Fun fact: This is one of my TOP Videogame Pet-Peaves (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Saturday, May 20, 2017, 05:37 (2526 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

So that gameplay reveal was pretty great. I'm really impressed with the cinematics, packing WAY more characterization and drama into this preview of the game than has been in the pre-TTK destiny releases combined. I went in with a grain of salt, and I'm coming out quite impressed.

Some notable things that were largely missing from Destiny 1, but are clearly present in Destiny 2:

- You get to fight alongside the NPCs. HOW WAS THIS NEVER A THING???

It was. In Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Halo: Reach.

Where it really caused a problem was Reach, because as in Destiny, presumably NPCs in Reach would be other Spartans and be just as combat-effective as you are.

If the AI failed to live up to that, it would ruin your impression of Spartans. If it *did* live up to that, levels would play themselves.

It should be noted that what we saw was very likely scripted in. If they do have AI NPC's through - Oh boy.

Oh yeah, it looked like Zavala had scripted behaviors for hiding behind a wall and eventually putting up a bubble for you to hide in. BUT that's enough. He's there, he's helping, and you're there, too. Ikora doesn't actually fight alongside you, nor does Cayde, they just show up, bark an order, do something awesome, and duck out. That's how you should handle hero encounters in a game, imo. Don't pull a Reach and make them too strong or too weak by accident (as mentioned above), but rather script their behavior fully so that they are interacting with the player without any potential negative side-effect on the gameplay.

The Zavala encounter is really cool, because it takes a raid-type boss mechanic of "at this time it is only save to stand in spot X" and couples it to his character, which makes the mechanic feel more organic while simultaneously building a bond between Zavala and the player character.