Destiny - Review Thread

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Oh for Pete's sake, of course it does. This WAS the weekly event. I first did this on the LV26 one (at LV25) and took about 20% more than it did to do it again just to make this video.

Damnit, at least read what I posted. ALL bosses, regardless of their level, are exploitable, same as all enemies.



I should have posted this before. If you wait at the corner eventually the Warlocks will tether back (yes, even on LV26) and will never come out anymore. If you try to shoot them they stay there. Just wait until all of the Knights, Thralls and things leave and then you can do this loop.

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Hilariously my friend texted me at 3AM saying how hard this weekly strike was. I told him about this video and he texted me back in 20 or so minutes saying he did it. He is LV22 and did the LV22 strike solo.

Also, people should realize this a ps3/x360 game and has all the limitations associated with that; the ps4/x1 versions are just up-ports.

That is probably the biggest disappointment with this game, the fact that Bungie had to work with the ps3's 256 mb cpu pool as the maximum available. It goes a long way in explaining all the problems with AI, shit bosses, number of enemies on screen, fire team limitations, and those horrendous loading screens. Well, they didn't have to, but they demanded platform parity, so they did.
 
Also, people should realize this a ps3/x360 game and has all the limitations associated with that; the ps4/x1 versions are just up-ports.

That is probably the biggest disappointment with this game, the fact that Bungie had to work with the ps3's 256 mb cpu pool as the maximum available. It goes a long way in explaining all the problems with AI, shit bosses, number of enemies on screen, fire team limitations, and those horrendous loading screens. Well, they didn't have to, but they demanded platform parity, so they did.

Eh, that's not really relevant imho. It is clear that as they were designing the Strikes they got better and better at it. Sepiks Prime is the easiest to shoot in a corner, and with the moon they gave us Shrieker etc. I don't know if it is intentional, but they decided to make it progressively harder to do this since they completely blocked off the entrances for the first Venus Strike and so on. It seems to me that they were too lazy to go back and fix it, or they figured to keep these things in on purpose.

IMHO putting the Shrieker there is a stupid idea, just make explosive Thrall spawn from that area and make the enemies' tether extend just enough you'd have to fight them before doing more damage to the boss. That is a design decision they can add in with a patch.

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http://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/PGCR/1/4611686018429637530/2305843009215172839/162953000?_

Heh
 
I personally would score both Left 4 Dead games lower than their current metascore (played both with friends, finished neither as the formula wore thin first).

With that said though, I don't believe Destiny is directly comparable at all. Left 4 Dead actually promoted real teamwork. Each player acting like a FFA agent wouldn't get you anywhere in Left 4 Dead, whilst in Destiny it's not only perfectly viable, but actually difficult to make a point for not doing so in most situations. You also simply shoot mindlessly at everything in Destiny. You don't worry about triggering a car alarm and making your day a lot worse, you don't fear angering a witch, you don't have a huge tank-like enemy rampaging through the stage laying waste to everything in its path. You don't have to pay attention to you teammates to ensure they're not currently being dragged away by another enemy. And if you die, you're not out of the running unless another player manages to rescue you. You don't manage rations to ensure each player in the team is sufficiently prepared for what's ahead. You don't have an invisible AI working to ensure that the challenge presented to you is unique, and keeps you on your toes at all times.

Basically what I'm saying, is that Left 4 Dead is nowhere near as repetitive to actually play. The only area where Destiny may be competitive with what Left 4 Dead offers is the raid.. and I can't even confirm that for myself because they've made it so difficult to even play.

L4D has some more variety in some of the mechanics it also is missing a lot of the stuff Destiny does as well like vehicles, character building, multiple enemy factions and game modes. Plus a lot of the strategy you mentioned is stuff that only will come in to play on harder difficulties which when you play in Destiny you have certain considerations you need to account for like no respawns, and weapon/ability type. So regardless I feel like the gameplay discussion is a wash. Most reviews (that I have seen anyway) mention that Destiny is mechanically sound but falters in other areas. That applies to L4D as well in my opinion.

You did mention though that you would score L4D lower than where it currently is so perhaps you've already accounted for that.
 
