"The Best and Worst of Destiny
From a design perspective, you can argue that a thing like this should not exist in a game. The Gjallarhorn is so good that players rarely use any of the other exotics in most high-end PvE situations. When Xur shows up with anything else, players are always disappointed, even if they don’t yet have the gun he’s selling."
Wu Kong is awesome. After I wrote up my Titan Guide, the E&P gods saw fit to gift me my first WK. I was shocked. Since then, I’ve focused on leveling him, of course, and my Titan damage has really taken off. One month ago my average damage on a 5* titan was 3000. Today I managed 19500 against an 8*… This is in no small part due to the addition of WK, and his ability to supercharge my heroes.
But, is this a good thing? I attempted a search this morning to find the exact term for this sort of lynch-pin asset in a game. The most direct comparison I could find was from the ORIGINAL Destiny – they had an exotic gun (comparable to a 4-5* hero) called Gjallarhorn. The next strongest gun did about 2/3 the amount of damage of Gjallarhorn. (maybe you can imagine why I consider this a good comparison? =))
An excerpt from twinfinite.net when NERFs of Gjallarhorn were announced ( full article here: https://twinfinite.net/2015/07/destiny-embrace-gjallarhorn-nerf/ )
“Most importantly, Gjallahorn’s power is bad for everyone from a design standpoint as well. I’m no developer, but logically it’s safe to assume that when creating activities and bosses, Bungie developers need to account for the power of Gjallarhorn. Make a boss a little too easy and Gjallarhorn users will make a mockery of it. Create a difficult boss and Gjallarhorn will become a requirement for many fireteams. Neither of these scenarios are fun.
It might seem scary at first, but a post Gjallarhorn nerf world could actually be a pretty happy place. Imagine being able to vary your playstyle by using different exotics without making things harder for yourself. Bungie can get more bold and creative with their new activities. Instead of measuring something’s difficulty by how many Gjallarhorn shots it takes, skill and weapon choice will factor more into the picture. “
If you replace Gjallarhorn with “Wu Kong” and replace “exotics” with “heroes,” then I think you’re essentially where we are in E&P with what WK does to damage.
A few notes:
1 I’m no pro, and I think it’s possible I’m wrong. Maybe other heroes actually do allow for this level of damage to Titans. However, when you make a “titan guide” post, and 9/10 of the comments say: “You didn’t mention WK. Don’t forget about WK!!” I believe from a Game Design perspective, this is a problem.
2 I haven’t ever seen an alliance say in their recruitment posts “must have WK.” This is different from Y1 Destiny. That should be noted. It’s an important component to note that people aren’t restricted from the activity.
3 Is WK awarded at a higher rate than other 4-5* heroes? I don’t know. There’s no guarantee that people will get him, at any rate. Which could in theory be very frustrating for players, I think… But maybe he just shows up at a higher rate?
4 There are a LOT of ways to address this…… And I would like to include my favorites from what I’ve thought of:
• Add more “Wu Kongs.” They don’t have to take his same ability (though they could), but they do need to bring some Titan Smashing juice of their own. In fact, I would be in favor of leaving him as slightly the best Titan Killer. That’d be cool. But what about adding heroes with Titan Specific abilities. Maybe a +50% attack against titans that DOES stack with other attack buffs? (OF COURSE, this ability would have to NOT stack with WK.)
• Change WK. Eliminate his Titan Killing ability and make it something else. Maybe a direct damage attack that only works against titans, dealing something like 500-1000% damage against titans. You could balance this to make it significantly better than other non-titan killer cards…
• Speaking of stacking buffs… Maybe against titans, attack buffs should stack. I think the more heroes or effects that potentially stack together, the harder it becomes for devs to keep track of. But, also allows players more creativity in designing and building Titan Killing teams. WK stands out as a problem. If you’re adding 48% + 25% + 185%, you’ve got a problem. That 185 really breaks it. WK needs changed if you’re gonna change anything else about the way abilities interact in titan attacks.
• Make a quest for players to earn WK. If he’s gonna be the lynchpin character to massive Titan damage, then having him be an earnable 4* character seems fair to me. You could maybe have a flat cost for him, like 2000 gems. Or a long term quest, that’s quite challenging (requiring a 3500 or so team?), and requiring maybe more like 300 gems total, as well as maybe some other resources… I think that would be fair. And for players who don’t have him, I think that’d be the way to go. (If you’re gonna spend time building that, might as well have another 1-2 4* heroes in there in case players already own WK, so they’ve got a reason to play the quest still =P )
• Do nothing. I haven’t heard others complaining. Maybe it’s fine.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear others thoughts on this.