Short list of requests inspired by beta play (Destiny)

by Earendil, Monday, August 04, 2014, 17:36 (3561 days ago)

Having spent a good number of hours on the beta, here are the few areas that I felt were lacking, and a few suggestions for what might prop up the experience a bit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Game world entry and exit.
I love what Bungie has done with the load screen, and have always wondered why companies still insist on showing me a load bar and a black screen. Still, the entry and exit into the world is abrupt and closer to The Matrix than to a human that must travel by ship. I don't know the best way to solve this, but I'd love to see entry into the world be by ship, or drop pod. This would serve two purposes:
1. Create a more seamless world entry for both the player and those watching/waiting for the player.
2. Allows anyone already in the world that is paying attention to know there are Guardians inbound.

#2 is some of the most Matrix like stuff in the game. To be looking at an open field, blink, and suddenly there are Guardians there. All my mind can think is "Oh look, players loaded the game". I'd much rather think "Oh look, Guardians are inbound to my neck of the woods"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Public Events feel like the participation list is fixed before it begins.

Let me explain this point by telling a story of my favorite Destiny moment to date.
A public event starts, and me and one other Guardians are going at one of the walkers. We've been at this thing for 30-40 seconds, and I'm thinking we can't take it in time. Suddenly, Two rockets hit the side of the beast almost simultaneously. I look in the direction of the rockets and, in a way I couldn't have scripted better, two Guardians come bounding off a small cliff and heading right for us, with a third one just in front of them on a Sparrow.

What made that moment awesome stemmed from two things I believe
1. We were losing, and more Guardians entered combat "just in time".
2. I was able to notice and see help coming before it really arrived.

The key to #1 is actually that Guardians arrived late. In my experience Guardians joining in mid event happened maybe one in 20 events. There were usually 3-6 Guardians in a space, and while all of them knew an event was happening, all of them made a choice to participate well before it had actually started. Something I wished for in a number of events, and I thought would solve this is:

Allow Guardians to call for help.
I don't know what the range of that help call is, or what it looks like, but maybe it varies based on players in your instance of the world. If you allow a Guardian to call for help you get a couple things:

A) You'd only receive that backup if you felt you needed it (or wanted it). Otherwise other players would stay as clueless about public events as they currently are. Or stay as apathetic as they currently are.
B) When you called for help, you'd be unlikely to receive that help until you had been fighting for a bit, due to the travel time required by those that respond to the call.

While my second desire listed above is harder to pull off and not as worth pursuing, maybe it can go with my request to make it less Matrix like. Allow Guardians to drop ship in to the event. If they must come by foot or Sparrow, then perhaps allow people to respond to the call for help with an Affirmative. Those that call for help may even get a distance count down until help arrives.

Now imagine this:
You start fighting, you start losing. You're in over your head. You signal for help, and a Guardian someplace responds to the call letting you know he's on the way. You keep fighting, and then suddenly reinforcements arrive, and you watch as Guardians join the fight.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a few more topics to hit but I also only intended on writing a paragraph per thought. Whoops.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Do you feel the game is lacking in the areas I described and could use some sort of game mechanic change? Or what do you think of the game mechanic change I suggest? I realize Bungie isn't likely (or at this point in dev capable) of doing much, but I like sounding off ideas about design and human interaction :)