Raids

Can I get nitpicky for a second?

http://destiny.bungie.org/n/220

"As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will scour YouTube to defeat."

Why on earth would you go to youtube to figure out how to defeat the RAIDs? Isn't figuring it out the whole entire fun of them? Isn't this essentially saying:

As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will not want to figure out how to defeat on their own, and so will turn to youtube so they don't have to."

If this is something players won't want to actually do themselves, or can't be bothered to do themselves, isn't that admitting the activity is kind of bad?

Is this really the way designers think? Stay on your toes guys; don't succumb to this.

I will admit that I know very little about endgame MMO play, so maybe someone could educate me a bit about such encounters. Is it common to simply follow a guide to beat the megabosses instead of working through it on your own? How much skill does it take? Can you do it alone or do you need to party up?

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I think this is more commentary on the community then on game designers. I usually only look on Youtube when I am incredibly frustrated and then end up feeling retarded because I'm thinking about the challenge too much. I however know plenty of gamers who as soon as they encounter any amount of challenge look online for the solution. That's why guides for games are probably the number one article and or video content posted online for games (this is purely anecdotal). This is the kind of thing that's frustrated me since I was a kid when people would use cheats on the first play through of a game because it was "too difficult" for them.

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If this is something players won't want to actually do themselves, or can't be bothered to do themselves, isn't that admitting the activity is kind of bad?

It's a comment on how difficult the encounters will be, not how unenjoyable they are.

Between these two possibilities...

As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will scour YouTube to defeat.

and

As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will have no trouble defeating on their own with no need for external help.

...I know which one I'd prefer.

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If this is something players won't want to actually do themselves, or can't be bothered to do themselves, isn't that admitting the activity is kind of bad?

It's a comment on how difficult the encounters will be, not how unenjoyable they are.

I expected more from you Schooly. I thought you were one of the good ones.

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While I occasionally lurk, it's becoming more and more apparent that you seem to be taking an "us vs them" approach to Destiny and those who are excited for it, and not seeing this forum as a community discussion among people who have disparate views.

There's every chance I'm missing the intent of this post, and it might be intended to be entirely humourous and not at all serious, but it does smack a little of an attitude in gaming communities that I've grown somewhat intolerant of over the past 10 years: That of an unwillingness to try new things and look forward to what has been previewed rather than a speculatory insistence that the upcoming new thing is going to be awful because of reasons only guessed at, or the fact that it's trying something slightly different to what a previous iteration did, Kirk vs Picard style. (IMO they both have their merits for entirely different reasons)

Now, this doesn't mean accept everything that's thrown at us, and it doesn't mean don't speculate. What it means is don't speak of an apocalypse where there is none, and don't shove away other members of the community simply because their view contradicts yours. Finally, don't see NuBungie as this "Evil group" who are going to "Steal your monies" because of the NuGames that are made these days. Your view is not the only one here, and some of us enjoy things that you don't.

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Perhaps you missed the part where I called on those who were knowledgeable about MMO RAIDs to weigh in, because I am genuinely curious to learn more.

Also Picard. End of debate.

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Also Picard. End of debate.

I don't often agree with Cody's viewpoints. But I've got to say he's totally correct on this.

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

Yeah, too bad he wasn't real, even in the Star Trek universe. He was just part of stories written by Benny Russell for Incredible Tales in the 1950s.

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That was a deleted scene. Not canon. "Benny Sisko" was just a hallucination.

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

Damn right. He has the best name, too.

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

Bingo.

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

Bingo.

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"

And if Picard HAD hit Q, humanity would have been found guilty and we'd have been wiped out. Think about THAT.

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Losers.

It's clearly Sisqo

Bingo.

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"

And if Picard HAD hit Q, humanity would have been found guilty and we'd have been wiped out. Think about THAT.

Picard did what he had to do, but he was the perfect representation of Roddenberry's naive idealism in all those early TNG episodes. In many ways, humanity is dangerous and savage. Three hundred years ain't going to change that.

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I've just got to weigh in right here. I was going to do it before when Cody linked to the aborted podcast a few days back, but I wasn't really sure how to do it tactfully.

I'd never listened to Anger, Sadness, and Envy before (wish I had, they're great!), but for some reason I decided to listen to the one Cody posted (and I'm working through the rest of them right now). If you haven't, I would recommend listening to the podcast. For me, it helped put Cody's posts in perspective.

I used to think, and I apologize Cody, that he was a bit of an arrogant jackass. I don't know if it's just they way his posts are written or what, but they do come off as abrasive, at the least. Actually listening to him speak, however, and hear the way he makes his arguments, I don't feel that he comes off that way at all really. It helped put him in perspective, for me at least, and whereas I would usually just glance over his posts, or skip them altogether, now I find myself reading them all. Whether you like his attitude or not, he brings up a lot of valid topics. It seems like some of the time, his points get glossed over, and instead he just gets attacked for his perceived attitude. I guess I would just say, pay attention more to the discussion points he's raising, and less attention to the way he raises them. Like I said, actually listening to him speak changed the way I perceive his posts.

Maybe I'm very much in the minority for not having listened to the podcast before, so maybe I'm alone in this.

Basically to sum up: thanks for posting the podcast Cody, it was a very interesting listen (as are the rest of the back log I'm going through). You don't know me from Jack, so my opinion of you probably doesn't matter one bit to you, but the fact remains that I thoroughly enjoy the discussion you try to bring to the forums, looking at it from a design and gameplay standpoint more than a universe/story standpoint, even if I don't particularly agree with all of them, or even many of them.

As far as your original question, I have no idea. As I rule I don't like MMOs, as I do find the moment-to-moment gameplay quite boring, and I'd be sad to see Bungie take this direction. I don't really feel like this is what will happen, and I have enough faith in Bungie to create and experience that I'll enjoy.

Obviously we don't know much about Destiny's gameplay, but the way I keep picturing it basically a bigger version of Borderlands (obviously with Bungie's take on the FPS, and however they do leveling and gear), with seamless drop-in, drop-out interaction between random players in the world.

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Thanks for that. It's good to hear another take on something like this and give me some perspective.

Sorry if I'm being a douche, Cody. I wasn't trying to attack your points themselves in what I said. They are, indeed, valid concerns.

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Also, I wasn't really referring to you specifically, Oz Mills, it's just something that's been going on lately (for quite a while, actually, before DBO even existed). A lot of folks can and do have very lively and interesting discussions in response to Cody's posts, but it seems like nearly just as often, some folks jump into the thread to basically just call him a dick in a roundabout way, without actually addressing the discussion he's trying to bring to the table.

I don't particularly subscribe to his gaming design philosophy, although I do see where he's coming from, and even concede that a lot of times he might be right. I'm more of a casual gamer, I suppose. I hesitate to call myself that, as I am an avid gamer, but I'm casual in the sense that I typically don't play games for a "challenge" or however you want to define it. I play them to relax and enjoy an experience that would typically be outside the realm of what's realistically possible.

I play games that I enjoy, and I don't particularly analyze why I actually enjoy them. If it's because it really is a good game, with awesome mechanics and a unique experience, that's awesome. If it's because the developers are force feeding me rewards, whether that be new gear or a cutscene, I'm okay with that, too. If I'm enjoying my time, that's good enough for me, and I don't really take the time out of my life to differentiate between the two and ask myself why I'm enjoying the game. Maybe I should be, I don't know, but I do like to read the discussions Cody brings up about such matters, but sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few who does.

Anyway, don't think I was just attacking you specifically, Oz, it was geared more as a general statement to the forum.

