Destiny 2

[djskribbles]

The game was fun, especially the grind leveling up a new character. But they've removed the end game grind that kept us hardcore players coming back. They're catering to the casual crowd.

At least vanilla Destiny had random weapon rolls to grind for. VoG had very good unique weapons. They had a special raid exotic in the Mythoclast. Also raid armor actually gave unique perks to help you in the raid. Raid gear/weapons are pretty meh in D2 for the most part.

I mean I can't blame them... D2 is just a $60 game and not a service. They delivered a lot of content for a $60 game. But even I have little desire to play the game right now.

Our group finally tried the prestige raid, but it was late so we ended it at the bathers. It is quite difficult, orange bar bathers and centurions in particular are like mini bosses. I fear the throne room is going to be very difficult.
The loot is very disappointing. I don't see myself wanting to do prestige mode after we beat it. AFAIK there's no rare exotic that drops in prestige mode.

 

[Billy Idol]

Why is everyone saying that they catered to the casual crowd?

Don't get fooled.

They decreased the complexity of the game to save development time/money:

-Getting rid of a skill tree saves time to test/balance/develop new skills

-Re-using all enemy types/models from D1 saves time/cost

-Offering a handful of basic models for gear and just re-skinning them for event gear/exotics saves cost.

-having grenades, melee, super on long cooldowns decreases their overall impact which makes balancing less time consuming. Same goes for weapons with fixed stats...easier to balance. Exotics not being strong...saves balancing time. This dramatically saves cost.

-the list goes on and on....for me, it is clear that all decisions are money driven, nothing else. Of course they won't admit this reason, but make statements about streamlining the experience, more accessible etc etc...which gamers wrongly and naively interpret as catering to casuals imo.

In our modern world, most decisions are driven by money aspects.

 

[djskribbles]

Why is everyone saying that they catered to the casual crowd?

Don't get fooled.

They decreased the complexity of the game to save development time/money:

-Getting rid of a skill tree saves time to test/balance/develop new skills

They simplified skill trees, but the actual perks are very much the same as in D1. They are just either renamed or grouped with other perks.

-Offering a handful of basic models for gear and just re-skinning them for event gear/exotics saves cost.

-having grenades, melee, super on long cooldowns decreases their overall impact which makes balancing less time consuming. Same goes for weapons with fixed stats...easier to balance. Exotics not being strong...saves balancing time. This dramatically saves cost.

The amount of gear and weapons offered in vanilla Destiny 1 and 2 is pretty similar I think. The only difference being fixed rolls vs random rolls.

Cooldowns are not as different as you think. With the right mod setup or exotic armor piece equipped, you can get abilities and supers back just as fast as D1, if not faster.

-the list goes on and on....for me, it is clear that all decisions are money driven, nothing else. Of course they won't admit this reason, but make statements about streamlining the experience, more accessible etc etc...which gamers wrongly and naively interpret as catering to casuals imo.

In our modern world, most decisions are driven by money aspects.

Agree to disagree.

The shift to pleasing the casual market is pretty apparent to me. They streamlined certain things in the game for no other apparent reason.

IMO, time/money is no excuse as to why they went with simplified skill trees and fixed rolls. Most of the perks are still there, just fixed rather than random.

Hell Bungie even flat-out said this:

The cornerstone of that is a great cinematic story. That’s been a real focus with a great cast of memorable, relatable characters, coupled with some very nice ways to make the game more accessible to a casual player, without losing anything that our core players love.

We’ve made it more accessible to someone who just wants to have a great more casual first-person action experience.

Clearly they spent more time and focused heavily on the campaign, which I appreciate... I enjoyed it. However they appeared to have spent less time and effort on the end-game stuff, and unnecessarily removed stuff that us core fans enjoy to grind for.

With that all said, I'm not too worried. I think Bungie will eventually include things and make changes to please us core fans. I'm just saying that the game in its current state offers very little replayability once you've completed everything.

And again, that's not to say that the game is shallow... it offers a lot of content for $60. It's just not what the core Destiny fans were expecting.

 

[Rangers]

The shift to pleasing the casual market is pretty apparent to me. They streamlined certain things in the game for no other apparent reason.

Yep. They openly stated for months before release they were looking to appeal to casuals with Destiny 2.

Here is just one example i quickly googled up

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/06...ore-accessible-to-casual-players-says-bungie/

I also saw somewhere recently Bungie said they dont want you to feel like you have to play Destiny 2 every week.

I actually do understand and like their new philosophy in some ways. I do find it kind of freeing. While of course in other ways it's lacking.

