Interesting theory... (Criticism)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 10:58 (2347 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Korny, Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 11:03

This is why I've always championed the "Everything should be good" style of development, and an easy fix has been there since Day 1 of Destiny.

Everything being good destroys the fundamental decision making process behind choice. There needs to be strategies, builds, and weapons that are 'bad' so that players can discover the good ones and make a choice have consequences.

I mean good as in "you can take the game's starting weapons, and carry them all the way to the end of the edngamiest content". Will they have decent stats? Probably not. But I used the Khvostov in D1 Crucible for giggles. I would have loved to carry it through Aksis as well, but the Light decrease was often too much until the exotic rolled around. Same for Trials (remember that time that we ran Y1 Thorns in Trials just to troll the enemy team?).

There needs to be both a variety of 'good' strategies, gear, and skills such that no single one is overly dominant, but also a larger amount of bad or suboptimal ones to make choice matter.

I mean, look at the Whisper event. There were clear, optimal routes and such, but a lot of the fun of that quest came from mixing it up and doing things in a riskier, suboptimal manner. Getting flung by the wall blasts to clear an area? Impractical, but genius! I spent hours doing the platforming over and over just to find fun, weird ways to get through it, and even I haven't come close to some of the crazy stuff that the PC crowd has been doing.

And as far as weapons go, it's all a skill thing. Remember that time that I went into Doubles solo with a Traveler's chosen, a Mob Justice, and a then-garbage Darci? That was really fun! Having optimal gear is one thing, and sure, it can be the goal for a lot of people, but the most fun for me is when I find something outside of the meta that I personally enjoy (see my love of Pro-pipes and Rare Auto Rifles). Choice comes from the individual player, not just from the handful of best tools with the best stats.
Otherwise, I'd be one of those mouth breathers who run Antiope, Lance, and Sins of the Past. Didn't you see how many honor-less chumps ran MIDA across D1 and D2? Where was the sandbox variety? The game actively punishes you for making choices that are outside of the optimum tools at a fundamental level, simply through Power Level.

Curated loadouts are helping a lot. and I'd love to see that pushed through more bits of endgame content, but imagine how much richer the experience could be if you could take your starting weapons with you when you finally faced down Ghaul?

The first weapon that I ever got in Warframe, the Skana, remains in my inventory, and I've put enough work into it that it's insanely powerful, even more so than a lot of the weapons with better base stats in the game, all because I personally invested in it, and the game has rewarded me for that... But it's not the most fun weapon that I have by a long shot.

I mean, Borderlands 2 let you kill Jack with the first pistol that you took out of Claptrap's fridge. Heh.