the game, don't post anything. There's no need to antagonize those of thus that want to actually discuss the game and these upcoming changes.

I think the Ice Breaker and Black Hammer nerfs are pretty dumb.

My biggest problem is that a lot of people speculate that this weapon rebalancing won't drop until September with The Taken King. That will be pretty disappointing if that's the case, but it seems pretty on point since it will be in update 2.0.0. or year 2. It also seems like a lot of the outrage from the Destiny community stems from a lot of misunderstanding of what changes are being made. Since this isn't in the original post I'll try to sum up the changes as briefly as possible.

________________________________

Auto Rifles: Increased base damage output,10% damage buff in PvE (since listed separately, I think it stacks with the overall buff), reducted stability over time, and increased damage dropoff at longer ranges.

Pulse Rifles: Decrease base damage by 2.5% on median speed pulse rifles (2 burst crit for kill in PvP), decreased stability, increased mag size.

Scout Rifles: Increase base damage of high RoF Scouts, increased mag size, reduced hipfire accuracy, and 5% damage buff in PvE (more competitive with Hand Cannons).

Hand Cannons: Quicker damage falloff, reduced ADS accuracy (more geared towards longer shots), reduced hipfire accuracy, lower ADS zoom which grants better target aquisition but less range (depth), and reduced mag size.

Shotguns: Reduced effectiveness of Shotpackage and Rangefinder (reduces effective range of these perks), reduced Precision damage by 10%, and a 10% damage nerf in PvE.

Fusion Rifles: Slowed projectile speed, reduced range of high range fusions, and increased range of low range fusions.

Sniper Rifles: Final Round only procs on precision shots.

Rocket Launchers: Increased blast radius, and less effective Grenades and Horseshoes perk.

Hard Light: Increased stability, increased bounce count and no dropoff for projectiles.

Necrocasm: Increased stability, increased mag size, and Cursebringer always procs on precision shots and is larger and more powerful.

Last Word: Reduced range and stability, and fixed/doubled down on hipfire perk.

Thorn: Reduced Mark of the Devourer perk damage output by 1/3, MoD now stacks up to 5 times (didn't stack before).

Hawkmoon: Holding Aces adds two rounds to the magazine, fixed perks so that only 1 Holding Aces shot and 1 Luck in the Chamber can be on the same round and not all 3, and reduced the damage of LitC by 3%.

Ice Breaker: Reload speed reduced from 5 to 8 seconds per round.

No Land Beyond: Faster weapon handling on all fronts, decreased Master perk to 8 seconds, and added 20% precision buff to Master perk.

Black Hammer: Gun capacity extended to 18 from 15 rounds, and White Nails refills clip from it's capacity not just regenerating ammo.

Lord of Wolves: Tripled recovery for allies.

Gjallarhorn: Reduced the damage output of Wolfpack rounds (likely cut in half, anymore nerf would make it less useful than cluster).

New Taken King weapons will have reduced base stats. Decreased the effectiveness of launch perks (Hammer Forged and Field Scout) to be slightly worse than the newer House of Wolves perks, since those have tradeoffs. All middle column perks unlock at the same time, which reduces upgrade time.

_________________________________

Here are my thoughts on the changes, most of them are good, a few are confusing (No Land Beyond scope change, I guess it addressed some glitch with the scope I didn't know it had), some don't change anything really, and a couple of them could have been handled better.

The Good: Auto Rifles buff, Scout Rifles buff, Hand Cannon change (nerfed and buffed, I personally love the lowered zoom because of the advantages in target aquisition it provides), Shotgun nerf to perks (may make Found Verdict the go to shotgun again), Sniper Rifles nerf to Final Round, Hardlight and Necrocasm buff, Last Word and Hawkmoon nerfs, Thorn change, and Gjallarhorn nerf.

