Game Design Observations

Game Design Observations

My game is going to be large and open for the player to go in whatever direction they want. I've been playing Destiny 2 pretty heavily the last week and thought I'd look at some popular games and make some observations.

Here are 5 games that I think are worth evaluating:

Destiny:

Diablo:

Zelda:

Pokemon Go:

Skyrim:

What drives you to explore?
Destiny: Search for better loot.
Diablo: Search for better loot.
Zelda: Search for better loot & Story
Pokemon Go: Find rare Pokemon
Skyrim: Quests. Loot is mostly irrelevant.

How does your character level up?
Destiny: Items (Light Level)
Diablo: Experience & items
Zelda: Experience

Pokemon Go: Not relevant

Skyrim: Using the ability you want to level up

What keeps you playing?
Destiny: loot and friends playing together
Diablo: trying to reach highest greater rift

Zelda: end of story

Pokemon Go: Find rare pokemon and level up existing ones

Skyrim: Completing quests, finding new areas, raising character level

What sucks?

Destiny: Once you hit 260 light, it becomes a grind. You are often forced to use weapons you hate.
Diablo: Once you reach Torment 10 or so, it becomes a grind. Power level has gotten out of control.
Zelda: Weapons break.
Pokemon Go: It is hard to find rare Pokemon
Skyrim: Everything starts to look the same

What 1 improvement would I add?
Destiny: A wider range of improvements on the high end. Light level should keep going to 400+ with high level content available to dedicated players.
Diablo: Fix legendary gems. They are a storage nightmare.
Zelda: I didn't finish it. It really didn't like constantly breaking weapons. This felt like Halo.
Pokemon Go: Make the Pokemon locator work again... idiots.
Skyrim: Make loot more valuable

Reflections on how to design my game:
1. There needs to be something happening around you constantly.
2. Enemies need to be frequent, varied
3. Events should occur that you can find and complete
4. You can find items/enemies via a locator
5. Character level should be unlimited and driven off gear.
6. Gear can be upgraded without a great hassle.
7. There needs to be quests to complete with rewards.
8. Areas of the game get harder as you go further driving you to improve your gear.