Numbers don’t tell the whole story. The point of that data was essentially to show that low skill players were getting most of their kills aping with shotguns and dying and then respawning with 2 ammo and doing the same. Shotguns will always be the most used secondary just like hunters will be the most used subclass (overall). But different skills and game modes have different usage stats and balancing based on total usage only is never a good thing across all skill ranges.

Because snipers got nerfed so nobody wants to use them and most fusions only get one shot when the meter fills up and conditional is still extremely powerful and you get two shots so it's kinda a no brainier to use conditional. The special changes are just stupid though they just need to go back to how it was before.

Hot take. Because fusion rifle players on average are bad and were unable to generate ammo with in the ammo transmat meter system. After all Bungie said the low skill players were not able to generate ammo and were getting more heavy weapon kills then special ammo kills. The stereo type of the "fusion rifle andy" exists for a reason. Snipers also got a double nerf with the 10% AA nerf combined with the stealth nerf to Opening Shot. So a sniper that had 92 aim assist now only has the equivalent of 73 aim assist. This is merely one of many factors that led to a rise in shotgun use. Its not that SG are overpowered its more that many factors have changed as of late. Like the sniper rifle change I mentioned or how fusion rifle players cant generate ammo in a special ammo transmat meter system because they cant generate ammo with special ammo kills any more.

[quote]I knew that shotguns were always dominant, but man the number you gave us on TWID is actually concering. You made it look fair by combining two weapons into one number to make it look fair, but that's just absurd. even before meter system shotgun had 46% of kills, while fusion and snipe had 43%. which means that both had 30% - 10% or 20% - 20% each. that's already the double difference. and after the meter shotguns had more then 76%, while sniper and fusion had 18%. that means that each weapon didn't even had 10%. That's not about skill difference or anything, it's about weapon balance. Please, just buff the other specials to be more reliable and consistent so that it can be valid options beside shotguns.[/quote] Usage is not important. Look at kills/expected or kills/usage. Fusions for example land more kills for their users than shotguns do. Shotguns just have higher usage. Balance of weapon types does not mean they will all be getting the same number of kills. Snipers have a higher reward, so they have a higher risk as well.

You’re missing a huge component of the picture. Balance never looks like how people picture it, we are really bad at mentally tracking all the variables. We make foolish assumptions like, if there are 4 guns and they are all balanced that means people will divide up between them evenly and each gun will have a 25% use rate. But that never happens. What happens is 87% use option A because the firing sound effects are cooler. Or the models, color, so many other things. Shotgun dominance isn’t exclusively a numbers thing. They also work really well with controllers, unlike snipers.

Uh no take a step back and realize that it’s gonna be more common to run a shotgun than a fusion or a sniper. Sniping albeit is easy in this game still takes some practice and fusions are niche and also free. So you can blast usage rates til you’re blue in the face but how much of that is just based on simply preference and isn’t indicative of much more than that. If they came from any another fps they’re likely to use a shotgun that’s just a common fps wep.

Yikes. [b]Numbers not being equal is not always a problem.[/b] The philosophy that you need to force them to be has produced awful metas. Players preferred play styles are not always directly determined by effectiveness. And if most people prefer using shotguns, let them. Not everyone is being "forced" cause they are so good. They have been nerfed repeatedly from where they began and remade. Even if they shoot two feet, people like that play style. Fusions work great and help players on both ends of the skill band find success. Many of us would NEVER rely on such a thing.

It would be fine if they could be buffed without being buffed into "mind of their own" territory. But when the sandbox is full of special weapons that's all that seems to happen with them. That and then people quit. Special weapons are drastically different from one another so they shouldn't be used the same amount or necessarily be encouraged to be used equally. Fusions really don't need to be treated like other special weapons since they are the worst at having minds of their own.