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mmkay?
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Its not about actual cost its about perceived value. $10.00 to go to a movie is cheap, but I don't go to a movie every friday night because Hollywood is producing utter garbage. Occasionally a film comes along that looks like it'd be REALLY GOOD, and at that point, I'm willing to spend $10.00 - because the perceived value there is greater. $250 over 3 years for a game I'll play for over 1000 hours? Tremendous perceived value! $250 over 3 years for a game I'll play less than 300 hours? Terrible perceived value. How you perceive value may be different in how I perceive value. But it seems logical to me that spending MORE money on a game I'll play LESS hours is a terrible value. I bought Skyrim Remastered and in almost a year, I've put in almost 600 hours into it - at a cost of only $60.00. And I can foresee putting MORE hours into the game as I decide to make more characters, play with mods, etc. That's a much better value than D2 at this moment. I don't care if its "cheap." If I don't think the value is there, I'm not going to spend it. At this point, those that are playing the game are, IMO, those who haven't been able to kick the Destiny addiction and judge the game for what it really is - or they're just stoked for D2's particular brand of PVP. But I still believe those players are in the minority.
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Skyrim is an MMO correct? Destiny is not, it is several different genres of games mixed into one. A looter, MMO, FPS, PvP battleground, etc. The game tries it's best to cater to fans of all genres so of course they are going to fall short of some people's expectations. Some people expect a FPS and end up disappointed they have to grind for gear, while others expect an MMO and are disappointed there isn't more unique gear, others just want a PvP game and are disappointed they have to play PvE to get the guns they want. Still others just want a long campaign and are disappointed they have to play PvP a little and that the solo story isn't long enough for them. When you create a game like Destiny that isn't really one genre, it attracts fans of several different genres of games. When these people play the game, they all expect their favorite things from their genre of choice to show up in the game and when all their favorite aspects of their genre of choice aren't in Destiny, they are disappointed. People miss out on that this is a game that tons of people play, all for different reasons. Just because something in the game isn't catered for the way you like to play or the way you want it to be does not mean there are tons of people who like that aspect of the game, even though you despise it.
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I agree with much of what you say here, but the game, since TTK launched has been sliding ever more towards being a pure FPS, removing loot-based incentives for playing/replaying the game. I don't think you can really ever call it an RPG, though it had RPG elements with class differentiation, but class differentiation has been watered down in D2 to make it easier to balance. After all, its MUCH harder to balance a defensive class or a support class with an offensive class in PVP - so all supers are now purely offensive. The problem isn't that this game appeals to so many different players from different genres. The problem is that Bungie wants to treat them all the same way. The player community is kind of like a farm, made up of different animals - pigs, chickens, cows, horses, etc. And the problem is that Bungie wants to buy ONLY ONE kind of feed for them all. And it simply doesn't work. Hay/straw doesn't feed the chickens or the pigs, and corn/grain may feed the pigs and chickens, but its not healthy for the cows and horses. They need to FULLY Separate the two if this game is going to keep everyone happy and they refuse to do it. Instead, they want to simply cater to the FPS crowd and pretend that they can just "make things work" in PVE. The problem is with a unified sandbox, if you make the game play like a standard FPS in PVP, you make it play like a standard FPS in PVE too. And nobody spends 1000's of hours in Halo's campaign - they buy that game for the PVP. What I think they should do? Separate the two modes, or abandon the quest for more competitive PVP experiences. HoW represents the height of balance between PVE and PVP IMO. Everything was powerful with the small exception of a handful of guns, and basically everything was viable. Both in PVP and PVE. The game was fun and addictive in both modes - but wasn't competitive in PVP. And that is fine. We don't NEED Competitive PVP for the game to be fun. The PVP just needs to be fun like it was for most of the metas during Destiny's lifetime.
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I do agree with you for the most part. I think competitive PvP is pretty big these days though with the Twitch community pretty much keeping games relevant for longer periods of time. Tons of people watched streamers play ToO, many of which didn't even play the game. Having competitive PvP just keeps a little more attention on the game.
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And that is fine. Then that points the finger to the fact that what we need is full separation. Not just between PVP and PVE but also between different kinds of PVP. There's no reason why the game can't play like D1/Y1 in PVE, like HoW's PVP in non-competitive, and like D2 in the competitive playlist. There is simply ZERO reason why competitive PVP needs to dictate how the game plays in ALL modes. Competitive PVP can simply be like the polar opposite of Mayhem. Stanardized loadouts (actually "rented" from the Trials vendor - until made permanent via trip to lighthouse), trickle, locked loadouts, no special/heavy weapons - dual primaries only. Then no matter what Bungie does for the sake of Trials, it won't impact the rest of the community - because it is effectively quarantined from the rest of the game. This resolves MOST players' issues with the game because people hated that Trials effectively dictated how the rest of the game would play for the remaining 90% of the community that didn't play trials. Dumb move. And D2 is just designed to disguise the fact that Bungie has no intention of treating Trials differently from every other mode in the game. What this means for the competitive Crowd? They can have their competitive experience without having to impact the casuals or the PVE fanbase that just wants to grind out for a crapton of awesome gear that kills more enemies faster and makes you go "HOLY SHIT!" when you shoot the gun. The issue? This has literally been an issue since Trials was launched in HoW, people have routinely brought it up, and its not something Bungie wants to do. And if they insist on favoring the PVP/FPS crowd so heavily as they have done for the last 3 years, they're going to drive away their PVE fanbase, and this game will follow the same cycles as other PVP oriented FPS games. One of the reasons why I think they won't actually do this is that they would have an issue with getting matches for the competitive mode. Most people wouldn't play it, just like most people didn't play Trials, and so the player population in competitive dwindles and you get tons of connectivity issues. Which, IMO, just goes to show that perhaps the demand for competitive PVP isn't at all as high as Bungie thinks/hopes it is.