Spinfoil hat time (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, October 03, 2016, 13:37 (3065 days ago) @ narcogen

Bungie knows that for a social game to thrive, people need to be able to play together. Large disparities in light level discourage that, especially since some activities are gated.

Bungie has solved that issue with Public events. You know how in Patrol you do way less damage against lower level enemies so you don't crush them easily? Two people with vastly different levels can easily play public events together. If they simply had 'easy' modes for all activities, including the raid, this would not be a problem at all using the current system they have in place.

They also know that players will only be friendly to adjustments in parameters in one direction, so you need to be careful with initial values.

Bungie has no problem making changes in the other direction which make progressing more difficult. It's happened numerous times over the course of the two years since launch.

You can start out with low drop rates and increase, but players would resist the opposite. You can start out with engram color indicating the highest possible quality drop, but you can't start out with the current system and then downgrade to the earlier one.

Bungie eliminated Omnigal farming, the loot cave, reduced the rate at which you acquire experience for armor, etc. They go the other way all the time.

These mechanics are designed to discourage you from making progress be the goal in and of itself, or by identifying a single aspect of the game, focusing solely on that, and then decrying your lack of progress.

That would be fine if the best parts of the game didn't require progress to do.