Yet things that perform the same function still in the game with no discussion by Bungie as to any change?

I'm speaking mostly of the Loot Cave and Material Grinding. One the Loot Cave hand, you have things that expediate a player's means to getting Engrams. This goes against what Bungie 'intended' with the game and shortens a players play time to get to 20+ and ultimately 30.

But, the real grind in the game is Materials. If shooting into a cave for hours a day in the slim hope that a Purple drops and at the time actually decoded into a purple is 'shortening the play time', why is running in a circle for hours opening chests that ALSO MAY CONTAIN PURPLES not?

Why are they both the same thing, yet only one is removed?

They might read this and make material grinding even more tedious than it already is

Jason Jones wants people to play the game.

Now, naeively, you would think that he would want to achieve this by making the game insanely fun.

For some people Halo campaign was insanely fun and they played thousands of hours of it.

But not everybody did that. Not everybody played lots of campaign.

JJ wanted to fix that. His chosen method was to put an investment system into Destiny.

Investment systems are designed to encourage/force you to invest very many days/weeks of your time to get good stuff to play the game.

It is a fact of human nature that when you invest so much time in something you become, well, invested in it. It becomes hard to let go and hard to admit that you made a mistake. For example: look at the people who couldn't admit that they were wrong about the indoctrination theory long past the point where it was obvious that it wasn't bioware's intention.

If people quickly get what they want then there is the danger that they will become satisfied and will decide to move on to something else.

If people are not yet satisfied but think that they just need a bit more whatever then they will keep trying.

They are not really having fun or at least not having pure fun. There is always some fun to be had but, mostly, they complain but still play anyway.

If your metric is total hours played over the entire player base then Destiny will be a success. But for me, and many others, the quality of those hours is not very high.

Anyway, as an answer to your question: investment systems rely on making you invest a LOT of your time into them. If things come easily then you will not be invested in them.

I can't paste the link I want on my tablet. Please go to the dopamine page on wikipedia and go to the section labeled, "seeking vs liking". I should probably titled this post, "seeking vs liking" as it encapsulates all that is wrong with investment systems. The people who implement investment systems know all about how they work. The complaints we are making are no surprise to bungie and are an expected part of the process.

Yet things that perform the same function still in the game with no discussion by Bungie as to any change?

I'm speaking mostly of the Loot Cave and Material Grinding. One the Loot Cave hand, you have things that expediate a player's means to getting Engrams. This goes against what Bungie 'intended' with the game and shortens a players play time to get to 20+ and ultimately 30.

But, the real grind in the game is Materials. If shooting into a cave for hours a day in the slim hope that a Purple drops and at the time actually decoded into a purple is 'shortening the play time', why is running in a circle for hours opening chests that ALSO MAY CONTAIN PURPLES not?

Why are they both the same thing, yet only one is removed?

Wait, who does chest runs for purples?

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i've never gotten a purple from a chest run, but i have gotten energy and shards from them.

I've gotten a few chests recently with two blue engrams. (BTW, who came up with the name "Decoherent" engrams anyway? Why not just call them "Rare" engrams?)

I've gotten a few chests recently with two blue engrams. (BTW, who came up with the name "Decoherent" engrams anyway? Why not just call them "Rare" engrams?)

If I recall correctly, I've receieved Legendary "Decoherent" engrams as well as Rare ones. (Just not as often, obviously.)

-- Steve doesn't count on engrams for gear; he tallies his marks or strange coins, then hits the appropriate vendors.

edited to add: Those were drops from kills, though. I don't think I've ever gotten a Legendary out of a chest outside of the Vault of Glass.

yeah, i've gotten lots of blue engrams from chests, but never a purple.

All I want is to teleport though the air and shotgun someone in the face. Barring that, teleporting to a smug hive wizard and going fist of the north star on him with my knives is a close second.

I achieved both these things with zero loot cave or chest grinding. In fact the loot cave people got irritated at me for running around and disturbing their spawns.

