My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text) (Destiny)
by Avateur 
, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 02:20 (3574 days ago)
Welp, we're just over a month out from Destiny's launch! Exciting, I know. I hope some of this feedback has a chance to be looked at and considered for launch. I may be forgetting some things, but I think this should cover most all of my thoughts.
Lots of General Thoughts Covering All The Things
I don't think I can say enough about just how much I love the Pike. Seriously, Bungie. That Pike is one of the best things that you've ever created for a video game. I didn't think I could care as much about a vehicle as I do for the Warthog, and yet here I am completely amazed with the Pike. I even started a clan based primarily on the use and love of the vehicle. If there's one thing I'd like to request, it would be to keep the Pikes completely untouched. They play perfectly. Please leave them be, and thank you so much for creating them!
I get that this was a Beta, but what clan support are we going to be seeing? At the moment on Bungie.net, there are errors for people trying to create clans, and it seems that joining Alliances doesn't work. No errors at all. There's just no reaction to trying to invite to an Alliance or to send a request to join one.
Destiny itself should also copy Halo 2 and allow a Clan screen to show in-game so that you can see who from your clan is online and also to give you the option to invite people to join your clan right from within the game itself. It's probably just a wish at this point, but it would be cool if the Crucible had a Clans Only playlist that matched clans up against each other somehow.
So, there was plenty of talk about the Interceptor being overpowered and whatnot, right? And I've already said how much I love the Pike! Well, another solution to some problems with vehicles would be the option to hijack. It's really gross that you can't, especially with how well it works in Halo. If this could somehow be implemented, I think it would make things a lot better.
The UI in this game is a big love-hate relationship with me (mostly love). I absolutely love the whole "hover" selection with the thumbstick to select what screens or icons I want to go to. I like how seamless everything feels. At the same time, this whole "hold Y" to get back to orbit gets really obnoxious very quickly. I get it, Bungie doesn't want people touching the wrong button and instantly flying back to Orbit or leaving the Crucible. Regardless, don't make us hold down the button for an hour to back out. Five seconds, tops, please.
It also seems like the Beta didn't remember that the last time I was on, I had my party set to Invite Only. Halo does a good job of remembering what I last had my party security set at, and I'm hoping that the final product of Destiny won't constantly revert to Friends Only.
I can't for the life of me figure out why Bungie removed the death-count from the post-game report. God forbid people feel like they did poorly or see that they did. Just show me how many times I died, throw the K/D ratio beside it, and there you go.
I'm extremely impressed with the way stats display at Bungie.net. Granted, it's not that easy to locate peoples' stats (and I hope that improves or is made more obvious so players can check themselves out and compare with other friends, sort of like with H3 or Reach). I think my favorite part is the medals and how they're displayed in-game and on Bungie.net. They were really easy to hover over and read, the medals themselves are pretty clever and fun, and I think they're absolutely worth trying to obtain.
That "Never Speak of This Again" medal was by far my favorite. I got two splatters with a Sparrow in the Beta, and both times I was joking about how I just cost Bungie some customers because those people probably will be too mad to buy Destiny. Sorry Bungie! But yeah, it's named perfectly. I also absolutely want that Seventh Column medal, and it seems like it's going to pose a real challenge to get. During the Beta I only managed to get four people killed quickly because it seemed like no more than that were ever around. I guess I have a goal for the actual game.
On Bungie.net, I really like the bit on the right side of your stats where you can click "Gear Vault" or "Recent" to view games and things, but it took me days to even notice these options. I think they need to be made more obvious and apparent so that they're easier to find online once the game launches.
I really wish I could hover over my friend's ships when we're all just sitting in Orbit so that it can highlight and tell me who they are. It's fun being able to connect the gamertag of your buddy with their ship.
Speaking of Orbit, it can really be a huge time waster. Say I'm in the Crucible with my full team and we're done playing that. I should have the option to send us back to the Tower if that's where we want to go. Or to a Raid once we're at that level. I shouldn't have to bump us into Orbit, and then bump us elsewhere. I feel like a lot of what I experienced in the Beta made it clear that our time is not necessarily being considered valuable (see above for how long I have to hold a button just to leave the Tower or take my party back to Orbit after Crucible).
