Ethical Hedonism
Banned
I wish I got this email too... :/
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Destiny: April Update Preview
- Thread starter Namikaze1
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I wish I got this email too... :/
After putting about 30 hours into The Division, I have to respectfully disagree. They're very different games, and the Division is a far less polished experience.
Kor of Memory
Member
It depends how Bungie goes about it.
Bungie has a bit of a history of Nerfing the past, instead of Buffing the future. It's like ant-power creep.
Thus, usually when Bungie has an Expansion, they make all your old stuff weaker. Thus you spend the first 1-3 months actually getting back to where you once were, power-wise.
Naturally, you can imagine the problems with this.
For instance, I have a set of armor that gives me 300 Int and 300 Disc. This means I have Tier 5 Super and Grenade cool downs. Typically, those stats are associated with the Light Level of gear, proportionate to the max Light level.
Since my gear is going to move from 316/320 to 316/335, its entirely possible I will lose the bonus level of my cooldowns on April 12th. And that's going to piss a lot of people off.
Anton Sugar
Member
Very relevant. I'm sure a thoughtful discussion will be birthed from your post, thanks.
It's structurally better I think, but I found the core gameplay way too boring. Sold it before I hit level 8.
Live Free or Die
Banned
Agreed. Destiny is just so polished and refined.
electricpirate
Member
I wrote some design thoughts on why I'm excited for challenge mode over at DBO, as it does some game design things destiny as a whole needs to do.
I"ve been meaning to make a post going through all the design flaws of POE, but why I think it's one of the most important and underused elements in Destiny. Suffice to say though I think Challenge mode fixes many of the biggest flaws.
Just a quick recap, my big 3 problems with POE are:
1. Too much Filler. The whole process of POE Just DRAAAAAAGS. Airlock-> boring round 1 -> break slightly more interesting round 2 -> break -> challenging round 3/really good boss fights. Back to the airlock All those low engagement enemies and annoyingly long breaks between the good stuff just need to go. I feel like I play for 4 minutes to get one minute of interesting content. (this tied in with the lack of checkpoints in the longer ones, where it could take an hour, with not a ton of interesting content, and then you might have to play al that boring content again)
2. Enemy flow and cover. Due to the levels of spammy enemies, their spawn location, and the places you need to go, the most viable strategy for most rounds is to find a secure location with only two sides and lock it down. There's no need to cycle or move, there's very little reason to communicate outside of the raid like bosses.
3. No decisions: the objectives do help spice things up, but they never let you make strategic decisions. one spot appears at a time, or one VIP, and you pursue that goal singlemindledly, and hope you can do it before it blows up.
When POE clicks, on the boss rounds, or even just a round with good objectives, it can be kind of amazing. But theres so much meh between the good.
Challenge mode answers those three, and It brings some design ideas that destiny desperately needs.
1. Three areas, no filler rounds, just mechanically interesting boss fights.
2. Bosses are mobile, and can push you out of cover with teleports/fire. The need to bring down adds since it's on a timer fast encourages players to work together and break out of those firing bunkers.
3. The scoring system adds a lot of decisions. Obviously, do I target the boss right now, or target more adds? How do i prioritize adds to move quickly? Do I want to save adds for point bonnusess with the special condition, or do I clear them out now to survive?
As a big thing though, it brings something I've thought Destiny needed since Day 1: multiple levels of success/failure. Win the match, get a good shot at some engrams, and progress to your global score goal. Or do awesome and clear the match in such a way that you clear the card.
It has a ton of room to grow too; having a scoring system allows for a ton of flexibility in design. You could think of scenarios where you can setup and protect point generators, or have to coordinate two players hitting a switch to get a score bonus.
There's still some major failure points that we haven't explored though, so I'm still cautious about it. Is it balanced so that you have to actually make decisions and prioritize targets, and gear appropriately or can you play it mindlessly? Does the encounter design still rely on a spam of fire and push you into corners?
Also, points are kind of an inherently boring thing. I'd love if they could do this diagetically in some way.
So it's exciting, but I said the same thing about POE, and Bungie really dropped the ball with it.