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I feel exactly the same way. My feelings towards Cody, my avid casual gaming...thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

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I used to think, and I apologize Cody, that he was a bit of an arrogant jackass. I don't know if it's just they way his posts are written or what, but they do come off as abrasive, at the least.

Just to be clear:

Cody is an arrogant jackass. He's rude, abrasive, dismissive of opposing viewpoints, condescending, and tends towards black-and-white viewpoints.

He's also pretty bright, makes some great arguments, follows through and finishes what he starts, and is pretty fun to hang out with in person.

I'm glad he's part of this community - but he's annoying as hell sometimes. ;)

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Cody is an arrogant jackass. He's rude, abrasive, dismissive of opposing viewpoints, condescending, and tends towards black-and-white viewpoints.

He's also pretty bright, makes some great arguments, follows through and finishes what he starts, and is pretty fun to hang out with in person.

I'll just try to take the negativity with a pinch of salt. :) His arguments are, indeed, perfectly valid concerns.

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I guess that's fair enough. Maybe I've been misreading the situation all along, and everyone is as good natured about it as you are, Claude. It just seemed more malicious than that.

Anyway, sorry for derailing the thread. I just had to point out the difference listening to the podcast made to me, and thank Cody for posting the one that he did.

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If this is something players won't want to actually do themselves, or can't be bothered to do themselves, isn't that admitting the activity is kind of bad?

It's a comment on how difficult the encounters will be, not how unenjoyable they are.

I expected more from you Schooly. I thought you were one of the good ones.

I agree with Schooly.

You're reading too much into that entry. It's a poorly chosen way of illustrating the idea that the raids should be difficult.

That players turn to alternative methods to defeat difficult challenges in games is obvious; witness the proliferation of walkthroughs, cheatsheets, trainers, aimbots, and let's play videos.

Even if the wording of the original emphasizes a non-desirable reaction to said difficulty, it still gets the message across, whereas your suggested replacement is both counter-intuitive and confusing. Trying to solve an encounter yourself is the default action for all challenges, regardless of difficulty-- while resorting to video walkthroughs is what people do when it's very, very difficult.

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Is this really the way designers think?

No.

What it's saying is that it wants to create a challenge that is enjoyable to the extent that the hardcore and truly interested will want to feel like they're challenged enough to create YouTube videos to help others on occasion.

The most hardcore will enjoy the challenge when they don't know how to do it, and the softcore will look for tips online so they can do it better than "That time that we nearly wiped because Bob stood in the fire too long, but we still came out on top, is there a way to make it easier goddamnit?"

tl;dr: It's hyperbole

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Why on earth would you go to youtube to figure out how to defeat the RAIDs? Isn't figuring it out the whole entire fun of them?

I'd say there's some fun to be had in a community-type effort to figure things out. Speedruns seem like a reasonable example here: it's not like every person trying to speedrun a level ignores another player's runs of that level and is determined to find all the tricks and paths by themselves. People build off each other's successes.

I guess you could say that watching a YouTube video of a Raid would be like watching a youtube video of a campaign level before you've even tried to beat it at all, but there are definitely gradations of this. I would never watch a guide on how to beat a Halo level on Legendary, because I know that I can figure it out myself in a reasonable amount of time and still have fun doing it. However, I'd be unlikely to bother figuring out a level on SLASO by myself: the punishment wouldn't be worth the reward to me. I'd rather look up a video and get the pleasure of the execution and completion, rather than the grind of trial and error. I suppose other players may feel this way about lower difficulty levels, depending on their skill level, and I wouldn't begrudge them that.

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Why on earth would you go to youtube to figure out how to defeat the RAIDs? Isn't figuring it out the whole entire fun of them?

I'd say there's some fun to be had in a community-type effort to figure things out. Speedruns seem like a reasonable example here: it's not like every person trying to speedrun a level ignores another player's runs of that level and is determined to find all the tricks and paths by themselves. People build off each other's successes.

I'm not saying that's bad, obviously because your example is quite specific to something I actually enjoy. However, there is a difference between solving things together, which means each person contributing something, and simply looking at the solution a group has already found without contributing yourself.

I guess you could say that watching a YouTube video of a Raid would be like watching a youtube video of a campaign level before you've even tried to beat it at all, but there are definitely gradations of this. I would never watch a guide on how to beat a Halo level on Legendary, because I know that I can figure it out myself in a reasonable amount of time and still have fun doing it. However, I'd be unlikely to bother figuring out a level on SLASO by myself: the punishment wouldn't be worth the reward to me. I'd rather look up a video and get the pleasure of the execution and completion, rather than the grind of trial and error. I suppose other players may feel this way about lower difficulty levels, depending on their skill level, and I wouldn't begrudge them that.

I think this is what I'm getting at. You said figuring out SLASO wouldn't be rewarding for you, but you enjoy the execution and completion of it. So let's say that SLASO was a big part of the game (even though it isn't), like the RAIDs in Destiny will be. Now, knowing that there are tons of people like you who would find no pleasure in the formulation of strategies, why not simply tell players the optimal strategy, if it indeed is not fun to figure out?

It is either this, or include encounters people actually enjoy figuring out. If you expect players to go to youtube to plan for the encounter, why make them waste the time? Just tell them how to do it in the game. But when you think of it that way, then your game is full of stuff that has players simply pushing the buttons they are told to. Either told by you or told by DestinyFan89.

Bad design.

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I think this is what I'm getting at. You said figuring out SLASO wouldn't be rewarding for you, but you enjoy the execution and completion of it. So let's say that SLASO was a big part of the game (even though it isn't), like the RAIDs in Destiny will be. Now, knowing that there are tons of people like you who would find no pleasure in the formulation of strategies, why not simply tell players the optimal strategy, if it indeed is not fun to figure out?

It is either this, or include encounters people actually enjoy figuring out. If you expect players to go to youtube to plan for the encounter, why make them waste the time? Just tell them how to do it in the game. But when you think of it that way, then your game is full of stuff that has players simply pushing the buttons they are told to. Either told by you or told by DestinyFan89.

Bad design.

Well as far as MMO's usually go I would honestly say from my experience that there is a small percentage that participate in end game raids. Most people I know kind of quite playing or start a new character when they hit max level, so the raids would be for those people that do enjoy figuring it out, and the youtube plan would be for people that want to keep playing and enjoy experiencing the raids without the more difficult process of figuring out how (similar to how SLASO is experienced today). Now I have only played about two MMO's for any extended period of time, so if I am mistaken someone that's more experienced let me know.

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I think this is what I'm getting at. You said figuring out SLASO wouldn't be rewarding for you, but you enjoy the execution and completion of it. So let's say that SLASO was a big part of the game (even though it isn't), like the RAIDs in Destiny will be. Now, knowing that there are tons of people like you who would find no pleasure in the formulation of strategies, why not simply tell players the optimal strategy, if it indeed is not fun to figure out?

It is either this, or include encounters people actually enjoy figuring out. If you expect players to go to youtube to plan for the encounter, why make them waste the time? Just tell them how to do it in the game. But when you think of it that way, then your game is full of stuff that has players simply pushing the buttons they are told to. Either told by you or told by DestinyFan89.

Bad design.

Or maybe Bungie doesn't work in a vacuum - maybe they're ACKNOWLEDGING the fact that folks will make these guides as soon as the game comes out, and that some fans LOVE these guides, and Bungie likes the idea that the community works together?

...nah, that can't be it. Must be bad design.

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Or maybe Bungie doesn't work in a vacuum - maybe they're ACKNOWLEDGING the fact that folks will make these guides as soon as the game comes out, and that some fans LOVE these guides, and Bungie likes the idea that the community works together?

