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Destiny Alpha Thread: Impressions from the wild [Code Begging=ban]

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Got a chance to play for a little while at a friend's house. Very good controls, I love how the game feels. The Strike (I think?) mission is very challenging and I died many, many times.

Love to the hover bike sound effects to the fullest.
 
So you can level up weapons just by using them? Or do you have to find Cryptarchs or w/e they're called?

EDIT:

Also, how do I submit glitch reports?! D:
 
denshuu said:
Man, I already fought this freaking boss in Mass Effect 2.

oculus_combat.png
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Wow! I completely forgot about this dumb thing!
Spherical bosses have been the bane of my existence since Ōkami. They're just the worst.
 
Rapier said:
I figured as much. Is there only one area to explore? Old Russia...? I read somewhere some ppl talking about Chicago or something.
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It's not clear but Old Russia maybe the only part of the Earth we can explore. The area is fairly large and has one story mission and one strike (which are online co-op missions). There is also a drop point where you can just explore the map and perform small tasks while grinding xp by shooting small packs of enemies.

There is a hub world that is by the big Orb thing. It's located on a tower, which has various shops and other things you would expect. You can't explore the city that the tower is located in, it is just part of the, very good looking, sky box.
 
SJS said:
I know we're all focusing on the PVE (me too, I like what's been outlined so far in this regard), but anyone really worried about how competitive PVP will turn out? Honestly, I think that in its current state, it ranks amongst the worst multiplayer FPS I've played. I want to see huge improvements by the final release.

- You are fundamentally inaccurate in the air for whatever awful reason, forcing you to stay on the ground unless you have a grenade or super ready.

- Doing this exposes you to the grenades and supers in this game (unless you have incredibly good prediction and want the enemy to get a huge shot lead on you), which determine the outcome of 80% of the fights because of their huge range and damage.

- It's not like you can escape anyway because of the heavy linearization of the maps featured, bolstered by the poor choice of Domination as a gametype (and also by the fact that you have to be ridiculously close to domination points to capture them).

- If you are teamed up on, you're absolutely done for. There are almost no tactics you can use to macromanage except have a charged super move or grenade ready, which are no guarantee of your safety anyway.

- Generally, most of the fights are determined before they start. If you're at the objective (or really, anywhere near the middle of a map) and a guy comes around the corner with a super / grenade, there is no way in hell that you're surviving because the required reaction time would only result from an incredible amount of prediction...

- ...and prediction is unreliable in this game because no one communicates and the radar, which disappears upon ADS for some inexplicable reason, is ridiculously general about your opponent's location!

- Also, your sensitivity is reduced while sprinting.


There's also something that kills in one hit that I haven't been able to identify, but I won't list that as a criticism because I don't understand it at all.

Am I just insanely bad at this game even though I'm generally pretty good at FPSes? Is there some game mechanic that I'm just not getting sans the OHK weapon, or am I correct in thinking that the PVP needs serious improvement? Please discuss this with me.
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To me the radar is far too good. It's so easy to anticipate other players and either get the jump on them or kill them before they see you.

Also, power weapons are insanely strong.

Other than that, the PVP has been ok so far, not great. I have faith that Bungie will balance everything out
 
Fallout-with-swords said:
It's not clear but Old Russia maybe the only part of the Earth we can explore. The area is fairly large and has one story mission and one strike (which are online co-op missions). There is also a drop point where you can just explore the map and perform small tasks while grinding xp by shooting small packs of enemies.

There is a hub world that is by the big Orb thing. It's located on a tower, which has various shops and other things you would expect. You can't explore the city that the tower is located in, it is just part of the, very good looking, sky box.
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Yeah that's what I've been doing. The co-op mission is ridiculously hard last time I tried it. (as a level 5). And just now I found a cave beneath the entrance of the radar building for the story mission FULL of level 11 Fallen. WTF is up with that, isn't the cap 8 for players?
 
I tried the strike at level 6. It was taking so long to kill the devil Walker one guy left. Eventually I had to give up. Any easy way to kill it? I am a hunter. Also, where can I find good loot?
 
