Phone apps rarely give weight and merit to a full game, let alone ones that bury the story within them. It's the FFXIII-style of world building where anything interesting is in the logs. Not finding a way of working your "involving" lore into the actual game is a problem.
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Destiny - Review Thread
- Thread starter opticalmace
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Phone apps rarely give weight and merit to a full game, let alone ones that bury the story within them. It's the FFXIII-style of world building where anything interesting is in the logs. Not finding a way of working your "involving" lore into the actual game is a problem.
Omotesando
Member
Read the whole sentence, saying in defense to its story because it's inherent to the genre is not akin to Destiny has a great story.
It's a weak story even within its MMO-lite genre. PSO had a better story and it was made 10+ years ago.
Omotesando
Member
Yes Destiny has a weak story I agree, if there is any story at all.
I think this is all I have seen:
Not an official statement and he deleted the tweet soon after.
TL;DR Destiny is fun but the issues it has won't be fixed soon and reviewers should evaluate what consumers can buy day one.
The thing for revewers though is simple. What's available on the shelf at the time of release? That's what was being judged on. I don't think a special vendor and one end game encounter is going to change the meat of the reviews criticizing the game.
The story feels more like a couple chapters out of a book than say Star Wars: A New Hope-like self contained story. No characters are given much weight. The Guardian only has a handful of one-liners.
The Stranger
Awoken Queen and her asshole brother
Loot is often disppointing. Where in Borderlands even a sub par weapon would have some neat quirk (super zoom, ricocheting bullets, Multi Rocket launchers) only the very best weapons in Destiny have any really interesting qualities. Legendary Engrams have received enough flak so I won't go deeper into that. The whole gear system feels like they took the worst type of MMO advancement and tried to shoehorn it into a FPS. Armor doesn't have any interesting values again except for the very best stuff. Why not trickle some of those abilities down into blue/purple gear? Why find stuff for other classes? That's not rewarding, it's frustrating. If I wanted to play a Titan I would have picked one at the start. In a Free-To-Play game I can see it being used as a carrot to justify a class purchase but this isn't that game.
The game does have a lack of content. Doing the same thing with different handicaps isn't much additional content. It's great for asset reuse though. I'm actually ok with the enemy variety. You don't need 13 different generic soldier types, but some in game info about where the enemies came from and what their motivations are would be nice to have. We've been fighting the darkness for centuries why is there no info on what the Cabal want? What about the Fallen? The grimoire isn't in game and shouldn't be part of the review. Hell the grimoire bonuses should have a stat page to show a player what they've earned, but of course if you don't have the companion app you'll need to stop playing and go to your computer to check it out.
All that said, I love Destiny. The core gameplay, shooting, and using your class abilities to escape hairy situations continues to satisfy even when loot doesn't. Having the player earn rep and marks to buy end game gear (even if it's the intended upgrade path) isn't satifying. I don't need an MMO grind. Fortunately just playing has earned me enough marks to be almost totally decked in purple and I haven't felt the grind there yet. The risk/reward matrix is also a bit skewed but I suspect that will get adjusted.
So any BS about the reviews being early or not waiting until x content patch is junk. Lots of outlets gave Destiny plenty of time during the release window to really explore the game and what it had to offer at launch. Some found it lacking and I don't blame them.
I still want to go home and play Destiny instead of work.
But it's not inherent to the genre. Story is super important in MMORPGs. It's not always the best quality but they always at least try.
Which is still a defense. I never adressed your defense as "Destiny has a great story" on top of that. You make less and less sense.
Omotesando
Member
It's all relevant and different to people.
You might even go as far as saying why play videogames if stories are that important, especially in this genre.
The main story quest should at least be fun. The one in Destiny is boring. And then the game "opens up" at level 20 by making you do the mid-2000s MMO grind.
I don't mean whether or not it's important to the player. I mean the developers always put a lot of effort into the quest and story experience at least for leveling. Many do for end game too. It's never just an afterthought the way Destiny's is.
I'm not sure what you mean about "why play videogames if stories are that important".
The story in Destiny exists and gets reviewed, because it is in the game. This is a review thread about the game.
Omotesando
Member
So then what is the purpose of your post ''Now you are trying to explain why the story isn't good. Are you mixing up defense with explanation?'' other then derailing the thread or saying there is something positive in my mind about Destiny's story.
