On Authenticity (Destiny)

by Durandal, Sunday, June 28, 2015, 21:34 (3218 days ago) @ Cody Miller

We clearly have different opinions of Titanic and Pochahantas err Avatar. That aside, your point that there are gating measures in Destiny that are not present doesn't mean they didn't try hard.

RPGs, even psudo RPGs have level mechanics that gate time. Heck every free to play micro transaction game depends on player vanity and gating elements to encourage payments. That is half the reason I don't play Warframe, which is constantly brought up as how Bungie "should" do it.

Leveling mechanics are all the rage in games, and to complain that Bungie put them in cynically to pad out the content is a bit harsh and undeserved. Everyone puts in leveling mechanics and gates equipment. ME3 had totally random drops of gear and classes, which you then had to level, even in multiplayer. I put a ton of hours into that game and still didn't get some of the guns, and I knew people who dropped a large sum of real money into the equipment packs in order to speed things up. Your complaint is essentially that Bungie didn't let you get gear as fast as you want, and that somehow makes them inauthentic?

Sure, we can agree that if you or I were in charge of the game, it would be different. I dare say that if Bungie made the game all over again it would be different. We can point to things we like, and make logical arguments for and against them. I think the PVP maps suffer a bit without the vehicle half of the show that Halo brought, for example. I agree that the in game storytelling and exploration falls short of the promise shown in the Grimore cards.

None of that means that the people working on this game were not giving it their all.

Look at Too Human. You can clearly see after the first level that the dev's phoned it in. There are perhaps 2-3 new enemies in the whole rest of the game, the levels are thrown together and nothing comes close to the trailer Silicon Knights released to promote it. There were numerous back room issues in leadership that crippled that game.

None of that is present with Destiny.

I just got done with Sunset Overdrive. It's a fun game and the dev's really worked on the attitude and this big open world, but basically I run here, pick up this, run back, defend this crate or whatever. The grind is just hidden under the attitude from the numerous crazy NPCs. Destiny suffers because the grind is not hidden under the layer of witty self referencing dialog. Sure the levels aren't Skyrim open worlds, but they aren't Mass Effect or COD's corridor shooters either.

I've seen pretty universal agreement that the shooting, movement, art and sound are all top notch. These are the areas that Bungie has lots of experience in. The RPG aspects are new, and Bungie's got a learning curve with them. As I've said before benchmarking only does so much, and there are clearly somethings that Bungie got right like the engrams getting mailed to you and credit for kills just for being in the area.

Bungie is giving this their best shot, and that is clear. They haven't been afraid to make major mechanics changes to appease the fans like etheric light and weapon smithing, unlike Bioware and ME3's cop-out of a 3 color ending. I think you are letting your frustration get ahead of enjoyment again.