Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

[Deleted member 11852]

Without player made factions none of that has any real appeal.

I don't follow. You don't care about "a great amorphous blob of players" fighting on your side, but you're supposed to care fighting against a great amorphous blob of enemy players?

But, from what little information we have, the enemy races aren't playable. Bungie have announced three playable races (Human, Exo, Awoken), three 'Guardian' classes (Hunter, Warlock, Titan) and five human factions. It's looking very much like a player 'us' against A.I. 'them' war game. This eliminates issues of balance of one side vs another, but keeps the competitive elements of races and classes. It also means that apathy on one side never results in a stalemate, or a walkover. The efforts of one side are controlled. Scriptable.

Capturing resources and land to improve my guild? Great. Capturing resources and land to improve a great amorphous blob of players I don't know and don't identify with to the slightest? Not so much. Realm pride was always a stupid illusion.

I guess you're not in a good guild. The aim would be to incentivise every player to do their best to make their lives better. Consider the loss of a resource node meaning fuel suddenly costs more (obviously I'm making up game economics here, but you take my point), or ammunition is in more/less restricted supply. Or perhaps a better metric is each persons measurable contribution to each win/loss personally effects their rep with vendors - like MMOs have now. Nobody wants to be grouped that with dick who spends every other battle AFK

But if you really don't care about the game, your side, your race, your class, your faction, beyond what's in it for you personally, then again, maybe games based around such ideals aren't for you.

 

[MfA]

I guess you're not in a good guild. The aim would be to incentivise every player to do their best to make their lives better.

The problem is how people perceive "better" ... most people perceive better as in being better than others. That's why if the gains from success are given to too large a group the player doesn't really care ... it has to be for him or for a small'ish group he joined. Not for some huge group any tom dick or harry can join.

I think the whole land occupation thing won't really matter, it will all be about the raiding ... everything else is just distraction for the casuals and the raiders will scream bloody murder if it affects raiding balance.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The problem is how people perceive "better" ... most people perceive better as in being better than others. That's why if the gains from success are given to too large a group the player doesn't really care ... it has to be for him or for a small'ish group he joined. Not for some huge group any tom dick or harry can join.

I get this, I totally do. I've been in plenty of WoW pickups where you know one or even two folks aren't pulling their weight and it sucks that they get as much reward as everybody else. But in a more precise world, like a shooter, where nuances of individual's input can be better measured, I'd really, truly, like to see group outcomes reflect actual effort on an individual basis.

I think the whole land occupation thing won't really matter, it will all be about the raiding ... everything else is just distraction for the casuals and the raiders will scream bloody murder if it affects raiding balance.

The land grab thing is a mechanic I speculated upon. The thing about WoW is, that unless you're on a PVP server (or in a PVP zone), there is no concept of Horde vs Alliance. The game has these grand stories of the two factions which don't materialise in the real world. If Bungie are serious, they need to introduce game mechanics and balance, that make people think differently. That make folks want to do their best, rewarding those that do, while penalising - or at least arbitrarily slowing - those that don't.

 

[Dresden]

Eh, there's been nothing said about Destiny being exclusive to consoles. I'd be hugely surprised if it wasn't also releasing on PC considering Activision's past software release policies combined with how much easier it is to port PC to console or console to PC with the next generation compared to PS3/X360.

Oh, I finally remembered one Activision title which didn't get a PC release. COD 2. Man, that one pissed me off. But pretty much everything since then has seen release on PC.

Regards,
SB

Another key element of my "theory", which is a pretty widespread one, is the ten year deal between Activision and Bungie:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/04/bungie-activision/

If the notes for Destiny are correct, explaining the coming expansions (codenamed Comet) timeline, that deal fits pretty well into that agenda. Blizzcon is coming in November. Hopefully, Blizzard will break their silence on their much anticipated, and much speculated, upcoming title Titan. Honestly, I'd be sold even more if the two were the same, (I will literally throw my money at my monitor.) I've invested a huge amount of time into WoW and fully trust Blizzard at the helm of such a title.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The land grab thing is a mechanic I speculated upon. The thing about WoW is, that unless you're on a PVP server (or in a PVP zone), there is no concept of Horde vs Alliance. The game has these grand stories of the two factions which don't materialise in the real world. If Bungie are serious, they need to introduce game mechanics and balance, that make people think differently. That make folks want to do their best, rewarding those that do, while penalising - or at least arbitrarily slowing - those that don't.

I still prefer the way Guild Wars 2 handles "world" PvP. In the it's Server versus Server versus Server in a special world instance where you can do PvP things but there's also some PvE things that can benefit your server's war effort against the other servers. Servers are ranked and matched against other similar servers. So you don't have to worry about inbalanced faction populations on a server by server basis. Although they've recently changed things up a bit so the same servers aren't always fighting each other which has made for some unfortunate instances of a lower ranked server being matched to one or two servers 5 ranks higher and getting totally dominated.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I still prefer the way Guild Wars 2 handles "world" PvP. In the it's Server versus Server versus Server in a special world instance where you can do PvP things but there's also some PvE things that can benefit your server's war effort against the other servers. Servers are ranked and matched against other similar servers. So you don't have to worry about inbalanced faction populations on a server by server basis.

