I Like Destiny better when I'm down a level (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Tuesday, June 30, 2015, 16:35 (3222 days ago)

Last night I ran the Heroic at level 30 with my lvl 29 Titan. What struck me, was how much more fun I was having than when I run Dragon strikes at level 28. The damage balance forced me to make more split second decisions, and execute with a far higher level of confidence. Majors become pretty important hard points on the battlefield. You have to start understanding how the spawns work, and what challenges are coming at you. I feel like I have to understand my weapons, and how to use them, or how to properly use my grenades. For me, it's where Destiny's myriad of systems gel, and the game feels better than any other FPS out there.

Other people seem to *Hate* it though. Maybe the dynamics of facing a 33 as a 32 or a 35 as a 34 in the context of the raid or POE don't work? I think there's something more here though. The two complaints I see about it are. I want to unpack them, because I think Destiny plays really well a level down, and I want to see Bungie providing that challenge in more activities.

1) "Well, it doesn't introduce new mechanics"
2) "It's not really fair just to pit me against stronger enemies."

When designing processing player feedback on a game I'm making, I generally find that players often have legitimate issues with your game, but they very rarely correctly identify the root causes. There's something about being a level down that many players don't like.

I think 2 is fairly easy, in that it's not a problem of number balancing as much as it's about information presentation. A player sees that higher number and it reads as unfair. If they just had to deal with a harder enemy they'd see it as that, a harder enemy. My suggestion would be to move away from those big numbers over the heads of enemy and switch models/names/palettes for enemies that are stronger/weaker than you. There's a few ways to handle this one, but honestly, I think the core issue is that inadequacy introducing number above that dregs head that stops many people.

Number one is harder, and I think it kind of goes to the core issues in Destiny. First, I want to make something clear, while a simple level shift doesn't create new mechanics, it does expose and focus the existing mechanics of destiny in important ways. By changing the numbers, it creates entirely new dynamics to the fights that make them feel very different. It's the exact same reason Legendary difficulty in Halo games felt so compelling.

I think the core issue here comes down to the perception of value, or lack thereof in destiny content. If people feel like they have multiple avenues and ways to play one avenue being about taking on these super mobs doesn't feel so bad. But if taking on super tough mobs is the *only* way to advance in PvE, it gets grating. I think that ties into a lot of other issues.

Weidly, another way to help the rebellion against level+1 content might be to have *more of it.* For example, the Heroic and story missions top out at 32, why not 35, even with only a small reward increase would expand the variety of end game activities that capture the core challenge that many players love. Let people experience being a level down in more contexts than just one endgame activity (crota HM/PoE 35) and I think it feels less like a cop-out and more like a mechanical extension of the game.

So yea, long story short, embrace being down a level, and get some more content where you are down a level ;).