TL/DR: Destiny is about maximising effectiveness and optimisation rather than being able to have any effect at all.

This is perhaps one of the biggest changes to core direction from Halo, and it's catching some people out who are used to harsher realities.

In Halo, you were THE Master Chief, special because you were lucky, because you were one of the few that had survived. But Spartans never died, of course, they were only Missing-In-Action. Almost mythical, rare fighters that turned the tides of enormous battles on their own.

In Destiny, each Ghost is still a precious, limited resource, but an individual Guardian life is cheap. It's just a few seconds before you're back to killing. Guardians are super-hero undead. They've all experienced death before and will again - many, many times. Each individual Guardian is not the heroic saviour of all of humanity, but part of a legion of the undead, fighting collectively against The Darkness. You share the world and the glorious quest with many other Guardians.

The fundamental balance has shifted. Death isn't something to be avoided at all costs but, an inevitable part of the struggle. Failure, of a sort, is expected.

You die in a Strike: no big deal, you'll be back in 30 seconds anyway. Your teammates needn't get to a safe place like in Halo so you can spawn on them - you'll go back to a safe spot anyway. If you all die, you only go back a checkpoint in certain darkness zones and you still keep all your XP and ammo. Defeat is simply the addition of time, to a task you never asked for, but The Traveller imposed (spoiler: you are the Flood).

The measure of skill in Destiny isn't simply 'success', but the volume and potency of it.

Supers, grenades and power-melees all recharge. But are you going to get 1 cheap kill with your Super, or wipe out their entire team with it? Do you stomp on one noob rushing your defence, or use it to secure the crucial 2nd objective?

Everyone will get one Super every few minutes, anyway, but are you going to be the one getting it every 60 seconds? Are you generating Orbs of Light left and right for your team in a glorious synergy of death? Do you get grenades every 30 seconds, or every 10 because you've optimised your armour set up?

Do you pick up the heavy ammo alone and get a few easy rocket kills, or is your entire team with you, all getting Heavy Ammo, and using it to wipe the enemy team several times? Do you sacrifice your team's positioning momentarily to secure all that extra heavy ammo and then push forward again?

In Halo Slayer, getting a mutual melee kill usually wasn't that great for anyone. But in Destiny Control, if you have 2 (or more) control zones, a mutual kill still puts you further ahead (by 50 or even 200 points). It's a perfectly valid move for you, and a bad result for your opponent's team. Unless it's to secure something bigger.

A Fallen Captain will still go down if you just hit it with your scout rifle over and over, but if a single Arc Sniper headshot puts it down, why aren't you doing that?

Sure, any scruffy band of noobs can struggle through the Devil's Lair Strike in 45 minutes. But can they become an elite death squad and rip through it in 10 minutes?

I'm not entirely sure yet, but it looks like one of the best ways to get XP and gear (if you're into that sort of thing) will be by going hard and fast and getting end-of-level XP and gear bonuses.

For PvP, I'm not even sure skill matching was turned on in the Beta - if you thought you were stomping on everyone, it's quite possible they really were newbies and you haven't met your match yet.

So, every new Guardian is a useful addition, but some Guardians are more useful than others.

You've got something of a mix of story and gameplay here, but you're largely right.

In story we certainly have "we've all been dead before" and Bungie has done a very fine job of integrating respawning directly into the story. In Halo, the Master Chief died hundreds of times at my hands, the story just never acknowledged it. In Destiny it does which I think it very neat and clever. This embracing of player death raises quite a few questions like: "Just how far does the Traveler’s light go in healing before it becomes more reasonable to just ‘kill’ the Guardian and have the Ghost revive them?"

At the same time we already know of a minimum of 6+ Guardians who did suffer permanent death. There's the Guardian whose crashed ship we investigated in the first mission, the "fireteam" of Guardians whose Ghosts we had to find for codes to the array (and the game made you find at least three Ghosts), the dead Guardian on the Moon, and the dead Guardians you and the Exo Stranger find on what kinda appears to be the reef via previewed cutscene. The quote there is something like "...many Guardians fell here... strong ones..." Perhaps there is a rule we aren't completely aware of yet? In story, surely the enemy can just shoot a Ghost that's holding onto a dead Guardian killing both, right?

On the gameplay front, I treat a fireteam's complete wipe as not supported by the story. To me, it then becomes like the infinite respawning Master Chief. Something to be ignored for the sake of gameplay. I wouldn't mind a checkbox somewhere enabling a Strict Mode where my Guardian's complete wipe meant permanent death for that character, but I'm not sure how many others would go for it.

In multiplayer, yes, some of the dynamic has changed from Halo, but there are two things worth pointing out. First, while Supers are powerful, their possible kill spread ranges from zero to several enemies. I think it's important to combat this notion that Supers are automatic kill switches when they aren't. I think as we become better at PVP and as we unlock additional abilities of our Guardians (the Hunter's Blink in particular) Supers will need to be used with more and more care. Second, it's important to remember that Control is only one of Destiny's potentially many gametypes. I liked it and thought it was a good variation on territories and king of the hill, but there's no way it's the only gametype, and Bungie has said as much, in the IGN First map previews for instance. This is not to reduce your points about teamwork during Control though. Those were good. :)

TL/DR: Destiny is about maximising effectiveness and optimisation rather than being able to have any effect at all.

And most of that optimization revolves around… GEAR.

I think overall I would have liked to see each fireteam have a pool of lives they could use to respawn with. When the darkness encroaches and you run out of lives, then you can;t be revived and if everyone dies you wipe the encounter completely, rather than go back a checkpoint.

Almost like an arcade game and a game over.

It's a bit like a game over as the end of mission stats come up. But I agree, at least kick us back to the beginning of the mission.

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I think overall I would have liked to see each fireteam have a pool of lives they could use to respawn with. When the darkness encroaches and you run out of lives, then you can;t be revived and if everyone dies you wipe the encounter completely, rather than go back a checkpoint.

Almost like an arcade game and a game over.

Just leveling up the enemies can't be the only change if it get's a name change, right?

EDIT: Nightfall => Darkness falling etc.

I think overall I would have liked to see each fireteam have a pool of lives they could use to respawn with. When the darkness encroaches and you run out of lives, then you can;t be revived and if everyone dies you wipe the encounter completely, rather than go back a checkpoint.

This sounds like a horrible idea to me.

So, you struggle your way through to near completion but narrowly fail: the consequence of which is you have to start again from the beginning? Imagine how that will make most players feel: pretty pissed off. When you nurture such feelings in your players you will inevitably encourage toxic behaviour between players; witness how League of Legends (and the MOBA genre in general) is so hostile to new players since nobody wants to fail because of somebody else's relative lack of experience.

Almost like an arcade game and a game over.

Arcade games are designed to maximise revenue by imposing arbitrary difficulty levels that encourage repeatedly inserting coins. That is not a good gameplay mechanic for a game you've already paid for.

Now, I think having challenging difficulty levels for gameplay should exist, but I disagree with RC's fundamental assumption that success is inevitable. I've seen firsthand what happens if a team can't progress well enough in encounters in WoW: eventually players drop out for one reason or another (either they've run out of time, or they feel they'd have a better shot at success if they queued for a new team). Having 'infinite lives' doesn't necessarily matter, because there is always one finite resource: time.

There are lots of other things you can do to make encounters more challenging for the highest-skilled players. Bonus rewards that are tied to defeating the whole strike within a time limit is one, more difficult encounters for the same player level is another. I'm sure we'll see both of these and more in the final game.

If the Strike we had is of any indicative, they are broken into multiple Darkness (the Darkness!) zones. You could have a system where, if you fail after the first one, you get some loot. If you fail after the second, more/better loot. And so on. Wouldn't that be nice?

Like with the tiering on public events? I could see them applying that across the board.

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Like with the tiering on public events? I could see them applying that across the board.

Has anyone actually gotten 2 stars in a public event? if so how?

Got Gold Tier several times, all with myself and two other participants, all at lvl 8.

Not sure about what you mean by stars, but I got Gold almost every time, Silver I think twice, and Bronze once. Gold is obvious. Silver appeared to be coming damn close to achieving an objective but blowing it at the end. The only Bronze I got was when there was this sad lonely random battling out a public event on his own, my buddies and I showed up, but the timer ran out practically the moment we entered, so it threw us a Bronze for really doing nothing other than showing up.

The measure of skill in Destiny isn't simply 'success', but the volume and potency of it.

Supers, grenades and power-melees all recharge. But are you going to get 1 cheap kill with your Super, or wipe out their entire team with it? Do you stomp on one noob rushing your defence, or use it to secure the crucial 2nd objective?

Everyone will get one Super every few minutes, anyway, but are you going to be the one getting it every 60 seconds? Are you generating Orbs of Light left and right for your team in a glorious synergy of death? Do you get grenades every 30 seconds, or every 10 because you've optimised your armour set up?

Do you pick up the heavy ammo alone and get a few easy rocket kills, or is your entire team with you, all getting Heavy Ammo, and using it to wipe the enemy team several times? Do you sacrifice your team's positioning momentarily to secure all that extra heavy ammo and then push forward again?

In Halo Slayer, getting a mutual melee kill usually wasn't that great for anyone. But in Destiny Control, if you have 2 (or more) control zones, a mutual kill still puts you further ahead (by 50 or even 200 points). It's a perfectly valid move for you, and a bad result for your opponent's team. Unless it's to secure something bigger.

A Fallen Captain will still go down if you just hit it with your scout rifle over and over, but if a single Arc Sniper headshot puts it down, why aren't you doing that?

Sure, any scruffy band of noobs can struggle through the Devil's Lair Strike in 45 minutes. But can they become an elite death squad and rip through it in 10 minutes?

Wow. Incredibly well-stated. This perfectly describes the magic of Destiny. Your post both (a) illustrates that skill and strategy are not missing in Destiny, only that the form of strategy and skill is changed (for the better if you ask me), and (b) inspires me to be more badass.

The events with the super tough enemies, like a Captain, going from checkpoint to checkpoint were hard to get full gold on.

Silver appeared to be coming damn close to achieving an objective but blowing it at the end.

Pretty much this. Got that once or twice on the Devil Walker when backup didn't really show up until there was only maybe a minute left.

I do like the idea of tiered rewards, but I feel like (as opposed to a firefight, say) there is more scope for strikes being used to advance the story of Destiny. With this in mind, I wouldn't be quite so keen to make non-completion a common occurrence. It might work better to always allow teams to complete each strike (i.e. infinite lives, since the time a fireteam has to complete a strike together is the de facto constraint), but instead give the bronze/silver/gold reward ranking once you complete, based on how quickly/efficiently you can complete it.

World of Warcraft has a similar concept for timed dungeon runs, where you can win exclusive cosmetic item upgrades. The important distinction there is that it normalises* gear to a set maximum level, so as to prevent players making it easier with better gear. Ultimately I have to wonder if Destiny wouldn't need something similar to ensure that max-level challenges can stay the same relative difficulty even after better gear becomes available.

