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[AllIsOneIsNone]

So what's everyone's take on Halo's Energy Sword in MP?

Shotgun counters it, you can only kill one person at a time, you can see when someone has a sword.

 

[The Librarian]

Well that's really vague. Bungie.net or email? Which one is it? Makes it seems that there won't be any waves but that seems unlikely. The alpha waves were awful.

It's not vague. It'll be emailed to or on Bungie.net. If you don't want to wait for the email, go to Bungie.net.

 

[jon bones]

There's no way they haven't iterated back and forth on this idea during development. The Titan and Warlock have a much smaller range than the Hunter, which might explain the disparity in visual indicators.

Maybe through more gameplay we'll find that Fist of Havoc, specifically, is imbalanced as it has no hard counter due to invulnerability. Maybe not. The only way we'll find things like that out is through hours and hours of gameplay from thousands of people trying everything they can think of. Which is why I've been saying it's too soon to state that it's imbalanced or lacks skill.

Yeah, I imagine all this is being discussed in great detail within Bungie right now. I have faith they'll do right by it.

 

[Overdoziz]

The biggest imbalance was you stealing that tank from me and Niels, each and everytime!

I think they only give the front spawn to people who aren't poop, sorry.

 

[MJLord]

I finally got around to making my preorder I'm preloading now so once I hand this report in on Wednesday I'll be home free for a week of Beta goodness

 

[veloxStrix]

You shouldnt have to counter a cheap mechanic with a cheap mechanic...that's the issue. It's lowering the skill gap of letting bad players get easy kills without trying.

As we've seen in many games before, I believe you will come to find that the good players are still the good players, and the less good players are still the bad players.

It's not a matter of one or two kills gained through the Super. You are assuming that every kill is made equal. But it's not.

By using his Super there, that player has made the opportunity cost of giving up his Super for a single kill. He could have saved the Super for a more promising situation, such as using it on a group of people at a Command Point. If he was a better player he would have been watching the corner and approaching at a more favorable angle. He did not. Thus he had to use his Super.

A good player would still have his Super. A good player would turn a Super into multiple kills without a death AND the defense/capture of a point, resulting in a massive tempo swing for whatever team he was on.

tl,dr; there will always be good and bad players.

On the issue of not seeing the Super:
Did not seeing the type of grenade your opponent had break the game? When weapons weren't visible on your opponent in the first 2 Halo games, did that make them an unplayable mess? A popular tactic among upper level players was to keep the sword in the pocket and bait/switch. Yet the game wasn't ruined. Not at all. As a player, you had to account for the fact that the bait and switch was possible. It's part of strategy that extends even past the FPS genre. MOBAs, Card Games, RTS, etc. In all of these you must be able to accurately predict the thought process of your opponent.

Also, each super DOES have a brief period where you can stop it, and an effective range. The Titan power is effectively an AOE Shotgun with Insta kill, so watching an opponent dash at you to get in range is an indicator to get the fuck out. Just like with the Sword or, more appropriately, the gravity hammer in Halo. You can tell by the enemies actions, even though you can't see it. The Hunter has the longest time before it takes effect. Jumping in the air and glowing has been the downfall of many a Hunter. The Warlock is the trickiest to detect, but also the trickiest to use. It has a midrange effect, but with a bit of an arc, so it's not the easiest to aim at first.

Another good example would be the Equipment in Halo 3 or the Armor Abilities in Reach. Neither was particularly game breaking. Although Armor Lock got close. :l


tl,dr: Supers are just another aspect of strategy in a game. Sorry this isn't CoD where thinking is purely optional.

Supers and Shotguns are going to forever be the most drawn out complaints in PVP, and rightfully so. Nothing new there. I just hope that the systems that are in place are good enough to allow for any balancing (nerfing) done in PVP, while leaving the PVE balance unaffected.

On the topic of the shotgun in MP, this was initially an issue with me. BUT, after a few matches, I noticed that certain maps had a good metagame. By playing mid to far range on Rusted Lands, I could beat out most of the shotgun users. Having a metagame for each level would be interesting. Personally, the spawning with weapons was for more of an issue than Supers are. I hope the changes in ammo helps this.

