Pretty scathing opinion piece on Polygon

Polygon just posted a very scathing opinion piece about how the recent changes in Destiny are designed to punish the hardcore players the most. It's a pretty interesting read, and while I am not nearly as bitter as the author, I unfortunately have to admit that there is some harsh truth in there.

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Polygon just posted a very scathing opinion piece about how the recent changes in Destiny are designed to punish the hardcore players the most. It's a pretty interesting read, and while I am not nearly as bitter as the author, I unfortunately have to admit that there is some harsh truth in there.

Unfortunately, I know exactly why radiant materials were included in the game. All I have to do is look at my inventory. I have over 300 Ascendant shards right now. That means, upgrading armor is absolutely trivial. You need 84 shards to max out 4 pieces of raid gear, and if the gear required ascendant materials you'd basically already have 32s running around. I see no problem with that at all, but I just know Bungie did this to prevent quick progression in the expansion.

Same thing with commendations. It doesn't make much sense at first glance: I get around 2 faction level up per week on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less. You can earn at most 100 marks per week. It would look like you can earn more commendations than required to spend all your marks. So why include them?

Same reason. You could have 200 vanguard and crucible marks across your characters, (600 and 600), and go to town and gear up immediately. Again, i see no problem with that, but now you have to earn commendations which prevents you from buying gear right away.

It's 100% because there is so little content in the DLC, and Bungie needs to stretch it out rather than let you play the fucking game. The issue is 100% because of small DLC packs rather than full on expansions, or simply larger games with only sequels. heaven forbid we actually finish a game.

I will be playing much much less of Destiny in the future, simply because this writer is right: Destiny is a game hostile towards its players.

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Polygon just posted a very scathing opinion piece about how the recent changes in Destiny are designed to punish the hardcore players the most. It's a pretty interesting read, and while I am not nearly as bitter as the author, I unfortunately have to admit that there is some harsh truth in there.

Unfortunately, I know exactly why radiant materials were included in the game. All I have to do is look at my inventory. I have over 300 Ascendant shards right now. That means, upgrading armor is absolutely trivial. You need 84 shards to max out 4 pieces of raid gear, and if the gear required ascendant materials you'd basically already have 32s running around. I see no problem with that at all, but I just know Bungie did this to prevent quick progression in the expansion.

Same thing with commendations. It doesn't make much sense at first glance: I get around 2 faction level up per week on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less. You can earn at most 100 marks per week. It would look like you can earn more commendations than required to spend all your marks. So why include them?

Same reason. You could have 200 vanguard and crucible marks across your characters, (600 and 600), and go to town and gear up immediately. Again, i see no problem with that, but now you have to earn commendations which prevents you from buying gear right away.

It's 100% because there is so little content in the DLC, and Bungie needs to stretch it out rather than let you play the fucking game.

I will be playing much much less of Destiny in the future, simply because this writer is right: Destiny is a game hostile towards its players.

And the worst part is that it screws over those of us with little time to play even more than we were being screwed before. With this expansion, finding time for Destiny is made even less desirable than before.

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And the worst part is that it screws over those of us with little time to play even more than we were being screwed before. With this expansion, finding time for Destiny is made even less desirable than before.

if you ran the Raid 3x per week and got nothing but shard drops, you'd have 36 per week. That's 2 weeks MINIMUM to reach level 32, and that's with an exotic. In reality, you will not even get close given you will either get gear, or energy sometime. The required materials to convert energy to shards at Eris makes it prohibitive to do en masse.

I hope their new smart loot system doesn't start awarding me gear when I already have all 4 pieces and need shards to level them up. Oh you've gotten nothing but shards lately? Here have a gun. Yay a fun drop! BUT I NEED SHARDS.

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I hope their new smart loot system doesn't start awarding me gear when I already have all 4 pieces and need shards to level them up. Oh you've gotten nothing but shards lately? Here have a gun. Yay a fun drop! BUT I NEED SHARDS.

The loot drops in the raid will dismantle to become radiant shards/energies. Not that it makes your stated concern trivial, but you will still be able to get shards and energy regardless of what type of drop you get in the raid. The cost to exchange one type for the other isnt a big deal either - just one black wax idol and a nominal amount of glimmer (...other than the fact that you have to be rep lvl 4 with Eris before you can make those exchanges - which is just plain stupid if you ask me.

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but you will still be able to get shards and energy regardless of what type of drop you get in the raid.

Same as it's been with legendaries/ascendant materials in the past, I guess. Only real difference is, as Cody said, that we can't use the stuff we already have. Which is probably really irritating for some. Personally, I don't have a huge stock of ascendant materials, so it's no practical difference for me, although the apparently intentional stretching out of our time is irritating in principal.

just one black wax idol

Which, if the VoG/blue polyphage situation is any indication, we're all going to have buttloads of soon. Honestly, I feel like that particular item is less Bungie trying to arbitrarily stretch things out, and more them trying to keep us all from building up a stupidly high number of the consumable item, like what happened with polyphages. I still have like 90 of those things, and I haven't run VoG nearly as much as some others I know.

you have to be rep lvl 4 with Eris before you can make those exchanges - which is just plain stupid if you ask me.

Yup. I'm not even halfway to 2 yet, and I've been picking up her bounties as much as I can.

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Not according to the interview with Luke someone posted here recently. Luke said basically that the Radient materials were intended to help encourage people to upgrade their stuff with the Ascendant materials instead of holding on to them while trying to get raid gear. According to him Bungie found that many players were doing exactly that and it was keeping them at a low level whereas if they just upgraded their gear and waited to upgrade Raid gear later they would have leveled up already.

It's probably a consequence of how they designed things, but it was a solution that they came up with to that specific problem they identified in the player base without making drastic changes to progression.

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Not according to the interview with Luke someone posted here recently. Luke said basically that the Radient materials were intended to help encourage people to upgrade their stuff with the Ascendant materials instead of holding on to them while trying to get raid gear. According to him Bungie found that many players were doing exactly that and it was keeping them at a low level whereas if they just upgraded their gear and waited to upgrade Raid gear later they would have leveled up already.

Of course he is going to say that. I'm sure what he says is true, but it's not the whole reason. He's not going to go out and say "This system is to keep you from leveling too quickly". It's very very obvious that Bungie intended for the Vault of Glass and reaching 30 to be much harder than it ended up being.

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Not according to the interview with Luke someone posted here recently. Luke said basically that the Radient materials were intended to help encourage people to upgrade their stuff with the Ascendant materials instead of holding on to them while trying to get raid gear. According to him Bungie found that many players were doing exactly that and it was keeping them at a low level whereas if they just upgraded their gear and waited to upgrade Raid gear later they would have leveled up already.

Of course he is going to say that. I'm sure what he says is true, but it's not the whole reason. He's not going to go out and say "This system is to keep you from leveling too quickly". It's very very obvious that Bungie intended for the Vault of Glass and reaching 30 to be much harder than it ended up being.

Hence no Deathsinger loot drop?

I was initially a little peeved with myself for not spending that lull towards the end of season one working on alts, but I've now realized that would have been wasted effort. It is going to be much easier for my Hunter to purchase new vendor gear and go directly to Crota's End, completely ignoring the Vault of Glass. Of course, I'm aware that everything I'm doing now is temporary and will end up being a waste of time when the next expansion comes out.

Example:

Saturday morning my Warlock was wearing a full set of VoG Raid armor.

- Xur to upgrade an unused Exotic helmet
- Eris Urn Quest for arms
- Vanguard vendor for chest and boots
- Bounties to level all gear over the course of the day. I hit 31 by Saturday evening, right before we loaded up Crota's End for the first time. I went into the second Raid wearing NONE of my VoG Raid armor--armor that took MONTHS to acquire.

Bungie, stop doing stupid.

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I hate systems like this. The gear I'm wearing is a weight I carry with me until I find some other weight.

Boy is the Vault awesome and the strikes great fun. Just wish there was more of a focus on how well we do (leaderboards, emblems/cosmetic gear for doing well) rather than this silly progression stuff.

If Destiny 2 is like this, it will be the first wait and see I do of a bungie game.

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I hit 31 by Saturday evening, right before we loaded up Crota's End for the first time. I went into the second Raid wearing NONE of my VoG Raid armor--armor that took MONTHS to acquire.

Bungie, stop doing stupid.

You're completely right in terms of the progression being lopsided. But I look at it in a different way:

Reaching level 30 didn't mean much to me on its own. I wanted to get that raid gear and hit 30 so I could be more effective during the raid. I'm not inherently attached to my gear or light level... I care about what I am able to do within the missions I am playing. So I played the Vault of Glass dozens of times, earning slightly more effective gear as I went.

Now we have a new Raid and higher-level missions. The progression loop starts again. We scrape by with our VoG gear as we acquire new, better gear. Personally, I'm ok with that.

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I hit 31 by Saturday evening, right before we loaded up Crota's End for the first time. I went into the second Raid wearing NONE of my VoG Raid armor--armor that took MONTHS to acquire.

Bungie, stop doing stupid.

You're completely right in terms of the progression being lopsided. But I look at it in a different way:

Reaching level 30 didn't mean much to me on its own. I wanted to get that raid gear and hit 30 so I could be more effective during the raid. I'm not inherently attached to my gear or light level... I care about what I am able to do within the missions I am playing. So I played the Vault of Glass dozens of times, earning slightly more effective gear as I went.

Now we have a new Raid and higher-level missions. The progression loop starts again. We scrape by with our VoG gear as we acquire new, better gear. Personally, I'm ok with that.

I was attached to my Vault of Glass gear, specifically the helmet--good perks, the extra super from killing enemies. Also the boots had the heavy ammo perk, which would be great if Bungie fixed the ammo loss bug. Seriously, please fix Bungie.

Although now I'm excited for the new Warlock Exotic helmet for the Nova Bomb perk. That sounds awesome. I'd rather be hunting new gear for the perks, not the light level. I want to desire them, not be obligated to use them because of their associated number.

If the game actually capped at 30 and Crota's End armor actually just had great perks for that specific Raid, then there'd be a reason to acquire a set for each Raid and don them for what Raid you're about to play.

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Although now I'm excited for the new Warlock Exotic helmet for the Nova Bomb perk. That sounds awesome. I'd rather be hunting new gear for the perks, not the light level. I want to desire them, not be obligated to use them because of their associated number.

This is why I'm genuinely confused why armor has light levels, and why guns have attack values. If they didn't, then perks would be important, or at least more important than they are now.

