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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 12:07:35 GMT -5
But these arguments are getting old and stale and debately invalid. There is matchmaking now to get people to run weekly strikes for SC. There is matchmaking for level 28 POE. 4 pieces of vanguard EQ takes you straight to level 32 and putting on a new exotic takes you to level 32.5. Those who still complain about the light level jump either 1) are doing it wrong, 2) don't know what they're doing, or 3) haven't played HoW. Invalid? And arguing? As I said above, I hardly find anything 'arguing' here, either with me or the article. Forbes is a pretty widely read site for gaming. I like to read it. Many others do to. And while you may think it's 'invalid', perception can be reality. You might want to read up on that. If that's the going consensus, people feel that way, then that's what reality will become... regardless of how much you hate to hear it. I personally didn't see the article from any real arguing perspective. As I said above, I found it interesting from a design standpoint, in terms of where a team of designers draw the line, between catering to those who play the game, and the new people it must keep attracting. Destiny is interesting from this standpoint, because it's the first time a game has tried this on a console. Destiny (unlike prior shooters), is going to steadily lose players. I know you personally despise hearing that, but it's reality. So the game has to draw new people in, which is confirmed by Bungie's actions on this new DLC. They are REALLY pushing to entice people in. You are putting way to much stock into online gaming reviews and not really understanding where they fit into things. For example, when you said this... lol, come on.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 12:10:51 GMT -5
RE CoD points. RE CoD pt 2 (to qupie) - At least prior to CoDAW, a person could have everything they needed in a few hours, at least be on the same level playing field as anyone you came across when competing/playing again. I'm talking about unlocking things on the way from level 1 to level 50 (or whatever it was to Prestige). That stuff came fast. The only 'grindish' part of the game was IF you want to keep going to Prestige 10 or so. But that wasn't required. All you got for prestiging was new emblems and more create-a-class slots. I reset my stats in CoD Ghosts during the summer. I got to Prestige 1, and never prestige again. Never had too. Game played fine and i had everything in needed.You can't even compare CoD to Destiny in terms of grinding. Apples and oranges. Sorry, but BO2 to ghost was hellalot longer than a few hours. It took me about a week... (RL, not game time) And THAT was what I called a grind, because I don't like dying because I don't have something. While it might be a pitfall for destiny, I see it as an huge advantage. To add on an old game for once, instead of rebuilding it over and over again. I always wanted an COD with the maps, weapons and killstreaks from ALL the previous ones, figure how awesome that would have been. (WITH proper balancing that is) RL, 'real life' is not an accurate measure of anything. For example. House of Wolves has been over a month. I am not Lv 34 on any of my characters. Should I say this DLC is ridiculously to hard and long to level up?
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 12:15:58 GMT -5
Sorry, but BO2 to ghost was hellalot longer than a few hours. It took me about a week... (RL, not game time) And THAT was what I called a grind, because I don't like dying because I don't have something. While it might be a pitfall for destiny, I see it as an huge advantage. To add on an old game for once, instead of rebuilding it over and over again. I always wanted an COD with the maps, weapons and killstreaks from ALL the previous ones, figure how awesome that would have been. (WITH proper balancing that is) RL, 'real life' is not an accurate measure of anything. For example. House of Wolves has been over a month. I am not Lv 34 on any of my characters. Should I say this DLC is ridiculously to hard and long to level up? 20-25 hours of gameplay was a prestige I believe. the higher the prestige the lower the time, so probably closer to 25 to get to ghost.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 12:30:24 GMT -5
Destiny (unlike prior shooters), is going to steadily lose players. Do you have any evidence for that discrepancy? Not trying to be a fanboy here but from my perspective destiny has WAY more loyal followers after a certain time threshold than any other shooters I have played. Good luck finding a CoD player who put in more than 500 hours in one year. I know plenty in Destiny, and it still hasn't been a year. There have been way more updates, feedback and variety in destiny than any game I have played before. Also that second part is just whichfull thinking, EVERY game steadily loses players. And while you are right that destiny is unique in the fact that it has to pull them back in with every DLC, COD needed to do that too, but in a slightly different way. I think it can actually be a strong pre for destiny, as long as they play it right. I can already see Destiny as the game allot of players will come back to after DLC anyway, sort of a given, and that the other games will be bought and played around that. They are not there yet, and they will need to drop some serious content the upcoming year, but the potential is there. The next year will make Destiny one of the best games of the decade or the game which tried and failed. We will have to wait and see.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 12:43:32 GMT -5
RL, 'real life' is not an accurate measure of anything. For example. House of Wolves has been over a month. I am not Lv 34 on any of my characters. Should I say this DLC is ridiculously to hard and long to level up? 20-25 hours of gameplay was a prestige I believe. the higher the prestige the lower the time, so probably closer to 25 to get to ghost. I really don't remember exact numbers. The thing with Ghosts was, most of the good stuff you needed (ie, gun), some of the better ones were given to people right from the beginning. There almost was no delay time.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 12:56:34 GMT -5
