• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Does Bungie know what they're doing with Destiny?

I don't actually believe 'the word' overpowered has any place in a game like this, even if it drops from killing the Destiny God itself.
Why can't it just be a strong good weapon that is fun to use and desirable, that isn't 'overpowered'.

How would the nerf be? 25% instead of 34%? Would that be better? But I think the multiplyer does more of the aggrevation than the base damage I think:). I am sure Bungie has some people doing the testing for it more than the average Destiny player. Also Bungie are the only ones that know what the future holds aswell, since they design the upcoming raid, which has lots of Hive I have heard? Mythoclast has Solar. Indeed even if I have one, overpowered stuff would kill my enjoyment of that content, while I love my Bad Juju still, even though it sucks compared to my Confluence.

again, i'd have rather seen the weapon redesigned entirely since its functionality doesn't match its apparent description. nevertheless, a nerf to me would be first in lowering its rate of fire, magazine size and accuracy at range. a damage nerf could then follow but would be proportionate to those tweaks.

everything surrounding the weapon, from its ridiculously large magazine and damage shows that it was never thoroughly tested prior to being put in the game. that's more frustrating than the nerf, especially when there were numerous other ways to approach it.
 

Razgreez

Member
Still patiently waiting for a simple in game messaging system. Warfame accomplishes it so efficiently so why can't destiny?
 
i'd look rather silly talking about it if i didn't understand how it worked.

i have two, and not even a week has gone by before it's been made worse than some rares i own. I'd much rather have seen my suggestion to balance it than to simply make it a shitty AR.

hence the title of this thread. bungie is crippling the little content they have mere days after it becomes available, and there's still 2 months until more arrives.

Ah ok, although I disagree alot with your post in the OP, Mythoclast the least (I just used that because it was easy) I now understand your post more. Do you think it's criplling, because people won't bother with hard mode anymore?, because of the weapon? Because then we have a fundemental disagreement, because I just want to do the hard raid, I really don't care if I got it or not. RNG is RNG and never make it your goal, my goal is just to enjoy the game, which is most of all balanced and free of overpowered weapons.
 

Majukun

Member
the only people who don't know what they are doing are the ones that are still playing this game if it really has all these problems.

in the meanwhile,bungie and activision are making money..so..yes,they know exactly what they are doing.
 
Ah ok, although I disagree alot with your post in the OP, Mythoclast the least (I just used that because it was easy) I now understand your post more. Do you think it's criplling, because people won't bother with hard mode anymore?, because of the weapon? Because then we have a fundemental disagreement, because I just want to do the hard raid, I really don't care if I got it or not. RNG is RNG and never make it your goal, my goal is just to enjoy the game.

it's crippling when bungie releases content and then immediately changes the content (often due to a blatant oversight), thereby limiting its potential rewards and anything that may or may not stimulate community interaction in an otherwise socially incompetent game. the game changes almost biweekly and i think most of them have been ill-conceived or poorly prioritized.
 

Wizman23

Banned
I hate to say it yet again, but it's like people didn't play Reach with its poor storytelling, crappy level design and broken ass gameplay.

What did you expect after Reach? Did you think Reach was a misfire as Bungie had 'checked out' at that stage?

It's weird to see so many disappointed with Destiny when all the signs of Bungie losing their touch were there with Reach.

Reach was more or less made by the "B" team at Bungie while the main cast was working on Destiny. I had no problems with Reach other then armor lock and enjoy Destiny so I really have no complaints.
 

FStop7

Banned
http://theguardiansofdestiny.com/2014/10/14/guardian-radio-episode-82/

Good hour and thirty minute interview with Deej on Guardian Radio podcast pretty much discussing every complaint I ever heard on NeoGAF & Bungie dot net. NeoGAF is mentioned quite often


He answers all complaints, from lack of story and why certain things were cut and will probably cut back on half the speculation in this thread

he doesn't "answer" a thing, he just handwaves.

