Black Armory - What happened to difficulty selection? (Criticism)

by cheapLEY , Monday, December 10, 2018, 19:15 (2208 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by cheapLEY, Monday, December 10, 2018, 19:30

I like the Forges. I think they're neat activities.

I think it has the same problem almost everything in Destiny 2 has, though. And that's difficulty scaling. Look at Escalation Protocol and Blind Well. They were very difficult at first, and they become easier as you gain power level. Once you're overleveled, they become very nearly trivial (Me and three blueberries breezed through many Tier 4 Blind Wells--it wasn't quite "trivial," but it was close).

There's no doubt that the Forges will follow the same pattern. I'm at 612-614 depending on weapons, and the Volundr Forge feels perfect in terms of challenge. It's very doable, but mistakes can also lead to failure fairly easily. In another two weeks, I feel like the Forges are going to be just as trivial as the Blind Well now is (unless the Forges we haven't seen are different than the two we have in some way).

I've said before that I really liked the House of Wolves era of Destiny, and I think the Prison of Elders would have been a good blueprint for the Forges. I think a tiered difficulty selection for escalating challenge (and rewards!) would be cool. I always liked that aspect of the Prison of Elders. The Blind Well sort of hints at it, but not in a way that really feels satisfying.

In this hypothetical I see the highest tier Forge being at a level where the player is always underleveled. If the cap is 650, maybe the event starts at 660.

Destiny 2 has definitely simplified the way loot is handled, so I'm not exactly sure how you would scale up rewards for each difficulty level. Initially, making the Powerful engrams from the activity scale is a potential (if slightly lazy) solution. Bottom tier would be a guaranteed +1, middle +3, highest +5. But that would become irrelevant very quickly.

I also thought of the tying weapon drops to tiers. Maybe the highest tier forged weapons could drop fully Masterworked already. Maybe they could offer unique perk combinations that aren't possible anywhere else?

I can also see a version where you "forge" a weapon at the lowest tier, and then you must use it in activities, similar to what the frame activation requires now. The lowest tier might drop a blue version of the weapon, then you use it for a while, complete some activities with it (headshots, multikills, whatever), then take it into the next tier to turn it into a legendary where it gets it's first perk. You then do some more activities and complete the highest tier where it becomes fully Masterworked and gains a second perk. In a really crazy, awesome world, perhaps the activities you chose to do with the weapons would direct which perks you get. Go for headshots to pull in the pool that gives you outlaw or dragonfly. Go for multikills to shoot for Rampage or Kill Clip. You get the idea. You wouldn't be able to directly select perks (in order to keep the chase there, and keep people going back to the Forges), but you could direct which set of perks you are pulling from based on the goals you choose to use the weapon for.

That's just dreaming, and extraneous to what I think would have actually helped the initial launch blues of Black Armory--tiered difficulty settings that ensure activities can be completed at low level and provide a path to gain level, but also provide a mode that will always be challenging.