Even more, the fact that if you pick up special ammo, you don't lose the additional ammo besides the initial mag and a half refill upon respawn that was the sidearms niche. I understand leaving the mag and a half to sidearms, but leaving all ammo as before patch 2.5.0.2 is the proof Bungie is force-feeding sidearms on us. I had switched to fusions in the last few weeks and, despite being bad at PvP (I'm getting a lot better though, and the people I now gather with in my fireteam are skilled as hell), I understood how fusions take skill to be used properly. Sniping without constantly hard-scoping take skill. Hell, even moving properly and having the right map awareness to consistently shotgun rush takes skill. I don't know how taking ammos is supposed to balance the game. All the games I had today (strictly in 6v6, weekly Shaax bounty, either rift or a leftover control bountly) saw at least 3 NLB on the other team with no less than 4-5 sidearms. Every time I die, if I'm using Party Crasher or Thesan, I see a near special crest that I need to camp for 10-15 seconds to wait for ammo and then go. Rinse and repeat. You need special ammo because without you're a sitting duck against sidearms in CQC unless you can consistently headshot with Hand Cannons (preferrably with LiTC). You need special ammo on the other side as well because, without a loaded Sniper, you have no chance against a competent NLB+sidearm user. On top of it, the range dropoff on HC is hard, so they can't be a jack of all trade weapon (never meant to be such, I know). What I have witnessed is a generally slower game (I have had a ton of Rift games when time expired and we were in the 15-17000 neighbourhood, even with a couple of dunks), but not because of better map awareness and more cautios gunfights, but special camping and generally hiding in fear of losing ammo. What I am saying is that this patch might have been intended to promote a diverse playstyle, but it could end up narrowing down the choices even more. Now I'm curious about trials. Has anyone played elimination yet? Because if the losing side has no ammo beside sidearms when the second round starts, I have a gut feeling that every match would be either a camping fest (previous round losers camping special because, let's face it, no chance without them) or a complete stomping. P.S.: what I don't like 10000000% is that if you respawn during a special void (let's say, 30 seconds before crest), you have no chance to take down a decent super user unless you are stacked with other 3-4 teammates. Shutting down a super takes skill or at least some decent thinking and moving. Might as well as dance or flash a dumb emote now. I'm still getting my feet wet atm and I have not drawn a line yet (I could very well be mistaken), but so far, NOT so good.

It makes sense. If you have no skill,you can empty an entire clip and not get a kill,but if you do have skill,then the guy who got to the special crate before you with his matador can't OHK you while you try in vain to primary him to death. Also,it keeps people who can use a sidearm from having to hit crates so often,so camping a sniper at the special crates is only going to net snipers shotgun warriors. Only bad side effect is that voopers are going to need to switch to sidearms or take the risk at the crate. IMO fusions should spawn with a full clip after death,because vooping takes timing and tracking to do well.

Voop?

Slang for fusion rifle users...voopers. It's the sound it makes... voooop.

They obviously want us to use sidearms now. Thankfully, there are plenty of good one's to choose from.

Pigeon-holing people into one weapon type is a sign of poor design. The whole special weapon ammo nerf has done nothing but limit options. Limiting options limits gameplay and that makes the game less fun. Honestly, even [i]considering[/i] this change was shameful. If, [insert God, Heaven, Allah, FSM] help you you make a human mistake and die unless you have a side arm you are down to one weapon, jumping and a cooldown restrictive grenade. That is unacceptable in a game that had limited options to begin with. Good gameplay or not, this a piss-poor design decision and the devs should be called out for it. Well, I suppose there's all the new PvE stuff in the pa-.. oh, nevermind.

It's like they are saying, "We used considerable resources to create sidearms- yet they are severely underutilized. We tried buffing them, but people still prefered shotguns, snipers- even fusions. Therefore, we will FORCE you to use them. Enjoy!"

Well the basically a pistachio that would be used instead of a scout rifle at close range. If your running a auto for example you have no reason to use a sidearm.

I was using Dealbreaker and a sidearm. Did most of the work with my Dealbreaker. Occasionally had to let the Tresspasser do some work but not often.

I don't [i]quite[/i] understand your response- but then I'm guessing that pistachio is the result of autocorrect and is not intended? [spoiler]Otherwise your gun vault is far more exotic and interesting than mine....[/spoiler]

But you're not forced to use them. You can just as easily wait for special to spawn. It spawns every 60 seconds. Use a primary weapon for a few seconds then grab special. I don't agree with the economy change either but it's not the end of the world. Learn to adapt. Its been 1 day since the change it's gonna take some time to get used to.

That's what I thought at first - in theory, fine, just go with primary until the special spawns. But trying a match yesterday- depending on the map and the game type, it's not always easy to just keep people at distance with primary. Sometimes you're forced into cqc right away- and when that happens I switch to shotgun. Yesterday, running around after spawn, realizing (I'd briefly forgotten about the change) that I had no ammo, it was a matter of trying to survive in short range areas (rooms and doorways) until I could get to a special box. In theory, I'm just keeping my distance, using primary, but in practice it's not always so easy (pushed into close range encounters). If the simple solution to this is using a sidearm, most people are going to gravitate that way.

Agreed. I felt like I had nothing to keep people away from a distance and when they were right up on you after respawning, they already had damage on you and there was no way of shutting them done in time. It feels like this patch just created a huge gap between the good players and the mediocre ones. At least a day ago I had a chance. Now it's gone.