(I know this isn't as serious as it could be right now but I need to ease back into blogging somehow.)
I got into a discussion with one of my friends lately concerning the game Destiny. Mainly about why he did not enjoy raiding in that game. I said that in my opinion, there are a few things about Destiny as a game, in its current setup, that would prevent raiding from being enjoyable. My friend responded that this was his first real experience with raiding and wanted to know why I said that. So I thought about it. What makes a good raid?
I was going to go into great detail about fun raid encounters, the design and what made them interesting....and I will. First, however, I decided to ask people who might know a little better than I. I've played FFXI (a little), World of Warcraft (a LOT) and seen a smattering of other games' raids. But WoW is my specialty, and I stopped playing that. So I decided to ask the best tank and two of the best healers I knew the same question. What makes a raid good to you?
One said getting to kill stuff and get good loot that makes you want to keep doing it to get it all. This is definitely a factor. Another's first response was "teamwork." This is a big deal for me, but I still didn't really have a way to simplify the concept in a way that a non MMO player would get. And then the tank left me a voicemail that was perfect.
"Raiding is like (American) football," the voice said. "You have your big strong guys, your fast guys, your WR's your linemen. Then you have to figure out a smart team composition, and then tailor it to fit what your opposition is going to throw at you. If they have fast guys and your guys are slow, you have to figure out your positioning so that speed isn't a factor, and so on."
This is where Destiny cannot hang.
Destiny's 3 classes are not indistinguishable. The warlock is clearly your glass cannon, the hunter is your dedicated solo damage class, The titan is SUPPOSED to be the tank. Now, compare it to the classic rpg trinity. Tank-deal low damage, usually melee, highly armored, able to sustain (and in fact invites) damage from multiple targets. Healer- lightly armored, heals from range, sustains either one target or many in a given area. One or two survival tools but generally fragile and in need of protection. Damage aka DPS- can be melee or ranged, a variety of armor but generally more hardy than the healer. Focused around doing the group damage. The mechanics solve themselves. The tank attracts all the ire of the enemies so they dont hit dps/healer, the healer keeps him/dps alive, the dps kill everything before the tank/healer get overwhelmed.
But everyone in Destiny is dps. With the exception of the Titan's bubble ( an attempt at something resembling a tank ability) and the warlock self revival, everything is damage oriented. Golden Gun. Bladedancer. Hammer of Sol. Storm Strike. Stormtrance, shadowshot....where is the healing? Why is the titan's armor no more or less effective than the cloth wearing Warlock?
To bounce back to the football analogy, imagine a team consisting ONLY of Wide Receivers. Sure, you can throw the ball for a touchdown at any given moment, but who is blocking? Who is creating a running lane? Who is drawing the defense away from your routes? Would play action have any purpose at all? A team of linemen has the same kind of issue. Diversity is vital, for both sides, and it goes into the gameplan. What if the enemy team has a super fast receiver? How do you deal with that? If their offensive line is such that blitzing is pointless, how do you plan your defense?
It is catering for these diverse approaches that makes for the most interesting raids. Having many different people with their own special talents coming together and finding solutions based on their abilities. Destiny (all wide receivers) can only plan for something involving "do a lot of damage to x while in this safe zone." Alternatively, "kill all these things." I am aware that it is a bit disingenuous and reductive to just say " kill em all" like that doesn't happen in other games, but come on. Look at the variations stated even in the approved strategy for this old WoW raid.
The concept of "kiting" or having certain enemies follow one player so the rest of the raid can either ignore them or kill them while they're focused, never comes up in Destiny. They shoot for the moon with a portal concept, wherein half the raid goes into a portal to...shoot things...while the rest of the raid stays outside and.....shoots things.
Compare this again to the strategies involved here.
If all a wide receiver can do is run streaks, your offensive gameplan can't be much of anything but that.
As a consequence, finishing a Destiny raid takes very little time. Again, in comparison to WoW:
"There are fifteen boss encounters in Naxxramas. First full Naxx clear was done by the Horde guild Nihilum on Magtheridon (EU) on September 7, 2006 (two and one-half months after Naxx came out on June 20th 2006).""
vs
I have also been asked the question "does raiding need to be so complicated?" The answer for this really is "the level of acceptable complexity should be in balance with how many tools you have to solve it." If you can feign death, disappear, stun enemies with holy light, strengthen your teammates so they bounce back all melee damage, heal them instantly, coat yourself in stone, have a pet demon/tiger as a distraction.....then the fun will come in deciding how to deal with the situation. If you can..shoot...well.
This may sound like I dislike Destiny. I really don't I was the only one in my social circle playing it for months. But it isn't built for raiding, and the solutions they have come up with so far pale in comparison to the obvious better examples.
