Bungie done goofed: Oct 14th Hotfix

[Dumien]

Fair warning. This might be slightly ranty.

Let me tell you how yesterday went. I had 6 of my hard raid group on @ around midnight EST. FINALLY the friends lists were working. I was pretty happy. Of these people, 4 were level 30 and 3 had the mythoclast. This was right about the time we found out about the patch notes.

There was much raging in that party. "That's not right! They shouldn't be messing with the hard mode reward! 33% nerf is ridiculous!" is the gist of the salt. We also spent a good amount of time getting angry at the Raid changes,

Now, you might be thinking..."I'm glad that thing got nerfed. You only wanted to to stay the way it was because you had it" ...and that might be correct. We completed our first hard raid in under 2 hours... @ around 6:30 EST where I ended up getting my mythoclast. I then got to use it for 3 hours in crucible rumble (FFA) where I did get to live the dream before the nerf. It is an OP weapon in crucible.

However, this nerf was handled very poorly. Let's take a look at the scout rifle buff...

"Base damage increased by 6%
Damage vs. Combatants increased by 6% - 25% (based on tier)
Improved target acquisition, plus additional recoil tuning."

Notice the base damage increase. That applies for PvP.
Damage vs. Combatants applies to PvE with Tier being Common/Major/Ultra enemies.

What does this do? It increases the PvP damage, but it also significantly and separately (this part is important) buffs the scout rifle against PvE enemies.

Now look at the Mythoclast nerf...

"Vex Mythoclast
Base Damage decreased by 34%
Increased Precision Damage multiplier from 1.25 -> 1.50 (headshot bonus)"

This is a global nerf to ALL damage from the mythoclast. They could have nerfed the base damage, but increased the damage vs combatants (as we saw with the scout rifle) to keep it a PvE wreckingball. Note that this is a FINE compromise, because you maintain PvP fairness while the Mythoclast itself is balanced in PvE (you can't use the icebreaker/ghallarhorn if you use it)

How is this a problem? Well for one... you are taking away the single most precious reward in the game. People coveted mythoclasts... I know I did! It melts enemies. Now lets look at the current level 30 problem...where it is luck dependent for when you hit level 30. "Will raid boots drop for me" I wondered for 2 and a half weeks. Now, I had many people level 30 around me...but that didn't upset me. I didn't find that unfair. They were on my team. I was going to beat the raid easier because they were on my team. I felt the same way about mythoclasts. Sure I would like to have the mythoclast, but having someone on your team with it was VERY good.

This is not the same for PvP. While there is less than 1% of players with the mythoclast..it got nerfed...because people complained about it in PvP. NOBODY complained about it in PvE. So why this global nerf? Now the best weapons you can get in raid are the hezen launcher and the fatebringer. This just seems like a kneejerk reaction to some PvP whiners.

Moving on.

The Raid buffs. This complaint might be a bit more trivial than the previous one...

"Kill volume added to sniper platforms to prevent players from sitting on top of them

Relic is now removed and respawned if the holder leaves the playable area"

This was what initially irked me the most while my buddies were ranting on the mythoclast nerf.

Bungie GAVE us a predetermined "playable area" when they released the raid. All the platforms they are talking about are places a person can EASILY jump to...much less difficult than the jump puzzles after the gorgon's maze.

They are steadily decreasing size the playable area based on their whim.

THAT is not how you properly adjust difficulty. All those platforms? They have infinitely spawning enemies on them...hobgoblin snipers to be exact. On hard Raid? Those things two shot you. This is a strategy that we used even before we "cheesed the Templar." It is one of the only ways to do the Oracles round previous to the templar fight. All we were doing was removing the luck based elements of the templar/oracle fight.

I'm just saying... a better Raid buff might have been to increase the teleport/jump distance of the enemies rather than decrease the parameters that have been set from the beginning. This just feels cheap.

Each event in the raid is a puzzle. Each puzzle has a solution. Bungie just wasn't satisfied with our correct solution.

[GodMars]

www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2j9thj/bungie_lied_about_how_much_the_mythoclast_was/

[psychlon]

So how is the Mythoclast compared to other exotic weapons now? Is it worse, same, slightly better?

[exxtrooper]

It's not worth using, the suros is better in almost every way, maybe a bit better than suros close range, but overall not worth using really.