I only just noticed this (so probably old news I guess) but I just saw that GT gave this game an 8? After the editorial they put up prior to the review where they have basically nothing nice to say about the game and slated it for 15 minutes?

This is why I don't trust games reviews.
 
L4D was not budget priced at release. It was a full retail game. You might have a point about standards changing but I don't know that I agree. I still consider it a great game even by today's standards.

IIRC L4D was like 29/39 euro, not 59/69 like Destiny (checked and I got it for 33 euro on Steam around launch)

Should the budget be part of the review score though? The only thing that ever matters is the product itself, what it was aiming to be and/or failed to be in this case.

Sure it does, changes expectations too
 
I'm still blown away that with a huge budget and a game company as competent as Bungie, can combine to make a game that's pretty much a step backward form halo. The game feels like a re skinned halo with more enemy types and even worse storytelling. What the hell?! At least it's fun to play.

I'm seeing parallels with Maxis and The Sims 4, where you have a AAA budget, a long development period, tons of talented developers... but also lots of producers / corporate meddling and probably a few project reboots/direction changes along the way. Too many cooks in the kitchen and all that.

What you end up with is something that has polished mechancis that have been tested and prototyped to death but also a dearth of and memorable content and design.

A good, competent game that lacks spark but still does well because of pedigree, corporate brand and a marketing deluge.
 
I only just noticed this (so probably old news I guess) but I just saw that GT gave this game an 8? After the editorial they put up prior to the review where they have basically nothing nice to say about the game and slated it for 15 minutes?

This is why I don't trust games reviews.

I was under the impression Brandon Jones reviewed it and wasn't involved in the editorial. People have different opinions I guess
 
I only just noticed this (so probably old news I guess) but I just saw that GT gave this game an 8? After the editorial they put up prior to the review where they have basically nothing nice to say about the game and slated it for 15 minutes?

This is why I don't trust games reviews.

YA how could two different people have a different opinion on something right??? Fuck them if they all dont agree with you.
 
I feel exactly the opposite. I think that Destiny is a visual and audial masterpiece, with piecemeal gameplay that was inspired by many classic games, but wildly fails to live up to the standard those games set by themselves. (Mainly Phantasy Star Online and Halo, for the most obvious examples)

It doesn't feel fresh and new, it feels immediately recognizable and comfortable, which is why the Beta drew me in and the full game left me flat.

Destiny strikes me as the absolute pinnacle example of a game where the developer and publisher were more interested with how the game looked and how they could promote it than how it plays.

Well, yes you are right as we are speaking about Activision :)

But what i meant was the core gameplay. It seems that everyone agrees (maybe it is only my delusional mind) that this may be the most mechanically polished fps on consoles to date. I mean .. the aim assist is perfect, the aim acceleration is perfect, the movement is perfect, you get no input delay regardless of being an 30 fps title and so on. It is absolute joy to control your character and .. to just play the game. At least for me.
 
Well, yes you are right as we are speaking about Activision :)

But what i meant was the core gameplay. It seems that everyone agrees (maybe it is only my delusional mind) that this may be the most mechanically polished fps on consoles to date. I mean .. the aim assist is perfect, the aim acceleration is perfect, the movement is perfect, you get no input delay regardless of being an 30 fps title and so on. It is absolute joy to control your character and .. to just play the game. At least for me.
Maybe if they removed the accuracy penalties, but as it is now, nope, no way. Still prefer the core gameplay in any of the Halos. Sure the movement options are more limited than those in Destiny, but at least the game doesn't make my weapons completely inaccurate when I use them.

Also, the aim assist in Destiny is way too high, and aim acceleration always sucks.
 
L4D has some more variety in some of the mechanics it also is missing a lot of the stuff Destiny does as well like vehicles, character building, multiple enemy factions and game modes. Plus a lot of the strategy you mentioned is stuff that only will come in to play on harder difficulties which when you play in Destiny you have certain considerations you need to account for like no respawns, and weapon/ability type. So regardless I feel like the gameplay discussion is a wash. Most reviews (that I have seen anyway) mention that Destiny is mechanically sound but falters in other areas. That applies to L4D as well in my opinion.

You did mention though that you would score L4D lower than where it currently is so perhaps you've already accounted for that.

