Destiny Alpha Thread: Impressions from the wild [Code Begging=ban]
- Thread starter The Librarian
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Interfectum
Member
Killed a floaty wizard without much fuss. Then went to some station or outpost that has dudes selling me stuff. Then I went to bed.
Game is pretty easy if you're smart about how to tackle combat situations. Basically, jumping in guns blazing with an akimbo-like mentality means you're going to be overwhelmed and made dead fairly quickly. Using cover and headshots to drop life bars fast, let's you move from enemy to enemy with your melee to finish them off. This I found, was the best way to inch towards a pack leader.
The ghoulish looking chud monsters are insanely easy to take out if you can get a good rhythm with melee.
Gfx are solid and weighty. The framerate was good enough I suppose; it never got in the way and the art direction is typical Bungie (read:good).
The world has a lot of ground to teaverse, but I didn't really find much that made going off the beaten path worth it. Maybe I need to explore more/better.
And that's all I have for now. Tonight I'd like to give multiplayer a shot.
Game is pretty easy if you're smart about how to tackle combat situations. Basically, jumping in guns blazing with an akimbo-like mentality means you're going to be overwhelmed and made dead fairly quickly. Using cover and headshots to drop life bars fast, let's you move from enemy to enemy with your melee to finish them off. This I found, was the best way to inch towards a pack leader.
The ghoulish looking chud monsters are insanely easy to take out if you can get a good rhythm with melee.
Gfx are solid and weighty. The framerate was good enough I suppose; it never got in the way and the art direction is typical Bungie (read:good).
The world has a lot of ground to teaverse, but I didn't really find much that made going off the beaten path worth it. Maybe I need to explore more/better.
And that's all I have for now. Tonight I'd like to give multiplayer a shot.
The only fps's I have played for any length of time are the 2 Borderlands and Bioshock. I have zero interest in Killzone, Cod etc and I have to say this game is amazing. It's definitely a day 1 purchase for me. Sony were either very shrewd or very lucky associating themselves with this.
The only nitpick I have is that the text on the hud seems to have a slightly 3d look to it. I hope you can turn this off in the final version because it just looks blurry.
The only nitpick I have is that the text on the hud seems to have a slightly 3d look to it. I hope you can turn this off in the final version because it just looks blurry.
Marvel
could never
Spider Tank thing took like an hour to take down with my useless team lol, and the final orb battle wasn't too bad. We just hid in the boxes and kept shooting it's face.
Man I love this game.
Wish I spent more time creating my dudes face, rushed it in the dire need to play.
Man I love this game.
Wish I spent more time creating my dudes face, rushed it in the dire need to play.
Oni Link 666
Member
I played all night and got to level 8 on an Exo Titan. I did the 1 story mission 3 times, I did a bunch of running around on Patrol, I got all green items except my boots, and I also did Devil's Lair.
The game feels really close to Halo in terms of how aiming feels and how many hits regular enemies take. I was afraid that there might be a hit or accuracy stat, but there isn't and I'm glad. I feel that it would have been a big mistake to have something like that in an FPS.
I saw places that I've seen a bunch of times in the trailers, but the same thing didn't happen as far as enemies and bosses go. I never saw that Devil Walker event, for example. I also get the feeling that some areas were moved around.
The Old Russia Patrol feels like a giant Halo level in which you do MMOish (kill, collect, click something) quests that you get from little beacons in the world. This mode has potential, but it gets repetitive, because there just isn't much to do there and you end up running back and forth through the same areas over and over doing about 3 different kind of quests. I look forward to seeing bigger areas that branch out more and offer more variety in terms of quests.
Devil's Lair is really cool. I really like the concept of the Strikes. They're Halo levels meet WoW dungeons. The bosses in Devil's Lair have way too much HP and take way too long to kill, though. Even in normal difficulty, it must have taken over 10 minutes to kil each boss.
I still haven't done the Crucible.
