Prison of Elders - first impressions (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, May 22, 2015, 15:08 (3270 days ago)

I finished the Prison of Elders on both level 28 and level 32 difficulties last night. I was both surprised and disappointed by the experience.

The good:
- Large waves of enemies can get pretty hairy, often resulting in having to run like a madman across the whole room in order to seek momentary shelter for recharging shields.
- The different Mine objectives force you to leave camping zones, and offer a good variant to play.
- The quantity of loot at the end is tremendously rewarding for the effort involved.
- The need to coordinate as a team to draw enemy fire, resurrect downed allies, and eliminate specific targets is much higher than in the normal game.
- This seems minor, maybe, but I was really impressed by the lighting change at the very end, just before the loot hoard opened up.
- Random mods is great. Lightswitch vs. the Hive in round 2 of the level 32 PoE was hairy as all hell.

The bad:
- Having specific maps for each faction is a disappointment. I'd love to have a mix and match feel to the maps and which factions appear on them.
- The announcements are... not great. I feel like I'm playing Smash TV at times. It doesn't seem to fit the overall tone of Destiny.
- The eliminate a target objectives didn't change anything in our matches. Half the time we killed the guy without realizing he had even spawned yet.
- As with most PvE activities, hand cannons seem dramatically more powerful than other primaries, and shotguns are not effective enough to use against most of the "up close" tough enemies you face.
- The boss fights are not interesting because of the boss mechanics, but more so because of the endless stream of really hard additional enemies. Rainbow shield was neat, but nothing else about that boss was interesting - he was just a normal Cabal AI as far as I could tell. The hive boss we fought was just a giant boomer with more HP, but had no behavior changes at all as far as I could tell.
- Level 32 Golden Gun does not 1-shot a level 32 enemy if they have a shield, even if it's a fire shield. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. My super has been reduced to "shield remover". I can 1-shot headshot any non-shielded enemy with my hand cannon, so there's no need to use a super in those cases. Stronger enemies take 2 or more golden gun shots to kill, which means my super maybe kills 1 wizard (if my aim is good). Against yellow health bar enemies, 3 full golden gun shots to the dome only drop the shield and do about 20% health in damage. The health levels of enemies has made Golden Gun less "super" and more "meh." My only incentive to use it was to hopefully generate an orb or two so my defender ally could get his bubble up sooner. Not once was golden gun life or team saving. If anything, it hurt us because it takes so damn long to go into the animation that I'd have been better off just reloading my hand cannon.
- The scoreboard is dumb. No one cares how many guys you killed as long as you helped the team. Stop pausing my game when I'm trying to run back to the airlock!

The unexpected (both good and bad):
- The first time I had to destroy mines instead of disarming them totally caught me by surprise. It's really not clear that there's any difference in the mines unless you already know there can be more than one kind. Now I know, so it'll be okay, but I still wish there was a more obvious difference (like totally different looking mines, for example).
- I was expecting a more modular and variable room layout that would make every attempt unique and procedurally generated. I'm both glad that there's more level detail and disappointed that I'll be able to memorize where the mines spawn, where I can camp safely, and where the enemy boss is going to be.
- I was surprised to learn that wiping didn't kick you orbit, but only reset the wing you were currently in. I like this, but it's not what I expected from a "survival" mode. Well done, Bungie. You've innovated a good gameplay balance!
- Most of my guns were useless. This surprised me quite a bit. Because enemies in PvE are now balanced similarly to PvP (high damage, but most are easy to kill), you need to counter the large numbers of enemies with a weapon that also deals high damage quickly. Hand Cannons are perfect for this. Nothing else that I had with me was useful at all. I did use my LDR against the bosses, and occasionally my heavy machine gun, but for primary use, the hand cannon was the only thing worth using. Weapons that don't kill in one shot either need to stagger much more often, or they need their damage increased to be competitive. My 334 Red Death was dramatically less effective than my 307 Hawkmoon. That doesn't make sense. Similarly, because of the large numbers of enemies, slower weapons like fusion rifles and shotguns are not very practical. Shotguns especially: If I run up to a fallen captain and shotgun + melee him, instead of the captain dying, I get melee'd to death. That's lame lame lame.
- I was pleasantly surprised to learn that each difficulty level had different fights.
- I was disappointed to learn that the fights are the same each time you enter within a specific difficulty level. Hopefully this changes each week?
- Why didn't I get any rep at all when I ran it at level 32 difficulty, when I got rep at level 28? Do you only get rep the first time you do it each week? That's also lame. At least give me some for finishing like you get for doing vanguard strikes.

In general, I had fun, but I worry that this activity will get stale over time because of a lack of variable events (like all of Destiny's activities). Still, it was something new, and it was pretty well executed.