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If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings) (Destiny)

by Revenant1988 ⌂ @, How do I forum?, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 17:01 (2502 days ago)

Does anyone recall Spartan Ops from Halo 4?

Content wise it wasn't very good or memorable, but the concept was interesting. What it was, is a new story mission to download once a week for about 8 weeks (I think). After that, you could play the content as you saw fit.

I think Destiny 2 could benefit from something like that for DLC missions and\strikes.

(For the record, I don't count "events" like SRL or Festival of the lost in the same vein, and I'm not saying they should do away with that kind of thing by any means)

Hear me out-

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty. If you have the time to do that, and you want to, more power to you. Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.


Netflix.
There are two kinds of people with netflix

1.) The kind that binge a series in a weekend (stranger things, for example)
2.) The kind that stagger it out on their own or that are forced to wait for the next episode.

If Destiny 2 had content or DLC that was like that, I think it would be better overall for the life of the game. Destiny already does a lot to artificially throttle players anyway... why not be upfront about it with this?

I know there are some of you that knee-jerk reaction to this and say "NO, I PAID FOR THIS CONTENT AND I WANT IT NOW F-YOU" and you are not wrong to say that, but maybe it would be better long term.

IDK, just musing.

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HITMAN

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 17:21 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Hitman 2016 was the first game I'd played that did episodic content right. In fact, it do it so well, that I'd say people who buy the game now with all the content out are getting the inferior experience.

You started out with a $15 package that included two tutorial maps, and one "real" map. Every consecutive month, Io Interactive released a new "real" map for $10.

The benefit of this model meant that, if you wanted to get the most of each episodic release, you played the same map repeatedly, learning all of it's secrets and discovering all the hidden opportunities that were buried within. And each map also came along with a fresh set of developer-designed challenges and associated equipment unlocks.

Now, this obviously could have failed horribly if the maps didn't have the depth and scope that they did, but Io really put in the effort to make each space unique and interesting. They also gradually ramped up the difficulty with each release, allowing us to utilize the skills we'd acquired and perfected through playing the previous map.

That's all a really long-winded way of saying I would love to see this model applied to Destiny. A frequent injection of new content would be a wonderful replacement for the grinding slog that is trying to get a perfect roll on some legendary handcannon (because what else are we supposed to do?)

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HITMAN

by cheapLEY @, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 17:33 (2502 days ago) @ CyberKN

I absolutely agree with everything you said. Hitman 2016 was amazing and my go-to example of episodic done right.

However . . .

Now, this obviously could have failed horribly

It failed horribly in that apparently no one bought it and Square Enix dropped Io Interactive and now the fate of both Io and Hitman are up in the air.

They did it right and people (in the general, overall sense) still didn't care, apparently.

I'm honestly not sure what Destiny could take from Hitman anyway. The Elusive Targets were a huge incentive for knowing a level intimately, being familiar with it's schedules and routines. It was the perfect motivator (along with the random targets you could pick) for replaying a level over and over and being genuinely occupied until the next map dropped.

Destiny just doesn't work like that. I'm sure there's lessons Bungie could learn from the way Io put out Hitman, I'm just not smart enough to know what they are. The games are just too different, I think. Destiny wouldn't work with them just dropping a new planet every other month, I don't think.

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HITMAN

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 18:42 (2502 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I absolutely agree with everything you said. Hitman 2016 was amazing and my go-to example of episodic done right.

However . . .

Now, this obviously could have failed horribly


It failed horribly in that apparently no one bought it and Square Enix dropped Io Interactive and now the fate of both Io and Hitman are up in the air.

Except there's zero supporting evidence for this. All reports that it didn't sell "well" are pure speculation, prompted by this sell-off announcement that Squenix made.

And while we're at it, let's not forget that this is the same publisher that considered the Tomb Raider reboot selling 3.4 million in the first month to be a "failure" (and that's before factoring in digital sales).

The Io situation is a desperate bid by Squenix to recover recover from it's own financial mismanagement, not the fault of Hitman not selling well.

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HITMAN

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 17:54 (2502 days ago) @ CyberKN

Hitman 2016 was the first game I'd played that did episodic content right. In fact, it do it so well, that I'd say people who buy the game now with all the content out are getting the inferior experience.

A bold claim that is almost certainly wrong. If it is wrong, then the experience would have been even better had it been designed for one release.

Nothing about your description requires episodic releases.

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HITMAN

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 18:51 (2502 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Hitman 2016 was the first game I'd played that did episodic content right. In fact, it do it so well, that I'd say people who buy the game now with all the content out are getting the inferior experience.


A bold claim that is almost certainly wrong.

It's not wrong. Hitman was amazing. I know. I played it.

If it is wrong, then the experience would have been even better had it been designed for one release.

Except it wouldn't have. You would have had to pay full-price up front, for a product that may or may not have been as bad as absolution. I LOVED knowing that there would periodically be more content released, giving me an excuse to dive back in to the thing that I loved. I could dip in, play it for a while, and then stop until the next drop.

Like I said, the "full experience" product you can buy now doesn't have that.

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HITMAN

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 20:07 (2502 days ago) @ CyberKN

Hitman 2016 was the first game I'd played that did episodic content right. In fact, it do it so well, that I'd say people who buy the game now with all the content out are getting the inferior experience.


A bold claim that is almost certainly wrong.


It's not wrong. Hitman was amazing. I know. I played it.

If it is wrong, then the experience would have been even better had it been designed for one release.


Except it wouldn't have. You would have had to pay full-price up front, for a product that may or may not have been as bad as absolution. I LOVED knowing that there would periodically be more content released, giving me an excuse to dive back in to the thing that I loved. I could dip in, play it for a while, and then stop until the next drop.

Like I said, the "full experience" product you can buy now doesn't have that.

You can watch house of cards all at once, or you can choose to watch one per week. If it were episodic, you'd have no choice in the matter. Just take your time and play a hit man level over and over.

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HITMAN

by cheapLEY @, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 20:19 (2502 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You can watch house of cards all at once, or you can choose to watch one per week. If it were episodic, you'd have no choice in the matter. Just take your time and play a hit man level over and over.

I see your argument, and I even agree with it to a degree, but the fact is that just isn't human nature. We all know that if presented with Hitman as it is now, most people would just play it as a complete experience--they'd finish a level and move on immediately to the next. By releasing new maps episodically, they almost forced players to engage on a deeper level and replay maps, learn them intimately, get excited about Elusive Targets, be a part of the ongoing conversation about that game. I loved playing along and watching the guys at Giant Bomb play the new maps every other month, or watch them try to take out the new Elusive Target. That experience is gone now. Sure, all the content is still there, but it is actually impossible to experience it in the same way, and in the way that I think is better by a huge margin for that particular game.

The worse case scenario is that you had to wait for the full game. You can have the game the way you want right now. Just go buy it. It's an inferior experience, I think, but it's there. It's literally a win-win. I got a game that kept me engaged over 6-8 months or however long it was, and the folks that just want a full game got that too.

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HITMAN

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 21:12 (2502 days ago) @ cheapLEY

By releasing new maps episodically, they almost forced players to engage on a deeper level and replay maps, learn them intimately, get excited about Elusive Targets, be a part of the ongoing conversation about that game.

The flip-side of this coin is that an episodic release schedule forced the developers to treat each level as a piece of content that needed enough depth to be intensely replayable. Another reason why going episodic more than likely improved the quality of the final product.

