It's an approach that many don't seem to take; perhaps for fear of seeming weak in their convictions, but I find it more of a benefit in being flexible in my thinking. It's done a lot for me, I highly recommend it.

Confucius once said "Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change".

It's an approach that many don't seem to take; perhaps for fear of seeming weak in their convictions, but I find it more of a benefit in being flexible in my thinking. It's done a lot for me, I highly recommend it.

Ha. Convictions. Such an overrated notion.

Watch_Dogs is having a ton of success with it's invasion mechanic, it seems like Destiny is made for that. Or maybe a race through Old Russia to bring back something for the tower? How about a scuttle over a an artifact that players join and drop out from seamlessly as they decide.

OOOOO. How about a sort of prisoner's dilemma style strike? Co-operate, and the gear is good. Defect, and you alone get gear that has a higher chance to be better. Everyone Defect? You get nothing :-p

Haha, this is great!

Too bad Bungie went the safe route.

All else being equal (important caveat) a shorter time-to-kill requires less technical skill than a longer time-to-kill. The reasoning is simple: with a longer TTK, you need to land more of your shots over a longer period of time.

This is true until more players are involved. With a team involved you get kind of a bell curve, where a TTK that's too long just means that you can be saved by your teammates, or mowed down by a cherry picker in FFA.

The counterpoint is: a shorter TTK requires less technical skill, but places more importance on things like positioning and map control. An example of this would be Counter-Strike. If you run out into the open on de_dust, you're going to get killed before you can see who's shooting you.

This is where it starts to get weird...
counterstrike requires less technical skill? I... huh?

This is a double-edged sword for people who suck. The upshot: if you suck, as long as you run around the map, you're eventually going to catch SOMEONE off guard and land enough shots to kill them. They won't have much of a chance to fight back. The downside: if luck isn't on your side, you could have a very very bad, very very un-fun game. Half the time you'd get ambushed, and the other half you'd get headshotted by the TTL guys on the other end.

Guaranteed-kill(s) supers (and, to a lesser extent, spawning with rockets/snipers) are Bungie's buffer against the downsides of a shorter TTK. Essentially what they're saying is "hopefully you, as an unskilled norb, will randomly run into enough peoples' backs to get enough kills to keep you happy. However, if the fates conspire against you, we've got these supers you can use to get some kills no matter what."

It's a noble philosophy. But it can go terribly, hair-pullingly wrong for someone like me who's heavily invested in playing and being given a fair shake.

This is a weirdly personalized view of the why something is in place. Bungie is just doing it to screw you and the people like you right? Gotta give the ever loving noob a shot! I mean, I'm sure accessibility vs. depth is a question that constantly goes through a game designer head, but I'm sure balancing out a hundred other things do also. From my own experience, any system you design goes through a thousand iterations as you try and balance hundreds of dynamics you want to promote. Trying to illustrate the entirety of a design and goals by working backwards through a design is about as effective as trying to psychoanalyze a politician from a speech.

Not too mention, these aren't really good examples of something that gives novice players a leg up. The good player is going to have a handle on how to keep their secondary ammo filled, and will have the map controlled to get to power weapon ammo first. The good player will understand blue orb generation and will time supers to give their team-mates more supers. These are mechanics do more to snowball for the players doing better than give the player doing worse a catchup. Is there a constant rate of generation for supers or is it all based on kills/orbs? I guess having some constant generation would be a sop to the team that's behind, but compared to the advantages the team that's winning gets, it seems paltry.

If it's a close game and I'm guarding a critical objective, have correctly predicted the enemy's movement and expected point of entry, and am waiting to reap the fruits of my labor, it sucks hard to be killed because the guy coming around the corner managed to activate the super (or rocket -- they're plentiful) I didn't/couldn't know he had, killed me, took the objective, and won the game, that sucks. It sucks sucks sucks in the worst way.

That seems more like a signal and information problem then doesn't it? If you know who on their team had a super, and someone could call it out you could take steps to work around it. You could wait out the golden gun guy, stay back from the titan, or get high around the nova bomb. That seems pretty sensible, as the lack of information about AA was one of the worst parts of Reach, I hope Bungie has learned something from it.

The moon level in particular has an issue with teams dominating in the worst ways. When you've gotten donged on by snipers on the outside, rockets on the inside, and two Interceptors patrolling the level, you will know pain. This is somewhat the inverse of the above complaints (good players donging vs. bad players getting free kills), but it's related to the sheer amount of power available to players and I felt like mentioning it.

