So let's talk about PoE (the activity, not the livestream)

Now that we know a bit more about how this game mode will work, what does everyone think about it?

A few thoughts.

First, stuff I like:

* Moving to different rooms for each round is nice. Great way to mix things up and add a sense of literal progression.

* Mini-objective = Cool!

* Boss Fights mixed in... might be cool. Depends on how tough they are to kill, but interesting idea at the least.

Some potential problems I see:

* Loot only drops at the end. I see this causing LOTS of problems, particularly with matchmade teams. Losing a player 5 minutes into a 10 minute strike is a bummer, but not the end of the world. Losing a teammate 40 minutes in to a 45 minute PoE run is way worse if it prevents you from completing the mission and earning your drops. I think they'd be better off splitting the drops up (after round 2, 4, and 5) with the better drops falling at the end.

* The environments. I can't comment on how these arenas play, but I can say I don't much like the look of any of them aside from the Fallen zone. Not looking forward to spending time in any of them.

* The announcer. That voice got on my nerves INSTANTLY. Not crazy about hearing his stupid "they will try to kill you... kill them back" line between every round. Silly little thing to complain about, but it did get on my nerves.

Overall I think the Prison of Elders will be fun, but not something I will sink crazy amounts of time into (unless the gear turns out to be really great). It's pure Destiny combat, which is fantastic, but it also appears to be just random enough to make it feel the same every time.

I know what you're thinking: "that doesn't make sense", but hear me out.

The thing that makes the Raids (and even the strikes to a lesser degree) so much fun to replay over and over is that they are predictable enough to allow iteration and improvement from the player. The raids don't change, but the players do every single time, as we learn new tricks, new fireteam formations, new strategies and weapon combos. If an encounter is randomized, the players can't learn from their previous attempts in any substantial way. Every single round is just "GAAHHH SHOOT ALL THE THINGS!!!". And that's totally cool for what it is... I just don't see it as the infinite fun generator that others seem to :)

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The thing that makes the Raids (and even the strikes to a lesser degree) so much fun to replay over and over is that they are predictable enough to allow iteration and improvement from the player. The raids don't change, but the players do every single time, as we learn new tricks, new fireteam formations, new strategies and weapon combos. If an encounter is randomized, the players can't learn from their previous attempts in any substantial way. Every single round is just "GAAHHH SHOOT ALL THE THINGS!!!". And that's totally cool for what it is... I just don't see it as the infinite fun generator that others seem to :)

Agree with most of what you said. My thought about the above is that the environments are what make something predictable more than the enemies. I was hoping that we would have random map generation so that we wouldn't learn all the spawn points and cheese points. Since that's not the case, the community will figure out the best camping spots or choke points on all of the maps and eventually we will all gravitate towards them.

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I'm excited to play this, more so than the trials of osiris (although I want that armor, so bad). If the stream says anything about average-skilled players like me, it'll be a challenge. It's hard for me to compare to ODST/Reach firefight as I didn't play them much. What excites me about this is it's a new activity that isn't a strike. All I've done lately is the Nightfall x 3 and Weekly Heroic x 3, maybe I'll do a raid or some bounties.

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From what we saw today, I'm a little bummed. The arenas didn't look very interesting and more claustrophobic compared to what we had for Firefight.

And forced objectives that require me to stand in place, out in the open and away from cover? Ugh.

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After watching one of Datto's playthroughs, I think this activity is a good combo of many different aspects of destiny. It has a boss like a strike at the end, but this boss has a special mechanic more like a raid boss. It also has objectives simliar to public events/mini missions in Patrol like the VIP. Capture points from crucible.

I'm also glad that there are three weekly PoE events with different levels, so as to pace the play and create long term replayability. Yet still offering a lower level one for those who crave more.

It also has the skull modifiers to change the way you approach each battle.

Firefight in ODST was a blast, so I think I'll enjoy this. The only downside I've seen so far is that the arenas do look a little small, as compared to many of ODST's maps. But then again, this isn't Halo. I haven't see the other areas i.e. Vex and Fallen because I want to have a little surprise when playing those first time.

When you combine this new activity with all the stuff we already have to offer, we really do have alot of options of how to play your way each week.

1 PoE lvl 28
3 PoE advanced levels
1 nightfall
1 weekly
2 normal raids
2 Hard mode raids
ToO

Multiply by 3 characters... sheesh.

