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[aireoth]

I was shocked not to find a thread about Destiny, so I thought I would start one as likely someone here has it.

So my thoughts, this game is a FPS version of Diablo.

Instead of a 40ish hour story that you grind for loot as the end game, it has a 4 hour story that you grind for loot at the end game.

Instead of drops that scale with the difficulty your playing at, its completely random, so farming the level 1 zombies give more loot than spending an hour on a raid.

Instead of a plot, you have a peak at the plot. Commander Keen Shareware style!

Instead of a fully functional communication system and community, you have a pseudo communal experience in a single playerish game that you can see people but not really interact with them, let alone talk to them.

Instead of Halo's fully fleshed out multiplayer, with multiple modes, custom maps, and toys, you have a 5 mode, no customization, no league or ranking system, and your specials/uber equipment carries over making it hard on new players.

[Rez]

If you like loot explosions, might i suggest Path of Exile?

[Salmeuk]

I only heard about destiny a day before it's release. After looking up a gameplay video or two, it was pretty straightforward to surmise that it was in the style of borderlands. I can't really say that I predicted it wouldn't be as amazing as hype suggested, but I did identify that it was hardly an unforeseen take on the FPS genre. Whether or not Bungie was able to pull off the gun-feel and slick movement that is so important to an FPS was sort of irrelevant; instead, understanding that the core concept was hardly revolutionary was enough to quell any momentary interest in my head.

I feel sorry for those who pre-ordered. Then again, one should never ever ever ever pre-order a AAA game, and be extremely careful about early-access indies.

[Neonivek]

Actually what is interesting is that the evidence suggests that Destiny was finished but is being cut into pieces and is selling each as DLC.

In other words the tired old "We COULD give you a complete product, but we would rather make you pay more".

But who knows... just stick to multiplayer.

[aireoth]

My original post was rushed and angry:

Loved it for its potential.

Hate it for the obvious corporate involvement. Companies are making their own coffins these days.

Hate it because it is shareware, you cannot argue that, it isn't even a beta. Its mostly functional, has only a direction of plot that doesn't explain a thing but is full of plugs for DLC, has a gutted multiplayer and social system, has a completely broken loot system, exploration yields nothing but invisible walls or empty zones.

all we have is a shareware game that will start asking anytime for money to expand content. The sad part is old shareware you paid once and got the full game. This is the new shareware, pay once for each module, want better loot, pay $15.99 for this full set of equipment. Want plot, pay 15.99 per faction (Speaker, Queen, and stranger) and we might give an explaination instead of 'I could tell you'.
Want more multiplayer options, $19.99 (because yall gotta have multiplayer).
The worst is the social experience, you cannot communicate with anyone around you, at all, 4 emotes to try and get a point across, no voice, in 2014! This is where they sell us the communication module.

Don't defend this game, just because it has its moments of fun and is addicting doesn't make it a good game, it makes it a drug you have to pay a shady dealer for more when the high wears off. Yes I just compared destiny to drugs and Bungie to a shitty dealer.

[Scripten]

It makes me sad to see people refer to Destiny as shareware. The shareware I remember gave you a cohesive slice of game that, while it was self-contained, hinted at the additional features that came with the full game. I remember seeing the pictures and descriptions of the new monsters/weapons in Doom and Duke3D that just got my young heart pumping with excitement. Even so, the five-ten maps that you got in the shareware could be enjoyed as a whole until you got that full version. This microtransaction-fueled F2P model shares only the most superficial elements of shareware.

I hate to sound like a bitter old man shouting the kids off his lawn.

[Sartain]

It's an nice enough game, the gunplay is pretty nice and the backdrops are pretty, but you could more or less just play (free) Warframe for the same experience.

[Krath]

When I first saw the Destiny trailer, I thought it'd be the next big Hollywood action flick, not a game.

I still hold the opinion that'd be better than what we got.

[Funk]

It's nothing like shareware, a shareware game was like watching the first film in a trilogy, then being asked if you wanted to see the rest with it's bigger set pieces.

