Destiny / Destiny 2

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JaySevenZero
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Destiny / Destiny 2

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here is where you can leave your thoughts regarding Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
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ashman86
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by ashman86 »

Never before have I had such a love-hate relationship with a game as I do with Destiny. It's the type of game that you turn on casually at 10 PM on a weeknight only to find yourself finally crawling into bed at 2:00 AM, your eyes bloodshot and your alarm set for just a few hours later. It's addictive fun with some of the best gunplay in gaming and a virtual infinitude of content to consume.

But it also nags at you like an insecure lover. It promises you progress but delivers few gains. It's cyclical and redundant. It requires your unconditional dedication, and it punishes you for your infidelity. You can easily log a thousand hours in the game and not see all it has to offer, not because of how deep or vast its game world is but because so much of that world is reserved for only the eyes of the most fanatical or the most skilled. Its story is locked away behind Bungie's website, its most memorable encounters are locked behind 8-man raids, and its best gear is locked behind a befuddling system of RNG and (more recently) micro-transactions. It demands its players' time, yet it delivers so little return on the investment.

I had my copy of Destiny pre-ordered for my Xbox One well in advance of the game's release. It's ironic, looking back on it, that I had opted for Microsoft's current-gen console at the time due at least in part to my love of Bungie and Halo, a series that had won my heart 13 years earlier. Ironic, I say, because Destiny has treated its Xbox fanbase like second class citizens since before the very beginning. It was at Sony's E3 press conference that we got our first real look at the upcoming pseudo-MMO-shooter hybrid, and it was there or not long after that we learned about the limited exclusivity of some game content that PS4 players would enjoy first.

PlayStation owners got early and extended access to the beta test. They didn't pay any more money for the game than I had. They were no more excited than I was. They had simply chosen the preferred platform, and they would reap the first of the benefits secured in some backroom deal between Sony and Activision/Bungie. Little did I know that years after my guardian's first resurrection, I'd still not see the "timed exclusive" content that PS4 players had consumed and long-since cast aside.

Back to the game itself. In spite of my relatively tight gaming schedule when Destiny finally did launch, I managed to sink over a hundred hours into it by the time we saw the first expansion, "The Dark Below." I couldn't help but fall in love with the gunplay in the game, and I was fascinated by the setting. And while I had hoped the differences among them might have been more distinct, I enjoyed what variety was offered by the varying classes of the game. I settled on a hunter after throwing a knife into the head of an enemy during the public beta, and I really enjoyed tweaking his stats and talents to suit my particular playstyle, particulalry once I got the hang of "blink" as my jump skill.

But even if it played like a dream, I was disappointed with Destiny from the get-go. I remembered the exploration and freedom Bungie had promised in one of the earliest previews of the game, and it was obvious their ambition had been gimped due to time or budget restraints. Even worse were the problems that plagued its narrative. What little story the campaign offered was poorly written and even more poorly delivered. I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain just how bad the game's dialogue is. I could tell you about Dinklage's lackluster performance as the Ghost. I could tell you about the rumors that the game's original script had been scrapped at the last second. I could tell you about the introduction and subsequent permanent disappearances of major characters.

After finishing the campaign, I found myself grinding like so many of my early guardian peers for ever-so-slightly better gear and stat increases, preparing for the upcomign raid. I made a point to log in daily and weekly, ticking off strikes and "nightfalls" with mechanical effeciency. When one of my friends introduced me to the loot cave, I was suddenly struck with the banality of it all: Destiny wasn't a game about exploration or adventure, it was a numbers game, a gamble. Still, I soldiered on, driven by the occasional rush of dopamine from discovering some new epic weapon or overcoming the stacked odds of a particularly challenging strike.

My schedule didn't frequently allign with my friends', and by the time I finally got to run the Vault of Glass raid, it was old news to most of them. They "sherpa'd" me through it, which reduced what had been to them a challening series of puzzle solving and high-stakes combat encounters to just another hours-long grind fest. They sped past any and all non-essential portions of the game and cheesed where they could. When Atheon had fallen, and I had been awarded with (just) the Chatterwhite shader, I put the game down and didn't return to it again for years save for one night to check out The Dark Below and ultimately decide it wasn't worth returning to the grind.

A few weeks before Rise of Iron launched, a buddy convinced me to hop online with him and finally check out the updates that The Taken King had brought to Destiny's tired formula. Hearing that Bungie had finally hit a home run with the penultimate expansion, I had picked it up on sale the Christmas after it launched but never found the heart to play until then. Before I knew it, I was hooked again. We blew through the new story, which was altogether more cohesive than the original and memorable due in no small part to the performances of Nathan Fillion and others, and I undertook a personal quest to craft an Exotic sword, which I completed shortly before Rise of Iron was released.

I woke up early on ROI's release morning and played for several hours before work. For a few blissful weeks, I was a Destiny fiend again, and I remembered why it had been so easy to sink so much time into it before. The ROI campaign was a delight, and the conclusion, in which you had to race against the clock to escape a self-destructing SIVA bunker in an explosive scene reminiscent of the Pillar of Autumn from Halo: Combat Evolved, was one of the gaming highlights of the year for me.

I played religiously until the conclusion of the first Iron Banner event post-ROI before shelving Destiny (likely) for good. After finding myself juggling equipment for marginal increases to my light level before revealing each new cryptogram of gear, I realized that once again Destiny had begun to feel more like work than fun. It just wasn't worth it to me any more. There were too many other games to play, and shooters like Overwatch offered quick, accessible, and competitive fun without the responsibility of Bungie's space shooter.

Three word review:
Equip. Decrypt. Repeat.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by seansthomas »

That was a great read!
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by ashman86 »

seansthomas wrote: May 21st, 2017, 10:00 am That was a great read!
Thanks! That's high praise coming from a Cane and Rinse forum vet :D
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by Bloody Initiate »

Please note my review is from the perspective of an early adopter. Lately game companies push games out too soon, and then get them really polished after about a year when most people have moved on. This is not solely a problem with Destiny. A person starting the game today would have a very different experience than I did. A better game with a smaller player base, perhaps.


I tried the open beta of Destiny and suspected I had played most of what the game had to offer. I concluded I would not get it. I was sorry not to follow Bungie, because I debuted on Xbox Live with Halo 3.

Then the game released, and my friend told me I was right. The rest of the game was mostly just what I'd seen in the beta. He asked me to get it anyway. I figured I'd think about it while playing some Dark Souls 2.

I logged on and saw something incredible. My friends list lit up with "Destiny," all of them were playing it. I didn't feel left out exactly, but I missed playing with my friends. As cool as Dark Souls and Battlefield are, no one joined me there. So I bought Destiny.

It was as I thought. Repetitive grinding. I knew this going into it.

There were two things I immediately liked about Destiny:

The first thing I enjoyed was the feel of Bungie's shooter gameplay. It is unparalleled on consoles. No one does it like they do. Other developers do OTHER things better. For example: I love taming the beasts that are the guns of Battlefield. But Bungie's shooters are so smooth. If you play on PC you probably won't care. You feel it on console though.

The second thing I loved was the mobility. I love summoning my sparrow and jetting off instantly. I love how every class can fly.

Put them together and I love traversing the world of Destiny and playing in it.

But there's nothing in it.

There's nothing in the whole place. All the worlds are empty. Repeatedly killing the same pockets of irrelevant enemies feels as hollow as it sounds, and it isn't any more fun than mowing the grass. There are technically things to do, but they are not sufficiently challenging or engaging and you must repeat all of them ad nauseam.

I found no relief in the Crucible. In hindsight, of course I wouldn’t. Almost every competitive shooter has a brutal learning curve created by the other players. Sometimes you have the energy to stick it out, sometimes you don't. I was a bit low on competitive drive when I first tried the Crucible. I hated being bad at a shooter.

Then the raid opened. The raid surprised the hell out of me.

If you haven't experienced a Destiny Raid - going in blind with your friends, then you really have missed out. I remember being up into the wee hours on our first one, going most the way with 5 players then drafting a 6th to finish. What a victory, we earned it too. We went in completely unaware of how to win, and won.

It is the difficulty curve of the best parts of Dark Souls, technically and mentally, combined with the sheer joy of co-op gaming at its best. If you are now playing Destiny, have not done a raid, and know some friends who also have not, then try one. Do it without guides, and plan for it to take all day.

I remember later using an LFG site to hook up with some strangers for Crota's End. I got to play the hero, stepping in to wield the sword when no one else could, and as Crota ran from me I leapt along pillar tops to chase him down and finish him before he finished us. I quietly beamed because I try to be humble, but I was very pleased.

Everyone makes mistakes though. When a member of your original Raid crew, someone you’ve lost sleep to fight alongside, snaps at you because it's 4am, maybe you should both just go to bed. But you kinda can't, because you're adults with schedules and significant others and this is the only time you have scheduled before reset.