I think I'll try a Hunter next.
Oh, and this game totally feels like a PC game. The UI feels like it was made for a mouse.
And where's my map button?
The game feels really close to Halo in terms of how aiming feels and how many hits regular enemies take. I was afraid that there might be a hit or accuracy stat, but there isn't and I'm glad. I feel that it would have been a big mistake to have something like that in an FPS.
I saw places that I've seen a bunch of times in the trailers, but the same thing didn't happen as far as enemies and bosses go. I never saw that Devil Walker event, for example. I also get the feeling that some areas were moved around.
The Old Russia Patrol feels like a giant Halo level in which you do MMOish (kill, collect, click something) quests that you get from little beacons in the world. This mode has potential, but it gets repetitive, because there just isn't much to do there and you end up running back and forth through the same areas over and over doing about 3 different kind of quests. I look forward to seeing bigger areas that branch out more and offer more variety in terms of quests.
Devil's Lair is really cool. I really like the concept of the Strikes. They're Halo levels meet WoW dungeons. The bosses in Devil's Lair have way too much HP and take way too long to kill, though. Even in normal difficulty, it must have taken over 10 minutes to kil each boss.
I still haven't done the Crucible.
I think I'll try a Hunter next.
Oh, and this game totally feels like a PC game. The UI feels like it was made for a mouse.
And where's my map button?
Trickster
Member
Only the 3 we use in the alpha afaik.
I am right now just playing the Hunter and I plan to play the Titan during beta. Then I'll start the full game with a Warlock. That will keep things fresh and once I star a different character int he full game I already have a little experience with them.
Dying is just going to the last checkpoint
Money (Glimmer) is account wide. You can earn money as one character, then log in as another one and spend that on the other one. There's also cross-character Storage
SDCowboy
Member
I think there needs to be a lot more loot chests out in the world. I loved all the exploring, but I too found it felt fruitless. That's one of my only issues.
Played the Alpha for a few hours last night and I have to say that I'm impressed. Looks pretty good, the shooting felt great and the menus/ui are slick. I saw somewhere that the mp felt like COD. I didn't get that feeling at all. It felt more like traditional Halo with the vehicles and movement. Does anyone know if space battles will be included in Destiny?
Also I would like a cape for my space dude.
Also I would like a cape for my space dude.
SDCowboy
Member
Those wouldn't be subclasses though, right? Those are the standard classes.
Noticed that as well and I think that's great.
Nope those are all subclasses. For example the Warlock is a Voidwalker. The other one for the Warlock will be something more supportive. He can heal and enhance character abilities. Every class has two subclasses.
SDCowboy
Member
It's very deep. Take Halo, cross it with Diablo and Skyrim and combine them into a pseudo-mmo, and, IMO, that's Destiny.
Sounds amazing, thank you.
Guardian Monkey
Member
Feels too much like halo, gameplay wise they didn't stretch too far,
IISANDERII
Member
First impression: Tight, responsive, accurate controls and aiming. I was immediately pulling off headshots. Hope it's like this in PvP.
Very nice looking, smooth frames.
The website is a pig though. Very slow and caused Chrome to crash twice and even caused my OS to stop and reboot itself, something which has never happened before. Hope there'll be a simplified option because it's a struggle.
Very nice looking, smooth frames.
The website is a pig though. Very slow and caused Chrome to crash twice and even caused my OS to stop and reboot itself, something which has never happened before. Hope there'll be a simplified option because it's a struggle.
Marvel
could never
It feeling like Halo and not CoD or BF is very much a good thing imo.
SDCowboy
Member
Oh, that's what I'm asking. What are the subclasses. I never saw them mentioned anywhere. I just know the base-classes of Titan, Warlock and Hunter, but don't know their subs.
electricpirate
Member
We have a few hints. For example we've seen a hunter super that uses a badass knife to rip dudes apart. We don't know how the spec works otherwise.
