Destiny PvP sucks

I said it.

Like many DBO regulars, I received access to the Alpha. I maxed out the (low) level cap and have been playing a lot of PvP.

It sucks, and it's not fixable.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: everything kills you instantly

I'll go ahead and emphasize and elaborate on that:

everything kills you instantly with no skill required and no way to avoid being killed instantly other than staying put in a far corner of the map

I'm not just referring to Destiny's COD-ish time-to-kill. That's not necessarily a problem in itself, since the normal Destiny combat (strafing, shooting, jumping, etc) is pretty fun.

The issue is there are like 8 things that can kill you instantly, and that other players either (a) spawn with, or (b) acquire over time as "supers".

Everyone can spawn with a rocket launcher, and ammo is plentiful
Everyone can spawn with a sniper rifle, and ammo is plentiful
There is this god-awful vehicle called "the interceptor." Imagine a Revenant from Halo: Reach, but with the Banshee's fuel rod cannon. The driver can conceivably be shot out from the side, but in most cases the driver sees you and you die shortly after
Warlocks have the "soo cool! xD" Nova Bomb which is basically just another rocket launcher
Titans have a super where they slam the ground and kill everyone nearby instantly. Combine this with Destiny's sprinting and sliding mechanics and your paraplegic grandma can manage a 0.8 k/d ratio
Hunters have the Golden Gun super, which is a one-shot kill as long as it hits anywhere around (doesn't have to be on) the body, from any range. And you get three bullets.

And this is what I mean by "it can't be fixed." There is a definite pattern here, and it lays bare Bungie's design philosophy w/r/t PvP. By giving people "Press X to Kill Everyone" supers that they charge just by being in the game, you're giving bad players the ability to have "whoa so cool!" moments that keep them engaged and coming back. This is not a matter of Bungie having the damage dials slightly off, a la the beta nades in Halo: Reach. This is a conscious, intentional design choice. You are going to die instantly 11 times a game because the people killing you need those kills more than you need to have a fighting chance at not-dying.

To say that Destiny's PvP can be fixed in this regard is like saying Halo can be fixed by relying less on "aiming at something and pressing a button." It's ingrained in the fabric of the game. It's not going away.

There's nothing fun about preparing for someone on radar to jump over a wall, then get killed instantly because they managed to press a button and Nova Bomb you.

I am hoping to get some streaming in late tonight. If you'd like to tune in and see what I mean you're more than welcome.

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...Anyone want to get into Halo 5?

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Is it possible more nuance will emerge over time? Like, perhaps a counter to insta-death technology? Aren't there shields? Maybe buffs on shielding or something?

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I would very much like to see that stream.

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From what I recall, it has been mentioned that the Crucible will be cordoned off to players until they reach a certain level of competency/strength...maybe they equipment you have at this point isn't normally sufficient enough to keep you alive, whereas loot from later in the game might increase the level of tactical strategy required to excel?

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From what I recall, it has been mentioned that the Crucible will be cordoned off to players until they reach a certain level of competency/strength...maybe they equipment you have at this point isn't normally sufficient enough to keep you alive, whereas loot from later in the game might increase the level of tactical strategy required to excel?

I'm going to agree on what's being said here. Level 8 does not strike me as a very suitable level that one would be able to enter the Crucible at. But, as I'm writing this, I'm listening to the E3 stream on Destiny and I'm not seeing players getting killed as fast as it's being made out to be. It seems that the whole "PvP sucks" attitude can be chalked up to the very select pool of people who got selected for early alpha access are just very good. Once the pool gets opened up to more people I am sure the kill times won't be as fast as they have been due to more diverse play styles.

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o god

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I'm going to agree on what's being said here. Level 8 does not strike me as a very suitable level that one would be able to enter the Crucible at.

Surely PvP should be a feasible game type for players of all levels? Setting a prerequisite level of gear or actual player level in order to participate is a needless barrier to entry, and strongly suggests that the design doesn't work very well — other MMOs with PvP tend to bracket players by level, so with the exception of at the extremes of level ranges you shouldn't be dominated by other players since they can't be more than n levels higher than you (and so have access to better gear etc.).