[Calech]

Oh hey, I was thinking about making a post somewhat related to Destiny recently, although less about the game.

Game-related stuff first - it's a good concept and has a nice depth of lore and background, plus it's a good enough FPS (coming from someone whose last-played FPS was... Half-Life 2 Ep2 I think? Or maybe Borderlands, but I don't tend to think of Borderlands as an FPS).

Unfortunately it has a few rough edges; like the fact that although there's a good amount of lore and backstory, none of it is ever mentioned in game and the only way to view the 'grimoire cards' is externally via Bungie's site. Or the fact that both the PvE and PvP sides have a fairly limited amount of content (PvP gamemodes, in particular, baffle me - there may be five modes but you can't access them all, as they rotate seemingly without reason... except for that one mode that's always there). And the communication issue (why do we have emotes, yet not even a basic text chat, nor a voice chat solution - yet).

I think the aim with Destiny was more to go for the 'MMO-style' path, which seems odd considering the lack of social interaction (clans are handled entirely out of game, which has caused some complaints and confusion, although bizarrely as I recall from my World of Warcraft days, most of their guilds were handled externally, even though the creation/inviting was done ingame - so culling the feature from the game and putting it elsewhere seems a logical extension, from that viewpoint). If so, then this should be viewed as their launch - most any MMO I can recall had a rocky launch with limited content, so if you have doubts about Destiny - or want to play it as anything other than a short-term FPS - then you may want to hold off and see if it does pull through. Whilst it certainly has potential, so did other games. I seem to recall a game called 'Hellgate: London' which had potential... a Diablo-esque FPS loot-fest from the makers of the original Diablo? So potential only works if you can make it a reality. (And that game, btw, is still in one of my storage boxes, with less play time clocked than I had on any of the three Diablo games)

I've enjoyed the time I've spent on the game so far, though, but it does feel a bit empty now that I've completed the story... the expectation of grinding for loot doesn't make sense with the smooth nature of the progression up to the story's end, then suddenly it's 'go farm strikes for gear' - except that because loot is completely random, your best bet is using the 'marks' - which are capped per week anyway. Hmm.

(Apologies for the lengthy parenthetical comments, I tend to go off on tangents quite often.)

--

All that said, there was a post I was going to make which was sort of related, and provides a sort-of corner case counterpoint to the communication issue.

For the last... five years or so, I think? - I haven't played any sort of multiplayer games at all (Dark Souls doesn't count as the multiplayer there is somewhat odd), as following on from quitting WoW for about the third time or so, I had a series of rather unfortunate things happen that made me basically want to not have anything to do with people at all. Coupled with working in a 'customer service' environment, I don't really have much desire to spend the little free time I do have with people I don't like (which is to say most of them).

Also it doesn't help that this has meant that I'm a teensy bit out of practice with things like multiplayer gaming - the last 'PvP' type FPS I played was Team Fortress 2, before it had hats (which would make it about 8 years ago I think?) I was pretty terrible at that too, but I could always stick a medigun in the right direction if needed.

So picking up Destiny as an impulse buy (don't do that btw), I've poked a little bit into the game's PvP side. Started doing the 'Rumble' type when it was available (this is why the rotation of modes annoys me), because in a deathmatch type game where there are no teams, there's noone to complain that you're bringing the side down. First match I think I scored one kill in about 10 minutes.

After a little while of not seeing this pop up again, I thought I'd try out the 'Control' game type. Pretty much a normal team deathmatch but with three 'control points' that you can capture to boost the value of kills, as well as giving a little score bump. The main defining reason for giving it a try? No team voice chat so that I don't have to have other people telling me how bad I am (as I already know that much).

And after a couple of matches I found something odd - somehow I'd gotten up to the top of the scoreboard. We still lost, but I'd topped my team. And a little later I managed to be on a team that won, too.

So, the 'tldr' version - I can see the massive problems with the lack of communication in the game, but for someone in my (admittedly probably quite rare) situation, it's actually quite helpful. Who knows, I might even get back some more of my confidence one day and try doing the strikes with others? Maybe.