I guess I just look forward to the novelty of being killed by a year one gun in a few years. :)

Speaking of which, I've really been enjoying my TDYK in the crucible lately.

You can absolutely get great shotguns right now, but not as good as what was available pre HoW. My Two to the Morgue has Hammer Forged AND Shot Package, plus Field Choke. That is a combo of perks that is no longer available. Unfortunately, Two to the Morgue has less base range than Felwinter's Lie, so it can't quite compete with the very best Felwinter's out there.

My Party Crasher has Reinforced Barrel, Aggressive Ballistics and Shot Package. It has the same Range as a perfect Felwinter. The only difference is it deals 12 damage less than an identical Felwinter, but fires faster, and that's just my personal choice in shotguns. I could roll the same on a Felwinter.

With Reinforced Barrel you don't even need Field Choke - you can run Aggressive Ballistics for extra Impact.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

This never, ever happens to me, and there's an easy way to make sure it doesn't happen to you - use a better shotgun. I already have the best shotgun roll, so I know if the other guy beats me it's skill or luck. There's never a time where I'm left wondering if it's the roll or not.

That's what I would do, if it were possible. With the rearrangement of perks in House of Wolves, it is no longer possible to roll a shotgun with the same combo of devastating perks that you could get a few months ago. So I'm stuck competing with players who have better weapons, with no way to match what they have.

Just last week I got a Matador with Smart Drift, Shot Package, Rifled Barrel, and Battle Runner, straight-outta-the-box. It also has Aggressive Ballistics, but the SD and RB max out the range, so I don't need to sacrifice Stability,
I prefer Range Finder to Shot Package, and not everyone loves Battle Runner as much as I do (an extra perk slot to get something good!), so while it's not my PS4 Felwinter, it is still ridiculously overpowered. It's a top-tier gun post-nerfs, and has been besting Felwinters left and right, so yeah you can still make some great Shotguns without needing a million rolls.

You can absolutely get great shotguns right now, but not as good as what was available pre HoW. My Two to the Morgue has Hammer Forged AND Shot Package, plus Field Choke. That is a combo of perks that is no longer available. Unfortunately, Two to the Morgue has less base range than Felwinter's Lie, so it can't quite compete with the very best Felwinter's out there.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

This never, ever happens to me, and there's an easy way to make sure it doesn't happen to you - use a better shotgun. I already have the best shotgun roll, so I know if the other guy beats me it's skill or luck. There's never a time where I'm left wondering if it's the roll or not.

That's what I would do, if it were possible. With the rearrangement of perks in House of Wolves, it is no longer possible to roll a shotgun with the same combo of devastating perks that you could get a few months ago. So I'm stuck competing with players who have better weapons, with no way to match what they have.

Just last week I got a Matador with Smart Drift, Shot Package, Rifled Barrel, and Battle Runner, straight-outta-the-box. It also has Aggressive Ballistics, but the SD and RB max out the range, so I don't need to sacrifice Stability,
I prefer Range Finder to Shot Package, and not everyone loves Battle Runner as much as I do (an extra perk slot to get something good!), so while it's not my PS4 Felwinter, it is still ridiculously overpowered. It's a top-tier gun post-nerfs, and has been besting Felwinters left and right, so yeah you can still make some great Shotguns without needing a million rolls.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

This never, ever happens to me, and there's an easy way to make sure it doesn't happen to you - use a better shotgun. I already have the best shotgun roll, so I know if the other guy beats me it's skill or luck. There's never a time where I'm left wondering if it's the roll or not.

That's what I would do, if it were possible. With the rearrangement of perks in House of Wolves, it is no longer possible to roll a shotgun with the same combo of devastating perks that you could get a few months ago. So I'm stuck competing with players who have better weapons, with no way to match what they have.

Right now just about any gun can be great, depending on its perks.

If you make weapons have specific perks, all you end up with is a whole bunch of weapons that get sharded instantly. The meta wouldn't change, and you'd end up with even less variety.