*incidentally, this is one of the many reasons why it's inaccurate to say that games like WoW are more about gear than skill.

You've got something of a mix of story and gameplay here, but you're largely right.

Well the story is really just there to reinforce the gameplay, right? :P

At the same time we already know of a minimum of 6+ Guardians who did suffer permanent death. [...] Perhaps there is a rule we aren't completely aware of yet?

Yes, guardian perma-death seems like it'll be a recurring plot-point. Perhaps there are pockets were The Darkness is too strong for the Ghosts?

On the gameplay front, I treat a fireteam's complete wipe as not supported by the story. To me, it then becomes like the infinite respawning Master Chief. Something to be ignored for the sake of gameplay.

Is it though? For an entity that can bring people back from the dead, can make it rain on Mars, can make Venus a garden world, can make enormous structures fly through space and float without any visible means of propulsion... is it inconceivable that it's magical power extends to time and space? Maybe the private areas of the world that different guardians see are shards of the same universe, replicated by the powers of Light and Darkness clashing against one another.

When a fireteam wipes out, the Light pulls them back to a safe point in time. The Travellers power isn't infinite, merely very large.

I wouldn't mind a checkbox somewhere enabling a Strict Mode where my Guardian's complete wipe meant permanent death for that character, but I'm not sure how many others would go for it.

One life for the entire game? Why would anyone do that?

First, while Supers are powerful, their possible kill spread ranges from zero to several enemies. I think it's important to combat this notion that Supers are automatic kill switches when they aren't. I think as we become better at PVP and as we unlock additional abilities of our Guardians (the Hunter's Blink in particular) Supers will need to be used with more and more care.

Very true. One of them has a bubble-shield super as well.

Second, it's important to remember that Control is only one of Destiny's potentially many gametypes.

I know, I just have no idea what the other gametypes are like. I think it's safe to say the Control is indicative of the general direction of gametypes in Destiny compared to Halo's more 'pure' approach.

Like with the tiering on public events? I could see them applying that across the board.

Has anyone actually gotten 2 stars in a public event? if so how?

I've revived gold and have been able to predict what I'm going to get multiple times.
Most cases are three tiers. Bronze is latter of silver which is completing an objective half way. You beat the objective - you get gold.

That's how it seemed in the beta any way.

One life for the entire game? Why would anyone do that?

No, not one life. Normal respawning and reviving as it is now except if you manage to all die in a darkness area. And by all means give players that do this extra loot, experience, rare emblems, etc for playing this way. A fireteam that could beat the story, strikes, and raids with this option enabled would be pretty legendary. :)

I got a bronze once when I foolishly engaged in the "Take down the Target" (Reaver Captain) public event by myself. there was no way I could make a dent in that guy alone when I was at a really low level.

Make it so that you do not respawn automatically. The only way is if someone revives you. You could have unlimited respawns that way, and the tension would be in finding a way to safely revive your team mates without yourself dying.

Make it so that you do not respawn automatically. The only way is if someone revives you. You could have unlimited respawns that way, and the tension would be in finding a way to safely revive your team mates without yourself dying.

Another alternative is just stick with the Halo method of waiting for a fire team member to be in a relatively safe space before you can auto-respawn. At any rate, the current system feels a bit cheap or at least the timer is way too lenient. The stakes need to higher than they currently are.

Make it so that you do not respawn automatically. The only way is if someone revives you. You could have unlimited respawns that way, and the tension would be in finding a way to safely revive your team mates without yourself dying.

That's an appropriate solution. It ups the stakes without being overly punitive.

Remember when pete (?) was sick and tired of his fireteam constant dying from inability and simply gave up on actively respawning them?

Yeah, pete is one of our nice guys. Imagine your usual randy...

That aside, I like your suggestion. Taking into account that the lack of voice-chat unless in the same actual fireteam, I guess it wouldn't be much worse.

Remember when pete (?) was sick and tired of his fireteam constant dying from inability and simply gave up on actively respawning them?

Yeah, pete is one of our nice guys. Imagine your usual randy...

That aside, I like your suggestion. Taking into account that the lack of voice-chat unless in the same actual fireteam, I guess it wouldn't be much worse.

In my defense, I knew they would revive automatically--that was a factor. There was also the laziness factor and the proximity to a Devil Walker function, along with the Why Were You Standing There qualifier.

Right. The spider tank portion wasn't overly hectic if everyone knew what they were doing.

Of course in a more tense situation keeping everyone alive might be more important. I look forward to strikes and raids where we do need to scramble to revive each other! :)

TL/DR: Destiny is about maximising effectiveness and optimisation rather than being able to have any effect at all.

This is perhaps one of the biggest changes to core direction from Halo, and it's catching some people out who are used to harsher realities.

In Halo, you were THE Master Chief, special because you were lucky, because you were one of the few that had survived. But Spartans never died, of course, they were only Missing-In-Action. Almost mythical, rare fighters that turned the tides of enormous battles on their own.

In Destiny, each Ghost is still a precious, limited resource, but an individual Guardian life is cheap. It's just a few seconds before you're back to killing. Guardians are super-hero undead. They've all experienced death before and will again - many, many times. Each individual Guardian is not the heroic saviour of all of humanity, but part of a legion of the undead, fighting collectively against The Darkness. You share the world and the glorious quest with many other Guardians.

The fundamental balance has shifted. Death isn't something to be avoided at all costs but, an inevitable part of the struggle. Failure, of a sort, is expected.

You die in a Strike: no big deal, you'll be back in 30 seconds anyway. Your teammates needn't get to a safe place like in Halo so you can spawn on them - you'll go back to a safe spot anyway. If you all die, you only go back a checkpoint in certain darkness zones and you still keep all your XP and ammo. Defeat is simply the addition of time, to a task you never asked for, but The Traveller imposed (spoiler: you are the Flood).

The measure of skill in Destiny isn't simply 'success', but the volume and potency of it.

This all sounds like gameplay serving story. That's completely backward. The most important part of a videogame is gameplay. A game isn't good with shitty gameplay and an amazing story. It can be decent, however, with amazing gameplay and a shitty story.

What you're basically saying here, is that there is no challenge in beating Destiny. The challenge is in speedrunning it. So what? I can speed run any game, what's your point?

Supers, grenades and power-melees all recharge. But are you going to get 1 cheap kill with your Super, or wipe out their entire team with it?

So, am I going to get one cheap kill, or six cheap kills? Neither seems fair.

Do you stomp on one noob rushing your defence, or use it to secure the crucial 2nd objective?

Or, knowing someone could be camping there with their super ready, do I even risk going to the second objective?

Everyone will get one Super every few minutes, anyway, but are you going to be the one getting it every 60 seconds? Are you generating Orbs of Light left and right for your team in a glorious synergy of death?

So you're saying here that you could use them well, or you could use them not so well. I don't see how that's a defense of supers. It could apply to anything in multiplayer.

My suggestion for supers is to have them picked up on the map, one in play at all times. Whoever has it has a waypoint above their head, visible to all (if friendly, the waypoint is green. If not, red). They have thirty seconds (or whatever, just spitballing here) to use it, or they lose it and a new one spawns. If they die, they don't lose it, but they'll still have a waypoint above their head.

This will help to keep people moving. People will want that super because it could esily turn the tide in the battle for that second objective. Adds a new layer of strategy, too. If you get the super, you can hold it so the other team(s) can't have it, but they'll know where you are on account of the waypoint. You'd have to remember how long you've had it, too. Or risk wasting it.

Doesn't that sound better, if not good?

Do you get grenades every 30 seconds, or every 10 because you've optimised your armour set up?

Real question, is that actually a thing?

Do you pick up the heavy ammo alone and get a few easy rocket kills, or is your entire team with you, all getting Heavy Ammo, and using it to wipe the enemy team several times? Do you sacrifice your team's positioning momentarily to secure all that extra heavy ammo and then push forward again?

I didn't touch on this, but I should have. Whoever holds X to pick up the ammo should be the only one to get any. They fought for it, they got there first, they won the prize. I didn't see it happen, but I can imagine a team of six people with loaded rocket launchers just annihilating the enemy team.

Can you imagine if that was how it worked in Halo? The enemy team were all gathered around the guy who picked up rockets, so now they all get rockets? Would anybody be okay with that?

At least Heavy ammo is lost when you're killed. That's a good move.

In Halo Slayer, getting a mutual melee kill usually wasn't that great for anyone.

That would depend on many factors.

But in Destiny Control, if you have 2 (or more) control zones, a mutual kill still puts you further ahead (by 50 or even 200 points). It's a perfectly valid move for you, and a bad result for your opponent's team. Unless it's to secure something bigger.

Can't really argue with that, not that I want to. It's just good strategy.

A Fallen Captain will still go down if you just hit it with your scout rifle over and over, but if a single Arc Sniper headshot puts it down, why aren't you doing that?

I am doing that. Every single time. I can always have the gun I want, so every enemy is just shot in the head. Scout rifle for weaker ones, sniper for the tougher ones. It gets pretty repetitive.

"Just use a different gun!"

So I have to create any variance, because the game doesn't provide any on its own? Why would I want to switch, anyway? The scout rifle/sniper combo is far and away the most effective in any situation (yes even close quarters. No scope!). Not good design.

Sure, any scruffy band of noobs can struggle through the Devil's Lair Strike in 45 minutes. But can they become an elite death squad and rip through it in 10 minutes?

Sure, through grinding for better weapons that do more damage per shot to leg/eyeball. Not through experience and mastering counters for all of the bosses' moves. The bosses don't have any moves, other than shooting at you. The tank stays in one place the entire fifteen minutes you fight it. Sepiks will teleport. Okay, so I just have to find where he went, and continue shooting his eye.

There's no mastering that. If you can do it faster, it's because you have better equipment.

I'm not entirely sure yet, but it looks like one of the best ways to get XP and gear (if you're into that sort of thing) will be by going hard and fast and getting end-of-level XP and gear bonuses.

Seemed to be the fastest way to rank up. Shooting Dregs in Explore were only ~15xp each. Completing a mission was in the thousands, and much faster.

For PvP, I'm not even sure skill matching was turned on in the Beta - if you thought you were stomping on everyone, it's quite possible they really were newbies and you haven't met your match yet.

Seemed to work like CoD. Just sets up a match as fast as possible without any skill check.

So, every new Guardian is a useful addition, but some Guardians are more useful than others.

Applies to every shooter.

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The basis of all drama is conflict! Without conflict there is no action; without action there is no character; without character there is no story.
- Syd Field

Without conflict, you might as well pack it in – you are in the wrong field of endeavor. Without conflict, your reader will fall asleep and you will never have to think about having an audience. The ball game is over.
- William Froug

When nothing is at stake, why should I give a shit?
- Bones

. . .

