My bad for being late with the downvote. :)

I made sure to listen to this twice, im that invested in pvp I will seperate this into two parts so it can fit, put a lot of time so i hope you read it all. This will be about verticality, [b]my challenge to the cast[/b], primaries, special, ammo, and class abilities. [spoiler] Pt.1 [b]I have the high ground![/b]i wanted to start here becuase this stuck out to me. Maps in destiny hace one or two perches often with no cover. High ground has been important, just look at episode 3 I challenge sols to play angel city 24/7 in titanfall. Since that is the map that uses verticality the most in tf2. Destinys maps all play the same, not only becuase of few ways to take advantage of height. But the 3 lane map system. Almost every map in the game uses this, and its takes away from the game greatly. The only notable maps are the anomaly, a rotunda map, and exodus blue, the games 5 LANE map. I think of the mombasa map in halo 2, with the crane lifting the unfinished bridge and the highrise building. ghost town in halo 3 where you can go through the ruins, cod 4 with no lanes at all, at almost every buliding serving a purpose. Angel city in titanfall, the fan favorite for a reason. Overwatch has tons of verticality, many if the heroes can fly and climb as well and easily obtain high ground The maps all play the same becuase they are all designed the same. I challenge the entire cast to play angle city 24/4 in tf2, halo 3/2 s city maps, some cod 4, or overwatch to see just how much well designed maps/movement can change the game every single time [b]Primaries[/b] The speed of the game is always fast, but ttk poorly matches it. We cant slow movement to its level because this would lead to flanking being way to easy, with few ways to get away quickly, and the maps having way too many lanes to escape without getting gunned down. It would literally require entirely new maps. Primaries absolutely need a buff. I feel like the entire cast this time around isint quite understanding what we are asking for. When we refer to year 1 crucible, we arent asking for two tap thorn or snipe felwinter. We are asking for the golden age of vanilla crucible. Sure mythoclass, and suros, but those can be handled much better than they where in the rip autos patch. Primaries used to have this vibe about them, especially autos. Where you know you could trust them no matter what you where doing. It came down to preference whether you wanted to use a scout, a pulse, or a handcannon. Everything was viable 2 year's later, and everthing is so weak, one of the weakest weapons in year 1 is now the best, the clever dragon. They simply need to be buffed because they arent fitting their role at all Pulses need more consistency at mid range, they have a wierd damage fall off. Autos are lobotamy, more on that later. Handcannon need bloom gone roght away, they are some of the best counters to shotguns without rng bullets, none has time to pace their shots with the speed of the game, they should not be forced to. Scouts need their scopes pulled in and maybe even better midair accuracy. [b]Special weapons and how primary inefficiency is affecting them[/b] Personally i want shotgun to feel more consistent, it feels like another bloom every time this happens https://youtu.be/bZ24eDTg_s4 (2:32) https://youtu.be/L0wZDcsoTzc https://youtu.be/rFrrUHR9UR4 We dont want the ttk to be house of wolves level we want it to be about hawksaw or clever dragon level with far more consistency. The thing about what everyone said about shotguns is that, they said that it's annoying to to be rolled up on whn you pumped people full of lead. That happened less often in year 1 despite shotguns being much better. Primaries are more sensitive to nerfs because specials always are more impactful no matter their state Don't think shotguns arent invincible however, they lose tons of value against higher level players. Those who understajd how to counter movement without worrying about the gun really embarass rushers. Ive forced peole into primary fights just by letting them know its very difficult to even track me. As a shotguner, i know how to move, but i know my prey has access to the same movement. A lot of it is more of a prediction fight rather than kill them before they get to me Personally with major range and consistency buffs to handcannons and autos, i think players need a good damaging all ranged option to keep shotguners out the kill zone (to me this is about a second away), but once they reach that kill zone it should become that predection fight i was refering to. Basically make it two fights instead of one, to give prey two chances [b]Special ammo[/b] Its prevelance is a non issue, we saw that in year. The non prevelance off cosnsitent competition is like i mentioned in the state of primaires We saw less special weapons in year 1, becuase primaires actually worked All reducing special has done in the past has furthered the one sided affairs. When resources are scarce, the scavengers become agressive and take it all for themselves. This is most prevelant in rukble and trials. With less special ammo, theres technically more to take for yourself leaving the restt with none. In the end we hsve a beat down ready to happen. Ive mentioned I can easily counter shottys, but the numbers game is always the strongest game. [b]Class abilites and mobile verticality [/b] Ive mentioned in the past how weak hunters feel in the current meta In a meta where armor csn negate the most powerful primary, and cut the range of the most powerful secondary. The hunter is completely left out of the party. Most of hunters abilities are great, arcblade could use a buff, as well as blink strike and throwing knife. But the entire perk tree of a gunslinger is lazy. All of them can be found on weapons and armor. The entire perk tree needs a rework. But this isiwnt where the hunter is suffering the most A lot of it has to do with mobile verticality. The hunter always goes straight up, so its the easiest to predict, and the easiest to shoot down. You are very exposed every time you go up in the air. Theres no cover up there. Warlocks and titans have their own great movement, but also stay low to the ground and can go back to shooting easily, not only that, but weapons lose a lot of their accuracy. I think more ways to take advantage of being so high up will put the hunter in better spot. 1. More vertical maps (you guys are right, more high rise maos is a huge buff to anyone who can get up their fast) 2. Buffs to icarus, more guns with icarus 3. A hunter exotic or gunslinger perk that buffs midair innacurcacy As it stands, warlocks and titans can buff midair innacurcacy with their floating helm and sunsinger perk, hunters are the most in need since they go up the most. I personally fine warlocks to be fine, but the melee is troubling, and sunginer is useless. They need to revert the melee nerf, and the vf nerf, and go from there to see if anything else needs a buff. I can do without changes to melee if primaries become more prevelant and shotty consistency is fixed. Titans can use more neutral game, i personally think they should have at least one tracking nade. Lose the thermite nade, and give a firebolt without vf. Maybe even an arcbolt instead of that one usless arc nade. To me titans are their most effective when primaries back up their large armor pools to help win gunfights. Buff primaires, give them one tracking bade, go from there As for defender, make no back up plans a perk in the defender tree, i think the gauntlets themselves should buff it to work on all special, instead of just shotguns. This gives more flexibility to titans

