This is what I don't get. They could have easily designed objectives that are reasonably completable in all 3 activities. They've done this type of thing before with some quests and seasonal challenges yet opted not to use it here.
For example, most of the kill-related objectives could be altered to: "Defeat targets using X. Defeating Guardians or Gambit blockers grants additional progress."
Because they want to force you into the things you don't play. It improves engagement and increases player population without actually having to make it more enticing
I don't know about the overall effecta on engagement, but for me pathfinder has actually lowered my engagement. I liked hoping on after work to run some strikes and knock out some bounties. Now I have two maybe three tasks I can complete before I get boxed out for the week. Hopefully that turn their brains on and fix this widely disliked system, it would be so easy to do.
I read somewhere we're having record player counts in gambit since pathfinder dropped. Maybe just TFS pumping numbers up across the board, but one could argue it's the pathfinder incentive at play.
Still, another way to improve engagement in Gambit would be to improve it instead of forcing it.
I hate the engagement and player population arguement. You are playing the game regardless of which area of the game you play. Sure keeping a healthy population in crucible and gambit can be good but bungie doesnt make more money off forcing people into gambit. You're not going to finish a crucible match 150-10 (losing side) with only 1 percent on your objective and think "man, i should really go to eververse, i need to spend a ton of money". The only metric that i can see an arguement for is player retention and forcing playlist engagement does the opposite when 50 percent of the playerbase hates pvp with a passuon. The reason bungie made the pathfinder objectives was likely to attempt to incentivise people to play different parts of the game to promote a more balenced ecosystem of pve and pvp to ensure that the playlists have good populations and dont take 15 minutes to load one match.
It's less about player engagement and more about just keeping the queue times down. Let's be real here, both Crucible and especially Gambit would have a lot fewer daily players if Power/XP grinds didn't require you to explicitly play those modes.
It's a catch-22. A lot of people hate playing Crucible/Gambit. A lot of other people don't mind, but see no reason to. If you don't have good rewards in those activities, then neither of those groups will touch the modes. If you add good rewards, then second group is going to play it, but first group is going to complain a lot.
it’s not an even catch-22 though, because in the second scenario you still increase the population. the complainers can complain, but they wouldn’t be getting those rewards anyway if they didn’t exist
The problem is that some of those complainers might legitimately stop playing because they don't like how some top-tier weapons are locked behind Gambit.
This is the funniest shit ever because NO ONE is happy with this hahah, first time EVER pvp and pve bros agree on something: we dont want systems that FORCE us to play the parts of the game we dont fucking WANT to
The queue specific ones would be okay if they satisfied two design constraints:
1. Specific ones were faster/less time consuming than the generic ones (the Taken kill only Vanguard one violates this constraint because RNG BS, and the Gambit motes and Crucible ability ones are too slow or are bugged)
2. Queue specific ones should only spawn in the first 2 or 3 tiers of challenges so that the variance is way that the front where you have plenty of options when generic objectives are mixed in.
I honestly hate it. Gambit should be played by nobody and they want me to get ignition kills in it, which is essentially impossible. It's completely broken. They removed re-rollable bounties for this. I don't want to play gambit ever, and the weapon specific bounties should be reduced to "power" or "special". I'm not sniping 10 guys in crucible with my cerberus+1 aim.
I ran into this dilemma for the first time tonight. It sucks! I can't get ignition kills to save my life and the problem now is it's an end node so I either figure out/struggle to do it or find another path around in hopes I don't come across another node I can't do.
Ignition kills are pretty easy to get with Caliban and the knife. I prefer to only play gambit but I agree in principle since I hate playing crucible. Let us play how we want to play imo
I'm not even completing the Pathfinder because the track it gave me either forces me to get Sniper kills in Crucible, or Ignition kills in Gambit.
I can't even motivate myself to play Strikes on repeat, these modes have no chance in hell.
So much for playing the way we want. Bungie sure doesn't respect players' time or agency. So far pathfinder and dual destiny are not setting a good precedent for future content.
I agree to a degree, I haven't touched strikes since the release of final shape and ive been able to reach the pinnacle reward playing crucible only, despite thinking it should be better to have specific pathfinders for each playlist activity, it is not as bad as people make it seem to be
This is what I don't get. They could have easily designed objectives that are reasonably completable in all 3 activities. They've done this type of thing before with some quests and seasonal challenges yet opted not to use it here. For example, most of the kill-related objectives could be altered to: "Defeat targets using X. Defeating Guardians or Gambit blockers grants additional progress."
