Support NeoGAF

[drotahorror]

So what else to do after hitting level 8, a bit of pvp, and ran the level 6 instance group (can't remember what it's called) a couple times?

Also, that tank in the 3 man instance is dumb and needs to be retuned. It's not a fun encounter and it's quite boring actually. Sitting in one spot and ducking one shot missiles and then unloading, repeat process is stupid. First time I did that I was level 6 with 2 other level 6's and it took us a good 15-20min of just unloading into the tank. No skill, no nothing to beat it. Also it doesn't even drop a piece of loot. Same goes for any of the bosses in that instance.

 

[Xamtheking]

Everyone knows about the Soccer Ball/Big Pink Ball that spawn in the Tower, right?
They provide hours of fun IMHO

 

[Skele7on]

So....

I feel that I've seen most of what the Beta has to offer (at least until Bungie drip-feed some more content) and my insomniaciacal brain-dump is as follows:

1. The Beta sucks when you're on your own. It's probably a result of you being penned into a small demo area but the game only came alive for me when playing with friends (thanks Dax and EverydayMath - I had tremendous fun and hope we can do it again at some point).

2. I'm slightly disappointed that the Beta is largely a retread of the Alpha. That's probably my fault for sinking too many hours into the Alpha, though.

3. I can see loot grinding and equipment tweaking being hugely addictive. Seeing the "upgrade available" pop up is like the first cigarette in the morning. I miss smoking.

4. The tower glitch is depressing. Why am I the only guardian, Bungie? I'm not interested in talking to Banshee-44. He always says the same things over and over again.

5. I hope the final tower is a little bit bigger and is a bit more than just a hub for shops and item management. It would be great if they added more quirky things like the fan and the football to the final game.

6. I miss "that wizard came from the moon". I have faith that it's gonna be in there somewhere.

And finally...7. The snippets of cutscenes really got me interested in the plot. I hope that there are ways to delve into the lore without having to consult the grimoire - the art, design and overall "aesthetic" (eugh) are probably my favourite things about it.

Overall, I'm quite chuffed with it but I can't see myself sinking too much more time into it until more content is added. I'm not shaking my fist at Bungie though - I have only myself to blame for playing the Alpha too much and for being dreadful at FPS PvP. Every time somebody jumps out on me I freeze in place and get headshotted. I'm good at games, honest!

Great write up really. I do also hope that "that wizard that came from the moon" comes back in some form, as although quirky it's a part of destiny now and it feels too soon for it to just fade and die in the back ground.

I know that feeling about the upgrades window, I smoke still and it does have that crave thing down really well

I think once retail hits the exploration side will really come into play as you're right without buddies you are kind of pinned in or can walk into an area and see guys with ? and have to quickly run away for fear of being absolutely destroyed, I shot one saw a 0 came up and quickly decided "NOPE" and sparrowed away!

As for the PVP stuff it'll come just remember a lot of the people are Ex halo which seems terribly unfair as they do have quite the advantage! Once my PS4 is working again ( praying it's cooled down now) I will jump on and drop you a party invite. Although probably not tonight as the weather is too nice and I'm going down the pub!

 

[Twilight Gap]

How is multilayer weapon damage balanced?

Weapon damage is normalized. Scout Rifles take 4 shots to kill, Fusion Rifles and Shotguns are 1sk depending on the range, two melees to kill, etc. It's like Halo almost, but all of the other stats carry over. So if you have something that has a scope or an upgraded reload speed, you can use it in PvP. It just wont do 50 more damage than someone else's.

 

[LiK]

Met the Hive. The game has started feeling somewhat better. But it has taken way too long, the game should be interesting within 15 minutes of start, not after well over an hour of playing.
Hmph.
Still needs splitscreen, the game is clearly designed to be a co-op game but... well, co-op over the internet is never as fun as in splitscreen.

You met the Hive literally right when you started in the Alpha. The Beta had a much more proper introduction to the world.

 

[Xamtheking]

Why would you want to start it remotely?

Say you are away from home on a long trip when the Beta hits and you want it ready to go when you get home

 

[molnizzle]

Mmm, I did in the Alpha, but I must have forgotten. I'll do that now, thanks.

If Im understanding this thread, subclasses change up supers?

Subclasses have entirely different skill trees too.