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HITMAN

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 21:53 (2502 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

By releasing new maps episodically, they almost forced players to engage on a deeper level and replay maps, learn them intimately, get excited about Elusive Targets, be a part of the ongoing conversation about that game.


The flip-side of this coin is that an episodic release schedule forced the developers to treat each level as a piece of content that needed enough depth to be intensely replayable. Another reason why going episodic more than likely improved the quality of the final product.

Right.

I also think forced periods of waiting can be helpful in other ways. For instance, the two month-ish waits between the episodes of Life Is Strange combined with that game's excellent cliffhangers to enhance the tension at the end of each episode and the anticipation as each new episode drew near. In my opinion, anticipation like that evaporates if you are just able to binge something all in one sitting.

But it's also true that too long of a delay can be harmful. For example, the episodic iOS game Republique had good gameplay and a neat storyline, but the releases were so far apart that I got tired of waiting and never even started the 5th and final episode. Where Life Is Strange was spread over a year, Republique was spread over three! And that was just too much.

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HITMAN

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:24 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

It is really hard for people to break things down and force themselves to take breaks from things they enjoy. I decided when my friends wanted to watch Stranger Things "as a family" that my condition was we watched it like it was an old TV show. With a Wednesday evening time slot. We watched one episode a week, had to skip a week, so we watched two episodes, like we recorded the prior weeks episode. It was hard to avoid spoilers, I admit. But it was a much more enjoyable experience than anything I have ever binge watched (with the caveat that you can't actually binge watch anything by Bryan Fuller) and part of that was the inter-episode tension and build up.

Compartmentalized pieces of of entertainment actually do a lot of positive things for the expeience. In the same way that opening up maps and new areas of progress create renewed vigor in Metroid-style games. Or, for me, new runs are exciting in Rogue-likes. I think what Destiny could learn from episodic releases is keeping the open world more alive. Such as dropping in new areas to explore periodically. Little dungeon places. Opening up a building that was previously closed. Not rewriting the face of a gameplay space, but massaging in more small experiences that draw people back into it.

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HITMAN

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:31 (2500 days ago) @ Harmanimus

It is really hard for people to break things down and force themselves to take breaks from things they enjoy. I decided when my friends wanted to watch Stranger Things "as a family" that my condition was we watched it like it was an old TV show. With a Wednesday evening time slot. We watched one episode a week, had to skip a week, so we watched two episodes, like we recorded the prior weeks episode. It was hard to avoid spoilers, I admit. But it was a much more enjoyable experience than anything I have ever binge watched (with the caveat that you can't actually binge watch anything by Bryan Fuller) and part of that was the inter-episode tension and build up.

Compartmentalized pieces of of entertainment actually do a lot of positive things for the expeience. In the same way that opening up maps and new areas of progress create renewed vigor in Metroid-style games. Or, for me, new runs are exciting in Rogue-likes. I think what Destiny could learn from episodic releases is keeping the open world more alive. Such as dropping in new areas to explore periodically. Little dungeon places. Opening up a building that was previously closed. Not rewriting the face of a gameplay space, but massaging in more small experiences that draw people back into it.

The problem I have with generalizing one way or the other is that I think some entertainment is designed to be experienced all at once, while other entertainment works better spread out over time. Both are great, both are equally valid, IMO.

In the case of Hitman, the release schedule affected how the devs and the player base approached the game. I have no doubt that the game itself, and the player base's experience of it were both changed and arguably improved by the episodic format.

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HITMAN

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:50 (2500 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

One way or another, it is all about the mindset you bring into your content consumption. Regardless of what philosophy a developer uses, if you are planning to binge content you will be prepared to crash course theough it and will experience it more as a rush. It's the thriller variety of horror films. Monsters and danger the whole time. Gore and chases and scares.

But if you go in wanting to consume it in pieces with lulls and time to build between experiences, then regardless of he content being identical the experience will be different. This is how I consider more paychological horror films. That crawling feeling in your skin considering the details of what you are experiencing.

Horror is one of my favorite genres of anything. And with horror more than any other genre what you bring into it is very important. Sometimes you have to plan to get spooked. To get unsettled. Regardless of the content you are consuming you frame it. I watched Insidious in a 120 seat auditorium. Alone. I doubt I would have as fond of memories had I watched it in my living room with the lights with the rest of my home buzzing. So, even if the developers intended an experience as a single sitting, your approach regarding your consumption will change the nuance you get.

I guess that is the long winded way of trying to express that people are active participants with media as a whole and that will impact their experience regardless of a creators intent.

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HITMAN

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:00 (2500 days ago) @ Harmanimus

One way or another, it is all about the mindset you bring into your content consumption. Regardless of what philosophy a developer uses, if you are planning to binge content you will be prepared to crash course theough it and will experience it more as a rush. It's the thriller variety of horror films. Monsters and danger the whole time. Gore and chases and scares.

But if you go in wanting to consume it in pieces with lulls and time to build between experiences, then regardless of he content being identical the experience will be different. This is how I consider more paychological horror films. That crawling feeling in your skin considering the details of what you are experiencing.

Horror is one of my favourite genres of anything. And with horror more than any other genre what you bring into it is very important. Sometimes you have to plan to get spooked. To get unsettled. Regardless of the content you are consuming you frame it. I watched Insidious in a 120 seat auditorium. Alone. I doubt I would have as fond of memories had I watched it in my living room with the lights with the rest of my home buzzing. So, even if the developers intended an experience as a single sitting, your approach regarding your consumption will change the nuance you get.

I guess that is the long winded way of trying to express that people are active participants with media as a whole and that will impact their experience regardless of a creators intent.

One of the chief benefits of Hitman's episodic format that nobody (including me) has touched on yet, is the fact that Io was able to gather and utilize feedback from earlier episodes to improve later ones. Sure, most of the work was done well ahead of release, but they did still leave themselves with some polish time to make changes over the course of the season. This really isn't something that is done with episodic television shows, as they're all filmed and edited well ahead of the season premiere.

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HITMAN

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:37 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN

Good point. I remember back during I Love Bees that they were able to improvise and slip in new dialogue from week to week. Like, after so many of the Axion teams had problems locating the pay phones and so many of the designated phones would not take incoming calls we got Kamal saying:

Ancient piece of crappy hardware, half of them wouldn't even take incoming calls, no GPS... never mind.

And everyone loved it.

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If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings)

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 17:26 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Does anyone recall Spartan Ops from Halo 4?

Anytime that someone mentions Spartan Ops, I can taste Mountain Dew on my breath. *shudder*
Dark times in my life.


Content wise it wasn't very good or memorable, but the concept was interesting. What it was, is a new story mission to download once a week for about 8 weeks (I think). After that, you could play the content as you saw fit.

They did that for the Age of Triumph raids. I loved it, personally, though some people whined about the trickle of content.

After the raids launched, you could play the 390 version at any time, so you have tons of ways to go up in Light level. Some folks (like me) look forward to doing the Weekly challenges every once in a while, while some weirder folks just prefer to run the same exact raid week after week.
For the most part, it has put choice in the hands of the players, while providing incentive to do a particular activity. A great balance.


Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty. If you have the time to do that, and you want to, more power to you. Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.


