I get it. I love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it. (Destiny)

by Numinar @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 08:38 (3734 days ago)

Wow, hope this low Metacritic dosn't kill the Bungie deal, I feel like this game was made for me, as do some of my mates who are often Halo hating MMO/Moba jerks.

All the criticism of this title seems fair and reasonable. Don't get me wrong. When Jeff Gerstman eventually says this is a 5 for him and he hates the story and the dead worlds and lack of loot or whatever, I understand. If it was trying to be WoW, Borderlands or Diablo it would be more than fair. But it's not. It's trying to be Destiny. It's really fucking good at being Destiny, and nothing else is being Destiny, and Destiny is approaching some kind of persistent co-op friendly Halo sandbox playground Nirvana.

It's easily an objective 8/9. It has lost a lot of what made Halo great, but it has gained so much at the same time. Which is ok as again, it's not Halo (whilst leveraging most of that awesome combat). All those massive levels in CE/H2 that went on forever in every direction and begged exploring but didn't deliver except in our imaginations? Well, we have that now. That janky, non join in progress co-op that was ahead of it's time but far from perfect? It's so much better now!

With one lvl 16, one level 11, Moon and Cosmodrome cleared and Venus given a good run and having already worked out that the title would only be 4 or 5 times the size of the Alpha (http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=27419) whilst everyone was imagining 100 hours of unannounced content, I was not disappointed with the actual release and am more than pleased with the purchase. The first few days I felt that maybe it wasn't a good SP game, but I've already had more great SP moments than in Bioshock or CoD combined, and forget SP in Borderlands or Diablo. Wack a mole city, this game is 80% classic Halo style war of maneuver encouraging creativity and aggression. Cannot get enough. (Will update thread when/if I have had enough).

It is almost perfect at being Destiny, which is it's own thing. Unlike roller coaster shooter 8 from AAA publisher X which, if you play it TWICE, might get you 15 hours of fun. (I love some of these titles as well BTW)

Unskippable cutscenes bookended by loading screens, lack of custom games (Which has the positive of forcing everyone into hoppers), and lack of that finely tuned Legendary difficulty (replaced by something that may be better given the sheer number of encounters and flexibility in difficulty setting) being the biggest sins for me. Story, well, whatever. I'm sick of being the center of the universe. Being a semi anonymous militia member does me just fine thankyou. Taking down that Strike boss on the moon after struggling to work it out through a few restarts was something that myself and 2 strangers experienced alone, and that's enough. Oh how we danced.

Slow start wasn't great, mostly due to alpha/beta fatigue and unskipable cutscenes/loading times. Those early missions are great. It's a start I still enjoy more than Borderlands or Diablo 2 (Which I still think are great games!) after doing it more than both those games combined through Alpha, Beta and Release.

Like Payday 2, an amazing co-op shooter with light RPG elements that gives back what you put in. There is less loot, but that means that blue Regulator will look after you for hours at a time, instead of 20-30 minutes until the next drop. Perhaps some better objectives/scenarios like in Payday 2 would allay some peoples issues with repetition in the title, but at the end of the day most shooter break down into kill everything, or stay alive for x amount of time. Few are as fun as this.

Hopefully the lukewarm reception doesn't mean budgets and plans are curtailed, as I was looking forward to more regular Bungie content (As opposed to the old 2-4 year wait for SP adventures).

Desperately hoping I can get the daughter down to bed early and that the Missus has enough bad television on tonight so I can do more of that relic gametype and check out those Venus raids. (2-0 so far! Go team!).

Thanks Bungie, big love. Stop firing the people that got you where you are and ignore those reviewers. They were rushing their way through a masterpiece.

http://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/52925

I get it. I love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Fuertisimo, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:16 (3734 days ago) @ Numinar

If it was easily an objective 8/9 then it would be getting 8's and 9's. I think what you mean to say in my subjective opinion this is a pretty good game, even if in other peoples subjective opinions it scores lower.

Glad you're having fun with it.