The lore and the universe of the game is amazing.
The way its told is not. They decided not to expand upon anything in the story, instead making you read grimoire cards. Like let me see the Last City I'm working so hard to defend, give me more information on the NPC's. When I do something amazing I want a cutscene or some dialogue that shows I did something important.
One of the biggest jarring moments was when we discovered the Hive are on earth for the first time in centuries. When we go tell the tower higher ups they literally say nothing but their precorded "sup guardians" and give you a glimmer reward
The way its told is not. They decided not to expand upon anything in the story, instead making you read grimoire cards. Like let me see the Last City I'm working so hard to defend, give me more information on the NPC's. When I do something amazing I want a cutscene or some dialogue that shows I did something important.
One of the biggest jarring moments was when we discovered the Hive are on earth for the first time in centuries. When we go tell the tower higher ups they literally say nothing but their precorded "sup guardians" and give you a glimmer reward
Omotesando
Member
Yea I understand the need for a story in this game. Can you understand that some people find that less relevant? As you said this is a thread about the game, not just the story.
This word is thrown around way too much these days. In what way is the lore "amazing"? It's just standard sci-fi stuff told in a pretty poor way, Humans get space ships, travel galaxy, aliens turn up, bad stuff happens, hero returns to save the day.
Omotesando
Member
They are definitely trying and often failing because it's a genre with a vast repertoire of mechanics.
Given the replies, you are pretty good at derailing.
You started with a defense. Than you tried to explain why the story isn't good. In that context, of your previous defense, I wondered if you are mixing up explanation and defense.
It exists in the game, therefore gets reviewed. If it is less relevant for you, why do you keep bothering?
MisterAnderson
Member
Bravo @ Angry Joe's review. He hit the nail on the head with each and every point.
Still loving the game though, but I hope Bungie gets their shit together and remedies the issues.
Still loving the game though, but I hope Bungie gets their shit together and remedies the issues.
Destiny's story is an afterthought. A writer for Bungie said as much. The reason the Grimoire stuff is all outside of the game on a website/app? It was all written in a short amount of time very close to release.
SymbiantXenos
Member
Should create terminals for grimore stuff in a patxh. An in game online encyclopedia.
Omotesando
Member
You go round in circles. Just you understand, even though I said in defense, if you really read the whole sentence I actually also said the game's story is actually not good (because it's common in the genre).
Again that post of yours does not make any sense, never in this thread have I said that the story was good, so I can explain why the story isn't good anytime I want?
I haven't seen anything like the universe in Destiny.
The traveler is ominious and mysterious and looks damn cool. The entire aspect of it came to our Solar System and gave the other planets life is unique. Never thought I'd play a sci fi game where I'm fighting on terraformed solar system planets. The fantasy elements combined with the sci fi is reminiscent of only Star Wars if anything.
Then you have interesting tidbits such as the Awoken, The Nine, the Warmind subplot.
The Vex are also interesting in that they exist in our past present and future and can coordinate between the three.
I think grimoire cards are dumb but reading through them has been pretty entertaining.
The factions have interesting backstorys as well.
That makes sense. Glad they at least added it.
I think this is all I have seen:
Not an official statement and he deleted the tweet soon after.
The raid has wipe inducing bugs, if anything it would make the score WORSE.
Omotesando
Member
Yea I have been playing final fantasy 14 and that story and its delivering is so bad, not that big of a deal to me though. It is a genre that needs heavy priotising and yea this aspect is going to get pushed back very often.
Poodlestrike
Banned
The lore is definitely above average, but that moment you described was the moment I knew the story was unsalvageable.
MisterAnderson
Member
Hopefully they at least patch in a "codex" style section as one of the screens in the options menu, or a terminal to view collected Grimoire cards in the Tower.
Seems like a reasonable request and I bet it would make a lot of people happy. Another thing to do in the tower sounds great.
I'm not experienced with halo past 2 BC I got bored of it but I'm really curious as to how much of an post launch support we can expect in reality land that's not dlc etc.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Not much, IIRC. Halo 2 had map packs that eventually went free, but that's it.
If they decided to expand upon this you could also tie some missions into Grimoire. Like imagine if there was a Tower Librarian or something like that. And he or she requests you to go to the different planets and look for evidence/research or whatever to expand upon the Grimoire.
