Balance for weapon usage makes no sense whatsoever! Every map favors different styles of combat, and people should be adjusting to which weapons fit their style of combat on those particular maps, rather than switching to whatever weapon is the new favored weapon class. PLAYER CHOICE, not some douchebag in a cubicle at Bungie's Corporate HQ should determine what weapons are used. They should ALL be powerful in defined roles, and players will pick their favorite weapons based on playstyle and map. The fact that they want to try to create weapon balance based on percentage use is not only outrageous, but it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. People are going to choose long range weapons on long range maps, and cqb weapons in close quarters. We should not be forced into a choice of using auto rifles, for example, on long range maps because they are suddenly the Bungie Dev's favored weapon class. My opinion? What a bunch of stupid asshats. They should be fired immediately. [Edit] This only confirms for me what I already thought before: They have no idea what the hell they are doing.

Still need to listen to the last half of the second interview. But what I've heard so far, has convinced me that my overall impression of the process has been correct. That most of the problems are arising from the fact that Bungie is working a from a badly flawed DEFINITION of what weapon balance is. To explain the problem simply, take the following analogy. If you're standing, you're going to want to remain in balance. But if I push you to the right...and you try to stay centered...you're going to fall over. The only way you'll stay balanced is by pushing back to the left. IOW, in a situation of unbalance...."balance" is actually an overcompensation in the other direction. Which is why this notion of "equal usage" being "balance" is such a problem. IT IS ONLY A MARKER OF BALANCE IF EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME IS BALANCED. Guns. Map designs, and play modes all favoring every play style equally. ...and anyone who's actually played this game realizes that this is FAR from the in-game reality. So what happens is that instead of balancing the game, each one of these patches puts the game EVEN MORE out of balance by putting Bungie's thumb on the scale. IOW, The year Two Meta has been shaped by maps that strongly favor mid-to-long range engagements (open designs, long sight lines) and play modes that favor low-risk/ high-reward play styles (Trials, Elimination, Skirmish, etc...) So "balance" in this situation is the meta that developed. People picked the best weapons for mid-range combat (pulse rifles) ....and snipers started to play a role in the game equal to shotguns. In an effort to enforce "equal usage" Bungie then nerfs pulse rifles...and BREAKS shotguns...... ...but we are still playing in the same ENVIRONMENT that generated the first meta. So now you have a situation that is even more balanced since you've put snipers into an advantaged position relative to other special weapons....and since you've weakened pulse rifles, they're starting to encroach into the mid-range. Just like what happened in the CQC dominated environment of Year One...when Bungie tried to force "balance' in an Unbalanced environemtn by breaking auto rifles. At this rate, Bungie will NEVER get this right, unless they step back and change what they're doing.

I rather liked the interview, and taken in the appropriate realistic and objective context what they said made a lot of sense. I wouldn't say I agreed with everything, but probably with most of it. I see from some of the OP's responses to comments that you pretty clearly do not agree with what's said, I'm curious what specifically bothered you. One common argument I see below is people up in arms about balancing decisions being based on usage... which I can honestly only conclude is because they used the item in question and refuse to even consider the possibility that it was OP. I mean, there are still people here who swear up and down that Thorn was completely fine... and I'm sorry, but that thing was frankly broken and to say otherwise is just indefensible. It is really that crazy to consider usage? Lets say weapon A is used by 30% of players. No other weapon is used by more than 15%. And over a decent period of time: It's not just the week after Xur sells it (*coughmidacough*), and it's not just the week the ToO map clearly favors that type of weapon. And it's not something everyone gets basically for free, like a Conspiracy theory or 1KYS. That's like, [u]an actual definition of un-balanced.[/u] If it's your job to make sure that things are balanced, it would be beyond incompetence to say [i]"Yeah, that's totally fine. There's no reason at all to believe that weapon A is overpowered."[/i] You know, because everyone just picks the gun that they think is fun to use. People [i]never[/i] gravitate towards weapons that give them an advantage. Nobody cares about their KD, or their internet points, or wants a bigger epeen, right? Give me a break. If some weapon is used twice as much as anything else, there are only three possible reasons: It's easy to use, easy to get, or works too well. You need to figure out which one of those things it is, and if it's the last one, it's gotta be changed. Period.

I just can't understand how 100% of Bungie's efforts, all of the designers, artists, developers, etc... Get filtered to 1 single D Bag. Part 2 of that is, the one single person is Sage M. Every single person that is invested in this game in one way or another is reliant upon that little wanna be hipster to make the game successful. The thing is, he doesn't care about the success of the Destiny franchise, he cares about whether or not he comes off as cool to 10 twitch/twitter gamers. He flippantly suggests asking casuals their opinion in a poll, then laughs. There is no thought or consideration for the players fun or enjoyment. Only PVP competitive statistics. This game is dead until they drag his loser azz off of all things PVE. He cares far more about trying to be cool than creating a "fun" experience for the PVE player.

Listened to it, in full. I want to argue that Auto Rifles need help... That they are no where near as competitive as scouts or pulses... Then I go 5.0 in control with Hard Light. *facepalm*

They're extremely arrogant and condescending. It'd be one thing if they were good at their jobs, making a good game, and people liked them. But when you make fun of the community for having legitimate concerns in the way they did, it only makes it more obvious how terrible and out of touch this company is. I legitimately wanted to enjoy Destiny, but Bungie and Activision just won't let me, or anyone for that matter. I hop on these forums to have discussions with people in gaming and Offtopic, and every once in a while, check what's the latest on feedback. But it seems that Bungie is still doing poorly. Maybe one day we'll get the game we know Destiny can be.