In the end is that really any different than it is now? Just a few 'guns' (rolls) dominate the meta. In my scenario at least you'd know what your up against and not have to guess what perks they were running with on that Matador 64.

It would be different because those "Perfect Rolls" are only "PERFECT" for certain activities and certain play styles. I have a Solar Party Crasher with Shot Package and Rifled Barrel, but I almost exclusively use it in Solar Burn Cabal activities (to devastatingly great effect) - I have YET to even take it into the Crucible, even though that's where it ought to "shine" the most.

Just because there is a "perfect PvP roll" doesn't mean that's the "most fun" for everyone. I like options and being given a choice I actually have control over.

Exactly. I'm desparate for a Dry Rot so I can roll Solar, Full Auto, Casket Mag and Cascade. Will it be good in Crucible? God I should think not. Will it be as effective as Found Verdict? Not unless I can get the magazine above 6. Will it be stupid fun? Yes yes yes yes yes.

I'm certainly capable of playing the game in that frame of mind... I often do :) But when you're playing Trials of Osiris against the very best players in the world, all of these little differences suddenly matter. If you're facing a player who has mastered the Hunter's Blink-jump maneuver and is also armed with a shotgun that happens to be rolled for slightly more range than yours is (even though you both have the "same" gun), it can be extremely frustrating.

I don't want to keep banging pn the same drum, but why (especially in Trials) are you even using the shotgun with less range? The gunsmith is right there man. Go re-roll it.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

This never, ever happens to me, and there's an easy way to make sure it doesn't happen to you - use a better shotgun. I already have the best shotgun roll, so I know if the other guy beats me it's skill or luck. There's never a time where I'm left wondering if it's the roll or not. I get the complaint that shotguns are broken right now, or that it sucks that you have to play into the meta, but that's how competitive games work - play the meta or die. (Caveat: You can still have a lot of fun by not playong the meta. MIDA Voidwalker is my new favourire thing. But I get killed more often by others who are playing the meta)

If 2 guardians are having a Thorn duel, the deciding factor will be skill 99% of the time. If you loose, you know why. You can learn and adjust. But right now, too many of the gunfights in Destiny come down to a dice roll. I might out-snipe an enemy sniper and land a headshot for the kill, but they hit me with a final round body shot at the same time and kill me back. I out played them, displayed more skill, and my actions were nullified by random perks.

There's not many perks like that though. Final Round is the big one, and it's going away.

I get why Destiny bombard you with so much choice. It's all purposeful and manipulative.

There's a principle, where the more choice someone has, the less satisfied they ultimately are. Imagine you can choose from two Vacuum cleaners. You look at them, decide which is better, and buy the better one. You might down the line have second thoughts, but when you think back, you can clearly see you made the better choice.

But if you have a hundred Vacuum cleaners to choose from, you have second thoughts, but then go over the endless combinations of attachments and models from the other 99. You can no longer tell with certainty that 'this one I got is the best', because there is so much choice, and so many factors, you are always left with that nagging and uncertainty.

Thus, Destiny WANTS you to agonize over whether your rolls are as good as they can be, by bombarding you with meaningless choice to create uncertainty in your mind.

The more you examine the game, the more deliberately hostile you see the design ultimately is.

You can look at anything negatively if you want to.

The way I look at it is, Bungie is deliberately frustrating those who want to min/max the game-- to determine THE best weapon and armor combinations, to prevent the game from collapsing down into those options and nothing else. (Hence the upcoming nerfs, although at least the game doesn't collapse to Thorn/Gyllenhall for everyone, because not everyone has them.)

I agree Bungie is trying to create doubt, because doubt is the only thing that leaves you open to trying new weapons. The alternative is nothing but an escalator where you only know things are better because they have bigger numbers. Destiny does that too, but such changes have to be restricted to major updates, like the moves from max attack 300, then to 331, and now to 365. Within those ranges, though, there have to be doubts that lead you to evaluate new items, and that's where the perks come in.