Sources: A shit ton of time spent playing Halo and CS and other games near-professionally. :c Never had the time/skill to go full pro. Not having good internet hurts too.

 

[D i Z]

Supers and Shotguns are going to forever be the most drawn out complaints in PVP, and rightfully so. Nothing new there. I just hope that the systems that are in place are good enough to allow for any balancing (nerfing) done in PVP, while leaving the PVE balance unaffected.

 

[theAntagonist]

So what's everyone's take on Halo's Energy Sword in MP?

While comparable to supers in the sense that it can be whipped out quickly for cheap, easy kills it isn't really the same. With the energy sword in Halo, typically there is only one on the map so only one player at any given time has it so when someone kills with it, you know which team and player currently is in control of it. With this knowledge you can use teamwork to get the sword back into your teams favor. Not only that, there are a variety of ways to counter sword usage in Halo, which I'm not sure the same can really be said with the supers in Destiny quite yet.

With supers, they are power moves that all players have and thus are far harder to predict who does and doesn't have the ability to use them an any point in time during the match. That, along with there being a large variety of them, makes them virtually impossible to predict when and where they will occur, unlike the sword

 

[WavyStretch]

I bought £110 PSN credit for £80 today, cancelled my amazon pre order and switched to digital. Works out £5 cheaper and honestly there is no point dueluding myself in to believing I don't want this accesable instantly at all times. I also found hunting for cheap PSN credit addictive, and I want to go all digital anyway, now about that 2TB hybrid drive....

 

[Jest Chillin]

Shotgun counters it, you can only kill one person at a time, you can see when someone has a sword.

Yet, even with all that, in a single search the first video I found has nearly the same situation as the Destiny gif played out as the very first kill of the match.

While comparable to supers in the sense that it can be whipped out quickly for cheap, easy kills it isn't really the same. With the energy sword in Halo, typically there is only one on the map so only one player at any given time has it so when someone kills with it, you know which team and player currently is in control of it. With this knowledge you can use teamwork to get the sword back into your teams favor. Not only that, there are a variety of ways to counter sword usage in Halo, which I'm not sure the same can really be said with Destiny quite yet.

With supers, they are power moves that all players have and thus are far harder to predict who does and doesn't have the ability to use them an any point in time during the match. That, along with there being a large variety of them, makes them virtually impossible to predict when and where they will occur, unlike the sword

This was the kind of reply I was actually expecting. There is a rhyme and reason to the Energy Sword. There are hard counters, situational counters, and teamplay elements with regard to use and defense against it. More importantly though.. it took the playerbase time to find out all of these things.

It's also not "virtually impossible" to determine what will come out and when. The game is in it's infancy. Actually it's more like it's Third Trimester at the moment. It's way too early to make definitive statements about what's possible and impossible in terms of use, defense, counters, and balance. In time players will develop strategies and habits. They'll find out what works and what doesn't. What constitutes a good use of a Super and a Bad one. And so on and so forth and that's when Bungie and the Playerbase can take a look at the game and know for sure what needs tuning down, buffing, or removing.

 

[Karl2177]

CoD doesn't notify players that the enemies have abilities until those abilities are used. Destiny is the same in this regard. The difference between the two is that CoD does have a buffer of a few seconds before those abilities actually start killing people. However even in CoD, players can hoard abilities and unleash them one after the other leaving the enemy team largely helpless against them. The only way to track enemy abilities in CoD is to pay attention to enemy kills as they acrue them either through call outs or scoreboard watching. Which is the same thing I've suggested of Destiny.

I like this. You acknowledge my point, but you put it between two things that are irrelevant to the argument at hand, so it doesn't look like you would lose an argument.

Except competitive players train themselves to remember times in all kinds of games. It's essential in any game where beneficial items spawn. A player doesn't need to know when a Special will be up down to the second, only have a general time period where one may be available so they can adjust their play with the possibility of the special in mind.

