Destiny House of Wolves Reveal Thread
- Thread starter Twilight Gap
- Start date
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I haven't seen that video yet. I need to check it out, Datto makes solid stuff.
I like having hand crafted arenas, but having randomized enemy waves could be cool.
Twilight Gap
Member
prior to halo 4, i didn't need to read any of the external media to know what the games were about. they were self-contained and simple enough to comprehend. even when it was poorly written, it made sense and it was there.
destiny's story isn't. random shit happens randomly for the sake of happening and then we're on another side of the solar system doing something for someone for some reason unbeknownst to us.
none of it makes sense until you read grimoire.
Orochinagis
Member
More like normal static design Rifts with modifiers.
ThatsMytrunks
Member
I'm super stoked for Prison of Elders. It's hard to get a team of 6 people who aren't dicks together. 3's easier, and matchmaking helps loads. I really can't wait.
Yeah they should have had a bare bones story to give you a sense of connection to what you were trying to accomplish.
Too Human did loot dismantling the best!!
I think there are individual missions that don't make a great deal of sense or fit in with a broader narrative, but I think the general thrust of the story gets across. You see moon monsters on Earth so you go to the Moon. Some lady on the moon tells you to check out Venus because you did such a good job killing moon monsters. The are evil robots on the Venus, some lady tells you that you need to go to the evil robot headquarters. You kill a gate lord to get access to the robot HQ, and then go to Mars since the Cabal equipment there is necessary to charge the gate lord head and open the portal to robot-world. You go to robot world and kill their bizarre leader by shooting at statutes that come to life.
There's 1001 unanswered questions about the Destiny world and its inhabitants, but the actual plot is mostly Halo-ish. It's an adventure in the stars where you use a very thinly developed player character to kill aliens in some pretty locales.
I really can't understand the amount of hate this game creates, since i personally have a blast playing it on a daily basis with all of my friends, my experience is on the PS4, but i like to share it with you.
First of all, i bought the ghost edition that came with really neat things and the season pass including Dark Below and House of Wolves, but after constantly fighting with my brother for our Destiny time, i bought another PS4 so that we could play it together.
The Destiny bundle doesn´t have the season pass, so we have to buy it, but comparing it to other games, i really don´t think this season pass is a worst offender, for 34.99 USD you get 3 PvP Maps (Pantheon, Skyshock, and The Cauldron), 2 new strikes on ps4 (Omnigul and Undying Mind), 3 "Story" Missions and Crota´s Raid which is challenging and fun.
And now you'll get 4 more PvP maps (Black Shield, Timekeeper, Thieves Den and Widow's Court) plus 1 Strike (The Shadow Thief), Trials of Osiris (PvP endgame activity) and Prison of Elders (PvE engame activity), Our clan (Jarritos) are more PvE than PvP, unless it's Iron Banner time xD, but we are pumped for the 2 new activities, one of our complaints are the fireteam size, since we usually are 6 at all time connected, but we'll just have to split, but overall i think this is a good season pass, unlike the recently announces Arkham Knight one, or the Borderlands 2 season 1 pass.
I really dug Firefight in ODST, so Prison of elders is right up my alley xD, but i really fail to see where Destiny mislead us to what the finished game is, i think i might be biased since i do have friends to play with on a daily basis, but few things in gaming were as satisfying as all of us defeating crota flawless, it's not a perfect game, but it's gotten way better, we no longer have to farm materials (it was hell) now we can just buy them, the light level is just a problem at the beginning when you don't have enough of the currency, now it's a different kind of problem since i don't have enough armor and weapons to spend mi ascendant shards and energies, when you understand what's going on it's a lot of fun.
We have a semi schedule now, Tuesday Nightfall and Heroic with our 3 characters, Wednesday Vault of Glass, Thursday Crota's End, Friday to Monday Crucible, and while we do all of this, Spotify is on the PS4 and we're chatting of really stupid things, it has become something more than just a game, is like a weird social hub where we shoot aliens, and i really like it
P.S. Sorry for the long post
First of all, i bought the ghost edition that came with really neat things and the season pass including Dark Below and House of Wolves, but after constantly fighting with my brother for our Destiny time, i bought another PS4 so that we could play it together.
