markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Apr 16, 2015 10:46:13 GMT -5
Not-so-hard-core-fans may think twice before investing into a "season pass" without knowing what they are getting into. Not true. Medium destiny fans will buy a season pass, without even knowing what is available in the season pass. Just because they see that they get things for free, but for 20 extra, plus some shaders and gear... they'll eat that $hit up.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Apr 17, 2015 11:47:02 GMT -5
(First of all a disclaimer: as always, I am a big fan of Bungie. Any concerns I raised on this board is from a "concerned fan" point of view, not trying to bash them.)
Just to be clear, I am not saying anything like the new mode is less fun than a raid. Until we see how it works, any comments on the "fun" scale is purely speculative.
In fact, I have high hopes on this new game mode. I expect it to be more fun than CE, at least at the deeper end of the experience, say final wave of the horde (if it is indeed a horde mode) vs. Crota fight.
That said, my main point is on the amount of development effort to make the content. Here is my main concerns on the raid front:
1) VoG is a great raid, which they have the entire development cycle up to the game launch to develop; 2) CE is pretty crappy as a raid, IMHO. Sure, it is a great challenge to double through or solo through, but for 6 person co-op experience it is pretty lazily designed (again, IMHO); 3) they have 5 months of time between TDB and HoW, and they could not make a decent one in time for the release (or worse: they are not willing to, or they have one but decided not to);
In general, I am a bit worried about Bungie's ability to make high quality raids, at least whether they can do it at a decent speed.
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Post by iw5000 on Apr 17, 2015 13:31:09 GMT -5
Good post Witty.
The 'Raid' was the big ticket feature of this game. That's what EVERYONE told me going into this game. "have patience, the game will take off once you get to doing the RAIDS!!!". I heard that dozens and dozens of times. And all those people were right. That is where this game shines. I've never raided before, and that's what got me hooked on this game.
Witty is 100% correct in what he wrote. It is a bit troubling that Bungie had YEARS to develop this game, and we now are this point. A point where all those years of planning, produced a fantastic VoG Raid, and a somewhat very sloppy - at least for six players - Crota raid (but I love the solo aspects) And ...nothing to show after that. All those years, and Bungie has no raids coming up in the next season pass release. That's bad. That really paints a poor picture of what Bungie is doing over there. This is all they got?
I share witty's views. I hope the horde mode thing is fun. I want it to be fun. Bungie already has my money. It better be, since they are not giving me what was promised. And with that, it's going to have to hit a home run, because I've done plenty of horde mode things in prior games (CoD zombies, Halo, etc...). I didn't buy the season pass for a 'horde mode'. I bought the season pass because I was told, this game will feature 'RAIDS', and that's where this game will shine it's brightest.
And now we have no raids.
I won't apologize like Witty though, and put up disclaimers as to make sure I don't offend those players on here who seriously nutride Bungie's ballsack, continually making excuses for them. I am 'bashing' them there.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Apr 17, 2015 14:40:51 GMT -5
Clearly a well polished raid is very complex and a lot of man-hours, probably a lot more than planned. Especially considering even after all the patches there are tons of bugs and glitches to this day. Clearly, however, a short dev cycle on a raid is not a good idea.
The way I see it not having a raid in HoW would be more good news than bad since it means they aren't rushing out raid development. Okay so it might mean fewer raids... I'm okay with that if it means we get better raids.
Also personally I'm not as married to the raid thing as everybody else seems to be. Sure, raids are cool, and pretty much unique to Destiny. But you know what... I've been chomping at the bit for a horde/firefight mode and it only makes sense to make it end game content. I'm not sure Bungie specifically said each DLC would have a raid, either. I seem to recall them phrasing it more like saying each DLC would have some sort of end game content or something vague. To me that suggests they needn't have necessarily planned for every DLC they ever release to have a raid... in fact I don't see why they would paint themselves into a corner like that.
I think we just expected a raid because we didn't know what else to expect. But the community's expectations, Bungie's plans, and the actual end result are three entirely different things. As long as the new thing is comparable to raids in both fun and rewards I won't much care. I certainly don't expect Bungie to give up on the concept of raids. Hell no. They know that is Destiny's break out feature. But they will have to work pretty hard on them to keep the quality high.
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Post by iw5000 on Apr 17, 2015 15:05:05 GMT -5
But is it wrong to expect a Raid?
I honestly don't remember. Wasn't that how this game was sold?
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Apr 17, 2015 15:10:30 GMT -5
I wouldn't say wrong, but potentially misguided. Did we really expect a new raid with every single DLC for Destiny... ever? Perhaps our expectations were a little unrealistic. (I do say OUR as I was expecting a raid as well.)
