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Destiny

Discuss all things Destiny.
Edited by Makeshyft: 4/29/2013 5:08:02 PM
7

Destiny: A game without tiered Difficulty Settings.

Hey gents, I'd like to bring up a little discussion about Difficulty scaling in Destiny and how it'll relate to the shared-world play we're all so looking forward to. I was digging through the various Destiny threads, paying close attention to the gear/comptetitive sections, when I kept coming across that character screen from the preview video released on the 17th. Now a lot of people focused on the four promised stats displayed at the bottom. (Energy, Shields, Discipline, and Agility) But what more interested me was the number in the upper left. Now I, like many others, have come to believe this is a method of gearscoring players as they accumulate loot/skills. However, whereas most people concern themselves with the crossovers between Co-op and competitive balancing, I'm myself curious if this number will come into play when deciding the encounter strength for the individual player or the player group. Think about it. Destiny is a practically menu-less game that will stress drop-in/drop-out co-op. Where in this model is there room for the standard teired difficulty settings we've come to know and love from Halo single-player? The answer? There isn't. This is all theory, but I believe the gear card # shown in the preview video will not only come into play when/if competitive multiplayer allows use of co-op equipment, but will also define how hard encounters are in the co-op world. Take for example, 3 guardians in a group assaulting a Cabal stronghold on mars. They have the following gearscore stats: 1487 1756 2181 I believe the system will average these numbers out and scale the difficulty accordingly (Health/damage of enemies, # of enemies, dynamics), adjusting as players leave/join the instance of the encounter. Thoughts? Comments? Theories?

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  • In general I like the idea, although I think it should be a little more complex than a simple average. Borderlands was mildly frustrating at times because if you were playing with someone even 2 or 3 levels above you, it seemed to drastically increase the enemies, so much so that the lead character was the only one doing significant work. The only way I can think to avoid this is to equalize player statistics somewhat when they join together on top of adjusting the enemies. It seems like the two variables are weapons/armor & personal statistics. Obviously you wouldn't want to alter the weapons, but maybe personal stats could be reduced a bit to match other players so that co-op becomes truly cooperative. I know people may not like this idea, but it may be the only way to avoid the "Hey, can I tag along with you so you can level me up" scenario. It isn't 100% realistic, but it would force more teamwork while also eliminating many of the frustrations that come with trying to match up your levels with your friends.

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  • Bungie keeps mentioning a matchmaking mechanic for even the co-op drop-in/out encounters. That mechanic most likely will make sure the groups are very close in skill/gear. No need to average the difficulty.

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  • Difficulty scaling in that manner could get very annoying peculiarly for the very skilled and skill-less as it will enviably be set for the mid-skill levels ..there has to be some area specific difficulty scaling and some monster species/class/type specific scaling, as anyone who has played skyrim will tell you the enemies start to feel either; as all skilled player's will tell you weak, or as skill-less people will tell you constantly strong, after a short span of time as there isn't enough variety in the difficulty enemies you encounter to keep you engaged. Where do you go if you really want a challenge? I believe the game should be skill based as opposed to level based in games play... playing more like a FPS. The scaling in such a game isn't obvious and tend's to be area and enemy class specific (I.e. halo grunts tend to be easy to kill but can be deadly in groups for the unwary, elites are tough and unpredictable, and brutes tend to be tough and strong, but easily baited...). In short with FPS's the way the enemy fight's effect's the difficulty, add map set up and it becomes a case of it been much easier and perhaps more effective to have a more area and map related scaling system. It will have to be done carefully, as you need the variety and occasional challenge in the game play to keep the player's engaged. The area scaling is very important though, because whats the point of going to the dead fleet's of Saturn if the enemies there (and the loot) isn't more difficult (and thus more rewarding) than say going to the European dead zone or a area likely to be frequented by new player's? There should and needs to be areas which are notorious for been dangerous... where noob's fear to tread and only the bold, the badass, and the fool hardy dare to venture. Because its those adventure's that are the most rewarding and memorable. It's like remember that time we went to (a very notoriously dangerous area). Yeah that was some Crazy S***. We kicked some serious a**. That was pretty epic wasn't it... remember those sweet weapons we got. Yeah totally worth it. That way the player's can moderate there own difficulty, and far flung exotic places become properly rewarding. People can always get better at a game in order to open up new areas for adventure... or better yet time up with other players, or just tag along with a more skilled player to such a location. Besides if you get into trouble chances are you'll find some one there to team up with.

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    2 Replies
    • I like the idea of no tiered difficulties. I am a big fps player but recently taken up mmo's too, so there are parts of both that I favor over the other. Since we're talking difficulty, I'd also like to see certain missions REQUIRE a group of people to get a better than usual reward unless you are over-leveled/geared that you can do it yourself.

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    • I hope there is a bit more player control over the difficulty he or she will be playing at. I would hate to imagine that I could rise to my level of incompetence quickly only to face a constant and impossible onslaught because the game thinks I should be much better than I am.

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    • Hope so that would be pretty cool...theres still times where i want to go and wreck stuff on lower diffculty though...

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    • Excellent theory. Reminds me of Dead Island...I believe that's how it worked when you were playing with others who were lower/higher leveled than you.

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