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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 12:49 (2365 days ago)

edit: TL;DR for those who don't want to read my latest novel: Destiny has game systems which work at odds with one another, creating an environment which begs players to play how they want to while simultaneously shoehorning players into playing only in the few ways that Bungie wants them to play.

Second subheadline: How Diablo 3 and Destiny totally blew it on their implementation of levels on both players and enemies.

I've seen posts around this sub for years that talk about how there should be difficulty levels you choose when you start a game, or select an event to participate in, etc.. Or that say difficulty levels are for babies who want everything handed to them instead of wanted to git gud. Both opinions are, in my opinion, incorrect when it comes to games like Destiny.

Why?

Well, I'm going to get more general first: Games where both the player has a level and the enemies have levels are games which should not require difficulty levels, but which also should - somewhat dynamically - allow players to (eventually) access all of the content of the game and complete all of the challenges therein.

How?

In any game where the player and enemies have levels, difficulty scales dynamically: as the player levels up relative to the enemies, the game should get easier, and as the enemies level up relative to the player, the game should get harder. In more literal terms, a level 10 player should wipe the floor with level 1 enemies, and a level 1 player should have a nearly impossible task trying to defeat level 10 enemies.

What does this do?

Water finds its own level, as the saying goes. Players in a dynamic leveling system such as this will find a challenge level for which they are comfortable on a moment to moment basis. Too easy for you? Blow through the next few levels and bam, you're back at a challenging pace. Too hard? Come back later after you've leveled up a bit in easier areas.

This how classic RPGs have historically played. In almost every case, and certainly in every case that I consider to have been well designed, a skilled player is able to complete the game somewhere around the mid-levels of the game, and poor players are able to dramatically out-level the content in the game in order to breeze through the final fights. Highly skilled and knowledgeable "professional" caliber players are able to complete the game at levels which seem, to the rest of us, nearly impossible.

In my opinion, the single best implementation of character and enemy levels in any game, ever, is Diablo 2.

Which is why Diablo 3 mystifies me in the extreme. In every zone of the game, the monsters scale to your level. There is no method by which the player can go to an easier zone or a more challenging zone. Rather, Blizzard tacked a difficulty selection screen on top of their game which was already designed with both player and monster levels already implemented. It's bonkers, backwards, and bad, as far as I'm concerned.

Destiny is exactly half as bad. Namely: Monsters which out-level you make the game more challenging, but once you reach a monster's level, they never become easier as you gain further levels. This means you could theoretically increase challenge by fighting higher level monsters, but you can never outlevel them to make for an easy ride later on.

Of course, Destiny wasn't really designed to be played in a linear progression. Or, rather, the linear progression of Destiny is entirely contained within the story campaign, and that campaign is designed such that for most players you are always playing against monsters who are at or slightly above your current level. In fact, the campaign *prevents* you from proceeding into higher level missions, even if you want to, until you reach a certain level. Again, bonkers and bad.

If the monsters are going to roflstomp most players anyway, why block them from entering? Just make a tooltip that says "Campaign enemies too hard? You can level up in other activities to make enemies easier to defeat." There's no reason to stop players from entering while grossly underleveled. Suggested power is great. Enforced power is lame in a system like this.

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Let's look at the "endgame" of a few games that deal with relative power level in different ways. Not all of these will be familiar to all of you, but I'll try to explain how each is handled. Then I'll come back to Destiny and talk about how Destiny's design whiffs on taking advantage of the strengths of player and enemy levels.

Diablo 2: The main game is completable by level 30 for most players. Then there is a "nightmare mode" which sounds at first like a difficulty selection (as it is a repeat of the normal campaign), but is actually a linear progression from the normal mode enemy levels. Nightmare is completable around level 60 for most players, and then hell mode is completable around level 90. Players can level up to 99, putting them easily 10% more powerful than the hardest content in the game. For some players, being the most powerful player they can be is the goal, and they level to 99 as much as possible. For others, the challenge of beating the whole game quickly and at low a level as possible is the goal, and some have done it around level 60. For others, simply completing the story was the point, and they're done after level 30 or so with an enjoyable experience and without feeling the need to join the power struggle in the repeated campaigns (but increased enemy levels) of nightmare and hell modes. "endgame" of diablo 2 is by and large the race to complete Hell and gather the most powerful gear possible for your character. One last thing: Diablo 2 also features seasons, where servers are reset and all players start over from level 1. These seasons are timed out such that it is very hard, yet still possible, to reach level 99 before the next reset, and provide a clean player economy and fair starting line for all players. This extends the life of the game effectively forever, as the endgame resets with each season, provided you're a seasonal type player. There are other incentives, such as special drops that only happen during the current season etc. in order to keep people playing on the new ladders rather than sticking with their old characters.

Kingdom of Loathing: I opine about this game with regularity here, and that's because it is novel in many ways. Unlimited inventory, full and un-policed player trading and selling of items in a searchable "mall," and almost no restrictions on how you play the game. After completing the main story, you have the option to restart at the beginning, but you can make one of your skills from the last playthrough permanent for all future playthroughs, like a super prestige mode. Not only does this extend the life of the campaign, but it also creates a metagame whereby players are completing the main game as quickly as possible in order to make permanent as many of the skills as possible, and also to compete for fastest ever clear times on the leaderboards. KoL does prevent you from completing each story mission if you're underleveled (you gain access to them via leveling up), but the nature of the game means that a large part of the early metagame is optimizing your leveling up abilities such that you can access the final missions in the least number of turns per run. Players who are good at the game are able to optimize "no skill" runs and still do well, whereas players who are not so good can continue to add more and more skills to their repertoire in order to make life easier for their runs. If you aren't interested in the metagame, the main missions end at level 13, but there are "endgame" content areas at level 20 and above, and players can also level up infinitely in order to far exceed the power level of whatever comes their way. Because this game is played based on turns per day, being infinitely powerful still doesn't allow you do defeat everything all at once - you have to marshal your turns and use them appropriately.

Mordor: Depths of Dejenol: God I loved this game. In addition to your character's level and enemy levels, you also had item levels, which sometimes required minimum stats, but which could allow you to punch above your level, so to speak. Since the in-game store was persistent character to character, you could use your powerful main character to essentially twink out your other characters, who would then gain experience quickly by defeating overleveled monsters, eventually arriving at similar power to your main character. You could then party them together, and take on more difficult challenges. As with both previous games, the race to finish was not a forced difficulty setting - you could always just farm the level 1 monsters endlessly and still get at least 1 exp per kill, allowing you to overlevel harder areas (eventually) and make them all somewhat trivial, were you to pour in the absolute hours of time and energy needed to farm exp that way. I don't know what the endgame of this game was like, because I never even got close to finishing, even after several hundred hours of play. There was just so much depth here, and all so well implemented. God I wish this game would be ported to modern systems.

Fallout: New Vegas: Another game with a colon in its title. Fallout (and many of the other Bethesda games such as Morrowind, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim) all do an interesting thing with monster levels. As the player becomes more powerful, the enemies the player encounters also become more powerful, but not in a 'diablo 3' terrible scaling sort of way. Rather, the player encounters different types of enemies which are, by the nature of their typing, more powerful. Compare to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, where all monsters scale exactly like Diablo 3, and the difference is obvious: There are some enemies which at level 1 are very easy, but at level 60 are nearly impossible to kill simply because they scale too steeply. In F:NV and the others, a radroach is always just a radroach, but at level 30 you're more likely to encounter a Deathclaw alongside that radroach. So you get the powerful feeling of being able to roflstomp the low level enemies while still encountering a somewhat scaled difficulty of seeing more powerful types of enemies as you explore. Unlike a Diablo 3 or Destiny design, this allows players to identify the difficulty of approaching enemies and decide whether or not the player is up to the challenge in advance. Even so, at some point the enemies cap out, and the player is allowed to continue to level well beyond their strength if they so choose. These games are important in this discussion as an alternative example of how to both scale enemies (via typing) without ruining the interaction of player levels vs. enemy levels.

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So let's look back at Destiny now. When the D1 beta was released, I was very excited that this game seemed to be properly using levels. There were level 20 guys in the level 8 zone who would just stomp you and prevent you from accessing those high level areas! Wow! I was so excited to reach level 20, come back, and see what lay beyond! Turns out it was a single chest. Or maybe a ghost shell. Or literally nothing, in some cases. How disappointing. Enemy levels were not being used as dynamic gates to higher level zones, but rather as singular mini-bosses to nuke new players while providing virtually no challenge for fully leveled ones.

Furthermore, my friend who sucked at the game (sorry dude!) had an awful time, constantly getting mobbed by enemies he should have far outleveled. Ultimately he quit because he couldn't play the way he wanted to (just charging in like a maniac) even in the noobiest of noob zones. Without casting judgement on the validity of wanting to play this way, I want to point out: In a traditional player level vs. enemy level model, it is possible to grossly overlevel the content and then run in like a madman laying waste to anyone and everyone as you go. Any game in which both the player and the enemies have levels should allow for this sort of play.

It's not to say that Destiny's design is all bad. There's something to be said for bringing the baseline of enemy levels up to the player in order to prevent true trivialization of content. That works in a game like destiny to keep every world remains "current" in the endgame and nothing is actually gated by enemy level at that point. The expense of this desire to keep all areas active in the endgame is that you lose the value of having levels in the first place. Why even have them at all? And this is a question I and others have asked repeatedly in D2: Why have character levels and power levels at all in this game? What purpose do they serve? The answer, basically, is that they give players a bigger number to chase that is ultimately meaningless beyond bragging rights.

Of course, this begs another question: Why cap power level at all? The number doesn't mean anything other than you've spent an awful lot of time collecting gear, so why not reward those collectors with an unlimited "power" level creep that they can use in their epeen measuring contests?