Netflix.
There are two kinds of people with netflix

1.) The kind that binge a series in a weekend (stranger things, for example)
2.) The kind that stagger it out on their own or that are forced to wait for the next episode.

If Destiny 2 had content or DLC that was like that, I think it would be better overall for the life of the game. Destiny already does a lot to artificially throttle players anyway... why not be upfront about it with this?

This is a great business model that Digital Extremes uses for Warframe. In between major story content, there are smaller quest lines released periodically that help flesh out each of the Factions, or they introduce new characters that will be important later. And between those smaller quests, they release a steady stream of new content, such as new weapons, Warframes, cosmetics, etc. And in between everything, they have unique events that often have a permanent impact on the game world, or that experiment with new gametypes so that the devs can build data or feedback for later content. There's always some reason to keep coming back without feeling like you need to.

Imagine if we first met Eris before Crota's End. She could have shown up halfway through Queen's Wrath and interacted with the players or Petra in some way. Maybe She'd have you collect some info from Hive-based Queen's Wrath missions, while giving Fallen-based info to Petra. At some point, she might ask you to give a message to the Queen through Petra. That way, you'd see a connection between those characters.

The Hive and Wolf patrol events were an excellent example of this type of content, but they were fairly small, and ultimately held back by a lot of Destiny's early design flaws (such as terrible Treasure Key drop rates).

It would be nice to have mini-questlines handed out to you by the world's characters in order to help flesh them out (House of Wolves was essentially just this for Petra and Varyks).. Maybe this way, folks wouldn't feel like the characters are just flat and one-dimensional.


I know there are some of you that knee-jerk reaction to this and say "NO, I PAID FOR THIS CONTENT AND I WANT IT NOW F-YOU" and you are not wrong to say that, but maybe it would be better long term.

Those folks are whiny entitled babies, and I like that devs don't just give in to their whims.


IDK, just musing.

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Will D2 PC have a monthly sub. fee via Blizzard Application?

by Pyromancy @, discovering fire every week, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 18:07 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988
edited by Pyromancy, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 18:14

- No text -

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I'd doubt it

by Kahzgul, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 19:13 (2502 days ago) @ Pyromancy

They haven't said anything about it, but afaik the only game on battle.net with a monthly sub fee is WoW. Hearthstone, D3, Overwatch, HotS, Starcraft all are one-time buys (some with microtrans within the game).

What I think we're seeing is Activision-Blizzard's first steps into a steam-esque marketplace based on the backbone of battle.net. It's a smart move, imo.

If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings)

by EffortlessFury @, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 19:21 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.

As far as I could tell, the 50% was people who'd never completed a raid. Any raid.

Otherwise, I agree. Blizzard already does this with WoW. Even though I've never played it, I always liked the idea of staggered content release. Let's you enjoy each piece of the content for longer. Also forces the developers (and enables them) to spend more time on each piece of the content, as each piece needs to be higher quality.

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If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings)

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 21:03 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Does anyone recall Spartan Ops from Halo 4?

Content wise it wasn't very good or memorable, but the concept was interesting. What it was, is a new story mission to download once a week for about 8 weeks (I think). After that, you could play the content as you saw fit.

I think Destiny 2 could benefit from something like that for DLC missions and\strikes.

I thin that is a potentially interesting idea... I'll get back to this in a minute.


(For the record, I don't count "events" like SRL or Festival of the lost in the same vein, and I'm not saying they should do away with that kind of thing by any means)

Agreed.

Hear me out-

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty.

I feel like you're missing the mark here... or perhaps I should say, as someone who has tried to get to the endgame content as fast as possible, this doesn't describe my reasoning or my reactions.

The reason I prioritize Destiny's end game content is that I don't think the rest of the game is particularly good. You say we don't "savor the content"... I say the content isn't worth savoring. (I don't say this as a knock against anyone who does enjoy the story missions or strikes... just describing my own thoughts here).

I see it this way: Once you've played through the campaign, Destiny is a game about replaying the same content over and over again. And IMO, the only content in all of Destiny 1 that actually has strong replay value is the raids.

Plus, reaching the Raids doesn't actually remove the core loop of constantly replaying strikes or PoE. The difference for me is that those activities work just fine as pallet cleansers, with the raids acting as the core of the game.

The reason I, and many other players who play similarly to the way I do, often seem less than thrilled about our overall experience with Destiny is because some players feel like they need to replay hours and hours and hours of the same mediocre content just to get to the part of the game they actually enjoy.

If I actually enjoyed the story missions or patrol or the strike playlists for extended periods of time, I would be far more inclined to adopt your "stop and smell the roses" approach to the game. Perhaps my single biggest hope for Des2ny is that I'll enjoy the whole game, not just the end game.

Which brings me back to your initial idea.

If Destiny 2 had content or DLC that was like that, I think it would be better overall for the life of the game.

I think you are potentially correct, but it would depend entirely on the quality of the content (which you already mention would be important) as well as how well Bungie gets players invested in their story and world.

As of right now, I don't care at all about Destiny's fiction or narrative. It doesn't even enter my mind when I play the game. I enjoy the mechanics, the visual art style, and the co-op experience. I initially wanted more from Destiny, but I've adjusted my expectations based on what Bungie has created over the past 3 years. So when I think about the idea of episodic story based content, I look at the story missions we've had so far, and the quality of the storytelling so far, and I decide that more of that wouldn't increase my enjoyment of the game at all. We already sort of had that (although without the episodic release schedule). Even after The Dark Below and House of Wolves, people continued to complain about "lack of content" in Destiny. Which is an insane thing to say... Destiny had LOADS of content, even back then. But where those complaints actually stemmed from, I think, is the fact that so much of the content in Destiny was both homogeneous and forgettable... so when a new expansion came along and added a few more story missions of the same caliber, it didn't really move the needle at all. Many players were still left grinding activities they didn't enjoy just to reach the 1 activity they did enjoy.

But if Destiny 2 turns things around on the narrative front and makes me feel invested in the characters and story for the first time, then a stream of episodic content could be lots of fun in its own right, as well as an interesting way to break up the "race to a single activity" dynamic that the game relied on through most of its lifespan.

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Raid Grind

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 23:15 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty. If you have the time to do that, and you want to, more power to you. Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.

I absolutely get your point.

But if you're the kind of person who DOES want to do the raids-- and preferably at least wants any kind of shot at being part of solving one, instead of just following instructions-- that mad scramble is the best way of getting yourself in a raid, at minimum light level, with a change to be in a party working on trying to solve a raid AND having a chance to succeed.

Wait too long? Everybody already knows everything, and your only contribution is doing what the most experienced party member says. Not saying that can't be fun too, because it is, but it's a different kind of fun.

Don't grind hard enough? Well, you'll be in the raid, and nobody will know any more than you do, but you'll be so concerned with trying to stay alive that solving the puzzles becomes moot.

At any rate, I absolutely would like a slow drip of content like a story mission every once in awhile. (Once per week almost guarantees something subpar, though.)

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Raid Grind

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Monday, May 22, 2017, 00:14 (2502 days ago) @ narcogen


At any rate, I absolutely would like a slow drip of content like a story mission every once in awhile. (Once per week almost guarantees something subpar, though.)

Well... unless that content has been made months in advance.

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Raid Grind

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 00:14 (2501 days ago) @ INSANEdrive


At any rate, I absolutely would like a slow drip of content like a story mission every once in awhile. (Once per week almost guarantees something subpar, though.)