Most of those are self explanatory. The Thorn change with Mark of the Devourer is great because it both increases it PvE effectiveness and makes it a 3 shot killer in PvP. Allowing stacks of thorn damage is a great change, allowing it to do the same damage after 3 shots as it always did, and more after 5. The most controversial change though comes to Gjallarhorn. I think it's pretty obvious it needed to be nerfed, and for some time, but we still don't know the exact details of this nerf like what % damage reduction they are doing to the Wolfpack rounds. It may not even be as much as people think. They did the same thing to the Mythoclast back in November or October and it is still a very viable gun, so lets hold back the pitchforks just yet.

The Confusing: No Land Beyond scope change and fusion rifles changes.

Will the fusion rifle changes effect Vex Mythoclast again. Is it considered high range or low range? Their last change to fusions seemed to screw Vex's stability a bit, which I wasn't a fan of, so does this fix that or double down on it. Hopefully it's the former, because I love using my Mythoclast, it has one of the more unique gun mechanics in Destiny.

The Bad: Ice Breaker and Black Hammer changes.

Ice Breaker's 5 seconds already felt like a very long time between rounds if you were actively using it, which is why many have stopped using it all together. But, I haven't pulled mine out in ages, and this doesn't change that I guess. Black Hammer pulling rounds from your inventory is fine, but only a 3 round increase in capacity is a joke. To compensate for basically neutering Black Hammer, they could have at least added 10 rounds instead of 3 to it's capacity. It's probably much more useful now to use another high impact sniper with quick reload perks.

Overall I think these changes are pretty positive for Destiny, I just wished they were dropping before September.

I think the Ice Breaker changes were made because of the many ways it's ammo regeneration can be used to cheese and exploit the game. In an E3 interview (I forget which one), a Bungie employee said they internally refer to Ice Breaker as "Game Breaker," so clearly they aren't a fan of the many less than savory ways it is used. It's too bad it hurts people that want to use it legitimately, but Ice Breaker was never a weapon you could use exclusively. Ideally, you're switching to Ice Breaker for key situations where you need it, unloading on a big target, and then switching back to your primary. That playstyle will still be completely viable, but now you can't as easily use Ice Breaker to refill ammo for a different special weapon or do oracles from up top.

On the topic of Black Hammer, I admit I will be sad to see it go, but realistically it is way too strong for a legendary. As it is now, Black Hammer is better than almost every exotic special weapon, which is kind of crazy. They even list it under the exotic weapon changes in the update. I think the real shame is that they used this great idea for a weapon on a legendary, when ideally they would have made an exotic with these abilities. Who knows, maybe they will.

I'm actually less aggravated by the Ghorn nerf than I am about them changing the Ice Breaker. There is absolutely no reason to increase the charge time on that weapon at all. It was perfect where it was. A full 30 seconds for a full clip. Now it's going to be 48 seconds? Dafuq, Bungie? That's completely unnecessary. It's never been accused of being overpowered. It has great benefits and the proper drawbacks to not make it overpowered but still maintain it being a great weapon. After all, it is an exotic, so it should be great. On top of that, it's not that great in PvP, but still usable, and it's great in PvE. But it's not so good that it makes everything ridiculously easy. This was my favorite weapon in the game. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how bad this really is.

It was most definitely nerfed - I remember this very clearly because my entire group wasn't happy about it. Whether by "accident" or intentionally it's hard to tell at this point considering how Bungie has been steering this ship.

Here is an old thread on the Bungie forums for reference: LINK

Long live the king, may his 10 year Redbull plan usher in a new age of 30 minute experience boosts!

Happy about all of these changes, especially in regards to PvP. This patch is the most important step into getting weapons into a place where each has a range where they shine, instead of having a metagame where players are required to use a very small subset of weapons to be competitive. This patch by no means will solve all of the balance problems plaguing the game, but it is a huge, huge step in the right direction. My only complaint is that they need to roll out weapon balance changes more frequently than they currently are. I know developing weapon balance is a task requiring a lot of manpower and time, but the problem is that with infrequent patching, all we'll see is a different version of the current metagame where a different subset of weapons reign supreme and why bother using anything else.

