Destiny

[Jack Brickman]

It really makes me sad to hear what this story was supposed to be. The gameplay mechanics are top notch, the graphics are top notch, but the story is putrid. Just doesn't feel like a Bungie product in that regard and I really think that Activision had a part to play in that at least.

The gameplay may be solid, but it's also ridiculously repetitive. There is absolutely no mission variety in the game. Literally every mission is just "walk to X and shoot Y" with occasional forays into "walk to X and shoot Y while Peter Dinklage takes entirely too long to open a door." It's just awful game design in that it makes no attempt to disguise itself with better game design. The best shooters take that same formula (because, at heart, all shooters involve walking around and shooting) and hide it in an interesting shell. They give you varying mission objectives, puzzles to solve, people to protect, enemies that require different tactics to defeat, different types of missions, different environments that change how you play, and on and on and on.

Destiny doesn't hide it's tedium. Instead, it magnifies it because you literally never do anything else aside from walk into rooms and shoot things. I can think of like two missions in the entire game that slightly alter this formula. There's one where you use a sword for five minutes, but only ONE person can use it, so sucks to be your two friends who continue entering rooms and shooting shit. There's another where you have to take down a giant tank and, while optional, the best way is to use vehicles. In that one, the game actually gives you three, which is just about the only instance of good game design in the entire campaign.

What I wouldn't give for a damn puzzle once in a while, or an objective other than just mowing down waves of indistinguishable enemies with varying health bar sizes. Even the enemy variety is mostly meaningless. I don't really fight any of them all that differently. I mostly just keep my distance and go for head shots, regardless of whether the enemy is Fallen, Cabal, Geth, or Flood.

By the way, did you know the robots (I honestly can't remember what they're called) were time-travelers? Neither did I until I read it online, because the game sure as fuck doesn't tell you that.

 

[Marcus]

The gameplay may be solid, but it's also ridiculously repetitive. There is absolutely no mission variety in the game. Literally every mission is just "walk to X and shoot Y" with occasional forays into "walk to X and shoot Y while Peter Dinklage takes entirely too long to open a door." It's just awful game design in that it makes no attempt to disguise itself with better game design. The best shooters take that same formula (because, at heart, all shooters involve walking around and shooting) and hide it in an interesting shell. They give you varying mission objectives, puzzles to solve, people to protect, enemies that require different tactics to defeat, different types of missions, different environments that change how you play, and on and on and on.

Destiny doesn't hide it's tedium. Instead, it magnifies it because you literally never do anything else aside from walk into rooms and shoot things. I can think of like two missions in the entire game that slightly alter this formula. There's one where you use a sword for five minutes, but only ONE person can use it, so sucks to be your two friends who continue entering rooms and shooting shit. There's another where you have to take down a giant tank and, while optional, the best way is to use vehicles. In that one, the game actually gives you three, which is just about the only instance of good game design in the entire campaign.

What I wouldn't give for a damn puzzle once in a while, or an objective other than just mowing down waves of indistinguishable enemies with varying health bar sizes. Even the enemy variety is mostly meaningless. I don't really fight any of them all that differently. I mostly just keep my distance and go for head shots, regardless of whether the enemy is Fallen, Cabal, Geth, or Flood.

By the way, did you know the robots (I honestly can't remember what they're called) were time-travelers? Neither did I until I read it online, because the game sure as fuck doesn't tell you that.

1. While I do agree wholeheartedly that the gameplay can get very repetitive, I think Bungie is taking steps to try and incorporate some variety with the Raids.

2. I think the repetitive nature of the missions would be toned down a little bit if the original storyline and added locations were put back into play. I feel like I paid 60 bucks for a game that is only half of what it's supposed to be.

3. Don't do the Geth a disservice by comparing them with ANY race on this game.

4. Had no idea that the robots were time travelers, although I suspected them as being capable of some type of intergalactic/inter-dimension travel because of things like Gate Lords and those damned portals that you have to destroy.

 

[Jack Brickman]

1. While I do agree wholeheartedly that the gameplay can get very repetitive, I think Bungie is taking steps to try and incorporate some variety with the Raids.

2. I think the repetitive nature of the missions would be toned down a little bit if the original storyline and added locations were put back into play. I feel like I paid 60 bucks for a game that is only half of what it's supposed to be.

1. Yeah, I've heard the raid actually does incorporate puzzles and variety. The problem is that the game only shipped with one raid. That takes hours to complete. That you can only complete if you have five friends all online at the same time. That can't even be attempted until like level 24. That realistically shouldn't be attempted until at least level 26.

