Something that Bungie (and all devs) could learn from DE... (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, May 03, 2016, 17:00 (2907 days ago) @ Cody Miller

How it could be applied to Destiny:
An in-game Grimoire has always been the obvious answer, but more importantly, an opt-in feature for matchmaking. One of the biggest issues with Destiny has always been that if you're not in a pre-made fireteam, you're mostly SOL when it comes to finding people to play with. If you don't have existing friends or an LFG, Destiny can be a very lonely experience, and folks don't stick with the game for too long because of it.

The could be a kind of player connector sure. What about a kiosk in the tower where you can, if you choose, list yourself as looking for friends? You can leave your information such as skill level, desired play time, when you can play, etc. You could then search for other players fitting your criteria and send them a friend request and start playing together.

Or you could opt-in to matchmaking for stuff like Story missions and the like. It'd be great if you could see how many active fireteams were in a game/looking for a game in any particular mission that you already completed, and join in on them to help them out. They could even review your participation (if the people in the game all declared you as "friendly" and "helpful" it could help you work towards some rewards, even (similar to the refer-a-friend).

How it could be applied to Destiny:
This is where Bungie falters. They punish the players for outwitting the design or being too good, and though they've definitely learned a few lessons when it comes to bosses, Guardians have steadily gotten nerfed since the game launched. Bungie could instead focus on the enemies themselves rather than hurting players in order to add challenge. Imagine if your Bladedancer could actually kill a decent number of enemies with a single super. Imagine if instead of nerfing Gjallarhorn, they had made it so that enemies could counter it (Taken Vandals already do a good job of it with their expertly-timed drop shields).

First of all, game rules should be consistent, so having an enemy that has a counter to a specific gun would just feel cheap. If it can counter all rockets, than I guess that could work. But singling out particular weapons just does;t feel like a good solution.

I definitely meant that they could counter all rockets. Something to give you incentive to try other methods and such. What if a special heavy Cabal enemy had a gravity gun that could catch and return rockets and other projectiles, but not energy-based weapons (Fusion Rifles, IceBreaker, etc.). You'd have less incentive to use Gjallarhorn, as it would lead to the wolfpack hunting you, but Fusion Rifles would have a definite advantage.

How it could be applied to Destiny:
The environments in Destiny are painfully stale. Other than the enemies (and the rare, but mostly pointless turret), there is nothing interactive about the environments. Bungie somewhat addressed this by making Taken variants of existing strikes, but for the most part, a mission will always play out exactly the same. The only exceptions are the final knights in the Sunless Cell strike if you're doing the sword quest, and the Pikes that might show up on the moon if someone brought one into your instance. There aren't enough interactive elements to the levels, and the game would be better if there were.

Given that the game has such strong FPS elements, it makes sense that the environments are conducive to shooting elements. Destiny is not an RPG like Deus Ex. Such a game requires more sophisticated types of interactions with the environments. I'm not really sure Destiny needs much interaction beyond what would enhance the shooting since it's not that type of game.

I don't see how it couldn't be. What if you used your Ghost to activate an old crane that you could climb to get a better vantage point if you like Sniping and want to hit enemies hiding in cover while your teammates push up? What if a swarm of Vandals broke through a sewer behind you, making you surrounded, but giving you a new alternate path through the area that would benefit shotgun-wielding players? There are tons of ways to add interactivity that would help Destiny as a team-based shooter.

How it could be applied to Destiny:
Bumping the Light Level every once in a while does nothing for players who want an actual challenge, and so we're left running Raids HUDless, or with specific weapons only, or other stuff, which is fun, but there is no content in the game that recognizes playing with such handicaps or anything.

I think once you have to resort to things like that to keep things interesting, you've pretty much mastered the game. At which point it's fine to just stop. There's nothing wrong with that. 100 days!

Or you can keep playing because you like the game, and you like working towards cosmetic stuff.

How it could be applied to Destiny:
Destiny needs more small stuff to do while we wait for the big stuff.

I thought I agreed at first. The big stuff is the stuff worth playing. So why spend the time to make stuff that's not as cool before we get cool stuff? Why play the not as cool stuff, instead of just waiting for the big stuff?

Maybe because the game is fun, and it's fun to play with friends.
If you like the game's mechanics, and you enjoy playing with your friends, doing lots of little stuff is perfectly fine. You're essentially saying "why bother playing Reach once you've beaten it on Legendary? You've mastered the game, there's no point to keep playing it!"
People like to play for different reasons, and smaller stuff gives folks lots of reasons to hop on and play with friends, as well as helping the overall value of the game. You seem to wish that Destiny only launched with a Tutorial, a Raid, and then nothing until the next Raid came out. Where's the fun/value in that?