Tyson green also mentioned a cool warlock build for support,
One thing I'm loving is the dynamic time of day change. Does this happen during missions as well or does it only change when you load into a new setting?
Also, I was just booted out of my game due to losing connection to the servers.
Please tell me this game isn't always onine?
I would hate not being able to play it by myself if for some reason I'm without an internet connection.
Also, I was just booted out of my game due to losing connection to the servers.
Please tell me this game isn't always onine?
I would hate not being able to play it by myself if for some reason I'm without an internet connection.
Guardian Monkey
Member
Yeah but if you changed a few character models you would not know the difference.
So this is the character I made as seen on the tower:
God this looks soo much like a Turian. I love Destiny so far, but a part of me wishes this was ME4
we.are.the.armada
Member
Anybody else notice that on the left side, your hud/weapons' icons have some kind of color saturation effect on them? When I saw this on my screen I was worried that something was wrong or that I had 3D effect turned on or something. Everybody else is seeing that right? I quoted scitek's images so you can see what I'm talking about below:
Also, I LOVE DESTINY, it's a great game! The tanks/bosses have too much health and fuck that voice acting. That actor sounds bored as shit and half asleep. Should have hired a pro like Erin Fitzgerald or Karen Strassman for the ghost IMO.
Also, I LOVE DESTINY, it's a great game! The tanks/bosses have too much health and fuck that voice acting. That actor sounds bored as shit and half asleep. Should have hired a pro like Erin Fitzgerald or Karen Strassman for the ghost IMO.
ZehDon
Member
Hmm. Just played a few hours of PvE. Not really sure how I feel about it.
To me, it's really an MMO first, and a shooter second a distant second. The gunplay is just not all that engaging, frankly. Everything feels a tad slower than it should. Reloading takes just a little too long, movement is just a little too slow, etc. The combat feels like Borderlands, but much slower and without the crazy to keep it weird and interesting. The enemy A.I. is not very good either, which makes fighting enemies not all that interesting. Its very much an MMO in that regard. The enemies are just bullet sponges, in the worst possible way. They mostly just kinda of stand there and let you shoot them. Coming from the makers of Halo, I expected the gunplay to at least be solid.
I found wondering around kinda boring, frankly. Visually, the game is clearly being hamstrung by being multi-gen. There's some next-gen effects, like realtime lighting and self-shadowing, and the resolution is decent of course, but it really feels like a 360 game with better textures, in terms of the detail and feel. Shadow Fall - even in multiplayer - leaves this for dead, no questions. There's just not much to see when walking around, apart from more bad guys seemingly randomly placed around. It feels very much like an MMO in that regard also - there's very little "reason", stuff is just kind of "there". Peter Dinklage is utterly wasted here, as well. They were clearing going for an emotionless A.I. that still had personality. They utterly failed in the worst way. He's just boring, and his dialogue is utterly terrible. I want him to stop talking the moment he starts. That's pretty shocking, frankly, doubly so considering he's going to be with you for the entire game.
I didn't like how after upgrading weapons, armour, etc., that the single biggest damage increase I got was after I leveled up. My guns didn't seem to make all that much difference. They're clearly scaling based on level, but its so extreme that a fight that was pretty tight became laughably easily the moment I leveled up. Anything that's a level over you is basically not worth the time due to the bullet sponge effect being multiplied. It makes exploring painful, and due to the lack of direction, it makes everything feel wrong.
Being an Alpha, I won't harp on about story stuff too much, but its worth noting that there is almost total lack of context to anything.
I'll stick it out for the Alpha at least. Maybe it'll "click" at some point, and I'll start really enjoying it. So far though, its a disappointment. It feels like a F2P title, but it's not. Warframe is more fun, frankly, and Planetside 2 has infinitely better gunplay. I have no idea why Activision Blizzard is expecting this to be the biggest game ever. It's... kind of average, frankly. Not bad, but not overly good, either. I'd recommend getting Borderlands 2 over this, hands down.