Defeat is simply the addition of time, to a task you never asked for, but The Traveler imposed.

Well, my friend, that's boring as all hell. When the only measure of progression is time, an essentially infinite and meaningless resource, losing but a sliver creates no risk or tension, grants no reward or relief, and eliminates the dramatic impact of failure.

That is, unless you're a speed runner. I'm not really a big fan of being told to do it again, but this time faster.

I can't speak for others, but when I found the only penalty for playing poorly was a longer respawn and a longer walk, I realized that none of my actions mattered and I had no personal investment. There was no drama because there was no conflict because I was always going to win as long as I had more time, which I always did.

Unless I quit out of boredom.

For PvP, I'm not even sure skill matching was turned on in the Beta - if you thought you were stomping on everyone, it's quite possible they really were newbies and you haven't met your match yet.

You know, I haven't heard anything from Bungie that would even imply skill matching would be in PvP. Did I miss something?

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

Hmm yeah to be honest, there isn't much at stake really. If you die, you're simply back again pretty quickly.

I mean, I had mates who wanted to hang way back and just snipe the Devil Walker in the strike. Whenever they ran out of special ammo, they just committed suicide, waited 30 secs and then respawned with a bunch more. It's kind of lame because it just totally removes those clutch moments where you're hanging out for a revive.

The story as well says something about "If you fail, all is lost etc"; thing is, it's very hard to actually fail.

This all sounds like gameplay serving story. That's completely backward.

I'm 100% certain that Destiny's story is subservient to the gameplay. I only used the story points to illustrate the contrast in approach to the design of each series.

So, am I going to get one cheap kill, or six cheap kills? Neither seems fair.

Why is it not fair? Everyone gets one. They get a kill on you, you get 3 kills on them - congrats, you're winning!

Or, knowing someone could be camping there with their super ready, do I even risk going to the second objective?

Up to you!

So you're saying here that you could use them well, or you could use them not so well. I don't see how that's a defense of supers. It could apply to anything in multiplayer.

It's a question of degrees, my friend. That was basically my opening line.

My suggestion for supers is to have them picked up on the map, one in play at all times.[...]
Doesn't that sound better, if not good?

Sounds like you're trying to 'balance' it like Halo. Look at how healthy that game's MP population... wait.

There are other, valid, approaches to creating games. Ones that can maintain continuity between PvP and other areas of the game.

Do you get grenades every 30 seconds, or every 10 because you've optimised your armour set up?

Real question, is that actually a thing?

The numbers aren't accurate, but yes it's a thing. Armour pieces with 'dexterity' reduced your grenade cooldown and armour pieces with 'strength' reduced your melee cooldown. Armour pieces that have 'intellect' can reduce your super cooldown too - but there were no such pieces available in the Beta.

I didn't touch on [heavy ammo], but I should have. Whoever holds X to pick up the ammo should be the only one to get any. They fought for it, they got there first, they won the prize.

A team fights for the map control that would allow a player to go pick it up undisturbed. If a team, working together, is willing to contract their presence for more Heavy ammo, that is their reward.

I didn't see it happen, but I can imagine a team of six people with loaded rocket launchers just annihilating the enemy team.

Therefore, there is obviously some skill, or knowledge, or coordination, or risk in getting that to happen in the first place, right? The possible annihilation that ensues is the reward - as long as you don't die before you use it!

Can you imagine if that was how it worked in Halo?

Destiny =/= Halo. The same rules do not apply.

"Just use a different gun!"
So I have to create any variance, because the game doesn't provide any on its own?

The game is giving it to you on a platter rather than forcing it on you. To be honest, Halo multiplayer often reduced to BR, BR, BR, Sniper, BR, BR, BR, Rockets, BR, BR, BR. Just BR if you weren't 'good enough' to grab rockets or sniper.

Why would I want to switch, anyway?

One good reason is this, just a couple of paragraphs above:

It gets pretty repetitive.

Sure, through grinding for better weapons that do more damage per shot to leg/eyeball. [...]
There's no mastering that. If you can do it faster, it's because you have better equipment.

Yes, I'm sure these guys managed to do Devil's Lair in under 11 minutes only because their gear was SOO much better than yours.

That shotgun was such a waste too. Should have no-scoped.

/sarc

*shrugs*

Remember when pete (?) was sick and tired of his fireteam constant dying from inability and simply gave up on actively respawning them?

Yeah, pete is one of our nice guys. Imagine your usual randy...

That aside, I like your suggestion. Taking into account that the lack of voice-chat unless in the same actual fireteam, I guess it wouldn't be much worse.

After Pete clears the area himself, you can spawn as exception to the rule. Staying dead the entire strike if nobody wants to revive you WOULD kind of suck, so that would prevent that.

I can't speak for others, but when I found the only penalty for playing poorly was a longer respawn and a longer walk, I realized that none of my actions mattered and I had no personal investment. There was no drama because there was no conflict because I was always going to win as long as I had more time, which I always did.

I had this covered a year and a half ago :-p

http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=7153

So, when you undertake a challenge in a video game, and you realize punishment exists for failure, then something is now on the line! This enhances the moment to moment pleasure of playing, through tension.

Thinking about punishment enhances the now by increasing tension. Thinking about reward devalues the now since you realize the now is only a stepping stone to get what you really want.

The numbers aren't accurate, but yes it's a thing. Armour pieces with 'dexterity' reduced your grenade cooldown and armour pieces with 'strength' reduced your melee cooldown. Armour pieces that have 'intellect' can reduce your super cooldown too - but there were no such pieces available in the Beta.

One thing that I saw but haven't seen talked about was how much dicipline or strength or dexterity could affect those cooldowns. If you hovered your cursor over the numbers beside each stat you'd get a description of what it affected but below that you'd get a percentage meter. Even at level 8 I was at 100% on my Titan's dexterity. My gut instinct is that the most you can affect those cooldowns is by 100% no matter what gear you have, and no matter what level you are. So, if grenades came back in 30 second by default the fastest you'd ever get is 15 seconds.

Of course, that's not counting what your gun does for you. My shotgun for sure reduced grenade cool down which I thought was neat. It meant if I could defend a point I would be significantly closer to having everything recharged to defend it again next time.

Yes, I'm sure these guys managed to do Devil's Lair in under 11 minutes only because their gear was SOO much better than yours.

That shotgun was such a waste too. Should have no-scoped.

/sarc

*shrugs*

Wow. Having competent team mates that can act as an tactical cohesive group actually seems kind of nice.

I'm going to go back and watch you two converse now.

Even at level 8 I was at 100% on my Titan's dexterity. My gut instinct is that the most you can affect those cooldowns is by 100% no matter what gear you have, and no matter what level you are. So, if grenades came back in 30 second by default the fastest you'd ever get is 15 seconds.

Those numbers were most definitely accelerated for the beta. Good luck getting to 100% in the full game.

Though maybe not. My 100% grenade recharge rate felt just right to me while the 0% boost had me always checking to see if my grenades were back... yet... before I engaged in each battle. But I also never had such a high recharge that I could afford to spam a grenade, even when dying.

And this has been what I've been saying for days, and what Snipe has been saying, and now what Bones is saying, and what you covered a long time ago. Yet there seems to be confusion by this thought process. The thought process is that the game (or at least the Beta) feels like the game/Bungie is handing it all to us because Bungie just wants everyone to feel like they've accomplished something. It doesn't feel like anything requires any real skill. It gets really boring. It's just too easy. There's no real failure or feeling of defeat (mostly in Story mode).

Yes, just a Beta, I know. I seriously hope the actual game provides some real challenges.

Excellent post, Bones. I replied to Cody with why I thought this, but yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. Granted, I'm still way excited for this game and found other ways to entertain myself. I also found that playing with friends really, really helped to make the game a lot more fun and enjoyable. It also absolutely destroys Halo 4 and all of its broken and busted issues, in my opinion. That's always a major plus.

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

Not trying to be mean and strictly playing devil's advocate, but I find it funny that people (in this case, you) are willing to point out things from the past decade or Bungie's previous games, but as soon as someone else compares Destiny to Halo in a way that people don't like, you get Halo =/= Destiny. Lmao.

I get the feeling you all are right about a matchmaking component being in play to try and match up based on skill, but I'm having a very hard time believing it will be in there or that it will work well considering that half of this doesn't take skill. It's all based on gear, how many friends you went in with to coordinate with, and who saw whom first. More luck and timing than anything, really. Or is the skill in being better at seeing someone before they see you, and potentially having better gear? lol

I can't speak for others, but when I found the only penalty for playing poorly was a longer respawn and a longer walk, I realized that none of my actions mattered and I had no personal investment. There was no drama because there was no conflict because I was always going to win as long as I had more time, which I always did.

I had this covered a year and a half ago :-p

http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=7153

So, when you undertake a challenge in a video game, and you realize punishment exists for failure, then something is now on the line! This enhances the moment to moment pleasure of playing, through tension.

Thinking about punishment enhances the now by increasing tension. Thinking about reward devalues the now since you realize the now is only a stepping stone to get what you really want.

Time as a punishment, is still putting an investment on the line. Running out of lives or running out of (personal)time can have exactly the same result. Failure.

If I go into a Strike or Raid with my buddies, there isn't a guarantee we will succeed. No matter how often we iterate through respawning near or far from the activity, eventually we will run out of time. Some games use deaths limits as the final trigger for failure but restarting is always an option and therefore time is the final penalty.

The 30 second respawn can incur additional penalties that seem to be missing from the discussion. At times you do have to fight your way back to the Boss. I found it to be quite motivating by encouraging me to play smarter against the Boss.

The quality of time spent pummelling enemies is important and hopefully Bungie will have done its job in that area.

Why is it not fair? Everyone gets one. They get a kill on you, you get 3 kills on them - congrats, you're winning!

It doesn't feel fair because they didn't earn it. Things that instantly kill should come with some risk/reward factor. It was given to them, or myself, without doing anything. They could earn it faster through killing, but that actually makes it worse, since there's no way to predict when they might have it again.

It's just like the boltshot in H4. You can choose to start with what is basically a shotgun, only it's given to you free. Getting killed by it feels cheap, since they didn't have to do anything to get it.

Sounds like you're trying to 'balance' it like Halo.

Why Halo? There are many games that make you earn power weapons. That isn't exclusive to Halo.

Look at how healthy that game's MP population... wait.

You mean after 343 (and to a lesser extent, Bungie) ruined it by trying to make it more accessible to new players, kinda like Destiny? Yeah, that Halo is shit, and it's struggling to maintain a player count in the low thousands.

Yet back when Halo had fair starts for all, it was the king. Wonder why that was? (Not that a large population means it's a good game. I mean, CoD is the king now, and that game is terrible.)

Thanks for helping prove my points! :P

There are other, valid, approaches to creating games. Ones that can maintain continuity between PvP and other areas of the game.

