Lack of Discovery

I like the idea of all these secret quests for guns a whole lot, but so many of them involve… waiting until the quest is given to you. Doesn't anybody else find that lame? Maybe it's just me, but in a game which is interactive, shouldn't discovery be brought about by my actions, rather than a popup on Tuesday?

Every step should be the result of something I do.

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I like the idea of all these secret quests for guns a whole lot, but so many of them involve… waiting until the quest is given to you. Doesn't anybody else find that lame? Maybe it's just me, but in a game which is interactive, shouldn't discovery be brought about by my actions, rather than a popup on Tuesday?

Every step should be the result of something I do.

I don't mind that step 1 for No Time to Explain was to find the hidden ghosts and then wait a while. You did have to do something.

The problem is that the 'discovery process' as far as I can tell is actually "reading reddit." Not as exciting, imo.

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The problem is that the 'discovery process' as far as I can tell is actually "reading reddit." Not as exciting, imo.

This, ultimately is the problem, on both sides. The hardcore will have everything, and the people who don't read reddit (or do forums like DBO) will miss out on a ton of content.

We're still not quite to the "hey, I got this weapon here, go start a questline for it if you want it!", but we're close.

I kind of wish that if I inspected a player's exotic that I haven't unlocked a grimoire card for, that it would start me a quest to go start looking for it. Only one of these at a time of course. Even for the stuff like the taniks cape or omnigul pulse rifle -- would be pretty easy to have a quest "guide" of sorts that told you what you had to do to get such a thing.

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Tell me more!

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https://www.bungie.net/en/armory/Detail?type=item&item=4068577415&itemname=Grasp%20of%20Malok

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Seriously, it doesn't look special from the stats. Am I missing something?

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I'm moderately sure it's the only Tinepieve-like Pulse Rifle available right now? If you're a good shot it's the fastest time to kill on any Pulse, which is nice. Random roll though, so it's a lot of grind for something potentially garbage.

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TTK post TTK

Grasp of Malok = .8 seconds
The Messenger = .73 seconds
Nerwin's Mercy = .67 seconds

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Post-TTK Nirwen's Mercy is the slowest time to kill Archetype on anything but a zero-armour Hunter.

Disn't realise the Messenger arxhetype was still faster, but that puts Malok at second-best, at least.

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I agree, but there needs to be a mix. Ideally everyone wouldn't unlock it all at once (or in the first week). Sometimes it should be as simple as doing certain things will unlock quests. But that's sort of what they did for all the up front story stuff. It was all chained and/or unlocked with your regular progression. You didn't notice because it felt natural, which is great!

With hunger pangs and gathering all the fragments it's more what you're talking about -- you didn't get the second pard of the quest until you collected the fragments (without eris asking you to).

So, I really like the "find 4 legendary fusion rifles, turn them in, then get a quest" thing. I just wish the quest wasn't time-gated like it is. This is what you're after I think.

Lots of ways to accomplish this, but in general I agree with your sentiment. It's hard though -- without a quest or reason to be somewhere you won't go through a lot of the game (story missions, patrols, etc). But if you had a quest, well you already discovered it somehow and you're already past the problem.

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Yep. Totally agree. As a new dad I know I'm probably gonna miss out on these one day events :(

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Yep. Totally agree. As a new dad I know I'm probably gonna miss out on these one day events :(

Yup, as a father I've missed out on those one day events. Back when it was just me & my hunny it was much easier to just hop on real quick and do 20 mins of video gaming than it is now. I don't regret it and I look forward to when I've got my own little fireteam :).

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Agreed. It's totally worth it. Even if it means sacrificing game time.

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I play exclusively after bedtime.

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Then my wife kicks me out of bed and forces me to go to work. #coffee

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I don't regret it and I look forward to when I've got my own little fireteam :).

I have my own little fireteam and they ditch me to play Minecraft.

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I like the idea of all these secret quests for guns a whole lot, but so many of them involve… waiting until the quest is given to you. Doesn't anybody else find that lame? Maybe it's just me, but in a game which is interactive, shouldn't discovery be brought about by my actions, rather than a popup on Tuesday?

Every step should be the result of something I do.

I like having quests pop up, I just wish there were more secrets to discover as well. There probably are more secrets (I'm almost positive at this point), but both of the alternate daily mission endings that we've seen so far are way beyond anything I would stumble across myself. I almost wish there were activities that lived somewhere in the middle. Like those TDB quests that told us to hunt "something" in a vague area, but didn't spell it out for us. Multi-step quests like that would be great; quests that point us in the right direction, but still leave room for discovery.

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both of the alternate daily mission endings that we've seen so far are way beyond anything I would stumble across myself.

Totally! Even if I did play the Daily Story on those particular day (which I don't think I ever have!), I never knew about the hidden ghosts or never would have thought to go "the wrong way" back to the taniks strike.

