When death is of little consequence (Destiny)

by Avateur , Sunday, August 10, 2014, 22:21 (3567 days ago) @ Ragashingo
edited by Avateur, Sunday, August 10, 2014, 22:46

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.