But those competitive players are remembering it for things that will be at a set place at a certain timeframe. You add another variable when the object is question is mobile and looks similar to other mobile objects.

This depends highly on the game mode. In a standard 3 Capture Point game mode where holding areas accrue points, Dying to prevent a full cap or dying while baiting an enemy out of position is advantageous. Likewise in a CTF map, dying while distracting an enemy to keep them off your flag runner is advantageous.

Regardless of that, my last statement is very clearly a reference to players who play for K/D in public matches rather than playing the objective. And it was an obvious reference.

Have you seen competitive gameplay of CTF, Territories or Domination? Dying isn't a good thing in any of those modes, regardless of what they are dying for. The most competitive teams exterminate, capture, and control.

And very clearly? Obvious? lol

 

[ElzarTheBam]

I think they only give the front spawn to people who aren't poop, sorry.

Niels would be upset at this insult and he can't. Defend. Himself...

Niels, you're poop.

 

[Rodelero]

No. A bad mechanic breaks a game or in the case of PvP causes an imbalance. The Supers in Destiny haven't broken anything and everyone on either team has access to Supers. There's no inherent imbalance in that as far as we've seen yet. The biggest drawback that I currently see in the way the Supers are implemented is that getting group kills with Supers results in gaining your Super back way too fast, making comebacks way less likely.

Maybe through more gameplay we'll find that Fist of Havoc, specifically, is imbalanced as it has no hard counter due to invulnerability. Maybe not. The only way we'll find things like that out is through hours and hours of gameplay from thousands of people trying everything they can think of. Which is why I've been saying it's too soon to state that it's imbalanced or lacks skill.

I don't think this argument is really about balance, per se. It's about whether the mechanic is enjoyable in a PVP environment. That takes it to a large extent out of the realms of objectivity and into subjectivity... but I still think it's worth debating whether the game would be better if Supers, in some way, were made less powerful.

In my mind, no FPS should have something that is provides a player with an easy, instant, unavoidable kill. The Supers do not quite provide that, but they aren't far off in their current form. The way I see it is, done right, supers could provide exciting gameplay both for user and the (potential) victim.

You seem to believe that, in time, people will figure out how to cope with supers better. I doubt it. The skill trees are going to make them more powerful and people are going to find armor with more intelligence, which will make them more frequent.

 

[veloxStrix]

In other news, after my giant paragraph, I thought the mechanics behind the Heavy Ammo drops and team were really cool. For those who don't know, when you pick up heavy ammo everyone on your team within 20m gets Heavy Ammo.

I'm curious as to how big the gap between team players and Lone Wolfs will be in Beta.

Good callouts give relative location and exact class to teammates. Each class has clear enough differences in design that through time playing, recognition will be easy. Titans are bulky, Hunters have Capes, Warlocks have trench coats and armbands.

Chiming in on this, the general design of each class is attributed to a certain easily identifiable primitive shape.
The Hunter is an Arrow pointing up, the Titan is a vertical rectangle, and the Warlock is a rhombus leaning toward being a triangle.

 

[Jest Chillin]

I like this. You acknowledge my point, but you put it between two things that are irrelevant to the argument at hand, so it doesn't look like you would lose an argument.

None of what I said was irrelevant.

Player prediction is a huge thing in every multiplayer game, and a lot of player satisfaction comes from predicting something correctly. Even Call of Duty, arguably the biggest "run and gun, gotta get my K/D high" type of game, has ways of giving information to the player that the enemy has an ability right now. The easiest thing to relate a super to is a Predator. You know that a player has 5 kills, so they might have a Predator ready.

All of that speaks to players being notified when an enemy HAS an ability. CoD notifies when an ability IS USED. There's a buffer of a few seconds between activation and effect but there is absolutely no sign that an ability is stored before it's used. A Predator activation in CoD would be like Golden Gun activation in Destiny. So for parity, Fist of Havok and Warlocks void blast Super would need a slight delay before being released. That still wouldn't tell an enemy that they had it before they used it.