Perhaps the most exciting change for me is the PvE changes to No Land Beyond. Finally, I can bring that into my fireteam and have a legitimate case to make regarding the weapon's effectiveness before I get booted!

And with yet another troll, from Bungie, Xur isn't selling a weapon this week. What is this I don't even...

People seem to be speculating that the random selection landed on Gally and Bungie realized this and stepped in. So either they'll leave it as is, or extend him a day and throw another weapon on there. Given the shit storm this update has caused they'd be wise to hop on rectifying this.

I'm stoked on the hand cannon cuts. PVP has become pretty boring with everyone using Thorn/Last Word/Hawkmoon. I'm curious about the outcome of the remaining changes. Sad that my Black Hammer will be slightly less OP for PvE, but totally understandable. I think this update will make PvP fun again.

Thorn absolutely needs nerfed, the damage over time was why I'd die in Crucible and not from getting shot enough times. I'm very close to finally getting it, so that sucks I won't get any payback, though. I'll live.

Ice Breaker change is just flat out annoying. No reason to increase that reload time.

I also just recently got a Gjallahorn (from Crucible drop too, wild!) so that sucks I'm not going to experience how OP it was in PvE. I'm sure it will still be worth using though. I personally never experienced the "gating" of not having a Gjally to do raids, though I'd heard often that was an issue.

I still feel like they should have added buffs to armor instead of nerfing the weapons

Sad that my first exotic drop was a gjallahorn, but also... My first exotic drop was a gjallahorn.

A couple questions for you guys... So, there has been a lot of talk lately about Ascension in year 2 and whether or not it should be removed in The Taken King. Since they are nerfing Black Hammer for year 2, does this not support the fact that they will continue to do weapon and armor Ascension? Because why would they take the time to do anything with a year 1 Legendary if they were going to be permanently leaving year 1 weapons at 365? Second question, since Vex Mythoclast is a high range fusion, does this change not needlessly again hamper the stability of the Mythoclast?

I like the changes - especially to pulse rifles. I was using a Red Death in the crucible long before it was fashionable (apparently) ... but always felt that the 6-8 bursts per reload seemed a bit harsh for pulse rifles. It essentially means you can engage two targets, with hopes of killing both, before needing to reload. Seems like every other weapon type out there can hang in a firefight longer than that.

@jonny_anonymous:I personally really hope that the additions coming include a lot of new armor and we're finally given the chance to alter our shields. It'd make the crucible a lot more interesting to have guardians using the void/arc/solar shield types.

I've seen a lot of people go back and forth on the issue. Most agree Exotics will carry over fine into Year 2. The legendary stuff is where people can't figure out if they'll be left behind or you'll be able to upgrade them like you said. Before this nerf I was convinced they were going to leave them behind but now? I'm with you that you'll be able upgrade them on par with the newer weapons/armor. There is that dumb statement from Bungie though about lack of vault space, along the lines of "we want you to have to make tough decisions about what gear you keep", which translates to "we suck and refuse to give more vault space.

I don't play Destiny, but isn't it essentially standard practice in big multiplayer games to nerf individual pieces of gear if those items become "the" items that everyone needs to have in order to remain competitive? I've seen numerous other developers nerf weapons like this and say that the reason they are doing it is because they want to make other items and builds viable and not have it so that everyone is going after the same helmet, or the same rifle, or whatever because it is THE top item to have and nothing else compares.

@mb: What I think makes Destiny different from other MMO type games is how "roles" are defined. Other class based games entry to a specific raid or event was predicated upon a class (or even more specifically a build) which was augmented by a weapon/armor choice. Destiny classes, armor and builds are largely inter-changing parts. (It's actually a credit to Bungie, in a weird way, that they made classes and skill trees that were really well balanced). With a couple exceptions in raids, I don't think I've ever seen someone say "man, we really need a Hunter for this part." In previous games one specific skill, or trait, or combination of two or three things created something which necessitated a nerf.

