yeah, probably would have worked better as a buff you had to re-earn instead of being explicitly tied to the reset.
Destiny has gone stagnant - It's time for Destiny to show its hand [EUROGAMER]
- Thread starter mocoworm
- Start date
yeah, probably would have worked better as a buff you had to re-earn instead of being explicitly tied to the reset.
rakkadakka
Member
The Witness also didn't have anywhere near the amount of fan involvement that Bungie's games bring.
If the Kotaku article about them was correct, I can't blame them for not giving out information on a roadmap that they don't have yet.
Generally agreed on most of your post, but I'll note on this part: I fully understand this stance after they got absolutely pantsed by Mattrick over ODST and the Mythic maps. They probably STILL have institutional anxiety after they went all in and got yanked. Ever since then, they've always had a ship in the bay before announcing it's there.
LifEndz
Member
When I say I want communication it's not me wanting "free stuff," it's me wanting to know things like they're experimenting with the netcode which is causing lag to be more prevalent.
A road map for what the gameplan is would be icing on the cake. Doesn't have to be free stuff either. I just want to know what the plan is. Is it nothing until Desting 2 but variance on pvp modes and tower decorations? What is this "largest content post TTK" that was mentioned. Where is it? Any eta on it?
Instead we get nothing, except patronizing statements like "we're listening."
A road map for what the gameplan is would be icing on the cake. Doesn't have to be free stuff either. I just want to know what the plan is. Is it nothing until Desting 2 but variance on pvp modes and tower decorations? What is this "largest content post TTK" that was mentioned. Where is it? Any eta on it?
Instead we get nothing, except patronizing statements like "we're listening."
Kor of Memory
Member
A good example is the Bungie Weekly update from last week.
A holiday event with a unique playlist was announced, but no details regarding the playlist were shared.
We don't know what the new gametype will be, or how to prepare for it, despite the fact it will be here next Tuesday.
Here is what we got regarding the new playlist:
Raven117
Member
Bungie did a few things very right with TTK, but did a few things very wrong.
What they did right:
(1) The story missions. They actually gave some personality to the characters...made the story at least bearable.
(2) The mid game progression. They nailed this. The climb to 40 then the climb to about light level 290 is gentle and rewarding. If you logged on and played for a bit, chances are you upped your light level. It was good.
(3) The exotic search: Having exotics be earned through lengthy quests was a step in the right direction for me. Some hated grinding for mats for the swords, but at least you KNEW about how long it would take, and what you needed to do to progress. I liked this system way more than RNG exotic where a pure luck roll would net you a Ghorn and thus "acceptable" to the community.
What they did wrong:
(1) The endgame. Oh boy. Dat End game. The raid, while really good the first time, proved to be way too tedious to grind week in and week out. Play has to be perfect among 6 people with no room for interpretation or improvisation.
(2) The double RNG for gear and light level. Who's idea was that? I mean...wow. I can see how ya got there I guess from how the mid-game progresses...but yikes...it is terrible for end game.
(3) The nerfing of PvE weapons. Nothing feels all that fun to use. You would think your Raid weapons would be "best in class" (or damn close)...Nope. With the exception of a few weapons, (and can still have bad rolls), most are simply infusion fodder. This is big....No gun in PvE feels all that great. Compare to Vanilla...Fatebringer, Ghorn, Black Hammer, Vision of Confluence, Fang all felt powerful and fun. Now...it doesn't
(4) PvP connection issues....That's been well documented. (Im not much of a pvper so I can't tell you the subtle ins and outs
(5) Making Nightfalls worthless...Weeklies non-existent....No reason to even hop on for a bit to eff around...get some coins..etc.
(6) Making faction rep difficult to get and nerfing bounties. (Why Bungie? Who cares?).
I love Destiny and will come racing back when new pve content or destiny 2 gets announced...but in the mean time...there are some good games that are out and are coming out that are more deserving than Destiny of my time at the moment.
What they did right:
(1) The story missions. They actually gave some personality to the characters...made the story at least bearable.
(2) The mid game progression. They nailed this. The climb to 40 then the climb to about light level 290 is gentle and rewarding. If you logged on and played for a bit, chances are you upped your light level. It was good.