Yea, I had already accounted for the fact the Left 4 Dead is also pretty repetitive. I just don't think it's to the point where it harms the games as much as Destiny. Obviously both games have stuff the other doesn't, but whilst Left 4 Dead's mechanics create dynamic situations (even when playing the same level multiple times), Destiny's I believe do not. When playing L4D with my brothers the comms were mostly full of "help! I've been grabbed!", or "alright, there's a witch over there do NOT set her off" or ensuring that we remained together as getting separated basically equals death, and so on. When I play Destiny with those same brothers, our comms are full of chat about random areas of life, or other games, as we run around autonomously killing stuff. The game doesn't require us to work as a team unit because the mechanics aren't encouraging it. I play in pretty much the same manner I would play when alone, and it's consistently successful, except now I have two other people shooting as well. There's also more types of enemies in Destiny, but far less variation in how you deal with them.

I will however agree that L4D loses a lot of its appeal at lower difficulties. That's probably the biggest complaint I'd level at it. At lower difficulties, it's a cakewalk.. whilst on hard, it's so difficult that even having 1 or 2 of your party be subpar at the game is absolutely crippling, and will likely prevent you from progressing.

It seems that everyone agrees (maybe it is only my delusional mind) that this may be the most mechanically polished fps on consoles to date.

I don't agree with that at all. The shooting mechanics are great and all, but that statement is multiple steps too far imo. I wouldn't put it on Halo's or Quake 3's level for a start.

EDIT: Oh, on consoles. It's a lot closer in that case.
 
Ugh damnit!

Getting disconnected at a boss sucks. Why can't we choose to do the LV24 Strikes solo? I almost never get disconnected when playing solo...
 
I feel like this game would get a lot more praise if it was made by a different dev and hyped a lot less

Also if it was sold to us as what it is (diablo with guns) and not what it wasn't (expansive narrative driven shared open world shooter RPG)

The gameplay is fantastic, moving and shooting is a joy, it's just not what we were all promised

I'm enjoying it and have put about 25 hours in so far. I don't think its a bad game, it's just not a great game
 
Maybe if they removed the accuracy penalties, but as it is now, nope, no way. Still prefer the core gameplay in any of the Halos. Sure the movement options are more limited than those in Destiny, but at least the game doesn't make my weapons completely inaccurate when I use them.

Also, the aim assist in Destiny is way too high, and aim acceleration always sucks.

Yeah, i really love Halo because you have that balance and level playing field for everyone. In Destiny though, the system is expanded and way more complex because you don't have same weapons for everyone and yet it works. For example, if you have maximum weapon stability, you should have completely accurate weapon. Also aim assist in Destiny might be variable i think, depending on the weapon and scope but for the last i'm not sure.

However, i just wanted to say that it is a game that feels right/fun to play and in the end this is what matters for me :). It is something that we take for granted in the old classics (Half-Life, StarCraft, Super Mario, WoW, Halo etc.) but i'm sure it is extremely hard to get right and that's why we get it so rare.
 
It also just occurred to me that every boss in the game (except maybe the raids, haven't seen the raid) is literally a large version of a base type enemy.

Giant purple ball - bigger version of regular purple balls.

Large Fallen captain.

Large Hive Ogre.

Large Vex minotaur.

Large Cabal.

The only boss off the top of my head that isn't a larger version of something is the spider tank.

I'm late on this, but I agree. Someone posted this video in the Lore thread and I've been watching it.

It's shocking how plain the enemies are in this game, at least in the base. The designs for what we have are fine enough, but why does everything have to be a biped or a floating shape?

Watching the GDC vid is a little sad. So many great ideas that were scrapped (cut?).
 
I'm late on this, but I agree. Someone posted this video in the Lore thread and I've been watching it.

It's shocking how plain the enemies are in this game, at least in the base. The designs for what we have are fine enough, but why does everything have to be a biped or a floating shape?

Watching the GDC vid is a little sad. So many great ideas that were scrapped (cut?).

thanks for the link, pretty good video. It seems like their design process is to generate touchstone images, then work around them.

travelers-rest2_zpsc2cc49af.jpg


A Bungie artist came up with that. Then the writers started asking questions like "what is it" "why did someone build a city under it" etc. The head art guy then said that their prime directive was to minimize story in order to allow the player to fill in the blanks, to let their imaginations make the story. Bungie only wanted to include enough information to allow the player to understand the base framework of the world, and nothing more.

