I think you just ruined Destiny for me. :(

I agreed with a lot of what Snipe said, but that doesn't mean it's ruined Destiny for me; you can be disappointed in the things that didn't meet your expectations and still enjoy the game. I was disappointed with Halo: Reach, but I still really enjoyed it.

Regarding customization: I believe Bungie only showed a tiny taste. Shaders, exploration, new gizmos, whatever.

What I have been hoping for doesn't seem likely to happen: that either individual players or, failing that, clans can customise their emblems. That doesn't seem to be something they have in mind for Destiny, having been dropped in favour of pre-built emblems that you can unlock.

That's vastly inferior to the logo system of all the Halo games since Halo 2 in my opinion, since players are constrained in two ways: the options they have available to them (a smaller range, since most options need to be unlocked), and the options they actually like. I understand the desire to make some options unlockable (cosmetic rewards as well as item upgrades), but I'd have much preferred something similar to Diablo 3's banner system: you have a palette of design components from which you can create your own emblem (like the Halo series) but various components are unlocked throughout the game, for achievements mostly.

I'm interested to see how the shader system will work, but I'm slightly concerned that limited availability of the rarer shaders combined with personal preference will result in a shallow range of actual appearances. The beta felt very identikit with players of each class all looking more or less the same. Time will tell if that is true at release too.

Whoa there, that's a bit extreme, isn't it? The goal there is to piss them off so they don't play as well. Wouldn't repeatedly taking their heads off with my sniper accomplish the same thing? Should I get banned for that, too? Be realistic.

No, you be realistic. Being good at a video game is not the same as telling someone they suck or worse. That you're even defending this is pretty sad.

As for the rest, I disagree entirely.

One. it is not a free kill meter.

That's exactly what it is. When it fills up, you can use your super to get free kills.

Nova Bomb has a limited range and is dodgeable.

Dodgeable how, exactly? There's no dodge button. No evade. If the user aims anywhere near you, you're dead.

Fist of Havock has roughly the range of a grenade requiring someone to get next to you to use it.

Yep. They get next to you, and instantly kill you. 3 people taking the objective you're covering? Facing certain death? No worries, Power Fist© has you covered! Instantly fry all of those idiots with just the touch of a button!

I think as I get better straight up dodging Supers will increasingly become part of my strategy.

I'd love to hear how you plan to do this.

About the Supers, except for the Golden Gun, I actually got pretty good at dodging them once I set my mind to it, as opposed to just giving up and embrace the hurt.

If you double-jump (for speed) away from from a Titan (to his/her sides is more consistent, in my experience) as soon as he/she does the Fist jump, you might even be able to escape without a single pixel of damage. I've done it consistently on the last two days of Crucible, failing much less than a third of the times I tried.

Now, Nova Bomb is a bit harder, especially if it has the tracking perk, but sprinting away when the Warlock charges up (thumbstick sensitivity should be pretty high to let you turn away fast) allied with a double jump when the Nova Bomb actually approaches works. I'm not gonna lie, it worked for me only a handful of times when they were 1v1 with me, but at least it wasn't 100% guaranteed to kill me. But when they weren't specifically aiming at me, it was pretty easy to escape the blast zone like this.

Likewise those that abuse speech or teabag should be banned.

Whoa there, that's a bit extreme, isn't it? The goal there is to piss them off so they don't play as well. Wouldn't repeatedly taking their heads off with my sniper accomplish the same thing? Should I get banned for that, too? Be realistic.

Well, if you already excel at the latter, why do you need to verbally abuse people? I mean, I'm all for proximity chat, but verbal abuse with the intent of disrupting a person's peace of mind is very douchy, IMO.

In the first mission Thralls did indeed rush.

Thralls weren't in the first mission. I did say, though, that Thralls rushed. It just doesn't matter since they're so weak. One shot and done.

In the strike Dreg, cloaked Vandals, and Shanks would all rush at various times along with a mini-boss level Captan.

That actually was a case of you being in their assigned spot. They weren't rushing you, they were just heading to the place they were supposed to go. The place you were whittling away at the tanks health from. Those guys were there to provide you ammo, since you're going to be doing a lot of leg shooting. Or eyeball shooting. Same situation with both bosses.

There's also some knife only Vandals out in the world of Old Russia. During the Spider Tank public event I was fighting it alone one time and got nicely flanked by both Shanks and Vandals to the point I was hoping help would arrive to bail me out. On the Moon the Fallen did a decent job of entering the first complex and coming after us and at the Temple of Crota it was one big rush as several enemies spilled out to greet us. (While awesome music blared!)

Maybe you just didn't play enough or didn't set the difficulty high on the Strike?

I played plenty. 40 something story missions, did the Strike 14 times, and ~15 explore sessions. I made sure I was thorough. I also always made sure the difficulty was set to its highest setting, but that doesn't do much. Enemies are a higher level, which means they have more health, and I do less damage. It didn"t change their tactics or behaviors. The only result of bumping up the difficulty was that it took a little longer.

One. it is not a free kill meter.

That's exactly what it is. When it fills up, you can use your super to get free kills.

Nova Bomb has a limited range and is dodgeable.

Dodgeable how, exactly? There's no dodge button. No evade. If the user aims anywhere near you, you're dead.

Fist of Havock has roughly the range of a grenade requiring someone to get next to you to use it.

Yep. They get next to you, and instantly kill you. 3 people taking the objective you're covering? Facing certain death? No worries, Power Fist© has you covered! Instantly fry all of those idiots with just the touch of a button!

Golden Gun has around a ten second window of opportunity and puts a lot of pressure on its user to make every shot count.

Yeah, ten seconds to be God. How stressful. Ten seconds where you can kill anything in one shot just by shooting in the general vicinity of it. I don't know if I'd be able to handle that much pressure. /sarc

Powerful? Yes. But really not much more so than having a sniper or shotgun with you at all times.

Right, and it's not nearly as bad. Spawning with whatever you want is a much bigger problem than supers. Doesn't mean supers are okay.

With the recharge on the Super you can and will almost certainly do more damage with your special weapon that you will your Super during a match.

Absolutely, and that's why choosing whatever weapon you want is a much bigger problem than supers.

Two. You weren't playing Halo.

Obviously.

You were playing Destiny.

Unfortunately.

The rules are different. The game is different. Knowing what class of enemy you are fighting is part of the strategy.

What class the enemies were was completely irrelevant. They can all activate their free kills at any time, regardless of class.

Staying mobile and off the capture points unless you have a good reason to be on them is part of the strategy.

Playing the objective seems like a good reason.

I think as I get better straight up dodging Supers will increasingly become part of my strategy.

I'd love to hear how you plan to do this.