Sooooo yea, you kind of gave my earlier point a nice example.

Watch_Dogs is having a ton of success with it's invasion mechanic, it seems like Destiny is made for that. Or maybe a race through Old Russia to bring back something for the tower? How about a scuttle over a an artifact that players join and drop out from seamlessly as they decide.

OOOOO. How about a sort of prisoner's dilemma style strike? Co-operate, and the gear is good. Defect, and you alone get gear that has a higher chance to be better. Everyone Defect? You get nothing :-p

Class vs. Class balance isn't really the issue. Its more a problem with abundant power than allocation of power.

No, I understood it alright — I'm talking about the problems with taking power (or more accurately, the granularity of power) from the PvE experience to the PvP gameplay environment. ‘Too many instakill moves’ comes from this: if the gameplay of PvP was designed independently of PvE, you can almost guarantee this wouldn't have happened. Class vs Class is another issue entirely.

Ohh, well, your post didn't really say that, your post focussed almost entirely on either Class vs. Class. Anywho, that's neither here nor there, as I'm not really convinced that this is the issue. Destiny has already has mechanisms that could in theory flatten a bunch of this stuff out to create a variety of different experiences. From what I've seen in the streams, including Schooly's you could probably get a really tight 4 vs 4 halo / COD hybrid shooter out of Destiny.

Bungie's mistake is one of trying to do that in the first place. I'm sorely disappointed they decided to eschew what makes destiny interesting, to instead hold close what made Halo interesting. Halo's not going anywhere, I can still go hop into games of Reach, 3, or 4 easily, and this fall 1 and 2 also. The idea of using destinies character progression systems, seamless matchmaking and open world to create new experiences is thrilling, but instead we are back to running around and shooting things in closed off environments. Watch_Dogs is having a ton of success with it's invasion mechanic, it seems like Destiny is made for that. Or maybe a race through Old Russia to bring back something for the tower? How about a scuttle over a an artifact that players join and drop out from seamlessly as they decide.

With all of those things you can kind of embrace character customization, and environment, and seamless matchmaking, instead of trying to push it down.

one of which I think clearly missed, and yet you still got the kill (pretty sure that more than once you even pointed out how you missed them yet somehow killed them)

hitbox.tv

For what it's worth, the issue I think you're having is akin to how I feel about Gears of War. It seemed to be one thing and played like something completely different. I expected to use the cover system to avoid hails of gunfire and fight pitched battles, rather than to avoid it completely and charge around with a shotgun or one of the many other instakill weapons.

I like Gears of War. I played a lot of Gears of War. But I always thought the PvP was horrible. I never thought the core mechanics worked for PvP. That wall-bouncing shotgun-toting rolling-around insta-killing bullshit that PvP devolved into just drove me up the wall.

Horde mode though? OOoooh yeah :D

This.

I played 1-3 and had a lot of fun. Did a lot of PvP, but I had the most fun by far in Horde mode. Indeed, the ninja-rolling shotgunfest aspect to PvP really killed it for me. I was always the guy in back downing the other team with AR fire while the rest of my team did all the CQC.

~m

I have to admit I'm not super excited about lots of short lives in PvP.

I guess my real problem here is that I'm not hearing why this design philosophy itself is bad.

It's bad because it's not fun. For someone like myself who takes pride and enjoyment in performing and performing well, it gets in the way of that.

Okay, I understand you here; but I think there's a difference between a legitimate objective Bad, and something you're not having fun with.

All else being equal (important caveat) a shorter time-to-kill requires less technical skill than a longer time-to-kill. The reasoning is simple: with a longer TTK, you need to land more of your shots over a longer period of time.

Well, yes and no. I don't want to go off on a tangent too quickly, but I think there are a ton of factors to take into account. "All things being equal" is dangerously reductionist when we're talking about things like gameplay being "broken" or not. We're all familiar with the tendency some have to boil gameplay down to a few preferred elements and vaunt that reduced formula as objectively "better". In any case...

The counterpoint is: a shorter TTK requires less technical skill, but places more importance on things like positioning and map control. An example of this would be Counter-Strike. If you run out into the open on de_dust, you're going to get killed before you can see who's shooting you.

The reason this counterpoint doesn't apply in Destiny and similar games is that Counter-Strike is a much more controlled environment: everyone starts in one particular place that is known to everyone else. When you die, you don't respawn until the next round starts. The limited set of possibilities makes it feasible to account for them in your gameplay.

