JavaScript is required to use Bungie.net

Destiny 2

Discuss all things Destiny 2.
10/24/2019 5:34:14 PM
1

Final Mission for Leviathan's Breath is Simple but Great -- An Examination of Boss-Fight Design

A hot topic of conversation between Bungie and the community over the past few months has been the issue of power creep (combined with reload mechanics) and the challenges these present to the design team. These challenges were integral to Bungie's decision to heavily nerf Whisper of the Worm, Luna's Faction boots, and rally barricades, as well as fundamentally govern how Bungie designs boss fights. For example, multi-phase boss fights with inevitable immunity periods were implemented as a way to work around extremely high-DPS strategies utilizing the above-mentioned weapons/abilities. In order to maintain some semblance of difficulty, Bungie stated that they must reduce Guardians' power. However, many players--myself included--believe that while some minor nerfs may have been necessary, a majority of the issues decried by both the community and the developers could be solved with a few tweaks to the boss-fight mechanics. Enter the enhanced version of the Arms Dealer strike to conclude the Leviathan's Breath quest. I'm not going to address the frequent complaint that we play different versions of the same activity. That's another topic for another day. Looking at the Leviathan's Breath Arms Dealer strike in isolation, I believe we have a very simple, but elegant solution to making boss fights more difficult. Yes, there are modifiers increasing incoming elemental damage, and yes, there is the much-dreaded Blackout, but most importantly, by implementing a simple air-to-ground (ATG) area of effect attack, the player must constantly move around the map. All of this must be done while performing the traditional add-clearing attacks, fight-progressing objectives (get the orb, deliver the orb), and dealing damage to the boss. The beauty of this encounter is that the frequency of the ATG attack forces constant movement from the player, which [i]naturally[/i] limits DPS to the boss. Contrast this with the heavier-handed, artificially induced "difficulty" of simply forcing immunity phases and neutering weapons/perks/armor with automatic reloads. For the record, I was running Whisper for this mission and had to take many shots on the move, which [i]organically[/i] caused me to occasionally miss. If I would have been able to hit all of my shots, it would take substantial skill, in which case, I would have [i]earned[/i] the automatic reload (or regeneration of heavy ammo from the original, pre-nerf perk). In short, forcing or heavily encouraging movement--whether it's the boss that is moving or the player--is a much more interesting and engaging boss-fight experience than simply bringing a whole fireteam to one spot to dump all of our ammunition into a static target. Personally, I would love to see more on-the-run fighting tactics involved in this game, not just for boss fights, but in general. I'm probably in the extreme minority here, but I'd even love to mix some fighting with jumping puzzles (not always, of course). This, too, would be another topic for another day, but for now, I'd like to express my appreciation for Bungie's work on this exotic quest even though it's truly nothing elaborate. Sometimes, simple innovations are the most engaging, and I certainly believe that this was the case here. I hope that Bungie uses these principles to craft larger-scale raids, dungeons, and other experiences in the future. Thanks for reading.

Posting in language:

 

Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

View Entire Topic
You are not allowed to view this content.
;
preload icon
preload icon
preload icon