I"ve been meaning to make a post going through all the design flaws of POE, but why I think it's one of the most important and underused elements in Destiny. Suffice to say though I think Challenge mode fixes many of the biggest flaws.
Just a quick recap, my big 3 problems with POE are:
1. Too much Filler. The whole process of POE Just DRAAAAAAGS. Airlock-> boring round 1 -> break slightly more interesting round 2 -> break -> challenging round 3/really good boss fights. Back to the airlock All those low engagement enemies and annoyingly long breaks between the good stuff just need to go. I feel like I play for 4 minutes to get one minute of interesting content. (this tied in with the lack of checkpoints in the longer ones, where it could take an hour, with not a ton of interesting content, and then you might have to play al that boring content again)
2. Enemy flow and cover. Due to the levels of spammy enemies, their spawn location, and the places you need to go, the most viable strategy for most rounds is to find a secure location with only two sides and lock it down. There's no need to cycle or move, there's very little reason to communicate outside of the raid like bosses.
3. No decisions: the objectives do help spice things up, but they never let you make strategic decisions. one spot appears at a time, or one VIP, and you pursue that goal singlemindledly, and hope you can do it before it blows up.
When POE clicks, on the boss rounds, or even just a round with good objectives, it can be kind of amazing. But theres so much meh between the good.
Challenge mode answers those three, and It brings some design ideas that destiny desperately needs.
1. Three areas, no filler rounds, just mechanically interesting boss fights.
2. Bosses are mobile, and can push you out of cover with teleports/fire. The need to bring down adds since it's on a timer fast encourages players to work together and break out of those firing bunkers.
3. The scoring system adds a lot of decisions. Obviously, do I target the boss right now, or target more adds? How do i prioritize adds to move quickly? Do I want to save adds for point bonnusess with the special condition, or do I clear them out now to survive?
As a big thing though, it brings something I've thought Destiny needed since Day 1: multiple levels of success/failure. Win the match, get a good shot at some engrams, and progress to your global score goal. Or do awesome and clear the match in such a way that you clear the card.
It has a ton of room to grow too; having a scoring system allows for a ton of flexibility in design. You could think of scenarios where you can setup and protect point generators, or have to coordinate two players hitting a switch to get a score bonus.
There's still some major failure points that we haven't explored though, so I'm still cautious about it. Is it balanced so that you have to actually make decisions and prioritize targets, and gear appropriately or can you play it mindlessly? Does the encounter design still rely on a spam of fire and push you into corners?
Also, points are kind of an inherently boring thing. I'd love if they could do this diagetically in some way.
So it's exciting, but I said the same thing about POE, and Bungie really dropped the ball with it.
Pjsprojects
Member
Same for me,Division is good but 600+ hours in Destiny and still the game pulls me in.
NeOak
Member
If you mean in terms of the lack of "what to do" at endgame, then Destiny has it beat, even in year 1.
Division doesn't even have a raid yet :/
I wish they planned Destiny better. I loved it to bits up until the Taken King, got bored, and now i can't see myself returning to it. I love the world but it's not enough. I wish the Division was launched before Destiny, so Destiny could iterate on that ( off course in my fantasy the Division would be the exact same experience as it is now)
The issue seems to be content turn around times.
I read an article on their map building and something as small moving cover boxes around requires an overnight+ recompiling of the map on a server farm.
The engine feels and looks awesome, but apparently it's terrible for quick content turnaround times... Which is exactly the kind of game they designed Destiny to sort of be.
Oops.
Trickster
Member
There's like nothing to do in The Division. TTK shits on it in terms of max level content
Division just came out. It is going to have two free "incursions" in the next few months, and five incursions in year 1 overall. We don't know a lot about them yet though.
SmoothRunningGun
Member
The structural stuff is important(like actually having matchmaking) and you're comparing early game div to end game destiny. Destiny was pretty slow at level 8 as well. I'll play through the new destiny stuff (should take maybe 2 hours) but the days of raiding weekly are over for me. Just not worth all the effort.
InsaneTiger
Member
No, no, no. Division is Diablo with guns.
Destiny isn't?
InsaneTiger
Member
Besides 10 or 11 story mission, there isn't much.
