But that's aside from the point being made here about your demand for a reward and how it contradicts your dirge about investment.

I'm not sure how it really contradicts.

1. I do not like investment systems, because they stand between you and the fun parts of the game.
2. You need rewards to power your character up past level 20.
3. Many cool things require you to be greater than level 20.
4. Rewards are therefore required to do many cool things.
5. Many rewards are locked out, timed, rare, or are acquired after grinding. This includes Raid rewards, nightfall rewards, exotic currency and marks, etc.
6. Therefore doing cool things will require more of a hassle in the long run than if there was no investment system.

You can still have the thrill of discovery, uniqueness of weapons and gear, character progression, and everything else Destiny offers without having an investment system. Therefore, the investment system and reward lockouts together only harm the game ultimately. In fact, doing it without an investment system would ENHANCE these attributes of the game.

That's what you're getting at, right? one way or another it takes too long to get to what you want to do and/or what's actually fun? and having an artificial roadblock slows things down more?

But that's aside from the point being made here about your demand for a reward and how it contradicts your dirge about investment.

I'm not sure how it really contradicts.

1. I do not like investment systems, because they stand between you and the fun parts of the game.
2. You need rewards to power your character up past level 20.
3. Many cool things require you to be greater than level 20.
4. Rewards are therefore required to do many cool things.
5. Many rewards are locked out, timed, rare, or are acquired after grinding. This includes Raid rewards, nightfall rewards, exotic currency and marks, etc.
6. Therefore doing cool things will require more of a hassle in the long run than if there was no investment system.

You can still have the thrill of discovery, uniqueness of weapons and gear, character progression, and everything else Destiny offers without having an investment system. Therefore, the investment system and reward lockouts together only harm the game ultimately. In fact, doing it without an investment system would ENHANCE these attributes of the game.

I agree 100%, but that's not how Bungie has pitched the game. They have pitched level 20+ play and the daily and weekly activities as all about the reward.

Copout.

Don't lay this on them. *You're* the speedrunner here,

Speedrunning sucks. FYI.

And? I see you're back to cherry-picking something to respond to, instead of addressing the point being made.

See, I could have told you that it would suck without even having to sprint my way through any part of the game a thousand times. But you set yourself a challenge and met it. Good for you, honestly. But that's aside from the point being made here about your demand for a reward and how it contradicts your dirge about investment. It's also not addressing your lame Bungie-marketed-it-that-way defense.

~m

I fully expect groups to beat Normal mode in the first week its available.

Once your group learns the encounters, you will be able to get through the Raid significantly faster than 3 hours.

How about this section of the last Weekly Update:

In two days of playing - where they broke for meals and had some ramp up time with the game on day 1, here's what happened:

Two groups made it to the final encounter. Neither group defeated it.

One group made it to the final encounter, but had to be skipped through an earlier encounter.

One group washed out and elected to go back to playing Strikes, Missions and Patrols.

The designer of the raid expects groups to beat it within a week of it being available and players new to Destiny were nearly able to beat it in under two days... so what are you worried about? In other places he has talked about using strikes to level up to take on the raid. Strikes aren't subject to lockout as far as I know.

If the reward lockout is reset weekly, and the raid will be able to be beaten in under a week... exactly which cool content will ultimately be locked out? From what I can tell, from sourced quotes, your list will look a lot more like this:

1. I want to play the cool content
2. I will be able to play the cool content

Disagree? Then put up or shut up.

You can't walk up to a girl in a bar, do your spiel, get rejected, then come back later with "Oh! I forgot to tell you…". The impression is already made.

You get many girls by going up to them and telling your entire life story in one sitting? That doesn't tend to work well from my experience, but hey maybe I'm doing it wrong...

-- Steve thinks there's a world of difference between "one shot" games and "slow burn" games. Destiny would appear (hopefully) to be the latter.

I care about what the game is on launch. You get one chance to make an impression.

As I mentioned before, adding content as you go doesn't have the same impact as if it's all there up front. There's less sense of wonder. You can't walk up to a girl in a bar, do your spiel, get rejected, then come back later with "Oh! I forgot to tell you…". The impression is already made.

The game will evolve over time (negatively or positively, maybe even both ways at the same time), same as your perception of what about you might attract the girl. Relying solely on first impressions, while natural, is non-optimal.

And yet you're here today making arguments about how being locked out of running Raids multiple times in the same week with the same character is somehow akin to Prometheus being bound to the rock, or some shit.

You're really coming off as talking out of both sides of your mouth.

How hard is this to understand my objection?

1. I want to play the cool content
2. To play the cool content you need rewards
3. Rewards for many activities are on lockout
4. Playing cool game content will ultimately be on lockout
5. OTHER REWARDS ARE ON LOCKOUT NOT JUST THE RAIDS - Nightfall stuff, crucible marks, etc

Because rewards are so vital to your being able to play the cool stuff, and because you are forced to earn them slowly, the game is actively fighting you from being able to do cool things. Like every MMO ever.