...nah, that can't be it. Must be bad design.

Exactly the point I made earlier, haha. I think the thing that amuses me about this thread (although doesn't annoy, it's still a worthwhile discussion) is that the guy that wrote that job posting was probably not thinking through the implications of his statement anywhere close to the degree that we are, it was probably written fairly quickly and in an off-hand manner.

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Or maybe Bungie doesn't work in a vacuum - maybe they're ACKNOWLEDGING the fact that folks will make these guides as soon as the game comes out, and that some fans LOVE these guides, and Bungie likes the idea that the community works together?

...nah, that can't be it. Must be bad design.

This is why I am looking and asking for specifically how things play out in MMOs. First of all, that gives me a an idea of what players are actually doing, and second gives me an indication of what players in Destiny will be doing since such a player is going to be designing the RAIDs.

From what I hear, the vast majority of people just look up strats for the RAIDs and don't even bother to figure them out. In any other studio, if the vast majority of playtesters basically said a particular challenge is not something they want to figure out, but instead just to tell them how to do it, do you think any sane studio is going to keep that in? So why are late game RAIDs designed that way?

I'm not saying you shouldn't expect players to make guides and give hints, that's preposterous. I'm not saying the community can;t work together to solve problems. I'm saying designing your challenges around the expectation that most players aren't going to want to figure it out, but instead just be told how to do it, is not good design. From the looks of it, this is how these things are in other MMOs, and implicitly what Bungie is saying they want.

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I will admit that I know very little about endgame MMO play, so maybe someone could educate me a bit about such encounters. Is it common to simply follow a guide to beat the megabosses instead of working through it on your own? How much skill does it take? Can you do it alone or do you need to party up?

Based on my experiences with Borderlands 2, here's what I can offer. Lots of people follow a guide to beat bosses as quickly as possible, but you don't have to. None of the enemies require it - just some dedication, imagination, and talent. For example, one of my Finest Gaming Moments was two-manning Pyro Pete. Discovering the right way to spec our Commandos, and then executing on our plan, was Officially Awesome.

You've got to be on the top of your game to beat these guys. Even with the best gear possible, you dig deep. There's a couple I haven't figured out. I suspect many go for the guides/hacks/cheats cause they might not be able to cut it on their own.

You can do it alone, if you're into that sort of thing (auto-erotic asphyxiation joke in here somewhere), but it's more fun with friends.

You end up with a lot of 'remember that time when' stories.

EDIT: You know, come to think of it, if you've played Firefight, you know more than you realize.

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and furthermore, from my "1-7 Difficulty" sub thread that you so vehemently nitpicked:

Firstly, I don't recall the twitch puzzles that you're talking about, but I have no problem with the idea of "struggling" to execute the solution, whether it's known previously or not. I would argue the opposite actually (at least in action games, discovering the solution is pretty much the name of the game when it comes to puzzle games). Some of the most frustrating moments I've had while playing video games is when I did not know what to do (ie: did not know the solution). Execution, and the pursuit of execution, to me, is the fun part. This train of thought is vastly supported by pretty much every raiding guild in every MMO (not to mention every RL sport, but that's another argument). Nearly no guilds learn the boss fights by first hand experience and trial and error, they [mostly] all learn the fights through "reading the strats". This fact lends credibility to the idea that the fun is in the execution.

In the past few years "Reading the strats" has come to include, almost exclusively, "watching" the strats. Perhaps I should get with the times as far as my terminology goes.

Anyway, his statement, as someone has already suggested (to your disapproval and insult), seems more like a reference to how difficult (more precisely: how multifaceted) they want the boss fights to be.

I ask you this: What do you think would be the better boss fight? The one that has been YouTube'd 100 million times or the one that doesn't have a YouTube video.

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There's not enough info to answer. Why has or hasn't it been viewed a hundred million times? Maybe it's a really entertaining boss-fight to watch and play. Maybe it's totally forgettable and there's no reason anyone would want to watch someone else play it.

Check out Dark Souls. Tons of "watch me fight this guy" videos; doesn't make the game any easier.

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In the past few years "Reading the strats" has come to include, almost exclusively, "watching" the strats. Perhaps I should get with the times as far as my terminology goes.

Anyway, his statement, as someone has already suggested (to your disapproval and insult), seems more like a reference to how difficult (more precisely: how multifaceted) they want the boss fights to be.

I ask you this: What do you think would be the better boss fight? The one that has been YouTube'd 100 million times or the one that doesn't have a YouTube video.

Again, if nearly all of the guilds read the strats when it comes to raids, then this means they do not want to figure it out on their own. Maybe it's time consuming or frustrating. I don't know. The reason doesn't matter. And so, since nobody really wants to work it out, why not just tell everybody how to do it in the first place? Because that would be stupid of course. So a game in which the majority of the people just read the strats all day long is just as dumb as a game where the developer just tells everybody the optimal strategy up front.

How do you make a game that isn't stupid? You make one that have challenges folks actually enjoy figuring out…

What if Bungie told you how to get all of the easter eggs? Isn't that pointless? How is that any different than youtube telling you how to beat the bosses?

All other things being equal, obviously the boss fight with zero videos.

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And so, since nobody really wants to work it out, why not just tell everybody how to do it in the first place? Because that would be stupid of course. So a game in which people just read the strats all day long is just as dumb as a game where the developer just tells everybody the optimal strategy up front.

You have to acknowledge the varying skill of the players. The guilds that are spearheading all of the new content of MMOs are learning to fights, and I assume they wouldn't want it any other way. They want these fights to be as difficult as they can be without being redundant and gimmicky. These players are a small portion of the player base, however, they often have the loudest (and earliest, if you will) voices--better keep them happy.

Making the boss fights this hard and leaving the strats to a third party source allows the players to bite off as much as they want before seeking help.

How do you make a game that isn't stupid? You make one that have challenges folks actually enjoy figuring out.

I'm sure there will be plenty of challenges in Destiny that will be very enjoyable to figure out on your on. And guess what, if a dev has stumped you and one's too challenging then you can turn to YouTube!

What if Bungie told you how to get all of the easter eggs? Isn't that pointless? How is that any different than youtube telling you how to beat the bosses?

Yes, that would be pointless. However, I am glad that the community makes YouTube videos so that I can see all of the easter eggs that I missed after I have had my fill of a game.

All other things being equal, obviously the boss fight with zero videos.

I am 100% certain that 100% of game developers would disagree with you.

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All other things being equal, obviously the boss fight with zero videos.

I am 100% certain that 100% of game developers would disagree with you.

When you talk about videos on youtube, do you mean those that contain strategy guides, or those that highlight aspects of the fight because somebody thinks it's cool, or because the boss says something funny, or because a player did something cool or unexpected or something else entirely?

I think you may need to be a bit more specific, otherwise it seems like a loaded question.

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The question was posed in reference to the statement in the OP, which was implying that the YouTube video addresses strategy.

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The question was posed in reference to the statement in the OP, which was implying that the YouTube video addresses strategy.

In that case then your assertion that 100% of game designers would disagree seems wrong to me; as I've discussed elsewhere Blizzard in particular has been trying to reduce the average player's reliance on external sites/tools to enjoy the core experience of the game. A game designer who doesn't have this objective is to my mind either naïve or attempting to produce a mixed-media experience. I'm really not sure that the latter describes Destiny (based on what we know so far), but we shall see.

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as I've discussed elsewhere Blizzard in particular has been trying to reduce the average player's reliance on external sites/tools to enjoy the core experience of the game. A game designer who doesn't have this objective is to my mind either naïve or attempting to produce a mixed-media experience.

