My issue is the simple fact that the time to kill in Year One was fine where it was. People will [i]never, EVER admit that there was a skill gap back then[/i], because they'd rather blame the game than accept responsibility for their own ineptitude. Those kind of people simply have no place playing this game, and ended up ruining it for everybody.

A reduction in Player Freedom and Player Choice will always be a bad thing.

No, I think you're being too optimistic and kind towards Bungie right now. It's no secret that the biggest problem in any strike or raid is the boss is a giant bullet sponge with crota and oryx being the 2 exceptions. The combination of a heavy and special weapon is the way you deal with this. So far in Destiny 2 we've seen a single strike and as of right now that boss has the same issue of being a giant bullet sponge as every boss we've seen so far. The complete lack of good decision making and giving us another less powerful weapon then making us only have one powerful weapon in the power slot is going to make it a lot more time consuming and annoying to deal with. Unless other bosses and the potential raid bosses are made to have actual mechanics and not just be bullet sponges we will just see what destiny 1 would've been like without the special/heavy weapon slots both bring available. The change was completely sanctioned around PvP as the main complaint in PvP was 1 hit kills or no one ever using primaries. Instead of coming up with a real solution to the problem Bungie just removed the special slot completely and said "there now you can't use a special weapon" and on top of that making it to where snipers, fusion rifles, and shotguns have to compete with the new grenade launchers and rocket launchers? Those snipers better be hitting harder than they ever have and shotguns better be incredible otherwise you're never going to see them. Overall the weapon changes are a step in the wrong direction. Your "weapon tester" obviously hasn't done much endgame because those are the parts where the current weapon system is brought into perspective on how much it's needed. Here are the current most used/most viable weapons for each raid boss encounter in the special and heavy slot: Templar- Sniper + Rocket/Sleeper Atheon- Sniper + Sleeper Deathsinger- Shotgun + Sword Crota- Doesn't apply to dps on crota but a Ghorn is best in slot for downing him and an argument can be made for snipers to keep a single boomer knight on each tower down. Warpriest- Sniper + Sleeper Golgoroth- Sniper (Spindle) + Machine Gun for knocking the orb down. Oryx- Sniper for ogres + Sleeper for staggering oryx. Keep in mind the only person that SHOULD be using a touch of malice is the runner due to immunity to damage. It's not a viable choice for anyone else after the change to how it performs with blessing of light and the argument for the glitch where you can keep armor of light with the touch isn't valid here. Vosik- Sniper + Sleeper, Shotgun + Sleeper, Sniper + Sword Aksis- Sniper + Dark Drinker, Sniper + Rocket (must have field scout, tripod, and cluster bombs), Sniper + Sleeper Imagine doing any of these encounters with one of those options replaced with a scout, smg, hand cannon, sidearm, or any other primary. It wouldn't make sense and in that strike we saw gameplay for it looks like bosses won't be changing much. It's just an artificial difficulty change to force us to take longer to kill bosses.

So I got a chance to play both the strike and some pvp. I've played destiny 1 since beta and have played through all the expansions. I have mixed feelings on the changes made. I do like that in crucible you have two primary weapons. The game play was slowed down but it still felt good. It definitely makes it a skilled gun game. I don't really see people sacrificing a power weapon to fusion rifles when heavy or snipers can earn faster easier kills. The fusion rifles aren't frequently utilized as it is with a few exceptions. Pve is another different beast. You don't need rockets or sniper rifles to have fun however they are both effective tools. Can you imagine trying to take out bosses (war priest, vosiks) with just primaries? There needs to be a balance between the bosses HP vs the damage output in order for the new weapons systems to be effective. When I played the new strike I seldom came across power ammo and had only a few sniper rounds. When they mentioned the previous fixed subclass choices they said it was in the name of more customization and player choice. I disagree completely, destiny really didn't have huge subclass customizations and now it really limits your choices. Its a big wait and see for the beta. Here's hoping to a fresh start for Bungie and Destiny.

