By making an awesome Bungie game? (Destiny)

by Numinar , Friday, October 17, 2014, 18:02 (3928 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Investment systems are not behind these changes, more like the ability, dev resources and a title designed to facilitate such changes are the reasons behind it. Most these changes would happen in a modern game without those things. Sure, they could modify the game according to the mobs desires, but what kind of game does that make? I'm sure plenty of them exist already in any case. And normally, yeah, I would say leave the co-op stuff alone but being so connected with the PvP it needs to be treated with the same amount of respect.

See Starcraft, Dota, Streetfighter or any RTS I can think of from the last few years for examples of games where balance is messed with after release by the developer in order to create a more varied and interesting game. And it's not done by "buffing everything else". And maybe it doesn't always work every update, but there can be more updates! Vanilla is rarely considered superior in any MP game. There are plenty of games not touched afterwards, but this is not because the dev does not want to, it's because nobody will pay him for his time or for QA or 1st party fees to make their vision reality. Bungie seems to want to create an ecosystem where this is not a problem anymore.

The alternative = do nothing worked for Halo, exploring the quirks and flaws were fun. But they are not making that game. They are making a different game, or a series of games, that they will have the money, dev bandwidth and expectation to evolve over time. This is difficult when you have 3 years between releases. Is it ruined by having persistance/investment system? For some of you yes. And you knew this before release and purchased it anyway! That is so insane!

I am the biggest Halo nerd I know IRL, maybe not alpha level like some of you but way up there, and I never played one of those titles almost every day for a month+ straight. Ever. And I worked a lot less and had a lot less children back then. Nor did I enjoy as high a percentage of the time spent as with those titles as I do with Destiny. Except maybe H1, that shit was baller.

I can see where this game is less than it's predecessors, often by design but also by omission. I can also see where it is more. And for a first release it hits a lot of what it needs to in order to keep me hooked. I may not play all the way through till the EXP, but I'll definitely be back for it if I stop and I've already got more value out of the base title than almost any non-sandbox games in my steam or console library so Bungie has succeeded where it counts as far as I am concerned.

In fact, I just checked it to be sure. https://steamdb.info/calculator/?player=feralgoat&currency=us

At almost 4 days played, Destiny is right up there near the top. Against games I have owned for years. Only Kerbal and Civ 5 beat it (And Civ 5 only because of epic lan action). And it's not my only investment game, I own all the Blizzard stuff as well. None of them are as fun or rewarding for me. I don't see where this narrative of this game being junk is coming from. It's a fantastic Bungie game. It's not a fantastic Halo game maybe, but hound 343 if you want one of those as this was not meant to be that.

The biggest problems I have had are with recent Bungie/PSN networking issues that didn't exist in the alpha/beta or first few weeks of release, and the lack of some social features I hope to see later and may be because of 1st party issues or unwillingness to dilute the MM pool. Every hopper you add reduces the quality of those remaining in theory, and there are already so many due to your hated investment system and the level spread it creates. But maybe that's not such a problem in the US where most people play from and can be corrected. I hope they sort them out.