Look, I can't answer why Destiny was designed the way it was without getting very pessimistic. It all reeks of addictive hooks and making sure the game is full of "one more thing" to keep players playing and chasing the dragon, so to speak. None of it looks like smart design in terms of game mechanics and dynamic difficulty to me. Destiny 1 accepted this failure and added difficulty levels to missions and strikes. Destiny 2 is in full denial and basically says "if the game is too hard, you suck, and if the game is too easy, tough luck buddy, get used to it."

The whole game (and Bungie's current design philosophy in general) seems to be about "play the game the way we intended or not at all" and that's essentially the antithesis of a persistent loot RNG-based sandbox game. If you want us to play a certain way, fix our loadouts and remove the dynamic world elements. Otherwise, get the design out of the way of player choice and let people do what they want to, up to and including overleveling enemies or preventing themselves from gaining more experience in order to increase the difficulty of the game via more natural means.

I believe that this dichotomy of developer attitude and design scope plays a significant role in player dissatisfaction with the experience of the game.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 13:22 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I absolutely hate overleveling. Both because too often I've experienced it as a crutch necessary to simply comple games (lookin' at you Final Fantasy XIII... no I don't want to grind 20 more hours to make this random fight or boss fight beatable without perfect tactics and luck). I am of the opinion that it give game developers, especially RPG developers, an easy out of "oh, they'll just grind and come back" when really they should have made the content progression more even.

I've also experienced overleveling turning what should be challenging, dramatic moments into lame knife through hot butter-y cheese fests (lookin' at you Skyrim and the time Alduin went down to a single base level arrow during the final boss fight.)

For Destiny, that often has me playing along side others, having someone who put more time in being able to lol-skate through enemies that I can't hurt has exactly zero appeal to me. And I have little sympathy for someone who refuses to meet a reasonable level of gitting good.

So yeah, levels / power levels are pointless busywork, but no, overleveling sucks in just about every way and really shouldn't be a thing.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 13:49 (2365 days ago) @ Ragashingo

I absolutely hate overleveling. Both because too often I've experienced it as a crutch necessary to simply comple games (lookin' at you Final Fantasy XIII... no I don't want to grind 20 more hours to make this random fight or boss fight beatable without perfect tactics and luck). I am of the opinion that it give game developers, especially RPG developers, an easy out of "oh, they'll just grind and come back" when really they should have made the content progression more even.

So you're opposed to taking the time to outlevel content because you just want to finish the story now even though you're not leveled enough, rather than engage in sidequest type activities?


I've also experienced overleveling turning what should be challenging, dramatic moments into lame knife through hot butter-y cheese fests (lookin' at you Skyrim and the time Alduin went down to a single base level arrow during the final boss fight.)

Wait, so you spent a lot of time in sidequest type activities which resulted in you outleveling content, and you're opposed to having been given extra levels for the time you spent in the game? This is literally the opposite of what you just said about FF XIII.


For Destiny, that often has me playing along side others, having someone who put more time in being able to lol-skate through enemies that I can't hurt has exactly zero appeal to me. And I have little sympathy for someone who refuses to meet a reasonable level of gitting good.

Didn't you just say you were opposed to meeting a reasonable level of gitting good for FF XIII?


So yeah, levels / power levels are pointless busywork, but no, overleveling sucks in just about every way and really shouldn't be a thing.

I think that intentionally allowing players to overlevel is a good thing, but scaling your leveling exp structure such that you naturally overlevel without trying to is a bad thing. You want to be able to play in areas which naturally challenge you rather than find that you can't catch up to challenging content because you're always overleveled, nor do you want to feel like you always have to grind for levels in order to advance the story. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but one which is often attainable in sandboxy loot-based RPGs.

If its not entirely clear from my post, I think the implementation of levels in Destiny is nonsensical, and the game would be better served by removing them entirely.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:14 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:15 (2365 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.

It's gotta be the first one because I am trying to have a reasonable conversation. Did you not say that you weren't leveled enough in FF XIII and hated that, but were overleveled in skyrim and also hated that?

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:19 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Being of an inappropriate level, either too high or lower, can be a detriment to gaming experiences. Requiring grinding out levels to catch up (common in JRPGs) and having far exceeded the capabilities of your enemies through basic core gameplay loops (more common Western and Turn-Based RPGs) are not encouraging game design.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:02 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Being of an inappropriate level, either too high or lower, can be a detriment to gaming experiences. Requiring grinding out levels to catch up (common in JRPGs) and having far exceeded the capabilities of your enemies through basic core gameplay loops (more common Western and Turn-Based RPGs) are not encouraging game design.

Yes, understood. My thesis here is that having character and enemy levels allows players to find their own level of comfortable difficulty by either playing underleveled (harder) or overleveled (easier). Raga's argument appears to be that he hates games that are hard due to him being underleveled and hates games that are easy due to him being overleveled, neither of which are problems with relative leveling existing, but seem to be more specifically flaws with how those exact games were balanced vs. Raga's chosen playstyles within them.

So maybe JRPGs require a degree of grinding in order to stay even leveled with enemies. That doesn't prevent him from doing grinding to make the boss fights easier. Maybe Skyrim gives you so much experience for side missions that you easily outlevel the main story content. That doesn't prevent you from rushing through the main story to get a harder experience. And vice versa.

Further, neither of the examples Raga listed has anything to do with the fact that Destiny has character levels and enemy levels but utilizes neither for balancing the difficulty of the game, nor does destiny have selectable difficulties (unless you count heroic/non heroic strikes, which I don't, or count prestige/non prestige, which I do count, but which only apply to very limited activities, and neither of which provide "easymode" for people who want a more casual play).

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:46 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.


It's gotta be the first one because I am trying to have a reasonable conversation. Did you not say that you weren't leveled enough in FF XIII and hated that, but were overleveled in skyrim and also hated that?

You assumed I had done something wrong in both cases. In reality, I had been enjoying challenging gameplay in both cases until a sudden difficult spike or drop off due to poor leveling design got in the way of my fun.

Sorry if I'm a bit testy. Your responses just ran completely contrary to what was actually happening and it threw me off.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:05 (2365 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.


It's gotta be the first one because I am trying to have a reasonable conversation. Did you not say that you weren't leveled enough in FF XIII and hated that, but were overleveled in skyrim and also hated that?


You assumed I had done something wrong in both cases. In reality, I had been enjoying challenging gameplay in both cases until a sudden difficult spike or drop off due to poor leveling design got in the way of my fun.

Sorry if I'm a bit testy. Your responses just ran completely contrary to what was actually happening and it threw me off.

No worries at all!

Any time a game goes from being a comfortable level of challenge to a giant difficulty barrier or to suddenly being stupidly easy, I'd chalk that up to poor balance for that specific game rather than user error or flawed design premises. The only exception would be if the player suddenly figured out some mechanic of the game which made things a lot easier (like in fallout when you realize you can just use consumables all willy-nilly rather than saving them for some big boss fight and suddenly you plow through bad guys left and right).

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:15 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.


It's gotta be the first one because I am trying to have a reasonable conversation. Did you not say that you weren't leveled enough in FF XIII and hated that, but were overleveled in skyrim and also hated that?

Those aren’t statements that are at odds with each other, so I’m not sure where the confusion stems from.

That said, I think levels in Destiny are stupid. They’re completely useless in the game as it is. Raising the level cap to 25 in CoO served no practical purpose that I can see, other than them being able to advertise raising the level cap. It made absolutely no difference in the course of playing the game, other than locking my alts from using new weapons until I took them through the story.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:26 (2365 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Your first three responses are you either VASTLY misinterpreting what I said or are straight up mean spirited trolls. I'm not sure which.


It's gotta be the first one because I am trying to have a reasonable conversation. Did you not say that you weren't leveled enough in FF XIII and hated that, but were overleveled in skyrim and also hated that?


Those aren’t statements that are at odds with each other, so I’m not sure where the confusion stems from.

That said, I think levels in Destiny are stupid. They’re completely useless in the game as it is. Raising the level cap to 25 in CoO served no practical purpose that I can see, other than them being able to advertise raising the level cap. It made absolutely no difference in the course of playing the game, other than locking my alts from using new weapons until I took them through the story.

That's the only difference I noticed as well. In fact, as I played through I was confused the first time I leveled up, because I didn't realize that the level cap had been raised at all, and after leveling up I thought "wait, didn't I just level up?" because - gameplay wise - nothing changed.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:14 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

gameplay wise - nothing changed.

That sums up leveling up in Destiny 2. Having player level and power level (gear level) doesn't really make sense. Player level is irrelevant for the entire game, other than brief lockouts from certain weapons, and what purpose does that serve? I mean, really. What benefit is there from holding a blue weapon back for another level when the player is just going to throw that one away after a better drop comes along anyway?

I just don't understand what we gain by having both systems.

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So... you're just trolling me, right?

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:38 (2364 days ago) @ cheapLEY

gameplay wise - nothing changed.


That sums up leveling up in Destiny 2. Having player level and power level (gear level) doesn't really make sense. Player level is irrelevant for the entire game, other than brief lockouts from certain weapons, and what purpose does that serve? I mean, really. What benefit is there from holding a blue weapon back for another level when the player is just going to throw that one away after a better drop comes along anyway?

I just don't understand what we gain by having both systems.

Me either. This is the entire point of my original post.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:43 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I absolutely hate overleveling. Both because too often I've experienced it as a crutch necessary to simply comple games (lookin' at you Final Fantasy XIII... no I don't want to grind 20 more hours to make this random fight or boss fight beatable without perfect tactics and luck). I am of the opinion that it give game developers, especially RPG developers, an easy out of "oh, they'll just grind and come back" when really they should have made the content progression more even.