There is very little reason to take two primaries into a boss fight. Especially since the revealed strike boss was another generic bullet sponge. Theres no reason to even have a kinetic weapon. Everyone will just use two scouts and a sniper because the boss design is the same as it was before. Ive never been told to switch off blackhammer during a dps phase, never They designed it with pvp in mind. Two primaires is obviously the only way they can force gunfights, especially with only one, insta hit kill weapon, that dosent even carry ammo

Except when you take in to account that heavy and special are used for [i]dps[/i] and not mobs of red bars, your theory goes right out the window. There is no arguing that the reordering of weapons was a PvP decision, one hit kill weapons are now heavy weapons with the least available ammo? Come on. Your little math class told [i]a[/i] story but far from the [i]whole[/i] story. Do better next time.

The number of trashmobs killed by primaries is irrelevant. We use snipers and rockets on the sponge health enemies you disingenuous shill. Your numbers mean nothing.

I'm gonna add my opinion to this debate, and I'm gonna start by saying that's all it is, a debate, as no one has played anywhere near enough of Destiny 2 to really know who is right or wrong. That being said I feel as though you kill your own argument by saying we use a primary weapon most so how do Bungie combat that ? By giving us another primary ! I can see certain weapon types becoming obsolete in the heavy slot and I can't see how that is a good thing. I still think Destiny 2 will be a great game but I have a feeling we will see a return to the weapon format we are more familiar with as time go's by in Destiny 2.

Wow this is a nerd vs nerd paradise. Just shoot the bad guys and get the loot. Does it matter that you can't have a sniper and a rocket launcher? Truth is nobody really knows yet. Even those that have had their hand on it have played for a short period of time on a Dev build on a hand picked activity. None of us will know if it's good/fun/efficient until release if the full game. So chill and play the beta and give constructive feedback.

That is a staggering amount of effort to prove practically nothing.

Great post, and might I add... I think what's even more alarming about the abysmally low Special use in Strikes, is the weapon choice. Sniper rifles vastly outnumber all other specials. http://guardian.gg/en/weapon-stats?platform=2&start=2017-01-23&end=2017-06-22&mode=17&activity=0 If Destiny 2 was to feature the same weapon system, encounters would have to stay roughly the same. An evolution is in order, despite the outcry against it. I'm glad Bungie is taking a bold new direction concerning weapons and classes. I personally don't want to spend Destiny 2, sniping through most of the game, in encounters that are designed to meet that demand. And for a community that claims the game is being ruined by PVP, remember that when you had the choice in strikes, special diversity was limited to one gun... why would Bungie pour development hours into balancing the game for our own self-made limitations?