But those competitive players are remembering it for things that will be at a set place at a certain timeframe. You add another variable when the object is question is mobile and looks similar to other mobile objects.

Good callouts give relative location and exact class to teammates. Each class has clear enough differences in design that through time playing, recognition will be easy. Titans are bulky, Hunters have Capes, Warlocks have trench coats and armbands. Two out of three of those classes need to be relatively close to you to hit you with a Super. You should be able to recognize them long before that unless you're in a choke point/hallway and if you're in there you should be prepared for them due to good callouts.

Have you seen competitive gameplay of CTF, Territories or Domination? Dying isn't a good thing in any of those modes, regardless of what they are dying for. The most competitive teams exterminate, capture, and control.

Dying is never something player tries to do but a handful of deaths that occur while achieving the objective are not bad. Stop playing ignorant to that fact.

I don't think this argument is really about balance, per se. It's about whether the mechanic is enjoyable in a PVP environment. That takes it to a large extent out of the realms of objectivity and into subjectivity... but I still think it's worth debating whether the game would be better if Supers, in some way, were made less powerful.

In my mind, no FPS should have something that is provides a player with an easy, instant, unavoidable kill. The Supers do not quite provide that, but they aren't far off in their current form. The way I see it is, done right, supers could provide exciting gameplay both for user and the (potential) victim.

You seem to believe that, in time, people will figure out how to cope with supers better. I doubt it. The skill trees are going to make them more powerful and people are going to find armor with more intelligence, which will make them more frequent.

Well the reply you quoted was specifically about what is and isn't a "bad mechanic" and that isn't subjective. People throw the term around too often when discussing things that work just fine but they just don't like.

Supers will get more powerful and will come more often at higher Intelligence, this is true. However not all Supers are Offensive and we've yet to figure out if some offensive Supers are hard counters to others.

 

[super-famicom]

In other news, after my giant paragraph, I thought the mechanics behind the Heavy Ammo drops and team were really cool. For those who don't know, when you pick up heavy ammo everyone on your team within 20m gets Heavy Ammo.

I'm curious as to how big the gap between team players and Lone Wolfs will be in Beta.

I like the heavy ammo mechanics. A couple times in the alpha, I was too slow to get to the ammo crate and someone would beat me to it, but I would still get ammo. And aside from sometimes exploring Old Russia alone, I always went into the Crucible with a full GAF squad. Everyone on team chat, holding their own or picking up someone's slack. Good times.

 

[Summer Haze]

If there's one thing i wish this game had (and most FPS's), it would be separate sensitivity settings for ADS and for general movement. When i turned the sensitivity speed up in the Alpha to counter it, my ADS would be too fast, I wish they were separate settings.

I wonder why most devs overlook this?

 

[Steelyuhas]

No. A bad mechanic breaks a game or in the case of PvP causes an imbalance. The Supers in Destiny haven't broken anything and everyone on either team has access to Supers. There's no inherent imbalance in that as far as we've seen yet. The biggest drawback that I currently see in the way the Supers are implemented is that getting group kills with Supers results in gaining your Super back way too fast, making comebacks way less likely.

Maybe through more gameplay we'll find that Fist of Havoc, specifically, is imbalanced as it has no hard counter due to invulnerability. Maybe not. The only way we'll find things like that out is through hours and hours of gameplay from thousands of people trying everything they can think of. Which is why I've been saying it's too soon to state that it's imbalanced or lacks skill.

So Super timers are not static and are accelerated? That makes them unpredictable and teams can't keep track of the timers for players on the other team like you previously stated.

 

[Number45]

With regards to supers, is there a chance they'll have a visual cue (sidearm glowing on a hunter for example) to allow you to see when they're up on a player when the game launches?

I'm not that invested in competitive MP, but it seems a pretty simple way to reduce that unpredictability.

 

[Karsticles]

So, was anything changed in terms of character classes from the Alpha?