I had some fun in Iron Banner, but for every awesome night with my buddies where we did well, there was a miserable Monday where I desperately tried to get my wins in with randoms before the event ended and the week reset. I fought like hell, resented my randoms, and hated myself at the end of the night for wasting my time with something that made me so angry.

I actually really got to like Tuesday nights, because we'd all get on and do the Nightfall strike together. We each had to do it 3 times, so we usually had each other.

Then Bungie adjusted the Nightfall so we were no longer brought together by Tuesday reset.

I played for the raids, I loved doing them, but they're hard to arrange.

I got married during my year of Destiny. My poor new wife went to bed mere feet from me, trying to sleep, pretending to sleep, while I raided. I'd planned for this, it was a scheduled affair and we knew we'd be up late for hard mode.

But it wasn't fun, and we were failing. So we called it a night, much too late.

I came to bed, and my wife asked me how it went. "Badly" I reported.

"At least you got loot, right?"

Actually no, we didn't beat it. And I never cared about the loot, I played for the camaraderie, and that too we had failed to achieve.

There were some highs in Destiny. The fun of victory in a multiplayer shooter, the fun of co-op conquest, and a little bit of a loot curve. Bungie's shooters are delicious, and you do feel free in their world.

But for each high there are embarrassing, hateful, rock-bottom lows.

After experiencing a Raid, I figured I could make Destiny about raids. I ground down my enemies in Iron Banner just so I could get a helmet that would let me Raid again. When I was motivated I felt powerful, but the game can only deliver that motivation in combination with the schedules of your friends and the fortitude of their personalities. When your fun depends on 6-player co-op and the single player doesn't have much to offer, you'd better have a lot of friends with unlimited patience and free time.

Everyone has been grinding as much as you have, and they're all exhausted.

I played the Taken King but not Rise of Iron. It couldn't save this old Guardian from the fatigue that had taken him.

After my wife discovered I'd put in serious hours, scheduled a time slot with 5 other adults, made myself exhausted for work, and failed to go to bed with her... all just to come to bed miserable. All her patience evaporated and so did mine.

I haven't even mentioned how many hours I spent doing daily challenges, working certain areas with advantageous spawns, etc. I actually enjoy bounty systems and daily/weekly challenges the first time or two around. I also really haven't mentioned the story at all because it's as irrelevant as it was always going to be. I've slammed probably thousands of hours into Bungie's shooters, so I feel qualified to Bungie is an excellent game developer. I applaud them when they make a good story, but that's not why I play for thousands of hours.

For the single player/solo play I'll say I didn't enjoy the basic loop that much. The best parts of the game took a lot of busy work to consistently access, and they all needed people to play with.

Destiny plays OK if you have a lot of friends to play with all the time, but that’s not the case for most people. I often found myself playing Destiny mostly as a way to simply have a conversation with someone, like a phone call where you both play the same game. If I played solo it was because I needed to catch up or keep up with my raid crew.

When there wasn't a raid to level up for, I would actively avoid playing the game alone. Only when playing Destiny alone would one have to face its yawning emptiness. I remember at least one day when I asked my buddy if he’d like to play, he said he would join me but he wasn’t available right away.

I moved my office chair out of the way to clear some space in front of the TV, turned on Xbox Fitness, and did a workout rather than log on to Destiny by myself.

Even if you logged on solo, you couldn’t get a head start, because everyone had a sort of “check in” period where they run around the Tower learning about the daily challenges and shifting equipment around. If you log on first and get your 10-15 minutes of “check in” out of the way, you’ve saved no time because you will now wait 10-15 minutes while other people do the same after they log on. You can complete challenges solo, but either you're bored of doing that challenge or you'd rather wait for companionship. Doing it alone isn't fun, and doing it again when you don't need it anymore is meaningless.

All of this just to engage in a loot-loop which exasperates you and all your friends.

What's the point?

To quote (from my faulty memory) Knights of the Old Republic 2, "If I jump over the ledge, I'll get to the ground faster!"




3-word review: Just a chore
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Stanshall
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by Stanshall »

Really enjoyed that post. The highs and lows, indeed. Cheers.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by hazeredmist »

Destiny was an incredible whirlwind for me and was both the best and worst of gaming rolled into one package.

