State of the Game, August 2023

Bungie posted their latest State of the Game today.

I'll just keep my mouth shut, but there's the link for those that haven't seen it.

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Bungie posted their latest State of the Game today.

I'll just keep my mouth shut, but there's the link for those that haven't seen it.

Well, where's the fun in that?! We've got a quota to fill man!

Eh... I actually just finished reading it. For me there are two things I'm going to highlight right now;

The Final Shape and its raid will provide a climactic conclusion to the Light and Darkness Saga before we look ahead to what comes next in Destiny 2.

and

In Season 23, our upcoming Fireteam Finder (LFG) feature will be the silver bullet for players who’ve never had a full fireteam to run endgame content before, including raids, dungeons, Master-level activities, and more. And in The Final Shape, we’re making big changes to the progression system that will help to connect even more players and remove barriers keeping friends from taking on the same content together. We’ll have more info on that in the Showcase.

Peck more at this thing, I suppose, at some point. Then again, for once... maybe I won't need to. The way this "State of the Game" reads... woo boy. I think Bungie needs a break from Destiny too. lol.

That showcase better be "lit", or it's just going to be fire y'all.

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MEME: Bungie, after posting the "State of the Game August 2023"

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There is... an odd catharsis in seeing that, yes, it isn't just you. EVEN IF IT'S OBVIOUS!... just coming by the words, set by set, is such an odd way to bring about this feeling of the soul breathing in and exhaling deeply out this sigh of relief. And man alive, it's been a wild deal being on the "other side" (in a way) of the rant in this last 24. Not just from "DestinyTheGame", which is... what is the opposite (of sorts) of a salt flat? A salt abyssal?... at this point, but from the "big name" gets-invited-to-bungie-shindig streamers/youtube folks. Datto, Aztecross (Feat. Les), CammyCakes, Paul Tassi, TDT, ... just to name a few. But no one, I think, has absolutely NAILED IT, like CoolGuy has. And yes, I am asking y'all to get comfy and podcast through the 25 minutes run time. Speed it up to 1.5 if you must, and hit this end to end. Don't jump until it's done.

It's one thing to call out the -WHAT SHOULD BE- obvious, but it's another to also bring into simple words the lingering problem that has plagued Destiny increasingly since it all switched to a "seasonal" system. Cool Guy bringing not just the Business Perspective, but also the FLAW that the system. This Disconnect between Developer and Player. In Money and Blueberries. This... overall pulsating Gangrene which has been on and off suffocating Destiny 2 for years.

Thus, here is what I think is, end-to-end, the best, most reasonable take on all of this. Not just the "State of the Game" post, but Destiny 2 at large.

*Chef Kiss*

Thank you, CoolGuy.

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I’ll answer his title question:

They’re lying. Bungie lies. If they said it directly to the community, it’s pure horseshit. We’ve known that for years now, since at least “0.04%”

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I’ll answer his title question:

They’re lying. Bungie lies. If they said it directly to the community, it’s pure horseshit. We’ve known that for years now, since at least “0.04%”

All the game devs on Twitter, while being careful to note that they don't know Destiny's specific circumstances, note that it seems to take a lot more effort and resources than people think to make MP maps. That said, it's never a question over whether enough resource exist, but whether there is enough justification to spend the necessary resources on it. Whatever it is that they release each season would objectively need to be reduced to accommodate different content. It's not like there's a group of employees sitting in a corner doing nothing that could be assigned to MP work; whatever it is that they are doing would not get completed if they were moved to MP work. The problem is that moving them to MP is not a financially justifiable choice by their metrics.

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Yeah, I don’t care about any of that. I know it’s naive, but I just don’t. I want them to make a good video game and stop making excuses. You’ll also never convince me they couldn’t actually afford to just dedicate a real team to making maps. It would not cost them that much money compared to what Destiny is making. Sure, they can’t directly point to more Crucible maps on paper and say “This made us $X,” the way you can with an Eververse thing, or even a season, but to pretend like Destiny isn’t a holistic experience is shortsighted and downright stupid if they care even a little about making an actually good video game instead of just money. Which, to be clear, they don’t.