A pvp episode huh? Wheres my speaker happy late bday to redwing as well

pmuB

1. The state of Primary weapons, should they be buffed? Short answer yes. (I'll edit and elaborate later) 2. Jugg Shields Plain and simple, something needs to be fixed here, as I hate how they can just skate the map with a shield that's impervious to a GG shot, and other forms of attack are just swallowed up. It's just plain ridiculous. Logan has an excellent suggestion in removing the shield when in the air. Personally I feel that will definitely fix the issues people have with Jugg shield. My main concern is that while skating is the game believing you are actually in a sprint? If so, that's the heart of the problem right there. 3. Class abilities/balance (I'll elaborate on this later, got to re listen to see what topics besides the skating exploit were addressed) 4. More talk on Auto Rifles There are so many things wrong with autos in this game. I'll list the ones that come to mind, but bear in mind that this list is far from complete and subject to change. Now keep in mind, that I have never played in the Suros Era, so I don't know what they were like in that timeframe. Here's the list: Stability, rounds in the magazine, time to kill (I'll add more as I think of them) Rounds in mag: to few rounds in a magazine, especially when you get to the higher impact archtype. Ttk: you lose to everything a good portion of the time in your own effective range. Plain and simple. This time needs to be fixed so we can actually compete in our own effective ranges, and not get two tapped immediately. Stability: the amount of recoil they add to this game, while yes gives them a realistic pov on them, it has its costs, and autos are extremely effected by this. You cannot put rounds into s target, if your gun is bouncing everywhere (hardlight.......), nor can you outgun anyone with any sort of accuracy at range. Yes I'm well aware at the fact that they are spray and pray weapons (except SUROS, which needs you to treat it like a full auto scout), but they should still be able to operate without having to fn hope that you can beat that other primary just outside of shotgun range. Yes, some can have some success with them (Sols, lol), for a majority of people they are just unusable. 5. Trials of Omg are you serious I rarely even play anymore, between my trials partners just dipping off to play other games, to the constant special weapon drops at 7 wins, to the fact that the carries/booting is getting ridiculous. I can't believe that trials has gotten as bad as it has, and nothing has been done to quench it. 6. special weapons.... (I'll get into this after I re listen) 7. Favorite Destiny Moments Finding out I could purchase IB on my hunter from the exotic kiosk on Sunday, only to find out that I had one sitting in my warlocks postmaster from a nightfall run on tues.

Just got around to listening on the commute home yesterday. Great session as usual. Always good to associate voices to Forum names :-) Let's see what I can add. [b]-The state of Primary weapons, should they be buffed?[/b] I'm conflicted on this. I only see certain Archetypes as having TTK issues so I agree with (was it DDM?) that all gun classes should have the same (or similar) ttk. As an example my son (13) points this out constantly with Pulse Rifles. Slow rate should be 2 burst, med should be 3, and High rate should be 4. All with similar TTK. Because I'm a "filthy Casual" (Just said that to trigger Carnival Haha) I tend to stick with the Archetypes that work best for me. I'm sure that not an exclusively casual play style but whatever. I work best with Monte speed ARs. I have a Haakon's Hatchet with a range perk that has worked well for me for a good part of a year. I have an Eyasluna with Reinforced Barrel and Luck in the Chamber that can all headshot 3 tap. With LitC I've 2 tapped in closer range. I also have a Lingering Song that hits like a truck that I actually use in Supremacy (along with Sidearms). I have a Distant Star that is a Sniper killer. Maybe I'm just using the archetypes that do work well but I generally don't have an issue with Primaries or their kill times. [b]-Jugg Shields[/b] Yes very hot topic and generally speaking the focus of many people's shotgun issues. Mostly in conjunction with Skating. Skating.../sigh While I understand Bungie's (initial) decision to not do anything about it I still feel people need to acknowledge that it really and truly is an exploit of the Titan movement mechanics. Titan Skating was borne from nothing more than [b]button mashing[/b] and a subsequent realization that you can maintain full speed while in the air while doing so. (Yes in reality there's timing involved but that was realized soon after the mashing) I'm on the fence on whether they should change anything about it but no one can convince me that Bungie meant for skating to be a thing when they first implemented Catapult into the movement mechanics. -Class abilities/balance On the Jug shield itself, especially in relation to skating and "Closing the gap", I feel this is where the change is needed. Juggernaut perk description: "[i]After sprinting for a short time, gain a protective shield[/i]." I feel that according to this description and external lore it makes the most sense to me that Jugg Shield turn off when jumping. Have it be a ground based perk. It's a radical thought but just think how it would balance out the "Close the Gap" issue. While Skating they are vulnerable and while on the Ground with the Shield they are slower. Plus skating becomes more risk/reward. Hardcore Titans may disagree you need to pull back from your Bias of the class and loot at the issue at a higher level. In the midst of all the Shotgun talk it's the only class that causes a balance issue with it. [b]-Trials of Omg are you serious[/b] LoL. Well I'm not a trials player. Like other 'casuals' I've played some recently (Thank you Dragoon4290) for the the book entry. That being said, while I do agree that there should be a place for "End Game" PVP I don't believe Trials is a good representation of what "End Game PVP" should be. At least not in it's current state. I agree with all that Bungie needs to take a harder stance on Paid carries. From both the fact that they're allowing these people to advertise on their own forums to the fact that these people are using Destiny to Make money. It's all just wrong and stuff like this always tends to ruin those parts of the game. Whatever they do in D2 for this "End Game PVP" needs to be totally different and have a way for more than just the elite to enjoy it. [b]-Special Weapons[/b] (Not on your printed agenda but was talked about nonetheless) Obviously harder to Balance because their use cases tend to be more situational. In any game Snipers and Shotguns are usually the hardest to balance simply due to their 1HK potential. I personally think things are in a pretty good place right now in terms of use in effective range. The ONLY thing I'll say about shotguns is there shouldn't be only 1 or 2 ideal choices. They need to equal out those high impact shotguns somehow so that there's more options with the same lethality. I have no problem at all with the range on shotguns. I'm used to games that have a much further range and with Destiny's mobility and ability options they are not really that hard to counter. (Aside from the Jug/Skate issue but see above) As always thanks for the Podcast Sols you guys do a Great Job!!

