I disagree with most of this on a base level. (Destiny)

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.