This, while seemingly incredibly ambitious (can't be a bad thing, can it? maybe), I can agree with.

I really wish my Modern final wasn't in 2 hours. Sleep deprivation + cramming = no time for DBO discussion :(. I'll be back a defeated man this afternoon. Now what the **** is a square well...

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How do you make a game that isn't stupid? You make one that have challenges folks actually enjoy figuring out…

Right. Because everyone enjoys the exact same thing.

You're the guy standing at the entrance of Molten Core telling each 40-man party: "Remember, you're not having fun unless you figure it out yourself!"

As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will scour YouTube to defeat.

Don't get so caught up nitpicking the YouTube part that you forget the first half of the sentence.

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Right. Because everyone enjoys the exact same thing.

You're the guy standing at the entrance of Molten Core telling each 40-man party: "Remember, you're not having fun unless you figure it out yourself!"

This is a straw man argument.

Cody isn't saying that the entire encounter will not be fun, he is merely pointing out that if a mechanic is difficult or not fun to learn in-game, some players (in my experience based on WoW, most players) will not bother with learning it in-game and instead defer to game guides, videos etc. At this point, there is no gameplay value to having to the learning/discover phase of gameplay, and as he quite rightly points out, Bungie might as well just tell you how to do it, which is manifestly not fun and therefore it is not worth doing.

The rest of the experience may well still be entertaining (this is why most people still did enjoy Molten Core in spite of them mostly learning it through videos, guides etc.) but it seems like misguided effort to focus on something that only a tiny minority will benefit from.

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The rest of the experience may well still be entertaining (this is why most people still did enjoy Molten Core in spite of them mostly learning it through videos, guides etc.) but it seems like misguided effort to focus on something that only a tiny minority will benefit from.

[emphasis mine]

You're making the assumption that the parts of the encounters that need group solving 1) make up a significant portion of the action, and/or 2) took the designers a lot of time and effort to implement.

I remember talking to Dan Miller about the eggs he stuffed into New Alexandria - things like the rave in Club Errera, and the flyable Pelican. These things were REALLY hard to figure out on your own - I'd say 99.9% of all people who actually experienced them in-game learned how to do them from online videos - but insanely enjoyable. If they'd been left out because Dan KNEW that most people wouldn't ever find them by themselves, we'd lose a pretty fun piece of Reach. They also didn't take him a whole lot of extra time - some, yes, but it wasn't where he focused his efforts.

I would hold this up as an example of why Cody's misinterpreting that original statement, and why this sort of thing isn't even REMOTELY 'misguided'. There are plenty more.

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I remember talking to Dan Miller about the eggs he stuffed into New Alexandria - things like the rave in Club Errera, and the flyable Pelican. These things were REALLY hard to figure out on your own - I'd say 99.9% of all people who actually experienced them in-game learned how to do them from online videos - but insanely enjoyable.

Show me the job advert that talks about creating cool easter eggs and I'll concede the point. The job ad is presumably talking about core game mechanics (otherwise why mention them in a job ad?), and that's a very different kettle of fish. If you make core game mechanics that the majority of players won't enjoy then you're either not a very good game designer or you're intentionally making your game unappealing to the majority.

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I remember talking to Dan Miller about the eggs he stuffed into New Alexandria - things like the rave in Club Errera, and the flyable Pelican. These things were REALLY hard to figure out on your own - I'd say 99.9% of all people who actually experienced them in-game learned how to do them from online videos - but insanely enjoyable.

Show me the job advert that talks about creating cool easter eggs and I'll concede the point. The job ad is presumably talking about core game mechanics (otherwise why mention them in a job ad?), and that's a very different kettle of fish. If you make core game mechanics that the majority of players won't enjoy then you're either not a very good game designer or you're intentionally making your game unappealing to the majority.

I was talking about the CONCEPT of building things that might or might not be easy to figure out on your own, and the difficulty to the developer in doing so - your point seemed to be that it was a waste of resources to do things if most players wouldn't use them, and my point was that you need to take into account how MUCH effort is needed to create them before you can make that decision.

I don't believe for a minute that whoever wrote that job description meant to say that they're looking for someone to build game mechanics that the majority of players won't enjoy. And if you're going to argue that there's no other interpretation of that job ad, I guess I have nothing more to add to the discussion - it sounds like you're LOOKING for a reason to dislike this game before you've even seen it.

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Most of my opinions on this topic have already been mentioned but I've recently been able to relate to the comment you are referencing.

I finally beat Halo 4 on Legendary a couple of weeks ago. I had originally begun the task after I beat it on Normal at release. After the first mission I realized it was going to be a grind and I said "Nope."

I've been able to beat all the Halo games on legendary except Halo 1 and Reach. Halo 1 Library is just too frustrating and Reach is kinda bad in every aspect. Halo 4 however, like the other Halo games on legendary is the perfect mixture of difficult yet beatable and fun.

So when I started H4 on Legendary solo I knew I was going to need some help. Part of what made it so fun was looking for the tutorials on YouTube. THANKFULLY people like Naked Eli and Tyrant are the elite few you can find the secrets, tricks and tactics. A lot of playing on legendary isn't necessarily beating the characters but beating the game...developers.

TL;DR - It's fun having a difficult challenge that you know you can beat with the right information.

PS. I have no MMO experience, so sorry.

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"As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will scour YouTube to defeat."

Why on earth would you go to youtube to figure out how to defeat the RAIDs? Isn't figuring it out the whole entire fun of them? Isn't this essentially saying:

As a Raid Designer you will work with Designers, Artists, Engineers, and Producers to create memorable, bond-building encounters that players will not want to figure out how to defeat on their own, and so will turn to youtube so they don't have to."

If this is something players won't want to actually do themselves, or can't be bothered to do themselves, isn't that admitting the activity is kind of bad?

Upon seeing another Cody thread of cynical doom at first I feared the worst. Then I read it and realised I agreed.

The ‘figure it out amongst yourselves’ approach was a facet of MMOs in the early days. I never played it, but by all accounts EverQuest had more or less nothing to guide players in the right direction, and so they were forced to come up with their own forums and online databases to collect, collate and discuss how to optimally play the game. World of Warcraft started out with the objective of being far more accessible than EverQuest, but still failed to provide in-game assistance for a lot of things that players needed.

In the earliest days of WoW, raids were brutal. At least at first, they required 40 players and often would fail if a single key mechanic wasn't properly performed. Some encounters required as many as 4 main ‘tanks’, and the loss of a single one usually meant failure. What's more, many boss encounters had unusual or unexpected mechanisms which also lead to death, and so success usually required painful and time-consuming trial and error to discover just what the bosses could do, even before a potential strategy could be formulated.

For those of you who aren't familiar with WoW, one individual who has for a number of years had a very prominent public profile during the game's evolution is Greg Street — also known as Ghostcrawler — the ‘Lead Systems Designer’. He and his team are ultimately responsible for the design of all major game mechanics. From pretty early on he set his stall out with the intention of evolving the game to be more enjoyable for more players, as it was his (and I think most of Blizzard's) view that the game was too hardcore (apparently less than 1% of WoW players got to experience the ‘Sunwell’ raid during the expansion it came with, and so the majority of players never got to see that part of the story's ultimate conclusion).

Over the years WoW has been made more player-friendly, which offends the self-important, self-described ‘hardcore’ crowd, but the majority are unquestionably better off. As much as the improvements have helped, however, one big problem remained the lack of ‘discoverability’ of raid encounters. A lot of players (mostly the hardcore ones) enjoyed the discovery process, but for the overwhelming majority, when fights had complicated mechanics they would rather go look up the solutions offered on sites like tankspot.com than work it out for themselves. The ultimate result is that most players bypass this part of the game because they consider it too punishing, unentertaining or otherwise not fun.

