Rant & Overview: A long, mostly melancholy response. (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Wednesday, December 09, 2020, 14:35 (1443 days ago) @ breitzen

So first, I would like to say that at the start of this month, I did at first start working on the bare-bones draft of a review for Beyond Light. I wanted to make sure that I pointed out all of the good work that has been done, as the good work hardly ever gets called out. I've noticed that its seems far more rare to see a post taking about what Bungie has done right. What they have done well. It's why I made this post about the Environments on Europa. But, if you read that post, there was also that small jab. I was going to use that for later to point out in comparison to...

(to quote what I have written that else shall not see light of day)

...choices that dishearteningly weighed Destiny 2: Beyond Light down with mistakes that I refuse to give any more quarter for, should I ever have. There are acted on variables that to me belie a weakness in execution and communication which to me from afar, should not be in such “extreme”. While amount of staff post-Activision may be a factor, I think (from afar) it may be the philosophy of certain teams as well.

If you've been a regular here for some time, that you already know that this was to be one of my long rambles with (hopefully) insightful nuggets about Destiny the Game. Then something happened; I stopped. I just... stopped.

I haven't thought about "Destiny The Game" since.

Been busy finally getting around to playing "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order". Just finished it last night. It's good, best Star Wars game I've played in FAR FAR too long. Red Dead Redemption 2 is next. It will be the first game by Rockstar I've played since OG Max Payne. That's 2001, so... eesh, 19 years.

Returning to the topic at hand, for the sake of setting our bearings on time, the "Destiny 2020 Director's Cut" was in late February of this year, 100 years ago. The Triple Director's Cut (|,||,|||) & the follow up was late last year, 1000 years ago.

All that is to say, now that I've read this "Destiny 2 Dev Update" on "Rewards", all my questions have flooded back to me, with the addition of some new ones. Questions like:

Where in the samhill was this response in clarification MONTHS ago!?

-or-

WHY IS IT ALWAYS AFTER THE FACT that we see these!?

Which, admittedly is kind of like saying "You always find something in the last place you look" and... uh, duh! No shit. But... it's about TIME USED! Both before, 'cause they know this shit LOONG before us, and AFTER. It's out. It's LIVE! It's about planning. It's about communication! ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS! FROM THE VERY BEGINNING of this FUCKING game, this WHOLE FUCKING ENTERPRISE, co-mmu-ni-FLIPPN'-cation! THAT SHIT MIGHT NOT BE IN WEBSTER, BUT IS SURE SHOULD BE!

Oh... I suddenly feel a draft coming in. Isn't English fun?

Spoiler Alert, I’m going to be talking about Sunsetting soon. Oh! Did you feel that? A chill right up the spine. Must have stepped on a grave. It’s a shame I need to dig up this dead festering ...

Been there, Read It.

So for the last few weeks, if you peruse the reddits, you may have come across things like;

• My opinion: sunsetting is something healthy for the game in the long run, but was executed very poorly.
  
• Reset my Gambit rank. My reward? A sunset weapon I can't use.
  
• Nightmare hunts go up to 1280. They drop gear that goes up to 1060. What the hell?
  
• I love this game, but sunsetting is ruining it for me

Those posts are in some cases about a week old or three give or take, as of this post.

I bring this up as, behold! My *cough* *cough* "Magnum Opus" in frustrations with Sunsetting and Design choices within Destiny that I wrote up 5 months ago. I called it "Old New Guns: An Irrelevant Post". Boy oh boy, did I call that out! An Irrelevant Post indeed! :D

If you choose to read it, I remind you an old sniper was a story reward in Beyond Light. One that I already had many of in my vault, and perhaps you did too.

Don't get me wrong, we all knew in some capacity, but man... if you had told me that Bungie was a 1-man indy, the lack of actionable planning on sunsetting makes dam fine evidence.

Again... case and point, here is a post I made where I outlined how sunsetting would effect my Vault.

327. That means only 64 Weapons which are currently in my vault will be spared into Season 12. That's... 80% of the Weapons in my Vault.... *Actual Literal Gasp* HOLY SHIT!

...

To see how much legendary style armors I have. It's 225. That means, if this is correct, I will have 59 armors that shall be spared into the next season. If my math is right, that means 75% of my Armors will be no longer useful for not only pinnacle content, but as we move along into further seasons. ...

WOOF! What a freek'n BLOODBATH!

Did no one else at Bungie do the math either? No one said; Hey... how many guns and what not will be in the game after we do this?

Than we come to now.

Now.

Machine Men.

When I was writing up ideas of what I would be going over in my review of Beyond Light, it occurred to me how... so much heart has left Bungies face and actions. And at first I resisted the notion, and look! When ever I see posts like this and like this (on reddit, where else? ;_;) how can I say there is so little heart?

Well, when I read things like this Dev Update on Rewards, boy oh boy. I mean, yeah... it's great you've committed to...

With each season in Year 4, Destiny 2 will grow the overall Power ecosystem for weapons.

...but uh.... WEREN'T YOU GOING TO DO THAT ANYWAY!

And there are a number of things in this that make my "Corporate Bullshit" meter snap in tway. Not that they are out right lying, but gifting us what should already be. This is, despite the title, DESTINY 3 from what should be a AAA Studio! And indeed, some parts of Bungie have made things that without question hit that AAA rating! At this point though, they, Bungie at large has made their bed many times over. So to have any of them, those working at Bungie saying to us "We will not shit the bad any more" SHOULD NOT BE THING THEY NEED TO ITERATE!!!!

Plus... who do they think they are kidding? Yes you fucking will. Some how. Some way, Bungie will Jurassic park a large one on the pillow. And... making a prediction here, it will be someone from the Game Design team. That's the pattern! I called it 5 months go in da "Opus", and it still seems to ring true today.

