Patrol missions: My thoughts as Destiny 2 nears (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, February 18, 2016, 16:58 (3295 days ago)

If we assume Destiny 2 is just a bigger and better Destiny: The Taken King with normal story missions that follow a similarly structured plot line etc., we'll also have a patrol mode. With missions. And the current state of these missions is kind of lackluster to me. I'm going to list them here, what I think of them, and then what my ideas are for how I'd change them to be more friendly to me. I'd love to know what you guys think as well, so please sound off!

Group 1, the easy group:
- Kill anything (white X missions). Just what is says: Kill anything and eventually this completes. Normal reward.
- Kill a specific bad guy (Star in a circle): Go to a place and find a special baddie. Kill him for a big reward!
- Kill a specific type of enemy and collect materials from them (Triangle). These are basically kill guys missions, and as long as you run over the corpses (which you're doing anyway for ammo and engrams) you'll complete these by picking up the materials. Normal reward.

I think there should be a big reward version of the "collect things" missions that gives you a whole shopping list of stuff to find from a variety of enemies on that world who may or may not all be in the specific zone you're in at the time you pick up the mission.

I also think that the big reward missions should be random (maybe a 1 in 3 chance) when you pick up the normal mission that relates to it.

Group 2, the go somewhere else group:
- Scan an item (airplane propeller symbol?). These direct you to another zone where there's an item you have to use your ghost to scan. Normal reward.
- Stand in a place for a while (I forget exactly what this symbol is). These direct you to another zone where you stand in a specific place doing nothing for a while and the meter slowly fills. Normal reward

I think these missions suck and I avoid them whenever possible. Why do I hate them? Because I've decided I want to play in X zone, and these missions always tell me to leave that zone and go somewhere I don't want to be. They need better rewards in order to make me care at all about them. I also think they could be a lot more interesting. If standing in that place gave you improved radar for the remainder of that patrol, or scanning the item dropped an engram... Let me feel like my actions are doing something. In the "kill stuff" missions you have a direct hand - you're killing stuff. But in these missions you're literally having zero impact on the world. It's not like completing 100 scans lets you spawn in any zone you choose or something. There's no reason for them. I'd guess they are supposed to be signposts to direct you to adjacent zones, but there's already a signpost when you complete all missions in the zone you're in, so why make me leave prematurely? No need at all.

I do think they can be salvaged, but I'd love to see better reward structures and more interesting objectives (more on objectives later).

Group 3, which is really just one thing:
- Move through the gates (stopwatch symbol): Purple gates appear on the map in set locations and moving through them fills a meter which slowly drains over time, encouraging you to move quickly through the gates. Normal reward.

I like these missions. The fact that they ramp up as you go is pretty fun (and that the red bull quest requires completing rank 3, which means you have a reason to ramp them up). With the advent of SRL, I think these missions could be modified to be more like zone-wide races rather than sort of random locations (I know the gates aren't actually randomly placed - they always reappear in the same spots, but those spots appear to be randomly distributed rather than in a set path or course). I'd really love to see a big reward version of the races that was a legit time trial in the SRL style to drive a path through the zone you're in (or multiple zones!).

Group 4, which is also just one thing:
- Dread Patrol (skull and crossbones): Go to a specific spot, fight a couple of waves of enemies, and then face a big baddy. Big reward.

The dread patrol is in a unique space in patrol missions as they are really the only challenging patrols. So much so that I wish they didn't direct me to out of the way spots where I'm unlikely to get help from passers-by. And, as with the go somewhere and stand in a spot missions, these always take you out of the zone you're in. Why?? If I really wanted to play in zone X, I'd just go there right off the bat. Clearly I'm interested in zone Y, please just leave me in zone Y. I wish these were more like waves appear in breadcrumb-style, rather than making me move to the magic spot and fighting all of the waves right there. It would be a small change that would make the patrol a lot more engaging (and make moving to another zone more organic feeling).

And last, Group 5L The group of awesome:
- ????????? missions (which randomly show up after finishing other missions): Best missions in the game imo. Super fun, big reward, lots of varied objectives.

I wouldn't change a thing about the mystery missions, except maybe to make them have an even larger list of different actions they want the player to perform.

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Anyway, I have a couple of overall thoughts:

First, I really dislike missions that ask me to leave the zone I'm currently in, to the point where the only ones I ever choose to do are the "kill a specific guy" missions where I already know exactly where that guy spawns and its nearby (the divide is my fave of these). I don't think missions should direct you to other zones, unless those missions are literally "we don't have enough guardians in zone X, please go there and help out with the missions in that area" which would complete the moment you got to the new zone, or give you a buff while in that zone (or extra loot drops in that zone or something of the sort).

Narratively, it's silly that zavala would put a mission beacon for the rocketyards in the divide. Why not just put the beacon in the rocketyards? It's dumb. Gameplay wise, there's no need for signpost missions to send players to other zones. Once they finish the missions in their current zone, and beacon automatically shows up pointing the way to the next zone and more missions. Let people play in the zone they want to play in rather than immediately telling them to go elsewhere.

Next, I think the kill things missions are too easy and too much like exactly what you're doing anyway. I'd like to see at least a little finesse or thought required ("kill them with headshots so we can collect their armor," or "no headshots, we want to study their brains").

Which leads me to the next thing: Patrol missions could easily take the place of bounties for PvE. Throw a couple of beacons at the start of each strike for strike-specific objectives and cluster a few around the spawn of patrol mode and story missions, let players pick up more than one mission at a time, and then you can just move all PvE bounties to the beacons. This would be a bigger change, but I think it would be a good one. You'd have to make them a tad smart, so that some missions (go through the gates etc) would disappear from your quest log if you left the area, but that seems like pretty minor code work compared to the overhaul I'm suggesting.

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And then there are ideas for more varied mission types:

- I've been playing a bit of helldivers, and they have some really good ones. Find and dispose of unexploded ordinance is great. You have to use a metal detector to find hidden bombs in a designated area and then enter a string of D-pad directions to disarm them, all while being attacked by enemies. Destiny could do this using the ghost as a "detector" since he can turn and face the nearest once and give a hotter/colder sort of ping sound or VO to help.

- Carry the object to the place missions. There are a bunch of objectives like this in story missions and the raid in TTK, but there are no patrol missions to do it. Again, it makes speed and elusivity important over just killing things. You could also make the result fun, like dropping a turret at the final position after you carry the turret beacon there, and then you have a turret to use in that zone for a while.

- Commandeer an enemy vehicle missions. There are already enemy vehicles in patrol mode to a small degree, why not add some missions to find one and kill its driver. You get mission rewards and a vehicle!

- More serious recon missions. Send the player through the same areas of the strikes, but in patrol mode, and have them plant a camera or data mining device. Completion gives the player a bounty to finish that strike and then collect the planted device along the way, maybe give them a buff for the remainder of the strike, too, since they now know more about their enemy.

- Find the lost ghost missions. For players who haven't found all of the ghosts, occasionally spawning a mission that points them to one would be really nice. Maybe make it a "post mission reward mission" similar to the ????? missions so you couldn't just continually zone in until you found one. Bonus reward is they get a grimoire card!

- Help a guardian missions. Activating these would move you to a solo-player's instance of another, harder mission such as dread patrol, and your mission would just be to help them complete their mission. Make a friend as well as complete your mission. A trickier version would be to allow players to flag themselves as "I need help" which would cause the "help a guy" missions to start spawning. Then you could help people with strikes and such, too.

Just thinkin'.