Obviously some guns would have higher impact ratings than others, and some armor would have higher defense. But if you didn't have to worry about leveling gear up, you could hunt and mix and match.

This way you could design more diverse challenges, since players would be having to find the best combo of stuff to do the job. Before, you pretty much just had to decide which exotic slot to use: chest or helmet.

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Not according to the interview with Luke someone posted here recently. Luke said basically that the Radient materials were intended to help encourage people to upgrade their stuff with the Ascendant materials instead of holding on to them while trying to get raid gear. According to him Bungie found that many players were doing exactly that and it was keeping them at a low level whereas if they just upgraded their gear and waited to upgrade Raid gear later they would have leveled up already.

Of course he is going to say that. I'm sure what he says is true, but it's not the whole reason. He's not going to go out and say "This system is to keep you from leveling too quickly". It's very very obvious that Bungie intended for the Vault of Glass and reaching 30 to be much harder than it ended up being.

For some people, it may have been easy. I have only beaten the Vault twice and only finally reached level 30 yesterday, and I play a little almost every day. There's a huge population playing this game, and while you may find others on forums having similar experiences, these folks might still be outliers compared to the whole. If you have 300 people entering a race, and two of them are Olympic medalists, well you may not be able to cater to those outliers when you're designing a fulfilling track.

For example, I have a hard time relating to much of this article or your earlier inventory descriptions. I have... TWO shards at the moment, hah. This was also the first time, thanks to the DLC sucking me in, that I actually reached the Vanguard Mark cap. So a lot of what I'm reading here sounds like a completely different game than the one I'm playing. The medalists called the race fast and easy; I'm collapsing on the finish line. :)

By the time I've acquired enough marks for gear, I've also got a recommendation, or one right around the corner, so that hasn't really affected me. There's a variety of playstyles out there.

That said, I do think the weekly Mark caps should probably go away. I can understand scheduling some things to refresh like the Nightfall bonus, but funneling all those varieties of playstyles into weekly cycles on Marks doesn't make sense. I haven't thought long about it, but doing away with the caps and just increasing the prices make more sense to me. Or getting rid of Marks and just using recommendations as your sole currency. That way, whether I have a little or a lot of time, I'm still able to work towards the gear.

Going back to that racetrack metaphor, it's sort of like only allowing runners 200 meters every few minutes. It keeps the runners closer together but it frustrates the faster folk. I say let the runners go at their own pace. If the medalists complain after they finish, then let them, that's just the price of wanting to win instead of wanting to play - eventually, you do win or finish and have to go find something else to win. Those of us who simply enjoy running will keep running and enjoy the track at whatever pace. If we get ahead of others or get to the finish line, we'll just keep running because we enjoy it.

But, eh... Bungie has added and removed much in the course of these Destiny's patches - I'm personally not really worried because they seem to be constantly addressing issues, even the new ones they've intentionally or unintentionally added.

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If you have 300 people entering a race, and two of them are Olympic medalists, well you may not be able to cater to those outliers when you're designing a fulfilling track.

Bungie wanted VoG hard mode to be only for Olympians so to speak. I recall in a pre-release video Bungie said that VoG hard mode was going to be so tough, they were going to track individual clears since that would be a huge accomplishment in and of itself.

With the Crota hard mode raid reportedly starting at level 33, it's obvious what they are doing. Even if it's 32, you will still be fighting enemies higher level than you, unlike VoG which maxed at the level cap.

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If you have 300 people entering a race, and two of them are Olympic medalists, well you may not be able to cater to those outliers when you're designing a fulfilling track.

Bungie wanted VoG hard mode to be only for Olympians so to speak. I recall in a pre-release video Bungie said that VoG hard mode was going to be so tough, they were going to track individual clears since that would be a huge accomplishment in and of itself.

They accomplished it, too. I've never even attempted it.

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If you have 300 people entering a race, and two of them are Olympic medalists, well you may not be able to cater to those outliers when you're designing a fulfilling track.

Bungie wanted VoG hard mode to be only for Olympians so to speak. I recall in a pre-release video Bungie said that VoG hard mode was going to be so tough, they were going to track individual clears since that would be a huge accomplishment in and of itself.

They accomplished it, too. I've never even attempted it.

I don't think the stats are backing that up. Last time I checked, about 5% of the 11 million player base has competed the raid on hard. That's 550K people. Even if each of them only completed it ONCE, that's still way to many completions to warrant that kind of statement.

I'm not saying that's how it SHOULD be, but it seems really obvious Bungie is designing the next hard mode to be really really hard.

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Yep, 5% still sounds like very few to me.

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Yep, 5% still sounds like very few to me.

On the whole, it is. But 550K people is also way too many to track individual clears, which is the point Cody was making.

That being said, I don't really recall Bungie making that statement. If they did, I missed it. Or I glossed over it because I'm not good enough to care about hard mode anyway. ;)

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Yep, 5% still sounds like very few to me.

On the whole, it is. But 550K people is also way too many to track individual clears, which is the point Cody was making.

That being said, I don't really recall Bungie making that statement. If they did, I missed it. Or I glossed over it because I'm not good enough to care about hard mode anyway. ;)

Yeah. I don't remember that either. Sounds like another Cody Miller "fact."

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Yep, 5% still sounds like very few to me.

On the whole, it is. But 550K people is also way too many to track individual clears, which is the point Cody was making.

That being said, I don't really recall Bungie making that statement. If they did, I missed it. Or I glossed over it because I'm not good enough to care about hard mode anyway. ;)

Yeah. I don't remember that either. Sounds like another Cody Miller "fact."

But every time a Raid hits there's a bunch of Tweets and posts or Thursdates regarding the first few winners, because it IS an accomplishment. There was nothing like that in Halo - I don't think I've seen that kind of 'event' with any game I know.

Of course, more people are going to join the ranks later. I mean, that's the nature of things. World records are made and become more common, then made a new. 5% is still a select few for a game designer to be rewarding.

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Of course, more people are going to join the ranks later. I mean, that's the nature of things. World records are made and become more common, then made a new.

Maybe this just illustrates that video game challenges simply are or cannot be as challenging as real world problems. I guess in a very real sense if you want to challenge yourself in a big way, you wouldn't even be playing video games at all, but trying to find a Quantum theory of gravity, make electric cars go 500 miles, send someone to Mars, or make smaller computers.

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Yep, 5% still sounds like very few to me.

On the whole, it is. But 550K people is also way too many to track individual clears, which is the point Cody was making.

That being said, I don't really recall Bungie making that statement. If they did, I missed it. Or I glossed over it because I'm not good enough to care about hard mode anyway. ;)

Yeah. I don't remember that either. Sounds like another Cody Miller "fact."

If I can find it, I will definitely post it. It was either a ViDoc or a video excessively about the raid. If I remember, it was around the time of the pre-alpha.

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I think I remember them saying something to that effect, yes.

However, I'm also sure the game got turned upside-down between that and the Alpha, as evidenced by the fact that the Grimoire was actually rushed and so, so many VIPs left Bungie. It could very well be that VoG was completely redone since that statement, not to mention toned down.

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I think I remember them saying something to that effect, yes.

However, I'm also sure the game got turned upside-down between that and the Alpha, as evidenced by the fact that the Grimoire was actually rushed and so, so many VIPs left Bungie. It could very well be that VoG was completely redone since that statement, not to mention toned down.

I'm kind of convinced that either could not have worked the way they wanted it to, or if it did work the challenge would have been hard in all the wrong ways so as not be be fun at all.

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Your experience is arguably "better" than most because you are playing the game as Bungie intended, and at the pace it was designed for.

Destiny is not the kind of game that rewards you for playing it 8 hours a day once you get past level 20.

At that point, you stop progressing based on time you've put in.

The trend I notice is the people who have the most complaints about Destiny are ironically the ones who can't seem to stop playing it.

Cody has sunk a crap ton of hours into this game- his complaints from that perspective are totally valid, if not repetitive, and also why you don't see it like he does.

I've played a considerable amount as well, and my conclusion is that the "correct" way to play Destiny, or rather the way that it is encouraged is to play for only a couple hours a day, if that. Those couple hours would ideally be the player doing the daily heroic mission for upgrade materials, the simplest bounties for them (crucible, vanguard, or both) and maybe a public event or two and then that is a day.

Then, you have one day where you play longer, probably a weekend for most, where you complete the Nightfall and\or Heroic strike.

I think it's VERY apparent that while Bungie may have expected there to be a hard core group that rocketed to the top (in terms of levels and materials), they didn't expect there to be SO MANY PEOPLE.... so many.

I think that is where the divide is here. Cody and Spec op are playing AT LEAST 4 hours a day (I know you are fools, I see you on my friends list :P) while you play considerably less.

There is room to tweak all this, but maybe not much for Destiny 1. The game for the Levi's of the world is essentially perfect- you have plenty to do because you pace yourself. But for the sprinters, there isn't much to do except run the race again, which gets boring.

That's all.

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Cody has sunk a crap ton of hours into this game- his complaints from that perspective are totally valid, if not repetitive, and also why you don't see it like he does.

I'm actually far less than some people. My tally now is about 250, and a great deal of that is just fun in the Crucible. Many others have 300, 400, or even 500+ which is insane seeing as how I pretty much had 'beaten' Destiny before the DLC hit.

I think that is where the divide is here. Cody and Spec op are playing AT LEAST 4 hours a day (I know you are fools, I see you on my friends list :P) while you play considerably less.

That's probably about right for when we were doing flawless raider :-)

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About 270 hours according to b.net

IIRC b.net doesn't count time in orbit or loading. I'm sure that would add quite a bit of timie if loading was on there.

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About 270 hours according to b.net

IIRC b.net doesn't count time in orbit or loading. I'm sure that would add quite a bit of timie if loading was on there.

Relatively speaking, of course. What is a lot of time to you will vary to me, but going by me,

that would mean if I treated Destiny as a full time job, that I played 40 hours a week, I've already been "working" at Destiny about a month.

The game is BARELY 3 months old now.

I stand by my previous observation: Destiny is not designed to be played more than 2 hours a day, casually, past Level 20.

That's why they give you all these tools like consumables and telemetries and bounties, to help you progress faster.

However, if you already play a lot AND use those, well, Bungie didn't mean to do that. So now they gave you speed bumps, which is why the invested players feel it harder than the casual player.