Or take the Tower itself as an example. I have to go back there for every single little thing? I can't access bounties anywhere, I can't deal with Engrams anywhere, I can't do anything anywhere at all ever except at the Tower. I shouldn't have to leave the planet, go to Orbit, go to the Tower, run all over the place for what might amount to five minutes tops, go back to Orbit, and then go back to the place I want to play. It's extremely frustrating, especially when you have a party with only one or two people who have a need to go to the Tower. Everyone is getting dragged along for what one or two people need to do when they should be able to just take care of it using their Ghost right there in Old Russia or in Orbit. Everyone's time just got wasted.
Although I personally feel like the Tower as a whole is a waste of time, it's a really nice place to go when there's idle time or when the group is coordinating together. It definitely beats just sitting in Orbit with no one doing anything. There were plenty of fun shenanigans afoot with soccer balls, balloons, trees, and climbing things. Part of me wonders how much of that will go away as certain bugs get polished, as the novelty wears off, or as more maddening invisible barriers and kill barriers go up.
Speaking of which, Old Russia has so many invisible walls and kill zones that it's not even funny. I thoroughly can't wait for people to keep finding ways to break out of some of these places so that people can continue exploring. I definitely loved lots of those Beta break-out videos. Some of the most fun I ever had in Halo 2 and Halo 3 came from breaking out of maps and exploring in campaign. The egg in New Alexandria in Reach where you can get the Pelican and have full access to fly out to wherever you want on that map is similar. I love fully realized exploration and ability to go places.
I get that the game has multiple servers that allow something like twenty people into a place at any given time. At the same time, this whole squad party of three thing is extremely and unbelievably limiting for a "shared world" game. I'm talking clans or just a place like DBO having a game night. I had a group of twelve friends on, and we all split up into our teams of three. We tried going down to the Explore mode at the exact same time so that we could try to tackle things together. Nope. We landed in largely empty servers with only a few randoms scattered about. Yay. So we're going at it with just the three of us in a largely empty server with plenty of space for the rest of our buddies who can never get to us. Not fun, Bungie.
We also can't communicate with anyone in Explore. Let's say we do run into some randoms who want to help out in a public event. It's so frustrating not being able to tell the randoms to stay inside the circle so that we have as many Guardians inside linked up! It's really fun having randoms join in, or for us to be those randoms joining in with someone else, but when it's a giant mess of non-coordination and failure, it really puts a damper on things. This also applies to Crucible, especially for people who are going in without a full team of six. We could also use proximity voice to know if our enemies are nearby.
Speaking of going into Crucible with teams of six, I'm not sure if this is just a Beta thing, but the party system split my party multiple times. It's extremely weird going into games with six people, either for the first time or after playing for hours, and occasionally it just throws one or two of us onto the other team with randoms. Now, this only happened a few times, but I figure it's worth pointing out.
I would really love it if the Crucible would allow for larger parties to go in. That example of twelve people I named up above could have really used the option to head into Crucible together and let the system assign teams so that we could just battle each other. It's nice having options when you have a bunch of friends on.
I also would like it if the final game has the option to vote for maps instead of just randomly selecting one. Also, please include a "None of the Above" voting option as well.
Questions on Raids that I hope get answered some time before Destiny launches: Do you have to have six in your party to actually start the thing? And what if someone has to go or gets disconnected while you're in the middle of playing? Does everyone lose their progress? Does the Raid just stop? Does everyone restart where they last were or at a checkpoint? Are they screwed if the dropped individual can't come back until tomorrow, or for more than 24 hours? If you replace the person with someone new, do you still restart at the last checkpoint, or is it time to start all over again? Answers to these somewhere before launch would be really, really great.
Why am I so concerned about disconnecting or losing someone? I know Bungie was testing the servers in the Beta, but the problem with Always Online is that if the servers go down or my personal internet goes down, the fun goes bye bye. The game itself becomes a total brick. I can't even log in or mess around with my character or do anything. Until I can get back on, Destiny becomes worthless. That really sucks.
