POE challenge mode is very exciting (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Thursday, March 24, 2016, 15:00 (3260 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I"ve been meaning to make a post going through all the design flaws of POE, but why I think it's one of the most important and underused elements in Destiny. Suffice to say though I think Challenge mode fixes many of the biggest flaws.

Just a quick recap, my big 3 problems with POE are:

1. Too much Filler. The whole process of POE Just DRAAAAAAGS. Airlock-> boring round 1 -> break slightly more interesting round 2 -> break -> challenging round 3/really good boss fights. Back to the airlock All those low engagement enemies and annoyingly long breaks between the good stuff just need to go. I feel like I play for 4 minutes to get one minute of interesting content. (this tied in with the lack of checkpoints in the longer ones, where it could take an hour, with not a ton of interesting content, and then you might have to play al that boring content again)

2. Enemy flow and cover. Due to the levels of spammy enemies, their spawn location, and the places you need to go, the most viable strategy for most rounds is to find a secure location with only two sides and lock it down. There's no need to cycle or move, there's very little reason to communicate outside of the raid like bosses.

3. No decisions: the objectives do help spice things up, but they never let you make strategic decisions. one spot appears at a time, or one VIP, and you pursue that goal singlemindledly, and hope you can do it before it blows up.

When POE clicks, on the boss rounds, or even just a round with good objectives, it can be kind of amazing. But theres so much meh between the good.

Challenge mode answers those three, and It brings some design ideas that destiny desperately needs.

1. Three areas, no filler rounds, just mechanically interesting boss fights.
2. Bosses are mobile, and can push you out of cover with teleports/fire. The need to bring down adds since it's on a timer fast encourages players to work together and break out of those firing bunkers.
3. The scoring system adds a lot of decisions. Obviously, do I target the boss right now, or target more adds? How do i prioritize adds to move quickly? Do I want to save adds for point bonnusess with the special condition, or do I clear them out now to survive?

As a big thing though, it brings something I've thought Destiny needed since Day 1: multiple levels of success/failure. Win the match, get a good shot at some engrams, and progress to your global score goal. Or do awesome and clear the match in such a way that you clear the card.

It has a ton of room to gorw too; having a scoring system allows for a ton of flexibility in design. You could think of scenarios where you can setup and protect point generators, or have to coordinate two players hitting a switch to get a score bonus.

There's still some major failure points that we haven't explored though, so I'm still cautious about it. Is it balanced so that you have to actually make decisions and prioritize targets, and gear appropriately or can you play it mindlessly? Does the encounter design still rely on a spam of fire and push you into corners?

So it's exciting, but I said the same thing about POE, and Bungie really dropped the ball with it.