What people say in Destiny? "Man, we really need a [Weapon Type and/or Damage Type] to do this part." [ Edit - there are no weapons that are exclusive to any of the three classes (or even the skill trees) in Destiny. ]

And then people realize that [WeaponA/B/C] is the best of that type? And the min/max crowd that plagues every MMO starts to filter who they're willing to party with based upon who has the "best" weapon for that encounter.

This situation was aggravated by the fact that (until now) one specific weapon essentially trumped all others in PVE; and encounters that might have required other weapon types or strategies become steam-rollable by simply out-muscling it with the Gjallahorn.

Enter said min/max crowd who says, "man, you know how we do this? Everyone get fully maxed out Gjallahorns." So, rather than having one niche player who happened to be playing the right class (1 of 8 to 16 classes) and the right build within that class (1 to 3 skill trees per class, usually) and using the right skill (which may or may not have been easy to acquire or change to after the "path to OP" was discovered)... and everyone bitching that "man, that guy's overpowered! nerf XYZABC build!" ... you now have a situation where Everyone can be the OP guy, all you have to do is get the exotic drop.

Which ... easier said than done. Lots of random rolls, or you wait for them to be sold at a specific vendor for a currency that itself was a pain to acquire until the latest expansion.

So, rather than having a small minority of the player-base being OP, you potentially have Everyone OP. Any nerf of that specific build in other games would have resulted in the jubilation of the masses? Is now being met with an annoyed playerbase across the board as people are accustomed to using or (or dreaming of getting it).

At least, that's my informed observation of the situation. I've never had the mythical beast, so I really can't tell you what it's like to be in that exclusive club.

I get by with an Invictus ... a shotgun that regenerates ammo and rips through anything in its path in hilarious fashion. And, other than a couple minor tweaks? Will remain unchanged ... so, I'm laugh'n.

@mb: I think you've hit the nail right on the head. As of right now, there are clear weapons for both PvP and PvE which excel at their roles so well that they simply overshadow other weapon choices. For PvE we have Gjallarhorn, which can bring the time to kill for a boss monster so low that fireteams using only the weapon can brute force their way through an encounter without having to figure out the mechanics, as evidenced by the Skolas pre-mechanic rework. Skolas is the most difficult boss to fight in the newest expansion, namely because the fireteam has to keep up with several different "do this or die" gameplay mechanics, often occurring simultaneously. Mutators for the encounter rotate weekly, and when a specific mutator is active that amplifies all solar damage -- the damage type Gjallarhorn uses -- the boss fight is trivialized by providing the fireteam an opportunity to kill the boss in under a minute, thereby bypassing the majority of gameplay mechanics which make the fight challenging. Bungie has recently reworked the encounter to allow fireteams to fight the boss without the damage amplification mutators, and Gjallarhorn is no longer a necessity but a luxury. However, most PvE groups only want the best so Gjallarhorn is still largely deemed a necessity for joining many fireteams via Destiny LFG. Having Gjallarhorn nerfed will hopefully both make encounters more challenging and forcing elitist players off their high-horse.

PvP is a different monster, with the majority of players using Thorn, The Last Word, Red Death, high impact sniper rifles with the Final Round perk, and shotguns with a high range and high impact potential including Felwinter's Lie, Party Crasher +1, and Matador 64 with the right perks. All of these weapons are in spirit of maintaining a low, consistent time to kill value. Thorn remains the most widely used weapon in crucible because of its ability to kill enemies in two headshots, something that most other weapons cannot do reliably. The Last Word has the lowest time to kill of any current primary weapon available, and while adoption is not as wide as Thorn in the Crucible, is seeing a noticable increase because of a bug that allows the handcannon to retain its damage buff on headshots while aiming down the sight, granting the player an opportunity to use a weapon with a time to kill by having an accurate two-shot-kill weapon by perfect manipulation of the bug. Red Death has become a viable choice since the pulse rifle buff, but requires the player to land all six shots as headshots to compete with handcannons reliably. High impact sniper rifles are notorious in crucible as well, granting a significant damage bonus to the last shot of the gun's magazine. Sniper rifles already deal a significant amount of non-headshot damage, and Final Round allows players to either kill another player outright in a single shot or bring them close to the brink of death without the skill of aiming for the head. High impact, high range shotguns can kill players from ranges far exceeding the norm for the weapon class in one shot. I think this class of shotguns has displaced the role of the fusion rifle in PvP by affording players the ability to make quick kills at near-medium range without the need of charge times before firing, a requirement for all fusion rifles save one.

