Hypothetical - Guardian Trainer

If there were a PC version someday, and someone somewhere made a cheater program that would let you set the level, skills, and weapons that your guardian has, enabling you to play all the content without worrying about engaging with the investment system, would you use it?

Keep in mind this is a multiplayer game, yet there is no trading and economy (that we know of).

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Oof.

While I can see a certain allure in that, it feels like it would fundamentally undermine a tenant of the game*. Surely the pacing of the game and missions are such that the loot is a crucial part of the flow and experience.

I would be interested to try it out though.

Now there's potential in whole system and balance tweaks, players deciding how they think the game should play.
Private servers, like in WoW?

*Haven't not played the alpha, only an expectation of importance

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Surely the pacing of the game and missions are such that the loot is a crucial part of the flow and experience.

This is the unknown right now. We already know that there's going to need to be some kind of level progression required. However, can Bungie design the game so that you can go from mission to mission, piece to piece, and play them all in a progression without having to grind?

My hunch is no, given the ubiquity of filler quests and the nature of explore mode, as well as their plan to keep people playing for ten years.

It will be interesting to see how this aspect is in the final.

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There is a Gameshark-like program for BL2 that lets you not only edit your char, but also your inventory, up to the point where you can even invent weapons given all the parts available in the game.

While that does take a huge chunk of the fun of the game out, not only it is the only way to really spice the endgame up, but Destiny also doesn't seem as skill/loot-centered as BL2, so I don't think I'd have much problem using it, no.

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If there were a PC version someday, and someone somewhere made a cheater program that would let you set the level, skills, and weapons that your guardian has, enabling you to play all the content without worrying about engaging with the investment system, would you use it?

Keep in mind this is a multiplayer game, yet there is no trading and economy (that we know of).

So... basically not play the game I'm playing. Obviously a paradox. Is this hypothetical program a cat?

*O_O*

Random thought of the day: Does the Schrödinger's cat paradox work in the world of Destiny?

-Yes and no... you are the cat.

*Buushshhh*

[image]

/INSANEdrive post (c)(tm)

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If there were a PC version someday, and someone somewhere made a cheater program that would let you set the level, skills, and weapons that your guardian has, enabling you to play all the content without worrying about engaging with the investment system, would you use it?

From what I've seen, I would rate Destiny's "investment system" as part of "all the content."

While I haven't played Destiny yet, I have enjoyed starting small in other games and growing my character into something much more powerful. It can be a lot of fun to go back to a previously troublesome area or level and gage just how much more powerful I've become. It can be fun to try and beat a harder area that should be too tough by making expert use of powers and specific weapons and armor combinations. Part of the fun of a game can be the journey from unknown to Legend in the eyes of the virtual world I've chosen to play in. Your hypothetical trainer would mean skipping that part of "all the content." Skipping part of the fun.

So no, I would not use it unless Destiny's investment system proves to be broken, like the later Halos' "Play 8,000 more hours to see the helmet you might be able to buy after playing another 16,000 more hours of gameplay. P.S. Single player no longer counts as playing after hour 10."

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From what I've seen, I would rate Destiny's "investment system" as part of "all the content."

Now we are getting academic, because technically it CAN'T be part of the (fun) content. If it WERE, then the investment system would undermine itself!

Let's say you are making a puzzle game with three big puzzles (for sake of argument). One is an easy puzzle, one is medium difficulty, and the last is hard. You have an investment system in the form of IQ points. When you solve a puzzle, you get IQ points. Get enough, and you can play the next puzzle.

So you solve the easy puzzle and want to try the medium one, but you don't have enough IQ points. To get IQ points, you can solve a bunch of little puzzles to slowly get more IQ points. Let's say you need to solve 3 little puzzles to get enough IQ points to move on to the medium puzzle.

But think about it. If the little puzzles were part of the fun content, then the designers would simply design the game to progress from easy puzzle, to 3 little puzzles, to the medium puzzle. There'd be no reason for IQ points at all.

So in order to justify the system, the little puzzles MUST not be fun in their own merits, because if they are, the system is unnecessary as just explained.

So to go from medium to hard, you might have to play 7 little puzzles to get enough IQ points - puzzles which are required to be less interesting by the inclusion of the IQ points system. You're not dumb though, and you want to solve the hard puzzle. Why do you have to play 7 easy ones in order to do so? You'd be right to just want to skip the puzzles which are designed to be bad, because if they weren't the investment system is unnecessary.

So the proper way to design the puzzle game is to remove the IQ point system, and either have the three big puzzles, or have the little puzzles (which now have to be fun!) included between the big puzzles.

That's the crux of it. Investment systems are designed to make tasks that aren't fun fun, through the addition of a reward system. And if the investment system was itself fun and complex, it'd just be a normal part of the game, which would itself not need an investment system.

If you want to do a level 50 strike, and you've played all the content up to that point and are level 50, then there's no need for the level requirement: simply order the content as in a traditional level progression with the level 50 strike at the end. You can mix it up and allow for some choice if you like. You can choose to do the first 8 stages in any order in megaman, but to play the castle you have to finish all 8 stages. So make the level 50 strike the castle, and the content before it the robot master stages.

But if you play all the content you can play at your level and you AREN'T level 50, then that means replaying boring content. If it wasn't boring, then it would have been designed and ordered as described in the previous paragraph since it would be fun on its own and you wouldn't need a reward to play!

If you could replay 10 missions to get the exp to get to level 50, then the level lock would function the same way if instead of requiring level 50, it said "REQUIRES: replay 10 stages". Functionally it is exactly the same from the perspective of the player, but when worded this way it seems strange and dumb. Because it is.

But if investment systems are there to try to make things that aren't fun fun, why not simply just make everything you ask your player to do fun? Ideally you would do this, but the real answer is time.

The investment system ensures a minimum investment of time to progress through content. This is necessary because Bungie wants people playing their game for ten years, and actually designing fun content takes waaaaay more time to make than to play. By adding what is essentially a time gate, you get the most bang for your buck so to speak when it comes to playtime / development cost.

But haven't you ever played a free to play game with content locked out through time, like an action meter that takes time to charge to let you do something? And isn't that fucking annoying? Investment systems are the same thing, just wrapped in a prettier package.

Everything, including finding and customizing gear, your guardian's skills, and weapons can be done without the need for an investment system.

So when you have a fun game, necessarily burdened by filler, would you skip the filler if able?

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From what I've seen, I would rate Destiny's "investment system" as part of "all the content."

Now we are getting academic, because technically it CAN'T be part of the (fun) content. If it WERE, then the investment system would undermine itself!

Let's say you are making a puzzle game with three big puzzles (for sake of argument). One is an easy puzzle, one is medium difficulty, and the last is hard. You have an investment system in the form of IQ points. When you solve a puzzle, you get IQ points. Get enough, and you can play the next puzzle.

So you solve the easy puzzle and want to try the medium one, but you don't have enough IQ points. To get IQ points, you can solve a bunch of little puzzles to slowly get more IQ points. Let's say you need to solve 3 little puzzles to get enough IQ points to move on to the medium puzzle.

But think about it. If the little puzzles were part of the fun content, then the designers would simply design the game to progress from easy puzzle, to 3 little puzzles, to the medium puzzle. There'd be no reason for IQ points at all.

So in order to justify the system, the little puzzles MUST not be fun in their own merits, because if they are, the system is unnecessary as just explained.