(Back to more serious topics next time. Maybe? )
I got into a discussion with one of my friends lately concerning the game Destiny. Mainly about why he did not enjoy raiding in that game. I said that in my opinion, there are a few things about Destiny as a game, in its current setup, that would prevent raiding from being enjoyable. My friend responded that this was his first real experience with raiding and wanted to know why I said that. So I thought about it. What makes a good raid?
I was going to go into great detail about fun raid encounters, the design and what made them interesting....and I will. First, however, I decided to ask people who might know a little better than I. I've played FFXI (a little), World of Warcraft (a LOT) and seen a smattering of other games' raids. But WoW is my specialty, and I stopped playing that. So I decided to ask the best tank and two of the best healers I knew the same question. What makes a raid good to you?
One said getting to kill stuff and get good loot that makes you want to keep doing it to get it all. This is definitely a factor. Another's first response was "teamwork." This is a big deal for me, but I still didn't really have a way to simplify the concept in a way that a non MMO player would get. And then the tank left me a voicemail that was perfect.
"Raiding is like (American) football," the voice said. "You have your big strong guys, your fast guys, your WR's your linemen. Then you have to figure out a smart team composition, and then tailor it to fit what your opposition is going to throw at you. If they have fast guys and your guys are slow, you have to figure out your positioning so that speed isn't a factor, and so on."
This is where Destiny cannot hang.
Destiny's 3 classes are not indistinguishable. The warlock is clearly your glass cannon, the hunter is your dedicated solo damage class, The titan is SUPPOSED to be the tank. Now, compare it to the classic rpg trinity. Tank-deal low damage, usually melee, highly armored, able to sustain (and in fact invites) damage from multiple targets. Healer- lightly armored, heals from range, sustains either one target or many in a given area. One or two survival tools but generally fragile and in need of protection. Damage aka DPS- can be melee or ranged, a variety of armor but generally more hardy than the healer. Focused around doing the group damage. The mechanics solve themselves. The tank attracts all the ire of the enemies so they dont hit dps/healer, the healer keeps him/dps alive, the dps kill everything before the tank/healer get overwhelmed.
But everyone in Destiny is dps. With the exception of the Titan's bubble ( an attempt at something resembling a tank ability) and the warlock self revival, everything is damage oriented. Golden Gun. Bladedancer. Hammer of Sol. Storm Strike. Stormtrance, shadowshot....where is the healing? Why is the titan's armor no more or less effective than the cloth wearing Warlock?
To bounce back to the football analogy, imagine a team consisting ONLY of Wide Receivers. Sure, you can throw the ball for a touchdown at any given moment, but who is blocking? Who is creating a running lane? Who is drawing the defense away from your routes? Would play action have any purpose at all? A team of linemen has the same kind of issue. Diversity is vital, for both sides, and it goes into the gameplan. What if the enemy team has a super fast receiver? How do you deal with that? If their offensive line is such that blitzing is pointless, how do you plan your defense?
It is catering for these diverse approaches that makes for the most interesting raids. Having many different people with their own special talents coming together and finding solutions based on their abilities. Destiny (all wide receivers) can only plan for something involving "do a lot of damage to x while in this safe zone." Alternatively, "kill all these things." I am aware that it is a bit disingenuous and reductive to just say " kill em all" like that doesn't happen in other games, but come on. Look at the variations stated even in the approved strategy for this old WoW raid.
The concept of "kiting" or having certain enemies follow one player so the rest of the raid can either ignore them or kill them while they're focused, never comes up in Destiny. They shoot for the moon with a portal concept, wherein half the raid goes into a portal to...shoot things...while the rest of the raid stays outside and.....shoots things.
Compare this again to the strategies involved here.
If all a wide receiver can do is run streaks, your offensive gameplan can't be much of anything but that.
As a consequence, finishing a Destiny raid takes very little time. Again, in comparison to WoW:
"There are fifteen boss encounters in Naxxramas. First full Naxx clear was done by the Horde guild Nihilum on Magtheridon (EU) on September 7, 2006 (two and one-half months after Naxx came out on June 20th 2006).""
vs
Crota was defeated by 7 players in 6 hours. We've reached out to @InvigorateINV for comments. Stand by....
I have also been asked the question "does raiding need to be so complicated?" The answer for this really is "the level of acceptable complexity should be in balance with how many tools you have to solve it." If you can feign death, disappear, stun enemies with holy light, strengthen your teammates so they bounce back all melee damage, heal them instantly, coat yourself in stone, have a pet demon/tiger as a distraction.....then the fun will come in deciding how to deal with the situation. If you can..shoot...well.
This may sound like I dislike Destiny. I really don't I was the only one in my social circle playing it for months. But it isn't built for raiding, and the solutions they have come up with so far pale in comparison to the obvious better examples.
(Back to more serious topics next time. Maybe? )
