What The Division Can Learn from Bloodborne

[supercat]

Hey, guys. I know it's pointless to write this feedback and idea here. But posting this in the official forum would be as pointless as doing it here. So I'd rather use this unofficial forum to share my thoughts about how The Division can learn from Bloodborn, which I just got yesterday and played for hours. The game's hard and challenging, but it's worth it and well, it IS actually 'challenging'. It's a long thread, but bear with me, if you got the time.

To put it in comparison, although Bloodborne is a single-player focused game with Multiplayer ability, these two games have similarity at some points, such as:

- Level/Stats system

- Gears and its grade

- PvE and PvP

However, there are difference in quality of combat. In Bloodborne, being reckless in combat punishes you hard. BUT, reckless enemies will be punished hard as well, even fatally, provided you execute your attack properly. This means, the fight is not completely reliant on your gear and level. But also your experience as a player. You need to study enemy's behavior and characteristic from their speed, attack move, range, etc. You don't just press button to smash. You need to pay attention, study, parry/dodge, use environmental objects to keep yourself a safe distance, use heal and support items wisely. Also, failure in Bloodborne is not a punishment. Instead, failure is a lesson and a part of a progress. This aspect is what The Division is missing.

In The Division, all you care about is stats, stats, stats. And once you are in the fight, all you do is hide, hide, hide, and run, run, run, like little kids playing catch in the park. Enemies don't have prominent characteristics. Everyone is a tank and the only difference are weaker tank and stronger tank who almost never reload. Needless to say, your experience in the game don't mean jack shit if your gear level is below enemy's standard. Although Gear Set is a cool feature to give players significant role and characteristic in a team, yet at the end of the day, that idea absolutely went mush and I don't think I need to explain why. 

In regards of PvE and PvP aspects, yet once again The Division, as a multiplayer game, can learn from Bloodborne and improvise it with their technology. Bloodborne's concept of multiplayer is rather simple and generic, except with a few tweaks. In Bloodborne, when a player opens his game for (public) Multiplayer, they will have a chance to get visited by people who are looking to be helper (PvE) and also people who are looking to be a pest, or the game would call them as "Invaders". This rings a bell to Dark Zone, where people can group up as a team and will meet people who are looking for trouble. But what's the difference in the PvP here? In Bloodborne, there is no concept of Ganking, Griefing, and Barricading the Weaks. Once the fight is done, the winner will get a reward and will immediately be separated from the opponent as soon as he/she dies. Now, The Division has a real time Phase Shift technology, why wouldn't this idea be implemented? This idea brings nothing other than a thoughtful, well-polished idea.

This is my thought so far. I can't speak much about Bloodborne too, because I'm only several hours in and still have a plenty of things to uncover.

Anyway, what do you think? Is there any other games you play that The Division can learn from?

 

[ProphetReborn]

I think it's a great idea to try and glean some characteristics of other games and try to implement some of them, but I don't think this is a comparison to make. At least not right now.

At its most base level these games are just too different I think to really compare them, but ultimately I think where this goes wrong is that I feel like you are leaving out a lot of things in the division that go against your argument. In my opinion combat, especially high end combat and missions, is not necessarily a hide and run strategy. There is a lot of hiding at times, I agree, but you have crowd control skills, healing, pulses...other things going on in one firefight that makes it more than what you describe it as. That being said, this game was designed as a cover based shooter. That's what it is, and having to hide behind cover should come as no surprise. 

I just feel like the games are too different and you are leaving too much out right now that might give the division more credit. I guess I would ask how much of the division have you played and what is your frame of reference here? The high end content can be brutally difficult at times, but strategy and teamwork are a huge part of getting that content done. It takes time to uncover some of the good things hiding underneath the divisions rough exterior. 

I wont argue the dark zone part, it's been an issue from the start. Poor balancing, bugs etc. My main issue with that place is that you reward people far more for going rogue than you do for not going rogue. The monetary and experience rewards are far more in favor of rogues who build a cheap shotgun build and just run around one hitting everyone. 

Too much different in the end for me to call it a good comparison. I like outside the box thinking and it never hurts though. 

 

[quinch1199]

My main issue with that place is that you reward people far more for going rogue than you do for not going rogue

Trouble with that is that if you turn it the other way or only even the rewards up .... no one would go rogue (or certainly only the truly dedicated Troll would!).

The issue with the DZ is that its PvP AND PvE, if you drop the PvE completely but have a purely PvP Arena where players fight over random airdrops for some of the best gear but also set it up so its a "competition zone" where stats are levelled.... then its fixed. 

With regards comparisons, I feel The Division has far more in common with MMORPG games such as WoW / LotrO / Neverwinter etc etc 

 

[ProphetReborn]

I agree, it's just that it's a really tough balance between the pvp and pve in that area. They may never find a sweet spot between the two, most likely not. 

Come to think of it I would say the division has some things in common with a game like borderlands, more particularly borderlands 2. It shares a lot more similarities than a game like bloodborne. The big comparison in the beginning was Destiny, which wasn't too bad if you remove the first person vs third person aspect. 

This makes me want to play borderlands again. Lord I loved part 2. 

 

[supercat]

Yes, a lot like Borderlands 2, even until the bullet sponginess and paper armor part.

I am aware that Bloodborne is different genre, but my point is that there are positive aspects in Bloodborne that can also be implemented in The Division that could repair the mess.