I'm sorry, there's one important thing that informs this entire post, and it's rather inaccurate. I haven't really read much because I've noticed your graph, and as a statistical person myself, there's a HUGE problem with the data you've presented. It's cherry picked. I'll go back and read the whole thing after this and edit my post, but I want to deal with the graphs first. For the same reason that Destiny 2's PVP will be tracking "efficiency" rather than "K/D ratio", your graphs are inaccurate to the issue at hand. The data that you have acquired is cherry picked in that it supports your hypothesis but does not venture into the fullness of the debate. There is no understanding of damage totals, no seperation of add-only encounters from boss encounters (a key difference as players normally save heavy ammo in the former for use in the latter), and no observation of critical moments in these different activities. It also fails to take into account that there are very low numbers of bosses and sub-bosses (even though we often put a lot of heavy and special weapon damage into them) and they will each only count as 1 kill for 1 player, rather than each player getting that kill, and damaging a boss is a CRITICAL factor in many activities. As such, the graphs you have presented are not indicative of the argument as a whole. I will also say, personally, I am looking forward to the D2 gun system. But misleading graphs are still misleading. [b]Edit:[/b] Alright, here's my observations first. OP makes a lot of inferences and conclusions based on no evidence, but rather, conjecture and personal experience. In most of the paragraphs (and I'll give kudos for actually having proper paragraphs, a rare enough occurence online) after the individual activity graphs, there is no actual evidence presented. For instance, the assertion that people sit on their heavy and special until larger enemies require larger ammo is only one of many used playstyles. The assertion that in Destiny 2 the fights are more dynamic and we have more choices is inaccurate as well; the dynamic nature depends on playstyle options (which thankfully is still possible thanks to sidearms and SMGs being included in the "primary" slots) and we still only have 3 choices of weapon. This does not make it more dynamic, but rather it is likely a similar dynamic with a different feel. Now, for some counter-observations. Of course there would be a tendency to sit on our higher damaging weapons until we need to damage enemies with higher health. There are fewer, but they are a higher priority. However, this does not take into account the fact that there are multiple playstyles that REFUSE to cohere to this rule. For instance, many people who run with scout or sniper rifles for boss damage run with swords for adds. Many people like to run with shotguns to get up close and personal with adds, using a different playstyle than those with snipers. I'd also observe that this dynamic is still possible (as you can use an energy scout for bosses, but run a sword and handcannon for most adds). OP is very logical and very concise, however he is very biased and does not present a full picture of the functionality or statistics of the situation. I would be very interested to see what kind of post OP would make with more information and less biase, but for now I must conclude that OP is inaccurate. Let me finish by saying, once again, that I am looking forward to Destiny 2 and trying the weapon system. But I do also understand that for this shift in playstyle, we are not more free in our choices, we simply have different choices to make. We still only choose 3 weapons, and where we would have 2 that were only limited to 4 choices, we are now thankfully given 6 between them. [b]Edit Again:[/b] An observation I forgot to include; the data in Destiny 2 for kinetic and energy weapons will likely split the percentages for the primary usage in Destiny 1. This, however, would still not be indicative of a great overall change, as they are essentially the same kind of weapon for that category. This would only indicate a change in weapons system, not a change in the overall dynamic of the game. In other words, it wouldn't actually fix things. Certainly we will be using two weapons in one category rather than one, but once again that only changes ammo count, not playstyle.

In response to: [quote]With all that said, I have played it and of everything I experienced playing the D2 PvE, the new weapon system was hands down my favorite change to the game and I'm not alone. Mercules904 (who's probably the preeminent weapon tester in the game) said when asked what it's like going back to D1 after playing D2 "It's painful to me, actually. I never realized how much nicer it is not having special weapons all the time. D1 feels broken after D2"[/quote] I don't know who Mercules904 is, is he the guy that I see videos for sometimes testing weapons in PvP? If so would that indicate that his opinion is in fact biased towards PvP? That's the conclusion I have to draw as of this moment based on the above quoted information. How anyone could possibly say that D1 feels "broken" because of having special weapons and how "nice it is" to not have them SCREAMS PvP bias. Most any shooter I have ever had has snipers, shotguns, rockets and MG's and guess what? They're NOT all grouped together.. It's quite common for shotguns and snipers to be considered "special"/secondary weapons, not 3rd tier heavy's. Also, to those floundering about, trying to make the horribly bad argument that this game is heading towards Halo style game play and that it's a good thing and people who don't like it should play something else as this game may not be for them. News flash - this game was NOT designed to be a Halo clone. Maybe instead of crying to get this game to be like Halo, YOU should have gone somewhere else. No, instead this game had to be shat on until it became boring old Halo again. GG. I know you have played the game, so please help me understand why this change is so much better. I've seen the "now I can have a weapon for each engagement" tripe but that doesn't make sense. I ALREADY had options for each engagement. Primary scout. Someone coming in close, switch to shotgun (no I don't need to switch to HC or AR, I have a shotty thanks). Need to hit long distance, pull out the old sniper and I can have my rockets or MG for crowd control. Yeah no, I don't need 2 primary's which by the way is all that is. There is nothing nuanced or crazy cool that I just don't get as a knuckle dragging pleb here. It's a primary. IN 2 SLOTS. That's it. period/end/stop What am I missing? How am I not understanding the magic that apparently is coming my way from my benevolent overlords at Bungie who dictate my play. I know I sound sarcastic but I'm being serious, at no point has anyone convinced me of this magic moment that's apparently heading down the pipe in September. Last thing real quick since I mentioned MG's. I'm hard pressed to think of a shooter or many shooters who just don't have a form of MG as a heavy weapon. Now Destiny is REMOVING them from existence lol. How can that even be defended? Does no one else see the crazyness and bullshit here that I am seeing? Are they going to at least give us some back story on how MG's just magically no longer exist haha? Sometimes I hate having common sense because it pisses me off too much when I see bullshit like what is happening with this game right now. Are we going to get a grimoire card called "Hurt Pee-Pee's" that explains the vanguard had to do away with MG's due to PvP kids crying? So much of this game is just turning into a joke at this point. How hard was it to just go into your menu and switch weapons? I don't want and never needed 2 primary's. I also heard you mention something called "Freedom Builds". Not making fun of you as I know you didn't coin that term, sounds like Bungie did. I just want to know if I'll get patriotic country songs and a side of "Freedom Fries" when I make my "Freedom Build"............ (PS I'm not attacking you Sols, I'm frustrated by the arguments I see that make no sense IMO and I'm seriously asking just how I'm apparently not seeing the magical unicorn that some people apparently are when it comes to PvE and the weapon slot system in D2)