The Destiny bundle doesn´t have the season pass, so we have to buy it, but comparing it to other games, i really don´t think this season pass is a worst offender, for 34.99 USD you get 3 PvP Maps (Pantheon, Skyshock, and The Cauldron), 2 new strikes on ps4 (Omnigul and Undying Mind), 3 "Story" Missions and Crota´s Raid which is challenging and fun.
And now you'll get 4 more PvP maps (Black Shield, Timekeeper, Thieves Den and Widow's Court) plus 1 Strike (The Shadow Thief), Trials of Osiris (PvP endgame activity) and Prison of Elders (PvE engame activity), Our clan (Jarritos) are more PvE than PvP, unless it's Iron Banner time xD, but we are pumped for the 2 new activities, one of our complaints are the fireteam size, since we usually are 6 at all time connected, but we'll just have to split, but overall i think this is a good season pass, unlike the recently announces Arkham Knight one, or the Borderlands 2 season 1 pass.
I really dug Firefight in ODST, so Prison of elders is right up my alley xD, but i really fail to see where Destiny mislead us to what the finished game is, i think i might be biased since i do have friends to play with on a daily basis, but few things in gaming were as satisfying as all of us defeating crota flawless, it's not a perfect game, but it's gotten way better, we no longer have to farm materials (it was hell) now we can just buy them, the light level is just a problem at the beginning when you don't have enough of the currency, now it's a different kind of problem since i don't have enough armor and weapons to spend mi ascendant shards and energies, when you understand what's going on it's a lot of fun.
We have a semi schedule now, Tuesday Nightfall and Heroic with our 3 characters, Wednesday Vault of Glass, Thursday Crota's End, Friday to Monday Crucible, and while we do all of this, Spotify is on the PS4 and we're chatting of really stupid things, it has become something more than just a game, is like a weird social hub where we shoot aliens, and i really like it
P.S. Sorry for the long post
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Neat!
Diablohead
Member
The only thing missing from prison of elders is dinklebot hacking a door as you fight the waves.
Twilight Gap
Member
yea the main story arc has a beginning middle and end, but i find the motivation behind everything to be very poorly written.
it's an adventure only in the sense that they need to get players from one planet to the next. you're told all this horrible stuff will happen, but it's never shown and never really hinted at. it's there for the sake of being there.
I agree with Zoba though. Halo was linear and very easy to follow. Plus, there were various game events like
towards the end. In Destiny's campaign you just do the same old crap. Watch dinklebot open a door. Horde mode. Next mission. Maybe you'll get a cutscene. Then back to the grindy campaign.
There's just no exciting ingame events. I can understand not having a story. Cause I have no clue what happened in Bloodborne's campaign really. My friend had to explain that one. Of course in Bloodborne the gameplay and bosses are absolutely stunning
Destiny's bosses.... pure bullet sponges. Raid boss fights are very good though in a different sort of way but at least those engage your mind
when my friend and I had to drive fast in a jeep to escape the burning ship
There's just no exciting ingame events. I can understand not having a story. Cause I have no clue what happened in Bloodborne's campaign really. My friend had to explain that one. Of course in Bloodborne the gameplay and bosses are absolutely stunning
Destiny's bosses.... pure bullet sponges. Raid boss fights are very good though in a different sort of way but at least those engage your mind
"[]FakeWalterHenry [score hidden] 38 minutes ago
On a scalle of 1 to Broman, how excited are you about Prison of Elders?
permalink"
I lol'd
It just dawned on me that we never saw the guys in the stream fighting Vex or Fallen.
Yeesh, I know that people don't like smoke-and-mirrors or completely scripted demo encounters, but they really needed to manipulate things behind the scenes so that they could have finished the mission, and shown off every area.
It's a little ridicuous that "It'll be different every time you play!" is a selling point for this gametype and then the demo just has our heroes swapping back and forth between Hive and Cabal.
