RNG gives them fine control over population progression (Destiny)

by scarab , Sunday, December 07, 2014, 23:25 (3879 days ago) @ Durandal
edited by scarab, Sunday, December 07, 2014, 23:30

because for large populations the random becomes predictable.

And they can tweak the odds at any time if the tweak is small enough or announce a change and make a big change in the probabilities.

So they can do the maths and set the values to obtain whatever target they set. Then they can measure outcomes and tweak if needed to keep things on track.

They loose that if RNG is removed. They would have to do as Cody is asking and just accept that some players will blow through their content.

Actually, everybody blows through Destiny's content or at least they would if not for the imposed resource limits. Before Destiny game out I thought that it sounded like a massive devourer of content. I wondered how Bungie would keep up and how they could afford the manpower to do so when there is a fixed (one time, plus finite numbers of DLC) payment. I didn't understand their business model.

When they discussed their tools I wondered if they could massively ramp up developer productivity and produce a lot more content than expected.

I wonder if Bungie thought the same. Early builds didn't show planetary resources or ascendant energies in weapon upgrade trees (things that slow down progression). Bungie has often over-promised results or under-estimated effort. Maybe they were caught out and realized that they couldn't make the amount of content that they initially budgeted for or that there was still more content needed with no economic way to deliver it.

Either their business model was always to provide little content and milk it with investment systems. Or their content generation plans didn't work out. Or a third option that I haven't thought of.