I don't have a problem with raids, and in fact think they're a great idea. But shipping a game like this with literally only one piece of end-game content is ridiculous. There should be multiple raids available in the retail game. Sadly, it sounds like the next two pieces of DLC are only adding two or three total raids to the experience, and those won't be out for months. I'm willing to bet most of those raids are already done, and were just held back to sell later in lieu of designing more.

2. Simply adding a story wouldn't really make the missions less repetitive. It would make them less incoherent, though. As it stands, I pretty much never had any idea what the hell was going on during this game, and the game didn't seem terribly interested in telling me anyway.

 

[Marcus]

1. Yeah, I've heard the raid actually does incorporate puzzles and variety. The problem is that the game only shipped with one raid. That takes hours to complete. That you can only complete if you have five friends all online at the same time. That can't even be attempted until like level 24. That realistically shouldn't be attempted until at least level 26.

I don't have a problem with raids, and in fact think they're a great idea. But shipping a game like this with literally only one piece of end-game content is ridiculous. There should be multiple raids available in the retail game. Sadly, it sounds like the next two pieces of DLC are only adding two or three total raids to the experience, and those won't be out for months. I'm willing to bet most of those raids are already done, and were just held back to sell later in lieu of designing more.

2. Simply adding a story wouldn't really make the missions less repetitive. It would make them less incoherent, though. As it stands, I pretty much never had any idea what the hell was going on during this game, and the game didn't seem terribly interested in telling me anyway.

Oh no doubt. Unfortunately it seems like this game was stripped down to appeal to a larger fanbase (read: COD fanboys), when we were originally promised a sci-fi epic MMO from the creators of one of the best sci-fi series in the last 20 years.

This game needs to take more cues from the likes of games like WoW in regards to raids and instances. Even the multiplayer maps themselves aren't terribly interesting. Nothing but run-n-gun with a shotgun or fusion rifle the vast majority of the time. Too many double kills. Not exactly appealing to someone like me who prefers to snipe when there are only a couple of genuinely good, open maps to do it on (Bastion on Mars and the Moon). Hell, the sniping on this game isn't all that great either.

There's lots of work that needs to be done. Here's hoping Destiny 2 is gonna be a badass game when it comes out in a couple years.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Yeah the multi-player maps are mostly just corridor shooters like CoD, which is disappointing. Also, whenever I play, I find I almost never get to play on any maps with vehicles on them, and the game gives you absolutely no way to choose what maps you play on. Given that there doesn't appear to be any ranking system (and even if there was, who cares?), why are we totally unable to choose a map playlist? Further, why are some game modes locked out until the weekend? There are only four most of the time, and only one of them is interesting.

Where are the non-deathmatch game modes? Even Control is just a glorified deathmatch. Holding the points does nothing but give you a bonus for each kill. Where is King of the Hill? Capture the Flag? Territories? Why is there nothing to break up the monotony? How many maps are there in this game, anyway? I only ever seem to get to play on about four of them. The vehicle maps have seemingly been locked away from my account, because I haven't been sent to one in over a week during match-making.

It's a little sad that a game in development for years with a staggering budget only produced like eight maps, and that the match-making is so broke that you only get to play on about four of them.

 

[Ohdang]

What up guys?

I'm on PS4 with a level 24 Hunter at the moment.

How can I go about joining the RCF clan?

PSN is xLYONHEARTx

Click this link and login with your bungie/psn/whatever account and set RCF as your destiny clan. I'm pretty sure there are some achievements for doing strikes/raids with clanmates, hopefully we can get some stuff going more regularly.

I'm still in need of 2 people to help me finish my exotic weapon bounty if anyone feels like being charitable and doing the summong pits on heroic. I should be on around 7 tomorrow night and can play a few hours.

I also got another exotic weapon bounty today, and I'm on the stage where I have to do 25 strikes, so I'll be doing a lot of them over the next week. I'd like to try the big raid with you guys, but I'm working this weekend and my girlfriend wants to spend some time with me so its doubtful I'll be on much Saturday/Sunday. If you guys get enough people to do it, let me know how it is!

 

[Dr. Gymbo]

Click this link and login with your bungie/psn/whatever account and set RCF as your destiny clan. I'm pretty sure there are some achievements for doing strikes/raids with clanmates, hopefully we can get some stuff going more regularly.

I'm still in need of 2 people to help me finish my exotic weapon bounty if anyone feels like being charitable and doing the summong pits on heroic. I should be on around 7 tomorrow night and can play a few hours.