Why is that necessary? PvP and PvE are supposed to be different. Why should they operate by the same mechanics? Computer enemies aren't going to care if you kill them in a cheap way. Real people will be frustrated, though. Why not make it balanced for campaign in campaign, and balanced for multiplayer in multiplayer?

The numbers aren't accurate, but yes it's a thing. Armour pieces with 'dexterity' reduced your grenade cooldown and armour pieces with 'strength' reduced your melee cooldown. Armour pieces that have 'intellect' can reduce your super cooldown too - but there were no such pieces available in the Beta.

So you'll have an advantage in multiplayer, because the random loot generator decided you needed a chest peice that let's you get grenades faster, but I didn't.

How innovative.

A team fights for the map control that would allow a player to go pick it up undisturbed. If a team, working together, is willing to contract their presence for more Heavy ammo, that is their reward.
Therefore, there is obviously some skill, or knowledge, or coordination, or risk in getting that to happen in the first place, right? The possible annihilation that ensues is the reward - as long as you don't die before you use it!

Yes, coordination, which will never happen with a group of randoms because they can't speak to each other.

To the point, I can't really disagree. There's a point where the reward is too much, though. Six rocketeers would be unstoppable. If there's only one guy that gets the ammo, then he can only do so much damage. The other team has a chance to come back and win the war, despite losing the battle for ammo.

The game is giving it to you on a platter rather than forcing it on you. To be honest, Halo multiplayer often reduced to BR, BR, BR, Sniper, BR, BR, BR, Rockets, BR, BR, BR. Just BR if you weren't 'good enough' to grab rockets or sniper.

That was reffering to PvE. Halo's one gun to rule them all is something I'm not okay with either, but it's not what I'm talking about at the moment.

Why would I want to switch, anyway?

One good reason is this, just a couple of paragraphs above:

It gets pretty repetitive.

So to switch it up, I must limit my effectiveness. Got it... wait. Didn't you say the game is about maximizing effectiveness? I don't get it.

Yes, I'm sure these guys managed to do Devil's Lair in under 11 minutes only because their gear was SOO much better than yours.

I'll bet the strike didn't take them 45 minutes on their first playthrough, though. They aren't the noobs you mentioned in your first post. Those guys and the noobs are only going to get faster through better equipment (and terrain knowledge, but that goes without saying). They can't get better at learning the bosses' tactics, or find new strategies to take him down faster. The bosses have no tactics, and the only strategy is to shoot their weak points until they die. That's boring as hell, and unimaginative.

That shotgun was such a waste too. Should have no-scoped.

/sarc

Could have no-scoped. The sniper can do the shotgun's job, but the shotgun can't do the sniper's. That's why sniper is on a much higher tier, and why, given the choice, I'll always pick it over shotgun.

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

Not trying to be mean and strictly playing devil's advocate, but I find it funny that people (in this case, you) are willing to point out things from the past decade or Bungie's previous games, but as soon as someone else compares Destiny to Halo in a way that people don't like, you get Halo =/= Destiny. Lmao.

Let's solve this quick if you're going to laugh your ass off at me. :/

BWU 3/14/2014:

Larsa 83 How will the matchmaking work in Destiny competitive multiplayer? For example, some first time gamers playing multiplayer in Destiny and are matched against, say a clan of very skilled players that knows every corner of the map and wins easy. That would ruin my multiplayer experience if I get into a game like that. I like close games where every kill counts and all players are somewhat equal in their skill level.

Bungie: If you like those moments when you get to tie the leader, you’re in luck. Bungie likes a good, close match, too. Don’t take it from me. Listen to Design Lead Lars Bakken tell you about his work.

“We agree that the best matches are the ones that are the closest. With that in mind, we match players in Destiny based on their performance. Not every game will be neck and neck (as human players have a tendency to get better over time and can have random spiky games), but we’re going to do our best to match you with other players of a similar skill.”

So matchmaking itself is in. Period. Unless we want to go down the is Bungie lying trail.

Or is the skill in being better at seeing someone before they see you, and potentially having better gear? lol

Now, let's talk about skill. Basically, I'm getting pretty darn tired of some people's limited definition of skill. Here's what skill is to me in Destiny. It comes in two parts:

1. Can I kill you more than you can kill me?
2. Can my team beat your team?

That's it. Two very short sentences. But they include aiming, positioning, map control, vehicle coordination, camping, correct weapon usage, correct gear usage, grenades, double jumps, retreating, getting the most points out of a Super, and anything else that helps me and my team win at Destiny that isn't cheating or unsportsmanlike conduct like trash talking or teabagging.

In your quote above your definition of skill cuts out seeing someone first. Why? You cut out gear. Why? Earlier, others cut out thing like using a Sparrow to advance on snipers. Why? Or having a team make best use of Heavy ammo. Why? Or Supers. Why? I think, at least as a general rule, the more someone's definition of skill cuts out of a game the less correct their version of is when talking about that game. You or anyone else is going to have to work pretty darn hard and have some good, conclusive evidence to show a gameplay feature doesn't work well before I start pulling back on my definition of skill.

Though maybe not. My 100% grenade recharge rate felt just right to me while the 0% boost had me always checking to see if my grenades were back... yet... before I engaged in each battle. But I also never had such a high recharge that I could afford to spam a grenade, even when dying.

The affect of that on your discipline (for example) also decreases as you level up. I noticed the numbers lower (and some people on reddit did also) as you level up with no changes to your armor.

You mean after 343 (and to a lesser extent, Bungie) ruined it by trying to make it more accessible to new players, kinda like Destiny? Yeah, that Halo is shit, and it's struggling to maintain a player count in the low thousands.

Uh, if anything it seems that Destiny is MORE unforgiving to new players, since map knowledge is so crucial given the importance of sight lines and positioning.

The numbers aren't accurate, but yes it's a thing. Armour pieces with 'dexterity' reduced your grenade cooldown and armour pieces with 'strength' reduced your melee cooldown. Armour pieces that have 'intellect' can reduce your super cooldown too - but there were no such pieces available in the Beta.

One thing that I saw but haven't seen talked about was how much dicipline or strength or dexterity could affect those cooldowns. If you hovered your cursor over the numbers beside each stat you'd get a description of what it affected but below that you'd get a percentage meter. Even at level 8 I was at 100% on my Titan's dexterity. My gut instinct is that the most you can affect those cooldowns is by 100% no matter what gear you have, and no matter what level you are. So, if grenades came back in 30 second by default the fastest you'd ever get is 15 seconds.

Of course, that's not counting what your gun does for you. My shotgun for sure reduced grenade cool down which I thought was neat. It meant if I could defend a point I would be significantly closer to having everything recharged to defend it again next time.

DattoDoesDestiny posted a really good breakdown if how it all worked (in the beta at least):

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

Not trying to be mean and strictly playing devil's advocate, but I find it funny that people (in this case, you) are willing to point out things from the past decade or Bungie's previous games, but as soon as someone else compares Destiny to Halo in a way that people don't like, you get Halo =/= Destiny. Lmao.

Let's solve this quick if you're going to laugh your ass off at me. :/

I'm not laughing at you personally at all, and I'm sorry if I upset you. I'm laughing at the majority consensus of "Halo =/= Destiny" being considered a valid point for some reason when it absolutely isn't. Your comparison was completely valid as far as I'm concerned, and so are negative comparisons of Halo vs. Destiny. Same applies for Destiny vs. Other FPS Games.

BWU 3/14/2014:

Larsa 83 How will the matchmaking work in Destiny competitive multiplayer? For example, some first time gamers playing multiplayer in Destiny and are matched against, say a clan of very skilled players that knows every corner of the map and wins easy. That would ruin my multiplayer experience if I get into a game like that. I like close games where every kill counts and all players are somewhat equal in their skill level.

Bungie: If you like those moments when you get to tie the leader, you’re in luck. Bungie likes a good, close match, too. Don’t take it from me. Listen to Design Lead Lars Bakken tell you about his work.

“We agree that the best matches are the ones that are the closest. With that in mind, we match players in Destiny based on their performance. Not every game will be neck and neck (as human players have a tendency to get better over time and can have random spiky games), but we’re going to do our best to match you with other players of a similar skill.”

So matchmaking itself is in. Period. Unless we want to go down the is Bungie lying trail.

They're not lying. This is an area where Destiny gameplay is so far different from Halo gameplay that I'm having a hard time picturing how this is really going to work. Ranked in Halo worked a hell of a lot better than in Social, but they also experienced many problems in Ranked. Social playlists seem to have no real coherent matchmaking system in any of the Halo games when it comes to matching for skill.

Then there's my argument that Destiny seems to throw skill and balance largely out the window. This game is absolutely not Halo in that respect. I'm very, very skeptical at the thought of a system that will actually find some meaningful way to balance teams or individual players in Destiny. I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong come launch, though.

Or is the skill in being better at seeing someone before they see you, and potentially having better gear? lol

Now, let's talk about skill. Basically, I'm getting pretty darn tired of some people's limited definition of skill. Here's what skill is to me in Destiny. It comes in two parts:

1. Can I kill you more than you can kill me?
2. Can my team beat your team?

That's it. Two very short sentences. But they include aiming, positioning, map control, vehicle coordination, camping, correct weapon usage, correct gear usage, grenades, double jumps, retreating, getting the most points out of a Super, and anything else that helps me and my team win at Destiny that isn't cheating or unsportsmanlike conduct like trash talking or teabagging.

Well to start with #1 (and this will leak into #2), assuming that you and I and our teams are on an identical level of experience gained via Story/Explore/Crucible play and access to gear, yes, you may be able to. Will this have anything to do with your own skill? So to touch on your elaborations:

Aiming. Maybe you see me first and my teammates first. You get those shots off first. Unlike Halo or many other shooters, there's no real hopes for escape and no way to strafe you. This falls into Call of Duty territory now. I'm dead. You win. Your Super is powering up faster.

Positioning and map control I'll call the same thing. We'll pretend this is the Beta still and we're talking about the Moon and Venus. You have B and C. That's all you need to spawn camp and control the tunnels/center depending on which map. Trust me. I and my team did it PLENTY. We may be completely even, but you have us pretty screwed for the rest fo the game barring a really heroic and lucky effort. Camping applies to this as well. Camp C with a sniper rifle on Venus, bye bye people who come in. Camp center tunnels on Venus with a shotgun, bye bye people who come in. I could go on, but nah. The same applied to the Earth map, btw. The Mars map was the only one that seemed to really fluctuate.

Now as for gear and weapon usage, you just threw in something arbitrary and unrelated to skill. If we're implying that my gear or weapon is better than yours, that has nothing to do with me. But you're saying I have to aim it, right? That's true in all shooters. It's a shooter. Destiny doesn't work like a lot of shooters or even Halo in that you really gotta get that BR up and land those headshots if you want to win. In lots of shooters, you can get the jump on me, start shooting and hitting me, and I can turn around, get my exquisite strafe going, and still end up the victor. I don't think I ever pulled that off in Destiny (and people DEFINITELY weren't pulling it off against me).