Bladedancer stealths and melee assassinates enemies. lol

 

[matrixman92]

so ive played this for a few hours now and as a halo player i dont like this game. i hate the emphasis on levelling up, pvp is decent but has many problems and the gameplay is good but they need to make hipfire more effective, add vehicle hijacking and i tried getting road splash kills but i dont think u can wtf + i dont like how the radar is in the top left corner, it should be bottom left

I agree that the pvp has many problems..I too am a Halo player. But it sounds like you just want an exact copy of Halo, which is what this isnt supposed to be. I believe they have even said they dont just want it to be like Halo

 

[GrizzNKev]

I just hope they loosen up that Traveler cutscene a little bit.

All of a sudden the lore went up and jumped up it's own ass with extremely serious, brooding nonsense.
Give me a cutscene like the opening one, with the guys setting foot on Mars. It felt epic and inspiring. The robed dude mumbling on and on about darkness consuming shit and your destiny was so cliché it made me want to skip it entirely.

If that's the quality of writing that we'll get throughout the game then i'll be disappointed. At least the gameplay is still good.

I have a very strong feeling they're doing that to set up a betrayal later on.

1. Ghost revives you and gives you instructions. You obey.

2. The Speaker gives you more instructions. You obey.

3. You're sheltered because the Tower only has other Guardians in it.

Nowhere do you meet other people with different alliances or non-Traveler motives. In addition, we know someone is watching and following you, and we know friendly and enemy races have allied further out in space. The "bad" writing in the intro is very deliberate, I think.

 

[Woorloog]

You met the Hive literally right when you started in the Alpha. The Beta had a much more proper introduction to the world.

Eh? Sure is boring introduction. There is nothing i care for so far. No interesting characters, no interesting events or enemies. Exploration is kind of fun, story ain't.

 

[crappybannedjunior999999]

Hellk all so i got to play the beta yesterday. Yey my wife not so happy! I like to play loud or i cant hear shit what the characters are saying or just love it loud. So i need to get a headset. Any recommandations? I need somethin that sounds loud enough and has a mic. I live in canada and will be going to bestbuy i assume. I dont buy online. Any recommendations for a great headset in the 80-130$ range?

Thanks in advance oh also one that vould work with my pc would be nice to but if its just ps4 then its no biggie.

The Sony PS4 pulse elites are great. I have them. I usually just use a pair of beats solos though because nobody really talks and they are light and comfortable.

 

[majik13]

I meant the ability to actually START the installer remotely(You can do it with a Vita though)

I had the beta fully downloaded, from just using the PSN web store and having my PS4 on standby. Got home, and was able to play immediatly. if that is what you mean.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Say you are away from home on a long trip when the Beta hits and you want it ready to go when you get home

That's what I'm saying...You don't need to start it, it will be ready when you get home whether you start it or not.

 

[XxCGSxX]

Weapon damage is normalized. Scout Rifles take 4 shots to kill, Fusion Rifles and Shotguns are 1sk depending on the range, two melees to kill, etc. It's like Halo almost, but all of the other stats carry over. So if you have something that has a scope or an upgraded reload speed, you can use it in PvP. It just wont do 50 more damage than someone else's.

Wait so high damage stats, fire damage etc. doesn't carry over? Rate of fire, reload speed does? Is there a link where this stuff is explained?

 

[LapinAgile]

Really?

If you were a part of the Halo community, you wouldn't need to ask.

I am part of the Halo community since day one and Reach is my second favorite in the series. Seems like you are just being defensive and dont have a real arguement to make here.

 

[Gouty]

Who do we petition to have the entire month of August banned?

 

[MMaRsu]

The level cap might go up after the downtime
Believe

Hah I hope.

 

[molnizzle]

That's what I'm saying...You don't need to start it, it will be ready when you get home whether you start it or not.

No, it won't. The actual 10GB download doesn't start until you open the client. Then you need to keep it open to continue downloading.

 

[Tacosmell]

The Sony PS4 pulse elites are great. I have them. I usually just use a pair of beats solos though because nobody really talks and they are light and comfortable.

How much are they?

 

[Twilight Gap]

Wait so high damage stats, fire damage etc. doesn't carry over? Rate of fire, reload speed does? Is there a link where this stuff is explained?

Everything except weapon damage carries over. Lars Bakken might have explained it in one of the IGN map tours. Let me see which one it was.

