Destiny is definitely the best it's ever been right now. It will probably get better. Eventually it may become the game that was advertised to us a full year ago. The ad guys did a terrific job writing checks that the game could not deliver on at launch. I truly hope someone who matters, somewhere that they're in a position to do something about it, learned from that.

I still want to know what was in an advertisement for the game that wasn't delivered on-- not a presentation or video on where they came from or what they considered or what they hoped to include, an advertisement of what the game would include. If they really put false information in an advertisement it would be grounds for a lawsuit, and if there were grounds for a lawsuit one probably would've been filed a long time ago.

Well, it's not like "we promise you 20 raids" or anything like that. I'm talking about things like the "Out here in the wild, this *is* how we talk" clip of in-game footage from the ads. And the interview where the designer said "Destiny is totally open world. If you see a mountain in the distance, you can go there." Saturn. All of the talk of the "epic story" when they really meant "epic setting with very little story." Stuff like that. Things we thought would be in the game, but weren't, things we thought were reasonable to expect from a studio with the reputation Bungie had that we didn't get. Heck, even the VoG wasn't available when the game launched.

it's like buying a car and the guy says it has "air." You think he means air conditioning, but he tells you later he meant the windows roll down. You still got a car, and the guy didn't outright lie, but what you thought you were buying and what you got are not the same thing. It's misleading.

You've been saying they misled forever, and the only item here that seems a tiny bit significant is the story complaint based on Bungie's past history, but that's not based on what they said about Destiny. Leading up to the game I always thought it weird the way DeeJ and others downplayed the campaign story. Their comments seemed a bit obligatory, and was never the leading bullet point in press interviews. I really like that stuff, so of course I was hopeful and assumed (and wanted to assume) that it would be a strong part of the game. I was disappointed, but in retrospect, the subdued way they discussed that aspect made sense.

They made an ambitious game (and they're still making it). At many points along the way they were very humble about what they are trying to do and whether we would like it. It's necessary to pitch a game--you can't be too humble, and yes, it's easy to get the wrong impression especially when that's the impression we want. I can abide expressions of disappointment post-release, but what I can't abide is the hyperbolic expression of every negative, the lack of perspective, and the treatment of every hint, screenshot, or clip a year before release as an iron-clad promise or a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Destiny wasn't the game I hoped for in several ways, but for the most part that's on me. Taking it beyond this thread, it seems now that everyone's feelings are sacrosanct, and if I'm disappointed, I WAS MISLED! If something is priced higher than I want to pay, IT'S UNFAIR! The internet is like a giant, spoiled 5-year-old, and if it can't get a puppy for Christmas this year, everyone must suffer their tantrums.

Destiny is definitely the best it's ever been right now. It will probably get better. Eventually it may become the game that was advertised to us a full year ago. The ad guys did a terrific job writing checks that the game could not deliver on at launch. I truly hope someone who matters, somewhere that they're in a position to do something about it, learned from that.

I still want to know what was in an advertisement for the game that wasn't delivered on-- not a presentation or video on where they came from or what they considered or what they hoped to include, an advertisement of what the game would include. If they really put false information in an advertisement it would be grounds for a lawsuit, and if there were grounds for a lawsuit one probably would've been filed a long time ago.

Well, it's not like "we promise you 20 raids" or anything like that. I'm talking about things like the "Out here in the wild, this *is* how we talk" clip of in-game footage from the ads. And the interview where the designer said "Destiny is totally open world. If you see a mountain in the distance, you can go there."

That wasn't an interview, it was a presentation. Now, yes, that presentation should've been accurate, especially since it was repeated over the course of several days and broadcast during E3, but it wasn't advertisement. (An interview also wouldn't be advertisement.)

Saturn.

That was mentioned once in a vidoc, never anywhere else, including advertising.

All of the talk of the "epic story" when they really meant "epic setting with very little story."

You can't objectively say what is and isn't epic. It's like taking them to task for claiming it's "cool" when it doesn't meet your definition of cool. (Destiny's story doesn't meet my definition of "epic" either, for the record.) Anyway it's pretty clear to me they intended for the story to be epic by several meanings of the word, and it didn't work out. It does still span a large breadth of time and space in-universe, which is surely one part they were referring to.

Stuff like that. Things we thought would be in the game, but weren't, things we thought were reasonable to expect from a studio with the reputation Bungie had that we didn't get.

That's precisely why I asked the question I asked. People keeping mixing up their expectations with what Bungie actually said, and mixing up both of those thing with what was actually advertised, and then saying the advertising lied to them. An expectation not based on a direct, specific piece of evidence (if not several) is always suspect. You thinking Bungie's past games were good is not evidence of anything except their tastes and your tastes lining up to some degree and them not fumbling the execution too badly. The repeated semi-public presentation from before, on the other hand, is a pretty reasonable thing to base expectations on.
I focus on advertising here because it's supposed to be held to a higher standard than most communications. One of the few ways you can be taken to court for simply saying something in a country that gives you the right to free speech is to say something objectively false about something you're selling.