So to go from medium to hard, you might have to play 7 little puzzles to get enough IQ points - puzzles which are required to be less interesting by the inclusion of the IQ points system. You're not dumb though, and you want to solve the hard puzzle. Why do you have to play 7 easy ones in order to do so? You'd be right to just want to skip the puzzles which are designed to be bad, because if they weren't the investment system is unnecessary.

So the proper way to design the puzzle game is to remove the IQ point system, and either have the three big puzzles, or have the little puzzles (which now have to be fun!) included between the big puzzles.

That's the crux of it. Investment systems are designed to make tasks that aren't fun fun, through the addition of a reward system. And if the investment system was itself fun and complex, it'd just be a normal part of the game, which would itself not need an investment system.

If you want to do a level 50 strike, and you've played all the content up to that point and are level 50, then there's no need for the level requirement: simply order the content as in a traditional level progression with the level 50 strike at the end. You can mix it up and allow for some choice if you like. You can choose to do the first 8 stages in any order in megaman, but to play the castle you have to finish all 8 stages. So make the level 50 strike the castle, and the content before it the robot master stages.

But if you play all the content you can play at your level and you AREN'T level 50, then that means replaying boring content. If it wasn't boring, then it would have been designed and ordered as described in the previous paragraph since it would be fun on its own and you wouldn't need a reward to play!

If you could replay 10 missions to get the exp to get to level 50, then the level lock would function the same way if instead of requiring level 50, it said "REQUIRES: replay 10 stages". Functionally it is exactly the same from the perspective of the player, but when worded this way it seems strange and dumb. Because it is.

But if investment systems are there to try to make things that aren't fun fun, why not simply just make everything you ask your player to do fun? Ideally you would do this, but the real answer is time.

The investment system ensures a minimum investment of time to progress through content. This is necessary because Bungie wants people playing their game for ten years, and actually designing fun content takes waaaaay more time to make than to play. By adding what is essentially a time gate, you get the most bang for your buck so to speak when it comes to playtime / development cost.

But haven't you ever played a free to play game with content locked out through time, like an action meter that takes time to charge to let you do something? And isn't that fucking annoying? Investment systems are the same thing, just wrapped in a prettier package.

Everything, including finding and customizing gear, your guardian's skills, and weapons can be done without the need for an investment system.

So when you have a fun game, necessarily burdened by filler, would you skip the filler if able?

Because you're like *really* obsessed.

At some point, it just bears mentioning, a lot of people enjoy a nice power curve. It feels good. There are plenty of other formal game design reasons for it, but the fact that people like investment systems make a pretty strong case for their validity.

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At some point, it just bears mentioning, a lot of people enjoy a nice power curve. It feels good. There are plenty of other formal game design reasons for it, but the fact that people like investment systems make a pretty strong case for their validity.

Back to megaman: this is accomplished by giving you a new weapon after beating each stage. Deus Ex gives out Exp as you go to invest in your character. Zelda and Metroid have you find items as you play. You can have power progression without the need for an investment system!

And yes I'm obsessed, because it's so frustrating to see Bungie paying people to make Destiny worse, especially when the Alpha was so fun because the system barely came into play!

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Back to megaman: this is accomplished by giving you a new weapon after beating each stage. Deus Ex gives out Exp as you go to invest in your character. Zelda and Metroid have you find items as you play.

While Destiny on the other hand... ?

The only difference I can see is that you can replay stuff and still get some sort of reward for it. No wait... Super Mario 64 did that. It was so bullshit you had to collect all these stars before you could face Bowser! It's Nintendo's fault man! They introduced the Investment System! Endless, mindless collection quests!

/*ahem*

You played the Alpha (quite a lot from what I hear): some of the best gear came quickest just by playing the story level once.

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At some point, it just bears mentioning, a lot of people enjoy a nice power curve. It feels good. There are plenty of other formal game design reasons for it, but the fact that people like investment systems make a pretty strong case for their validity.

Back to megaman: this is accomplished by giving you a new weapon after beating each stage. Deus Ex gives out Exp as you go to invest in your character. Zelda and Metroid have you find items as you play. You can have power progression without the need for an investment system!

And some people really like investment or loot systems. You can't really invalidate what people like or don't like.

And yes I'm obsessed, because it's so frustrating to see Bungie paying people to make Destiny worse, especially when the Alpha was so fun because the system barely came into play!

Yea, but you just say the same thing over and over. Do you have a new argument to present, new thoughts on the matter. I mean, saying the same thing over and over is a bit weird no?

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And some people really like investment or loot systems. You can't really invalidate what people like or don't like.

Without commenting on investment systems in Destiny, it's really easy for people to like things that are bad. Like =/= good.

That being said, Reach's investment system ended up being a major detrement to my enjoyment of that game. I'm hesitant to say the game, and the system, was good by any objective measure. Destiny however sounds like it's a lot more fun than Reach (it seems to have heart, which is important to me) whether or not the investment system is there.

And here's the thing with the Megaman examples; IIRC couldn't you play any level you wanted at virtually any time? It appears different in Destiny, as like with Borderlands, there are some areas you just can't handle until you're at the appropriate level.

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Without commenting on investment systems in Destiny, it's really easy for people to like things that are bad. Like =/= good.

For sure.

That being said, Reach's investment system ended up being a major detrement to my enjoyment of that game. I'm hesitant to say the game, and the system, was good by any objective measure. Destiny however sounds like it's a lot more fun than Reach (it seems to have heart, which is important to me) whether or not the investment system is there.

Wait, whaaaaaat? How did the "investment system", if you want to call it that, detract from your enjoyment of the game? Reach is easily my favorite Halo experience, maybe tied with ODST (though for very different reasons). Really curious as to what turned you off about it.

And here's the thing with the Megaman examples; IIRC couldn't you play any level you wanted at virtually any time? It appears different in Destiny, as like with Borderlands, there are some areas you just can't handle until you're at the appropriate level.

Megaman has always allowed you to beat the levels in any order, but there's a place in the Chain of Weaknesses each boss takes up. Every game has been an exercise in finding where to jump into that chain to use the earned weapons against the next boss.

And yes, it seems what grinding there will be will be "enforced", for lack of a better term, by placing high-level enemies in certain areas. Can't say I have much of an issue with this.

I still don't understand what everyone is on about; saying investment systems ruin things. They can, certainly. But not by default. They are not an objective evil.

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Wait, whaaaaaat? How did the "investment system", if you want to call it that, detract from your enjoyment of the game? Reach is easily my favorite Halo experience, maybe tied with ODST (though for very different reasons). Really curious as to what turned you off about it.

My first couple times through the campaign were really great, Firefight was a blast, and the multiplayer was even fun for a time. Thing is, I played it WAY past its (personal) expiration date, and that was directly tied to the investment system. I just needed that superficial piece of gear with literally no real impact on anything and sunk WAY too much time doing something I no longer enjoyed to get it.

Plus, the game lacked a depth of heart, so that just compounded it.

When I realized all this, there was great RAGE, and I really haven't gotten over it yet. Part of it was my own immaturity and inabilty to get away from it (which is funny, cause Mass Effect 3 came along, and I enjoyed that WAY more than Reach because the core game was SO FUN in SPITE of the investment system so it was basically a revenge fuck towards Reach). Maybe someday I'll toss Reach back in and give it another go, but I wouldn't hold any breath over it.

And hnnnnng. ODST. Just so perfect.