Retreating can take some skill, I'll give you that. It's tough considering how fast you die in Destiny, but yeah. It's actually easier to escape in CoD than in Destiny.

Double jumps definitely can take skill and be used in skillful ways. Too bad shooting can seriously turn to shit if you're the one doing the double jump. I use it more as survival or quick movement to places or for my Super. Maybe I just lack skill in shooting while doing it?

Getting the most points out of a Super is largely luck. There's no skill in pressing the "Murder Everyone Now" button to either kill the one person who's there, or in pressing it when you were lucky enough to run across a cluster of people standing in a zone trying to capture it. If I hold onto that Super forever hoping for the latter to come true, I may never be presented with that. Absolutely zero skill. Yeah, that's a risk/reward thing, but that risk/reward is based on luck and random timing, not your own skill or actions (I suppose beyond actually landing the super if you find the cluster when in Titan or Warlock. If you miss with that Golden Gun, well yeah, that's on you because you don't even need a direct hit to get the kills with that thing lol).

I play at a very high level in not just Halo or Destiny, but in many, many shooters. Destiny is by far just about the only shooter where I don't feel like I'm doing super well based on my own skill and ability. If anything, the most skill I'll attribute to my kills are my knowledge of the maps and my ability to anticipate how other people will play them (so that I can see them first and be guaranteed my kills). This carries over into map control (hold B and C, who cares about A, and murder them as they come down the narrow directions to try and get to B and C. They're sheep to the slaughter). I rarely used Supers and found myself largely forgetting that I even had them. None of what I'm describing feels truly earned. It's all too easy.

In your quote above your definition of skill cuts out seeing someone first. Why? You cut out gear. Why? Earlier, others cut out thing like using a Sparrow to advance on snipers. Why? Or having a team make best use of Heavy ammo. Why? Or Supers. Why? I think, at least as a general rule, the more someone's definition of skill cuts out of a game the less correct their version of is when talking about that game. You or anyone else is going to have to work pretty darn hard and have some good, conclusive evidence to show a gameplay feature doesn't work well before I start pulling back on my definition of skill.

I think I just covered a ton of this, but yeah. Seeing someone first isn't skill. It's luck. Good thing I happened to be looking in that particular direction (on a map as big as the Moon), or that we have them spawning at A so that really they can only ever come from one of two (maybe three) directions on Venus. Gear is arbitrary and has nothing to do with skill. You got what you got based on what the game randomly provided you. I may or may not have better.

Sparrow didn't exist on any maps except the Moon but sure. Sparrow rocked. Advance on that sniper. I guess that could take skill, so I'll give you that one. The Pike definitely takes skill. Interceptor totally didn't. We'll see what the tweaks do to it.

Supers are cheap, you can earn them by literally just standing around doing nothing all game, and they're also tied to incredibly dumb luck as far as getting kills. I personally don't care about them, and if I get killed by one, oh well. It's just a really lame way to die that, again, really doesn't take any skill in my opinion.

Also, I'm not saying that any of these features should be pulled from the game. I had a lot of fun and definitely kept playing over and over and over again in Crucible. What I'm saying is that a lot of these mechanics don't present a real challenge or make me feel like I've truly earned or won anything in most all of my battles. I had fun playing Crucible in many other ways, primarily with a team. I have fun out-thinking and out-playing my opponents. Destiny has made it beyond obvious that, at least in the Beta, I was going to out-kill them. I wanted to see how many times I could do it before they finally killed me. Or if they'd get me spawn trapped. Or if they'd be better at anticipating my movements.

Destiny gives so many gun and armor options. Even in Iron Banner, I just about only used an auto rifle, shotgun, and LMG. I used a sniper rifle on a few occasions to see if I liked it. I didn't. Same with Scout Rifle. I didn't use the AR that everyone told me to use with endless rate of fire and awesomeness. I largely stuck with an AR that I obtained prior to becoming level 8 that happened to have a slightly higher impact rating. I don't think I ever really paid attention to or cared about armor. I just threw on whatever had a high number. I still won the majority of my battles and games. I don't attribute this to my type of guns or armor (nearly unlimited ammo for ARs and shotguns lol), ability to aim, Supers, or ability to out-shoot someone (since all that comes down to is if I saw you first, and beyond that I'm dead).

I'm also not trying to change your mind. If you had fun and your play style worked for you, then that's awesome. For my style and gameplay, even while winning and really enjoying myself, I couldn't help but feel like I was just going through the motions, trying to find new ways to keep myself entertained because it could get boring and easy. It felt like what I was doing was largely because the game/Bungie wanted me to have an easy time doing it. I didn't really have to learn any special mechanics or how to out-strafe someone or how to duck under their shots or employ some special type of movement or weapon combo. All it seemed that I needed to do was see them first and preferably control how they were spawning. That's it. And I think my Beta stats show how well that worked out for me.

Make it so that you do not respawn automatically. The only way is if someone revives you. You could have unlimited respawns that way, and the tension would be in finding a way to safely revive your team mates without yourself dying.

This would be a cool way of increasing difficulty and encouraging teamwork, but it unfortunately has one major flaw: matchmade teams don't necessarily have players with voice, or indeed any guaranteed level of ability. It's quite feasible that you could die in combat and then your teammates not be able to find you to revive you.

This, I suspect, is one reason why the automatic respawn timer exists. Without this safety net you're back to the same problem of being punished because of the poor player performance of others, and the possibility that it leads to toxic, anti-social behaviour.

For Raids or Strikes that consist solely of fireteam members this could work very well as an increased difficulty level (with concomitant increased reward), though.

Remember when pete (?) was sick and tired of his fireteam constant dying from inability and simply gave up on actively respawning them?

Precisely. If players find themselves angry or annoyed at their matchmade teammates' behaviour, they will find some way of realising that as an in-game punishment. Not reviving them is one way this could play out.

Perma death if timed out waiting for revive, on Legendary game over for Fireteam if anyone goes out.

Loot to show how awesome you are, one for each strike and one for having them all done. A nice hat or cape would be fine.

Don't worry about it Bungie, thats ones free! Well, I guess you already did this in H3 so I guess you can take the credit for it as well.

The story as well says something about "If you fail, all is lost etc"; thing is, it's very hard to actually fail.

So when the City doesn't fall yet, it makes perfect sense! :p

That penalties for dying could just be done behind the scenes?

Very little could be changed, but the feeling of having something at stake could be leveraged just by giving some kind of chance multiplier for better loot.

In a given mission/encounter/Crucible match, what-have-you, there could simply be a multiplier you start with that vastly increases the chance for rare drops. If you die a single time, that multiplier gets cut in half, or even more. The more times you die, the closer to normal whites your loot drops will get.

Given that the game's ultimate rewards are going to be specialized loot, only the very best players that survive (or teams that work extremely well to manage threats) will tend to earn it. I think that's fair.

And forget behind the scenes, even. Some kind of HUD indicator would be a nice reminder of that fragile no-deaths state. And as the deaths rack up, the indicator could change along with the strength of the chance multiplier.

~m

That penalties for dying could just be done behind the scenes?

Very little could be changed, but the feeling of having something at stake could be leveraged just by giving some kind of chance multiplier for better loot.

In a given mission/encounter/Crucible match, what-have-you, there could simply be a multiplier you start with that vastly increases the chance for rare drops. If you die a single time, that multiplier gets cut in half, or even more. The more times you die, the closer to normal whites your loot drops will get.

Given that the game's ultimate rewards are going to be specialized loot, only the very best players that survive (or teams that work extremely well to manage threats) will tend to earn it. I think that's fair.

And forget behind the scenes, even. Some kind of HUD indicator would be a nice reminder of that fragile no-deaths state. And as the deaths rack up, the indicator could change along with the strength of the chance multiplier.

~m

I'm betting that there will be some really amazing bounties tied to not dying.

I love that we're debating how difficult this game will be when we know there are going to be Raids that put us in our place repeatedly alongside end game strikes and nightfall missions.

I love that we're debating how difficult this game will be when we know there are going to be Raids that put us in our place repeatedly alongside end game strikes and nightfall missions.

Yeah, frankly I'm tired of all the grousing this early. There is so much we haven't seen and plenty of time down the road for tweaks and adjustments. We've even been told to expect the game to evolve over time as the player commmunity grows and things come to light that will need to be nerfed or buffed.

Then again, in a few short weeks the volume of complaints will only intensify.

~m

- No text -

I'm betting that there will be some really amazing bounties tied to not dying.

I love that we're debating how difficult this game will be when we know there are going to be Raids that put us in our place repeatedly alongside end game strikes and nightfall missions.

Such is a very safe bet in a form of a guarantee. In the beta, one of the bounties I completed was along the lines of "Gain 9000xp without dying". Don't know if you find that amazing or not, but... well... there you are.

Too bad Bungie.net doesn't show completed bounties. >_>

There has been a big wave of negativity and hand wringing lately. I'm hoping it passes after people get into the full game and see what changes were made since the beta. I'm still very optimistic.

I even thought there was maybe an issue with a Bounty in the Alpha where it was for not dying during a Strike. I managed to survive a few Strikes and never got it, though someone on Bungie.net pointed out that maybe EVERYONE had to survive the Strike and I thought that'd be difficult enough, even that speedrun video in this thread has someone dying.

I'm betting that there will be some really amazing bounties tied to not dying.

I got two pretty sweet bounties for "not dying" stuff; one for XP, the other for melee kills which was rather more challenging. I suspect that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I love that we're debating how difficult this game will be when we know there are going to be Raids that put us in our place repeatedly alongside end game strikes and nightfall missions.

Yep. And yet it happens with so many releases; often enough that it doesn't rile me as much as it used to, more sigh-and-eyeroll than outrage.

-- Steve rather liked what he saw in the Beta, and wonders at those who didn't yet still apparently want to purchase the game.

That subject line is offensive.

Bonus points: Halo-related.

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

It's worth mentioning that there's a distinction between “matchmaking” and a rating/ranking system (such as XBL's TrueSkill). I think it's become common amongst the FPS scene to conflate the two as meaning the same thing (possibly because a lot of the time they come together), but there's two distinct concepts here. The first of these concerns the creation of a group of players to throw into a game together and the second is transparently ranking individual player ability over the course of many games, and using this as one of the criteria when matchmaking.

Destiny uses matchmaking in Strikes, for example (note that the furore over the lack of matchmaking for Raids used that specific term). It also uses it for Crucible, but the question is whether or not it tracks and ranks players behind the scenes somehow, then uses that ranking when matchmaking. I have to imagine it would, because as you say it would be a massive deal if it wasn't (for one thing it would probably make PvP quite unapproachable for FPS newcomers).

