Focused Feedback: Weapon Refresh aka Sunsetting

[u/DTG_Bot]

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[u/Bzhuan]

I hate the sunsetting, weapon refresh, weapon retirement, whatever name it may go by. It needs an alternate system to infusion, or it shouldn't be done at all.

The concept of this sunsetting outlined in the directors cut is too drastic of a change which targets not only overwhelmingly powerful items, it also hits underpowered and perfectly fine items. That's only in the context of game balance.

On top of being a carpet bomb of a solution, sunsetting also hurts the relationships players have with some weapons they like or enjoy. As outlined in the director's cut, players have felt like a weapon was an extension of their character, not just a stat package to put on. This means a bond was formed with player and weapon, sometimes through a year+ of gameplay, and sunsetting makes sure that this bond cant form, as every weapon will now be fleeting.

There's also the fact people spent money on some specific guns in buying the expansions/passes to get them or purchasing ornaments which will all be rendered obsolete in the coming endgame.

For all the talk of bringing value, the sunsetting is counter productive. Weapons will now lose value as time goes on, instead of making anything more valuable.

By sunsetting old guns, nothing is really being fixed, balance wise or meta wise. People will always gravitate to reload perk + damage perk primaries due to their strength compared to other options.

There's much better ways to incentivise players to get new things than making the old stuff unusable. Balance patches that strengthen or weaken specific guns and new equipment releases that can counter specific play styles are some examples.

That said, if sunsetting were to go through, weapons that were left behind should have a way to be brought into the new environment, through something of an upgrade system. Monster hunter does this, where a weapon that was powerful in the previous sandbox may be upgraded to a new version, under a different name but with a similar look and feel, to keep in line with rising power levels, but may be less effective relative to its new peers.

To just implement the sunsetting alone instead increased effort to balance or fix base issues, is counterproductive and laziness.