I like it (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, December 05, 2016, 19:53 (2691 days ago) @ SonofMacPhisto

Jason Jones talked ages ago about the idea of having players replay stuff over and over, like many of us did with Halo, except we'd be getting cool little rewards along the way.

Either the rewards will be something you care about, or they will not be.

If players don't care about the rewards, then it won't change their behavior, and the time implementing them is wasted.

However, if they do care, then you've made your game worse, as explained here.

The proper thing to do is to roll the rewards right into the game. Do not treat them as a separate thing with investment systems.

When you say "roll the rewards right into the game", I believe you're referring to things like the Gjallarhorn quest in RoI, and the Black Spindle mission in TTK? If so, I completely agree.

I don't know if this is apropos of nothing, but here goes.

I absolutely adore the National Park mechanic in Civ 6. In previous games you were rewarded for covering every tile on the map with something. Now, in Civ 6, you can hang on to a small four tile grouping (with certain features) and in the late game use a Naturalist unit to zone it off as a natural park.

There's something immensely satisfying about preserving a relatively small piece of land over hundreds of turns and creating something beautiful and unique. Hell, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it (probably has to do with how amazing the sound track gets after the Industrial Era hits). Beyond the map generation at the start of a game, there is nothing random to the act of creating National Parks. In fact, it might be one of the hardest decisions in the entire game.

Rewards right into the game, indeed.

There is something deeply rewarding about making the conscious decision to work towards something, put in the effort, succeed, and reap the reward. The Gjallarhorn quest in RoI was a bit of a "freebee", but it still had weight to it. I'm a huge fan of the Black Spindle quest because it had the charm of a "secret" mission, plus it was an intense challenge that was inherently satisfying to complete, and then you got this awesome weapon as a reward. I've talked about this before, but I like the inclusion of a task that is very difficult and not everyone will be able to pull it off. There are people out there who can say "I never did manage to get that Black Spindle"... and I find that a compelling part of the communal experience of Destiny. But the RNG equivalent doesn't hit the same chord. I never got a "God roll" Doctrine of Passing... not because I failed to complete the required challenge, but because 50 weeks of playing Trials every single weekend just wasn't enough to get the RNG to swing in my favor. THAT is a crappy feeling.

The Outbreak Prime quest was perhaps a tad too far down the rabbit hole of insanity (in terms of how long and complex it is), but I'll take that over "just play the raid over and over and over and hopefully you'll get the gun you want some day".