Expectations and Elitism (Destiny)

by RC , UK, Friday, August 08, 2014, 11:35 (3763 days ago) @ Joe Duplessie (SNIPE 316)

That seems to be what your main problems boil down to. The ones I don't agree with, anyway :P

Destiny does feel very similar to other games at the start - and I think it's supposed to. The leveling and early story missions almost seem like one giant tutorial - slowly introducing you to all the powers and options and giving you time to use each one.

But dude, if you play it exactly the way you've played Halo for 11 years (rifle+sniper), then of course it isn't going to feel much different!
It's more interesting the more you exploit the uniqueness of it and - perhaps crucially - be willing to try different things and not be amazing at them instantly.

I surprised myself when I started to use a shotgun towards the end of the Beta: after an adjustment period I did really well with it and had more fun than standing on perches waiting for fools to enter my scopes.

Compare in Halo: it was totally possible to beat Halo 3 Legendary by mostly standing back and dinging the enemies with BR and Carbine fire - but that wasn't the most FUN way. Getting closer, PP, grenades, swords, occasional rockets, assassinations - so much better.

So, your expecatations are letting you down here: take advantage of what Destiny IS and what it DOES allow rather than what anyone has told you it is or your own delusions about what you want it to be or think it should be.

Bungie's communication about it was kinda crap. In the end, just playing it seems to have won a lot of people over. Not you, obviously - other people.

Elitism goes to the tired, old arguments I heard a trillion times in Halo on 'skill-gap', 'everyone should start equal', "balance", "these noobs shouldn't get this many kills on me!" and "the only kind of skill is the the kind I value". Bored of all that.

Truth is: imbalance and asymmetry is actually fun, having a chance at some measure of success is fun, getting to actually use cool weapons like Snipers and shotguns is fun and in the end, you can't even have competition if no-one actually plays (e.g. all those competitive playlists in Halo that ALWAYS DIED).

Campaign has these problems:

• There is very little variety to combat.

I'm hoping level design changes things up later in the game. But, just play it differently! You have all the tools on you now.

[*]There is no difficulty to speak of.

Oh, try doing the story missions on the higher difficulty when you're under-leveled: it's hard, just not in a fun way!

[*]Terrible boss design.

They're certainly not inspiring.

[*]Enemies infinitely respawn, and they do it fast.

Yeah, hoping this get's toned down.

[*]Missions are repetitive, not very replay-able.

Disagree in general. But, mission openings certainly get samey after you get your sparrow since the quickest thing is to just get on it and ride to the objective.

[*]Enemies have no personality. They're just soulless monsters.

Agree with this one. I think perhaps they should be louder and clearer. Make their presence known more. As it is, they kinda just mumble in the background.

- Invincible enemies. Just make them really difficult to beat, making it impossible is very frustrating.

Nah, they made them 'very hard' in the Alpha (1 damage per shot) and it was just silly. This won't last long as you level up.

Multiplayer problems
Also, I'd like to have proximity chat. Demoralizing and angering the other team is always a good strategy, and sometimes teabagging isn't enough.

Yeah, that's kinda what they were talking about when they said Halo 2 'created a monster.'

[*] ... I hate sitting through the spaceship animations over and over.

Spaceship is the loading screen. But you already knew that, right?

With all the problems this game has, I won't be buying it. Not a chance.

Ah, well.