Well... unless that content has been made months in advance.

No, I don't care about that, at least not any more.


In order to deliver stuff on a regular schedule, it HAS to be made in advance. You can either release everything all at once to be binge consumed, or you can release it on a schedule. I'm just saying I'm fine with a schedule.


When I buy a thing, I want to know how much is in that thing, to know if the price is fair.

I do not need to know if you've already made some things that are not in the box that you intend to sell me later.

If an author has already written the first chapter of a sequel when the first book is published, are you entitled to that?

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Correct Solution

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, May 22, 2017, 01:14 (2502 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty. If you have the time to do that, and you want to, more power to you. Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.

The best, and most correct solution is to have the raid accessible at any light level, and launch immediately. Easy. Medium. Hard. Select the difficulty level appropriate to your light. Easy would be playable by basically anyone who has completed the story missions.

But wait… that just sounds a lot like the classic difficulty selection in video games that's been around for years. Oh exactly. Light level is a solution in search of a problem.

Why the simple solution of eliminating the need to grind to play the raid right away is not implemented is beyond me. Level gates are the problem.

The barrier to the raid should be challenge, not difficulty.

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Correct Solution

by Blackt1g3r @, Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Monday, May 22, 2017, 12:18 (2502 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I still think they should just dump light level (now I can use any gun/armor I like) in favor of allowing people to choose the difficulty of gameplay they want. Just scale the damage up for people at higher difficulties and maybe offer extra rewards for doing so, essentially that's all light level requirements are anyway except that you have to grind to get your level up high enough.

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Corrected Solution

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 00:18 (2501 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty. If you have the time to do that, and you want to, more power to you. Most of us don't have that time. I am that 50% that didn't do the Raids. I only ever finished VoG and Crota.


The best, and most correct solution is to have the raid accessible at any light level, and launch immediately. Easy. Medium. Hard. Select the difficulty level appropriate to your light. Easy would be playable by basically anyone who has completed the story missions.

But wait… that just sounds a lot like the classic difficulty selection in video games that's been around for years. Oh exactly. Light level is a solution in search of a problem.

Why the simple solution of eliminating the need to grind to play the raid right away is not implemented is beyond me. Level gates are the problem.

The barrier to the raid should be challenge, not difficulty.

I'd offer one adjustment for that.

Assuming they keep the dual leveling (character level plus light level) the Raid should be accessible at some point AFTER launch, and accessible to characters who have reached max level (not max light), which you basically get from completing the story missions and strikes.

Take out the grind that comes after you've done every mission at least once (if not more), but haven't done enough grinding to reach a given arbitrary light level.

If you take out any level requirement and launch it with the game, then the raid becomes a game.

With only 50% of players doing the raid, I would not be surprised if Activision is asking Bungie if it is really worth the time they are spending on it-- hence the push for Guided Games to up that percentage.

If the raid was more accessible, lower light level, and had matchmaking, it might become the game, and Activision would say hey just make a few more raids, forget these story missions.

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Corrected Solution

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 02:25 (2501 days ago) @ narcogen
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 02:29

If the raid was more accessible, lower light level, and had matchmaking

No matchmaking in Raids. Ever. Doing so would kill them.

In fact, I think a game like Destiny designed around mandatory co-op with no matchmaking for every single activity would be a seriously killer experience. (I could exempt social crucible).

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Corrected Solution

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 11:14 (2501 days ago) @ Cody Miller

In fact, I think a game like Destiny designed around mandatory co-op with no matchmaking for every single activity would be a seriously killer experience. (I could exempt social crucible).

I'm sure it would be, but they want to sell more than 50,000 copies.

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Corrected Solution

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 15:00 (2501 days ago) @ cheapLEY

In fact, I think a game like Destiny designed around mandatory co-op with no matchmaking for every single activity would be a seriously killer experience. (I could exempt social crucible).


I'm sure it would be, but they want to sell more than 50,000 copies.

I never really understood this.

Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most successful games of all time, and it works exactly this way. Mandatory co-op with no matchmaking. So what makes a video game any different? As long as it had split screen in addition to internet play, I don't see the problem. If anybody could make the experience work it'd be Activision, because they could advertise the shit out of it.

The fact that half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid confirms millions of people could buy such a game.

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Corrected Solution

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 15:05 (2501 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Being on the market for 40 years probably helps. If you legitimately want to compare D&D to video games, then I'm not sure how to respond. It is almost inherently the opposite of a video game.

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Corrected Solution

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 15:32 (2501 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Being on the market for 40 years probably helps. If you legitimately want to compare D&D to video games, then I'm not sure how to respond. It is almost inherently the opposite of a video game.

In some sense, yes. We typically still view video games as a solitary experience, which we can begin and end whenever we wish. If you really wanted to go all in on the social aspect of the game, the logical conclusion would be making it co-op only. These experiences are definitely the best in Destiny, so the question then becomes "What would the game be like if everything were designed this way and with such care?"

It would probably eliminate grind, since you are not going to schedule time with your friends just to grind.

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Corrected Solution

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:57 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

As an additional point, PnP games can be played alone. I've known people to do solo playtesting of their own stories and encounters (as the dice are the actual hand of decision making) or even running a game for themselves when they can't find others to play with because they enjoy the world and simulation elements they can get out of it without having to design their own video games.

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Corrected Solution

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 15:33 (2501 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The fact that half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid confirms millions of people could buy such a game.

$10 says you don't have the numbers to back up that "fact".

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Corrected Solution

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 16:03 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN

Which?

Bungie themselves gave the 50% number. We know that Destiny sold millions of copies. So I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing here.

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Corrected Solution

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 16:11 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Which?

Bungie themselves gave the 50% number. We know that Destiny sold millions of copies. So I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing here.

[image]

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Corrected Solution

by DiscipleN2k @, Edmond, OK, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 16:42 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN
edited by DiscipleN2k, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:05

I think the group they were giving the stat for was something along the lines of "players who have reached level 40 and appropriate light level" but they did say during the D2 reveal that "only 55%" of that group had completed a raid.

-Disciple

Update: Luke Smith was quoted here saying, "Fifty percent of people who reached the level cap got organized into Fireteams and completed a Raid..." I couldn't find the part of the stream they're quoting, though.

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Corrected Solution

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 16:42 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN

Oh, I didn't realize Destiny was only on PS4.

Let me repeat: Bungie supplied the 50% statistic during the big reveal. Take it up with them. You asked for proof, and that's the proof.

I've completed multiple raids, and yet I don't have that trophy, because I never got that far on my PS4 characters.

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"50%"

by Speedracer513 @, Dallas, Texas, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 16:57 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Let me repeat: Bungie supplied the 50% statistic during the big reveal. Take it up with them. You asked for proof, and that's the proof.

Just to be clear for the record, they said 50% of the people that hit the level cap had completed a raid.

This is why the trophy/achievement stats show that about ~20% person of people (that got at least one trophy/achievement) have completed a raid, and the 50% stat Bungie gave can both be true at the same time.

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by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 18:43 (2500 days ago) @ Speedracer513

Sure. But if they didn't even hit the level cap, are they really relevant to the discussion?

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"50%"

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 18:59 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Sure. But if they didn't even hit the level cap, are they really relevant to the discussion?

Maybe not.

