JC Penny and Destiny

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, May 26, 2013, 10:10 (3982 days ago)

Amidst a torrent of fake intellectual game design nonsense in most episodes, Extra Credits sometimes gets it partially right.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-jc-pennys-effect

This where Destiny can either get it right, or get it wrong.

The argument is this: Firefall monsters drop components to make and upgrade weapons and gear, but never weapons and gear themselves. Extra credits postulates this will fail, because players feel more satisfaction in a good weapon dropping even if they can't use it for their class, than if the components for a good weapon that can be built by any class dropped because the value of the components is obfuscated and not immediately apparent. In other words, they think most players are dumb.

Where extra credits gets this wrong is underestimating the ability of people to recognize valuable objects. Their assertion has already been proven false by looking at the trading scene in Diablo 2. Diablo 2 had things called runes. Runes were just pieces of stone that didn't really do anything, but when you put certain runes in certain weapons in certain orders you could get very good weapons as a result.

Now, the idiots at Extra credits would have you think that just because the runes aren't immediately valuable, players wouldn't like getting them and that they wouldn't have as much value. But, I can tell you that runes were highly prized, and people felt very good when one dropped.

Where Extra Credits is right is when they say The Firefall system is superior. It's the way to go with regards to loot. In other words, DON'T WASTE THE PLAYER'S TIME. Nothing should ever drop that a player can't potentially use. Firefall did it by having monsters drop components, and the different classes all had weapons that could be made from any component.

Obviously I would see the concept of loot go away all together, and instead place weapons and armor in specific locations for players to acquire, but that's not happening.

Of course if Destiny is possibly maybe probably not coming out in the fall, they can't change their system now. Can't wait for details at E3 to see what decisions Bungie made.