I am hooked on Destiny and it's obvious it can be a spectacular game with the proper changes. I just don't know if they'r going to happen, because Bungie seems to be sort of clueless.
 
it's crippling when bungie releases content and then immediately changes the content (often due to a blatant oversight), thereby limiting its potential rewards and anything that may or may not stimulate community interaction in an otherwise socially incompetent game. the game changes almost biweekly and i think most of them have been ill-conceived or poorly prioritized.

It's there first endeavour in MMO influenced game design. I don't expect them to be Blizzard, a bunch of people notorious for changing stuff and doing it well, that is why they are that good in delivering balanced and longliving franchises. Bungie has a long way to go, to only thing that matter to me now, is just enjoying the content they deliver, although it is small, after 5 weeks im still playing the game. The fact that they bother and do it quite fast with a subscriptionless game has made me a happy gamer already.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I wonder how Bungie is going to deal with the leveling. The Light system means it'll be a bitter pill if they raise the cap to, say, level 40.

Making it like the level 1 to 20 progress wouldn't work also, because it takes hours of farming to go from 20 to 30.

Diablo cap could be raised because it uses a conventional level up system, and they have on level armor drops. I think the Paragon system was excellent, and kept grinding relevant.
 

Pollux

Member
I hate to say it yet again, but it's like people didn't play Reach with its poor storytelling, crappy level design and broken ass gameplay.

What did you expect after Reach? Did you think Reach was a misfire as Bungie had 'checked out' at that stage?

It's weird to see so many disappointed with Destiny when all the signs of Bungie losing their touch were there with Reach.
At least Reach had a story, mediocre as it was. The story in Destiny just doesn't exist.
 
When it comes to legendary drops (since rare and below are just filler drops after level 20) i'd prefer them to drop more often but have more random attributes added to them, right now you can get a few different perks like penetrating rounds or different scopes but it's not enough to keep searching for that awesome build.

Bungie had to patch in engram rewards for high level strikes because no one was doing them or sticking around to beat the boss for only 6 vanguard points, which can be gained from other things and have a WEEKLY CAP, bungie sure love their value caps.

I keep hitting the glimmer cap of 25000 every few days and have to throw cash at ammo packs I hardly use to reduce it.
 

RMI

Banned
Iron banner was great. Anybody who wanted a huge level advantage is just bitter that they were still getting wasted by lower level players with skill. I've played a lot of crucible and differences were very obvious to me. It was subtle, for sure, but what people are asking for is an unbalanced mess.

I was doing fine with Scout Rifles in the crucible before the patch, and auto rifle damage barely changed so I can't agree with the OPs criticism about how they're handling pvp.
 
When it comes to legendary drops (since rare and below are just filler drops after level 20) i'd prefer them to drop more often but have more random attributes added to them, right now you can get a few different perks like penetrating rounds or different scopes but it's not enough to keep searching for that awesome build.

Bungie had to patch in engram rewards for high level strikes because no one was doing them or sticking around to beat the boss for only 6 vanguard points, which can be gained from other things and have a WEEKLY CAP, bungie sure love their value caps.

I keep hitting the glimmer cap of 25000 every few days and have to throw cash at ammo packs I hardly use to reduce it.

Use your glimmer on the cryptarch, I always have 1000 glimmer in my inventory and got in massive problems when I needed to buy FR for Pocket Infinity.
 
Iron banner was great. Anybody who wanted a huge level advantage is just bitter that they were still getting wasted by lower level players with skill. I've played a lot of crucible and differences were very obvious to me. It was subtle, for sure, but what people are asking for is an unbalanced mess.

I was doing fine with Scout Rifles in the crucible before the patch, and auto rifle damage barely changed so I can't agree with the OPs criticism about how they're handling pvp.

I definitely did better during IB then normally, with my fully upgraded gear and weapons.
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
the only people who don't know what they are doing are the ones that are still playing this game if it really has all these problems.

in the meanwhile,bungie and activision are making money..so..yes,they know exactly what they are doing.

Hahaha!

