Destiny 2: Lightfall

[Weavus]

The biggest problem they have is the way the whole studio is setup to develop the game and its dlc. They have 700 employees (along with a couple of other studios helping out supposedly) but a very very small proportion of those people are currently working on anything that will be released before fall 2018 which will basically means you need to buy the next expansion to get any real benefit.

 

This is how they work (was the same for D1):

 

Main game and both first year DLCs are developed at the same time, main game is finished and the DLCs are basically complete before it ships. The majority of employees work on this while a small fraction (live team) keep D1 alive post Rise of Iron and develop Age of Triumph.

 

Once D2 ships vast majority of employees switch to work on the big fall 2018 D2 expansion. The live team take over control of the main game and run the events that were created as part of the D2 development cycle and keep the lights on while implementing a few quality of life improvements and tweaking the sandbox etc.

 

Once the fall 2018 expansion is released they split and start working on the fall 2019 expansion and D3. Once the 2019 expansion is done they shift the remaining employees to D3.

 

The development update they released last week basically contained the stuff they were already developing for the fall 2018 expansion and would have kept under wraps until the press started building up for that around August. The studio is not setup to react quickly to problems with the game and they move at a glacial pace to a set timeframe. There are no quick fixes to the fundamental problems with the game and unless you fancy spending another £40 next September on the fall dlc the vast majority of the changes will be of little consequence.   

 

What they really need to do is pull everyone off the fall 2018 expansion, abandon it and fix the base game asap but there is no chance of them doing that and missing out on the dlc money (they likely also have contractual obligations to Activision to ship that expansion as well).      

[Uncle Mike]

This week's TWAB update is pretty damn light. "Sorry about Faction rallies - blame the grinders. We're working on sandbox stuff, it's going to be great."

[Harsin]

The rest of the crew you ask?  Oh, they’re just hard at work on super exciting new content to put smiles on all your faces before the year is out... And that’s just the beginning.

 

It's January. 

[Digfox]

10 hours ago, Weavus said:

The biggest problem they have is the way the whole studio is setup to develop the game and its dlc...

 

Absolutely agree that Bungie are prioritising the development of future releases over maintenance, and how the DLC is likely done in advance. However Bungie must be working on multiple releases at the same time. Even with the late reboot of Destiny 2, Activision acknowledged they were working on this game almost immediately after the release of the first game. So there must be seperate teams working on the D2 Expansion (2018) and D3 sequel (2019) now. D2 was a year late so surely they will return to the planned schedule of major releases every other year, as outlined in the original contract.

[Weavus]

1 hour ago, Uncle Mike said:

This week's TWAB update is pretty damn light. "Sorry about Faction rallies - blame the grinders. We're working on sandbox stuff, it's going to be great."

 

I wasn't just light, it was one of the most tone deaf Train Wreck At Bungie's ever. Take this empty 350 words for example:

 

Quote

Josh Hamrick: Hi everybody! Sandbox here...

We just wanted to drop in for a moment to verify that we're already hard at work and making progress on various improvements Christopher Barrett outlined last week.

Additionally, I wanted to give you all better insight as to how the next several months are shaping up.

As with any plans, the first items on the list are the clearest and well defined. For most of these, we are already hard at work and making good progress on them. The Exotic pass is moving forward nicely with Jon Weisnewskiat the helm. The team has also been talking about things we want to see in the next balance pass, coming to you in Season 3, for the last several weeks. Also, Grant MacKay has put together a really exciting plan for Mods 2.0 that will open their requirements up significantly allowing them to be more potent in ways that you’ll end up feeling directly in your ability uptime and therefore total power output. The rest of the crew you ask? Oh, they’re just hard at work on super exciting new content to put smiles on all your faces before the year is out... And that’s just the beginning.

Items further down the list need more planning or more time to actually implement... Most need both. On top of that, some need groundwork that we will be laying with earlier changes. In all these cases though, the team is already discussing and planning for them in one way or another. As usual, we are excited to work on building something that you'll love and that feels great to play… Because Sandbox loves you.

2018 is shaping up to be a huge year for all of us and there is plenty of Sandbox improvements and changes coming your way. As we move closer to realizing all of the new efforts being made, we’ll continue to show up here to share many more details about how it’s all shaping up and how it will all work. We expect you to keep showing up and sharing your feedback and passion for the game.

Talk to you again soon,
- Hamrick

 

350 words and zero details worth reading. 

 

"Exotic pass is moving forward nicely with Jon Weisnewskiat the helm" well that's fucked then.

 

"super exciting new content to put smiles on all your faces before the year is out" yay, only 340 days to wait! 