I'm also very much looking forward to the day when my Titan can counter the offensive Supers with his Ward of Dawn bubble shield (how is something a free kill meter if the thing it activates is non-lethal?) forming a very interesting counter strategy.

They're putting the bubble shield in? Frackin hell. Well, I guess at that point, it becomes a free invincibility meter. Not a whole lot better.

Besides it wasn't like there weren't very quick deaths in Halo. It's my opinion that the sniper rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher in Halo are cheap free-kill weapons.

To get those weapons you have to fight for them in Halo. You pay for them in blood. You do not have to earn your super. It is given to you for free.

Instead of fighting me equal to equal people sometimes killed me with those one shot weapons and there was little I could do about it.

You could try killing them and taking it for yourself. Then they won't have it and you can kill them while they try to take it back.

Some of those weapons were just leaning against a nearby wall near the enemy's spawn point at the start of the match. And they came back every couple of minutes.

If they get one at the start of the match, then so does your team. If Blue sniper loses to Red's, then Red sniper has earned a few seconds of uncontested killing. Once someone on Blue picks their sniper back up, Red has to fight for the right to party again.

If you really truly want games to be skill vs skill you shouldn't allow any power weapons and should keep everyone absolutely equal at all times.

The skill in power weapons comes from acquiring them (and knowing how to use them, obviously). Start stripping everything out of the game and you're getting into MLG thinking. No variance isn't fun. My issue isn't that there are power weapons or supers in Destiny, it's how you get them. There's no risk/reward. You just have them.

I have to get my aim on you before you get yours on me.

This applies to every online shooter. It is the first advantage a player can get in a single engagement. How much it matters depends on the time to kill. If short, then whoever sees who first is probably going to win. If longer like Halo/Gears, then whoever gets jumped has a chance to come back.

I have to keep my aim on you longer than you keep it on me.

Also applies to all shooters.

The kill times may be shorter in some cases but you still have to be more skilled than the other person. Plus now you're under increased time pressure. I'm not convinced it doesn't all average out.

They're shorter in all cases, wich takes less personal aiming skill and gives the person being attacked no chance to counter. You're not under increased time pressure because before you know you're being shot, you're dead.

It's not a sound tactic because it should not be a tactic at all.

Whether it should be or not doesn't change that it is.

Back in my middle school days a tactic to avoid losing at Starcraft in our weekly computer class games was to walk over and switch off one of the enemy's computers... But anybody that did it was no allowed to play from then on and next time.

That's not comparable at all. Turning off the computer ends their game completely. Yelling at them and telling them they suck doesn't stop them from playing.

Likewise those that abuse speech or teabag should be banned.

Whoa there, that's a bit extreme, isn't it? The goal there is to piss them off so they don't play as well. Wouldn't repeatedly taking their heads off with my sniper accomplish the same thing? Should I get banned for that, too? Be realistic.

We don't know we've seen all the gun. The enemy has access to named mortar launchers and tracking projectile gun, and as others have said it's been hinted that there may be more alien weapons in the game for Guardians to use. It may turn out to be a false rumor but right now it's too early to judge Destiny's complete weapon set.

Well I'd say that's some pretty good evidence. We'll have to wait and see, though.

How many guns did Marathon have?

M1 has seven, if you count fists as their own weapon:

Fists
Magnum
AR
Fusion Pistol
SPNKR
Flamethrower
Alien Weapon

I think Halo 1 had more than 9.

The original game has eight player-usable weapons:

Pistol
AR
Shotgun
Sniper
SPNKR
PP
PR
Needler

I was thinking about this whole thing more, and it's still not of much help, you know? Okay, so let's assume we see it pulsating or whatever on that guy in that enclosed tunnel area on Venus. That guy could have hit his triggers and activated it. The dude who killed him in that gif would have been dead. Why? Warlock has a ranged blast, Titan Hulk Smash leaps at you, and in the case of the Hunter, if they activate that before rounding the corner, all they have to do is fire in the general area of your pinky toe, miss, and still get the kill. Dunno.

Supers are whack, and seeing them coming from a distance is about the only way to survive them aside from just dumb luck. I found myself really only surviving them when in a Pike, Interceptor, or on the Sparrow. And by surviving, I mean against Titan and Warlock only.

I agree that the indicator isn't much help. I didn't even know it was there so for me it was no help. Even knowing about it I think you'll do far better buy assuming a Super and guarding against it by using your radar, keeping some distance, and avoiding running into tunnels than by spending time looking for a somewhat hard to see indicator.

Supers are whack, and seeing them coming from a distance is about the only way to survive them aside from just dumb luck. I found myself really only surviving them when in a Pike, Interceptor, or on the Sparrow. And by surviving, I mean against Titan and Warlock only.

It's just far too easy all around. So yes, your general players might get more kills because Bungie is highly catering to them, but that doesn't mean that the really good players won't also benefit big time by the ability to kill easier.

That's because everybody was level 8? You were playing with pretty much everybody. I'd hope that in the final the matching algorithm would put you with players near your skill.

Nope. Level in Destiny has proven not to matter beyond what gear you have, and even then that only really matters in Iron Banner. I was using a very, very weak gun in Crucible that I got well before level 8 that had a higher Impact stat. Doesn't matter if I was playing with pretty much everyone, because again, levels don't matter since you get those based on random play experience and not from any actual skill. I could get to level 20 just by playing nothing but Story mode, hop into Crucible, and continue to rock people as I was.

As to your last part, I'd like to hope that they have some way of matching me based on skill, too, assuming they can determine it based on the extreme lack of balance, ease of kills/death, and balance issues.

It was more about how enemies acted. I could just sit back and shoot their heads to win, in every situation. They never rushed me or anything like that (except Thralls, but they're so weak that they never even got near me). They would sometimes take cover, but that didn't matter since they would keep poking their heads out and letting me shoot them

In the first mission Thralls did indeed rush. In the strike Dreg, cloaked Vandals, and Shanks would all rush at various times along with a mini-boss level Captan. There's also some knife only Vandals out in the world of Old Russia. During the Spider Tank public event I was fighting it alone one time and got nicely flanked by both Shanks and Vandals to the point I was hoping help would arrive to bail me out. On the Moon the Fallen did a decent job of entering the first complex and coming after us and at the Temple of Crota it was one big rush as several enemies spilled out to greet us. (While awesome music blared!)

Maybe you just didn't play enough or didn't set the difficulty high on the Strike?

I do not deserve to die because somebody's free kill meter is charged, and I happen to be in the area.

