Bungie says it's already tuned Destiny 2 to address some of the biggest beta concerns
Ammo drop rates! Grenade damage! Bullet sponge bosses! More!
With the Destiny 2 beta alive and kicking, players have made their feedback loud and clear. Chief among it is an issue with the way ammo works that's sparked a concern about the PvE portion of the game.
Destiny 2 sorts weapons into three categories: kinetic, energy and power. Shotguns and sniper rifles, which in Destiny 1 were secondary weapons, are now power weapons - the class that replaces heavy weapons.
The problem with the beta is that ammo, particularly power ammo, is pretty sparse. So, you spend most of your time on the Inverted Spire strike using your kinetic weapons to slowly bring down the enemies. It's a bit boring.
The issue with power ammo and the resultant over-reliance on kinetic weapons makes the strike's boss feeling like a bullet sponge. You don't have the ammo to pump him full of high damage power weapon lead. But then, the power weapons don't feel particularly powerful anyway. The sniper rifles don't seem to do anywhere near as much damage as they did in Destiny 1, and the new grenade launcher feels disappointingly weak. So on the rare occasion when you do get to fire your power weapon of choice, it's a bit of an anti-climax.
This low damage feel courses through the rest of the PvE experience on offer in the Destiny 2 beta. I was particularly concerned with the grenades, which currently feel like they tickle enemies - rather than rip them to shreds.
So, we come to Bungie's weekly update, and a reassurance that the developers have not only taken note of this feedback, but have already tweaked Destiny 2. It turns out the developers were way ahead of players, this time.
Here's beta design lead Lead Rob Engeln:
"The PVE game tuning has changed pretty significantly since the Beta build was deployed. The nature of a Beta of this scale requires that it's based off a build of the game that is now months old. So, in many cases, your feedback is helping us validate changes that were previously made based on internal feedback and playtesting.
"For example, we too felt that ammo (especially power ammo) was too scarce in PvE. In addition to retuning the drop rates, we built a system that guarantees power ammo drops for you and your Fireteam from certain enemies, giving power weapons a more reliable and predictable role in your arsenal. Other areas where we've made significant tuning changes include grenade effectiveness in PvE, Boss vitality, and weapon damage against non-player combatants."
All that sounds pretty good to me. If Bungie can get power ammo to drop more, and make weapons overall do more damage, PvE should feel a lot better.
However, there's no mention of a tune to the Super recharge rate. One of the big issues with the Destiny 2 beta right now is Supers - indeed all of your cooldowns, so melee, grenade and class ability - take too long to recharge. I've gone entire PvP matches without being able to activate my Super. And given the Supers are among the best things about Destiny 2, that's a problem. Fingers crossed, then, that the tuning continues right up until launch.