If 50% of the player base at the level cap did the raid, and 22% of the entire player base completed a raid, that means that about half the players who played Destiny didn't reach the level cap.

I reached the level cap on the final story mission, without doing anything unusual. If we use that as a benchmark, that means about half the people who played Destiny didn't even finish the story missions. I was going to say that this was a huge deal, but that seems roughly in line with other games.

Looking at it from that perspective, it kind of seems like 22% is a lot actually. A raid is the hardest activity in the game (ostensibly). Most people are clearly casual players. So a 22% completion for the raid actually seems pretty high when you look at it broadly. According to my trophy data, 5.8% of the people completed Uncharted 4 on Hard mode (not the hardest mode). 41.8% beat the game at all.

I actually don't see a problem with Bungie's numbers. In fact, they look pretty good to me.

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"50%"

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:51 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Sure. But if they didn't even hit the level cap, are they really relevant to the discussion?


Maybe not.

If 50% of the player base at the level cap did the raid, and 22% of the entire player base completed a raid, that means that about half the players who played Destiny didn't reach the level cap.

I reached the level cap on the final story mission, without doing anything unusual. If we use that as a benchmark, that means about half the people who played Destiny didn't even finish the story missions. I was going to say that this was a huge deal, but that seems roughly in line with other games.

Looking at it from that perspective, it kind of seems like 22% is a lot actually. A raid is the hardest activity in the game (ostensibly). Most people are clearly casual players. So a 22% completion for the raid actually seems pretty high when you look at it broadly. According to my trophy data, 5.8% of the people completed Uncharted 4 on Hard mode (not the hardest mode). 41.8% beat the game at all.

I actually don't see a problem with Bungie's numbers. In fact, they look pretty good to me.

Exactly.

That's why I was more than a bit surprised at the reveal of Guided Games and the focus on getting more people to do the raid.

That's also why I wondered whether it was publisher pressure to spend less time developing raids. If story level 20 doesn't take more time and effort to make than story level 5 or story level 10, the only thing you need to tune is how many of them you make, knowing that not everybody will finish the game.

It's a different kettle of fish when you're spending more time tuning a set of encounters that are more complicated than any story mission, to make content that only 50% of eligible players, 22% of players overall, will ever see. That same effort put into making more patrol destinations or more story missions would get more exposure and perhaps reflect better on the game as a whole.

So Guided Games is a way of saying that Bungie will get the raid completion percentage up so they can continue to justify spending extra effort on those encounters. IMHO.

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"50%"

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 15:50 (2499 days ago) @ narcogen

Sure. But if they didn't even hit the level cap, are they really relevant to the discussion?


Maybe not.

If 50% of the player base at the level cap did the raid, and 22% of the entire player base completed a raid, that means that about half the players who played Destiny didn't reach the level cap.

I reached the level cap on the final story mission, without doing anything unusual. If we use that as a benchmark, that means about half the people who played Destiny didn't even finish the story missions. I was going to say that this was a huge deal, but that seems roughly in line with other games.

Looking at it from that perspective, it kind of seems like 22% is a lot actually. A raid is the hardest activity in the game (ostensibly). Most people are clearly casual players. So a 22% completion for the raid actually seems pretty high when you look at it broadly. According to my trophy data, 5.8% of the people completed Uncharted 4 on Hard mode (not the hardest mode). 41.8% beat the game at all.

I actually don't see a problem with Bungie's numbers. In fact, they look pretty good to me.


Exactly.

That's why I was more than a bit surprised at the reveal of Guided Games and the focus on getting more people to do the raid.

That's also why I wondered whether it was publisher pressure to spend less time developing raids. If story level 20 doesn't take more time and effort to make than story level 5 or story level 10, the only thing you need to tune is how many of them you make, knowing that not everybody will finish the game.

It's a different kettle of fish when you're spending more time tuning a set of encounters that are more complicated than any story mission, to make content that only 50% of eligible players, 22% of players overall, will ever see. That same effort put into making more patrol destinations or more story missions would get more exposure and perhaps reflect better on the game as a whole.

So Guided Games is a way of saying that Bungie will get the raid completion percentage up so they can continue to justify spending extra effort on those encounters. IMHO.

The other element to all of this is that even if the raid is only experienced by 22% of the player base, it generates HUGE hours of playtime from those players. From an investment point of view, I'm sure that is something Bungie and Activision would take into consideration. I bet I've spent triple the in-game hours playing raids than I have playing story missions, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.

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Good point.

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 16:24 (2499 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

- No text -

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"50%"

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 17:21 (2499 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

The other element to all of this is that even if the raid is only experienced by 22% of the player base, it generates HUGE hours of playtime from those players. From an investment point of view, I'm sure that is something Bungie and Activision would take into consideration. I bet I've spent triple the in-game hours playing raids than I have playing story missions, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.

Another reason to make the entire game like that :-)

"50%"

by Claude Errera @, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 17:47 (2499 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The other element to all of this is that even if the raid is only experienced by 22% of the player base, it generates HUGE hours of playtime from those players. From an investment point of view, I'm sure that is something Bungie and Activision would take into consideration. I bet I've spent triple the in-game hours playing raids than I have playing story missions, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.


Another reason to make the entire game like that :-)

::sigh::

Except for those of us who like the OTHER parts of Destiny.

Cody - we're not all you. Please don't make us all play like you.

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"50%"

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 18:33 (2499 days ago) @ Claude Errera

::sigh::

Except for those of us who like the OTHER parts of Destiny.

Which would also be better! Even a patrol mission would be significantly improved if designed around this principle.

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"50%"

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 18:44 (2499 days ago) @ Cody Miller

::sigh::

Except for those of us who like the OTHER parts of Destiny.


Which would also be better! Even a patrol mission would be significantly improved if designed around this principle.

I'm not totally sure about that, myself.

The reason I'm in favour of lack of matchmaking for raids is because it is a demanding & time consuming activity. Patrols/story missions/regular strikes are not. They are shorter, more relaxed experiences, and I think standard matchmaking suits them just fine.

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"50%"

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 19:03 (2499 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by Korny, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 19:46

The other element to all of this is that even if the raid is only experienced by 22% of the player base, it generates HUGE hours of playtime from those players. From an investment point of view, I'm sure that is something Bungie and Activision would take into consideration. I bet I've spent triple the in-game hours playing raids than I have playing story missions, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.


Another reason to make the entire game like that :-)


::sigh::

Except for those of us who like the OTHER parts of Destiny.

Cody - we're not all you. Please don't make us all play like you.

I think a huge reason that the raids were played so much was because, for a long time, they were the entirety of endgame content. They were the only way to reach the level cap, and you could be in a single run for hours and hours on end.

I've never particularly liked Vault of Glass, But according to DestinyTracker, I had 57 completions of the raid, not including DNF games (which is easily dozens, if not a hundred more games), the AoT revamp, or the times I'd run it on Sammy's profile. It's a lot.

And one of the big reasons that I ran so many raids was because of the people. I didn't care so much what the activity was, as long as I was having a good time with friends, and most of the time, they wanted to do endgame content. Three runs a week, this boss or that boss, grabbing this or that checkpoint... Raids aren't necessarily the best experience that I've had in Destiny (Trials might be it), but they were pretty much mandatory for a long while (and still are if you want to play with more than two people without having to jump into PvP). That's why I liked Prison of Elders, Crimson Doubles, Trials, Sparrow Racing, and modern Iron Banner. With so many different options, folks had less incentive to do the raid-of-the-season, and none of those options demand as much of a time sink as raiding. Heck, the House of Wolves event was great, because you could jump into a Vault of Glass with five other friends, then go off and hunt the Wolves down Patrol-style (and you could do some pretty great Public Events to boot).

