Destiny

[JonCole]

@joncole it is really the MMO elements that drive me nuts.

Two quick examples from last night:

- a couple enemy guys stand in the door of one Cosmodrome building you go into pretty often. One particular time our Fireteam rolled up just as another group had finished killing them and were headed inside. Just as I was commenting on that, the reincarnated dudes stepped out through the door onto their own bodies. That just wouldn't happen in a normal Halo game.

- it's pretty hard to take the story seriously when in the hub town LongSchlongSilver and his band of merry pranksters start leg humping me every time I go I into a menu. Super lolz I'm sure but man f MMO bullshit.

 

If those kinds of things bother you, I don't really know why you would bother even trying an MMO in the first place.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I don't want to self-quote, but on the last page I said I will probably buy it to play with friends. I was more trying to address your request for more detail on why some of us get "shitty Halo" from this game and I think basically that reason is "because it's MMO Halo."

And keep in mind this is their choice entirely, personally I think the Borderlands model would have been better here. I just don't see why, in a shooter, it makes any sense to have a Hubtown like this with other players in it? It doesn't seem to have any mechanical purpose as far as I can tell but maybe there is faction stuff there that you can't detect in the Beta.

Anyway sorry but I was trying to answer your question.

[JonCole]

If the final version of the game has a hub with no features that make apparent use of having many people in the same instanced space, I'll be happy to pile on with that criticism. Granted Bungie's history of good UI design, I personally can't imagine that this is a complete picture of what the purpose of that space is.

 

Maybe it's a topic for another thread, but I wouldn't buy a game that I am convinced is shit just to play with friends. Why play bad games with friends when there are plenty of good games to play with friends or alone? Maybe it's just not clear to me as I'm an introvert. I'm glad to have a game like this with an infrastructure that supports matchmaking co-op play/MMO-style parties and raids, as I was never able to get into a game of Borderlands 1 or 2 with friends near my same level. I only played a few hours of one with my then girlfriend, who ended up quitting because the weird variation in guns (which I spoke to earlier) was unappealing to her.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I won't sidetrack too much on to this but I buy games for lots of reasons and social interaction is one of them, as a married dude with kids who can't go out a ton. Others include curiosity (Goat Simulator), thrill-seeking (horror and racing games), narrative escapism (Skyrim) and so on.

I play tons of games that are bad and skip some games that I know are good because of the roles these games play in my life. I try to be purposeful about it but definitely tend towards trying stuff out, I just don't feel any need to sugar coat or justify the mixed bag.

Like objectively (or whatever) I know that Two Worlds II was a worse game than Titanfall, but I played it for almost 200 hours unlike the 20 I got out of Titanfall and remember it more fondly. Maybe Destiny will also grab me but I have no problem saying that right now it comes across as shitty Halo and I will probably buy it anyway. Just Cause series is another example, it's kind of just shitty GTA with explosions but I overall preferred those two games to GTA's last two outings.

[Griddlelol]

@joncole it is really the MMO elements that drive me nuts.

Two quick examples from last night:

- a couple enemy guys stand in the door of one Cosmodrome building you go into pretty often. One particular time our Fireteam rolled up just as another group had finished killing them and were headed inside. Just as I was commenting on that, the reincarnated dudes stepped out through the door onto their own bodies. That just wouldn't happen in a normal Halo game.

- it's pretty hard to take the story seriously when in the hub town LongSchlongSilver and his band of merry pranksters start leg humping me every time I go I into a menu. Super lolz I'm sure but man f MMO bullshit.

 

 

The first one is just generic MMO stuff, the second one just sounds hilarious. 

 

Then again, I kinda like MMOs.

[Gormongous]

The first one is just generic MMO stuff, the second one just sounds hilarious. 

 

Then again, I kinda like MMOs.

 

I learned a long time ago that, if I wanted to take my fun seriously, I ought to play offline. I think the real moment of realization was one of my first games of Diablo on Battle.net, when Sir_CockInYourMouth joined my game out of nowhere and spent the better part of an hour dropping gold on the ground and screaming, "Cheetos!"

 

Incidentally, this knowledge is why I'm not terribly interested in Destiny, even more than not connecting with the Halo games.