Yeesh, I know that people don't like smoke-and-mirrors or completely scripted demo encounters, but they really needed to manipulate things behind the scenes so that they could have finished the mission, and shown off every area.
It's a little ridicuous that "It'll be different every time you play!" is a selling point for this gametype and then the demo just has our heroes swapping back and forth between Hive and Cabal.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, in both gameplay and story, Destiny's campaign is far inferior to Halo.
Twilight Gap
Member
mhmm that's another thing. there are no set pieces, dynamic levels or otherwise breaks in the formula for the story or strike missions. it's literally the same shit copy pasta'd or reskinned.
if this was a no-name studio, people wouldn't even have bothered. but this kind of watered down mission design from bungie is truly puzzling. even the back tracking halo levels had more variety than destiny's missions.
it just seems like they designed everything to require as little effort as possible - both to build it and to play it on a daily basis.
I like how during the stream the "guest" (whatever his name was) somehow accidently equips Necrochasm. As soon as he realizes it, he says something like, "oh frak, why am I using this gun?"He hurries up and switches his gun out while Deej is screaming "What are you doing?!"
I don't have Necrochasm myself cause I'm too lazy to fulfill the prereqs but its interesting watching these streams and seeing the guest players treat it with disdain.
I don't have Necrochasm myself cause I'm too lazy to fulfill the prereqs but its interesting watching these streams and seeing the guest players treat it with disdain.
Vire
Member
Reasons why Rifts are incredibly well done in Diablo 3:
1. Huge number of varied locations to play over and over.
2. Huge number of varied enemies to fight against over and over.
3. Randomized maps layouts makes it feel slightly different each time you play.
4. Culminates into a boss fight at the end with a guaranteed legendary drop from the boss (very generous with its rewards in general).
5. Large number of difficulty levels to attempt with greater rewards in each difficulty mode.
6. Drop in/Drop out 4 Player Co-Op.
7. Scales so that you can play by yourself
Instead we get a low number of maps/same four enemy types and a bunch of modifiers.
Good work Bungie.
1. Huge number of varied locations to play over and over.
2. Huge number of varied enemies to fight against over and over.
3. Randomized maps layouts makes it feel slightly different each time you play.
4. Culminates into a boss fight at the end with a guaranteed legendary drop from the boss (very generous with its rewards in general).
5. Large number of difficulty levels to attempt with greater rewards in each difficulty mode.
6. Drop in/Drop out 4 Player Co-Op.
7. Scales so that you can play by yourself
Instead we get a low number of maps/same four enemy types and a bunch of modifiers.
Good work Bungie.
xplicitone
Member
Horde mode interests me, especially with modifiers and objectives. It's obviously not revolutionary, but what did we all expect?
I don't expect it hook me like I once was, but I'll check out all facets of the DLC for sure. ToO seems like it'll either be really fun or extremely rage inducing. I am glad they will still give rewards to losers, but maybe just a lesser chance?
What will turn me off is if they took away exotic engrams from Xur. I've been saving my motes for the past couple of months.
The etheric light drop seems fairly rare and that was to be expected. Makes you really decide what you want to upgrade first.
I don't expect it hook me like I once was, but I'll check out all facets of the DLC for sure. ToO seems like it'll either be really fun or extremely rage inducing. I am glad they will still give rewards to losers, but maybe just a lesser chance?
What will turn me off is if they took away exotic engrams from Xur. I've been saving my motes for the past couple of months.
The etheric light drop seems fairly rare and that was to be expected. Makes you really decide what you want to upgrade first.
So are you able to play each hard tier and get rewards, or is it play one hard tier mode for rewards per week? I guess it could be a situation where they present the prizes like the weekly strikes; the hardest difficulty has all rewards while each lower tier only has a certain portion of the total rewards allotted.
I'm guessing it's like the current raid system: Each difficulty mode has a separate checkpoint and raid timer.
So, you could run 28 unlimited times, and beat 32, 34 and 35 once a week each.
Just a guess.