With D2 apparently both selling less (which could actually be blamed on D1, not the new casual direction of D2 IMO, since disappointed customers wouldn't buy the sequel) and losing players extremely quickly by many counts (although I'm not totally sure those are reliable) I wonder what Bungie does now? Like, do they try to go back to being more RPG-like?

Another endgame thing I completely forgot is gone, alone with grimoire, weapon rolls, ghost shells, etc is...record books! Those were yet another thing to grind on D1 gone now.

And oy, if Skribbles says prestige raid is hard I'm glad I havent tried it lol.

OT to the rest of my post but, I feel like the raid is an increasing problem in Destiny...while it is also arguably the best and most unique part of Destiny..

I'd fix it by just making normal mode raid only and stop all this "extra extra extra hard version later" crap...normal is hard enough for most people.

 

[orangpelupa]

you guys already lamenting for nothing to do and here i am still downloding 7 GB patch

 

[Billy Idol]

I still don't buy the casual argument. As I said, I know that the devs said so quite often and used this as a justification for changes.

But here are they reasons I have a hard time believing this argument.

1.) since when do we believe a single word from a game dev they are business muppets.

2.) This is, I admit, my main argument, whereas the first argument is only about half true and half serious: I wonder if Bungie ever played another RPG, or even action RPG. Bungie and you guys sound like Destiny 1 is the most complex and deep hardcore game ever. And that is imo what makes me scratch my head: D1 is the most casual (action) RPG I have ever played In comparison to Halo? Yes, it has RPG elements. I mean come on guys, two abilities total and a super...rly?, the skill tree alone in D1 is a joke...just compare this to...let's take e.g. Path of Exile and its skilltree to get some perspective about what hardcore is. D1 is already super casual.

So I don't buy the casual argument: D1 being super casual already, now D2 being super super casual?!?

If this is really the reason that Bungie believes in...then Bungie maybe aims for the mobile market with the future Destiny 3...as this is the only super super super casual I can think of right now.

 

[Rangers]

just compare this to...let's take e.g. Path of Exile

Yeah pretty much one of the most complex games in existence...fair comparison LOL

Anyways it's pretty obvious. That's what the whole milestone system is about. Log in, the game is giving you 3-4 things to do, you're done for the week.

Look at the link, Bungie obviously thought this through (my bolding)

Speaking with GamesRadar, Destiny 2’s director Luke Smith explained how the first game didn’t really reach out more to casual gamers. But the sequel will easily make up for lost opportunity. “I think candidly...I don’t think we always knew exactly what we were making,” he explained. “We had high level things that we understood. Like, we want this to be a game you can return to every week. We wanted to be a game that was compatible with real life. And candidly, we failed there. Destiny 1 wasn’t compatible with real life.

"It became a game that became an obligation. I’ve described it before - it’s hard to give someone Destiny as a gift. They open the game [and] there’s a wedding ring instead of a disk. You’re giving them this relationship, this thing that’s going to take work. Compatibility with real life? Gone."

He continued, "With Destiny 2, [we've] built a game that we want to call you and your friends back to it, but does it in a way that is compatible with your real life."

 

[Billy Idol]

So the "casual" in this case refers to "time consumption"?

I see. In this case, yes, more casual. Agreed.

However, time consumption is a weird characterisation of casual gamers...my mum put in way over 1000h (she plays every day an hour, the last couple of...forever?!?) into this Windows card game Solitaer. Is she a hardcore gamer in Bungie eyes? Do they need to change Solitaer to appeal to casuals?

Such a bullshit argument and move by Bungie!

PS: What is a casual gamer?

 

[NRP]

I lost interest in D2 almost immediately. Not really a knock on the game or Bungie, probably just me and where I'm at mentally right now.

Maybe I'm just over gaming? Not sure. But curiously I'm looking forward to the next Borderlands game.

 

[Billy Idol]

Agreed, playing this game somehow made me think more and more about Borderlands...

 

[Rangers]

It's kinda making me want a "real" RPG. However I dont know if that's even what I really want or what could possibly scratch that itch. Maybe something like Skyrim? But I dont know if offline can do it for me anymore.

I lost interest in D2 almost immediately. Not really a knock on the game or Bungie, probably just me and where I'm at mentally right now.

Maybe I'm just over gaming? Not sure. But curiously I'm looking forward to the next Borderlands game.

Yeah I'm getting that way too. Destiny sort of put all the rest of gaming to be boring for me. I dont enjoy SP campaigns too much anymore.

 

[orangpelupa]

hey, just finished downloading the 7GB update. Hopefully tomorrow on tuesday there will be no nw update

i want to play hahaha

 

[Rangers]

Arc Titan is strong in crucible. The pulse grenades and a super that can actually get a few kills=nice.