 

"we’ll continue to show up here to share many more details" how can you continue to share details if you haven't started to share any yet?

 

"Because Sandbox loves you." are you not the pricks that made the current awful sandbox in the first place?

 

Someone posted this on Reddit, it's perfect...

 

[Purin]

People still playing this are like those drug addicts that have had amputations and are injecting into the stump just to feel normal, the highs long gone.

[Harsin]

Sorry to harp on about Fortnite yet again. But it's just so good an an example to use as a juxtaposition in communication and community relations between two large developers on two current big games.

 

Yesterday, Epic released a massive QoL patch for the game that included a substantial overhaul of the map. People found out that there was a crane model on the map that people could hide inside and shoot people. Within 4 hours Epic responded.

 

Quote

Sorry guys, this is my fault. I literally just forgot to add the collision before we locked 2.2 update I'll make sure it gets fixed for the next update. Until then, be wary of cranewookies.

 

That's it. A simple honest explanation and what they're going to do (on past experience the actual fix will only be a few days away). 

 

None of this having to sift through a 500 word essay just to glean something that could have been explained in one sentence. Looking at Deej with that one, but he seems to have gone AWOL again. No we're listening and dripfeeding we're excited to share that we're going to announce that we're going to make an announcement about an announcement that we'll be doing some vague undefined things at some point.

 

 

[Nate Dogg III]

The circumstances in Fortnite’s case are very different because I’m sure the majority of the studio are on live ops whereas Bungie has a lot more content to build. But it’s a question of tone. The first word says everything. 

[HarryBizzle]

I think the tone is what Harsin is complaining about, more than the fix time.
 

You compare that to what happened with Prometheus Lens. Shipped on 5/12, utterly breaking PVP. 24 hours before you get this:

 

 

 

Another 24 hours before you get this:

 

Quote

Hello Guardians. First item of business: We know about the Prometheus Lens. It’s not what we intended. The weapon shipped with a bug, which we intend to fix with Destiny Update 1.1.1, along with everything else in the December update. Until then, please go easy on the players who have yet to get their hands on one (we know you won’t, but it’s been said).

 

 

 

 

It's utterly bizarre. I don't understand how someone apparently thinks DeeJ is good at doing PR. They should be especially grovelling, given these things take donkeys years to fix, but instead any hint of an apology is absent.

 

 

[matt0]

This obsession with preventing power levelling / grinding is completely backwards. Everyone reaches the level cap and power cap at their own pace, it doesn't matter at all whether some people get there faster by gaming the system, because... so fucking what if people get there faster!? When your solution to a non-existent problem is to sour every one else's experience, it makes no sense.

 

I'm loving my time with Destiny 2 but I basically just play it as if it's another Halo game and (like my time with D1) any given session with is more than likely going to be straight in to 4-5 matches in the crucible and then a bit of character admin. I'm engaged with the RPG aspects in the shallowest possible way, basically enough that I can keep playing crucible and see some numbers I don't really care about go up a bit. I think Destiny 2 is a better shooter than Destiny 1 if you only plan on playing through most of the PvE content once and aren't engaged in the RPG / progression aspect of it. Crucible is a narrower experience than Destiny 1 but I don't think that hurts it (hands up everyone who just wanted to play Battle Rifle starts in Halo games). The map design is maybe less imaginative, but crucially all the maps still play brilliantly with the same crooked approach to sight lines and spaces. So I'll defend the game on those terms. Someone said earlier in this thread that I'm in the minority by playing it this way, but I suspect there's a huge variety of approaches to the game across the whole player base and not everyone is having a bad time.

 

None of this gets Bungie off the hook for their endless pratfalls though, the game has to be a good shooter AND a good RPG, that's the point of the franchise.

[K]

I think the mechanisms against power levelling work really well in terms of keeping disparate bands of players at more or less the same point. The fact that you can meaningfully progress in the game while spending a relatively small amount of time with it each week makes such a big difference to me, as it means that the friends I play it with regularly can all do the same stuff. That's a real achievement from my perspective, and one of the core ideas of the sequel that not only works, but doesn't get quite enough credit for working as well as it does. It's still a peerless shooter in terms of feel and impact, but that bit of the RPG aspect really hit the spot for me.

 

Of course, it's just baffling that they transferred the anti-power levelling / anti-grinding stuff into bits of the game where there's no benefit whatsoever to grinding, but it wouldn't be Destiny without some absolutely baffling design decisions.

