My husband and son have been playing a lot of Destiny 2 again, and a few weekends back I overheard them complaining about backfilling. It took me a sec to realize that’s the community’s term for players who queue and join a mission in progress after other players left – a common occurrence in MMOs, of course, though I’d personally never heard it described that way (and if MMO players haven’t stolen that yet, we should).
I wanted to talk about the idea a bit because while sometimes it sucks to come to an instanced dungeon when it’s halfway over and you might have missed out on loot and questing and experience, it sucks even more in games where you can’t backfill at all. Classic Guild Wars, for example, often saw groups stranded by the dreaded “leavers,” and we would’ve loved the option.
What do you think about backfill mechanics in MMO dungeons and PvP instance content?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
