put in effort? (Destiny)

by scarab , Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 09:12 (3380 days ago) @ slycrel
edited by scarab, Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 09:23

I put in effort beating the original Halo on Legendary but it wasn't a chore. I didn't think of it as, "putting in effort". I thought of it as a difficult thing that I wanted to get better at.

Halo was my first console game, my first fps, and my first game with a game pad. I managed to beat the game on legendary whilst still being bad at aiming. I learnt: advanced cowering techniques, fight avoidance, AI manipulation, and how to carry a sniper rifle to the end of the level to kill those two red elites in the long corridor without cover. And it got easier as my skills improved and I could actually do some ballsy fighting.

The things we should be doing to progress in Destiny should be:

• learning the strengths of our weapons and gear
  
• using them to our advantage
  
• good use of environment
  
• using strats that tilt the combat in our favour
  
• coordinating well with other Guardians

We shouldn't be collecting shit or putting in hours to progress.

If Bungie needs to time gate then let them time gate at the server. If the game is two weeks into a season then your characters get the drops commensurate with that stage of the season. If you spent that two weeks enjoying the game then great. If you spent it doing something else then that is fine, you wont be punished for it (your drops will be waiting in your inventory). Your loss was in missing out on two weeks of fun in Destiny with your mates.

The game gets time gated but you don't have to pay the price.

I hate the idea that we have to earn our progress. Because at first glance it doesn't seem unreasonable. Who wants to be a "welfare check freeloader"? But then I remember that I already have a full time job, and family, and commitments. The amount of hours that I once put into the game were coming close to a full time job. And I wasn't being paid to do those hours! If Bungie wants me to put in those hours and if they don't want to pay me in fun then they had better pay me in money. And I mean more than minimal wage. Given that I already have a job, I think that Bungie would have to offer at least £60 per hour to even tempt me now. (And I'd still have to clear it with my current employer. :-)

Of course that's not going to happen and there was a time when I worked those hours for free. But I looked in a mirror and saw MUG stamped on my forehead so those days are gone forever.

That's where I stand when people talk of earning progress. It puts me in the world of money and work and in that world my work costs money.

Think about it: if you have put hours or weeks into "earning" those raid boot then you have sold your time cheap. Maybe your current employer should ask you if you'll work for him for a pair of pretend boots. Boots that will make it easier for you to earn a better pair of pretend boots. ;-)

Anyway, moving on...

even if Bungie did just time gate at the server, how could you ensure that you get the specific gear that you want?

I think that this could tie into another problem, a problem with raids and randoms, a problem with players without mics.

I'm generally averse to social engineering attempts but something needs to be done about the lack of mic usage in the Destiny population. This needs to be tackled on a broad front but one possible thing that might help would be the creation of tasks that require guardian cooperation and specifically the cooperation of guardians who can talk to each other in real time.

This goes back to my idea of tower gear.

Tower Gear

• you perform activities in the Tower or that launch from the Tower
  
• those activities require guardians who talk in real time to each other
  
• you earn credits that let you buy specific gear with specific perks
  
• you get one piece of Tower Gear per season and per DLC

You can buy (any?) piece of gear and specify (any?) perks or damage type. Each piece of gear/perk has its price.

Asking people to buy stuff feels as hypocritical as Sideshow Bob using a TV to decry the evils of TV. In my defence I would say that:

• there is no RNG so no unlimited sink of time
  
• you need good teams to enjoy raids and anything that encourages mic use in a cooperative environment could help create a climate where good teams could form. I think this would tilt the balance from work to fun and I don't feel bad about asking people to invest time in fun.

I still feel dirty for suggesting that people earn their stuff. Destiny infects your thinking. You always come back to thinking of making people pay for playing the game.

To get back on thread topic...

maybe the mistake of requiring shards was caused by infected thinking. Bungie wanted progression to be easy but their thinking had been infected by the idea that the player must pay in blood to progress. Even when they didn't want to - they still injected grind because the game wont let go of your thinking. It infects everybody. Try suggesting a new gameplay feature that doesn't have some form of grind or cost built into it :-)