The Shotgun Meta came about because everything's lethality and consistency was nerfed to a point where Shotguns became incredibly potent in comparison. But the bottom line of this Meta is that, no matter how unfairly suited it was towards anyone not running a Shotgun, it didn't reject other playstyles. [b]This new Meta rejects the vast majority of playstyles by enforcing Special Ammo loss on death.[/b] It is worse because it punishes players for not wanting to conform to a handful of playstyles. The Shotgun Meta never did that. In fact, by making Shotguns Meta they made Sidearms and Fusion Rifles SHINE! [b][i]Without having to buff them!!!!!*[/i][/b] [i][b]*[/b]This is one of the few times Josh Hamrick's philosophy of nerfing surrounding competition to make an underused archetype shine through actually pulled through for the players in a meaningful way.[/i] Players were actually starting to use them over Shotguns, hell I even ran a Fusion in Trials effectively because my enemies weren't relying on being halfway across the map from me during a Trials match for the first time since Year 2 started. It also nurtured Snipers because it increased the frequency of finding a target in your sights who couldn't return fire from the optimal range; you could use this to your advantage, this crutch of theirs was actually less pressure for snipers from extended ranges. The Special Ammo loss on death killed the majority of Shotguns, Fusion Rifles and even most Snipers. It trivialized over 90% of the existing players' Special options and made the least favorite ammo conserving weapons meta while bullying the competition out of the gaming experience by the Developer's forceful hands. There will never not be a time that ammo conserving weapons won't be used if we keep this change, and the game is worse for it because this creates a meta game reaction from players to covet ammo sustaining perks. Even if picking up Special seems like it should work fine math wise, here's the problem: You are trying to get the player to settle for a disadvantage that breaks their chances at being competitive, which Bungie has known is against our very nature. Thus they did limit our actual viable choices down to less than 10% of existing options with full awareness. They just decided they didn't care. I think it's obvious it's an attempt to make their 'legacy' game lose popularity in the wake of a new release, but I think they realized how difficult it will be to retain players whose voices they constantly refuse to acknowledge. I believe this change was done not with the intent to fix the game or appease players, but to degrade the quality of the experience. I believe it's a huge conflict of interest they've articulated themselves, in fact I'd be surprised if it wasn't premeditated. [b]tl;dr[/b] [i]Shotgun Meta made rogue/underused weapons viable by simply existing, and it didn't try to overtly punish players who didn't conform to the meta. This meta is vitriolic towards any players wanting to make the independent decision of what weapons they want to use without some meta factor swaying them.[/i] [b]My only question is: [i]If you disagree, how can you? Explain for me why this doesn't make the current Ammo Conservation Meta worse than even the infamous Shotgun Meta y'all really have a hard time forgetting?[/i][/b]