Decoupling player appearance from progression

Having finally watched the GDC video in its entirety I've got a better idea of how Bungie intends the armour system to work - at least aesthetically, but it also raises more questions about empowering players to make choices about how they'll look in-game.

It took until midway through World of Warcraft's third expansion before they introduced the concept of ‘transmogrification’; allowing players to give any piece of armour the appearance of any other piece of the same kind that the player already owns. Within weeks of the feature being released the cities were filled with players dressed in ‘old’ armour sets from previous expansions, long-since rendered obsolete but still obviously cherished for how they look.

I'm also reminded of the armour progression system in Reach; for me, no helmet looked better than the Mark V(B) you started with. The question is: will I be compelled to abandon the items I own that I like the appearance of in favour of statistically-superior but (potentially) less appealing replacements? If so, will this not suppress the concept of player actualisation and customisation? Maybe Bungie are already considering this; I certainly hope so, as I've learned over the years that players can become very attached to their virtual representations. If it's not a part of Destiny's first instalment then I hope it doesn't take as long as it took Blizzard to empower players to show off their style.

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There is a downside to said decoupling (at least in a stat-based game): now we would have to check somewhere else to know what your battle bro/enemy is wielding/wearing, since there is no clear visual indication.

I, for one, would rather have my looks uncoupled from the stats, but it is a point to consider.

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I feel that coupling player appearance with progression has its benefits (such as giving an incentive to continue playing), but it can really hamper newer players ability to enjoy the game. By decoupling player appearance from progression, you could allow people to look exactly how they want, no matter what "level" (or whatever ranking system Destiny will use) they are, providing they have done enough to receive the item.

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Hopefully, the incentive to continue playing will be because the game is fun! :)

I would like to see some combination set-up. Things like capes and helmets, I'm totally okay with those being cosmetic and not being locked behind any kind of barrier, but I wouldn't mind seeing some practical items which affect your appearance. Example: somebody has a jet-pack, you see the jet-pack and know that the player can fly. Sort of how Reach and H4 do it, I suppose; that way, you still get to look like whatever you want but you don't suffer from not being able to determine your bro/foe's capabilities visually.

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I hate locked items with a passion.

I worked to get the black visor in Reach and the experience convinced me that I never want to do anything like that again. I stopped playing Reach once I got the visor and I have avoided anything that smacks of XP or progression in Halo 4. Those concepts are a positive turn off to me.

I can see that some aspects of Destiny may not pull me into the game, may even push me out of it.

Player investment schemes? Shudder.

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I'm not a fan of locked items either, but I can deal with it if it's more like Reach than Halo 4 in terms of locked items. I guess only time will tell whether or not the game has a progression system.

I am still undecided on how I feel about stat-affecting items in Destiny, I guess it all depends upon whether there will be a great degree of disparity between different gear items. After all, the game is supposed to be an shooting game, not a gear collecting game.

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I'm actually hoping it'll be more towards Borderlands in this aspect. Stats being earned through level-ups and better weapons not being earned through sheer EXP grinding but instead through raids and loot drops. Preferably this would only effect the PvE so everyone could play somewhat evenly in competitive PvP.

In my ideal scenario, people would have their own stats and different unique gear during PvE. In PvP I'd love if there were two types of arenas: One where everyone's stats were nerfed so it would be fair, and another where everyone would retain their stats and gear. This would allow people to play with all of the stats/gear that they've earned and test them out on other players. But the other option would make it so they could still play competitively (and fairly) against their friends that may be at levels a lot lower then theirs.

Honestly though I'm more excited for the PvE, cooperative play anyways. I love the sense of teamwork an unity this can create.

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I hate locked items with a passion.

I worked to get the black visor in Reach and the experience convinced me that I never want to do anything like that again. I stopped playing Reach once I got the visor

why? the stuff after this I get, but for that, why?