There are outliers and exceptions in PvP. Very rarely will I see someone with a legendary high damage pulse rifle or handcannon with the right perks dominate the field. I'll even see some brave soul either unaware or looking for a challenge tough it out using auto rifles. But if a player wants to remain competitive, they must use a combination of any of the weapons mentioned previously or risk having a weapon with a higher time to kill, putting them at an already theoretical disadvantage when fighting someone else that does have those weapons.

This patch aims to rebalance weapons so that each have a range where they excel. This could mean that players must vary their loadouts dependent upon the map or play around the weapon so that they have an advantage against someone else instead of having one weapon that excels at all ranges like Thorn. So if a person wants to use auto rifles, then they will have a theoretical advantage on small maps or up close or medium ranges against someone with a pulse or a scout rifle instead of being outclassed by every other weapon archetype in the game.

Immediate gut reaction:

I had just gotten back into Destiny within the last two weeks, and had finally gotten into a groove when it came to my crucible load-out. I even had enough fun to hold my nose and jump on a cheap season pass on the expansions.

Dammit.

...but then when I calmed down, I'd like to think that they are Smart People who have a pretty good record of making and maintaining multiplayer shooters. The whole business end of this may reek to high heaven, but the mechanical engine (your left trigger/right trigger what have you) has been the saving grace for me, and if they can improve on it, I'll hope for the best.

My understanding from their comments is that people were using the Gjallarhorn as a way to gate their parties, basically refusing to do the weekly heroic with people who didn't have it. I think that is smart, there are plenty of weapons in the game and if one weapon basically becomes required to even get a group there is a problem.

You're making the same mistake they do... you don't acknowledge the difference between an Exotic and other weapons. You can only equip one Exotic at a time. The fact that Gjallarhorn was being equipped at all was pretty crazy. You use your Heavy the least out of any weapon, so you're giving up your only Exotic slot to something you use the least. Gjallarhorn is fine. There is nothing broken about it. There isn't a single encounter in the game that you can complete with Gjallarhorn that you wouldn't be able to complete without it. It just speeds certain things up in certain strategies. That really is all. Beating Skolas with Gjallarhorn is more fun because it speeds the fight up. No mechanics are wasted when I use it as opposed to when I don't.

Gjallarhorn will not be fine. Nobody uses Dragon's Breath because it doesn't do enough for an Exotic. You're far more effective equipping something else. If Gjallarhorn will be the roughly the same, nobody will equip it anymore. If Gjallarhorn becomes the best rocket launcher in the game but only 'slightly', it means it's useless. Because it's an Exotic. And you're not equipping an Exotic to be slightly better than your other gear. You're equipping them for specific strategies or quality.

Which, by the way, talking about strategies: if you mean to imply the Ice Breaker nerf is 'absolutely fantastic', then you're just okay with weapons being nerfed into uselessness then? Ice Breaker cannot pick up ammo and it regenerates ammo over time. The regeneration was already pretty slow. Now, if you use Special Synthesis on your Black Hammer, you will have more bullets every 5 minutes than waiting for Ice Breaker shots. In addition, Black Hammer does more damage, has higher rate of fire, more stability and you can pick up ammo for it. Not to mention Ice Breaker is an Exotic, so the point above also stands. It will be literally worse in every single aspect than Legendary Sniper Rifles.

The thing that made Ice Breaker special, ammo regeneration, is now going to be the reason why it sucks, because it'll be slower than using Special Synth. It is a gigantic nerf that puts it near the bottom of the list of PvE Sniper Rifles. That just doesn't make any sense.