I find it amusing that people who want the Ghost Edition of Destiny or some of the limited editions are screwed because of how "limited" they are. The Beta just happened, and many people were waiting to see if it was worth spending that kind of money. Too bad it was announced and they were all gone prior to the Beta, right? I'm not pre-ordering the game, so this doesn't affect me, but damn. It's disappointing to see this happen to a bunch of friends and strangers who really want this thing now.
Story/Explore/Strike
I know a lot of people are upset that Destiny's Beta lacked story. I know a lot of people think the story sucks. I disagree with these two thoughts because I feel like we weren't shown really any story at all by design, and thus there's no way to know. What I do know is that the gameplay was really nice, and I had fun. Explore is boring as hell, and the missions that you can accept are also boring. Exploring for loot gets old really quickly. Public Events are really awesome. Bullet sponges absolutely freaking suck.
I really enjoy collecting the dead sleeping Ghosts, as I like to call them. I don't know why. My play style has never been about collecting things, grinding stuff out for better wares, or being a 100% completionist. Things like the feathers in Assassin's Creed or any number of items that the creators want me to go out and find have never amused me or captured my attention. Bungie definitely did something right with these dead sleeping Ghosts, because I really want to find them. I'm fascinated by them and their locations. Still, no clue why.
It's not fun wandering the world, killing a group of enemies, walking ten feet away, and having them respawn. They all just hang around in the same place. At least in ODST's largely empty and increasingly boring hub world, the enemies wander around, patrol, and come after you if they see you. The world is so huge, yet it's so empty. This place is taken over by all sorts of enemies, and the Public Events have huge ships warping in left and right. We need more enemies outside instead of mostly confined spaces in buildings where they keep spawning endlessly while the Ghost does everything it can to complete its task for three goes.
I really enjoyed using the Sparrow. It's fun zipping around and being able to call it up whenever I want for the most part (even on the Moon in Crucible).
I really enjoyed the Story missions. I played through them plenty of times. Granted, I was getting sick of Old Russia pretty quickly. The Strike is plenty of fun until you get to the bullet sponges that don't do anything. Oh no, it's a Devil Walker! Good thing all it can do is turn around in circles. How terrifying. How long have we been shooting it now? Waste of time, no real challenge. Oh no, a giant version of the smaller purple floaty orbs. It just stares at me and takes my shots right in its "eye" and shoots laughable doom blasts at me while occasionally warping in and out of places. How terrifying. How long have we been shooting it now? Waste of time, no real challenge.
So this is where I'm supposed to say that Bungie can do better, right? Well, they beat me to it! They DID do better! The Moon was by far my most favorite part of everything (well, second favorite after the Pike). I went there, I completed the mission, I had a "wait, that's it?" moment, and then I found out that I could explore this insanely vast area that takes me deep within the catacombs of the Hive Kingdom of Doom. It was absolutely awesome, the AI seemed smarter, was more difficult, and acted like it really wanted to come after me and kill me (and some seemed to be patrolling). The Ogre thing was way more fun to fight and more of a challenge than the Old Russia bosses, and there were some enemies who just didn't care what you did to them because they were just going to destroy you regardless.
That Ogre really impressed me, by the way. My two buddies were off on their own (aka I ditched them to explore a different area and ran into an Ogre on my own), and I thought for a second that he was just going to laserface at me until I killed him down in his pit. Nope. That guy walked his ass up the ramp and came right after me. I got killed, and they're much more difficult when they're coming at you (especially if you got cocky and let your guard down). I was very impressed with the Moon, and I can't wait to go back and get digging into those tunnels. I also can't wait to see what Bungie has in store on other planets.
I feel like Bungie should add a compass to the game somewhere. It'd be nice to have a sense of direction, or if you're separated from your group in big tunnels on the Moon, you can let them know what direction you went in.
Now for a technical issue. My Xbox 360 froze multiple times when I would hit certain loading points or even sometimes switching out weapons while on the Moon or in Old Russia. Full on console freezing to the point that everyone in my party says I've left the game, but they can still chat with me in our Party Chat. All the while, no button presses work, and I have to hold the power button on the 360 to make it turn off. Really weird and frustrating. I'm wondering if Xbox One, PS3, or PS4 had any similar issues.
