State of the Eververse (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, October 18, 2019, 15:19 (1872 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I just picked up the new Raid-themed ship for dust. While I agree with you that it would work well as a Raid drop... I'm THRILLED (I can't stress that enough) that I don't have to rely on RNG to get it.

Ask all the folks chasing after the Cursebreaker title how often that goddamn ship drops...

I really don’t want this to come across as me making a big deal out of this, because it is very minor in my eyes, but...

Do you not see how what you just said is EXACTLY what makes this system “scummy” in some people’s eyes?

“Hey, you know how we usually make you repeat an activity dozens of times just to get that little piece of loot you want? Well now you can just buy it instead!”

The fact that some loot drops have been an absolute nightmare to acquire is 100% within Bungie’s control. And of all the possible solutions to this problem (if we’re all going to agree that it is a problem), the solution that Bungie settles on is to sell the items to us through the in-game store.

I have no inherent objections to an in-game store. I buy $25 worth of silver every season and use it happily on cool cosmetics that I like. But this is one of those little things that does make me raise my eyebrows in Bungie’s direction.

To buy your argument, I have to buy that Bungie is playing a long con; that they set up an RNG system with a low drop rate PRECISELY to manipulate people into a frame of mind where they'd be thankful, 2+ years down the line, to be able to simply pay for items.

(And remember; we're talking about a Bright Dust purchase, not a cash purchase.)

I earned that bright dust by playing a game I enjoy playing. I didn't go out and grind for it, it came to me as a side effect of doing the thing I like to do. It was free, for all intents and purposes. And then they let me use that free currency to buy something that in previous iterations was available only as a random-chance drop in a relatively rare activity. That's not scummy - that's respecting me.

I like the idea of badges - a record of the stuff you've collected doing a specific thing. I like that not every item is dropped on every run. I like, even, that there's not a guaranteed drop on every run, with a 100% accurate knockout table. (What if I didn't like my roll on the pulse rifle, but there was a knockout table? Now I have to do the damn thing enough times to get EVERYTHING, and THEN I can go back and try and grab a better roll on that pulse. That would make me nuts.)

I don't think I'd play the game Cody wants Bungie to make - where every item is available to every player, at all times. I LIKE having things to chase. To me, that's not a grind - that's FUN.

All of this means that I understand why RNG is in the game, and why, for a small subset of players, that leads to serious frustration. The ONLY change I'd really push for, if I had any say in how things worked, would be to add a guaranteed drop system once you were down to your last missing item. If you're short one item, you should be guaranteed a drop within X runs (not sure what X should be, but it should be pretty small - definitely less than 5, because by the time you're down to 1 item, you've done a bunch already).

And it's why I don't see this system as 'scummy' - I see it as an offshoot of the design process. I don't think that they laid out how all of this would work in a back room, and then tweaked things to ensure that people were made as anxious as possible so that they'd spend the maximum number of dollars. I think that they laid out general guidelines, they DEFINITELY think about what's available and when, as they go... but there's no overall nefarious plot to empty my wallet.

Does that make me a Bungie apologist? I guess, sure. Mostly, though, that's because I've met most of the people making the decisions you guys are so blithely disparaging, and I KNOW that those people aren't the evil, cigar-chomping, money-grubbing assholes some of you are trying to paint them as. I'd guess that most of the worst effects of the system are a result of UNDERthinking, rather than OVERthinking.

I think everything you are saying is perfectly fair and reasonable. I also agree with your final assessment (underthinking, vs overthinking). But you (to a large degree) and I (to a lesser degree) are in the uncommon position of knowing some of the people involved in making these decisions personally. And that makes giving the benefit of the doubt an easy, if not default position for us. Most Destiny players, however, know nobody at Bungie. And it’s much easier to assume that an impersonal, faceless company is out to screw you (even though that fear is almost always unfounded).

I’m very specifically not accusing Bungie of anything malicious with regards to the Eververse. But as someone who has worked in retail for 17 years, I’m very acutely aware of the lengths to which a good retailer goes to avoid a situation where they could possibly be seen as exploiting or manipulating their customers unfairly. So that’s the direction my criticisms come from. That’s why I’m so much in favour of crystal clear communication with regards to how the in-game Microtransaction economy works. I think Bungie can do better at avoiding pitfalls that generate suspicious and distrust from players who are less inclined to default towards giving the benefit of the doubt.