Intensely addictive and racked with behavioural psychology mechanics (see Danny O'Dwyer's excellent video for deeper perspective on this), Destiny is easily the most fun shooter I've ever played mechanically and cooperatively. The Halo-esque gunplay is the real strength of the game and the raids are just majestic experiences, particularly the first few times you do them. The problem with the game is the repetition it forces you to partake in as you chase the dragon repeatedly for resources and guns with RNG mechanics meaning you could target something and possibly never get it. Such as my attempts to get Fatebringer, the Vex Mythoclast and Gjallarhorn. When I finally got these guns it was truly joyous, but the endless frustration of seeing them popping up for others in my raid team, particularly when they'd had the gun six times already or if it was their first raid, was grating.

Eventually I tapped out of Destiny due to time constraints and huge fatigue with the content. I tried going back but my last DLC pack was The Taken King - I didn't buy Rise of Iron which had come out in the interim, and I felt very disappointed when lots of the content I used to play was now locked behind modes I couldn't access. I paid a lot for my game and DLC packs, and had ploughed over 800 hours into the game, it felt dirty that I was treated as an outsider just because I hadn't bought the latest DLC.

Coming off Destiny was like coming off a drug. Withdrawal symptoms and a longing to experience the highs (killing Crota, Atheon etc) and wondering what Xur had put out that week. But once that was over, it was surprisingly easy to stay away for good.

It's not a game I would want to go back to and as a father now I simply can't spent multiple hours a week gathering resources and repeating strikes / raids to chase the latest exotic. But damn it was an incredible ride at it's peak.

I'll always have fond memories and it's in my top 5 of all time despite it's less attractive aspects.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by Bloody Initiate »

I never felt like I was addicted to Destiny because I didn't find most of it very pleasurable. I do have a mission-focused personality though. I love having tasks, and I freely throw myself at them in games. They aren't satisfying if they don't feel significant though, and in fact tasks with arbitrary rewards feel insulting. I like to complete tasks, and I like to be rewarded for them, but when neither the task nor the reward is inspired I'm very opposed.

When I left Destiny I was more relieved than anything. I was just glad it was over because I had a large backlog that didn't demand I check in daily. I kept thinking I'd hop on Destiny if someone really wanted me too, but I realized there was nothing in the whole game I wanted to do ever again, and uninstalled it.

I felt a little bad saying no to my raid crew when they'd occasionally need a hand, because I really did love the raids and I loved playing with those guys when everyone's heads were level. I just couldn't muster the patience for Destiny anymore.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by stvnorman »

I spent 120 hours in Destiny, and probably would have trebled that had I not moved to the middle of nowhere with no internet connection to speak of. Like some correspondents, not playing did feel like coming off a drug, but unlike others, I found the most pleasure in just mooching around doing "stuff" with no specific agenda. That said, I participated in all the game modes with relish, enjoying cooperative play with people I came across and multiplayer far more than I normally would, in no small part to how good everything felt.

One real other pleasure though, for a short time at least, was spotting someone else on my limited friends list in the game and jumping in with them for a while. When that rarely, if ever, happens for you, it's a really special feeling. And I thank Destiny for that.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by stvnorman »

stvnorman wrote: August 2nd, 2017, 7:28 pm I spent 120 hours in Destiny, and probably would have trebled that had I not moved to the middle of nowhere with no internet connection to speak of. Like some correspondents, not playing did feel like coming off a drug, but unlike others, I found the most pleasure in just mooching around doing "stuff" with no specific agenda. That said, I participated in all the game modes with relish, enjoying cooperative play with people I came across and multiplayer far more than I normally would, which in no small part was down to how good everything felt.

One real other pleasure though, for a short time at least, was spotting someone else on my limited friends list in the game and jumping in with them for a while. When that rarely, if ever, happens for you, it's a really special feeling. And I thank Destiny for that.
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by RoboticMonk3y »

playing my first ever raid (with a handful of the wonderful C&R community no less) with people who were kind enough to drag my through kicking and screaming, calling out where to look and when to shoot. It was an amazing experience, but one I will remember most, for insisting that before jumping down to start the raid, that everyone form an orderly "dance line", flip floping between banding together to be a serious, co-ordinated fighting force and giggling uncontrollably is something I won't forget for a while.
Sure, the store is a hot mess, sure the loot drops are a random-number-generator from hell, sure the amour and weapon stats are more complex than maybe they could have been, but the fundamental movement and shooting mechanics of the game are, for me, spot on. I spent many an hour in party chat, just rolling around and quite literally shooting the breeze...
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Re: Destiny / The Taken King / Rise of Iron

Post by arry_g »

