An insider’s view provides insights into the early days of the MMO shooter Destiny. At the GDC conference, Bungie employee John Hopson explained the story of the loot cave. It was closed due to user complaints.
The loot cave, the treasure cave, is a contentious topic. When it was closed back then, players got the impression: “Bungie wants us to play Destiny the way they want, not the way we want!” From Bungie’s perspective, they were just responding to the will of the players.
Loot cave was a distraction and a bone of contention
John Hopson is responsible for user research at Bungie. This means he analyzes the data and tells the developers how the game is being used. And it was being used as planned in the early phase after launch.
Players engaged in a variety of activities, everything was fine. But then they started blasting away in a cave for hours! And that’s when the trouble began. Players reported each other for “cheating” because they were using the so-called loot cave.
Some were so annoyed by this behavior that they stood in the cave to block the spawn. That player was then reported by others who wanted to use the loot cave. It was a mess. Reports reached peak levels at Bungie. The cave had to be closed.
The loot cave simply didn’t make mathematical sense, but players are not mathematicians
Bungie was aware of the loot cave before the release. They calculated it and concluded that the loot cave simply wasn’t worth it, as there were fewer drops compared to pursuing other activities in the game. But the players didn’t calculate that.
To them, the loot cave seemed like a big “distraction” that pulled them away from other activities.
Metal detectors and random drops
Hopson shares a few more anecdotes from the early days of Destiny:
- Before the release, to prevent a leak of Destiny, they set up metal detectors, confiscated phones, and didn’t let anyone play the game alone. In hindsight, that was probably excessive.
- At Bungie, they thought that random loot and engrams would play a minor role. They believed players would simply buy better gear after a while and that the random rewards would be perceived only as a bonus. However, after launch, it was quite the opposite, the random loot system took center stage, and that changed the perception of the game.
- The most challenging missions for players turned out to be situations like in “The Chamber of Night”. There, players are enclosed in a room and must defeat waves of enemies. This is a skill check because there is no save point between the waves that the Guardians must overcome, and they can’t retreat: “Either you are good enough to survive, or not.”
During the Bungie presentation, audience members ask about loot
- One person in the crowd stood up to complain to Hopson that after 700 hours he still hadn’t gotten a Gjallarhorn. Hopson replied that one just had to have bad luck.
- Another audience member complained that Xur always sold “No Land Beyond.” That was beyond his influence, Hopson’s response.
Well, what would a conversation about Destiny be without someone complaining about loot or Xur.