[Gorf King]

I'm not sure that your aim of regularly doing the same stuff with friends who don't play much couldn't be better achieved by not having 'RPG' or progressions elements at all. Like in Halo or something. I don't think I'd call that a real achievement in an RPG, I'd call it not having much meaningful progression or RPG mechanics in an RPG. There's really hardly any RPG in D2 - what there is, is basically painted on to give the superficial illusion of an RPG. I think you said it yourself a while back - whats the point of having power levels in this game at all? They just seem arbitrary gates to prevent people who haven't bought the latest DLC or expansion from accessing new content.

 

It's still got almost peerless shooting mechanics - though there is another game that marginally trumps it, and that's the game it's the sequel to - so maybe, as I find myself thinking more and more, Bungie should just go back to concentrating on that and forget the rest of the stuff they're proving not very good at achieving. Then no-one will be complaining that they're somehow left behind by people who play the game more than they do, or who tackle the endgame content that provides endgame progression (whether that be power levels, endgame gear, or whatever). They might start getting plaudits again for making a great shooter, instead of brickbats for making a shallow and empty RPG, and end up with another award-winning game. I suspect they might already be thinking this themselves.

 

One thing of which I'm fairly sure, though, is that they won't be getting any outstanding achievement in RPGs awards for this one.

[HarryBizzle]

I got caught out with Cayde's chests and had absolutely no idea why I was opening these chests which you can only find four of a week and getting nothing. It seems like a totally bizarre thing for them to do given they've already limited how many you can open in a week.

[Uncle Mike]

Yeah, the hidden Cayde cooldown was incredibly annoying.

[Mafro]

On 19/01/2018 at 12:31, HarryBizzle said:

I think the tone is what Harsin is complaining about, more than the fix time.
 

You compare that to what happened with Prometheus Lens. Shipped on 5/12, utterly breaking PVP. 24 hours before you get this:

 

 

 

Another 24 hours before you get this:

 

 

 

 

 

It's utterly bizarre. I don't understand how someone apparently thinks DeeJ is good at doing PR. They should be especially grovelling, given these things take donkeys years to fix, but instead any hint of an apology is absent.

 

 

 

Deej's weird passive-aggressiveness alway makes me laugh. Just awful.

 

I see a lot of the big streamers like Datto and KingGothalion have announced they're cutting back on the amount of Destiny 2 content on their channels due to the current state of the game. You know you've fucked up when your most die-hard fans aren't arsed any more.

[Oz]

Do you guys know the state of three of coins? Are they still broken? 

[Uncle Mike]

I have no idea, I just know I'm not wasting any time thinking about them or Fated Engrams.

[Oz]

8 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

I have no idea, I just know I'm not wasting any time thinking about them or Fated Engrams.

Anecdotal I know but fated engram have worked perfectly for me. I have everything now in both my titan and warlock. But I feel like 3oC remain broken. I don't think they have made any other comments about it. But I forgot what the last thing was they said. Seems like a million controversies ago.

[K]

I didn't know fated engrams were broken, they've always done the business for me.

[Oz]

1 minute ago, K said:

I didn't know fated engrams were broken, they've always done the business for me.

They gave some people things they already had.  a literal 'you had one job' moment.

[Broker]

I've been buying a fated engram each week and they seem to be working, only one exotic left now though so I guess I won't bother after next week.

[FlowerOfInfinity]

I think the fated engram issue was just where you have more than one character; you could get an engram that a different character already had.

[Broker]

If it’s related to weapons I already had them all when the fated engrams were added so I’ve never tried that.

[df0]

Monster Hunter World launches this Friday, anyone else picking it up?

I ask this in this topic because I played a ton of Destiny 1 and a bit of 2 with you lot, and wonder if you fancy hunting beasties with me.

[Scruff]

I'll be there Deef

[df0]

I should have known. Headset charged and ready for banter and complaints.

[Nate Dogg III]

Embargoes and that but after 20 hours Monster Hunter is *absolutely* my new Destiny. Ticks a lot of the same boxes and adds janky, but incredibly satisfying Dark Souls combat. I am obsessed. 

 

——

 

Meanwhile, of the three people that played Destiny 2 last week, two backed New Monarchy, and the presumably rubbish gun they had to offer is available now. I might uninstall Destiny 2 tonight. 

[Uncle Mike]

If even the Dead Orbit emos have given up, we're fucked.

[Harsin]

I think I know how to push you over the edge. People had been speculating that DeeJ was leaving as Bungie we’re advertising for a new community manager, but fear not he's actually got a promotion!

 

Quote

I've been at Bungie for 7 years, with no signs of stepping away any time soon. Day to day, I'm working more to evolve our customer service and communications. That takes me one step away from the very front lines of the community, so I'm being succeeded by better, newer blood.

 

[Uncle Mike]

Fucking hell.