 

[TheOMan]

That's fine; I just want to be able to fire from the hip accurately. I wanna jump and shoot, you know? Especially because the Hunter's jump is so well suited for it.

Ah, yes. The jump and shoot mechanic is pretty terrible in Destiny when compared to Halo. The penalty for accuracy when in the air is way too harsh, I totally get that.

So you mean you want hip fire to be as accurate as ADS currently is? I think I agree that would be nice for sure. I guess I've since gotten used to the CoD style of play, but I still hipfire on and off to mix things up.

Everyone knows about the Soccer Ball/Big Pink Ball that spawn in the Tower, right?
They provide hours of fun IMHO

LOL, no, where is this exactly?

 

[Xamtheking]

That's what I'm saying...You don't need to start it, it will be ready when you get home whether you start it or not.

AFAIK You had to download a mini-client that was 100~mb and then you had to download the real part of it from the mini-client
That's what I went through

I had the beta fully downloaded, from just using the PSN web store and having my PS4 on standby. Got home, and was able to play immediatly. if that is what you mean.

Did you pre-order through the PSN store?

 

[zewone]

Anyone have any captures of the astronauts finding the Traveler?

I thought that looked awesome.

 

[majik13]

AFAIK You had to download a mini-client that was 100~mb and then you had to download the real part of it from the mini-client
That's what I went through


Did you pre-order through the PSN store?

no, through amazon. had to reddem 1 of 3 codes yesterday.

AFAIK You had to download a mini-client that was 100~mb and then you had to download the real part of it from the mini-client
That's what I went through

maybe the issue was because some people were getting liscenes errors? So those people werent getting the beta to DL immediatly. When I got home, turned on the PS4, got a bunch of Dl notificaion pop ups. I fired up the beta from my home screen, saw, that it said "press x to play" on the destiny home screen. i didnt touch anything and then put the ps4 back into stand by. As I had a bunch of chores and what not to do. About 3 hours later, i fired it up again, got to the home screen, pressed X to play, and then it asked about accepting the liscese. I said dammit, thinking that it actually hadnt downloaded it, and that it needed me to accepth the lisceses first. But alas , I was able to play immediatly.

I ve seen several people say that even before you run the client or accept the liscenese, that the beta is still DLing in the background download queue.

 

[Some Nobody]

That is my worry as well. I was hoping to see more content in the beta to put me at ease. Now that we know there are just the 3 other planets + moon... that's just not enough, unless there are at least 2-3 "Old Russia" sized maps per planet.

Do we KNOW that's all there is? Seems like they'd just do the whole galaxy, or at least half of it for pre-expansion content.

 

[JB1981]

I agree with this...there is nothing that feels particularly special, cohesive, or important. You essentially all can carry snipers, shotguns, and rifles... and the abilities are mostly for your own playstyle and don't contribute in any way to helping your teammates. No AoE shield. No medic (in fact, the whole revive mechanic is as basic and thoughtless as can be). No Reconnaissance ability. No guy to give you ammo. You just run around the map and pick it off of enemies.

I know the game wasn't aiming for any of those things, but it just feels so pointless to run with a gang of players, because what is ultimately happening is you guys are all doing the same thing: Shooting bullet sponges and popping off specials.

The exploration is nice, but there are no NPCs to encounter or sidequests/lore to find (a la Dark Souls).

I largely don't feel much for the co-op experience because of that.

6 player raids are not any more special than 3 player. Compare this to how awesome Resistance 2 was: 8 players, with special roles that played out cohesively on the battlefield

You are criticizing the game entirely for something that is has never strive to be: a class based shooter in the traditional BF/KZ sense. That's not what it is or has ever purported to be so why were you expecting that?

 

[Relix]

Does the beta carry over to final game?

 

[Orayn]

Did you pre-order through the PSN store?

That might be the difference, since my pre-order was through Amazon. Maybe codes from Bungie get you the full 12.some GB ready to go, but the auto-unlock through PSN is a different installer?

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Man its a beta, on the starter world, and you're capped before subclasses and anything that could separate them.

How would you like the boss fights to go? . In most mmo's I play the boss fights are 'sword/spell/blade' sponges and every so often does an attack that can wipe you if you don't get out the goo. . What would you suggest?

