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Harrow posted:Also, the exotic items are pretty good. They often change just enough about how that weapon type/your character abilities work that they feel special and which exotics to use becomes an interesting choice. So good work on those, Bungie! You successfully made MMO gear that isn't just about higher numbers. Most MMO developers still can't pull that off, so that really is something special. There are guns I want to get because of how they handle or armor pieces I want that change how, say, my grenades or my super ability behave. Cool! This is cool and the way loot or gear should be handled. Why should I give a poo poo if grinding for gear gives me a +1% crit chance? Getting cool gear should have cool effects on your gameplay by either giving you new abilities or adding side-grade options to your already existing gameplay. Harrow posted:But then there's the Light system. Then you go ahead and implement that stupid thing. I thought it was a neat idea at first--max level is 20, but you can get above that level by equipping gear with the Light stat on it--but in practice it's pretty much just item level. Even worse, because of the way levels work in Destiny, it's an extremely rigid content gate. Bungie knew that skilled players could probably beat content five or more levels higher than their character, regardless of the stats on their gear, and to prevent that, they made level (and therefore Light level) super loving important. If you're one level lower than an NPC target, you do 30% less damage. Two levels lower, 40% less. Three levels, 50% less. Four levels or more? Can't even scratch them. So it's pretty loving obvious that they don't want you fighting enemies that are a higher level than you, like, at all, ever. This is terrible and is like the opposite of fun game design. I would like to see someone try and defend this system because it sounds really bad. And hiding bad arbitrary game mechanics that severely inhibit your ability to play without explaining it to you is even worse. Designing content that only the elite of the elite of your players are going to progress through and experience because they spent the 200 hours grinding proper gear is terrible. Content should be accessible to the average player because that's the majority of who's buying and playing your game despite how much the elite players bitch about casuals ruining the experience.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:33
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:seriously most MMOs are more exciting to level in than destiny is yeah i'm starting to grind strikes because i hit 20 on all my characters and the fun is quickly drying up. there's some interesting design here, but i don't think the traditional mmo style bosses work in an fps with ammo, because it basically makes every boss fight feel very samey. they all have to have waves of dudes spawning so players can restock on ammo. it's basically what i was worried would happen. i haven't raided yet or followed the destiny thread so i don't know what raids are like.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:33
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SarutosZero posted:This is terrible and is like the opposite of fun game design. I would like to see someone try and defend this system because it sounds really bad. And hiding bad arbitrary game mechanics that severely inhibit your ability to play without explaining it to you is even worse. Perhaps the most egregious part is that the raid that is gated behind this Light level grind is really cool. It legitimately requires a team of six skilled and coordinated players to beat. There are some creative mechanics, and it does a good job blending the MMO raid thing with satisfying FPS gameplay. Nice job, Bungie! Now imagine how sweet that would be if it really was just a matter of being a good enough team to pull it off. But no: you have to be both a good enough team to pull it off and have been playing for long enough to have enough Light to get into the raid and damage the enemies within. That's really frustrating! It's satisfying to work towards items that are unique, fun, and change how you play (exotics). If it was a matter of working toward the exotics that you feel you need in order to play the way you need to in order to beat the raid, that'd be really cool. And I love the way they designed the other three equipment stats, because they're all about cooldown reduction. It's not that Discipline makes your grenade do more damage: it lets you use it more often. Your numbers don't get higher, you just get to do more cool stuff, more often. I really like that! But Light trumps all. If you get gear with higher Light on it, it is unequivocally better, even if it has Strength on it and you really want a lot of Intellect so you can use your super more often. Too bad! Light is all that really matters.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:56
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i just started getting into the light grind and yeah. i haven't even queued for the daily strike thing because it's level 22 and i'm level 20 and i'd just be useless. i can't wait to get to 22 and then have level 19 people show up in my level 22 strikes.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:00
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To be fair, I get why Light exists. Destiny follows an MMO-ish model (maybe closer to Phantasy Star Online), and that means the real content of the game is other players. So you want player retention: you want to keep as many people as you can playing for as long as you can, because it draws more people in and it's self-perpetuating. But content like maps, strikes, raids, and missions take time and money to develop, so you buy yourself time by gating the content that's already there. You basically make it so a player has to stick around a certain amount of time in order to play new content so that you have the development time to make more stuff for them to do after that. The problem with this in Destiny is that it's an action game, so level-gated content feels even more arbitrary--a very reasonable player might ask, "If I'm a good enough player to do this without higher stats, why can't I at least have a fair shot?" Add to that the rigidity of the level-gating and people chafe against it. (Again, I should stress that I play and enjoy Destiny and that I think it has the foundations to grow into something really great, but I just really hope Bungie knows how loving stupid some of their decisions were. This isn't even touching the utter lack of social features, too.)