Blizzard's solution to this issue was to introduce a raid and dungeon guide that explained the key mechanics of every encounter. It didn't tell you how to defeat them, but knowing that a boss will perform an attack every 60 seconds that will kill anyone facing him is a very useful start. It's been a couple of years since I was an active player so I'm not sure just how much requirement there is to learn mechanics via YouTube these days, but I'd not be surprised if it's reduced; it always felt more like homework than fun.

So; back to Bungie. Why would they want people to hit up YouTube to learn how to play the game? I am mystified, and more than a little concerned. A console game with an unstated prerequisite that players go learn how to play it via fan-submitted videos feels like a massive cop-out to me. In a way it's not a million miles from how games used to require tutorials, but these were eventually incorporated into the early stages of gameplay. I can only hope we're being premature in our fears. If there were any form of dialog between Bungie design and players here then they could probably put these fears to rest, but Bungie are pretty secretive about this stuff (and I don't suppose there's much point asking a serious question in the mailsack). We'll just have to wait and see.

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So; back to Bungie. Why would they want people to hit up YouTube to learn how to play the game? I am mystified, and more than a little concerned. A console game with an unstated prerequisite that players go learn how to play it via fan-submitted videos feels like a massive cop-out to me. In a way it's not a million miles from how games used to require tutorials, but these were eventually incorporated into the early stages of gameplay. I can only hope we're being premature in our fears. If there were any form of dialog between Bungie design and players here then they could probably put these fears to rest, but Bungie are pretty secretive about this stuff (and I don't suppose there's much point asking a serious question in the mailsack). We'll just have to wait and see.

In the Portal 2 strategy guide, in the beginning I specifically state that this is a game you should try to finish on your own, as it's a puzzle game and most of the fun is figuring out the puzzles. I actually got a few questions about that, but it was left in. And lo and behold, lots of people are saying that's right.

http://www.strategyguidereviews.com/2011/05/portal-2-strategy-guide-review/

"One thing I really appreciated were the warnings/suggestions at the beginning of the single-player and co-op chapters, where it strongly urged players to only use the guide when they were stuck. I can’t recall any guide saying that, not even the original Portal strategy guide. Granted, the reason why people buy a strategy guide is for assistance, but it’s nice that the writers asked users to try to work out the puzzles on your own, because really, you won’t get the beauty of the game without trying on your own."

By all accounts, this reviewer is a casual player, and even she understands the importance of actually playing the game an undertaking the challenges yourself.

Over the years WoW has been made more player-friendly, which offends the self-important, self-described ‘hardcore’ crowd, but the majority are unquestionably better off. As much as the improvements have helped, however, one big problem remained the lack of ‘discoverability’ of raid encounters. A lot of players (mostly the hardcore ones) enjoyed the discovery process, but for the overwhelming majority, when fights had complicated mechanics they would rather go look up the solutions offered on sites like tankspot.com than work it out for themselves. The ultimate result is that most players bypass this part of the game because they consider it too punishing, unentertaining or otherwise not fun.

Simple solution:

Difficulty levels.

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Simple solution:

Difficulty levels.

Implementing this in a shared experience would be interesting. Other online experiences have done it so that a user can play a base difficulty, then if they wish to they can up the challenge for more powerful returns. ("Hardcore" or "Elite" dungeons in MMOs, Shared RPGs like Diablo II, etc)

I'd imagine a similar situation may happen here... depending on how the game world(s) are laid out, and if the "Open world" is instanced or not. Is this a Diablo-style thing where it's just your experience and anyone with you, and you select the challenge beforehand, or an MMO-style where everything's open and only specific areas have the possibility of upping the challenge?

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Simple solution:

Difficulty levels.

I suggested just that to the reception of your caps-lock disapproval (again, in your "Rewards" thread):

There would be 7 levels of difficulty (an obvious choice...)
As soon as you start up your game you will be asked what level you would like to play at: 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 7? These levels of difficulty are not unlocked by completing previous difficulty levels, rather they are all available initially and you are free to go get destroyed in level 6 if you so please.

...

... not only do enemies hit harder, have more health, etc. in increasing difficulty levels but their mechanics are also slightly different. This should effectively make difficulty level 5 (for instance) fundamentally harder than difficulty level 4, regardless of how sparkly your loot is. It should also help to keep players interested in additional playthroughs/difficulty levels.

...

I think it would be awesome if the city held players of all difficulty levels and difficulty levels were chosen when players embark on each mission rather than at the main menu(much like instances have evolved in MMOs).

What gives?

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What gives?

You wanted people to have to play on lower difficulty levels in order to be able to progress through the harder ones. I don't agree with that. If I'm good enough, I should be able to start on 6 and finish 6 without playing 1-5 to earn items that enable me to compete.

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I see.

I got the impression you disliked the idea all together..my bad.

...
I still feel like you're generalizing my idea though.

My suggestion essentially increases content in a very easy (and the more important, quick) way, which would lead to Desrtiny discs being in trays for a very long period of time.

If you make the hardest difficulty level of Destiny beatable on the first playthrough, or first encounter rather, (I think it's unlikely Destiny will have "playthroughs"), then people will play that playthrough first. Which upon completing the story would leave players without/waiting on new content and would result in three possible things: players being subjegated to loot farming, the game being reduced to just another multiplayer FPS, and an unsteady, declining player base.

You cannot, or should not at least, approach the difficulty levels of a loot oriented game in the same fashion you would an FPS and other game types.

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I hope to God it isn't "loot oriented." There's a difference between including loot drops and having that be the focus of the game.

Bungie writes interesting worlds. I want to explore those worlds, and then move on to new ones; come back to the old ones to look around again, see what's changed. I most certainly do not want to do repeat "playthroughs" or whatever equivalent there is for Destiny.

The problem with your suggestion is that, based on existing games which utilize progressively improved gear, making the game unbeatable or at least extremely difficult to beat on the hardest difficulty without top-tier equipment requires artificial difficulty and not challenge. The issue comes from the fact that tiered equipment is rarely functionally different; the numbers go up, but what it does remains the same. Your Level 99 Sword of Truth still hits things, just like the garden hoe you started with, it just makes bigger chunks of health go away with each swing - but since encounters tend to scale numerically with level, you're not really any more effective than you were at the start. A really interesting difficulty curve involves making enemies function more intelligently, creating new encounters which throw more and various enemies at you in different environments, that sort of thing. Crysis (the first one!) did this really well; the enemy aimbot didn't improve on hard-mode, but they spoke Korean instead of English, you didn't have an aim-point without ironsights, no grenade indicator, and when driving a vehicle, you could either drive or operate the gun, but not both at once.

Bungie, of course, could totally knock this out of the park if they made higher-tier items functionally different. Or maybe even do away with tiers of items, and just have item types; no Mark IX Battle Rifle with Extended Magazine and Anti-Tank Augments versus Hunting Rifle, but rather mid-range anti-personnel rifle versus shotgun, or heavy-but-slow armor versus fragile-but-agile light armor.

Uhhh, I'm rambling, back to the point. There are players, myself included, who tackle a game on hard-mode right off (well, never could do that on Halo, but most other shooters). We've been playing first-person shooters since we could walk, we know what we're doing, and we don't want developers trying to slow us down by forcing us to wade through a swamp of grinding to get a nice new gun or whatever; we want to jump right in and have our shooting-and-strafing skills be challenged.

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It's been a couple of years since I was an active player so I'm not sure just how much requirement there is to learn mechanics via YouTube these days, but I'd not be surprised if it's reduced; it always felt more like homework than fun.