Oh boy......... I was going to just avoid this one, for certain reasons. However I keep coming back to it, so I guess I'll weigh in on this. First and foremost the graph regarding PvE weapon kills across the three types in PvE related events. Now I'm glad you posted the fact that these were numbers representing one specific day, and that it was kill related. That being said, kill statistics on this subject don't surprise me in the least, as you mainly use your primary for add kills, secondary for heavy shielded enemies and boss DPS, and heavy for unmanageable crowds (saber 2 strike comes to mind at warsat), and boss damage. So clearly anyone who has ever played PVE can say that that would be a representation of weapon usage, but not the be all end all. However, this is an extremely small sample size that does not properly take factors like ammo availability, and actual weapons usage across everything. Kills do not equal weapon usage no matter how you want to slice it. Sure you can get a general idea from a kills chart, but it's not going to prove anything re usage, as every PvE fight has specific criteria going on. For example, let's take Aksis part two for example. You have Shank spawns followed by shielded major captains. Are you going to use your sniper/shotgun/fusion/sidearm/rockets/mg on shanks? Only if they get close enough if you have a shotty equipped you may, but otherwise no. Now with the heavy shielded captains, are you going to primary them down? Also no. You may use a primary to finish them off, (which would count as a primary kill on your chart btw) but you bet your ass you would use other means at bringing the captain down than a primary. See where this is going so far? Another example, patrols. Unless you are fighting the taken boss or a public event, unless you are practicing shots (or using test weapons, lol), 9 times out of ten nothing warrants you to use your special or heavy often enough, therefore skewing the chart in a specific direction for kills. Strikes are similar to raids. Raids require specific weapons at specific times to maximize damage. You are not going to sit and DPS a boss character with primary as you are sort of on time clocks in raids to get it done due to the enrage mechanic. So naturally the kills chart is going to read things specific ways, and that's not even including differing time eras and other such nonsense. However, using this chart at face value is just as bad as Bungie deciding to nerf a weapon due to usage charts. You really are not taking the encounters and extenuating factors into account, which is the same mistake Bungie makes everytime they balance something because they see a weapon top dog, but do not research the reasoning behind the usage. Pretty sure if we saw a usage chart on specific primary weapons in different PvE activities, we would see that autos and HCs (not named Fatebringer) would be more towards the lower end of the spectrum and Scouts would be top end. But will that chart tell us why that would be the case? No. It'll just show that scouts are used much more than autos in PvE. See my point? I get that this may be a way for you to justify the new system's approach to things (I mean heck from the promotional stuff, looks like minotaurs have crit locations now to compensate for the change), but to me and others, it doesn't really show anything that we all don't already know without looking at a chart. Mini rant over -LK

Is anyone on this thread capable of making their point in 1,000 words or less? Jesus long-winded Christ

