Some Criticism (1) (Destiny)

by Harmanimus , Tuesday, November 28, 2017, 20:09 (2349 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Abilities, Mods, and Rolls

[1.1a] Abilities, to me, were the heart of what made Dest1ny stand out as a shooter. The core gameplay loop and shooting were solid, but the abilities were what brought in the character. I will admit, the implimentation led in many ways to a reliance on abilities for a lot of players, but Des2ny swings too far in the opposite side. Acknowledging that these numbers are the best information I have available, consider the following:

[1.1b] In Dest1ny the baseline ability cooldown for Grenades and Abilities was 60 seconds. Within that there were 5 tiers to improve your cooldown, and each one was roughly 10-11% of a cooldown. Tier 1 to I believe about 54 seconds and Tier 2 was about 49 seconds. Tier 5 was 25 seconds. In Des2ny the baseline cooldown is 83 seconds, about a 37% increase, while you can apply up to two mods for a specific offensive ability, reducing your ability cooldown to 69 seconds, a 15% increase from Dest1ny's Tier 0.

[1.1c] The decision to slow cooldowns across abilities (numbers vary among certain abilitys, such as Firebolt grenades and Hunter thrown melees) has a highly detrimental effect to gameplay by limiting options available to players. The class perks and exotics that will return abilities faster if you specialize your playstyle help alleviate this to a small degree, but not enough to keep abilities tactically viable as they are unavailable in a vast majority of engagements. I definitely don't feel that going back to a grenade every 25 seconds is reasonable (even if enjoyable) however I would consider that a timeframe more in line with D1's Tier 0-2 would be an appropriate middle ground.

[1.2a] Mods were a system I was super excited for when I first heard about them. The potential of any system like that will almost never be lived up to, though. No, I wasn't expecting anything as involved as Diablo 2 socket systems. But I was hoping for more than damage type swaps and a small selection of character boosts. This area leads to a much more involved volume of change I will cover along side my concerns for fixed rolls. However, I did like that I could apply Legendary mods to improve my overall power and to directly manipulate my own gear progress. The inclusion of Counterbalance, Handling, and Reload mods that are weapon agnostic is also appreciated.

[1.2b] However, the specialization of mods led pretty quickly to irritation in the system. As an example, having a +1 Resilience Mod that I can't equip on my leg armor because it is explicitly for Warlock Bonds felt arbitrary in the worst way, especially when you start filling up your 50 slot inventory. Unifying the mods in the inventory and allowing them in whatever slots they are designed for would go a long way to a less bloated system. Which also ties into how I would retool mods in light of fixed rolls, immediately refilling the inventory.

[1.3a] Fixed rolls are a blessing and a curse. Even with learning that archetypes will have hidden perks built into them (such as Precision having native Counterbalance) they still feel disappointing. My D1 comparison (selected in part for the fixed roll) here relates to everyone's favorite Hand Cannon, Fatebringer, and the D2 favored PvP Hand Cannon, Better Devils. Their biggest difference is integrated synergy. Fatebringer has 3 perks which were popular to bring about a highly focused and enjoyable weapon - Firefly, Explosive Rounds, and Outlaw. Two of these trigger on precision kills and two deal AOE damage. In contrast, Better Devils has Explosive Rounds.

[1.3b] This, more than anything, is why I feel the fixed rolls miss the mark. Many people complain that they don't feel that chasing weapons is exciting anymore. I tend to agree with them. However, I don't think it is just because repeat drops lack variety (they do, but that's identified) or that once you find a few weapons that work for you the rest are for breaking down. Even with my desire to collect gear I don't get excited for new weapons. It is the fact that there are not any refreshing loops to be found like what Fatebringer brings to the table. Armor is mostly just aesthetics, depending on how much you chase the 2/4/9 meta (or whatever is popular these days) or what have you.

[1.3c] So I have a pretty major change up suggestion which retains fixed rolls and expands the mod selection and purposes. That crazy change? A second mod slot for each weapon and piece of armor. How mods get used for power boosting could be retained, where only one slot actually allows for the +5 power, but then we expand to have mods for weapons that are a set of 3-5 per archetype that can be used, with overlap as appropriate, allowing you to synergize perks (such as having a weapon with Rampage allowing a High-Impact Reserves mod) for weapons, and expand functionality (such as the old grenade throw distance, energy for orbs, or faster melee) for armor, while retaining the existing flavors. This allows both fixed rolls and a degree of random drops, even if there are only a handful of possible options, while also allowing players agency in the perks of their gear if they drop with something they don't like as much.