I actually wondered this. So I investigated...

I searched strategy guides of both older wow bosses and newer wow bosses.
The older searches included names like: Luci, Majordomo, Hakkar, Ragnaros, Cromagnus, Twin Emps, Gruul, Nightbane, Magtheridon, The lurker, Alar, Illidan (I searched a lot...)
The newer searches included names from Cata and MoP that I pulled straight from a wiki (I stopped playing in WotLK).

There are overwhelmingly more views for the newer boss fights.

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You're mistaken about the nature of raid difficulty in Classic WoW. Encounters at equivalent points in progression have grown in mechanical complexity with every expansion.

Classic difficulty came from stiff gear checks, which the raid designers of the time could very finely tune due to the relative simplicity of the available gear content. Compounding this was that the only way to get better gear was to beat the bosses that required slightly worse gear in the first place.

As someone who led raids from BWL to MSV, complexity and "gimmick" mechanics have become more prevalent over the years, but so too has the availability of alternative gear sources that allow players to gear past encounters.

As far as YouTube goes, you don't watch YouTube and then one shot any encounter (except maybe Morchok.) You still have to execute. Speaking as a raid leader,
go watch the Tankspot vid" is not so that they can execute the fight--only practice accomplishes that. It's so that I can skip spending 30 minutes explaining mechanics (that are in many cases only relevant to certain players) and get to the playing part.

Why not build encounters that still culminate in exhilirating, hard earned success, but require no explanation? If you can consistently pull that off, apply for the position. ;)

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Ah, skimming the thread I realize most things have been said, but I have to use that year I lost to hard core WoW raiding in some way.

Endgame in vanilla WoW was like this. The raids were scaled as such that they were _reaaaaally_ hard, you could spend a month trying to down a single boss, and this even with having checked guides. It was mostly slow because you had to grind a raid until your group had good enough gear to get through it all, and in WoW there were lockout timers so you could not just restart a raid.

I read on Malstrom's blog that it's a tactic to make distance to the content wall, the point where there is no more content and players will lose interest. With WoW all the super hard raids were nerfed with the next expansion, so _anyone_ could finish them, not just the hard core guilds. Why was this content unlocked like this? Probably because then there was more content waiting after that raid. Luckily I had quit WoW before the first expansion so I saw the nerfs on a distance.

To check out boss fights on YouTube feels very MMO-ish. In vanilla WoW it would be up to 40 people in a raid, and if you fail, there is a reset time before you can try again and lots of preparation to get people resurrected and buffed, and it costs a lot of gold for everyone's repairs. And it takes a lot of time to just organize the group. With all these costs you as a raid leader will make sure you have done all you can to get a successful run, nobody likes to wipe, and few people had the patience to retry things that seemed impossible. It takes some time to change strategy when you are that many people.

And honestly, if you make a really hard encounter, the majority of the players will not care to figure it out, only the really hard core will grind until they can manage it. Then they will upload videos to YouTube for some street cred and normal players will have a better chance at actually taking part in that content (while it is hard).

This thing with raids sure does make me wonder how Destiny will actually play. I am not going to play a slow MMO like WoW again, the skill ceiling was fairly low, the real ceiling was knowledge about the encounters and the gear you had. The whole point becomes the grind towards better gear to make your character more capable, something that restarted every expansion. I really hope Destiny will work different somehow... o_o

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Ah, skimming the thread I realize most things have been said, but I have to use that year I lost to hard core WoW raiding in some way.

Endgame in vanilla WoW was like this. The raids were scaled as such that they were _reaaaaally_ hard, you could spend a month trying to down a single boss, and this even with having checked guides. It was mostly slow because you had to grind a raid until your group had good enough gear to get through it all, and in WoW there were lockout timers so you could not just restart a raid.

Thank you for your post.

From the sound of it, these types of RAIDs are hard, but not challenging.

Hard is basically how hard something is to do. Lifting 200 lbs is harder than lifting 150 lbs. To make it harder, you just add more weight. You're still doing the same thing it's just harder.

Challenge is the skill set you need to do something. Playing Chess is more challenging than Checkers, because the pieces can move in more complicated ways.

So it's like, you can make a boss harder by giving him more hitpoints, or you can make him more challenging by giving him additional attacks or strategies. When he's harder, you just do what you do for longer, but when he's more challenging you have to master new skills to avoid his attacks or exploit weaknesses in his strategy.

I hope that makes sense and I explained that well. I think if Bungie can make the RAIDs challenging, rather than hard, that everybody is going to have more fun with them.

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Thank you for your post.

From the sound of it, these types of RAIDs are hard, but not challenging.

Hard is basically how hard something is to do. Lifting 200 lbs is harder than lifting 150 lbs. To make it harder, you just add more weight. You're still doing the same thing it's just harder.

Challenge is the skill set you need to do something. Playing Chess is more challenging than Checkers, because the pieces can move in more complicated ways.

So it's like, you can make a boss harder by giving him more hitpoints, or you can make him more challenging by giving him additional attacks or strategies. When he's harder, you just do what you do for longer, but when he's more challenging you have to master new skills to avoid his attacks or exploit weaknesses in his strategy.

I hope that makes sense and I explained that well. I think if Bungie can make the RAIDs challenging, rather than hard, that everybody is going to have more fun with them.

I normally sit in the background on discussions pertaining to gameplay mechanics. It seems that everyone covers all the angles of the discussion, and then some, and I prefer just to read everyone else's input on the matter. What you just said here I think made great sense, and I really like your point at the end there, Cody. I have no MMO experience, but from what I understand of them (if Destiny is indeed MMOish, and if it's RAIDs are the same as other MMO RAIDs) then I really hope for more of a challenge and less of a grind.

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I hope that makes sense and I explained that well. I think if Bungie can make the RAIDs challenging, rather than hard, that everybody is going to have more fun with them.

I normally sit in the background on discussions pertaining to gameplay mechanics. It seems that everyone covers all the angles of the discussion, and then some, and I prefer just to read everyone else's input on the matter. What you just said here I think made great sense, and I really like your point at the end there, Cody. I have no MMO experience, but from what I understand of them (if Destiny is indeed MMOish, and if it's RAIDs are the same as other MMO RAIDs) then I really hope for more of a challenge and less of a grind.

Totally in agreement here. I never made it to the end-game raids in WoW so what BOLL describes sounds new to me and honestly pretty tedious. I loved playing through Legendary in all the Halo games. I do enjoy a challenge, but ideally it would come mostly from map design and the tactical placement of a variety of enemies that force the player to adapt and consider alternate strategies rather than just artificially boosted stats. It's a valid concern. Still, it's easy to spin that job description to sound like something it's not; I'm pretty sure Bungie isn't setting out to design encounters that are not fun.

Another question this brings up is whether or not (or to what extent) enemy difficulty will scale to player's ability. A broken level scaling system can really shit up an otherwise decent game (see: Oblivion).

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Ah, skimming the thread I realize most things have been said, but I have to use that year I lost to hard core WoW raiding in some way.

lol.

This thing with raids sure does make me wonder how Destiny will actually play. I am not going to play a slow MMO like WoW again, the skill ceiling was fairly low, the real ceiling was knowledge about the encounters and the gear you had. The whole point becomes the grind towards better gear to make your character more capable, something that restarted every expansion. I really hope Destiny will work different somehow... o_o

I strongly believe the syrupy slow pace will naturally be fixed by a smaller "raid size". Scholo and Strat were more playable/quicker/doable primarily because they were 5 man instances, not because they took less player skill or less knowledge of the fight.