To me, it's really an MMO first, and a shooter second a distant second. The gunplay is just not all that engaging, frankly. Everything feels a tad slower than it should. Reloading takes just a little too long, movement is just a little too slow, etc. The combat feels like Borderlands, but much slower and without the crazy to keep it weird and interesting. The enemy A.I. is not very good either, which makes fighting enemies not all that interesting. Its very much an MMO in that regard. The enemies are just bullet sponges, in the worst possible way. They mostly just kinda of stand there and let you shoot them. Coming from the makers of Halo, I expected the gunplay to at least be solid.
I found wondering around kinda boring, frankly. Visually, the game is clearly being hamstrung by being multi-gen. There's some next-gen effects, like realtime lighting and self-shadowing, and the resolution is decent of course, but it really feels like a 360 game with better textures, in terms of the detail and feel. Shadow Fall - even in multiplayer - leaves this for dead, no questions. There's just not much to see when walking around, apart from more bad guys seemingly randomly placed around. It feels very much like an MMO in that regard also - there's very little "reason", stuff is just kind of "there". Peter Dinklage is utterly wasted here, as well. They were clearing going for an emotionless A.I. that still had personality. They utterly failed in the worst way. He's just boring, and his dialogue is utterly terrible. I want him to stop talking the moment he starts. That's pretty shocking, frankly, doubly so considering he's going to be with you for the entire game.
I didn't like how after upgrading weapons, armour, etc., that the single biggest damage increase I got was after I leveled up. My guns didn't seem to make all that much difference. They're clearly scaling based on level, but its so extreme that a fight that was pretty tight became laughably easily the moment I leveled up. Anything that's a level over you is basically not worth the time due to the bullet sponge effect being multiplied. It makes exploring painful, and due to the lack of direction, it makes everything feel wrong.
Being an Alpha, I won't harp on about story stuff too much, but its worth noting that there is almost total lack of context to anything.
I'll stick it out for the Alpha at least. Maybe it'll "click" at some point, and I'll start really enjoying it. So far though, its a disappointment. It feels like a F2P title, but it's not. Warframe is more fun, frankly, and Planetside 2 has infinitely better gunplay. I have no idea why Activision Blizzard is expecting this to be the biggest game ever. It's... kind of average, frankly. Not bad, but not overly good, either. I'd recommend getting Borderlands 2 over this, hands down.
The real Butters
Member
As expected, "Explore Mode" is the most enjoyable part of the game, but I really didn't think that it would be so repetitive and static. Hopefully this is a quirk of the alpha, so I'll withhold judgment until I know for sure, but this really doesn't look like the unpredictable living world we were promised.
Enemies respawn in the same spot (and do so way too fast) and they just stay there. Monster infighting is fun when it happens dynamically, but here I always encounter the same squads of two warring factions pretending to be shooting each other, but getting very little done.
Public events feel especially repetitive, becase they're some of the more memorable activities that always happen in the same spot (but they aren't designed well enough to justify it). They also feel very artificial and I wish those enemies would stay in your instance even if you fail the event, because watching them disappear feels incredibly "gamey" and unsatisfying. Take away some of the rewards, but don't completely deflate the tension because the event happened in an empty instance.
Riding around Old Russia repeating these tiny quests is plenty of fun, but scarcity of loot makes "exploring" feel a bit futile. I don't want to have to repeat linear quests to properly outfit my Guardian.
I hope Devil Walkers will... uh... walk in the final game, because fighting them is an unbelievably dull experience in the alpha. Why would anyone put legs on a turret?!
I'm really surprised that Bungie, of all people, would make a game that punishes you so much for moving in combat. Accuracy penalties are one thing, but disabling the jetpack while aiming sends a very clear message that the designers want you to fight by popping out from behind boxes, not practice wartime acrobatics.