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Sep 18, 2014 17:12
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Harrow posted:To be fair, I get why Light exists. Destiny follows an MMO-ish model (maybe closer to Phantasy Star Online), and that means the real content of the game is other players. So you want player retention: you want to keep as many people as you can playing for as long as you can, because it draws more people in and it's self-perpetuating. some decisions were dumb, yeah. It's not an incredible game but it is pretty fun and the pvp is good fun as well. Like halo though it's going to turn into the game that people circlejerk over because it's popular and not a masterpiece.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:15
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it blows my mind how loving stupid that level gating thing is
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Sep 18, 2014 17:17
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loot lust is a disease, please get help
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Sep 18, 2014 17:21
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like why is there even a 10 page thread dedicated to people bitching about a game of middling quality wherein virtually nobody has actually played the game. Really weird how bungie games seem to bring out the crazies.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:22
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Harrow posted:To be fair, I get why Light exists. Destiny follows an MMO-ish model (maybe closer to Phantasy Star Online), and that means the real content of the game is other players. So you want player retention: you want to keep as many people as you can playing for as long as you can, because it draws more people in and it's self-perpetuating. It seems like you could have accomplished the same 'keep skilled players around' thing by making the content actually more challenging instead of just numbers challenging. Have harder versions of the same dungeons you can do but with different trap, environmental, or enemy layouts instead. Make it so you can add modifiers to your dungeon run kind of like the skulls systems from halo games. Beating these things gives you cosmetic options, badges, or things that are neat and cool but aren't requirements to grind before you go to the next dungeon. That way everyone can experience the content as their skill progression allows but gives those who want a harder challenge an actual harder challenge instead of a numbers challenge. I do hope Destiny gets improved through patches and the like if only for the reason that its a series we are going to be seeing for probably the next 10 years.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:23
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SarutosZero posted:It seems like you could have accomplished the same 'keep skilled players around' thing by making the content actually more challenging instead of just numbers challenging. Have harder versions of the same dungeons you can do but with different trap, environmental, or enemy layouts instead. Make it so you can add modifiers to your dungeon run kind of like the skulls systems from halo games. Beating these things gives you cosmetic options, badges, or things that are neat and cool but aren't requirements to grind before you go to the next dungeon. That way everyone can experience the content as their skill progression allows but gives those who want a harder challenge an actual harder challenge instead of a numbers challenge. They actually have a lot of the things you mentioned. Harder versions of strikes often do have different enemy layouts, smarter enemies, and more aggressive enemies, and Nightfall versions have modifiers almost exactly like the skulls system from Halo. It's not extensively used yet, but it's there. Plus, the raid is actually, legitimately challenging, and would be so even without arbitrary level/number differences. It's very well-made. It's just all level gated, too. It's like they designed a really cool game and then someone said, "Yes, but MMOs have <design decision> so we have to, too." I agree with you entirely: having cosmetic rewards for extremely skilled players would be awesome, and including more and more of those skull modifiers, and have strikes that include some of the creative mechanics that the raid features. (Also implement voice chat for matchmade strikes, so that players can coordinate to do those cool mechanics, but that's on the "really anemic social features" side of things rather than the arbitrary level gating side of things.)
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Sep 18, 2014 17:37
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there are plenty of social features, such as being able to see what clan you are in under your username and nothing else
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Sep 18, 2014 17:54
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PantsBandit posted:like why is there even a 10 page thread dedicated to people bitching about a game of middling quality wherein virtually nobody has actually played the game. Really weird how bungie games seem to bring out the crazies. All of my complaints are being made after playing the game a good amount. Silver Striker posted:there are plenty of social features, such as being able to see what clan you are in under your username and nothing else Yeah I don't even know why they included clans at this point. Was it that difficult to have a clan member list like friends and local or is it like that by design?