CASUAL is NOT a dirty word here- EVERYTHING about Destiny screams "play me casually for maximum fun"

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About 270 hours according to b.net

That can't be right. The game's been out for three months. That's about 2160 hours. So 270 hours is 8 hours a day. That's not even close to being accurate.

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About 270 hours according to b.net

That can't be right. The game's been out for three months. That's about 2160 hours. So 270 hours is 8 hours a day. That's not even close to being accurate.

270 hours over 3 months is 3 hours day - mean average.

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About 270 hours according to b.net

That can't be right. The game's been out for three months. That's about 2160 hours. So 270 hours is 8 hours a day. That's not even close to being accurate.

270 hours over 3 months is 3 hours day - mean average.

90 days x 24 hours = 2160 hours in three months. 2160 / 270 = 8. So 1/8 of the time I was playing destiny. 24 / 8 = 3.

Yeah I did the math wrong. 3 hrs a day is more reasonable.

So I only play an hour a day more than Leviathan. Hmmmm.

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About 270 hours according to b.net

That can't be right. The game's been out for three months. That's about 2160 hours. So 270 hours is 8 hours a day. That's not even close to being accurate.

270 hours over 3 months is 3 hours day - mean average.

90 days x 24 hours = 2160 hours in three months. 2160 / 270 = 8. So 1/8 of the time I was playing destiny. 24 / 8 = 3.

Yeah I did the math wrong. 3 hrs a day is more reasonable.

So I only play an hour a day more than Leviathan. Hmmmm.

When I said I play a few hours a day, I meant on average. There have been a few weeks where I didn't get the chance to play at all.

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Cody has sunk a crap ton of hours into this game- his complaints from that perspective are totally valid, if not repetitive, and also why you don't see it like he does.

I'm actually far less than some people. My tally now is about 250, and a great deal of that is just fun in the Crucible. Many others have 300, 400, or even 500+ which is insane seeing as how I pretty much had 'beaten' Destiny before the DLC hit.

I think that is where the divide is here. Cody and Spec op are playing AT LEAST 4 hours a day (I know you are fools, I see you on my friends list :P) while you play considerably less.

That's probably about right for when we were doing flawless raider :-)

I just can't wrap my head around choosing "not having fun" over "having fun". If you guys say you could have fun this way of playing over this other way, why wouldn't you pick the fun way? I mean, I'm not always coincidentally lining up my playstyle and fun - I'm letting the fun lead me around.

I also can't understand playing 250 hours and saying the game is broken again and again on the forum... Something. Does. Not. Compute!

[image]

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people have been saying for ages why they play the game even though they don't like it. I could tell you again why I played it so long, I could tell you why I persisted even though much of it wasn't fun.

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people have been saying for ages why they play the game even though they don't like it. I could tell you again why I played it so long, I could tell you why I persisted even though much of it wasn't fun.

And I have read the complaints and criticism, understand many of them and offered my own. What I'm saying here is that if you played that long and relayed so much negativity, the hyperbole and 'sky is falling' attitudes may be inaccurate representations of how you truly feel about the game. And if you truly don't like something you put 250 or more hours in, I don't understand why a person would waste their time like that.

If you're tone isn't meant to be rude or condescending, you came across that way, btw. If it is your intent, it isn't appreciated. My cartoon robot impression was not meant as an insult.

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And if you truly don't like something you put 250 or more hours in, I don't understand why a person would waste their time like that.

I can't make this any clearer. I like many many parts of Destiny. However, I also dislike many things about it. My time is wasted on the bad stuff, but not on the good stuff.

It's not all or nothing dude, and all I'm saying is that the game would be substantially better without all the bad shit.

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Just sayin' Just sayin' Just sayin'

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And if you truly don't like something you put 250 or more hours in, I don't understand why a person would waste their time like that.

I can't make this any clearer. I like many many parts of Destiny. However, I also dislike many things about it. My time is wasted on the bad stuff, but not on the good stuff.

It's not all or nothing dude, and all I'm saying is that the game would be substantially better without all the bad shit.

I replied to you personally below. I was speaking in general, that number just got stuck in my head.

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and we have tried to answer it.

Are our answers that opaque?

By now your repeated question seems rhetorical.

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and we have tried to answer it.

Are our answers that opaque?

I guess so. I don't play with everyone here. I don't know people in real life. I don't know see the complete picture. All I can read is the forum. The amount of negativity relayed HERE by some people who are still playing doesn't simply make sense to me.

As well, when people are rude and insulting, that's about all I have the ability to take away. I don't read a lot of the internet, I'm not accustomed to being rude to strangers or assigning blame to people I've never met. When I see people acting like it's a blessing they're still playing the game, even if they state a few things they like, I can't help but remember the entitlement and cynicism they were wrapped in. That's the lasting impact they're contributing to my brain.

By now your repeated question seems rhetorical.

They were not. That's how negative some people come across - I have to literally be told they like the game at all.

From your posts, you appear to have some grudge or something against me. I don't understand what I did to earn that.

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There is a world of difference between how people act in game and on forums. (especially 4chan's destiny general. Everyone I've played with from there has been normal whereas on 4chan they are uhh yeah)

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ignoring the answers does get annoying.

I don't have anything else against you Levi, and I do like you, and you're not the only one who does it.

I have mates who play WOW who say they hate every single thing about WOW except the raids. There is a science, a method in the madness. Investment Systems work. And, for WOW, they work big time. People who get sucked into them are not bizarre outliers. They appeal to common facets of our human/animal natures.

Perhaps the best use of time would be to engage more with you. What do you find interesting in Destiny that we don't see?

You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

I suppose that by now if the story missions had been Halo quality then I could just jump on and play the Destiny equivalents of AotCR or SC and I would be quite happy. My weapons would be good enough, throw in some grunts and a warthog and I would be happy.

Maybe for Destiny 2 we could have:

great story missions
vehicles on a par with: warthogs, falcons, scorpion tanks
mortal, non-guardian, NPCs

Then we would have something fun to do when not grinding.

I think that having bounties in story missions sucks the fun out of them. I would like great story missions untouched by any form of grind (no bounties or extraneous missions).

Yes have bounty stories and mini-mission stories but have a core of pure story untainted by the IS.

Because of bounties and kill targets, having other guardians around is somewhat annoying. They are rivals. They will kill enemies that you wanted to kill and they will open chests before you get to them.

A bounty free story mission might make seeing other guardians more welcome. So no planet resources or chests in story missions; you play them because you want to.

If that happened then I think I would play the game more like you do. (or how I think you play the game)

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ignoring the answers does get annoying.

I don't have anything else against you Levi, and I do like you, and you're not the only one who does it.

I have not been ignoring answers. I haven't been repeatedly asking the same questions. I actually learned a little something about Cody's view of Destiny from these postings today. And I don't think I've even spoken with you one-on-one much at all, so I don't see how any of these accusations are valid.

I have tried to share some positivity or to debate broad blanket statements and the unhelpful, uninformative, unchanging 'Destiny sucks' threads (yes, many of them even use titles like that) that pop up often - and often by the same people. If I am asking the same questions, then the people who are posting the same complaints are doing so ten times over.

But by trying to show how their views don't include everyone like they try to suggest, I have been repeatedly insulted by pretension and rudeness, like you did to me here today, for trying to understand the complete picture of folks, for trying to lure out something positive or relatable in our experiences with the game. I've tried to cultivate some civility; I've even stopped a thread where you felt like you were being insulted not long ago.

But now I'm insulted, and that does not give me much interest in talking Destiny with you at the moment.

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For what it's worth, I really appreciate your even-keel tone. You always have something interesting to say and you find a way to say it respectfully. It takes a lot of work to communicate thoughtfully on the internet and it shows that you care about more than the content of an argument- you care about how the words will land on the person on the other side. My experience lies somewhere between yours and Cody's so I find myself agreeing/disagreeing with you both quite often, but I know that I will never feel disrespected when I disagree with you. Kudos for having the patience and time to work at communication.

I certainly have noticed the impact of your approach on this forum and I wish more people would take the time to communicate as thoughtfully as you.

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You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

Given that this thread has pointed out, repeatedly, that Levi has played fewer than HALF the number of hours of the people arguing against him, this is a pretty unreasonable question.

He's not discovering things you haven't noticed - he's discovering things you discovered months ago. The point is not that he's getting MORE out of the game than you are - it's that he's getting it at a slower pace, and avoiding many of the frustrations of the sprint.

I say 'he' but I should say 'I' - my playstyle seems to match Levi's pretty closely, and my hours of play are even with (or maybe even a little less than) his. I haven't had much time at all to be on the internet this week, or last - so I missed most of this thread when it came around, and many others - but reading it as a block, now, makes me feel bad for Levi. He's not trying to insult anyone, but you're telling him he's being repetitive and not listening. He listens more than most here, I think, and he tries really hard to avoid both hyperbole and ad hominem attacks - he's probably the worst target for your ire you could have chosen. :(

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You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

Given that this thread has pointed out, repeatedly, that Levi has played fewer than HALF the number of hours of the people arguing against him, this is a pretty unreasonable question.

No it's not. He has been playing for months and has said that he is still finding stuff, still exploring. So it is reasonable to ask him what is he finding and how much of the world does he think is still unexplored by him.

He has finished the story so he has visited every planet. They are big but not incomprehensibly big. He has a had a couple of hours per night with time off. So he has probably visited every area at least once. he must have some memory of what he has done and where he has been and some idea of what is left. It is not at all unreasonable to ask him what he is discovering and how much he feels is left undiscovered.

He's not discovering things you haven't noticed - he's discovering things you discovered months ago. The point is not that he's getting MORE out of the game than you are - it's that he's getting it at a slower pace, and avoiding many of the frustrations of the sprint.

It wasn't a sprint. It was just an attempt to try out what the game had to offer in terms of: gear, characters, play styles. It was definitely a marathon and not a sprint.

I say 'he' but I should say 'I' - my playstyle seems to match Levi's pretty closely, and my hours of play are even with (or maybe even a little less than) his. I haven't had much time at all to be on the internet this week, or last - so I missed most of this thread when it came around, and many others - but reading it as a block, now, makes me feel bad for Levi. He's not trying to insult anyone, but you're telling him he's being repetitive and not listening. He listens more than most here, I think, and he tries really hard to avoid both hyperbole and ad hominem attacks - he's probably the worst target for your ire you could have chosen. :(

Not every reference to a person's behaviour is an ad hominem attack. Ad hominems are logical fallacies because they are attempts to avoid engaging with a person's argument. But, for example, if a teacher prepares a school report and mentions that a pupil is disruptive at school that is not an ad hominem attack even though it is a direct reference to the person. It is the context that makes reference to someone's behaviour an ad hominem attack.

