Game ideas are great, till you try them (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Sunday, October 12, 2014, 09:26 (3938 days ago) @ Avateur

It's kind of weird how all of these problems that Destiny has actually have really simple solutions. Why are all the players able to find these one or two step fixes for the game but Bungie completely missed?

Solutions on message boards always look great. They've never seen the harsh light of a playtest.

That thing where Iron Banner is identical to the Beta and yet not much changed between the Beta result and the post-launch result.

And to kanbo, that thing where Salvage is a sometimes-weekend-only playlist yet should be permanent and has Bounties showing up constantly when the playlist isn't around. And the big vehicle playlist has less vehicles than the normal playlists. But yeah, forums and easy solutions and we're way stupid and clueless compared to Bungie. High five.

Ohh, I got some heat here!

Not saying Bungie didn't miss some totally obvious stuff in different places in the game, and I"m not saying there are times when totally obvious stuff slips.

But when I'm making my own games, I have a golden rule.

Playtesters are great at finding problems, but really shitty at solving them. They generally tell you the most obvious solution, which is the first one you tried (since it's the most obvious!), which you discarded.

Not to say you never get good ones, but in my experience, 50% of feedback solutions are things I've tried, 25% wouldn't work, and 10% more seem like a good idea, but don't work for various reasons.

This is less a "Hey bungie knows best, we should listen." more just a general guide on why I kind of caution on when people say "Here's how to fix x" then a bunch of people say "That's such a good idea, that will totally fix it."