RPG boss fights are spongey by nature, but that's to serve the purpose of making each role matter. In a good MMO (or even a single player WRPG with a party) each character/player needs to do a specific thing the help. DPS characters attack as directly as possible, beefy characters keep the bosses away from other, weaker characters, and support classes refill health, ammunition, whatever is necessary to keep the fight going smoothly. Really, good boss fights in MMOs or RPGs are just multiplayer stack math problems.

Destiny (and Borderlands and other games of this type) keep the damage sponge part but dramatically decrease the need for other roles. You shoot the boss a lot or throw your flavor of damage-dealing special move at it until it dies. There's no real priority stack to worry about in either the tank fight or the giant servitor fight.

I haven't taken a close look at the subclasses yet and I understand these are super early bosses that aren't going to be as complex as later ones, but I'm working with what I have here: it worries me so far.

 

[Fehyd]

No, it won't. The actual 10GB download doesn't start until you open the client. Then you need to keep it open to continue downloading.

I just went home and it was ready to play. Didn't download anything. Heck my fiancé entered a beta code and hers downloaded hella fast. When she got home she launched it and it went straight to character creation.

Are we looking at different game clients here? Maybe different depending on region?

 

[PrivateWHudson]

No, it won't. The actual 10GB download doesn't start until you open the client. Then you need to keep it open to continue downloading.

But it does start downloading, and you don't need to keep it open.

Just look at all of the posts around 5-6 pm eastern time yesterday. People that downloaded the installer remotely had most if not all of the game data downloaded when they got home.

 

[nubbe]

wrong thread

 

[Theecliff]

Bloody hell, The Devil's Lair takes a ludicrously long time. The spider tank in particular felt like it took aeons to take down. I kinda would prefer it if the bosses in that strike didn't have such huge amounts of health, even the last boss took a while to take down.

 

[XxCGSxX]

Everything except weapon damage carries over. Lars Bakken might have explained it in one of the IGN map tours. Let me see which one it was.

What about armor, is that carried over? So if damage doesn't carry over that means that for example every scout rifle takes 4 shots for a kill?

 

[Twilight Gap]

Destiny is more like Halo than Halo is now.

This is really true. Balance issues aside, I like Destiny's PvP more than Halo's in a lot of ways... but I mentioned many pages back that I hope that I'm legitimately enjoying it and not being blinded or deluded by its novelty. I don't want to play this game a year later and detest the PvP once everyone has figured out how to abuse things like the supers. The Fusion Rifle has already gotten annoying on Shores of Time. A full fireteam changes the game though, so this will be a blast with friends (something I can't say much of about the later Halo's most of the time).

 

[Scully Scully Scoo]

I agree that the pvp has many problems..I too am a Halo player. But it sounds like you just want an exact copy of Halo, which is what this isnt supposed to be. I believe they have even said they dont just want it to be like Halo

i just want a lot of the core halo mechanics to be carried to this game. the gunplay just isnt as satisfying as halo because bungie are forcing u to aim down sights which hinders movement while firing and makes every gun battle play out essentially the same way. if they could not penalise players for hipfiring and implement ads as purely a optional way of aiming like halo br zoom then gun battles will be a lot more fun because u can jump and strafe.

i understand this isnt halo and bungie want to do something different but no point going backwards just for the sake of being different.

 

[TheRealTalker]

seeing as the beta never introduced any new vehicles


likely the two hoverbike types are the only drivable vehicles in the game.... kind unfortunate

 

[Orayn]

RPG boss fights are spongey by nature, but that's to serve the purpose of making each role matter. In a good MMO (or even a single player WRPG with a party) each character/player needs to do a specific thing the help. DPS characters attack as directly as possible, beefy characters keep the bosses away from other, weaker characters, and support classes refill health, ammunition, whatever is necessary to keep the fight going smoothly. Really, good boss fights in MMOs or RPGs are just multiplayer stack math problems.

Destiny (and Borderlands and other games of this type) keep the damage sponge part but dramatically decrease the need for other roles. You shoot the boss a lot or throw your flavor of damage-dealing special move at it until it dies. There's no real priority stack to worry about in either the tank fight or the giant servitor fight.

I haven't taken a close look at the subclasses yet and I understand these are super early bosses that aren't going to be as complex as later ones, but I'm working with what I have here: it worries me so far.

