All I'm hearing is... (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 15:23 (3786 days ago) @ Kermit
edited by Korny, Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 15:32

"Mommy, why don't those bad men like Bungie? Bungie is good!" *cries*

I read a lot of things over and over on this forum. If Cody has x amount of money, he could make a better game. If only Destiny were more like Warframe, it would live up to its promise. Destiny is boring. Destiny is repetitive. If only Destiny had theater or forge mode or custom games, it would be awesome. The investment system is the root of all evil. This post aims to respond to many of these points as concisely as possible.

Rich Cody

Cody could make a better game in his dreams, and I bet he does dream about it. Maybe he could even do it, but I doubt he could make a better AAA game. In part because money isn’t enough to attract the talent needed. They would have to relocate to LA or wherever and dedicate years to a project led by Cody who? Cody may consider himself brilliant when it comes to understanding what makes games great, but even if he did have the vision and could attract the necessary talent, does he have the wherewithal to deal with all the crap big developers have to deal with in the AAA space?

Cody couldn't do it. He never could, nor will he...
But he believes it's not being done right either, and people like him are important. They bring doubt. Doubt is healthy, and highlights things that could be looked into for revision and/or improvement.

Warframe does Destiny right

Well, if you don’t mind your game being butt-ugly. There is nothing about Wargame that appeals to me aesthetically. The man hours involved in developing content for Destiny is exponentially higher, I bet, and it shows. Would Destiny be Destiny if it wasn’t expansive and weren’t jaw-dropping gorgeous? Not to me. That said, Bungie has never struck me as a studio that didn’t pay attention to what others are doing.

I'm more of a "Substance Over Style" kind of guy. And Warframe's unique art style is a breath of fresh air in a world where sleek (Mass Effect) and generic (Destiny) rule the day. But I wouldn't use "Expansive" and "jaw-dropping gorgeous" to describe Destiny. I think Mars may be the only area bigger than Halo 1's AotCR map, and only Mars has hints of an open-ended approach to things. Everything else is narrow, or open-but empty. No vehicular encounters, zero verticality, zero substance.

As for "jaw-dropping gorgeous", I like the style of the game, but most of it is pointless, empty space. Destiny is an example of too much work and time dedicated to very little substance, especially when a lot of it looks Forged together (and don't get me started on that Ember Caves ramp)...

They remind me of Apple. They often take from others, and perfect it.

No, they take what's worked for them and improve upon it. And that was great. Reach was the peak of their own style. Destiny, on the other hand, is a checklist of tricks to make people play longer, and the game is designed around that philosophy.

I WISH Bungie was like Apple, which is why I highlight areas that could be improved by looking at how other games do everything much neater and better. I could make countless videos of things that Warframe does better, but I have thus far kept it concise and focused. But let's take a quick gander at things Destiny sucks at that Warframe doesn't:

Classes-
Destiny: "Which of these three characters should I pick?" "Eh, they're mostly the same except for their Supers and jumps, but they have two different supers that you can pick."
Warframe: "Whoah, 23 different characters? All with unique playstyles!?" "Not just that, but you can give each one a completely different build, to focus on different strengths and weaknesses!" "HNNNNNNNGGGG!!!"

Inventory-
Destiny: "Do I have that weapon on my character? No. Crap. Gotta go to the tower. Crap it's not in my vault, gotta change character. Okay, I think this character has it. Thank God, okay, back to the tower... No room to swap? Dang it!"
Warframe: "Gotta change my loadout." *Loadout 4: "T4 Defense"*, "Okay, ready!"

Trade-
Destiny:"I wish I had a Hawkmoon, and you have three!?" "Darn shame, friend."
Warframe:"I wish I had a Nova Prime!" "No problem, I have an extra set!"

Item acquisition-
Destiny: "I've run the raids and Nightfall 100 times, and all I've gotten are shards and engrams that turn into more shards!"
Warframe: *Opens chat* "I want to build a Nekros! How do I get it?" "OD Assassination is guaranteed to drop his parts, I can help you run it!"
OR *opens clan chat* "I need an Intensify for more damage, where can I get one?" "I've got one, buddy! Want this Flow for more energy as well?"

Customization-
Destiny:"All I have are ugly shaders and I still don't have a raid hemet."
Warframe: Whoah, you can customize EVERYTHING! Oh look, free Holiday color pack! Sweet!"