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So shut up. I mean really. You've directly profited from so-called 'terrible design' that makes players not want to figure it out on their own. Ones that they would turn to and pick up before they've even PLAYED the game, because game guides are often available in the store!

There are different forms of fun. Some people are all about the execution, others like the strategy, others like both. Some people aren't going to want both all the time no matter what you do. Maybe they're tired, or they're not finding this particular raid as exciting and just want to get through it and move on.

Some people aren't going to be capable of both to high levels - now or ever.

A designer has to be realistic here.

But any given player might still have enough execution skill that they can derive enough pleasure from the experience to still make it worth it to them, even missing out on potential fun from the strategy-formulation.

Not knowing the strategy can cause lots of frustration too. Which, quite frankly, plenty of people aren't interested in experiencing during their free time. That's their prerogative.

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So shut up. I mean really. You've directly profited from so-called 'terrible design' that makes players not want to figure it out on their own. Ones that they would turn to and pick up before they've even PLAYED the game, because game guides are often available in the store!

Maybe I feel the Portal 2 and Vanquish guides had a lot to offer beyond the hints, such as interviews with the developers, artwork, story analysis, etc.

Maybe the guides went beyond just telling players how to solve the game, and instead taught them how to extend their creativity to solve things in their own way, essentially training them to think outside the box beyond what's in the guide, especially considering they are obsolete hours after they are sold anyway thanks to the internet.

Did you even read any of them?

And I mean yeah, the guides are expected to explain how to get achievements, but you know how I feel about achievements.

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players should only consult the guide if they are horribly stuck.

How do you define "horribly stuck"?

Would 4 hours of trying the same puzzle to no avail fit your definition?
What about 4 hours of trying the same boss?
What about 4 hours of trying the same boss in a 4 player co-op game in which all 4 players have different RL obligations and time constraints that make the very thought of a 4hr session implausible?

There is no difference in being stuck on a boss than there is being stuck on a puzzle.

Ps. If someone is looking up Portal guides without having previously attempted the levels then I question their motive for playing the game in the first place. I've lost a little faith in humanity knowing that someone felt the need to put that disclaimer at the beginning of a Portal guide. I've lost even more faith knowing that someone found it helpful...

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players should only consult the guide if they are horribly stuck.

How do you define "horribly stuck"?

Stuck to the point where you are no longer enjoying yourself. This is going to be different points for every player.

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players should only consult the guide if they are horribly stuck.

How do you define "horribly stuck"?

Stuck to the point where you are no longer enjoying yourself. This is going to be different points for every player.

It was a rhetorical question that lead to my point. ...Which was evidentially missed.

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Maybe I suggested players should only consult the guide if they are horribly stuck.

You're such hero Cody. Simultaneously taking people's money and telling them they shouldn't use their purchase.

Maybe I feel the Portal 2 and Vanquish guides had a lot to offer beyond the hints, such as interviews with the developers, artwork, story analysis, etc.

Maybe the guides went beyond just telling players how to solve the game, and instead taught them how to extend their creativity to solve things in their own way, essentially training them to think outside the box beyond what's in the guide, especially considering they are obsolete hours after they are sold anyway thanks to the internet.

So you throw in some extras to sweeten the deal. Stand business practice. Obviously online communities that originally form around tactics discussion/trading can offer nothing even remotely comparable...

Did you even read any of them?

If you can decry Bungie's entire design philosophy based on a job advertisement for a mode you don't understand in a game you know very little about then...

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I don't know what's your problem. The job listing says that Raids are supposed to be challenging and take some effort so that some people will propably go to Youtube to look for tactics.
So you're basically saying: They should either just tell you how to make it through the Raids or make them so easy that everyone can play through them without any problems. If this is your opinion I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

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I don't know what's your problem. The job listing says that Raids are supposed to be challenging and take some effort so that some people will propably go to Youtube to look for tactics.
So you're basically saying: They should either just tell you how to make it through the Raids or make them so easy that everyone can play through them without any problems. If this is your opinion I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm not saying to make the raids easy. I'm not saying looking up stuff in a guide is bad. I'm not saying you have to enjoy every aspect of everything you do in a game.

I was playing Depoina earlier in the year. It's a point and click adventure game, and a good one too. Now, because exploration and puzzle solving are at the heart of the genre, and I like doing those things, I generally do not consult guides or walkthroughs and prefer to solve things on my own.

However, there was a trial and error puzzle in the game. Not a puzzle you could solve by trial and error, one you were required to. When I realized this, rather than keep entering combinations I said 'fuck that' and googled a walkthrough, and simply punched in the solution and moved on.

In that instance, a walkthrough helped me, because it allowed me to bypass something that wasn't fun. In fact, folks reading guides obviously do it because that is more fun than doing it on their own, or else they'd do it on their own.

But that's not the point. The point is Deadalic (the developer) should have known better than to include a trial and error puzzle. Adventure games have puzzles generally based in logic or creative thinking, and trial by error puzzles are pretty much universally disliked. That's the point. I'm sure a few sick folks out there LIKE trial and error puzzles, but so what?

It seems like the MMO crowd has spoken and has said the same thing about formulating raid strategies as adventure game players say about trial and error puzzles. The fact that virtually everybody just wants to read how to do it should tell you it's not fun. So, Bungie should know better than to do that and instead make it fun.

You are always going to have people looking up secrets and strategies. In fact, more power to them because they are taking it upon themselves to bypass the stupid parts of games (or parts they themselves think are stupid). But as a developer, if you see most people bypassing a portion of your game, you should take a hint.

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In fact, folks reading guides obviously do it because that is more fun than doing it on their own, or else they'd do it on their own.

Nope.

I often read guides after I've beaten a game. I've DONE it on my own - now I want to see how OTHERS do it.

I wish you wouldn't use phrases like 'In fact' when in fact what follows is NOT fact. Thanks.

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I often read guides after I've beaten a game. I've DONE it on my own - now I want to see how OTHERS do it.

Why do you want to see how others do it? Are you purely curious? Or is the idea to see if others do it better / faster / more efficiently / in a cooler way than you did?

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Why do you want to see how others do it? Are you purely curious? Or is the idea to see if others do it better / faster / more efficiently / in a cooler way than you did?

For me, sometimes one, sometimes the other. Depends purely on how much I perceived the challenge.

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I often read guides after I've beaten a game. I've DONE it on my own - now I want to see how OTHERS do it.

Why do you want to see how others do it? Are you purely curious? Or is the idea to see if others do it better / faster / more efficiently / in a cooler way than you did?

Both. All. Whatever. Sometimes reading the guide inspires me to replay something that might have remained unplayed otherwise. Sometimes I want to know if I missed anything. Sometimes I just want to see what others did.

There aren't any 'rules' about how a game is (or should be) played or enjoyed, and your insistence that there's a 'right' way grates. A lot.

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There aren't any 'rules' about how a game is (or should be) played or enjoyed, and your insistence that there's a 'right' way grates. A lot.

I'm sorry if I give off that impression, and that's obviously not true that there's only one way to enjoy a game. If that were the case I wouldn't play games, and it would defeat the purpose of them being interactive.

That's not the point I'm making. The point I'm ultimately making is that of the value of certain challenges, and judging by the responses here, WoW style RAIDs do not seem to be a very valuable, rewarding challenge in general.

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I often read guides after I've beaten a game. I've DONE it on my own - now I want to see how OTHERS do it.

Why do you want to see how others do it? Are you purely curious? Or is the idea to see if others do it better / faster / more efficiently / in a cooler way than you did?

Because it's fun?

Haven't you ever gotten nearly as much enjoyment out of watching someone play a game as you've gotten from playing it?