They've used the term matchmaking all over the place. Even in the Destiny UI the words beside the Finding Guardians spinner sometimes would say something like Evaluating Guardians. It'd be a massive story if PvP weren't matchmade. It being in seems like a basic part a Bungie game to me for, you know, the past decade...

It's worth mentioning that there's a distinction between “matchmaking” and a rating/ranking system (such as XBL's TrueSkill). I think it's become common amongst the FPS scene to conflate the two as meaning the same thing (possibly because a lot of the time they come together), but there's two distinct concepts here. The first of these concerns the creation of a group of players to throw into a game together and the second is transparently ranking individual player ability over the course of many games, and using this as one of the criteria when matchmaking.

Destiny uses matchmaking in Strikes, for example (note that the furore over the lack of matchmaking for Raids used that specific term). It also uses it for Crucible, but the question is whether or not it tracks and ranks players behind the scenes somehow, then uses that ranking when matchmaking. I have to imagine it would, because as you say it would be a massive deal if it wasn't (for one thing it would probably make PvP quite unapproachable for FPS newcomers).

Edit: I see in your replies above Bungie has confirmed they are indeed tracking and ranking players.

Edit 2: This is a reply, not an edit. Good one, kapowaz.

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I like Penny Arcade.

You crazy kids!

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You mean after 343 (and to a lesser extent, Bungie) ruined it by trying to make it more accessible to new players, kinda like Destiny? Yeah, that Halo is shit, and it's struggling to maintain a player count in the low thousands.

Uh, if anything it seems that Destiny is MORE unforgiving to new players, since map knowledge is so crucial given the importance of sight lines and positioning.

Not to mention the importance of gear and upgrades, and the faster time to kill. Look at how many people here were complaining about getting hosed right off in crucible. Then factor in confusing game modes like Iron Banner where new players don't stand much of a chance. I'm more convinced that the real game doesn't start until level 20.

As am I.

Nothing has changed my enthusiasm.

Do I have suggestions? Sure.

What we've seen so far is right on par with what I think we've come to expect of Bungie, and I'm not the slightest bit disappointed. They've iterated on things that were good in other games and made all of those things better. And the game is gorgeous.

They've certainly made some choices I wouldn't have made, but it's their game. I think our loudest complainers will change their tune eventually, once they appreciate the full depth and breadth of everything on offer. I had an absolute blast in the beta and I can't wait to see more.

That said, I still don't understand all the complaining about Supers. They're what Titans are to Titanfall, after a fashion. A power enhancement that comes up periodically whether you perform well or not; but sooner if you do. Now, granted there is a whole interplay of checks and balances in Titanfall that keep things deep and engaging even when you're not the one in the Titan. I trust we'll see the same sort of things out of the full compliment of Supers. Everything isn't going to be "Press X for Multikill".

~m

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Uh, if anything it seems that Destiny is MORE unforgiving to new players, since map knowledge is so crucial given the importance of sight lines and positioning.

Lolwut? You need to (or at least should) know all of that in Halo. Then you should also know:

Weapon spawns (you spawn with yours in Destiny)

Weapon timers (same)

Trick jumps (jetpack/doublejump makes everywhere a trick jump)

Grenade bounces (I'd give this to Destiny, but every time I tried bouncing a nade, it exploded on the wall or ceiling I tried bouncing off of)

Remember how many shots to kill (I can tell you how many shots every percision weapon took to kill in Halo. Everything in Destiny kills to quickly for that to matter)

Callouts, for randoms. Fireteams can absolutely use them in Destiny, though.(Since you can only talk to people in your fireteam, meaning randoms have no use for them)

There's probably more I can't think of at the moment, but you get the gist of it.

Not having to remember much, or put much effort into a kill, is what makes it more accessible to new or bad players.

-- Steve rather liked what he saw in the Beta, and wonders at those who didn't yet still apparently want to purchase the game.

Welp, that's not Snipe. He's apparently totally not purchasing it.

I also really liked what I saw in the Beta. I liked the majority of it. I absolutely plan on buying it. The point of a Beta and playing it is also to provide feedback and have these fun discussions. I really hope Bungie is reading this thread. My problems are mostly with Crucible, and Crucible absolutely is not the only reason worth buying or not buying this game. Not even close to it. I also found myself enjoying Crucible for a lot of reasons that I covered in my own write-up that go beyond skill.

Just saying, you can not like a lot of things, put an emphasis on it, and still have a great time with everything else! I'm not a big fan of Reach's campaign, but I really enjoy its multiplayer. I have a bunch of friends who absolutely can't stand it when I get them playing Reach matchmaking, but they'd be totally down for campaign and Firefight. Just saying. :P

Nothing after 'weapon spawns' is required at all, imho. Sure, gives you an edge, but required?

Nothing after 'weapon spawns' is required at all, imho. Sure, gives you an edge, but required?

I never said required. I said you should know. Just basically listed stuff that you can use in Halo that doesn't apply to Destiny.

I never said required. I said you should know. Just basically listed stuff that you can use in Halo that doesn't apply to Destiny.

Sorry, I took the word "should" a tad more literal. I get what you mean now.

And this has been what I've been saying for days, and what Snipe has been saying, and now what Bones is saying, and what you covered a long time ago. Yet there seems to be confusion by this thought process. The thought process is that the game (or at least the Beta) feels like the game/Bungie is handing it all to us because Bungie just wants everyone to feel like they've accomplished something. It doesn't feel like anything requires any real skill. It gets really boring. It's just too easy. There's no real failure or feeling of defeat (mostly in Story mode).

Yes, just a Beta, I know. I seriously hope the actual game provides some real challenges.

Beta - yes. It's seems unlikely to me that they'd have a ridiculous challenge in a beta, and that what we got was a pretty vanilla sampling of mission and challenges.

What seems likely to me is that a lot of content will be pretty easy for you guys - but remember, you probably represent the 95th percentile of player skill. I would expect there to be places that are ridiculous, places that are unforgiving and where only the best dare to tread. I expect completion of these to be badges of honor, with brilliant, exclusive swag.

Somewhat like the Vidmaster challenges. Maybe some platforming and speed-runs, maybe some huge number of enemies, or enemies that are terribly difficult in some way. I think the platforming would be relatively easy to deliver, but difficult bosses is another story.

I think we have to wait and see. I know that's hard and people hate it, but...what else can we do?

I never said required. I said you should know. Just basically listed stuff that you can use in Halo that doesn't apply to Destiny.

Sorry, I took the word "should" a tad more literal. I get what you mean now.

That's probably because the Portuguese word for "should" (dever) is the same as for "must". When I was in Brasil, I always that it was strange that there is not a simple way of differentiating between 'dever = tem que fazer, não tem outro opção' and 'dever = tem obrigação a fazer'. In English, "must" has a much heavier amount of obligation than "should", but (at least as far as I have been taught) the Portuguese language doesn't make as much of a distinction.

While I do understand the difference (and we kind of manage to imply the two different meanings by verbal conjugation, though not always successfully), I agree that it must (heh) be swaying me a tad harder than it should (hehe).

What seems likely to me is that a lot of content will be pretty easy for you guys - but remember, you probably represent the 95th percentile of player skill. I would expect there to be places that are ridiculous, places that are unforgiving and where only the best dare to tread. I expect completion of these to be badges of honor, with brilliant, exclusive swag.

But that is why things such as difficulty levels exist. Every story mission in Halo that I undertake I can tailor the challenge to my skill.

In Destiny, it appears that you have to be higher level to tackle the tougher challenges, because of damage reduction as enemies level up. Ten levels up and you do no damage. That means you are stuck trying to get gear with light if you even want to ATTEMPT anything above level 22 or so. Vault of glass is level 27. That means if you are level 20, you have a 70% damage reduction on average to enemies there. The vault of glass is supposed to be the super challenging stuff, so why lock it behind a grind for light gear?

I should not have to earn the right or ability to play on Hard mode. I have a feeling all the really hard stuff is going to be behind a grind wall, rather than just a flip of a difficulty setting.

You should cut that out or else. :)

While I do understand the difference (and we kind of manage to imply the two different meanings by verbal conjugation, though not always successfully), I agree that it must (heh) be swaying me a tad harder than it should (hehe).

Heh, nicely done. I must say, out of all the Brasileiros I have communicated with over the years (both orally and in writing), your English is probably the best.

I kinda cheated, though. I have recently stumbled upon a certificate that attests I've been learning English since I were 2-years old. Like, wth, mom?

Why is it not fair? Everyone gets one. They get a kill on you, you get 3 kills on them - congrats, you're winning!

It doesn't feel fair because they didn't earn it. Things that instantly kill should come with some risk/reward factor. It was given to them, or myself, without doing anything.

I must not be explaining this well. All I can think of saying in response is just repeating myself.

They could earn it faster through killing, but that actually makes it worse, since there's no way to predict when they might have it again.

Reasoning and responding with incomplete information is a common element to games. E.g. you can't see the location of all the players at all times either but, you make a best guess and act anyway.

Yet back when Halo had fair starts for all, it was the king. Wonder why that was?

Largely because it was a good game with matchmaking features that were head and shoulders above the competition. Halo 2 and 3 were absolutely stand-out for their time. By the time Reach came, other games had caught up and began exploring other elements as well.

There are other, valid, approaches to creating games. Ones that can maintain continuity between PvP and other areas of the game.

Why is that necessary? PvP and PvE are supposed to be different.

Yes, the clue is in the names: in one you fight AI, one you fight other people.

Once you start saying it's OK to change mechanics from one mode to another, then you essentially start building 2 different (closely related) games. I can tell you from personal experience it's incredibly frustrating to get good at campaign, then feel like you have to start over from zero in multiplayer. One of the things I liked about Halo was that many of the skills I learned in campaign were applicable to MP.

So you'll have an advantage in multiplayer, because the random loot generator decided you needed a chest peice that let's you get grenades faster, but I didn't.

You will be tripping over dozens of pieces that are roughly equivalent as you play PvE, and having them shoved into your pockets as end-of-level rewards in all modes.

They're not lying. This is an area where Destiny gameplay is so far different from Halo gameplay that I'm having a hard time picturing how this is really going to work. Ranked in Halo worked a hell of a lot better than in Social, but they also experienced many problems in Ranked. Social playlists seem to have no real coherent matchmaking system in any of the Halo games when it comes to matching for skill.

Then there's my argument that Destiny seems to throw skill and balance largely out the window. This game is absolutely not Halo in that respect. I'm very, very skeptical at the thought of a system that will actually find some meaningful way to balance teams or individual players in Destiny. I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong come launch, though.

I don't know. I tended to have decent Halo games with the occasional time where my team won decisively and the times where we got stomped. If Destiny can deliver that much... well that's enough for me. It will be interesting to see what it does with remaking new Guardians and how loot and gear will affect things. I guess I don't see what's so hard with getting a good match. A lot of the same stats that applied in Halo apply in Destiny. Yeah, the game plays a little quicker but it's not like we're moving and reacting so fast that the behind the scenes systems can't keep up. If anything Destiny has more data points it can use to help it match.