So yeah. Just because we've spent way more time in Raids, doesn't mean that it's because we want more raids, or because they're the most fun in the game. I want more non-raid content that I can enjoy with more friends.

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"50%"

by dogcow @, Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 21:02 (2499 days ago) @ Korny

Your post reminds me of when we would run multiple nightfalls with a party of two (and a half) fireteams. Those were good times. I wish for more things that are engaging for 6 players that aren't as intense as Vosik or Aksis. Right now VoG or Crota are the only things that meet that (Crota does an excellent job of meeting that actually).

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"50%"

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 22:32 (2499 days ago) @ dogcow

Your post reminds me of when we would run multiple nightfalls with a party of two (and a half) fireteams. Those were good times. I wish for more things that are engaging for 6 players that aren't as intense as Vosik or Aksis. Right now VoG or Crota are the only things that meet that (Crota does an excellent job of meeting that actually).

We did that yesterday.

"50%"

by marmot 1333 @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 19:10 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Sure. But if they didn't even hit the level cap, are they really relevant to the discussion?

If the discussion is, "Is Cody's hypothetical non-matchmaking multiplayer-only video game financially feasible", then the answer to your question is a resounding "yes."

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.

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"50%"

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 19:14 (2500 days ago) @ marmot 1333

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.

Or you play with friends that you actually know. Or you meet people and then play.

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?

"50%"

by marmot 1333 @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 20:15 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I was trying to show that what you value is knowing the people you play with, not the lack of matchmaking.

Your experience playing with a group of people you know is not diminished by someone else's experience playing with people assigned by matchmaking.

Your example assumes that you already know people that have the game and are all available to play at the same time. In your second case, where would you "meet people"?

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"50%"

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 20:36 (2500 days ago) @ marmot 1333

I was trying to show that what you value is knowing the people you play with, not the lack of matchmaking.

Your experience playing with a group of people you know is not diminished by someone else's experience playing with people assigned by matchmaking.

Your example assumes that you already know people that have the game and are all available to play at the same time. In your second case, where would you "meet people"?

I think you're forgetting to take into account the element of human nature where we tend to act with greater commitment towards things that take more time. The simple fact that using an LFG site takes more time and effort than in-game matchmaking means that people who group up through LFG sites are less likely to bail at the first sign of trouble.

That's long been the double-edged sword of matchmaking in all videogames. It trivializes the act of finding people to play with to the point that other players become disposable.

I'm not saying I'm against matchmaking in general. But I do think there is merit to the idea of a game that requires people to make a certain amount of effort or commitment to experience it. Games like that cater to a niche crowd due to their nature, but they reward those who are willing to put the effort in.

As to the whole "you can still do that even with matchmaking in play" argument, yes you can. And some will. But many will choose the faster and easier route of matchmaking, have less fun with the activity as a result, and maybe not try it again. If Destiny supported matchmaking for raids, I may never have come to DBO asking for help. I may never have made the friends here that I did. And without the experience of raising with DBOers, Destiny certainly wouldn't be one of my favourite games.

"50%"

by Claude Errera @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 20:27 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.


Or you play with friends that you actually know. Or you meet people and then play.

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?

I think there are tons of people who go to LFG when they want to raid. What's your point, really?

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 20:41 (2500 days ago) @ Claude Errera

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.


Or you play with friends that you actually know. Or you meet people and then play.

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?


I think there are tons of people who go to LFG when they want to raid. What's your point, really?

As I mentioned in my reply to Marmot, LFG takes a greater level of time and commitment than in-game matchmaking, so players are less likely to treat their LFG groups as disposable. It's not as good as playing with friends, but it does filter out the most non-committal players. And for activities like raids, having non-committal players in the player base poisons it for everyone else.

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"50%"

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:53 (2500 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.


Or you play with friends that you actually know. Or you meet people and then play.

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?


I think there are tons of people who go to LFG when they want to raid. What's your point, really?


As I mentioned in my reply to Marmot, LFG takes a greater level of time and commitment than in-game matchmaking, so players are less likely to treat their LFG groups as disposable. It's not as good as playing with friends, but it does filter out the most non-committal players. And for activities like raids, having non-committal players in the player base poisons it for everyone else.

(I think) This is precisely right. In requiring even a modicum of effort to find other players to raid with, the LFG playerbase is filtered to those players who are actually committed to completing the activity.

Hopefully Bungie recognizes this, and Guided Games (or whatever the name is) requires a similar amount of effort, but without the inconvenience of having to sign up and utilize third party websites. It's a difficult balance to achieve, and I look forward to seeing the results.

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by Xenos @, Shores of Time, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:22 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN

(I think) This is precisely right. In requiring even a modicum of effort to find other players to raid with, the LFG playerbase is filtered to those players who are actually committed to completing the activity.

Hopefully Bungie recognizes this, and Guided Games (or whatever the name is) requires a similar amount of effort, but without the inconvenience of having to sign up and utilize third party websites. It's a difficult balance to achieve, and I look forward to seeing the results.

I think they definitely do from the little they've shown. It's NOT matchmaking, it's suggested teammates. Unlike matchmaking where I could start matchmaking and go grab a drink and the game does everything for me now I'd have to choose from multiple clans and see which one looks like they will gel with how I like to play. That small amount of effort seems like it will make some difference in the quality of teams. As long as there aren't too many clans that are full of jerks.

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by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 23:36 (2500 days ago) @ Xenos

(I think) This is precisely right. In requiring even a modicum of effort to find other players to raid with, the LFG playerbase is filtered to those players who are actually committed to completing the activity.

Hopefully Bungie recognizes this, and Guided Games (or whatever the name is) requires a similar amount of effort, but without the inconvenience of having to sign up and utilize third party websites. It's a difficult balance to achieve, and I look forward to seeing the results.


I think they definitely do from the little they've shown. It's NOT matchmaking, it's suggested teammates.

It's quite a bit more like matchmaking than the high effort alternatives listed above.

What it is, is dual opt-in matchmaking.

Currently matchmaking only requires one opt-in-- players choose an activity and everyone who has opted in for that activity is eligible to be matchmade. Bungie selects the particular partners, and over this you have no control.

The way GG works, as far as I can see, you have to opt in both to an activity and to one (or perhaps more?) clans from which to choose prospective matches, AND the role (guide or seeker). So if you're looking for help you won't be matched with a bunch of other people looking to help and have no one to.. you know, actually help. And if you're looking for casual players who have working microphones, then that is (theoretically) who you will be matched with.

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by Robot Chickens, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 16:52 (2499 days ago) @ Xenos

...As long as there aren't too many clans that are full of jerks.

I kind of want to make a clan with the description "a clan full of jerks" just to see who wants to be sherpa'd by them. Then again, I'm not sure I actually want to meet those people.

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Reminds me

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 18:29 (2499 days ago) @ Robot Chickens

On ole battle.net (when it was called battle.net), a lot of folks would host Starcraft games with the name "2v2 Newbies Only" and a surprising amount of not so great players would join these games and well matched play would occur.