Destiny, Halo, and their ilk on the other hand are frenzied. People can die and respawn whenever and wherever. Trying to account for every possibility of enemy positioning/armament/etc becomes impossible. Eventually you're going to have a couple of enemies randomly run into your back and kill you.

In games with shorter TTK, this emphasizes the randomness. In Halo or Quake, you could conceivably get surprised by someone worse than you, end up winning the fight by landing more of your shots. In Destiny and COD this is more difficult -- by the time you know you're being shot, you're 3/4 dead.

So how does the motion tracker(assuming it functions like Halo's) not mitigate this? Unless they're deliberately sneaking to avoid it, you're going to see them coming. Sure, cross-map weapons (and based on the OP, the Golden Gun) are going to be a hassle, but so is the random grenade. If you're armed with a little positional information, you can at least reposition, make yourself scarce, or take your chances and post up somewhere, hoping your opponent isn't aware of you.

This is a double-edged sword for people who suck. The upshot: if you suck, as long as you run around the map, you're eventually going to catch SOMEONE off guard and land enough shots to kill them. They won't have much of a chance to fight back. The downside: if luck isn't on your side, you could have a very very bad, very very un-fun game. Half the time you'd get ambushed, and the other half you'd get headshotted by the TTL guys on the other end.

And here begins to form a significant point that I think we're going to have to absorb to really get the most out of Destiny PvP. And it seems like it will apply to the whole game, really: Mobility rules all. At the very least, it appears to be a much more crucial element to the gameplay formula than in Halo. If you remain in motion, and make the most of the jump abilities, my guess is that's really going to be the only way to mitigate some of this frustration.

Besides, it's not that they didn't tell us this was coming. I remember an interview with Urk a while back that emphasized these elements that are causing you such grief. And to be fair, I think he did at one point mention the quick kills if you catch someone with their pants down. So, fair warning, I guess?

Guaranteed-kill(s) supers (and, to a lesser extent, spawning with rockets/snipers) are Bungie's buffer against the downsides of a shorter TTK. Essentially what they're saying is "hopefully you, as an unskilled norb, will randomly run into enough peoples' backs to get enough kills to keep you happy. However, if the fates conspire against you, we've got these supers you can use to get some kills no matter what."

Well, all things being as equal as possible, noobs would play against pros and still eke out a few kills. If this is the way, I can't really complain. Not feeling any huge arguments against the Noob Cushion just yet.

It's a noble philosophy. But it can go terribly, hair-pullingly wrong for someone like me who's heavily invested in playing and being given a fair shake.

You DO realize this is like a pro basketball player complaining he can't dunk on the kids in the kiddie pool...

If I'm on a team that's donging on the bad guys, and one of them manages to surprise me with a super before we win 16000-7000, whatever. No big deal. That's the ideal scenario.

If it's a close game and I'm guarding a critical objective, have correctly predicted the enemy's movement and expected point of entry, and am waiting to reap the fruits of my labor, it sucks hard to be killed because the guy coming around the corner managed to activate the super (or rocket -- they're plentiful) I didn't/couldn't know he had, killed me, took the objective, and won the game, that sucks. It sucks sucks sucks in the worst way.

Why? Aren't those just the breaks? Yeah, losing sucks. Losing sucks when you've fought hard, or performed well, and you still lose. Our philosophies differ with regard to what constitutes good fun, and over the years I've gotten the impression you probably take a hard scrap and a loss a lot harder than I do. Regardless, if there's a fluke play and someone's Super cooldown finishes at a crucial moment because earlier you blew his face off and his Super timer reset, which factor is at fault? Your prowess? Chance? The game being "broken"? I honestly don't think this would be something you could really be mad about, unless it happens on a consistent basis. Besides, you're talking about having a fighting chance, what about people that really suck? Is the Noob Cushion a game-breaker? Doubtful. Watch there be a PvP playlist just for people that want to play without Supers.

The moon level in particular has an issue with teams dominating in the worst ways. When you've gotten donged on by snipers on the outside, rockets on the inside, and two Interceptors patrolling the level, you will know pain. This is somewhat the inverse of the above complaints (good players donging vs. bad players getting free kills), but it's related to the sheer amount of power available to players and I felt like mentioning it.

Well, I'm glad you did. Because what sucks worse than having a good scrap and losing? Getting your teeth blown out the back of your head over and over and over and never getting the satisfaction of a couple random kills to brighten things up.

It sucks that you're not having as much fun as you want to, and I'd really like to provide some comparative feedback from my own experiences, but that will have to wait a bit. I understand your argument, and it's well made, but I'm guessing we're probably not going reach a consensus.