[hebbnh]

I couldn't agree more on the Templar changes. What's next? Are they going to remove all the cheese spots from the strikes too now? As we've discussed before, all of those spots have to be intended, or they would have been eliminated long ago. If somehow they weren't intended, then who the fuck playtested this game and didn't find them, allowing them to make it into the final game? It seems to me that Bungie bragged too much about how hard the raid was going to be, and now that people are beating it so easily they feel like they have to go back and change things to add a cheap artificial challenge to it to make it live up to their "hardest content evar!!1!" BS claims.

[hebbnh]

So much for actually changing anything with the Templar fight, new cheese strategy already found:



TL;DW: 5 guys stand at the spawn platform and kill oracles and DPS the Templar, relic holder kills back 2 oracles (platform guys can't hit these) and harpies to charge super, no cleansing necessary if done correctly.

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 6:17:20 GMT -5 Dumien said:

This is a global nerf to ALL damage from the mythoclast. They could have nerfed the base damage, but increased the damage vs combatants (as we saw with the scout rifle) to keep it a PvE wreckingball. Note that this is a FINE compromise, because you maintain PvP fairness while the Mythoclast itself is balanced in PvE (you can't use the icebreaker/ghallarhorn if you use it)

How is this a problem? Well for one... you are taking away the single most precious reward in the game. People coveted mythoclasts... I know I did! It melts enemies. Now lets look at the current level 30 problem...where it is luck dependent for when you hit level 30. "Will raid boots drop for me" I wondered for 2 and a half weeks. Now, I had many people level 30 around me...but that didn't upset me. I didn't find that unfair. They were on my team. I was going to beat the raid easier because they were on my team. I felt the same way about mythoclasts. Sure I would like to have the mythoclast, but having someone on your team with it was VERY good.

This is not the same for PvP. While there is less than 1% of players with the mythoclast..it got nerfed...because people complained about it in PvP. NOBODY complained about it in PvE. So why this global nerf? Now the best weapons you can get in raid are the hezen launcher and the fatebringer. This just seems like a kneejerk reaction to some PvP whiners.

I did really enjoy your post Dumien, but I do think you are going a bit overboard with the comment directed at the 'whiners'.

Come on. That's not right.

No one can make a case that the Mythoclast wasn't OP. Everyone knows it was. And everyone knows it wasn't just over powered, it was ridiculously OP. This is not a case of the CoD MTar loaded out. Or the WaW MP40. The Mytho was raping people in PvP left and right. It was borderline cheating. That type of OP. Here is the thing. Years ago, I didn't like hearing some skirt wearing f&*&$s talk about how great they were in CoD while using the Chopper Gunner Glitch. I most certainly don't like hearing asshats bragging now about their PvP Godlike skills either. Going 30-5? So what. You are using what is essentially the Chopper Gunner glitch, part 2. That's not whining by anyone to bring it up. Especially so, when Bungie's ridiculous PvP interface goes to great lengths to disguise/hide what opponents are killing you with.

Pretty much, the only argument apologists for this gun can make (that's no slight to you, speaking in general) is that while the above is all true, .....it wasn't that big of a deal because "very few people had it, no harm, no foul. Let them enjoy their raping". Rape is still rape. It's still wrong. The volume of it's occurrence (or lack of) is no basis for it's legality

Yeah. And I disagree with the "no harm, no foul" volume premise for other reasons too. First, while it is true that maybe only 1.26123% of the player base had this gun (I don't know the exact number), that stat is basically a bvullshit lie. Why? Because people who had that gun make up a disproportionate/higher share of the PvP. People conveniently leave that out. There might be 5 million Destiny players now, but many don't play PvP. Why would they? But I can guarantee you just about all the players who have the Mytho are playing PvP. So the 1.26123% number is wrong. It's much higher. And it was growing rapidly. I know of at least fifteen people who have it. And that's just me. These people were filling up the PvP lobbies.

Two. With more of these players using basically what is a cheating/glitched gun, PvP was soon to become just a home for people who can afford the time to play the game four hours a day. Or people who can afford the opportunity to play the game fifteen straight hours on Tuesdays every week, to load up the goodies. Why should I lose every 1v1 battle in a PvP to a Mytho using player....solely because I haven't had the time to grind? And yes, I know many of you will come back and use the ... "you need to pay to play" analogy. Like people who play a ton, deserve their reward. I don't agree there. Destiny is very close to pushing this to it's limit.

