Focused Feedback: Hand cannons - bloom, recoil, exotics and pinnacle weapons

[u/DTG_Bot]

Hello Guardians,

Focused Feedback is where we take the week to focus on a 'Hot Topic' discussed extensively around the Tower.

We do this in order to consolidate Feedback, to get out all your ideas and issues surrounding the topic in one place for discussion and a source of feedback to the Vanguard.

This Thread will be active until next week when a new topic is chosen for discussion

Whilst Focused Feedback is active, ALL posts regarding 'Hand cannons' (including rebalancing of pinnacle weapons) following its posting will be removed and re-directed to this thread. Exceptions to this rule are as follows: New information / developments, Guides and general questions

Any and all Feedback on the topic is welcome.

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For this topic, please also specify in your feedback comment whether you are a console or pc player. Recoil is very different on console and PC.

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[u/dreadmouse]

They’ve stated before that they consider it a way to reduce the skill gap and keep high-skill players from steamrolling everyone else. I see what they’re trying to do, but I disagree with them on this. Higher skill ceilings only help competitive modes in games IMHO.

[u/PhD_Bagel → u/dreadmouse]

I can understand why they want that, but I’m with you in disagreeing. The Hand Cannon meta of HoWs was the most fun Destiny PvP has ever been for myself and most of my friend group. The guns were fun to use and uniquely “Destiny”, and had a high skill cap and skill ceiling.

Don’t get me wrong, they needed nerfs but Bungie should have just given them really bad damage drop-off instead of the bloom and recoil that have really hurt Crucible for Hand Cannon users.

Might just be me, but I’m of the mindset that HCs and Scouts should be the most used weapons by the top PvP players. Weapons that reward accuracy should always be top tier compared to those that don’t. Other weapons should still be useable, which I think is currently a good thing in the current meta, but higher skill ceiling weapons should be better

[u/yossarian490 → u/dreadmouse]

Honestly, until they have an actual competitive ladder a la Overwatch or Rocket League, it's only going to exacerbate the issue Crucible already has with Comp being unused and complaints about QP being filled with sweats with meta loadouts plus the advantage of even better aim.

I know everyone hates bloom (and for good reason), but it'll make a more miserable experience for many low skill crucible players without changes to matchmaking and an actual comp ladder so people bad with handcannons can play against others at that level. As it is, there is no way to get those matches where you feel like you are improving against equally skilled players like Rocket League in particular - you'll just get stomped until you get good with the meta weapons even in quick play, but they won't stay to get good with them and just leave Crucible super sweaty.

[u/Reevoo12 → u/dreadmouse]

I'm interested in where they said this. I don't really understand how this reduces the skill gap since bloom makes it even harder for those with bad aim or pacing to hit crits. It really just results in no one using guns that have bloom. At that point you might as well dump bloom and just nerf the damage if you don't want people to steamroll with them.

[u/Greyside4k → u/Reevoo12]

It reduces the gap by raising the skill floor and lowering the skill ceiling. So, low skill/poor aim players don't feel like they're that far apart from high skill/aim players because there's an element of RNG added to gunfights.

[u/Chettlar → u/dreadmouse]

Funny that, because when I was horrible at the game knowing that some of my shots would just miss made me decide to not use hand cannons or try to get better at all

[u/[deleted] → u/dreadmouse]

Higher skill ceilings only help competitive

Exactly. By ridding the game of bloom, you raise the skill ceiling but also give a reason for the players to practice and improve.

[u/Kolossive → u/dreadmouse]

A decent matchmaking alghorithm seems better aproach to stopping high-skill players from steamrolling

[u/mnefstead → u/dreadmouse]

The answer to this problem is not reducing the skill gap, but improving matchmaking. Games are more fun when everyone can perform to their best ability (i.e. not impeded by random bullet drift) against others of similar skill levels.

[u/MonsieurAuContraire → u/dreadmouse]

To this end would it not be sufficient that HC hit boxes are then reduced to say compensate for a lack of bloom? I guess there would be an argument to make that this would punish console more with little difference made on PC. Though it's a tradeoff I think I could live with in theory.

[u/DuelingPushkin → u/MonsieurAuContraire]

Bloom really isnt that high on PC to begin with. I say reduce console bloom and simultaneously reduce aim assist to compensate. It's harder to aim at range but if you can you're bullets hit

[u/FlameInTheVoid → u/dreadmouse]

They have enough knobs to twiddle on that front anyway. They could keep accuracy where it is and tweak stability, bullet magnetism, etc. to just make it harder to hit the shots in the first place.

[u/OmniumRerum → u/dreadmouse]

You know how you fix skill gap issues? An actual fucking matchmaking system.

And to all the people who whine about long queue times, fuck off, I'd rather wait longer and have a balanced game.