No light levels (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, September 03, 2017, 03:02 (2437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Meh. Obsessing over advancing your light like that seems unfun. Don’t do unfun things and take comfort that the remaining things are a little be better than they were in Destiny 1. :)

Too bad you kind of have to to be raid ready in a week so you don't get spoiled.

Solution to that is raids come out later, not allowing progression to max light to take place within a week. Sheesh.

Or, you know, don't read spoilers.

No. The solution is no light levels in the game at all.

That's EXACTLY what I described in a different post:

https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?mode=entry&id=136897

That is so ridiculously reductive it could apply to ANY game with almost any progression system whatsoever OTHER than one that uses a linear progression with no repetition, no randomization.

In other words, Halo-style progression. You can imagine every player doing the Halo single-player campaign as entering the game with a level 1 and earning 1 level at the completion of each level, ending the game with a level equal to the number of levels played.

The reasons why this is not the case are obvious-- no progression, no long-term engagement outside of competitive multiplayer. Bungie knew how to make that game. If they wanted to do that, they would.

Long term engagement with finite content means repetition. Repetition with finite content and progression means introducing a random element so that progression is not keyed lockstep to content completion. (Progression here can me not just light level, but the continued accumulation of sets of armor and weapons that permit for varying gameplay styles).

I don't think Bungie's raid launch date is chosen with regard to light levels. Therefore, removing light levels would allow more players to enter the raid even sooner, and make spoilers proliferate. No mater how low the bar is to get into the raid, there are always going to be some players who can't put in that number of hours in a single week. I think the 1 week term is catering to squeaky wheel streamers who will cry content drought if they don't have new things.

If it's not that then I don't know what. I certainly hope Bungie thinks they're launching a game with more than a week's worth of first-run content in it.