Megaman has always allowed you to beat the levels in any order, but there's a place in the Chain of Weaknesses each boss takes up. Every game has been an exercise in finding where to jump into that chain to use the earned weapons against the next boss.

Thank you for clarifying.

And yes, it seems what grinding there will be will be "enforced", for lack of a better term, by placing high-level enemies in certain areas. Can't say I have much of an issue with this.

Yeah, really gotta play the thing to find out I think.

I still don't understand what everyone is on about; saying investment systems ruin things. They can, certainly. But not by default. They are not an objective evil.

~m

Amen to this.

EDIT: I mean jeeze you could Civ 5 is a giant investment system but each game can have such a great payoff and tension. It's compelling nature is what gets you I think.

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My first couple times through the campaign were really great, Firefight was a blast, and the multiplayer was even fun for a time. Thing is, I played it WAY past its (personal) expiration date, and that was directly tied to the investment system. I just needed that superficial piece of gear with literally no real impact on anything and sunk WAY too much time doing something I no longer enjoyed to get it.

Same reason I stopped playing, but by that point I felt I'd been through most of what the game had to offer me. I expect the same will be true of Destiny after a certain point, until D2: Destined Harder. I'm hoping, though, that there will be high-level loot that bestows unique benefits rather than just a cool looking trinket for completing a lot of challenges. Surely there's a limit beyond which most 'reasonable' players will take a look at their accomplishments and realize they aren't going to earn any more gear. I remember that for me, there were breathing apparatuses for the Gungnir and Security helmets I really wanted, but they were on the opposite side of a lot of grinding I wasn't willing to do. And while they really completed the look I wanted, it just wasn't worth it.

I guess my point with specific regard to this is that some high level loot should bestow advantages in gameplay, but there comes a point where only completionists are going to worry about the nigh-unreachable loot, after which point it should just be superficial. One can only be angry with oneself at that point for burning out.

The problem I see there, though, is that high-level loot that actually affects gameplay is likely to become a foothold for players at that level to get by. So while some may see it as 'hey, neat. finally got X weapon', that becomes a matter of life and death for the folks who are running raids all the time and really pushing hard to the endgame content.

Plus, the game lacked a depth of heart, so that just compounded it.

Won't argue here. The departure from Nylund's text completely disconnected me from my investment in any Halo storyline since. I wasn't wholly dissatisfied with what we got, by my investment was shot at that point.

When I realized all this, there was great RAGE, and I really haven't gotten over it yet. Part of it was my own immaturity and inabilty to get away from it (which is funny, cause Mass Effect 3 came along, and I enjoyed that WAY more than Reach because the core game was SO FUN in SPITE of the investment system so it was basically a revenge fuck towards Reach). Maybe someday I'll toss Reach back in and give it another go, but I wouldn't hold any breath over it.

Excellent point here. ME3 was (and continues to be) fun, because the core gameplay is so strong. Having a build system to tweak according to your desired play style is what continues to bring me back. Well, that and the collaborative aspects of gameplay. Nothing like power combos to make for a satisfying evening (TWSS). And personally, I never really minded the random loot system. I've never once felt forced to play a class I didn't want to.

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The problem I see there, though, is that high-level loot that actually affects gameplay is likely to become a foothold for players at that level to get by. So while some may see it as 'hey, neat. finally got X weapon', that becomes a matter of life and death for the folks who are running raids all the time and really pushing hard to the endgame content.

Bingo. If the loot doesn't impact the game significantly, then why is it there? But if it DOES, then it's going to be a requirement.

P.S. I suggest boots named Miller's Edge that let you run 10% faster.

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The problem I see there, though, is that high-level loot that actually affects gameplay is likely to become a foothold for players at that level to get by. So while some may see it as 'hey, neat. finally got X weapon', that becomes a matter of life and death for the folks who are running raids all the time and really pushing hard to the endgame content.

Bingo. If the loot doesn't impact the game significantly, then why is it there? But if it DOES, then it's going to be a requirement.

P.S. I suggest boots named Miller's Edge that let you run 10% faster.

Have you played Titanfall? I keep wondering what you'd think of the wallrunning in that. It's pretty damn exhilarating.

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Have you played Titanfall? I keep wondering what you'd think of the wallrunning in that. It's pretty damn exhilarating.

Not huge into multiplayer gaming, but I played it at a LAN and it was mega fun. The speed was great. The wall running and navigation was great.

I'm hoping mirror's edge is 60fps on consoles this time around or I will have to get it on PC.

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Have you played Titanfall? I keep wondering what you'd think of the wallrunning in that. It's pretty damn exhilarating.

Not huge into multiplayer gaming, but I played it at a LAN and it was mega fun. The speed was great. The wall running and navigation was great.

Cool, yeah, in my decades of gaming I've never felt such excitement.

I'm hoping mirror's edge is 60fps on consoles this time around or I will have to get it on PC.

Indeed.

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Won't argue here. The departure from Nylund's text completely disconnected me from my investment in any Halo storyline since. I wasn't wholly dissatisfied with what we got, by my investment was shot at that point.

Some wonder if that was on purpose /conspiratorial tone. I liked the departure, actually, and I thought the biggest problem with Reach was the team did not quite overcome the challenge of fleshing out and making us care (enough) about an unknown cast of characters when we pretty much knew from the start that they are goners. (I'm charitable about it, though, because in a sense I think they inadvertently set themselves up for failure.) All that said, the tone and sense of place in the game were as well handled as in any game they've made. I liked the darker, more mature, more ambiguous world of Reach. (More gray area, Malagate.)

Gameplay-wise I still call it Halo's greatest hits. It's my deserted island Halo, the sampler pack, the culmination of a decade of fun.

Investment aspects? I wanted a black visor. I worked for it, but I could have not done so. I don't see it as a zero sum situation where if Reach had not had that sort of thing, that development work would've been applied toward making it a better game in other aspects.

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And here's the thing with the Megaman examples; IIRC couldn't you play any level you wanted at virtually any time? It appears different in Destiny, as like with Borderlands, there are some areas you just can't handle until you're at the appropriate level.

Megaman has always allowed you to beat the levels in any order, but there's a place in the Chain of Weaknesses each boss takes up. Every game has been an exercise in finding where to jump into that chain to use the earned weapons against the next boss.

The best megaman games are more complex than that. Megaman 2 for example, has robot masters with varying weaknesses against a variety of weapons, such that there was no chain. You had little loops that were either self contained or crossed over each other, plus the mobility items which offered advantages in levels. The classic dilemma is item1 / item 2. You get item 2 from Airman, and item 1 from Heatman. Well, Item 1 helps big time in the airman stage, and item 2 helps big time in the heatman stage. So you have to pick which advantage you want.

I still don't understand what everyone is on about; saying investment systems ruin things. They can, certainly. But not by default. They are not an objective evil.

Correct, but ONLY IF DONE RIGHT. Deus Ex does it right. Destiny does it wrong.

Here is how to fix Destiny to do it right:

1. If you play all the story missions and strikes, you should reach max level or near max level by the time you finish.
2. Eliminate random loot, and have weapons be in predefined locations or acquired from specific enemies.
3. The missions in Explore mode should essentially just be story missions; they should be well designed, unique, and novel.
4. Hide tons and tons of missions, side stories, and secrets in explore mode.