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Sep 18, 2014 18:23
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I think Mass Effect 3 multi is a fun version of what Destiny is trying to be.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:32
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Yeah I don't even know why they included clans at this point. Was it that difficult to have a clan member list like friends and local or is it like that by design? It's impossible to tell. Apparently the whole no voice chat thing is by design as well as the grimoire being out of game. With how baffling those choices are, who knows if the clan system is deliberate or just unimplemented. Edit - Agreed on ME3 multiplayer. Wish Bioware would just release a pure ME3 multiplayer game. Pinely fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 18:40
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:All of my complaints are being made after playing the game a good amount. ok but you also called Alpha Protocol a subpar game soooo
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Sep 18, 2014 18:43
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PantsBandit posted:ok but you also called Alpha Protocol a subpar game soooo its hard to argue with this on a mechanical level
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Sep 18, 2014 18:48
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01011001 posted:its hard to argue with this on a mechanical level Yeah, alpha protocol is definitely sub par. I love the story and dialog, but it would probably be more enjoyable as an interactive novel than the gameplay it launched with.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:55
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The intermittent comparisons to PSO are sort of making me want to play this, but the other stuff- mainly that Light garbage- is a major turn-off. I can't imagine how frustrating that poo poo must be as a player getting matched into a higher level, not to mention the other players that you're now bringing down purely due to a lovely stroke of luck
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Sep 18, 2014 18:55
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Schnedwob posted:The intermittent comparisons to PSO are sort of making me want to play this, but the other stuff- mainly that Light garbage- is a major turn-off. I can't imagine how frustrating that poo poo must be as a player getting matched into a higher level, not to mention the other players that you're now bringing down purely due to a lovely stroke of luck well, you only get matched like that if you choose to do so. it's entirely voluntary, but i don't think it should be an option for players who are basically useless from a numerical standpoint to be able to queue for something. that being said, i know for a fact that people would complain just as much or more if they locked the queue option until you were that level so 
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Sep 18, 2014 18:57
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Silver Striker posted:well, you only get matched like that if you choose to do so. it's entirely voluntary, but i don't think it should be an option for players who are basically useless from a numerical standpoint to be able to queue for something. that being said, i know for a fact that people would complain just as much or more if they locked the queue option until you were that level so ahhh, okay. that's slightly less lovely. I'm still wondering, though, why they thought it would be a good idea to negate 100% of the damage below a certain light level. like the half-damage sucks, sure, but at least you can still do stuff
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Sep 18, 2014 19:01
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Light sounds like a really good mechanic to ensure you can always play a coop console shooter with your friends who may have different schedules and availability to grind.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:10
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SarutosZero posted:Light sounds like a really good mechanic to ensure you can always play a coop console shooter with your friends who may have different schedules and availability to grind. There's nothing locking you out of grouping with a friend 10 levels lower than you so I see no reason to use the mechanic to gimp yourself while playing with a lower level friend.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:18
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:There's nothing locking you out of grouping with a friend 10 levels lower than you so I see no reason to use the mechanic to gimp yourself while playing with a lower level friend. I meant it as a joke but a coop designed shooter that has arbitrary gates on content seems un-conducive to playing with friends. And the big buzz with the game is that "the game doesn't start until after level 20" so it doesn't seem that fun to intentionally go back to lower level content and play stuff "before the real game starts." And if you do go to your buddy's game you're going to have way higher numbers on your gear so you are just going to trivialize his content. And its not like he can play with you because he hasn't done the appropriate amount of grinding. City of Heroes had a system that fixed this and that game came out like 10 years ago. You could either autoscale down to your buddy's level so the missions would be challenging to you both or he could autoscale up to your level and do your stuff without being a waste of space. If it was just a characters level thing a system like this could mostly fix the not being able to play equally with your friend thing but since there is loot level gating you can't really do it. e; The only reason I would play Destiny would be to play with my friends since the endgame content requires coordinated groups of players. Loot gating poo poo or making you useless in fights because your loot level isn't high enough makes it harder to play with friends. Orthodox Rabbit fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 19:29
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That spergy poo poo aside I hope destiny improves a bunch through patches and content additions cause it sounds like it could turn into a really fun game
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Sep 18, 2014 19:43
