#divinity drama

Assume each player contributes 1 point of damage. 

A fireteam of 6 therefore does 6 x 1 = 6.

Now take one player out, but add 25% to the others: 5 x 1.25 = 6.25, or ~105% of 6.

Change the buff to 15%: 5 x 1.15 = 5.75 ~ 95% of previous damage, a net swing of 10%.

To break exactly even (i.e. same damage with or without Div) the buff would need to be 20% (5 x 1.2 = 6) 

With a 15% buff, not having Div would have to cause each player to lose 5% of their damage to break even.

Whether aim can cause you to lose >5% of your damage depends a lot on *how* you’re doing damage. It depends on the burstiness of your damage, length of damage phase, the usefulness of AoE/DoT damage (remember Breach & Clear Anarchy?) and weirder factors like “are you using weapons that don’t care about crits (Xeno, Wardcliff, etc.)? Are you using weapons that give other advantages for hitting crits (Whisper, Hawkmoon, etc.)? Are you a Golden Gun/Nighthawk Hunter, for whom one missed shot might be 15% or more of your damage? Or are you a Nova Bomb warlock and your damage depends entirely on whether Big Happy Fun Ball goes for the right target?”

All of this math assumes each player does equal amounts of damage. In reality encounter design and player loadouts vary so much that it’s impossible to even say how often this assumption is true. For instance Kingsfall Day 1 a large chunk of our Warpriest boss phase damage was being put down by three Star-Eater/Golden Gun Hunters, so taking someone else off direct damage to run Div and ensure all of those shots hit would be an excellent investment even if Div only gave a 5% buff. By contrast we used Wardcliff for the sisters, which doesn’t even do precision damage; in that case a 15% Div buff, i.e. incurring a net 5% damage decrease, makes Div not worth it.

In conclusion: at a 25% buff, in all situations where Divinity gave a usable crit bubble for five attackers, it gave a net damage increase (i.e. was “worth it”). At a 15% buff, whether it is “worth it” becomes highly situational, dependent on factors like team composition and encounter design.

And now for the opinions section:

Do I like this change? Not really, no. I don’t feel that Divinity was distorting encounter design in a significant way. Oh, they took it into account like they do all meta-relevant weapons, but it certainly wasn’t a back-breaker like Gjally or Whisper. That “usable crit bubble for five attackers” clause cuts out a lot of bosses. In the last two new raids Div has only been useful in a single encounter each. Even in Kingsfall, which followed the old “sack of HP” design philosophy, it’s only useful in two encounters (Warpriest and Oryx). Raiding - okay, “six-player pinnacle activities” - is Div’s only use-case; it’s not like it rules the roost in every situation. The hitboxes of Destiny bosses aren’t known for their consistency, either - ever tried to hit Taniks in the head? Div is also a one-person weapon, not a mandate for an entire fireteam. I just don’t believe it’s a problem that needed addressing. 

Then again, I’m not Bungie. I don’t know how much Divinity has messed with encounter design behind the scenes, or what they have planned that might be disrupted by it. Maybe this is like the Sleeper ricochet nerf where they know it’s going to screw with stuff that hasn’t yet been released.

Anyone implying that hyper-precise aim should be a required skill for Destiny content, even extremely high-level Destiny content, can go play CoD and leave the rest of us the hell alone. Even leaving aside the issue of how aim is a “skill” with hard physical limits that are a lot more common and restrictive than people realize, the fact is: Destiny is not a twitch shooter. It will never be a twitch shooter. It literally can’t be a twitch shooter, because of how its netcode works. Destiny does not have “dedicated servers” the way games like CoD or Battlefront do. Why do you think the PvP players are always bitching about how they totally hit that shot? Its server architecture will always cause a certain level of network latency, and that level is much higher than “pure FPS” games - higher than I think a lot of people who play other online multiplayer games realize. That constrains how fast any player can be expected to act or react. You can’t hit perfect shots if the visual on your screen is literally inaccurate. Yes, I do think it’s reasonable to ask for a certain base level of aim in content like Day 1 raids. But success should never be conditioned on near-perfect aim, if only because Destiny literally doesn’t work like that. Remember the hideous rubberbanding on Atraks damage in DSC Day 1? Remember the year of Whisper, where you were SOL if you couldn’t hit three rapid precision shots on a moving target? 

Do you really want to combine those things?? 

Pretty much the same. We knew the nerf was coming, Bungie talked about looking into Divinity long before Salta made a mess on twitter so it was always going to happen. I personally don't think lovering debuff to half (from 30% to 15%) was necessary, but Bungie ran the numbers and settled on that. We won't know the true effect of this until it ships next season so I won't go into speculation on how it will work. Divinity will still very much be useful.

