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Design things I'm surprised weren't addressed in TTK (Destiny)
So TTK is fantastic and more than I expected out of Bungie. They've rekindled my faith in their company's design ability.
Which is why a couple of sort of glaring design flaws still stand out as weird to me, and I've compiled them here, so it sounds like I have nothing but complaints (when, in fact, I'm loving this expansion and look forward to playing every night):
- The game holds 12 players on a PvP server, but the list of who is in your game caps at 11 with an extra page dedicated to the single player. Why not just make this 12? Seems simple and obvious.
- Grimoire is still not in the game. I can think of no good reason at all that this should be so.
- Legacy art issues (missing textures on ships) still not addressed.
- Shotguns as one-hit kill machines. Honestly, I think if shotguns did as much damage as a sniper body shot, they'd be completely fine, and you could make their range much longer without breaking them. It would also carve a niche for fusion rifles as more than just "shotguns that need to charge up first." Personal preference here, but the balance of shotties still feels off from the rest of the weapons. Skilled players would still be able to pull off the shotgun + melee combo for nearly instant kills, but you wouldn't feel quite so cheated by someone who could do that.
- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.
- Tracked quests and bounties should be displayed while in orbit without the need to scroll through menus (or displayable via a single button press).
- Preference for what to display at the ghost screen (scoreboard, modifiers, tracked quests or bounties) should persist through games.
- During the death screen in PvP, players should be able to see tracked quests and bounties, either by using the same preference as the ghost screen or by using a single button press. It's the most natural time, during a game, to check that sort of thing.
- Load times in menus have been dramatically increased on PS4. I can only assume it's the same on Xbone, and some kind of horrible nightmare on 360 and PS3.
- I really want to be able to slightly steer my ship during loading screens, a'la Warframe. Maybe let me do some booster jets or fire a gun, too?
- Shaders and emblems, despite being stored in a menu in the tower, are still items which you have to carry around with you. Why not just make it a select-a-wheel in your inventory that unlocks as you go? Seems like poor underlying engine design to me, and is probably a massive fundamental change in code such that this will never be fixed.
- Mission wrap-up screens don't show you bounties you completed during that activity, but do show you item upgrades that you earned. Should be consistent (and I'd prefer if it shows all completions). It would be even better if it let you choose to cash in those bounties from that screen as well.
- The sword seems fairly unique, but there's nothing in the game which actually tells you "Hey, don't delete this; you should instead upgrade it to get an exotic quest later." Seems weird.
- Only an issue because of legacy characters, but these crucible intro missions give light 37 rewards. Seems like an easy fix to make all rewards scale to your level.
- Custom PvP games for private groups. Come *on* already.
- Why can't we apply shaders to weapons and ships?
- A huge number of the new cloaks don't take shaders at all, which is very frustrating. Is this the same for Marks and Bonds? That sounds like a law firm.