But, perhaps, you just meant a personal attack. As I said to Levi, I have nothing against him personally. He was just the guy who asked the question again and I know he has raised that point before so he was the one that I replied to. It could have been anybody who had asked that question a couple of times before.

Given that people are repeatedly asking, "why are you guys still playing X hours per week when you don't enjoy it" and people are constantly answering that question. It seems reasonable to wonder what is the point of answering again and to point out to the person asking that question that they have asked it before and it has been answered before. Review the previous answers.

If people have reviewed the previous answers and didn't find them satisfactory then they should say why they didn't find them satisfactory. That at least gives us something to base a reply on.

If there is anything that doesn't make sense about our behaviour it is probably down to a mistaken idea of how people work. Perhaps he thinks that people are rational. People who think that people are rational should do a psychology course then they wouldn't be surprised at the things we do. It would be nice (I think, not really sure about that) if people were rational but given how we came about it is to be expected that we would not be rational.

Stop thinking of humans as rational entities, consider our evolutionary baggage and constraints and then be impressed that jumped up monkeys can reason at all.

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

As to the future: I imagine that I will still gripe a bit about the game but, as I'm not playing it right now, I doubt that there will be as much bile directed towards it. The grind is not really so bad when you are not doing it. It's a relief to be free :-)

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You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

Given that this thread has pointed out, repeatedly, that Levi has played fewer than HALF the number of hours of the people arguing against him, this is a pretty unreasonable question.

No it's not. He has been playing for months and has said that he is still finding stuff, still exploring. So it is reasonable to ask him what is he finding and how much of the world does he think is still unexplored by him.

He has finished the story so he has visited every planet. They are big but not incomprehensibly big. He has a had a couple of hours per night with time off. So he has probably visited every area at least once. he must have some memory of what he has done and where he has been and some idea of what is left. It is not at all unreasonable to ask him what he is discovering and how much he feels is left undiscovered.

Okay, maybe you missed my point.

According to Bungie.net, you put in about 440 hours between launch and December 1. Levi's put in less than 150, total, in a two-week-longer time period. I have no clue how your hours were spread throughout the 12 weeks you played it, but for the sake of simplicity, let's assume it was more or less even. That means when you were at the point that Levi is now (in terms of hours played), it was early October. Yes, you'd probably seen most of the areas there were to see in Destiny - but are you telling me that in early October, you'd already exhausted the fun there was to be had, and the subsequent 8 weeks of 5hr/day (average) playing was just because you'd been hooked and couldn't figure out how to quit?

Asking Levi what he's finding that you haven't noticed is unreasonable because I bet you can't even REMEMBER what you had or hadn't noticed by early October. Absolutely, he's not finding anything you haven't seen by NOW - but unless you'd exhausted everything there was to see or do in those first four weeks, or Levi is vastly more efficient at finding stuff than you are, the question (today) is unreasonable.

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According to Bungie.net, you put in about 440 hours between launch and December 1. Levi's put in less than 150, total, in a two-week-longer time period. I have no clue how your hours were spread throughout the 12 weeks you played it, but for the sake of simplicity, let's assume it was more or less even. That means when you were at the point that Levi is now (in terms of hours played), it was early October. Yes, you'd probably seen most of the areas there were to see in Destiny - but are you telling me that in early October, you'd already exhausted the fun there was to be had, and the subsequent 8 weeks of 5hr/day (average) playing was just because you'd been hooked and couldn't figure out how to quit?

I can only speak to my experience, but around October the majority of the fun was exhausted except for the raid. So I can see how one could say the fun is gone, yet continue to play the one activity that IS fun. Now that we've done a flawless raider, and given that Crota is relatively easy in comparison the the Vault of Glass to master (normal mode anyway), the only reason I'm playing now is to get what I need to be able to do Crota on hard come January. Running Nightfall / Heroic / Raid over the course of the week isn't the worst thing in the world, but if I had to play story missions I'd be bummed.

Also 440 hours wow!

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I've been to every area in Destiny (I think) at this stage of my playtime. But that doesn't mean exploring stops. I'm still finding Ghosts. I'm still finding details of the world. I'm still noticing things in the art direction. Hell, I still notice things in Halo 3's art direction for that matter. I love that stuff, and the world-building that Bungie pours into their art and architecture has always been one of my biggest interests in them as a game developer.

Some games, the environment is just there to be pretty, or matches the occupants at a very basic, visual level. But in Bungie games (and some other developers) you can notice so much more. They inform the story as much as the cinematics, for me. You learn things in the parallels and differences between the races and cultures. And even after you think you've seen it all you read something pivotal in the Grimoire (or Terminals, etc.), and you can go back and examine everything again in a new light. So far I've gotten a dozen theories on each enemy race from thinking on their art direction coupled with relevant Ghosts. I've even started to form some stories based on the similarities between the Sepiks Prime, the Shrine of Oryx, and the Traveler.

With each new Crucible map, I go in and go get killed because I'm staring at the skybox. Just last night, I played a little of the new Raid and got to see one of the coolest skyboxes yet, and it gave plenty to speculate on.

Beyond the art side, I'm finding and buying new guns and gear that behave differently. I'm exploring their uses and caveats and perks. I didn't even use a Fusion Rifle for the first two months of the game, and am just now learning how to use them effectively. I've only recently been able to comprehend the best ways to use my Hunter classes, and I've got a Hunter coming along to do that all again with, not to mention a Warlock someday.

So that's how the game is still giving back to me, still explorable.

If people have reviewed the previous answers and didn't find them satisfactory then they should say why they didn't find them satisfactory. That at least gives us something to base a reply on.

That's why I was asking different questions and coming at the topic from different angles. I was using metaphors, joke images, etc. Because I was attempting to understand and was getting confused.

In a situation where someone tries to understand a bunch of negativity coming from some people, and they receive negativity ot hostility directed back at them for doing so, it really closes down any possibility of understanding and conversing meaningfully. If that happens, it just becomes about people typing to hear themselves type. And if we're not here to converse, then what are we here for? :)

If there is anything that doesn't make sense about our behaviour it is probably down to a mistaken idea of how people work. Perhaps he thinks that people are rational. People who think that people are rational should do a psychology course then they wouldn't be surprised at the things we do. It would be nice (I think, not really sure about that) if people were rational but given how we came about it is to be expected that we would not be rational.

Stop thinking of humans as rational entities, consider our evolutionary baggage and constraints and then be impressed that jumped up monkeys can reason at all.

... So, you're saying that if I'm perplexed as to why someone is playing a game so often that causes them to voice such ire and bile, it is because it simply doesn't make sense in the first place and they're playing it out of 'irrationality'?

If that's the case, what would be the purpose served by criticism borne out of such irrationality?

It'd be like someone telling a mystery novelist "For some reason I read all 20 of your novels in a few weeks even though I didn't enjoy reading them. Here's why they sucked..."

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

Nope. It's not upsetting to me that some people on this forum dislike Destiny - most of the people I know and play with are enjoying it actually! And even if they didn't, I'm quite accustomed to enjoying things most people don't. What IS upsetting is to see pretentious, insensitive, rude comments directed at people who are enjoying it, or who made it, or are trying to understand the criticism, whether it's straightforwardly or in a snide, passive manner. Most of my posts these days here are not debating a criticism, but trying to keep those attitudes in check.

Still, I appreciate the apology. :)

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I wont tackle it all at once.

Art Design

Golden age stuff is underwhelming, I mean the things that we are asked to scan. Dinklebot is impressed but I've scanned: pipes, electricity meters, 1970s computer cabinets and (hot water boilers?).

But I love Mars to bits, the Cabal are my faves with their 40K look, their circular tunnels and their trenches. We see damaged turrets but I think that Bungie should have put in aggressive AA fire near the trenches and established in-game that the Cabal have apparatus to block teleports inside the exclusion zone.

Because, otherwise, the trenches don't make sense. Even cabal have units that can fly over them.

I think they should have shown Vex attacks that have some Hydra with them that get shredded by AA fire from all sides when they try to fly over the trenches. This would establish that the trenches make some sense.

I like how cabal dropships pull very high gees; it makes sense given the cabal's high gee world origins.

Some of the Hive tech looks quite artistic/sophisticated. The meathooks don't but details of their seeders and some of the kit leading up to the shrine of Oryx are very nice. They aren't one tone bad guys.

Weapons

I liked experimenting with them but the game tends to throw purples and golds at you and you can get sucked into the upgrade trap because signature abilities unlock late in tech trees.

Characters

I enjoyed trying out my characters' different traits but, again, those traits need to be unlocked... I liked taking part in strikes but I didn't want to be carried by my team mates so I wanted to be fully upgraded in gear, abilities, and weapons.

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... So, you're saying that if I'm perplexed as to why someone is playing a game so often that causes them to voice such ire and bile, it is because it simply doesn't make sense in the first place and they're playing it out of 'irrationality'?

Yes and no. Our behaviour is irrational but we can make sense of it.

Our behaviour is a product of our irrational natures but that doesn't mean that it can't be understood. Irrational is not a synonym for unpredictable or incomprehensible.

Our irrational natures are generally fairly predictable and can be understood. Blizzard understand our irrational behaviours pretty well and they have a fair idea how to consistently exploit them.

People are not made of reason. We are not chips whose machine code is reason with emotional virtual machines layered on top. We are animals who have gained a limited ability to reason. We can use our reason to, well reason, about our natures.

We tend to overestimate our ability to reason and we construct narratives to explain our behaviour. But the behaviours come first and then we, retroactively, construct "reasons" for our behaviour.

We rationalize our behaviour after the fact. I'd say we are more rationalizing than rational.

What I'm saying is: don't be surprised if people do irrational things: it is our nature.

If you have a model of human nature that is often confounded then maybe you should reevaluate that model. It may not be accurate.

I am not a psychology major but I know people who are and I have paid attention to the subject and what the experts say and their explanations for why they say what they say. They have convinced me and their observations fit with my own observations of human nature.

If someone says to me, "your behaviour does not fit that of a rational person" I would say, "of course it doesn't, people aren't rational". (well I probably wouldn't because that's too glib)

I respect reason and try to be rational but I see it as something to aspire to, a goal to seek as opposed to a given/expected outcome.