One. it is not a free kill meter. Nova Bomb has a limited range and is dodgeable. Fist of Havock has roughly the range of a grenade requiring someone to get next to you to use it. Golden Gun has around a ten second window of opportunity and puts a lot of pressure on its user to make every shot count. Powerful? Yes. But really not much more so than having a sniper or shotgun with you at all times. With the recharge on the Super you can and will almost certainly do more damage with your special weapon that you will your Super during a match.

Two. You weren't playing Halo. You were playing Destiny. The rules are different. The game is different. Knowing what class of enemy you are fighting is part of the strategy. Staying mobile and off the capture points unless you have a good reason to be on them is part of the strategy. I think as I get better straight up dodging Supers will increasingly become part of my strategy. I'm also very much looking forward to the day when my Titan can counter the offensive Supers with his Ward of Dawn bubble shield (how is something a free kill meter if the thing it activates is non-lethal?) forming a very interesting counter strategy.

Besides it wasn't like there weren't very quick deaths in Halo. It's my opinion that the sniper rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher in Halo are cheap free-kill weapons. Instead of fighting me equal to equal people sometimes killed me with those one shot weapons and there was little I could do about it. Some of those weapons were just leaning against a nearby wall near the enemy's spawn point at the start of the match. And they came back every couple of minutes.

If you really truly want games to be skill vs skill you shouldn't allow any power weapons and should keep everyone absolutely equal at all times.

With a higher time to kill, people have to keep their aim on target longer to get kills. It takes more skill to do so. Lower time to kill means individual aiming skill is less of a factor in who wins an encounter.

I have to get my aim on you before you get yours on me. I have to keep my aim on you longer than you keep it on me. The kill times may be shorter in some cases but you still have to be more skilled than the other person. Plus now you're under increased time pressure. I'm not convinced it doesn't all average out.

In campaign though, any damage the Sparrow took was permanent. That could be different in multiplayer

I didn't take the time to test it. The Pikes and Interceptor certainly stayed at some level of damage. Whether they recharge any or not is still up in the air as far as I know.

Hey now, I don't do it. I'm not going to deny that it's a sound tactic, though.

It's not a sound tactic because it should not be a tactic at all. Back in my middle school days a tactic to avoid losing at Starcraft in our weekly computer class games was to walk over and switch off one of the enemy's computers... But anybody that did it was no allowed to play from then on and next time. Likewise those that abuse speech or teabag should be banned.

I really would have to see how much variance these high tier weapons have, so no comment. As for the examples you listed, that's just not enough. Think about the difference between a plasma pistol and the needler. Or the shotgun and BR. THOSE are different guns to me.

We don't know we've seen all the gun. The enemy has access to named mortar launchers and tracking projectile gun, and as others have said it's been hinted that there may be more alien weapons in the game for Guardians to use. It may turn out to be a false rumor but right now it's too early to judge Destiny's complete weapon set.

Well that was a lot. Do you feel better now that you got it all out? ;)

A bit. The thought of all the replying I have to do now is a little overwhelming, though.

Interesting points and thoughts in your post. Some I agree with, some I don't, some that didn't apply to me.

I'll cut your multiplayer portion because I largely agree and have nothing to add.

Enemies

You bring up an interesting point about the enemies and personalities. Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones? I can recall SEVERAL times where I was a level 8, and I'd run up on two lone level 2 Dregs in explore mode and they'd run away from me.

Likely taking cover, not fleeing from you.

I also recall a couple of times where I had a Thrall (Flood zombie)cower from me, like it would shake it's head and cower. It's possible that is NOT what it was doing, and I couldn't duplicate it, but I swear it happened once I greased a bunch of his friends or something.

Sounds like a glitch. Not something I experienced.

As for the rest of the enemies... you've got a point. I can't recall any of the other enemies at any other time really doing anything other than staying in their little areas. Sometimes a Knight would pull up a shield when I was donging on him from afar, but he'd just stay there. If I did that shit to a Hunter in Halo, he starts walking towards you to make you regret it.

Plus, you can't one shot a Hunter with your sniper (Halo 3-onward).

The Tank was boring, and just like a scarab but smaller. Shoot leg, fall down, shoot glowy part for extra damage.

Now for the Sphere boss (Sepiks Prime) I had a way different experience, but I was running all over the map too, so maybe that made a difference? Basically, he'd follow me everywhere and turn on his vacuum beam and kill me if he got me in a corner. Lol, there was one time he was with the two randoms, and I was donking on him from afar and he just tele-ported away. I looked for him and could not find him, then I looked up, and then I died. I thought that was pretty fun haha. But other than that, he was no different from the little guys and ultimately just took longer to kill.

Maybe I was too busy to notice, but looking back, I see it now. They were pretty bland. I hope that was just beta being beta.

Something like that isn't going to change from beta. Especially with only a month to release. Look at how much changed from the H3 and Reach betas. Not much, and that was with four months between beta and release.

Weapons

Everything seems the same to me. A rifle is a rifle is a rifle blah blah blah. I had the same feeling of overload that I did the first time I played MW2 where it was like "Oh shit, how do I know what guns are the good guns? There are so many guns...they all look the same and yet are slightly different! What do I use?".

I don't think it's CoD level bad, but yeah. I see the similarity.

I didn't bother looking at names- I won't remember that shit. I found one I liked later on that was basically the DMR from Reach. That was my favorite. Then I found that same gun, but it was named differently for some raisin, but the only thing that was noticeably different was a larger mag. Hooray!

Same thing, different name.

I said the same thing about alien weapons. Hopefully you can use them later, and they were just hiding that for the beta. I noticed that when I got killed by enemies that it would tell me the name of what they used to kill me. That bodes well I think.

Hopefully. Alien weapons always seem to be the most creative. Which makes sense.

Melee pisses me the fuck off and I played as Titan, so I should have loved it right?

Eh, I dunno. Melee felt pretty solid to me. Maybe a little too much lunge, but I'm used to that by now. Doesn't make it okay, I've just stopped noticing it.

Well I play sneaky. Multiple times I would sneak up on a group of Fallen, and I'd melee them in the back and it wouldn't insta kill them. This needs to be a thing. Maybe not for Captains and larger boss type enemies, but I should be able to ninja pretty much any lower type of enemy, regardless of level. Also, why no assassinations? The hunter knife in particular begs for it! It's not like Microsoft and Halo own the term or action- what gives??

Every time I tried to be stealthy, I would always be noticed when I got within five feet of my target. Even if I didn't make a sound, and none of them could possibly see me, they would instantly turn around and start blasting.

I like the type-damage mechanic- very Metroid Prime-ish. I like that certain races are move vulnerable to certain types, but that should apply to more than shields. That mechanic does encourage variety in weapon use, which is a good thing. However, in the beta, with fusion rifles for example it just meant that I used the exact same gun (3 slots) but with a different buff on each one. That's not exactly variety. That's like a peanut butter sandwich with white, wheat, or other. It's still a sandwich.

