Natural progression (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, September 03, 2017, 03:21 (2437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The point being, you can dislike it but it isn't correct to equivocate it, but also you're right in that slogging through most of the game for great bits at the end isn't ridiculous; though Xenos can of couree personally think it odd I guess.

But it's exactly equivalent. The 'what' doesn't matter. You could be doing an epic quest spanning an entire game. But the moment you are asked to repeat that as part of investment based progression, it becomes the same thing. Strike playlists and the loot cave are different in degree, but not different in principle.

Understanding this is the key to understanding the poison of investment systems.

How are you being poisoned? If it's poison to you, don't drink it. If you're voluntarily drinking poison you're going to find it hard convincing people that you're so much smarter than them that only you've figured out that this stuff is poison.

Repetition as a method of creating sustained engagement is absolutely unavoidable until technology reaches the point where content can be created more quickly than it can be consumed.

If you want a traditional shooter with traditional level progression go play one-- there are lots! Frankly I don't find the rotation of Destiny's activities to be anywhere near as tediously repetitive as competitive multiplayer is, and yet people do that quite a lot because they like it. And previously that was the only possibility for long term engagement when you're done consuming the campaign content and are just waiting for the next release.