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Hopefully, the incentive to continue playing will be because the game is fun! :)

That's always the goal, no matter the game. It would be nice to see Bungie create a system that doesn't gate items based on player level or rank, but make it so that certain items are only attainable by completing certain missions/quests.

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That's always the goal, no matter the game.

Unfortunately, not always in these days. I hope Bungie keeps that as its ultimate goal, though, obviously.

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Chasing after a goal can be fun.

That's the whole point of these 'investment' systems: providing goals for you.

See: flow theory.

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Aesthetics and stat-changing gear should be in separate camps. We've already seen this put to good use in Reach. If stat progression is part of the deal, HP increases, power cooldowns, etc. that are inherent to the character will differentiate higher-level players easily. However, these differences would need to be ignored in competitive play, or would simply factor in to matchmaking considerations. Making all the aesthetic items require a particular effort will give the completionists a goal and an appropriate level of reward, while weapons and other stat-changing gear can be designed to be either visible or invisible, but to have minimal impact on the player's appearance, and can generally be granted to the player on different terms.

Blizzard's approach sounds like retrofitting the game, breaking mechanics that should be inherent. I think that adds a degree of confusion to the experience that need not be there.

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Chasing after a goal can be fun.

That's the whole point of these 'investment' systems: providing goals for you.

See: flow theory.

That's not fun, that's obedience. Bleep Bloop achievement unlocked. Congrats on doing exactly what you're told.

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That's not fun, that's obedience. Bleep Bloop achievement unlocked. Congrats on doing exactly what you're told.

If it's basically just a Skinner Box then yeah, but there are plenty of examples where player investment is rewarding and fun. Getting that Gold Chocobo was a grind, but it was so worth it.

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Chasing after a goal can be fun.

That's the whole point of these 'investment' systems: providing goals for you.

See: flow theory.

That's not fun, that's obedience. Bleep Bloop achievement unlocked. Congrats on doing exactly what you're told.

Noticed he said can be fun. Obviously he finds it fun and you don't.

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Chasing after a goal can be fun.

That's the whole point of these 'investment' systems: providing goals for you.

See: flow theory.

That's not fun, that's obedience. Bleep Bloop achievement unlocked. Congrats on doing exactly what you're told.

Noticed he said can be fun. Obviously he finds it fun and you don't.

Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

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Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

Because it's still my choice whether I do it or not. If the challenge sounds fun, I go for it, if it doesn't, screw it.

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Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

Because it's still my choice whether I do it or not. If the challenge sounds fun, I go for it, if it doesn't, screw it.

And how does your ability to choose mitigate the perversion that a deeply ingrained player investment system creates to the game mechanics?

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Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

Because it's still my choice whether I do it or not. If the challenge sounds fun, I go for it, if it doesn't, screw it.

And how does your ability to choose mitigate the perversion that a deeply ingrained player investment system creates to the game mechanics?

That was not the argument this started with, you called going for achievements or player investment goals "obedience" disagreeing with someone stating it was fun. I'm not arguing whether it hurts games, I'm disagreeing with the idea that just because it can be used to manipulate players it cannot be fun.

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Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

Because it's still my choice whether I do it or not. If the challenge sounds fun, I go for it, if it doesn't, screw it.

And how does your ability to choose mitigate the perversion that a deeply ingrained player investment system creates to the game mechanics?

That was not the argument this started with, you called going for achievements or player investment goals "obedience" disagreeing with someone stating it was fun. I'm not arguing whether it hurts games, I'm disagreeing with the idea that just because it can be used to manipulate players it cannot be fun.

Connect the dots. It's all related.

If you were actually able to freely choose which challenges to undertake, then a player investment system is not necessary, and no damage is done to the game.

But you aren't really able to freely choose, since ingrained player investment systems tie into your ability to play the game and must be undertaken in one form or another since they themselves become part of the mechanics. Achievements are mostly harmless since they truly can be ignored, but what's being built for Destiny isn't.

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Connect the dots. It's all related.