Just listening to the head writer talking to the head art director, it seems like it was the art guy making most of the decisions, and he doesn't care about story beyond the absolute minimum.

Staten says in the video "one lesson I learned over and over again during this was that your art director almost always usually right." It's not surprising he quit two months later.
 
The OT moves so fast, so wanted to also voice this criticism: I am not a fan of the spaceships in this game, in general.

A lot of the ones you can purchase look a little cheap and almost cartoony (although I found one I kinda like yesterday).

The worst for me is their movement, though. Their animations and movement, for the most part, feel cartoony. I hate the way your ship "brakes" when it comes out of hyperspace and arrives at a planet. It literally looks like a car that put its brakes on, hard.

Same with the animation after you choose your destination.

Maybe the animations just feel too nimble and not enough like a ship moving through zero gravity?

I realize this is something of a ridiculous nitpick, but I wish they'd gone with a design/animation that felt more "real".
 
Objection noted and sustained. I'm 45. Wow, somehow I actually sort of forgot about a world without cutscenes. I claim early onset senility.

I'm 45 too! Therefore you get an automatic pardon, we Gray Panthers gotta stick together.

Watching the GDC vid is a little sad. So many great ideas that were scrapped (cut?).

Or hopefully saved for later sequels/expansions? Bungie has a long history of re-purposing unused ideas into their next game.
 
The OT moves so fast, so wanted to also voice this criticism: I am not a fan of the spaceships in this game, in general.

A lot of the ones you can purchase look a little cheap and almost cartoony (although I found one I kinda like yesterday).

The worst for me is their movement, though. Their animations and movement, for the most part, feel cartoony. I hate the way your ship "brakes" when it comes out of hyperspace and arrives at a planet. It literally looks like a car that put its brakes on, hard.

Same with the animation after you choose your destination.

Maybe the animations just feel too nimble and not enough like a ship moving through zero gravity?

I realize this is something of a ridiculous nitpick, but I wish they'd gone with a design/animation that felt more "real".
The ship coming out of hyperspace also bugged me. Just looks silly.
 
The OT moves so fast, so wanted to also voice this criticism: I am not a fan of the spaceships in this game, in general.

A lot of the ones you can purchase look a little cheap and almost cartoony (although I found one I kinda like yesterday).

The worst for me is their movement, though. Their animations and movement, for the most part, feel cartoony. I hate the way your ship "brakes" when it comes out of hyperspace and arrives at a planet. It literally looks like a car that put its brakes on, hard.

Same with the animation after you choose your destination.

Maybe the animations just feel too nimble and not enough like a ship moving through zero gravity?

I realize this is something of a ridiculous nitpick, but I wish they'd gone with a design/animation that felt more "real".

Yep. Its funny when your in orbit with your thrusters blasting away, when in reality once you have reached your desired speed, all thrust can be turned off allowing you to continue at that speed indefinitely in a zero-g environment. Very little thrust is actually used to control real spacecraft. I understand the design decision though, think if all the ships in a fire team basically just floated perfectly still in the loading screen, as they would in real life space. It would be boring as fuck.
 
L4D has some more variety in some of the mechanics it also is missing a lot of the stuff Destiny does as well like vehicles, character building, multiple enemy factions and game modes. Plus a lot of the strategy you mentioned is stuff that only will come in to play on harder difficulties which when you play in Destiny you have certain considerations you need to account for like no respawns, and weapon/ability type. So regardless I feel like the gameplay discussion is a wash. Most reviews (that I have seen anyway) mention that Destiny is mechanically sound but falters in other areas. That applies to L4D as well in my opinion.

You did mention though that you would score L4D lower than where it currently is so perhaps you've already accounted for that.
You do know your comparing apples and oranges here right? L4D isnt a game built around stuff like vehicles, stat leveling, etc. and doesnt need to be, plus L4D 1 and 2 have plenty of game modes.
 
