A quick thought (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, December 02, 2017, 06:55 (2345 days ago) @ Kahzgul

So I just listened to the podcast...

Regarding Luke’s comments about the current speed of the level climb:

IMO, your interpretation of Luke’s words is the most negative interpretation possible, which is not to say that I necessarily think you’re wrong... it just is a fairly pessimistic interpretation.

As others have pointed out, Luke seemed to be trying to present both sides of an argument. He explicitly said that on the one hand, having a quick, easy level climb was great for a lot of players. Then he went on to make a counter argument.

But there is another assumption built in to your interpretation that you might want to keep in mind. When Luke starts talking about leveling up, and increases in power, he is talking in very broad, high-level terms. I think it’s presumptuous to assume that what he was saying is “Take D2 exactly as it shipped, but make it take longer to level up.” This entire portion of the conversation was framed within the context of “how do we make Destiny 2 appeal to each portion of the player base?” As Luke and Mark both point out, they decided to lean in favour of the “tourists”. But that’s likely not a late-development decision. That’s a design goal that would probably have been in place fairly early on.

So when Luke is musing over the possibility of a longer level climb, there’s no reason to assume that he’s talking about the exact same game. In his head, he could very well be picturing a version of Destiny 2 that was built around a longer level climb, where the post-campaign activities made up a larger portion of the game. A version of D2 that puts less emphasis on the linear campaign, and leans more heavily on the open-world, shared spaces, and repeatable activities.

I’m about to go a bit tinfoil hat here...

Remember this thread where I talked about Patrick Klepeck’s thoughts on D2? Where he was wondering if Bungie doesn’t nail campaigns the way they used to because perhaps their heart isn’t in it anymore? That a linear campaign just isn’t what Destiny is really about, and that itteretive storytelling through strikes and other activities is where Bungie has potential to really break new ground...

Doesn’t all that fit quite well with a theoretical version of the game that puts less emphasis on a quick 1-20 climb for the tourists, and is instead built around long-term investment and group play? It’s almost like Patrick and Luke are talking about a similar vision for Destiny, just from different angles. Could be a total coincidence... or it could be that they’ve actually talked about it together, since they’ve been friends for years ever since they worked together at 1-Up ;)