But yeah, the way it was phrased is really grating on me. It was almost word for word what Salta said. Like, it's an obvious reference. That part of Salta's twitter thread was the core issue for me; he framed the conversation around "aim" and "content is too easy" which obviously pissed people off. Had he omitted those arguments, people probably would've mostly been fine with his ideas. But the framing around those arguments turned it very ugly. At best, it's just mocking lower skilled players, at worst it's inciting ableism and gatekeeping.

So seeing that as an argument in the TWAB was ... not good for me. I'm fine with everything else, it went more or less as expected.

I have an idea that Hippy (the community manager that wrote the TWAB) copied Salta's tweet to make a point to the audience on twitter that's been harassing devs again over "not listening to their players" and "only listening to casuals." By copying a tweet from a pro hardcore player, she was able to prove both of those points wrong. The dev harassment got really bad with Eager Edge nerf so.

Or she just copied it without thinking too much of it and Bungie agrees with Salta's overall reasoning. No clue. I definitely would've preferred if they didn't encourage the pervasive idea in gaming that aim is the only thing that matters and that players who have issues with that for whatever reason are lesser, inferior and don't deserve to play games. That sort of thinking always ends up in ableism. I wish Bungie didn't encourage that gatekeepy and exclusionary language.

No drawbacks? Are we ignoring that the person running Divinity is not doing dps?

Divinity buffs others because the person running Divinity is not doing dps. If the buff is too small, then running Divinity makes no sense. It would be better for the sixth person in the team to just run dps, even if they miss, or at least rocket launchers. Because of this, Div is really not that good in anything other than raids (or any activity with more than 3 people). The drawback is that it's niche, it pulls one person out of dps and requires them to sacrifice all other weapon utilities and damage because Div occupies an energy slot and special ammo. You have to use a primary kinetic and non-exotic heavy that you probably won't get to use on anything other than add clear before the boss. Running Div is such a drawback that most gamers are pissing and shitting when they have to use it.

It's also an exotic raid weapon that you have to do a special quest for. I thought working to earn something should be rewarded.

And yes, it's not strange that it's been largely used as an accessibility tool. Since it buffs damage, that means that the rest of the team can do sufficient dps even if they don't have god roll weapons (which is often something new players and new raiders don't have). It also means that you can have someone on Divinity and a few people on their god rolls while someone else can run something they feel more comfortable with even if they have god rolls (I personally heavily dislike linears and feel more comfortable on Witherhoard and rocket launcher, it's my comfort loadout that makes me feel less anxious about messing up in a raid and anxiety is also a disability).

Since it creates a bubble on the target and hitting the bubble acts like hitting crits, it helps people who have trouble aiming, or issues with their vision, or issues with their motor skills. It also helps when the boss is exceptionally wiggly (Atheon) or when you have to stand beneath the boss and hit a crit on his head (Taniks). It also helps when the crit spot on the boss is BIZARRE and incredibly finicky to hit (Golgoroth). I genuinely cannot see shit on Golgoroth. I either suggest Div or run Div myself because at least if everybody misses, whatever shots do hit, will do extra damage. It cuts down my time in Golgoroth's rancid soup pit by 2 damage phases.

It's unsurprising that a lot of people run Divinity to help players with various issues and disabilities. It's 100% a weapon that many disabled people see as their saving grace.

The aggressive calls for a nerf (out of nowhere?) are steeped in ableist talking points. Salta himself started his essay by saying that one of the most important things in the game should be aim and that aim should matter and that Divinity removes the need for aim. This is incredibly ableist since, as I've noted, it takes two seconds to realise that there are people who struggle with aiming due to a wide range of disabilities. So saying "aim should matter" is basically a shorthand to say "if you can't aim, you don't deserve to raid." This is insane.

After that, Salta moved on and said he wouldn't remove the crit bubble so that can stay and we can have our aim help (thank you big content creator for your mercy), but that the debuff has to go because it's too much and makes the boss fight boring (boring for who?). Again, this talking point entirely ignores a large section of the players who just don't feel comfortable running certain weapons and the damage buff helps them. It also helps people who are new to the game and haven't been grinding god rolls for three years or are unable to grind current activities that would give them those god rolls. Not everyone has a team to run Duality consistently in 20 minutes every day. I'm fine running Duality, but I don't like the visual mess of the Nightmare realm and the snapping of the camera when dunking standards (I am prone to motion sickness).

I'm saying this to illustrate just how many possible problems people can have that you may have never thought about or even knew existed. This is identical to how dismissive people are of real life disabilities and accommodations that disabled people need.