I get it. I love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Numinar @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:47 (3734 days ago) @ Fuertisimo

No, I meant Objective. Gameplay, progression, presentation and amount and quality of content is better than most FPP games. As for narrative, I'm happy to be called dead wrong on this but a non-story (That serves gameplay) is better than a bad story, and most releases have bad stories with few exceptions.

I feel like I have played the 9/10 games that compare most obviously to Destiny, and I feel it compares to them favorably. 6/10 would be a serviceable, competent, short B grade outing. This is not it. It's not Bioshock or TLoU for Story, but those games are not Destiny for co-op, progression or second to second combat. Maybe it's not advancing games as art as the poor overworked journalists need games to be unless they are geometry wars level abstract, but in terms of delivering a whole lot of deservedly famous but somehow derided AAA Bungie shooter on a single disc/download? I don't get it.

I see the flaws. Some of them are a little painful, but they barely detract from what is, for most of the time, is a thrilling, fun, extremely polished content rich experience. Most games don't release with the quality of the alpha we played after E3. I think a lot of it is people were expecting more, but I don't know why or how people got that idea. I saw the same crappy ads, they seemed gross and overproduced and shallow and not descriptive of the game at all. Begging an alpha code due to previous Bungie loyalty demanding curiosity (but not a pre-order) is what got me on this train.

This is the first release I thought that Bungie might do me wrong since Myth:TFL. I am glad to see it hasn't.

And despite the success, the game has a lot of places where it can, and probably needs to, grow. Doesn't make it a bad game. Makes me excited for whats next from the company that previously gave us console lans, amazing co-op, online sofa, theater, Legendary difficulty, integrated stat tracking websites, the Halo universe, firefight and 5 amazing FPS campaigns in 10 years. I was really hoping that the long term investment here would build something truly amazing from a fantastic foundation that appears to me to have been delivered.

I get it. I love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Fuertisimo, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:30 (3734 days ago) @ Numinar

I guess we'll have to disagree on the meaning of objective then.

I get it. I love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Numinar @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 11:22 (3734 days ago) @ Fuertisimo

Someones got something wrong here, but happy to leave it as is. Peace!

The scores will hurt it.

by Injunfett, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:39 (3734 days ago) @ Numinar

While most hardcore gamers could care less about a metacrtitic score it's still very powerful and important in the gaming industry and with Destiny getting such low review scores it's going to hurt. While I don't think it will kill the deal with Activision cause they are already so invested it's going to hurt the player base. A lot of casuals who don't know what Destiny is will head over to Metacritic see the low score and not pick it up. The site really does have a strong influence when it comes to consumers that's why you see things like Bungie not allowing pre release reviews, and coming out with announcements telling fans reviews might not be accurate.

Destiny is Bungie and Activisions next big hit and there 10 year plan, they were hoping for this game to be as big as Call of Duty to the point that they dipped Into Call of Duty's budget to help promote the game. Right now the game has gotten a 60 from the big 3 (Gamespot, Polygon, and Giant Bomb) it's hard to build a AAA franchise on those numbers just look at Medal of Honor.

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The scores will hurt it.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:21 (3734 days ago) @ Injunfett

Destiny is Bungie and Activisions next big hit and there 10 year plan, they were hoping for this game to be as big as Call of Duty to the point that they dipped Into Call of Duty's budget to help promote the game. Right now the game has gotten a 60 from the big 3 (Gamespot, Polygon, and Giant Bomb) it's hard to build a AAA franchise on those numbers just look at Medal of Honor.

All that really matters is what the players and people who are buying it think.

With the DLC set to come in december, there are a few things that will make or break it for me. If the DLC is just additional missions in the same play spaces, then it's a bust and they will have lost me. I'm basically not going to get it unless there are new things to do, and new areas to explore. A new planet / explorable space and some new MP maps at minimum. The last piece of Bungie "DLC" that I have actually purchased was the Halo 2 Map pack, and even then I got the disc :-p

I'd love to break that trend, but if it's just a mission pack then they are in trouble from me, and a lot of players I think.

The scores will hurt it.

by Injunfett, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 12:45 (3734 days ago) @ Cody Miller

What I mean about the reviews is it will effect the impulse casual guys more than likely.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you except in my opinion unless we get some new content that we don't have to pay for before December I doubt I play much or even purchase the DLC. One of my problems with the game is I think they held to much back. I have complete faith that they have more great content that's going to expand the game and keep it alive. However the only time I purchase DLC is when I am enjoying the game and while I'm having fun now I'm not a big fan of grinding for gear.

With Halo MCC and CODAW on the way I hope they can pull it off.

What if the DLC just opens up Kings Watch etc?

by Blue_Blazer_NZ, Wellington, New Zealand, Sunday, September 14, 2014, 00:03 (3734 days ago) @ Cody Miller

- No text -

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I also get it. I also love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by kornman00, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:49 (3734 days ago) @ Numinar

People need to understand that Destiny REQUIRES the player base to be as fun as it is. This is more than likely one of the major reasons why fucking Rare+ loot is actually fucking Rare+.

It's been really annoying hearing some people gripe about not getting some rare crap after EVERY single Crucible game. It doesn't give you a chance to use and upgrade your existing stuff. Nor does it help to keep you in the game in the long run. What good is Destiny if people get their character up to max level within a week of the game, and their inventory/vault is maxed out with Exotic crap? No good comes out of that other than to please those lacking access to ritalin. They will just *move* on to another game shortly after at that rate.

The pace in Destiny is just right. There's 3 classes to play with 3 subclasses to rank up. Each class even has its own armor. When it comes time to level these space dudes/dudets and their bits up, there's multiple alien factions to strike and fight against that are unique as well.

Not having everything open or "unlocked" on the first day I think helps enforce the pace which Bungie is trying to get the player to follow. But there lies the problem they need to address to reviewers/players. They're trying to break the status quo of pre-Destiny games while seemingly expecting the masses to *understand* and accept this. You can only build *up* so high before it becomes infeasible to go higher, which means you have to start thinking/expanding laterally. This is how the content in the game is laid out.

Anyway, I like to think that those without a narrow view are still stuck in Destiny to raise their head up and see what words the echoing chamber of the internets is sounding off, before letting their own be heard (like I am now). I mean, Bungie can actively see and analyze the numbers of the game and its players, and don't appear to be trying to form any 'damage control' just yet.

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I also get it. I also love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:26 (3734 days ago) @ kornman00
edited by Cody Miller, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:48

Not having everything open or "unlocked" on the first day I think helps enforce the pace which Bungie is trying to get the player to follow. But there lies the problem they need to address to reviewers/players. They're trying to break the status quo of pre-Destiny games while seemingly expecting the masses to *understand* and accept this. You can only build *up* so high before it becomes infeasible to go higher, which means you have to start thinking/expanding laterally. This is how the content in the game is laid out.

It's my opinion that games like this are bad. If your game requires holding the player back from playing and tackling challenges at their own pace, and making high level play all about repetition and tedium, then there is something wrong with your genre. This is why MMOs are bad, and this is why ultimately Destiny is a bad game. It's a bad game with fun mechanics, so it's in a weird place. Everything you talk about only serves to frustrate, and hold back a player. The only thing holding someone back from tackling the challenges your game has to offer should be their mastery and understanding of the game.

I also get it. I also love it. Hope Metacritic wont hurt it.

by Numinar @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 11:43 (3734 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I haven't got to any of the closed content or felt limited yet. Feels like halo with more loading screens and a but of free-form mission selection. I played a few games of the limited 3v3 playlist in crucible already and I will be sad to see that gametype pass, but it's cool how they will manipulate and force the MP population into certain hoppers as opposed to having 1 or 2 of the bland hoppers out of 20 actually populated properly.

Game has to be judged without the raid and this other nonsense, that should be gravy. Judge it by what it is now (which I think is great in the areas that count).

I am mad for Warframe and Payday 2, those are some of my favorite games, unique in many ways, and better than Destiny in others. They are not as good as Destiny though for co-op action-shooter lootery.

