Destiny

[toxicitizen]

[Hot Heart]

After playing the Destiny beta some more... eh, I'm not champing at the bit to play the full game. Maybe seeing it on PS4 with all the pretty would help things, but nothing has sold me on the gameplay.

 

I went through all the story missions and then did the 'strike' thing, which just drags on if your teammates are terrible/squishy Hunters or whatever. I mean, I liked parts of it and the shooting is satisfying, but it just gets exhausting mowing down the same waves of enemies over and over again during a protracted boss fight. Especially when they're constantly running away and hiding behind things and then you can't get too close to the big boss because INSTA-DEATH and then you're scrambling for ammo.

 

Which leads me onto the thing that bugs me about the ammo, well, special ammo in particular - the green stuff. It's frickin' annoying if you're toting around a sniper rifle and a shotgun for different occasions and then need to switch and the game tells you, "Nu uh, you don't have any ammo for that" because, okay, fair enough, the shotgun shells won't work in the sniper rifle.

 

I'll switch back to the shotgun and use that to charge some enemies, you think, maybe get them to drop more. "PSYCHE! NOW YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SHOTGUN AMMO!"

 

Now I'm not the biggest fan of FPSs anyway, particularly when they're not called Halo, and it just doesn't have that feel that I used to love from Bungie. I miss snatching alien weapons and blasting Grunts about the place, hijacking vehicles and mowing down enemies (yeah, good luck with that in Destiny), getting into tense sniper battles, flying a ship onto a Scarab... All that big colourful shit.

 

The weapons aren't interesting enough to sustain it, nor is the gameplay that exciting. I want to like it, but I'm just not seeing it. There are glimpses of better things in multiplayer, but that was not a fun experience for me. Seems to favour camping with sniper rifles from the map I saw.

 

My experience in a nutshell:

[Connorrrr]

My opinion after playing the beta is that it's a game that I'll certainly be interested in getting but I will not be getting it on day one. Like, at all. That game is gonna be rife with day one server issues, I'm sure. I, too, won't be DYING to play it (plenty to play coming around the same time or a bit later) so I'll probably leave it a couple of months too.

[TheMightyEthan]

So raids can only be played with friends, no matchmaking, unlike strikes.  I only have one IRL friend with a PS4.  PXOD peeps, we're gonna have to unite for this stuff.

[SomTervo]

For all the pretty nice Halo stuff they removed, I actually preferred Destiny for all the horrible Halo stuff they fixed.

 

The movement's far less floaty, adding character progression is a gamechanger, giving it Borderlands style RPG elements is a game changer (somehow fixes all of Halo's repetitive, dull encounters imho), fighting the aliens is so much more crisp an responsive but still feels sandboxey. Little things like crouchslide and cleaner sprinting have made mobility way nicer.

 

I found most of Halo's singleplayer levels really tedious and repetitive. Destiny's felt far more compelling to me, maybe because the missions are more bitesized and the sense of progression possibilities is phenomenal.

 

I think how amazing it looks on PS4 might have added something, Hottie xD

 

Id like to get it day 1 but frankly i'd rather purchase Sniper Elite 3 to support the devs. Im loving that game and I'm worried subpar critical reception has damaged it.

 

@Ethan: i think that's a great move. Apparently Raids can last upwards of four hours... Imagine that with a team of silent, uncooperative, rubbish randoms. I'm happy to PXOD UNITE

Edited July 31, 2014 by kenshi_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

(somehow fixes all of Halo's repetitive, dull encounters imho)

 

...

 

I found most of Halo's singleplayer levels really tedious and repetitive. Destiny's felt far more compelling to me, maybe because the missions are more bitesized and the sense of progression possibilities is phenomenal.

Huh, I have the exact opposite feeling: that the encounters in Halo tend to be crafted and well designed, but because of the open nature of Destiny and the 3 second respawn times Destiny's encounters seem super dull and repetitive by comparison. The actual act of combat is still fun though, so I enjoy it.

 

I've never really understood what people mean by the "floatiness" criticism of Halo. Do you just mean the jumping? The jumping is floaty but I don't see why it would bother you...

 

@Ethan: i think that's a great move. Apparently Raids can last upwards of four hours... Imagine that with a team of silent, uncooperative, rubbish randoms. I'm happy to PXOD UNITE

Options. I can see why you might not have the best experience playing with randos, but that doesn't mean you should be forbidden, especially since getting together a group of six people to play together is going to be extremely difficult for anyone not still in school.

[staySICK]

I thought the movement felt just as floaty if not more than halo's.  huh.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, that's part of it too: it feels just like Halo to me, but with less interesting encounter design and a progression mechanic (which I really really like), so I don't see how Halo could feel floaty but this doesn't.

[Hot Heart]

Well, on the plus side, I should be getting a 'free' PS4 come September, so I might find myself picking up Destiny 'just because' (there are no other games LOL).

 

Trying to arrange a PXOD meet-up with US folks is usually a pain though. I remember there was a lot of lag last time I played with Ethan, but I think that's because my friend forgot he was torrenting something.