Basically, you should never have to grind for level or gear ever, and boring MMO fetch / kill quests should be eliminated. Most of my beef stems from the fact that explore mode seemed to be the primary way to gain levels (in the alpha anyway), and the part that's fun (exploring) you don't get exp for, and the part that sucks (the missions) you do.

I'm willing to keep an open mind though, and consider that explore mode was a bigger deal in the Alpha due to lack of content. Maybe the full game will have enough to do that 's fun so that I won't have to pick up spinmetal leaves.

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Here is how to fix Destiny to do it right:

1. If you play all the story missions and strikes, you should reach max level or near max level by the time you finish.

Recipe for reaching the End of Investment for a player really quick.

2. Eliminate random loot, and have weapons be in predefined locations or acquired from specific enemies.

I don't want there to be a clear-cut solution for everything. Rare weapons won't have a way of being rare, then. Will they? If there is a pool of weapons worth roughly the same amount and I get a random one for defeating a boss, fine. But I don't want that boss to drop the same weapon every time. Then the only way to make things rare is to make the challenge for them incredibly hard, no?

I'm reminded of a thread a while ago about the ghost ship in Windwaker. Unique Public Events or certain missions that only occur on rare occasions might be a solution here. But I don't think eliminating randomness is the way.

3. The missions in Explore mode should essentially just be story missions; they should be well designed, unique, and novel.

But that's requiring a lot of extra work to crank out. If they're implemented and rolled out post-launch on a continual basis, that would be great. But I don't think you're going to have the same fidelity as story missions. Though, if you were truly able to pull it off, it would eliminate the feeling of a central track of Story missions, which I think would go a long way to making each Guardian's story feel unique. It would certainly be something to stretch for, but given what we've seen from the Alpha, I'm not going to expect it.

As it stands, we're all going to have at least a baseline of similar experience to compare, all having played the Story missions at some point.

4. Hide tons and tons of missions, side stories, and secrets in explore mode.

Basically, you should never have to grind for level or gear ever, and boring MMO fetch / kill quests should be eliminated. Most of my beef stems from the fact that explore mode seemed to be the primary way to gain levels (in the alpha anyway), and the part that's fun (exploring) you don't get exp for, and the part that sucks (the missions) you do.

I think this is addressed pretty easily by tying a significant exp gain to picking up whatever goodies you discover while exploring, or by executing sick jumps off of specific remote locations.

I asked this in another thread today, but how do you propose, then, some areas being closed off until you're "ready"? Are you proposing free access anywhere from the word go? If the enemies never get harder, you'd have a lot to do to keep everything else fresh and exciting. This line of thought becomes anti-Ramping Difficulty very quickly. I want things to stay challenging the longer I play.

I'm willing to keep an open mind though, and consider that explore mode was a bigger deal in the Alpha due to lack of content. Maybe the full game will have enough to do that 's fun so that I won't have to pick up spinmetal leaves.

You have to stop being a cat, mentally. Just because there's an open box sitting in front of you doesn't mean you actually have to cram yourself into said box. Let the box sit. Play the game. Forget the box. The box will fill with Spinmetal on its own, provided its something that enemies will drop, and not something specifically placed by the developer. Because that's just a weak excuse to explore, like the gun part quests in Borderlands.

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I asked this in another thread today, but how do you propose, then, some areas being closed off until you're "ready"? Are you proposing free access anywhere from the word go? If the enemies never get harder, you'd have a lot to do to keep everything else fresh and exciting. This line of thought becomes anti-Ramping Difficulty very quickly. I want things to stay challenging the longer I play.

Have missions and strikes open up other missions and strikes, which have a designed difficulty curve. Not that hard to design spaces so that the challenge is harder through level design and enemy placement. You think the only way to make the game harder is to level up the enemies? Then have a final difficulty level (mythic or whatever) where every level is ridiculously hard. This eliminates the "ghost town" problem where nobody is in low level areas.

Also you have it backwards: bad investment systems that allow you to power up your character are anti-difficulty ramping. Your character powers up, such that the enemies are no harder than before. If your character gets more powerful, then the challenges have to get more powerful IN COMPARISON, which is essentially a traditional progressive design anyway!

You have to stop being a cat, mentally. Just because there's an open box sitting in front of you doesn't mean you actually have to cram yourself into said box. Let the box sit. Play the game. Forget the box. The box will fill with Spinmetal on its own, provided its something that enemies will drop, and not something specifically placed by the developer.

Lol did you even play the alpha? Spinmetal leaves ARE placed. They don't drop. You have to hold square to harvest them :-p

Also IF they just filled up as you play and it weren't a problem, why would they even be there? The point of picking up resources is that they are scarce and you will never have enough.

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Also you have it backwards: bad investment systems that allow you to power up your character are anti-difficulty ramping. Your character powers up, such that the enemies are no harder than before. If your character gets more powerful, then the challenges have to get more powerful IN COMPARISON, which is essentially a traditional progressive design anyway!

I definitely didn't say the only way is through levelling the enemies. This is more of a chicken-and-egg argument. Are you becoming more powerful to tackle the harder enemies, or are the enemies becoming harder so you don't burn through the rest of the game with your newfound power?

There are certainly different ways of tackling these considerations, but it's clear the direction Destiny will be taking, and I can't say it looks like they're fixing to ruin my experience.

Lol did you even play the alpha? Spinmetal leaves ARE placed. They don't drop. You have to hold square to harvest them :-p

No, I didn't actually. I don't own a PS4. But I would put in my two cents here and say that placing widgets to collect is a cheap carrot-on-a-stick to get the player to explore the level. And if they aren't creatively placed once that decision is made, then double shame. They should just drop in that area, or somehow appear due to the outcome of gameplay rather than "STAND HERE. OK, NOW STAND HERE."

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Wait, whaaaaaat? How did the "investment system", if you want to call it that, detract from your enjoyment of the game? Reach is easily my favorite Halo experience, maybe tied with ODST (though for very different reasons). Really curious as to what turned you off about it.

I wanted to get that black visor so I did stuff I didn't really want to do to get the points to get the visor. As soon as I got it I stopped playing and have rarely put the disk back into the machine.

I enjoyed Destiny because of the strike but the Alpha gave us a shit ton of uncommon gear really quickly; I doubt that the full game will be so generous.

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From what I've seen, I would rate Destiny's "investment system" as part of "all the content."

Now we are getting academic, because technically it CAN'T be part of the (fun) content. If it WERE, then the investment system would undermine itself!

Let's say you are making a puzzle game with three big puzzles (for sake of argument). One is an easy puzzle, one is medium difficulty, and the last is hard. You have an investment system in the form of IQ points. When you solve a puzzle, you get IQ points. Get enough, and you can play the next puzzle.

So you solve the easy puzzle and want to try the medium one, but you don't have enough IQ points. To get IQ points, you can solve a bunch of little puzzles to slowly get more IQ points. Let's say you need to solve 3 little puzzles to get enough IQ points to move on to the medium puzzle.

But think about it. If the little puzzles were part of the fun content, then the designers would simply design the game to progress from easy puzzle, to 3 little puzzles, to the medium puzzle. There'd be no reason for IQ points at all.

So in order to justify the system, the little puzzles MUST not be fun in their own merits, because if they are, the system is unnecessary as just explained.

So to go from medium to hard, you might have to play 7 little puzzles to get enough IQ points - puzzles which are required to be less interesting by the inclusion of the IQ points system. You're not dumb though, and you want to solve the hard puzzle. Why do you have to play 7 easy ones in order to do so? You'd be right to just want to skip the puzzles which are designed to be bad, because if they weren't the investment system is unnecessary.