I actually agree with everyone who hates it, just like I agree with everyone who hates Halo and push this revisionist PCMR/Playstation fanboy opinion of that game being a mediocre console kiddy pile of junk. It's not for them, fine. It's not what they want. (Don't worry, cookie cutter 3rd person adventure/weird janky Japanese game is out soon!) What it is, is really, really good. They have made a game for a certain kind of person and it's really good for that kind of person. If I'm the only one I am really, really lucky. But I know I am not, with at least 3 co-workers still invested after over dozen hours, and in one case 3 times that. Not much maybe, but more than any 6/10 game would get.

So all these mediocre reviews (which talk about how awesome the PvP and moment to moment gameplay is which is the majority of the game) make absolute sense I guess. Why do games with good stories and so-so gameplay get better reviews? I love a good book or roller-coaster. But good games should be recognised as such. Is destiny a bad game? A phoned in mediocre contractually obligated safe playing nothing? I was ready for it to be one, but it isn't. It takes risks, it executes, it goes light in some departments, but it's not a B grade forgettable experience for everyone.

PSN:Numinar, logging on now!

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I don't understand.

by Funkmon @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 13:17 (3734 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Let's think about Halo 2. You speedrunned the shit out of that game with an 8 hour campaign. You (and most of the rest of us) must have spent hundreds of hours in that game. This game has at least 50% more stuff in it than the single player part of Halo 2, plus rewards for those nutjobs like us who may spend far too much time in the game.

Imagine if in the bridge part of Delta Halo, sometimes a big group of other dudes showed up to take down the tanks on the other side. That's cool, right?

When you repeat this game a dozen times, you get something for it. When you repeat Halo and Halo 2, you don't get anything. It just seems like an all right system. Plus, you get to go through it with different skills. How is this a bad game?

I honestly want to know. I respect your opinion. Before I knew you hated the game, I joked to Narc and Kermit that I wanted to see you take down a level 24 boss with just the first weapon in the game. Like SMG love 10 years later. Makes me sad.

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I don't understand.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 14:20 (3734 days ago) @ Funkmon

Let's think about Halo 2. You speedrunned the shit out of that game with an 8 hour campaign. You (and most of the rest of us) must have spent hundreds of hours in that game. This game has at least 50% more stuff in it than the single player part of Halo 2, plus rewards for those nutjobs like us who may spend far too much time in the game.

Imagine if in the bridge part of Delta Halo, sometimes a big group of other dudes showed up to take down the tanks on the other side. That's cool, right?

When you repeat this game a dozen times, you get something for it. When you repeat Halo and Halo 2, you don't get anything. It just seems like an all right system. Plus, you get to go through it with different skills. How is this a bad game?

I honestly want to know. I respect your opinion. Before I knew you hated the game, I joked to Narc and Kermit that I wanted to see you take down a level 24 boss with just the first weapon in the game. Like SMG love 10 years later. Makes me sad.

Speedrunning became less and less fun, and now I don't do it at all. I've explained why on here, and basically it's that it's not fun in and of itself, and you are just breaking the game down to the bare essentials stripping it of aesthetic enjoyment, rather than engaging with everything the game has to offer. It's repetitive, and a lot of work for nothing ultimately.

As for Destiny having more stuff, it is an issue of quality vs quantity. Halo had less, but what it had was of higher quality. Why Destiny's campaign missions were less substantial has everything to do with Bungie's attempt at an MMO / shared world design with seamless drop in / out matchmaking. I'll explain next week when I write up my analysis.

The bottom line is that Destiny needed more different unique places that may be smaller, rather than a few big ones.

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I'm right there with you, friend

by JDQuackers ⌂ @, McMurray, PA, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 17:48 (3734 days ago) @ Numinar

I can't get enough.

This game is a perfect shoot n' loot, wrapped up in flawless Bungie gun play, with an impressively massive arsenal.

The story is lacking, sure--but the game is exactly what I was expecting. There's so much to do, and it's all awesome

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