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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution) (Destiny)

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, October 24, 2014, 11:09 (3443 days ago)

I think Bungie fell into the pitfall of most loot based games when it comes to end game rewards. What I mean, is that all the hardest content gives the best rewards. The problem of course, is that what good are all the great rewards, when you've already conquered the hardest challenge? The whole point of getting good gear is to be able to do harder stuff. If you've beaten the Vault of Glass or the Nightfall, and you get a reward it's pretty good. But what's left to use the reward on? Nightfall and Vault of Glass again…

So you run into a situation where you are getting new guns and armor just for the sake of getting getting new guns and armor more efficiently. It's gear for gear's sake. After all, if you can beat the nightfall and Vault on Hard, you don't really need better gear do you?

I never thought I'd say this, but Diablo 2 had the solution. Early, it suffered from the same problem. You could beat Hell difficulty easily at around level 60. You could get to level 99. 60-99 was just getting gear, which of course is dumb because you can already beat Hell. Why do you need better gear? In order to do gear runs faster. See why that's dumb? Later in its life, Diablo 2 offered crazy hard challenges and optional quests via game updates. You had to have all the best stuff and a lot of patience to do it, but the interesting thing is that you did not get gear for completing them.

One such quest has you killing insanely buffed up versions of the three main bosses, and if you kill them you get a charm that increases experience earned. A charm stays in your inventory, and gives you a passive effect. The exp gain was small, I think 10%. You'd think it'd be useless, since you are already high level. But it's not.

It's actually brilliant. You've mastered the game with one character, so what would be left to do? Master the game with another character class or build. They all play very differently, so it can add variety. So give the charm to a new character, and you can more quickly speed past the boring part of leveling up and get to the fun part: playing with a new class and using new skills.

Imagine if upon beating Atheon on hard, you got maybe a universal class item that could be worn on anybody. You give it to another character you start, and you earn exp at twice the rate. This would be fabulous, since you can bypass the part that you've already mastered, takes no skill, and is boring (leveling up and grinding), and get to the fun part of trying a new class.

THAT is what you do when your players finish all your content - you encourage them to take on a new challenge. In this case, mastering another class - rather than just running the same stuff over and over in the pointless cycle of getting gear just to get more gear.

End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Numinar @, Friday, October 24, 2014, 11:29 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I like it! I understand that they don't have the content, tech or sandbox of enough depth to do trading without making everything horrible, but making the xp boosts (like from nightfall) tradeable/storable would be nice!

They already have this in a lot of ways. It does not take too many hours to hit 20, and once there all weapons and Armour that you are compatible with and earned with your first character or two can be geared up to help you on your way. I think I have enough loots that when I get my Warlock and Titan on the go there will be no level 21-24 for them. It will be straight to the tiger playlist!

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Blackt1g3r @, Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Friday, October 24, 2014, 11:30 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

That's basically what I've been doing anyway. Every time I earn Legendary/Exotic items for classes other than my primary Titan class I just stuff it in the Vault. When I'm done playing my Titan and go to level up a Hunter it will take me much less time to do so.

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Friday, October 24, 2014, 13:53 (3443 days ago) @ Blackt1g3r

I'm doing the same thing for my future Hunter character. I've already got a complete set of legendary armor and a legendary hand canon tucked aside for her.

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, October 24, 2014, 11:48 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

THAT is what you do when your players finish all your content - you encourage them to take on a new challenge. In this case, mastering another class - rather than just running the same stuff over and over in the pointless cycle of getting gear just to get more gear.

Two things:

1. Why is it that you make a distinction between Diablo's normal story content and the more challenging content, but you lump Destiny's normal story content along with its more challenging content? I see the Vault of Glass or the weekly missions and strikes as the things you are meant to do once you beat Destiny's normal content, similar to what you described in Diablo. Certainly the Vault of Glass is something to strive for past the normal story and certainly it offers buffed enemies and new challenges. Why is the VoG just part of beating Destiny but this high level Diablo content is seen as separate? Are you being unfair or am I missing something since I haven't played Diablo?

I do agree though that the Raid specific armor currently serves little point other than boosting a number. That's why I didn't see it as a worthy prize for beating the Vault of Glass while others found me silly for dismissing the fact that I apparently got the "best" rewards possible. Fortunately we know more content is coming for Destiny so hopefully the Raid armor will be more than a number booster in the future.