So the proper way to design the puzzle game is to remove the IQ point system, and either have the three big puzzles, or have the little puzzles (which now have to be fun!) included between the big puzzles.

That's the crux of it. Investment systems are designed to make tasks that aren't fun fun, through the addition of a reward system. And if the investment system was itself fun and complex, it'd just be a normal part of the game, which would itself not need an investment system.

If you want to do a level 50 strike, and you've played all the content up to that point and are level 50, then there's no need for the level requirement: simply order the content as in a traditional level progression with the level 50 strike at the end. You can mix it up and allow for some choice if you like. You can choose to do the first 8 stages in any order in megaman, but to play the castle you have to finish all 8 stages. So make the level 50 strike the castle, and the content before it the robot master stages.

But if you play all the content you can play at your level and you AREN'T level 50, then that means replaying boring content. If it wasn't boring, then it would have been designed and ordered as described in the previous paragraph since it would be fun on its own and you wouldn't need a reward to play!

If you could replay 10 missions to get the exp to get to level 50, then the level lock would function the same way if instead of requiring level 50, it said "REQUIRES: replay 10 stages". Functionally it is exactly the same from the perspective of the player, but when worded this way it seems strange and dumb. Because it is.

But if investment systems are there to try to make things that aren't fun fun, why not simply just make everything you ask your player to do fun? Ideally you would do this, but the real answer is time.

The investment system ensures a minimum investment of time to progress through content. This is necessary because Bungie wants people playing their game for ten years, and actually designing fun content takes waaaaay more time to make than to play. By adding what is essentially a time gate, you get the most bang for your buck so to speak when it comes to playtime / development cost.

But haven't you ever played a free to play game with content locked out through time, like an action meter that takes time to charge to let you do something? And isn't that fucking annoying? Investment systems are the same thing, just wrapped in a prettier package.

Everything, including finding and customizing gear, your guardian's skills, and weapons can be done without the need for an investment system.

So when you have a fun game, necessarily burdened by filler, would you skip the filler if able?

Because you're like *really* obsessed.

At some point, it just bears mentioning, a lot of people enjoy a nice power curve. It feels good. There are plenty of other formal game design reasons for it, but the fact that people like investment systems make a pretty strong case for their validity.

I think game design is really important and worth hashing out intensely.

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Because you're like *really* obsessed.

At some point, it just bears mentioning, a lot of people enjoy a nice power curve. It feels good. There are plenty of other formal game design reasons for it, but the fact that people like investment systems make a pretty strong case for their validity.

I think game design is really important and worth hashing out intensely.

Trust me, so d I. I'm currently pursuing an MFA in game design, and interning with an indie developer. I love hashing out game design.

The issue is over focussing on one feature or idea without asking how it fits holistically into a greater system, and the idea that one set of mechanics defines the entire feel of the game, or that a mechanic is objectively good or bad.

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The problem with this argument (and it's been a problem every time you've tried to make this argument, actually) is that you assume that your idea of 'fun' matches mine (or Bungie's, or ANYONE's). A system that provides multiple ways of getting from A to B means people who don't like method 1 as much can try method 2 - or maybe people who've done method 1 a dozen times are tired of method 1 and want to try something new. (Your depiction of an investment system as a critical piece that must be 'worked' before you can do the real 'meat' of the game is also a pretty shallow view; from what I saw in the Alpha, you've got that wrong, too. The investment system gives you a way of shortcutting the normal progression; they build a system that they think will make most people happy, but if you're, say, more impatient than the average bear, you can skip ahead by collecting Y and making weapons powerful enough to take on enemy Z before you've actually played enough to learn all the skills that might be useful against Z. There is no 'right' way - you might be happier with the shortcut, but I might be miserable if I haven't had the added practice against enemies you deem 'redundant'.

The investment system gives the entire ecosystem greater robustness, allowing a wider range of playstyles to coexist. The idea that there is an optimum level of 'fun' and that anything that doesn't contribute to that level is 'filler' is a kindergartner's view of the world. You're brighter than that.

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(Your depiction of an investment system as a critical piece that must be 'worked' before you can do the real 'meat' of the game is also a pretty shallow view; from what I saw in the Alpha, you've got that wrong, too.

What I saw was starting at level 3, and having to play the explore mode until level 6 to do the strike. Now, actually EXPLORING was pretty fun since the world was pretty large already, but would you really argue that the missions that you get at the beacons are anywhere near the quality level as the designed pieces?

I could easily see them being so if picking up a mission created an instance for you and your fireteam, with areas populated by designed encounters rather than periodic spawns, and each being unique rather than of the same two basic types. Remove waypoints, and allow more freedom and perhaps allow you to load up 3-5 at once, and bam. Problem mostly solved.

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What if Destiny's main campaign did not require you to grind at all? What if all the leveling up forcefully required (and we all know there will be, based on the alpha) is naturally done as you progress through the campaign? Sure, there'd be a lot less incentive for people to grind, but grinding would obviously make things easier. Would that still make the investment system broken?

You might argue about the side-missions and hidden dungeons. Ok, what if those can be reasonably done even before you finish the main campaign?

Using your puzzle game analogy:

You have a puzzle game with 3 main puzzles (easy, medium, hard) and 3 bonus puzzles (easy, medium, hard). You get IQ points when complete puzzles, but instead of buying you the next level, the IQ points buy you power-ups (like trap-bypassers, tile reveals, hookshots, etc). While you can complete the main medium puzzle with only the IQ points provided by the main easy one, the extra IQ points you'd get from the side easy puzzle certainly makes things easier.

While none of us have played the final build yet (heck, they don't even have a final build yet), I can't say that that's how it works, but my gut feeling is that it will be very similar to that.

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What if Destiny's main campaign did not require you to grind at all? What if all the leveling up forcefully required (and we all know there will be, based on the alpha) is naturally done as you progress through the campaign? Sure, there'd be a lot less incentive for people to grind, but grinding would obviously make things easier. Would that still make the investment system broken?

This is how Deus Ex is designed. As you play through the story, you get exp you can use to invest in character skills. Destiny could similarly have you learn a new skill or level up after completing a mission, but only the first time you do. If you replay, you get nothing. That type of system would not be offensive at all, and could still preserve the Guardian building aspect of the game.

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But that would make the game impossible for non-skilled people, which are obviously still a segment of the market Activision wants satiated. By handing out enough XP and loot for you to progress merely by the main missions themselves, you make sure grinding is not necessary, even if it means you'll have a hard (yet fun) time trying to progress. By allowing improvement of stats by grinding, you make sure the casual folks will still be able to reach the end-game comfortably.

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But that would make the game impossible for non-skilled people, which are obviously still a segment of the market Activision wants satiated. By handing out enough XP and loot for you to progress merely by the main missions themselves, you make sure grinding is not necessary. By allowing improvement of stats by grinding, you make sure the casual folks will still be able to reach the end-game comfortably.

Difficulty levels! Those folks can play on easy.

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Granularity of difficulty. Easy might be too easy while Medium too hard. What do? Grind a bit on Medium.

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Granularity of difficulty. Easy might be too easy while Medium too hard. What do? Grind a bit on Medium.

True, but I would call that the failure of the developers to properly balance difficulty then. Ideally, they would make medium easier, or add something in between.