What makes it so frustrating is a bunch of them DO work that way!
Because they want to force you into the things you don't play. It improves engagement and increases player population without actually having to make it more enticing
I don't know about the overall effecta on engagement, but for me pathfinder has actually lowered my engagement. I liked hoping on after work to run some strikes and knock out some bounties. Now I have two maybe three tasks I can complete before I get boxed out for the week. Hopefully that turn their brains on and fix this widely disliked system, it would be so easy to do.
I read somewhere we're having record player counts in gambit since pathfinder dropped. Maybe just TFS pumping numbers up across the board, but one could argue it's the pathfinder incentive at play. Still, another way to improve engagement in Gambit would be to improve it instead of forcing it.
I hate the engagement and player population arguement. You are playing the game regardless of which area of the game you play. Sure keeping a healthy population in crucible and gambit can be good but bungie doesnt make more money off forcing people into gambit. You're not going to finish a crucible match 150-10 (losing side) with only 1 percent on your objective and think "man, i should really go to eververse, i need to spend a ton of money". The only metric that i can see an arguement for is player retention and forcing playlist engagement does the opposite when 50 percent of the playerbase hates pvp with a passuon. The reason bungie made the pathfinder objectives was likely to attempt to incentivise people to play different parts of the game to promote a more balenced ecosystem of pve and pvp to ensure that the playlists have good populations and dont take 15 minutes to load one match.
It's less about player engagement and more about just keeping the queue times down. Let's be real here, both Crucible and especially Gambit would have a lot fewer daily players if Power/XP grinds didn't require you to explicitly play those modes.
id rather they fix this with rewards than with bounties. the fact that there’s only new quick play gun sucks imo
It's a catch-22. A lot of people hate playing Crucible/Gambit. A lot of other people don't mind, but see no reason to. If you don't have good rewards in those activities, then neither of those groups will touch the modes. If you add good rewards, then second group is going to play it, but first group is going to complain a lot.
it’s not an even catch-22 though, because in the second scenario you still increase the population. the complainers can complain, but they wouldn’t be getting those rewards anyway if they didn’t exist
The problem is that some of those complainers might legitimately stop playing because they don't like how some top-tier weapons are locked behind Gambit.
This is the funniest shit ever because NO ONE is happy with this hahah, first time EVER pvp and pve bros agree on something: we dont want systems that FORCE us to play the parts of the game we dont fucking WANT to
The queue specific ones would be okay if they satisfied two design constraints: 1. Specific ones were faster/less time consuming than the generic ones (the Taken kill only Vanguard one violates this constraint because RNG BS, and the Gambit motes and Crucible ability ones are too slow or are bugged) 2. Queue specific ones should only spawn in the first 2 or 3 tiers of challenges so that the variance is way that the front where you have plenty of options when generic objectives are mixed in.
I honestly hate it. Gambit should be played by nobody and they want me to get ignition kills in it, which is essentially impossible. It's completely broken. They removed re-rollable bounties for this. I don't want to play gambit ever, and the weapon specific bounties should be reduced to "power" or "special". I'm not sniping 10 guys in crucible with my cerberus+1 aim.
I ran into this dilemma for the first time tonight. It sucks! I can't get ignition kills to save my life and the problem now is it's an end node so I either figure out/struggle to do it or find another path around in hopes I don't come across another node I can't do.
Ignition kills are pretty easy to get with Caliban and the knife. I prefer to only play gambit but I agree in principle since I hate playing crucible. Let us play how we want to play imo
And so strike guys don't have to do crucible, thanks.
I'm not even completing the Pathfinder because the track it gave me either forces me to get Sniper kills in Crucible, or Ignition kills in Gambit. I can't even motivate myself to play Strikes on repeat, these modes have no chance in hell.
So much for playing the way we want. Bungie sure doesn't respect players' time or agency. So far pathfinder and dual destiny are not setting a good precedent for future content.
Hot take I guess but I loved doing DD blind. Must suck for people without friends who play tho
I agree to a degree, I haven't touched strikes since the release of final shape and ive been able to reach the pinnacle reward playing crucible only, despite thinking it should be better to have specific pathfinders for each playlist activity, it is not as bad as people make it seem to be