I don't want to have to feel like I have to play to take off work on Tuesdays like I already know five of my friends are doing. I don't want to feel like I have to put in four hours a day to keep up with other PvP players. I'm already pushing two hours a day and that's pushing me to some real-world stretching limits. I would hardly call that 'whining' by people like me either. If that's what Bungie is going to require to make this game playable....fvck them. Any game that requires THAT much of requirement just to keep pace is a game designed by a bunch of no-life fvcktards who are a bit to obsessed with retaining a player base.

Bungie is already at this edge now. Fortunately, they 'maybe' have caught their breath for a second and realized their own absurdity. Put this patch in to fix this one small thing, the Mytho. Maybe they'll adjust some other fixes too to address what I am talking about. How like one has to grind like hundreds of Crucible games before even getting an opportunity to cash in the Rep pt rewards for the effort.

You can make an addicting game. But make one, that doesn't require it's users to put in stupid amounts of time to keep up. Bungie needs to learn this. Right now, I am loving this game. But I do feel like I am constantly falling behind the people like the 'Mytho' users. And if new DLC coming out in a month or so is going to require me to double down my time efforts....I'm done. I'm not going to keep playing a game that equates "Time played" with "skill"

[Dumien]

You didn't like read my solution tho...

also I clearly stated it was OP. I never argued it wasn't.
However, Knee jerk reactions to whiners are bad, because they often don't produce the most effective solution.
In this case there were whiners. I was among them.
They had a knee jerk reaction with a bad solution.

PvE weapons SHOULD be OP. Especially end game weapons.

I'm not upset they nerfed the weapon. I'm upset they nerfed the weapon in PvE. They could have easily nerfed base damage (global PvP and PvE damage) and buffed damage vs combatants (nullifying the PvE nerf).

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 10:05:09 GMT -5 Dumien said:

You didn't like read my solution tho...

also I clearly stated it was OP. Knee jerk reactions are bad, because they often don't produce the most effective solution.
In this case there were whiners. I was among them.
They had a knee jerk reaction with a bad solution.

PvE weapons SHOULD be OP. Especially end game weapons.

Oh ok. Thanks.

Regarding the PvP. It definitely wasn't knee jerk (just saying if anyone else brings that up) The mytho has been out for weeks now. How long do you let this keep going in PvP lobbies? I played last weekend in some PvP control matches, where two of my teammates had the mythos. They both put up 25/30+ kills, utterly destroying the other teams in three straight games. Maybe the other teams had those guns too? And our guys were just bad azz? Maybe? I doubt it though. Our guys had the guns. The time played. The opponents didn't. It was a PvP joke. You can't let this go on.

Yhe PvE? I am not sure how to respond to the aspects of the PvE nerf, with it hitting there. The reason being Bungie's simply bewildering gun stat models. I simply can't figure it out or find anyone who does. So I don't know enough to comment on that part, so i'll take your word for it. You have certainly spent (and beaten) this game at much higher levels than me.

[TheHawkNY]

They really did nerf the Vex a little harder than necessary for PvE.

[psychlon]

Correct me if I'm wrong but future content would have to be built around the better weapons to make it somewhat challenging. I disagree to nerf the weapon over the board in PvE, it should be the best PvE weapon since it requires a raid to achieve but never so far away from other exotics to take away the odd death here and there. That's the reason why I asked about comparable weapons and I kinda question if the weapon really is "useless" after the fix, which shouldn't be.

[mannon]

It sounds like the PvE nerf may have been overdone a bit, but I believe it was OP in PvE as well. Players may not have minded because someone else having a good PvE weapon just helps them as well, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as PvE. It was clearly outperforming Bungie's intentions and needed to be nerfed in both.

However, I do agree that it should probably be the best PvE weapon in the game due to it's status as the highest level prize in the game, or at least it should be equal in power to any other primary weapon in the game and the novelty of being a primary fusion rifle that's full auto makes it unique.

[wittyscorpion]

I have a mixed feelings about OP weapons in PvE, after having experienced Ice Breaker.