Balancing secret content with Reddit's All Info All the Time is a problem I don't have a solution for.

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Balancing secret content with Reddit's All Info All the Time is a problem I don't have a solution for.

You might be able to do it by having tiers of hidden content: easy, medium, and hard. Hard is meant to be solved collectively, while the rest can be solved by someone who doesn't read reddit.

The problem is the connected nature of the game. None of this is a problem with traditional games, because you can just not read spoilers. If Destiny had no matchmaking and you had to play with your real life friends, it could have the cake and eat it too.

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Which ones don't involve your actions? The Gunsmiths' have you testing weapons in a variety of situations. Black Spindle and No Time to Explain both require you to take your own initiative and explore when the mission is pushing you urgently in a different direction. The Exotic sword quests don't just appear, you have to spend time upgrading your sword. Sleeper Stimulant required some observations and light puzzle solving.

I guess Boolean Gemeni is just sorta given to you, though you do have search around to find the Wolves at one point.

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I like the idea of all these secret quests for guns a whole lot, but so many of them involve… waiting until the quest is given to you. Doesn't anybody else find that lame? Maybe it's just me, but in a game which is interactive, shouldn't discovery be brought about by my actions, rather than a popup on Tuesday?

Every step should be the result of something I do.

You and the guy at Forbes agree on this.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/10/22/bungies-destiny-timegates-are-tolerable-but-disappearing-missions-a...

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I like the idea of all these secret quests for guns a whole lot, but so many of them involve… waiting until the quest is given to you. Doesn't anybody else find that lame? Maybe it's just me, but in a game which is interactive, shouldn't discovery be brought about by my actions, rather than a popup on Tuesday?

Every step should be the result of something I do.

You and the guy at Forbes agree on this.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/10/22/bungies-destiny-timegates-are-tolerable-but-disappearing-missions-a...

He is talking about a different, but somewhat related problem. He mentions the waiting somewhat briefly, as it is tied in. I am not talking about small windows for quests however.

I am talking about the fact that you can't go in and say, grab those ghosts whenever you want. You have to wait for the daily heroic. Then, you simply have to wait again until the next step of the quest appears. Remember sleeper simulant? You get it by just… waiting for it to appear. One day out of the blue it's available.

Rather than go out and forge your own path to discovery, you are being spoon fed the steps based on time. I'm not opposed to time based missions necessarily. I'm opposed to time based missions in areas you could already explore with no reason to have the special thing happen on that particular day.

Fine: Today a big badass landed on Mars and is wrecking shit. Kill him for a prize.
Not fine: This mission you can do everyday now has items placed in previously accessible locations, and are only there today, when there's no reason why they can't be there everyday.

I hope that makes sense.

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Small quibble: Sleeper Simulant only showed up on that particular day *if* you had turned in the 4 Dvor-whatever rep items.

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Small quibble: Sleeper Simulant only showed up on that particular day *if* you had turned in the 4 Dvor-whatever rep items.

But that amounts to the same thing. If you played any reasonably amount of time, you had all those already. I got all four within about six hours of playtime. It might as well have been given to you; you didn't have to do anything special.

I am totally with Cody on this. I don't mind so much that we had to wait for things like Sleeper Simulant, I guess (although I don't think it's great, either). But the fact that once it's unlocked, you can't just go do it if you missed the day it unlocked. You then have to wait for that particular Daily to come around again. That sucks.

Taken King did so, so many things right. This is not one of them. It seemed great at first, but now it just feels like more chores to do. We're not figuring anything out. We're waiting for Bungie to flip a switch.

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Taken King did so, so many things right. This is not one of them. It seemed great at first, but now it just feels like more chores to do. We're not figuring anything out. We're waiting for Bungie to flip a switch.

Sleeper Stimulant had the codes. No Time To Explain had the hidden Ghosts and Vault of Glass exploration. Black Spindle had you divert away from your escape. I get that limited time missions can prevent some from participating, but at the same time you don't just press A on the appropriate day and get a free exotic.

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Taken King did so, so many things right. This is not one of them. It seemed great at first, but now it just feels like more chores to do. We're not figuring anything out. We're waiting for Bungie to flip a switch.

Sleeper Stimulant had the codes. No Time To Explain had the hidden Ghosts and Vault of Glass exploration. Black Spindle had you divert away from your escape. I get that limited time missions can prevent some from participating, but at the same time you don't just press A on the appropriate day and get a free exotic.

Well...

That's true for about 1% of the population.

The other 99% read reddit, press A, and get a free exotic.

(Okay, I don't have a Black Spindle yet, because it's not QUITE 'Press A to Win'... but it's close, and the others might as well be.)

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I wonder about that. I assume it's closer to the other way around.