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I played Mass Effect 3's multiplayer missions hundreds of times earning credits to buy random card packs in the hope of unlocking a new, rare character class. "Not fun!" some might shout... except it was. The core gameplay was fun. Each 15 minute or so playing was fun. Not getting the character? Ok, not so fun, but the devs gave me a reason to keep playing. I accepted that reason as good enough. And I had fun each round?

Cody would call this grinding and would say that technically I had no fun at all.

I say that I had a ton of fun, and because I had not reached the artificial goal, actually had more fun that I would have had if I'd been handed the class I wanted from the beginning.

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I played Mass Effect 3's multiplayer missions hundreds of times earning credits to buy random card packs in the hope of unlocking a new, rare character class. "Not fun!" some might shout... except it was. The core gameplay was fun. Each 15 minute or so playing was fun. Not getting the character? Ok, not so fun, but the devs gave me a reason to keep playing. I accepted that reason as good enough. And I had fun each round?

Cody would call this grinding and would say that technically I had no fun at all.

I say that I had a ton of fun, and because I had not reached the artificial goal, actually had more fun that I would have had if I'd been handed the class I wanted from the beginning.

Part of it for me was that some of the starting classes were so good (still rock Novaguard to this day).

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I played Mass Effect 3's multiplayer missions hundreds of times earning credits to buy random card packs in the hope of unlocking a new, rare character class. "Not fun!" some might shout... except it was. The core gameplay was fun. Each 15 minute or so playing was fun. Not getting the character? Ok, not so fun, but the devs gave me a reason to keep playing. I accepted that reason as good enough. And I had fun each round?

Cody would call this grinding and would say that technically I had no fun at all.

I say that I had a ton of fun, and because I had not reached the artificial goal, actually had more fun that I would have had if I'd been handed the class I wanted from the beginning.

Part of it for me was that some of the starting classes were so good (still rock Novaguard to this day).

Novaguard? You mean the kill stealing, weak vs. lag class? Hehe. I'll do it on host but never anywhere else. I'd rather take the Turian Sentinel. Strong vs everything, weak vs nothing. *Detonates Tech Armor* :)

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Novaguard? You mean the kill stealing, weak vs. lag class? Hehe. I'll do it on host but never anywhere else. I'd rather take the Turian Sentinel. Strong vs everything, weak vs nothing. *Detonates Tech Armor* :)

I sure do. And yeah host or GTFO. :P

Try running Novguard with Justicar, Human Adept, and Asari Adept all with vary mixes of ammo that detonate. Woooo nelly. Never seen a triple combo explosion before (biotic, cryo, and fire).

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I'm all for giving the player unlockables or goals to achieve, but withholding gameplay from the player especially on a random unlock, it's pretty uncool.

The fact is I might never get to play as a Krogan Vanguard or with an N7 weapon. In Destiny, at least there's a story or goal to getting sweet loot, not just random drops across the board.

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Yeah, I would say a terrible example of grinding is Battlefield 4's 'Battlepack' system where you rank up and basically get a lucky dip of 3 or so items (most of which are just filler and meaningless XP boosts).

Sorry, that will be the first and last time I mention that game on this forum *shudder*.

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From what I've seen, I would rate Destiny's "investment system" as part of "all the content."

Now we are getting academic, because technically it CAN'T be part of the (fun) content. If it WERE, then the investment system would undermine itself!

Except I gave you examples where it can. The leveling curve in Skyrim is fun to me. My first time playing I enjoyed the heck out of shooting an arrow at a giant and getting hit with a club so hard that I flew into the upper atmosphere, and then later after gaining power and skills, I enjoyed killing the same giant with a single shot. And I enjoyed the large amount of time between those two instances as well. Your simplistic view of either fun or not fun is broken.

So the proper way to design the puzzle game is to remove the IQ point system, and either have the three big puzzles, or have the little puzzles (which now have to be fun!) included between the big puzzles.

That's the crux of it. Investment systems are designed to make tasks that aren't fun fun, through the addition of a reward system. And if the investment system was itself fun and complex, it'd just be a normal part of the game, which would itself not need an investment system.

Your pretend puzzle game is not Skyrim, Mass Effect, or Destiny. At the very least you, again, ignored what I said about growing from an unknown to a Legend in the eyes of the residents of the game worlds. The growing from one to the other is fun to me. Leaving it out and just giving me every power, upgrade, and weapon would take that away from me. I truly enjoyed Skyrim's and Mass Effect's leveling. From what I've seen I'm pretty sure I'll Destiny's as well. Your theory here is, again, broken because it would clearly make games less fun for me.

If you want to do a level 50 strike, and you've played all the content up to that point and are level 50, then there's no need for the level requirement: simply order the content as in a traditional level progression with the level 50 strike at the end. You can mix it up and allow for some choice if you like. You can choose to do the first 8 stages in any order in megaman, but to play the castle you have to finish all 8 stages. So make the level 50 strike the castle, and the content before it the robot master stages.

What about going back and seeing the results of becoming Legend? That's fun to me, being able to smash the giant with the exact same character as the one who got launched earlier. Your way the best I'd be able to do is replay the level over and over. I'm starting to wonder which of us is advocating grinding here? Is it more or less of a grind to play the same level over and over but get no new powers, weapons, abilities or in world recognition from it?

But if you play all the content you can play at your level and you AREN'T level 50, then that means replaying boring content. If it wasn't boring, then it would have been designed and ordered as described in the previous paragraph since it would be fun on its own and you wouldn't need a reward to play!

If you could replay 10 missions to get the exp to get to level 50, then the level lock would function the same way if instead of requiring level 50, it said "REQUIRES: replay 10 stages". Functionally it is exactly the same from the perspective of the player, but when worded this way it seems strange and dumb. Because it is.

It only is because you worded it badly, ignored things like story and playing with friends and in game results awarded to the player for repeating something, and completely disregarded that some do in fact like leveling.

But if investment systems are there to try to make things that aren't fun fun, why not simply just make everything you ask your player to do fun? Ideally you would do this, but the real answer is time.

The investment system ensures a minimum investment of time to progress through content. This is necessary because Bungie wants people playing their game for ten years, and actually designing fun content takes waaaaay more time to make than to play. By adding what is essentially a time gate, you get the most bang for your buck so to speak when it comes to playtime / development cost.

And if I find Destiny's core gameplay (the shooting and exploring and Nova Bombing and what have you) to be fun, and the upgrading and leveling and being blocked by higher challenges also fun, what then? Your theory says I am wrong. It says "no, you can't have fun that way!" Heck, just look at the Alpha. People had *gasp* fun skirting past those ??? level enemies and seeing what was beyond. Where does that fit in your no levels system?

But haven't you ever played a free to play game with content locked out through time, like an action meter that takes time to charge to let you do something? And isn't that fucking annoying? Investment systems are the same thing, just wrapped in a prettier package.

I disagree. F2P games that stop you from playing, and a game like Destiny that doesn't stop you from playing are entirely different things. Again, so you don't try to ignore it as you sometimes do, I find being less powerful than enemies fun, I find being merely as powerful as enemies fun, and I find being more powerful than enemies fun. And I enjoy games that smoothly let me transition from the first to the last and that let you go back and see the results of our power and go forward and get smashed because you aren't yet powerful enough. Your ideas would take some of the fun, some of all the (fun) content away from me.

Everything, including finding and customizing gear, your guardian's skills, and weapons can be done without the need for an investment system.

So when you have a fun game, necessarily burdened by filler, would you skip the filler if able?

