Bungie fucked up but not realizing what was cool about Destiny and turning it into an ass GaaS. Its one of those games with a fantastic world, art, and even fantastic mechanics, all getting fucked by the ceaseless content wheel. Live Service is the Lich to all of our Finn & Jakes.
Live Service is the Lich to all of our Finn & Jakes.
I think that there’s a perfectly reasonable role for live service games. There are things that you can do with it that you just can’t do without it. It’s a legitimate way to spend time playing games with other people online and have a constant stream of new content come out. I don’t personally really go in for that type of game, but I entirely understand people who do.
I just don’t want every game out there to be turned into a live service game.
And I also kind of suspect that there are too many developers trying to fight for too-little live service game demand.
Hot take: As someone that’s played every Destiny 2 expansion, all the dungeons, and some of the raids… The game has pretty basic mechanics and a … rather uninteresting … collection of worlds that most players only ever pass through.
The mechanics include: dodging, healing, dropping a barrier, jumping, sliding, grenades, melee attacks, supers, and throwing or depositing a ball … and a few other things they rarely use; that covers like 90% of the content.
The open world STILL all these years later feels like a place where they just hide filler chores, not a destination or particularly fun. Even when we get a new planet, it often just feels like a reskin of an older planet that’s been rearranged. Compare that to a game like Remnant II where EVERY planet feels very very different, has unique characteristics and quirks, and lots of distinct enemy types. Even the $10 DLCs for Remnant that just expand a world add more than Bungie tends to add in a $100 expansion in terms of new interesting encounters, enemy types, and level design.
The music, (now dated) graphics, gun design, some exceptional boss fights, and unlock grind (that gives you that same RuneScape grind “oooo I did it” feeling) carry pretty hard.
Bungie built something between a MMO and a co-op campaign game that … lacks the scale of a MMO and (in many areas) lacks the level design of a co-op game. It’s gotten better over the years … but I’m not sure if I’ll be picking up the next expansion personally.
the issue with raiding for me is needing to find 5 other people, at the same time, who aren’t toxic, who won’t kick you, and needing to maintain the grind year-round to have the meta load out, some of which are items you can only get if you’ve already done the activity you’re trying to do, and have an entire uninterrupted 6 hour session to do so.
There’s only so much “you can’t play this because…” before it turns into “I won’t play this because…”
that’s the other issue. I can’t have a raid group - I don’t have a set gaming time or day or even length of time to play, or even set location in my house, and Destiny is a very needy game in terms of you needing to clock in regularly or else you miss narrative-shaking story events you can never experience again.
All it takes is not being able to play for a couple of months and you’re pretty much out for good.
My group of friends struggles to get 6 players on at the same time and when it does, 6 players that are good enough FPS players to actually pull off the raid, that have time for the raid …
Raids are basically not happening for me because of the player count requirements. I’m also not big on random teammates for stuff like that so … it’s a part of the game I have engaged with and it’s interesting but it’s not something I engage with at any regularity and I’d rather they put more effort into more interesting dungeons (or allowing smaller teams to viably do the raids and just using scaling if you have a full party) personally.
Bungie fucked up but not realizing what was cool about Destiny and turning it into an ass GaaS. Its one of those games with a fantastic world, art, and even fantastic mechanics, all getting fucked by the ceaseless content wheel. Live Service is the Lich to all of our Finn & Jakes.
I think that there’s a perfectly reasonable role for live service games. There are things that you can do with it that you just can’t do without it. It’s a legitimate way to spend time playing games with other people online and have a constant stream of new content come out. I don’t personally really go in for that type of game, but I entirely understand people who do.
I just don’t want every game out there to be turned into a live service game.
And I also kind of suspect that there are too many developers trying to fight for too-little live service game demand.
Hot take: As someone that’s played every Destiny 2 expansion, all the dungeons, and some of the raids… The game has pretty basic mechanics and a … rather uninteresting … collection of worlds that most players only ever pass through.
The mechanics include: dodging, healing, dropping a barrier, jumping, sliding, grenades, melee attacks, supers, and throwing or depositing a ball … and a few other things they rarely use; that covers like 90% of the content.
The open world STILL all these years later feels like a place where they just hide filler chores, not a destination or particularly fun. Even when we get a new planet, it often just feels like a reskin of an older planet that’s been rearranged. Compare that to a game like Remnant II where EVERY planet feels very very different, has unique characteristics and quirks, and lots of distinct enemy types. Even the $10 DLCs for Remnant that just expand a world add more than Bungie tends to add in a $100 expansion in terms of new interesting encounters, enemy types, and level design.
The music, (now dated) graphics, gun design, some exceptional boss fights, and unlock grind (that gives you that same RuneScape grind “oooo I did it” feeling) carry pretty hard.
Bungie built something between a MMO and a co-op campaign game that … lacks the scale of a MMO and (in many areas) lacks the level design of a co-op game. It’s gotten better over the years … but I’m not sure if I’ll be picking up the next expansion personally.
I agree with you mostly. But for me, the raids were fucking peak. I could play a game that just focuses on that.
the issue with raiding for me is needing to find 5 other people, at the same time, who aren’t toxic, who won’t kick you, and needing to maintain the grind year-round to have the meta load out, some of which are items you can only get if you’ve already done the activity you’re trying to do, and have an entire uninterrupted 6 hour session to do so.
There’s only so much “you can’t play this because…” before it turns into “I won’t play this because…”
I guess I’m lucky. We had 2 raid groups. I have hundreds of hours of cherished time spent raiding with Tsunami Bomb Squad.
that’s the other issue. I can’t have a raid group - I don’t have a set gaming time or day or even length of time to play, or even set location in my house, and Destiny is a very needy game in terms of you needing to clock in regularly or else you miss narrative-shaking story events you can never experience again.
All it takes is not being able to play for a couple of months and you’re pretty much out for good.
My group of friends struggles to get 6 players on at the same time and when it does, 6 players that are good enough FPS players to actually pull off the raid, that have time for the raid …
Raids are basically not happening for me because of the player count requirements. I’m also not big on random teammates for stuff like that so … it’s a part of the game I have engaged with and it’s interesting but it’s not something I engage with at any regularity and I’d rather they put more effort into more interesting dungeons (or allowing smaller teams to viably do the raids and just using scaling if you have a full party) personally.
What about Destiny 1? That was cool. Everywhere felt different.
Never got to play it