We found that still, some jerks would join, act like a newbie and get off on crushing their opponents...

As a response we would host "2v2 Newbies Only", booting anyone who joined that didn't have a solid record, filtering effectively only for the jerks, and then we'd disappoint them.

PS This was exclusively on Killing Fields and were minimum hour long matches unless they realized we weren't pushovers and just quit immediately.

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"50%"

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 23:32 (2500 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 23:37

Going back a few steps, I am lost as to why this idea of Cody's is a Good Thing. Assume there is an MP only game, no matchmaking. People go on craigslist and find a random player to play with. They don't know the person, they don't have any personal connection. How is this "better" than matchmaking? It takes longer, it's a lot more work (which is not even in the game and NOT FUN), and there is no guarantee the quality of the match would be any better.


Or you play with friends that you actually know. Or you meet people and then play.

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?


I think there are tons of people who go to LFG when they want to raid. What's your point, really?

People are speaking of the possibility of Bungie having to justify the raids to Activision. As if being the best parts of the game, and the coolest experiences in an FPS needed justification.

My point is, that if every part of the game were similar to the raids - an awesome experience with mandatory co-op and no matchmaking, then it wouldn't need justification and people would get used to that.

Playing with people you know gives you the best D&D experience. People aren't stupid. They will play with people they know for such a hypothetical video game. It's a proven concept that works. This is even justified by the seemingly high numbers of people who have in fact completed a raid.

We do not need matchmaking or guided games.

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Meshing with strangers

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 23:59 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Playing with people you know gives you the best D&D experience.

While I agree with your overall point, I'd like to counter this particular argument. I, for one, have never played a D&D game in real life. However, I actually GOT TO KNOW Beorn, Raga and Chewie through playing an online post-by-post D&D clone. I'd say it improved my relationship with the three of them (and our GM, who I hadn't even heard of before said game) much, much faster and better than even the forum here.

My point is, what if you could get the Raid to that to you? Instead of seeking people you already mesh with, what if the Raid meshed you with people you barely know?* In fact, I can also confirm the Vault of Glass and King's Fall have both gotten me closer to other DBOers than the forum as well.

*I concede "barely know" is still more potentially fruitful than "complete strangers", but not enough to invalidate the point.

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Meshing with strangers

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 00:53 (2500 days ago) @ ZackDark

Playing with people you know gives you the best D&D experience.


While I agree with your overall point, I'd like to counter this particular argument. I, for one, have never played a D&D game in real life. However, I actually GOT TO KNOW Beorn, Raga and Chewie through playing an online post-by-post D&D clone. I'd say it improved my relationship with the three of them (and our GM, who I hadn't even heard of before said game) much, much faster and better than even the forum here.

My point is, what if you could get the Raid to that to you? Instead of seeking people you already mesh with, what if the Raid meshed you with people you barely know?* In fact, I can also confirm the Vault of Glass and King's Fall have both gotten me closer to other DBOers than the forum as well.

*I concede "barely know" is still more potentially fruitful than "complete strangers", but not enough to invalidate the point.

This is a good point, and also one of the benefits of the types of engaging and challenging design a mandatory co-op experience creates. By the very nature of what is asked of you, you're going to get to know the people you play with no matter how you do it.

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"50%"

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:52 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You think I go on craigslist when I want to play D&D?

No, you would do this:

http://geekandsundry.com/finding-a-dd-group-how-do-you-want-to-do-this/

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Be sure to set up a PayPal.

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:04 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Oh, I didn't realize Destiny was only on PS4.

Let me repeat: Bungie supplied the 50% statistic during the big reveal. Take it up with them. You asked for proof, and that's the proof.

So Cyber can send you those $10.
The transaction should go through after Funkmon eats that sock, but before Cody releases a book...

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Not necessary

by DiscipleN2k @, Edmond, OK, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:10 (2500 days ago) @ Korny

Cody is still wrong here.

Cody,

...half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid...

Luke,

Fifty percent of people who reached the level cap got organized into Fireteams and completed a Raid...

-Disciple

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Not necessary

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:22 (2500 days ago) @ DiscipleN2k

Cody is still wrong here.

Shocking.


Cody,

...half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid...

Ah, yeah, that's a clear misunderstanding of what Luke said. To be fair, I was referring to the exchange between cheapLEY and Cyber; I think I initially skipped the Cody post.


Luke,

Fifty percent of people who reached the level cap got organized into Fireteams and completed a Raid...

I'd say that this was a great way to say that the Raid is not the only way to hit the level cap, but at the same time, it could mean that once someone hit the then-current level cap, they never played a Raid again.
I'd rather not jump to conclusions about what it means exactly; I think it's best to get more info before making dumb claims. *cough*

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Not necessary

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:55 (2500 days ago) @ DiscipleN2k

Cody is still wrong here.

Cody,

...half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid...


Luke,

Fifty percent of people who reached the level cap got organized into Fireteams and completed a Raid...


-Disciple

Yes, it seems those are different.

I really wish There was less convolution in statements. Without now knowing how many people did not hit the level cap, the statement is at best not that informative, and at worst misleading. If the trophy data says 22% and we assume that is the correct number, they should have said "only 22% of the people who played Destiny finished a raid". Very simple and clear.

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Not necessary

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 19:55 (2500 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Cody is still wrong here.

Cody,

...half of the people who bought Destiny completed a raid...


Luke,

Fifty percent of people who reached the level cap got organized into Fireteams and completed a Raid...


-Disciple


Yes, it seems those are different.

I really wish There was less convolution in statements. Without now knowing how many people did not hit the level cap, the statement is at best not that informative, and at worst misleading. If the trophy data says 22% and we assume that is the correct number, they should have said "only 22% of the people who played Destiny finished a raid". Very simple and clear.

That's not how hype-based marketing works, though. When it comes to statistics, every word is carefully chosen in order to be able to impress, while leaving room to backtrack or "clarify" when the small crowd starts to dig into it. Just as it misled you, it can ideally mislead investors and players alike: "50% raid completion? Raids must be a massive draw!"

If you were to say "There's around a 1:4 ratio of players who have completed a raid." Then folks will be like "What's the point of investing so many resources into a Raid then?"

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Not necessary

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 22:54 (2500 days ago) @ Korny

If you were to say "There's around a 1:4 ratio of players who have completed a raid." Then folks will be like "What's the point of investing so many resources into a Raid then?"

Yup!

I'm betting someone somewhere IS saying that. Guided Games is the response to it.

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Not necessary

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 14:44 (2500 days ago) @ narcogen

If you were to say "There's around a 1:4 ratio of players who have completed a raid." Then folks will be like "What's the point of investing so many resources into a Raid then?"


Yup!

I'm betting someone somewhere IS saying that. Guided Games is the response to it.

Less than half the people who play your game see the ending. Why are you spending money on the ending? This line of thought is ridiculous.

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Not necessary

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 19:25 (2499 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If you were to say "There's around a 1:4 ratio of players who have completed a raid." Then folks will be like "What's the point of investing so many resources into a Raid then?"


Yup!

I'm betting someone somewhere IS saying that. Guided Games is the response to it.


Less than half the people who play your game see the ending. Why are you spending money on the ending? This line of thought is ridiculous.