 

[super-famicom]

So Super timers are not static and are accelerated? That makes them unpredictable and teams can't keep track of the timers for players on the other team like you previously stated.

If a teammate uses their super to kill enemies, they drop Orbs of Light which only other team members can pick up (you can't pick up Orbs that you yourself drop). These Orbs fill up the super meter a little bit. And if you stack +INT armor, you can reduce the super cooldown time.

 

[ComputerMKII]

Destiny News | How to Stream and Share Destiny from Your Home Console

 

[darthbob]

If a teammate uses their super to kill enemies, they drop Orbs of Light which only other team members can pick up (you can't pick up Orbs that you yourself drop). These Orbs fill up the super meter a little bit. And if you stack +INT armor, you can reduce the super cooldown time.

Does the +INT carry over into PvP?

The way Bungie has been talking about gear in PvP it sounds like there won't be any buffs.

 

[super-famicom]

Does the +INT carry over into PvP?

The way Bungie has been talking about gear in PvP it sounds like there won't be any buffs.

I think it did, in the alpha. I had a 33% cooldown reduction/faster recharge rate with my +INT gear, so as a result I had Golden Gun out every 3 minutes or so.

I think the only thing that is normalized for PVP is the big number shown on the item (Attack rating for guns, Defense rating for armor). Stuff like +INT, skills like throw grenade farther, magazine size, those carry over.


Edit: Using Galahad C as an example, the 106 attack gets normalized (just as an example, say all auto rifles are 100 attack), but everything else stays the same and can get carried over to PVP

 

[Jest Chillin]

So Super timers are not static and are accelerated? That makes them unpredictable and teams can't keep track of the timers for players on the other team like you previously stated.

Why do you think I said teams would have to track enemy kills? I've never said that tracking whether an enemy has a super or not would be exact. It would only be general, which would affect how one approaches that enemy.

If a teammate uses their super to kill enemies, they drop Orbs of Light which only other team members can pick up (you can't pick up Orbs that you yourself drop). These Orbs fill up the super meter a little bit. And if you stack +INT armor, you can reduce the super cooldown time.

Your own normal kills also add bar to your Super.

Does the +INT carry over into PvP?

The way Bungie has been talking about gear in PvP it sounds like there won't be any buffs.

I don't think it's been confirmed whether or not INT carries over (for the sake of this discussion we've been assuming it will) but there are also bonuses on armor that can reduce the CD on a Super as well iirc.

 

[Hitmonchan107]

Before the Alpha, bringing your persistent character (armor, weapons and all) from PvE to PvP was a big issue for players. After playing the Alpha, did anyone feel like this was an issue -- specifically, did anyone feel like they lost a fight because another player outgeared them? I didn't play enough Crucible matches to tell the difference between my own personal failures or an imbalance between players.

I'm curious how Bungie is goes to match players together in the Crucible at launch. I noticed a few matches with "low-" and "high-" level players -- low and high in quotations since the actual spread of players wasn't that far in context of the entire game. I don't have any experience with World of Warcraft, but it seems like WoW's Arena system is similar to what Bungie is doing here. From what I've read, the Arena treats all sublevel-80 player matches as practices, while the real matches happen once you hit level 80. Do you think Bungie will take a similar approach?

I was also surprised to see Crucible gear being sold by merchants in the Tower. Do you think this is a baseline, or do you think that the proper "Ranked" matches will only allow players to use Crucible-approved gear?

 

[Brohan]

If there's one thing i wish this game had (and most FPS's), it would be separate sensitivity settings for ADS and for general movement. When i turned the sensitivity speed up in the Alpha to counter it, my ADS would be too fast, I wish they were separate settings.

I wonder why most devs overlook this?

I didn't have too much trouble with it, i put my sensitivity to 7 and got pretty used to the normal turning speed and the ADS speed.

But a RL friend of mine was complaining about it quite a bit in the Alpha, he was saying that he had trouble with the aim acceleration and I soon understood he was talking about the differences between ADS aim speed and normal speed.