Aiming. Maybe you see me first and my teammates first. You get those shots off first. Unlike Halo or many other shooters, there's no real hopes for escape and no way to strafe you. This falls into Call of Duty territory now. I'm dead. You win. Your Super is powering up faster.

It doesn't play that fast. Were there some times I got shot at and could not escape? Sure. But you can die very quickly in Halo as well. I miss the long AR battles of Reach, but disengaging and running away to fight another day seemed a lot more valid to me than you're making it out to be. I got some fun kills by retreating then hiding around a corner, or catching an enemy off guard while he was sprinting after me (since it takes time to reready your weapon after sprinting) or with a knowingly placed grenade.

I may be unintentionally downplaying the kill times slightly, but to me it felt like Halo tactics still worked, except maybe strafing. With most guns in Destiny having good sights and more guns having a decently tight shot spread I would imagine trying to absorb incoming fire is not as valid an option in Destiny as it was in Halo.

Positioning and map control I'll call the same thing. We'll pretend this is the Beta still and we're talking about the Moon and Venus. You have B and C. That's all you need to spawn camp and control the tunnels/center depending on which map. Trust me. I and my team did it PLENTY. We may be completely even, but you have us pretty screwed for the rest fo the game barring a really heroic and lucky effort. Camping applies to this as well. Camp C with a sniper rifle on Venus, bye bye people who come in. Camp center tunnels on Venus with a shotgun, bye bye people who come in. I could go on, but nah. The same applied to the Earth map, btw. The Mars map was the only one that seemed to really fluctuate.

On the larger issue I see positioning as the more personal issue of which way you are facing and where you are standing to best control your next engagement. Map control is more about which points you control. If your team positions people away from the control points to slow and disrupt and flank the enemy. And grabbing or defending the heavy ammo spawns. For the specifics:

How much of the above is actually a problem though? If you can successfully take and defend B and C isn't your reward having an advantage over the other team? I get what you're saying. But at this point I'm just unsure whether this is a map problem, game type problem, or an expected situation of one team not doing as well as the other.

As for the camping on Venus... I'm not so sure I see the problems there. A sniper standing at C is a tough problem sometimes when coming from A, but the solution is approach cautiously and not use the long end of the tunnel if someone has a good position down there. The map gave you two more ways to engage them, the entrance to that section further down near the marsh, or loping around behind them using that circular room. I had a lot of fun nervously watching my motion tracker wondering just where the enemy was going to come from.

Campers in the tunnels? Well, use your motion tracker and be careful in the tunnels. Or don't go in them. People camping is not a new issue. Heck, in Reach a lot of the time people could camp AND be cloaked!

Now as for gear and weapon usage, you just threw in something arbitrary and unrelated to skill. If we're implying that my gear or weapon is better than yours, that has nothing to do with me. But you're saying I have to aim it, right? That's true in all shooters. It's a shooter. Destiny doesn't work like a lot of shooters or even Halo in that you really gotta get that BR up and land those headshots if you want to win. In lots of shooters, you can get the jump on me, start shooting and hitting me, and I can turn around, get my exquisite strafe going, and still end up the victor. I don't think I ever pulled that off in Destiny (and people DEFINITELY weren't pulling it off against me).

I guess I never practiced "exquisite strafing" before. :p Destiny is certainly more about pointing in the correct direction or retreating if you aren't. I also suspect it doesn't support exquisite strafing as well as Halo because of the faster kill times. But, it tells you which way the enemy is coming from so pointing the wrong way is often going to be your fault, barring someone spawning in behind you...

Gear is a bit mixed. Gear usage isn't "skill" in the same sense that aiming is, but finding and equipping the best gear and gun you can is a part of what will make you successful in Destiny. You can have the best aim and response time of anyone ever, but you won't do well if you stay with the default gun and armor. If you were playing other games then sure, you don't have to worry about gear. But you do if you are playing Destiny.

Double jumps definitely can take skill and be used in skillful ways. Too bad shooting can seriously turn to shit if you're the one doing the double jump. I use it more as survival or quick movement to places or for my Super. Maybe I just lack skill in shooting while doing it?

Nah. I can't recall any significant kills I got while in the air. Double jumping for me was all about getting to a good place to shoot, getting from point to point, or part of evasion and retreating. The Warlock, at least, does have one neat perk that suspends them in midair when they aim down the sight which might put an interesting and useful twist on shooting and jumping, but nobody had it in the beta.

Getting the most points out of a Super is largely luck. There's no skill in pressing the "Murder Everyone Now" button to either kill the one person who's there, or in pressing it when you were lucky enough to run across a cluster of people standing in a zone trying to capture it. If I hold onto that Super forever hoping for the latter to come true, I may never be presented with that. Absolutely zero skill. Yeah, that's a risk/reward thing, but that risk/reward is based on luck and random timing, not your own skill or actions (I suppose beyond actually landing the super if you find the cluster when in Titan or Warlock. If you miss with that Golden Gun, well yeah, that's on you because you don't even need a direct hit to get the kills with that thing lol).

First. There was never a "Murder Everyone Now" button. Yes, Supers are powerful, but they miss, they can be used at the wrong time, and you can be killed while trying to use them. Several people now have inflated them to this instant kill, always kill status which is just wrong. The actual kill range of Supers in the beta was ZERO to SIX. Ignoring the zero end is being disingenuous.

Second. Getting more than one kill out of is not so much luck as it is your enemy not playing well. I often stayed off and away from control points while a teammate captured them so I could both provide some forward cover and so I could avoid giving the enemy a double or triple kill. If you were the attacker and could only find one person to super around that control point that's me playing smart, not you being unlucky.

You're treating the lack of a mutikill with a super as some reflection on your ability when really it's much more largely associated with the way the other team plays. I suspect as Destiny goes on people will increasingly do what I did and purposely try and limit the damage a Super, or even just a plain old grenade can do. Further, that's not so different from Halo. In Halo I'd often try and position myself outside of likely grenade miss radius of my teammates so I could move in and respond to an enemy that was expecting damaged opponents. Really, a Super is a kinda like a big grenade...

I play at a very high level in not just Halo or Destiny, but in many, many shooters. Destiny is by far just about the only shooter where I don't feel like I'm doing super well based on my own skill and ability. If anything, the most skill I'll attribute to my kills are my knowledge of the maps and my ability to anticipate how other people will play them (so that I can see them first and be guaranteed my kills). This carries over into map control (hold B and C, who cares about A, and murder them as they come down the narrow directions to try and get to B and C. They're sheep to the slaughter). I rarely used Supers and found myself largely forgetting that I even had them. None of what I'm describing feels truly earned. It's all too easy.

I can't argue with this, but I also can't relate to it. I had fun moment to moment in Destiny's multiplayer except for my first 20 games where I sucked. It was like Halo but faster but with more options for me to use against an enemy. That the self-proclaimed high level players seem to feel this way... well I'm not sure what that means either.

I think I just covered a ton of this, but yeah. Seeing someone first isn't skill. It's luck. Good thing I happened to be looking in that particular direction (on a map as big as the Moon), or that we have them spawning at A so that really they can only ever come from one of two (maybe three) directions on Venus. Gear is arbitrary and has nothing to do with skill. You got what you got based on what the game randomly provided you. I may or may not have better.

Motion tracker and map knowledge largely tell you which way to point. If you own B and and are capturing C on Venus it's probably best to point towards A. Especially if you're tracking motion from that direction. I think seeing someone can be luck, but it's not only and not always luck.

Gear is more complex, yes, but you're going to have to make the case that the game hates you specifically for gear distribution to be much of an issue. The most likely thing is people on the opposing team will have gear similar to yours.

Supers are cheap, you can earn them by literally just standing around doing nothing all game, and they're also tied to incredibly dumb luck as far as getting kills. I personally don't care about them, and if I get killed by one, oh well. It's just a really lame way to die that, again, really doesn't take any skill in my opinion.

Supers take roughly the skill of a rocket launcher. I don't recall rocket launchers being this controversial. That everyone gets a Super means more people get to have fun creating havoc instead of just the people who know the maps and have respawn timers counting down off to the side. Personally, I'd advise you to stop ignoring features of the game you're playing. Supers are a lot of fun to use and I think if you used them instead of ignoring them you'd be a lot more accepting of them.

Destiny gives so many gun and armor options. Even in Iron Banner, I just about only used an auto rifle, shotgun, and LMG. I used a sniper rifle on a few occasions to see if I liked it. I didn't. Same with Scout Rifle. I didn't use the AR that everyone told me to use with endless rate of fire and awesomeness. I largely stuck with an AR that I obtained prior to becoming level 8 that happened to have a slightly higher impact rating. I don't think I ever really paid attention to or cared about armor. I just threw on whatever had a high number. I still won the majority of my battles and games. I don't attribute this to my type of guns or armor (nearly unlimited ammo for ARs and shotguns lol), ability to aim, Supers, or ability to out-shoot someone (since all that comes down to is if I saw you first, and beyond that I'm dead).

Again. I don't know. Maybe you're just too good? You experience seems so different from mine that I really have no way to explain it. :(

They're not lying. This is an area where Destiny gameplay is so far different from Halo gameplay that I'm having a hard time picturing how this is really going to work. Ranked in Halo worked a hell of a lot better than in Social, but they also experienced many problems in Ranked. Social playlists seem to have no real coherent matchmaking system in any of the Halo games when it comes to matching for skill.

In Halo 3, the two differences between Ranked and Social playlists were:
1. Visible skill ranks in Ranked
2. Looser skill-matching requirements in Social.

Skill matching was ALWAYS a consideration, but it was compromised more for the sake of getting games quicker, with people that had good connections to you.

If you had much higher skill than the average of the population, the Bayesian theory behind TrueSkill would mean there were much fewer good skill matches available for you. This would be compounded with the fact many high-skill players would gravitate to the Ranked playlists.

It became most evident to me that social playlists still had skill matching every time a new one would come out and it was a total crapshoot.

Reasoning and responding with incomplete information is a common element to games. E.g. you can't see the location of all the players at all times either but, you make a best guess and act anyway.

It isn't incomplete information with supers, though. It's none.

With your example, players can master reading the radar to very accurately predict where a foe will be (I guess this only half applies to Destiny, what with the weird innacurate radar it has). A good player can know the exact location of all players near them.

If supers were more predictable and consistent, a good player could learn to accurately predict when his opponent's super had charged.

Largely because it was a good game with matchmaking features that were head and shoulders above the competition. Halo 2 and 3 were absolutely stand-out for their time. By the time Reach came, other games had caught up and began exploring other elements as well.