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In fact, folks reading guides obviously do it because that is more fun than doing it on their own, or else they'd do it on their own.

Nope.

I often read guides after I've beaten a game. I've DONE it on my own - now I want to see how OTHERS do it.

I wish you wouldn't use phrases like 'In fact' when in fact what follows is NOT fact. Thanks.

Same here. I often watch let's play videos of games I've already finished to see how other people play them differently. Sometimes it's for RPGs where I know there are different routes, but I feel so strongly about the character that I'm playing that choosing a different route "just to see what happens" feels wrong. I've replayed all of the Mass Effect games at least once, and often I start out intending on reversing some of the major decisions, but when it comes down to it, I end up making the same decision because it feels right for the character I'm playing. (I've never saved Kaidan, I've never killed Wrex, and I've never not saved the Rachni queen).

I expect plenty of others also do it to approach achievement challenges that focus on collecting objects strewn about the game. Games often tell you how many out of the possible total objects you've found, but give you little or no indication of where the missing ones are, meaning you end up replaying the entire game doing nothing but searching dark corners. Instead, I'll look through a walkthrough's list of item locations until I see one I don't recognize, and then I'll focus a search on those levels, only resorting to actually reading the location of that item if I can't find it with a general search. I did this recently with novel pages during an Alan Wake replay.

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I understand what you mean, but don't you think it is much more likely that the Youtube part of the job description was referring to Raids being challenging and not referring to them not being fun to figure out?

Apart from that I think that when something in a video game is intentionally challenging most people will find it too difficult and not fun - at least at the beginning. Wether it's fun to figure out or not doesn't make that much of a difference. When it's fun maybe 60% of the players will look it up and when it's not that fun maybe 70%. Modern gamers hate challenging games. That's why most of the games are dead easy and even 5-year olds could play most of them without problems.

So just through making something challenging you take the fun away from a lot of gamers. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't care if figuring out the challenging parts of your game are fun or not, but I just want to point out that "fun to figure out" is a very loose concept and that there are a lot of people who don't even want to figure anything out.

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It seems like the MMO crowd has spoken and has said the same thing about formulating raid strategies as adventure game players say about trial and error puzzles.

"Formulating raid strategies" IS trial and error. You attempt a boss, you die. You attempt a boss, you die. You attempt... ...Only you're not doing it alone, you have 5-25 other people getting frustrated along with you.

The fact that virtually everybody just wants to read how to do it should tell you it's not fun.

I hate going to basketball practice.
I love playing basketball.

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Okay, here is my opinion about raids. Yes, people typically use information resources, such as youtube, to aid themselves in completing raids, but there are also some very motivated and competitive guilds/players that want to be the first to complete raid encounters. Usually, whenever a new raid instance was released for WoW, there would be somewhat of a competition among guilds in order to be the first to complete the new raid instance for bragging rights. Usually, these guilds don't have youtube as a resource for raid encounters, they have to figure it out with 15-40 of their guildmates.

Once these leading guilds have completed the raid encounter, they typically record their strategies and share with others. Then, others that don't want to spend their time learning encounters with 25 other people can substantially improve their odds of success by watching a video.

I think raids exist purely for the reason of keeping players paying MMO subscription fees. Developers need to keep players interested in the game by offering stronger gear to players. Raid bosses are just a means to distribute that gear, essentially they are just loot pinatas. Raids allow for the loot grinding to continue during the end game so players remain interested and continue paying subscription fees.

Honestly, I think raids tend to become more laborious than fun. They are fun to play once or twice, but they seem to lose their appeal once you see what they are. I would rather spend my time playing a fun competitive multiplayer mode, playing raid instances over and over again in order to receive better gear doesn't appeal to me.

But, maybe Bungie knows a way to make raids more fun than a traditional MMO.

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While we're on the subject of job descriptions, does Bungie really ask their producers to juggle chainsaws?

http://www.bungie.net/en-us/AboutUs#page=careers&job=10348

"If you have an amazing attention to detail and can juggle chainsaws, chew gum, and write a sonnet at the same time, then you might be just right for this team."

I mean, the gum chewing and sonnet writing seems pretty normal but the rest sounds super dangerous and I bet it violates several OSHA standards and practices.

Is this really the way producers think? Stay on your toes guys; don't succumb to this.

I will admit that I know very little about chainsaw juggling, so maybe someone could educate me a bit about such activities. Is it common to put yourself in such mortal danger to work on the production team at Bungie? How much skill does it take? Can you learn it on your own, or should you join the circus?

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tl;dr

just don't make raids stupid plz. k thx bye.

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So when I apply to Bungie I should include a video of me juggling chainsaws?

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While we're on the subject of job descriptions, does Bungie really ask their producers to juggle chainsaws?

http://www.bungie.net/en-us/AboutUs#page=careers&job=10348

"If you have an amazing attention to detail and can juggle chainsaws, chew gum, and write a sonnet at the same time, then you might be just right for this team."

I mean, the gum chewing and sonnet writing seems pretty normal but the rest sounds super dangerous and I bet it violates several OSHA standards and practices.

Is this really the way producers think? Stay on your toes guys; don't succumb to this.

I will admit that I know very little about chainsaw juggling, so maybe someone could educate me a bit about such activities. Is it common to put yourself in such mortal danger to work on the production team at Bungie? How much skill does it take? Can you learn it on your own, or should you join the circus?

:)

"As a Job Description Designer you will work around paranoid fanboys to create memorable, bond-building descriptions that potential job applicants will scour YouTube to defeat."

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- No text -

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While we're on the subject of job descriptions, does Bungie really ask their producers to juggle chainsaws?

"If you have an amazing attention to detail and can juggle chainsaws, chew gum, and write a sonnet at the same time, then you might be just right for this team."

I mean, the gum chewing and sonnet writing seems pretty normal but the rest sounds super dangerous and I bet it violates several OSHA standards and practices.

I will admit that I know very little about chainsaw juggling, so maybe someone could educate me a bit about such activities. Is it common to put yourself in such mortal danger to work on the production team at Bungie? How much skill does it take? Can you learn it on your own, or should you join the circus?

:)

To my knowledge, OSHA regulations are remarkably silent on the operation of power tools in a commercial workspace. To be on the safe side, I would recommend wearing proper safety equipment (Full face guard, gloves, steel toed boots, and earplugs are a must) and performing the act in a well-ventilated environment to prevent the buildup of fumes.

A quick search reminded me that you should check the guards and safety interlocks before starting the chainsaw. And while refueling, bring the motor to a complete stop and rest it on a stable surface.

Hmm... you know, the modifications required to keep the chainsaws running just MIGHT be in violation of code 1910.243(a)(2)(i)

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...raids were like Silent Cartographer, in that you played them over and over cause they were awesome?

Also, phones ringing.

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Someone agrees:

Social interaction outside of game killed WoW. It guts all theme park designs, because they rely on obfuscation as a path for content (in contrast to, say, adventure games that use obfuscation as the content itself). You aren't interested in finding out what gear is best or making decisions, you just want a reward and you want your reward to be good. Thus, best-in-slot lists were created. You don't want to waste time working out various angles on your abilities to see how to optimize your DPS, so you just google it and spend 10 minutes on a practice dummy. Without individual experimentation/exploration, the whole system collapses and WoW has been struggling to find content to fill the void

So yes, laugh it off Bungie but this is kind of serious.

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But seriously, you dug up a half a year old nitpicking topic to post the opinion of a random person who agreed with you? Why? Does this person have some sort of experience or credentials that, if I knew them, would give him more weight that his apparent "random guy on the internet" status?

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