Sure sounds like it, but this line of thinking is exactly why Titanfall didn't have a campaign. According to Respawn's co-founder, Vince Zampella:


"We make these single-player missions that take up all the focus of the studio, that take a huge team six months to make, and players run through it in 8 minutes... And how many people finish the single-player game? It's a small percentage.

...Really, you split the team. They're two different games. They're balanced differently, they're scoped differently. But people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus 'as little time as possible rushing to the end' [of the campaign]. So why do all the resources go there? To us it made sense to put it here [in Multiplayer]. Now everybody sees all those resources, and multiplayer is better. For us it made sense."

Now Titanfall sucked enough on its own that it hemorrhaged its playerbase in months, but I doubt investors really blamed this as the fault of a lack of campaign, and it goes to show you that people really do have that kind of mentality. 22% might even seem like a decent number in some people's eyes, but if you add the number of Xbox players to the list, I bet that percentage would drop. Then you have a real problem trying to explain to the suits, investors, and playerbase why you're dedicating so many resources to the rarely-completed "premiere" experience of your game when the easily-made Microtransaction content is raking in the dough (as the emotes shown off so far show, Microtransactions are guaranteed to be back in Destiny 2, sorry Cody).

It's a pretty precarious situation, so ambiguity and carefully-chosen words are important, even if they mislead people with poor reading comprehension (some might say "especially if")..

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Not necessary

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 22:20 (2499 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If you were to say "There's around a 1:4 ratio of players who have completed a raid." Then folks will be like "What's the point of investing so many resources into a Raid then?"


Yup!

I'm betting someone somewhere IS saying that. Guided Games is the response to it.


Less than half the people who play your game see the ending. Why are you spending money on the ending? This line of thought is ridiculous.

Just because it is ridiculous doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Also, the line of thinking there has a natural counterpoint in the debate over game length.

After all, a game's length is arbitrary. Even if you've predetermined your game's beginning and ending, you can make that journey take longer, or you can make it shorter. You can design encounters to slow the player, or you can speed things up. You can add side missions or leave them out, you can cut levels you don't like as much, you can add places that require players to grind.

So you've got pressure to make games shorter because the numbers TELL you that people aren't finishing your game.

You also have pressure to make games LONGER because user feedback and the press tell you that hours per dollar is important, and games that deliver more hours, even if all those hours aren't of even quality, are well thought of and sell reasonably well.

The shooter genre absolutely is facing pressure to get shorter-- to focus on gameplay mechanics and forget story, and it's been facing that pressure a long time.

The RPG genre generally falls prey to the other pressure-- bigger areas, more encounters, more quests, campaigns that last hundreds of hours instead of tens. Halo games clock in around 10 hours.

Destiny, being an FPS-RPG hybrid, feels both kinds of pressure. Campaign wise, D1 is way shorter than most self-respecting RPGs and is threadbare compared to any Halo game. But now we're seeing D2 get a Far Cry/Assassins Creed type map with a bunch of "stuff to do".

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Not necessary

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, May 25, 2017, 13:39 (2499 days ago) @ narcogen

Game length should simply occur naturally. If you are playing the game and you get bored or things get repetitive - if the game runs out of ideas, it should be shorter. Make your game the length it needs to be to maximize fun per second. Most games these days are far too long.

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Not necessary

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Thursday, May 25, 2017, 15:14 (2499 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Game length should simply occur naturally. If you are playing the game and you get bored or things get repetitive - if the game runs out of ideas, it should be shorter. Make your game the length it needs to be to maximize fun per second. Most games these days are far too long.

A lot of that stems from people directly equating length with value. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's a huge thing.

When Titanfall 2 came out, this one dumb reviewer complained that the campaign was only five hours long. He loved it (and the pacing), but he said that he wanted it to be at least ten hours long, (and I quote) "but not with filler, but more great moments". That was actually one of his biggest knocks against the game as a whole, and it was asinine, but game length is important to people.

Would the Left Behind DLC for The Last of us been better if they doubled the length of the mall fights?

Speed, Cruel and I were talking about this some nights ago, since Horizon Zero Dawn is a 40 hour game, as opposed to something like The Witcher 3, which is closer to a 200 hour game. While The Witcher is a fantastic game, you are required to run many filler quests in order to continue the story, and it's easy to just forget about the main quests and slowly lose interest. HZD has a very tightly-paced story, and only three "main" storylines that you must do (and I'm not even sure if two of them are mandatory, but I was to compelled to complete them before doing the main one) in order to complete the story. If you look at the Trophies, 29.1% of people who started the game have already beaten it (by contrast, while 30% of players completed the Witcher 3's main story, this includes those who played on the story-only difficulty. If you look at the "Blood and Bones" difficulty and above, it drops to 5.6%) Over a fourth of all players have hunted down all of the pieces of the optional Shield Weaver outfit (that's a pretty crazy percentage). And nearly one in every ten people who started the game has gotten the Platinum Trophy for it.

Guerilla's focus on making the experience as long as it needed to be to tell a great story, while not forcing players to run fetch quest after fetch quest is one of the reasons that I love the game (though there are totally optional fetch quests that you can do, but none that the story requires).

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Not necessary

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, May 25, 2017, 16:01 (2498 days ago) @ Korny
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, May 25, 2017, 16:05

When Titanfall 2 came out, this one dumb reviewer complained that the campaign was only five hours long. He loved it (and the pacing), but he said that he wanted it to be at least ten hours long, (and I quote) "but not with filler, but more great moments". That was actually one of his biggest knocks against the game as a whole, and it was asinine, but game length is important to people.

There is such a thing as a game being too short while still being good. This happens when your game is so short, that it doesn't meaningfully explore enough possibilities set up by the rules. There is a critical mass.

If Super Mario Brothers were just world 1-1, then yeah. You could easily say that the game is fun, but too short. This is because there is so much more you can do with these rules; there are so many challenges you can give the player.

A game like PaRappa the Rapper is too short. You have six stages, but the first few are very easy and pretty much the same, and in the last two you begin to get some semblance of diversity and challenge. There is no hard mode either. Rap is very diverse, so it should have been easy to craft each song as a cool new experience exploring a different style. Instead, it is over before you even have to apply yourself.

Contrast this to Gitaroo man, which has ten stages. You wouldn't think 4 more songs would make the difference, but each song is completely different in style, and gives you a unique set of challenges. Plus, it has a master's mode.

PaRappa is to short, and Gitaroo Man just right, even though both are fun. It is certainly possible to like Titanfall 2's campaign yet think it is too short, but I don't really agree with the reviewer there. It too was just right.

When you say a game is too short, you have to prove that it left ideas unexplored, and did not hit its critical mass. What you don't do is throw out bullshit numbers like 10-12 hours and score it by checklist.

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You don't have to be bitter just because you're wrong :P

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:16 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

- No text -

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That's mainly just my default state.

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 21:29 (2500 days ago) @ CyberKN

Right or wrong doesn't come into account very often. (:

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If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings)

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 09:38 (2500 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Good thoughts.

One note though about leveling up quickly to do the new raids. We do that in order to savor the content in a way that can't be done later.

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If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings)

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 22:22 (2499 days ago) @ Kermit

Good thoughts.

One note though about leveling up quickly to do the new raids. We do that in order to savor the content in a way that can't be done later.

Right.

It's just too bad that in a way that design forces you to decide between savoring the spoiler-free raid, and savoring the campaign content at a reasonable pace instead of grinding through it for light levels.

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