[Griddlelol]

I completely agree. If I want to play seriously I just play offline. And honestly, I have a really childish sense of humour, so hearing "Sir_CockInYourMouth" made me chuckle out loud (although Senor_CockInYourMouth would have been better). 

I'm totally OK with childish humour in my games. 

[Merus]

I cannot believe this game has emotes. Tell me this game doesn't have emotes.

 

I cannot think of a bigger waste of money than putting emotes into an MMOFPS.

[Twig]

You're right, spending money on things the majority of the userbase enjoy is definitely a waste of money!

[Professor Video Games]

The D-pad maps to four emotes. Wave, point, sit, and (sigh) dance. I think all four serve a useful purpose as far as quick communication with other characters without having to speak or type, though I'll be the first to admit I wish they'd gone with some other sort of celebration action instead of some goofy ass dance that feels really out of place.

[Griddlelol]

They should ditch dance and put praise the sun in there.

[Merus]

You're right, spending money on things the majority of the userbase enjoy is definitely a waste of money!

 

That's my point though, I don't think the userbase of an MMOFPS actually does enjoy socialising with strangers, which is what non-combat emotes like dance and sit are for. Part of the fun of an MMOFPS is shooting real people in the face, and there's a long history of research showing that the two groups - people who socialise with strangers, and people who like shooting strangers in the face - don't stick around for long in the same game if they're constantly running up against each other.

 

It sounds reductive when expressed like that, but it's a well-known design principle for MMOs called the Bartle player types. The Bartle research suggests there's only three stable distributions of player interest: pure socialisation, PvP-focused, where players who want to fight other players, and those who want to be the best, and evenly distributed, where there's a strong core of theorycrafting and exploration-focused players to offset the player-killing types.

 

If Destiny is going to be successful, it's going to go for one of these three distributions, or else it'll bleed players. It seems pretty unlikely they're going for the glorified chatroom option. Bungie have a lot of fans who are looking forward to their next PvP experience, so I'd bet, with no knowledge, that what keeps people playing will be some kind of PvP. If that's the case, people whose main attraction to an online game is hanging out with random people are going to get discouraged by the trolling and go-go-go guys, and leave. If Bungie plan on doing regular co-op content drops then that changes things, but I'd also suggest that they've lost their collective minds.

 

Wave and point do make sense, though, even when most players have voice chat.

[Twig]

So you admit that wave and point make sense, but you're still upset that they wanted to have a silly fun emote for the people who enjoy it. Am I misunderstanding something here? What's the big deal? Sounds to me like you don't like it so you think nobody should have it. I don't get it.

[Merus]

So you admit that wave and point make sense, but you're still upset that they wanted to have a silly fun emote for the people who enjoy it. Am I misunderstanding something here? What's the big deal? Sounds to me like you don't like it so you think nobody should have it. I don't get it.

 

I just typed a big thing saying that /dance serves a specific purpose as a social activity! And that Destiny probably isn't going to be a game for people looking to do social activities! And that's what bothers me, it doesn't feel like Bungie really thought about the kinds of players they're going for, which means there's going to be lots of disappointed people who buy it to play a fun co-op shooter you can play with friends and strangers, and then when the Bartle types kick in and there's only dicks playing it there'll be lots of people who'll have a shitty experience that Bungie could have controlled for if they'd thought about what kinds of players they were going for.

 

And Bungie have done this before with Halo 2, and it ruined Xbox Live.

[Twig]

WELP! I'm lost again!

 

I'm not even playing the game so I guess I'll just shut up.

[JonCole]

I don't have much experience with the whole Bartle types concept, but it rings fairly true to me and would make sense in terms of the design of MMOs. That said, I'm still not particularly sure what would make this game offputting to co-op players. Lack of sufficient communication? Isn't the potential for "only dicks playing it" in any cooperative game? There are plenty of people who blow stealth on Payday 2, for instance, and make it temporarily shitty but there's still a fairly pervasive attitude of people wanting to contribute positively to the co-op effort because it's the best way to get things done.

[SilentBtAmazing]

They should ditch dance and put praise the sun in there.