~m

I have to admit I'm not super excited about lots of short lives in PvP.

I guess my real problem here is that I'm not hearing why this design philosophy itself is bad.

It's bad because it's not fun. For someone like myself who takes pride and enjoyment in performing and performing well, it gets in the way of that.

All else being equal (important caveat) a shorter time-to-kill requires less technical skill than a longer time-to-kill. The reasoning is simple: with a longer TTK, you need to land more of your shots over a longer period of time.

The counterpoint is: a shorter TTK requires less technical skill, but places more importance on things like positioning and map control. An example of this would be Counter-Strike. If you run out into the open on de_dust, you're going to get killed before you can see who's shooting you.

The reason this counterpoint doesn't apply in Destiny and similar games is that Counter-Strike is a much more controlled environment: everyone starts in one particular place that is known to everyone else. When you die, you don't respawn until the next round starts. The limited set of possibilities makes it feasible to account for them in your gameplay.

Destiny, Halo, and their ilk on the other hand are frenzied. People can die and respawn whenever and wherever. Trying to account for every possibility of enemy positioning/armament/etc becomes impossible. Eventually you're going to have a couple of enemies randomly run into your back and kill you.

In games with shorter TTK, this emphasizes the randomness. In Halo or Quake, you could conceivably get surprised by someone worse than you, end up winning the fight by landing more of your shots. In Destiny and COD this is more difficult -- by the time you know you're being shot, you're 3/4 dead.

This is a double-edged sword for people who suck. The upshot: if you suck, as long as you run around the map, you're eventually going to catch SOMEONE off guard and land enough shots to kill them. They won't have much of a chance to fight back. The downside: if luck isn't on your side, you could have a very very bad, very very un-fun game. Half the time you'd get ambushed, and the other half you'd get headshotted by the TTL guys on the other end.

Guaranteed-kill(s) supers (and, to a lesser extent, spawning with rockets/snipers) are Bungie's buffer against the downsides of a shorter TTK. Essentially what they're saying is "hopefully you, as an unskilled norb, will randomly run into enough peoples' backs to get enough kills to keep you happy. However, if the fates conspire against you, we've got these supers you can use to get some kills no matter what."

It's a noble philosophy. But it can go terribly, hair-pullingly wrong for someone like me who's heavily invested in playing and being given a fair shake.

If I'm on a team that's donging on the bad guys, and one of them manages to surprise me with a super before we win 16000-7000, whatever. No big deal. That's the ideal scenario.

If it's a close game and I'm guarding a critical objective, have correctly predicted the enemy's movement and expected point of entry, and am waiting to reap the fruits of my labor, it sucks hard to be killed because the guy coming around the corner managed to activate the super (or rocket -- they're plentiful) I didn't/couldn't know he had, killed me, took the objective, and won the game, that sucks. It sucks sucks sucks in the worst way.

The moon level in particular has an issue with teams dominating in the worst ways. When you've gotten donged on by snipers on the outside, rockets on the inside, and two Interceptors patrolling the level, you will know pain. This is somewhat the inverse of the above complaints (good players donging vs. bad players getting free kills), but it's related to the sheer amount of power available to players and I felt like mentioning it.

this sounds like me complaining about Titanfall (even though I absolutely love running around those maps)

For what it's worth, the issue I think you're having is akin to how I feel about Gears of War. It seemed to be one thing and played like something completely different. I expected to use the cover system to avoid hails of gunfire and fight pitched battles, rather than to avoid it completely and charge around with a shotgun or one of the many other instakill weapons.

I like Gears of War. I played a lot of Gears of War. But I always thought the PvP was horrible. I never thought the core mechanics worked for PvP. That wall-bouncing shotgun-toting rolling-around insta-killing bullshit that PvP devolved into just drove me up the wall.

Horde mode though? OOoooh yeah :D

All else being equal (important caveat) a shorter time-to-kill requires less technical skill than a longer time-to-kill. The reasoning is simple: with a longer TTK, you need to land more of your shots over a longer period of time.

Well, if you look at games like Quake, which are faster and have low time to kill, the reason that it's fun and folks love it so much is that getting those kills takes a lot of skill. Not everybody can go around schooling fools with the railgun. You have to be really precise and have good aim.

This is ironic, since many would argue Quake requires much more technical skill to play well than Halo does.

Your problem isn't with time to kill per se, it's with easy insta kills.

There's a time and a place for everything.

You misunderstand me.