Yes, poor me. Deluded into having fun!
 

ShinMaruku

Member
I will say they don't know what they are doing yet because this is a area where they never had strengths in.

Maybe give them time, who knows, but the hyperbole around this shows that it sure has people's attention.

But their biggest weakness is to really get on the right foot they have to knock their dlc out the park with each one but given how it is I would say maybe the last one will be ironed out but that might be too late.
 

vrln

Neo Member
I fear the changes the game needs are beyond the scope of DLC and Bungie hasn´t done the same Blizzard did with D3 (= basically agreeing with the criticism). That being said, the game has only been out for a while so publicly agreeing with the critics would be bad for business this early. Blizzard didn´t turn the ship this fast either. The sequel might be awesome in a few years, but looking at the colossal amount of design decisions I fundamentally disagree with in Destiny I´m simply not holding my breath.

To me Bungie is no longer an elite studio. The review scores for this game are fair - even a bit too kind. And please don´t give me the "but a 70-something score means it´s good!" argument - in the AAA business a 70´s metacritic is horrible. This is a hit business and to sustain a franchise you need high quality. They dropped the ball bad with Destiny. It´s as "designed by committee & went through development hell" as a game can be. To answer the OP´s question: no, it´s a confused mess of a game.
 

Namikaze1

Member
Pretty interesting to see that none of the OT regulars have yet to pop their heads in to chime in in the subject.
Perhaps it's because it has been discussed to death over in OT. People over there, like myself, have been complaining about the fact Bungie is quick to give in to the vocal minority complaining about some OP weapon or the wondrous Loot Cave while ignoring all the actual problems people have had in the game. All ranging from AFK'ing people in Crucible getting better loot than the top player to multitude of glitches in the raid itself. People have been complaining about the raid not sending you to orbit once beaten since it opened. Bungie is quick to patch out cheese spots but not fast enough to fix the actual problems in the damn game.

As for Vex, I understand nerfing it for PvP but they shouldn't have nerfed it for PvE also.
 
Coming from the OT, many of us over there agree with everything the OP has said and others in this thread.

There are many things that need changed and I personally do not see Bungie having the balls to admit that they've fucked up big time with what could have been a massive franchise.

It's clear that things have gone on behind the scenes which resulted in the game being decimated in regards to what we were shown and told that we were receiving.

It did NOT take 5 years to create what we have received.

I do not believe this will be a 10 year franchise and I do not believe that Bungie will give us what they showed us in previous vid docs.
 

Klarax

Banned
i am addicted. however i feel the game is a 4/10

I cant believe it cost 500 million and has nowhere near the content or game length mass effect has, which probably cost 20 million tops.

destiny has:

looks awesome
good gun play and controls
like 50 missions
time to complete is like 8-10 hours - 107 apparently for level 30
no talking to NPCs
very little story
very little cut scenes
< 10 planets


mass effect
looks great - last gen
gameplay is ok, enjoyable
25-50+ hours to complete (depending on side stuff)
lots of planets to visit
very detailed story
so many NPCs to talk to an interact with


that said, i cant get off the dam game ;P
 

kiguel182

Member
For me the biggest problem is how dull the PVE content is and how much they expect us to play it.

The boss of the Moon strike was so dull that it just made me stop playing strikes. I still have a bunch to finish but I really don't feel like doing them just so in the end I end up with some crap loot that made the effort pointless.

I like the Crucible but I haven't hoped in a week or so since I know I still have a bunch of grind to go to Level 2 before I can buy some legendary gear.

I like the basic systems and mechanics but the content itself and the reward system is so fucked up.
 

Hindle

Banned
It will be interesting to see if key talent leave Bungie in the coming months, the guys who were there for Halo etc.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Mythoclast is overpowered, nerf it, Mythoclast is underpowered and not the ''treasure anymore''. I don't think Bungie can do any good on some of the people that wants the game to be different than Bungie wants the game to be.