On the one hand, the ability to roll over waves of enemies feels great. It also makes soloing through missions viable and pleasant. Can't complain about that

On the other hand, OP weapons could make things too easy. If I can solo through a level 24 strike at level 20, then something is not right.

So what's my take on this? Hard to say. Maybe the rule of thumb is:

OP weapons for a situation (say Strike, or Raid) should only be obtainable after you beat it the "hard" way, or better put it, the way it was intended to be beat.

I think Vex is a fine example to demonstrate my point. You have to beat VoG on hard to get it, but once you have it, VoG on hard should become significantly easier when using it. In other words, I also disagree on the decision of nerfing it for PvE, if that takes away it's "king" status.

I am with Datto on how legendary/exotics should be obtained: there should be less randomness, but harder to get. Ideally, you conquer a challenge (e.g.: Raid) to get something, which in turn will make that challenge easier to beat. They then keep adding more and more such challenges to form a challenge-reward-use_the_reward_to_beat_the_previously_hard_challenge_with_ease loop.

Just some random thoughts. As you guys can see, I have the tendency to turn every rant into possible ways to improve the game

[mannon]

It should remain king, certainly. But keep in mind we have two more raids coming soon and it would be asking a lot for people to be required to have the vex in order to do them at the right difficulty. If it makes those raids too easy then it is definitely OP for PvE.

[markopolo]

I think the new raids or the next update will bring a new uber gun that people will want and will forget about the Vex.

But I agree, they did gut it pretty hard

[malgato]

It feels very much like Bungie only wants us to play the game their way. I am frustrates that their changes keep removing innovative solutions to the game. They want you to grind in a very restricted manner. Lame.

[Dumien]

Oct 15, 2014 12:00:13 GMT -5 mannon said:

It should remain king, certainly. But keep in mind we have two more raids coming soon and it would be asking a lot for people to be required to have the vex in order to do them at the right difficulty. If it makes those raids too easy then it is definitely OP for PvE.

Raid isn't difficult because the enemies are difficult though...

Guys...the main issue here is Bungie is inflicting PvP logic on a (as advertised) mainly PvE game.
It is VERY difficult to do both and have things be "balanced" from a PvE perspective and "interesting" from a PvE perspective.
PvP was horrible in borderlands 2...and for good reason...because the developers focused on having PvE be as interesting as possible.

They have a system in place (on of the best I've seen...confusing as it may be) to keep PvP and PvE seperate (base damage+damage vs. combatants based on tier)
They just need to use it properly.

Also...an update. My friends who actually play crucible have stated they still prefer the Mythoclast in PvP to the Suros (it outclasses scout rifles at their own job)... while they are stating it is underwhelming in PvE. Sheesh... isn't that the opposite of the developer's goals here?

[wings]

Complaints about the nerf citing Crucible cry babies being responsible:

www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/72969167/0/0

[Dumien]

Good. Maybe something will get done. I saw a reddit post on the same subject.

[iw5000]

Reading that post, I stand by earlier comments. Why are people like me who complained about the PvP....being referring to as 'Crucible crybabies"

The people who are saying this stuff, need to direct their hate at Bungie. They were the one's who put the fix in. People like me, the one's being called the 'crucible crybabies'...we just complained about PvP. I haven't seen a single post anywhere, on this board or anywhere else, where people complained about the Myth in PvE.

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 13:33:41 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Oct 15, 2014 12:00:13 GMT -5 mannon said:

Also...an update. My friends who actually play crucible have stated they still prefer the Mythoclast in PvP to the Suros (it outclasses scout rifles at their own job)... while they are stating it is underwhelming in PvE. Sheesh... isn't that the opposite of the developer's goals here?

That right there is proof positive at just how ridiculously stupid it was to have that gun in the PvP.

[wittyscorpion]

We have done a fair share of complaining, let's look at the positive. They have a way to tune PvP separately from PvE, that's huge.

They just need to get the number right, which will happen soon enough. and I don't think they do things by answering who complained the loudest, so we can stop blaming fans for outcomes

[hebbnh]

Oct 15, 2014 14:32:52 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Reading that post, I stand by earlier comments. Why are people like me who complained about the PvP....being referring to as 'Crucible crybabies"

The people who are saying this stuff, need to direct their hate at Bungie. They were the one's who put the fix in. People like me, the one's being called the 'crucible crybabies'...we just complained about PvP. I haven't seen a single post anywhere, on this board or anywhere else, where people complained about the Myth in PvE.