I didn't know what any of that meant, and it never seemed to matter. Bad guys went down equally fast if it was a fire weapon or a water weapon.

Art Style and world stuff: I must be missing something, but this game does not feel or look like Halo to me. It SOUNDS like Halo, but that is it, to me. Old Russia didn't wow me, but was nice to look at. The Moon however was fan-freakin-tastic and I want to go back. Did you get to do the moon? The hive stuff actually had atmosphere and was very crypt-like. Also, are they called Hive "Tube" or Hive "Tomb" ships? Anywho, that area was cool and exploring it with Paddy and Bones was the highlight of the Beta for me. I've got a good feeling for the rest.

The feel like Halo comment was about gameplay. Not the art.
Yep, I went to the moon. Reminded me a lot of Gears 2. Old Russia reminded me of Jacinto, as well.

I think the characters look stupid as hell. I don't get the obsession with capes and pieces of cloth with clashing colors and emblems on my character. I don't get the tribal face paints yet future everything else. I don't get the Decepticon looking Space ships. Why should I spend money one one? So I can look at it? It doesn't do anything. Why should I care about it?

I agree on human characters. Hated 'em. I liked the alien designs, though. Especially the Captains.

I have to disagree with most of your story complaints because there is much more to see, and hopefully the dead ghost\grimore cards fill in gaps and make you want "more". As long as I don't have to leave the game to go read them.

I didn't have any story complaints, so I don't see how you could disagree with them.

There are no characters I feel close to, or care about. When you are in a fire team with other players and you advance in the story, the cutscene only shows YOU. YOU are the center. YOU are the nexus. YOU are the only thing that matters, and thats fucking stupid. When Paddy + Bones + I play, I didn't see their characters. THEY were the ones who completed the end mission objective, yet I'm the one getting thanked?

May have been too much work to animate the other two players. Idk, but I agree it would have been cooler if your friends were in the cutscene with you.

C'mon. Halo 3 and Reach did this much better. Everybody was included, even if it was minor.

I don't remember anyone but Chief being in H3's cutscenes, with the occasional Arbiter. Those red and blue elites were never there, IIRC.

In Reach, I remember that only one player was in cutscenes. the only thing like that was whoever lasted longest during the last mission was the one in the cutscene (I think).

My Musings.

Destiny IS an MMO. I don't care who says otherwise. It has all the grindy bits that make it one. Your sole motivator outside of the story is a quest for stuff. It's still fun, but I don't know why. I don't like that we can't get more than 3-6 in a group. I was REALLY looking forward to getting 16 of us together and just steam-rolling the countryside, but it is not to be.

Never played an MMO. Can't really comment on that one.

Yet for such a social game, it's the least social thing I've played in a lot of respects.

Doesn't even let people talk to each other.

I'm getting it, but I'm not worried about day 1, pre-orders or any of that stuff. I want to play more campaign with you guys, and that's pretty much it.

See you in November.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that Destiny doesn't want you to fail. Destiny wants everyone to do well, everyone to be a winner. That's why they don't show you deaths, you get supers for just standing and a sure kill if you can just point in someones general direction. It wants you to get multi-kills and to feel like a tank (in MP and solo). There is no penalty for death. The only times that there was any, was the no-respawn campaign zones, and hoping that my random teammates didn't die. Sometimes that was tense. Beyond that, I did get the feeling that something was off. It felt too easy. Even with difficulty bumped up as high as it would let me, all that really did was make things more bullet spongy. The enemies didn't really get smarter.

Again, I hope most of that was beta being beta. We'll see!

This close to ship? Don't count on it.

Also, I don't know who this Tyrion person is.

Peter Dinklage plays Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones. My Ghost's name was Tyrion.

Meh. I think you rationalized away the Destiny unit’s protections. Fallen Captains are very much like Elites.

Right, except the Captain's shields don't matter much since you always have a power weapon.

Hive Knights can form an invincible shield.

Yes, and it heals them, too. Although, I can always one-shot them on account of the power weapons thing.

I expect the Cabal units with big shields to act somewhat like Hunters, and who knows what the Vex do.

Exactly, we don't know how they'll be. That's why I only complained about the Fallen and Hive.

Are there a couple more units in all of Halo than in the Destiny beta that require a second step for an easy kill? Perhaps. But you’re blowing that small difference way out of proportion.

It's no small difference, every enemy in Destiny (at least Fallen and Hive) is most efficiently fought the same way. Every enemy in Halo had something about them that made them unique, and mixed up the combat.

The Beta was limited to a low level cap and what seemed to be tutorial level missions. It seems foolish to judge the entirety of Destiny by it, just as one wouldn’t judge all of Halo by its first level.

It was more about how enemies acted. I could just sit back and shoot their heads to win, in every situation. They never rushed me or anything like that (except Thralls, but they're so weak that they never even got near me). They would sometimes take cover, but that didn't matter since they would keep poking their heads out and letting me shoot them.

At the very least you can shoot off the four shot blue pulse launcher. Doesn’t completely address your boss complaint, but… well woe to those that use the term “only option.” :)

Right, and that's good. Imagine though if shooting off that pulse launcher angered it and it started chasing you. Then you have to shoot the legs while avoiding shots until he stumbles, allowing you to shoot it in the power core on its rear. Or, you could jump on top of the tank, shoot off the hatch, and toss in a nade. Killing the occupants (assuming there are occupants). Wouldn't that be way more fun than shooting his legs for 15 minutes?

This one I agree with a bit. But then I also don’t want the world permanently depopulated by the fireteam in front of me.

In a story mission, there are no fireteams in front of you. I did say they should respawn in explore, just maybe not as much.

I’ve seen enemies taunt when they’ve shot me off a sparrow. Lower class enemies will often flee and hide if you beat their handlers. Are their emotions less obvious? Of course, it’s pretty hard to beat “Leader dead! Run away!” I think the emotional states of surprised, afraid, taunting, etc are present, however. I’m going to have to play more to really get a feel if they unit’s individual actions are under exposed or not grand enough to notice. It is possible that they are…

I was never taunted, and I think some of you guys are confusing taking cover for fleeing. It would be cool if they could speak broken english to taunt you or beg for mercy.

I agree there should be more options. I think the way it was in the beta is an ok default, especially for a T rated game.

Like I said, as long as there is a quick and easy way to mute people or turn it off altogether, I don't see a problem.

