Pete's Thoughts of Dark Below So far (No spoils) (Destiny)

by petetheduck, Tuesday, December 09, 2014, 07:36 (3873 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by petetheduck, Tuesday, December 09, 2014, 07:50

Hope you don't mind me joining in. Megathread form up on Cody?

- Commendations are rubbish. I thought maybe they would be an alternative to Marks; a weapon might cost 1 Commendation instead of 150 Marks. No, they cost 1 Commendation AND 150 Marks. Commendations are just meant to slow progress, nothing more.

I took a brief tour of the Vanguard and FWC vendors this morning and wasn't impressed, but I don't think vendor items are meant to compete with Raid gear. So, meh.

- Eris' ship is okay. Not as impressive as that of the Queen's Emissary. It just doesn't feel like an impactful addition to the Tower.

- The story missions felt like an appetizer for Crota's End, especially with the introduction of new mechanics that I expect to encounter again in the Raid (for which I am avoiding spoilers). Some of these new mechanics can really ruin a guardian's day, especially the one at the end of the first story mission.

I was playing hard solo and was fighting for survival in the final encounters in the first and third mission. The third mission has hints of The Last Array, minus the chance to catch your breath. The second had a more forgiving arena, where I was able to set up a defensive position. Nice music, though.

- Regarding new geometry, the second story mission and strike feature spaces already revealed by tricksters during the Destiny Beta. The third story mission features a very nice linear space that I enjoyed exploring and had not seen before--it felt like it belonged in a strike. It made me even more excited for taking on the Raid.

- There doesn't seem to be a way to replay these missions from the Director, which is odd (unless I'm overlooking something?). The Quest design, returning to the Tower constantly to talk to Eris, just slowed things down and didn't really contribute anything to the experience or seem to add any value. I guess Bungie was trying to give the community something that felt like a cohesive story through this linear design, but I was happy with the original Director approach to mission availability. These missions felt as disjointed as everything else in Destiny; one didn't lead into the next, they could have been done in any order.

- The strike was a blast. As a level 30, the first playthrough was only available at level 26. There seemed to be a significant increase in the numbers of enemies compared to other strikes and between my Firefly/Explosive Rounds Calling, Hezen Vengeance, and Nova Bomb, things were blowing up everywhere. Very fun; I never felt like I ran into a bullet sponge wall like the Devil's Lair's. Just Fallen and Hive and explosions. The thralls pouring out of those doorways made me excited for the Raid, again. I was throwing Nova Bombs and hiding inside their vortex just to catch my breath.

- The target patrol bounties Eris gives were fun. I would love to see the bounty experience become a kind of scripted patrol, where you're given bounties like the planet harvest, XP goal, and a few kill targets. You land on the planet and then work your way through all of the bounties in a single session.

- Does Eris sell anything worth buying? Looks like I might need some upgrade materials from her after Raiding, but that's about it. Nice that there's an exchange for Raid upgrade materials, from one type to another. Again, there are other solutions to that problem, like not requiring materials, but hey.

- I got Murmur. Absolutely underwhelmed.