Bungie recently revealed at GDC 15 that Destiny has finally reached 17 million players, and the developer also mentioned why it decided to get rid of the infamous loot caves.
Apparently, even though Bungie knew about the loot caves before the game was even released, the developers did not think that players would actually spend hours of their time in front of them instead of doing quests, explained user research lead John Hopson. This created a bit of a problem, and took the fun out of the game.
Hopeson also noted that it created numerous controversies, as players would stand in certain, more beneficial positions when shooting at the loot caves, causing other players to report them for cheating.
The time of the loot cave was the highest peak of players reporting each other for cheating. [The Loot Cave] was actually pretty controversial
On top of that, Hopeson mentioned that although it was easy to shoot and kill enemies coming out of the caves, the enemies were “very weak” actually dropped less valuable items than other enemies. So, he explained, it could actually take players more time to gather great items from loot caves than it could from players doing quests and exploring.
What do you think about the reasons why Bungie got rid of the loot caves in Destiny? And what do you think about Destiny reaching 17 million players?