As many have noted, reality is that Bungie stated the change was for PvP. The data you reference from D1 just shows effect, it doesn't show cause. You draw conclusions without discussing the variables that make up the cause. That is false logic. In a game where primary drops more than special or heavy, that becomes significant. I will use what is vastly available until something presents itself that it warrants more rare ammo. Thus, the design of the game leads to usage patters, not player habits or desires. When you pick up a given ammo drop, quantity of rounds received becomes significant. When I pick up primary I get a significantly larger quantity of ammo than I do with any other slot - even if holding a had cannon or scout. Running a Vex Mythoclast is about the only time I can recall running out of primary before I seen more ammo. Therefore, the quantity of ammo picked up per drop becomes significant as I don't want to run out, so conservation of use is again built into the game design, it's not player freedom of choice which is dictating use, but more logic of use based on parameters given. Next, I think you also have to factor in just how much of an ammo type can be carried. Regardless of how much is in the drop, if I can only carry single or low double digits of ammo, I'm just not going to use that item as much. Without swords, heavy was typically carried in the single digits. With a sleeper and the right armor, you might be able to get to low double digits of rounds carried in heavy... but add that to the minimal frequency that heavy dropped, and you just use it sparingly. The special slot contains 'special case or situational use' types of weapons, that becomes significant. shotguns and fusions are good close but stink at distance. Snipers are great at distance and horrible up close. reload times on shotguns and charge times on fusion also play a part in the decision process. So special, regardless of how much might be on the ground - becomes a situational use weapon type. I have ran out of sniper rounds plenty until I got ice breaker... and with it, I ran it dry plenty... in y3, I haven't found it again, but even the pain in the arse quest to go get the lost sniper from thieves den has ran dry plenty in boss fights... if using other snipers, I've ran them dry in boss fight plenty. for normal use in pve, I just don't rely on special that much and save it for when I need it - but that's because I'm just not allowed to carry much of it at any given time and the weapon's use are situational. If I could carry more, I would use more. Again, design and ammo access dictate use. Since primaries are the most common ammo drop, it's rather expected that its going to get used more. I think their data shows more just how much they are forcing behavior rather than player options. + + + In a game of D1, we know special and heavies are commonly preserved for bosses - which is above, design condition logic more than player preference of use. So if we look next at where bullet sponge bosses exist, raid mechanics such as time to kill before phase or time to kill before enrage, then we also can see the VALUE of having two heavy and special weapons for these activities. Especially when groups many times struggle to get through a phase or a boss.... especially even MORE so when raids are designed with wipe mechanics if you fail. Now layer on the fact that D1 commonly expects you to find your way in a raid, learn mechanics and repeat failed attempts. Where does this take them in D2? + + + In D2 giving players dual access to primaries means you have flexability to switch between two different types of weapons that you commonly were already being encouraged to use, now you will use more of them. The ammo drops that were once left might be picked up a bit more, but we will see. We have already seen in the first strike that a multi-staged boss fight exists. You have to rotate between his shields void, solar, arc then kinetic for the finish it seems. However, you now have a single power slot to burn him down, which means you are not really burning him down if ammo is not more plentiful, if his hit point count remains high like we seen, and if you are mainly relying on primary. How could they tune it - primaries could do more damage, boss hit points could be lowered, power weapons could be amped up to do even more damage against single targets... lots of variables. Out of the gate, based on what we've seen thus far, I expect strikes will now take longer. Forget 8-15 speed runs. How will that affect the length of Nightfalls which some are 15-30 min runs now? Let's get to pinnacle content, which is to be more accessible now. Let's extrapolate that to a raid. First, will there still be enrage timers or damage window times before you have to repeat a phase of an exercise? (must do X damage before Y time?) - Will bosses have less or similar hit points in D2 from D1? - Will power ammo drop more? - Will power slot weapons do more damage in D2 than in D1 equivalent weapons? - Will primaries do more