I'm in the midst of drinking a 40 oz malt liquor, so now is a great opportune time to play some destiny with me.

psn: notacosbeykidd
 
I've discovered that you can tap the jetpack button to stop/start your pack midair.

This is pretty awesome. I'm finding that using short jetpack bursts or controlled bursts can get you moving pretty damn quick.

Anyone think of anything else like tapping the jetpack button that I might still not know about? (I figured jetpack = jets go until you let go of the button, not the case for Titans at least)
 
I think Im finished with this, played last night till 3am and today all day while watching the world cup, I've already done every mission several times, including the public events.

Tomorrow I'll play a little bit more, then go back to watch dogs and mario kart.
 
NamikazeBurst said:
I tried the strike at level 6. It was taking so long to kill the devil Walker one guy left. Eventually I had to give up. Any easy way to kill it? I am a hunter. Also, where can I find good loot?
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The best way to kill him is shoot the legs, there really is no quick way, even with 3 people it takes quite a while. He's also not the last boss in strike.

Loot is pretty random, I've gotten great loot from just exploring and killing some random beast, i've gotten some from PvP, some from the story mission and some from the strike.
 
Wish you could configure the HUD a bit. I hate seeing the damage numbers all the time (it's useless and ugly in places where you know you can kill them all) and I wish I could make it transparent and even shut it off for screenshots.

Synless said:
So geth?
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The geth inner workings are well known by their creators, the Quarians. Not an ancient galactic mystery at all.
 
Played this a bunch today and I think I'm going to like the final game a fair bit.

The explore mode at first felt a bit too aimless, and maybe it will be in the final game as well, but I think it'll be a nice mode to play for those times when you aren't willing or able to devote time to accomplish any lengthly goals in a game. For example, when you get home from the bar after 2, and you want to do something before crashing. With explore mode you can aimlessly kill baddies to unwind for a while.

PVP doesn't seem to have the gameplay pizzazz of Titanfall, but maybe the broader gameplay modes and systems will make up for that. I was digging it anyway.
 
Can anyone give me the run down on extracting a screenshot from my PS4 onto my computer in the best quality? Took a few from this game with the share button and I read that uploading them through twitter compresses them through hell.
 
Only created one character (Awoken, Hunter Class) but I maxed her level out in one sitting.

Gotta say.. I am pleasantly surprised with the amount of polish on this given that it's an alpha test-- though to be fair, one that is super far along if they're releasing it in 3 months.

I don't really do MMOs but I can see myself sinking a good amount of time in on this once September rolls around.

Haven't really tried PvP yet; the game crashed on me both times right as I started a match of "Control", but I'll give it another shot.

I'm very curious to see how the crafting/loot drop stuff is fleshed out beyond gear you can equip (or get decrypted). I've dismantled a few sets of gear and received some components alongside glimmer.


Slightly OT, but all the skulking around solo down twisty corridors in the Cosmodrome just reminded me that Metro Redux is coming out hopefully soon as well. Can't wait to jump into that too.


Up until the Alpha I've found the marketing for Destiny to be really lackluster-- the tone of everything just didn't really appeal to me-- but dammit if I ain't enjoying myself a ton with this test drive. The Pre-order remains intact ;)
 
Sentient said:
Can anyone give me the run down on extracting a screenshot from my PS4 onto my computer in the best quality? Took a few from this game with the share button and I read that uploading them through twitter compresses them through hell.
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You can upload it to twitter and then change the URL from :large to :orig.

Will improve the quality dramatically.
 
Game is so much fun with a group of people. Up until now I've been going solo.. Bad move. So much better playing with other people. Even fun when you get led into a slaughter against dudes that only have "??" for level and exude "!!" when shot..
 
WhatRobEats said:
Game is so much fun with a group of people. Up until now I've been going solo.. Bad move. So much better playing with other people. Even fun when you get led into a slaughter against dudes that only have "??" for level and exude "!!" when shot..
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That was fun. I can't believe that scouting mission basically lead us to the doorstep of certain death, lol.