Destiny (unlike prior shooters), is going to steadily lose players. Do you have any evidence for that discrepancy? Not trying to be a fanboy here but from my perspective destiny has WAY more loyal followers after a certain time threshold than any other shooters I have played. Good luck finding a CoD player who put in more than 500 hours in one year. I know plenty in Destiny, and it still hasn't been a year. There have been way more updates, feedback and variety in destiny than any game I have played before. Also that second part is just whichfull thinking, EVERY game steadily loses players. And while you are right that destiny is unique in the fact that it has to pull them back in with every DLC, COD needed to do that too, but in a slightly different way. I think it can actually be a strong pre for destiny, as long as they play it right. I can already see Destiny as the game allot of players will come back to after DLC anyway, sort of a given, and that the other games will be bought and played around that. They are not there yet, and they will need to drop some serious content the upcoming year, but the potential is there. The next year will make Destiny one of the best games of the decade or the game which tried and failed. We will have to wait and see. I don't really think there's any real meaningful way to compare which game has more 'loyal' players, at least in terms of actual numbers. You are going to run into trouble doing it with CoD though, as CoD was very popular in it's peak. Destiny on it's best sales guess day, doesn't even get a whiff of CoD's peak numbers. Even these days with CoD's crappy AW, CoD probably still has a much larger number of people playing. But the above number you brought up (800hrs), was pretty typical for most people who were playing CoD. That's what I saw when doing the clan stuff. It's not untypical. But that said, there's definitely no doubt that Destiny is very good at being a time-suck, in terms of drawing people in. Bungie did really well with that, getting people to play 'x' no of hours a day. As far as every game losing players? Not necessarily. CoD steadily added more players for close to five/six years. And it mostly kept them playing all year. As far as Destiny losing players? I got that info from dozens of articles I have read about Destiny and it's design philosophy. If you want to argue like this is some sort of court room with 'evidence', sorry ... I don't have the time or inclination to do that. Anecdotal evidence? At least with me, I see it. It was MUCH easier to find people playing last winter than it is now. I think you are falling into the same trap others on here are doing. Tunnel vision. You are assuming that because you are doing 'x', everyone else is too. The reality is there is no real way of determining how many people are playing this game right now. Destiny hides the online numbers. Just like SH decided to do with CoDAW this year. That wasn't by accident. They don't want people to know. My guess is Activision forced that upon SH and Bungie.
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wings
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Post by wings on Jun 22, 2015 13:15:35 GMT -5
Good luck finding a CoD player who put in more than 500 hours in one year. I know a few guys from DW247 who have done just that with COD4. I have no idea on the numbers on Destiny overall but player dropout might be significant in Trials of Osiris since it goes like this: 1. Casual players flood Trials 2. Casual players leave to try Skolas 3. Intermediate players sticking with it against the hardcore players who have frequented the Lighthouse every week because they all have telepathy 4. New players get stomped on by the same players because there is barely anyone else to play against (I get repeat opponents quite often now) 5. Bungie takes away the Elimination playlist so new players cannot get practice anyway (I believe it has gone anyway, and standard Skirmish is a bit different) I suspect this is why I've steamrolled opponents with the 9-0 emblem in Iron Banner and standard Crucible because there are only so many players who cheated or got carried that you can account for. I think a better comparison for game time spent with Destiny would be other loot based games like Diablo 3 or Borderlands 2.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 13:30:47 GMT -5
If you put a gun to my head and tell me to give my best guess....
There are considerably fewer players playing right now, compared to the same time period when Crota came out. That's what I see on my friendlist and what I feel. And imho, Crota will turn out to have much longer lifespan/length, than the current ToO/PoE setup. I saw a lot of people continuing to play Crota for quite some time after it's release. HoW? There was a big flurry a month ago, where I saw as many as ten to twelve friends online playing it, but that number has drastically dropped.
I never played Diablo 3 or Borderlands, so can't even offer a thought on those.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 13:48:38 GMT -5
Sure there are players who played more than 500 hours. But I have never seen such a high number of those players. I played CoD ALLOT. Really ALLOT. Way more than is probably healthy. But I never played this much IN A SINGLE YEAR. Don't forget destiny is not even one year old. So you cannot compare it to the whole COD genre. You can compare it to COD1, or COD 4 because that is the first one that got allot of attention and was available on both console and PC. I am not falling into tunnel vision at all, sure I like destiny and all, but I also see its cons. I am very objective about this, and that is why I actually want evidence, I really can't see how you can conclude me having tunnel vision from my posts above. The one thing I am trying to do is show you the world outside of the tunnel. Objectivity and evidence and statistics is why we all are on these boards in the first place. Watch this video for example (start at 2h 35m 38s). This guy asks the right questions IMHO, without having tunnel vision. I can completely see his points, and he is right in allot of parts (apart from trading, which would be horrible imho). He is not positive or negative, he states facts or widely shared opinions. Destiny is a very interesting game, with loads of potential. After watching the video it is also quite clear why there is such a huge hate/love relation to Destiny. All players love the mechanics I think, but some players hate the grinding while others love it. Without the grinding I am done with a game after a few months. In a game like destiny or COD I have something to grind for and play and screw around with friends. That is why I play it. I for one sure hope they keep the grinding and social part of the game. It is what makes destiny destiny. If I want to play a single player game I can play something else. If I want a game without grinding gear I can play something else. Please don't try to make this into another game, let us have this awesome game which fits perfectly with our demands, and just go play something else. I think the next cod might be good, and otherwise the next Titanfall will be around the corner. Talking about Titanfall, that was one of