This game is incredibly confusing (Destiny)

by Jordan117 , Ala-blam!-a, Thursday, July 24, 2014, 16:47 (3779 days ago)

Maybe it's my fault for never being into the WOW/Diablo/RPG genre. Or for not paying much attention to the PR build-up to this beta. But as somebody who has primarily played Halo, Bioshock, Fallout 3, and The Last of Us with a dash of casual indie stuff, the mechanics of this game are incredibly confusing.

The overall story makes sense, such as it is. Golden Age, darkness comes, everything collapses, now the Last City is struggling to make a last stand. The environments are also strongly designed and full of character. And the gameplay itself is competent and fun.

But this solid core experience is accompanied by a blizzard of systems and terms and menus and sidestory elements that are overwhelming and impenetrable to a relative newcomer.

There's XP and Levels and Light and Loot. Subclass Upgrades and Armor Shaders and Crucible Reputation. Discipline. Intellect. Vanguard Marks. Consumables. Talent Points. Orbs of Light. Glimmer.

There are apparently over a hundred weapons, all with either technical or oddball names and half a dozen stats. Halo's armory, while extensive, was well-balanced and sensibly differentiated between Human/Covenant and short/mid/long-range with a handful of special weapons, but who's to tell a Khvostov 7G-02 from a 13098V Incognito from a Super Good Advice? How to choose which to equip without knowing how they handle in a fight? And do you find these weapons, anyway? Buy them? Unlock them? And how many can you own or equip simultaneously? (All the above goes for vehicles and armor, too, which have their own complex stat system).

There does appear to be some sort of trading or market mechanism, and each NPC has their own Reputation and update schedule and complicated bartering interface. But how do you buy/trade stuff? Or find stuff to sell? What makes a good deal? Is there a full-fledged player economy beyond the NPC stuff?

Then there's Grimoire -- some sort of trading card game (?) It says go to Bungie.net for more info, but the multi-layered Tarot deck there only makes things even more baffling.

And so much of the universe, while hinting at something coherent, is presented without any context or explanation. I see humans, but who are these Awoken and Exos? Is The Speaker in charge of The Tower, or just some kind of oracle? What's New Monarchy, or Dead Orbit, or the Future War Cult? "You know we're right"... about what exactly? It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know anything about these factions or people, which makes it really hard to care. And I still can't reliably distinguish between the various enemy races, or the various sub-races in each. I'm sure there's a wiki I can pore through, but basic information like this should be made clear in the game.

Fallout 3 did a great job slowly introducing you to its universe and the people, organizations, and gameplay systems you needed to master. Same with Fable. I'm not a complete noob at this sort of thing. But even a short time playing Destiny has left my head spinning. I really hope the final game is more cinematic and cutscene driven in story mode, at least at the beginning. Because the beta's "Hi, I brought you back to life, now start shooting stuff" was totally inadequate at introducing this vast new world.

Anybody who does grok all this care to share some kind of "Destiny for Dummies" primer that explains what all this stuff is and how it works together?