Yeah, completely disagree here. I’ve already gone into why. To quickly repeat though, there is a massive difference between a player succeeding where they shouldn’t and someone outplaying you. The first would be someone killing you via a glitch, or bug, or cheat. The second is them being better at Destiny than you in that particular encounter.

I deserve to die if someone out-snipes me, or if I get out shot in a one on one battle. Or if multiple opponents are sticking together and get the jump on me while I'm alone.

I do not deserve to die because somebody's free kill meter is charged, and I happen to be in the area.

Don’t get shot from behind? Ok, that’s a bit tongue in cheek, but it’s a different game. In my experience, in that I frequently used Scout Rifles or Hand Cannons for my primary gun, I had to use about the same amount of aiming as I do in Halo with a DMR. Perhaps a bit more since the enemy could kill me quicker with their Auto Rifles. A missed shot by me was probably a bit more disastrous in Destiny than in Halo… I guess I’m not seeing the lack of emphasis on aiming that you are…

With a higher time to kill, people have to keep their aim on target longer to get kills. It takes more skill to do so. Lower time to kill means individual aiming skill is less of a factor in who wins an encounter.

I agree. This may become a problem. The “don’t take A” thing was already being used during the Beta… As discussed before, I don’t think you having unlimited sniper ammo is that big a deal since Destiny gives your enemies tools to better avoid, approach, and engage you.

In Destiny I was almost unstoppable. I had unlimited sniper ammo, and even if I was killed, I'd be right back at it 10 seconds later. In Gears or Halo, I first have to earn my guns by fighting for control of where they spawn. Then I get 10-12 shots. If someone kills me, then now they have the gun, and it's my job to get it back. When the ammo runs out, everyone has to wait a couple minutes before the gun respawns, then we fight over it again and the cycle repeats.

I didn’t have quite the problem with the Interceptor that others had, but admittedly this is because I chose a “Run away! Run away!” strategy at all times.

Smart move.

The aiming shape I think referred to its proximity fuse. In the full game Interceptor pilots will need to be more accurate because the missiles will be less likely to airburst near enemy Guardians.

That makes sense. A good decision, then.

My guess is something close to the health tiers model. The Interceptor seemed to gain a player’s shields, but damaging one especially severely did seem to help the next person take it out even if it had time to recharge.

In campaign though, any damage the Sparrow took was permanent. That could be different in multiplayer.

What you call broken I call a different game. Supers did charge significantly faster if you captured points and got kills to the point I think I got supered twice by the same guy in one match before my super was ready, so there is a positive reinforcement to playing well and using the supers well. If one Super had dominated I would have had a problem but I thought they came out surprisingly well balanced to each other all things considered.

Okay, I guess they can be balanced against each other. That doesn't mean they're balanced with the rest of the sandbox.

If that’s your attitude then I’m glad you aren’t buying the game. What’s a good strategy and what is appropriate or sportsmanlike are two very different things. Yelling and tea-bagging are unacceptable in my book. Period. (Using the dance emote in Destiny is just fine however)

Hey now, I don't do it. I'm not going to deny that it's a sound tactic, though.

As others have said, color options were in the Alpha (apparently) and will be in the final game.

That's good, but, people complained about having to unlock emblems in H4. This is a whole new level!

Red vs. Blue began with a crosshair on the hud, didn’t it? I would be fairly surprised if Bungie did not include some helpful things for machinima though. We’ll see I guess…

Red vs Blue was started in the infancy of machinima, though. I don't see that going over well these days.

Again, I think silence is a good default, especially when some think angering other players is a good strategy.

In campaign? Running into random people could be awesome. Swap war stories, tell each oter about hidden items, whatever. If you don't like them, mute them. Or... challenge them to a crucible match right there in game! If they accept, it takes your parties right to a private game where you can fight it out.

I do hope for alien weapons. Even the alien guns are named in the kill cam so it’s possible they are player usable. Also, I disagree with the guns being the same. The special abilities of the higher level guns looked to really be able to mix things up. Just in the beta I had a revolver that reloaded in half the time or less if I emptied its magazine. I got some extra kills because of that. Other guns could do additional damage, or regenerate ammo, or maintain stability, or quicken one of your cooldowns, and those were the simpler guns. The really high end stuff were getting pretty crazy with their abilities and often had more than one.

I really would have to see how much variance these high tier weapons have, so no comment. As for the examples you listed, that's just not enough. Think about the difference between a plasma pistol and the needler. Or the shotgun and BR. THOSE are different guns to me.

Overall, I think this was a pretty disappointing review of the beta by you. You start with a purposely grating attitude in unfairly criticizing the story. You then move into the "they didn't deserve that kill" mindset which I highly disagree with. Some of your complaints were also uninformed like being able to customize colors. And to top it off you admitted that you think angering teabagging players is acceptable behavior. You have a handful of good points. Halo probably does have more expressive enemies. The rollback of the non-core feature set like Theater is disappointing but in my opinion you did not make up for your intentional lack of maturity.

Maybe with the context I've provided here you'll enjoy it more.

In then end, if you really stand by some of the things you said, I think it is a good thing that you plan to stay away from Destiny.

It's not Halo.

:(
I know, and I'm not saying it should be. I tried comparing to other games so people wouldn't think this.

There are a lot of beefs stated in the OP that I can't completely disagree with, though. I see the logic, but we've seen so little of Destiny, I think it's premature.

I also tried to focus on things that applied to the full game. For example, I didn't comment on the story at all. I said I wasn't interested, but that was from being put off by the gameplay. The story could be amazing for all I know, or it could suck. Either way, I'm not going to buy a video game for its story.

• Enemy personality needs dialed up a bit. I think there's time. Hopefully we'll see more of that variation thrown into relief once we fight the Vex and Cabal. Not to mention get to sink our teeth into the story.

Maybe. The first two races being like they are though, isn't a good indication.

[*]Weapon selection does seem slim, though varied enough I could live with it for a while. I suspect alien weapon types are going to come into play eventually. As long as the base weapon type balances well in standard PvP, the version used in PvE and Iron Banner can be tweaked.

How many guns did Marathon have? I think Halo 1 had more than 9. Not that more is better. As long as they're varried and fun to use, you could probably get away with 6 guns in a shooter. Thing is, Destiny's guns are all things we've seen before. Other than maybe the fusion rifle, but even that operates similarly to things we've seen before.

[*]The vehicle selection gives me pause. Everything is some flavor of hoverbike, and there's no cooperation in operating more formidable death machines. At least that we've seen. There could be more held close to the vest.
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3 vehicles does seem low. I'll bet they have tanks or some flying vehicles hidden.

Those things aside, I'm extremely pleased by everything else we've seen. There's a bunch we know about that we haven't gotten to play with yet, particularly exotic weapons and subclasses, along with the aforementioned races. And Raids.