Plus your normal Daily mission, bounties for crucible, vanguard, eris, and the reef.
Plus special event IB with added bounties
Plus the new story missions/weapons/armor

Man, I was disappointing in no raid, but when I think of all the different things I can now do in Destiny, I'm glad they've added what they have.

Tl;dr PoE is a cool mashup of Destiny's best content, and I'm looking forward to it. Also there's lots of shit to do in Destiny.

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Yep, Destiny is getting close to that critical mass I was hopeful for. Soon there will be more to see than can ever be seen and more to do than can ever be done... within a week... by a sane person.

*Waves a friendly wave at unoudid* :p

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When you combine this new activity with all the stuff we already have to offer, we really do have alot of options of how to play your way each week.

1 PoE lvl 28
3 PoE advanced levels
1 nightfall
1 weekly
2 normal raids
2 Hard mode raids
ToO

Multiply by 3 characters... sheesh.

Plus your normal Daily mission, bounties for crucible, vanguard, eris, and the reef.
Plus special event IB with added bounties
Plus the new story missions/weapons/armor

Do you really want to have to SCHEDULE and PLAN OUT your playtime every week? I want to be able to just get a group together whenever, and not feel like I'm missing anything.

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Do you really want to have to SCHEDULE and PLAN OUT your playtime every week? I want to be able to just get a group together whenever, and not feel like I'm missing anything.

Cody 3 months ago: Boo hoo! There's not enough for me to do!
Cody now: Boo hoo! There's too much stuff for me to do!

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Do you really want to have to SCHEDULE and PLAN OUT your playtime every week? I want to be able to just get a group together whenever, and not feel like I'm missing anything.

Cody 3 months ago: Boo hoo! There's not enough for me to do!
Cody now: Boo hoo! There's too much stuff for me to do!

That's not my point… This week and last week I've been hugely busy: I have run zero raids. That means I have effectively given up 18 chances at a Hawkmoon drop. Those are gone and I can't get them back. 21 strange coins, not acquired. There is an opportunity cost to not playing Destiny, where most game do not have such a drawback.

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I'm honestly curious as to the maths.

AFAIK, it would be a lot more than 18 in 2 weeks, for 3 chars.

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I'm honestly curious as to the maths.

AFAIK, it would be a lot more than 18 in 2 weeks, for 3 chars.

18 is one week. 3 Chances per run (on hard), times 3 characters times 2 raids.

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That's not my point… This week and last week I've been hugely busy: I have run zero raids. That means I have effectively given up 18 chances at a Hawkmoon drop. Those are gone and I can't get them back. 21 strange coins, not acquired. There is an opportunity cost to not playing Destiny, where most game do not have such a drawback.

So what you're say is, the investment system is working.

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When you combine this new activity with all the stuff we already have to offer, we really do have alot of options of how to play your way each week.

1 PoE lvl 28
3 PoE advanced levels
1 nightfall
1 weekly
2 normal raids
2 Hard mode raids
ToO

Multiply by 3 characters... sheesh.

Plus your normal Daily mission, bounties for crucible, vanguard, eris, and the reef.
Plus special event IB with added bounties
Plus the new story missions/weapons/armor

Do you really want to have to SCHEDULE and PLAN OUT your playtime every week? I want to be able to just get a group together whenever, and not feel like I'm missing anything.

Options, meaning choices. Do I want to raid every single week? Not really. Do I want to enter Trials of Osiris every weekend? Probably not, it sounds pretty competitive. I'm just saying there are lots of choices for what mood you are in each day of the week. Or choices for what player type you fit.

I don't feel like I have to plan out or schedule anything and if you try to do all this content each week, good luck.

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After watching one of Datto's playthroughs, I think this activity is a good combo of many different aspects of destiny. It has a boss like a strike at the end, but this boss has a special mechanic more like a raid boss. It also has objectives simliar to public events/mini missions in Patrol like the VIP. Capture points from crucible.

I'm also glad that there are three weekly PoE events with different levels, so as to pace the play and create long term replayability. Yet still offering a lower level one for those who crave more.

It also has the skull modifiers to change the way you approach each battle.