RSB
Banned
Yeah, I think that's why Destiny ended being so disappointing to me. I expected much more from Bungie.
Live Free or Die
Banned
they said you get a chance to get it from nightfall and a few other activities.
So the wave based mode seems ok but Destiny is always about PvE so I'm not sure how this will be different. Hopefully it's exciting, hard to say without playing it. Some of the wave based fights are some of my least favorite parts of the game like the septik prime strike where you have to fight fallen and hive for 5-10 minutes.
NullPointer
Member
That was my take.
Well, after watching the stream, I have to say that is not what I had in mind. It feels like they did this in a rush, like, why there is not much variety on the rooms, looks like the hive and cabal room are the same each time. I expected something like interconnected rooms randomly generated with different sets of enemies and challenges, where you have a sensation of progression inside a maze made to contain dangerous creatures, not a randomly selected 1 to 4 room and hold as long as possible. It may be different for the higher level challenges, but in my mind is hard to justify this decision.
Kor of Memory
Member
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Destiny failed the same way most Batman (or most superhero) movies failed. For every additional enemy/villian you introduce, you take away the development of the subsequent enemy/villians.
Destiny had to find a way to introduce us to 5 species within a matter of 18 missions or roughly 9 hours of play. Think about that for a second; 9 hours is actually a pretty solid campaign for an FPS. Most of the time you have 2 factions to deal with. Good guys and bad guys. Halo even went far enough to introduce to us a third faction. It was spread pretty then, and we didn't understand a lot, but it was done well enough to be enjoyed.
I'm talking about the original Halo right now. In the original Halo, both the Covenant and the Flood were very bare bones.
Covenant had:
- Grunts
- Jackals
- Elites
- Hunters
Flood had:
- Crawlers
- Poppers
- Infected human
- Infected Elite
Now, obviously those lists grew and grew as the sequels came out, but originally there wasn't much there.
Bungie doubled down in hopes that they could get 4 compelling enemy races into 1 game, and on top of that try to explain to us why the good guys are the good guys. And it failed! Spectacularly (talking about the story/lore only).
There was never any chance that 9 hour long campaign was going to be able to not only introduce, but instill history, presence, and fear for every species. Even broken down, that's 1 hour and 50 minutes for The Tower (Humans/Exo/Awoken), Fallen, Hive, Vex, Cabal... each.
While that would be enough for cinema, that is no where near enough for gameplay. Humorously, I didn't even think about the fact that I lumped all the good guys together. I didn't consider the idea that Humans, Awoken, and Exo should be considered different species with their own history and presence.
Anyway, I've gone on way too long here. I'll just sum up and say that I believe that by time Destiny 2's Comet comes out, we're actually going to have some solid lore, and some healthy attachment to each and every species.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
You've got a lot of good points, but I still think hand crafted levels are more interesting. That's how Dota can get by with just one map: it's designed to complement the action. Randomized maps aren't necessarily trash and I'd be okay with them as an option, but they're no replacement for designed maps.
My jump, melee, grenade, super, abilities during super, abilities outside of super, and all my weapons are completely different between my builds.
Try again.
SmoothRunningGun
Member
PoE looks ok but I would have preferred if they used the mp maps for more location variety (make up whatever story justification they had to). 4 smallish rooms will probably get old fast.
Vire
Member
The thing is, we already have an option for designed maps. Story missions, raids and strikes accomplish this goal. The purpose of Prison of Elders should have been to create an infinitely replayable mode that offers great incentive to keep coming back to the game.
I forgot to mention this but another strength of rifts is that it keeps the player continuously moving throughout the map, exploring new areas and progressing forward as a team. Prison of Elders has you hunker down in a small arena location and fight wave after wave of enemies.
New art assets, procedurally generated rooms, random enemy placements/objectives and a high emphasis on rewards would have made this mode a winner. But that obviously is way too much work for Bungie.
NullPointer
Member
Sortof. Strikes and missions don't have dynamic spawning. Not that I've seen much of any details on how much variety there is to the spawning in these arenas, but after playing strikes and missions enough times the only surprises are when players fuck up, and that's because every last enemy position has been memorized. These arenas at least mix things up.