People keep bringing up exotics. I would need to see them.

It's still way too early to call, I think. Hang in there. Even if you're not digging the new gameplay formula yet, see how the whole package stacks up.

~m

The opening cutscene was really cool, and got my hopes up for the rest of the game.
Astronauts on Mars?
Cool!
Why do they have guns?
Rain? What?
Whats that big ball?

I find you’re being WAY over the top here. ANY game require you invest a basic amount in its story. Complaining about this is pretty weak.

Next thing I know, Tyrion is waking me up to tell me that I've been dead for centuries, and we need to GTFO now or these big alien dudes are gonna push our shit in. A bit of running, and the littlest Lannister finds me a gun. Now, I like the M4 as much as anybody, but it's been hundreds of years and we're still using them? Come on.

Do you want a real answer here or are you just complain to hear yourself to complain? The real answer is most of humanity was killed and there’s only a few places left in the solar system even capable of making new guns… and none of those places are a corridor in an abandoned Russian cosmodrome.

Also, I don't know who this Tyrion person is. Referring to one character as another is unnecessarily grating, but then that's probably what you were going for. I wish you had taken a more mature approach. :/

Immediately I notice how familiar the game feels. I've been playing Halo for over 11 years now, and Destiny's roots are obvious, but it's also different. The addition of an Aim-down-the-sights mechanic is one that feels foreign and out of place, but at least it's not always necessary. It's quickly apparent that all of the big scary aliens are easily killed with a simple headshot or two, and it turns out, there's really no reason to be scared at all.

There was even less reason to be scared during the initial run to the Pillar of Autumn’s bridge back in 2001. There’s real, honest complaints about a game and then there what you’ve been doing these first few paragraphs…

Tyrion guides me to this busted old ship and tells me we're gonna fly it to "The City." "Okay, bro. Let's-a-go!" We get there and grab some supplies because we need to go back to Russia to get a warp drive. Without it, we can't zoom to the Moon or whatever. Which is absolutely fine by me, but he's very insistent.

Again, you don’t seem to have even given the game a fair chance. Why should anyone take your story complaints seriously? I’m going to go ahead and skip forward a ways since you weren’t even trying to give a serious impression of the game.

The problems of Campaign.

• First, the lack of variety in the combat. Every enemy is defeated in the same way. To kill a Dreg, Vandal, Captain, Acolyte, Thrall, Knight, Ogre, or Wizard, you shoot them in the head. The Servitor too, but its weakpoint is the eyeball. The Shank and Shrieker are the only two that I haven't found a weakspot on. Shanks usually go down in one shot anyway, so they don't really need one. Captains and Wizards do have shields, but with the ability to always have a sniper rifle with basically unlimited ammo, that never really matters.

Compare this to Halo (because it's pretty much unavoidable). Yes, the goal is to shoot everything in the head or other weak spot, but you have to do something else first to make that possible. Every enemy has something special that makes it unique. Jackals need to be shot in the hand or foot so they'll flinch and expose their head for a short time. Elites have shields (this is different than the Captains and Wizards because you don't always have a power weapon with you in Halo). You have to get their shields down before you can headshot them. Brutes have a helmet you have to remove first, and they berserk if you kill their friends (with varying effectiveness depending on what game you're playing). Drones and Skirmishers are fast and hard to hit, and occasionally have shields of their own. Hunters you have to get behind (or land some lucky shots from the front), which usually involves getting in close, and they always come in pairs. Engineers you'll want to pop first, or every other enemy will get an overshield. Grunts are the exception, but they're just cannon fodder. A distraction while the bigger aliens try to kill you. Dangerous in groups, and they flee when their leader is killed.

Do you see the difference? All of Halo's enemies have something that makes them unique, and mixes up the combat. There's nothing special about Destiny's enemies. You just shoot them in the head. It's boring and repetitive.

Meh. I think you rationalized away the Destiny unit’s protections. Fallen Captains are very much like Elites. Hive Knights can form an invincible shield. I expect the Cabal units with big shields to act somewhat like Hunters, and who knows what the Vex do. Are there a couple more units in all of Halo than in the Destiny beta that require a second step for an easy kill? Perhaps. But you’re blowing that small difference way out of proportion.

[*]I wasn't challenged once. There is no difficulty to speak of. Even in single player, death just means you have to wait four seconds to get right back to where you were, with no penalties. There are occasionally rooms or small areas that don't allow you to respawn, but if you just sit back and shoot heads, you'll not have any trouble. Furthermore, if you're in a fireteam, dying in these areas isn't even permanent. The respawn time is just extended to 25 seconds. It's a lot harder to fail than to complete your objective, even with bosses.

The Beta was limited to a low level cap and what seemed to be tutorial level missions. It seems foolish to judge the entirety of Destiny by it, just as one wouldn’t judge all of Halo by its first level.

[*]Speaking of bosses, Destiny's are terrible. They take the term bullet sponge to the extreme. With a ridiculous amount of health, and two instant kill attacks, your only option for the Devil Walker is to stand behind one of the various pillars in the area while whittling away at its health, and deal with the occasional Fallen squad (which are just there to give you ammo), until it explodes fifteen minutes later. The second boss is much the same way, requiring the player to shoot its eye for ten minutes while swatting at the Fallen flies for ammo.

At the very least you can shoot off the four shot blue pulse launcher. Doesn’t completely address your boss complaint, but… well woe to those that use the term “only option.” :)

[*]Enemies infinitely respawn. Now, this is honestly to be expected in Explore mode. I mean, the world would feel empty pretty quickly if the enemies were permanently dead. However, they turned up the dial quite a bit too much. When I'm making my way through the plane graveyard, and the Fallen I just killed on the other side of the plane where I just was, start shooting at me ten seconds after I killed them, that's ridiculous. Should limit the respawning to explore mode. Having them respawn while I'm on a mission makes it feel like I'm not making any progress.

This one I agree with a bit. But then I also don’t want the world permanently depopulated by the fireteam in front of me.

[*]The aliens have no personality. They feel like soulless robot monsters. I never get the sense that they're scared, or happy, or curious. They either don't know I'm there, or they do. When they notice me, they're not shocked to see me, nor do they beat their chest with pride at the prospect of a challenge. It's just "TARGET ACQUIRED: FIRING MAIN CANNON."

Compare this, once more, to Halo. Or Gears of War. You can understand the Covenant and the Locust Horde's motivations, and get a sense of what they're feeling. They'll taunt you, get angry when their brothers die, or run from you if they're scared. At least, the Grunts and Jackals will. You get the feeling that these are sentient beings, with thoughts and emotions. Something I'm not getting from Destiny.