If it was up to him he would use a single speed for both.

 

[broony]

Been away for the weekend. Has anything been said of what the beta content is and is anyone playing yet?

 

[Summer Haze]

I didn't have too much trouble with it, i put my sensitivity to 7 and got pretty used to the normal turning speed and the ADS speed.

But a RL friend of mine was complaining about it quite a bit in the Alpha, he was saying that he had trouble with the aim acceleration and I soon understood he was talking about the differences between ADS aim speed and normal speed.

If it was up to him he would use a single speed for both.

I'd probably have movement speed at maximum, and ADS speed around half, maybe a little more.

It's not biggie, though. I got used to it on the alpha pretty fast.

 

[theAntagonist]

Yet, even with all that, in a single search the first video I found has nearly the same situation as the Destiny gif played out as the very first kill of the match.



This was the kind of reply I was actually expecting. There is a rhyme and reason to the Energy Sword. There are hard counters, situational counters, and teamplay elements with regard to use and defense against it. More importantly though.. it took the playerbase time to find out all of these things.

It's also not "virtually impossible" to determine what will come out and when. The game is in it's infancy. Actually it's more like it's Third Trimester at the moment. It's way too early to make definitive statements about what's possible and impossible in terms of use, defense, counters, and balance. In time players will develop strategies and habits. They'll find out what works and what doesn't. What constitutes a good use of a Super and a Bad one. And so on and so forth and that's when Bungie and the Playerbase can take a look at the game and know for sure what needs tuning down, buffing, or removing.

I agree in that it is too early to completely decry super moves, especially when we haven't even seen the complete player sandbox, but I feel that all players would benefit from there being visible cues for players with supers ready to activate since ALL players can use them. Visible cues would force players to play even more skillfully with their super moves and I don't think that's a bad thing at all, especially since all players would be affected by it.

It's just annoying to have to constantly play the competitive with the assumption that anyone can unleash a devastating super at any given time from any angle, after a period of time has passed from the start of the match. Couple that fact with the orbs of light which refill other teammates' super meters and the supers do become pretty hard to predict when they will show up.

Sure, you can assume that a rushing Titan might unleash his super, or that a floating Warlock might unleash his super, but with a visible cue, you'd at least know that they MIGHT use a super on you. That would force another level of meta gameplay, knowing that you have your super to use and that other people can see this fact. This way you can choose whether or not to use it, using this to influence what other players do, and forcing an advantage by playing unpredictably, not letting the game dictate the unpredictability by hiding the fact that you have a super ready to unleash. There would still be the unpredictable element of just exactly WHAT super a player will use, but it would be far more fair and predictable if it were set up like this.

I think it would benefit both players and widen the skill gap more, which is only a good thing.

 

[super-famicom]

Your own normal kills also add bar to your Super.

I don't think it's been confirmed whether or not INT carries over (for the sake of this discussion we've been assuming it will) but there are also bonuses on armor that can reduce the CD on a Super as well iirc.

Yeah, your own kills help fill up the super bar.

And see my post above about +INT. Compared to no INT, when I had a lot for that 33%, i felt I was able to use my super more often. In Rusted Lands, I activated Golden Gun at least 3 times a match.

 

[blamite]

Damn, looks like I'm not gonna be getting nearly as much time to play on Thursday and Friday as I was hoping for. Save some Fallen for me!

 

[Steelyuhas]

Why do you think I said teams would have to track enemy kills? I've never said that tracking whether an enemy has a super or not would be exact. It would only be general, which would affect how one approaches that enemy.

That's not easily predictable with accuracy.

Bad mechanic.

Before the Alpha, bringing your persistent character (armor, weapons and all) from PvE to PvP was a big issue for players. After playing the Alpha, did anyone feel like this was an issue -- specifically, did anyone feel like they lost a fight because another player outgeared them? I didn't play enough Crucible matches to tell the difference between my own personal failures or an imbalance between players.