I was linked a GDC talk in which a Bungie developer was showing off their modular armor system and bragged he could build a brand new helmet in under four minutes. So which is it? Is it too hard, or can you build a helmet in four minutes? Because it can’t be both.

The seasonal model killed any chance Destiny had of being a good truly good video game in more than just a “it’s fun to shoot aliens with friends” way. But again, they don’t care about that. If they did, Destiny would be a better game than it is.

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Yeah, I don’t care about any of that. I know it’s naive, but I just don’t. I want them to make a good video game and stop making excuses.

This is the crux. If you choose a business model, and said business model is unable to deliver what players want, then you need to change your model so that you can give them what they want, or else just tell players "We aren't going to do this by choice, don't expect it."

It harms your credibility to try to gaslight players into thinking their asks are unreasonable or not realistic. Just own up to the fact you don't want to.

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Yeah, I don’t care about any of that. I know it’s naive, but I just don’t. I want them to make a good video game and stop making excuses.

This is the crux. If you choose a business model, and said business model is unable to deliver what players want, then you need to change your model so that you can give them what they want, or else just tell players "We aren't going to do this by choice, don't expect it."

It harms your credibility to try to gaslight players into thinking their asks are unreasonable or not realistic. Just own up to the fact you don't want to.

I think that’s one of the reasons DE got my respect almost out of the gate with Warframe. They put out a PvP element to the game (Conclave), explicitly stated that they were only adding it due to players requesting it, but emphasized that they did not, and would never see Warframe as a PvP game, so if any additions, balance tweaks, and gametypes ever arrived, it would be solely at the discretion of what devs wanted to work on in their spare time, but assume the answer was “never”.

They never said “we have people upstairs working on the future evolutions of Conclave! PvP enjoyers should stick around and pay more! The dragons ARE coming!”

If there’s an element to the game you’re abandoning or putting low/zero effort in, tell people. It’s better to have people upset now, instead of stringing them along for literal years before you finally say “we would have given you any scraps like we said we would, but that would take away from the scraps we might give people in other sections of the game, so uh… here’s an old bone you used to like chewing on! Be sure to check out our fully restocked vending machines though! K thanks bye!”

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Damnit, Warframe is so good. Their pace of content isn’t as fast as Destiny, but I’ve never played a new Warframe update and thought, “This is actually a complete waste of time—they should have done literally anything else because this sucks.”

Genshin is another great example. Who knows what their labor situation is like, but you can see where the ridiculous amount of money they rake in is going in that game. Every update is an improvement in every way the last one, and even their more throw away diversion events are at least novel and not just barely modified reskins of past things hyped up as brand new experiences.

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Genshin is another great example. Who knows what their labor situation is like, but you can see where the ridiculous amount of money they rake in is going in that game. Every update is an improvement in every way the last one, and even their more throw away diversion events are at least novel and not just barely modified reskins of past things hyped up as brand new experiences.

Okay, I get that you've gotten so tired with Destiny that you've quit it, but I don't really feel like you're being fair here. Genshin Impact came out 3 years ago. Destiny's almost a decade old. If Genshin is still producing completely novel 'throwaway events' in 7 years, I'll give you this point... but I'm guessing I wouldn't lose that bet.

(I'm ignoring the fact that nobody at Bungie is suggesting that any of the reskinned stuff is brand-new.)

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Genshin is another great example. Who knows what their labor situation is like, but you can see where the ridiculous amount of money they rake in is going in that game. Every update is an improvement in every way the last one, and even their more throw away diversion events are at least novel and not just barely modified reskins of past things hyped up as brand new experiences.

Okay, I get that you've gotten so tired with Destiny that you've quit it, but I don't really feel like you're being fair here. Genshin Impact came out 3 years ago. Destiny's almost a decade old. If Genshin is still producing completely novel 'throwaway events' in 7 years, I'll give you this point... but I'm guessing I wouldn't lose that bet.

(I'm ignoring the fact that nobody at Bungie is suggesting that any of the reskinned stuff is brand-new.)