Expect has two senses. I mean it in the sense of what you thought would happen as opposed to what you demand should happen in the sense of prediction as opposed to proscription or prescription.

Anyway, what I mean is. I try to be rational but I understand that I am not innately rational and that it is somewhat irrational to expect 100% success in that endeavour (given my nature).

And reason has its limits. I doubt that a life can be based purely on reason but that's a conversation for another time.

If that's the case, what would be the purpose served by criticism borne out of such irrationality?

To explain:

how the combination of our irrational natures and the game mechanics led us to an unhappy situation
how we feel about it
some of the things we were thinking at the time
and to point out that the addictive parts of Destiny were not put in there by accident

It'd be like someone telling a mystery novelist "For some reason I read all 20 of your novels in a few weeks even though I didn't enjoy reading them. Here's why they sucked..."

Yes but you know we haven't just been saying, "for some reason". We have tried harder than that and have put in thought and tried to give more detail than, "some reason".

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

Nope. It's not upsetting to me that some people on this forum dislike Destiny - most of the people I know and play with are enjoying it actually! And even if they didn't, I'm quite accustomed to enjoying things most people don't. What IS upsetting is to see pretentious, insensitive, rude comments directed at people who are enjoying it, or who made it, or are trying to understand the criticism, whether it's straightforwardly or in a snide, passive manner. Most of my posts these days here are not debating a criticism, but trying to keep those attitudes in check.

I thought that I was being more blunt than snide. I need to work on my bluntness ;-)

Still, I appreciate the apology. :)

You're welcome.

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I also can't understand playing 250 hours and saying the game is broken again and again on the forum... Something. Does. Not. Compute!

1. Lots of stuff in Destiny is very fun.
2. A lot of that fun stuff requires doing a bunch of not so fun stuff that takes a long time before you can start it.
3. The fun stuff covered under 1 is generally fun enough to justify not having fun with 2.

I hope that makes it clear.

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I also can't understand playing 250 hours and saying the game is broken again and again on the forum... Something. Does. Not. Compute!

1. Lots of stuff in Destiny is very fun.
2. A lot of that fun stuff requires doing a bunch of not so fun stuff that takes a long time before you can start it.
3. The fun stuff covered under 1 is generally fun enough to justify not having fun with 2.

I hope that makes it clear.

That is clear, and I hope you understand that it is often hard to see that from my perspective and I have to be reminded, honestly. From purely reading the forum, a number of people come across so negative and sometimes just plain mean, that it's hard for me to comprehend why they're still playing or posting. My mental image becomes someone holding a controller grumbling the entire time. It's hard to reconcile because sometimes people only vent frustration and remain quiet on the fun. :)

That's pretty much what I debate here these days: the attitudes, exaggerations, generalizations, and hyperbole. The forum would be a lot funner to read, and a better place to discuss criticism, without those things.

In no way am I saying people shouldn't play the game the way they want or to provide criticism of it. I just think the portrait often presented isn't very accurate, here, and it would help me relate better if I saw the complete picture.

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That is clear, and I hope you understand that it is often hard to see that from my perspective and I have to be reminded, honestly. From purely reading the forum, a number of people come across so negative and sometimes just plain mean, that it's hard for me to comprehend why they're still playing or posting.

You just hear the negative stuff more. It's just human nature to point out what's wrong rather than what's right. I'm sure you understand as an artist. My job is constantly hearing about what is bad and doesn't work and needs fixing. If it works, most of the time it's not mentioned. Why does it need to be? We are trying to make the best show possible. In that regard, you only need to focus on what doesn't work since you don't need to change what does. Most of my working day is spent hearing about things that need improvement.

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That is clear, and I hope you understand that it is often hard to see that from my perspective and I have to be reminded, honestly. From purely reading the forum, a number of people come across so negative and sometimes just plain mean, that it's hard for me to comprehend why they're still playing or posting.

You just hear the negative stuff more. It's just human nature to point out what's wrong rather than what's right. I'm sure you understand as an artist. My job is constantly hearing about what is bad and doesn't work and needs fixing. If it works, most of the time it's not mentioned. Why does it need to be? We are trying to make the best show possible. In that regard, you only need to focus on what doesn't work since you don't need to change what does. Most of my working day is spent hearing about things that need improvement.

I disagree. I believe by discussing both what is good, neutral, bad, and everything in between, you get a more accurate picture of the work. If you can find something great, you can secure it, expand it, run with it. Instead of focusing on what simply 'works', I'm striving to find the things that excel! :)

On the Internet, it's even MORE vital. Discussions dissolve into this stuff - people unable to relate or understand because they're not getting the whole picture. You get people thinking some people are rude or trying to incite a flame war. Then the other people think the first are happy dandy apologists. But in the end it's language and tone getting the right impression across.

If the impressions you've given, before just now, were received on a piece of mine, I'd think you hated it so much that you were simply not the right audience. If you had given me the whole picture, I would know how to improve the piece so much more and I could recognize the successes and build on them. :)

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If the impressions you've given, before just now, were received on a piece of mine, I'd think you hated it so much that you were simply not the right audience. If you had given me the whole picture, I would know how to improve the piece so much more and I could recognize the successes and build on them. :)

I am just telling you how it works, at least here in Hollywood. Yes, you will occasionally hear and get comments on how something is amazing. However, the vast majority of your time is spent hearing criticisms and critiques. Time is money, and people tend to be very direct. I don't know in what capacity you create art commercially, but I can imagine illustrators would receive the same type of feedback. You'd turn in a drawing, then you hear what's wrong with it so it can be fixed. We all want to make the best thing possible, and nothing is perfect the first time. We hear why it's not perfect, and just keep making it better until it's either as perfect as we can possibly make it or we run out of money.

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If the impressions you've given, before just now, were received on a piece of mine, I'd think you hated it so much that you were simply not the right audience. If you had given me the whole picture, I would know how to improve the piece so much more and I could recognize the successes and build on them. :)

I am just telling you how it works, at least here in Hollywood. Yes, you will occasionally hear and get comments on how something is amazing. However, the vast majority of your time is spent hearing criticisms and critiques. Time is money, and people tend to be very direct. I don't know in what capacity you create art commercially, but I can imagine illustrators would receive the same type of feedback. You'd turn in a drawing, then you hear what's wrong with it so it can be fixed. We all want to make the best thing possible, and nothing is perfect the first time. We hear why it's not perfect, and just keep making it better until it's either as perfect as we can possibly make it or we run out of money.

Yeah, my experience with freelance illustration has been every different. I've had a few jobs like you describe, and while some of them paid well, they turned out some of the worst products and led nowhere. If all Hollywood is all like that, then it's probably good I'm not there. :)

Regardless, the DBO Forum ISN'T a high-pace commercial Hollywood agency or something. It's supposed to be a fun, inviting place for people to hang out, discuss, and find friends to play with. All those things can be better accomplished if we understand each other better.

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Regardless, the DBO Forum ISN'T a high-pace commercial Hollywood agency or something. It's supposed to be a fun, inviting place for people to hang out, discuss, and find friends to play with. All those things can be better accomplished if we understand each other better.

One of these days I'd love to meet you in person and just relax and chill. I'll bet after that we'd completely understand each other and the forum would be much nicer :-)

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I know just the time and place for this summit to happen!

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I know just the time and place for this summit to happen!

It does sound like a lot of fun, and if I could miraculously find a well-paying job between now and then, it could happen. :)

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Regardless, the DBO Forum ISN'T a high-pace commercial Hollywood agency or something. It's supposed to be a fun, inviting place for people to hang out, discuss, and find friends to play with. All those things can be better accomplished if we understand each other better.

One of these days I'd love to meet you in person and just relax and chill. I'll bet after that we'd completely understand each other and the forum would be much nicer :-)

I've always had that theory.:)

These days it's less about what we're debating and more how we're debating it. You have plenty of great ideas, I just wish I could talk more effectively with you without feeling 'beneath' you or something.

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If the impressions you've given, before just now, were received on a piece of mine, I'd think you hated it so much that you were simply not the right audience. If you had given me the whole picture, I would know how to improve the piece so much more and I could recognize the successes and build on them. :)

I am just telling you how it works, at least here in Hollywood. Yes, you will occasionally hear and get comments on how something is amazing. However, the vast majority of your time is spent hearing criticisms and critiques. Time is money, and people tend to be very direct. I don't know in what capacity you create art commercially, but I can imagine illustrators would receive the same type of feedback. You'd turn in a drawing, then you hear what's wrong with it so it can be fixed. We all want to make the best thing possible, and nothing is perfect the first time. We hear why it's not perfect, and just keep making it better until it's either as perfect as we can possibly make it or we run out of money.

The type of client I hate the MOST is the type that doesn't know what they want - but knows exactly what they DON'T want. They think that showing me 100 things that don't work for them will make it obvious how to build what they DO need. This is stupid, and wastes everybody's time.

If the feedback I got from these people was less "nope, that's not it, I hate the color scheme and the font choice and the layout" and more "I hate X, Y, and Z, but A is going in the right direction" I'd produce something they actually liked 100 times faster.

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Cody has explicitly said that he very much enjoys the raid and MP, but not the other stuff as much.

Putting aside MP, you DO need to play considerably to Raid. It is not open to do just because you want to do it. You have to meed level requirements. To meet level requirements you have to chase armor. To chase armor you need to play until you get lucky with a random drop, or play strikes\patrols repeatedly until you have enough [currency]?????[/currency] to get to the minimum required level.

Neither one of you is playing the game wrong, but Cody feels alienated because his Destiny goals are clear and concise: "I want to raid", to where yours are also clear that you prefer to stop and smell the roses.

Destiny does a lot to slow down those who want to get through things they don't\shouldn't have to play, just to get to play what they WANT to play.

Watching you two interact is like watching the "head" vs the "heart", a struggle I know all to well.

You guys aren't going to see eye to eye because you speak different languages.

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Watching you two interact is like watching the "head" vs the "heart", a struggle I know all to well.

And who is who? :-p

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Welllllllllllllllll

Some people......

*might*

label you as a different body part other than head\heart.

Lol

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I think that is where the divide is here. Cody and Spec op are playing AT LEAST 4 hours a day

That's probably about right for when we were doing flawless raider :-)

To be fair, about half that time was you falling to your death ;p <3

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grind free.