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Taken King did so, so many things right. This is not one of them. It seemed great at first, but now it just feels like more chores to do. We're not figuring anything out. We're waiting for Bungie to flip a switch.

Sleeper Stimulant had the codes. No Time To Explain had the hidden Ghosts and Vault of Glass exploration. Black Spindle had you divert away from your escape. I get that limited time missions can prevent some from participating, but at the same time you don't just press A on the appropriate day and get a free exotic.

Well...

That's true for about 1% of the population.

The other 99% read reddit, press A, and get a free exotic.

(Okay, I don't have a Black Spindle yet, because it's not QUITE 'Press A to Win'... but it's close, and the others might as well be.)

Meh. The overarching complaint is that the limited time availability of the missions makes them too inconvenient to complete. That's true. I agree there should be longer windows and perhaps even a published schedule or at least public hints as to when a mission will come back around.

But the idea that we're not figuring anything out is a separate issue and not even one that's really addressable. It's not like Bungie can just make the puzzles harder. We, the Bungie community, have shown that we can show up to random GPS coordinates and answer obscure, narrative specific questions, we can coordinate logins down to minutes or seconds across hemispheres, and we can go in blind and beat tricky, unforgiving Raids. Any puzzle that is solvable will be solved and the answer will instantly be on reddit.

Many were adamant to do the Raids blind. All they have to do is be as adamant in doing the exotic puzzles blind as well. :)

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Many were adamant to do the Raids blind. All they have to do is be as adamant in doing the exotic puzzles blind as well. :)

I would be fine with doing them blind, if I could do them on my own schedule. I don't know why they don't just make the quests available after the initial start.

Why do I have to do it a specific night? Why not open it up whenever they want, but leave it open after that? I want my challenges to be in the game, not challenges of adjusting real life to the game.

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This seems so obvious... I really don't mind bungie unlocking them whenever they want, just let me play it on my time.

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YEAH! Make trials all week long!

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Sleeper Stimulant had the codes. No Time To Explain had the hidden Ghosts and Vault of Glass exploration. Black Spindle had you divert away from your escape. I get that limited time missions can prevent some from participating, but at the same time you don't just press A on the appropriate day and get a free exotic.

It would already be pretty cool if it were just those things, but the small window of both opportunity and triggers is quite annoying. I'm totally fine with Black Spindle the way it is, but the other Exotics that have multiple steps...

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You're always going to be waiting on something. Unless every single mission is playable from the moment your Ghost firsts revives you, you'll be waiting on story progress, or leveling up, or Light level, or the next expansion. Remove the limited windows, sure, but complaining that we're just waiting around for Bungie to flip the switch. Heck, on September all of us were waiting for Bungie to flip the switch...

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You're always going to be waiting on something. Unless every single mission is playable from the moment your Ghost firsts revives you, you'll be waiting on story progress, or leveling up, or Light level, or the next expansion. Remove the limited windows, sure, but complaining that we're just waiting around for Bungie to flip the switch. Heck, on September all of us were waiting for Bungie to flip the switch...

Interestingly enough, the new Call of Duty will allow you to play any level right out of the box. That includes campaign missions. You can play them in whatever order you desire.

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Do they just no care about cause and effect? Or do they think nobody played CoD for the story anyway?

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Do they just no care about cause and effect? Or do they think nobody played CoD for the story anyway?

I kind of see it as a benefit. If you care about the story or the craft of the game, you'll play it in order. If you don't, then you'll have a better experience. It also sounds useful for when you start a new profile or want to play coop or something like that.

I think most people who care about games as art will play in order, but there's tons of legitimate reasons not to.

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You're always going to be waiting on something. Unless every single mission is playable from the moment your Ghost firsts revives you, you'll be waiting on story progress, or leveling up, or Light level, or the next expansion. Remove the limited windows, sure, but complaining that we're just waiting around for Bungie to flip the switch. Heck, on September all of us were waiting for Bungie to flip the switch...

Well, I'm complaining on waiting for it to be available, I'm complaining about it being available without notice and then submerging to the ether also without notice. Like, I have to wait, but I can't wait too long. That's slightly annoying on my end.

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Small quibble: Sleeper Simulant only showed up on that particular day *if* you had turned in the 4 Dvor-whatever rep items.

But that amounts to the same thing. If you played any reasonably amount of time, you had all those already. I got all four within about six hours of playtime

I cannot disagree more and I take this type of thinking personally. Granted my time is limited, very limited. I have only received 2 Dvalin fragments/parts. Not everyone has hours to pour in, and there are MANY ways to play this game. Not all of them work out the same way or have the same results. I don't farm the loot cave, I don't abuse 3oC, I try not to cheese bosses, I don't sun-bro hammers, I don't run an unlimited quiver, I don't reddit for the hot new cheap strategy.

