Have you played Mass Effect 3? (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, June 10, 2015, 20:06 (3452 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Agreed, for the most part.

I don't think Destiny suffers much vs ME3 when comparing the various player classes of the two. ME3 had more, for sure, but Destiny's six subclasses along the various different subclass builds along with the special wrinkles offered by exotic weapons and armors compares pretty well to ME3 in my mind. Enough so that I'd call it a solid tie in that area between the two games.

Where ME3 did much better is where Destiny's PvE as a whole falls down: Destiny, from story missions, to Strikes, to PoE, and even to Raids just ends the action too soon. Story missions and Strikes are pretty short and then dump you back to orbit. PoE ramps up the difficulty from 0 to 100 far too quickly over each area's three rounds. Even Raids, once figured out, are just five or six distinct challenges. ME3's multiplayer keeps you in the same area for 11 rounds that slowly but surely ramp in difficulty. That both allows a slower ramp in difficulty, but also allows more variety in enemy mixes. Destiny probably doesn't have the sheer variety of enemy units but it could still have a lot more fun with the unit composition if it had more rounds with which to play with. (I want an all Shank and Snipers round for instance.)

If I had ultimate power to "fix" PoE I'd do a couple of things:

1. Bigger arenas. ME3 gets away with smaller levels (like that tiny two floor research station) because its levels are all flat slices connected by ladders and right angles forming corridors. It's easier to hold a long straight shooting lane (especially with invincible sticky cover!) that it is to hold the various asymmetric safe points in Destiny's PoE. This is probably a visual and even an AI win for Destiny (ME3's AI basically moves forward while Destiny's can also more dynamically circle around or break line of sight) but it also means I very often feel completely pinned in PoE with absolutely nowhere to go that I won't immediately be completely pinned again. You could run away and regroup more often in ME3 than you ever can in PoE. Bigger levels with more distinct defensible zones would help here I think.

2. More types of challenges spread over a longer continuous period of action. First, PoE needs more than the three challenge types, and I'd bet anything it'll get more sooner or later, but mainly it feels like you just get started and then everything grinds to a halt while you go back to the airlock. Perhaps instead give me six waves before the airlock but only two or three different maps? Or nine waves, some with objectives some without, and then maybe fight the boss all in the same (now larger!) play area.

I think that combination of bigger maps plus more objective types and longer stretches of action would do a lot to beef up PoE.