[2021] Let's get ahead of this before it becomes even more rampant. Bungie, we do not want random rolls on Exotics.

Originally posted by lronManDies

Random rolls on an exotic once in a blue moon are fine, having one each season is a no from me

Originally posted by refrigeratrix

Things I like about randomly rolled exotics:

The primary reason I like them is that I like being able to have additional specialisation on my workhorse weapons. Both Hawkmoon and Dead Man's Tale are extremely versatile primary weapons even without their third perk: Hawkmoon is a 140rpm hand cannon, probably the most popular archetype of weapon in the game. Dead Man's Tale has higher impact than the 150rpm archetype of scouts and also a lower zoom, so unlike other scouts it's now a lot more competitive with pulses, hand cannons and bows as a long range primary that can also hit hard.

At base, neither of these weapons are 'weak', nor are they not 'exotic.' Take No Distractions off Izanagi's, as an example, and you don't lose the main draw of Izanagi's: massive burst damage that trades off ammo efficiency for being able to punch way above its weight class for a special weapon. Similarly, the collections roll of Hawkmoon still has its headshot stacking minigame and its massive damage final bullet. Dead Man's Tale is still the only scout rifle in its weight class and has a completely unique reload method for its weapon class.

But all the perks these weapons can roll just make them a bit better at certain specific jobs than their base counterparts. Let's take Dead Man's Tale as an example:

• Subsistence and Outlaw make up for DMT's poor crowd control capability. Its main weakness over other scouts is having to reload 2 bullets at a time, instead of $MAGSIZE, and both perks effectively make up for this. If the datamined perk is accurate, grabbing some stacks of the perk and then mowing down crowds with superpowered hip-fire bullets seems amazing with this perk. (while you're here please tell me what the hip-fire RPM with catalyst is and if it changes the damage profile)
• Snapshot, Moving Target and Killing Wind are all PvP-focussed gunfeel perks. If you're really insistent on being able to take lanes quickly or just want faster ADS, Snapshot's the play. Moving Target will tack on even more aim assist to an already very sticky gun, and Killing Wind just makes every gun feel better with snappier handling, faster strafe and increased AA for a short time.
• Vorpal Weapon and Fourth Time's the Charm are both PvE perks for dealing with majors using Cranial Spike. With Anti-Barrier Scout Rifle being in the seasonal rotation, Vorpal Weapon combined with Cranial Spike and the inherent damage bonus from Anti-Barrier Rounds will make the gun a Legendary Lost Sector mainstay. Fourth Time's the Charm will give it an effectively bottomless mag in similar situations for more prolonged DPS.

Sure, Dead Man's Tale can do all of these jobs without these perks. But if you want to make the weapon better at one of these roles, you can grab exactly the perk you need for that. I think it's unfair to say that none of these perks have thought put into them without also, say, trashing all of the Black Armory exotics for only having one exotic perk.

Let's use Izanagi's as another compare-and-contrast here: with how high flinch is in PvE, No Distractions is very useful for making sure you don't waste your Honed Edge bullet. In PvP, though, I would prefer to have Snapshot Sights since I like aggressive sniping instead of holding down a lane. With Dead Man's Tale, I might effectively have one for every occasion: a Vorpal Weapon roll for PvE content, and a Killing Wind roll for PvP.

Emphasis here on 'might.'

Things I don't:

Hawkmoon is almost as random as any other legendary weapon in the game. Dead Man's Tale is exactly as random as any other legendary weapon in the game. This feels pretty bad for two reasons.

1. Farming these missions takes a lot more effort and for the majority of the playerbase will likely require other players to be around, making it a scheduling burden as well. Sure, I can solo the current, non-Heroic version relatively easily, but I'm also 1% of 1% of the playerbase in terms of gearing and time invested. My opinion of the difficulty of farming this is likely very different from what a player who did not grind out a solo flawless Prophecy is going to think.
2. For Dead Man's Tale specifically, only being able to get 1/week (not even /character) also makes it incredibly unlikely to get even the perk you want in a reasonable amount of time. You lose almost all of the main draw of a random exotic in the first place: getting the specialisation you want.

At the very least, getting a roll with a specific perk, not even counting barrel/mag/stock, should be much easier than it is. (To a degree, I'm fine with these secondary stats being difficult to get because they're not really the main draw of each roll: other players might value them more, though, and I think those concerns are totally valid.) I would like to see two changes, to this end:

1. Raise the cap on how many you can get per week. If you only get one shot at the 1/7th chance of getting one part of a roll you want, that feels pretty terrible, especially with how relatively difficult it is to get it. These missions are also challenging enough that I can see much of the playerbase not wanting to run them if they don't get a reward, which makes scheduling runs for these exotics even more difficult as people race for early timeslots.
2. Have two perks per slot, per roll. Having two perks per slot would lean further into the appeal of having a modular exotic and also take a lot of the sting out of the extremely harsh RNG. There's also precedent for this behaviour with other exotics: SUROS Regime has a similar gimmick of being able to swap between two modes; Queensbreaker can swap between a PvP quick-charge mode and a PvE high-damage mode from the inventory.

If the regular missions were uncapped, I could see Heroic missions dropping a limited number of these two-perk variants being a viable option. Right now, though, I would want them on rolls obtained from any source, because the combination of these two factors is pretty dire as far as respecting player time goes.

tl;dr: I'm fine with having these as an extremely limited treat, and I would strongly prefer them to be limited to the rewards for special, instanced content like Harbinger or Presage.

Destiny is not suffering for loot to chase. Between the need to replace old gear and all the amazing new gear, there's so many weapons competing for my time that it needs to be much more efficient than it is to farm any weapon period. Sure, you might be able to get the weapon you want guaranteed (something which was lost in the Umbral system from Arrivals to now), but the appeal of random rolls is totally gone if you can't get the perk on said weapon, either (something also sorely missing from this season's Umbral system.) Right now, I would be pretty non-plussed about another random roll exotic if this was the rate at which we got them.

That said, in this particular case I think it would also be really easy and well-precedented to tweak simple things from these missions to make them feel much more respectful of player time. You guys have made changes like this in the past -- the overhaul of RNG on raid exotics -- and have also come up with new, really good reward structures, like the Spoils of Conquest chest from Deep Stone Crypt. I'm really hopeful that the content we have now get changed soon with the feedback here; certainly I think any future random-rolled exotics on the drawing board should take this into account.