When death is of little consequence (Destiny)

by RC , UK, Sunday, August 10, 2014, 08:32 (3567 days ago)

TL/DR: Destiny is about maximising effectiveness and optimisation rather than being able to have any effect at all.

This is perhaps one of the biggest changes to core direction from Halo, and it's catching some people out who are used to harsher realities.

In Halo, you were THE Master Chief, special because you were lucky, because you were one of the few that had survived. But Spartans never died, of course, they were only Missing-In-Action. Almost mythical, rare fighters that turned the tides of enormous battles on their own.

In Destiny, each Ghost is still a precious, limited resource, but an individual Guardian life is cheap. It's just a few seconds before you're back to killing. Guardians are super-hero undead. They've all experienced death before and will again - many, many times. Each individual Guardian is not the heroic saviour of all of humanity, but part of a legion of the undead, fighting collectively against The Darkness. You share the world and the glorious quest with many other Guardians.

The fundamental balance has shifted. Death isn't something to be avoided at all costs but, an inevitable part of the struggle. Failure, of a sort, is expected.

You die in a Strike: no big deal, you'll be back in 30 seconds anyway. Your teammates needn't get to a safe place like in Halo so you can spawn on them - you'll go back to a safe spot anyway. If you all die, you only go back a checkpoint in certain darkness zones and you still keep all your XP and ammo. Defeat is simply the addition of time, to a task you never asked for, but The Traveller imposed (spoiler: you are the Flood).

The measure of skill in Destiny isn't simply 'success', but the volume and potency of it.

Supers, grenades and power-melees all recharge. But are you going to get 1 cheap kill with your Super, or wipe out their entire team with it? Do you stomp on one noob rushing your defence, or use it to secure the crucial 2nd objective?

Everyone will get one Super every few minutes, anyway, but are you going to be the one getting it every 60 seconds? Are you generating Orbs of Light left and right for your team in a glorious synergy of death? Do you get grenades every 30 seconds, or every 10 because you've optimised your armour set up?

Do you pick up the heavy ammo alone and get a few easy rocket kills, or is your entire team with you, all getting Heavy Ammo, and using it to wipe the enemy team several times? Do you sacrifice your team's positioning momentarily to secure all that extra heavy ammo and then push forward again?

In Halo Slayer, getting a mutual melee kill usually wasn't that great for anyone. But in Destiny Control, if you have 2 (or more) control zones, a mutual kill still puts you further ahead (by 50 or even 200 points). It's a perfectly valid move for you, and a bad result for your opponent's team. Unless it's to secure something bigger.

A Fallen Captain will still go down if you just hit it with your scout rifle over and over, but if a single Arc Sniper headshot puts it down, why aren't you doing that?

Sure, any scruffy band of noobs can struggle through the Devil's Lair Strike in 45 minutes. But can they become an elite death squad and rip through it in 10 minutes?

I'm not entirely sure yet, but it looks like one of the best ways to get XP and gear (if you're into that sort of thing) will be by going hard and fast and getting end-of-level XP and gear bonuses.

For PvP, I'm not even sure skill matching was turned on in the Beta - if you thought you were stomping on everyone, it's quite possible they really were newbies and you haven't met your match yet.

So, every new Guardian is a useful addition, but some Guardians are more useful than others.