Future 2’s newest enlargement The Fringe of Destiny is already dealing with an uphill battle, launching with the bottom concurrent participant counts for a Future 2 enlargement ever, whereas the group rail towards a raft of controversial mechanical adjustments detailed in among the longest patch notes Bungie has ever produced. Now, it seems that the aforementioned changelog was nonetheless not lengthy sufficient, with Bungie apologising for lacking out quite a few changes that gamers have claimed are “stealth nerfs”.
The group has drawn up a number of lists and stories of the alleged stealth nerfs (and, in some circumstances stealth buffs) on the Future 2 subreddit, together with this one by consumer llIicit. Amongst these adjustments are some significantly dramatic changes to the Warlock class, together with a serious obvious nerf to the Contact of Flame, whereas consumer arixagorasosamos says Incinerator Snap builds are “gutted fully”.
Amongst all this, Future 2’s communication’s supervisor Dylan Gafner additionally took to Reddit to deal with the state of affairs. “For the previous couple of days, groups have been reviewing participant stories and auditing adjustments to establish gaps in our patch notes article,” he wrote in a press release. “We’re trying to get particulars out ASAP on the missed notes, and severely—many apologies right here.”
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Gafner denies the accusations that Bungie intentionally tried to slide these adjustments underneath the radar. “We by no means intend to ship ‘stealth nerfs’ in Future 2. I perceive this has occurred a number of occasions earlier than, too—and it stands to point out that a number of of our processes want enchancment. We might be fully out of our minds if we thought we may slip one thing underneath the rug with out gamers noticing.”
I am inclined to imagine Gafner that the lacking updates are a consequence of slapdash record-keeping relatively than making an attempt to get one over on gamers. Given how Future gamers obsess over such adjustments, it does not make a complete lot of sense for Bungie to actively try to hide them.
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Furthermore, Gafner likewise factors out that the changelog for The Fringe of Destiny is “one among (if not THE) longest patch notes submissions we have had” so it will be comprehensible, if not acceptable, that some adjustments bought missed. Possible compounding the problem is the small matter of Bungie shedding 220 individuals towards the top of final yr—the type of company massacre that’ll have a dramatic impact on processes equivalent to documentation.
All that stated, I can perceive why gamers may suppose Bungie is making an attempt to drag a quick one. It was solely two months in the past the developer was caught inserting the designs of an unbiased artist into Marathon with out permission, which precipitated an infinite outcry and contributed to the indefinite delay of the sport.
Bungie claimed the designs had been filched by a former Bungie artist who has since left the studio. However whether or not the theft occurred with or with out Bungie’s oversight, the fiasco has severely broken belief between the developer and its group.
Therefore, it is comprehensible that any actions taken by Bungie which smack of evasion can be handled with suspicion by gamers. However the Web does additionally are likely to react to such controversies like sharks in chummed waters, and we ought to be cautious to not assume the worst intentions each time a developer makes a mistake. Bungie has clearly goofed right here, and its fame does it no favours from an optics perspective. However I believe the issue isn’t that Bungie tried to be sneaky, relatively that it laid off an enormous quantity of people that, it seems, had been employed for rattling good causes.
Gafner says he does not have a “particular timeline” for when these lacking adjustments shall be added to the log, however he stresses that documenting Warlock adjustments is a precedence, with extra to be “straightened out” down the road. “Some unique ammo backpack adjustments had been additionally not detailed sufficient—we had notes on how ammo was altering all up with a broad rebalancing line, however no particular bullets for issues like Queenbreaker.”