I'm curious how Bungie is goes to match players together in the Crucible at launch. I noticed a few matches with "low-" and "high-" level players -- low and high in quotations since the actual spread of players wasn't that far in context of the entire game. I don't have any experience with World of Warcraft, but it seems like WoW's Arena system is similar to what Bungie is doing here. From what I've read, the Arena treats all sublevel-80 player matches as practices, while the real matches happen once you hit level 80. Do you think Bungie will take a similar approach?

I was also surprised to see Crucible gear being sold by merchants in the Tower. Do you think this is a baseline, or do you think that the proper "Ranked" matches will only allow players to use Crucible-approved gear?

From what I understand, the idea is that you'll be matched up in PvP with people that have similar level gear so that matches are more or less "equal". Not sure how this worked in the Alpha or if there was enough gear for it to matter.

I can see that becoming an issue playing PvP with parties though, I wonder if they have anything in place to account for that.

 

[everyday math]

Supers should have indicators.

 

[super-famicom]

Wow, German goalkeeper just did the Titan knee to an Argentina player when punching the ball away.

 

[Twilight Gap]

the only time i felt i was outgeared in crucible was when level 7 and 8 players had more armor than i did. i know now that it is either an inherent part of the class or upgraded from collecting spinmetal, but for a while i felt cheated out of a lot of kills going up against them.

it also could have been the lag. the alpha had some really bad lag.

Sure, you can assume that a rushing Titan might unleash his super, or that a floating Warlock might unleash his super, but with a visible cue, you'd at least know that they MIGHT use a super on you. That would force another level of meta gameplay, knowing that you have your super to use and that other people can see this fact. This way you can choose whether or not to use it, using this to influence what other players do, and forcing an advantage by playing unpredictably, not letting the game dictate the unpredictability by hiding the fact that you have a super ready to unleash. There would still be the unpredictable element of just exactly WHAT super a player will use, but it would be far more fair and predictable if it were set up like this.

i agree with this

 

[veloxStrix]

Supers should have indicators.

If we have to, I vote for a giant orange and red flashing bar above opponents heads.

So we don't miss it by accident.

 

[Bsigg12]

Supers should have indicators.

A glowing player would be enough I think. Some sort of indication would be nice.

 

[Shrennin]

My perspective is I don't find game mechanics where people pulling a get out of jail free card out of their back pocket without others being able to be sure if they have it competitively viable and therefore damaging PvP play.

I agree that it's not the most competitively viable mechanic, but Destiny is probably not going for that. You can be different levels and have different gear in PVP which, just by itself, hinders a balanced, competitive environment (unless there's going to be a specialized, competitive mode where gear and level won't matter).

Edit: looks like I was late in discussing that aspect of PVP but I don't think any type of matchmaking will balance that out. Too many variables between levels, gear, and even skill sets.

 

[Hitmonchan107]

From what I understand, the idea is that you'll be matched up in PvP with people that have similar level gear so that matches are more or less "equal". Not sure how this worked in the Alpha or if there was enough gear for it to matter.

I can see that becoming an issue playing PvP with parties though, I wonder if they have anything in place to account for that.

Hopefully the Beta will have a larger level cap so we can get a better understanding of the Matchmaking system.

I think the only thing that is normalized for PVP is the big number shown on the item (Attack rating for guns, Defense rating for armor). Stuff like +INT, skills like throw grenade farther, magazine size, those carry over.

Interesting. This sounds like a great way to even out the playing field. Can anyone else confirm this?

 

[everyday math]

If we have to, I vote for a giant orange and red flashing bar above opponents heads.

So we don't miss it by accident.

*eye roll*

A glowing player would be enough I think. Some sort of indication would be nice.

Yep.

 

[super-famicom]

Supers should have indicators.

I'd only want it to flash once every 3-4 seconds, not "on" the entire time someone's super is charged. That would ruin the element of surprise/metagame and be predictable.

 

[darthbob]

Supers should have indicators.

Arguable, as evidenced by the posts here, but I think it's too late in the development cycle.