And ultimately, sometimes I just want to get the raid done and I use Div to cut it short. People have lives outside of the game. Most players' job isn't to play Destiny for a living. You can be perfectly abled and want to use Divinity to make raids an hour long instead of three. Why this should be anyone's problem is beyond me.

Well, first, moving the crit spot is a huge help in of itself. That alone turns the weapon into something incredibly helpful.

But outside of that, the debuff is instrumental with helping players who have a hard time playing for long periods of time. This help is two-fold. First, players with disabilities tend to generally not have a lot of time to play; disabilities come with various pains and issues that prevent you from spending 8 hours in the game every day. Players who can't exactly play every day due to various disabilities and issues will be less likely to have a surplus of god roll weapons and options to choose from. If you don't have the best weapons, your damage can be lacking and sometimes entirely insufficient. Divinity debuff helps with that. With the debuff (and a more accessible crit spot), suddenly not having the best heavy linear fusion isn't so much of a problem.

On top of that, it helps with damage from shots that don't miss. Yes, Divinity bubble is large and the crit spot is easy to hit, but even with that, some people still have a hard time hitting all of their shots. Any shots that they do hit will do increased damage which helps. Sometimes missing the crit bubble is not even anything you can really prevent as some bosses move a lot and some of them have swarming adds running towards you and either flinching you or eating your shots. My tracking rockets and supers have entirely missed not just the Divinity bubble, but whole bosses (Warpriest straight up jiggling out of the way behind a rock.....). The debuff makes sure that whatever you do hit, possibly with less effective weapons, will do enough damage.

The second way it helps is that some people just don't feel comfortable doing dps or don't like it and can't contribute in a way that matters. Divinity is an option for those players to use instead. A disabled person that struggles doing dps on bosses can instead use Divinity. Divinity is very accessible to use; you don't need superb aim to activate the bubble and apply the debuff and you are also only required to focus on one thing during dps. A lot of disabled people have a hard time juggling multiple roles during dps on top of actually hitting their shots for maximum damage output. By using Divinity, they can contribute and they also help other members of their team, thus feeling more useful and having a role during the part of the activity that they may struggle with otherwise.

There are also other specific niche situation. I've mentioned Golgoroth before. Divinity doesn't exactly help a lot with the crit spot on Golgoroth. However, it does apply the debuff so whatever he's being hit with, even if it's not optimal, will do increased damage. This is from personal experience: I have an incredibly difficult time seeing things during the dps phase on Golgoroth. His crit spot is in his stomach and he moves. It's very difficult to see if you have problems with vision, which I do. The colour of the arena also doesn't help and neither does the visual clutter of Golgoroth's venom and unstable light debuff + the swarming adds that flinch (or Taken phalanxes that boop you). I love using Div for Golgoroth! It means I don't have to worry about hitting the crit spot myself and I buff damage for those around me who are better at hitting his crit spot than me. It's very relieving to know that I can just take Div and be useful if I'm having especially hard time doing enough dps.

Another perhaps niche situation is that for a lot of disabled people, gaming tends to be focused on familiarity and habit. Some people learn to use some weapons better and have a hard time being told to swap, leading to decreased damage output. For example, I've mentioned before, but I have a "comfort" loadout which isn't exactly the best dps-wise; Witherhoard, Funnelweb and my crafted auto-loading rocket launcher. I can quickly swap between these weapons and minimise reload time (reloading bothers me a lot). If I have to take something else, I start messing up. I swap in the wrong order, I missclick things, I miss shots. This increases anxiety. For some, it may straight up not be possible to use "better" weapons instead of their own comfort weapons that they are familiar with; various motor skill issues and various disabilities tied to hands and hand-eye coordination can make it almost entirely impossible for someone to just switch to the meta loadout. This means that someone is likely to be using a less optimal dps option due to their disability. Div debuff helps make that person not entirely useless because the debuff increases damage of their less optimal loadout.

It may seem like these situations are few and far between and not very common, but they are not. There are hundreds of other situations that I don't even know about that affect players with various disabilities and ruin their experience with the game AND their chances to attempt certain activities, as well as to improve. If you can't start, you can't train to improve. A lot of accessibility options aren't even needed forever! Sometimes people move past them, but they are essential at least for the beginning to ease people into the activity and help them while they're struggling the most.

With that said, I don't really think slightly nerfind the debuff percentage would be very noticeable. It currently gives 30% debuff. If it were 20% or 15%, it would still be a useful weapon for the purpose of accessibility and those that need it would likely not notice a significant difference. I don't see how that nerf is entirely needed, but if so, decreasing the debuff % is fine with me. Outright removing it entirely not so much.