The full screen menu interface is a massive issue. Checking your inventory should never feel like you're putting on a blindfold. It makes you lose track of other players and since enemies respawn unannounced, the only way to find out that you might be in danger is to get shot right in the face.
Checking menus should have a custom idle animation associated with it (Borderlands displays a simple holographic screen in front of the player). Right now, it just makes you look like you fell asleep and it can be hard to notice the "busy" status dots since there's no other reason to pay attention to the player level indicator.
Enemies respawn in the same spot (and do so way too fast) and they just stay there. Monster infighting is fun when it happens dynamically, but here I always encounter the same squads of two warring factions pretending to be shooting each other, but getting very little done.
Public events feel especially repetitive, becase they're some of the more memorable activities that always happen in the same spot (but they aren't designed well enough to justify it). They also feel very artificial and I wish those enemies would stay in your instance even if you fail the event, because watching them disappear feels incredibly "gamey" and unsatisfying. Take away some of the rewards, but don't completely deflate the tension because the event happened in an empty instance.
Riding around Old Russia repeating these tiny quests is plenty of fun, but scarcity of loot makes "exploring" feel a bit futile. I don't want to have to repeat linear quests to properly outfit my Guardian.
I hope Devil Walkers will... uh... walk in the final game, because fighting them is an unbelievably dull experience in the alpha. Why would anyone put legs on a turret?!
I'm really surprised that Bungie, of all people, would make a game that punishes you so much for moving in combat. Accuracy penalties are one thing, but disabling the jetpack while aiming sends a very clear message that the designers want you to fight by popping out from behind boxes, not practice wartime acrobatics.
The full screen menu interface is a massive issue. Checking your inventory should never feel like you're putting on a blindfold. It makes you lose track of other players and since enemies respawn unannounced, the only way to find out that you might be in danger is to get shot right in the face.
Checking menus should have a custom idle animation associated with it (Borderlands displays a simple holographic screen in front of the player). Right now, it just makes you look like you fell asleep and it can be hard to notice the "busy" status dots since there's no other reason to pay attention to the player level indicator.
SDCowboy
Member
I totally agree on the tanks/bosses. That is my other issue. They have WAY too much health or defense. I was running a strike/dungeon with two other guys, and the three of us combined could barely put a dent in the health of some of the mobs.
Nightengale
Member
So, I've played through like an hour, finishing the story mission, and then some PvE, then I met some random who invited me for a short co-op session.
DAMN. FUN.
I love the sense of unpredictability that the game delivers in the moment to moment combat. One corner I was fighting a bunch of the usual Fallen goons, walk around the corner... and then sudden Hive Knights who were goddamn bullet sponges, forcing me to basically change my whole combat tactic into one that revolves around constant jumping and skirting him until they die.
Haven't sunk my teeth in it much yet, but it's already apparent PvE and co-op will be the real king of this game, and that... I'll need a goddamn headset.
DAMN. FUN.
I love the sense of unpredictability that the game delivers in the moment to moment combat. One corner I was fighting a bunch of the usual Fallen goons, walk around the corner... and then sudden Hive Knights who were goddamn bullet sponges, forcing me to basically change my whole combat tactic into one that revolves around constant jumping and skirting him until they die.
Haven't sunk my teeth in it much yet, but it's already apparent PvE and co-op will be the real king of this game, and that... I'll need a goddamn headset.
Perfect Cha0s
Member
It seems that there is no tutorial area or segment implemented yet, judging by how the game drops you off in the middle of Old Russia without any lead-in, and it starts you at level 3 rather than level 1.
we.are.the.armada
Member
I felt like this too and I was really confused because, it's Bungie and all. But then I started looking at the higher level gear and it was all stuff that increased movement, ads, reload, etc. So I bet that it feels clunky because we're such low level. I do think that when it comes to PVP, we should all be on level playing ground, I dunno how (max lv for all?).