the best games of the past decade if you aks me, and why did ppl leave? because there was nothing to grind for. There was not enough content. Allot of ppl like grinding. It is a way to keep yourself and your friends invested in the same game. Which is loads of fun. Sure you can also keep playing a game purely because you simply like it and want to get better in it. But having some kind of reward if you are not playing like an MLG pro at that moment/ever, can give you sense of achievement. Which humans simply like. Grinding also helps to keep your friends at that game as well. If you get to that next prestige, it might be an incentive for your friends to also keep playing to achieve that. And that is great, because in the end, I like to play with friends. And how much I love a game (like Titanfall) once my friends have moved on I eventually will move on as well. It sucks, but it is how it works. That is another thing which makes grinding so important and succesfull. It keeps a population busy, which is not only good for the company (a point "haters" keep making), but is also very good for the players themselves. As more ppl playing means more friends playing, more budget for support, more budget for DLC and a bigger chance at a comparable sequel. Another thing grinding is exceptionally well for is keep players invested who are not that good, which is great as nobody likes only playing against smart players. In the end, grinding has become a part of the gaming industry. Is it a shame? perhaps, I don't know. But it sure has advantages too. I for one am a collector, and that is why I simply love playing Destiny. I can understand if ppl get frustrated, because they like the mechanics of the game but don't like the grind and social aspect. Because that sucks, the game could have been so much better for you and you see the potential it could have had for players like you. You are close to the game you always wanted, but didn't quite get it. But I am sure there will be a game around sooner or later which you will really like through and through. In the meanwhile, let us grind the shit out of this if we like to
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jun 22, 2015 13:58:26 GMT -5
Interesting discussion we are having here. I'll share my 2 cents (coming from my personal experience and preferences) 1) I started gaming with Halo. First just the campaign from Halo CE co-oping with my wife, then had my first MP experience in Halo 2. From which I found myself a big fan of FPS MP: FPS because I like shooting from first person perspective (despite the fact that I am not very good at it ), MP because I enjoy gaming the most when playing with/against other players. 2) However, Halo MP tends to be a lone wolf activity. It is hard to play with friends because the game is not designed to have people at the different skill level to play well together. CoD series are much better in that aspect, because the game is designed to be "noob friendly" (or to be more accurate: mediocre player friendly). Since teaming up give players a huge advantage, especially in game modes like DOM, it also encourages players to team up together. As a result, for me CoD competitive MP (aka PvP) becomes a more superior option as an co-op experience. That's the place where I really want to be: an FPS MP that offers rich social experience. For the sake of this discussion, let's call this sub genre as "Social FPS MP". 3) As CoD formula started to get stale, the arrival of Destiny changed the landscape of this sub genre. Despite the multitude of issues the game suffers (grindy, lack of content, lackluster PvP experience), I saw significant number of players on my friends moved over to Destiny and stopped playing CoD. The reality is at least for 2014-2015 season, Destiny "disrupted" the online engagement of CoD. Although we don't have any numbers, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the CoD engagement numbers are way down this year. Of course CoDAW's playability also has a lot to do with it. 4) My (and many bros here I believe) main problem with Destiny is that the competitive MP has been nothing more than a means to get loot. You don't get anywhere near the same level of social experience as previous CoD when teamed up. Trials might be a step towards the right direction, but as it stands today I don't see it go very far because of intrinsic limitations: a) 3v3, b) no matchmaking, c) Destiny simply does not have a great infrastructure for PvP - 30FPS, no dedicated servers, etc. 5) Fortunately (at least from my point of view), Halo 5 looks like a great complement to Destiny, because it will offer two different experiences for 2 different needs. For a competitive experience, it has the "Arena" MP, in which players have visible skill ranks (Iron -> Bronze -> Silver -> Gold -> Semi-pro -> Pro) and are matched to others at the similar skill level to ensure a "tight", thrilling experience. For social experience, it has the "Warzone" MP, a 12 v 12 + AI MOBA inspired big team battle on huge maps, with vehicular warfare at the end. On top of all, Halo 5 also promises a great PvP infrastructure: 60 FPS and dedicated servers (Titanfall has proved how great dedicated servers can enhance competitive MP game play experience) As a result, 2015-2016 season is going to be a very interesting one in the FPS MP history. Questions to be answered: 1) Can Black Ops 3 win back the engagement from players who value the "social" experience? 2) Can Destiny retain engagement with new content and PvP improvements? 3) How successful can Halo 5 be by providing 2 completely different experiences tailored for different needs? I am planning to get Destiny-TTK and Halo on day 1 because I have pretty good idea of what kind of experience I am buying into and I am reasonably confident that I will enjoy both very much. On Black Ops3 I probably will end up taking a "wait-and-see" attitude, wait until at least December to decide whether I am in or not. The decision, not surprisingly, will be largely dependent on how many of my friends are going back and whether it can offer a great social experience.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Jun 22, 2015 14:17:09 GMT -5
Really grind and progression are just two different words we use to describe the same mechanic. The only difference is our opinion of how fun it is or isn't... which is very difficult to quantify and quite malleable anyway.
Personally I love the EL addition to the game. I think it might be a bit too far in that you can upgrade non raid level gear to full on end game maxed out power level with the same investment of upgrading CE gear. Maybe it should have taken one resource to upgrade to the notch just before end game and EL for that final tick, but then we're talking about yet another currency...