Meanwhile millions are enjoying the game on a daily basis, amazing. Also there is a lot of passion with this game, negative or positive, an aspect many great franchises share.

The major issue with how they've built Destiny is that they never created a "non gear" PvP, that allows people to go into matches with a defined, balanced, set of gear. Guild Wars 2 did this. You go in with defined gear, and have to live on your own tactics.

Because you take your gear into every match, weapons like the mythoclast poisoned every encounter. I'm no game design genius (I work in publishing), but from where I'm standing, they could have appeased all parties by having two metaplaylists: competitive, and gear-based. People who want balance could go in with cool weapons they don't have yet, try them out (and build that thirst to get it in PvE/gear-based PvE), and no one would be whining that the mythoclast is too powerful...because it would be retooled for the balanced PvP playlist, quarantined from the rest of the game.

That, it seems, was not their vision for the game, and that's fair, but I don't think that's what players wanted from them.
 
They're figuring shit out as they go. It was obvious once they nerfed the Queen's Legendaries.

Kinda burned out at this point. No interest in doing Hard mode Raids so Im chillin at 28 with all three characters, waiting for the expansion.
 
You want new content and new experiences in Destiny ? Well Bungie's got you covered.

Its all in the DLC.. So don't expect anything other then grinding the same old missions under "brand new" banners until they grace you with the opportunity to pay another $40 and even then I wouldn't expect much more content. I suspect that will come in DLC 2
 

kiguel182

Member
Also, as a PVP player, the lack of modes is baffling. They are all variations DM except for control.

At this point it's tempting to just sell the game and buy Advance Warfighter that will probably be more competent at the PVP stuff.
 

Computer

Member
If Destiny is going to be a bad PSU clone they need to copy everything PSU did right. In PSU every mission had a social pre mission lobby with a place to see list of teams playing the mission. You could join any team that was short on players.. Unless they put a password on the team so no one could join. This would solve the matchmaking issue.
 
The major issue with how they've built Destiny is that they never created a "non gear" PvP, that allows people to go into matches with a defined, balanced, set of gear. Guild Wars 2 did this. You go in with defined gear, and have to live on your own tactics.

Because you take your gear into every match, weapons like the mythoclast poisoned every encounter. I'm no game design genius (I work in publishing), but from where I'm standing, they could have appeased all parties by having two metaplaylists: competitive, and gear-based. People who want balance could go in with cool weapons they don't have yet, try them out (and build that thirst to get it in PvE/gear-based PvE), and no one would be whining that the mythoclast is too powerful...because it would be retooled for the balanced PvP playlist, quarantined from the rest of the game.

That, it seems, was not their vision for the game, and that's fair, but I don't think that's what players wanted from them.

There should be Crucibles without supers aswell. Yea, content is the main problem of Destiny.
 

Pooya

Member
I logged in after a few days off, surprised to see everyone was using scout rifles all of a sudden instead of auto rifles like before. didn't know about the patch, good job Bungie, problem solved /s

I'm stuck at level 25, shit doesn't drop ever for me, I don't even have a single exotic. Going to buy me some stuff soon though :(
 

sobaka770

Banned
the only people who don't know what they are doing are the ones that are still playing this game if it really has all these problems.

in the meanwhile,bungie and activision are making money..so..yes,they know exactly what they are doing.

Activision and Bungie made their money on day one when the game copy was sold (actually before that when copy was sold to retailer). Now their hope is to retain customers so that they buy DLC.

Personally, I don't care for all the nerfing and half-baked events, if the story doesn't get interesting in the next 2 DLC I get for free with my copy, I'm out of this grindfest.
 

vrln

Neo Member
i am addicted. however i feel the game is a 4/10

Agreed. The separation between a good enjoyable game and a psychologically addictive game is one that is rarely made. A good game isn´t necessarily addictive, but a game can be both too of course. An addictive game however isn´t necessarily a good game.