Team-building-
Destiny:"I need people to carry me through the raid." "Just go to the tower and spam invites."
Warframe: "I need people to carry me through a T4 capture." *opens Recruit chat* "Hosting T4 Cap, pm me for invite!" *flooded with requests*

Passing time-
Destiny: "Uh, anybody want to do the Daily story? No? Okay... Wanna kick the ball in the tower? No? Okay..."
Warframe: "While I wait for them to finish that Survival Mission... Should I improve my Clan leaderboard scores on Wyrmius, Flappy Zephyr, Clan Obstacle Course, or practice my Mastery tests?"

I could really go on...

Destiny should have what Halo 3 had

Launch day I played with a long-time Bungie veteran. The one thing he kept repeating was “This is the foundation—like Halo 1. We have a lot of work to do.” Theater mode and Forge are what I call perpetual promotion machines. They are fantastic in terms of adding longevity to game. I think we’ll see these kinds of features as the franchise matures. Maybe Bungie hasn't done what some would want since launch, but the amount of changes they’ve introduced is much more than we’ve seen from them before. It’s more than enough to convince me that they mean it when they say the game will evolve.

Wrong. If a bare-bones map pack and flip-flopping balance changes are "much more than we’ve seen from them before", then either you have a skewed idea of what content is, or I have a wrong idea of what Bungie did in the past, because if this is "more" than firefight, Forge, Theater, Customs, Campaign scoring, skulls, file sharing, and Action sack, then there's clearly something I'm missing.
Remember, I was literally the first guy to run around throwing the word "foundation release" when the game came out. But that was with the understanding that we'd get more from Bungie. That they would communicate and make changes that were needed from Alpha stage... But seven months down the road, and they were teasing about big changes, only to reveal some colorblind options and the ability to lower one channel of volume? GTFO, Bungie.

The investment system ruins a good game

Yes, it does, if you let it. But consider that you are Bungie, and you’re on top of the online gaming heap after Halo 2—for years. The money guys love longevity, and if there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that money matters in the AAA space more than ever because more pixels cost more. With each iteration of Halo, though, people played less and less. What do you do? There are ethical questions about Skinner boxes, and I won’t make a full-throated defense of Destiny’s investment system, especially in terms of its effect on people with addictive personalities, but Bungie already had a reputation for making addictive games. Are investment systems evil, the equivalent of adding nicotine to cigarettes? I don’t know, but there is another way of thinking about it. What if the core gameplay is as fun as ever, but what if, in addition to that, you have drops that are coveted and that provide another way that the game can be played differently, over time. What if the game offered a rich set of tools that changed over time, and experimenting with elements provided by these tools added longevity. Providing this kind of content regularly is doable, whereas providing new environments of Destiny’s quality is not. I think Destiny is Bungie trying to find a way, in today gaming market, to provide a platform where they can grow their product consistently and achieve their artistic goals over a long time horizon, while keeping the numbers high enough to keep the money guys interested in order the finance the whole thing.

And they're doing a lousy job. A really lousy job. The best way to keep people interested, given the MMO style of the game, would be to release morsels of content. A new MP map. A new gametype (Inferno is just regular Control without radar. Whoop dee doo), community events (remember Queen's Wrath? I remember Queen's Wrath. Remember Trials of Osiris? Oh wait), and maybe some more weapons or shaders at least. But no.

Oh wait, they've actually REMOVED content!
Remember Bastion, or First Light? Remember when we had those maps?

A special word about custom games

The lack of this truly hurts Destiny and is the biggest casualty of the investment system. The calculation was probably made out of simplicity. Loot drops have to be offered for every activity, and to not have them broke the model on some level. I think that this will change as the game evolves, and certainly Bungie has witnessed the special fun that can be had when you play against your friends. I look forward to this feature almost as much as theater mode, but the latter is what I really would love. My favorite Halo metagame was always being a war correspondent.

That's right, Kermit. Just take that flimsy defense. You just take it, and wrap it around you like a warm blanket. Feels good, huh?

"Guys, Bungie cut custom games, but that's okay! Because maybe one day we'll have it! I mean, I know they've said that they have no plans for it, but remember all the fun we had?" -Kermit

Anyway, I remain hopeful about what Destiny can become, and I'm still enjoying the heck out of it.

Heck, I played it all week, but now that IB is done, I have zero incentive to play anything besides Crucible (and I have many other fun games to play instead). I even skipped a week of Nightfall, didn't bother to glance in Xur's direction, and turned down a few DBOer invites to run Crucible/IB.

The game got stale, as games with 300+ hours in them are wont to do.

I understand that it hurts to hear that someone thinks that Bungie isn't perfect, Kermit, but the truth is that they can do wrong. And they have, but I still love Bungie. That's why they frustrate me (and others). I want to see them succeed, and that's why I make a point to try to show them the way in my own small way.