As is I don't view it as a problem with EL anyway. If there's a problem its the new weapons. Really the only particularly attractive thing about the HoW weapons is they're reforge-able, so everybody can have perfect perks! There are actually a couple of good ones too, though. So it's not that bad a mix, really
Part of me would really like to see new versions of our old weapons, though. For example instead of just TDYK with more attack maybe a quest to rebuild it into an even more powerful version of it-self. I think we will see some interesting things in the future. Removing all those boring attack only bubbles gives them more space to add perks that are actually interesting to the next tier of weapons.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 14:25:07 GMT -5
Nice breakdown Witty! What I don't get is this though. People keep saying player for loot is bad, but then they turned away from crucible because there was not enough loot. 4) My (and many bros here I believe) main problem with Destiny is that the competitive MP has been nothing more than a means to get loot. You don't get anywhere near the same level of social experience as previous CoD when teamed up. Trials might be a step towards the right direction, but as it stands today I don't see it go very far because of intrinsic limitations: a) 3v3, b) no matchmaking, c) Destiny simply does not have a great infrastructure for PvP - 30FPS, no dedicated servers, etc. For me, destiny PvP is way bigger in the potential for a social experience. I always hated it that there were so little crucible players around (this is changing though! There is better loot, players actually want to get better because of ToO, and ppl need those passage coins). It is way more important to play as a team compared to COD, because the TTK is higher, supers and heavy give interesting tactical choices if done right (you are very strong if you are close together because of the high TTK, but supers are there to directly counter that, which is great design). And there are no KSR around which often leads to anti-social greedy behavior. As for trials, it is actually awesome! 3vs3 keeps the comunication easier for non pro's, so I am glad it is not 6v6. 6v6 would demand a very structured way of communicating. Which is not something a random group of friends will probably do. Matchmaking will completely destroy this gametype. There is already a huge difference between good teams and bad teams, and matchmade teams will be even worse. Whether you go to the lighthouse is already pretty dependant of the players you meet, and enabling matchmaking will only make this effect bigger. I want to go there because I did good, not because I was lucky and met the right opponents. Totally agree on the dedicated servers though. The lag is by far the biggest drawback of destiny PvP. The 30 FPS is not really bothering me though, imho it is not a big deal. This will for sure be a very interesting gaming year. I hope the destiny formula of keeping games around for longer than a year works out, because other games like COD could greatly benefit from something like that as well imho.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 14:28:55 GMT -5
Sure there are players who played more than 500 hours. But I have never seen such a high number of those players. I played CoD ALLOT. Really ALLOT. Way more than is probably healthy. But I never played this much IN A SINGLE YEAR. Don't forget destiny is not even one year old. So you cannot compare it to the whole COD genre. You can compare it to COD1, or COD 4 because that is the first one that got allot of attention and was available on both console and PC. You are kind of conflating topics. Topic one would be 'active' playing. CoD had tons and tons of active players who were playing all year long. And at least up until last year, we could actually measure or approximate just how many there were. Like I said, it wasn't that long ago with BO2 that there were as many as 200,000 people online (XB) during evening prime time hours, very deep into the summer. These are very active players. The second part, how active, is another story. You might have a point that the active Destiny player is maybe playing x more hours per day. There might be some truth to that. Destiny is more a time-suck. But in terms of comparing....what difference does it make if the CoD active player is playing 1.5 hours per day, and Destiny active player is playing 2.6? Does it really matter? No. They are both playing each week and deep into the year. I say 'Tunnel Vision' because the people posting on this board are completely...and I do mean COMPLETELY out of the range of what is considered normal with Destiny playing, in terms of the average player. So when I see comments from people on how easy it is do 'x' and 'y', it's typically coming from the perspective of someone who has read hundreds of hours of message board info, as well as gaming time on Destiny, with a full network of friends. That's not the norm. This game is not that easy to jump back into, if you don't have resources and are solo. Furthermore, we have no one of knowing just how many people are playing this game. Bungie hides the numbers. For all we know, there might be as few as 3,500 people logged onto Destiny's servers on the XB1 on a typical evening prime time. If so, that's doesn't bode well for the game. I would call it close to dead. Of course, it might be a lot higher. From my end....if it were higher, Activision would let you know. They like to bark. They only shut up and keep quiet...when it's numbers they don't want out. Again...my own anecdotal evidence tends to show the above lower number. I have like 150 people on my friends list. I'm lucky if I have seen four people online with Destiny the last few times I have signed on. Wings, he posted similar thoughts to me. Maybe that's an Xbox thing? PS does have more people. Anyways, the above ties into the article, which I found interesting. How do developers with a game like Destiny (which keeps progression), keep new and lapsed players in the fold. It's a challenging design problem.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 14:43:44 GMT -5
3) As CoD formula started to get stale, the arrival of Destiny changed the landscape of this sub genre. Despite the multitude of issues the game suffers (grindy, lack of content, lackluster PvP experience), I saw significant number of players on my friends moved over to Destiny and stopped playing CoD. The reality is at least for 2014-2015 season, Destiny "disrupted" the online engagement of CoD. Although we don't have any numbers, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the CoD engagement numbers are way down this year. Of course CoDAW's playability also has a lot to do with it.Here's an interesting question to ask yourself Witty, that you did touch upon in your last sentence. Was it that Destiny really 'stole' people from CoD, or that many people tried the new CoDAW and simply hated the new movement system? There is a huge difference there. If the latter is true, Destiny didn't disrupt anything. SledgeHammer disrupted things. And imho, I believe that is the case. CoDAW's exo movement scheme, coupled with the map sizes and poor design, ...made almost everyone (at least those I know) quit playing AW almost immediately. I personally saw 50, 60 up to 80 people I know just QUIT playing within a few weeks. Gone. Done. CODAW was brutal. And it's hard to play. And it was laggy. Who wants to experience the feel good feeling of going a negative 10-27 result in AW, game after game after game, after sporting a solid 2.0 KD in prior CoD games? No one did. So people said 'Foxtrot it'. You know all those people I am talking about. And Destiny was right there, to pick up the pieces. Destiny? It's easy to play. You don't have 'bad KD games' with PvE. In fact, a typical PvE KD ratio is like 60 to 100, so Destiny is a feel-good game, in terms of feeling good about one's FPS abilities. It's easy to shoot shit, most enemies are dumb and just stand there being killed. To a frustrated CoD player, this felt good* And that's why we play games. * not trying to dismiss Destiny there. It has a ton of great features that kept people playing. Social stuff, raids, etc.. IMHO, If CoD AW had even been respectable and not done the AW disaster.....Destiny would never have picked up many of it's people. I think ToO is a flop. I haven't been able to get on much lately, so ok...shame on me for not being able to group up. But you know what? I would still like to try it. I would like to just jump into a few games, and play some fun, intense, competitive FPS'er gaming. ...like how I do when I played CoD, jumping into some random games. But you know what? I can't do that. I need friends. I have to wait until the weekends. No matchmaking. I need passage coins. When I have been on, only like 4 of my 150 friends have been playing Destiny, and they were busy doing other things like weeklies or whatever. There are restrictions all over. I don't like it. This isn't satisfying any need. This might be great. Perhaps I need to start getting back into Halo. Agree
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Jun 22, 2015 14:51:27 GMT -5
Dunno if this is the right place to put it, because I like the discussion and don't want to derail it...