So you're opposed to taking the time to outlevel content because you just want to finish the story now even though you're not leveled enough, rather than engage in sidequest type activities?

No. I am opposed to overleveling because it is sometimes used to justify uneven shifts in difficulty.

The 1st Barthandelus in FFXIII, for instance. I was battling my way through the previous enemies. Not blasting through. Not barely eeking by. I was doing good but was being challenged. Then comes this boss that just wiped my entire party with a super attack before I could knock down even 1/3rd of his health. It wasn't a close fight or even a tough challenge. It was a curbstomp favoring him. No amount of better tactics or stacking item buffs helped.

Totally massive spike in difficulty. I eventually beat it by literally turning around and beating up on all the enemies I'd already fought through. Several times. There were no sidequests in this point in the story either. It was a straight path from like a crash site through some ruins to the boss. Several fights and even a mini-boss or two along the way, but this certainly wasn't me ignoring portions of the game.


I've also experienced overleveling turning what should be challenging, dramatic moments into lame knife through hot butter-y cheese fests (lookin' at you Skyrim and the time Alduin went down to a single base level arrow during the final boss fight.)


Wait, so you spent a lot of time in sidequest type activities which resulted in you outleveling content, and you're opposed to having been given extra levels for the time you spent in the game? This is literally the opposite of what you just said about FF XIII.

No. I am opposed to overleveling because it sometimes ruins the immersion of games when the key challenges are not properly scaled up to the player's level.

This is basically the inverse design mistake of the previous point. Instead of too hard, some games end up being too easy. If you've played games like Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 you can often have this happen just by playing the game too long before engaging in the main story. It has absolutely nothing to do with be opposed to getting levels for playing.


For Destiny, that often has me playing along side others, having someone who put more time in being able to lol-skate through enemies that I can't hurt has exactly zero appeal to me. And I have little sympathy for someone who refuses to meet a reasonable level of gitting good.


Didn't you just say you were opposed to meeting a reasonable level of gitting good for FF XIII?

No. I'm not sure why you would think that. I was trying to provide an example of the two main reasons I don't like overleveling. That it can sometimes be used to excuse away odd difficulty spikes in games, and that in some games bad encounter design can cause a curbstomp / insta-kill in the player's favor in what should thematically have been a tough fight.

I enjoy a decently challenging baseline difficulty and a difficulty progression that doesn't blindside me with gameplay that is far too easy or too hard compared to the battles I was playing just minutes before.


So yeah, levels / power levels are pointless busywork, but no, overleveling sucks in just about every way and really shouldn't be a thing.


I think that intentionally allowing players to overlevel is a good thing, but scaling your leveling exp structure such that you naturally overlevel without trying to is a bad thing. You want to be able to play in areas which naturally challenge you rather than find that you can't catch up to challenging content because you're always overleveled, nor do you want to feel like you always have to grind for levels in order to advance the story. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but one which is often attainable in sandboxy loot-based RPGs.

Intentionally allowing overleveling is... acceptable... if it makes sense in context to the story and gameplay. If you are suppose to be invincible and god-like, then sure. But, like in my Skyrim example, I was not supposed to be that powerful so it felt like a total disconnect. It really is a delicate balance and it is one that I would most time rather be thrown out for a more solid constant difficulty (as Destiny does apart from things like Nightfall, Prestige, etc).


If its not entirely clear from my post, I think the implementation of levels in Destiny is nonsensical, and the game would be better served by removing them entirely.

Agreed.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:25 (2365 days ago) @ Ragashingo

I absolutely hate overleveling. Both because too often I've experienced it as a crutch necessary to simply comple games (lookin' at you Final Fantasy XIII... no I don't want to grind 20 more hours to make this random fight or boss fight beatable without perfect tactics and luck). I am of the opinion that it give game developers, especially RPG developers, an easy out of "oh, they'll just grind and come back" when really they should have made the content progression more even.


So you're opposed to taking the time to outlevel content because you just want to finish the story now even though you're not leveled enough, rather than engage in sidequest type activities?


No. I am opposed to overleveling because it is sometimes used to justify uneven shifts in difficulty.

The 1st Barthandelus in FFXIII, for instance. I was battling my way through the previous enemies. Not blasting through. Not barely eeking by. I was doing good but was being challenged. Then comes this boss that just wiped my entire party with a super attack before I could knock down even 1/3rd of his health. It wasn't a close fight or even a tough challenge. It was a curbstomp favoring him. No amount of better tactics or stacking item buffs helped.

This sounds like the designers made this level poorly balanced. The earlier non-boss fights should be the gear/level checks, and the boss fight himself should be doable albeit slightly harder, such as requiring better tactical play or needing a buff or two. Definitely shouldn't be a brick wall.


Totally massive spike in difficulty. I eventually beat it by literally turning around and beating up on all the enemies I'd already fought through. Several times. There were no sidequests in this point in the story either. It was a straight path from like a crash site through some ruins to the boss. Several fights and even a mini-boss or two along the way, but this certainly wasn't me ignoring portions of the game.

That sounds really lame and not fun. :( On the plus side, the monsters didn't dynamically scale with your level, and you were able to eventually gain enough exp to overpower them, so character and monster dynamic scaling allowed you to surpass the overly difficult encounter.


I've also experienced overleveling turning what should be challenging, dramatic moments into lame knife through hot butter-y cheese fests (lookin' at you Skyrim and the time Alduin went down to a single base level arrow during the final boss fight.)


Wait, so you spent a lot of time in sidequest type activities which resulted in you outleveling content, and you're opposed to having been given extra levels for the time you spent in the game? This is literally the opposite of what you just said about FF XIII.


No. I am opposed to overleveling because it sometimes ruins the immersion of games when the key challenges are not properly scaled up to the player's level.

I remember in Morrowind when I got my level 80 guy to the final fight and I one-shot the dude and then got a mace I wouldn't have looked twice at given how far I was in the game. I feel like it was tuned for a level 20 person or something. So I made a new game and blitzed there and got to the boss at level 13, which was hella hard! But fun! And I did it! And then I just reloaded my level 80 guy to keep exploring because I didn't want to spend all that time doing every side quest again. My point being that dynamic leveling allowed me to make the game harder for that part by speeding there to get the challenge I wanted rather than lollygagging around as I'd done earlier. It worked.


This is basically the inverse design mistake of the previous point. Instead of too hard, some games end up being too easy. If you've played games like Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 you can often have this happen just by playing the game too long before engaging in the main story. It has absolutely nothing to do with be opposed to getting levels for playing.


For Destiny, that often has me playing along side others, having someone who put more time in being able to lol-skate through enemies that I can't hurt has exactly zero appeal to me. And I have little sympathy for someone who refuses to meet a reasonable level of gitting good.


Didn't you just say you were opposed to meeting a reasonable level of gitting good for FF XIII?


No. I'm not sure why you would think that. I was trying to provide an example of the two main reasons I don't like overleveling. That it can sometimes be used to excuse away odd difficulty spikes in games, and that in some games bad encounter design can cause a curbstomp / insta-kill in the player's favor in what should thematically have been a tough fight.

This makes more sense now, thank you for the explanation.


I enjoy a decently challenging baseline difficulty and a difficulty progression that doesn't blindside me with gameplay that is far too easy or too hard compared to the battles I was playing just minutes before.

Ideally every game should hit this, but it's hard to do without either difficulty levels that are finely tuned, or without using dynamic interplay between character levels and enemy levels to allow larger, more sandboxy games to find their own balance. The trick with that is, just as you demonstrated in your examples, they designers have to maintain a very steady increase in difficulty which ramps evenly with average play, can be circumvented by hardcore play, and can be exploited for overleveling purposes for more casual play. Destiny has elements of character and enemy levels, but lacks a true dynamic there, and so the difficulty level of the entire game is fairly even across all activities (sans prestige modes) which is, in my opinion, boring. That game could use levels to make this more dynamic, or could just get rid of levels altogether in favor of more finely tuned design, but the between place the game currently occupies is not a boon to the final product as far as I'm concerned.


So yeah, levels / power levels are pointless busywork, but no, overleveling sucks in just about every way and really shouldn't be a thing.


I think that intentionally allowing players to overlevel is a good thing, but scaling your leveling exp structure such that you naturally overlevel without trying to is a bad thing. You want to be able to play in areas which naturally challenge you rather than find that you can't catch up to challenging content because you're always overleveled, nor do you want to feel like you always have to grind for levels in order to advance the story. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but one which is often attainable in sandboxy loot-based RPGs.


Intentionally allowing overleveling is... acceptable... if it makes sense in context to the story and gameplay. If you are suppose to be invincible and god-like, then sure. But, like in my Skyrim example, I was not supposed to be that powerful so it felt like a total disconnect. It really is a delicate balance and it is one that I would most time rather be thrown out for a more solid constant difficulty (as Destiny does apart from things like Nightfall, Prestige, etc).


If its not entirely clear from my post, I think the implementation of levels in Destiny is nonsensical, and the game would be better served by removing them entirely.


Agreed.

<3

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:44 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Destiny has elements of character and enemy levels, but lacks a true dynamic there, and so the difficulty level of the entire game is fairly even across all activities (sans prestige modes) which is, in my opinion, boring.

So, I preface this with my phrasing here (and it is in broader strokes about a lot of this thread) being possibly abrasive, but it is the only way I can come up with a precise expression wihout going into a rant about relative encounter design, minute gameplay comparisons, and alternate motivations for the inclusion of levels outside of difficulty:

Destiny is a shooter game, not a spreadhseet comparison tool - which sounds like what you would prefer?

