Why are things that shorten your play time removed? (Destiny)

by Jabberwok, Monday, October 27, 2014, 15:05 (3919 days ago) @ Riceamike

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.