Ok, Bungie: time to stop being evasive (Destiny)

by petetheduck, Thursday, July 31, 2014, 07:05 (3557 days ago) @ kapowaz

The beta is done and dusted, the game is under 6 weeks away, but for some reason we're still in the dark about core gameplay concepts. From today's Eurogamer article about raids in Destiny:

Destiny's exact level cap has yet to be stated, but Smith talks of content designed for characters higher than level 20 that you'll need to continue working towards.

Why, this late in the game, won't you just tell us what the level cap is? This is not a spoiler! Worse, this seems to be symptomatic of an ill-advised desire to keep details under your hat for some ‘big reveal’, only when you actually do reveal them people just nod and say ‘Ok’. In short: there's no benefit to keeping them to yourself.

I suspect there isn't a level cap.

It hasn't really been discussed here, but on other forums, the thought is:

Level 1-20: You level up based on experience
Level 20-?: You level up based on what gear you have equipped

Apparently this is normal for MMOs, but since I don't play them, it's a bit of a foreign concept. I think they said it's based on some kind of Light rating that's been seen in some videos on the character screens.

Mere days before the beta started, DeeJ was typically tight-lipped about what the level cap in the beta would be:

It's not something we've revealed yet. But all will become apparent within a matter of days.

…implying that maybe it wasn't set in stone, or that it might change during the course of the beta. But no; it was 8. The level cap was 8. For the whole beta. So why not just say that? Why exactly would you waste peoples’ time by suggesting it might be more complicated than that? I'm wondering just how many collective hours players in the beta wasted hoarding level 9+ items in their vault, in vain hope they might get to use them in the beta.

Maybe they were worried Alpha players might skip the Beta if they thought it was the same level cap and that somehow implied the same experience/content. Just like they didn't reveal that the Beta was going to go open, they probably have a legitimate agenda for these kind of things, including failing to give details on the Playstation exclusive content timeline. Bungie is just not very open, but fortunately they're making an awesome game regardless.

A little bit of mystery is fine, but I'm sick and tired of this faux-enigmatic attitude. It's not helpful, and if you keep it up it's inevitably going to make gamers feel short-changed when the truth emerges (already there have been many conversations about how the breadth of the explorable worlds feels like a bait-and-switch). Is it so much to ask that you treat your customers like adults?

Lack of details can lead us to anticipating more than will actually be delivered, but, I mean, I think that's our own fault. I don't remember seeing anything Bungie said regarding the Explore areas that wasn't delivered by Old Russia and the Moon. If you can point to something specific, ..?