Expectations and Elitism (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, August 08, 2014, 11:58 (3542 days ago) @ RC
edited by Cody Miller, Friday, August 08, 2014, 12:03

Truth is: imbalance and asymmetry is actually fun, having a chance at some measure of success is fun, getting to actually use cool weapons like Snipers and shotguns is fun and in the end, you can't even have competition if no-one actually plays (e.g. all those competitive playlists in Halo that ALWAYS DIED).

I think this is true in the sense that you can have little imbalances that rise through play, such as players being able to put themselves in situations that offer an advantage. You're right, it'd be boring if two players of equal skill always had a 50% change of winning an engagement, and it's much better to allow them to try to get the upper hand. That could be through weapon selection, positioning, etc. To make sure it isn't a positive feedback, you offer ways to break the advantage if you are good. Think reversal attacks in Street Fighter 2.

The question people are asking is whether you can ever really gain an advantage, given that supers are supposedly a low skill way to kill people. I would argue that yes, you can absolutely still get an advantage, and even with supers, the best team is still going to win.

Everyone should check their ego at the door. So what if you die to a Nova Bomb every now and then? This really isn't Halo. I like it more (as of the Beta anyway).

The big caveat is bringing in gear though. Again, in the Alpha and Beta the level cap and spread of gear was pretty low. But since rate of fire and impact make a difference in multiplayer, and level advantage does in iron banner, there's going to be a lot of extra steps you have to do outside of the crucible to even go in ready (especially with light being such an important and gear only stat). I've heard of level 5 folks trying iron banner and just getting hopelessly wrecked because of their level. Whether that ends up being a problem or not will be revealed in a month.