A section in this week’s THAB has me concerned with the direction Destiny is going in. Here’s what Bungie said:

Normally changing enemy Power levels requires a patch, but during development, we created unique server flags which can flip between two sets of Power levels for all Escalation Protocol enemies. These were created in the wake of the community summit, when we decided to make the activity even more difficult

If you’ll remember, Bungie invited a fair number of high end Destiny players to its offices to show off new things and get feedback on the direction the game was going. And, when Bungie first talked about Escalation Protocol they mentioned that they made it harder based on this group’s feedback but they didn’t say exactly what that meant. Well, now we know. What it meant was Bungie cranked up the later levels of EP from difficult to nearly impossible.

So, what’s the problem here? Well frankly, once again I’m feeling like the game challenges and difficulties are being over-tuned towards the ultra elite Destiny players who have time to attend multi-day community summits. To me, setting the final EP enemies at 400 always sounded like complete overkill. Especially as we got to play Warmind and found how long the road to leveling up was going to be. I feel like I’m being left out if not excluded from cool parts of Destiny 2 based on not being able to play all day long.

Another example of this is the quick release of the newest Raid Lair of that Raid Lair. By releasing the Spire of Stars within Warmind’s first week, Bugine all but ensured that the only players who could even reach its recommended power level were those players who could afford to power level all day long throughout the week. For the rest of us, even us enthusiastic players who put in several hours of play each night? We were nowhere near ready to raid by the time it went live. Once again, I feel like the game and its release schedule was over tuned to favor those players who were able to treat Destiny more as a job than as a form of entertainment.

Sounds to me like a "hardcore" mode needs to exist for the streamers who play 40-80 hours a week & a "Family Man" (DadGuy? ;) ) mode needs to exist for those of us who can only dedicate a handful of hours a week (if that, I struggle to get 2 hours a week in) to our "hobby".

Seriously. At work there's a single guy who plays & he greatly laments the loss of the grind, where as I rejoiced at the loss of the grind as I could participate in my favorite things w/o spending inordinate amounts of time preparing (grinding) for them. (Geeze, I sound like Cody... <sigh> ;) ). We are 2 very different gamers who love the same type of gameplay, but he likes the grind, I don't have time for it (grind != gameplay, grind = rewards & addiction er engagement, whatever).

Can we call what you're describing a "Grinder" not "Hardcore"? There's a difference between pulling off 2-manning Calus Prestige and just running all the raids, grinding out the light levels.

Seriously. At work there's a single guy who plays & he greatly laments the loss of the grind, where as I rejoiced at the loss of the grind as I could participate in my favorite things w/o spending inordinate amounts of time preparing (grinding) for them.

This is my scenario too. There is a plus side though. What takes the hardcore weeks or days to complete it takes us months. So there is never a lull! By the time we finally get around to completing things, the next update is just around the corner.

I'm only halfway through Nascent Dawn 3/5. And I'm only that far because It wasn't until a few days ago I was powerful enough to be worth a darn at Escalation Protocol.

Silver lining, no downtime for us :D

A section in this week’s THAB has me concerned with the direction Destiny is going in. Here’s what Bungie said:

Normally changing enemy Power levels requires a patch, but during development, we created unique server flags which can flip between two sets of Power levels for all Escalation Protocol enemies. These were created in the wake of the community summit, when we decided to make the activity even more difficult

If you’ll remember, Bungie invited a fair number of high end Destiny players to its offices to show off new things and get feedback on the direction the game was going. And, when Bungie first talked about Escalation Protocol they mentioned that they made it harder based on this group’s feedback but they didn’t say exactly what that meant. Well, now we know. What it meant was Bungie cranked up the later levels of EP from difficult to nearly impossible.

So, what’s the problem here? Well frankly, once again I’m feeling like the game challenges and difficulties are being over-tuned towards the ultra elite Destiny players who have time to attend multi-day community summits. To me, setting the final EP enemies at 400 always sounded like complete overkill. Especially as we got to play Warmind and found how long the road to leveling up was going to be. I feel like I’m being left out if not excluded from cool parts of Destiny 2 based on not being able to play all day long.

