The missing ingredient (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Tuesday, October 04, 2016, 20:48 (3064 days ago) @ Kermit

I don't trash anyone who plays Halo 5 or who likes Halo 5. Do you see me constantly complaining on HBO about it? No. The reason is that in my opinion, Halo 5 has no redeeming value as a video game. I was not impressed by ANY of it. Thus there isn't really anything positive to focus on in terms of possible improvement.

For Destiny, there's some great stuff there. Calls for improvement or criticism could one day lead to a seriously awesome overall experience. If one day Destiny's highs aren't worth grinding through the bad, then yeah. It'll be like Halo 5 and I'll just move on. But that hasn't happened yet.

Forget Halo 5. In a nutshell I said playing with friends is a crucial part of what makes Destiny fun. I don't think you treat it like what it is: a social game. It's all about your very analytical, Cody-centered view of it. Destiny wasn't designed to fit your criteria of what's fun for you and you alone, and I don't think it should be.

Actually, I think most of why Cody doesn't like Destiny is that the content he doesn't like is gating him from the content he does like. If it was flipped the other way it would be fine for him. He would just play the first part without playing the second part. However, because it's not, the stuff he has to go through is bitterness in his mouth. Thus, I can see why he tries to burn through it.

[Edit] This is just speculation, correct me if I'm wrong.

I guess my point is playing the same content again doesn't bother the players who treat it like a social activity. It's akin to playing a pick-up game with friends--it's still fun even though the rules of basketball don't change. I've rarely heard Cody acknowledge the social aspect of the game--it's all about whether his criteria for game design is being met. I think he has unrealistic expectations regarding variety of content, but I just haven't gotten the sense he plays with others very much (or if he does, I'd think that his blue engram blunder would've come to light earlier).

My problem with the "it's a social game" side of this argument is that it sort of implies that the game itself doesn't need to be any good, because it will automatically be fun because your friends are involved. I think there is a certain amount of truth to that (friends make just about everything better), but that doesn't mean the activity itself doesn't need to be inherently great, especially when the activity is supposed to be replayed over and over again. To use your comparison to basketball; if anything in Destiny was 1/10th as replayable as the game of basketball, many of Cody's complaints wouldn't exist. Games like basketball, soccer, football, etc have been tweaked and iterated upon for decades. Very few of the activities in Destiny (or any videogame) have even a fraction of the thought and time put into their design as those sports do.

My other problem with the "Destiny is a social game" argument is that sometimes it is absolutely NOT a social game. The act of playing through the story missions and quest lines with friends is actually a total pain, unless you and your friends happen to be exactly in step with each other's progress. There's so much time spent running around the social spaces, speaking to vendors, go off and do 1 mission, back to the vendors, etc... It's really not conducive to group play until you get PASSED all that stuff. I think Destiny is a spectacular social game 3-4 months after each release, once everyone is done with their own person levelling up and you and your friends can all just group up together and do whatever activities you're in the mood for without worrying about light levels or gear checks or any of that stuff. I believe a large portion of Cody's complaints, and I happen to agree on this point, stem from the fact that Bungie puts dozens (yes Korny, dozens ;p) of hours of playtime in between the launch of an expansion and that point months later when everyone can freely play whatever they want together, and those dozens of hours are spent replaying content that simply isn't good enough to hold up under such repetition. Of course, that last point is totally subjective. But I don't think there is anything wrong with voicing one's opinion either way.