+1

Praise the sun!

[Griddlelol]

How exactly did they do the same thing with Halo 2?

[Merus]

I don't have much experience with the whole Bartle types concept, but it rings fairly true to me and would make sense in terms of the design of MMOs. That said, I'm still not particularly sure what would make this game offputting to co-op players. Lack of sufficient communication? Isn't the potential for "only dicks playing it" in any cooperative game? There are plenty of people who blow stealth on Payday 2, for instance, and make it temporarily shitty but there's still a fairly pervasive attitude of people wanting to contribute positively to the co-op effort because it's the best way to get things done.

 

There's a balance here.

 

Okay, so the two Bartle types that are relevant here are Achievers and Killers. Achievers want to win and be the best - assert their superiority over the system - and Killers want to troll or beat other players - assert their superiority over the players. (There's some conflation here that later research picked up on, and these are tendencies more than strict boxes, but as a model for player behaviour it still has value.) I haven't played Payday, but I'd guess from your description that there's no PvP, that contact with the community is optional, and that people who fiddle-arse around or try things just to see what happens aren't widely appreciated. Payday 2, from your description, sounds like it's an Achiever-focused game, as it's a co-op game against a system.

 

Compare to Destiny, which has required contact with the community, and likely has a bigger PvP component (including, I'm guessing, the 'endgame'). That provides opportunities for players who want to assert their superiority over other players, Killer players, which should drive up the amount of trolling and general fuckery you see in the game. That will drive away the people who want to experience other players - Socialisers - which is a pretty well-known aspect of MMO social dynamics.

 

There's some big assumptions here, chief among them that Bungie has any interest in keeping players in the world. If the whole idea is that players play through it, and then quit, then an in-game community won't really form. My stance here is resting on the idea that there's going to be an in-game community; if not, and six months out it's only supposed to be you and your friends and maybe you'll see some strangers, then the whole argument comes crashing down and a dance emote is probably fine.

[JonCole]

At this point, PvP is largely segregated to a different part of the game aside from the "Killer" trolling behaviors that can be exhibited in the hub zone and lack of cooperation in raids. It's easy to have this be a game that is only about your story and playing with specific friends that only you want to play with. I suppose it's possible for PvP to further leak out, but what I perceive to be the goal of this game is something like Guild Wars 2 where people can largely only help you in a mechanical fashion unless you dive into the PvP-specific mode, rather than MMOs with direct PvP-in-world experiences like EQ.

[Bjorn]

+1

Praise the sun!

 

 

I watched my kid play this some last night.  Looked like an MMO shooter.  It's really pretty.  She loved it, thought it was the most fun she's had with a shooter since ODST. 

[Griddlelol]

I agree with Jon, the PvP and PvE sections are segregated as far as I can tell. Is it even possible to shoot a player character and do damage while not in a dedicated PvP instance? Again, it's just like guild wars (2), which is still doing well. The only difference being instead of 3rd person MMO combat, it's FPS.

I'm not sure you can simply say people who like FPS games don't like socialising or playing cooperatively. It seems like a huge generalisation, especially when many people play both types of games.

[Bjorn]

Bungie just went ahead and built teabagging into the logo for Destiny to get it out of the way.

 

[singlespace]

I agree with Jon, the PvP and PvE sections are segregated as far as I can tell. Is it even possible to shoot a player character and do damage while not in a dedicated PvP instance? Again, it's just like guild wars (2), which is still doing well. The only difference being instead of 3rd person MMO combat, it's FPS.

I'm not sure you can simply say people who like FPS games don't like socialising or playing cooperatively. It seems like a huge generalisation, especially when many people play both types of games.

 

That's the thing I don't understand about Merus argument: PvP is only possible in an entirely separate area of the game that can only be reached via menus. There is no friendly fire in any of the PvE areas at all while the social area doesn't allow any combat whatsoever. Furthermore in the beta the plot critical and set piece areas, which are dark zones, do not allow random people interfering either. In those areas, only your own fire team is present and you control who is part of that group.

[Griddlelol]

Yup, just like Guild Wars. Incidentally, I really liked everything about Guild Wars except the combat. So slow.