Journalists are not very smart part XXIII (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 15:37 (3268 days ago) @ Durandal

I don't think we've been playing the same game, or maybe you're only like 2 hours into it?

I've been playing The Division off and on and I have to say that their AI is both dumber, and the enemy interactions worse. Enemy difficulty is created just by adding health, there is no shield mechanic as near as I can tell. Boss battles are like the Y1 strikes, a big health enemy that just kind of wanders around shooting.

The AI is far smarter than Destiny, with enemy units behaving more tactically if they have a commander unit nearby, grenadiers chucking all their stuff at once at you while rushers charge you with shotguns, and LMGers providing suppressing fire. Snipers actively retreat to gain range and seek elevation for better angles, and you can hear the enemies communicating with each other to coordinate attacks or warn of danger. It's not genius level, but it feels like real AI interactions vs. Destiny's "every enemy of X type always behaves the same way no matter what is going on" AI. I have heard an enemy sniper yell out "he's reloading, charge him" and then a different enemy with a shotgun broke cover and charged me. That's AI on a level you have never seen in Destiny.

The gunplay is ok, but not anything special. it lacks the character of ME3, which I'll argue it's more closely modeled after then Destiny. Why the random thug rushing me with a baseball bat takes 10 hits with my LMG to kill is another weird thing. My "marksman" rifles really seem to have laggy bullets and don't hit moving enemies at times, and the right shotgun kills at Fellwinter's ranges.

Definitely more of a ME3 gunplay system than Destiny, I agree. That being said, the guns become more differentiated at higher levels. It's a very interesting system. It feels like each gun type has base stats that match its entire class, and then gains more or less in each stat area with each level of the weapon, or something. low level SMGs all feel the same, but at high levels they are very different. Same with all the other guns.

It is a very different game from Destiny. The game is slower, movement is difficult and clunky, gunplay is also somewhat slow and doesn't feel solid. Like I mentioned earlier basic thug enemies with a bat take half a clip to take down sometimes and the stagger mechanic seems to be somewhat random. You can get shot by NPC snipers for 90% of your health and not know where the shots are coming from. You generally can't see grenades being thrown, but the game highlights in red the area they will land in.

Yes and no. I find the controls incredibly smooth and satisfying, but they did take some getting used to. The hardest part has been training myself to use the cover-to-cover movement instead of take cover-break cover-take cover elsewhere which is what you had to do in ME3.

Amusingly, your gunsight turns red on enemies and green on civilians. My brother has been running around shooting any random person on the street with a red sight saying "the gun has declared you guilty!" "question not the firearm, for it knows your sins!" Truly a person just minding their own business is in a dangerous situation in The Division if they are holding a bat.

That's hilarious. The trick being, of course, that there are no enemies "minding their own business" in this game. Walk up to anyone who had a red reticle and you'll see that they immediately start attacking you as soon as they notice you.