Damage Mechanics (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Tuesday, December 17, 2013, 09:35 (3792 days ago) @ kapowaz

What we don't know, however, is just how much player skill will factor into the gunplay. Weapon damage is only one attribute that can be dialled up or down, and it is likely Bungie will want to provide other ways of differentiating the weapons players acquire throughout the game. Will accuracy be another? If so, will weapons use a normally distributed cone of fire, or a completely random one? The decision here will have a substantial impact on how gunplay feels in Destiny: one will allow players to take advantage of innate skill, whereas the other perhaps fits more logically within the (relatively) random number generated-aspect of MMO games in general.

It is unfortunate that Bungie feels unwilling to discuss this. With the beta around six months away, it seems unlikely that no decision has been made on this yet, which raises questions as to exactly why Bungie doesn't want to talk about it. Are they worried it will scare away players who enjoyed the more skill-based gunplay in the original Halo games (a legitimate concern, I suspect)? Or are they unsure of the decision they've taken thus far and aren't willing to discuss it in case they change their mind (also legitimate, although I see no reason why transparency wouldn't be a good thing here)?

This is the kind of thing that gets iterated on countless times. I would imagine the specifics of how spread cones, weapon ROF, reload systems, how enemies take damage, how aim assist works, how bloom works, how ADS effects things, and how weapons change as they upgrade are being constantly changed. Not only that, as other variables have changed around them, I would bet differrent systems have disapered and reappeared. That's just the iterative process of game design. I'd be fairly sure that they have some general parameters, and a general feel now, but many specific mechanics are in flux.

Let me be clear: I raise this not because I am impatient but because it troubles me that Bungie continues to be evasive when asked about these (amongst other) gameplay mechanics. It raises questions of just how confident they are in their own game design that they would not expose it to outside scrutiny. But that scrutiny is a good thing: it is far better to discuss it now, than wait until the beta drops and only then for players to discover it's not to their taste or as enjoyable as they had hoped. Why not channel the energy and enthusiasm of the fanbase, whilst it's still there?

Probably because low level mechanical discussion of a game in constant flux isn't going to get them anywhere? Beyond the simple fact that talking about a changing feature is a difficult thing to communicate, how much does the community really get out of low level discussion at this stage?

Let's take an example, Let's make some assumptions about automatic weapon spread. Let's assumee they have a normal spread, but that spread can reduced with certain upgrades to the gun or the character. That leaves out some hugely important details.

1. Does that spread change from Bloom, does it have a maximum range?
2. How does Aim assist effect that?
3. How does netcode change things?
4. Is it hitscan, is there bullet drop?
5. Are there critical bonusses?

And many more. Describing abstract systems through words in a precise way is incredibly difficult. Even worse, we could manage to get all that details in text, but it won't give us a good sense of how we'll respond to them. Bloom is a system like this, where on paper it should appeal to the most competitive games as it adds a layer of complexity and requires a ton of skill in managing it. The competitive response was hugely negative though. In large part because it slowed down the end of fights, making multikills harder. That kind of emergent effect from design changes is almost impossible to appreciate without having the entire system in front of you. Given that none of us has actually played Destiny, describing mechanics like this in the abstract guarantees that deep mechanical descriptions will get muddled and lost, since we don't have a full system to observe and experience.

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing here, but getting at a very real issue. Your entire post is ostensibly asking to hear more about mechanics, but every one of your points revolves around the balance between player skill and avatar power. That's the question we need some clarification on! Other than some platitudes, Bungie hasn't given us much on this subject *at all.* We know that there's this content designed for high level characters, will that be impossible like in WoW or Diablo, or will we be seeing level 1 runs like in Dark souls? This is the kind of subject they can and should be talking about in a more concrete way at this point, as it's foundational to Destiny's success.