I’ve seen enemies taunt when they’ve shot me off a sparrow. Lower class enemies will often flee and hide if you beat their handlers. Are their emotions less obvious? Of course, it’s pretty hard to beat “Leader dead! Run away!” I think the emotional states of surprised, afraid, taunting, etc are present, however. I’m going to have to play more to really get a feel if they unit’s individual actions are under exposed or not grand enough to notice. It is possible that they are…

[*]Randomly running into other players while out and about is pretty cool. Why can't I talk to them? I think proximity chat should be enabled within shouting distance, communicating outside of hand gestures seems important to me. Maybe they want to show me something, or they heard a story from another guy earlier and they want to share. As long as there's a quick and easy way to mute them in case they're annoying, and an option to turn it off altogether, why not let us talk? Seems pretty unsociable in a game that's supposedly designed for the opposite.

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I agree there should be more options. I think the way it was in the beta is an ok default, especially for a T rated game.

PvP, and being the best in the world (briefly).

During the early access timeframe, there weren't a whole lot of people on. I kept seeing the same thirty or so names over and over. I played with several Bungie employees, a bunch of Microsoft employees, the guy who makes RoosterTeeth's music, and, oddly enough, a Treyarch higher-up. With so few people in the Beta, and only a small portion of them searching in the Crucible, I didn't get any matches in for a few days. On the 18th, the planets aligned and I participated in what I can only assume were the first two matches of the Beta on Xbox 360. The vast majority of the regulars on this forum have played Halo with me more than a few times. You know my style. Well, Bungie let me spawn with a sniper rifle, and my kill to death ratio for my first Destiny match was 4.25. I don't think I should spawn with the tools I need to dominate, I should have to earn them.

I deleted my main character the last day of the beta so I don’t have a link to the stats, but I got occasional 3 and 4 K/D games as well. And I didn’t do it by camping with a one shot kill rifle. I attribute some of those good games to most not being used to Destiny but some of it was certainly me adjusting and doing well. My first two dozen games or so my K/D was well below 0.5…

Bungie's philosophy with Destiny is clear; they want bad players to succeed where they shouldn't. It's all very frustrating when, like Halo 4, there's a good multiplayer game hiding in there. It's just covered in shit.

Yeah, completely disagree here. I’ve already gone into why. To quickly repeat though, there is a massive difference between a player succeeding where they shouldn’t and someone outplaying you. The first would be someone killing you via a glitch, or bug, or cheat. The second is them being better at Destiny than you in that particular encounter.

[*]Next, the low time to kill. This is one of the biggest problems. Although it isn't Call of Duty length, it's still far too short for personal skill to really matter. A low time to kill places greater emphasis on positioning (which you have little control over in a game with respawning), than a player's aiming skill. In Halo, Gears, or TF2, I can start taking damage from behind, and still have time to turn around and beat my attacker because I have better aim and strafing than they do. That's not the case in Destiny. If I'm getting shot from behind, I'm going to die.

Don’t get shot from behind? Ok, that’s a bit tongue in cheek, but it’s a different game. In my experience, in that I frequently used Scout Rifles or Hand Cannons for my primary gun, I had to use about the same amount of aiming as I do in Halo with a DMR. Perhaps a bit more since the enemy could kill me quicker with their Auto Rifles. A missed shot by me was probably a bit more disastrous in Destiny than in Halo… I guess I’m not seeing the lack of emphasis on aiming that you are…

[*]The ability to start the game with any gun eliminates the need to have weapons on the map. Without weapons on the map, there is no risk/reward to acquiring power weapons. You can automatically have a sniper rifle; you don't need to earn it. You don't need to hold down sniper spawn, you are sniper spawn. This discourages movement, and empowers camping. If I can sit on the rock above point B and rain down unlimited sniper ammo* on my unfortunate victims, why would I ever move?

It encourages camping, even in an objective gametype, because killing gives your team points, too. The best strategy on any map was to hold B and C, and just slaughter the idiots who dared to approach them. There's no reason to take A, even though we easily could. If they have A, then we know where they'll spawn. We get more objective points than them because we hold two bases to their one, and we're out-slaying them because we're camping.

I agree. This may become a problem. The “don’t take A” thing was already being used during the Beta… As discussed before, I don’t think you having unlimited sniper ammo is that big a deal since Destiny gives your enemies tools to better avoid, approach, and engage you.

[*]I imagine you're all familiar with the Interceptor by now. In the Beta, it was an unstoppable machine of death. I don't think I have to do much explaining here, it speaks for itself. Then it kills you. Over and over. If it sees you first, you're dead. If you see it first, run. If the driver is an idiot, you might be able to take it down with a super. If you get everyone on your team to focus fire on it, it'll go down eventually, but not without taking a few of you with it. What I like to do is get someone to distract it, them take the drivers head off from the side. However you do it, you had better do it fast. Otherwise, it could easily cost you the game.

I didn’t have quite the problem with the Interceptor that others had, but admittedly this is because I chose a “Run away! Run away!” strategy at all times.

It's very fast and kills a Guardian or Sparrow in one hit. Pike in two. To fix it, I'd decrease its health by about two thirds, and slow its rate of fire. Even better, It could require a driver and a gunner. Would promote teamwork.

Since the Beta, Bungie has announced that they'll nerf the Interceptor. I definitely agree with lowering its rate of fire and reducing the blast radius of the rockets. Not sure I understand what they mean by "arming shape", so no opinion on that. I do not agree with having only one on the map. With there being two, they always end up fighting each other. This usually results in one being destroyed, and the other being severely damaged*. That gives the team who lost their Interceptor a much better chance to take out the opponent's death machine.

The aiming shape I think referred to its proximity fuse. In the full game Interceptor pilots will need to be more accurate because the missiles will be less likely to airburst near enemy Guardians.

*In my time with the Beta, I couldn't tell if a vehicle being visually damaged mattered or not. Halo has had three different vehicle damage models. In Halo: CE, any damage done to your vehicle was permanent, and when your health ran out, you exploded. In Halo 2/3, your vehicle would take visible damage, but as long as the occupant(s) still had health, the vehicle was fine. In Reach/4, vehicles had health tiers. They could take damage to a point, and heal if that line wasn't crossed. If the damage went beyond that tier, the health was lost, but it still healed to the nearest tier. I wasn't able to determine how Destiny's vehicles worked.

My guess is something close to the health tiers model. The Interceptor seemed to gain a player’s shields, but damaging one especially severely did seem to help the next person take it out even if it had time to recharge.