What I don't understand about the reviews is how something like Left 4 Dead can score something like 90% despite all of Destiny's shortcomings being applicable to it as well. L4D has great co-op/competitive gameplay but forces you through the same environments, formulaic mission design (fight off waves) and the story presence is basically non-existent. Does it just come down to Destiny being way more hyped?

For the record I wouldn't say L4D is overrated as I had hours upon hours of fun with that game but I feel like Destiny is receiving a lot more heat.
People may not like to admit this but I'm certain that a good amount of the bad feedback and reviews come from folks that are butthurt because they let the hype get to their heads. I went on a complete media blackout until I played the beta, which convinced me to day 1 it. Game is a solid 8 for me and I put in 30 hrs into the final game already (played the beta 21hrs also. Those that love single player campaigns in FPS I take their grievances more seriously.
 
The reviewer for one of the sites I work on waited for the raid content to put his review out, he still didn't like the game.

http://www.endlessbacklog.com/reviews/233-destiny-a-lifeless-husk

Destiny could evolve into a much better game in the same way that Final Fantasy 14 and Diablo 3 have changed over the years. The new raid, Vault of Glass, actually provides gameplay sequences and mechanics that are different from the rest of the game. However, none of that would invalidate what the rest of Destiny is at this point: a monotone, repetitive shooter with no depth to it. Everything that’s meant to make the game engaging or interesting boils down to putting the player on a loot grind that doesn’t test your skill or mastery of the game, but instead takes advantage of how compulsive the player is.

Destiny is a laborious affair, parading itself as something terrific and ambitious. In reality, it's a lifeless husk of a game with a myriad of failures that make you wonder if anyone even playtested it.
 
You do know your comparing apples and oranges here right? L4D isnt a game built around stuff like vehicles, stat leveling, etc. and doesnt need to be, plus L4D 1 and 2 have plenty of game modes.

The thing is, Destiny doesn't really have anything particularly analogous to what the poster you're quoting is talking about. There's very few instances of any mechanics requiring you to work together as a team in really interesting ways. Part of this is due to the way classes are set up (each being largely self-sufficient, with the possible exception of Hunters), and part of it is because of Destiny's somewhat baffling approach to communication. They can't have team mechanics because in matchmaking, there isn't really any team; just you and some other guys who happen to be shooting at the same targets.

The reviewer for one of the sites I work on waited for the raid content to put his review out, he still didn't like the game.

http://www.endlessbacklog.com/reviews/233-destiny-a-lifeless-husk

The one thing that I would point out is that they didn't technically "change" FF14 in the same way Blizzard changed D3; they burned it down and built it back from the ground up. Bungie doesn't really have that opportunity.

Otherwise, spot on.
 
People may not like to admit this but I'm certain that a good amount of the bad feedback and reviews come from folks that are butthurt because they let the hype get to their heads. I went on a complete media blackout until I played the beta, which convinced me to day 1 it. Game is a solid 8 for me and I put in 30 hrs into the final game already (played the beta 21hrs also. Those that love single player campaigns in FPS I take their grievances more seriously.

I highly doubt that. It wasn't hype, it was an expectation of quality that simply wasn't lived up to. People lashing out in revenge because it didn't live up to the hype, that's a silly idea.
 
I feel like this game would get a lot more praise if it was made by a different dev and hyped a lot less

Also if it was sold to us as what it is (diablo with guns) and not what it wasn't (expansive narrative driven shared open world shooter RPG)

The gameplay is fantastic, moving and shooting is a joy, it's just not what we were all promised

I'm enjoying it and have put about 25 hours in so far. I don't think its a bad game, it's just not a great game

The Diablo comparison would only hurt this game more. Diablo does pretty much everything better than Destiny in areas where the two are comparable - sense of progression, loot drops and rewards, diverse combat, enemies, and bosses, class variety and differences.
 
I highly doubt that. It wasn't hype, it was an expectation of quality that simply wasn't lived up to. People lashing out in revenge because it didn't live up to the hype, that's a silly idea.
Subconsciously. Like I don't see how someone could honestly score this between a 4.5-6 unless they're that much of a fan of single player campaigns. Destiny is nowhere near as bad as other games that have scored that low. At worst this game is a 7, Eurogamer/IGN got it right.
 