Also, what's so fantastic about limiting the magazine size on all Hand Cannons? What's with the unspecific nerf? Why does Ill Will, which has 7 rounds in the magazine, need less capacity? Why does even Fatebringer need less capacity in PvE? Makes no sense whatsoever. I could see reducing the mag size on Last Word and Thorn, but this is just dumb.

Zevvion hitting many, many nails directly on the head.

Bungie has yet to prove they are wise and benevolent caretakers of Destiny. They have years and years of other MMO games experience with the growing pains of things like nerfs, buffs, QoL changes like item stacking and stack sizes, empowering player agency in game so it feels like what you do and how you do it matters, defining player roles in solo and team play, and the easy and oft made mistake of cross pollinating PvP changes and PvE changes. It appears to me that Bungie isn't doing the simple thing of looking to the mistakes and experiences of others to learn and inform their decisions. They even have a shared publisher with one of the biggest if not simply the most well known MMO in World of Warcraft to aid them in their search for not just this knowledge but even the whys and wherefores if they so wish.

IF Bungie did have some kind of amazing track record with Destiny then maybe many of us could adapt a more relaxed, wait and see, attitude. IF Bungie hadn't been ridiculously flushing its reputation and player good will at an alarming rate over the last few weeks (months?) then maybe many of us would be more ready and willing and open minded in general about anything they propose or announce. This is all directed at some weird, amorphous, "Bungie" as a whole which only exists in a meta sense I suppose. There are folks that seem like they are trying their hardest, like that "Deej" community manager guy. But the aggregate track record of the Bungie Destiny team when it comes to maintaining and updating the game has not been so hot.

Most all of the PvE nerfs are sophomoric at best. They are the kind of decisions you would make in a vacuum without consideration of the situation as a holistic whole. The reasoning for many of them are, as stated directly by Bungie, just made out of dislike of a weapon or play style being popular. They were slammed for such populist style decision making when they nerfed the, already mathematically under performing, Autorifle class in the last weapons pass and have not bothered to take any of that criticism in regards to that style of decision making to heart and are going right back in and repeating that mistake. Again, IF such arrogant decision making style had been proven wise and borne fruit then many players would be more willing to wait and see. Yet, one of the things they are doing is trying to fix the damage of the previous Autorifle nerf!

As a player, not a community manager or programmer or business executive "suit" but as a player. I look at all the nerfs, how they are being presented, the closed mindedness to criticism, the lack of transparency of process, inability to learn from the mistakes of others and even just the unmitigated corporate style greed shown lately and I literally shake my head in real life. Of course, OF COURSE, you would look at "the best gun in the game" and think something sophomoric like, "Better nerf that!" You can make all kinds of logical and mathematical reasons up why you would do this, intelligently and even try to pepper it with humanitarian style attempts at reasons like "groups won't take you without that weapon" and "it will be better for the health of the game as a whole." I keep saying sophomoric because these are all smart reasons but ultimately foolishly ignore things like simply the feelings of all the players you are messing with. It ignores that those groups that won't take you without that gun are made up with jerks and jerks are gonna' jerk for whatever reason. It ignores that the encounter design in general is made up of giant bullet sponges (ignoring the "artificial difficulty" debate for now) and if something like a Gjallarhorn can make that less obnoxious then people are going to use it rather than slog through reload after reload of ammunition. It ignores that people stuck with the game looking for many of these white whale-esque guns and now you are messing with that. Heck, it even ignores that PvE mobs don't care how quickly or in what way they die so don't worry so much about it if your player base is having fun. Take the fun in hand and leave the two funs in the bush!

PvP? Fine, mess with it as much as you have to in an attempt to obtain some semblance of balance in a game where players don't have identical access to identical guns. Since the tech is already in place to separate PvP and PvE balance changes be sure to use that tech. Unfortunately this is another vote of no confidence situation since the current "bad" PvP is a result of changes to the original "bad" PvP. I've played in every Iron Banner and I remember distinctly how much more variety of weapons was present in the original "bad" PvP. Yeah there were a lot of Suros but you saw other stuff, including the now virtually non-existent Fusion Rifles and a much more healthy machine guns vs rocket launchers debate. People will likely migrate to the Vex Mythoclast or, of course, whatever other "OP" gun becomes flavor of the patch whenever it is going to hit.