[*]One of the most annoying parts of the multiplayer is the Supers. Titans can slam the ground and instantly kill everything around them. Warlocks can fly up in the air and Kamehameha wherever they're pointing, killing everyone in the area of effect. Hunters can go Super Saiyan and activate their golden guns, killing anything they almost hit. That's right, they don't actually have to hit their target to kill them, and they get three shots. They're acquired periodically (about every three minutes) throughout a match, and people don't actually have to do anything to get them. Getting points will speed up the process, but the super bar fills up automatically.

This is bad because players don't deserve those kills. They didn't best their opponent, they're not more skilled. They just pressed LB+RB to get free kills. It really discourages going for the objective when you know somebody can just press a button and you're done. Combined with having any weapon on spawn, and the Interceptor, instant death is a very common occurrence in the Crucible. The worst part is, your enemy doesn't have to be better than you. The game basically kills you on its own just by being as broken as it is.

What you call broken I call a different game. Supers did charge significantly faster if you captured points and got kills to the point I think I got supered twice by the same guy in one match before my super was ready, so there is a positive reinforcement to playing well and using the supers well. If one Super had dominated I would have had a problem but I thought they came out surprisingly well balanced to each other all things considered.

[*]The most important part of teamwork is communication. In Destiny, you can't talk to your teammates unless they're in your fireteam. I shouldn't have to invite people to my party just to talk to my teammates. Hand gestures aren't going to cut it. This one is pretty important, and not against their vision for the game. It may be my only point that has a chance of being fixed.

Right.

Also, I'd like to have proximity chat. Demoralizing and angering the other team is always a good strategy, and sometimes teabagging isn't enough.
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If that’s your attitude then I’m glad you aren’t buying the game. What’s a good strategy and what is appropriate or sportsmanlike are two very different things. Yelling and tea-bagging are unacceptable in my book. Period. (Using the dance emote in Destiny is just fine however)

These are general problems and disappointments.

• There is a disturbing lack of customization in this game. I can't select the color of my armor, emblem, ship, or sparrow. There aren't many armors, emblems, ships, or sparrows to choose from in the first place. I think it'd be cool to customize your guns, too. I'd probably like my guns a lot more if I could choose their colors. Also, it looks like there are no custom games in Destiny at all. Which brings me to...

As others have said, color options were in the Alpha (apparently) and will be in the final game.

[*]The weak feature-set. With Halo, Bungie were pioneers in bringing PC game features to consoles, and inventing new systems of play. First it was the FPS alone, then they created matchmaking. Halo 3 added theater mode, Forge, rendered films, and screenshots. Nobody else was bringing all of these things to a console in one game. They were ahead of the pack. With Destiny, that is no longer the case. The way you run into players in the world randomly is seamless, and very cool. It's just disappointing that they felt things like theater weren't important enough to keep.

Agreed. I like theater mode.

Remember all of Pete's awesome mini-games? There will be none in Destiny. You won't see any Destiny machinimas*. Remember Hedge and BlueNinja's awesome panoramas? You aren't going to see any from Destiny*. Screenshots will always have a visible HUD and gun*. You won't be able to inspect your clips from every angle.

*Unless they get creative and someone figures out how to disable the HUD and lower their gun.

Red vs. Blue began with a crosshair on the hud, didn’t it? I would be fairly surprised if Bungie did not include some helpful things for machinima though. We’ll see I guess…

[*]Destiny is being billed as a social game, but you can't talk to anybody unless you know them already. In Crucible, it's ridiculous that you can't hear your teammates if they aren't in your party. I've been over it, but communication is extremely important in multiplayer. In Campaign, proximity chat should be enabled for nearby Guardians. It would be cool as hell to run into another fireteam in the wild, swap war stories, and go about your respective business. Or tell them about a loot chest you just came from, or convince them to help you take out a high level enemy so you can get whatever it's guarding. Or whatever.

Again, I think silence is a good default, especially when some think angering other players is a good strategy.

[*]They talk about how there are more guns in Destiny than in all the Halo games combined. There are actually only nine guns in Destiny, with many small variations. The guns within each of the nine gun classes operate the same, but have small statistical differences. Every scout rifle is functionally the same. Having a smaller magazine and a slightly lower rate of fire does not make it much different. There are also no alien guns you can get for yourself. That was pretty disappointing. Bungie has been pretty inventive with alien weaponry in the past, and I was looking forward to what they had come up with this time. Most of the enemies use the same Needler-like gun, and the player can't pick it up.
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I do hope for alien weapons. Even the alien guns are named in the kill cam so it’s possible they are player usable. Also, I disagree with the guns being the same. The special abilities of the higher level guns looked to really be able to mix things up. Just in the beta I had a revolver that reloaded in half the time or less if I emptied its magazine. I got some extra kills because of that. Other guns could do additional damage, or regenerate ammo, or maintain stability, or quicken one of your cooldowns, and those were the simpler guns. The really high end stuff were getting pretty crazy with their abilities and often had more than one.

Even beyond that, I had a definite preference for one of my scout rifles over the other because it’s firing rate and power suited my play style more than the others.

Overall, I think this was a pretty disappointing review of the beta by you. You start with a purposely grating attitude in unfairly criticizing the story. You then move into the "they didn't deserve that kill" mindset which I highly disagree with. Some of your complaints were also uninformed like being able to customize colors. And to top it off you admitted that you think angering teabagging players is acceptable behavior. You have a handful of good points. Halo probably does have more expressive enemies. The rollback of the non-core feature set like Theater is disappointing but in my opinion you did not make up for your intentional lack of maturity.

In then end, if you really stand by some of the things you said, I think it is a good thing that you plan to stay away from Destiny.

Consider skulls. To increase the challenge and promote longer runs, Co-op night ALWAYS required the Thunderstorm skull, which made the game less fun, since enemies all became sponges that you had to expend large sums of ammo on.

Shorter runs are less fun IMHO, but don't tell Snipe. Thunderstorm relates to rank. I'd usually require Mythic (increased health), and Tough Luck, which does change enemy behavior. I experimented and sometimes required Tilt, Catch, or Black Eye, but people complained.

In defense of enemies that require more bullets to down, more bullets are being used when more people play, and on co-op night, assists count as much as kills. :)

In the meantime, I'll just say that you sure did view a vertical slice that was explicitly stated to be unlike the actual game as a definitive example of the final product...

And where did you hear such a thing? Could you please link to a source?

Can't be bothered to look for it at the moment, but I believe it was a BWU where someone said that the condensed playspace was scripted to repeatedly test out as many variables as possible, which explains enemies spawning over and over, and over, sometimes right in front of you, seconds after dropping the last enemy. Surely that will jog someone's memory of what the source is, but yeah, they made a point to highlight the fact that there were shenanigans to be expected...