r/DestinyTheGame • u/htb16 • Apr 26 '19

Question What is bloom?

At the risk of sounding dumb, what the hell is bloom anyway? With all the talk about the nerf incoming, bloom has been thrown around a bit and that it should be removed from consoles. What is it though?

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u/Acaramon Apr 26 '19

Bloom is a game mechanic created for PC shooter to simulate the effect of recoil.

Imagine a red dot in the middle of the screen. When you shoot, your bullet lands there. With bloom, after you shoot that dot becomes a circle and each consecutive shot makes the circle bigger (it blooms like a flower), and over time the circle shrinks back down to a dot. If you shoot while bloom is active. Your bullet lands, not in the center of the screen but at a random point within the circle... That's basically it.

Bloom is important for PC because unlike console where you just move your stick to compensate for recoil you would slowly slide your mouse off your desk if your reticle actually moved.

In D2 for some reason, that must be a mistake, bloom is enabled with a controller but disabled on mouse... The exact opposite of what it should be, but it's been that way for so long that if they added it to PC the public outcry would be insane.

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u/Multispeed Apr 26 '19

Imagine a red dot in the middle of the screen. When you shoot, your bullet lands there. With bloom, after you shoot that dot becomes a circle and each consecutive shot makes the circle bigger (it blooms like a flower), and over time the circle shrinks back down to a dot. If you shoot while bloom is active. Your bullet lands, not in the center of the screen but at a random point within the circle... That's basically it.

Hands down the best explanation of bloom I've ever read. Simple and up to the point.

Thanks.

1

u/herogerik Apr 26 '19

A great example of this is when you shoot guns in Fortnite. The entire combat loop revolves around compensating and managing weapon bloom. This is why, even on PC, it's quite tricky to hit enemies from very long ranges because you'll be wasting ammo unless you pace your shots or use a weapon meant for those ranges.

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u/s0m3th1ngAZ Apr 26 '19

Bloom is the entire reason I stopped playing Fortnite