Heh - I'm not sure I belong here, because I read threads like this and wonder "how can I play this game so differently from everyone else?"

I reroll almost NOTHING. I play with whatever perks the RNG gods give me. When I get killed in Crucible, I assume the guy on the other end of that battle was better than me, or had position on me, or got lucky, or whatever. If I get killed by a shotgun at handgun range, I do my best to stay away from that guy. If I get sniped through 3 walls, I do my best to stay out of view of that guy. I RARELY even think about the rolls my opponent might have gotten on the weapon he just killed me with - and when I do, it's more a "oh, well" than a "it's total bullshit that he's got a scout rifle that does more damage than my rocket launcher".

I read these threads and I think "man, I must be playing this game wrong." And then I think about the fact that I actually ENJOY my playtime (almost 100% of it, in fact), while almost nobody else here seems to do that... and I think "I don't want to play the game they're playing."

:)

This is basically my issue. I play very much the same. I don't invest in perks too much. I also don't play crucible too much, and even with the "correct" perks I probably still wouldn't be that good at it. But it still bugs me that if you don't invest in the perk system, and get that perfect roll (through luck or spending motes), you're at a disadvantage.

I'm not a very competitive player, so it doesn't get to me much, but it does bother me sometimes.

I guess I can't really complain, though. I'm the one who refuses to invest in the perk system. It's a bit like people complaining about their representatives, but they didn't vote. I'm fully capable of learning what each and every perk is, how exactly they affect what's going on . . . I just don't care enough to do so.

Even so, it frustrates me sometimes. His Party Crasher should be the same as my Party Crasher.

I will say that some of the discussion in this thread has given me pause, though. Ultimately, I think someotherguy was right, where it would end up that everyone was running with the same exact gun, because it is the "best." Even if Bungie attempted to make every shotgun (or hand cannon or whatever gun it was) competitive, one would gain widespread popularity and be acknowledged as the best gun, and nothing else would get used.

With the way it is now, you're not screwed because you don't have that gun, you can use another gun and use perks to make it competitive, where it might not have been before.

I guess I just look forward to the novelty of being killed by a year one gun in a few years. :)

Right now just about any gun can be great, depending on its perks.

If you make weapons have specific perks, all you end up with is a whole bunch of weapons that get sharded instantly. The meta wouldn't change, and you'd end up with even less variety.

In the end is that really any different than it is now? Just a few 'guns' (rolls) dominate the meta. In my scenario at least you'd know what your up against and not have to guess what perks they were running with on that Matador 64.

It would be different because those "Perfect Rolls" are only "PERFECT" for certain activities and certain play styles. I have a Solar Party Crasher with Shot Package and Rifled Barrel, but I almost exclusively use it in Solar Burn Cabal activities (to devastatingly great effect) - I have YET to even take it into the Crucible, even though that's where it ought to "shine" the most.

Just because there is a "perfect PvP roll" doesn't mean that's the "most fun" for everyone. I like options and being given a choice I actually have control over.

Hopefully this is something that Bungie can add in the future :)

Let's assume Bungie is going to depreciate current weapons somehow in the crucible.

The best thing from here on out I think, is to rethink about how perks make guns more effective. No perk should straight up make the gun directly more effective. No perks that increase damage. No perks that increase range or stability. No perks that increase aim assist. Etc.

Perks should indirectly make guns more effective. Perks such as Battle Runner, Shoot to Loot, Up close and Personal, and Replenish are the kinds of things I'm talking about. Even Icarus is too much of a direct effect. They don't directly make the weapon any better, but can be used situationally to improve your performance in other ways. In short, the perks actually effect your playstyle, not the guns killing power. To me this is far more interesting.

Now. Getting every current gun out of the hands of everyone in the Crucible is going to be tough since attack power doesn't matter, and no matter how much Bungie nerfs hammer forged, it's still a straight up effectiveness perk, and those weapons are out there.

