"Value", "enough being enough" and that feeling of Déjà vu (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Sunday, July 03, 2016, 20:35 (3158 days ago) @ Revenant1988

I agree with your assessment. That's why I almost exclusively PvP. Destiny's PvP has depth to it that other FPS games simply don't. Beyond pure gunskill or loadout selection, there's an incredible layering of movement, positioning, and teamwork that makes it all very interesting to me, and which I've been frustratingly unable to master.

But the PvE? Boring as hell. Every enemy feels quite a bit like every other enemy (though at least the taken have a modicum of abilities which make fighting them more interesting). There's no real need for strategy, and experimentation is punished rather than rewarded. The name of the PvE game is efficiency rather than fun, and that's very disappointing. I actually like Challenge of Elders because the points present an optimization problem and (unbelievably) a vector for friendly competition with my friends. Other than this, the only friendly competition in the game is classic rumble, which at best still has 3 strangers messing with your fun.

Anyway, yes, this game, the Division, WoW - they're all treadmill games. The danger is that the designers of these games often use a metric of "time spent playing" as the basis for evaluating how good the game is. That's bullshit imo. I can spend 5 hours in Destiny and have no fun at all if I keep wiping on Oryx due to bugs, one person's single mistake, or a lag spike, or any other number of things. That doesn't mean I like the game. PvP I enjoy, but there remains a vast room for improvement with game modes, team play, ranked leagues, custom modes, etc. The game is good *despite itself* and not because someone made good design choices with the investment strategy, but rather somehow, impossibly, those bad choices aren't so bad as to take away completely from the core joy of moving and shooting.

But that's all destiny is. Good movement and good shooting. Where I'm shooting isn't interesting (though it should be), what I'm shooting isn't interesting (though it should be) and why I'm shooting really isn't even a part of the game (though, for the love of god, it should be).