If you were actually able to freely choose which challenges to undertake, then a player investment system is not necessary, and no damage is done to the game.

But you aren't really able to freely choose, since ingrained player investment systems tie into your ability to play the game and must be undertaken in one form or another since they themselves become part of the mechanics. Achievements are mostly harmless since they truly can be ignored, but what's being built for Destiny isn't.

See, I have to state once again that is not what I'm objecting to, I am objecting to the way you raise YOUR objections. Instead of saying something to the affect of "Regardless of whether it is fun or not here is how they negatively affect the industry" you basically insult someone who just said they enjoy it. I actually do agree with you quite a bit about player investment systems but that was NOT why I replied.

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So you'd suggest something more similar to how custom challenges were handled in Reach, post-turnover?

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So you'd suggest something more similar to how custom challenges were handled in Reach, post-turnover?

I think ideally I'd want a game created without any achievements / challenges / player investment systems, but have a strong community from which ideas for new ways to play are generated.

So essentially like custom challenges, but not having any explicit in game rewards.

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So you'd suggest something more similar to how custom challenges were handled in Reach, post-turnover?

I think ideally I'd want a game created without any achievements / challenges / player investment systems, but have a strong community from which ideas for new ways to play are generated.

So essentially like custom challenges, but not having any explicit in game rewards.

Sounds like how most people play Minecraft.

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Connect the dots. It's all related.

If you were actually able to freely choose which challenges to undertake, then a player investment system is not necessary, and no damage is done to the game.

But you aren't really able to freely choose, since ingrained player investment systems tie into your ability to play the game and must be undertaken in one form or another since they themselves become part of the mechanics. Achievements are mostly harmless since they truly can be ignored, but what's being built for Destiny isn't.

I'd love to be a game developer, creating all the elements necessary so that every possible player interaction would lead to every possible outcome so that players could decide whatever they wanted and they'd always have an interesting experience and the game would be super fun. That would be neat. Cody would be so proud.

But then he'd just troll about something else though, I guess. :(

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Connect the dots. It's all related.

If you were actually able to freely choose which challenges to undertake, then a player investment system is not necessary, and no damage is done to the game.

But you aren't really able to freely choose, since ingrained player investment systems tie into your ability to play the game and must be undertaken in one form or another since they themselves become part of the mechanics. Achievements are mostly harmless since they truly can be ignored, but what's being built for Destiny isn't.

I'd love to be a game developer, creating all the elements necessary so that every possible player interaction would lead to every possible outcome so that players could decide whatever they wanted and they'd always have an interesting experience and the game would be super fun. That would be neat. Cody would be so proud.

But then he'd just troll about something else though, I guess. :(

You are either stupid, or you are deliberately misunderstanding my point. Fine I get it. I'll stop talking here.

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Your problem is one of extremes.

Many if not most of us agree that a progression system should not, and cannot, be the focus of a game. That developers should entice players to play with fun and with interesting gameplay. They should not rely on the grinding of x to get achievement y to be the thing that brings player back. Gameplay, and immersion, and wonder should be king, not some progress bar that advances a little each time you do some minor thing. We agree with you on that.

But then you just keep going and keep going. Soon, according to you, any hint of stat tracking or handing out rewards for anything becomes something that ruins games, full stop, no debate allowed. You've said, paraphrasing of course, that Destiny itself, the game we know almost nothing about, will not be worth playing if it has any kind of progression or investment system. It gets to the point that players who enjoy it when developers include challenges for them to accomplish, regardless of how good or bad the rest of the game is, are called losers by you.

You start more or less in the right place, but your apparent need to go to such extremes combined with your "my way or the highway" approach to definitions and points of view makes it an absolute pain to read your posts much less try and discuss or debate with you. And that's a shame, because your core arguments are, as I said, something I think many of us agree with.

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Chasing after a goal can be fun.

That's the whole point of these 'investment' systems: providing goals for you.

See: flow theory.

