Your stance is interesting since I somewhat agree with it. I see your point that a good player should be adaptable; Cammy is excellent at demonstrating this in his commentary. I suppose I’m insisting that the crutches that exist feel like training wheels, making the easier loadouts the most effective. Cammy touches on this subject more in the video above if your interested as I find myself agreeing with his opinion a lot. Of course nothing can be 100% balanced as there will always be the most effective option, but I don’t believe it should also be the easiest. Creating a skill ceiling that allows experienced players to master a weapon/play style, and be rewarded for doing so, is the best form of “balance” in a video game imo. Though again this post was really meant to gauge into what the community thoughts were on if balance was a priority or not.

[quote]Your stance is interesting since I somewhat agree with it. I see your point that a good player should be adaptable; Cammy is excellent at demonstrating this in his commentary. I suppose I’m insisting that the crutches that exist feel like training wheels, making the easier loadouts the most effective. Cammy touches on this subject more in the video above if your interested as I find myself agreeing with his opinion a lot. Of course nothing can be 100% balanced as there will always be the most effective option, but I don’t believe it should also be the easiest. Creating a skill ceiling that allows experienced players to master a weapon/play style, and be rewarded for doing so, is the best form of “balance” in a video game imo. Though again this post was really meant to gauge into what the community thoughts were on if balance was a priority or not.[/quote] Pure balance is not a priority for the community. Having their personal favorite weapons protected, while having the things that annoy or counter them nerfed is their priority based on the feedback. A nerf Erentil post? At this point you don’t have to look it’s someone who uses short range primaries and doesn’t want to stop apeing. The thing is I don’t agree powerful elements of the crucible are “easy”. There are powerful. How powerful they actually are in a game depends on the players using the element, and the players playing against the element. In the Erentil example if you watch a “montage” created to demonstrate the range as over powered you will see many kills streaks, but the kills come at 20m or less. Usually because the enemy team non-stop pushes into the player charging their Erentil for an “easy” short range 1hk. If they stopped there wouldn’t be a kill streak and the player would actually have to try to get kills with it. All the easy kills would be gone. Instead those players keep rushing to their death over and over then come to the forum and beg Bungie to nerf it because they keep getting “mapped”. Weapon balance in the crucible is pretty close to solid right now. Other elements are out of the realm of balance but weapons are pretty close.

You have an interesting opinion, I’m curious as to what you think of aim assist. In general the higher the aim assist stat the more it feels like you land headshots even if you aren’t aiming at their head. If you find it as intrusive as what people say, wouldn’t that be a reason to say that the balance of weapons seems favourable to those that can land the quickest headshots? Especially since flinch is such a massive part of the games criticism.

[quote]You have an interesting opinion, I’m curious as to what you think of aim assist. In general the higher the aim assist stat the more it feels like you land headshots even if you aren’t aiming at their head. If you find it as intrusive as what people say, wouldn’t that be a reason to say that the balance of weapons seems favourable to those that can land the quickest headshots? Especially since flinch is such a massive part of the games criticism.[/quote] I play on console, so to me aim assist makes sense. It helps a lot more if you’re aiming at their heads. The balance of weapons is more dictated by ranges, damage out put and general TTK. There is nuance now where your ability to activate perks and use their power for a faster TTK allows for players to express skill. Without that it does become who can hit the most headshots the fastest with the exact same weapons. I don’t know why someone would prefer that. Again personally I have no interest in playing a bare bones/every single aspect of the game is perfectly numerically balanced (so people with the strongest hand eye coordination, fine motor skills, and reaction time win) style game. I don’t think that’s fun. I also don’t think it fits the Destiny franchise. One really great part about Cammy’s newest D2 video is how excited he as about “his build”. That wouldn’t be possible in a more “balanced” crucible. In the current more “chaotic” crucible he used his brain, and the systems available to build a loadout that lets his skill shine. That is special, and I think shows that the game is in a good spot. Obviously not a great spot. To me the worst aspects of crucible are the matchmaking, connections, spawn system, and a lack of clear delineation between competitive games and fun games. Those are as if not more important than balance.