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:58 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Destiny has elements of character and enemy levels, but lacks a true dynamic there, and so the difficulty level of the entire game is fairly even across all activities (sans prestige modes) which is, in my opinion, boring.

So, I preface this with my phrasing here (and it is in broader strokes about a lot of this thread) being possibly abrasive, but it is the only way I can come up with a precise expression wihout going into a rant about relative encounter design, minute gameplay comparisons, and alternate motivations for the inclusion of levels outside of difficulty:

Destiny is a shooter game, not a spreadhseet comparison tool - which sounds like what you would prefer?

Why have levels in the game if you refuse to use them? I love FPS games. Most don't have levels. Those that do (borderlands) make use of them. Destiny has numbers, but they mean nothing.

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Observable purpose.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:03 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Levels do get used in Dedtiny, though. Not liking how they are used is different from them not being used. And a diminished importance at the end of a game seems like a minimal thing to marinate over when it provides so many other benefits for a gameworld such as Destiny.

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Observable purpose.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:14 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Levels do get used in Dedtiny, though. Not liking how they are used is different from them not being used. And a diminished importance at the end of a game seems like a minimal thing to marinate over when it provides so many other benefits for a gameworld such as Destiny.

What benefits?

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Observable purpose.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 18:46 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

For example: When you hit a level threshold where it is no longer important and power creep is a moot point except for people liking that number going up, you are then allowed to have your choice of activities to pursue in the game world where you aren't level gated and it is much earlier than Vanilla D1 seemed to want you to have that.

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Observable purpose.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 23:12 (2364 days ago) @ Harmanimus

For example: When you hit a level threshold where it is no longer important and power creep is a moot point except for people liking that number going up, you are then allowed to have your choice of activities to pursue in the game world where you aren't level gated and it is much earlier than Vanilla D1 seemed to want you to have that.

I would argue that it's so early as to be pointless to even having levels in the first place.

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Observable purpose.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 06:19 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

For example: When you hit a level threshold where it is no longer important and power creep is a moot point except for people liking that number going up, you are then allowed to have your choice of activities to pursue in the game world where you aren't level gated and it is much earlier than Vanilla D1 seemed to want you to have that.


I would argue that it's so early as to be pointless to even having levels in the first place.

Levels have always been pointless, IMO. I still believe that Destiny would have been a thoroughly more enjoyable experience if the 1-20 levels AND light levels had never been part of the game.

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Observable purpose.

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 11:03 (2364 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

For example: When you hit a level threshold where it is no longer important and power creep is a moot point except for people liking that number going up, you are then allowed to have your choice of activities to pursue in the game world where you aren't level gated and it is much earlier than Vanilla D1 seemed to want you to have that.


I would argue that it's so early as to be pointless to even having levels in the first place.


Levels have always been pointless, IMO. I still believe that Destiny would have been a thoroughly more enjoyable experience if the 1-20 levels AND light levels had never been part of the game.

Agreed.

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Observable purpose.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 12:38 (2364 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

For example: When you hit a level threshold where it is no longer important and power creep is a moot point except for people liking that number going up, you are then allowed to have your choice of activities to pursue in the game world where you aren't level gated and it is much earlier than Vanilla D1 seemed to want you to have that.


I would argue that it's so early as to be pointless to even having levels in the first place.


Levels have always been pointless, IMO. I still believe that Destiny would have been a thoroughly more enjoyable experience if the 1-20 levels AND light levels had never been part of the game.

My personal theory is that levels in video games is a holdover from tabletop games.

Characters level up in tabletop games in order to simulate getting better at their disciplines. In real life, if you shot a bunch of arrows you'd get more accurate, your back would get stronger, etc. Because the people sitting down playing aren't actually doing this - levels were a way to approximate growth and training for the characters.

Early on, games were pretty primitive, but they could do math well. The unbridled imagination and scope of a D&D session was and still is impossible to program - so they ported over the level systems which run on numbers since computers could do that well.

Of course in a video game, the act of your character shooting an arrow is much more connected to your own skill. As are a lot of the things your avatars can do. Thus, you can actually have growth and learning.

There is a place for them where the interaction is not skill dependent. For example, increasing lung capacity in Deus Ex is fine, since the player is never asked to hold his own breath. Also notice how such an upgrade expands the scope of secrets and combat interactions you can have, rather than just making the game easier.

But far too often it is misapplied. It's a sore point in HZD for example…

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:25 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I remember in Morrowind when I got my level 80 guy to the final fight and I one-shot the dude and then got a mace I wouldn't have looked twice at given how far I was in the game. I feel like it was tuned for a level 20 person or something. So I made a new game and blitzed there and got to the boss at level 13, which was hella hard! But fun! And I did it! And then I just reloaded my level 80 guy to keep exploring because I didn't want to spend all that time doing every side quest again. My point being that dynamic leveling allowed me to make the game harder for that part by speeding there to get the challenge I wanted rather than lollygagging around as I'd done earlier. It worked.


Okay, now imagine if you could have just selected a difficulty and had the desired experience the first time you fought Dagoth Ur? Why is having to restart a game and play through hours of content a second time to get that experience somehow a better solution?

The problem with using levels to determine difficulty is that it's almost always hard to actually know how that is going work. What is the base difficulty if I'm perfectly leveled? What's it feel like if I'm +/- 2 levles? How about 5? 10? It's too much guesswork and a whole lot of time and effort to actually get your character to what you want to be.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:41 (2364 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I remember in Morrowind when I got my level 80 guy to the final fight and I one-shot the dude and then got a mace I wouldn't have looked twice at given how far I was in the game. I feel like it was tuned for a level 20 person or something. So I made a new game and blitzed there and got to the boss at level 13, which was hella hard! But fun! And I did it! And then I just reloaded my level 80 guy to keep exploring because I didn't want to spend all that time doing every side quest again. My point being that dynamic leveling allowed me to make the game harder for that part by speeding there to get the challenge I wanted rather than lollygagging around as I'd done earlier. It worked.

Okay, now imagine if you could have just selected a difficulty and had the desired experience the first time you fought Dagoth Ur? Why is having to restart a game and play through hours of content a second time to get that experience somehow a better solution?

This would have been fine, but having this alongside a player level and monster level game would have been nonsensical. One or the other, imo.

The problem with using levels to determine difficulty is that it's almost always hard to actually know how that is going work. What is the base difficulty if I'm perfectly leveled? What's it feel like if I'm +/- 2 levles? How about 5? 10? It's too much guesswork and a whole lot of time and effort to actually get your character to what you want to be.

Sure, and that's a great argument for having difficulty levels and I'm all for it. Destiny both lacks difficulty selection and lacks proper implementation of character level and enemy level dynamic difficulty scaling. It's a miss on both counts.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 20:34 (2364 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Dude, you can beat FFXIII easily without grinding. Not sure what paradigms you were using, but all I gotta say is Mystic Tower rocks on bosses. (SEN/RAV/RAV).

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Darn. If only I’d tried that! :p

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 22:10 (2364 days ago) @ Cody Miller

- No text -

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 14:17 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Diablo 2: The main game is completable by level 30 for most players. Then there is a "nightmare mode" which sounds at first like a difficulty selection (as it is a repeat of the normal campaign), but is actually a linear progression from the normal mode enemy levels. Nightmare is completable around level 60 for most players, and then hell mode is completable around level 90. Players can level up to 99, putting them easily 10% more powerful than the hardest content in the game. For some players, being the most powerful player they can be is the goal, and they level to 99 as much as possible.

Hell is significantly harder than normal, even when level appropriate. The problem with these systems of adjusting avatar and enemy power with levels is:

1. Expert players must always start the game on easy mode.
2. It encourages bad players to just level up, instead of explore the game and get better
3. It is too much work for the player to get things such that it is an appropriate difficulty for them.

If you are an expert, you have to go out of your way to avoid killing things and leveling up. If you are a novice, you have to spend time grinding to get your level up.

A difficulty selector just gives you an appropriate challenge with less than a second of work. You can even retain avatar power increasing: Deus Ex let you both power up your character, AND select a difficulty level.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 14:41 (2365 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Diablo 2: The main game is completable by level 30 for most players. Then there is a "nightmare mode" which sounds at first like a difficulty selection (as it is a repeat of the normal campaign), but is actually a linear progression from the normal mode enemy levels. Nightmare is completable around level 60 for most players, and then hell mode is completable around level 90. Players can level up to 99, putting them easily 10% more powerful than the hardest content in the game. For some players, being the most powerful player they can be is the goal, and they level to 99 as much as possible.


Hell is significantly harder than normal, even when level appropriate. The problem with these systems of adjusting avatar and enemy power with levels is:

1. Expert players must always start the game on easy mode.

True, but outleveling easy mode at the start is fairly trivial. I was frequently able to reach act 2 before hitting level 6 in my last serious foray into D2. Typically you'd want to be level 10+ by that point.

2. It encourages bad players to just level up, instead of explore the game and get better

I have no problem with players playing the game the way they choose.

3. It is too much work for the player to get things such that it is an appropriate difficulty for them.

I am not sure what you're saying with this point, could you please elaborate?


If you are an expert, you have to go out of your way to avoid killing things and leveling up. If you are a novice, you have to spend time grinding to get your level up.

I would argue that part of playing in an expert way is speeding through the game and avoiding unnecessary encounters in order to maximize your gains vs. time invested.


A difficulty selector just gives you an appropriate challenge with less than a second of work. You can even retain avatar power increasing: Deus Ex let you both power up your character, AND select a difficulty level.