We know dead ghosts add cool grimoire snippets. What if the librarian would tell you where a dead ghost was last seen and you have to try and hunt it down.
TheCanisDirus
Member
Yup. People just paid back in the good old days if you wanted the maps early. I miss those days. I miss that Bungie.
GuitarAtomik
Member
I think "interesting" is a better description. I think, for example, the Vex are very interesting. It's too bad we didn't get a cool in game explanation or backstory for the other enemy races. Right now I couldn't tell you what makes the Fallen and the Cabal fundamentally different on a cultural level. Even the playable races are glossed over. You get a little insight in to the Awoken but not much considering you can play as one, and you get even less of the Exos. The Warmind sounds cool and you get a quick idea of what it is, but even the Wikia doesn't have a real explanation on exactly what it's function is. Considering it comes up in multiple missions and is important enough that the Hive want to destroy it, why isn't it explained? It's not like it's a mystery or secret to your Ghost who seems to know exactly what it is. There are a lot of concepts that intrigue me, but it's all so barely expanded on that I have a hard time actually caring until they do.
bananafactory
Banned
The weird thing was when I visited the Queen and my Ghost is explaining the Awoken to me, when I AM AN AWOKEN. Thought that was really strange, did I miss something?
Omotesando
Member
I find it hard to believe even if they included these concepts that you ever will care. I mean take the Speaker for instance, that guy is fucking annoying in that typical ''Bungie calm demeanor, no emotions Master Chief look I have a space marine helmet fare''. Isn't he the guy that also commentates the Crucible, he gets on my nerves.
''You take the lead. You are crushing them, sent them home crying. You lost the lead, it looks like you underestimated them''. Fuck this guy.
J
JoJo UK
Unconfirmed Member
Good luck mate, let us know how you get on if you go ahead.
GuitarAtomik
Member
No, I was Awoken too and was waiting for them to maybe acknowledge it (how hard would it be to include a couple extra lines of race specific dialogue?). They make it sound like the Awoken keep to themselves out on the Reef, yet don't acknowledge that there are a crapton of Awoken Guardians. Again, how hard is it to include a line or two of dialogue to explain that? Are the Guardian Awoken branched off and are maybe 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation citizens of Earth? Or are they Awoken who decided to go join the other races and see what the Traveler was all about? Who knows at this point.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Actually Shaxx is commentating.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
^Exact same feeling.
You find it hard to believe that people would care about one of the major things that they have been asking for? lol.
For me and many others, the lore of Destiny which was initially presented to us was one of them main factors for wanting this game- Especially after hearing their GDC talk last year.
You know why? Because Bungie wanted the race option to be entirely cosmetic so it doesn't matter which you choose.
Omotesando
Member
That guy is also annoying, not that much as the speaker though.
Diablohead
Member
It makes me think that playing as an awoken or exo was added in late in development, they don't even have unique stats to make them different to humans, nothing changes.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Going off of the Grimoire, there's both Earthborn and Reefborn Awoken, and they don't generally get along. Too much of a cultural divide.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Omotesando
Member
People asked for that? Fuck me. No wonder this thread has this angry mob. Hahaha.
Future PhaZe
Member
Waiting for bungie to do anything of merit in regards to story is a huge mistake. They did nothing to acknowledge the amazing potential of the Halo EU in the games and H3 was about as lazy of an ending trilogy as we could have possibly gotten plot wise.
It's weird how desperate they are to do different things but seem willfully ignorant during the execution of them.
It's weird how desperate they are to do different things but seem willfully ignorant during the execution of them.
You didn't miss anything. It's just laziness that the scene wasn't changed for Awoken player characters.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Go watch their 2013 GDC talk again, then you'll see why people are pissed.
Actually the whole Awoken thing I thought had a simple explanation. The Awoken Guardians have been dead for a while and were brought back to life, so it makes sense they don't know about the Reef.
Should have been explained more though. That's the main theme behind the games story shortcomings though
Should have been explained more though. That's the main theme behind the games story shortcomings though
BreezyLimbo
Banned
They could've added a line for each race. Would've been easy.
"Another pesky Human, surprising he/she's lived this long."
"Look brother, a talking machine. A poor imitation of the Vex."
"A traitor walks in my court, brother. One who's forgotten who...he/she was."
Hire me Bungie.
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