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Like many DBO regulars, I received access to the Alpha.

.·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

... Le Sigh.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: everything kills you instantly

So. Armor doesn't matter? I mean supers kill instantly - yea. Get that - pretty much a given. That can be fixed by taking longer to get, just playing with the timing in general. How is the one on one gun play?

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To add on that, what of the bubble-shield-like ability we've seen?

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"To add on that, what of the bubble-shield-like ability we've seen?"

---------------------------------------------

Ward of Dawn: The Titan casts a shield around itself. Guardians who enter the shield receive a temporary boost to defense when they wander outside it.

Link

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…certain weapons slots you have to unlock by leveling up, meaning you could be playing with fewer choices than other players.

I am hoping to get some streaming in late tonight. If you'd like to tune in and see what I mean you're more than welcome.

I guess it doesn't suck TOO bad then if you still want to play it :-p

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A couple of people have asked if the instant deaths can be mitigated by better armor. As far as the Alpha goes, level advantages are "removed." As in, guns and armor have their damage/resistance/etc normalized so it's a level playing field.

This setting appears as bullet-point-ish option when selecting the (only) game mode, so I assume it's variable. But from what I understand, it's the default behavior. I don't think there's any getting around the fact that instant death is the nature of the game.

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As in, guns and armor have their damage/resistance/etc normalized so it's a level playing field.

Could those values not be tweaked to increase kill time? What about also decreasing the amount of heavy and special ammo on the map and increasing the charge time for supers?

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Could those values not be tweaked to increase kill time? What about also decreasing the amount of heavy and special ammo on the map and increasing the charge time for supers?

The question is "to what end?" If you decrease the lethality or ease-of-use of these things, they don't fulfill their purpose. I don't believe it's an accident that they put a dozen "press X to kill person" abilities/weapons in PvP, nor that they give them to people simply for existing. My thinking would be different if they made one or two things overpowered, not 70% of your armament.

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Could those values not be tweaked to increase kill time? What about also decreasing the amount of heavy and special ammo on the map and increasing the charge time for supers?

The question is "to what end?" If you decrease the lethality or ease-of-use of these things, they don't fulfill their purpose. I don't believe it's an accident that they put a dozen "press X to kill person" abilities/weapons in PvP, nor that they give them to people simply for existing. My thinking would be different if they made one or two things overpowered, not 70% of your armament.

I recall reading an interview somewhere that said they were going to be tweaking throughout Destiny's entire lifetime. I get the impression that there's going to be no end to it.

Keep good notes on the alpha. I won't be playing, but I am interested in what people think about the alpha versus the beta when it comes out. It could be a clue to how much they're going to be tweaking.

And I wish my phone would not try to change tweaking to twerking.

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Which may be part of why the one gametype they've let us see is a combination territories/slayer mode. It mitigates the insta-kills somewhat by forcing you to control territories for those scoring bonuses in order to maintain a sense of tactical gameplay. The first (and only) two Crucible games I've played so far were my first hands-on with Destiny, though, and I haven't gone back in since. It could be PvP is going to be a YMMV kind of thing. From what games I've seen streamed today, the gameplay looks fast and furious. I plan to dip my toe back into Crucible again this week now that I'm more comfortable with the controls and see if it runs any better for me.

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A couple of people have asked if the instant deaths can be mitigated by better armor. As far as the Alpha goes, level advantages are "removed." As in, guns and armor have their damage/resistance/etc normalized so it's a level playing field.

I'm wondering if the issue might also be a side-effect of the weapon system in Destiny; everyone has a main weapon and a special, but there are no ‘weak’ options, and so you would always effectively have to start with a strong weapon. What made Halo's multiplayer so special was that the weapons were asymmetric yet balanced (ammo scarcity/volume, repeat rate, damage per shot, zoom, other utility benefits etc.) but so far I've not seen any sign of ways in which weapons in Destiny are distinguished, other than the amount of damage they do.