Another example of this is the quick release of the newest Raid Lair of that Raid Lair. By releasing the Spire of Stars within Warmind’s first week, Bugine all but ensured that the only players who could even reach its recommended power level were those players who could afford to power level all day long throughout the week. For the rest of us, even us enthusiastic players who put in several hours of play each night? We were nowhere near ready to raid by the time it went live. Once again, I feel like the game and its release schedule was over tuned to favor those players who were able to treat Destiny more as a job than as a form of entertainment.

Sounds to me like a "hardcore" mode needs to exist for the streamers who play 40-80 hours a week & a "Family Man" (DadGuy? ;) ) mode needs to exist for those of us who can only dedicate a handful of hours a week (if that, I struggle to get 2 hours a week in) to our "hobby".

Seriously. At work there's a single guy who plays & he greatly laments the loss of the grind, where as I rejoiced at the loss of the grind as I could participate in my favorite things w/o spending inordinate amounts of time preparing (grinding) for them. (Geeze, I sound like Cody... <sigh> ;) ). We are 2 very different gamers who love the same type of gameplay, but he likes the grind, I don't have time for it (grind != gameplay, grind = rewards & addiction er engagement, whatever).

It's not just gating content, it's the core of Destiny's design assumptions. It's certainly OK to not like it, but saying one wants Destiny without the progression I would argue is just saying you want a different game, because Destiny's progression system isn't just something tacked onto a Halo-style shooter.

This is categorically untrue. Destiny becomes a game without progression at the point that you hit the level cap, and trust me, I enjoy that game a lot more.

Heck, I even miss some of the bits of progression they've taken out, like leveling up weapons to unlock perks. That gave me a reason to use a bunch of different guns in actual activities, so the XP would unlock them. (Motes were the coward's way out.) In D2 I've got a loadout where I basically only change the heavy based on the type of encounter or burn if required. I collect some of the other guns, but I almost never use them-- there's no reason to.

I try out other guns much more in D2 than I ever did when I had to obnoxiously grind a crippled gun to see if I would like it once leveled... If there is no reason to try other guns once the leveling is done, that means the only reason to try out guns is to level them? This is some cowclicker levels of adulation for the grind. I'd rather be encouraged to try other guns because they have interesting perks or behaviors.

I'm at 363 and I just don't even want to bother wasting my time butting my head against a light level wall.

Not trying to finish, or not playing at all?

A couple of questlines with decent rewards require 3 & 10 level completions. They're all doable below 360 in public spaces where others are running EP.

My problem was finding public spaces where other people were running it. I would at best get only 2 other low level people to join me. The only way I finally got the quests done was to start it right after a public event and hoping enough people hung around to do it. They usually only hung around for the first try, and the farthest I ever got was level 3.

To get Sleeper Simulant you only need 3 level completions. If you've gotten as far as level 3, you've already done 2. Finish level 1 one more time and you're done.

Do the whole thing with Nascent Dawn active, and you're 1/3 of the way towards the 2nd weapon in that quest, which requires 10 completions, since doing level 1 ten times counts as 10 completions. If you get farther, it counts, but there are rewards to be had (at least at the beginning) for doing EP even if you can't get to the end.

Who said anything about selectable difficulty? They could absolutely have that for instanced things like raids, strikes, missions.

I am at a loss to explain what

Just ditch it in favor of Halo's Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary modes (or whatever Destiny terminology you want to use to replace those)

means if not selectable difficulty, because in Halo, those are selectable levels of difficulty.

Patrols would be a mix, much like it is now.

That's not like how it is now. There's a range of publicly available activities, and the difficulty a player experiences is a combination of their power level and the power level of the enemies in the activity. A player can increase their own difficulty by de-leveling their gear, but they can never make a world activity any easier except by raising their power level normally through the progression system.

A Halo-style difficulty selector allows players to arbitrarily decrease their difficulty level, equivalent in Destiny's current model to increasing their power level. Presumably the easiest difficulty level would essentially be equivalent to being at the level cap.

Normal patrols would be Easy or Normal. Lost Sectors could be a mix. Set some at every difficulty level. Public Events are Normal with the Heroic versions.