By definition you are meant to invest your time in them.

Anyone who doesn't do that has managed to avoid the hooks built into the game and its economy. Well done them but they are not playing the game as it was designed.

Yes, Bungie said that it catered to all types so, therefore, you could say that it was designed for casual play. But that would be stretching things too far because the claim that the game was designed solely for casual play is just not true. Spending a few minutes per day in the game is certainly possible but it is not what the game was designed for. Practically any game can be played for a few minutes at a time.

Bungie hired IS experts because they wanted players to spend a lot of time playing.

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grind free.

By definition you are meant to invest your time in them.

Anyone who doesn't do that has managed to avoid the hooks built into the game and its economy. Well done them but they are not playing the game as it was designed.

Levi has said he plays a couple of hours a day, on average. (Barring weeks when he can't get online.)

To say that a couple of hours a day is 'not investing your time' is ludicrous. There are very, very, VERY few things that meet that level of commitment in my life. (My job, sleep, sometimes my family. That's it.)

He simply invests LESS of it than you. (Well, than you DID.) He is DEFINITELY playing the game as designed.

What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

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What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

There's lots of stuff in real life that is a 'grind'. Take working out for example. However the difference is that these types of activities give you tangible benefits, in this case to your health. You can even make these types of things more fun, by working out in a different place or a different way. Grinding in a video game gets you absolutely nothing of worth.

Further, a lot of the grindy stuff in real life cannot be avoided. All grindy stuff in video games can be avoided, since you can simply make the game without them.

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What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

There's lots of stuff in real life that is a 'grind'. Take working out for example. However the difference is that these types of activities give you tangible benefits, in this case to your health. You can even make these types of things more fun, by working out in a different place or a different way. Grinding in a video game gets you absolutely nothing of worth.

Again - if you consider it a 'grind', maybe you're doing it wrong. I'm doing THE SAME THING YOU ARE, but I'm having fun doing it. (I'm doing far less of it - but that means my progress is even slower, so there's that tradeoff. I can live with it. ;) )

I'm not trying to tell you how to play video games. I'm simply saying that if the only part of a game that you enjoy requires doing large amounts of things you DON'T enjoy... why not just find a game that has a better proportion of fun/not-fun?

(You've said a number of times that there are lots of Destiny that you like a lot - but I'm having trouble figuring out what, besides Raiding, is on that list. At one point multiplayer was, but you said recently that you were tired of it.)

Further, a lot of the grindy stuff in real life cannot be avoided. All grindy stuff in video games can be avoided, since you can simply make the game without them.

There is very, very little in my life that I consider 'grindy'. The fact that the dog needs walking twice a day, even when it's pouring... that might be considered grindy (but only on days when the weather sucks; on other days, it's an enjoyable break from sitting in front of my computer or running electrical wire or whatever it is I'm doing at the time). Pretty much nothing else in my day-to-day existence is 'grindy' - so 2 15-minute spans per day (many of which are handled by my wife or my son), on days when the weather sucks (which is less than half the days, I'd guess) is a level of grind I can live with. Maybe the issue here is not the grind, but perception of grind.

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(You've said a number of times that there are lots of Destiny that you like a lot - but I'm having trouble figuring out what, besides Raiding, is on that list. At one point multiplayer was, but you said recently that you were tired of it.)

Not tired of it, but I just had no motivation to do Iron Banner. It's basically the raids and the nightfalls really… I'm not giving up Destiny completely, just pretty much everything but those until I can comfortably beat Crota on Hard.

There is very, very little in my life that I consider 'grindy'. The fact that the dog needs walking twice a day, even when it's pouring... that might be considered grindy (but only on days when the weather sucks; on other days, it's an enjoyable break from sitting in front of my computer or running electrical wire or whatever it is I'm doing at the time). Pretty much nothing else in my day-to-day existence is 'grindy' - so 2 15-minute spans per day (many of which are handled by my wife or my son), on days when the weather sucks (which is less than half the days, I'd guess) is a level of grind I can live with. Maybe the issue here is not the grind, but perception of grind.

That's why I put "grind" in quotes. Not a whole lot of my life feels grindy, but I'm sure there's lots of people who hate their jobs, hate studying, hate upkeep tasks like cleaning, laundry or home repair, etc. I sure hate doing laundry, so I take it to a place, then pick it up several hours later washed and folded.

Oh no… I'm using microtransactions in real life to pay to avoid the grind! :-p

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That's why I put "grind" in quotes. Not a whole lot of my life feels grindy, but I'm sure there's lots of people who hate their jobs, hate studying, hate upkeep tasks like cleaning, laundry or home repair, etc. I sure hate doing laundry, so I take it to a place, then pick it up several hours later washed and folded.

Oh no… I'm using microtransactions in real life to pay to avoid the grind! :-p

You should post the name and address of the place you take it to - if the cost of a full load of clothes, washed and folded, can be characterized as a 'microtransaction', I'm sure most LA denizens would love to get in on the deal. :)

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It's not just a matter of thought control or attitude adjustment.

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

OK, maybe hypnosis would persuade me that I was having fun.

I genuinely miss the loot cave because, although it was a grind, it was a short grind. If I was given the option of shooting a wall for five minutes at the start of my night's game play and that would get me all that I get through the grind - then I would probably start playing the game again. I'd jump back on the strike playlist and have fun.

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It's not just a matter of thought control or attitude adjustment.

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

I load up every time I play on bounties that will be completed by default in whatever activity I plan for that day. If I feel like a light romp, and think I'm just gonna patrol for a bit, I grab the 9000 experience without dying, the kill 20 enemies without taking damage, and the melee 30 enemies bounties. If I want to play a story mission, I see which ones have bounties associated with them, and grab the ones that sound enjoyable. If I'm going into the crucible, I grab the generic bounties (capture 10 control points, kill 25 titans, etc) and ignore the specific ones (kill 10 people with a sniper rifle, etc). And so on.

I rarely have to do anything outside of the normal play I was intending on engaging in anyway to complete the bounties in my inventory. And I LIKE playing that way. It's not grindy at all. (I suppose, by a pretty strict interpretation of 'grindy' as doing the same thing over and over again, my first stop every day in the tower, to pick up the bounties in the first place, could be considered 'grindy'... but I also use that time to chat with my playing partner or just get into the gameplaying mode if I'm alone; I don't really consider it a chore.)

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Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

That bounty is actually easy.

Step 1. Get a mythoclast :-p
Step 2. Hold trigger and kill stuff
Step 3. Bounty complete

(Mythoclast counts as a fusion rifle, so quick kills with the trigger held down count toward the bounty).

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Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

That bounty is actually easy.

Step 1. Get a mythoclast :-p
Step 2. Hold trigger and kill stuff
Step 3. Bounty complete

(Mythoclast counts as a fusion rifle, so quick kills with the trigger held down count toward the bounty).

This reminds me of a story Click and Clack told once on Car Talk. One of the brothers was just learning about car repair (he was still a teenager), and someone told him about a repair series that was worth getting. He went into a bookstore, and saw that all of the books in the series were pretty short, and a quick flip through showed lots of pictures to boot, so he figured "this is the series for me!" He bought the one for the car he was currently working on, and took it home.

He flipped to the chapter about whatever repair he was currently working on, and started reading.

"Step 1. Remove the engine.
Step 2. Below the engine, you'll see blah blah blah"

(That's as far as he got - he returned the book. That 'Step 1' was a doozy!)

Or the old Steve Martin joke:

Here's how you get a million dollars and not pay taxes:

First, get a million dollars.
Then, don't pay taxes.

All this to say, nope, still not doing that bounty. ;)

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That bounty can be a beast. I finished it once while playing that moon mission where you find the dead guardian & his dead ghost. When the door opens loads of thralls come pouring out & I was able to kill 2-4 per shot with my fusion rifle (no idea what one it was at the time, it was probably just a rare). Now that there are loads of places with lots of thralls in the expansion I'll actually consider picking it up if I'm planning on running a mission where there are loads of thralls pouring out of somewhere. Still can be a bit of a beast though.

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It seems to make no sense but it actually does.

In Dota 2 I have every hero unlocked from the start. Their is no investment system other than self improvement (via ranked matchmaking or just increasing your own skill outside that, and learning new heroes and fun).

compare that to destiny where everything is a chore to work towards. If I want to use a new exotic I have to grind it out to unlock its signature ability. In dota if I want to play a new hero I just look up a youtube video and jump right in. With built in guides I don't even have to look up a video half the time.

It rewards players for sticking out because they see themselves improve, and it complexity rewards dedicated players.

Destiny is a game that actively fights against you, and every change Bungie makes makes it seem they actively hate you.

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It seems to make no sense but it actually does.

In Dota 2 I have every hero unlocked from the start. Their is no investment system other than self improvement (via ranked matchmaking or just increasing your own skill outside that, and learning new heroes and fun).

compare that to destiny where everything is a chore to work towards. If I want to use a new exotic I have to grind it out to unlock its signature ability. In dota if I want to play a new hero I just look up a youtube video and jump right in. With built in guides I don't even have to look up a video half the time.

Is the crucible really like this though? I play pretty regularly with a dude who never plays PvE and constantly wrecks shop in crucible. Is it fair to compare Dota 2 (an entirely PvP game) with the PvE in Destiny?

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No its not a fair analogy. This post was more stream of consciousness writing.

But I think the philosophy on how each game treats its players is there. Dota facilitates your playing the game for multiple hours and rewards you for it. Destiny requires you to play multiple hours and punishes you for it.

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It seems to make no sense but it actually does.

In Dota 2 I have every hero unlocked from the start. Their is no investment system other than self improvement (via ranked matchmaking or just increasing your own skill outside that, and learning new heroes and fun).

compare that to destiny where everything is a chore to work towards. If I want to use a new exotic I have to grind it out to unlock its signature ability. In dota if I want to play a new hero I just look up a youtube video and jump right in. With built in guides I don't even have to look up a video half the time.

Is the crucible really like this though? I play pretty regularly with a dude who never plays PvE and constantly wrecks shop in crucible. Is it fair to compare Dota 2 (an entirely PvP game) with the PvE in Destiny?

Yeah, not sure I completely agree with the analogy. However I definitely don't feel like I have the options to play Destiny how I want to play because I simply have exotics that don't work with my playstyle. And yeah the upgrading of exotics wiping the perks screws with people who do PVP and PVE.

