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

by Funkmon , Thursday, March 31, 2016, 15:20 (3253 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

"do I enjoy leveling up in Destiny?"

Not in the current system. I preferred it at launch.

I understand that "leveling up" is generally seen as a core aspect of RPGs, and Destiny does have 1 leg deep into the RPG side of things, but I don't think I actually enjoy the dynamic it brings to this game. Leveling up often plays into the idea of building a character, increasing their skills and abilities... essentially its about becoming more than we were at the start of the game. I like all of that. But I don't think having a light level tied to our gear or our guardian is really in service of any of that.

I do.

Imagine a version of Destiny that existed without any form of rank or light levels. Our guardians could still unlock new abilities in our skill trees as we play. We could still acquire new, better gear that is more powerful or has unique perks or abilities. We could still "become more than we were" over the course of the game without having a 3 digit number assigned to all of our stuff.

This sounds awful. Needs numbers so we can analyze the stats. It's a loot game where we keep an inventory. It's not Halo or Doom. There are thousands of guns and they need to be comparable.

This leads me to ask myself:

"what does the rank and light level system really add to Destiny?"

Difficulty choice in an online only game.

"In what ways is Destiny better thanks to RNG?"

It keeps the game interesting in that you can get really fun weapon mods, and it varies rewards. I do not like random damage and defense numbers.

In decreasing the randomness of gun perks and rewards from launch to HOW and then TTK, it forced them to remove the possibility of the overpowered rolls, like a field scout outlaw crowd control Timur's Lash, making the guns largely identical and less fun. Instead of trying for that chance at a god roll and enjoying the use of your great gun, people are grinding for a guaranteed drop of a good roll for a particular type of engagement. The things like rerolling guns introduced in HOW and the guaranteed loot of TTK ruined really good random guns.

I preferred it at launch. Blues were common, purples were legitimately rare. This allowed the vendors to sell pretty damn good guns, as they were rare as fuck. Now the vendor guns suck because marks are easy to get and purples are easy to buy and acquire. Compare your Hung Jury to the alphabet soup. It's not even close. The patch guaranteeing purple engrams dropped as purple engrams was the beginning of the end of my love for Destiny's randomness.

In the end game right now, there's too much randomness in the numbers, which is why they introduced challenge mode. In my ideal destiny, there is no need for challenge mode. There is a kill Templar with no teleports exotic chest, and raid guns drop at near max light but are upgraded to maximum light using materials and experience. They are on an even light playing field.