That's not fun, that's obedience. Bleep Bloop achievement unlocked. Congrats on doing exactly what you're told.

Noticed he said can be fun. Obviously he finds it fun and you don't.

Eh, that's not the point. Imagine living your life where you never made your own goals, but instead tried only to meet goals set by others for you. What kind of life would that be? So why do we accept that when we play video games for fun?

A lot of people actually really suck at creating their own goals. It is much easier to adopt one. That's not 'obedience' because in games you can still fully choose not to do it.

Too often, yes, it is not presented by developers or seen by players as a choice to adopt the goals or not. They seem coerced too heavily. Too often, the goals they provide are not interesting.

But the goals are there, ready and waiting for you. You can choose to adopt them, and you can end up having fun during the pursuit of it.

It is a sacrifice in the initial intrinsic motivation to be able to provide more activity to more people. People who, because they didn't even realise that those goals could be constructed, might have left the game otherwise.

It may not ever reach the highs that you dream of Cody, and more complex, higher-skill and creative in-game goals are to be encouraged. But not everyone is there yet or will ever get there. But it is ultimately their leisure time to do with as they wish. If that is low-skill repetitive actions towards an adopted goal then - make them aware of the alternatives - but leave them to it. They chose video gaming when others vegetate on the couch watching TV. There are degrees of fun.

Besides, you really think all your gaming goals are wholly self-directed? You didn't invent speed running, Cody. You merely adopted it. Remember Twin Galaxies? You're so obedient to others Cody. And you didn't even get the reward! Did you end up having fun doing it anyway? Do you look back on it as a worthwhile accomplishment? No? Are you a robot?

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A lot of people actually really suck at creating their own goals. It is much easier to adopt one. That's not 'obedience' because in games you can still fully choose not to do it.

Again, in real life we call folks who have no goals or are unable to form goals 'losers'. Why do we not tolerate it in life, but suddenly do in leisure activity?

Too often, yes, it is not presented by developers or seen by players as a choice to adopt the goals or not. They seem coerced too heavily. Too often, the goals they provide are not interesting.

But the goals are there, ready and waiting for you. You can choose to adopt them, and you can end up having fun during the pursuit of it.

It is a sacrifice in the initial intrinsic motivation to be able to provide more activity to more people. People who, because they didn't even realise that those goals could be constructed, might have left the game otherwise.

If they don't realize it, and they leave the game, they are not the type of people who would want to take on these challenges in the first place. It's like the saying in advertising - "If you see it, then it's for you".

Besides, you really think all your gaming goals are wholly self-directed? You didn't invent speed running, Cody. You merely adopted it. Remember Twin Galaxies? You're so obedient to others Cody. And you didn't even get the reward! Did you end up having fun doing it anyway? Do you look back on it as a worthwhile accomplishment? No? Are you a robot?

There is a huge difference between adopting goals created by people who love the game, goals which net you no reward other than the fun of doing them, and adopting the goals of the developers who want to keep you playing / paying which reward using in game means.

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Again, in real life we call folks who have no goals or are unable to form goals 'losers'. Why do we not tolerate it in life, but suddenly do in leisure activity?

Ah, so it is a matter of apparent hypocrisy. IMO, most people are inherently hypocrites, even only superficially.

If they don't realize it, and they leave the game, they are not the type of people who would want to take on these challenges in the first place. It's like the saying in advertising - "If you see it, then it's for you".

I agree, but...

There is a huge difference between adopting goals created by people who love the game, goals which net you no reward other than the fun of doing them, and adopting the goals of the developers who want to keep you playing / paying which reward using in game means.

...what if the game is open to such, well, open-mindedness while also providing goals and rewards for people less imaginative? Do you think the openness would be compromised, necessarily?

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A lot of people actually really suck at creating their own goals. It is much easier to adopt one. That's not 'obedience' because in games you can still fully choose not to do it.