I'm sitting here wearing a dead orbit shirt thinking about how I've become a casual Bungie fan.

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I'm sitting here wearing a dead orbit shirt thinking about how I've become a casual Bungie fan.

If you aren't a level 30 and you still play the game all the time, are you really a Casual Bungie fan?

I haven't been evaluating my experience that way. Being Casual is about time investment, not results. Acuity with game mechanics is certainly a factor but I don't think it has to do with what level you're at, it has to do with how you got there, maybe?

And if you're posting on a forum about a game, I wouldn't call you Casual, certainly.

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I'm sitting here wearing a dead orbit shirt thinking about how I've become a casual Bungie fan.

If you aren't a level 30 and you still play the game all the time, are you really a Casual Bungie fan?

I haven't been evaluating my experience that way. Being Casual is about time investment, not results. Acuity with game mechanics is certainly a factor but I don't think it has to do with what level you're at, it has to do with how you got there, maybe?

And if you're posting on a forum about a game, I wouldn't call you Casual, certainly.

Yeah I used to play all the time, but now, whenever the grind kicks in (if I'm doing something I don't want to do because I can't access content that I want to play) I just do something else. My group of friends spend more time talking about how to minimize our grinding so we can play stuff like the raids.

We used to talk about the best strategies for Lockout while staying up late into the night. When in Australia, I'd get up at 5AM to play Reach. Now we just text each other about the haves and the have nots.

I don't get the obsession with getting "loot". Acquiring stuff is not my idea of fun. Trying out different play styles and strategies is fun, but right now I'm obviously hampered by not having ground enough to have the different weapons/builds available to do it.

There's an amazing game in there, I just feel like Bungie worked really hard to hide it behind a loot system that sounded so obnoxious when they talked excitedly about it.

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We used to talk about the best strategies for Lockout while staying up late into the night. When in Australia, I'd get up at 5AM to play Reach. Now we just text each other about the haves and the have nots.

I don't get the obsession with getting "loot". Acquiring stuff is not my idea of fun. Trying out different play styles and strategies is fun, but right now I'm obviously hampered by not having ground enough to have the different weapons/builds available to do it.

There's an amazing game in there, I just feel like Bungie worked really hard to hide it behind a loot system that sounded so obnoxious when they talked excitedly about it.

You're bummin' me out, man. I guess I grinded until I got where I wanted with Crucible and now I just play a few hours a week plus a raid if I can sneak the time.

I am distressed mostly with the amount I've played in the last few months. I feel like I want to play less.

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I feel like I haven't been playing nearly enough, ever, so all these talks about burning out or the game growing stale is completely dissonant to my own experience.

In fact, I want to play this game so damn much I'm willing to jump in any and all Raid/Weekly/Daily/Nightfall activities you guys are up to play with me. So bring it on. :)

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At this point it's clear that completing hard-mode crota won't be a barrier to entry for the House of Wolves raid, so I guess I don't care. I think I'll beat Crota once or twice and then go back to the crucible, which remains the most rewarding portion of the game to me.

I can see why hardcore, 'must be highest level' guys would be irritated, but being 31 isn't going to hurt me in Iron Banner so I don't much see the point in 32.

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At this point it's clear that completing hard-mode crota won't be a barrier to entry for the House of Wolves raid, so I guess I don't care. I think I'll beat Crota once or twice and then go back to the crucible, which remains the most rewarding portion of the game to me.

I can see why hardcore, 'must be highest level' guys would be irritated, but being 31 isn't going to hurt me in Iron Banner so I don't much see the point in 32.

This is why the lack of endgame content is such a big deal. We have Crucible (whose offerings are still thin compared to Halo's smorgasbord of multiplayer options) the raid (of which there are a whopping two of) and the nightfall strikes. Thats it. There simply isn't much to do in Destiny still in terms of options.

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This is why the lack of endgame content is such a big deal. We have Crucible (whose offerings are still thin compared to Halo's smorgasbord of multiplayer options) the raid (of which there are a whopping two of) and the nightfall strikes. Thats it. There simply isn't much to do in Destiny still in terms of options.

This is still the most legitimate complaint about the game to me. The grind is the mask over the hideous mug that is content diversity in the game.

How diverse was Halo's smorgasbord 3 months after release, though? It looks like new-ish modes of crucible are coming; and really, if you ignore what Bungie said would be in the game, there is quite a range of activities. I haven't put the damn thing down since it released, that's for sure.

I think there's more coming. Whenever Bungie hasn't had an event to tweak, they've added. And they've listened too. We'll see if they push the content level up in the next couple months prior to asking for more money.

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At this point it's clear that completing hard-mode crota won't be a barrier to entry for the House of Wolves raid, so I guess I don't care. I think I'll beat Crota once or twice and then go back to the crucible, which remains the most rewarding portion of the game to me.

I can see why hardcore, 'must be highest level' guys would be irritated, but being 31 isn't going to hurt me in Iron Banner so I don't much see the point in 32.

This is why the lack of endgame content is such a big deal. We have Crucible (whose offerings are still thin compared to Halo's smorgasbord of multiplayer options) the raid (of which there are a whopping two of) and the nightfall strikes. Thats it. There simply isn't much to do in Destiny still in terms of options.

By the end, Halo had TOO MUCH.

There needs to be a balance.

If I have to choose between 343's model of trying to please everyone (thus pleasing no one)

and

Bungie's model of "It's my body I do what I want"*

then I prefer Bungie's choice.

Destiny is still fun, but it's not "I have to play this every day" fun.

*A caveat to this being that I agree with their choice. In this case, when they do the our-way-or-the-highway approach, I can applaud them for DOING it, but if I don't like it, it doesn't matter anyway because I'd stop playing at that point :P

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I think I'll beat Crota once or twice and then go back to the crucible, which remains the most rewarding portion of the game to me.

So you are saying you are not open to raiding non-stop with my usual fireteam? Dang lol

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I can't handle the pressure!

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I'll gladly wear the Happy Hardcore badge

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Destiny's investment team needs to be tarred and feathered :p

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I say you're all a bunch of petulant children, dumping those Shards into the Hellmouth.

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Shart into the hellmouth?

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I have a feeling that it wasn't obviously a Boston Tea Party joke, but it was.

I'm not a big fan of the Boston Tea Party.

They wasted tea!

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Destiny's investment team needs to be tarred and feathered :p

No one should be tarred and feathered. It's fine for them to do this. Just for me, I am specifically not invested and the focus on investment distracts from the other amazing bits of fun they've got in there.

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I thought the :P would help but I guess I still sounded too harsh.

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I thought the :P would help but I guess I still sounded too harsh.

BANNED FOREVER.

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I thought the :P would help but I guess I still sounded too harsh.

BANNED FOREVER.

BANNED IN COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

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I thought the :P would help but I guess I still sounded too harsh.

BANNED FOREVER.

BANNED IN COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

MASSIVE BANNAGE

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[image]

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Destiny's investment team needs to be tarred and feathered :p

I tried to tell everybody this years ago, and immediately saw this coming when details on how light levels worked came out months before the game was released.

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Destiny's investment team needs to be tarred and feathered :p

I tried to tell everybody this years ago, and immediately saw this coming when how details on how light levels worked came out months before the game was released.

Praise be to Cody Miller, our prophet and sage, who sees the truth when all us fools cannot, not to mention our most humblest poster on the forum.

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Destiny's investment team needs to be tarred and feathered :p

I tried to tell everybody this years ago, and immediately saw this coming when how details on how light levels worked came out months before the game was released.

Praise be to Cody Miller, our prophet and sage, who sees the truth when all us fools cannot, not to mention our most humblest poster on the forum.

It completely baffles me when I see miles ahead into the future the consequences of a bad decision by Bungie, then it's exactly what people are complaining about right now. Why could I see it not even having played the game, yet Bungie, who has access to the game constantly, apparently noticed nothing?

Contrary to what you may think, I am not an all knowing Prophet. I'm just some random dude. So the only explanation I can think of is that these problems were purposefully not dealt with in order to accomplish the metric of more playtime, since they were blatant the moment these details were announced.

Either that or all the real talent at Bungie is gone, which is also a very real, if not scary, possibility.

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

Maybe, I'm not disputing that, just poking fun on that original post there. :)

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

343 actually took it to heart, and hired a whole crew of competitive players to help implement the stuff they'd been asking for for years.

The end product(s) are demonstrably less clamored-for than the games that were originally complained about.

I think that if it were as simple to 'fix' the problems you see in Destiny, they would have been fixed by now. (In some cases, Bungie doesn't even consider your criticisms to be problems that require fixing, I'd guess.)

Also, building things to please millions of people at once without annoying anyone is really really hard.

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

Ah, but you see I am most certainly NOT on the side of competitive players with regards to multiplayer anymore. The changes I propose would be possibly even more beneficial to 'casuals' than to the 'hardcore'.

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Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

Ah, but you see I am most certainly NOT on the side of competitive players with regards to multiplayer anymore. The changes I propose would be possibly even more beneficial to 'casuals' than to the 'hardcore'.

That wasn't my point at all. My point was, sitting here, outside of the development environment, it's pretty easy to say "everything I'm suggesting benefits the biggest complainers and doesn't change the experience at all for the folks who are already happy." (This is exactly what both the competitive players in Halo and you are saying, in general terms.) When it comes right down to it, though, it's not NEARLY as simple as anyone on the outside thinks.

If it were, there'd be far more 10-rated games.

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as for the rest...

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But what did happen?

They hired investment people very early on, even before destiny was announced. I can't remember when I first saw job adverts on BNet for IS peeps but it was a LONG time ago.

Jason Jones said that some people played campaign for eons but that most people didn't. I'm one of those long players. JJ said that he wanted to give the short players reasons to become long players. Hence the investment system.

When I heard about Destiny I thought that it would be a huge sink of effort and would eat content.

Arkham city has loads more to do than Destiny but I can still finish it in two weeks of casual play. When all the named bad guys are down and the last riddle solved the world suddenly becomes empty.

The ME games are living worlds right up to the last quarter of the game. Then they become lonely places were nobody on the ship has anything to say to you. As captain I present a sad, lonely, figure going from deck to deck trying to find someone to talk to me. I even took a love interest to try to get someone who would have time for me. (Oddly enough that doesn't work but is a distraction for this post.)

So even the best, content rich games that I have played just fizzle out. Not one of them would last (3?) years of continuous play.

Did Bungie think they could solve this problem then come to the awful conclusion that they couldn't?