It's just bad perk design from the get go. I'm not going to say that I warned them and saw it first, because I didn't. Maybe the best thing is to simply disallow year one weapons in Crucible when in year two playlists. That has problems of its own, but the longer Bungie waits, the worse it'll be. They should pull the trigger now.

I'm certainly capable of playing the game in that frame of mind... I often do :) But when you're playing Trials of Osiris against the very best players in the world, all of these little differences suddenly matter. If you're facing a player who has mastered the Hunter's Blink-jump maneuver and is also armed with a shotgun that happens to be rolled for slightly more range than yours is (even though you both have the "same" gun), it can be extremely frustrating. I LOVE the competitive nature of Trials of Osiris, but I do feel like all the random perks and ability to re-roll weapons muddies the waters in a way that causes problems for that game mode.

I guess it's no real coincidence that I don't play Trials. ;)

One of the funny things about this "random perk" issue is that it doesn't seem to effect the primary weapon combat so much. I think the reason for that is that the best PvP primary weapons in the game are all exotics or raid/ToO weapons that come with set perks. So you can get a vendor weapon and re-roll it to be very effective, but it won't dominate the game. From there, you can work your way up to the best of the best (a thorn, last word, messenger, etc) and when you get there you will be on completely even footing with everyone else who is using those same weapons.

But in the Special and Heavy weapon categories, the opposite is true. Most of the best special weapons in the game are vendor or crucible guns that have been re-rolled to perfection. So getting Felwinter's Lie isn't enough... you need to spend thousands and thousands of glimmer on re-rolling to the perfect combo of perks just to get on an even footing with some other players. That feels problematic to me.

If we had and exotic or raid shotgun that went toe-to-toe with a perfectly rolled Felwinter's Lie, I think that would help a lot. I was hoping the Trials of Osiris weapons would fill this roll. The primary weapons are fantastic (I actually smile when I see an enemy team full of Thorns, because I know I can beat them with my Messenger ;p), but the sniper, fusion rifle, and shotgun all fail to compete with the best PvP guns already out there.

Hopefully this is something that Bungie can add in the future :)

I'm certainly capable of playing the game in that frame of mind... I often do :) But when you're playing Trials of Osiris against the very best players in the world, all of these little differences suddenly matter. If you're facing a player who has mastered the Hunter's Blink-jump maneuver and is also armed with a shotgun that happens to be rolled for slightly more range than yours is (even though you both have the "same" gun), it can be extremely frustrating. I LOVE the competitive nature of Trials of Osiris, but I do feel like all the random perks and ability to re-roll weapons muddies the waters in a way that causes problems for that game mode.

I guess it's no real coincidence that I don't play Trials. ;)

Right now just about any gun can be great, depending on its perks.

If you make weapons have specific perks, all you end up with is a whole bunch of weapons that get sharded instantly. The meta wouldn't change, and you'd end up with even less variety.

In the end is that really any different than it is now?

Not really, no. But at least there's visual variety now.

I don't really see an issue with not knowing exactly what perks a gun has though.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

If 2 guardians are having a Thorn duel, the deciding factor will be skill 99% of the time. If you loose, you know why. You can learn and adjust. But right now, too much of the gunfights in Destiny come down to a dice roll. I might out-snipe an enemy sniper and land a headshot for the kill, but they hit me with a final round body shot at the same time and kill me back. I out played them, displayed more skill, and my actions were nullified by random perks.

Heh - I'm not sure I belong here, because I read threads like this and wonder "how can I play this game so differently from everyone else?"

I reroll almost NOTHING. I play with whatever perks the RNG gods give me. When I get killed in Crucible, I assume the guy on the other end of that battle was better than me, or had position on me, or got lucky, or whatever. If I get killed by a shotgun at handgun range, I do my best to stay away from that guy. If I get sniped through 3 walls, I do my best to stay out of view of that guy. I RARELY even think about the rolls my opponent might have gotten on the weapon he just killed me with - and when I do, it's more a "oh, well" than a "it's total bullshit that he's got a scout rifle that does more damage than my rocket launcher".