(3) The exotic search: Having exotics be earned through lengthy quests was a step in the right direction for me. Some hated grinding for mats for the swords, but at least you KNEW about how long it would take, and what you needed to do to progress. I liked this system way more than RNG exotic where a pure luck roll would net you a Ghorn and thus "acceptable" to the community.
What they did wrong:
(1) The endgame. Oh boy. Dat End game. The raid, while really good the first time, proved to be way too tedious to grind week in and week out. Play has to be perfect among 6 people with no room for interpretation or improvisation.
(2) The double RNG for gear and light level. Who's idea was that? I mean...wow. I can see how ya got there I guess from how the mid-game progresses...but yikes...it is terrible for end game.
(3) The nerfing of PvE weapons. Nothing feels all that fun to use. You would think your Raid weapons would be "best in class" (or damn close)...Nope. With the exception of a few weapons, (and can still have bad rolls), most are simply infusion fodder. This is big....No gun in PvE feels all that great. Compare to Vanilla...Fatebringer, Ghorn, Black Hammer, Vision of Confluence, Fang all felt powerful and fun. Now...it doesn't
(4) PvP connection issues....That's been well documented. (Im not much of a pvper so I can't tell you the subtle ins and outs
(5) Making Nightfalls worthless...Weeklies non-existent....No reason to even hop on for a bit to eff around...get some coins..etc.
(6) Making faction rep difficult to get and nerfing bounties. (Why Bungie? Who cares?).
I love Destiny and will come racing back when new pve content or destiny 2 gets announced...but in the mean time...there are some good games that are out and are coming out that are more deserving than Destiny of my time at the moment.
MMaRsu
Gold Member
Destiny isnt an MMO. This misconception needs to stop lol
DrROBschiz
Member
Great breakdown and I share a lot of these sentiments
Should have had the year 1 content roll forward in some unique way like the previous expansions did
Would have softened the blow in the endgame
Kor of Memory
Member
The semantics needs to stop.
Destiny acts a lot like an MMO, so the playerbase treats Destiny a lot like an MMO.
Just because you'll never see more than 18 players in a location, doesn't make it NOT an MMO.
DrROBschiz
Member
Its not an MMO though...
Its closer to PSO than anything else. Persistent online game but not persistent content drops
It sucks it had to come to this, but Bungie has brought this hate on themselves by leaving the game in the stale state its been in the past few months. There's been tons of outcry for how bad match making was and connectivity issues and it took the press to force their hand and finally have them speak out and do something about it. I get the feeling all this press has caused Activision to step in and force their hand on the announcement they made yesterday about changing the SBMM we've all been complaining about.
DrROBschiz
Member
Its kind of weird
After Taken King they had a lot of community communication and regular updates
Im guessing they are doubling down on the future
Plus wasnt the last up not THAT long ago?
LifEndz
Member
Exactly. Right now I only play the game for pvp and an occasional raid. To have pvp essentially busted for months and for them to not say what they were doing is insane. this went on for months and they didn't say jack shit. It's worse than just a failure to communicate, it feels like a lack of respect. Couple that with their bland non-specific statements regarding what's to come and weird micro transactions (ten dollars for a record book? Wow) and I fully understand why the community is so upset.
Hmmm... I assumed people's characters would carry over into sequels to some extent.Basically Destiny is the MMO game where every 2 years they expect people to start from level 1 and kill rats when not so long age you were super powerful hero fighting dragons. It's a formula that can easly backfire if people realize this when they suddenly announce Destiny 2 and say - have fun starting over
joecanada
Member
I think it was more the way they advertised it like at the beginning when I bought the LE I thought Holy smokes I'm good to go all the way to destiny 2 now! And that the 10 year plan meant 10 years of destiny straight through! Crazy!
Instead it was just a season pass for a couple of extra missions every few months and by TTK I knew I was out. I mean I don't mind but I think the release hype seemed to show a plan which everyone was hyped about.
Now I'll probably pick up destiny 2 in the used bin sometime, who knows
Diablohead
Member
they probably will but not to the point where you can jump into endgame content asap,you'll be stripped of powers or something and have to get them back.
Xplatformer
Member
Saucycarpdog
Member
Agreed.