Phanatic8390
Member
I don't think I could have summed up my thoughts any better.
I couldn't help but think of it as an average mashhup of both Planetside2 and Warframe while I was playing. Definitely willing to give it another shot though as the weekend continues.
This needs to be made more clear as a lot of people are missing out on meeting lots of great players because of the default settings.
ZehDon
Member
Sorry, I wasn't clear: I actually meant within the Alpha itself. Like, even knowing this was going to be devoid of story and without the setup, the world itself is just lacking anything to provide any kind of context to anything. The world doesn't tell any kind of story. It's really static, empty and featureless.
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
Sorry if this a dumb question, but did everyone get a message from PlayStation on their PS4 talking about the Destiny Alpha? It popped up on my phone last night from the app and I haven't gotten an email code or anything so I'm not sure if they are telling everyone about the alpha or telling me I got in. I haven't been able to check my PS4 yet.
Perfect Cha0s
Member
It's chromatic aberration. Tries to create a lens effect. I quite like it, but some people aren't fans.
I played through the Alpha yesterday for several hours. I started by doing the story mission, replaying it, checking out all the vendors and npcs in the hub, exploring till level cap, and once I had several weapon types for each slot I did a few games of PVP while experimenting with weapons. The game is a ton of fun for the amount of content that is there. Here are some bullet points about my initial thoughts/criticisms. I am not going to complain about performance issues as those are likely to get ironed out, just actual game design.
-PVP time to kill is near perfect when fighting other players. However, the vehicles seem a tad too strong. The bigger vehicle killed me in one well placed rocket shot while the smaller one was a little more reasonable. Considering that the vehicles have great mobility to get out of trouble, and that the heavy ammo needed to pose a danger to them is so rare, maybe a slight damage nerf can make it more fair... and yes I do realize that damage drops off at range
-Super charge abilities kill other players in one shot. I am not sure yet how I feel about this as they are very long cooldowns and you only get them once or twice per match. Maybe there should be a visual indicator to show that someone is powered up in order to allow you to avoid being in melee/stick to cover/stay out of range of the warlock.. etc
-Even though Halo had a limited amount of weapons and power ups in the map, they made the game more fluid and dynamic. I liked fighting mini battles over the spartan laser or rockets, or getting injured and baiting someone to follow me to the overshield. This game has ammo crate spawns. However, special ammo is already plentiful and heavy ammo is just one thing in the whole match. Power ups like cloak, damage boost, and shield boost, can be good for the game.
-The capture radius for the flags is way too small and often times completely out in the open. This may not be a huge problem in the alpha since no one knows what they are doing yet, but eventually I feel it will become a problem as people start chucking grenades from outside the flag room to effectively stop the captures. Or blindly driving into the flag for guaranteed multikill splatters. You should be vulnerable when capturing a point, but knowing the exact spot is too much.
-The story mission was fairly short and did not really give away too much. I am not sure how I feel about separating the side quests/exploration mode from the campaign yet. On one hand the side quest beacons seemed repetitive and I don't want to be distracted by them while working on the campaign, on the other hand doing them separately seemed to get old pretty fast. I will get back to this later.
-This has been said a million times and it's probably way too late to make a change with this, but the voice acting for the ghost did not work for me. It is not a big deal if it remains the same, and I did kind of get used to it as the game went on I guess. Most of the time an AI character is either very human like (Cortana or Wheatley) who occasionally say something that only an AI would, making them interesting and distinguishable from humans; or they are very robotic in nature (Glados) whose attempt at being human comes off wrong/satirical/funny. The ghost voice acting does both and neither. It tries to be human like with the terms (I have a bad feeling, I thought) but with a very flat, robotic, and almost depressing voice.
-Exploration mode was quite impressive in scale but is definitely lacking. I understand that they don't want to shower you with loot, and instead have more hand crafted and interesting drops. However, this makes it so that there is less incentive to explore. I ran into some cool well hidden areas that were completely barren. There needs to be a little bit more to do out in the world. Maybe instead of straight up loot there could be rare crafting materials or a special currency towards class based items or whatever.