Edit: If you pick up a scouting mission in the Rocket Yard that says to survey a tunnel, you only need to go to the entrance of the tunnel. Go down the tunnel and you get the mobs with ?? for their level.
 
LOVE this game. The wait until the Beta in July is gonna be tough!

Sorry if this has already been discussed in detail; my main complaint: enemies re-spawn way too quickly. Anyone else bothered by this in free-roam mode? It negatively impacts exploring because it's not possible to 'clear out' areas. Fallout and Skyrim really nailed that. You'd discover a place, get XP, find cool loot, and kill the enemies in order to clear out that location. Then you'd move on.

In Destiny, I discover a cool place such as the Forgotten Shore (place filled with big crates), and kill all the enemies. But then the second I turn around, they're all back. It's frustrating. Then I found the place with all those cars, but there was no cool loot or rewards that I could see. Do you guys think that the rapidly re-spawning enemies will be changed for the main game? Maybe it's like that in the Alpha so players can quickly accumulate XP for upgrades, and test out the combat?
 
Gxgear said:
Tower should have a shooting range for testing out weapons.
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Hell to the yes. Hell yes.

VanCityGamer said:
LOVE this game. The wait until the Beta in July is gonna be tough!

Sorry if this has already been discussed in detail; my main complaint: enemies re-spawn way too quickly. Anyone else bothered by this in free-roam mode? It negatively impacts exploring because it's not possible to 'clear out' areas. Fallout and Skyrim really nailed that. You'd discover a place, get XP, find cool loot, and kill the enemies in order to clear out that location. Then you'd move on.

In Destiny, I discover a cool place such as the Forgotten Shore (place filled with big crates), and kill all the enemies. But then the second I turn around, they're all back. It's frustrating.
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Agree. Hopefully this is due to it being alpha code.

Still loving my time in Destiny though. Can't wait to invest 100 hours into the game.

DestinyJedi.gif
 
Turdburger said:
The PvP needs a ton of work.

No good PvP mode could ever sprout from having 2 super powered area of effect abilities on huge cooldowns. There's as little skill in using them as there is in every failed attempt to not die to them. If you have them up, you're powerful. If they're on cooldown, you're instantly boned vs someone who has them up.

I love the fact that the PvP is integrated into your character's progression--the elements of PvP external to the PvP game play itself are awesome, but the overall feel, balance and tuning of the PvP gameplay itself is horrendous. There's a reason we don't see PvP modes in games like Mass Effect; these ridiculously powered abilities make for uncompelling gameplay in a PvP setting.

I hope they can tune it so that you can still bring your weapons and load outs from PvE, but make the gameplay itself not based around long, powerful cooldowns and twitch aiming.

My easiest suggestion would to be to just give everyone a lot more health and make supers far less deadly.
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I don't think the area of effect for either special is more than a couple in game feet, and hunter only gets 3 shots on golden gun while on a ~20 sec timer. The specials are all pretty situational, and I think harder to use effectively than a grenade. Only the golden gun can shoot up effectively, and the startup on that is pretty long.

I actually think the PVP is really good, you have to make a lot of tactical choices for when to grenade or use the special. Most of the time I feel like my deaths were from getting outplayed or being outnumbered. And the shotty is way more annoying than any super. TTK feels pretty good, a lot of gunfights involve lots of movement. I think the gunfights I've had in Destiny are the most engaging gun on gun fights I've had in a while.

Zoba said:
If they want to take hints from their past games, they can treat heavy weapon ammo like power weapons and orbs of light like ammo for the supers. put the crates in key locations on the map so that players have to move there to use them.

The biggest issue for me with PvP right now is that there are people running around with more armor than everyone else. Even with the abundance of super abilities, the kill times have been fairly consistent and I rarely feel like I've been cheated out of an encounter... until I meet someone with literally twice as much health as me. It's stupid.

