During dev on Crota, we would frantically move from one side of the arena to the other when Crota moved. It never occurred to us that people would stand on the center windowsill, negating the purpose of his movement.
We learned a lot from that raid.
We learned a lot from that raid.
Player containment is not a thing. If players can get somewhere, they will, even if it doesn’t seem advantageous at the time.
Everywhere in your encounter space needs to have a purpose. If it doesn’t, try to cut it.
Everywhere in your encounter space needs to have a purpose. If it doesn’t, try to cut it.
Players like to contain risk and variables to as few points of failure as possible. If they can pile all the responsibility onto a single person, they will. Usually, this is only fun for that one person.
“Ok, you guys stand here and shoot when I yell. I’ll do the rest.”
“Ok, you guys stand here and shoot when I yell. I’ll do the rest.”
Don’t expect players to do the mechanic unless it’s absolutely compulsory.
“No one will solo the Abyss. They have to stick together or they’ll get...oh, look, they’re skipping whole sections... oops.”
“No one will solo the Abyss. They have to stick together or they’ll get...oh, look, they’re skipping whole sections... oops.”
I thought I was super clever designing the bridge encounter.
“No one will cross the bridge without someone holding the plate.... oh. Look at that. They’re crossing the bridge without anyone holding the plate.”
Again, see point about player containment and compulsory mechanics.
“No one will cross the bridge without someone holding the plate.... oh. Look at that. They’re crossing the bridge without anyone holding the plate.”
Again, see point about player containment and compulsory mechanics.
“They have to kill all the adds even after Deathsinger is dead.”
Why on earth did I think this would be fun? There’s no sense in drawing out an experience. Identify the core experience, fill it out, then stop. If it feels like unnecessary steps, cut it.
Why on earth did I think this would be fun? There’s no sense in drawing out an experience. Identify the core experience, fill it out, then stop. If it feels like unnecessary steps, cut it.
Don’t add mechanics that players only experience if they make a mistake. Crota 1.0 summoned the oversoul only when people died. If you never die, you never have to respond.
The reprisal patch changed it so he summoned it after every DPS cycle. Much better implementation.
The reprisal patch changed it so he summoned it after every DPS cycle. Much better implementation.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Hopefully, some of this is interesting or useful and not completely obvious for anyone interested in encounter design.
Oh, one more important thing. We were basically done with Crota before destiny 1 even shipped. There was a lot of guesswork as to how people would actually play the raids.
To clarify, “done” usually means content complete. That is, stop adding stuff, fix the bugs, finalize text and localization, etc.
You can’t keep making changes after a certain point because then the game will never ship.
You can’t keep making changes after a certain point because then the game will never ship.