I also got another exotic weapon bounty today, and I'm on the stage where I have to do 25 strikes, so I'll be doing a lot of them over the next week. I'd like to try the big raid with you guys, but I'm working this weekend and my girlfriend wants to spend some time with me so its doubtful I'll be on much Saturday/Sunday. If you guys get enough people to do it, let me know how it is!

Hey, I could volunteer to help you. What is the difficulty modifier though? I'm a Level 24 titan. I don't know if that's strong enough for whatever you're trying to do. I could actually use some help with my Queen's Wrath missions. I still have 9 of those token things left and the event ends soon.

I played (separately) with TheShad and Bigfoot last night. The fireteam stuff is pretty fun if we can get multiple people from the RCF clan going.

 

[Mdog1]

Level 29 now...

Bought 4 exotics today and scrapped them for shards, wish there was another way. Basically the only thing I can do from here on out is Raid for the Raid armor. Not a fun feeling truthfully.

Edit: I will pull anyone that needs to through the lvl 28 weekly if they want. There will be a lot of deaths, but once we get to the boss there is a great cheese spot.

Lvl 28 weekly gives you 9 strange coins, to get you enough to buy something from Xur.

 

[Jack Brickman]

By the way, I did make it to level 26 this week, so I am officially good to go for the Raid. I still don't have any legendary weapons, though, so I might be a little underpowered. I do have a pretty badass 11 shot hand cannon, though.

I'm taking tonight off from going out on account of my birthday celebration (read: bar crawl) being tomorrow night, so I'll be online if anyone wants to play. I'd like to do the Queen's Wrath missions a few times to see if I can get the chest armor to drop. I've already got the helmet, and my chest armor slot is the only one I don't have a legendary for right now. Other than that I'm down for whatever.

I may do some resource runs on the various planets so I can upgrade my armor a bit more, maybe up to level 27.

 

[Rookie]

Level 29 now...

Bought 4 exotics today and scrapped them for shards, wish there was another way. Basically the only thing I can do from here on out is Raid for the Raid armor. Not a fun feeling truthfully.

Edit: I will pull anyone that needs to through the lvl 28 weekly if they want. There will be a lot of deaths, but once we get to the boss there is a great cheese spot.

Lvl 28 weekly gives you 9 strange coins, to get you enough to buy something from Xur.

I'm Level 28. I said I wasnt gonna waste anymore Shards on my current armor because i'm saving it for the raid armor. Dont want to have to do everything two times.

 

[Mdog1]

I'm Level 28. I said I wasnt gonna waste anymore Shards on my current armor because i'm saving it for the raid armor. Dont want to have to do everything two times.

Don't. The only forseeable problem is not getting raid gear when you do the raid, since like everything else in Destiny it's based on RNG what you get.

In theory, you could do the raid 4x and have none, or only one piece of Raid gear to your name. Or you could have all 3 that are available on the normal level (helmet is only attainable through hard mode).

So for a months worth of raiding, you could still only be 28. I find it pretty easy to get strange coins, so for me blowing 26 to shard the armor was no big deal, I had 7 after last Saturday, I had 32 today. The motes on the other hand I get far less often.

Also, to be fair, I had 2 pieces of legendary armor maxed before I found out Raid gear was the only way to get to 30.

 

[Jack Brickman]

The lack of a trading system is really annoying in this game. Bungie's justification of it, that they want every piece of armor and weaponry to have an epic story behind it, is such a cop-out. "Yeah, I did that stupid Moon strike for the fifteenth time and finally got something fucking useful from it" isn't exactly the stuff of epics.

 

[Rookie]

The lack of a trading system is really annoying in this game. Bungie's justification of it, that they want every piece of armor and weaponry to have an epic story behind it, is such a cop-out. "Yeah, I did that stupid Moon strike for the fifteenth time and finally got something fucking useful from it" isn't exactly the stuff of epics.

I do think it sucks but on the other hand, I wouldnt want people just giving their new comer friends legendary gear when they havent done anything.

They should add a system where you can only trade things of equal value.
i.e A Exotic for an Exotic or a piece of raid armor for raid armor.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I do think it sucks but on the other hand, I wouldnt want people just giving their new comer friends legendary gear when they havent done anything.

They should add a system where you can only trade things of equal value.
i.e A Exotic for an Exotic or a piece of raid armor for raid armor.

Honestly, I couldn't care less if people give legendary gear to their friends. It doesn't impact my game at all.

 

[Marcus]

How much does gear typically cost from Xur? Would very much like to get Patience and Time.

EDIT: Nevermind, he wasn't selling it this week after all so I bought Sunbreaker gauntlets instead for 13 coins.