But Datto has a great video on the new weapons (and armour) coming out (subject to change of course) and what we can expect
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 14:55:41 GMT -5
Sure there are players who played more than 500 hours. But I have never seen such a high number of those players. I played CoD ALLOT. Really ALLOT. Way more than is probably healthy. But I never played this much IN A SINGLE YEAR. Don't forget destiny is not even one year old. So you cannot compare it to the whole COD genre. You can compare it to COD1, or COD 4 because that is the first one that got allot of attention and was available on both console and PC. You are kind of conflating topics. Topic one would be 'active' playing. CoD had tons and tons of active players who were playing all year long. And at least up until last year, we could actually measure or approximate just how many there were. Like I said, it wasn't that long ago with BO2 that there were as many as 200,000 people online (XB) during evening prime time hours, very deep into the summer. These are very active players. The second part, how active, is another story. You might have a point that the active Destiny player is maybe playing x more hours per day. There might be some truth to that. Destiny is more a time-suck. But in terms of comparing....what difference does it make if the CoD active player is playing 1.5 hours per day, and Destiny active player is playing 2.6? Does it really matter? No. They are both playing each week and deep into the year. Sure it does matter. The important thing is that you need a playerbase to play against. I will exagerate these numbers to make my point, so please don't attack on these numbers:
If there are 100.000 players playing destiny 10 hours a week, and there are 1.000.000 players playing COD 1 hour a week, there will actually be an equal number of active players on a given time. And that is what you need for a good online experience, players to play with, talk to, play against, compare yourself to, etc. I say 'Tunnel Vision' because the people posting on this board are completely...and I do mean COMPLETELY out of the range of what is considered normal with Destiny playing, in terms of the average player. So when I see comments from people on how easy it is do 'x' and 'y', it's typically coming from the perspective of someone who has read hundreds of hours of message board info, as well as gaming time on Destiny, with a full network of friends. That's not the norm. This game is not that easy to jump back into, if you don't have resources and are solo. Well it is a social game, which was advertised as a game you will probably need to google some stuff for. Sure I can understand your point that it is not that easy for some players. But do they actually want to be in this game in the first place? is this a game for them? The more you go towards a RPG game design, the more you will go online to look up some stuff. Where to find that apple to get to that girl to like you to make babies with you? I don't know (appart from sales, which is always good obviously) bungie actually wants to draw those ppl in. You have to focus on a sub-population when designing a game, and I really really hope they will not mainstream it too much after all the complaints about grinding. Like Mannon said, grinding for one player is simply leveling for the other, and vice versa. The same could be said for CoD though. The first time I played CoD (4), I had a HARD time. I was used to playing some halo with a friend, but never actually had my own console. I was getting 0.1 kd's. If I would have started with BO2, I would have probably stopped after an hour of 10, because that grind to ghost was absolutely abysmal. Destiny and internet go hand in hand, but the same can be said for COD imho. I started to get good once I found the denkirson page. Because before that I kept switching weapons without even knowing what to look for. I looked at those stupid in game bars and all. Only after reading something online I came to the conclusion that there were multiple decent weapons (and some really bad ones) and that I just had to keep 'grinding' one weapon to get good with it and got used to the recoil. After that I started to get better. I don't know, maybe I am just not a natural, but I tend to go online for some help.
As for what is normal for Destiny, I think you are greatly overestimating the playtime of players on this board. I think you are actually in the upper half of most played members.Furthermore, we have no one of knowing just how many people are playing this game. Bungie hides the numbers. For all we know, there might be as few as 3,500 people logged onto Destiny's servers on the XB1 on a typical evening prime time. If so, that's doesn't bode well for the game. I would call it close to dead. Of course, it might be a lot higher. From my end....if it were higher, Activision would let you know. They like to bark. They only shut up and keep quiet...when it's numbers they don't want out. If there would be 3.500 players this game is probably very close to being dead, but if they are high this game is very close to a success. The fact is, we really don't know. I think there have been some numbers out, but they are not active players. Probably because other numbers they did publish sounded better. But I really think and hope you are greatly underestimating the number of players on destiny. There have been more than 6.000 registered users on the destiny subreddit in the past 15 minutes alone... I know we cannot conclude any hard facts from that, but it certainly says something.Again...my own anecdotal evidence tends to show the above lower number. I have like 150 people on my friends list. I'm lucky if I have seen four people online with Destiny the last few times I have signed on. Wings, he posted similar thoughts to me. Maybe that's an Xbox thing? PS does have more people. My own anecdotal evidence is the opposite. Sure they leave, but they all come back on tuesdays, with new DLC and now also on the weekends when ToO starts. So lets say those anecdotal evidence cancel each other out. I personally really doubt it is an PSN thing, there is not THAT much difference between the two versions of destiny. I have about 30 friends or so, and every day there are at least 10 playing destiny.Anyways, the above ties into the article, which I found interesting. How do developers with a game like Destiny (which keeps progression), keep new and lapsed players in the fold. It's a challenging design problem. It sure is. I for one hope they are succesfull, because 1: destiny is awesome and 2: More games could benefit from a design like this. The interesting this is how it keeps the content though. Progression is not that big a deal as we tried to state above. Once a player finds out he needs light levels to level up, all you need to do is see how you can most efficiently collect the resources you need to buy that (marks). After the last DLC drops the progression to get up to the previous level cap were like 5 hours of game time. If players are not up to that task, they should not be playing this game. And I don't mean that in any negative way to those players, I just hope bungie doesn't talor their game to much to those players. Because the hard core destiny players might not like that
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 14:56:00 GMT -5
proboards and their blue bears...