I'm not asking for 100 hours of awesome from any game. I'm just depressed that of those 100 hours, probably 60 of them were chore, and not at all fun. I'd much much MUCH rather have had a Halo with 20 hours of pure enjoyment than a Destiny with 40 hours of enjoyment mixed into 60 hours of slog.

I think what Funk is saying is that it's not Bungie's fault that you continued to play even after you realized you weren't having fun.

Just today I did a bunch of bounties I didn't want to do, so I could level up The Lord of Wolves. The gun is fantastic and a lot of fun. So I had to be bored now to have fun later. I'd have just rather had the fun. That's Bungie's fault for making you level up guns. It's not as simple as saying "don't play" when the end result really is fun.

Guns are pretty fun to play with WHILE YOU'RE LEVELING THEM - I enjoy seeing how strong they are when they're new, and how much better they get over time. You aren't FORCED to do bounties that you don't enjoy to level them - unless you're too impatient to play with a partially-leveled gun for a little while. :)

Nobody forced you to do nothing. You chose to do those bounties.

- No text -

The two meanings of the phrase "wasting time" are independent of the existence of the game called Destiny and are, therefore, independent of your expectations for that game.

Completely understood

You can waste time with your friends at the mall and you can waste time trying to keep a failing business from going under.

Again, completely understood.

One is fun and one is not.

******************************

Let me go back and try to show my perspective on this.

This is basically the confusing fact of Destiny for me. I definitely got enough playtime out of the game to justify an $80 purchase. Hours and hours and hours and hours of playtime. WAY more playtime than I expected, to be honest.

BUT, not all of that playtime was actually fun. A huge amount of it was repetitive, uninspired, and sometimes downright felt like work instead of play. It still does. The progression systems and ranking systems and unbalancing of top tier pvp systems mean that I have to do lots of work in order get my gear in order for the small amount of play that I want to eventually participate in.

I wholeheartedly agree that Destiny can be repetitive, uninspired, and feels like work at times.

All that work makes me feel like I should be getting some sort of compensation for it, and the RNG based loot system makes me feel like, nope, I'm not getting squat. It feels like wasted time, wasted effort, and why should I bother.

I hate the RNG system just as much as everyone else. You get stuff, just not what you want. I do wish there was a clear cut path to acquire the various items in the game.

So I'm left with this confused feeling about the game. I like moving around the game. I like the setting of the game. I like most of the people who make the game (and don't really know much about the other people involved). But when I paid $80 for a game, what I got was really 1/4 game and 3/4 chore. I didn't buy a chore, I didn't want a chore, and I'm mad that the chore feels like the only portal back to game land.

This is you letting it become a chore. I mean this in the nicest possible way. I've been there at times and when it happens I just take sometime off if I let it get to the point where I am no longer having fun.

I never found the HM Crota raid to be enjoyable due to all of the glitches and artificial difficulty. So I simply chose not to do it most of the time. It was simply not fun. Once I had all of the gear I wanted I simply stopped doing that raid.

The daily bounties can feel like a chore list because they are the best way to level up that newly acquired gear and such. You don't have to do those items, they just speed things up.

In fact, the whole experience of Destiny is an exercise in disappointment. Marketing showed me all kinds of stuff that simply isn't in the actual game at all. Gating the fun of using a new gun through the time sink of leveling it up. Gating the fun of top tier PvP through the necessity of being level 34, which means playing PvE activities. Gating upgrading your gear through RNG based loot systems that rarely give you what you need and or want and turn into seemingly endless time sinks.

The gating of weapons and gear does suck. Personally I am so gun part poor right now that I have many weapons I either can't upgrade or can't reroll because I don't have the parts.

The whole top tier PvP thing doesn't require you to be at max level even though it helps. you can easily play as a 33 and probably a 32 if you are talented.

Even the fun stuff, like the raids, are designed so that you have to run them so many times if you want the loot that they become un-fun. It's like the game is designed to suck all of the fun out of itself.

Again, agreed that the RNG system sucks a lot of joy from the game.

But, of course, if you've burned out on the game then you've played easily a hundred hours of it, which means you got your money's worth, right?

Personally, I'd rather have an incredibly satisfying 8 hour game than a deeply disappointing 100+ hour game. I don't want my fun time to be dependent on hours of not fun time, and I like thinking back to the shorter but wholly satisfying games I've played with joy than the way I think about my time spent in Destiny with regret. /sadface.

If you are looking at your time in Destiny as being regretful then maybe you just shouldn't play? I've put a crap ton of time into the game and for the most part I really enjoy it still, even with all of its flaws. The main reason I have played so long is because I look at it as a form of social entertainment. I get on and make progress doing lots of repetitive stuff while still having a blast playing with friends. If I was playing solo then I probably would have stopped well over 1000 hours ago. Despite all of the shortcomings and endless grind, I still look forward to playing this game with my friends. There have been some great games I've played that I can finish in 8-10 hours but all in all I have a much higher level of enjoyment from Destiny.

Sure, Destiny isn't what I was expecting it to be and it may never be that way. But I am hopeful.

Next time you are on your chore list of killing a 100 enemies with headshots, why not just change things up a bit and run dual shotguns, or shotgun + sidearm, or any other weird combo that's different from normal. doing stupid stuff like that keeps the chores feeling fresh and fun.