Published on: Mar 1, 2015 @ 3:24

Earlier this week Bungie had an “open house” to shed some light on some topics that the community has been concerned about.

They talked about No Land Beyond, The 4th Horseman, Necrochasm, Third Eye in Inferno, PvP gametypes/rewards, and a lot more.

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Q & A

Below you’ll find most of the questions that Bungie answered, the rest can be found in the Feedback forum.

Q: Just wondering how we’ll be able to get our current exotics weapons up to the new damage cap when House of Wolves comes out? Will it be the same system as The Dark Below?

A: It will not be the same system and we’ll splain this in detail before we drop House of Wolves so you know all the nitty gritty details.

Q: […] my concern is that some of the exotic weapons aren’t receiving the love they deserve. A quick reference to this would be the universal remote or the no land beyond and some of the less used exotics.

A: You unknowingly touched on a very tricky part of making exotic guns. They need to be unique AND useful. Unique implies different and special. Useful implies accessible and understandable to many players. Some exotics do this well and some leave players wanting a little bit more.

I will never forget an interaction I had with a co-worker during the first exotic patch. He was lamenting Thorn, he didn’t like the slow reload or the shallow 6 round magazine. This was addressed in the patch. We have it 9 rounds and a faster reload. The day after the patch went live, he sadly told me he thought Thorn had lost its character. Even though it got better and we had addressed his pain point, his fantasy of what made Thorn unique was reduced.

We’ll continue to try and find the right balance for all the exotic guns. We know they’re special. We consider them important items in the Destiny world and they will always be looked at for future patches.

Q: Buff No Land Beyond… it’s the most useless Exotic ever

A: No Land Beyond was built with a very specific play style in mind: Fast sniping, run and gun, quick scope precision shots at close range. It is primarily a PVP play style, and we wanted to give players who like this style a weapon that suits their skillset.

Admittedly, the weapon is not very forgiving to players who aren’t already acclimated to playing like this. They’ll probably die, a lot, trying to get consistent headshots in the crucible. Dying over and over isn’t fun.

The question we need to ask in future exotic weapon patches is how much more accessible we want this weapon to be. Did we go too far in creating a niche weapon that only a few people enjoy? If we did, is that OK? Can we make it easier to use? If we did, would that turn The Crucible into a non stop No Land Beyond headshot murder fest? At surface level there are definitely things we can do to make NLB better (you have some great suggestions), but we also need to consider the wake that could incur if everyone had a super sweet one shot kill weapon in their primary slot in The Crucible.

We will definitely continue to listen to feedback and when it comes time to do another exotic weapon update, I’m sure we’ll look closely at No Land Beyond.

Q: Can we please get an explanation as to why we cant separate PvP and PvE for weapon buffs/nerfs/stats in general.

A: The goal in Destiny is to allow you to make a character and have that character transcend all activities and modes. We want you to play a little bit of everything, find your favorite toys and be able to use those toys, as is, all over the game.

We also want to make sure that Destiny always feels like Destiny regardless of the mode that you prefer to play in. We want PvP players to be able to have real conversations with their PvE player friends about the various items in the game.

As with the Shotgun change this week, we do make changes where we feel like they will make a significant impact and modify where the game isn’t playing as desired.

Q: Why does hunter throwing knife not 1 shot, while shoulder charge does?

A: TK has a longer range and keeps you out of harms way. Also, SC is a bonus and is not the Titan’s melee upgrade.

Q: Why did The 4th Horseman’s rate of fire get lowered?

A: […] We playtested the proper things, but an issue occurred before the weapon made it out of the building and the stats HAVE been incorrectly modified. We will work on getting the weapon restored to its former glory ASAP.

Q: […] right now we have control, team death match 6v6, 3v3 and Everyman for themselves. It’s a bit redundant with no new games. Do you plan on adding any more?

A: YES! For Destiny’s launch, we focused on delivering a small set of solid gametypes that we believed in. Stay tuned.

Q: Can Inferno be a permanent playlist?

A: There’s always a possibility that it could be permanent, depending on how you all react to it. We want to stay fluid, and keep the option open.