I remember when the level boosts were announced, people were saying "But World of Warcraft and other MMO's do it so what's the big deal?", implying destiny is an MMO.
But now according to some in this thread Destiny isn't an MMO. Sounds like the player base still can't agree on this even more than a year later.
I started a fresh account on Xbox One last month. As a new player, I certainly don't feel "rewarded". Aside from the useless Level 200 Sword we got for doing Recruit-A-Friend, there was very little tangible benefit to being a new player.
I don't see how long time players are "punished" either. The gear you work for will eventually be outdated, but that's the cycle of most MMOs. Why play if your only goal is to hit a plateau and stay there for years?
I'm hoping this is something they ultimately fix in Destiny 2. First they need to stop messing with the entire class and just resolve the issue with overpower weapons. There's been far too many times an entire class gets hit hard because of a gun or 2 that rules PvP. I assume this is due to the limited resources and the tools they have not allowing the individual weapns to easily be modified.
Second, I saw it mentioned on here before and agree they need to have 2 sets of stats for PvP and PvE. This way when they make "adjustments" they don't destroy a weapon for the other modes. I always thought shotguns were under powered in PvE and they gave them a nice boost that made me fall in love with them, but this caused huge issues in PvP. To correct their mistake, they destroyed them in PvE while only minimizing the issue in PvP.
Kor of Memory
Member
Nothing about what we know of their toolset has implied that weapon balancing is an issue.
The only thing we know for certain that causes problems is map editing/geometry.
While we know the engine fails in this area, we also know that it exceeds in several others, so don't assume that just because Bungie has a hard time developing in one aspect, it doesn't mean everything they touch in the game is the software equivalent of pulling teeth.
Genuflections
Banned
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/destiny-suffers-from-a-content-lull-just-like-every-other-mmo
usgamer said:
Seriously though, I believe there's a middle ground Destiny fits in to. People shouldn't have as many MMO expectations because there's no monthly fee and little to no microtransactions. Simply put, the money isn't there for Bungie to push out lots of content every few months. The closest analog is probably Diablo 3, which is why they literally had the Diablo 3 team come visit to help them out with their end game. It helped, but it's never going to reach typical MMO standards.
And this doesn't even take into account their apparently terrible tool chain for updating the game, which I'm sure greatly interferes with their ability to push out new content cheaply.
Personally I'm happy with where Destiny ended up. I'll gladly pay $40 for a sizeable story chain and a great Raid I'll play a handful of times. I don't even use multiple characters, but I still feel like there's a $40 value there.
DrROBschiz
Member
Do MMOS even get content drops that often either? Has it even been 6 months since the last major update?
Genuflections
Banned
Well I know at least FFXIV has a crazy fast update cycle. They push out a significant amount of new content every 4 months like clockwork. They're probably the best in the business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV:_A_Realm_Reborn#Patches_and_expansions
Interficium
Banned
The only ones that do have subscription fees.
Darkstorne
Member
That's a terrible defence. The game is buy-to-play, like many big MMOs these days. It's advertised as an MMO (in everything but name for some reason), players are sold content through micro-transactions like other MMOs for further monetization to support new content, and players have been promised regular content updates that not only aren't coming but aren't even being talked about.
Seems to me Bungie has proven what everyone already knew: Expecting one team to both support one MMO to an acceptable level while also developing a full on sequel at the same time is impossible.
Fingers crossed they've scrapped the plan for Destiny 3 and Destiny 2 will get their full and undivided attention from release until the end of the console generation.
TheWeaponeer
Banned
This gif sums it up for me better than any response out there. BRAVO to you man.
I am one of the ones who came back to the game recently because places are trying to move TTK copies at fire sale prices (see today's groupon deal, Amazon about 10 days ago, price matching elsewhere, etc.). So far, I am having to redo everything just to get viable enough to ACTUALLY DO the TTK content. Luckily, I never did a Warlock character, so that is keeping me going right now. Even with the level 25 boost, you still are woefully under powered for most of the new content and you have to grind all over again.