Again, in real life we call folks who have no goals or are unable to form goals 'losers'. Why do we not tolerate it in life, but suddenly do in leisure activity?

You give people too much credit. Most of the goals people have are merely adopted.

You said in another post that your ideal game would have a strong community that self-generated the goals.

In a game that had a strong community, the goals would still be adopted the overwhelming majority of the time, just from a different source. You think game developers (at least some of them) don't love the game they're making and want to share the many activities and fun things to do with their players? Bungie explicitly say 'we make games we want to play.'

As I said, it's a sacrifice in the self-generation in order to give it to more people. That knowledge-sharing is something innately human. Forcing kids to study math may make some of them hate it, but it will still be useful to them and others become physicists and mathematicians.

You really think many people want to spend their leisure time doing research to try and find what the fuck you can do with this game they've bought?

Many people are quite happy to have the game suggest something for them. They either accept or decline, and can get on with shooting aliens to get there.

Besides, some types of goals are either impossible or made difficult without in-game technological support. Or are made more rewarding with the in-game immediacy.

Time Attacks / Speed Running, for example, is much easier with an in-game timer and replay system. Just ask every racing game player ever.

If they don't realize it, and they leave the game, they are not the type of people who would want to take on these challenges in the first place.

Ridiculous. Ignorance of some activity does not mean you would not want to do it. That just means you're ignorant.

There is a huge difference between adopting goals created by people who love the game, goals which net you no reward other than the fun of doing them, and adopting the goals of the developers who want to keep you playing / paying which reward using in game means.

And the purity was sacrificed as soon as games were made to make money. No shit. There are ALWAYS going to be trade-offs between profitability and just 'making a good game.' Unless you become a billionaire and can finance the games entirely yourself, this is something you're going to have to accept to some degree. Where the line in the sand is drawn is going to be different for different games, but it's still there.

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Again, in real life we call folks who have no goals or are unable to form goals 'losers'. Why do we not tolerate it in life, but suddenly do in leisure activity?

Oh, Cody.

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Deej should tell me about threads like this one. Good times.

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Deej should tell me about threads like this one. Good times.

So that you know where to target ze missiles?

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A lot of people actually really suck at creating their own goals. It is much easier to adopt one. That's not 'obedience' because in games you can still fully choose not to do it.

Again, in real life we call folks who have no goals or are unable to form goals 'losers'. Why do we not tolerate it in life, but suddenly do in leisure activity?

Firstly, I'd say they have trouble getting themselves motivated, and I might try to help them. Secondly, why do we tolerate shooting people's faces off in video games when we don't in real life?

Too often, yes, it is not presented by developers or seen by players as a choice to adopt the goals or not. They seem coerced too heavily. Too often, the goals they provide are not interesting.

But the goals are there, ready and waiting for you. You can choose to adopt them, and you can end up having fun during the pursuit of it.

It is a sacrifice in the initial intrinsic motivation to be able to provide more activity to more people. People who, because they didn't even realise that those goals could be constructed, might have left the game otherwise.

If they don't realize it, and they leave the game, they are not the type of people who would want to take on these challenges in the first place. It's like the saying in advertising - "If you see it, then it's for you".

I feel like there's an assumption, maybe more than one, behind you saying that, and I don't know if it's true. Also I haven't heard that saying before so maybe you should say what it means or what it means to you.

Besides, you really think all your gaming goals are wholly self-directed? You didn't invent speed running, Cody. You merely adopted it. Remember Twin Galaxies? You're so obedient to others Cody. And you didn't even get the reward! Did you end up having fun doing it anyway? Do you look back on it as a worthwhile accomplishment? No? Are you a robot?

There is a huge difference between adopting goals created by people who love the game, goals which net you no reward other than the fun of doing them, and adopting the goals of the developers who want to keep you playing / paying which reward using in game means.

So SLASO in Halo is fine but plain Legendary is horrible? Also, developers can't love their own games?

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Also, developers can't love their own games?

