Now to "Peck more at this thing". (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, August 09, 2023, 11:16 (264 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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.

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.