2. Besides the quick leveling, Destiny does give you five more classes to play with once you finish earning all the abilities of your first one. Why does this not seem to count to you? You talk about starting over in Diablo but you can do similar in Destiny, can't you?

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, October 24, 2014, 11:57 (3443 days ago) @ Ragashingo

THAT is what you do when your players finish all your content - you encourage them to take on a new challenge. In this case, mastering another class - rather than just running the same stuff over and over in the pointless cycle of getting gear just to get more gear.


Two things:

1. Why is it that you make a distinction between Diablo's normal story content and the more challenging content, but you lump Destiny's normal story content along with its more challenging content? I see the Vault of Glass or the weekly missions and strikes as the things you are meant to do once you beat Destiny's normal content, similar to what you described in Diablo. Certainly the Vault of Glass is something to strive for past the normal story and certainly it offers buffed enemies and new challenges. Why is the VoG just part of beating Destiny but this high level Diablo content is seen as separate? Are you being unfair or am I missing something since I haven't played Diablo?


2. Besides the quick leveling, Destiny does give you five more classes to play with once you finish earning all the abilities of your first one. Why does this not seem to count to you? You talk about starting over in Diablo but you can do similar in Destiny, can't you?

Did you even read my post? I suggested exactly what you just said - to treat the Vault of Glass like the Optional Ultrahard stuff in Diablo, not by giving out gear, but rather something that gives bonus exp to make starting over with a new class easier and more fun.

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, October 24, 2014, 12:31 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I suggested exactly what you just said - to treat the Vault of Glass like the Optional Ultrahard stuff in Diablo, not by giving out gear, but rather something that gives bonus exp to make starting over with a new class easier and more fun.

I have wondered a couple of times why beating a Nightfall Strike give you a neat visual and xp bonus but beating the Vault of Glass doesn't. Extending a Nightfall-like bonus to the VoG and allowing it to be transferred to your other characters (or for simplicities sake just applying it to all your characters) is a good idea. It would also help with the unevenness and sometimes anti-climatic nature of the VoG rewards.

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Sounds good to me!

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Friday, October 24, 2014, 13:55 (3443 days ago) @ Ragashingo

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Avateur @, Friday, October 24, 2014, 12:28 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Gotta agree with your post. I have zero desire to start another character. Would I like to try a Hunter? Yes. But Bungie's already shown me that they don't respect my time enough for me to want to try and master one. Not fun. If I want to have fun, I'll hop on my Titan with my buddies and keep doing what I'm doing. I'm not going to purposely stunt myself at this point.

Hopefully Bungie has some truly beneficial updates in the works beyond patching their alleged teleportation glitches and such.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by Schedonnardus, Texas, Friday, October 24, 2014, 14:44 (3443 days ago) @ Avateur

It's a pain to start a new character. I don't care that i've been dead a long time, i just want to play the game. I don't care that the children are frightened, or that you don't have time to explain that you don't have time to explain. I don't have time to listen. I just want to get to patrol and strikes and crucible. Yes those roadblocks are nice for a new player to baby them along, but when a start a second character, i want to get down to business.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Friday, October 24, 2014, 14:50 (3443 days ago) @ Schedonnardus

It's a pain to start a new character. I don't care that i've been dead a long time, i just want to play the game. I don't care that the children are frightened, or that you don't have time to explain that you don't have time to explain. I don't have time to listen. I just want to get to patrol and strikes and crucible. Yes those roadblocks are nice for a new player to baby them along, but when a start a second character, i want to get down to business.

I agree with you.

And that, right there, is probably the reason some people at Bungie decided to strip most of the heavy storytelling out of Destiny in favor of a tight, action-focused experience.

Story-heavy exposition and set pieces make for a more powerful first-time-through... but they get in the way when you need to replay these missions over and over.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Friday, October 24, 2014, 15:04 (3443 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Story-heavy exposition and set pieces make for a more powerful first-time-through... but they get in the way when you need to replay these missions over and over.

Well...I mean, you could make them skippable...just sayin'...