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Schnedwob posted:ahhh, okay. that's slightly less lovely. I'm still wondering, though, why they thought it would be a good idea to negate 100% of the damage below a certain light level. like the half-damage sucks, sure, but at least you can still do stuff Light doesn't come in until you reach max level. It's ostensibly a way to level beyond the maximum (20), but in practice it's pretty much just MMORPG-style item level but only one number actually matters. It's a pain, but (to me, at least) it isn't a complete game-killer. Destiny is structurally a lot like PSO. If the idea of playing Halo mixed with PSO appeals, you could do a lot worse than give Destiny a shot. Just know that once you hit level 20, there'll be one stat that's inarguably more important than any other, and you'll have to start collecting tokens and increasing faction reputation to get legendary gear to increase it. (Don't worry--faction "grinds" in Destiny aren't steep at all and are only going to feel like a real grind if you decide you have to be raiding within a week of starting to play the game.) Do yourself a favor and don't try to farm for good drops--unidentified items in Destiny are even more of a gamble than they are in most other games. You should think of them as pulls on a slot machine, not as a reliable route to gearing up. Also PvP is a surprisingly good way to level quickly and gain good gear in the process. And honestly I do think it'll grow into a really great game eventually. If you feel like getting in on the ground floor of a game that's mostly pretty fun but hasn't yet explored most of its potential, go ahead. I'm still enjoying it, despite some of the stupider decisions Bungie made. My opinion may change if a month or two goes by and Bungie hasn't even acknowledged the lack of social features, but until then I'm overall fairly positive on it. I at least felt like I got my $60 worth already.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:56
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Thank you for the realpost words on Destiny. I wasn't really interested in playing it after everything I've heard but now I will at least see if it gets better in the future months.
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Sep 18, 2014 20:02
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Harrow posted:Light doesn't come in until you reach max level. It's ostensibly a way to level beyond the maximum (20), but in practice it's pretty much just MMORPG-style item level but only one number actually matters. It's a pain, but (to me, at least) it isn't a complete game-killer. poo poo, this actually sounds pretty alright. If it ends up coming to PC I'll probably get it.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:05
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Harrow posted:Light doesn't come in until you reach max level. It's ostensibly a way to level beyond the maximum (20), but in practice it's pretty much just MMORPG-style item level but only one number actually matters. It's a pain, but (to me, at least) it isn't a complete game-killer. Counterpoint: levels, loot, and leveling mechanics in fpsaction games are dumb/bad
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Sep 18, 2014 23:07
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light being your gear score/ilvl is prob the best comparison
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Sep 19, 2014 00:52
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Schnedwob posted:poo poo, this actually sounds pretty alright. If it ends up coming to PC I'll probably get it. Waiting for PC is a good call. I'd be willing to bet if there ends up being a PC version it'll come after a lot of the issues are ironed out, sort of like how the console versions of Diablo III came after the worst of that game's fuckery was dealt with. The core is there and it feels good to play, but it really does have a lot of work that needs to be done.
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Sep 19, 2014 01:39
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it's sounding like destiny is making a lot of the same mistakes borderlands 2 made
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Sep 19, 2014 02:24
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AHungryRobot posted:it's sounding like destiny is making a lot of the same mistakes borderlands 2 made eh, i'd say it's making different ones. the scaling isn't out of control and stupid like borderlands 2, and you can actually find good gear. destiny's is more on just conforming to traditional mmo/fps stuff.
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Sep 19, 2014 03:07
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at the very least, the level scaling poo poo sounds pretty dumb and very similar to the system borderlands had in place
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Sep 19, 2014 03:30
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it's pretty sad when the best boss fight in a game is the midboss from the first boss level. gg bungie
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Sep 19, 2014 04:18
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i wish pso2's localization wasn't abandoned
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Sep 19, 2014 04:27
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Minrad posted:i wish pso2's localization wasn't abandoned i wish i had time for a game like that
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Sep 19, 2014 04:52
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Minrad posted:i wish pso2's localization wasn't abandoned it was? poo poo I was kinda looking forward to that
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Sep 19, 2014 05:13
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Lemming posted:I think Mass Effect 3 multi is a fun version of what Destiny is trying to be. If Destiny ever hits the fun level of ME3Multi I will buy it immediately. In the meantime I'll just be shooting alien zombies in that game instead.
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Sep 19, 2014 06:06
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Pinely posted:Yeah, alpha protocol is definitely sub par. I love the story and dialog, but it would probably be more enjoyable as an interactive novel than the gameplay it launched with. parts of the gameplay are really fun. smgs are a blast once you get the second level of their special ability so it lasts 10 seconds and martial arts owns. i just wish the other 3 weapons were that fun, pistols are too easy/assault rifles are boring/shotguns are awful
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Sep 19, 2014 06:35
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