-Aside from the very cool public events and random encounters, all the quests in exploration are given by beacons and are very repetitive. Which brings me to the point that the world seems very lifeless. I know that Old Russia is basically in ruins, but it would be nice to run into a travelling npcs, who maybe got into trouble. It is a common cliche but it beats getting the side quest from a beacon for the 12th time. Small bits and pieces of lore and race interaction can be interesting.
-There are some minor cosmetic issues with the game like monster closet type rooms that are either: Completely open where you can enter and have the baddies spawn right on top of you, or are have invisible walls where you cant enter but they still spawn right in front of you. The spawns in general can get a bit funny where enemies can warp into existence just feet away from you. Also, a lot of areas that look accessible (cliffs and rooftops) have invisible walls which I thought was odd considering that the game mechanics are so generous with jump height.
-Looking through the talent trees, I am getting the impression that there isn't going to be much variation in the abilities of different players. You get three different abilities that are improved through talents, two of which are powered up common shooter mechanics.. the grenade and melee attack. So everyone gets a grenade that can give different boost or have varying aesthetic/radius/damage but are essentially the same ability between all classes and players. The melee ability is different between classes, but once it's on cooldown it becomes a regular melee button. The supers are cool but I wish there was more. Is it really necessary to use the entire dpad for emotes? I feel like they could map some minor but cool class abilities there. Maybe if they introduce items this will make the combat feel more dynamic. Pop an ability and every bullet that hits its target reduces your cooldowns, teleport a short distance, do an a cone ability with elemental damage, or any low damage abilities that you can throw out when out of ammo and finish off an enemy with.
Despite these points I think the game is a ton of fun and I will be there day one. It will certainly be good for a hundred hours, even if I don't think this will be the go to loot game that people will play for years. I realize that many of the things that I think are missing may very well be in the final game, and that many of the complaints I have are likely to be fixed. It seems like a great world to explore but I am getting that feeling that this is one of those franchises that will truly shine with a sequel or two, particularly due to the huge ambitions of the devs.
-PVP time to kill is near perfect when fighting other players. However, the vehicles seem a tad too strong. The bigger vehicle killed me in one well placed rocket shot while the smaller one was a little more reasonable. Considering that the vehicles have great mobility to get out of trouble, and that the heavy ammo needed to pose a danger to them is so rare, maybe a slight damage nerf can make it more fair... and yes I do realize that damage drops off at range
-Super charge abilities kill other players in one shot. I am not sure yet how I feel about this as they are very long cooldowns and you only get them once or twice per match. Maybe there should be a visual indicator to show that someone is powered up in order to allow you to avoid being in melee/stick to cover/stay out of range of the warlock.. etc
-Even though Halo had a limited amount of weapons and power ups in the map, they made the game more fluid and dynamic. I liked fighting mini battles over the spartan laser or rockets, or getting injured and baiting someone to follow me to the overshield. This game has ammo crate spawns. However, special ammo is already plentiful and heavy ammo is just one thing in the whole match. Power ups like cloak, damage boost, and shield boost, can be good for the game.
-The capture radius for the flags is way too small and often times completely out in the open. This may not be a huge problem in the alpha since no one knows what they are doing yet, but eventually I feel it will become a problem as people start chucking grenades from outside the flag room to effectively stop the captures. Or blindly driving into the flag for guaranteed multikill splatters. You should be vulnerable when capturing a point, but knowing the exact spot is too much.
-The story mission was fairly short and did not really give away too much. I am not sure how I feel about separating the side quests/exploration mode from the campaign yet. On one hand the side quest beacons seemed repetitive and I don't want to be distracted by them while working on the campaign, on the other hand doing them separately seemed to get old pretty fast. I will get back to this later.