Destiny is something to keep my hands busy, whilst my mind and mouth wander elsewhere. This is my experience of Destiny. The game (in my experience) is uninteresting - yes, mechanically it has a lot going for it but the story, PvE, PvP, level design (with the exception of some instanced content), aesthetic design and sadly the core gameplay loop fail to keep me engaged for long… and yet I have completed the main campaign as well as much of the DLC and am considering getting the sequel. Why?
The reason for this is that Destiny worked well as a commonly accepted activity for catching up with friends, younger family members old guildmates from MMO’s long since dead. Destiny has become to me what MSN Messenger was in the late 90’s/early 2000’s albeit with more mechanics!
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Re: Our next podcast recording (26.8.17): Destiny

Post by Lokhe »

Halo: Reach is one of my favourite games of all time, certainly my favourite in the series. To say my expectations of Bungie's next offering were high would be an understatement, but as development and marketing progressed, I got less and less interested in the game. It looked sort of bland to me. Come launch I just let it slip aside and didn't think more of it. It wasn't until spring, the following year, when me and my old Reach comrade in arms were talking about old memories, that my interest for the game started resurfacing. We wanted some new FPS to play together and we though, why not try Destiny, if we get 60 hours out of it, that's fine. And here I am, 1200 hours later...

Once I actually started playing the game I'd fallen in love within minutes. The gun play is just unparalleled and movement is fast, fun and rewarding. The fact that the story, or lack thereof, had a lot of people upset didn't even factor into my equation. I very much enjoyed the lore and world building that Destiny did and that was enough to keep me interested. In the long haul though, what kept me around was all the people I met through the myriad of different challenges the game offered. If you were just playing this game all by your lonesome I can understand you getting bored at some point, but I enjoy making new acquaintances and have so many stories to tell about my adventures in this game now. It really did scratch an itch that hasn't been scratched good since World of Warcraft, back in its heyday.

I would be remiss if I did not also give a shout out to Trials of Osiris specifically. Many a Sunday morning were spent fighting for the coveted treasures of the Lighthouse. It's hard to describe quite how enjoyable this mode of PvP was, but never has a shooter been as exciting as in this format, not even Reach!

The game is far from perfect, but it still manages to be one of the best things I've played this entire generation. I absolutely cannot wait to create more amazing stories in Destiny 2. So close now...

3 word review: Loved every second.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (26.8.17): Destiny

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A bit of context: I bought a PS4 second hand with a copy of the original disc earlier this year. Advice from the forum as well as a few friends who'd played Destiny from the start convinced me to go all in and purchase all the DLC at a very reasonable price in May. I'm not going to repeat what I’ve already said on the forum about how Bungie have handled the DLC; most of what I know comes from forum members who played the game from the start. Instead, I'll be offering my perspective on the game as it stands now as someone who has played through the campaigns but not sunk hundreds of hours or been part of the community that surrounds Destiny.

That said:

Destiny is a fun, well crafted and polished shooter. Movement feels crisp and precise, some of the best I've ever experienced on a controller. The exception is the floaty Sackboy jump of the Warlock but this was easy to get used to and is only frustrating in a few platform moments. The switch to third person as the game need, feels smooth and works well, although I do wish they'd committed to first person for the sword wielding.

Coming to the game late, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of players online. This is coming off the back of Battleborn though, my most recent shooter/slasher with special powers but a game where setting up a co-op game took an age to play. Meeting other players online in a single player game oddly reminded me of another game I'd just played. With no headset and only jumping up and down, spinning about and emotes for communication, many of the campaign missions felt like playing Journey.The first time saw a fight in the distance while bumbling around, I headed over to see a Hunter fighting a Taken Captain. Running behind the captain, jumping from the top of the hill, throwing down a nova bomb before delivering a swift punch to the head made me feel like I was in an actual superhero team-up. In each encounter, even if I wasn't the most effective participant, just being able to lend a hand to a fellow guardian, made me feel like I was part of something larger, which I guess is what Bungie was aiming for. The story washed over me in all honesty, but the strikes were a story enabler that helped me enjoy the game all the more. Genuine teamwork punctuated with magnificent moments of heroism, followed by celebration or hubristic charges resulting in a rueful grin; I had a great time.

I found the loot drops pretty generous and the patrols that provide simple goals help alleviate the feeling of grinding. I definitely feel I have benefited from being a latecomer and even if I had paid more, I would say that Destiny was worth playing. That said, I'm not of the mindset that needs to complete every side mission, see every weapon and skill levelled up to the maximum and I didn't even touch the PVP, which might have made me want, or even need, to chase down those rarer weapons. This upsets one of my friends in particular and might invalidate my opinion in the eyes of some but I suspect I have avoided the hours of farming and frustration that inevitably brings with it.