 

[ComputerMKII]

How Activision's "Destiny" could disappoint (investors)

 

[Twilight Gap]

Nintendo has the right idea. When your super is charged, you should have a giant KO meter over your head.

.

no excuses

 

[todd360]

I like the heavy ammo mechanics. A couple times in the alpha, I was too slow to get to the ammo crate and someone would beat me to it, but I would still get ammo. And aside from sometimes exploring Old Russia alone, I always went into the Crucible with a full GAF squad. Everyone on team chat, holding their own or picking up someone's slack. Good times.

That sounds so fun. Count me in for that during the beta.

 

[Hitmonchan107]

Edit: looks like I was late in discussing that aspect of PVP but I don't think any type of matchmaking will balance that out. Too many variables between levels, gear, and even skill sets.

In the loot games that I've played, you hit a point where you effectively "max out" your stats. Any upgrades you find after that effective maxing out point are very small. Hypothetically speaking, once players hit the endgame and find other players with similar "maxed out" gear, the differences between loot could be so small that it's essentially balanced -- not 100% balanced, but balanced enough to where there's no discernible differences between the important stats like time to kill, regen, etc.

 

[everyday math]

Man when I was in Gaf parties that was a hoot.

Best fun Iv had in a MP game in a looonnnnggg time. I actually do enjoy the MP a lot in a group. I wasn't too fond of it going solo.

 

[Jest Chillin]

I agree in that it is too early to completely decry super moves, especially when we haven't even seen the complete player sandbox, but I feel that all players would benefit from there being visible cues for players with supers ready to activate since ALL players can use them. Visible cues would force players to play even more skillfully with their super moves and I don't think that's a bad thing at all, especially since all players would be affected by it.

It's just annoying to have to constantly play the competitive with the assumption that anyone can unleash a devastating super at any given time from any angle, after a period of time has passed from the start of the match. Couple that fact with the orbs of light which refill other teammates' super meters and the supers do become pretty hard to predict when they will show up.

Sure, you can assume that a rushing Titan might unleash his super, or that a floating Warlock might unleash his super, but with a visible cue, you'd at least know that they MIGHT use a super on you. That would force another level of meta gameplay, knowing that you have your super to use and that other people can see this fact. This way you can choose whether or not to use it, using this to influence what other players do, and forcing an advantage by playing unpredictably, not letting the game dictate the unpredictability by hiding the fact that you have a super ready to unleash. There would still be the unpredictable element of just exactly WHAT super a player will use, but it would be far more fair and predictable if it were set up like this.

I think it would benefit both players and widen the skill gap more, which is only a good thing.

As the game is, I don't find it super annoying playing with the thought of Supers in the back of my mind. I just find that it makes me play more situationally aware than I would in a game without Supers. Similar to the way I don't charge through doorways and chokepoints in CoD when I know the enemy is using claymores or mines.

I really don't have an opinion one way or the other on visual cues. I feel like whether they're there or not would change the meta (as you said) but I don't think one way or the other is objectively worse.

Yeah, your own kills help fill up the super bar.

And see my post above about +INT. Compared to no INT, when I had a lot for that 33%, i felt I was able to use my super more often. In Rusted Lands, I activated Golden Gun at least 3 times a match.

I feel like there's too many variables in matches to be able to say that a your regen speed was noticeably influenced by INT. We really need to see a controlled test (or as close to one as we can get).

That's not easily predictable with accuracy.

Bad mechanic.

Your opinion is still an opinion.

 

[super-famicom]

That sounds so fun. Count me in for that during the beta.

Stuff I remember over team chat:

Match start - "Guys, I'm going to cap B, someone want to join?"

"They're heading to B from A, watch out!"

"Fuck, that guy headshot me again"

"Did you just dance on top of that guy?"

"Guys, don't cap the third point, just guard the two we have."

Inspecting each others' gear - "Whoa where'd you get that gun?"

"Hey, nice multikill"

"Famicom, you got 15 caps? Nice!" (This is true, 15 caps but only .65 K/D ratio)