 

Definitely with Ethan on the Halo stuff. Great Halo encounters feel somewhat like puzzles but with some room for improvisation and luck. I remember many instances of that during a Legendary co-op playthrough of Halo 2. Best memories!

 

All I've seen of Destiny's tougher encounters is a giant clusterfuck.

[TheMightyEthan]

That was ODST's Firefight that we were playing that was so laggy, right?  I played Destiny with Chronixal and there was no noticeable lag or latency for either of us.  It was amazing.  I'm sure a big part of it is that the world is actually running on dedicated servers, whereas with Firefight one of the party members was hosting.  But based on my experience with it so far the biggest problem will be the time difference, no real technical issues.

[Vecha]

I'm getting it day one. So, anyone is free to invite Lonely Vecha into their game.

http://youtu.be/6NUpAWLqqgw

Edited July 31, 2014 by Vecha

[SomTervo]

 

(No idea what's happening with that box. Can't delete it.)

 

Now that you mention it, I do remember Halo on Legendary being really something else. I only did Halo 3 on Legendary (the whole thing... by myself), so I can't say for the other games. Destiny's combat does get a bit scrappy, but most of the time I found it really engaging and was surprised by the AI, doing nice flanky and tactical things.

 

And yes, re floatiness I'm mainly referring to jumping, but also how oversmooth movement is. 

 

In Halo, you push forward on the stick and MaChief might as well have a speeder-style force field for legs. I remember Halo 2 was the worst, there was no tactile or realistic sense to player movement. Just like your floating about on a horizontal plane. Then there was the jumps which are so slow and high and last 5 seconds for no reason and it makes no sense and it always felt terrible and immersion breaking.

 

I prefer Destiny's slightly more thumpy feet movement and shakey gun movement and faster jumps (though I was gliding a lot as Warlock so maybe I didn't notice the slow jumps because I was gliding the whole time.)

 

Options. I can see why you might not have the best experience playing with randos, but that doesn't mean you should be forbidden, especially since getting together a group of six people to play together is going to be extremely difficult for anyone not still in school.

 

Yeah well I can't really disagree with that at all. It seems pretty reductive to remove the option. Maybe it's just easier for Bungie to do it this way. I.e. they don't have another game mode to make matchmaking code for. A side effect might be that while only 1/20 randomer games will lead to good teamwork and communication, friends-only is almost 100% safe bet for a good, co-operative experience.

Edited August 1, 2014 by kenshi_ryden

[MetalCaveman]

[Vecha]

Jesus, both awesome and seemingly overpowered. I Like! 

Wonder how it'll be on the MP front...guess they'll just stick the same levels together(duh) but wonder how much butthurt will be over someone claiming a certain weapon is better, etc etc.

I probably won't touch much of the Mp till after I get most of the campaign finished.

Can't wait! We all need to get together on the MP so we can communicate...I played MP with a good friend on the beta and it was so much fun to be able to call for eachother/see eachother on the map in order to team up on enemies. 

[TheMightyEthan]

There's two kinds of multiplayer: in one they equalize everyone's stats so level and equipment bonuses don't matter, and in the other they don't do that so people of higher level are just more powerful.

[TheMightyEthan]

I made a PXoD clan on the Bungie site.  Everybody should join up.  Just sign in with either your Live or PSN account.

 

http://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/165389

[Vecha]

Oh, I know about the two type...but there were still people complaining due to the type of gun someone had.

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, you said you thought that they'd stick the same levels together, which they don't do, they just equalize everybody.

 

I know they said they equalize stats, but I'm not sure exactly what that means as far as weapons go (ie if every scout rifle behaves exactly the same or if they just equalize strength/etc bonuses).

 

Also, I approved you to join the group.  Now we are two!

[TheMightyEthan]

I think in order for the clan to show up in-game you have to set it as your clan from the website.  You can set it for both Xbox and Playstation.

[Hot Heart]

I made a PXoD clan on the Bungie site.  Everybody should join up.  Just sign in with either your Live or PSN account.

 

http://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/165389

 

Best motto!

[TheMightyEthan]

Haha, I tried to think of anything from here that we use frequently enough to call a motto.

[Hot Heart]

True. Though, really, it's "Ban him! BAN HIM!"

 

There was "Who ARE you?" but that was more just Smooves and me?

 

Ah, the old days...

 

Discuss.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, my other thought was "Blank and blank are the same person!" but that one doesn't really work for the general case.

[Vecha]

My bad Ethan...sorry for the confusion. My memory is sometimes.. Out there.

 

 

 

 

 

Can't wait...loved the mp. Shotgunning and then shocking them. Was it a shock ability? Whatever...pumped!

Edited August 5, 2014 by Vecha

[SomTervo]

My bad Shotgunning and then shocking them. Was it a shock ability? Whatever...pumped!

Yeahhh this was my favourite tactic too, when you were in close quarters.

 

The Shock thing you're referring to is the Warlock's melee blast ability, I think? That's what I used i think.

 

One thing which Destiny definitely nailed is the minimap. I.e. the 360 degree motion sensor kinda thing. Halo had a similar idea towards the end right? Really effectively done in Destiny. Perfect as a balanced MP mechanic.

Edited August 9, 2014 by kenshi_ryden