I think maybe the core of your problem is you have correctly identified a fundamental fact of game development, that games take longer to make than to play, but instead of trying to find a balanced solution to the problem (like strong core gameplay with some repetition and level / upgrade gating) you skip directly to a position of no compromises ever. Would I prefer for Bungie to make me 10 years worth of engaging, unique, creative content? Yes. Is such a thing possible? No.

Worse, you write off progression systems as entirely non-fun when some people, like me, enjoy them. Your fix to the development-time vs. play-time problem is flawed from the beginning because you won't admit that some people find fun where you don't.

And to be clear, I reject your puzzle example as far too limited if not downright unrealistic. In Destiny I may have to replay a mission in patrol mode to level up, but unlike your puzzle, the AI will react differently, I will have different skills and weapons, and I'll be playing with an always varying combination of friends on my friends list and strangers who I've never met before. Simply playing a repetitive experience with others, even with bad gameplay, can be tons of fun. And Destiny looks to have great gameplay!

Simply put, you don't win argument points by conjuring up deeply flawed, unimaginative theories and examples. And that's all you've done here.

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I think maybe the core of your problem is you have correctly identified a fundamental fact of game development, that games take longer to make than to play, but instead of trying to find a balanced solution to the problem (like strong core gameplay with some repetition and level / upgrade gating) you skip directly to a position of no compromises ever. Would I prefer for Bungie to make me 10 years worth of engaging, unique, creative content? Yes. Is such a thing possible? No.

But what about instead making 30 hours of content that is absolutely concentrated with fun? There's nothing wrong with that!

I'm a big supporter of making games as short as they can be. Basically, you should try to concentrate the experience as much as possible and always be giving the player interesting things to do. You should cut out all the redundancies, filler, and boring parts.

Vanquish doesn't take very long to beat, but every second is jam packed with excitement, challenge, and novelty. To me, that's better than a 15 hour game that strings things out for the purpose of length.

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I think maybe the core of your problem is you have correctly identified a fundamental fact of game development, that games take longer to make than to play, but instead of trying to find a balanced solution to the problem (like strong core gameplay with some repetition and level / upgrade gating) you skip directly to a position of no compromises ever. Would I prefer for Bungie to make me 10 years worth of engaging, unique, creative content? Yes. Is such a thing possible? No.

But what about instead making 30 hours of content that is absolutely concentrated with fun? There's nothing wrong with that!

I'm a big supporter of making games as short as they can be. Basically, you should try to concentrate the experience as much as possible and always be giving the player interesting things to do. You should cut out all the redundancies, filler, and boring parts.

You get close here to ignoring the economic realities of game development. The entire Halo series could be shrunk down to Assault on the Control Room, or any other arbitrary level, but then you'd be throwing out all the other fun mission encounters, and good story tellings, and epic visuals spread across the Halo series. Plus, "Assault on the Control Room: The Game" would not have inspired such a following, would not have supported Bungie's development cost or allowed them to go on to be a big name developer, and ultimately would not have allowed the creation of Destiny. Without the Halo series there is even the chance that the Xbox platform would not have been successful which would have prevented the development of many more fun titles.

I'm certainly not saying that short, concentrated games are bad, but I'm highly doubtful that they could support an industry that could make a $500,000,000 bet on Destiny, a game you've already had hours of fun with.

Vanquish doesn't take very long to beat, but every second is jam packed with excitement, challenge, and novelty. To me, that's better than a 15 hour game that strings things out for the purpose of length.

And yet, successfully arguing that any game strung things out for the purpose of length is very hard. Does Destiny have its beacon missions because it wasn't long enough, or because Bungie thought mounting and repelling a variety of attacks while exploring with friends and strangers would be seen as fun by most players?

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I think maybe the core of your problem is you have correctly identified a fundamental fact of game development, that games take longer to make than to play, but instead of trying to find a balanced solution to the problem (like strong core gameplay with some repetition and level / upgrade gating) you skip directly to a position of no compromises ever. Would I prefer for Bungie to make me 10 years worth of engaging, unique, creative content? Yes. Is such a thing possible? No.

But what about instead making 30 hours of content that is absolutely concentrated with fun? There's nothing wrong with that!

I'm a big supporter of making games as short as they can be. Basically, you should try to concentrate the experience as much as possible and always be giving the player interesting things to do. You should cut out all the redundancies, filler, and boring parts.

Vanquish doesn't take very long to beat, but every second is jam packed with excitement, challenge, and novelty. To me, that's better than a 15 hour game that strings things out for the purpose of length.

I feel like we share a similar wish and taste in video game structure / pacing, but a certain bit of the above feels like a wolf howling at the moon. Bungie clearly aren't going for such a straight forward pure "content" only structure.

But hey, enthusiast discussions and all that, not saying that shouldn't be able to discuss this at all.

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I found running into enemies that I could dent because I simply wasn't the right level very frustrating in the alpha. I want my character to improve when I improve. The increasing frequency of nailing a running elite with a plasma grenade, figuring out how to hurtle around Valhalla on a mongoose just right, making more and more impressive jumps? These all were super fun and satisfying. If they happen because of some stat increase, I immediately don't care, it's just passage of time in a game to me.

I worry about how this will effect going back and enjoying the content. Let's say that I absolutely loved the explore area from the Alpha when I was lvl 3. Then when I'm playing it at Lvl 8, it's boring as I wipe out anything I point my gun at. To enjoy it again I'll need to re-roll a character and then level it up to level 3 and enjoy it for the period of time I'm at that level? When I'm level 20, will I be able to enjoy the Devil's Lair strike without re-rolling? Ugh.

hi there, I'm a higher level, once you arbitrarily have a level like mine, you'll be able to arbitrarily beat me, without really improving yourself

Also popularity as validation is a fallacy, otherwise we'd have to throw our hands in the air and admit the game design brilliance of slot machines and other terrible addictive gambling systems.

I stopped playing Skyrim after a few hours because the moment to moment gameplay was boring and because of the difficulty I was playing on I had become absurdly resistant to damage after a few hours of playing, completely throwing off the balance of the combat and it all became quite rote. I'd say the reason I play Spelunky every day and wince when I think of Skyrim is best summed up here

Oh and my answer would be yes, I would rock the trainer. I would love to play around with the different abilities and find out exactly the guardian I want to be. I would then explore every inch of the game taking on challenges with my mates.

If you enjoy arbitrary progress and grinding mechanics in your games, cool, you and I just prioritize our time differently.

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Additionally some of this bitterness involves handing off my WoW account to my dad because I simply couldn't keep up with my friends levels. Lame.

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I really don't care for the logic you use sometimes, though I do understand your point.

But trying to find a way to reconcile your hatred of investment systems with what we've seen of the design choices for Destiny so far doesn't give me a good feeling about listening to you moan about it for the next ten years.

What would you prefer, then, to a higher-difficulty area guarded by enemies that drastically outclass you? The goal would be to have to come play that particular area later, once you've accquired either powers you don't have, or grown your character in a way so that you can tackle them.

Since, by the logic you used, this would be inherently bad by design; what would you rather? 50 enemies at your level that you'd have to take on all at once? A puzzle of some sort that allows you to bypass all the time you would have spent (in your eyes) uselessly grinding?

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I really don't care for the logic you use sometimes, though I do understand your point.