You cannot say your game has a "10 year plan", then sit on your hands with things. I do not want to hear about the game tech being "hard to work with" when you release an expansion like TTK on four distinct platforms and then try to get people to buy the same content more than once because there are no discounted pricing options for people who owned what you offered already. Finally, end users had to listen for over a year from outlets, online streamers who make money off their viewer base, and "press sneak fucks" per se telling people to hang in there with this game when Bungie was giving off signs of not giving a damn when people had legit concerns. The game needs some serious retooling - and they have had plenty of time to get that done. But instead we got smarky interviews, changes people never asked for in response to changes people wanted, and nebulous community updates.
So when I see apologists coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches to give this game excuses for its lack of effort or to downplay the building effect of "malaise", all that tells me is that foresight from Bungie's "leadership" was never taken into consideration. When you promise a "living world" and base your swiss cheese story around your SINGLE character being the difference to the existence and survival of the entire galaxy, but then do dumb stuff like making people use third party match making tools to even have a shot at end game content, then you deserve all the criticism you get.
And you NEVER, EVER tell people to stop playing your game. When you tell people "it is ok to play something else", you are telling them you have nothing more tangible to offer them at this time. That used to work in the days when games did not have the expected long tails of DLC, expansion/season passes, and micro transactions, but this is the direction companies wanted to take with regards to how they treat their audiences. In the age of "ADHD/FORCED Always Online/Short Attention Span/What Have You Done For Me Lately" mentality, that is one coffin nail after another. Do you see WOW, Street Fighter, COD, or Halo developers tell people "well, there is not much to do until the next DLC pack, so go play another game"? NO, YOU DO NOT. You think Ubisoft will be acting like this in six months when people have played through The Division's content in a similar way? NO, YOU WILL NOT. I figure Ubisoft will bust their backsides to avoid going down this route (or they should if they have any shred of intelligence).
Bungie knows EXACTLY what was in the contract they signed with Activision, You simply cannot have it both ways. Fix your issues in a timely manner or wither away alongside them.
BoBoThunder
Member
Maybe the reason why TTK had all the original content was because the engine that Destiny has is so broken that it couldnt be a standalone expansion. Destiny has never had a standalone expansion in the 2 years it has been out. People have broken the game in the past to access content that was part of the previous DLCs before release.
If they are having issues with the engine, retooling it would be quite the process. That's even if they can with the current toolset. Would any of us beable to take what they have, make seamless changes, and push it out to the public within the next year? It's not like they are not doing anything. They probably are trying to make Destiny work.
Either way, the situation sucks.
It's a fantastic game that treats everything but 5% of the content at a given time as disposable. Without fun new missions to embark upon and the old ones being forced into obsolescence (not to mention fun weapons with unique perks being nerfed to oblivion), I honestly don't have much fun with the game anymore.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
The only fun weapon Bungie delivered with TTK was The Chaperone.
Goddamn is that thing fun.
The big difference is that the main game was vastly improved in TTK, but the endgame was substantially worsened. The opposite was true in Y1.
If the endgame was half as good as it was in Y1, no one would be clamouring for new content anywhere near as much.
Edit: As an example. In Y1, there were more high quality endgame weapons that dropped with fixed stats and were instantly useable, even if they needed levelling to hit their maximum potential.
Now, there are a limited number, all of which are reliant on RNG (light level) as to whether they're useable in a high level setup. If the light level is too low (as it often is) then you're reliant on more RNG to get an equivalent weapon down the line to "infuse" it and raise the light level of the previous weapon. Then, in the infusion process, if the light levels are 10 or more apart, there's another RNG to decide how close to the high light level your infused gun now is.
Convoluted, grindy bullshit.
If the endgame was half as good as it was in Y1, no one would be clamouring for new content anywhere near as much.
Edit: As an example. In Y1, there were more high quality endgame weapons that dropped with fixed stats and were instantly useable, even if they needed levelling to hit their maximum potential.
Now, there are a limited number, all of which are reliant on RNG (light level) as to whether they're useable in a high level setup. If the light level is too low (as it often is) then you're reliant on more RNG to get an equivalent weapon down the line to "infuse" it and raise the light level of the previous weapon. Then, in the infusion process, if the light levels are 10 or more apart, there's another RNG to decide how close to the high light level your infused gun now is.
Convoluted, grindy bullshit.