All those side missions, encounters, supply thingys and whatever sure do count as content but are so boring and repetitive.
I don't understand the point of light level anymore. Raising the cap just means lowering my effectiveness through content until I cap again. That doesn't sound like a good thing, but people get excited about it.
It's not like an RPG where you are going for a new skill/trait/ability that changes how the game is played. The only thing you are doing is keeping up with the content they arbitrarily raise.
Plus, knowing this is their SOP, I have little incentive to try to reach the cap. The next update will put what was once super hard to reach as the new baseline, so advantages from grinding are short-lived.
It's not like an RPG where you are going for a new skill/trait/ability that changes how the game is played. The only thing you are doing is keeping up with the content they arbitrarily raise.
Plus, knowing this is their SOP, I have little incentive to try to reach the cap. The next update will put what was once super hard to reach as the new baseline, so advantages from grinding are short-lived.
Destiny is a bit more WoW with guns whereas The Division is a bit more Diablo with guns.
People are pitting them next to eachother, but they're gonna co-exist really well. The only thing they have truly overlapping in terms of playerbase is just that they are both games that want to encourage the player to spend a lot of time on them. But, much like WoW vs Diablo, Division's content can be consumed very fast, and Destiny's content is more of a slow burn.
Are they? Is it confirmed they are buffing the enemies?
InsaneTiger
Member
No. Division's focus on stats is nothing like Destiny. Division is a true RPG. Division has you min/maxing stats (Diablo), Division lets you grind challenge mode (Rifts).
Destiny is much less focused on individual stats and just on one, Light Level.
Destiny and Division are similar in one way, guns.
Oh, because some people perpetuate this false narrative that Destiny and Division compete with each other and can't exist at once and players must choose a side.
They're not touching KF mechanics.
InsaneTiger
Member
I was trying to explain that I don't see the point of cap increases if you get nothing for it. How is this a good thing?
I haven't played the division or wow, but I imagine there are tangible benefits to level cap increases beyond "do/take the same damage you used to do before we raised the content light level".
InsaneTiger
Member
I'm not super into Destiny (despite liking it a whole bunch - never had a group), is this how it works? I mean, don't the enemy difficulties correspond to a light level? So like if KF HM is 320 right now, won't it be easier at 335?
Also, let's wait and see what rewards we're gonna be getting next week. That will really make or break this. The top reasons to do the new raids in WoW are
- get more powerful with a higher ilvl [light level]
- get new gear that affects the way you play
- experience exciting new content
So, of course, boring new items, un-exciting content, and meaningless ilvl jumps make for a bad update. So far, it seems like the ilvl jump is going to be relatively meaningless. If we get good new exotics and really good boss fights, then this update will still be strong.
InsaneTiger
Member
Generally when you fight enemies significantly lower than you, your damage is scaled to their power level. Thats why when doing the VoG at level 32 or 34, you weren't just massacring the boss.
Maybe they leave things alone and you get stronger comparatively this time. I'm just thinking back to the previous updates where game content scaled proportionally with the level cap, namely nightfall, daily and weekly's. Conversely and also negative is the content that was left behind and irrelevant. Light seems to make problems without fixing much.
It's just one part of the update as you mention, and not a make or break, but a confusing one to me.
Kor of Memory
Member
The main idea is that it lets Bungie have certain weapons expire.
For instance, lately there has been a resurgence in a couple of weapons from the first year of Destiny. Namely Thorn and Ice Breaker.
These weapons have a Light Level (LL) of 170. Which is far below the max. However, despite their lower numbers, they're still powerful enough to cause problems to characters that are 310+ LL.
This means that even though the IceBreaker sniper is half as strong as an end-game sniper, I can still use it for a 1HKO in Trials.
Now, IceBreaker is considered one of the most broken weapons internally at Bungie. And lately, Bungie has really been hitting the way Special ammo works in Crucible. IceBreakers main feature circumvents all of those changes by simply recharging itself like a battery. Never requiring the player to pick up ammo. Not only that, but if you switch weapons, the ammo count carries over. Thus you can use IceBreaker as it's own ammo pack for other weapons.
