It's certainly a delicate balance. On one hand you don't want too much Halo (shielding and almost totally skill-based), which will attract competitive gamers, but at the same time you don't want COD (almost instakill with little skill) which will attract flocks of gamers but decrease skill quality to play. I'm sure Bungie has taken this into consideration, but there does need to be social and competitive playlists.
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Wait, we DON'T want skill-based gameplay? Then what do we want?
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[i]haha oh yes! We do! I am perfectly fine with ultra competitive, but the every day gamer typically does not. But not so much that it scares away the masses that are the lifeblood of games. [/i]
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If a game was 100% skill-based, over half the community would be having an absolutely shitty time while the no-lifers jacked off getting kills left and right, ruining the experience. Just having a learning curve that steep would instantly turn off any newcomers (i.e. MOBAs, not many except hardcore players like them) and make the community a shitty place.
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I agree that it's fun for no one (for very long) for veteran "no-life" players to fight noobs. That's why Bungie has put so much into a matchmaking system that works. I believe a game's competitive potential and its learning curve are two different aspects, so to correlate the two would be unfair. A prime example of both of these points is SC2. It is a wildly popular, very compeitive game with an almost unrivaled system for matching players of equal skill. If Destiny's Competitive Multiplayer was designed to be more inherently random and based on chance it would not make players keep wanting to come back. Why invest so much time in something when there is nothing to show for it? I think Destiny's other modes could be curtailed more for new users so they get a taste of being awesome and get addicted.
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I think your observation is one that hordes of Halo players agree with. I wouldn't go as far as making the blanket statement that Halo = competitive gamer and CoD = casual gamer. The majority of gamers (Halo or otherwise) don't know or care about the competitive aspects of the game they're playing. They care about having fun. In the defense of Call of Duty, there has always been competitive leagues of CoD with players and teams staying consistently near the top. I think there are plenty of opportunities for skill to be the deciding factor in who wins engagements. A great player in CoD relies more on quickly acquiring a target than a Halo player who can try to out think his opponent. A great team in CoD needs to quickly react as a unit, more so than a Halo team that can take time to re-setup. But yes, I've always felt a greater skill gap in Halos vs. CoDs. Full disclosure - I've played much more Halo than CoD... and I've played a LOT of CoD!
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Well put friend. We as a community have to have faith that Bungie is taking this generous amount of time to make everything perfect; including the competitive nature balance. In my opinion, they changed gaming with the first Halo and now they are set to change it again in a different way with Destiny. I'm so excited to see what they put on the table for everyone to devour :D