I'm having difficulty understanding what you mean by difficulty in this context.

Escalation Protocol could start at Normal for a wave or two, and work up to Legendary by the end.

How is that different from what it does now?

You already can’t really over level activities, so nothing really changes from that perspective. All you get rid of is the bad progression system and let Bungie define difficulty for activities with a descriptor instead of a number. Folks are no longer gated out of activities because they didn’t grind enough. The difficulty is just the difficulty. They could go as far as to make something like Escalation Protocol slightly easier when new content comes out, giving folks a chance to go back and get that gear if they want.

There is no way in nether hell Bungie is going to abandon the progression system. It is at the absolute core of how the game is designed. Like it or hate it, but it seems to me this is saying you just want a different game. Which is totally fair!

I don’t know. I’m not a designer by any means. I just don’t think the level system adds much of anything to the game. Again, you can’t really significantly over level activities, so it only really serves to gate content. I just think there’s a better way to accomplish difficulty than the light level difference they’re leaning on in Warmind.

I buy the argument that it’s neat to hit EP for the first time and get destroyed, then slowly level up and get farther and farther each time. I don’t know how you replicate that without a leveling system.

That's the same situation that applies to raids, that applies to activities that already have explicit difficulty choices (normal vs prestige raids, normal vs prestige nightfalls, heroic strikes vs vanguard strikes, heroic adventures vs regular adventures, story missions vs heroic story missions (now called meditations). Plus challenges.

It's not just gating content, it's the core of Destiny's design assumptions. It's certainly OK to not like it, but saying one wants Destiny without the progression I would argue is just saying you want a different game, because Destiny's progression system isn't just something tacked onto a Halo-style shooter.

Heck, I even miss some of the bits of progression they've taken out, like leveling up weapons to unlock perks. That gave me a reason to use a bunch of different guns in actual activities, so the XP would unlock them. (Motes were the coward's way out.) In D2 I've got a loadout where I basically only change the heavy based on the type of encounter or burn if required. I collect some of the other guns, but I almost never use them-- there's no reason to.

I agree with you guys, but I like easy boring stuff.

The fact is, when Bingle casualifies Destiny, it reviews well, then a week later everyone complains. See essentially the entirety of Destiny 2, and normal mode Crota.

When Bingle makes Destiny difficult or grindy for the hardcore players, everyone complains immediately...but they also keep playing.

Remember how obnoxious it was to get levelled up for Vault of Ass? Remember the complex mechanics for Oryx? Remember the loot cave?

When Destiny is made for the hardcore, in general, even the casuals play more. We all complain, but we play.

When the complaints are fixed and Destiny is made for casuals, you have the current state of affairs in the online Destiny community.

Bungie is realizing this, and appears to be going back to making it for hardcore players. This is probably a good idea, even though I like it less.

I think this glosses over that difficulty determined by light level vs through challenging mechanics is drastically different. "Bet you can't stick it" is way different from "failed the damage check".

I'd prefer if we made the distinction of arbitrary grindy mechanics and real challenges. We have yet to see what happens when Bungie makes Destiny (as a whole) just straight up difficult.

Right now I'm really enjoying the Prestige Nightfall score cards. They provide the ability to play around with the difficulty with the various buffs/debuffs while optimizing for quick completion. It's so crunchy from a challenge perspective I love it. I also love the Raids. Make the rest of the game like this, lock cool gear behind crazy challenging scores on story missions. Have exotic weapon quests that have Raid like mechanics. Give the players a proper challenge, not a treadmill.

Specifically, the For Whom? skit.

I think this is by design. To misapply a term, Public Events are like a honeypot for running EP. The higher LL guardians will start showing up soon and the whole process will get easier. FWIW, I think it's an investment system done right.

I dare say it's elegant.

~M

I'm not sure it's that elegant given the complaints.

I hear you, but much in the same way that a player new to Destiny at this point will see a wealth of content and activities (whereas some of us are complaining that Warmind is awfully light on the same things); if we take a step back and think about the behavior of the activity over time, it's an entirely different picture.

