Bungies goal was never to encourage primary encounters. They've always wanted sidearm to be relevant. It just took them forever to make it possible. When HoW dropped they thought the introduction of a new weapon type would be enough to merit use. Didn't really happen. In TTK they brought in more sidearms, gave them a buff and nerfed shotguns. During a livestream they even said something along the lines of "sidearms being a thing". Still didn't work. They THEN nerfed special ammo crates(less crates around maps) during the lifespan of TTK going onto CoE and talking about how sidearm ammo wasn't affected. This didn't work either and people just did the sidearm/icebreaker swap to get around that. Then we got more nerfs to particular special weapons before RoI. Shotguns and Snipers still going strong and sidearms STILL in the backburner. This past update was the last straw. They COMPLETELY knew what they were doing by overnerfing special ammo again. They wanted sidearms to "be a thing" since the beginning. I mean, you have to commend their effort. When Bungie wants something done, they keep on trucking. Even if it takes 2 years, they'll get it done. If only they put that much effort into balancing ALL weapons in general instead of trying to make one class of weapons stronger. Lol