Better hooks (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 05, 2016, 16:52 (2697 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Cody Miller, Monday, December 05, 2016, 16:59

I'd rather get the cool toys quickly, and then spend all my time having fun with them rather than spend all my time trying to earn the cool toys and be burned out by the time I get them.

I would rather get cool toys in cool ways, then have to use those cool toys to do other cool things.

You ask why content in Destiny feels one note, and the real answer is that it has to be because of the randomness. In other games, the challenges can branch out and diversify, because the designers know that players have acquired a certain set of items and skills, which they can then force players to master in order to tackle unusual challenges by using those items and skills in skillful or unorthodox ways.

In Destiny, because nearly every single piece of gear is acquired by chance, you do not know what players will have. So everything has to be conservatively designed.

What if a boss can only be damaged by supers, yet he drains your meter completely at the start of the fight and prevents regen. Cool huh? Now you have to use skills, items, and weapons which make orbs to charge your super in order to damage him. Except you can't do anything like that, because it's possible nobody in your group would have items that can make orbs. If items had fixed perks and were acquired in specific ways, then you could know that your players have such items at their disposal.

Most good games take the mechanics, then push them as far as possible with the tools players have in order to create awesome challenges. Destiny just cannot do this, because there is no known progression to the experience.

As a side note, it's ironic that Bungie wants any combination of classes to beat the raid, yet their boss design heavily weighs favor toward nightstalker / defender / sunsinger with the invincible -> break -> burn -> repeat mechanic.