Destiny and Multiplicative Design (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, April 07, 2017, 02:34 (2570 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Also yes. "Loot economy" is just such a terrible thing that negatively impacts every game that has it. Every. Single. One.

I have no problem with the existence of a loot economy, per say... but when that loot economy is prioritized over fun gameplay discoveries, that is a problem for sure.

Which is 'always'. The very existence of a loot economy means that loot is prioritized over everything else. If it wasn't then it would not matter who got what how, and who has what now.

You can make fun gameplay discoveries on the way to loot, however.

What if a step in getting the gjallerhorn was to "beat X boss in under Y time." No restrictions on *how* to do that. Or maybe "Jump 50 feet in the air on a sparrow" again - no limitation on where to jump. So this is a fun thing players can figure out for themselves. "Kill an ogre with a melee punch" or "get a noscope headshot with a sniper rifle." The problem Destiny has is that they only reward loot for completing strikes, which essentially makes those strikes optimization challenges. And then, when Bungie sees that players have optimized a strike in a way they don't like, they patch it out, which is lame. It is, in fact, exactly what you described in your OP: Bungie is removing emergent gameplay from the game, and instead of letting you play their game how you like, Bungie is forcing players to play their game how they like. It's just not as fun.