The advantage of debuting modes like Inferno in the rotating playlists are, among other reasons, the bigger the population, the better the match-making. Having mode variants leave and come back from time to time raises the overall quality of the experience for everybody. If we see big enough consistent numbers of players over a long enough time line, that opens the conversation of finding a more permanent home for mods like these.

In the future, we want a healthy ecosystem of modes that balances playlist quantity with quality, as it gives us the most room to make new, awesome stuff. But, community feedback on what modes & variants you want to see in Destiny will always be super helpful to us.

Q: Many think the Necrochasm is under powered considering how hard it can be to get. Is everyone using it wrong? Will it get a buff?

A: We are definitely aware of the feedback coming in about the Necrochasm.

No, you’re not using it wrong. 🙂 The weapon is performing as designed. Fictionally I love the weapon, and as an exotic gun I believe it definitely achieved our goal of being a unique item unlike anything else in the game. However, I do agree that competitively it is not as strong as Mythoclast or other highly used Auto Rifles. The acquisition of this weapon was also significantly more involved than other exotics.

We did a huge pass on exotic weapons shortly after Destiny released, and will likely do more updates like this in the future. Community feedback is taken into heavy consideration when we make these updates, so I’m sure we’ll be looking closely at Necrochasm when that time comes. Until then, thanks for letting us know how you feel and keep it coming.

Q: Will We Ever Get True Objective Modes?

A: Maybe someday! The real answer is that our initial collection of gametypes were designed to promote teamwork without putting undue pressure on any one player. There’s no way for one player to “lose the game” instantly the way a bad flag-runner can in CTF. As Destiny evolves, we will add more complexity/variety in our gametypes as we see fit.

Q: Why can’t all of the game modes (like doubles and salvage) be playable at all times?

A: If you’re asking why our new playlists are short-time events, our goal is two-fold: make sure we always have a great matchmaking experience and test out new things in a limited way to see if people like them. As far as variety goes, we’re totally working on it. Inferno is coming on Tuesday, and expect more things in the future.

Q: Third Eye Perk in Inferno, Doesn’t inferno mode render this perk completely useless?

A: Just like gear that helps you revive faster in Skirmish isn’t useful in Clash, Third Eye Perks & Knucklehead aren’t useful in Inferno modes.

It’s a very serious priority to us that we respect the time you poured into the game to acquire bad ass gear & abilities, but its the nature of the game that certain gear and talents will have different levels of effectiveness in different areas of the game.

Q: Why are the crucible rewards so scarce, given at random to the players (seemingly always the worst player), and are more often than not very low quality or of no use?

A: Crucible rewards are on the low side for sure, and issue we intend to address in a future update. The rewards are random to encourage everyone in the game to play it to completion, rather than only the “winners” staying.

Q: Can you talk more about the design intentions for Control in the Crucible and offer insight on the development of the game-type?

A: Control was designed as a light-objective layer on top of a basic deathmatch foundation. Players who want to just kill and ignore their team can do that. Players who aren’t as confident in their thumbskill can run bases and help out their team just by capturing zones. That’s the basics.

We wanted players to start out in Control because it’s super-fun and very “Destiny”, and keeps players near obvious locations so anyone can follow waypoints to find a fight.

Q: Will we ever see Iron Banner applied to more than just Control?

A: That’s something we’re talking about internally.

Q: I think Blink makes Shotguns overpowered in PvP. What’s the sandbox team’s thoughts on Blink Shotgun?

A: The way weapons and abilities collide with other weapons and abilities is always being looked at. Blink is sweet. Shotguns are sweet. Together they are super sweet. We know this. This play style helped us settle on shotgun range values for the 1.1.1 patch. And I should be clear that I’m NOT saying “1.1.1 shotguns make blink & shotgun more balanced”. 🙂 But I do think the range change helps in this case.

Blink is also not necessarily an easy play style out of the box. People who are good at it, are GOOD AT IT, and are probably just as lethal with other non-blink movement modes.

We will definitely continue to monitor this, and any other interesting power spikes that come from weapon and ability combinations.

Q: What does Rodeo do?

A: Rodeo pushes the weapon recoil to kick more straight up the middle than to either side.