Maybe live service games have been around long enough now that we've seen the end game play out. As you say, how can you make a game stay interesting, fresh, and novel for 10 years?

If the 'service' part of live service has a shelf life, then how is that going to influence the trajectory of the industry?

I don't know if this will be good or bad. It might end up with shorter life cycles, with monetization being more intense and in your face to make all the money in 4-5 years before the game grows stale. Or maybe the games will not be designed to be spread thin, since they don't have to last as long.

I'll watch with curiosity from the sidelines.

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You may be totally right on that point. But Genshin does a new “event” every couple of weeks. They’re admittedly smaller than Destiny’s events (which is debatable, because Genshin’s aren’t designed for players to grind for the two weeks it’s active—I usually do the entire thing in one evening and get all the rewards and that’s it. The actual amount of content is probably the same, they just don’t expect you to run it over and over again).

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You may be totally right on that point. But Genshin does a new “event” every couple of weeks. They’re admittedly smaller than Destiny’s events (which is debatable, because Genshin’s aren’t designed for players to grind for the two weeks it’s active—I usually do the entire thing in one evening and get all the rewards and that’s it. The actual amount of content is probably the same, they just don’t expect you to run it over and over again).

Do note that they also run multiple events concurrently. Right now there are three or four active events, and while two are small one-evening activities, one is a major event that gives Sumeru’s main region one last hurrah before Fontaine (Sangonomiya and Klee in Sumeru whaaaa?).
I recommend you check that one out, it’s up for the rest of the week).
The others are quick 420 Primogem events.

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Damnit, Warframe is so good. Their pace of content isn’t as fast as Destiny, but I’ve never played a new Warframe update and thought, “This is actually a complete waste of time—they should have done literally anything else because this sucks.”

Genshin is another great example. Who knows what their labor situation is like, but you can see where the ridiculous amount of money they rake in is going in that game. Every update is an improvement in every way the last one, and even their more throw away diversion events are at least novel and not just barely modified reskins of past things hyped up as brand new experiences.

Also helps how character driven it is for a Gacha game. I really don’t know how much influence the fan base has on the direction of events or character bits, but given how very single update version comes with a survey as it comes to a close, I imagine it’s a non-zero number.
I remember stuff like “Can you imagine what would happen if Klee met Yoimiya?” And then we get an event all about that (answer: they obviously love one another, but then they work together to get a children’s book published, and that you get to keep as a memento)!
Or even the completely unrelated locations like Enkanomiya, which while only existing to supplement the Watatsumi islands, feels like it was a long-planned out region with several stories and major events there, and it’s possible we may go back at some point after the whole thing with Paimo- err, the Time God Istaroth and the Dainichi Mikoshi.

The key difference is excitement in wondering just what they’ll do to flesh out something, or explore ideas, characters, or locations in new ways. In Destiny, 90% of locations, characters, and events are either locked into their season, two hour campaign, or there are zero stakes (despite the stakes never being higher!!1!), because the people need to remain as vendors during and after the season.
If we have any chance of losing a character or vendor, it will invariably be a useless one (your days are numbered Failsafe), or one introduced during the final season of the year, so there’s no consequence to wiping them when they vault the content that we paid for lol.

Funny how Genshin recaptured those old Halo feelings of wonder in ways neither Bungie or 343i ever have.

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It's basically bidding time until August 22nd.

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I really don’t know what to say about this, but I do know that none of it is positive. What the hell happened to this game? I really believe the Destiny 2 we knew and loved is gone. It’s just a revenue machine now to finance the development of Marathon and other future projects.

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https://twitter.com/joegoroth/status/1691512349398822914

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FREE* PVP MAPS?! From BUNGIE?! WHAT A CONCEPT!

*Some of these were free, right? Something from Bungie day, or something? Eh, shit. I'm old.

But... fer' realzees, how refreshing to see a moment of... so many words to choose here... self awareness? It's nice. For the rest it's all, ok sure, wait and see, I've played this game for long time bun-gee (HA!)... but I'll give a nod where it's due.

Good job, Mr.Blackburn.

