Some thoughts, then some questions for all you DBOers (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, March 31, 2016, 15:06 (3253 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, March 31, 2016, 15:10

"But if people could easily get the gear they want, they'd stop playing" is the common response to this issue. Nonsense. Did picking up a BR in Halo make any of us say "well I've used that now, guess I don't need to play anymore". I've said this many times before: having a gun isn't fun, using it is. If we didn't need to replay certain activities countless times just to get the gear we want to use, then we wouldn't be so burned out on them and we'd have more space to actually use these fun tools and toys doing things we're still excited to do for the fun of it.

It would be even more fun to use guns if they were not acquired by RNG, because the scenario design could be such that, knowing players will have such and such a gun, you would have to really master or even abuse the mechanics of the gun to succeed.

Take a game like Megaman X. There are tons of secret areas that are only accessible by mastering the usage of special weapons. Many have secondary functions. For instance, in x4 you get a spider web that hangs in the air and can block bullets. But you can also wall jump off of it. So, there is one secret where you have to shoot webs and place them such that you can climb walls of spikes to get to the end.

Through the game, you will always get that weapon. So you can design cool things that push design to the limits and really make people utilize their tools in creative ways.

I think the same could be done for both guns and abilities in Destiny. And it would be even cooler, because you are not just USING the guns and abilities, but you are pushing them to the absolute limit! And that is a great feeling, not just of using a tool, but of creatively exploiting it. This is also why perks that simply increase damage / range / etc are boring. They don't give you a new tool to play with.