You in particular are going to avoid that part of the experience by not attempting until you're max light, but I think you see what I'm saying.

~M

Funkmon eloquently described above the schizophrenic nature of the Destiny community regarding difficulty, and I think agree with Mal on this. I like that there's an activity I can't complete right now. I've got something to look forward to. Destiny has always had something out of reach for me, and that's okay. I'm more sympathetic to the complaint that the raid is available too soon, but that's because there's an element that I like (blindness) that becomes harder and harder to preserve across a group as time goes on. It's imperative to have access to that content soon after it's released. (I do miss the early days--you could find blind VoG raiders here a month after it came out.)

Patrols would be a mix, much like it is now. Normal patrols would be Easy or Normal. Lost Sectors could be a mix. Set some at every difficulty level. Public Events are Normal with the Heroic versions. Escalation Protocol could start at Normal for a wave or two, and work up to Legendary by the end. You already can’t really over level activities, so nothing really changes from that perspective. All you get rid of is the bad progression system and let Bungie define difficulty for activities with a descriptor instead of a number. Folks are no longer gated out of activities because they didn’t grind enough. The difficulty is just the difficulty. They could go as far as to make something like Escalation Protocol slightly easier when new content comes out, giving folks a chance to go back and get that gear if they want.

I don’t know. I’m not a designer by any means. I just don’t think the level system adds much of anything to the game. Again, you can’t really significantly over level activities, so it only really serves to gate content. I just think there’s a better way to accomplish difficulty than the light level difference they’re leaning on in Warmind.

I buy the argument that it’s neat to hit EP for the first time and get destroyed, then slowly level up and get farther and farther each time. I don’t know how you replicate that without a leveling system.

I think this is by design. To misapply a term, Public Events are like a honeypot for running EP. The higher LL guardians will start showing up soon and the whole process will get easier. FWIW, I think it's an investment system done right.

I dare say it's elegant.

~M

I'm not sure it's that elegant given the complaints.

I hear you, but much in the same way that a player new to Destiny at this point will see a wealth of content and activities (whereas some of us are complaining that Warmind is awfully light on the same things); if we take a step back and think about the behavior of the activity over time, it's an entirely different picture.

You in particular are going to avoid that part of the experience by not attempting until you're max light, but I think you see what I'm saying.

~M

Difficulty setting now required to match in matchmaking activities? Longer wait times.

This option would actually avoid almost all the other issues you listed, since most of those problems assume players with different difficulty settings exist in the same space (which is weird to me, separating them seems like kind of the default assumption in my mind). BUT, it also makes the apparent player population smaller. Potentially a LOT smaller. Which, aside from slow matchmaking like you said, also results in running across less people in public spaces in general.

The real problem with Warmind is the progression system. After doing all my milestones and running both raids, I gained a grand total of TWO light this week. Either I am unlucky, or the system is broken.

I went up by 5 or 6 last night alone.

I still think the entire Power Level system adds nothing of value to the game. Just ditch it in favor of Halo's Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary modes (or whatever Destiny terminology you want to use to replace those). Nothing would change from a gameplay perspective, other than players not having to worry about their power level or being locked out of progressing for days at a time until the weekly reset. Drops would be only about the gear you want.

How would that even work? How could you have shared patrol spaces with scaled enemies and variations in damage given and taken relative to difficulty when the difficulty can be set manually?

This would be the biggest opportunity for griefing in Destiny ever. Set your difficulty slider to the easiest possible and cut through every activity like a hot knife through butter-- killing enemies before players at higher difficulties can.

Surely it would just spawn 3 different bubbles - one for each difficulty selected? But really, I think this is an idea for story mode, strikes and raids, but Patrols.

I'm at 363 and I just don't even want to bother wasting my time butting my head against a light level wall.

Not trying to finish, or not playing at all?

A couple of questlines with decent rewards require 3 & 10 level completions. They're all doable below 360 in public spaces where others are running EP.

Not trying it at all, I've got other activities to do in the time I have available to play Destiny. I'm mostly raiding at the moment. Once I hit the LL cap I guess I'll give it a go again.