Damage Mechanics (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 17, 2013, 13:06 (4000 days ago) @ kapowaz

I'm so bored of this tedious Fisking. Once again the same old trope emerges: thou shalt not question the infallibility of Bungie.

Here's the crux of it: somebody asked for clarification about damage mechanics and rather than address it, Deej wrote a patronising non-answer, presumably under the impression it was funny (it wasn't, it was condescending and smart alec-esque).

I'm trying to draw attention - civilly - to this, and hopefully coax out some more sensible exchange. But it's seemingly impossible because as seems typical the sycophants on this forum see it as an attack on Bungie and so try to discredit the arguments instead of fostering a more open approach from Bungie.

I'm fed up of it, so I guess I'm out.

My fundamental problem with your approach isn't the attack on Bungie, it's attributing the lack of information as the implication of a negative. In your first post alone you have Bungie exploiting players by offering a major preorder bonus and you have them worried enough about their game decisions that they are intentionally hiding them from us. You then go on to characterize their information release schedule as one of some measure of arrogance.

Why not be positive? Why is the existence of what is said to be a fuller, more complete beta of the entire product (as opposed to the multiplayer-only betas of Halo 3 and Reach) seen as a negative? Why not look at Bungie's lack of transparency as confidence that they think their mechanics are working well? Why attribute a repeat of their slow, time-release marketing campaigns to arrogance instead seeing it as following an approach that worked well in the past?

The worst part is now you're abandoning ship when I think a lot of people agree with you, at least in part. I've never liked Bungie's slow release of information. I've put up with it, and I think it has gotten better over the years, but as I've said in the past, I was very frustrated with them, especially back in the Halo 2 and Halo 3 days. In your example of the latest weekly update, for instance, I would much rather Deej's answer to the question about the damage system to have been something more straightforward like, "while we of course have a good idea how damage will work in Destiny, many things are still in flux and we would prefer to address them more fully later as they get more pinned down" instead of joking about it. You saw the joke more negatively than I did, of course, but we both agree we would like to see different, more open approaches.

And then of course, there's also the possibility that you are right in all of this. We talked back and forth about past performances, well not all of Bungie's past is rosy. Halo 2 was something of an internal train wreck that was well hidden from us, the paying customers, until much later. Rendering systems had to be abandoned. Gameplay features, like melee combos, were demonstrated and never made it. Interesting sounding segments, like those with the Flood Juggernauts punching a hole through Covenant lines for the Chief, were cut. The entire ending of the game was scrapped in favor of a boss sequence because they ran out of time! All through development we got teased with <redacted>'s and long, vague descriptions. Nobody said a word about it all nearly falling apart. To this day I still feel a bit lied to.

Maybe that's happening again? Maybe Destiny's E3 demo was two parts smoke and one part mirrors. Maybe they have no idea how they are going to reconcile power usage with weapon usage with leveling up while keeping it fun for new players. Maybe the bullet spread will be tuned almost entirely to the new, unskilled players leaving pros frustrated. These are all things that I think many of us have considered. You could wait with us, discuss with us, argue with us and sometimes have to agree to, disagree with us.

Or, you could call us uncivil sycophants and abandon the thread. That works too. :)