Exactly.  It's just misdirected anger from people who could give two shits about PvP who now have a gun that's very difficult to obtain but is no longer worth using in PvE given the other options (SUROS, Icebreaker) available. There's no reason I've seen that Bungie couldn't have left well enough alone for PvE while balancing it for PvP.  Go post something along the lines of "PvE whiners gonna whine" for the trollolols and see what happens...should be good!

[iw5000]

I'll leave the Reddit board alone. My posting time can't be wasted on other boards now, especially with the Ebola news kicking into high gear.

[wings]

I wonder how many Crucible players do have the Vex though. If a gun is that problematic in the Crucible, they can make it unavailable to be selected so that it stops interfering with PvE. No more snookers, then.

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 15:40:00 GMT -5 wings said:

I wonder how many Crucible players do have the Vex though. If a gun is that problematic in the Crucible, they can make it unavailable to be selected so that it stops interfering with PvE. No more snookers, then.

No way of knowing. Bungie won't say. But it's much higher than people think. I am certain of that.

[wittyscorpion]

We know how many have beaten VoG hard: ~36K as of last Friday.

It seems to me that > 50% of them did not have the good fortune of being rewarded with Vex Myth. So I would say < 15K overall have the weapon then. We just had another Tuesday so a wave of players got another 1-3 chances. So let's say 20K (on the optimistic side), out of a player pool that average 3.2 million fans per day, who play 3 hours daily on average.

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 15:57:43 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

We know how many have beaten VoG hard: ~36K as of last Friday.

It seems to me that > 50% of them did not have the good fortune of being rewarded with Vex Myth. So I would say < 15K overall have the weapon then. We just had another Tuesday so a wave of players got another 1-3 chances. So let's say 20K (on the optimistic side), out of a player pool that average 3.2 million fans per day, who play 3 hours daily on average.

But you guys are missing a key point here. More people play the PvE than the PvP. Look at yourself witty. You haven't even tried the PvP yet. That is the norm. New players can't even get into Crucible until level 5? And even after that, there is no reason to go in for a while, as new people have other things to do.

XBL had around 75,000 playing CoD Ghosts this fall. Player population? Who knows. But I would imagine the Destiny online PvP populations are NOT much higher than that. Bungie hides this total, but I would guess on XB1 it's something like 15,000. Between PSN and XB, both new and old.....it's no more than 50,000 on all systems each night.

Now talk about the 20,000 'Vex Mythos' gun users, with that new revised figures. Yeah, some of those Vex users aren't in PvP, but most are. Why not? You had a God gun that melted your opponents. These people ARE going into Crucible at a much higher rate.

Odds of being shot by a Vex user are much higher than anyone realizes.

[wittyscorpion]

Don't disagree on that. I applaud Bungie's quick action on getting this addressed with a hotfix. In software development world, "hotfix" = emergency unplanned high priority patch, it usually involves manager-saying-to-programmers-and-testers-that-you-must-stop-everything-you-are-doing-and-work-on-this-even-if-you-need-to-burn-midnight-oil kind of priority. So I am pleasantly impressed by their speed and urgency on addressing this matter.

Remember last week that you were pessimistic to the point of thinking that they may intentionally leave this OP weapon in forever, just to keep players who have playered an insane amount of hours happy? At that point many of us were assuring you that this will be patched. See, they did it before the Vex Myth "virus" spread beyond 20K, faster than any of us predicted (OK, the virus here is a very poor joke, pardon me )

In software development world, unexpected consequences do happen rather frequently when things are fast tracked (that's why "hotfix" should be done with great care). So it is entirely possible that the nerf on the PvE were done unintentionally, say due to inadequate testing. If that's indeed the case: just like I am optimistic last week on this weapon going to get nerfed in PvP, I am now equally confident that it will be buffed properly in PvE.

If I were them, I would have allowed another week of testing and not hurry through the "hotfix" release channel, just use the more regular "patch" release channel. My guess is that they are seeing players beating VoG hard at an increasingly fast rate so they hurried up the process to control the "spread" before people thinking PvP is no longer playable.

[Dumien]

Mythoclast has about a 1/6 chance of dropping.