Ok. Now walk me through the why? Is Bungie collecting money from you each month? Are they showing you ads? Do they think making you unhappy will get you to buy future content? Are they just plain mean? Of course not. None of those. The "they don't value your time" argument has a leg to stand on for games with ongoing fees, but it loses a lot of credibility when talking about Destiny. Furthermore, the statement is a vast generalization. These are people you're talking about here who (presumably) like making games, who tried very hard to make a good game, and who largely succeeded. It doesn't seem right to claim they don't value our time when they've worked many many hours to entertain us.

The why is simple. They have a deal with Activision. That deal is a ten year deal. Activision doesn't play nice when DLC and things don't sell. Bungie's next ten years' worth of sales are highly dependent on hopefully getting people hooked into this game. If they can't keep players playing, there's a good chance that their ten year plan, or their profit, or whatever deals they have with Activision become very, very difficult to accomplish or maintain.

Also, comparing a game with microtransactions or fees to a game without doesn't hold up. A game that you only pay for once can still absolutely not give a damn about your time. And yes, it is a vast generalization. Yes, there are many good people working there who worked hard to make a game, who enjoyed making it, and did largely succeed. Somewhere in the past year, that five year game vision changed dramatically, and it's quite clear that whatever the intended product was before did not release in its current form.

I can't speak to whether or not that negatively impacted the investment system, but it would appear to since the investment system is primarily all that's left. Even in gameplay itself, rather than valuing your time, largely all you're doing is spawning at the same part of the map for every single mission, having to zoom across the entire map to get to your actual mission, and then defend your Ghost over 9000 times while enemies charge at you. Rinse and repeat. That's not showing you that your time is valuable. This is just one of many examples.

And what about the other side? That the Raid was made hard to foster teamwork and provide players a great time? I'd be hard pressed to find someone who played the Raid and didn't like it! Why does it have to be the investment system Bungie is protecting and not the intended challenge and the teamwork and the fun the Raid is supposed to deliver?

The Raid is the best part of the game, and it was made hard to foster teamwork and provide players a great time! You're spot on, and that's a fact. The other fact is, once that Raid has been beaten (over and over), finding newer, faster or more interesting ways of tackling it becomes a thing. Or for people who just can't beat the Raid, being clever and finding a strategy that makes it easier to get through it to hopefully for the first and maybe only time ever defeat the Raid is a good thing!

The thing is, this change was not made because there are some people out there who can't beat it and found an easier way, but Bungie wants to keep the thing difficult. Bungie did it because the people who have conquered the Raid are now finding ways to get gear and items quickly and to beat the thing quickly. Those people have already beaten the Raid numerous times. It's investment system protection, mixed in with what you're implying in defense of "we want this Raid to be hard all the way through" because god forbid it isn't hard and taking up all your time once you've beaten it like fifty times.

We very likely disagree on this, but I've found the upgrade process generally fun. Activating a piece of loot's key perks is a lot of fun and makes me appreciate my weapon or piece of armor more. I've also spent a lot of enjoyable hours playing with other DBOers as we Patrol finding chests and upgrade materials along the way. That's the side you don't seem to want to acknowledge, that people might like the upgrade process.

That said, I don't so much enjoy the last three upgrades on the high level gear. The "Damage, Damage, Damage (or Defense)" upgrades. I'd rather each new upgrade option be meaningful and alter the weapon's feel and abilities rather than making it a few percent easier to survive during high level content. The nerfing (heck, removal) of the big draw of the Queen's Wrath missions is harder to defend, but if Bungie didn't do it to promote what it sees as a better player experience then once again I ask why did they do it.

I didn't realize I had to acknowledge it. People do like the upgrade process. Others might be addicted to it based on common psychology and the investment system tactics Bungie has employed in this game. That's neither here nor there. People enjoy it. Check. I've personally thoroughly enjoyed finding gold chests and Dead Sleeping Ghosts and helping friends find them. I enjoy exploring. None of that is going to give you Ascendant Materials.