Didnt watch the video, but from reading what i see in the comments, my thoughts have been true. They have a shitty definition of balance that they are hell-bent on trying to create, but they dont know how to balance weapons correctly. They just look at numbers and base their nerfs/buffs on them after they number-crunch, and "play test" weapons in a closed environment with devs, instead of actual matches with actual people to see how people react/try to counter. They see a popular weapon, they nerf it. They dont give a shit about PvE either. They need to separate nerfs, and they only did it one -blam!-ing time! The one time they do it, shotguns were actually worth using in PvE. Their constant cycle of nerfs is what put this games weapon "balance" in the shithole and they just keep digging the hole deeper to fill it more. These dudes dont know what they're doing, and the AR situation is a -blam!-ing joke to these dudes, saying that "damage buff" was intentional, then saying there wont be another buff. I imagine they have a dart board in their office with weapon classes on the outside as the largest targets, then specific weapons under the weapon classes, and the better the weapon,the larger the target. Then, each day, Jon and the rest of the "weapon balancing" crew take a few throws a day hoping they hit Fusion Rifles,Shotguns, or popular weapons to nerf

Interview was fine. There were a couple of things I heard that didn't make sense to me.One being the auto rifle damage drop off. I don't care if they lied, if it was a typo or whatever, 0.03 is still ridiculous, and I understand what they said, but the problem is you have to get into the bottom half of the magazine for this very niche effect to take place. And we all know, going head to head against scouts and pulses, that those fights are over long before you can empty an AR mag. So while the explanation made sense, the overall logic behind this very negligible increase did not. Secondly Mida, the portion of that discussion bugged me a little bit. I don't understand why they feel like they have to do something every time a weapon or perk becomes popular. This is the game working the way you intended. Let the meta play out. I don't care how good players think Mida is, eventually they will become bored as f##k with it and move on to something else. You can't say in one breath that we want players to figure out the playstyles that work for them, then in the next turn around and say, well we need to look at these things more closely if these very same players wind up...figuring out the playstyles that work for them. So I had some issues with that I did agree that the game could benefit from slowing down maybe just a tad depending on the game mode. But it's nitpicking because I also enjoy the aspect of random chance in a chaotic encounter. Oh wait, just heard the 100 yard stare segment. I don't care what the data is saying as far as kd, it's still accounting for 20% of Trials kills and that is not balance. Overuse can be attributed to this partly, but it's ridiculous to say that is the only reason, you still have to have success with the weapon, whether it's easy to obtain or not, and just about everyone does. As the numbers clearly show. This is a case of actually letting the meta play out as I stated above, and seeing that there is actually a problem. Saying that the weapon only results in a 1 kd is missing the point, these are 3v3 game modes that it becomes an issue, and kd is not indicative in 3v3 if revealing a problem with a weapon type. I thought this was purposeful hyperbole.

I STILL don't think ARs are a competitive option in the crucible. IB has proved it even more so. Only competitive AR types are the bullet hoses. The others are not.

Bump for later listening.

I watched most of the highlights... And Jo(h)n just needs to be fired. He is a cancer to this game the just needs to be cured.

I'm inclined to believe them if they're willing to publish the code that generates damage numbers and rounds them on UI display.

He's too much of a stats person. All they -blam!-ing do is looks at numbers and base things off of that. Like when he said the top 10% were mostly using some random scout rifle, if you were to go into a crucible match you would see the top players mostly using mida/tlw/pulse rifle. He really needs to look at this as a true destiny player. I bet the guy doesnt even play hardly as much as a casual player

Yeah I stopped watching once Jon W brushed off the question of how auto rifles were buffed... 'situational' my a**, the buffs are all under .10% damage, how does that affect time to kill in both PvP and PvE?!

Interesting interview. It will def affect the type of comments I leave from hear on out about exotics. The part about No Land Beyond was enlightening. My question for that would be if it's only appealing to a small group of people, and and that's what you intended, why did they make it such a frequent drop? (I actually know why. I'm just saying. It doesn't add up) Hawkmoon was an extremely rare drop. So clearly, they knew some weapons would "compliment" play styles better than others.

They don't "balance" anything. The seesaw the damage tables to create more play times. Remember when ARs got nerfed because "we used them a lot"? That's all we needed to see if we want to know their strategy. They make 1 or 2 weapon classes unusable and we let the sit without touching them. Balance time! Now dust off those (insert whatever class just got buffed) and grind out a few more hours trying to level everything up and trying to get that 1 weapon that's OP in that class. Time for a "new" batch of weapons that make the old ones obsolete! Everyone automatically goes for the weapon class that's been dominant for a month or 2 and ignore the underwhelming classes. Guess what? "Balance" time again! And rinse and repeat. Not a [i]bad[/i] strategy on paper, but that's why so many of us hate PvP. It's not about the players skill as much as it is "who's better at using the current dominant weapon and lag to their advantage?"

I understand their process and reasoning for their decisions, I just happen to fundamentally disagree with a lot of their philosophy and approach to balance.

They have always,every time messed up with there attempts at so called balance.(which they don't want because they rely on imbalance to circulate there inventory and try to keep players hunting for the next op item.) What on earth makes anyone expect balance from BUNGIE? They have never had it with destiny so you should just accept they are incompetent,or designing for THERE benefits a system of perpetual change to players having ingame items. Until they have a change in there upper management then destiny will be managed in this way. My opinion anyway.