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Post by iw5000 on Apr 17, 2015 15:16:45 GMT -5
I guess I don't remember.
Maybe they don't have the programming/gaming skills to pull it off? Like they had an idea for one raid (VoG), but then struggled with the second one (Crota) pre-release, and even up to when it came out, they never got a handle on it...which is why it was underwhelming and kind of buggy/cheesy. I mean, the fact that people are soloing it left and right, and like one person doing it in 12 minutes, is kind of a testament to poor design skills. And that was something that had been planning for years. Crota wasn't just made last winter. It had been in the works for a year or more.
And maybe after Crota failed, they had nothing left to fall back on. I find that a bit hard to believe, but maybe that is reality. They don't know how to do another one.
I don't know the programming side, but it can't be that hard.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Apr 17, 2015 15:37:45 GMT -5
I think making a raid is a deceptively complex task, especially since they have to build art, core mechanics, and the design. It's almost like building an entirely new game within the framework of another game because there are so many aspects of raids that are unique and not borrowed or replicated outside the raids. Entire sets of mechanics are built for raids and never used anywhere else in the game. Whole new sets and art pieces, visual effects, ect... On top of that you have complex scripted events and encounters linked to a multitude of modified or unique mobs. And on top of all that you have an ever evolving core game that you don't have much control over, (as the raid design team) that will impact your raid.
It's not a matter of being a good or shitty coder. Contrary to popular myth most bugs, glitchers, and flat out bad designs are not the result of stupidity or laziness, they are just the result of an extremely complex process.
I see no reason why Bungie can't make more raids or any reason to believe the well is dry. But I do think the development process is going to be longer than we probably thought. Maybe longer than Bungie thought as well. I'm also fairly certain Bungie does have more raids and end game content in various stages of planning and development. But who knows when we'll see them...
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Apr 17, 2015 15:48:38 GMT -5
I think it's misguided and they got it backwards
Without knowing anything about the raid... when I think of a "horde mode" I think of the Abyss section of CE... I think a Horde mode is tailor made for the Hive. Imagine defending Rasputin from 10 minutes of non stop thrall/knight/ogre/omnigul waves. >that< to me, is a horde mode. Taking out Crota... sure. But waves of waves of waves of enemies? That's just screaming thrall to me
When I think of the Fallen, I think it's tailor made for a raid... infiltrating a ship, fighting all the way to the comand room (basically, the level on venus, when you have to take out the Fallen Kell on their ship) You do a bunch of missions culminating to a final battle where you take out the renegade fallen leader. I dunno... that's just begging for a raid
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Post by iw5000 on Apr 17, 2015 16:03:56 GMT -5
But Horde mode stuff is nothing new. That's been done. It's been done in past games like Halo, and even CoD games (like MW3 and Treyarch Zombie stuff). Horde mode can be played anywhere, and on those other games.
So I find nothing special about Bungie doing that. Maybe if (or when) they add armor & weapons to the results, it will make it rewarding to do (because that's why we play destiny)....but the process will be, imho, shallower. There's just nothing unique about that type of play.
Maybe they will surprise us.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Apr 17, 2015 16:29:01 GMT -5
This is bull.
We can fight waves of enemies anytime we want. Just load up a strike. Horde modes take barely any work design side and are typically free DLC or already built into games.
Learning a raid is one of the most fun gaming experiences, period. Maybe, maybe they might surprise us with Arena being something more than just mass baddies that we've already fought before...but I'm not getting any hopes up.
Edit: on second thought...something somewhere made me think that they are re-leveling the current raids. I remember seeing an image of a fatebringer with a higher damage level.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Apr 17, 2015 18:09:10 GMT -5
Horde mode has been done lots of places, but not really properly done in Destiny. Done well it should offer a lot more replay-ability and have not only escalating waves but a good bit of variety. And I'm assuming it would have bosses, not merely waves of smaller enemies. Although, we are honestly only assuming it's some kind of horde thing. To be honest we don't really know what exactly it is. Bungie might throw us a curve yet.
Learning a raid is fun. But it's also extremely static. Once you get it down it's a lot of repetition, hence people start cheesing and skipping checkpoints just to get all the rewards on all their characters. Eventually people get all the rewards, get bored, and move on. Granted, I think there's still a lot of life to be had in them, especially VoG. But it is still a very static bit of content that. The only thing dynamic is the 6 players you bring into them. Maybe this new thing could be a bit more dynamic... who knows. I'm hoping for at least some awesome battles. The fights in the strikes can be very cool and satisfying, but at the highest levels the weeklies and the NF... it tends to get a bit grindy and bullety spongy. Maybe this arena thing can tackle difficulty in a way that works better than making the activity impossible to play as "intended" unless you already have all the best gear in the game.