I think a proper "boss fight" in Destiny would be more of a horde mode affair; there could still be some strong, spongey guys mixed in there, but it seems like Destiny's class differences don't really show when people are all just trying to wail on a single target.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

AFAIK You had to download a mini-client that was 100~mb and then you had to download the real part of it from the mini-client
That's what I went through


Did you pre-order through the PSN store?

Nope...If you never opened that mini-client, you would have had the same results.

 

[KevMan1815]

Bloody hell, The Devil's Lair takes a ludicrously long time. The spider tank in particular felt like it took aeons to take down. I kinda would prefer it if the bosses in that strike didn't have such huge amounts of health, even the last boss took a while to take down.

Spider tank seemed to go faster than in alpha to me. Maybe it was knowing how to take him out faster though.

 

[KingErich]

I agree with this...there is nothing that feels particularly special, cohesive, or important. You essentially all can carry snipers, shotguns, and rifles... and the abilities are mostly for your own playstyle and don't contribute in any way to helping your teammates. No AoE shield. No medic (in fact, the whole revive mechanic is as basic and thoughtless as can be). No Reconnaissance ability. No guy to give you ammo. You just run around the map and pick it off of enemies.

I know the game wasn't aiming for any of those things, but it just feels so pointless to run with a gang of players, because what is ultimately happening is you guys are all doing the same thing: Shooting bullet sponges and popping off specials.

The exploration is nice, but there are no NPCs to encounter or sidequests/lore to find (a la Dark Souls).

I largely don't feel much for the co-op experience because of that.

6 player raids are not any more special than 3 player. Compare this to how awesome Resistance 2 was: 8 players, with special roles that played out cohesively on the battlefield

I am right there with you man.

 

[Karl Hawk]

Bloody hell, The Devil's Lair takes a ludicrously long time. The spider tank in particular felt like it took aeons to take down. I kinda would prefer it if the bosses in that strike didn't have such huge amounts of health, even the last boss took a while to take down.

You should shoot the spider tank's legs. Once one of it's legs explodes, it will incapacitate and will reveal it's neck as a weak point for few seconds. Use that as an advantage.

 

[ProvenDeadly]

Can you sell weapons in this game?

 

[Korben]

Anyone have any captures of the astronauts finding the Traveler?

I thought that looked awesome.

http://i.imgur.com/FVjBSKM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/53Phnrc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vtVnACB.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EjK3r3M.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZndJUlU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/P31OWUz.jpg

I spammed the "Share" button during the first hour of my beta session.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Weapon damage is normalized. Scout Rifles take 4 shots to kill, Fusion Rifles and Shotguns are 1sk depending on the range, two melees to kill, etc. It's like Halo almost, but all of the other stats carry over. So if you have something that has a scope or an upgraded reload speed, you can use it in PvP. It just wont do 50 more damage than someone else's.

Wait, so you say scout rifles take 4 shots to kill, but doesn't that depend on the impact/fire rate as well? So if you had a low impact but high fire rate couldn't it take 5 shots since you can get them off in a shorter time? In other words shouldn't it be normalizing the weapons based on the stats of the weapon (not the weapon damage stat but all others)?

 

[crappybannedjunior999999]

I am part of the Halo community since day one and Reach is my second favorite in the series. Seems like you are just being defensive and dont have a real arguement to make here.

I fucking loved Reach. I honestly didn't realize how much until I played Halo 4. He makes the argument that he is the resident authority on all things Halo (with a Minor in Titanfall) for GAF. He fails.

 

[Xamtheking]

Nope...If you never opened that mini-client, you would have had the same results.

Edit: I am a dunderhead

 

[schadenfood]

Thanks to a DSL connection, I've had to wait a good 24 hours before I dive into the beta tonight. Can't wait!

Are there any videos out there that outline the game's mechanics? I'm curious as to what exactly is in the beta in terms of PvE, PvP, etc etc. Marketing has never really seemed clear as to what this game is all about...but maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Woorloog]

Vehicle controls are terrible. The camera lags behind too much, making precise driving difficult. Ugh.

 

[Orayn]

Can you sell weapons in this game?

Nope, you just disassemble them in your inventory for a fairly small amount of Glimmer.

Bungie talked about the possibility of trading with other players at one point, but that may have been canceled or possibly replaced with some other plan for a player economy.