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Friday, October 24, 2014, 15:17 (3443 days ago) @ iconicbanana

That would certainly help with cutscenes, but I'm thinking a bit beyond that as well. Think about the general structure of the first mission. Wandering through dark hallways, watching the Fallen scale the walls as the light come on, etc. It's a great scripted sequence that feels immersive and pulls the player in. But replaying it multiple times gets tedious real fast.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Friday, October 24, 2014, 15:28 (3443 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

You could make the argument that everything below level 20 feels tedious. Different campaigns for each race may have been a good way to flesh that out; the claim that they wanted everyone to have the same experience across races really seems like a tactical miscalculation to me. Would have added a certain amount of replayability as well

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Friday, October 24, 2014, 16:03 (3443 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Geez. How many characters are you guys making? I figure that I'll make six max. I'll savor that opening sequence each time because I realize there's only so many times I'll get to play it.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by RC ⌂, UK, Friday, October 24, 2014, 16:35 (3443 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

That would certainly help with cutscenes, but I'm thinking a bit beyond that as well. Think about the general structure of the first mission. Wandering through dark hallways, watching the Fallen scale the walls as the light come on, etc. It's a great scripted sequence that feels immersive and pulls the player in. But replaying it multiple times gets tedious real fast.

Uh, what?

A Guardian Rises is easy, fast and fun. Literally the only things you need to kill are the ones that spawn in the final room. Run past everything else. 4 minutes and you're done. I can do it without firing a shot.

The thing that slow new characters down are the unskippable cutscenes, NOT the actual playing part of the game.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 08:31 (3442 days ago) @ RC

No argument about the unskippable cutscenes... those are a problem.

My point about the opening mission is that it's ok for what it is, but I wouldn't want an entire game filled with that style of mission (more scripted events, longer drawn-out "atmosphere" sequences).

According to the infamous "AMA" on Reddit by the supposed Bungie tester, that intro mission is more in line with what the majority of the Destiny campaign was going to be like before the big change in 2013.

All I'm saying is that I can see how some of the team at Bungie might worry that a game full of missions like that would be horribly tedious to replay over and over.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 10:45 (3442 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

No argument about the unskippable cutscenes... those are a problem.

My point about the opening mission is that it's ok for what it is, but I wouldn't want an entire game filled with that style of mission (more scripted events, longer drawn-out "atmosphere" sequences).

According to the infamous "AMA" on Reddit by the supposed Bungie tester, that intro mission is more in line with what the majority of the Destiny campaign was going to be like before the big change in 2013.

All I'm saying is that I can see how some of the team at Bungie might worry that a game full of missions like that would be horribly tedious to replay over and over.

It doesn't have to be like the first mission, just stuff peppered through to let you know you are actually affecting things. For instance, the opening of the Array on the last Earth mission was pretty neat, yet we see nothing at all like that ever later in the game.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by Yapok @, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 10:50 (3442 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It doesn't have to be like the first mission, just stuff peppered through to let you know you are actually affecting things. For instance, the opening of the Array on the last Earth mission was pretty neat, yet we see nothing at all like that ever later in the game.

Not to mention it doesnt stay open on subsequent patrols after the fact. Having it stay open for those who completed the mission would provide some sense of effecting the world through your actions.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by uberfoop @, Seattle-ish, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 11:21 (3442 days ago) @ Yapok

Not to mention it doesnt stay open on subsequent patrols after the fact. Having it stay open for those who completed the mission would provide some sense of effecting the world through your actions.

Considering how much stuff in Destiny isn't synchronized between clients, it's disappointing that it was like this.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by RC ⌂, UK, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 11:16 (3442 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

No argument about the unskippable cutscenes... those are a problem.

My point about the opening mission is that it's ok for what it is, but I wouldn't want an entire game filled with that style of mission (more scripted events, longer drawn-out "atmosphere" sequences).

The only event in the first level that slowed you down at all was Ghost opening the gate. I think we all know how often that happens in the rest of the game anyway.

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Don't force new characters to play first mission/cinematic

by stabbim @, Des Moines, IA, USA, Friday, October 24, 2014, 17:17 (3443 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I agree with you.

And that, right there, is probably the reason some people at Bungie decided to strip most of the heavy storytelling out of Destiny in favor of a tight, action-focused experience.

Story-heavy exposition and set pieces make for a more powerful first-time-through... but they get in the way when you need to replay these missions over and over.