And even after having played the beta, he knows that in six months Destiny will again not be the same as launch. Lars said in an interview a good while ago that we should expect things to change over the life of the game. It's been said many times since then, as well.

~m

I care about what the game is on launch. You get one chance to make an impression.

As I mentioned before, adding content as you go doesn't have the same impact as if it's all there up front. There's less sense of wonder. You can't walk up to a girl in a bar, do your spiel, get rejected, then come back later with "Oh! I forgot to tell you…". The impression is already made.

I agree 100%, but that's not how Bungie has pitched the game. They have pitched level 20+ play and the daily and weekly activities as all about the reward.

Copout.

Don't lay this on them. *You're* the speedrunner here,

Speedrunning sucks. FYI.

And even after having played the beta, he knows that in six months Destiny will again not be the same as launch. Lars said in an interview a >good while ago that we should expect things to change over the life of the game. It's been said many times since then, as well.

~m

Right.

One interesting thing that will happen, perhaps as soon as December with The Dark Below, is that there will be more Raids that can be reasonably completed in a week. Ok, so maybe you and your friends have the time to completely lockout The Vault of Glass. What about The Vault of Glass, The Dark Below? In one week? With all three of your characters? If rewards are so important you'll be using more than one character, right?

Basically, this problem should eventually solve itself.

I've been playing it since June dude.

False.

First of all you know my stance on rewards. Actually playing the game should be the reward, not a couple of flipped bits on a server.

And yet you're here today making arguments about how being locked out of running Raids multiple times in the same week with the same character is somehow akin to Prometheus being bound to the rock, or some shit.

You're really coming off as talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Troubling for you though should be that a lot of the achievements won't actually be hard, but will have the illusion of being hard. A bounty that has you get 50 precision kills for example is fake hard. Getting a precision kill is easy. You are really just doing 50 easy things, which seems hard because it takes some time. That's an actual bounty that I completed in the Beta. I'm sure the raid and strikes will have a skill component, but gearing up for those is what's going to be fake hard, with collecting / grinding exotic currency, marks, glimmer, light, etc to gear yourself up for them.

Not troubling at all. Those are longevity goals. I'll get 200 precision kills eventually, no rush. I don't need to get 200 precision kills in a row or anything.

Your hyper-reductionism is mind-boggling sometimes, man. It's almost as if you're setting out to deliberately drain the fun out of your experience. Before release, even.

~m

A massive part of the problem here is the reduction in your appraisal of the game that you haven't yet played

I've been playing it since June dude.

I think he was referring to the retail version of the game that has not yet been released Cody.

Cody well knows what I meant. And he knows that claiming to have played the game by experiencing the Alpha and Beta is not going to stand up in debate. The best one can claim at this juncture is that they understand the core gameplay experience.

And even after having played the beta, he knows that in six months Destiny will again not be the same as launch. Lars said in an interview a good while ago that we should expect things to change over the life of the game. It's been said many times since then, as well.

~m

I agree 100%, but that's not how Bungie has pitched the game. They have pitched level 20+ play and the daily and weekly activities as all about the reward.

Copout.

Don't lay this on them. *You're* the speedrunner here, you've been making arguments in the same direction for quite a while.

You of all people pretending to be beholden to the way they've marketed the game is a joke. They've clearly designed with long-term play in mind. Of course they're going to plan out different experiences at different levels.

You've planned on sinking plenty of time into Destiny for a while. Not like a few soundbites from gameplay demonstrations is going to change that for you.

~m

I replayed the same strike in the beta at least four or five times -- it didn't feel like grinding to me because I was playing it with different groups of friends/DBO acquaintances each time.

I totally agree for Strikes and Campaign. If Raids are as grindy/grueling as they sound though, I doubt I will agree with Raids. When I play other similar games, I love grindy/grueling, but only while it has a positive output on my game/character.

I got my better gear, for the most part, through random green engrams. (I love you, Sahara AR-3.)

It's my understanding that this isn't the case for higher levels. I could be wrong though, but I think it is common in games.

Certainly we'll have to see, but my hope is the game drops random engrams near your level, whatever that level happens to be. Since we were only level 8 we'd only get drops up to level 10 or so. At level 18 I hope to get level 18, 19, and 20 gear. And not just standard stuff but upper level stuff. The big rewards are hopefully about having something unique that you can show off because it doesn't drop at random and not so much about boosting stats.

I know you do t like the investment system to get in your way, but it's fine to get minor rewards for what you're doing anyway isn't it?

You talk like... you know... playing the game is a chore.

It was sometimes.

Right. I don't get this "I must have a reward now or the game is a failure" mode of thinking. Sooner rather than later the game is going to run out of new content for you to play so the game itself should be fun. If all you're doing is grinding to the next reward then, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong.

I agree 100%, but that's not how Bungie has pitched the game. They have pitched level 20+ play and the daily and weekly activities as all about the reward.

A massive part of the problem here is the reduction in your appraisal of the game that you haven't yet played

I've been playing it since June dude.

I think he was referring to the retail version of the game that has not yet been released Cody.