Deus Ex didn't feature enemy levels in the way that D2 or D2 do. In a game where only the main character has levels, difficulty selectors are appropriate.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:08 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Deus Ex didn't feature enemy levels in the way that D2 or D2 do. In a game where only the main character has levels, difficulty selectors are appropriate.

Level isn't the only thing that a difficulty selector can change… enemies can be smarter. They can be more aggressive. More accurate. There can be more of them. They can be of different types and in different positions. They can have different weapons. And they can all be the same level.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:15 (2365 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Deus Ex didn't feature enemy levels in the way that D2 or D2 do. In a game where only the main character has levels, difficulty selectors are appropriate.


Level isn't the only thing that a difficulty selector can change… enemies can be smarter. They can be more aggressive. More accurate. There can be more of them. They can be of different types and in different positions. They can have different weapons. And they can all be the same level.

True, and that's a great thing that many games do very well. Destiny could do that too, if it wasn't so focused on "look your numbers got bigger" and was instead focused on compelling moment to moment gameplay.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Blackt1g3r @, Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 10:44 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Level isn't the only thing that a difficulty selector can change… enemies can be smarter. They can be more aggressive. More accurate. There can be more of them. They can be of different types and in different positions. They can have different weapons. And they can all be the same level.


True, and that's a great thing that many games do very well. Destiny could do that too, if it wasn't so focused on "look your numbers got bigger" and was instead focused on compelling moment to moment gameplay.

In Destiny though, you have to contend with public spaces. So difficulty can't adjust the AI in those spaces. If you don't adjust AI difficulty in those spaces would it be weird to then walk into a non-public space and have the enemies behave differently? Would it make the public spaces less fun as a result?

The difficulty setting in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands actually handled the difficulty setting really well. The difficulty setting only applies to you, not your allies. Also, in addition to adjusting weapon damage the game made several other adjustments. Enemies would spot you easier and would be more accurate when firing at you (not your teammates if they were on a lower difficulty setting), radar was less useful, etc.

Destiny could do similar things, adjust the amount of damange dealt and recieved, make snipers more accurate when shooting at you and maybe reduce their rifle charge time a bit so you have to be smarter about dodging, etc. So long as it doesn't impact other players in public spaces it remains fair. To encourage people to choose higher difficulties, you just adjust the loot tables a bit.

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 11:04 (2364 days ago) @ Blackt1g3r

Level isn't the only thing that a difficulty selector can change… enemies can be smarter. They can be more aggressive. More accurate. There can be more of them. They can be of different types and in different positions. They can have different weapons. And they can all be the same level.


True, and that's a great thing that many games do very well. Destiny could do that too, if it wasn't so focused on "look your numbers got bigger" and was instead focused on compelling moment to moment gameplay.


In Destiny though, you have to contend with public spaces. So difficulty can't adjust the AI in those spaces. If you don't adjust AI difficulty in those spaces would it be weird to then walk into a non-public space and have the enemies behave differently? Would it make the public spaces less fun as a result?

The difficulty setting in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands actually handled the difficulty setting really well. The difficulty setting only applies to you, not your allies. Also, in addition to adjusting weapon damage the game made several other adjustments. Enemies would spot you easier and would be more accurate when firing at you (not your teammates if they were on a lower difficulty setting), radar was less useful, etc.

Destiny could do similar things, adjust the amount of damange dealt and recieved, make snipers more accurate when shooting at you and maybe reduce their rifle charge time a bit so you have to be smarter about dodging, etc. So long as it doesn't impact other players in public spaces it remains fair. To encourage people to choose higher difficulties, you just adjust the loot tables a bit.

That is a really clever solution. I like it!

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Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 12:22 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Deus Ex didn't feature enemy levels in the way that D2 or D2 do. In a game where only the main character has levels, difficulty selectors are appropriate.


Level isn't the only thing that a difficulty selector can change… enemies can be smarter. They can be more aggressive. More accurate. There can be more of them. They can be of different types and in different positions. They can have different weapons. And they can all be the same level.


True, and that's a great thing that many games do very well. Destiny could do that too, if it wasn't so focused on "look your numbers got bigger" and was instead focused on compelling moment to moment gameplay.

Compelling moment to moment gameplay? That's like, just your opinion, man.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 14:43 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

And haven’t, at this moment, the time or mind to respond to most of it. However I will ask the following:

Why are you complaining about Destiny having “just one more” game design elements after spending paragraphs gushing over game features that follow the exact same game design logic without being equally critical of their existence?

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 14:56 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

And haven’t, at this moment, the time or mind to respond to most of it. However I will ask the following:

Why are you complaining about Destiny having “just one more” game design elements after spending paragraphs gushing over game features that follow the exact same game design logic without being equally critical of their existence?

I'm not. I'm complaining about Destiny being a "just one more" game that fights against those feature which enable that sort of gameplay.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:04 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I can’t come up with anything that Destiny does design-wise that actively fights against a motivation that people will do just one more thing. So, I’m struggling to see the ground you’re apparently standing on.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:14 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

I can’t come up with anything that Destiny does design-wise that actively fights against a motivation that people will do just one more thing. So, I’m struggling to see the ground you’re apparently standing on.

The party sizes not being interchangeable between pvp and pve activities, including power level as a meaningless statistic that is still capped for reasons unknown, and having both character and monster levels interacting in ways that undermine their natural ability to regulate difficulty level all fight against "one more thing" and sandbox design in general.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 15:38 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

The party sizes not being interchangeable between pvp and pve activities

Mildly frustrating, but outside of changing between activities having a mild hump in it that really doesn’t impact most follow-on activities or the motivation to complete “one more.” Does only having 4 people in a PvP match make you not play more PvP because your fireteam can’t all do a Nightfall, or you don’t have enough for a Raid? Is that an actual cause for you?

including power level as a meaningless statistic that is still capped for reasons unknown

Motivating numbers. I mean, that is in many ways what Blizzard game progression is anyway. People like to grow numbers. And that next Public Event possibly dropping an Exotic keeps people chasing. A cycling cap encourages people who aren’t trying to play 16 hours a day everyday that they, too, can accomplish what is the current end.

and having both character and monster levels interacting in ways that undermine their natural ability to regulate difficulty level

And this is one of those things I have a base level disagreement with. In fact, most of your examples of regulated difficulty are actually unregulated difficulty with arbitrary suppositions regarding play-to-enjoyment ratios which I am not sure are particularly common.

In fact, the uplift of all enemies to match a baseline equivalent power seems more like something that naturally regulates difficulty. And having separate content wih higher powered enemies and modifiers (which are admittedly under utilized in D2) have always been a strength of difficulty increase in Destiny.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:34 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

The party sizes not being interchangeable between pvp and pve activities

Mildly frustrating, but outside of changing between activities having a mild hump in it that really doesn’t impact most follow-on activities or the motivation to complete “one more.” Does only having 4 people in a PvP match make you not play more PvP because your fireteam can’t all do a Nightfall, or you don’t have enough for a Raid? Is that an actual cause for you?

yes.

including power level as a meaningless statistic that is still capped for reasons unknown

Motivating numbers. I mean, that is in many ways what Blizzard game progression is anyway. People like to grow numbers. And that next Public Event possibly dropping an Exotic keeps people chasing. A cycling cap encourages people who aren’t trying to play 16 hours a day everyday that they, too, can accomplish what is the current end.

Destiny 1 had a max level PvP endgame that was interesting, challenging, and compelling, which Destiny 2 currently lacks. The loss is huge for me.

and having both character and monster levels interacting in ways that undermine their natural ability to regulate difficulty level

And this is one of those things I have a base level disagreement with. In fact, most of your examples of regulated difficulty are actually unregulated difficulty with arbitrary suppositions regarding play-to-enjoyment ratios which I am not sure are particularly common.

In fact, the uplift of all enemies to match a baseline equivalent power seems more like something that naturally regulates difficulty. And having separate content wih higher powered enemies and modifiers (which are admittedly under utilized in D2) have always been a strength of difficulty increase in Destiny.

Why have monster levels and player levels if you aren't going to play the two against one another to find dynamic difficulty? That's my whole point. Destiny doesn't take any advantage of this interplay even though it has levels, AND it lacks difficulty selection even though the baseline difficulty is enforced upon the player. It's poor design in my opinion.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 16:55 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I feel sorry for you that something unrelated to an activity you are partaking in ruins the potential enjoyment of that activity. That really does sound like it would suck.

D1’s PvP engame wasn’t interesting due to any level mechanics, though. At a high level there wasn’t sufficient power variance to matter. And while I will give you that even my friend group has dropped off that aspect in D2, but that’s due to trash loot rather than anything else, design-wise, as in general Survival/Countdown are regarded much higher than Elimination from folks I have asked.

And why have levels in a loot based game? Loot Tables? Easier to have a level assigned to an adversary than to hand crafter individual loot tables for every enemy. I mean, why not let level 1 Dregs have the same chance to drop an exotic as an Ultra you get stomped by until you can equip powerful enough gear? Just as a root example common to most loot-based games. There are a lot of reasons to include levels outside of forcing a certain challenge level on specific enemies. Player level gives way to power level once you hit 20 and there are other systems and activities sequentially unlocked theough progression.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:13 (2365 days ago) @ Harmanimus

I feel sorry for you that something unrelated to an activity you are partaking in ruins the potential enjoyment of that activity. That really does sound like it would suck.

I never said that having levels makes destiny bad. It just makes the design of destiny bad. Why have these numbers that mean nothing in this game? It's pointless, and against the spirit with which those numbers were first conceived of in games of yore.


D1’s PvP engame wasn’t interesting due to any level mechanics, though. At a high level there wasn’t sufficient power variance to matter. And while I will give you that even my friend group has dropped off that aspect in D2, but that’s due to trash loot rather than anything else, design-wise, as in general Survival/Countdown are regarded much higher than Elimination from folks I have asked.

