Contrary opinion (Criticism)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, September 15, 2018, 08:52 (2294 days ago) @ Funkmon

IMO the raid should be there day one if it's ready. If you aren't ready, no big deal. You don't need to race. You shouldn't be mad at the company for making a hard activity hard to get to.

It isn't "hard" to get to. It takes a combination of time and luck. The way Bungie's system works, it might take 1 player 30 hours of playtime to reach the raid, and it might take another player 50 hours, even though they're both doing the exact same activities at the exact same levels.

That's problem number 1. But it isn't a new problem. What I find interesting about Raga's post here is that many people have been criticizing the way Destiny rewards player time since the very beginning of D1. Some players got to level 30 after running VoG once or twice. It took others months and dozens of VoG completions, purely due to RNG as it applies to drops.

This was taken to a new place in the Taken King, when the Light Level system was put into place. Bungie made it possible for players to start the raid, while being too weak to finish the raid. Some players got drops over the first half of the raid that brought them up to the point where they could handle the end of the raid. Others were relegated to weeks and weeks of running the first half of the raid over and over before they got the drops they needed to bring them up in level. Through no fault of their own, they were held back from an activity while others were able to move forward, all because of RNG drops and light levels.

That, IMO, is the real problem.

It's not the length of the grind up to raid level, per say (although there is certainly room to discuss or criticize the length of a grind). It's the fact that the activity is gated behind a barrier that is not overcome by completing specific goals or demonstrating a certain level of skill. It is luck (combined with time, obviously). And that is fundamentally unfriendly and unfair to the player. And the only reason it is in the game is because it is part of lottery/casino game economy that feeds compulsive loops.

I do have a question for Raga. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems to me that while others have been criticizing this particular element of Destiny since the beginning, you have often rushed to Bungie's defense on these issues. It strikes me that it isn't until Bungie externalized the rewards (ie the jacket) that this issue has bothered you. Am I wrong about that? If I'm not wrong, what is it about this specific situation that bothers you, where it hasn't bothered you before? Not criticizing your reaction here, just genuinely curious :)