ViDoc - The Road Ahead (Destiny)

by slycrel , Wednesday, November 28, 2018, 02:00 (2192 days ago) @ breitzen

Some really cool things in there. And it's obvious that the direction we are headed in is more of the same. And I think that means Forsaken is the beginning of the end for me. I find myself strangely sad and conflicted -- I've had a ton of fun with forsaken and D2, and I've also continued to be frustrated at the lack of value my time has in the confines of the game.

There are countless examples of how my time is "meaningless" in destiny. From collecting bounties every time I log in, ascendant challenges where some bad luck loses me 10+ minutes, Progression paths that take me away from activities I would prefer to chase, instead focusing on "light levels"... Chasing "clan rewards" means playing specific content most of the time. Replaying single player, story-driven content is difficult... And story missions are generally unavailable to re-play in a linear fashion (other than going through with a new character), though playing them for daily type rewards is a thing now at least. Strikes lean away from meaningful rewards, and are fun but higher time vs reward than other activities. Bigger rewards continue to move towards account based, with the assumption that all of these "minor" daily type things (that take time!) are done with multiple characters.

I find more and more that Destiny is about doing the small, repetitive, daily (or bi-weekly) tasks rather than actually progressing through something that feels more naturally organic rather than forced. I don't know why I can only get rewards by event hopping on a time-boxed basis. Why can't I play 14 strikes and get the same rewards I get from 1 + 3 strikes, 1 + 3 gambit, 1 + 5 crucible matches? Between the way these rewards are set up and the RNG based bounties, I find that I'm being told how to play via progression way too often. If I log in for a couple hours and want to do, say, dreaming city things, but my bounties and weekly rewards are all PvP then I have to choose between what I'd like to do (Dreaming city things) and what will allow me to progress (PvP rewards + bounties).

I have to be relatively in lock-step with my friends or I don't get to do the group activities. Peer pressure is great, but can also lead to a bad taste if you're always trying to keep up with the joneses.

Today I received Truth for the first time. I've played more gambit than probably anything else since forsaken dropped. Yeah yeah RNG... still. I wondered where it came from and had no idea that it was simply RNG based and my luck was terrible on that one. I literally wrapped my gambit ranking without seeing it drop in season 4. Weapon availability continues to be an issue, and I think we're doubling down on that one.

Imagine my dismay when I looked up what it would take to complete my seal for the cursebreaker title reward this past weekend. I thought I was close... yeah, nope. At over half way, I'm time-locked for 6 weeks from now just on ahamkara bones alone, ignoring finishing the shattered throne a few times, getting wish-ender, then dealing with the corrupted eggs. Sounds like fun, but not something I can really do at my own pace -- I've got to show up at certain times and places... sometimes with friends... again, I've got to dedicate more time (scheduling as a new flavor on the above, beyond simply sinking in the time it takes, which I had previously considered...)

I've played D2... well, I'm in the top 27% of the playerbase. way too much. That's an awful lot of time to feel like I'm barely keeping up, and missing out on a decent chunk of the content as well.

I like destiny. A lot! But the time investment is becoming too high. And I fear I am being removed from the target demographics with the current direction. Because I am more than destiny. I'm looking for more than just something I can play 4, 6, 8 hours a day pretty much every day. I miss the days of being able to play one or two nights a week and have a viable character that can do most things with friends. I think it's great that we're catering to people who want to live in a virtual world. I think it's a shame that the bar is being raised so high that I have to spend that much time to even get close to experiencing most of the content.

I get it... it's a fine line. I think there are other ways of making content meaningful other than time sinks. Those have their place, for sure... but that doesn't have to be the end-all. And, while I'd love to discuss some ways on how to get that done, that had best be saved for another time, when I'm not soapboxing like crazy. =)