And Now Something That Appears To Be Random To Break This Up.

(Earworm warning!)

Meditations.

“The Emperor counsels simplicity: First principles Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?" ~ Marcus Aurelius "Meditations"

Rant aside, let's go down the list, one step at a time. When I hit something that feels like I may reiterate, I'll simply say "please see above". I'm not going to quote every little thing, just what I can put words too. Starting with...

Introducing Infusion Caps is part of addressing this [(the creation of a game we love, that evolves and is a world with momentum)], a way to make sure that the overall number of rewards Guardians need to care about in order to be competitive in Destiny isn’t prohibitive. It is also a way to continue evolving each season’s meta, while at the same time making sure players still have a ton of options when choosing what they want to bring into the next challenge. Our goal from the beginning with Infusion Caps is to improve and keep Destiny 2 fresh over time - what we’re most looking forward to is how this system will introduce innovation to the season-over-season meta, how creative builds from the community will shine, and how we can continue to deliver more unique hand-crafted gear that aligns with the world narrative and where the universe is going.

Please see above. Infusion Caps is a.k.a "Sunsetting". It all sounds so very... planned. An idea to solve a problem of sheer scope in size and gameplay "freshness". And while some of these beats have been mentioned before, never before has it been so succinctly written out, I think. I say that, as I checked (but quickly), so if I missed something, please say so.

Growing the Power Ecosystem

All sounds good! Nothing really to add at this time.

Keeping Current

At the same time, we don’t want to be clogging up the reward streams with weapons that are about to exit the Power ecosystem. So anything that’s only going to be around for a few more months shouldn’t be something a player can accidentally obtain.

Please see above.

As far as exceptions, we don’t plan on adding methods for players to acquire holiday weapons like the Braytech Werewolf outside of participating in those yearly celebrations. For updates, this does mean in Season 13 we will be adding limited time quest weapons like Felwinter’s Lie, Whisper of the Worm, and Outbreak Perfected to the Exotic Kiosk in the Tower.

This is sort of sad for a different reason. One that was core to Destiny initial pitch, where when you get that awesome gun, folks go "oh, where do you get that"! In particular I mean Whisper of the Worm and Outbreak Perfected. Those, both the weapons and where you got them were unquestionably top tier Destiny Gameplay. So for these weapons to be put into a Vending Machine like that, well... what else to do? Bummer.

Quality and Quantity

In Beyond Light, I believe the Rewards Team nailed it again with incredible new Legendary perks like Recombination, Thresh, Chain Reaction, and Reconstruction. Alongside these perks came what I believe is one of the best lineups of Exotic weapons and armor in Destiny history.

I agree. I like what I've seen out of the new perks. Having spoken before about the stagnation of our kit perk wise (and I know I'm not the only one), I've been glad to see the increase in variety.

There’s no way for us to make more rewards at Destiny’s standards and still maintain the health of our current team, therefore we’re going to reinforce the Rewards Team with more talent that will allow us to deliver quality and quantity in the future. Molding someone new into a master Destiny gunsmith takes time. This isn’t going to be a change that the community will feel next week, but it does put our best foot forward as we step towards The Witch Queen and Lightfall.

So, this is AWESOME! More hands on deck! But... when I looked at the jobs, I don't see much of an increase. What's that? How do I know that? I... uh... I may give it a look every now and again. But but... that's something else... THE POINT! The point is; Where is the man power coming from? Is something in house being cannibalized? Or are they going to use some of the sweet sweet Eververse money to outsource?

Preheating the Oven

We envision a better solution for how armor intersects with Infusion Caps

Uh oh.

The personality of armor comes from mods right now, so gaining a new piece of armor often means just trying to find a piece of armor that replicates the stat allocation you already have on a piece in your vault.

Well... yeah? This is the system you built, and there is so many hours in a day. It needs to be fun, not work. If only there was a place where we could TEST things out, but eh. Use what works right?

While we are not ready to talk concretely about armor plans right now, we do want to get more gameplay novelty on armor itself so that looting a piece of armor in a new season has the potential to change the way you play.

Expect to hear more about armor and other holistic upgrades to the way gear rotates in and out of the Power ecosystem as we harden plans in the new year.

Thanks... but I hate this. No no no no, I don't mean about armors, but the addressing its self. I CAN'T GIVE INPUT ON THIS! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?!?!? WE, the fans, CAN'T SAVE YOU FROM YOURSELVES (should we need to?) in your Ivory Tower if you text us "Oh by the way, I cleaned your room". WHAAAAAAA!!!!! Like... man. Just because you speak does not mean you are communicating. Take it from me! I can say alot of stuff, and still no one has any idea what I'm talking about! :P

Without spoiling too much, here’s a brief teaser of some of the things that are on their way in Destiny 2, Year 4:

• Transmog will be coming with Season 14. More details to come. (See work-in-progress screen captures, below. Not final, may change!)
  
• DDOS protection for Destiny 2 players on all consoles will be coming in Season 13.
  
• The Vault of Glass raid returns.
  
• Crossplay is coming in 2021.
  
• Two strikes (Fallen S.A.B.E.R. and Devil’s Lair) are coming to Destiny 2 in Season 13.
  
• Legendary and Master Lost Sector rotation will be expanded to include the Lost Sectors on the Moon in Season 13, and there will be new three new pieces of Exotic armor to chase.

I only have one thing to add.

I really hope that little sorting circle is robust in its options. Colors/Shades (White, Red, Orange...ect), Pattern (None, Checkered...) , Finish (Mat or Gloss...) and so on. Shaders are serious business yo!

/Fin