I read these threads and I think "man, I must be playing this game wrong." And then I think about the fact that I actually ENJOY my playtime (almost 100% of it, in fact), while almost nobody else here seems to do that... and I think "I don't want to play the game they're playing."

:)

I'm certainly capable of playing the game in that frame of mind... I often do :) But when you're playing Trials of Osiris against the very best players in the world, all of these little differences suddenly matter. If you're facing a player who has mastered the Hunter's Blink-jump maneuver and is also armed with a shotgun that happens to be rolled for slightly more range than yours is (even though you both have the "same" gun), it can be extremely frustrating. I LOVE the competitive nature of Trials of Osiris, but I do feel like all the random perks and ability to re-roll weapons muddies the waters in a way that causes problems for that game mode.

I read these threads and I think "man, I must be playing this game wrong." And then I think about the fact that I actually ENJOY my playtime (almost 100% of it, in fact), while almost nobody else here seems to do that... and I think "I don't want to play the game they're playing."

There's a word for the game you aren't playing: "The meta-game" :)

Right now just about any gun can be great, depending on its perks.

If you make weapons have specific perks, all you end up with is a whole bunch of weapons that get sharded instantly. The meta wouldn't change, and you'd end up with even less variety.

In the end is that really any different than it is now?

Not really, no. But at least there's visual variety now.

I don't really see an issue with not knowing exactly what perks a gun has though.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

If 2 guardians are having a Thorn duel, the deciding factor will be skill 99% of the time. If you loose, you know why. You can learn and adjust. But right now, too much of the gunfights in Destiny come down to a dice roll. I might out-snipe an enemy sniper and land a headshot for the kill, but they hit me with a final round body shot at the same time and kill me back. I out played them, displayed more skill, and my actions were nullified by random perks.

Heh - I'm not sure I belong here, because I read threads like this and wonder "how can I play this game so differently from everyone else?"

I reroll almost NOTHING. I play with whatever perks the RNG gods give me. When I get killed in Crucible, I assume the guy on the other end of that battle was better than me, or had position on me, or got lucky, or whatever. If I get killed by a shotgun at handgun range, I do my best to stay away from that guy. If I get sniped through 3 walls, I do my best to stay out of view of that guy. I RARELY even think about the rolls my opponent might have gotten on the weapon he just killed me with - and when I do, it's more a "oh, well" than a "it's total bullshit that he's got a scout rifle that does more damage than my rocket launcher".

I read these threads and I think "man, I must be playing this game wrong." And then I think about the fact that I actually ENJOY my playtime (almost 100% of it, in fact), while almost nobody else here seems to do that... and I think "I don't want to play the game they're playing."

:)

Right now just about any gun can be great, depending on its perks.

If you make weapons have specific perks, all you end up with is a whole bunch of weapons that get sharded instantly. The meta wouldn't change, and you'd end up with even less variety.

In the end is that really any different than it is now?

Not really, no. But at least there's visual variety now.

I don't really see an issue with not knowing exactly what perks a gun has though.

The issue, as I stated in one of my other posts, is that if I take my Felwinter's Lie and go toe-to-toe with another guardian using their own Felwinter's Lie, and they kill me, I have no way to know if I got out played or if they just have better perks. I'm defending a capture point. I see an enemy on radar. I know they're coming. I switch to my shotgun. They charge face-first into me. We both pull the trigger at the same time. I hit them full-on, center mass. I die, they don't. I had superior positioning, anticipated their move, prepared accordingly, and lost because they happened to have more range on their shotgun than I do... even though we're using the same shotgun. In a competitive game, that situation is 100% BS... and it happens all the time.

If 2 guardians are having a Thorn duel, the deciding factor will be skill 99% of the time. If you loose, you know why. You can learn and adjust. But right now, too many of the gunfights in Destiny come down to a dice roll. I might out-snipe an enemy sniper and land a headshot for the kill, but they hit me with a final round body shot at the same time and kill me back. I out played them, displayed more skill, and my actions were nullified by random perks.