I agree that the gametypes for "competitive" mode are improved. The problem is that the overall meta game of D2 has taken a vast step backwards. This has nothing to do with levels. It's about a lack of advanced movement, a scarcity of sniper ammo rendering awareness of sniper lanes virtually moot, and weapons which do too little damage such that teamshooting is vastly superior to individual shooting and moving as a group is superior to almost all other tactics and strategy. It's repetitive, boring, doesn't reward map knowledge, flanking, or gunskill nearly as much as it rewards simply standing next to another guy, and the specs are fixed which prevents novel play. It's just not as good as D1 pvp.


And why have levels in a loot based game? Loot Tables? Easier to have a level assigned to an adversary than to hand crafter individual loot tables for every enemy. I mean, why not let level 1 Dregs have the same chance to drop an exotic as an Ultra you get stomped by until you can equip powerful enough gear? Just as a root example common to most loot-based games. There are a lot of reasons to include levels outside of forcing a certain challenge level on specific enemies. Player level gives way to power level once you hit 20 and there are other systems and activities sequentially unlocked theough progression.

Loot based games, well done, base the level of the loot on the level of the enemy who dropped said loot. Any game that had a level 1 enemy that could drop the best item in the game would be a terribly designed game.

Player level is largely meaningless except as a way of gating story missions behind mandatory exp grinds at certain points (11, 15, and 17 were the ones I hit when playing solo). But there's no real reason for them beyond that. In CoO they seem to exist simply as an excuse to give the player a bright engram and a full super bar on level up, and perhaps to block alts from using the new weapons (but why do that? What's the point?).

Power level is even more meaningless. It's completely arbitrary, can be increased through almost any means, and is neither an indicator of skill nor accomplishment. The power level barrier to entry is so trivially low that it seems to exist purely as an ego stroke to those who don't realize that the number is otherwise meaningless. There are a very small number of activities which are gated by a power level greater than 260 (prestige modes, that one legendary raid shotgun mission) but there seems to be no reason WHY they are gated by power level - they are challenging enough that players should be able to go in at any time just to see if they're capable or not yet.

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I disagree with most of this on a base level.

by Harmanimus @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 18:44 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I never said that having levels makes destiny bad. It just makes the design of destiny bad. Why have these numbers that mean nothing in this game? It's pointless, and against the spirit with which those numbers were first conceived of in games of yore.

I think when it comes down to it if you were to remove all of the leveling mechanics from Destiny 2 you would still have all the same complaints about it. I don't think it is in any way tied to the leveling mechanics. You've already come to the conclusion they hold no value. And I would hardly say "against the spirit" of traditional tabletop games where leveling is inherently just an excuse to gain another power (the level progression during the campaign is rewarding you with new class abilities, remember) to reflect as an abstract of your character becoming more capable. It is literally 100% within that spirit.

Also, I was talking about Fireteam sizes there, not levels. Oh well.

I agree that the gametypes for "competitive" mode are improved. The problem is that the overall meta game of D2 has taken a vast step backwards. This has nothing to do with levels. It's about a lack . . . novel play. It's just not as good as D1 pvp.

In broad strokes, I agree it is not as good - that is because it is not my flavor preference. From the perspective of many of their stated goals it better fits their intent. It isn't that it is bad (there are poor design decisions don't get me wrong) but that most of the issue is that of preference.

Sure, I liked having 2 Grenades with a 25 second cool down on the first, Word of Crota, Felwinter's Lie, and spending the last 2/3 of a game rolling through entire teams with Thunderlord. But I wouldn't necessarily say it fit into any attempt at being well or logically balanced.

Loot based games, well done, base the level of the loot on the level of the enemy who dropped said loot. Any game that had a level 1 enemy that could drop the best item in the game would be a terribly designed game.

So Destiny did that by bringing up the levels of all enemies to match, but the rate of gear drops is still higher on higher classes and relative "level" enemies. I would be curious to see what the actual mechanics are for enemy levels, but I'm pretty sure they aren't going unused there.

Player level is largely meaningless except as a way of gating story missions behind mandatory exp grinds at certain points (11, 15, and 17 were the ones I hit when playing solo). But there's no real reason for them beyond that. In CoO they seem to exist simply as an excuse to give the player a bright engram and a full super bar on level up, and perhaps to block alts from using the new weapons (but why do that? What's the point?).

It also gates regions (which you previously said you had wanted D1 to do but it was just hiding a chest or Dead Ghost [Aside, everyone I knew just kited through those areas and found that they lead nowhere during the beta]) from lower level players. Weapon level is directly linked to a relevant player level with higher rarities providing more power for lower levels relatively speaking. If you play through the campaign again watch how your available landing zones show up in the EDZ. Try going to some of the places and fighting the mobs there where you don't yet have a landing zone. Obviously, most players here were past all of that by the end of Week 1 or 2. But for people simply getting the game for the campaign experience (again, back to design goals for people with other playstyles) and some Destiny Tourism it might have had more noted impact.

Power level is even more meaningless. . .

And we get to where I would simply apply most of the argument to Diablo 2, which is primarily a game about randomized number creep, at an absurd rate of change relative to its predecessor.

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:21 (2365 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 17:43 (2364 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?

What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.

I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by EffortlessFury @, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 18:47 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?


What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.

What do you mean by "a lie?" Your power vs. their power. You can change their power by changing the setting and you can change your power by acquiring and equipping different gear. Is it not better to be able to select exactly how difficult you want your game to be (proportional to your skill and in-game power level)? As long as the rewards are proportional, it all works out swimmingly IMO.

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 23:21 (2364 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?


What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.


What do you mean by "a lie?" Your power vs. their power. You can change their power by changing the setting and you can change your power by acquiring and equipping different gear. Is it not better to be able to select exactly how difficult you want your game to be (proportional to your skill and in-game power level)? As long as the rewards are proportional, it all works out swimmingly IMO.

By "a lie" I mean that your level is meaningless when compared to the enemy level in diablo 3. Enemies always scale to your level, and at more difficult settings, they simply scale with a more difficult starting baseline, and possibly also on a steeper curve. But knowing that you are level 50, for example, would not let you go into a level 10 zone and lay waste in Diablo 3, because there are no level 10 zones - all zones are whatever level your character is. So the distinction of having monster levels at all is meaningless in that game. The difficulty setting is the real thing that matters, and that functions independently from monster level. Yes, it works well, but you could completely remove monster level from the game and it would be, functionally, the same game.

Destiny is similar, in that monsters are never less than your level, and - by rote of uninspired design - almost never higher than your level either. Although unlike D3, Des2ny completely lacks a difficulty setting, so I'm left thinking that monster level is supposed to matter in Destiny, but discovering that it actually doesn't. D3 is not perfect in my esteem, but it is better than destiny by miles.

I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 09:09 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?


What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.


What do you mean by "a lie?" Your power vs. their power. You can change their power by changing the setting and you can change your power by acquiring and equipping different gear. Is it not better to be able to select exactly how difficult you want your game to be (proportional to your skill and in-game power level)? As long as the rewards are proportional, it all works out swimmingly IMO.


By "a lie" I mean that your level is meaningless when compared to the enemy level in diablo 3. Enemies always scale to your level, and at more difficult settings, they simply scale with a more difficult starting baseline, and possibly also on a steeper curve. But knowing that you are level 50, for example, would not let you go into a level 10 zone and lay waste in Diablo 3, because there are no level 10 zones - all zones are whatever level your character is. So the distinction of having monster levels at all is meaningless in that game. The difficulty setting is the real thing that matters, and that functions independently from monster level. Yes, it works well, but you could completely remove monster level from the game and it would be, functionally, the same game.

Destiny is similar, in that monsters are never less than your level, and - by rote of uninspired design - almost never higher than your level either. Although unlike D3, Des2ny completely lacks a difficulty setting, so I'm left thinking that monster level is supposed to matter in Destiny, but discovering that it actually doesn't. D3 is not perfect in my esteem, but it is better than destiny by miles.

AFAIK, D3 has no monster levels. So there's no "lie."

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 11:09 (2364 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?


What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.


What do you mean by "a lie?" Your power vs. their power. You can change their power by changing the setting and you can change your power by acquiring and equipping different gear. Is it not better to be able to select exactly how difficult you want your game to be (proportional to your skill and in-game power level)? As long as the rewards are proportional, it all works out swimmingly IMO.


By "a lie" I mean that your level is meaningless when compared to the enemy level in diablo 3. Enemies always scale to your level, and at more difficult settings, they simply scale with a more difficult starting baseline, and possibly also on a steeper curve. But knowing that you are level 50, for example, would not let you go into a level 10 zone and lay waste in Diablo 3, because there are no level 10 zones - all zones are whatever level your character is. So the distinction of having monster levels at all is meaningless in that game. The difficulty setting is the real thing that matters, and that functions independently from monster level. Yes, it works well, but you could completely remove monster level from the game and it would be, functionally, the same game.

Destiny is similar, in that monsters are never less than your level, and - by rote of uninspired design - almost never higher than your level either. Although unlike D3, Des2ny completely lacks a difficulty setting, so I'm left thinking that monster level is supposed to matter in Destiny, but discovering that it actually doesn't. D3 is not perfect in my esteem, but it is better than destiny by miles.


AFAIK, D3 has no monster levels. So there's no "lie."

It's all under the hood, but every monster in the game scales to match your level, so there are no low level areas or high level areas. Everything is the same. I understand there's perhaps more variance since the loot 2.0 patches, but in the default game, the design docs still talked about monster level as the driving system on which all loot, available elite monster mods, and experience were derived.

