[quote]And if a weapon is nerfed, it's usually to balance the sandbox. No one gun should be a panacea, or useful outside its intended range.[/quote] Very true and Bungie should actually test things before putting them out there and wasting player's time. In TTK, what was the number one shotgun problem in PvP. The very shotgun Bungie gave you early on as a story line reward. Why in the world would they put the most OP shotgun perks on it? That was setting everything up for failure from the get go. Bungie themselves created the Pulse Rifle meta, as "all weapons deserve their time". But now, the meta will rotate and all the work you put into you favorite pulse will get pissed down the toilet so that scouts can shine. Then a month later scouts will be OP and Hand Cannons will need a comeback. In the meantime, once your weapon is made obsolete, using it to infuse something else to keep ip will cost you at least 20% or more and drop your light level. Because of the stupid way they use light level. It is worse than it ever was. Yep, they don't want to waste your time.

Balance is a very fluid, delicate thing though. It's impossible to effectively test all circumstances for all weapons/play styles on all maps in all game types and all skill levels. Players do that much better because there's probably a 1,000:1 player to tester ratio. As a result, weapons get balanced after lots of data comes in. One can't expect Bungie to test everything, and if a rebalance is needed, you can't expect what's changed to behave the same way as before.

[quote]It's impossible to effectively test all circumstances for all weapons/play styles on all maps in all game types and all skill levels.[/quote] Agreed, but Bungie often rolls-out changes that any player of the game should have known would be problematic even without any testing! Bungie appears to be trying to get the bars on some weapons chart to all line up so they can say they have achieved perfect balance, but that can never happen, nor should it! The appropriate (best) weapon should vary depending upon the situation and is largely influenced by the landscape of the map. Some maps will always have one weapon or another used more often that the rest; so what. The satisfaction in playing the game cannot be measured by weapons bar charts or statistical data and efforts to make each weapon archetype be used equally are a waste of time, but if they feel they must be balanced, then having all maps be similar is a prerequisite to achieving that foolish objective as it then makes the players and the weapons the only variables with which to contend.

Bungie has never shown any indication (at least to me) that they want usage to be equal for all weapons across all circumstances. They want all weapons to be used equally within their own circumstances. In other words, close range should see players with hand cannons/shotties/swords win most often, short/mid range should see hand cannon/AR users win more, etc. as it stood in the past, ARs won in virtually all circumstances, then hand cannons, and now pulse rifles. Balances try to bring each group's effectiveness in its niche up to par. This causes a power redistribution which then causes a need for new balances later. It is never ending, but it's hardly rendering everything obsolete intentionally.

[quote]It is never ending, but it's hardly rendering everything obsolete intentionally.[/quote] I never made any such comment; why are you saying this to me?

[quote][quote]It is never ending, but it's hardly rendering everything obsolete intentionally.[/quote] I never made any such comment; why are you saying this to me?[/quote] It's the claim made by the OP and the claim I'm saying is false. I wanted to restate the original point I was debating for. I'm not trying to defend or condemn anything else.

Understood! For future reference, if you click the comment link under the OP, then your post would be @"OP" instead of @FRAKTICA! Best Wishes Guardian!