At the moment, Destiny stands up well enough as a single player/co-op game that I find myself returning to for short bursts of fun. I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like at its peak though...
paleAvenger

Re: Our next podcast recording (26.8.17): Destiny

Post by paleAvenger »

I waited until Destiny was on sale, picked it up for a bit of mindless sci-fi shooting, and got exactly what I wanted. Others have said it better than I can, but Destiny truly excels in the moment-to-moment gameplay. The movement is fluid with just the right balance of responsive and weighty, weapons feel punchy and awesome, and the powers add just enough variety to the action to keep things moving. There aren’t many gameplay experiences more satisfying than exploding a swarm of enemies with successive shots to their weak points, then watching the whole group burst into loot.

The rest of the game was lacking, at least at the time I was playing. There weren’t many places to go, and the content got repetitive. The lore was hidden away outside the game where I couldn’t be bothered to search it out (and I’m someone who spent hours reading the codices in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age). Most of all, the game’s focus on multiplayer left people with very short friends lists like myself out in the cold. When I did play multiplayer missions (the few available through the lobby), I spent most of my time trying to keep up with other players who would forge ahead as quickly as possible, killing everything in a room before I could even get through the door.

So while I didn’t feel any desire to shell out extra cash for the expansions, and therefore didn’t stick with it very long, I don't regret a minute of the time I spent shooting aliens across colorful landscapes in Destiny.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (26.8.17): Destiny

Post by psychohype »

I first ended up getting a free vanilla copy of Destiny for the Xbox 360 prior to the launch of The Taken King. I really did appreciate the amazing detailed visuals in the game environments, as well as—of course—the tight and fluid mechanics of moving and shooting. Just moving around a virtual landscape has probably never felt quite as satisfying. I especially love the feel of the Sparrow bikes, which capture the same thrilling feeling I had as a child while watching the speeder bike scenes in Return of the Jedi.

I played through the relatively brief main story missions and enjoyed my time well enough, however, I always felt like I was missing a crucial aspect of the Destiny experience by not having any actual friends to team up with.

It was also a game that, frankly, made me feel a little bit stupid, because I never understood any of the game's underlying crafting, leveling, and economy systems. Sure the game had a pretty sophisticated looking UI scheme, but where did they really explain how all of the meta systems worked? Did I miss something? Would all of that make more sense to someone (unlike me) who was versed in the ways of MMOs?

What really ended up annoying me about Destiny was when The Taken King was released, and it essentially punished all of the players who didn't upgrade. I could no longer go into the Crucible and select whatever game type I wanted to play.

Eventually, shortly after I purchased an Xbox One, I purchased an on-sale copy of The Taken King, which included all the DLC up to that point. I had hoped that maybe this time I could find a community of players that would help me get more into the game, and perhaps I would get to experience some of the raids and other end game content. For a variety of reasons, that never really happened.

For a short time, I was at least able to play my preferred Crucible modes unhindered. But once again, that privilege was taken away with the launch of another overpriced expansion, the $30 Rise of Iron DLC.

I can understand the appeal of Destiny. I've experienced very brief moments and glimpses of the game's enormous potential. But I mostly feel like I missed out, because at the end of the day I'm not much of a social gamer, and I lack the kind of network that I feel is essential for unlocking that potential. Overall, I feel mostly cynical about the entire Destiny franchise due to its manipulative DLC practices, highly polished but minimal and repetitive content, and obscure systems and economies.
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Re: Destiny / Destiny 2

Post by James »

I buckled.

4 days after release, and I folded like a cheap suit.

I blame Jon Denton.
kintaris

Re: Destiny / Destiny 2

Post by kintaris »

James wrote: September 11th, 2017, 10:59 am I buckled.

4 days after release, and I folded like a cheap suit.

I blame Jon Denton.
Damn everyone. I've gone from zero interest in the series to itchy wallet in three days.

I'm going to listen to the Destiny issue of the show tonight, and see if that swings me.

What is everyone playing it on? I'm torn, my shiny new PS4 needs some triple-A love, but I've been an Xbox boy for so long. It's tough :lol:
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Destiny / Destiny 2

Post by ratsoalbion »

I guess consider the usual aspects; where your friends are likely to congregate, controller preference, and perhaps any technical/performance differences:
kintaris

Re: Destiny / Destiny 2

Post by kintaris »

If I buy this, it'll be my first proper foray into MMO - so I don't have any friends yet :)

Thanks for the video though, that should help.
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