I've not played Guild Wars 2 but this sounds like a great mechanic. It lets the natural competitive streak of your average gamer do most of the work. I think getting people interested and invested in the world is the biggest trick. A great story, for those who care, helps but I take MfA's point about players not caring about benefiting "a great amorphous blob of players", particularly when you're new and don't anybody well enough to care.

But there are tricks Bungie can employ to artificially achieve the same result, even if a portion of individual players just don't care about anybody apart from themselves and their immediate friends:

• You link personal effort and achievement to both personal and wider, advancement.
• You have wider goals, and benefits, only available when you co-operate with others. I recall when WoW introduced Guild experience and advancement. Suddenly everybody was trying harder because they wanted their name at the top of the experience contributors in their guild, and guilds wanted to be top of the guild progression charts. The basic competitive nature takes over.

Although personal motivations probably didn't change, the net affect was the same: players in guilds tried harder because by progressing yourself as much as possible meant you progress your guild too. Guild progression resulted in benefits for individual players, like better rates with vendors, cheaper/free equipment and other useful abilities not available to folks in less-progressed guilds.

 

[Rodéric]

I have no issue with players less good (or better ) than me sharing the reward, there's no I in team after all...
I almost exclusively play cooperative games now, and the people I play with vary greatly in experience and therefore skill, I'd be quite annoyed if that handicaped the team twice (once because of the difference while playing and second because they'd also gain bonus/loot slower, forcing a slower pace on everyone)

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I have no issue with players less good (or better ) than me sharing the reward, there's no I in team after all...

Agreed.

I almost exclusively play cooperative games now, and the people I play with vary greatly in experience and therefore skill, I'd be quite annoyed if that handicaped the team twice (once because of the difference while playing and second because they'd also gain bonus/loot slower, forcing a slower pace on everyone)

I have no problem with folks of less experience learning, indeed I think there are few things more rewarding them teaching somebody something new that they didn't know to improve themselves, be it traditional education-wise or just games for fun, but some folks are just plain lazy.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

What Destiny lacks is Master Chief, IMHO.

It also doesn't look like Mass Effect at all; the nextgen incarnation of which is going to be even more different from this.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

What Destiny lacks is Master Chief, IMHO.

If you offer up the choice of an über class, a huge amount of the player base will opt for it and break the otherwise natural gameplay balances requiring class X, Y and Z. Blizzard tried this in WoW when they introduced the hero class, Death Knight. They've never introduced another hero class.

IMO SOE got this right with the original Star Wars Galaxies, for all it's flaws - and it had many - to become a badass Jedi/Sith you had to put in a crap load of work first. A Spartan class, that is a tank that outputs huge amounts of damage and self-heals, isn't balanced in an MMO. Just like WoW's Death Knight: nerfed forever since its introduction.

 

[Rodéric]

What Destiny lacks is Master Chief, IMHO.

It also doesn't look like Mass Effect at all; the nextgen incarnation of which is going to be even more different from this.

Do you mean a recognizable, charismatic character ?

 

[SedentaryJourney]

What Destiny lacks is Master Chief, IMHO.

I agree. Obviously an MMO isn't going to have a hero or main character, but the character classes look pretty nondescript.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Do you mean a recognizable, charismatic character ?

Charismatic?

 

[orangpelupa]

maybe distinguishable?
titanfalls character shilouette looks same-ey

 

[MfA]

NPCs from MMO/coop games rarely get the same recognition as protagonists in hit single player game series ... certainly not before the game is even launched.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Finally some Destiny info emerges:

 

[AzBat]

Hmm. I'm not sure what to think of it. Lack of a central character like Master Chief makes me feel it doesn't have an identity. It almost feels like World of Warcraft set in an alien future. I know a lot of people will like that, but I'm a single-player kind of guy & I like to have a hero figure.

Tommy McClain

 

[Billy Idol]

Hmm. I'm not sure what to think of it. Lack of a central character like Master Chief makes me feel it doesn't have an identity. It almost feels like World of Warcraft set in an alien future. I know a lot of people will like that, but I'm a single-player kind of guy & I like to have a hero figure.

Tommy McClain

I really dig the style of the Universe and the characters. It seems so deep to me. I am excited. You are right that there is no main character, but I guess that this is to be expected for an online game.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

You author your main character of the game ! Thts the whole point ! Make him look and play the way you want it.

They provide the story and the universe, you bring in your character. The universe seems beautiful and diverse. If the loot, especially gear, is varied and cool, this could be the most addictive shooter ever. Borderlands just gave guns and it got boring pretty soon , but with all kindof stuff to find, including gear, specail items and guns..........and planets .......this could be it !

 

[Rangers]

It looks really hot to me. Definitely top tier.