SO much of that could be solved by simply making cutscenes skippable.

Yes! Thank you. That drives me crazy.

by Jabberwok, Monday, October 27, 2014, 15:16 (3440 days ago) @ stabbim

- No text -

This is a pretty good idea.

by yakaman, Friday, October 24, 2014, 13:52 (3443 days ago) @ Cody Miller

- No text -

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End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by Kahzgul, Sunday, October 26, 2014, 06:47 (3441 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Completely true. People who make investment games get caught in this loop of thinking that players are ONLY interested in better gear, and forget that the players want the better gear so they can go do something that's too hard for them at their current gear level. Once you beat VoG hardmode, you want things that show off how awesome you are, like a sweet, non-brown spaceship, or a cool mark, bond, or cloak. Or maybe armor that's the same stats as what you already had, but looks awesome.

Rewarding players who sought out and tackled the hardest challenge in the game by making that challenge easier for them is dumb (and, sadly, is exactly what every MMO ever has done).

End game problem with loot (and a cool solution)

by sorahn ⌂, Sunday, October 26, 2014, 16:54 (3441 days ago) @ Cody Miller

They should take another pointer from Diablo and let me spend mats right out of my vault.

Diablo 3's solution

by Jabberwok, Monday, October 27, 2014, 15:26 (3440 days ago) @ Cody Miller

With the expansion, I think Diablo 3 does a pretty good job of making the end game meaningful. Once you reach the end of the skill tree, you can still keep leveling up for small stat bonuses (there might still be a limit, but it would take a looong time to reach it), which means experience is still useful. And the game adjusts enemies to your level, so the level of challenge is more based on the difficulty you choose, and your build, than how leveled and decked out you are. With the expansion, there's free roaming and a random selection of bounties for each session (much more interesting than a lot of Destiny's bounties). Then best of all, there are 'Rifts', which are actual randomly generated, unique dungeons filled with high level enemies.

Not all of that would be possible in a game like Destiny, but there are probably still some things they could learn from it. I'm not a big fan of Blizzard's approach to game design, but when it comes to progression systems, and extending the shelf-life of their products, they seem to know what they're doing.

I think Bungie fell into the pitfall of most loot based games when it comes to end game rewards. What I mean, is that all the hardest content gives the best rewards. The problem of course, is that what good are all the great rewards, when you've already conquered the hardest challenge? The whole point of getting good gear is to be able to do harder stuff. If you've beaten the Vault of Glass or the Nightfall, and you get a reward it's pretty good. But what's left to use the reward on? Nightfall and Vault of Glass again…

So you run into a situation where you are getting new guns and armor just for the sake of getting getting new guns and armor more efficiently. It's gear for gear's sake. After all, if you can beat the nightfall and Vault on Hard, you don't really need better gear do you?

I never thought I'd say this, but Diablo 2 had the solution. Early, it suffered from the same problem. You could beat Hell difficulty easily at around level 60. You could get to level 99. 60-99 was just getting gear, which of course is dumb because you can already beat Hell. Why do you need better gear? In order to do gear runs faster. See why that's dumb? Later in its life, Diablo 2 offered crazy hard challenges and optional quests via game updates. You had to have all the best stuff and a lot of patience to do it, but the interesting thing is that you did not get gear for completing them.

One such quest has you killing insanely buffed up versions of the three main bosses, and if you kill them you get a charm that increases experience earned. A charm stays in your inventory, and gives you a passive effect. The exp gain was small, I think 10%. You'd think it'd be useless, since you are already high level. But it's not.

It's actually brilliant. You've mastered the game with one character, so what would be left to do? Master the game with another character class or build. They all play very differently, so it can add variety. So give the charm to a new character, and you can more quickly speed past the boring part of leveling up and get to the fun part: playing with a new class and using new skills.

Imagine if upon beating Atheon on hard, you got maybe a universal class item that could be worn on anybody. You give it to another character you start, and you earn exp at twice the rate. This would be fabulous, since you can bypass the part that you've already mastered, takes no skill, and is boring (leveling up and grinding), and get to the fun part of trying a new class.

THAT is what you do when your players finish all your content - you encourage them to take on a new challenge. In this case, mastering another class - rather than just running the same stuff over and over in the pointless cycle of getting gear just to get more gear.

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