And it seems to me I've heard Bungie's slogan is something related to it, what is it again?

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Noticed he said can be fun. Obviously he finds it fun and you don't.

Eh, that's not the point.

[image]

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Not kidding. Look it up.

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Without restrictions, all we do is sit there. At the most basic level, a game developer has to set boundaries and give us goals in order for us to actually play a game. You'll notice a distinct lack of true sandbox games; even something like Minecraft, which gives you no direct goal or objective, gives you incentives to play in a particular way.

We can debate how severe these restrictions need to be, but they have to be there in order for there to be a game. "Player investment" need mean no more than a Reward for an Action. If that action is something the player would have done anyway, it reinforces whatever the developer is aiming for, whether that be the narrative or some other element of the game. If it isn't, then it's an incentive for the player to explore beyond the boundaries of the core game, whatever that means. Some players don't need incentive to do that; early PC gaming history is a clear indicator of that. Other players, though, might need that prod to realize that there is more to a game than the core experience, and achievements or other rewards such as items or XP can be used to draw them there.

I'll give you good and bad examples of this. Mass Effect is a game which does not require that you be at or even near max level to succeed, because it is a shooter in the clothes of an RPG. There is a point about halfway through the game where you look at your masses of assault rifles and Titan VI armors and Bluewire IXs and realize that you haven't had much trouble killing anything in a while, and will probably be okay if you don't go off on the sidequests. My first time through, the urgency of the game's primary narrative dissuaded me from most of the sidequests anyway; I'm Commander Fucking Shepard and I've got a galaxy to save, no thanks I don't have time to find your brother. I saw that there was other work to be done and I ignored it in favor of completing the main quest, and although I knew I had missed out on some content, I felt justified, and the game did not punish me for doing so. On subsequent playthroughs, I did the additional content and found the missions rewarding and interesting, not only full of valuable information about Shepard, but the galaxy as a whole.

Continuing the Bioware catalogue, Dragon Age starts a main quest with a very similar tone of urgency in which it's pretty apparent that the fate of the kingdom depends on just a few days of action, and as soon as you're dropped out of the excellent prologue, you and your party are asked to take a short break to rescue lost orphans and help old women get their cats out of trees. Now, if this were Mass Effect, I'd say "Nope, sorry, got to save the galaxy and good luck," because I know I'm able to fight my way through higher-level encounters by being clever and a good shot, but since this is Dragon Age, I know that if I ignore them, I'll be several levels down for future encounters and have a much harder time completing the game. Now I haven't beaten Dragon Age (incidentally, because I was bothered so much by that break in narrative), so I don't know if the side quests contain the same interesting nuggets of information as the Mass Effect missions, but I do know that the game presented me the option of ignoring them with the threat of increased difficulty later on, and that was not a fair tradeoff.

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Good points, and well made. I just want to point out real quick that the break in narrative, that disparity between the urgency of the main thrust of the narrative, and the seeming triviality of the side quests in comparison, is why I finished the campaign so quickly in ME2 and 3, and also why I didn't return for further playthroughs.

I invested a significant amount of time, energy, thought, and passion into that world; and even though I found my experience satisfying, I didn't feel a need to do it again. However, I'm still an avid and frequent player of the MP for ME3. Go figure.

I have significant curiosity about how Bingle aims to keep me engaged for the next ten years.

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I think your points were very well made. On a different end of the spectrum I still don't really understand why some people had issues with the progression system in Reach. If you don't enjoy playing the game, which you have to to unlock armor, then why are you playing the game to unlock armor to use in game?

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I think your points were very well made. On a different end of the spectrum I still don't really understand why some people had issues with the progression system in Reach. If you don't enjoy playing the game, which you have to to unlock armor, then why are you playing the game to unlock armor to use in game?

Looking specifically at Halo Reach you can see where the problems might start, and that is the combination of an arbitrary ‘currency’ attached to items, along with a gated ranking system. To earn a given item, you have to reach the prerequisite rank and also earn enough of the currency to buy the item. Usually if you set out to get a given item, these happen together, but depending on the item (and your past purchases along the way) it might require more grinding.