Anyway. While IceBreaker CAN still 1HKO, it's a pretty close kill. Something like 240dmg where most guardians have ~200hp.
The idea here is that hopefully, furthering the gap from the 170 weapon, will drop that weapon to below 200 points of damage, and thus it'll lose it's luster as an effective weapon.
Same can be said of Thorn. While the bullets themselves probably won't drop much, the damage from the DoT thorn provides will likely take a hit, and thus, the weapon will fall out of grace with the playerbase who refuses to move on.
As for everything else, we're still not sure how stats and such are going to change. But as far as simply Light Levels go, this is one of the bigger reasons to create a wider and wider gap. The other big one being of course giving players a sense of progression.
Damage is scaled to a point, but the fact is your weapons still play a large part in the output. Thus while Aetheon can be killed in a single rotation nowadays. Or Crota can be killed with a sing sword.
robertlebrone
Member
Nothing here to encourage me coming back. PoE was the worst endgame activity and light level is pointless. I will skip Destiny 2 altogether if the same end game rng on top of rng system remains.
I played the hell out of Destiny, and it was without question my favourite shooter of this gen. But there's no doubt I've moved on. These "additions" only serve to reinforce that.
Here's hoping D2 is fundamentally different. All they continue to do here is "put lipstick on a pig."
Levels should only serve to unlock more content. And when you get to said level and beat said content. The game ends.
By continuing to make everything you had worked for up to that point irrelevant, the game itself, becomes irrelevant for me.
Here's hoping D2 is fundamentally different. All they continue to do here is "put lipstick on a pig."
Levels should only serve to unlock more content. And when you get to said level and beat said content. The game ends.
By continuing to make everything you had worked for up to that point irrelevant, the game itself, becomes irrelevant for me.
robertlebrone
Member
TTK also came out a year after the game originally released. I would hope it would have more content then a game that came out 2 weeks ago.
Borderlands is Diablo with guns. You need enemy and player class variety to be able to compare to Diablo. (In that sense Destiny is closer to Diablo with guns than Division too.)
InsaneTiger
Member
You make it sound like there are absolutes. Division more similar to Diablo because maxing individual stats and the ability to grind challenge maps. The Division has enemy clases while the player has no concrete class. Just because there is no specific player class doesn't mean it can't relate to Diablo. Even the loot system in the Division is more like Diablo.
Destiny is only similar to Diablo in classes.
Trickster
Member
TTK was only an expansion, The Division is a full game that had 1½ years to look at how people reacted to vanilla Destiny's sparse content. But they actually managed to have even less endgame content at launch than even vanilla Destiny had.
InsaneTiger
Member
A better way to explain it than I ever could. Thank you.
robertlebrone
Member
Uh, minus the raid activity (which is coming next month) it has the same amount of endgame activities Destiny did at launch. Challenge missions are basically harder NFs you can do daily instead of weekly. Hard missions are like heroics/strikes and the DZ is its own thing.
InsaneTiger
Member
There are 9 story mission, 10 if count that stupid echo at the end.
Your massive content comes from repetitive missions very similar to Far Cry or AssCreed. You have 4 basic missions repeated over and over through all the burrows.
qa_engineer
Member
pretty much. such an eyesore.
Kor of Memory
Member
In comparison Destiny launched with:
20 story missions
5(6) Strikes
9(10) PvP maps with roughly 8 playlists.
1 Raid
Robdraggoo
Member
Destiny had multiple things to do daily bounties to level up gear. Strike playlist and crucible. All of which can be done solo or with friends.
I woke up this morning with only 2 things to do in the division. Two hard mode missions i could do solo.
Challenge mode and dark zone are not recommended solo. Especially dark zone. you risk losing progress which is a big detterent going solo for funsies.
Anton Sugar
Member
"Destiny and The Division comparisons are so weird"
*proceeds to make biased and weird Destiny/The Division comparison"
*proceeds to make biased and weird Destiny/The Division comparison"
Melchiah
Member
Especially gameplay-wise. it's just far more varied, satisfying and fun compared to what I experienced in Division beta.
this so much :lol
ethomaz
Banned
That is why it is weird.
Because they don't reflect your own opinion?
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