Your main rifle is likely to always be equivalent to the role of the DMR or BR in Halo, and since those were always very popular weapons, it seems like there's little motivation to swap them for anything except an *even more powerful* weapon, which leads to the scenario you described.

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Like many DBO regulars, I received access to the Alpha.

Who all got early alpha access? AND WHY ARE YOU NOT ALL STREAMING?

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So really this is no different from most shooters.

Halo was somewhat old school for retaining a large health/shield pool that required most of a clip to whittle down.

CoD and Battlefield have numerous 1 shot weapons. Rocket launchers, grenade launchers, C4, Sniper Rifles all are 1 hit kills most of the time. Battlefield does have a range mechanic that reduces damage when you are far away, but you can still be one shot by head shots all the time.

It is rare for these types of shooters to have weapons that take more then 4-5 bullets to kill, and many are 2-3 when you are in the right range band, even for non "power" weapons.

Halo typically had about 145 hp in shield and life. Most other modern shooters have 100. The difference is 1 bullet in halo is about 9 damage, where a single assault rifle bullet in BF4 is 24-39.

Of course that may not be people's style. I always considered the Halo game play to be far more tactical because of the longer engagement time, but it also is far slower. It also made the power weapons much more critical to control and use effectively. If your sniper didn't counter snipe effectively, you were hosed. You would also have difficulty with a group of foes even if you achieved tactical advantage.

In contrast BF4 is much more about fighting in your weapons engagement zone, using your abilities to support your team, and not pretending you are an invincible super soldier. CoD of course is designed for the FPS trolls of the universe.

So long as we don't see a full on embrace of the CoD specific style of play, which rewards cheap kills via No Scoping and Teleporting Knifes on everything, you should not be too concerned.

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The special powers could probably be fixed by adding startup/recovery time which leaves the characters vulnerable to damage, making their usage much more situational in nature. A substantial recharge time would probably be beneficial as well.

In order to promote map movement, players should probably not start with power-weapon ammo (if they don't already).

While PvP in this game might not be great at this stage, I think with some tweaking it could be pretty good.

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In order to promote map movement, players should probably not start with power-weapon ammo (if they don't already).

Any heavy ammo that you're holding when you die is lost on respawn. Use it or lose it, as they say.

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The whole supers in multiplayer thing was something I was very curious about. It seemed at least inevitable to me that at some point, someone was just going to get a free kill because their super cooldown was up. I wasn't really sure how that was going to work out balance wise.

I had pondered if they would just disable supers for balance purposes, but evidently this is not the case.

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I saw some streams. It does suck. Everybody dies in like 4 bullets.

I was hoping the game would have Halo/GoW length killtimes.This sucks.
I was hoping ADS wouldn't be necessary. Looks like it is. That sucks.

Have you played as a Titan? Is that any better?

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I was hoping ADS wouldn't be necessary. Looks like it is. That sucks.

This might be subjective, but shooting from the hip doesn't feel THAT much more inaccurate than down sights. A difference, but certainly less of a difference than than COD.

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Like many DBO regulars, I received access to the Alpha.

... what?

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Right? It's such a shame that the alpha site only allows Playstation Network users to sign up for it.

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He will shower us with his creative energy if he has access.

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Cry some more.

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After looking over a little more PvP footage, it seems like there may be a couple of things at play in your initial reaction. Of course, this is all speculation since I haven't gotten my hands on the Alpha, but your emphatic statement that PvP is basically broken and can't be fixed at all spurs me to provide an actual response. So...

Seems like you've got a lot of this-is-not-the-Halo-I-wanted going on. It's in Alpha, and since we've all been paying close attention for months (or years, as the case may be), it's clear they expect that gameplay will continue to evolve even after launch (I think we can cite a clip of Lars from an interview fairly recently); basically indefinitely as tweaks and additional content are added, and trends in gameplay habits will influence how that goes to an extent.