Cutting myself off here. I like Destiny, I think the people running it have a lot to learn about human beings and running an MMO played by the same. Examples of MMO nerf/buff mistakes including simple mistakes of implementation and presentation of same exists and they seem to ignore these examples. If you are going to nerf a bunch of iconic shit in the game throwing a few token buffs in there is not enough sugar for that bad medicine. Nerf the weird AI script that makes shit constantly run and hide not just to get cover but from literally the player vision cone and waving the reticule anywhere near the baddies. Roll down some of the insane mob HP and Damage. The reason people shoot 3 Gjallarhorn rockets at some elite fallen major or captain is because it would literally take 7 or more of any other rocket launcher and you still might not kill it! Meanwhile it can rapid fire its shotgun equivalent from across the screen without ever reloading and kill you in basically 1 hit.

This was totally true in the older days of MMO design. I don't think it is really how things are done so much any more. At least in my experience. To double check myself I went and did a keyword search for nerf on the wowhead news feed for the past year.

I mostly found nerfs to monsters and encounters the term used more as a catchall for changes to mechanics. They used nerf to describe a change to PvP damage as a whole which was a mechanical change for PvP vs. PvE content and not a nerf in the sense we are discussing. They also nerfed pet battle XP and mission completion XP but that is again not the kind of nerf we are discussing.

They "nerfed" the Haunted Memento item in the sense that it now exists as a more common drop. I actually had one of these on an older character and at one time it was worth hundreds of thousands of gold on the Auction House. Not our kind of nerf though!

There was a nerf to a Mage skill that was actually a typo correction in a 1.5 percent vs. 15 percent sense. A similar change to some Feral and Balance tree stuff for Druids. A numerical nerf to Arms Warrior mastery skill at lower gear levels was implemented. Protection Paladins were out tanking other tank class specs and adjusted. This is kind of close in a sense.

They did nerf a raid gear set bonus.The nerf for the raid gear set bonus doesn't even really relate very well since there is basically no analog in Destiny as it applied to gear that is actually forced on you mathematically by progression into harder raid content and was a balance change to keep other classes more in line DPS wise. Closest we've gotten yet as it is a piece of gear and it is nerfed even if it is a lot different in execution and circumstance.

I'd say the inter-class nerfs and the raid gear set bonus are the closest to what we are talking about without being properly and directly analogous. That is basically two nerfs in the last 7 months that were high profile enough to show up in my quick and dirty search. I don't know, maybe was a bit of a silly effort on my part. I think it kind of shows how much Blizzard has their shit together since they have a vastly larger game with a lot more gear and skills to balance than the 3 classes and 6 specs of Destiny. Maybe other games are still doing the more "release and nerf" style though as well.

@griffinmills: I'm pretty sure year 10 of WoW to year 1 of Destiny isn't even remarkably a correlative comparison since WoW has already had a decade to iron out their kinks, so I won't even touch the last message. As far as Bungie being a bad caretaker of Destiny, I don't think I can agree with that. They may have been slow to implementation for fixes to Destiny, but looking back we have received a significant amount of QoL changes in year 1 of Destiny. Whether it can be argued that some of these should have been in the base game is kind of irrelevant, these are the changes they have made that significantly improved QoL.

• Doubled Public Events spawn rate
• Cryptarch no longer gives less than quality items
• Channel for team chat if not in a party
• Another 10-15% increase in Public Events
• Bounty slots increased from 5 to 10 slots
• Exotics no longer require Ascendant Materials to upgrade
• Vanguard and Crucible marks can purchase Destination Materials
• Weekly Heroic Matchmaking
• Character inventory now displays faction reps
• Vault capacity increase
• App and website item management tools
• Colorblind support
• Audio Controls added
• Item locking
• Fixed Xur so he always brought Heavy Ammo and Engrams
• Decreased difficulty of Valus Ta'Auric fight and Psion Flayers
• Speaker materials exchange
• Unused Commendation grant XP
• Decreased the cost of upgrading gear
• Added Ascension to already obtained gear
• Added weapon reforging
• Connection Recovery after being booted to Orbit
• Increased Crucible drop rate and marks received
• Fixed Treasure Key drops
• Ammo consumable now stack to 100

