The most important change in Destiny 1 is this new weapon system

The MMO shooter Destiny 2 (PS4, PC, Xbox One) is taking unusual steps to save the balance that has been so difficult in Destiny. A new weapon system is supposed to achieve what Bungie has struggled with for three years: saving the balance in the Crucible.

On the Kotaku page, a theory has been put forward: Bungie solves the community’s problems, but not the way they would like.

A long-running issue in Destiny 1 was the balance of weapons in the Crucible. For months and years, Bungie has been trying to bring primary weapons more into focus, especially keeping special weapons “down”. Bungie wants slower gameplay. Guardians should land 3, 4, or 5 hits to take down an opponent. However, with special weapons, only one or two hits are needed.

Guardians should not be running around with shotguns or lying in wait with snipers all the time. Bungie wants “primary weapon duels,” but they just can’t seem to make it work. Because Guardians want to play with their sniper rifles and shotguns at all costs.

Cat and Mouse – Developers against the Community

A game of cat and mouse is happening in Bungie’s Crucible. Bungie changes something, the Guardians find ways to work around that change and still shoot with their favorite weapons.

When Bungie reduced special ammo, Guardians resorted to pistols that don’t need ammo or even to the Icebreaker, which generates its own ammo.

Bungie is constantly tweaking percentage values in balance patches:

• “Weapon X has become 0.3% stronger”
• “Shotgun Y lost advantage Z, as it is no longer necessary”
• “Rocket launcher Z now has only 1 shot instead of 3.”

This is how the balancing reports in Destiny have read over the past years. An endless amount of small changes that no one was really satisfied with. The major issues could not be solved this way. They only shifted marginally.

Bungie pulls out the big red pen, changes the rules

The community continued to demand such “mini-adjustments,” but Bungie is thinking bigger this time: If you can’t win the game, then change the rules.

With Destiny 2 comes a new weapon system. According to initial information, there are in principle now two primary weapons and a combined slot for “special weapons” and “heavy weapons,” which rely on specific ammo.

This means: Bungie solves the problem with special weapons by basically eliminating them and merging them with heavy weapons.

Destiny 2: What are kinetic weapons, energy weapons, power weapons?

• In the “kinetic slot”, normal primary weapons will continue to appear. Weapons that do not cause elemental damage, such as auto rifles, hand cannons, pulse rifles, scout rifles, also pistols and the new “SMGs”.
• In the “energy” slot, the same weapons are found, but with elemental damage. These are “hybrid weapons”: pistols, hand cannons, auto rifles with solar, void, and arc damage. These weapons then have a bonus effect, which causes them to deal increased damage in certain situations. This should add a tactical component.
• In the “power” slot, there are then heavy weapons such as shotguns, sniper rifles, swords, the new grenade launchers, and the like. Here, the “one-shot-one-kill” weapons should come together. The ammo for these weapons drops relatively frequently in PvP, but only the one who opens the box gets it – as it currently seems. In Destiny 1, the box opener supplied all nearby players with ammo.

This way, Bungie quite brutally solves the problem with the dominance of special weapons, sniper rifles, and shotguns. If someone wants to use them, they must forgo their “heavy arsenal”.

Two Phases in the Crucible – Primary Weapon Fights and “One-Hit-Wonder” Phases

Bungie forces the players into a “slower match” and to play with primary weapons. If the ammo for the power slot is available and someone runs around with their killer weapons, then Destiny 2 gets faster. This is how a “two-phase fight” is supposed to emerge in the Crucible.

Additionally, the diversity of weaponry in the Crucible is now greater. If someone wants to play with scout rifles and elemental hand cannons, they can do that.

Note: So far, it is not yet clear how this all works and whether the system goes live exactly as is and what effects it has. This aspect was only touched upon in the official part of the gameplay reveal.

For testing, players only had a cut-down build. So many key pieces of information are still missing to assess how the new system actually plays out. It is interesting in any case.

The balance is not an isolated system – there will be many other changes to Destiny. Such as with the classes:

• Destiny 2 Titan Striker: No more chaos fist – Now there are chaos fists!
• Destiny 2: Dawnblade – All abilities of the new Warlock class