You spoke to the new design philosophy towards PvP, and that no amount of tweaking will fix it. So, I wanted to know...what constitutes "fixed"? Since this isn't Halo, and is something quite different, what "better" state are you aware of?

Maybe this will be helpful to you, maybe not: But Destiny seems to have an element of ...Bushido Blade, was it? Where you could always go for the deathstroke and be done with it rather than draw a fight out. It appears sustained gunplay has much less to do with kills than it did in Halo and instead a mix of positioning, power usage, and (yes) marksmanship are what will win battles. Less deadeye, more leaf-on-the-wind.

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. There are pieces of Destiny we recognize from other things and we're accustomed to seeing them implemented in a certain way.

Bottom line being I think any dissatisfaction you have here is either because you expected something entirely different, or that it’s early yet *cough*ALPHA*cough* and you haven’t found your groove with it.

It's kind of precipitous to stamp PvP [BROKEN] before the thing is even out of the gates.

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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

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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.

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So, I want to lead this by saying, Destiny PVP sounds disapointing on a couple of major levels. The desire to hew to the tried and true arena shooter model frankly sucks, and the balancing system where everything just get's flattened is disappointing. If you want to have a game about players creating these cool synergistic builds, then let them use those builds Similarly, if you are going to build this massive infrastructure to do seamless matchmaking, why not use it in MP also? It's safe, boring design, and honestly pretty frustrating.

I kind of doubt I"m going to explore PVP much at all this time around

All that said, the prevalence of insta kill elements you are complaining about seems eminently fixable. I mean, that's the kind of thing that bungie created as different variants in every other Halo game. Literally, you are talking about adjusting back some spawning times on a spreadsheet for some power weapons, and supers. If Halo 3 could support MLG and Heavies game types, I don't see why destiny is somehow locked into this one mode of play. I mean, the strength of arena style play is that you ahve control all the elments, so you can craft very specific gametypes, so I imagine bungie is living up that at least.

There's zero technical reason it couldn't be changed either, I'm going to hazard a safe guess that, ammo for heavies, super charge rate, etc are all just sitting in some XML file that can be tweaked for matchmaking.

So why won't it be changed? Has bungie said something on the Alpha forums that indicates they want all this crazy spiky damage? Because the idea that it can't be changed, when all evidence says it can, seems odd.

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After watching your stream for a while, I think the PvP looks fun. Wish I was playing. You have some good complaints though. About the Supers...your charge increases faster with how well you're playing, right? So a less experienced player won't just be dominating with Supers left and right. I think it's just a matter of balancing some quantities and recharge times as they get more feedback from players and start moving into the beta.

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From the sounds of things, what you're encountering is the perennial problem of balancing an MMO game between PvP and PvE game modes. Various different MMOs have had different approaches to solving this problem, but one pattern is apparent: where the game lets you take your abilities directly across from PvE to a PvP environment, certain classes and abilities are simply game-breakingly overpowered.

A perfect example would be the spellcasting classes in WoW in Vanilla WoW; as they acquired more and more powerful gear from the PvE game, they would become more and more powerful ‘glass cannons’ that could kill other classes very quickly with only a couple of spells, whilst those other classes (even those whose signature strength was survivability) were powerless to stop them.

Nearly five expansions later and this problem is still one that Blizzard haven't solved despite numerous tweaks, and finally they have started to take the gloves off the alternative approach: spells and abilities have different behaviours in PvP to PvE. This is how Guild Wars works (apparently; I've not played it myself) and it would seem to make the most sense for Destiny, too.

This is disappointing news indeed.

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Watch some streams or read it again. The issue is more that there are too many instakill abilities. In fact cheaply when complained that each class has its own super. Class vs. Class balance isn't really the issue. Its more a problem with abundant power than allocation of power.

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Watch some streams or read it again. The issue is more that there are too many instakill abilities. In fact cheaply when complained that each class has its own super. Class vs. Class balance isn't really the issue. Its more a problem with abundant power than allocation of power.

Expectations are the real killer here.