I think that's my biggest gripe with NF. Here I am level 31 with lots of great gear and NF's aren't fun... they are work. Beating them is fun, because it's a challenge, and there are rewards. But playing them is a slog. I think the only time I've really thought a NF was fun was a triple burn. Okay that was fun, at least when I was using my special and heavy weapons. Primaries were still a bit of a slog since I don't have any elemental ones. Weeklies with a friend are about 50/50 for me, solo/pub they're still a grind, but have some moments. With the right burn weeklies perk up and are more fun, without it, mostly rush/grind/repeat.
But then these are generic activities with some modifiers dumped on them and the enemies levels scaled up. They aren't carefully crafted for end game content, just kinda stuck there. And NF difficulty vs reward is very out of whack. The people most suited for it's rewards are ill suited for the difficulty and those most suited for the difficulty with all the right gear to make NF's actually fun to play, laugh in the face of the rewards.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Apr 17, 2015 22:42:21 GMT -5
We are having a pretty interesting discussion here, especially when we are in this content drought where there is very little else to talk about, so let's continue beating this horse for a while At this point I want to see an experienced MMO player to comment on raids. For the other popular MMO games, how are the raid development like? More specifically: 1) How often can the devs release raids? 2) How versatile can these raids be in terms of a) design uniqueness, b) puzzle solving challenges, c) the level of cooperation and coordination needed among participating players, etc. 3) Are there a danger of running out of good ideas for raids etc. On a separate note: one good point Dumien brought up is that Bungie should plan to maximize the playability out of the existing raids especially a great one like VoG. People stopped playing it once CE was out because there was very little to play for, despite that it having very good replaybiity. By "releveling" them and/or making legendary rewards worthwhile again (e.g.: start rewarding weapons with upgraded damage, and armors with higher light level), they should be able to squeeze more life out these content. Another idea I mentioned in the past is to reuse the components of the raids into a "Strike" or a "mini-raid", so < 6 players can enjoy them. Possibilities include: a) VoG Templar fight: one player using the relic to take down Templar's shield while his teammates taking down his health; b) VoG Atheon fight: 2 teams cooperating each other with 1 get through the gate to attack things, while the other keeping the gate open by fending off waves of enemies; c) CE bridge crossing (without the cheese): players need to cross the bridge 1 at a time while teammates are fighting on the either end to keep the bridge open; d) CE Crota fight: teammates taking down Crota's shield so the sword runner can go in for the kill; I would enjoy any of the above more than killing spongy bosses in strikes any time (don't get me started on Valus pre-nerf without any burn modifiers...) etc.
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malgato
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Post by malgato on Apr 18, 2015 10:50:58 GMT -5
I probably need more details to make a fair judgment, but based on what has been revealed so far, I would request a refund for the season pass if that was possible. I am greatly underwhelmed. No 6-person mode sucks. This sounds lame.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Apr 18, 2015 13:38:21 GMT -5
Of course what Destiny calls a raid would just be a plain 1 party dungeon in an MMORPG. In fact the term really applies to the player activity of coordinating multiple parties/groups/fireteams to beat a dungeon or boss rather than to the dungeon or boss themselves. Although dungeons designed for it started to be called raid dungeons and I guess maybe people just call them raids now for short. ;3
Anyway as for modern MMORPG's I dunno. Back when I was playing them in all the games where I did that sort of content only came out every few years, not months.
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Post by iw5000 on Apr 18, 2015 16:21:31 GMT -5
I feel like Bungie got burned a bit with Crota. They had great intentions, and then were caught flat footed by how quickly the community just beat that raid like a red-headed stepchild. Seriously, the Destiny community sh1t on it, people finding cheeses and glitches by the dozens, as well as all the solo stuff, pretty much making the raid 2nd rate. Don't get me wrong, i did enjoy it. I also enjoy the solo stuff, that's really fun. But from what i have been told about a 'Raid'..... all the hype.... people should not be soloing it in 13 minutes.
Just my opinion here, but it seems like Bungie did not expect the above. And maybe due to how things played it, it made them decide to shelve the Raid they were planning to drop. They put it back on the shelf, fearing what the community would do to it. So instead of getting a Raid, we get a much MUCH more easier to code 'horde mode', that they could keep a handle on better. We ended up getting plan C.
is that to far fetched?
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bradman
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Post by bradman on Apr 18, 2015 17:41:48 GMT -5
A very plausible scenario.They probably learned alot from both Raids, and are going to really dig deep to put one out to top them. Both from a story aspect and a technical one, I'm sure it's a challenge. They probably have fewer people working on content for the current game as well.
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