Again, not something I think is an incredible priority; Divinity is still a special raid exotic and only about 5% of the population even have it (and who knows how many are using it regularly; I use mine very sporadically). But if Bungie has data to prove that it needs tuning (and they said they will look into it long before this drama), slightly decreasing the debuff wouldn't be the worst outcome. I wish this discussion didn't start by people insisting that "aim should matter more" and "not everyone should be able to complete activities." It leaves an incredibly sour taste in everyone's mouth. By telling people that Divinity "trivialises aim," those who have a hard time raiding even with Div can feel understandably upset and excluded from the conversation, especially when their "bad aim" is a result of something they have no control over.

One thing that I agree with Salta over this is when he said that he thinks raid boss health would need to be looked at if they remove the debuff entirely. Some bosses really have unreasonably high health and it makes boss fights tedious with very little variety in what can be done during the dps phase. People also feel like Divinity is necessary for those bosses because they don't want to do 4 rotations of mechanics to finish the boss; prolonged encounters increase the chance of fatigue and deaths, wasting rezes and leading to wipes and having to start over. This is also especially problematic for people with disabilities who may need more breaks and may have a hard time focusing on an encounter for too long. Any option that shortens the strain on players with disabilities is good in my book.

Yep, I wonder the same. People always think about disability as something that doesn't affect them, but even if you're perfectly healthy, there is one thing that's inevitable: aging. You will age and you will need accommodations. They also seem to think about "disability" as just some incredibly devastating diseases, but anything as simple as anxiety or bad eyesight is a disability when it comes to gaming. The argument always seems to be dismissive of disabilities because they seem to think that disabled gamers are rare. Which is simply not true.

Got a few more asks so I'll answer them beneath the cut!

ime i love playing Stag warlock bc i love being able to weaken enemies while providing healing+DR to my allies

I get tired way easier nowadays thanks to covid and my brain.fog is at an all time high due to it

being able to help my teammates & contribute makes me feel way better and not have to worry about migraines or such effecting their dps

True! Being a support should not be frowned upon or dismissed. The game allows for that fantasy (though it needs a lot more love) and some people enjoy that a lot.

It's also hypocritical when people want to be buffed and supported but also sneer at and dismiss support players. I've been through this in every single video game with an online component. Everybody wants those sweet buffs but at the same time think of support players as lesser. Y'all wouldn't be doing those big numbers without the support players giving you buffs and keeping you alive.

Also given that during a sandbox interview right after the Lightfall reveal, Bungie said Div was a little "out of band" and wanted to reign it in, if a nerf DOES happen to it then I think its clear that Salta wasn't the one who caused it (though he did not do anything to help lmao). I personally think removing the crit bubble is ludicrous and would kill the identity of the weapon. I think reducing the debuff's effect to allow Void to embrace that roll would be a decent tradeoff. A tether or a Warlock with Contraverse can keep that Weaken Effect going for the whole DPS phase if they manage it right. Beyond that, maybe a reduction in reserve ammo.

Bottom line, its a support/utility that doubles as an accessibility tool, it should keep that identity, if Bungie wants to notch it down to allow more breathing room for other support and utility I think that's fine as long as the identity remains, and listening to a fucking 3 times in a row worlds first winner complain about wanting to aim more and blaming the assist weapons when Oryx has a crit spot bigger than the fucking Div bubble makes me eternally thankful I dont use Twitter

Yeah, Rhulk is a really interesting example in that he's a really dynamic boss fight with a lot of movement that discourages standing still in a well and spamming Div at him, but that maneuverability also means that a lot of dps will miss. No matter how good you are, sometimes he will just zip past you and then goodbye dps.

I've personally done plenty of Rhulk without Div, it's not too bad, but it's also very useful for a wiggly target like him. I definitely agree that people would enjoy this boss fight less without Div.

As a void main, I would love for void to have more boss debuff abilities and would love to see some diversity in our options for debuffs and boss damage. I agree that some minor nerf to the debuff % would probably be okay and most people wouldn't even notice. Giving us more tools to choose from would be great. Either putting them on void for the debuff identity or making more weapons like this. Another very much needed option is an overall different approach to raid boss fights. Rhulk proved that a moving target is fine, but there are problems with that as well. It's an ongoing game dev struggle.

This discussion could've been held with much less whining and much less emphasis on the importance of aim in raids, definitely. I genuinely don't even understand that, raids for me are about mechanics and six people working together, not clicking on a boss. It's really not surprising that a lot of people were taken aback by how the discussion was posted as an objective read on the difficulty of raids. "Divinity makes raids too easy" is a take that is simply not relatable to anyone outside of the streamer circle.