I have probably played a reasonable amount of time and have NOT been rewarded (RNG) with the 4 needed parts. Blocking me from a questline with a significant reward.
I missed the first Black Spindles run and the second time in a rare turn of events amazingly I was able to fireteam up with 2 other good dudes that don't have it either. We put a number of late hours in trying to get it but failed miserably and ran out of time.

This type of thinking and game developing is not INclusive, it is EXclusive, and frustrating

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Okay, fair enough but you're arguing my overall point in that the way Bungie has designed and implemented these quests is stupid.

If you had to collect all those fusion rifles, and then that just opened up the quest, that's fine. But now there are folks like you that didn't have the required parts (thanks RNG!) and were locked out when Bungie flipped the switch. I'd have bee pretty upset in that situation, and I play Destiny very casually and am okay with being "behind" other players.

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But that amounts to the same thing. If you played any reasonable amount of time, you had all those already. I got all four within about six hours of playtime

...

Okay, fair enough but you're arguing my overall point in that the way Bungie has designed and implemented these quests is stupid.

Agreed. I never disagreed. No arguing on my end. I just take umbrage with the notion of "reasonable amount of time"

Rhetorical:
What do you consider a reasonable amount of time?
I wonder what the developer considers a reasonable amount of time? I wonder if it is even a quantified and significant consideration in the equation?

I play Destiny very casually and am okay with being "behind" other players.

This surpises me. My perception was wrong and probably not based in reality.

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Agreed. I never disagreed. No arguing on my end. I just take umbrage with the notion of "reasonable amount of time"

Rhetorical:
What do you consider a reasonable amount of time?
I wonder what the developer considers a reasonable amount of time? I wonder if it is even a quantified and significant consideration in the equation?

It's all good. I come off as argumentative a lot of the time when I don't mean to.

As for reasonable amount of time, I guess I can't answer that. It's different for everyone. I got all four within three days of completing the main campaign, within six or eight hours of play time. A lot of folks I've talked to have had similar experiences with it. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Sounds like you've had a much harder time than most the people I'm aware of.

I play Destiny very casually and am okay with being "behind" other players.

This surpises me. My perception was wrong and probably not based in reality.

I play three times a week at most. Currently sitting at Light Level 300. I don't have Touch of Malice, don't have an exotic sword, don't have any of the class specific exotics from the Gunsmith (I can't get any freaking scout rifles to drop for dismantling! And I forgot to order any for Armsday last week). I do have Sleeper Simulant. Still haven't even found the FWC Ghost for No Time to Explain.

I guess I am hardcore in that I know about all of these things and how to do them (because I hang out here), but I'm not hardcore in my play. While I do play a lot at times, I don't play like a lot of hardcore players do. I do what I feel like in order to have fun, not because I need to do it for a sword (screw you, Hadium Flakes!). I might never get the Chaperone because of it's Crucible questline (Exotic Swords are in the same boat), unless I can get a buddy to help me cheese through parts of it. I haven't even STARTED the Chaperone quest, because I'm not even Rank 3 in Crucible so I don't have it yet.

Anyway, that was longer than I intended, but I wanted you to know where I'm coming from.

TL;DR:

Bungie's new system is awful, especially for casual players. I've seen it said elsewhere before, but it's like Bungie designed a lot of the new content based around the opinions and experiences of twitch streamers that play the game everyday for eight or ten hours. Yeah, gating things make sense if everyone plays like that. For folks like me that are lucky to play eight hours a WEEK, it sucks, and it's holding me back arbitrarily when the little amount of time I get to play does that already. When I actually do get to log on, I don't get to work towards the things I want just because Bungie says so. And that sucks.

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I don't farm the loot cave, I don't abuse 3oC, I try not to cheese bosses, I don't sun-bro hammers, I don't run an unlimited quiver, I don't reddit for the hot new cheap strategy.

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I am talking about the fact that you can't go in and say, grab those ghosts whenever you want. You have to wait for the daily heroic. Then, you simply have to wait again until the next step of the quest appears. Remember sleeper simulant? You get it by just… waiting for it to appear. One day out of the blue it's available.

Rather than go out and forge your own path to discovery, you are being spoon fed the steps based on time. I'm not opposed to time based missions necessarily. I'm opposed to time based missions in areas you could already explore with no reason to have the special thing happen on that particular day.

Fine: Today a big badass landed on Mars and is wrecking shit. Kill him for a prize.
Not fine: This mission you can do everyday now has items placed in previously accessible locations, and are only there today, when there's no reason why they can't be there everyday.

I hope that makes sense.

I've never agreed so much with Cody before! It's fun!

What if the you could access the secret stuff via selecting the hard mode version of the mission. You can still "time gate" certain quests by having some steps (initial or secondary) outside the mission (like they currently do).

Does anyone else see another way? Problems with this one? Let me know!

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Lack of Discovery (Destiny)