There are also several planned and much awaited changes to Destiny like Skippable Cutscenes. These changes also purposefully do not include bug fixes for things like the Raid and Heavy ammo because those were inevitable changes to fix broken mechanics. I also did not include any weapon re-balancing, even though things like the Shotgun buff drastically changed Destiny for the better. As I said earlier they were slow to get the ball rolling on these, but it seems like they are really putting in work to get Destiny to where it should be. We all know there are a lot of changes left to make before Destiny completely comes into its own (clan features in game, in game LFG, glimmer cap increase, another Vault increase, Vault from Space, etc), but I think we are headed in the right direction.

At the same time, we do not know yet if these weapon re-balances are actually going to negatively effect the playerbase. The majority of your weapons were buffed, not nerfed. Hand Cannon's and Fusion Rifles are the only two gun classes that were really nerfed (shotguns by 10% but those already one hit anything with room to spare after the last patch), and how the change to Fusion Rifles will work isn't something we will really understand until we use them ourselves. As far as Hand Cannons go, for PvE they may not be in as bad shape as you think. They already one hit most enemies on Crit at medium range and that won't change, but now with less zoom your target aquisition will be better which will allow you to hit multiple targets quicker, thereby dispatching waves of enemies quicker. We will have to wait and see on the clip capacity part of that and if guns like Fatebringer with Field Scout type perks still hold 13. Overall, my hope is that the nerfs to both Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn will make Bungie lay off of the Delta scaling they have seemingly felt they must implement to combat those overpowered guns. That's not to say I am not someone who is upset at the way they are changing a few weapons like Black Hammer and Ice Breaker, but I think those nerfs will probably, in the end be to the ultimate benefit of the Destiny community as a whole. So my approach is a wait and see one. If they double down on Delta scaling and nerf these guns, then I'll be right along side you with a pitchfork in hand.

While you certainly see some of that I never had an issue getting a party for a Nightfall or something, before I had one. They've actually made it worse now because now groups will straight up demand EVERYONE has a Gally now to make up for it's presumed power loss.

It's also delightfully ironic that they had an issue with the way parties were being formed when they are still refusing to implement in-game party forming tools for some of their endgame content.

Yep, totally. Some of these changes feel like someone made them happen who hadn't played the game actively. People complain about bullet sponge bosses, Bungie acknowledged this. Staying save on edges of the map in corners is the only truly viable way to play the game for the vast majority of people. Their reaction to essentially nerf that strategy is the wrong approach. They should design the game to be able to complete in a reasonable timeframe without having to resort to those tactics. Who here actually cleared PoE 35 without using Gjallarhorn or Black Hammer and making use of the right side outer edge of the map before the patch? Nooooooooooooo one. Because that approach is extremely risky and therefor I've seen groups trying it for 5 hours and failing. Using that strategy is still challenging, except you'll probably completed it in an hour or two.

They nerfed Skolas later, as they should have. And guess what? Almost no one demands you to have Gjallarhorn on LFG except for a small number of groups that want to burn him down. Guess what's going to happen now that the only viable approach has been nerfed? That's right, everybody will need a Gjallarhorn now.

It's super dumb. In an attempt to avoid groups from demanding something (something which wasn't going on in the first place), they are now making it exclusionary to those with top tier gear. Just because their encounter design cannot be reliably completed otherwise.

How about you quit the delta scaling Bungie? That's a nice start on the way to having people not be forced to equip Gjallarhorn.

Stopped playing this game a few weeks after House of Wolves came out and I doubt I'll come back for Taken King. The core of the game is such a tedious grind that it's not worth it. There are too many other good games worth playing that respect your time much more than Destiny.