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 14:58:23 GMT -5
Quick thought on "Grinding"
There needs to be a distinction with this word. Grinding in and by itself won't bother many people if the goals are clearly defined. Take CoD. I know if I play 'x' number of games, perform a certain way, I know I can be level 42 in a few hours, and then have various things unlocked. All ready to use in future games. That is "Grinding", but grinding for attainable goals. I grind...I get what I want.
Destiny? Much of Destiny's version of grinding, is grinding for the sake of an 'opportunity' to get something. There is a huge difference. I would like to get x, y, and z...but I can't get these things outright. I have to grind three nightfalls for example, to have an opportunity to get what I need. Yes, this is how MMO's play. I get it. But over time, this version of grinding can play an entirely different effect on a person, which is what the Forbes article touched upon. Take myself for example. I need EL. I can't get it playing solo (which is how most people play). Can I get it? I could 'grind' through some Nightfalls, but I would only be getting an opportunity or chance at it. Right now? How I feel at this moment? I want to level up guns and gear...but the thought of GRINDING a few nightfalls solo just makes me not want to play. Now, If I knew I could get EL upon completion? I be into it. But I can't. It's just a chance. A chance I mostly see as bullshit, after burned so much. So I just don't bother.
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Jun 22, 2015 15:04:23 GMT -5
To me, and I know this is where we differ, it's just like playing the lottery. You can't win if you don't play... but just because you play doesn't mean you'll win.
All I know is that when I did get my EL, it was very satisfying. And when I get my Jack Teagarden, it will be double that
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 15:12:51 GMT -5
To me, and I know this is where we differ, it's just like playing the lottery. You can't win if you don't play... but just because you play doesn't mean you'll win. All I know is that when I did get my EL, it was very satisfying. And when I get my Jack Teagarden, it will be double that You may want to rethink that example. The lottery is a losing proposition. Anyways. I was speaking more in general, ... that grinding can be viewed in a few different ways. All grinding is not equal.
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Jun 22, 2015 15:14:07 GMT -5
No.
You never lose in the RNG.... you just don't get what you want. But you never walk away empty handed.
EDIT: by "you just don't get what you want" I mean that, it depends on what you are looking to achieve. If you do every single raid, every single weekly, and every single Nightfall with the desire that you only want 1 thing... etheric light... yes, you didn't get what you wanted. But you do get something... a weapon that can be rerolled, armour with better stats, etc etc. If you enter any end game content with "_____ or it's a waste of time" then you are setting yourself up for a disappointment.
DISCLAIMER: I don't mean you, as anyone specific... I mean "you" as "someone" or "one" or "oneself" If I have time, I'll edit this. I'm not singling anyone out
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 15:16:02 GMT -5
I think ToO is a flop. I haven't been able to get on much lately, so ok...shame on me for not being able to group up. But you know what? I would still like to try it. I would like to just jump into a few games, and play some fun, intense, competitive FPS'er gaming. ...like how I do when I played CoD, jumping into some random games. But you know what? I can't do that. I need friends. I have to wait until the weekends. No matchmaking. I need passage coins. When I have been on, only like 4 of my 150 friends have been playing Destiny, and they were busy doing other things like weeklies or whatever. There are restrictions all over. I don't like it. This isn't satisfying any need. ToO is awesome. Simply discrediting it because you need friends to play it? You didn't even try it. At least try to get some first hand experience before you say something like that. You could jump right into a game of COD, yes that is true. But you can also just jump into a game of crucible. ToO is the best thing which happened to destiny since VoG if you ask me. It is a fairly accessible form of competitive play which can be very very exciting. Saying that it sucks because there is no matchmaking is like saying COD clanwars suck because there is no matchmaking (and clanwars were awesome)... Matchmaking would completely destroy this game type. It would not be competitive anymore, it would simply be elimination. Sounds like you simply need to start playing that. It is something COD never really accomplished for me. There was the MLG stuff, but that needed ALLOT of preparation. All you need here are three friends and you can jump right in. Already having a rewards system in game also greatly helps. Because there was often simply no incentive to play competitive play in COD, because there was nothing to gain from it. There also was the clanwar stuff, but that was more about getting as many players online asap than actually going up against other teams. Really, if you even want to remotely give Destiny another chance, try to team up with some players and play Trials. It is really really fun and challenging. It is a great combination between gunskill, map controll, flanking tactics, communication, gear matching and using supers at the exact right time.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 15:17:58 GMT -5