But once you get past the first few trivial item upgrades and set yourself a more lofty goal (the inclement weather effect, for example) the amount of currency required is manifestly so large that any potential shortcuts to reaching that goal become very worthwhile to explore. At this point you're not playing the game itself (Halo Reach) so much as the meta-game of ‘earn 2 million credits’, and so you may end up undertaking less enjoyable paths within Halo Reach's multiplayer (say) to earn the points faster that you wouldn't otherwise do.

Another example of this kind of mechanic is the ‘Insane in the Membrane’ feat of strength achievement in World of Warcraft. To complete this feat of strength you have to earn Exalted reputation with a number of factions who it is very difficult to earn reputation with (or at least they used to be very difficult to earn rep with — I think they changed it to make it somewhat easier since I completed it). Some of the tasks you had to complete (over and over again) to get there were quite mind-numbingly boring, but since I valued completing the achievement I carried on regardless; it encouraged playing the game in a way that might otherwise have not been something players would actively seek out.

The Insane in the Membrane achievement may be a special case (after all, even the name of the achievement underlines the point that this isn't something most people would want to do) but the message is still the same: meta-game achievements or grinds tend to encourage play that players wouldn't actively seek out otherwise, in order to earn some reward. My preference is for rewards to be balanced carefully such that players don't feel compelled to do things just for the reward, but at least in part because they enjoy the activity too.

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Ah yes the armor effects I forgot about them. Yeah those were frustrating.

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Depending on how PvP works it might be better to have clear distinctions of what armor does what. I'd hate to go up against an opponent who, unknown to me, has more shields, is faster, or has some other unclear advantage. It's was one of my biggest turn offs with Halo 4 and its perks. You could be fighting someone who reloads faster, or whose grenades do more damage or whatever and you wouldn't know until they used their advantage.

Also, do we know that armors affect stats?

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Depending on how PvP works it might be better to have clear distinctions of what armor does what. I'd hate to go up against an opponent who, unknown to me, has more shields, is faster, or has some other unclear advantage. It's was one of my biggest turn offs with Halo 4 and its perks. You could be fighting someone who reloads faster, or whose grenades do more damage or whatever and you wouldn't know until they used their advantage.

Also, do we know that armors affect stats?

For weapons, now that we have more of a confirmation from the GDC talk that most regular weapons are modular, I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie kept to their tradition of trying to make gameplay between single-player and multiplayer have parity through those modular weapons. What we've heard so far (I think) of armor is that it's just for aesthetics, with the ancient weapons/loot having different types of stats and effects with them.

I wouldn't be surprised if each Guardian class had different weapons types they were allowed to use (a la every Class-based game ever), so if you wanted to sneak around and snipe, you'd have to play as a Hunter, with Titans being your shotgun/Assault Rifle type. From there, different additions you'd add might be restricted out of multiplayer to keep your options simple, and to make sure someone doesn't have an add-on that lets their shotgun fire rockets.

Additionally/curiously, Bungie hasn't (yet?) stated anything about in-game credit/microtransactional purchases for weapons/armor; they talk about loot that you either find or earn. Maybe you find loot in the "PvE" part of Destiny, and you earn loot from betting your stuff, or from getting access to more/upgraded weapons through leveling up by winning matches (like how loadouts would unlock in Invasion in Reach) in the "PvP" parts of Destiny?

I mean, I hope the armors (almost forgot to even talk about them...) are just so you can look cool, or at the very least glow distinctively for what's being boosted (red for speed or attack, blue for magjick, etc) so it's not vague, like you said.

But this is really just me rampantly speculating/describing what I hope any PvP is like. Though, I'll probably just stick to the story and dancing in the social areas with my space clothes off (that's in Destiny, right?).

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Decoupling player appearance from progression