...hmmm, I wonder how the Live service model "will change" post TFS? Eh, see y'all in a week.

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FREE* PVP MAPS?! From BUNGIE?! WHAT A CONCEPT!

*Some of these were free, right? Something from Bungie day, or something? Eh, shit. I'm old.

I'm much older. Cold Storage, a remake of Chill Out, was released for free on Bungie Day. Some others may have become free. Can't remember everything.

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- No text -

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From Halo 2 until the the first (heroic) map pack in Halo 3, Bungie had a policy of making DLC maps free after a certain amount of time had passed... I forget the exact timeframes, but I think it was about 6 months after release.

Then with the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack (Avalanche, Blackout, and Ghost Town), a bean-counter at Microsoft decided it wasn't profitable and ended the practice, instead discounting the price of that pack by 25%.

In the 07/07/08 Bungie podcast, Brian Jarrard goes into this a bit, as there were reservations by said bean-counters about giving away a brand new map like Cold Storage for free. The compromise reached was that the map would only be featured in playlists that required the player to have purchased the Legendary Map Pack. The sole exception was the Bungie day playlist that was all Cold Storage, all the time.

Addendum:

I did some research on Halo 2's DLC, and discovered that the Bonus Map Pack (featuring Warlock and Containment) was also free, because development was sponsored by Mountain Dew. The other packs became free in as little as two months after initial release.

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And here is some TL;DW I've recklessly borrowed from reddit:

TFS Showcase / Reveal

The [Aug 22] showcase was recorded a while ago. It's not a reaction to anything in the SOTG or any recent feedback
They are kind of disappointed with the quality of the SOTG article. Joe says this is because they were really and truly working super hard on TFS and just didn't spend enough time on it
Showcase is intended for a wide audience. They know way more people will see that as opposed to people on the subreddit, or even people following him on twitter. In other words, don't expect the showcase to include a bunch of nitty gritty details on new game systems or mechanics
Joe does mention there will be a strange coin and Xur revamp coming with TFS... but makes a point to say the showcase won't include information about things like that
A refactor of the HUD (buffs and debuffs) will be coming (again, this is something that won't be in the showcase)
Showcase will focus on the story, location, and touch a bit on how live service might change after TFS (edit: a solid maybe on this last bit)
Joe and Dan (GM) will be on-set taking questions and provide clarity

PVP

Focused on sandbox balance and ritual updates
1 new map, and a few reprises a year has been the approach
"This approach is not producing a crucible that our players expect (of) us"
Next year there will be a single map pack, free for everyone (a few maps, purposely designed with specific strengths in mind for different modes or whatever)
Reiterated details about checkmate and relic modes (see SOTG for more details)
Some new modes they have come up with over the past year or so will be incorporated into the core PvP experience
Comp point reward structure will be changing to "a simpler system where winning or losing just matters more"
Countdown rush going into comp, getting modes that people are less excited about out (i.e.: Rift)
Bungie is building out a PvP strike team (this has nothing to do with "strikes", it's more like a concentrated development team for PvP specifically)
PvP strike team will be solely focused on PvP and their development objectives will be largely based on community feedback

Armor

Armor generally falls into 3 categories: Aspirational (raids / dungeons / trials), Narrative (seasonal stuff, ritual stuff), Silver (eververse sets)
Some time last year they decided to shift focus a bit to seasonal and end-game stuff and this was poorly communicated (i.e.: another reason the LF ritual armor set never happened)
An eververse set that was planned for S22 will instead be a ritual reward, free for everyone to earn

Communication Strategy

Intend to talk to community more, while keeping everyone safe. Personal safety of Community managers is important
Will continue using the branded team accounts
A few times next season, Joe is planning to livestream

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State of the Game, August 2023 (Destiny)

State of the Game, August 2023

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

Now to "Peck more at this thing".

No complaints, really.

Wow.

Joe Blackburn responds ...

Dotting T's and Crossing I's

Dotting T's and Crossing I's

THAT'S THE ONE!

Dotting T's and Crossing I's

Joe Blackburn responds ... ...