I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 15:47 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I think it'd be much harder to implement in a compelling way in a shooter, but I love Diablo 3's difficulty escalation, and I think I would love it Destiny, if they could execute it correctly.

We're all playing the same activities over and over and over again anyway, why not have a series of escalating difficulties with random modifiers to keep it at least somewhat fresh? If it's a game about numbers getting higher, why not just let that continue to ridiculous degrees?


What you're describing here is difficulty level selection. In the case of D3, the difficulty selection is real because the character level vs. monster level dynamic is a lie. So yes, Destiny could benefit from a real difficulty level selection because, just as with D3, destiny's character level vs. monster level dynamic is also a lie.


What do you mean by "a lie?" Your power vs. their power. You can change their power by changing the setting and you can change your power by acquiring and equipping different gear. Is it not better to be able to select exactly how difficult you want your game to be (proportional to your skill and in-game power level)? As long as the rewards are proportional, it all works out swimmingly IMO.


By "a lie" I mean that your level is meaningless when compared to the enemy level in diablo 3. Enemies always scale to your level, and at more difficult settings, they simply scale with a more difficult starting baseline, and possibly also on a steeper curve. But knowing that you are level 50, for example, would not let you go into a level 10 zone and lay waste in Diablo 3, because there are no level 10 zones - all zones are whatever level your character is. So the distinction of having monster levels at all is meaningless in that game. The difficulty setting is the real thing that matters, and that functions independently from monster level. Yes, it works well, but you could completely remove monster level from the game and it would be, functionally, the same game.

Destiny is similar, in that monsters are never less than your level, and - by rote of uninspired design - almost never higher than your level either. Although unlike D3, Des2ny completely lacks a difficulty setting, so I'm left thinking that monster level is supposed to matter in Destiny, but discovering that it actually doesn't. D3 is not perfect in my esteem, but it is better than destiny by miles.


AFAIK, D3 has no monster levels. So there's no "lie."


It's all under the hood, but every monster in the game scales to match your level, so there are no low level areas or high level areas. Everything is the same. I understand there's perhaps more variance since the loot 2.0 patches, but in the default game, the design docs still talked about monster level as the driving system on which all loot, available elite monster mods, and experience were derived.

Yes, every monster scales to match your level and is the basis for how the loot drops. There is no lie, however, as there is no visually stated level to be lying about. It's not like the game says "level 5 zombie" and adjusts the strength of that zombie based on your selected difficulty. The under the hood level is the only level, and therefore there is no lie. You select Torment 5, you get Torment 5 difficulty enemies. That difficulty is relative to your current level, so you can expect it to always be exactly that difficult. If you manage to obtain better gear or create a more synergistic build, the game will not adjust for that, and that's by design. But there's no "lie."

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 12:07 (2364 days ago) @ Kahzgul

Although unlike D3, Des2ny completely lacks a difficulty setting...

No. Some areas of Destiny and Destiny 2 lack a difficulty setting, but many areas have them.

In Destiny 2:

  • The Leviathan Raid most certainly has difficulty settings. Prestige mode is a good deal more difficult than regular mode.
  • Strikes also have a difficulty setting through the Heroic playlist. (No, it's not a direct menu on the same screen, but the two playlists are really just an extra fancy way of changing the difficulty.)
  • Strikes also have an even more difficult mode through the weekly Nightfall Strike. (Again, the UI is ultimately a fancy looking difficulty selector.)
  • CoO also brought Heroic Adventures. (Once again, the UI and beacons are a round about / in-universe selector, but it sure as heck makes those missions more difficult!)


So yeah, while Destiny doesn't have a global difficulty pull down menu, a large portion of the game does offer a choice in difficulty.Really, the only thing that the Destiny system has a problem with is not having an Easy Mode for kids or people just starting on FPSes. In my opinion, though, Destiny's baseline difficulty is low enough that most of the game is accessible to all players.

That doesn't mean there isn't problems with Destiny's leveling systems, mainly that they probably shouldn't exist, but I don't see the lack of a difficulty selection as a significant issue.

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I still think Destiny could learn a lot from Diablo 3.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 12:29 (2364 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Destiny's baseline difficulty is low enough that most of the game is accessible to all players.

That’s sort of the issue. The baseline difficulty is so low that it’s very nearly dull, and you have to play for 15 or 20 hours until you can do anything of higher difficulty. The story of the game even straight up blocks you from playing things you’re under leveled for. Why can’t I play the entire game from the beginning on Nightfall (Legendary) equivalent difficulty? Or Heroic? Or Halo Easy (which, honestly is what the game feels like it’s set at, so maybe Halo Normal)?

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Resources.

by Harmanimus @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 12:42 (2364 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Would you rather they invest their time in adjusting and rebalancing existing content over and over or having a realitively calm baseline with optional/selectable spikes within growing content?

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Resources.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 13:15 (2364 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Honestly? The former.

But at a certain point, I’d rather Destiny be a completely different game than it actually is, so that’s really just on me. I love the always connected game that Destiny is, I really do, but I still think they had to sacrifice too much to make it that way. I’d rather have a game in the Festiny universe that’s actually just Halo: Reach in terms of experience. I’d still much rather play literally any Bungie Halo level than any Destiny story mission.

Again, that’s on me, and something I probably just need to let go of at this point, but it’s honestly sort of difficult to do, but I still think the very nature of the type of game Destiny is prevents us from getting features that were standard in Halo, and I’m not convinced it’s worth the trade off.

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Resources.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 14:34 (2364 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Honestly? The former.

But at a certain point, I’d rather Destiny be a completely different game than it actually is, so that’s really just on me. I love the always connected game that Destiny is, I really do, but I still think they had to sacrifice too much to make it that way. I’d rather have a game in the Festiny universe that’s actually just Halo: Reach in terms of experience. I’d still much rather play literally any Bungie Halo level than any Destiny story mission.

Again, that’s on me, and something I probably just need to let go of at this point, but it’s honestly sort of difficult to do, but I still think the very nature of the type of game Destiny is prevents us from getting features that were standard in Halo, and I’m not convinced it’s worth the trade off.

This is the track my brain has been running on for a while now. I don't think there is a single Destiny story mission that comes close to matching pretty much any Halo campaign mission in terms of encounter design, replayability, or storytelling. For whatever reason, Destiny's strengths just seem to fall elsewhere. And that's totally great, except that such a large portion of every Destiny release is built around these mediocre campaign missions. They just aren't very good when compared to Bungie's past work, or other modern AAA shooters. Nor do they hold a candle to the best stuff in Destiny, none of which happens during the campaigns.

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Resources.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 18:19 (2363 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I'm with you.

I can't help but wonder what the game could be like if it was all as finely crafted as the raid.

And that's probably unfair, that makes it sound like I think the rest of the game is dogshit, and I don't. But I do think that even the best moments of Destiny 2 (the tank sections, assaulting the city) are pretty lacking in comparison to even the most mediocre Halo levels.

Think about flying the Pelican around New Alexandria. Jumping from the Warthog into a Hornet and back again on that pair of levels on the Ark. Any of the Warthog escapes. The Forward Unto Dawn landing on the Ark. Landing on Delta Halo. I could go on and on.

Like I said, it's ultimately something I just need to let go of--that's not the game they're making. Destiny does have cool things that a Halo style can't provide. I like the public events and that odds and ends that happen in the public spaces, and the seamless matchmaking with random players in that world, and the raids.

I like Destiny just fine, but I think I will always want to see a version of Destiny that is structured like a Halo game.

It's probably a tire discussion at this point, I know I've certainly said it this stuff enough times that folks are probably tired of reading it over and over.

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Resources. Piloting Destiny 2 Vehicles = meh.

by dogcow @, Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Thursday, December 28, 2017, 07:32 (2363 days ago) @ cheapLEY

And that's probably unfair, that makes it sound like I think the rest of the game is dogshit, and I don't. But I do think that even the best moments of Destiny 2 (the tank sections, assaulting the city) are pretty lacking in comparison to even the most mediocre Halo levels.

I'll largely agree. For me, the tank sections of D2 pale in comparison to Halo because the feel/controls of the vehicle just don't have that good "Halo/Jaime feel". Piloting the tanks in D2 felt very "meh" to me. It's like they tried to make a tank fast like a warthog & lost all the tank/warthog tuning that had been done in the previous halos to make driving them feel so good. I feel the same about every other Destiny vehicle, excluding the Sparrow. The sparrow feels pretty good.

Like your post, this should be understood that I don't think it's crap, I'm just comparing to something that was most excellent and exceedingly triumphant.

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Resources. Piloting Destiny 2 Vehicles = meh.

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 10:34 (2363 days ago) @ dogcow

At least the D2 tank drive it the direction you want it to. /me glares at Halo: Reach

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Resources.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 18:23 (2363 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

This is the track my brain has been running on for a while now. I don't think there is a single Destiny story mission that comes close to matching pretty much any Halo campaign mission in terms of encounter design, replayability, or storytelling.

Last Array. For like, the 20 seconds the antenna is opening.

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Resources.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 18:27 (2363 days ago) @ Cody Miller

This is the track my brain has been running on for a while now. I don't think there is a single Destiny story mission that comes close to matching pretty much any Halo campaign mission in terms of encounter design, replayability, or storytelling.


Last Array. For like, the 20 seconds the antenna is opening.

Yeah, that’s right up there with the marines climbing the waterfall at the start of Halo 3 ;p

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Is that a joke?

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 27, 2017, 18:35 (2363 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I'm serious, I genuinely don't know.

Was that moment good to people? The music is cool, but the Hive come in the doorway almost literally single file and you kill them one by one for a minute and a half.