No. You never lose in the RNG.... you just don't get what you want. But you never walk away empty handed. You are right on a purely technical level, but on a psychological level, ...you most certainly do walk away at times feeling empty handed. "Feeling" being the operative word. Watch a first timer player finish Crota run and get a shader. You want to tell me that person felt like he won something? Hell no lol. Same for a lot of things. I'm not feeling great after a NF, if I got a few Ascendent Shards a prize. Nope. Not saying, "hey, at least I'm not empty handed, I have shards!!" Nope.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jun 22, 2015 15:18:56 GMT -5
Quick thought on "Grinding" There needs to be a distinction with this word. Grinding in and by itself won't bother many people if the goals are clearly defined. Take CoD. I know if I play 'x' number of games, perform a certain way, I know I can be level 42 in a few hours, and then have various things unlocked. All ready to use in future games. That is "Grinding", but grinding for attainable goals. I grind...I get what I want. Destiny? Much of Destiny's version of grinding, is grinding for the sake of an 'opportunity' to get something. There is a huge difference. I would like to get x, y, and z...but I can't get these things outright. I have to grind three nightfalls for example, to have an opportunity to get what I need. Yes, this is how MMO's play. I get it. But over time, this version of grinding can play an entirely different effect on a person, which is what the Forbes article touched upon. Take myself for example. I need EL. I can't get it playing solo (which is how most people play). Can I get it? I could 'grind' through some Nightfalls, but I would only be getting an opportunity or chance at it. Right now? How I feel at this moment? I want to level up guns and gear...but the thought of GRINDING a few nightfalls solo just makes me not want to play. Now, If I knew I could get EL upon completion? I be into it. But I can't. It's just a chance. A chance I mostly see as bullshit, after burned so much. So I just don't bother. I guess my counterpoint would be, you want to play solo and level up your guns and gear with EL...for what purpose? Your current guns and gear are more than adequate for any soloable or matchmade activity, so what difference does it make if you can level them up or not? My other counterpoint would be you can very easily grind and get exactly what you want if you can find two other people to do PoE with, which shouldn't be that hard to do if you really want to do it -- a lot easier than finding a full group to raid with, anyway. The level 32 and 34 versions aren't that challenging and take 30 - 45 minutes per run so they're not a huge time-sink either. I know your situation over the last month has been in flux due to your remodeling/redecorating and whatnot, but this isn't really anything new. No endgame stuff was ever intended to be soloable, it was always designed to require teaming up with some friends. I'm not sure why it seems to be an issue now but wasn't before. Or maybe it was before, but I just didn't pick up on it. I dunno. Also, as far as Trials being a flop, I don't know how you can say that when you haven't actually played it. That just doesn't compute for me. Were you able to try the Elimination playlist for the week it was up? That was basically Trials Lite with no barriers to entry or special rewards.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 15:24:41 GMT -5
Quick thought on "Grinding" There needs to be a distinction with this word. Grinding in and by itself won't bother many people if the goals are clearly defined. Take CoD. I know if I play 'x' number of games, perform a certain way, I know I can be level 42 in a few hours, and then have various things unlocked. All ready to use in future games. That is "Grinding", but grinding for attainable goals. I grind...I get what I want. Destiny? Much of Destiny's version of grinding, is grinding for the sake of an 'opportunity' to get something. There is a huge difference. I would like to get x, y, and z...but I can't get these things outright. I have to grind three nightfalls for example, to have an opportunity to get what I need. Yes, this is how MMO's play. I get it. But over time, this version of grinding can play an entirely different effect on a person, which is what the Forbes article touched upon. Take myself for example. I need EL. I can't get it playing solo (which is how most people play). Can I get it? I could 'grind' through some Nightfalls, but I would only be getting an opportunity or chance at it. Right now? How I feel at this moment? I want to level up guns and gear...but the thought of GRINDING a few nightfalls solo just makes me not want to play. Now, If I knew I could get EL upon completion? I be into it. But I can't. It's just a chance. A chance I mostly see as bullshit, after burned so much. So I just don't bother. Well it depends how you look at it. If you are talking exotics, sure. Because those are EXOTICS! but grinding in destiny is 90% of the time simply earning your rewards nowadays. That is again, why that article is completely wrong. You can actually grind up to lvl 32 in no time, without ANY RNG. Sure if you want to get to the HIGHEST level, you will have to try a little harder, but it is far from hard or long. And also here RNG doesn't come into play. All you need to do is get past PoE lvl 32 and 34 and you will have two armour pieces at 42 already... I also don't agree that most players play this game solo, I think most of those players have left. This is a social shooter after all. I don't really see the solo argument, it is not what this game was made for.