The reviewer for one of the sites I work on waited for the raid content to put his review out, he still didn't like the game.

http://www.endlessbacklog.com/reviews/233-destiny-a-lifeless-husk

This is basically my feelings of the game in a nutshell.

The "fun" effectively comes from a loot grind.

The actual gameplay is really waning. By the end of beta I was no longer enjoying the game (I went from not liking it, to being a bit on the positive side to not wanting to play it anymore by end of beta).

I played it last night (I'm level 3) and just can't get there. I play a mission and I just don't really enjoy it. The AI seems to come in one of 3 flavors. Enemies that bum rush you, enemies that hand back and shoot at me and bosses that do nothing but sit in place taking my hits.

It's just not a good shooter. PVP is even worse because there is effectively no balance at all in the mode.

As a social game it also largely fails. I LOVE PSO. It's not a terribly good 'game' either. you get to time some shorts and move around a bit doing pattern detection against certain enemies, but it's a relatively blah 'game' with a loot grind. But it had social features and weapon variances that really made it a spectacularly fun game and a sense of team play on higher levels against dark falz that really bad for a fantastic game. You had a role to play and you played it.

Destiny is the loneliest online social game I've ever played. It's terribly lonely. I'm expected to go on forums to make friends to play with, but with my schedule can't commit to anything at all and without match making even if the end game winds up being a grand experience I am largely cut off from it.

basically bungie have made a bad shooter with poor interaction with relatively little content and cut off players not willing to jump through myriad out of game hoops from the end-game content, and they are packaging it as a unique experience that is going to change the industry.

I'll keep plugging away because I want to like it, and because I'm not planning on buying anything new to play until Sunset Overdrive.
 
Subconsciously. Like I don't see how someone could honestly score this between a 4.5-6 unless they're that much of a fan of single player campaigns. Destiny is nowhere near as bad as other games that have scored that low. At worst this game is a 7, Eurogamer/IGN got it right.

What I think (and I've mentioned this before) is that Destiny is an excellent game wrapped in a thick layer of impressively poor decisions. A player's ability to ignore that layer dictates how much they'll enjoy the game. For those totally unable to look past them, a 6 is a perfectly fair score.
 
This is basically my feelings of the game in a nutshell.

The "fun" effectively comes from a loot grind.

The actual gameplay is really waning. By the end of beta I was no longer enjoying the game (I went from not liking it, to being a bit on the positive side to not wanting to play it anymore by end of beta).

I played it last night (I'm level 3) and just can't get there. I play a mission and I just don't really enjoy it. The AI seems to come in one of 3 flavors. Enemies that bum rush you, enemies that hand back and shoot at me and bosses that do nothing but sit in place taking my hits.

It's just not a good shooter. PVP is even worse because there is effectively no balance at all in the mode.

As a social game it also largely fails. I LOVE PSO. It's not a terribly good 'game' either. you get to time some shorts and move around a bit doing pattern detection against certain enemies, but it's a relatively blah 'game' with a loot grind. But it had social features and weapon variances that really made it a spectacularly fun game and a sense of team play on higher levels against dark falz that really bad for a fantastic game. You had a role to play and you played it.

Destiny is the loneliest online social game I've ever played. It's terribly lonely. I'm expected to go on forums to make friends to play with, but with my schedule can't commit to anything at all and without match making even if the end game winds up being a grand experience I am largely cut off from it.

basically bungie have made a bad shooter with poor interaction with relatively little content and cut off players not willing to jump through myriad out of game hoops from the end-game content, and they are packaging it as a unique experience that is going to change the industry.

I'll keep plugging away because I want to like it, and because I'm not planning on buying anything new to play until Sunset Overdrive.

You hit most of the points for me as well - especially the lonely feeling. I occasionally see people running around while I'm doing a mission but i have no way to interact with them, and the Tower is almost always pretty empty.
 
Yeah, i really love Halo because you have that balance and level playing field for everyone. In Destiny though, the system is expanded and way more complex because you don't have same weapons for everyone and yet it works. For example, if you have maximum weapon stability, you should have completely accurate weapon. Also aim assist in Destiny might be variable i think, depending on the weapon and scope but for the last i'm not sure.

