I understand that they at least want PvE and PvP to feel the same in terms of gunplay and stuff, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t at least balance weapon damage differently in PvP - they wouldn’t affect how guns feel, just how they perform.
Frankly, though, there are a lot of weapon balance things apart from damage that should be different between PvE and PvP. Off the top of my head:
shotguns should have much more range in PvE than PvP. At the range Destiny’s PvP is played at, if shotguns have decent range it feels oppressive. But having them so you need to barrel-stuff enemies in PvE makes them a lot less fun and less viable.
movement speed should vary based on the weapon someone is holding. Take shotguns again: rather than just nerfing their damage or further reducing their effective range, they could nerf the movement speed while someone’s holding a shotgun, making it more difficult for them to close gaps but still letting them be rewarded for making it into range.
headshot multipliers - there’s no reason why they can’t just further adjust headshot multipliers in PvP to balance guns.
I also feel like PvP generally held back the potential for a lot of more exciting weapon designs from PvE. Look at the Borderlands series as an example; it has some crazy weapon designs that can be a lot of fun and can make the player feel really powerful. Black hole guns, richocheting, homing bullets, cluster explosions, shotgun revolvers, and so on. Obviously Destiny is aiming for a slightly less whacky approach than Borderlands, but it feels like they definitely could have done more mechanically interesting things if they weren’t limited by PvP balance.
Balancing separately has been something they’ve been told by the community pretty much from the beginning.
They’re too damn stubborn to listen to reason unfortunately. 😕
I understand that they at least want PvE and PvP to feel the same in terms of gunplay and stuff, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t at least balance weapon damage differently in PvP - they wouldn’t affect how guns feel, just how they perform.
Frankly, though, there are a lot of weapon balance things apart from damage that should be different between PvE and PvP. Off the top of my head:
I also feel like PvP generally held back the potential for a lot of more exciting weapon designs from PvE. Look at the Borderlands series as an example; it has some crazy weapon designs that can be a lot of fun and can make the player feel really powerful. Black hole guns, richocheting, homing bullets, cluster explosions, shotgun revolvers, and so on. Obviously Destiny is aiming for a slightly less whacky approach than Borderlands, but it feels like they definitely could have done more mechanically interesting things if they weren’t limited by PvP balance.