Bungie: please ditch Orbit (Destiny)

by kapowaz, Monday, July 21, 2014, 10:32 (3560 days ago)

There's so much that's great about Destiny (I'll talk about that elsewhere) but right now one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: the requirement that whenever you want to change gameplay sessions you have to go through the intermediary step of returning to Orbit. It's a pointless abstraction that serves no gameplay purpose, and only stretches out the time between deciding you want to partake in a given activity, and actually being able to do so.

Here's a few examples:

• I'm doing some exploration, participating in random events and missions as I encounter them, and collecting loot. Eventually I decide I want to find out what I've won, so I need to visit the Cryptarch to have my items ‘decrypted’. In order to that I need to go to the Tower, but first I need to return to orbit, then choose a destination, then confirm I want to go there, then I have to wait whilst a pretty (but pointless, and very quickly tiresome) mini-cutscene of my ship flying off plays out.
  
• I've completed a story mission, and so once the 30 second timer counts down, I'm presented with a carnage report plus items I've won, if any. To go collect these, I have to first of all return to orbit, then choose to return to the tower etc. etc…
  
• I'm in the Tower; I've accepted some bounties that are PvP-oriented, and so I want to head into the Crucible; to do this I have to first head into orbit, then select a Crucible location and then wait for a mini-cinematic etc. etc.

…you get the picture.

The pointlessness of Orbit neatly dovetails with another quibble I have with The Tower: it feels lifeless. We're sat right on the edge of a massive city, but other than a handful of Guardians at a time, there's not much going on in the Tower. It actually feels quite small and claustrophobic after a while, and the relative lack of NPCs undermines the sense of immersion. I've noticed there are quite a few places where other NPCs might hang out, so possibly the intention is to add more in the full game that aren't relevant during the beta, I'm not sure.

But regardless: it would make so much more sense if The Tower was the hub for all gameplay activities rather than Orbit: you want to head into the Crucible? There's an NPC you can talk to to start that off (perhaps in the hangar, since you'll have to fly off in your ship to do that). Want to head out into the wilds to do a story mission or some freeform activities? There's another NPC or maybe even a direct map interface that you can interact with to start that off.

I appreciate that doing it this way would involve running to a specific location in The Tower to start them off, but in other MMOs there's a healthy duplication of NPCs, scattering them around cities, so that you never have to go too far to get them. Plus, at least by having the player in control sending them to their destination it helps sell the sense of immersion, since watching your ship autopilot above golden clouds really doesn't.

Right now Destiny has superb, engaging combat mechanics, and a fascinating, believable world to explore; it'd be great if the experience continued to be as engaging and convincing in the quiet moments of downtime in between firefights too.