That's just about all I'm focusing on as far as what the Queen's Wrath stuff provided but then stopped providing strictly due to their investment system decisions. And I'd say they did it to uphold the sanctity of their investment system. They can't just have everyone getting all the Ascendant materials they need and maxing out their armors from just one event now, can they? It had nothing to do with fun or what was best for the player. Gotta keep that investment system and slow pace going. The way I'm wording it sounds utterly malicious. I know it's not. It's really a simple A + B = C, but to me that's a malicious system.

Let me get this part out of the way first: You are defending people shooting into a cave. Arguments don't get much more silly than that. No matter the rest of it you are throwing your implied support behind an activity that very few would call fun. I feel pretty strongly about not spending my time doing things that aren't fun so I find any support of the loot cave ridiculous. Ok, now beyond that (because to be fair that's not all you were addressing), I see two actual issues: The length of time required to get good item drops and the length of time some bounties take.

I'm defending people playing how they want to play when they aren't hurting anyone else or cheating. I'm not defending standing around doing something stupid. I think loot cave grinding is completely and absolutely stupid, and a total waste of time. If they want to do it, though, good for them. Not my problem. I also fully understand why they want to do it. The RNG and grind in Destiny can really, really be unforgiving and can royally suck. It's unfortunate that people felt the need to shoot into a cave. It's not a silly argument when you consider why they're doing it. But again, they weren't harming anyone, and the system itself is largely what led them to it.

To your point of "very few" calling it fun, you're probably completely right. So, if the majority of players aren't doing it, and if the people who are doing it are actually having fun, is it wrong? If the people doing it aren't having fun, what does that say about the larger investment system? How long might they do it? Until they get whatever it is they're looking for? Until they get enough Light to rank up to do the Raid to get new Legendary armor? Again, who are they harming?

On the first issue, I do think loot and reputation earning is a bit too slow. The timings worked fine for me but I was able to put a ton of hours into Destiny. Far more than the stated average of three hours per day. I think if I'd stuck to one character and the average play time I'd still wish for a faster upgrade cycle. That said, I think both the levels 1- 20 Subclass upgrade timing and the rate of engram drops are acceptable. Subclass upgrades come at something around once per hour starting faster and ending probably a little slower. Loot drops probably come out to two every twenty minutes or so once you near level 20. The main change I would make is to let players earn reputation and marks from the beginning and raise the Crucible / Vanguard mark limit to 200 if not infinity. That way players would be able to buy high level gear much sooner and much more consistently after hitting level 20 and would be always be rewarded for the time they put into any given activity.

Okay, so we agree that loot and reputation earning is slow. Loot cave speeds that up a bunch, theoretically. Again, no harm, no foul. Waste of overall time and fun, but hey, you'll get your gear and things faster so you can get to the real fun part of the game (the Raid)!

I agree with the 1-20 timing of things. It's 20+ that's a nightmare. I also really like your idea about marks and obtaining them. Good call there.

On the second issue, long bounties, I don't see an inherent problem with long bounties like you seem to. I see bounties as guides to help me decide what to do without being absolutes that dictate things to me. A good bounty to me is one that entices without become a burden. Taking a couple of days to complete some bounties is just fine. I rarely finish the "complete three public events" bounties in one day for instance, but since public events just kinda happen naturally while I play I don't mind that bounty. The one you mentioned, getting 200 fallen headshots, also seems fine to me. It also might extend across play sessions, but headshotting Fallen isn't some unusual, out of the way thing for Destiny players. I suppose I see bounties as rotating prompts to try playing in different locations or in slightly different ways. Fun should be the goal, not completing a bounty you don't want to.

Long bounties in and of themselves aren't necessarily a problem. The problem is the lack of variety in bounties. They are just about the same bounties daily, and if not, they're the same every other day. For a game this huge, that's pathetic. Many are time consuming, and when you've already done the time consuming parts endlessly, it's about as big of a waste of time and about as not-fun as shooting into a loot cave.

So I agree, fun should be the goal. Some bounties are fun and easy to obtain during play. Get 9000 exp without dying. Sure. I have things to do all over whatever planets in Patrol. Should be fun, and I get it just by playing. Going out of my way to find Fallen and get headshots on them sucks. Old Russia sucks. I played the daylights out of it in the Beta and at launch. Nothing changed from the Beta. I hate that place. Yet it's always 200 Fallen headshots, isn't it? Where are the Hive headshots? Or the Vex precision kills? See what I mean? This isn't about fostering making you go to visit other areas. It's grinding for grinding's sake because they don't change.