I found that I played Destiny a lot, but I wasn´t enjoying it. I found the grind simply depressive. It didn´t bring me joy. It activated anxiety loops which I calmed down by grinding more. One day I just decided to quit it completely and I´ve felt much better ever since. Destiny abuses psychological addiction mechanisms extremely well and I´m not a fan of that style of game design (essentially the same as in many F2P mobile games).
 
I logged in after a few days off, surprised to see everyone was using scout rifles all of a sudden instead of auto rifles like before. didn't know about the patch, good job Bungie, problem solved /s

I'm stuck at level 25, shit doesn't drop ever for me, I don't even have a single exotic. Going to buy me some stuff soon though :(

Or maybe they are just trying out their neglected guns after the patch. I quite like it, now I'll hear less of the ugly Suros sound.
 
Agreed. The separation between a good enjoyable game and a psychologically addictive game is one that is rarely made. A good game isn´t necessarily addictive, but a game can be both too of course. An addictive game however isn´t necessarily a good game.

I found that I played Destiny a lot, but I wasn´t enjoying it. I found the grind simply depressive. It didn´t bring me joy. It activated anxiety loops which I calmed down by grinding more. One day I just decided to quit it completely and I´ve felt much better ever since. Destiny abuses psychological addiction mechanisms extremely well and I´m not a fan of that style of game design (essentially the same as in many F2P mobile games).

Almost tagworhty, but not quite good enough.
 
Iron banner was great. Anybody who wanted a huge level advantage is just bitter that they were still getting wasted by lower level players with skill. I've played a lot of crucible and differences were very obvious to me. It was subtle, for sure, but what people are asking for is an unbalanced mess.

I was doing fine with Scout Rifles in the crucible before the patch, and auto rifle damage barely changed so I can't agree with the OPs criticism about how they're handling pvp.

But the regular crucible is there for a more balanced battle, the iron banner was spoken about like gear was important, it was not.

And since the iron banner was a time related thing they could have gone all out for the week and had a bigger different in gear then regular crucible, they did not.
 

Upinsmoke

Member
Also how am i supposed to get ascendent shards when i've got nobody to raid with? I haven't received any from crucible and the odd one elsewhere, i need these materials to upgrade my character but i can't, they've made it so difficult to aquire them.

there's no way i'm buying the dlc just so i can still be stuck at my current level still
 

sobaka770

Banned
Agreed. The separation between a good enjoyable game and a psychologically addictive game is one that is rarely made. A good game isn´t necessarily addictive, but a game can be both too of course. An addictive game however isn´t necessarily a good game.

I found that I played Destiny a lot, but I wasn´t enjoying it. I found the grind simply depressive. It didn´t bring me joy. It activated anxiety loops which I calmed down by grinding more. One day I just decided to quit it completely and I´ve felt much better ever since. Destiny abuses psychological addiction mechanisms extremely well and I´m not a fan of that style of game design (essentially the same as in many F2P mobile games).

Thank God I passed through that stage with WoW, and now the dumb grind is much more apparent and instantly feels unrewarding for me, especially with Destiny's horrible progression system. The only game where I actually did spend some time grinding was D3:RoS, Blizzard after 2 years finally nailed the reward/time investment ratio.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
i think the gameplay (shooting mechanics, ai, loot systems, and progression) is really expertly designed. its not all perfect, a game of this scope couldn't possibly be at launch, but they are updating it pretty regularly. the game has been out for about 5 weeks and has seen a number of significant updates, changes, and balance tweaks.

of course the story is barebones and thus far poorly delivered, but i do think this is an area they planned from the beginning to grow as the game expanded. they laid out the foundation, admittedly in a poor fashion, and can expand and delve deeper as the game and its world continue.

the fact that there is a huge devout following tells me this isnt a flash in the pan thing or a result of hype. destiny is the real deal so bungie knows what they are doing and more importantly, can and has fixed their (relatively small) mistakes in a timely fashion as they go.
 

IcyEyes

Member
I'm taking your side OP.

I'm loving this game and I'm still playing it even though the endgame is not so "rich" for a game of this caliber.