However, i just wanted to say that it is a game that feels right/fun to play and in the end this is what matters for me :). It is something that we take for granted in the old classics (Half-Life, StarCraft, Super Mario, WoW, Halo etc.) but i'm sure it is extremely hard to get right and that's why we get it so rare.
Nope, you still have to use ADS to have the maximum level of accuracy with any weapon, no matter what stability stat the weapon has. Not using ADS always has a noticeable impact on your accuracy. And jumping, gliding, using the jet pack, falling, etc (basically anything that involves not being on the ground) fucks up your accuracy even more.

So yeah, Destiny gameplay is good, but with shit like that, I'd never consider it one of the best.

Anyway, even if the core gameplay was the best ever, there would still be the problem of the incredibly shallow game built around it...
 
I'm actually wholly addicted to Destiny and having a ton of fun even though the structure of the game is flawed. Here are my general complaints.

-Horrendous load times
-Terrible story
-Lack of skippable cutscenes
-Repetitive mission structure (Place ghost, defend ghost)
-Not a true open world game(Return to ship after every story mission)
-Lackluster finale
-No matchmaking for Heroic/Nightfall strikes and raid. Bungie wants you to make friends to tackle the challenges, but what is the difference between me going to the tower and handing out friend requests to play the raid and them just doing that for me in matchmaking?
-Grimoire score useless cuz its not in the game, but in an app
-Super bullet sponge boss battles
-Lack of loot drops from super sponge boss battles
-Legendaries and exotics dropping from level 1 enemies(Never seen a loot system like destiny's before)
-Repetitive and simple explore missions
-Lack of strike content (5 strikes only and about 100 variations)
-Terrible online PvP map design that promotes either camping or rampant shotgun use
-No matchmaking in PvP leads to unbalanced games
-No penalty for leaving PvP or strikes
-No voice chat in PvP if not in fireteam beforehand
-No private servers
-No in game clan support
-No in game leaderboards
-No way to choose your own map and game types nor any rotating server option
-Lack of creativity in weapon designs-they all look the same and stats are variants of about 4 base weapons
-The amount of grinding needed to find a high level weapon is only matched by the amount of grinding you will need to upgrade said weapon with the possibility of you throwing it away in a week.
-Lack of open mic in the tower
-No weapon trading (It would be nice to set up a system where you can at least trade one gun of equivalent rarity per day or something so if I have an exotic sniper and someone else has an exotic shotgun, we can trade, instead of storing weapons we dont use.)
 
The reviewer for one of the sites I work on waited for the raid content to put his review out, he still didn't like the game.

http://www.endlessbacklog.com/reviews/233-destiny-a-lifeless-husk

Boy did he tear this game a new one. I like how it puts that it could improve like FF14 and Diablo 3 but in some way I don't think that will happen. I am enjoying the game but all the negatives were obvious from the beta. I think this game suffered hardest from making tech and making a game at the same time, because the tech behind it is great, but the game around it is just a shell. Perhaps a company like Bungie should have put the two projects on a different track. You make the tech THEN make a game around it, not make a game and tech at the same time then have something half dead.
 
This is basically my feelings of the game in a nutshell.

The "fun" effectively comes from a loot grind.

The actual gameplay is really waning. By the end of beta I was no longer enjoying the game (I went from not liking it, to being a bit on the positive side to not wanting to play it anymore by end of beta).

I played it last night (I'm level 3) and just can't get there.


Dude you're level 3 and you're telling me the gameplay is waning?
 
Boy did he tear this game a new one. I like how it puts that it could improve like FF14 and Diablo 3 but in some way I don't think that will happen. I am enjoying the game but all the negatives were obvious from the beta. I think this game suffered hardest from making tech and making a game at the same time, because the tech behind it is great, but the game around it is just a shell. Perhaps a company like Bungie should have put the two projects on a different track. You make the tech THEN make a game around it, not make a game and tech at the same time then have something half dead.


I disagree. I think that Bungie have it easier than SE when they fixed FFXIV. They basically made the game all over again. Most of the critics agree in that the gameplay is the most solid part of the game. And that is the most un-fixeable thing in a game. Story, content, interesting quest, all of that could be upgraded/added in patches, but if your gameplay sucks, the problem is more complicated.
 