Lots of good points in the podcast, good job! [u][b]Special Weapons:[/b][/u] I agree with the fact that special weapons aren't the problem, the ammunition availability is. If it was my problem to solve...... #1 - Crucible matches start with zero special ammunition in inventory. #2 - Special ammunition spawns once per match replacing the heavy ammunition spawn at midway. This would promote primary weapon combat for most of the match. Let's be honest, heavy has no place in Crucible anyway and is more of an easy kill amusement than anything. #3 - If you die you lose your special inventory period. #4 - Icebreaker and Invective don't generate ammunition in Crucible, you have to pick it up. [u][b]Primary Weapons:[/b][/u] I guess I don't understand why it is so difficult to make the base weapon TTK (not counting perks) the same on all primaries inside of their respective range windows? It seems like a pretty simple concept to me. I'm no developer or programmer so maybe I don't understand the challenges involved. Pick an optimal primary TTK for the game, pick an effective minimum and maximum range window for each type of primary weapon, use zoom and/or damage drop off to keep the weapons inside their windows, apply the formula across the board, done! If weapons design followed this concept you could be competitive with literally any primary in the game given the right roll on the perk set! Even Universal Remote and NLB could be brought into check with zoom and damage drop off.

Up vote

Hmm.. [b]On the subject of primaries.[/b] I'm firmly in the camp of, bring their TTK down to .5-.7 sec. to compete with special and heavy weapons. Currently, you can just run around the map, with no tactical thought, no fear, and no punishment from primary weapons. Their TTK is sooooo slow. You can take quite a few shots, go hide and gain your health back, then continue running around. They flat out are not threatening... at all and need a big change. In fact, Weyloran's March can fire 2 shots in .5 sec. That's a faster body shot TTK than everyone's beloved .80 headshot TTK from Clever Dragon. This.... is..... BROKEN. [b]On the argument that "Special weapons won't be special"[/b] 1. yes they will. They will remain the only guns that can kill someone during a super. They are still the only guns that can OHK from extreme close range (shotties), Mid Range (Fusion), and extreme long range (sniper) 2. Specials kill as fast as heavies. So why aren't heavy weapons more special than specials? I mean... come on if we are going to continue to follow this logic..... [b]You know what's a really strong counterplay right now?[/b] Just running around opening special ammo boxes, this leaves the enemy team with their underpowered primaries, just primed for a wrecking. I've personally done this, and you can just about turn a game around doing this. I stand by my primary buff patch "test". Mayhem Clash, with Small Arms enabled, and double rep gains. That'll get Bungie all the data they need to make an educated call on how to get primary weapons to be scary. [url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GtrNjOBJddXWzXh3rf45eED31XoyfYFUX71JU32tg2E/edit#gid=0]Source[/url] Please use this link sols to look at the TTKs on your favorite scouts. It just might blow your mind.

Bump for later (Lol Orpheus is waiting to post his essay, I guess would that make my response a short story?)

Ok so I sound exactly like that. The wife reminded me of an early Atheon run when she ran off the edge with the shield on what would of been the last damage phase. On they way off the match all we heard was "oh, guys I'm so sorry"

