In the MMO shooter Destiny , a conversation was held about weapon balance. The chaos surrounding the patch notes from early December, the lack of a buff for automatic rifles, and why super weapons are often not that super were explained.
The two Bungie developers Jon Weisnewski and Sage Merill appeared in a podcast. They are part of the team responsible for balancing: Weisnewski works on weapons, Merill takes care of class skills.
Incorrect Patch Notes were wrong in the wrong way
Topic: Number 1 – the scandal surrounding the patch notes: The December patch was supposed to significantly strengthen automatic rifles, but in practice, they only became slightly stronger. The patch notes simply contained incorrect numbers.
Weisnewski, who was pointed out as the culprit, said: The problem was that the “wrong patch notes” were also wrong in the wrong way. They promised a huge buff that did not come. If they had promised a nerf that was later not implemented in the Destiny patch, they would have been celebrated as heroes, according to Weisnewski.
The topic was then discussed again. According to the Bungie developers, it was simply a mistake that resulted from too little attention. The developers were focused on patches and did not give “patch notes” the importance fans out there do. They simply did not double-check it properly; it was “a fuck-up, totally our mistake,” the developers admitted.
Regarding the tiny changes to automatic rifles, they said: That was just the value they came up with. And they communicate every change. If they had concealed the changes, that would have been the reason for the next shitstorm.
With automatic rifles, even “tiny changes” could make a big difference. This is due to the high rate of fire. Even the small change to automatic rifles had some impact, but that is not represented because players are only given “round numbers”; however, the minimal change flows in behind the scenes and has effects.
Which weapon is really “too strong”?
There was also interesting information about balancing. Many “top weapons” in the game do not cause the destruction that one believes. “Blank Stare” is considered a killer weapon. However, players come with the sniper only to an average K/D ratio of 1.0.
Many “popular meta weapons” arise from recommendations or word-of-mouth or simply because they are easy to obtain. However, they rarely give players a significant advantage in Year 2.
With other combinations like shotgun+blink, where nerfs are indeed implemented, player skill comes into play. Very skilled players could be so good with shotgun+blink that it really disrupted the balance. Here, action had to be taken. It is not about whether a tactic or weapon is “popular”, but whether it provides players with advantages that put the balance in danger.
They are also thinking internally about this skill gap and how much player skill should matter in Destiny. At the moment, they feel that the game is a bit too fast in one-on-one situations, the time-to-kill is too low, the chaos is a bit too high, and the skill of the individual player is somewhat underrepresented. However, this is being controversially discussed internally.
In general, Bungie wants every playstyle to be viable. If it gets to the point where everyone in the Crucible just hides behind their snipers, they will also take measures against this playstyle. Whenever it comes down to “Either you play this weapon this way, or you are doing it wrong”, they want to intervene. Such a situation existed in Year 1 with blink and shotguns.
That is why Bungie also sees a warning sign when someone says: “Oh, the patch is amazing!”, because that probably means that a certain playstyle is too strong and the balance is in danger.
Nerfs of individual weapons would anger players, so a whole area is addressed
In the podcast, they also reveal that at Bungie, they rarely nerf just one weapon or weapon category to avoid making fans of that weapon feel singled out. Therefore, instead of making “quick small and targeted changes”, they prefer “rarer and therefore larger changes.” You have to imagine, if your favorite weapon, the MIDA, were nerfed, only that one weapon specifically. That would upset the fans of that weapon, so it is important that a whole area is changed, not just a single aspect. Usually, a single change would make so much other things change that they would also have to do more.
Exceptions like the nerf of Sardinenbüchse on shotguns in October are an exception to solve a current, rapidly spreading problem.
At Bungie, they are aware of how much balance changes affect player satisfaction.
Fusion rifles. Strange situations
Fusion rifles should reward players for predicting opponent movements. Even though the community struggles with the weapons, they are “on paper” very good. And they also have developers internally who can handle them excellently, so they are hesitant to strengthen fusion rifles.
A tip was given at Bungie: Try Plan C! We have some data.
