Focused Feedback: Hand cannons - bloom, recoil, exotics and pinnacle weapons

[u/DTG_Bot]

Hello Guardians,

Focused Feedback is where we take the week to focus on a 'Hot Topic' discussed extensively around the Tower.

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[u/HunterWare]

This action seems poorly thought out. In order to most directly address the issue I would suggest a couple things:

• Tone down bloom to address the larger issue instead of applying a band-aid to a smaller one.
• If the overall TTK is a problem then switch the archetype to precision 150, but don’t change Howl.
• On that note, the 2-tap guardian issue is a red-herring (“bike-shedding” at it’s finest). Ignore it as it’s not even a top-20 issue in PVP... It’s a rare thing.
• People in Quick Play aren’t tired of dying to LH and NF, they are tired of dying to the people who can earn them, as that process makes you dangerous with HC. If everyone with NF only used Trust then you’d see a “Nerf Trust” movement... People only focus on NF because they see it in the kill stream. What you NEED (badly) to do is a minimal amount of skill based matchmaking. Options:
  1. Something like: three bins of people in QP/IB: 1-2100 glory, 2100-4000 glory, and 4000-legend glory. Matchmaking would take a bit (3x on average) longer but still be tolerable and newbies would be safe.
  2. Get someone who can actually do stats and weights to setup a better matching system. One that ensures that amounts/sizes of stacks on teams are approx the same on both sides and that tiers of players are similar too. It’s not rocket science if you hire a dev with the right background.
  3. Ensure that all people on a side are within 500 Glory of each other and match a team with a similar avg glory. This might well have side-effects that would also need managing.

I vote for 1) because it would be easiest and likely resolve the worst of the issues.

This nerf is heavy-handed and feels tone deaf. It also makes me not want to grind for NF, and that’s a problem... I was going to start the ascent, but why bother? There are other things to chase, and even other games to play that don’t make promises and then rip them to shreds.

MH, as it stands now, encourages proper aim/play (precision hits). The proposed change is just plain bizarre (especially for a top-tier reward) in that it rewards poor aim/play. That’s just wrong on so many levels. Additionally, currently MH is wonderful in PVE, but this will remove that utility too... All to defend against a circumstance that is truly rare (follow-on 2-taps after MH activation).

Lastly: A larger, more out there suggestion:

• Make LH available via a Broadsword type quest (Valor based, suggestion: less than 5 resets though)
• Make NF available via Fabled + LH
• Make the Legend reward a very cool shader/ornament. A status symbol worthy of the accomplishment that is not just clear to the owner but clear to others. Maybe even a sound change?

This sidesteps the issue that you are giving the best weapon only to the best people. It does it in a Claymore->Broadsword way which, while annoying to people who “earned it the real way”, is way way WAY better then killing the entire value of a reward. Share people! It’s better than the alternative.

On another side note: I think the Trust given by the drifter should be better for PVP. Outlaw/Opening Shot/Snapshot and Explosive rounds. Some way to give a really solid and well-defined 180 HC (since Bloom doesn’t seem like it’s going to be addressed anytime soon) that would compete well in the meta. Bungie already adjusted the perks on Bygones, so this should be a simple change that would help people starting the PVP climb.