Nightfall was easy this week, those ones with the locked clock seem to be.

What's the deal with prestige NF? Might try that since I'm searching for stuff to do.

Weren't we talking about higher power levels and do they help? Reddit proves it.

• 
  

  [*]Overall Powerlevel < Recommended Powerlevel = Deal less, take more damage.
  
  
  [*]Overall Powerlevel ≥ Recommended Powerlevel = Deal normal, take normal damage.
  
  
  [*]Overall & Weapon Powerlevel > Recommended Powerlevel = weapons and abilities continue to increase in damage for up to 20 levels past the recommended light level.

I knew it was the case because (nightfall, raid) LFG posts will often say "must be 290+" or whatever. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't a help.

 

[Billy Idol]

In the raid, people tested that there is no difference in dmg when u are 280 or 305.

Pointless system.

RPG done wrong

 

[Entropy]

I kinda like the words Bungie states to the extent that it really mirrors my thoughts on AAA evolution. Following WoW, not only MMOs but also other genres felt like they pushed all the addiction buttons they could, to make their games an alternate life style of their customers.

I’m not a crack addict. I’d much rather drink coffee, and overall there is one hell of a lot more people looking to add something nice to their lives rather than replace it outright.

Thing is though, there is a rather large group in gaming that really has gaming as a/the major component in their lives. And they also spend time on forums, in alphas/betas and so on. I’m not sure it is possible to cater to crack addicts and coffee drinkers at the same time, they don’t blend all that much in real life either, their outlooks are rather different. I’m not sure what conclusion to draw really, other than that as a professional with a family I found, and find, it really hard to find any kind of multiplayer game that can keep me engaged - if you can’t spend oodles of time you just don’t belong. Maybe that just means that I should forget about these kinds of games completely.
So - while their statement may simply mean that they want more time constrained players to hang around and buy loot boxes too, I do feel that there is a core truth being stated. These types of games typically don’t fit people with busy lives. And that’s a missed opportunity.

 

[Rangers]

In the raid, people tested that there is no difference in dmg when u are 280 or 305.

Pointless system.

RPG done wrong

Wrong, they specifically tested that it DOES. Although for whatever weird reason, they found the new prestige raid doesn't scale past 300.

Example from reddit testing: in prestige nightfall 305 power level with 305 Call to Serve (scout rifle) does 716 damage to a red bar harpy.
304 power level with 300 Call to Serve does 691 damage to a red bar harpy in prestige nightfall.

Again the exception is prestige raid, which for whatever reason doesn't seem to scale past 300, but it does scale up to 300.

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FDestinyTheGame%252Fcomments%252F78bxpi%252F

 

[Rangers]

Destiny 2 PC caused a nice spike in Twitch...it's #1 with 161k viewers currently. Beating League 111, Counter Strike 96k, etc. Lets see how long it holds up.

 

[djskribbles]

Destiny 2 PC caused a nice spike in Twitch...it's #1 with 161k viewers currently. Beating League 111, Counter Strike 96k, etc. Lets see how long it holds up.

It's because the big twitch streamers like Lirik are playing it. The top 3 streamers didn't play D1 AFAIK and they alone have 60-70k viewers. If it can keep their attention, I can see D2 maintaining a high viewer count. If not, it will probably drop to the 20-30k range after a few weeks.

According to NPD, D2 is already the best selling game of 2017, and the third best in the past 12 months. That's not including PC either.

 

[Rangers]

According to NPD, D2 is already the best selling game of 2017, and the third best in the past 12 months. That's not including PC either.

A pretty clear picture emerges to me that D2 sold well, but not as well as D1.

Also as someone on reddit pointed out for example, well as soon as COD 2017 releases it will pass Destiny for 2017, etc. Where will it finally end up for the year is a truer marker? Well, I guess NPD will tell us.

What will beat it (in the USA), COD? I'm not sure about Battlefront. Assassins yes/no?

 

[Billy Idol]

Wrong, they specifically tested that it DOES. Although for whatever weird reason, they found the new prestige raid doesn't scale past 300.

Example from reddit testing: in prestige nightfall 305 power level with 305 Call to Serve (scout rifle) does 716 damage to a red bar harpy.
304 power level with 300 Call to Serve does 691 damage to a red bar harpy in prestige nightfall.

Again the exception is prestige raid, which for whatever reason doesn't seem to scale past 300, but it does scale up to 300.

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FDestinyTheGame%252Fcomments%252F78bxpi%252F

Oh, then those other posters just where wrong.

Good, it just didn't made sense to me that powerlevel has no meaning.

Does the same hold for Nightfall? Maybe NF caps at 280?