ITT: Cody undercuts his central argument against Destiny

by kidtsunami , Atlanta, GA, Tuesday, August 13, 2013, 01:27 (3912 days ago) @ electricpirate

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

It's like you barely even read my arguments before just reposting the same knee jerk stuff ;)

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.

The ability to add more challenge organically is always going to be more interesting in terms of game design than having hard difficulty settings.

Also, I never once said this, "You are incorrect in thinking leveling up improves PLAYER skill. It boosts the stats of your avatar, but does nothing for the player."

Hence, a smart leveling system that allows you to keep players engaged as they grow their skills

Your words. Unless you meant to say grow their avatar's skills?

Edit for clarity.

No, I mean the player gets better by playing, Having loot/gear is a carrot to move them from an unsatisfying activity (getting their ass handed to them by a boss) to a satisfying one (Completing an optional mission for some reward). Gaining levels and loot is a reward, people like getting rewards, so they play a different area to get them. In this way the game can encourage a player to step back from the boss, go do something they'll succeed at. While succeeding at something else, they improve, while simultaneously improving their avatar (effectively making things easier).

Here's an example, there's this boss, you need to be a really good player to get past it. You could play and play and keep trying, and butt your head against a wall to get better. Eventually you beat him, and while it feels great you had to go through a ton of misery to get there.

Having loot, and the ability to gain levels, and power up your character via side missions, or repeating content (within limits mind you, no one likes a crazy grind). This has two functions. All that time you've been playing other content, you've been getting better because you have been playing the game. You've now also made that boss easier by having better equipment. In this way, instead of banging your head against a boss, again, and again, and again the game has pointed you to something fun (New Missions, new gear!) and you've beaten the boss. This kind of learning curve is much more satisfying than hitting the "Restart" button 50 times.

I think the problem here is you setup the alternative as having a boss that is so hard that you can only try try try again to beat it and that there's nothing else to do in the game aside from that.

I'm under the impression that Cody is suggesting that, fine, have a tough boss, but make sure that leading up that boss you've designed a difficulty curve that effectively coaches the player to overcome that boss because the player has inherently become a better player.

That is also separate to the fact that Cody is also saying he likes leveling that effectively makes a player make a trade off: if I focus on hacking, which WHO WOULDN'T in Deux Ex, then I won't be able to engage in firefights as easily, shaping my approach to levels.

I personally do not enjoy levelling, frankly it frustrates me when I feel a game is moving on without me changing all that much. I DO enjoy a game that I can tailor (i.e. a battle is raging on the other side of this cliff, before you jump into the fray do you take a sniper rifle or a shotgun). But levelling will never be something that keeps me from playing a game, and I know I'm repeating myself here, if it convinces more people to play and I have a larger pool to draw my fireteam from, I'll swallow my medicine, assign points to my skill tree, and get right on with it.