In fact the more I progress in the game the less likely these actions are, thanks to lightswitch, epic, and increased Major/Elite spawns.

So Bungie removing the boring loot cave thing really had zero impact on my gameplay. If anything they will get me to play more once they fix auto rifles in PVP and the annoying OP Titans.

to be of any benefit. It isn't worth the time investment.

to be of any benefit. It isn't worth the time investment.

Does anyone do it for that? I should hope not.

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In the time I spent playing Destiny, and much of that also included the Loot Cave, I've only ever seen one Legendary Engram drop from an enemy.

Now, of course, some people get luckier and have even had Exotics pop from a Loot Chest.

The issue is that those people are in the very small minority, and that the people who only got greens and the occasional blue from the Loot Cave and only Materials from the chests far outweigh the ones who got a full set of gear. Just as with the Raid. Of all the people who have done it once a week since it started, how many have actually hit 30?

Of the millions of people who play Destiny every day, how many actually used the Loot Cave? Surely not enough that Bungie would end up so adamant about how it ruined their intended way to play Destiny, especially when something that takes just as long for the same equivalent items exists in the game anyway.

Yet things that perform the same function still in the game with no discussion by Bungie as to any change?

I'm speaking mostly of the Loot Cave and Material Grinding. One the Loot Cave hand, you have things that expediate a player's means to getting Engrams. This goes against what Bungie 'intended' with the game and shortens a players play time to get to 20+ and ultimately 30.

But, the real grind in the game is Materials. If shooting into a cave for hours a day in the slim hope that a Purple drops and at the time actually decoded into a purple is 'shortening the play time', why is running in a circle for hours opening chests that ALSO MAY CONTAIN PURPLES not?

Why are they both the same thing, yet only one is removed?

The problem with something like the loot cave is balance. You get people who just stand in one spot and ignore the rest of the game (like I did), then you might have other people who don't want to do that, and maintain more well-rounded play sessions. If the former are getting greater rewards than the latter, it's not really fair. Rewards should be roughly equivalent to energy expended in order to be fair. And while the loot cave might not have given out really rare gear as much as a difficult raid or some crucilbe matches, my lower level character gained experience and better equipment at a much faster rate by just standing and shooting into the cave, pretty minimal effort.

It would only be balanced if everyone was spending time at the loot cave, and in that case, all the other content Bungie had created would basically be pointless, and the game turns into one giant slot machine. Which is really what it is, anyway, but if you take away all of the mechanics and content that normally obfuscate that, the result is barely a game anymore.

I don't like investment systems outside of legitimate RPGs, but if you're going to have one, it needs to work properly. I'm sad that the loot cave is gone, but I can totally understand why they wanted to get rid of it. Of course, what you consider to be gaming the system is a bit subjective, and eliminating anything that slightly reeks of it would probably involve just taking everything out. But ultimately, different ways of playing the game should all be offering roughly even payouts relative to the energy expended, or things become unbalanced.

Both the shield and the fist of havoc are very useful powers all the time. The fist is tremendously useful, both as an offensive and as a defensive weapon.

Defensively a Titan can use his super to win otherwise losing engagements. I can't tell you how many times I have reduced a Titan to <25% health only to have them pull out the fist and win, or pop golden gun or blades only to have a titan immediately counter. Conversely, it is very hard to counter the fist because you have to hit with the golden gun in that 1 second opening at the start of the animation.

Offensively the Titan's fist can clear a control point or room in short order with little to no warning.

Combine that with some good perks, useful grenades and an effective melee attack and you have a large advantage.

I've also seen the shield used very effectively to take a control point or even cancel a warlock or blade dancer super. Plus the titan can get an overshield from a melee making them very frustrating to fight one vs one.

The other two classes, especially the hunter, need to plan their super use far more carefully and cannot use it to pull their fat out of the fire. That flexibility makes the titan far easier to use in PVP.