Competition (Gaming)

by Durandal, Thursday, February 02, 2017, 19:58 (2658 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Division had the inverse problem of destiny. They had a somewhat coherent story arc, and a much more explorable area, but the actual gameplay involved 3 enemy types and a difficulty that scaled by adding HP to super huge bullet sponges. Weapon balance and perk/ability balance was very off.

PVP was also a disaster, where high level players rolled over everyone else, and effectively formed a blockade for gear. Imagine if they only way to increase your light level from 365 was to farm Trials flawless runs. At least that was my impression. I have friends who played after the patch, and now there are more varied ways to get the good loot, but the first couple of months were extremely annoying once you finished the story. People would kick you from the match made activities if you weren't higher level, and you couldn't solo the dark zone well.

I have to say I enjoyed the ME multiplayer, and if Bioware expanded on that they could have a very good competitor. It really seems that you need the core play mechanics to be good if you want to have any longevity. I think we are seeing the start of a merger between MMOs and FPS type gameplay, with large overlapping sections of both. The loot/reward system seems to be very effective in addicting the player base, and every game is adding that as a must have in some form. Same with customization.

So really it falls back to the gameplay itself.