Yet again it looks like destiny is forgetting it's priority which is to keep it's fan base happy yet again there is no news about iron banner yet again there is no news about dlc so bungie just isn't giving a damn about us and this just shows how much they really care about their customers. Buffing primary My view of buffing primary is that Bungie won't do cause a it is too much work and b cause it would just make destiny into another cod clone and people would just stop playing cause they don't have a chance but I must admit something has to be done about clever dragon putting people down in less than 4 shots and jugg shotguns. we ether neff clever dragon and make it 5 burst in order to bring it into line or make the range drop off a lot shorter. but bringing jugg shot into line I can only see us putting a longer cool down into it or nerfing it cause a it should not block super and you should not be getting it back every 5 seconds if you going to run it over and over again. And let me just say I'm a Mida user and it is a five tap these days so it pointless to use against these three tap and two tap guns. Souls while I agree with you about taking abilities away but they have already done it more than once they nerfed gunslinger trip mines and throwing knife they nerfed lighting grenades pluse time they neff shoulder charge they have nerfed or taken away so much already in this game why not take more out just so it's balanced even though it was never achievable to have balance in the first place except saying that sunbreaker that needed the armour nerf when super. I agree with starting with no speaical cause people just run the whole game with it perhap dieing should make you lose speaical but all this picking up speaical after death just sounds too easy perhaps you should only get three or 4 speaical when have a cool down so you are not able to collect more but when that would be crazy perhaps the only way would be if you die you lose speaical cause odds are you would spawn next to a box and admittedly pick up 4 rounds. Yet again sols you make a point that not only turns everything on its head and makes us think why did they ever make speaical into primary and I agree the shotgun and the sniper was a bad idea but vex was a great idea and it was weak it although it was powerful it was meant to be perhap it should of been nerfed down to a dot level but it was still great fun to use and it was unique but other than making shaxx's bounties into kill 200 with primary in order to complete no one is going to use primary if they can just use speaical the whole match. Map design bungie just do not know how to do it they should of made 5 maps thier it is impossible to use a sniper they should of had a map their it is impossible to use anything but fusion and at least 3 maps where they are half and half too meny maps are just the same layout there is no real difference between the maps and too meny features the same 3 lane load out if I was on the team I would come up with some truly unique maps like fighting in a mutiple level map like a mutiple story car park or a forest or a bit of both there is just too meny maps where you do not need to change anything plus snipers are so quick and easy to use they still hold their own if your good enough and know how to hold down a lane and don't say they are not just watch the vids on YouTube in the bungie's blogs every week. Trails I just have to throw the book at it how long did they think it would last? Eventually only the elite would play and the casuals would just blam off and go do something else cause a no body like being pubstomped b no one likes getting a bloody blaming blaming blaming and blaming artifact as a gold package reward on every character every weekend c doss attack connection kicks happen every blaming game. A tier system may work I'm not to sure what to do but reducing the loot pool bad idea that would reduce the playing list by millions you would end up with nobody but elitist playing the casual would just not care any more and bungie wants every part of the game to be playable to some extent but that would just have the elite playing who want bragging rights and that would be it each week it would get smaller and when no one would care keep the guns in. Favourite moments none cause I've been playing ff15 and fishing is just beep I just want to throw my spear in.

Been at Buffalo wild wing all day, ill make sure to listen in a bit tonight and tomorrow morning. And I'll have my essay ready by tomorrow And bump

Bump can some one please reply bump me so I can find it and listen later seems like iron banner is going to be delayed.

Bump for later Edit: good show guys. A few points: 1. Hunters have blink, smoke bomb gas, and better control( put the boots on and boom kinds skating.... kinda. 2. If they reduce the shotgun rounds again I'm done playing PvP( only time I play is ib lbs) Like sols said, there's always away around special ammo. Uni, icebreaker, ect. 3. Everything you guys said about ToO was right on the ball. What's currently going in/with ToO needs to change. Imo ToO should not have been put in the book. Floodgates open when you forced casual players to play a game mode they otherwise would have ignored.

Before I even play I want just put this out there. Played some trials last night. Most all games was laggy as hell. Got ddos out of a game. On a fresh card got matched with teams on 6-8 wins already (yea I was asking). Repeated for 3 cards. 1 game got matches we beat them. Then got matched with the same people another 3 times who now went full red bar and was unkillable FOR THE NEXT 3 MATCHES. When reported they said "LOL bungie won't do shit. No light house for you". Shows what the current sate of the game is in. The matchmaking is broken. Cheating is rampant. And pay-to-play has taken over. Leading to the massive drop in players and bungie seems to be blind to it.

A few thoughts as of the first quarter: I don't feel like special weapons should be treasured as these scarce weapons. I've always viewed specials as 1 of 2 roles. The first role is a specialized situation where they can kill a lot more effectively than a primary, assuming that they are used correctly. The other is more of a backup, sidearms being meant almost exclusively for this role, shotguns and fusions could also compliment say a scout rifle, or something that wouldn't be as good at whatever range. Sols asking how we could buff primaries without making them 2-3 shot everywhere is to simply buff non-damage stats. For example, either remove bloom or the huge damage falloff from hand cannons. For the highest impact pulses, reducing the recoil would really help them, maybe bump damage to 2 burst to the head all the time (assuming that damage falloff isn't present). Autos are the only weapon class that really need a flat damage buff as a whole, in my opinion. Albeit mid-impact autos wouldn't need as big of a damage increase.

I literally stopped after reading "primaries, should they...." That's literally the worst question.... There is no question there, they all need a buff. Otherwise excellent episode

Bump! Going to have a listen in the morning!

Bump for later. I'm listening to the Tired Old Hack podcast right now, DTC will follow after.