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

by kapowaz, Thursday, July 31, 2014, 08:12 (3556 days ago) @ petetheduck

I suspect there isn't a level cap.

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.

Almost. It'd be more accurate to say that you progress throughout the course of the game, but in the pre-level cap stage your progression is primarily in terms of gaining levels (which comes with a concomitant increase in power), but once you hit the level cap your progression comes in the form of improved gear (which also improves your relative power).

That light rating thing is a mystery to me too, and I'd love to know what it meant; in fact it's a perfect example of the kind of information that I don't understand why Bungie doesn't just come out and explain. Every single player (more or less) will need to understand the mechanics to do with it eventually, just as they will have to understand the level cap. It's not a mysterious gift to be unwrapped: it's a game mechanic that we need to (eventually) understand.

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.

I suspect not revealing that they'd make the beta open to everyone eventually was all part of the pre-order hype machine. The relatively tiny number of Alpha participants though makes me doubt that they kept the level cap a secret purely for their benefit. It remains an opaque and mysterious decision to me.

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, ..?

Check out this IGN article from last year, specifically this paragraph:

He then walked away from the wall to Old Russia the demo would ultimately take place in, backpedaling towards a cliff's edge. Below was a vast valley with a river winding through it and though the audience's good-natured pleas to leap off the cliff fell on deaf ears, the point was not that Bakken didn't do it but that he could. He could've walked all along the wall to Old Russia if he wanted, or down through that valley and out to those mountains miles away. The breadth of gameplay space is staggering…

Okay, this wasn't somebody from Bungie saying this, but it seems astonishing that they'd sanction somebody implying that the game had this scope when it manifestly doesn't. In the absence of information to the contrary, Bungie let the fiction that we'd be exploring massive, open areas take root, only for us to be disappointed when we discovered the truth.