I agree with an earlier comment about the shooting mechanics. You should be accurate at all times and ADS should only be moreso for longer ranges. Again, I don't want to keep referencing Halo, but the things that worked with those games should be universal for shooters IMO. One of them is retaining accuracy while moving so that encounters don't turn into crawls. Because what's the point of all this mobility if we can't make use of it?
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I've noticed weird lag sometimes, but not obvious health discrepancies. If that is the case, I agree it's no good, but I have like max armor now and I'm pretty sure I die as quickly as when I had junk gear.

I think ADS as a tactical option is fine, this isn't Halo but hip fire is still really effective. AR is just too good in ads right now though, I think it needs more muzzle climb. The pulse rifle is super accurate from the hip, but it has monstrous muzzle climb and takes too long to settle vs. AR. Scout rifle has pretty good hip accuracy too, but it fires too slow so TTK is no good vs. AR in mid to close. I also don't buy that hip fire is more skillful given the hilarious sticky aim.
 
Whenever I do certain things, like kill X amount of an enemy, it throws that notification up and tells you to check Bungie.net for details.

Where do I check this stuff out on Bungie.net? Does your profile have something about your Alpha progress? Can't seem to locate it on the site.
 
PVE man is fucking fantastic. Played about 5 hours or so. So fun and smooth. Small simple upgrade system (hate bloated menus). Frame rate hit the fan a couple of times but nothing too extreme. Fun weapons and abilities. Completely sold me. For Explore mode i'm hoping there's more variety in side missions. The ones in the beta are tedious and repetitive. PVP was meh. Weapons and abilities feel off. Not as fast paced as their Halo games. Only played 1 match but it honestly just wasn't fun. I was hoping for more of a Halo Reach type of play.

Great game. I was so so about the game now i'm there day 1. ( doesn't hurt most of the holiday games don't interest me ;p )
 
Nowise10 said:
Why would you ever want to turn of the beautiful music
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I find music takes away from the immersion. Nothing against the music per say, but I like playing with the sound effects as the only soundtrack. Pretty much every game gives the option to turn off music, except Bungie games. Supposedly it was all because of Marty O'Donnell being a control freak, I figured now that he's gone maybe they'd throw some sound option in. Guess not!
 
I've done everything there is so far. I don't want to play anymore because I don't want to ruin my day one experience (with beta).

My general impressions are amazing. While I was thinking this was going to be more of a 70% Borderlands/30% Halo hybrid game, it turns out to be much more than that. It's a good blend of Borderlands/Halo and a quality MMO (specially PSO/PSU, as SteamGAF mikor. Gunplay is very much like Borderlands/Halo. World is lovely looking. Beautiful graphics. Tons to customize. And sweet /dance moves.

In fact, I think this is the evolution of the Halo series. The online feels like a quality basic deathmatch/CTF version of Halo too. It's the mode that felt straight out of Halo actually.

The alpha really didn't do a good job at explaining a lot of what you should be doing. I'm certain this alpha was so people could get used to some elements of the game and to test servers for beta. Overall, I can't wait for September.
 
The game looked great considering it's cross-gen. I gave away my code but my friend let me play a bit on his. I guess my biggest complaint as of right now is that Bungie doesn't allow you to name the characters. So my dreams of making Space Shrek are ruined.

So instead I made a really emo looking guy with the black makeup and lipstick. So good. It was fun gameplay I just held myself from playing too much because I knew it'd be ending tomorrow-ish so didn't want to get too attached.
 
Nowise10 said:
Why would you ever want to turn of the beautiful music
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It doesn't matter how good the music might be - over doing anything can become fatiguing. Having the option would be greatly appreciated for down the road when we've sunk hundreds of hours into Destiny.
 
Admiral Woofington said:
I guess my biggest complaint as of right now is that Bungie doesn't allow you to name the characters. So my dreams of making Space Shrek are ruined.
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I wish the game will allow you to give a nickname to your character in the future. Or make it something that has to be earned, like the right to attach a badass moniker under your unchangeable character name.
 
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