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Is that a joke?

by Kahzgul, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 12:04 (2363 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I'm serious, I genuinely don't know.

Was that moment good to people? The music is cool, but the Hive come in the doorway almost literally single file and you kill them one by one for a minute and a half.

I think he means that it's the only point in any destiny game where your actions actually have a visible effect on the game world. You pressed a button, and the antenna opened. Nowhere else do your actions make anything change.

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Resources.

by Kahzgul, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 12:01 (2363 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Honestly? The former.

But at a certain point, I’d rather Destiny be a completely different game than it actually is, so that’s really just on me. I love the always connected game that Destiny is, I really do, but I still think they had to sacrifice too much to make it that way. I’d rather have a game in the Festiny universe that’s actually just Halo: Reach in terms of experience. I’d still much rather play literally any Bungie Halo level than any Destiny story mission.

Again, that’s on me, and something I probably just need to let go of at this point, but it’s honestly sort of difficult to do, but I still think the very nature of the type of game Destiny is prevents us from getting features that were standard in Halo, and I’m not convinced it’s worth the trade off.


This is the track my brain has been running on for a while now. I don't think there is a single Destiny story mission that comes close to matching pretty much any Halo campaign mission in terms of encounter design, replayability, or storytelling. For whatever reason, Destiny's strengths just seem to fall elsewhere. And that's totally great, except that such a large portion of every Destiny release is built around these mediocre campaign missions. They just aren't very good when compared to Bungie's past work, or other modern AAA shooters. Nor do they hold a candle to the best stuff in Destiny, none of which happens during the campaigns.

I'd argue that the final mission in the City is fantastic and plays fully to Destiny's strengths. I also really like the "in the sun" portions of the Almighty missions, but the room where you "clear the blockage" was kind of ho-hum in that same mission.

Part of the problem I have with most of Destiny's gameplay is that the enemies don't really have anything close to reactive AI. It makes very little different where you are, what you do, how you fight... The enemies always do the same things all the time, which makes every fight seem very same-y. Enemies never move to flank you, don't hide while you have a super active, don't duck behind cover when taking fire, etc etc. We've all come to expect more from modern FPS games. There also aren't very many truly hectic fights - the best strategy is almost always to just stay as far away as possible and plink at the bad guys. Enemy grenades don't have blast radii big enough to really force you out of cover and enemy aim is good enough that even a max mobility character can't just sprint across the battlefield and dodge fire (lol sprint speed is the same for all players regardless of mobility, what a joke) and supers and heavies don't actually do all that much damage so they're relegated more to crowd control of weak enemies than to actually clutch you out of a losing situation and turn the tide in battle.

Just comparing to Halo (yes, Halo 1), killing an elite often caused the grunts to panic and flee. Sticking an enemy with a grenade either made them panic if they were a grunt or give the defiant roar if they were an elite. The only similar interaction I can recall in Destiny is the husks backing away from you in certain circumstances, or fruitlessly covering their heads when grenades land near them. Most other enemies just ignore them, and either die due to stupidity or shrug them off as if they were nothing. Neither result is satisfying. Heck, the enemies in Halo would also drop their own grenades, which allowed for magnificent cascades of grenade explosions and dynamic, sometimes unexpected, sometimes carefully orchestrated, dare I say emergent, combat situations. Also jeep launching.

Destiny is a game that you play near your friends, but - with the exception of raids and a very small number of boss fights - not really *with* your friends. There aren't team attacks, it's impossible to suppress enemies or draw their fire in order to help your teammates to maneuver. the "team buffs" each class provides kinda universally suck (I like the warlock circle, but it doesn't feel powerful so much as neat; the hunter "buff" is so bad as to not even be worth bothering since you're locked out of so many other perks by choosing the 'team buff' spec). Coordination is neither required nor encouraged outside of raids, and often just doing your own thing is the optimal playstyle. Somewhat ironically, the problem I have with PvE is a lack of coordination whereas the problem I have with PvP is that too much coordination is required. Destiny has been designed by overreactions to community pressure when it comes to balance, and the result is that everything feels constantly out of whack rather than at all like it's approaching something reliable, stable, and fun.

I've ranged far afield here, but I think that last city mission was FANTASTIC and it's a shame (tragedy, really) that nothing in CoO is at all like that, with other guardians popping up mid-mission, or encountering other strike teams at the end boss or even en route through the infinite forest.

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by Harmanimus @, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 09:25 (2363 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I would like to say i appreciate the perspective that you understand bringing your own paste favorable experiences and memories in with you to your gaming experience. I have in the past found myself enjoying things more due to a familiarity that might not be the best fit for someone else. As a separate example, my appreciation of Horizon Zero Dawn is much greater than what i have for Breath of the Wild and no small part because of how some aspects felt very strongly like New Tomb Raider. But you kinda lose me here:

I’d still much rather play literally any Bungie Halo level than any Destiny story mission.

I cannot fathom wanting to play Floodgate or Quarantine Zone over King of the Mountain or Eye of A Gate Lord or 1AU. Not even touching on strikes or Raids in that regard.

I think it is fair that overall the Halo Campaigns have a better track record than Destiny story missions, but anyone suggesting that they are invariably more enjoyable than Destiny missions does me a boggle.

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by cheapLEY @, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 09:37 (2363 days ago) @ Harmanimus

I would like to say i appreciate the perspective that you understand bringing your own paste favorable experiences and memories in with you to your gaming experience. I have in the past found myself enjoying things more due to a familiarity that might not be the best fit for someone else. As a separate example, my appreciation of Horizon Zero Dawn is much greater than what i have for Breath of the Wild and no small part because of how some aspects felt very strongly like New Tomb Raider. But you kinda lose me here:

I’d still much rather play literally any Bungie Halo level than any Destiny story mission.

I cannot fathom wanting to play Floodgate or Quarantine Zone over King of the Mountain or Eye of A Gate Lord or 1AU. Not even touching on strikes or Raids in that regard.

I think it is fair that overall the Halo Campaigns have a better track record than Destiny story missions, but anyone suggesting that they are invariably more enjoyable than Destiny missions does me a boggle.

Okay, that's a fair point, I guess. I like one of those levels (whichever one had the big vehicle segment, with Flood infested Warthogs driving around). So exclude two levels (The Library) from my statement, and then it's completely true. I'd rather play any Halo level except one, any Halo 2 level except one, and any Halo level from any Bungie Halo game (and most 343i Halo levels, too) than any Destiny mission.

I think Destiny suffers from lack of vehicles and lack of friendly AI. It feels like a rote shooting gallery by comparison to Halo.

I really do try to approach Destiny on its own terms. And I really enjoy Destiny. But I don't think Destiny holds up its end of the bargain when it tries to do the Halo thing. It gives us so much more than Halo does in its connected nature, public spaces, and raids, and I would hold up some strikes as comparable to some good Halo missions, but it's campaign missions do very little for me, and I think I'd be happier if Destiny stopped trying to do so many things at once and instead focused down a little bit.

Again, I love Destiny. I liked playing through the campaign, I think it was a fun experience. It just isn't as good as it obviously could be, and it makes up such a small percentage of my play time, that I have to wonder if its worth it. I honestly have mixed feelings on the whole thing, and I really have a hard time articulating those feelings.

I just know that Destiny feels to me like a game that's caught in a weird in between, like it's not quite sure what type of game it wants to be.

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by Harmanimus @, Thursday, December 28, 2017, 10:23 (2363 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Okay, that's a fair point, I guess. I like one of those levels (whichever one had the big vehicle segment, with Flood infested Warthogs driving around). So exclude two levels (The Library) from my statement, and then it's completely true. I'd rather play any Halo level except one, any Halo 2 level except one, and any Halo level from any Bungie Halo game (and most 343i Halo levels, too) than any Destiny mission.

Other than disagreeing about The Library, that is fair. Though I don’t think I hold the Campaigns of 3/5 in nearly as high regard.

I really do try to approach Destiny on its own terms. And I really enjoy Destiny. But I don't think Destiny holds up its end of the bargain when it tries to do the Halo thing. It gives us so much more than Halo does in its connected nature, public spaces, and raids, and I would hold up some strikes as comparable to some good Halo missions, but it's campaign missions do very little for me, and I think I'd be happier if Destiny stopped trying to do so many things at once and instead focused down a little bit.

You bring up an interesting point here about it trying “to do the Halo thing” because I agree. When mission beats feel like they are from a Halo fan project, no matter how well executed, they will feel somewhat hollow. When Destiny does its own thing it tends to be stronger. Honestly, I’m in total agreement about the connected nature. In the story missions and adventures and what not the best parts are when the game intersects with other players doing other things.

Again, I love Destiny. I liked playing through the campaign, I think it was a fun experience. It just isn't as good as it obviously could be, and it makes up such a small percentage of my play time, that I have to wonder if its worth it. I honestly have mixed feelings on the whole thing, and I really have a hard time articulating those feelings.

What I have articulated to friends in the past is that I think Destiny is held back by people desiring a traditional Halo-style campaign. Period. And that the game world would have been better served as a more generally open world experience. Even instancing things, I think a Quest Structure is better suited and doesn’t take anything away from the ability to tell those same stories, just within the world structure instead of a sequence of isolated missions. For all my enjoyment of the campaign (six 1-20 completions of it on two platforms) the world is the strongest part of Destiny and I would have preferred more of it over shoehorning a Halo campaign inside it.

I just know that Destiny feels to me like a game that's caught in a weird in between, like it's not quite sure what type of game it wants to be.

Sadly, I think some of that will always be there. Less sadly, I have made my peace with that across all games. As rarely they ever fulfill the potential I’d like the see from their root concepts. Except Psychonauts. That game is perfect.

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