The incentive to keep coming back is the loot. Take that out of Diablo and see how much of an incentive randomized maps really are.
Please don't watch it. So worthless. Watch the summaries by some you tubers instead. Unless you like watching three scubs scrubbing up the content and not finishing it for over 1.5 hours.
It probably has less to do with how much work it would take and more to do with the design philosophy for the game. I'm sure if they wanted to dump randomly generated maps into the game, they could build the tools to do so. They clearly think a hand crafted approach is better. Personally I shudder at the thought of a generated arena mode for Destiny.
They settled for "highly replayable" with well defined ways to adjust the game, vs. theoretically "infinitely replayable" and also rebuilding their entire tool set along the way.
It's sort of odd because they almost exactly harped WoW's model but failed to understand the good parts about it. One of the reasons I have hope for PoE is because I feel like it is something that Bungie understands a little bit better than raids and heroics.
Unfortunately, Destiny's biggest problem so far seems to be its encounter design, a thing by which all of the rest of the game is facilitated. PoE is smart because it disguises its lack of design. I'm hoping the real issue will iron itself out but they seem pretty aware of it and are trying to apply a huge band-aid.
I say this only wanting to see the game improve because I really enjoy playing Destiny, but I greatly lose interest between content updates. HoW already shows that the team behind the game has come a pretty good distance since launch.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I wonder how hard for them it would be to cut 'chunks' from explore areas, isolate it in an arena like area, and just put it as a random map for Arena?
There's already a huge amount of set pieces..
I really enjoy playing Destiny and have put many, many hours into the game. It's incredibly polished from a gameplay perspective and feels great. Unfortunately, the potential I had hoped the game would meet for me just isn't happening. I was looking for vast environments shrouded in mystery, entrenched in lore and ripe with exploration. I was also hoping all of this would be packaged in an intriguing narrative. At times you can see brilliant glimpses of these traits on display, but with every new bit of content revealed it just further solidifies my opinion that Destiny just isn't the game I want it to be. I'll likely play some of the House of Wolves at least to check everything out, but I can't see myself committing to it as I did before and after The Dark Below.
I'll keep my eye on Comet and whatever Destiny 2 turns out to be as well, but I've kind of lost any hope of it becoming something more than what it currently is.
*Edit* Just thought that I would add, the community aspect of Destiny here on GAF was a huge surprise for me and a huge reason I continued to enjoy the parts of Destiny that I had seen way too many times.
I'll keep my eye on Comet and whatever Destiny 2 turns out to be as well, but I've kind of lost any hope of it becoming something more than what it currently is.
*Edit* Just thought that I would add, the community aspect of Destiny here on GAF was a huge surprise for me and a huge reason I continued to enjoy the parts of Destiny that I had seen way too many times.
Waylon Drums
Member
Destiny threads always manage to remind me that I own Diablo 3 and only played it once. I really need to fix that.
Such a meaningless list, the games are not at all comparable from a world building stand point as far as assets. Diablo 3's map count is actually not that varied in the rifts, and a lot of them are flat out bad with long walkways ending in dead ends.
Destiny would be great with randomized enemy spawns in strikes and stuff, but the comparison just isn't that great past that.
MrGreencastle
Member
The problem I have with that comparison is that Destiny being first person makes randomized maps a lot more difficult if you want them to actually play well in a shooting environment.
Personally, I'd like to see more environments that can change in the middle of the battle. Cover popping up, platforms shifting around, etc. Would have been cool if the Prison of Elders arenas could do that, but I don't think Destiny's engine can currently support that.
Halo 4's Shutdown mission has some of this, even if it's not the prettiest thing in the world: https://youtu.be/um1LNXj3aMg?t=912
Also, Destiny could use gondolas.
Warframe handles the randomly generated stages just fine, why can't Destiny?
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Waylon Drums
Member
Side note: I thought they were called Sharks for the longest time. I also thought I was killing Dergs for awhile. I'm not good at reading.