Destiny 2: Season of the Risen (season 16)

Skills

Systems Design

Progressions

Economy

Rewards

Quests

Vanguard Investment Design Lead

Vanguard was the large team responsible for each seasonal release, producing 4x a year. Investment is the discipline of systems design responsible for progressions, economy, rewards, quests, crafting, social systems, and the like. I was responsible for the quality of all seasonal investment design features.

Responsibilities:

• Coordinated communication between the seasonal systems design team and the rest of the organization, especially Destiny’s two dedicated season teams
• Set high-level design direction for the team and proposed upgrades to existing content and systems.
• Translated direction from the seasonal director and creative leads into actionable goals for the seasonal systems design team to implement
• Supported the team through IC work to pick up unclaimed stories, solved unexpected problems, and provided Lead/Staff-level efficiency to help the team meet deadlines
• Evaluated and committed to features or updates that improved overall productivity and efficiency
• Provided ongoing feedback and reviewed the work being done by the seasonal systems design team
• Communicating the progress and relative importance of these features upward to the seasonal leadership team
• Ensured successful delivery of features and content needed for the two seasonal teams

Features

• Ritual Loop (game loop, rewards, progressions, vendors, quests, bounties)
• Exotic Mission & Quest (special mission & highest rarity weapon quest)
• Seasonal Upkeep (a collection of small-scope features from PVP updates to seasonal achievements)
• Player Journey (season’s main quest)

For Season of the Risen, I was the feature lead for all systems design features overseeing them from concept to to mid-development.

Ritual Loop

Role: Vanguard Investment Design Lead – feature lead

A ritual loop is a season’s game loop. It unifies the season’s theme, activities, and rewards through a multi-layered set of systems and content. Ritual loops drive player engagement through a suite of quests, progressions, upgrades, reward stories, and more.

Responsibilities

• Oversaw design and implementation of ritual loop
• Meticulously reviewed design specs giving feedback and direction for the highest quality experience including:
  • Seasonal loop
  • Activity reward structure
  • Vendor upgrades and reputation
  • Bounties
  • Vanity item reward stories
• Frameworked integration of new weapon crafting system with seasonal loops to provide currency for weapon crafting
• Collaborated with feature owner to better integrate yearly expansion’s content with season that launched alongside it
• Playtested rigorously, giving feedback each week

Exotic Mission & Quest

Role: Vanguard Investment Design Lead – feature lead, feature owner

An exotic quest rewards players with an exotic weapon, and require more effort in the form of exploration, discovery, and perseverance.

Responsibilities

• Oversaw design and implementation of exotic quest from concept to close
• Designed weekly engagement with the exotic mission via a reward plan for replayability
• Picked up feature work from IC to help with a staff outage and loan
• Provided feedback each week to activity designer on player experience and flow of activity

Seasonal Upkeep (various features)

Role: Vanguard Investment Design Lead – feature lead

Seasonal Upkeep covers a range of seasonally reoccurring feature work including PVP map rotation, seasonal weapon quests, achievements, and more.

Responsibilities

• Oversaw the development of:
  • Seasonal Challenges
  • Iron Banner updates (quest, vendor rewards, collections, vanity reward stories)
  • Trials & PVP updates (trials maps rotation, PVP maps rotation, trials intro pursuit, trials seasonal pursuit, collections)
  • Ritual Weapon (vendor rank progression, weapon ornament progression)
  • Triumphs (crucible, gambit, vanguard, seasonal gear, ritual loop, seasonal activities, exotic quest/mission, event)
  • Seal/Title (objectives, difficulty tuning)
• Mentored new Designers through learning how to create a variety triumphs for each other feature in the season (ritual loop, player journey, exotic quest, etc.)
• Reviewed specs for each feature’s updates and gave feedback on how to accomplish our goals within time and at our quality bar
• Taught Designers about our objectives frameworks to ensure tasks we asked players to do was within intended duration and difficulty

Player Journey (main story quest)

Role: Vanguard Investment Design Lead – feature lead

Player Journey is the main story quest for a release. It provides story beats through vendor performances (text and VO), character vignettes, and cinematics. Quest steps guide players through the release’s game loop, introduces and tutorializes new mechanics & rewards, and gates activities & sequences.

Responsibilities

• Oversaw the development of quest content from concept to mid-way through development
• Reviewed design specs and helped outline overall quest flow
• Provided feedback in playtests to help ensure design intent matched goals and would be well received by players