damage in D2 than in D1? Next, will we have horde types to deal with at range while dealing with a boss or other raid mechanic? Let's think about hob-gobbos at distance while dealing with oracles in vault of glass. In D1, I could have a primary to deal with adds, then switch to a sniper like icebreaker to deal with my assigned hob gobos or even help someone when I had down time at other side of map, then I could switch to rockets if things got out of hand or when the armies were summoned. In D2, I'm going to have at best a scout for distance and whatever else for the adds. My power weapon slot could be rockets still. I've got to use my raid equivalent fate bringer or timepiece or even visions for the oracles and mobs. I could go to my requisite scout to take on hob-gobos, but now I cannot 1 shot them...and neither can my buddies which means increased risks of horde or hob-gobos... unless they icreaed damage output of the primaries or made the hob's weaker... alternatively, I could run a sniper as power and two primaries but same horde problem exists as I have no rocket now. Again, the only way this becomes a BETTER situation is if they drop the horde or hit points of mobs in question, or, they increase the amount of power weapon ammo drops to compensate. I notice all supers that we have seen thus far in D2 are now roaming supers. They seem to charge at the same rate, but clearly are more effective as they can be used more. On average, I'm guessing they are 2-3x max more effective. There just are not that many mobs on screen at any given time and your buddies are still doing their thing if they are with you. So 2-3x more effective, but used about the same quantity of time in D1. It's an improvement, but significant enough to offset the drop of sniper + ghally (or sleeper?) + + + Where I land presently, is at face value and without other variables touched on above being adjusted - the weapon change from D1 to D2 ALONE, again - *without* considering quantity of ammo carried, ammo drop frequency, relative damage output differences of weapons, mob / boss hit points and time to kill challenge adjustments - means its a net loss from D1 to D2 in power, and a net increase in time to clear objectives. + + + When we factor in these yet to be known other variables being changed, I think you can only then draw a full picture. We just haven't heard them talk about what other variables are being changed to accommodate this new weapon system change. + + + I for one, am sick of PvP interests affecting PvE in D1 and we already have the beginnings of it in D2, by BNG's statements. Does it mean its bad - no, just that we don't have the full breath of appreciation for these other factors yet. A buddy of mine said, if swapping out primaries during fights 80% of the time makes that mob killing more interesting - that's not all bad... and I agree. If that's how we are spending 75-89% of our time, them I'm all for making that part more interesting. At what cost, if any, is still a valid question though. + + + I like feeling 'powerful' in a game of PvE content and building that power is part of the joy in a Destiny experience. I hope by the end of our trope through D2, we have achieved as much or more power - as measured by time to kill, time to clear strike and time to clear raids as we had in D1. *If not*, then what Luke Smith talks about with life balance is in question. If we take longer to complete similar and new goals in D2, and we are still expected to complete as many or more on a weekly basis, then D2 is again a wedding ring, like D1 was / is. As they have mentioned this concern in some interviews, I'm still cautiously optimistic that when we get our hands on it in the beta, and when we see the full scope in Sept, they have taken all of this into account. If I'm being honest, overall I'm quite pleased with what I've seen, I'm just questioning what I don't know yet and a hoping they made a net positive change in the experience. Thanks for listening.

You people do realize that the amount of health bosses and majors have will be decreased.

Those numbers actually mean zero. I don't think anyone uses snipers, shotguns or heavy on the trash mobs that make up almost the entire strike. They use it on the boss for fast kills. They use it on tanks and cyclops and high level enemies. They use it on yellow bar enemies. Primaries with firefly, crowd control, reactive reload are used to chain kills on red bars. So those numbers go out the window. Without special pve becomes longer and more grindy. You'll end up spamming whatever heavy you've got then spend the rest of the boss fight using elemental and primaries. This honestly just seems for a way to artificially increase pve time (not that is what was intended, the change was mostly made to balance pvp) At the end of the day snipers, shotguns and such are going to be in the heavy slot. So in essence I'm trading a primary and two heavies for a primary, elemental and heavy. Not hard to figure in which I'll be spending more time in doing the same things.