I also think it's interesting you did not mention Bungie changing the engram decryption process for the better. Where does that fit in with the "they don't value your time" argument? Getting low level gear from high level engrams was a pretty big flaw that is now fixed, after all.

Because it's been fixed. They fixed it to something logical. They finally found a flaw so glaringly bad in their investment system that it just had to change. Now it's back to fixing loot caves and sniper platforms, you know, things that aren't really benefiting anyone (beyond I suppose making them try and find more fun ways to spend their time while battling an unforgiving RNG and trying to complete a task for the millionth time). lol

To an extent, sure. With my replies above I was mainly trying to highlight the way you focused on the negative without mentioning the positives, but yes, there is definitely the case to be made that investment systems done poorly can harm a game. I think Destiny's is pretty good though, especially from level 1 - 20 where it pretty well follows you up through the story progression. It is not without its flaws, namely the lull in new content you can play in the lower 20s, the way the Raid only unlocks past that lull, the way the game makes buying vender gear take twice as long as it needs to by not letting you earn rep and marks for a long time, and the slog seen at the end of the upgrade trees for high level gear.

Naming off 1-20 as a positive is a tough thing to do because at that point you're getting your feet wet. All that bullshit about "the real game starts at 20" implies that 1-20 was a cake walk and meant to feel welcoming and loving. For the longevity of the game and to keep people playing, you can't just flip on the full on investment system grind and hope that they'll keep playing forever. That's what it appears they've done once you hit 20. Grind grind grind to get to the Raid. Beat the Raid? Got to level 30? Now what? Wanna see if you can beat the Raid faster? Too bad. Patched.

What I dislike is the focus on the negatives without mention of the positives, the way detractors of investment systems often seem to veer into conspiracy land with claims leaning towards something like "they want to make the game worse so you'll spend more money," and of course I think there's no place for absolute statements like "Once again, investment systems ultimately ruin everything."

It sucks, but when positive threads pop up here (or at HBO), hardly anyone replies to them.

Also, Destiny has a ton of problems. Bungie is listening. They read these threads. Do you think the Cryptarch got fixed because people were focusing on all the magical happy things done right? Hell no. And even in Bungie's explanation for why it was the way it was, people over at Bungie actually thought that doing it the way they did was a good thing! Sometimes the focus on the bad will lead to a far, far superior and good game. Let's see that ten year plan actually work. Unfortunately, with all of these problems, it might not. I obviously don't know. Frankly, I don't want to see that happen. The investment system is a huge problem, and it absolutely has to be addressed.

The "they don't value your time" argument has a leg to stand on for games with ongoing fees, but it loses a lot of credibility when talking about Destiny.

This is not true. It can apply to anything.

Bungie is making a game that is supposed to be entertaining. I am choosing to spend my time playing Destiny, as opposed to other games, or other activities.

A good developer will recognize this, and try to make their game as entertaining as possible; they will try to make the time spent with the game fun, and worthwhile, and worthy of my choice to give it my time.

When developers do not value my time, they stretch things out, pad the game, or create investment systems where time, not skill, is the primary way to advance. These things are NOT fun, and instead should be shunned and discarded. There is no reason why you have to farm resources to upgrade your armor to advance your level. It is not fun, and the only reason it is included is to make the game take longer.

But if Bungie had any sense, they would stop and realize that it's just wasting people's time. They don't care. If they did, they would try to make every part of the game fun, and engaging. They literally don't care if you waste your time on boring shit, because they leave that in the game, and worse, built the game around it.

It would be nice if they would explicitly state their motives for these kinds of things, though.

Heh. As if people who already claim to know their motives would believe them.

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From a qualitative viewpoint, my Shingen-E is still an insanely accurate, stable monster.. So they cant have changed Stability that much.

*shrug*

I haven't tested this fully, but I pulled out my Shingen E last night and test fired it and noticed a big difference in stability. (My stability bar is full, btw.) I'm not sure how that will translate practically, but shooting it into the ether I could tell a big difference. I was getting some of that climb and to the right or climb and to the left you saw in less stable ARs before the patch.

- CC