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Jun 22, 2015 15:25:29 GMT -5
No. You never lose in the RNG.... you just don't get what you want. But you never walk away empty handed. You are right on a purely technical level, but on a psychological level, ...you most certainly do walk away at times feeling empty handed. "Feeling" being the operative word. Watch a first timer player finish Crota run and get a shader. You want to tell me that person felt like he won something? Hell no lol. Same for a lot of things. I'm not feeling great after a NF, if I got a few Ascendent Shards a prize. Nope. Not saying, "hey, at least I'm not empty handed, I have shards!!" Nope. Like me? My first Crota, I got the warlock bond, mats, and the Swordbreaker which was a sack of garbage (prebuff and I was in my "shotgun-r-$hit" phase) and I broke it down. 2nd time, I got mats and the Glohoo shader. Both were awesome, awesome experiences. If one goes into a raid with a "______ or bust" outlook, one is setting themselves up for failure. Destiny is not, "do this, get that"/black and white as other games. One can accept it or fight it.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 15:25:52 GMT -5
I think ToO is a flop. I haven't been able to get on much lately, so ok...shame on me for not being able to group up. But you know what? I would still like to try it. I would like to just jump into a few games, and play some fun, intense, competitive FPS'er gaming. ...like how I do when I played CoD, jumping into some random games. But you know what? I can't do that. I need friends. I have to wait until the weekends. No matchmaking. I need passage coins. When I have been on, only like 4 of my 150 friends have been playing Destiny, and they were busy doing other things like weeklies or whatever. There are restrictions all over. I don't like it. This isn't satisfying any need. ToO is awesome. Simply discrediting it because you need friends to play it? You didn't even try it. At least try to get some first hand experience before you say something like that. You could jump right into a game of COD, yes that is true. But you can also just jump into a game of crucible. You are correct, I do need to try it and I do think I will like it. but.... .... I am only explaining how I feel at this moment. It feels like a flop to me at this moment in time. I have been on at weird hours, can't group up and because of that, I haven't been able to access it. I can't play it solo. It would be nice to jump in and give it a shot some morning before work, play a few games. Experience what people are saying. Seeing how I paid $20 for it, and haven't tried it after five weeks, can you blame me for feeling a little disappointed? Note - I'm not upset here nor I am stressing the above. Hopefully i'll get to it. Sort of good analogy, but you are off a bit. I don't think that example works to well. Clan Wars was a competitive game built outside of the CoD gaming system. It used the Cod game, but it played on scheduled dates, formal structure, rules, ranking and lots of other things, similar to MLG style events. ToO is part of the actual Destiny game, it is INSIDE the game. But with restrictions on playing. Kind of apples and oranges.
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Post by iw5000 on Jun 22, 2015 15:29:09 GMT -5
You are right on a purely technical level, but on a psychological level, ...you most certainly do walk away at times feeling empty handed. "Feeling" being the operative word. Watch a first timer player finish Crota run and get a shader. You want to tell me that person felt like he won something? Hell no lol. Same for a lot of things. I'm not feeling great after a NF, if I got a few Ascendent Shards a prize. Nope. Not saying, "hey, at least I'm not empty handed, I have shards!!" Nope. Like me? My first Crota, I got the warlock bond, mats, and the Swordbreaker which was a sack of garbage (prebuff and I was in my "shotgun-r-$hit" phase) and I broke it down. 2nd time, I got mats and the Glohoo shader. Both were awesome, awesome experiences. If one goes into a raid with a "______ or bust" outlook, one is setting themselves up for failure. Destiny is not, "do this, get that"/black and white as other games. One can accept it or fight it. Aren't you now just pretty much agreeing with my original point, which you were going against? All grinding is not the same. When we use that word, especially interchanging CoD grinding with Destiny grinding, we should be a bit careful. The two aren't really the same thing. That's all I was really saying with that point. The two have completely different psychological effects from a designing standpoint.
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qupie
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Post by qupie on Jun 22, 2015 15:29:16 GMT -5
No. You never lose in the RNG.... you just don't get what you want. But you never walk away empty handed. You are right on a purely technical level, but on a psychological level, ...you most certainly do walk away at times feeling empty handed. "Feeling" being the operative word. Watch a first timer player finish Crota run and get a shader. You want to tell me that person felt like he won something? Hell no lol. Same for a lot of things. I'm not feeling great after a NF, if I got a few Ascendent Shards a prize. Nope. Not saying, "hey, at least I'm not empty handed, I have shards!!" Nope. Hell yes he felt something! I remember the first time we completed crota. I really can't remember if I got anything, but we beat crota! that was the achievement. The raids in this game are awesome (crota not as much as VoG) and the first few times we completed them it felt simply awesome. I can't seem to grasp your oppinion on loot. On the one hand you seem to want a game without look because winning is a reward in itself, but on the other hand you seem to want loot for defeating the hardest challenge in the game. Defeating that challange is the reason you have been collecting loot, defeating it is the reward itself imho. (sure, after the first few clears the loot becomes more and more important)
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jun 22, 2015 15:29:57 GMT -5
Most of the debates here have a lot to do whether you have a steady friend base to play Destiny together at the time when you are on.
1) IF you are on a lot and can have friends most of the time, then the current state of Destiny can be great: upon reset on Tuesday, run NFs -> Queen's Wrath bounties -> PoE at various levels -> Optionals (Weekly, Raids, etc) -> ToO sometime over the weekend. You can have all the fun through co-op and get the loot chances without having any sense of grind.
2) However, Destiny is not that great an experience if you play solo. The end game content are either hard (e.g. NF) or impossible (Raid, PoE, ToO), and the solo-able content get dull rather quickly. Unfortunately, for many of us older folks we don't have the luxury of 2.
CoD is much more friendlier for the aspect of (solo and on-the-fly-partying-up):
a) Still fun to play solo; b) It does not have any limitations on how many people to have in your party. Any number between 2 and 9 is fine, you don't need to worry too much about too few (< 3) or too many (> 6); c) All players in the party have aligned interest. No need to worry about the situations that different players need to get different activities done while everybody only have limited time to play (also, this problem can get worse over time. e.g.: One friend still needs some Crota weapons while the rest have already gotten them. Given the limited play time it is nearly impossible for the group to decide on doing Crota...)
This situations are not going to change for the better for me when TTK comes around. I probably will never be able to play any substantial amount of time before Thursday, and when I am on later during the week my friends either won't be online or are already done with the stuff that I need to do.
The solution? I think that I am going to have to aggressively get into LFG...
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