Fine line, hope they get it right (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 23:57 (3833 days ago) @ Xenos

"Destiny does feature a type of in-game currency and players will be able to earn it by completing missions or from defeating enemies. The Tower in the City will feature vendors for players to sell off the spoils of their adventures as well as purchase new equipment and other items.

Our destinations are purposely built for replayability, and while we’re still tweaking drop rates and the like, there will definitely be plenty of great reasons for you to return to spaces, and discover new ones."

This sounds a lot like Diablo.

I liked Diablo 2 quite a bit, but only because I didn't partake in the end game. The variety of classes and ways to play each class was actually very fun, and figuring out how to build a character was great. It was rocky starting out, but particularly after the 1.10 patch with the skill synergies, it was pretty compelling.

However, I really only ever played normal and nightmare difficulties. You could complete these without grinding for gear or for exp. On Hell, you needed to grind to level up and get suitable gear. That was not fun. So, I played character, tried out a new combination of skills, played through normal and nightmare, and then started over with a new class or the same class but with new skills.

Blizzard in particular is notable for creating games with an "end game". To me the concept is pretty dumb, but the idea is that the "end game" is what players will be doing once they've mastered the game. The only sane thing to do once you've mastered any game is to quit, yet somehow these games expect or compel players not to do that. It pretty much revolves around super hard special quests, and farming for items.

The problem is that the Diablo end game does not rely on skill. Diablo 2, and to an even greater extent Diablo 3, rely on gear and high levels in the end game. This is bad because grinding for gear and levels sucks balls. We know Destiny is probably going to have an "end game" given that they are modeling raids after wow, the loot system after games like Borderlands / Diablo, and that it is a shared world game without a fixed length linear storyline.

The absolute most important thing is this: every activity a player is supposed to do in the end game should be skill based. That means gear or currency should be relatively minor additions and not majorly affect the way the game plays. This is why Diablo 2 was fun: your skill and stat point assignments in normal and nightmare were the biggest determining factors in your success. Gear mattered relatively little. (Hell of course is a different story, which is why I shied away from that difficulty). This is consequently why Diablo 3 sucks: there are no choices for stat points or skill assignments; gear is pretty much the be all and end all of your character's success. The upcoming loot 2.0 will not fix this.

If Destiny is going to succeed, then the end game had better be about shooting shit in the face in better ways and not just replaying sections to get better loot.

Replayability is about mastery. The idea of doing the same thing over and over is pretty silly UNLESS you are really doing something different. For example: doing it faster, with fewer hits, with different weapons, on a harder difficulty, exploring new spaces, etc. (The other less applicable reason to replay a game is similar to the reason one would watch a film again). The fact that Bungie is building their spaces around the idea of replayability is not encouraging, especially when it's mentioned in the same thought as loot and drop rates. In fact the very idea of purposely building spaces around replayability is stupid. The challenge or exploration should create the desire to replay revolving around mastery or curiosity / adventure.

Why have I played Deus Ex a dozen times? Because each time was a new challenge since I picked different augs and made different choices. Why have I played Halo 2 so much? To beat it without dying. Why have I played Soul Calibur 2 over and over? To increase my skill as a fighter so I can school fools. Why did I replay MGS2? So I could do it on extreme with no alerts.

This is important. This will make or break your game.