In Destiny, the aim is to learn from the mistakes made in item balance in the DLC “Darkness Awaits.” This is now announced by a post from Raid Lead Designer Luke Smith. In particular, the resetting of an exotic item after upgrading and the legendary vendor items, which were stronger than previous raid gear, have been identified as sources of error.
Clear information is rare at Bungie. Once a week, there is the “Weekly Update,” which often consists of a retrospective and rarely looks concrete into the future. Interviews or clear statements from the responsible developers are almost never seen. They don’t show their cards. However, yesterday was an exception.
Most of the time, the communication from players to Bungie is quite one-sided. Players complain, and the community manager tells them they are being heard and that he will pass their complaints on to the developers. Much more happens, apart from planned announcements, actually not.
Upgrading exotic items will work differently in Destiny
Yesterday there was a rare exception. On Neo-Gaf, a huge English-speaking gaming forum, a Destiny player wrote: “As soon as it becomes clear how to upgrade exotic items in the DLC House of Wolves and how to buy vendor legendaries there, there will be real trouble again.“
This is a frequently expressed concern that boils down to “With the next DLC, everything starts over again! Why should I bother now?” Countless times, this has been read before.
But this time, the complaint brought Bungie’s Lead Raid Designer, Luke Smith, to the forefront: “No, it won’t anger the fans (when we announce it).”
They made two mistakes with Darkness Awaits that they will not repeat:
- disappointed the raiders of the Glass Chamber because vendor items were stronger than the previous raid loot.
- resetting the progress of exotic items when they were upgraded.
Crota’s End was a reaction to complaints about the base game
The philosophy of how to reward players in Destiny has evolved. Bungie’s goal is to reduce the grind aspects of loot, improve the frequency of drops and their stories, and bring players to the fun part with their arsenal faster.
Before “Darkness Awaits,” Bungie was particularly frustrated by complaints that players were stuck at level 29 indefinitely. They wanted to address that.
The aim of the adjustments in “Darkness Awaits” was:
- to increase the drop rates of items in Crota’s End so that frequent players are either at level 32 or just before when the hard mode comes.
- to diversify the gear so that players at level 32 are focused on creating the perfect set with different attributes.
Players should equip found items in Destiny faster
As Smith sees it, this has been fundamentally successful. The drop rate in Crota’s End has markedly improved compared to the Glass Chamber.
However, he sees problems with the “Shard Economy” (the availability of shards). That is an obstacle that stands between guardians and the immediate use of fresh drops.
In this balance, they will now not interfere in “Darkness Awaits” to avoid undermining the achievements of the guardians. In the next DLC “House of Wolves,” this should be different.
They want fewer hurdles between the moment a player finds a new item and the moment they equip it and make it part of their arsenal.
Destiny and the entire industry are still refining the perfect loot system
Mein MMO believes: This item philosophy is a major topic in MMO design, and even though Destiny is seen by many as not an MMO – it has the item design of an MMO and with it the same problems.
World of Warcraft had these hurdles as well that Smith speaks of. Players did not have to level an item, but they had to insert a fresh drop into their “gear,” ensuring that no stats were too high and none too low.
They had to buy gems and socket the item, enchant it, resort to a 3rd-party tool to calculate and readjust the perfect balance of the entire gear. This had built up over the years, becoming increasingly complex until it was almost completely abolished in November. WoW should aim for something similar: A player finds an item, is happy, equips it immediately, and feels stronger.
Find, equip, rejoice
This is a psychologically important feeling that game designers aim for, and Destiny does not evoke. Here, with a new item, the feeling is: Oh dear, now I have to upgrade and level it too. And how long will it last? Starting over in 6 weeks?
A change in the ideal direction occurred a few weeks ago: Thus, the new raid armors were raised to a naked value of 30 light, so that players could equip them immediately upon finding the new raid armor without dropping in light level. Even the upgraded exotic armors and weapons are “naked” stronger than their fully upgraded predecessors.
It seems that Bungie wants to quickly bring all items to a high level and then let players fine-tune the last few percent. The next challenge will probably be whether they take away the fun of the game from players by handing out items “too easily”.
For exactly such things, MMO designers have been thinking for decades, searching for the golden path.