I have to admit I'm not super excited about lots of short lives in PvP. It always bugged me about CoD, and I'm really not a fan of how that property has informed other games. However, the rumblings have been for a while that we'd be getting a good dose of that.

I guess my real problem here is that I'm not hearing why this design philosophy itself is bad. I'm just hearing a lot of "I don't like this", which is valid enough, to a point. But the tried-and-true cry of "IT TAKES NO SKIIIIIILLLLL" that we're familiar with from all the MLG'ers, wannabe MLG'ers, and people who generally enjoy the taste of MLG-style gameplay seems to be gaining a little volume.

I just want some justifications to back up the opinion.

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I just want some justifications to back up the opinion.

Hmmmm. Here I thought the whole point of opinions was they they didn't need justification.

I think it's just safe to say Schooly D would simply be happier playing the MC Collection.

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I just want some justifications to back up the opinion.

Hmmmm. Here I thought the whole point of opinions was they they didn't need justification.

Maybe I expect a little more from people.

Consider it a personal So-What Test from me. You have an opinion. So what? Why should I care what you think?

Ooooh, you have a valid reason for taking up a particular position; one that is informed by facts and logic? And look at that, you can even defend it against others with unfounded opinions because it's supported by those crucial facts and that sensible logic.

So, what's in it for you?

I, as a fan of solid reasoning, might even be swayed by your logic and do the unthinkable: Choose to reassess my opinion and change it based on convincing logic or facts that were not previously clear to me.

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.

I think it's just safe to say Schooly D would simply be happier playing the MC Collection.

Perhaps.

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Consider it a personal So-What Test from me. You have an opinion. So what? Why should I care what you think?

What a refreshing and earnestly sociable attitude to embrace!

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Consider it a personal So-What Test from me. You have an opinion. So what? Why should I care what you think?

What a refreshing and earnestly sociable attitude to embrace!

You misunderstand me.

I'm simply saying I have a process by which I take aboard someone's views and compare them to my own, then adopt or discard them as I see fit. Reason rules this evaluation. If one's opinion proves baseless by this, I can still respect them and their opinion, it just means it doesn't hold weight with me.

It's not meant to be hostile or antisocial in the slightest. I think there are plenty of others here that can attest to my nature.

EDIT: In fact, read the rest of my response. The very point I make is that I approach another's opinion open to the possibility that they could change what I think. I'm not sure there's a more fundamentally accepting and sociable posture to take.

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You misunderstand me.

[image]

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There's a time and a place for everything.

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There's a time and a place for everything.

[image]

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Behold, the radical idea that someone's value as a person is not directly related to the opinions and beliefs that they hold. That maybe, just maybe, those opinions and beliefs (wrong, right, or in between) can be discussed in an arena of mutual respect and understanding.

And hey, maybe even passions will inflame. That's good times, if you ask me.

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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.

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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".

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Hmmmm. Here I thought the whole point of opinions was they they didn't need justification.

Define "need." Obviously you don't have to be able to explain why you hold an opinion in order to hold said opinion. But in conversations, being able to articulate it can make for a more valuable and rich discussion than simply "I like this and I don't like that."

"Subjective" doesn't mean "random."

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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Well that pretty much works as good reply to my other post. Honestly, I think the most fun I had watching you play was listening to you and watching you snipe. The sniping was about the only thing that I felt took any actual skill. The other gunplay was boring. Without your super, the most you ever really pulled off was a single kill at a time, with maybe one double kill. You got a triple with your One Two Three Golden Gun shots, 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) Edit: And yes, I'm aware this is an Alpha, thank you people who love to point this out like no one knows. There's no real personal reward to these kills, and nothing special about them, beyond those sniper kills you pulled off.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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I watched you play for a good long while last night, and I agree with a lot of what you have to say (not all). I also feel like the gameplay gets really, really boring to watch. Never had that problem watching Halo, and it's not a good sign if the new and shiny bores me. Hopefully it's more fun to play. I guess I should ask, do you have fun, or do you feel like you're just running through the motions? Also, all that nuclear fallout clouding the screen endlessly is really annoying.

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