ITT: Cody undercuts his central argument against Destiny

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, August 12, 2013, 12:56 (3912 days ago) @ electricpirate
edited by Cody Miller, Monday, August 12, 2013, 13:19

That's valuable in it's own right though... especially in a skill driven game like Destiny. See, Equipment, and leveling can act as a dynamic difficulty scale. Players can try, fail, go back to some easier content to improve themselves and their gear and come back and conquer. It's a much more organic system than difficulty sliders, or settings. Demon's/Dark Souls is a game that does this wonderfully.

Nonono! Relying on leveling to set the difficulty level is a failure of the designer to design a proper difficulty curve. It's cheating.

Horse shit. So the difficulty curve for my wife who can barely work 2 sticks should be the same for me who has been playing FPS' since I was 10?

No. That's why she plays on EASY and you play on HEROIC. Holy cow dude, think for 2 seconds.

Okay, so we create some difficulty levels, everyone happy? No, not quite, Halo on easy flat out isn't as interesting a game as Halo on Legendary or Heroic. Ideally, everyone plays the same thing, and you have tools to get them there. Hence, a smart leveling system that allows you to keep players engaged as they grow their skills.

You are correct in that you can make your easy difficulty so easy it ruins the game. I mean, imagine a cover based shooter where easy mode was so easy you never needed to use cover. You broke your game. You are incorrect in thinking leveling up improves PLAYER skill. It boosts the stats of your avatar, but does nothing for the player.

Also, you've validated a point I've long made that has been met with such resistance from the folks on HBO and here: That a skilled player can have more fun because he is able to play the most interesting version of the game.