High Moon Studios, Fall of Cybertron, and Destiny (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, January 04, 2016, 20:50 (3340 days ago)

This is borderline off-topic, but it ties back in to Destiny so I figured some of you might be interested :)

I was just poking through some old videos on my Youtube channel, and came across a series of Fall of Cybertron multiplayer guides I put together a couple years ago. This got me thinking about High Moon Studios' involvement with Destiny, and what it might entail. Specifically, I hope High Moon is doing more than port work or optimization. I'd like to see them actually get their fingers into the game and help guide things a bit.

I played the crap out of Fall of Cybertron back when it came out, and rewatching my old videos made me remember just how fantastic the combat in that game is. More to the point, they handled the different classes in ways that might make sense for Destiny down the road.

The big thing that jumps out at me about FoC is how distinct the 4 different classes were, without any 1 class feeling substantially overpowered. Each class plays substantially different from the others, yet they all had room to compete in their own ways. I think they were able to hit this balance for a few reasons. First of all, Destiny's character classes have way more subtle options and differences between them, and I think that causes some problems. For example; in Destiny, I know that the average Titan has more armor than the average Hunter. But I don't know for sure, or by how much. I can stick an enemy Titan with my Trip Mine and it might kill him, but it might not. I can hit him with 2 body shots from my Uzume Sniper and it might kill him, but it might not. These are the kinds of variables that all add up to make Destiny feel a bit too haphazard for my taste at times. There's a lot of "All I can do is throw a hail Mary and hope for the best", rather than knowing precisely "If I do X then Y will happen".

Comparing that to Fall of Cybertron, if I'm playing as the Infiltrator Class and I come up against and enemy Titan class, I know with 100% certainty that he has significantly more health than me. I know that going toe-to-toe in open combat is a bad idea. And that's ok, because my own class gives me ways to avoid those situations and create advantages through my own abilities. There's a kind of logical synergy between the character classes in the Cybertron games that I feel Destiny lacks at times. A Titan in FoC is the biggest, strongest, most damage-resistant class on the battlefield. Strategically, you use them exactly how you would expect to use such a character. In Destiny, the Titan's armor suggests that you should play something of a "tank" role by running in and dealing damage up close. But then you try to do it and get smacked by Warlocks with twice your melee range or catch a throwing knife in the face from a Hunter as they bunny-hop over your head.

In addition to the class abilities, FoC maintained balance by keeping every single weapon class-specific. Each class had weapons tailored and balanced around their traits and abilities. Now this kind of design is obviously very different from what we have in Destiny, but we are starting to see Bungie lean in this direction ever so slightly with the 3 class-specific exotics introduced with TTK. It's a tiny step, but I think it shows promise.

Anyway, this is all just a bunch of musings that have been going through my brain since watching those videos today. I'm excited to have High Moon involved with Destiny in some capacity. I hope they get a chance to let their design influences make their way into the game in one form or another.

Here are the videos for anyone who is interested: