[Megathread] Destiny

[Beazy]

Simply put, since I assume you played World of Warcraft.

Imagine after Vanilla WoW had updates to improve the gameplay and rewards. Then Burning Crusade came out, and they took away all those improvements, and went back to day 1 vanilla WoW. During the life cycle of Burning Crusade, they implemented paid updates to slowly return those Vanilla improvements to you piece by piece until the Wrath of the Lich King.

Actually, that is the WoW business model currently, since WoD.

[Kathandira]

Actually, that is the WoW business model currently, since WoD.

Gross! Though, makes a ton of sense. I stopped after Cataclysm, so I didn't know that is the direction they went. But that makes sense since Activision has a hand in both Blizzard and Bungie.

[Coldkil]

Simply put, since I assume you played World of Warcraft.

Imagine after Vanilla WoW had updates to improve the gameplay and rewards. Then Burning Crusade came out, and they took away all those improvements, and went back to day 1 vanilla WoW. During the life cycle of Burning Crusade, they implemented paid updates to slowly return those Vanilla improvements to you piece by piece until the Wrath of the Lich King.

Yeah, that's the example i had in mind - only thing i'd change is that there wasn't a BC or WotLK but a WoW2.

[Kathandira]

Yeah, that's the example i had in mind - only thing i'd change is that there wasn't a BC or WotLK but a WoW2.

True, since there hasn't been a WoW2, this is the closest comparison I think we can all relate to.

[Coldkil]

Gross! Though, makes a ton of sense. I stopped after Cataclysm, so I didn't know that is the direction they went. But that makes sense since Activision has a hand in both Blizzard and Bungie.

That's actually not true. Honestly, while i can agree on a lot of things one thing i won't ever get is the "Activision owns all and is the evil guy thing". Yes, they're bad. Yes they have bad practices and honestly it's been a long time from the last actually good Activision game.

However Activision has limited power on Blizzard, and the issue will always be about "devs VS publishers". Publishers want money, devs may actually care for the product but are forced by the upper hand.

Blizzard publishing part hovers onto Blizzard devs. As Activision hovers onto his smaller studios. Let's not take away responsibility from where it lies.

Specifically about WoW, imho Blizzard made a lot of bad choices coupled woth good ones. but the issue here is the playerbase that's nowhere near the one of 10 years ago. WoW is not a game anymore, it's a social phenomenon. They got to appeal the new playerbase and it's thanks to WoW that Blizzard made the huge jump. Revenue from WoW is\was one of the fundations for everything that came after.

Think about it. There's a reason why they started pushing out multiple different IPs - they know better than us that WoW won't last forever - from a company pov you need revenue to be steady and it cannot be dependant on a single income. WoW changes just come out from players and not the onesthat write from forums, but the ones that play the game.

And i'm not saying our complaints aren't valid. I'm just saying they have raw data about what people do in game, like Facebook, Google and whatever else does. The majority of forums can complain about X feature, but if people oline spend 38% of their total time onto feature X, that feature is going to have improvements and expansions. If feature Y is acclaimed but people play the 0.1% on it, it will be likely ditched or left as-is.

It sucks. But it's on us and while sounding like a broken record, if a game is bad people shouldn't buy it. Instead most people just buy everything that's new then complain but who cares, companies got their money anyway. And will develop a new game you can buy again because most people buy stuff from impulse.

[Kathandira]

That's actually not true. Honestly, while i can agree on a lot of things one thing i won't ever get is the "Activision owns all and is the evil guy thing". Yes, they're bad. Yes they have bad practices and honestly it's been a long time from the last actually good Activision game.

However Activision has limited power on Blizzard, and the issue will always be about "devs VS publishers". Publishers want money, devs may actually care for the product but are forced by the upper hand.

Blizzard publishing part hovers onto Blizzard devs. As Activision hovers onto his smaller studios. Let's not take away responsibility from where it lies.

Specifically about WoW, imho Blizzard made a lot of bad choices coupled woth good ones. but the issue here is the playerbase that's nowhere near the one of 10 years ago. WoW is not a game anymore, it's a social phenomenon. They got to appeal the new playerbase and it's thanks to WoW that Blizzard made the huge jump. Revenue from WoW is\was one of the fundations for everything that came after.

Think about it. There's a reason why they started pushing out multiple different IPs - they know better than us that WoW won't last forever - from a company pov you need revenue to be steady and it cannot be dependant on a single income. WoW changes just come out from players and not the onesthat write from forums, but the ones that play the game.

And i'm not saying our complaints aren't valid. I'm just saying they have raw data about what people do in game, like Facebook, Google and whatever else does. The majority of forums can complain about X feature, but if people oline spend 38% of their total time onto feature X, that feature is going to have improvements and expansions. If feature Y is acclaimed but people play the 0.1% on it, it will be likely ditched or left as-is.

It sucks. But it's on us and while sounding like a broken record, if a game is bad people shouldn't buy it. Instead most people just buy everything that's new then complain but who cares, companies got their money anyway. And will develop a new game you can buy again because most people buy stuff from impulse.

I think market data, unrelated to the specific game they are looking to make changes to, also has a hand in things, as well as in game statistics. But you make a good point there.

[Coldkil]

I think market data, unrelated to the specific game they are looking to make changes to, also has a hand in things, as well as in game statistics. But you make a good point there.

Yeah, there's a lot of non-directly gameplay related data that company have and don't want to share (obviously, why would they point to others "hey! this is what our players like and dislike") that is used for future projects.

I can see the trend on Destiny 2 - they had good basis with first game, but obviously some people want to deliver the good things slower so you get to keep people hooked (not a long time, just enough to keep the interest) and monetize over them. Why putting all the efforts/resources on frontload to get the whole product out and get X when you can deliver the same things over time putting the same amount of effort/resources out at a slower rate and get X+Y+Z via other means (dlc, microtx, lootboxes, etc)?

I'm 99% sure that D2 will turn out to be a pretty good game in a yeah and a half or so. And by pretty good i mean enjoyable enough to justify buying it - and that's the trick that they want to happen in your head, you'll end thinking "well, at the end i got enough out of my money".
While this is not bad per se since videogames are a form of "continuos" entertainment, so we get some form of "assurance" that the game is supported for some time, we all can get that this trend only makes things worse: we won't be getting a better game at all. We at max will arrive "on par" with the previous chapter, because no innovation is actually searched for.

TL;DR: what's happening in D2 is (unfortunately) normal. We get the same stuff as before just diluted - but we pay more in the end. And the worst part is that the balance between good and bad is just enough to keep players buying the products.

Hell, i bought the game+season pass well knowing this and i complained about not having enough to do. Now i changed my mind a little, but not that much.

offtopic: it's been a long time i had an actual discussion without it ending in "NO U".

[Kathandira]

While this is not bad per se since videogames are a form of "continuos" entertainment, so we get some form of "assurance" that the game is supported for some time, we all can get that this trend only makes things worse: we won't be getting a better game at all. We at max will arrive "on par" with the previous chapter, because no innovation is actually searched for.

This absolutely hits the nail on the head of what annoys me about the current state of game development. It is exactly what I think people are upset about. They expected Destiny 2 to take all those great improvements of 3 years of Destiny 1, port it over to Destiny 2, and then further innovate through updates and DLC's to add even better things. Instead, we got a stripped down version of Destiny 2, and the pieces that made the end of Destiny 1 great, sold back to us piece by piece.

offtopic: it's been a long time i had an actual discussion without it ending in "NO U".

Contrary to some people's beliefs, I am more than capable of having a friendly conversation so long as there are no "Gotcha comments" thrown at me. That invokes my senseless forum rage, lol. Great way to disorient me too! lol.

[Katchii]

That's actually not true. Honestly, while i can agree on a lot of things one thing i won't ever get is the "Activision owns all and is the evil guy thing". Yes, they're bad. Yes they have bad practices and honestly it's been a long time from the last actually good Activision game.

However Activision has limited power on Blizzard, and the issue will always be about "devs VS publishers". Publishers want money, devs may actually care for the product but are forced by the upper hand.

Blizzard publishing part hovers onto Blizzard devs. As Activision hovers onto his smaller studios. Let's not take away responsibility from where it lies.

Specifically about WoW, imho Blizzard made a lot of bad choices coupled woth good ones. but the issue here is the playerbase that's nowhere near the one of 10 years ago. WoW is not a game anymore, it's a social phenomenon. They got to appeal the new playerbase and it's thanks to WoW that Blizzard made the huge jump. Revenue from WoW is\was one of the fundations for everything that came after.

Think about it. There's a reason why they started pushing out multiple different IPs - they know better than us that WoW won't last forever - from a company pov you need revenue to be steady and it cannot be dependant on a single income. WoW changes just come out from players and not the onesthat write from forums, but the ones that play the game.

And i'm not saying our complaints aren't valid. I'm just saying they have raw data about what people do in game, like Facebook, Google and whatever else does. The majority of forums can complain about X feature, but if people oline spend 38% of their total time onto feature X, that feature is going to have improvements and expansions. If feature Y is acclaimed but people play the 0.1% on it, it will be likely ditched or left as-is.

It sucks. But it's on us and while sounding like a broken record, if a game is bad people shouldn't buy it. Instead most people just buy everything that's new then complain but who cares, companies got their money anyway. And will develop a new game you can buy again because most people buy stuff from impulse.

The only caveat to this is that just because players spend a large amount of time in or doing something doesn't mean they like it or think it's good, it's just the most ideal way to get what they want or may be the only thing to do. Blizzard is aware of this, but it makes the metrics much more difficult to interpret or take action on. Businesses have to be able to look at both metrics and the voice of the customer and use both of them to make a good decision. IMO Blizzard and SE both are pretty good at doing this, but game development and implementation are not agile aspects or industries and change happens slowly or at very specific intervals to mitigate negative impact and ensure quality.

[noidentity]

Sad there was no mention of social features.

[Kathandira]

Sad there was no mention of social features.

It's honestly baffling. I get why it doesn't exist on the console versions, but for PC, it is inexcusable.

[Orange Joe]

Nope they ignored 90% of the lore in Destiny 1, Consider Destiny 2 as a reboot to the series.

Think of Destiny as Diablo but with guns and worse loot.

With that said the leveling experience and story in D2 was quite enjoyable IMO.

Been getting into the lore and I don't see how they threw anything from D1 out.

Can you explain?

[dope_danny]

Been getting into the lore and I don't see how they threw anything from D1 out.

Can you explain?

Originally all these enemies we fight were part of one grand force called 'The Darkness', Cabal Scions, Hive Wizards, Vex Conflux' and Fallen Archons were all tapping into this power boost. It used to be the reason some areas had death that mattered were because the darkness took over. Often it was long forgotten indoor places where the darkness was like a physical mist that filled the place and cut you off from the traveller. You would literally get a fade to black with "THE DARKNESS TAKES YOU" as you died.
The idea was it was largely ambiguos. Humanity at large knew about the fallen for the most part but did all info about the vex was forgotten. The Hive were fairy tale monsters from the moon considered sleeping in their necropolis under its crust and the cabal were complete unknowns beyond "walking tanks, destroy planets just for getting in the way". Your character in D1 early on is sent through an area thats assumed just part of russia fallen overrun and find door chained shut from the outside by the fallen. Going in you see a sickly green light from barnacle encrusted lamps and you get that warning that you are in a darkness zone. Then comes screeching and your ghost freaks out as this hive that look far more like rotten corpses to D2s far cleaner crab people that shamble at first but screech and build up speed to attack you. You have woken the hive and will go on to wake the whole lot on the moon. You get to mars -where no guardian has gone and find golden age archives about the vex and run into the cabal for the first time and they are a unified empire that during the taken king send a warning to their emperor.
Now its not clear if these events are even canon anymore. The Hive changed their appearance and the moon has been forgotten. The cabal emperor is apparently hedonism bot whos greatest punishment was sending gauls adopted father to die in a desert when before D2 every cabal soldier is accepting a death sentence when they leave to attack new worlds and chase the traveller.

To say nothing of the changes to the traveller, the speaker, the fallen, the black garden, how ghosts work, retconning the darkness out of the story, forgetting multiple important story strands and so on. It was a shame that the grimoire was retconned because theres some very interesting stuff in there. Now most of it is no longer canon and like most of the issues of D2 the crux of it is 'cutting away parts of D1 and putting nothing in its place to replace it'. Story in particular. D1 was a mess of rewrites. As far as we know D2 isn't so why people were praising a guy in 4 cutscenes who uses phrases like "we are not so different, you and i" as 'better' is a real low standard to expect.

Setting aside the whole "was rise of iron Destiny 2's second expansion and its was brute forced into the ps4/xbone only versions of D1 to give another year to the game to avoid voiding activisions contract?" thing where the events of the expansion dont appear to be canon and characters that were lost for centuries who turned up are now listed as 'lost for centuries' again.