Doubt this one very much. Four years later, and there still aren't any other console games to match Reach's featureset. I've seen theater mode in a few places, but nothing compares to Reach.

Yes, the clue is in the names: in one you fight AI, one you fight other people.

I can't tell if you're trying to be a smartass here...

Once you start saying it's OK to change mechanics from one mode to another, then you essentially start building 2 different (closely related) games. I can tell you from personal experience it's incredibly frustrating to get good at campaign, then feel like you have to start over from zero in multiplayer. One of the things I liked about Halo was that many of the skills I learned in campaign were applicable to MP.

Many, but not all. There are things that work in campaign that are broken in multi. I don't think small changes like what I suggested are going to throw anyone off, and nobody would feel cheated.

The goal should always be to provide the best experience in either mode. They work so differently, that you can't give them all of the same mechanics without one suffering. Nobody will mind if both modes are excellent, yet a little different. Having them tailored to work for themselves just makes sense.

You will be tripping over dozens of pieces that are roughly equivalent as you play PvE, and having them shoved into your pockets as end-of-level rewards in all modes.

It's up to random fate what loot you get, is the point. That'll lead to a lot of unfairness and imbalance. This one is pretty much inarguable.

It's up to random fate what loot you get, is the point. That'll lead to a lot of unfairness and imbalance. This one is pretty much inarguable.

"A lot" is pretty hard for you to prove as well isn't it? And with most game types seemingly normalized, how imbalanced can it really be?

Largely because it was a good game with matchmaking features that were head and shoulders above the competition. Halo 2 and 3 were absolutely stand-out for their time. By the time Reach came, other games had caught up and began exploring other elements as well.

Doubt this one very much. Four years later, and there still aren't any other console games to match Reach's featureset. I've seen theater mode in a few places, but nothing compares to Reach.

Wait, what? You argued that when Halo multiplayer had fair starts, it was that feature that drew people to it. RC countered with a comment about how its matchmaking features went from top-flight to middle-of-the-pack... and you come back with theater mode? What does that have to do with fair starts (or matchmaking at all)?

(For what it's worth, on this point I think he's 100% right; Halo 2 was the phenomenon it was in part because there was nothing else out there that did what it did. I'm a pretty good example of someone who continued to play it in SPITE of how unfriendly it was to people of my skill level... because nothing else was even close. By the time Reach (and Halo 4) came around, there were plenty of alternatives.)

Wait, what? You argued that when Halo multiplayer had fair starts, it was that feature that drew people to it. RC countered with a comment about how its matchmaking features went from top-flight to middle-of-the-pack... and you come back with theater mode? What does that have to do with fair starts (or matchmaking at all)?

Hmm, yeah. You're totally right. I guess the word "features" made my mind automatically jump to featureset. Should have spent more time with that one.

Oops. :/

"A lot" is pretty hard for you to prove as well isn't it? And with most game types seemingly normalized, how imbalanced can it really be?

Do you mean normalized like level advantages disabled (Control in the Beta), versus enabled (Iron Banner)?

That only levels the playing field for weapon damage and armor defense. Stuff like your weapon's stats/perks, armor perks, that stuff still matters. All acquired randomly, giving an advantage to whoever is luckier.

In my defense, I knew they would revive automatically--that was a factor. There was also the laziness factor and the proximity to a Devil Walker function, along with the Why Were You Standing There qualifier.

Right. I was running it with one other person who kept dying from playing with the walker out in the open, and several times I died trying to revive him. It eventually occurred to me that we had a much higher chance of success if I ignored him and kept myself alive, because then we wouldn't both get reset. Once he respawned on his own, I could go back to taking more risks (until he died again). Maybe not the most chivalrous thing to do, but then getting myself killed and having us both reset didn't actually help him either.

Make it so that you do not respawn automatically. The only way is if someone revives you. You could have unlimited respawns that way, and the tension would be in finding a way to safely revive your team mates without yourself dying.

I've kind of assumed that the Raid is going to tweak respawn mechanics in this way. I don't think they've said anything about it, but it's my hunch.

Monaco has this system, and it's pretty great!

It isn't incomplete information with supers, though. It's none.

Hardly. It doesn't come back randomly between 0 and infinity seconds. There is a maximum time it will take, and a minimum even with armour stat bonuses.

Of course, if they kill and pick up Orbs of light it'll be quicker, but you have information on their kills and I'm sure someone will figure out the numbers (if they haven't already)

Finally, if you spot them first and get your reticle on them, their level box will have a golden glow around it to let you know their super is charged.

That's a lot more information to integrate, sure.

Doubt this one very much. Four years later, and there still aren't any other console games to match Reach's featureset.

Which is a shame but, what Claude said.

Yes, the clue is in the names: in one you fight AI, one you fight other people.

I can't tell if you're trying to be a smartass here...

100% smartass.

Many, but not all. There are things that work in campaign that are broken in multi. I don't think small changes like what I suggested are going to throw anyone off, and nobody would feel cheated.

Super as a pickup? People would definitely feel cheated that'd they'd integrated it well into their playstyle, optimised their gear to get a quick recharge, and now suddenly it doesn't apply to PvP!

The goal should always be to provide the best experience in either mode. They work so differently, that you can't give them all of the same mechanics without one suffering. Nobody will mind if both modes are excellent, yet a little different. Having them tailored to work for themselves just makes sense.

Best overall experience. Destiny clearly isn't designed for you to go into PvP at level 1 (you're not allowed to on your first character, even)

Getting and keeping a lot of people into PvP is very important to the quality of matches. If people are turned off because some of the fundamentals of your own character's abilities are not what they're familiar with then Bungie risk jeopardising that. Plenty still changes between the modes: enclosed, tighter maps, time-limited gametypes, points and scoring, etc.

It's up to random fate what loot you get, is the point. That'll lead to a lot of unfairness and imbalance. This one is pretty much inarguable.

The degree to which it'll be unfair, in non-Iron Banner playlists? Pretty minimal in my experience in the Beta.

'Balance' is overrated.

I get the feeling you all are right about a matchmaking component being in play to try and match up based on skill, but I'm having a very hard time believing it will be in there or that it will work well considering that half of this doesn't take skill. It's all based on gear, how many friends you went in with to coordinate with, and who saw whom first. More luck and timing than anything, really. Or is the skill in being better at seeing someone before they see you, and potentially having better gear? lol

All of this assumes that matchmaking is evaluating skill in the first place. It isn't. It's really evaluating your success rate. True, in Halo that basically equated to skill, but matchmaking was never observing how you played and making a value judgement of whether you were a "good" player or not. Only a human could do that, and only a human would bother. It was just keeping track of your wins and losses, and matching you against people who tended to get similar results.

The point being that even if some (or all) of your success rate in Destiny PvP comes from gear, matchmaking could still match you against other people with similar success rates. People who play a ton and acquire great gear, and set up their skills in an advantageous way, would still get matched against others in the same category. People who maybe don't play as much and spend less time acquiring gear would tend to get matched with the same. You might even find that some players who have a lot of good gear but aren't that good at PvP get matched against people who are better at PvP but aren't as geared up, because they both end up being similarly effective. And all of those matches are valid as long as they tend to produce close games.

I feel like you're describing the Halo 2 style of ranking where wins, losses, and whether you beat people with higher "ranks" led to ranking up and thus being matched against those who were similarly ranked. Halo 3 changed this, taking individual performance into account as well. You could be on the winning team a thousand times, but if you were going negative or barely positive, you wouldn't rank up as quickly, if at all. You could also lose as the best player on your team while going +20, and you may still benefit from it. I suppose Destiny could take similar things into account, but it seems like it would be incredibly inaccurate compared to Halo where just about everyone is on an even footing and being matched at a similar ranking.

And for the record, although Halo 3 would "max out" people at a certain point, the ranks portrayed were usually quite accurate. Halo 2's were unbelievably frustrating and flawed, which Bungie acknowledged and fixed. Granted, this isn't to say that Halo 3's ranking system didn't also have its share of problems (along with Reach's failed attempt at "ranked" in Arena).

That only levels the playing field for weapon damage and armor defense. Stuff like your weapon's stats/perks, armor perks, that stuff still matters. All acquired randomly, giving an advantage to whoever is luckier.

Luck has always played a part. It's not uncommon to die, and then spawn next to a power weapon as it comes onto the map in Halo. Totally random, gives me an advantage.

That only levels the playing field for weapon damage and armor defense. Stuff like your weapon's stats/perks, armor perks, that stuff still matters. All acquired randomly, giving an advantage to whoever is luckier.

Luck has always played a part. It's not uncommon to die, and then spawn next to a power weapon as it comes onto the map in Halo. Totally random, gives me an advantage.

Not really. If the other team is holding that weapon's spawn area, you won't spawn there. Their mistake is your reward. The punishment for them making that mistake of not holding that weapon's spawn is that the enemy team gets that power weapon.

A good team can prevent that by learning the spawn system, and how to manipulate it. That's something you can do in Destiny, but it's not as important since no weapons spawn on the map.

That only levels the playing field for weapon damage and armor defense. Stuff like your weapon's stats/perks, armor perks, that stuff still matters. All acquired randomly, giving an advantage to whoever is luckier.

Yes random loot is bad.

But luck in general for a competitive game is not always bad.

Brood War is a great competitive game, but it had elements of luck. The biggest being in the form of high ground advantage and cover. If you had the high ground or were in cover, your chance to be hit from an attack was reduced to either 75% or 50%. This has created cases where single hero units against all odds, were unable to be hit and took out large amounts of an opposing army.

That's fun to see and watch. It all evens out though, and those situations are outliers. So over the long term, the effects of high ground and cover are predictable.

That only levels the playing field for weapon damage and armor defense. Stuff like your weapon's stats/perks, armor perks, that stuff still matters. All acquired randomly, giving an advantage to whoever is luckier.

Yes random loot is bad.

But luck in general for a competitive game is not always bad.

Brood War is a great competitive game, but it had elements of luck. The biggest being in the form of high ground advantage and cover. If you had the high ground or were in cover, your chance to be hit from an attack was reduced to either 75% or 50%. This has created cases where single hero units against all odds, were unable to be hit and took out large amounts of an opposing army.

That's fun to see and watch. It all evens out though, and those situations are outliers. So over the long term, the effects of high ground and cover are predictable.

That's a tricky issue. There are a lot of ways of handling effectiveness-mitigating effects that eliminate the randomness. For instance, high ground could have been handled with mostly similar results by decreasing damage random that rolling dice, and mitigating weapon effectiveness over distance in Halo can be handled by damage reduction or projectiles or other non-random approaches rather than bloom, but every choice has a lot of its own benefits and oddities.

In the case of Brood War, I'm not sure I'd agree the randomness is good in its own right, so much as that implementation has some benefits. In its own right, the performance noise could still be considered an unhealthy side effect, but a worthy tradeoff.

That's likely just semantics, though.

*shrug*