Firefight in ODST was a blast, so I think I'll enjoy this. The only downside I've seen so far is that the arenas do look a little small, as compared to many of ODST's maps. But then again, this isn't Halo. I haven't see the other areas i.e. Vex and Fallen because I want to have a little surprise when playing those first time.

When you combine this new activity with all the stuff we already have to offer, we really do have alot of options of how to play your way each week.

1 PoE lvl 28
3 PoE advanced levels
1 nightfall
1 weekly
2 normal raids
2 Hard mode raids
ToO

Multiply by 3 characters... sheesh.

Plus your normal Daily mission, bounties for crucible, vanguard, eris, and the reef.
Plus special event IB with added bounties
Plus the new story missions/weapons/armor

Man, I was disappointing in no raid, but when I think of all the different things I can now do in Destiny, I'm glad they've added what they have.

Tl;dr PoE is a cool mashup of Destiny's best content, and I'm looking forward to it. Also there's lots of shit to do in Destiny.

I'm excited for PoE and, to a lesser degree, ToO, but I'd like to see some variation to the existing end game content. Raids with burns, for example, would be a really interesting change of pace. I think I'm most excited to see the new Queen's Wrath quest line. I yearn for a plot in the game to take advantage of the incredible lore. There's just so much untapped potential.

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I will wait to see how it plays. But, I totally agree with you about the environments. One of the things I like about Bungie games is that they had resisted the "everything is a dusty gray and brown environment" that most first person shooters seem to love. But all I could think as I was watching these environments was how junkie and brown everything looked. I wish they had gone for a stolen future space jail concept instead of an abandoned escape from ny jail vibe.

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The thing that makes the Raids (and even the strikes to a lesser degree) so much fun to replay over and over is that they are predictable enough to allow iteration and improvement from the player. The raids don't change, but the players do every single time, as we learn new tricks, new fireteam formations, new strategies and weapon combos. If an encounter is randomized, the players can't learn from their previous attempts in any substantial way. Every single round is just "GAAHHH SHOOT ALL THE THINGS!!!". And that's totally cool for what it is... I just don't see it as the infinite fun generator that others seem to :)

I think you need to find a balance. If everything is exactly the same every time, then it's just memorization. At that point you're not really playing the game, but just performing rote button presses. There is something to be said about unpredictable situations arising, and having the players handle that.

Basically, an encounter should be designed enough so that overall it is predictable, yet have enough room for smaller unpredictable elements.

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It looks very similar to ME3's multiplayer, which I enjoyed. Too bad we don't have as many awesome classes yet. The randomness keeps things from getting too rote, unlike raids which good teams run like clockwork.

I wish you could do it with 4 or 6 people though.

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This overall is my biggest complaint with Destiny period.

I love the game, I love how it plays, I love the choices and options I have and it excites me even more that it seems like they're just scraping the surface with content. I know a lot of people have said that everything should have been included at the beginning but with this kind of a business model I don't think that's what they're trying to do I think that they want people to stick around because every 6 months we might get something new.

Personally I am STOKED for POE and Trials, I can't wait to get into some new situations and really pit myself against the game and others.

BUT

My biggest complaint is the size of teams. I think it's downright ridiculous that it makes it uneven to start with 3 people being the norm for most activities. I would love it to be either 6 or 4 or be able to get 12 in for a crucible night without having to rely on chance to get paired up.

Rev and I will see Sammy and Nando on all the time but we can't join then and play all together because someone would be left out, same thing with a local casual gamer couple we play with, it would be great for all 4 of us to be able to strike each week together, but we can't :( this 3 person thing is crap.

It should give you the choice to run it with up to 6 people and the difficulty adjusts as you go so it's just as hard to run for a team of three as a team of 6.

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Especially for the Prison of Elders, I wish they provided additional options so you could choose your team size.

Some reasons they didn't:
- Matchmaking: Since it's a matchmade activity at the lowest level they have to set the exact number of players for the activity.
- UI Complexity: Keeping the team size set allows them to keep the UI simple.
- Code Complexity: Keeping the team size simple probably allowed them to add a lot more variety to the activity with the time they had to build it.

I still wish there was a way to adjust the number of fireteam members for a given activity, but they didn't build Destiny with that in mind originally so I'm sure it's a ton of work to add it now.