On top of your concerns, we are having some problems of lag. It's pretty clear our ping has gotten worse and I'm sure it's not about us.

One of the reasons that made me quit playing Titanfall was that my ping went from 25/35 to 90/110. I hope this won't be the same case.
 

Clearos

Member
Did pvp for about 3 hours leveling my Titan up to 10.

I still saw a lot of auto rifles and had success myself using one. Saw a few hand cannons as well. If anything it looks like it mixed up the weapon selection a bit, I think a bit too early to declare a new meta.
 
They need to be a little faster with the patching...and by a little I mean a lot. It's been over a month and they've done very little to fix what they said they've planned to. Look at a developer like Grinding Gear Games; they've come out with patches like every week for the past year or two, each 3 times as big as the hotfix we got yesterday from Bungie, and a developer like 1/20th the size. Basically the clock is ticking and they aren't doing shit to fix the game.
 

E92 M3

Member
After this last patch it confirmed my suspicions that Bungie is too big of a group to make cohesive decisions. Maybe there are leadership problems. Not balancing PVE and PVP separately was very amateur.
 
Also how am i supposed to get ascendent shards when i've got nobody to raid with? I haven't received any from crucible and the odd one elsewhere, i need these materials to upgrade my character but i can't, they've made it so difficult to aquire them.

They're not difficult to acquire, eventough these are legendary stuff.
Daily heroic story, daily public events. Public events itself is RNG and can be grindable, I once had not one but two energies dropped in one event, followed by 2 more shards. That was 4 legendary mats in 20 minutes.
 

Finalow

Member
Halo Reach was such a better game than this garbage.
I still enjoyed the pvp even with its flaws because the alternative was to grind the same awful strikes/missions again and again.

at Bungie they surely do know how to hype a game promising everything but instead it delivers nothing. they also know how to make a game sell, sadly I couldn't care less.
 

vrln

Neo Member
Thank God I passed through that stage with WoW, and now the dumb grind is much more apparent and instantly feels unrewarding for me, especially with Destiny's horrible progression system. The only game where I actually did spend some time grinding was D3:RoS, Blizzard after 2 years finally nailed the reward/time investment ratio.

I avoided WoW for the same reason - my addiction was Starcraft II and Warcraft III, which both I felt were less abusive psychologically. I think Destiny´s progression system was designed to induce a lot of anxiety to maximise the addiction loop. It forces a huge time investment and the more hours you put in a game the more invested and attached you are to it - which makes you less likely to quit as then you´ve "wasted" all that time. I find it manipulative, but I´m sure millions disagree and that´s ok.
 

DC1

Member
I feel actions speak louder than words.

I have played Destiny effectively nightly since release, as well as several 7-8 hour sessions on the weekends. In addition, my wife and several friends are on just as often, if not more, and it's pretty much become an expectation that we're on every night unless something comes up.

Bungie know what they're doing, even if the game isn't perfect.

This is a perspective that many folks need roll in their mouths like gobstoppers.

I have never played a game tied around appointment tier mash ups where couples and friends gather for collective fun over a month long period.

The game has flaws without question.
However, everyone in this thread knows that the content and issues will be resolved over time. Every MMO goes through this.

Many of you may not be there to see the maturation because of the current flaws. Not only is it your prerogative, it's also fully justified. Losing a small, vocal and experienced population is the only issue that Bungie must resolve (now). Give core mmo folks a reason to to push forward with the game beyond social interaction. Make them feel legendary ready to challenge the next expansion head on.

Sidebar I'm still pissed at the Vex super nerf: I knocked out the hard raid 4 times for a chance at the Vex. Now, I'm sure if I'll dive back into it (hard raid).
Why should I or any one else go through the pain. It damn sure won't be for bragging rights.
 
Balancing a game like Halo, where everyone is on equal footing is already an extremely difficult task. Balancing a game with loot drops and all these different types of gear is nigh impossible. They'll be tweaking the crucible endlessly unless they remove the gear 'variable'
 
Top Bottom