But trying to find a way to reconcile your hatred of investment systems with what we've seen of the design choices for Destiny so far doesn't give me a good feeling about listening to you moan about it for the next ten years.

What would you prefer, then, to a higher-difficulty area guarded by enemies that drastically outclass you? The goal would be to have to come play that particular area later, once you've accquired either powers you don't have, or grown your character in a way so that you can tackle them.

Since, by the logic you used, this would be inherently bad by design; what would you rather? 50 enemies at your level that you'd have to take on all at once? A puzzle of some sort that allows you to bypass all the time you would have spent (in your eyes) uselessly grinding?

~m

Maybe an enemy with a really challenging set of abilities, that by observing the enemy and knowing the right way to approach it you can begin to practice shooting it just right, timing your dodges just right. And after improving your actual skills, not points on your character, you are able to defeat it, feeling super satisfied, and when you wield that weapon that it specifically dropped and seeing anyone carrying it, will know what amazing feat they've accomplished, beyond playing a slot machine after playing long enough to begin pulling the lever.

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Only if I got to a point where I felt I'd seen and done everything I had the time and/or talent to do. Good example, Borderlands 2. There came a point in that game where I was only playing to try to get ahold of a few items I was interested in trying out. I wasn't actually DOING anything new, just the same crap over and over, due to the nature of loot drops in that game. If I could have simply pressed a button to give myself those items, I would have. Normally, I'm all for having the full game experience as designed, but BL2 took the grinding way too far.

I don't see myself doing a lot of PvP, so in theory it wouldn't negatively affect anyone else.

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I absolutely hated Mass Effect 3's random loot. Why, because it gave me Baterians every time. No matter what pack I got, Baterians. It only gave me other classes or weapons once I had maxed out all the Baterian classes.

Now, I didn't like those classes, and did not want to play them. All that repetitive play was for naught and it irked me greatly.

Borderlands 2 also had some issues with drop rates and randomness. To get some of the cooler skins you had to kill bosses with low spawn rates compounding low drop rates, so the time investment is enormous. Thankfully Bungie fixed the other side of the coin with private loot streams. I can't tell you how many times people would ninja loot the item I had ground that boss 20 times for and leave.

High randomness equals high repetition in most MMOs. Repetition is the "grind" that really makes the game less fun. Stand in line, kill all the enemies, wait for them to respawn, for 4 hours, for a 50% chance at that feathered hat or some such. By the time I got the some of the weapons drops I wanted in BL2 I was already too high a level to use it, so what's the point?

It is easy for game designers to use the grind to substitute for content in game. CoD is notorious for this, lock out weapons and tags so people have to start over repeatedly. For the over 25 crowd that I game with we don't have the time to invest in such schemes.

Free to play games are worse. I was once in a World of Tanks clan that owned land on the world map. You had to play nightly for 2-3 hours to maintain it, and every time you fired a shot it cost a nickel because you had to buy the super ammo from the real money store or the other teams who did would roll over you. Sure, you made like 2=3 dollars from owning some parcels of land, but it never matched the costs unless you were in one of the top 3 groups.

Worse, investment time to level up a top tier tank was a year of steady play, and the developers changed or released new tanks every three to six months that would totally change the end game balance and make that investment moot. For those interested, I had all the top tier US tanks and the Russian heavies.

I'm really holding out that I can get interesting and cool stuff just by exploring with my friends or going on cool strikes and such. I don't want to have to beat a strike on legend twenty times just so I can get one cape, by that time it isn't fun, it is a chore.

In short, killing 100 rats in the same room one at a time is poor game design, killing 100 rats in different ways in different rooms is fun.

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Your post got me thinking.

What if loot drops are still random, EXCEPT for bosses and minibosses? You could still enjoy that sense of fun in getting something good on a whim, but if you need a particular thing then you don't have to grind for it: just play the associated boss.

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Let's take a look at the 'scouting type' missions in explore mode. Currently, you are basically required to go to a displayed waypoint, and stand there for 10 seconds or so. We can do better.

We get a beacon. It says that powerful enemies are causing trouble, and we're not sure exactly where they are coming from. There are rumors they are coming from a cave near the dried shore, so our task is to explore the cave and get recon on the enemies.

Where's my waypoint? There isn't one. This is explore mode after all. So, you look for the cave. Maybe you know where she shore is, but maybe you don't. If you have no idea, that's ok, because the game lets you load up 3 missions. You can do others while you continue to explore.

You may find it, you may not. You've looked everywhere and you can't find it or otherwise have no idea. You see a guardian running around. Flag him down and start a voice chat.

'Hey man, where is the dried up shore? I need to find a cave"
"Oh dude, just follow that river and it will take you there"
"Thanks, dude!"

You make your way to the cave. You still have a percentage indicator for exploration, however you have to actually run through the cave to get it to go up. You need to look all around, similar to Marathon requiring you to reveal marked polygons. The enemies in the cave are really hard, so you can try to be sneaky and explore, or take them all out.

Isn't that much more engaging?

Same thing with assassination missions. Give us a bit of recon, a picture of the dude, and let us find him on our own.

This way, you don't feel like an automaton running from beacon, to waypoint, to beacon.

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Sounds like how Dishonored can be played. And yeah, it's a lot of fun.

I sense that games are getting to a point where this kind of stuff is actually possible technically (like just running into another player who can give that info about the shore), but we're going to need to do some unlearning from the rule systems we've gotten used to.

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The game Warframe has something similar to this when you fight bosses, where they always drop certain items and plans.

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The funny thing is, Borderlands (especially 2) almost did this. All Legendary gear can (theoretically) be obtained from any loot source, but with a very low drop rate. However, most Legendary items have a specific character or location where the drop rate is higher. So for example, if I want a Hellfire SMG in BL2, I could just run around the whole game killing everything and hoping one drops. But statistically, I'm better off fighting a boss called Scorch, who tends to drop it more.

While this is ALMOST the same as your idea, BL2 sort of ruins it in that the drops aren't guaranteed. So you end up doing the same thing over and over again. And not just a couple of times. We could be talking tens or hundreds of attempts for some items. If Scorch ALWAYS dropped the Hellfire, it would have been a better game, at least to me. Adjustments would have to be made to account for it, of course. Either make the drops much harder to obtain by making the bosses more difficult or putting things in hard-to-reach locations, or make enemies tougher in general to account for the fact that everyone has a bunch of legendary items.

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The funny thing is, Borderlands (especially 2) almost did this. All Legendary gear can (theoretically) be obtained from any loot source, but with a very low drop rate. However, most Legendary items have a specific character or location where the drop rate is higher. So for example, if I want a Hellfire SMG in BL2, I could just run around the whole game killing everything and hoping one drops. But statistically, I'm better off fighting a boss called Scorch, who tends to drop it more.

While this is ALMOST the same as your idea, BL2 sort of ruins it in that the drops aren't guaranteed. So you end up doing the same thing over and over again. And not just a couple of times. We could be talking tens or hundreds of attempts for some items. If Scorch ALWAYS dropped the Hellfire, it would have been a better game, at least to me. Adjustments would have to be made to account for it, of course. Either make the drops much harder to obtain by making the bosses more difficult or putting things in hard-to-reach locations, or make enemies tougher in general to account for the fact that everyone has a bunch of legendary items.

Yeah there's really no reason for it to have been like this, especially when duplicating the item anyway for your friends is so damn easy.

But maybe they wanted to support a teamwork kind of thing - everyone kill Scorch together then spread the wealth.

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