I was a long term halo player because I really enjoyed the story and the world and the combat. I have a high tolerance for repetition as long as what I am repeating is fun and has a point. I'm always up for saving the galaxy and hanging out with my NPC pals (the marines and the grunts).

My experience with Reach and Destiny makes me think that if the original game had had an investment system then that system would have poisoned the game for me. Imagine if The Maw had been locked out until you levelled something up or if you had to "earn" the RLs you use in SC. Imagine having to do bounties: melee 30 enemies without dying, headshot 100 enemies, kill ten golds, etc. Imagine if you had to kill an Elite with his own banshee 10 times repeated over three characters. For me it would have sucked the life out of the game. I would have ground to a halt and would have stopped playing it.

The kill and elite with his own banshee comes from AotCR; you can use a RL to knock a banshee of its perch then fly it to a trigger volume which then makes the pilot spawn on the perch. Once he spawns you can kill him with the banshee. It is a fun thing to do and most of us will have tried it at some point. But imagine if you had to do it. OK, nobody is putting a gun to your head but imagine the reward would be something like the ability to carry 4 grenades instead of 2 so you don't have to do it in the strongest sense but you kind of do have to do it.

What fun remains in killing that elite if you have to do it say twice a week most weeks for at least 3 months?

So what now for Destiny?

Some people have no problems (or few) with the game. I can't play it any more.

Could destiny be made better?

Are its only problems down to a lack of content? If it had tons of content and an investment system would it be really good for most players?

For those people who think it is broken: how could it be fixed?

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So even the best, content rich games that I have played just fizzle out. Not one of them would last (3?) years of continuous play.

They don't need to.

If you can create a game with 40 hours of honest to goodness content, then a player will play and finish in 40 hours. If you take that same game and string it out to 100 or 200 hours with investment stuff, padding, and filler, you can't magically create new content. The player is still playing the 40 hours of actual fun stuff, but this time they are also playing 160 hours of tedium, repetition, or easy boring stuff. They aren't any better off, so you might as well just not waste their time and give them what you can as quickly as they can complete it.

Who the cares if people aren't playing your game three years from now? That metric is so meaningless as to actually be detrimental.

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and not just for one month

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I really do not like the new exotic upgrade system. It's beyond crazy how much time is required to now upgrade weapons/armor that you had previously leveled.

Here's my weekend shopping in review:
- Ruin Wings (13 SC)
- Voidfang Vestments (13 SC) - (Better Roll, Sharded old version)
- Truth (17 SC) - Decided to buy new instead of upgrading (will upgrade my other when available)
- 4 Helmet Engrams (100 Motes of Light) - Received the following:

Achlyophage Symbiote (better roll, sharded old version)
The Glasshouse
Obsidian Mind (Sharded since I received a better one from Nightfall)
Apotheosis Veil (better roll, sharded old version)

- Urn of Sacrifice (1 SC) x2
- Exotic Shards? (I bought some but don't remember how many)
Upgrades (1 Exotic Shard, 7000 slimmer each)
- Suros x2
- Icebreaker x2
- The Last Word

Total bill from Xur:
- 80 Strange Coins (35 in the form of exotic shards)
- 100 Motes of Light
- 35,000 Glimmer

In order to get the glimmer needed for the exotic upgrades + weapon & armor upgrades to get to level 31 to raid I spent a good 3+ hours glimmer farming on the exclusion zone, ?? hours doing patrols.

It finally hit me this weekend how crazy the new exotic upgrade path has now become. It's a good thing my girlfriend was out of town this weekend so I could spend 20-30 hours in game trying to upgrade my previously fully leveled weapons and new vendor gear that is better than my older raid gear.

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Yeah, Everyone I know is broke due to upgrades and buying new equipment. That is the single most annoying thing out of this whole expansion, how my characters were essentially forced back to 28 and had to start all over.

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Yeah, Everyone I know is broke due to upgrades and buying new equipment. That is the single most annoying thing out of this whole expansion, how my characters were essentially forced back to 28 and had to start all over.

And you are about to go broke again buying stuff from Iron Banner :-(

There is just no way short of doing gatekeeper runs in the Vault to have enough to have enough glimmer anymore. I'm pretty much banking on getting all the exotics from bounties again to avoid paying 7k, and re-buying the ones that need to be upgraded.

If Xur is selling a weapon it's a much better deal to buy it again and shard your old one than it is to trade it in to level up. That's messed up right there.

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Yeah, Everyone I know is broke due to upgrades and buying new equipment. That is the single most annoying thing out of this whole expansion, how my characters were essentially forced back to 28 and had to start all over.

And you are about to go broke again buying stuff from Iron Banner :-(

Well, I dunno...the last time most people were motivated in Iron Banner because of the armor that reached 30. Since this time IB armor only goes to 31, I don't think people will be going as nuts for it.

Higher ATK guns would be nice.

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Everyone I know is broke due to upgrades and buying new equipment.

I am not at all excited about Iron Banner now because of the glimmer grind.

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I have spent several hours farming glimmer. It is not fun. It is not remotely fun. It is boring as hell. I had to do it for IB weapons once already, and I'm not looking forward to doing it again. Why on earth do you need to leave PvP to do boring boring BORING glimmer farming in order to buy some guns that you EARN THROUGH PVP???

It makes no sense and is punitive to the players.

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I agree fully with this, and it feels like Bungie compensated for the fact that there was no real use for Glimmer by going too far in the opposite direction.

That said, playing the heroic story/strikes with glimmer consumables feels like the fastest and least mind-numbing way to grind glimmer, since there are a high concentration of yellowbar enemies.

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That said, playing the heroic story/strikes with glimmer consumables feels like the fastest and least mind-numbing way to grind glimmer, since there are a high concentration of yellowbar enemies.

And when you reach an area with too many yellow bar enemies, then your consumables stop working.

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Or they turn off glimmer gains!

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That said, playing the heroic story/strikes with glimmer consumables feels like the fastest and least mind-numbing way to grind glimmer, since there are a high concentration of yellowbar enemies.

And when you reach an area with too many yellow bar enemies, then your consumables stop working.

The other night I was playing the daily heroic on Mars. I forget the name of the mission, but it is the one where you descend into the underground train system and fight through Vex to a climax at a conflux.

I had a couple of bounties to take care of, one was getting 100 precision kills, the other 30 melees.

This area of the level has 3 portals that will just keep spawning Vex.

Being the efficient person that I am, I figured I'd just pop a consumable for vex, earn some glimmer while I got 50 or so more kills to complete those bounties.

Except I couldn't.

Once you kill the "original" enemies, the ones that spawn in don't count anymore.

Weird.

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Bungie has got lots of sides covered, it seems. First time I tried glimmer farming it was exactly there too. Freehold Station, I think, last room.

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Pop a blue polyphage continuously. Cycle between the two yellow bar minotaurs at the top back that guard the entrance to the Juncture, the three minotaurs at the conflux below the juncture platform (it's from the gatelord venus mission), and the groups of harpies and goblins across the square at the other side of the "bridge" between there and the juncture platform. Repeat forever. Gives about 100 glimmer per minute, give or take. Throw in 2 or 3 object collect/kill beacons, and a vex sacrifice every 20 minutes or so, and you can pull about 3000 glimmer, 50 spirit bloom and 3 or 4 bounties, in 20/25 minutes, give or take.

It's depressing to think about this.

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It's depressing to think about this.

I believe the Gatekeeper checkpoint in the Vault of Glass is the highest grossing farming run out there. 0 to 25K in less than an hour.

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It's depressing to think about this.

I believe the Gatekeeper checkpoint in the Vault of Glass is the highest grossing farming run out there. 0 to 25K in less than an hour.

Yeah, if you need a lot, that one is the best. If you don't have time to put together 4 or 5 to get there, and you only need 2 or 3k, I usually just hit a high yield patrol area like the citadel. You can multi-task bounties and planet mats quickly on top of the glimmer.

I definitely agree with your views on grinding. The fact that we're discussing this is painfully stupid.

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You just need 4 or 5 to get there the first time. Then you have the checkpoint, which you can solo at will.

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You just need 4 or 5 to get there the first time. Then you have the checkpoint, which you can solo at will.

Very true, but I'd point out that while this works for people with a lot of friends, it doesn't work for everyone. I'm sure there are people who visit this forum who rarely, if ever, raid. And while I'd recommend they try to organize one on here, it's probably more expedient for them to farm patrol, being that the raid might be too intimidating an undertaking.

And if I need 2k glimmer and don't have a raid checkpoint, this is usually what I do.

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last week's nightfall on the omnigul strike could get you ~10K in the first two encounters (first room, and the last array area).

Not sure how well that strike will work now, since it is not the Nightfall.

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Also forced AR starts.

But seriously, this article crossed my newsfeed on Facebook and I was curious what the old stomping grounds had to say. Interesting to say the least.

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Also forced AR starts.

But seriously, this article crossed my newsfeed on Facebook and I was curious what the old stomping grounds had to say. Interesting to say the least.

Are you enjoying the MCC HP? :-p

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I still don't have a console

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Not really, just haven't had the time to justify it. I intend to get a console sometime in the new year. Let's make that a resolution.

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but I think you worked that one out for yourself :-)

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Pretty scathing opinion piece on Polygon (Destiny)

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I feel no attachment to my gear

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+1, tbh

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

Either way, that's a lot

That's because you play as it was designed.

Does psn track play time? That could corroborate with b.net

That's because you play as it was designed.

Only 1 more than Levi

Only 1 more than Levi

That's because you play as it was designed.

You never will understand because you don't listen

You never will understand because you don't listen

You never will understand because you don't listen

Echo Chamber, guys

You never will understand because you don't listen

You've been asking that question for the last 3 months

You've been asking that question for the last 3 months

You've been asking that question for the last 3 months

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

Don't listen to him.

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

asking the same question repeatedly and apparently

Exploring

That's a big post :-)

Exploring

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

That's because you play as it was designed.

I *actually* LOLd at this

That's because you play as it was designed.

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

games with investment systems are NOT designed to be

Doing things that you don't want to do in a game is a grind

Doing things that you don't want to do in a game is a grind

Doing things that you don't want to do in a game is a grind

I actually LOLd at this

So I take it Bungie patched out BXR and Sword Flying... NM

So I take it Bungie patched out BXR and Sword Flying... NM

So I take it Bungie patched out BXR and Sword Flying... NM