[Orange Joe]

snip

Thank you, been watching My name is Byf on youtube and his timeline and lore video didn't mention any retcon or them trowing out anything from D1.

this is the video if you are curious


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2avSq-82oI

[dope_danny]

Thank you, been watching My name is Byf on youtube and his timeline and lore video didn't mention any retcon or them trowing out anything from D1.

this is the video if you are curious


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2avSq-82oI

Yeah hes kind of infamous as one of a number of "i'm super critical" [ONE FREE TRIP TO BUNGIE HQ LATER] "well, they are only human and if you think about it they are giving us such quality" types that have had to tow a company line out of some fear of being kicked out of the next clique invite and losing ad revenue from views to other personalities.

The funny thing with these types is finding their own comments from when it was a personal channel on a video shitting all over it. Just yesterday i was watching an early destiny video and not byf but another one of his group posted a very long, immature rant about how "destiny is for fags and halo 5 will shit all over it".

Thats the thing with e celebs, their bullshit is always archived.

- - - Updated - - -

Well some people have been digging and pointed out that DLC2 is looking very strongly like its a new patrol area at the Martian North Pole infiltrating the bunkers of the Warmind Charlemagne.
-Destiny 1 mentions on Mars that the subway system you infiltrate that houses some Vex gates and later a reality rip to The Black Garden has "unlisted routes leading all the way to the pole" after ghost scans the area.
-The new promotional material for the D2 expansion pass shows the logo for DLC2 is a warmind door in the snow with phobos in the air behind it, so it must be a return to Mars
-The PS4 exclusive PVP map is on mars and has a enter orbit loading screen for mars and its very unlikely they would make a new mars orbit animation just for a single pvp map locked to one console, unless it has more use in the future.
-On Io Ghost investigates a bunker and glitches out saying "Wait. Something's happening...Gah! Red sand! Mars! Ice caps! Ahhh!"
-The Io Warmind is JYS which folks think means 'Joyeuse' the sword of King Charlemagne. The Warmind of Mars
-The audio files datamined on pc includes voice files for a number of locations that all show up in the final story cutscene including Mars which has a shot looking at the pole, not Meridian Bay.

The Warminds have always been the most interesting stuff outside the Hive/Ahamkara stuff for me so its interesting to think about a return to mars, any D1 veteran remembers all the talk of a cut second patrol zone and raid from mars in D1 we all assumed was Cabal. Maybe it wasn't?

[Coldkil]

The only caveat to this is that just because players spend a large amount of time in or doing something doesn't mean they like it or think it's good, it's just the most ideal way to get what they want or may be the only thing to do. Blizzard is aware of this, but it makes the metrics much more difficult to interpret or take action on. Businesses have to be able to look at both metrics and the voice of the customer and use both of them to make a good decision. IMO Blizzard and SE both are pretty good at doing this, but game development and implementation are not agile aspects or industries and change happens slowly or at very specific intervals to mitigate negative impact and ensure quality.

Agree. Though the fact people like something or not doesn't matter as much when they're still doing the activity - and investors/shareholders look at numbers, not at gameplay quality. The big disconnection between people who look at the product quality and people who invest the money is the biggest issue.

Basically, if you product requires less effort on quality control (thus less resources) and people still play it, then it's free profit. You have no purpose in spending more to achieve the same result (money wise).

People should just stop buying/playing stuff driven by the marketing hype. Destiny 2 for me is middle of the road - currently not worth but still enjoyable and i'll surely be playing it for quite a long time, even if at small sessions.

Honestly, for me the only real thing missing is an ingame system to group for Nighfall and/or Raid. The external websiste system is so unconvenient most of the times i'm not even able to group up because i'm waiting for an answer from people who posted the group.

[Kathandira]

Been getting into the lore and I don't see how they threw anything from D1 out.

Can you explain?

Nothing was "thrown out". Some things were side barred for now, but that is about all.

[Bugg]

Warlock question; casual player (me) trying to focus on Lock after Hunter:
Excepting Blink which I guess is meant for PvP, what kind of Jump should I try to master?
Also: Are the Warlock and Titan jumps the same?...

[Sheevah]

From what time I've had on them. Lock is super floaty pretty much the entire jump while Titan starts floaty and then you plummet to the ground like a boulder.

[grandpab]

Warlock jump requires you to double tap jump quickly if you want to get any kind of height at all. It just kinda carries your momentum.

The titan jump has a little more vertical boost to it and doesn't require you to double tap every jump.