-This has been said a million times and it's probably way too late to make a change with this, but the voice acting for the ghost did not work for me. It is not a big deal if it remains the same, and I did kind of get used to it as the game went on I guess. Most of the time an AI character is either very human like (Cortana or Wheatley) who occasionally say something that only an AI would, making them interesting and distinguishable from humans; or they are very robotic in nature (Glados) whose attempt at being human comes off wrong/satirical/funny. The ghost voice acting does both and neither. It tries to be human like with the terms (I have a bad feeling, I thought) but with a very flat, robotic, and almost depressing voice.
-Exploration mode was quite impressive in scale but is definitely lacking. I understand that they don't want to shower you with loot, and instead have more hand crafted and interesting drops. However, this makes it so that there is less incentive to explore. I ran into some cool well hidden areas that were completely barren. There needs to be a little bit more to do out in the world. Maybe instead of straight up loot there could be rare crafting materials or a special currency towards class based items or whatever.
-Aside from the very cool public events and random encounters, all the quests in exploration are given by beacons and are very repetitive. Which brings me to the point that the world seems very lifeless. I know that Old Russia is basically in ruins, but it would be nice to run into a travelling npcs, who maybe got into trouble. It is a common cliche but it beats getting the side quest from a beacon for the 12th time. Small bits and pieces of lore and race interaction can be interesting.
-There are some minor cosmetic issues with the game like monster closet type rooms that are either: Completely open where you can enter and have the baddies spawn right on top of you, or are have invisible walls where you cant enter but they still spawn right in front of you. The spawns in general can get a bit funny where enemies can warp into existence just feet away from you. Also, a lot of areas that look accessible (cliffs and rooftops) have invisible walls which I thought was odd considering that the game mechanics are so generous with jump height.
-Looking through the talent trees, I am getting the impression that there isn't going to be much variation in the abilities of different players. You get three different abilities that are improved through talents, two of which are powered up common shooter mechanics.. the grenade and melee attack. So everyone gets a grenade that can give different boost or have varying aesthetic/radius/damage but are essentially the same ability between all classes and players. The melee ability is different between classes, but once it's on cooldown it becomes a regular melee button. The supers are cool but I wish there was more. Is it really necessary to use the entire dpad for emotes? I feel like they could map some minor but cool class abilities there. Maybe if they introduce items this will make the combat feel more dynamic. Pop an ability and every bullet that hits its target reduces your cooldowns, teleport a short distance, do an a cone ability with elemental damage, or any low damage abilities that you can throw out when out of ammo and finish off an enemy with.
Despite these points I think the game is a ton of fun and I will be there day one. It will certainly be good for a hundred hours, even if I don't think this will be the go to loot game that people will play for years. I realize that many of the things that I think are missing may very well be in the final game, and that many of the complaints I have are likely to be fixed. It seems like a great world to explore but I am getting that feeling that this is one of those franchises that will truly shine with a sequel or two, particularly due to the huge ambitions of the devs.
Don't know if his has been answered yet but NO they are not going to support split screen:
http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=65349153
I am so dissapointed. Preorder pretty much chanceled!
MightyHedgehog
Member
Seems a bit too much of a comparison against complete or relatively finished games, but I get the disappointment over something so hyped up and kept under wraps. For me, it's that a decade of Halo will be followed by a decade of Halo+ and that mildly disappoints on the level that Bungie has become too FPS-focused, but it is the go-to action design of the time and one that they have mastered. Not sure I'd recommend BL2 or any F2P loot-shooter/leveler over this, though, but there's more to see, I'm sure.
Perfect Cha0s
Member
Yeah, I don't really know what's up with that. It might just be a problem with Old Russia, since the single story mission we do get is basically us "discovering" that the Hive have come from the Moon and are now on Earth.
ComputerMKII
Banned
This movie has ruined all AI voices in video games for me. My expectations are far too high now.
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