Dude you're level 3 and you're telling me the gameplay is waning?

Yes.

I played the beta extensively and was more or less finished with it by the time beta ended... and beta turned out to be about half of the game content I'll ever have access to without match making for raids.

I guess the grind goes on longer in the main game and there are some new locals, but the gameplay outside of raids is all effectively the same. Given my real life schedule I'll only really be able to plan to raid for a week in November that I know I'll be free.

I'll keep plugging away because I paid 60 bucks for it and don't have another game till next month, but I'm kind of kicking myself for the decision.
 
I really was expecting a lot more than what it ended up delivering. The first video of those beautiful alien landscapes, damn I was impressed. So much potential for a more traditional rpg.
 
Yes.

I played the beta extensively and was more or less finished with it by the time beta ended... and beta turned out to be about half of the game content I'll ever have access to without match making for raids.

I guess the grind goes on longer in the main game and there are some new locals, but the gameplay outside of raids is all effectively the same. Given my real life schedule I'll only really be able to plan to raid for a week in November that I know I'll be free.

I'll keep plugging away because I paid 60 bucks for it and don't have another game till next month, but I'm kind of kicking myself for the decision.

If you played the beta then Bungie did about as much as they could to give you an idea of what the game would be. You had more than enough there to justify a purchase. If you don't like the game now, that is really not their problem. This is like sampling wine and enjoying how it tastes, then buying a bottle of the same wine and ending up not liking it because there's more of it.
 
Dude you're level 3 and you're telling me the gameplay is waning?

I'm level 22, missions are the same get to a place deploy ghost wait for a wave of aliens.

There is no variety in this game, you shoot some aliens in the head, others in the stomach, and some others behind the shield. But the pattern is clear as water, one will flank you, one will run at you, some others snipe you in the back. Like that is the whole game.

Loot addiction is clouding a lot of people judgement right not, once that fade... as I said the Game part of this Game is not that good.
 
Yes.

I played the beta extensively and was more or less finished with it by the time beta ended... and beta turned out to be about half of the game content I'll ever have access to without match making for raids.

I guess the grind goes on longer in the main game and there are some new locals, but the gameplay outside of raids is all effectively the same. Given my real life schedule I'll only really be able to plan to raid for a week in November that I know I'll be free.

I'll keep plugging away because I paid 60 bucks for it and don't have another game till next month, but I'm kind of kicking myself for the decision.




At the same time, it's a little early to make claims on the balance of PvP, no?
 
I'm level 22, missions are the same get to a place deploy ghost wait for a wave of aliens.

There is no variety in this game, you shoot some aliens in the head, others in the stomach, and some others behind the shield. But the pattern is clear as water, one will flank you, one will run at you, some others snipe you in the back.

Sounds like every shooter ever.
 
Regarding the social aspect of the game, what really shocks me is how after 50 hours with this game, I have never once...not once....been sent an invite from any stranger in the tower. This is shocking and somewhat telling, I think, about console gamers today (can't speak for PC crowd).
I think this is a function of the lack of proximity chat. Simply being able to talk to someone and say, "Hey, where are you going? Wanna do the X mission on Mars?" would do wonders. It would be very easy to start up a conversation and head off into missions together. Instead the Tower is used by a bunch of mutes just running to various vendors to do their own thing. Players could be going off to do the same missions, alone, but we can't tell because we can't talk to each other easily.
 
thanks for the link, pretty good video. It seems like their design process is to generate touchstone images, then work around them.

travelers-rest2_zpsc2cc49af.jpg


A Bungie artist came up with that. Then the writers started asking questions like "what is it" "why did someone build a city under it" etc. The head art guy then said that their prime directive was to minimize story in order to allow the player to fill in the blanks, to let their imaginations make the story. Bungie only wanted to include enough information to allow the player to understand the base framework of the world, and nothing more.

Just listening to the head writer talking to the head art director, it seems like it was the art guy making most of the decisions, and he doesn't care about story beyond the absolute minimum.

Staten says in the video "one lesson I learned over and over again during this was that your art director almost always usually right." It's not surprising he quit two months later.

So seems like we should be blaming the art director.
 
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