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I'm actually glad Destiny's party sizes are all multiples of 3. After playing WoW for many years which had 4 man dungeons -> 25 man raids where you either had 1 scrub who didn't have a regular dungeon crew or 3 regular players who got mathematically eliminated -> 40 man raids where 10 of your people who ran the two 25 man raids were automatically left out, that was bogus. Many people quit guilds over being the guy left out. Later, it turned into 4 man dungeons -> 10 man raids (again, terrible. 2 people are excluded) -> 25 man raids (now 5 people are excluded). Even worse was the raid compositions often meant a 10 man raid needed 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 DPSers, while a 25 man raid needed only 3 tanks, but wanted 9 healers and 13 DPSers... The math just doesn't add up. You need 3 raids' worth of heals, but only 1.5 raids worth of tanks. UGH. This caused so many headaches.

So yeah, Destiny going from 3 man fireteam to 6 man raid is great, actually. Now to just hope for that 12 man custom MP game mode...

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They actually mentioned in one of the pre-game interviews that 3 was the perfect number for creating activities for. The mentioned how in Halo when you had 4 people the game became super easy, even on Legendary, and it was difficult to make it harder for 4 even with scaling built in. I don't know the full details of what they mean, but I definitely felt like that playing Halo. It does make a certain amount of sense too since scaling from 1-3 people will always be easier than scaling from 1-4 just because it's a smaller scale.

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They actually mentioned in one of the pre-game interviews that 3 was the perfect number for creating activities for. The mentioned how in Halo when you had 4 people the game became super easy, even on Legendary, and it was difficult to make it harder for 4 even with scaling built in. I don't know the full details of what they mean, but I definitely felt like that playing Halo. It does make a certain amount of sense too since scaling from 1-3 people will always be easier than scaling from 1-4 just because it's a smaller scale.

"...more players in a space doesn't always mean better gameplay. In fact, we learned from the work we did on previous Bungie games that three was very much the sweet spot for fireteams to be able to coordinate. It creates a triangle formation, so you can always have a good combatant experience and always be progressing."

Having played a lot of four-player Halo co-op, I can vouch for this. As much as I enjoyed it, there were lots of games where it felt like there was nothing left for me to shoot. I seldom feel that way in Destiny.

Raids are experiences that are designed to give all six players a job to do most of the time. It's a different beast.

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They actually mentioned in one of the pre-game interviews that 3 was the perfect number for creating activities for. The mentioned how in Halo when you had 4 people the game became super easy, even on Legendary, and it was difficult to make it harder for 4 even with scaling built in. I don't know the full details of what they mean, but I definitely felt like that playing Halo. It does make a certain amount of sense too since scaling from 1-3 people will always be easier than scaling from 1-4 just because it's a smaller scale.

"...more players in a space doesn't always mean better gameplay. In fact, we learned from the work we did on previous Bungie games that three was very much the sweet spot for fireteams to be able to coordinate. It creates a triangle formation, so you can always have a good combatant experience and always be progressing."

Having played a lot of four-player Halo co-op, I can vouch for this. As much as I enjoyed it, there were lots of games where it felt like there was nothing left for me to shoot. I seldom feel that way in Destiny.

Raids are experiences that are designed to give all six players a job to do most of the time. It's a different beast.

It also has to do with the 'risk' factor. Three of us gives us *just* enough cushion that if someone fucks up, we can still pull a clutch. With four, you can basically split into two teams and have you're own 'games' if you so preferred; let your guard down and be a bit more careless, etc. I don't want that.

I'd love larger groups for more player interaction, but that'll probably be something for later, as a different game type. Right now as it is, it's perfect.

- M

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I think it would have been cool if they could have made PoE a four man activity. So then you'd have options for your play based on how many friends you could get together. I do like playing alot of stuff with 3 though. Its easy to get a skirmish team together and the communication is easy with that one fewer person.

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I don't know how they do it and that goes for raids too, but I suspect that there could be issues with performance and last gen consoles. And they might not have wanted to have the same experience they had with Reach: firefight and laggy games.

This is pure speculation though...

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Maybe a bit, but my guess is that it's not so much performace based since six people can roam around Venus after starting off the Vault of Glass and they don't seem to suffer for it. But perhaps that's because they can't start any other missions. Bring six into the big library battle and maybe things might bog down...

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So let's talk about PoE (the activity, not the livestream) (Destiny)