ITT: Cody undercuts his central argument against Destiny

by electricpirate , Monday, August 12, 2013, 12:04 (3913 days ago) @ Leisandir

The big thing about Deus Ex's leveling system is that, for the most part, the augmentations are incomparables. They don't give you numerical benefits that can be mathed out and organized by "most beneficial." There are builds in Diablo which are, speaking from an objective standpoint, better. Deus Ex (and I'm speaking from the experience of Human Revolution, I didn't have the patience for the original) has a few of those (improved armor, for example), but most of them are simply new abilities: things which allow you to approach a challenge in a different way. It's a non-linear progression; there are trees, but they're very small. It's not "I'll get this so I can get that later," it's "I'll get this, and I think it'll synergize well with my existing abilities." In a lot of RPGs, playing at higher levels doesn't feel that different from playing at lower levels; the numbers are bigger, and you have a wider range of abilities to make numbers happen to other people, but you're still doing the same actions. The augs in Deus Ex give you new avenues to explore; Icarus lets you survive long-distance falls, which gives you new options in combat, exploration, and escape. Hacking opens doors and gives access to data you otherwise would have to find through an alternate pathway. Strength augs let you stealth-kill multiple foes at once, which gives you a whole big pile of options for stealth, combat, and navigation.

I hope Destiny has same of the same philosophy. I'm getting a Mass Effect vibe from the vids we've seen, and ME did a little bit of that, so I'm optimistic.

Yea, but those are really differences of magnitude rather than of kind. Dues Ex focuses on fewer upgrades with more concrete changes and fewer statistical effects, while Diablo games have more upgrades that have minor statistical changes but a few with large concrete effects.

If you build your synergies right, the line between the two gets even more blurred. Take a look at something like Path Of Exile wherecrazyass builds are possible, mostly due to a series of small statistical tweaks that build up.