Crucible
I absolutely love Shores of Time. That map, especially when the sun is somewhat down, is gorgeous. It also plays extremely well. For real, that map would work out really well in Halo. It works out just fine in Destiny, and there are some pretty clever and creative ways to play on that map. I love the little jetpack booster thing that my Titan has.
But holy cow is Crucible unbalanced. Using Pikes takes skill, getting headshots takes skill, and creeping about takes skill (sort of). Everything else feels to be primarily dumb luck. You have no way to tell if someone has their Super ready to use until they use it on you. The game provides near-constant ammo for sniper rifles and shotguns. If someone shoots at you first, you're just about guaranteed to be dead. Truly, it's baffling.
I mean don't get me wrong. Not to brag, but I feel I'm pretty damn good at Destiny. I played as a Titan exclusively, and I found myself forgetting that I even had a Super the majority of the time because I felt like I never had to use it. I primarily used an Auto Rifle, and I chose to use one of the weaker ones with less rapid-fire because it had a higher impact and a slow enough rate of fire that it allowed me to really take off someone's head. That's the real key to using a gun like that in Destiny. So I guess that sort of takes skill, right?
But is that really skill? Whatever guns you happened to find, purchase, or unlock with their arbitrary stats are what can truly decide the battle? Or the fact that someone else's gun takes a few seconds to charge before one-hit-killing you? You're fighting numbers, luck, and random chance at this point. Go into Iron Banner, and it's even more so since you don't know what their armor is, what their defenses are, or what their own weapons are going to bring in relation to your own armor. It feels like your actual destiny in Crucible is really out of your own hands beyond seeing them first, shooting first, and managing to hit your target. Aiming for the head is about the only real skill you can get, along with managing to get the jump on people.
I got the hang of Iron Banner once I realized what I should be doing with it. Again, an Auto Rifle with higher impact beats an Auto Rifle with higher overall attack points and rate of fire. I don't see how the more "casual" gamer can enjoy this experience, let alone the Crucible in general. I'm really good at it, and even I found myself raging plenty.
Going in with a full team is also key. We lost on very rare occasions when going into Crucible fully loaded. How is anyone supposed to survive when you have good friends who communicate and know each other and play together all the time? I feel bad for people who came up against TTL groups and probably got completely dominated. It definitely doesn't help that there's no voice chat with randoms if you don't have a full group.
Sniper rifles appear to have an extreme aim assist, and a potential severe host advantage. It even has a Halo 2-esque swipe scope ability. I could be zooming, strafing, sprinting, shooting back, anything. I could be clear across the map in constant motion. Snipers be raining headshots. What in the world is the matter with those rifles? They just feel way overpowered and cheap. They definitely take an amount of skill, but their ease of use and potential balance problems are troubling to me. I asked our very own Snipe 316 why he hates the sniper rifle and playing so much when he's so good at it and basically goes on endless kill streaks. His reply was that it's too easy. He shouldn't be able to just go on destroying people with that sniper rifle with basically unlimited ammo. I agree with his assessment.
I enjoy the radar, I really do. I still contend that it becomes impossible when someone is above you, below you, or directly beside you. It's been pointed out that apparently it changes to a different shade of red. It's barely noticeable, and it's not helpful. All of a sudden I'm spinning in circles trying to see where the person is to get a melee in, or to see if they're actually in the room with me at all. It works great when it comes to general direction and knowing someone's coming, but not when they may be camping corners and you just ran into them or they're above/below you. Yet another thing that adds luck into the mix and detracts from skill.
Control is a joke of a game type. Holding those points makes zero difference in the game beyond map control. Hold B and C, let them have A. Don't touch A. They'll keep spawning in its general area. Even if you don't spawn camp them, they're stuck. They're surrounded. Yes, even on the Moon. Crushing your enemy becomes way too easy. Control seriously should act as a more traditional Domination or Territories gametype that constantly impacts score, because otherwise all it does is act as another Team Slayer game with generally no chance for escape for the unfortunate team that got stuck with A.
The Moon seems to be disliked by a lot of people. I absolutely love how it handles with the Pike, and I'm thankful that I can use the Sparrow on it, but on foot it's just too open with too little players. This is another issue with the cap being set at six players per team. The map (and maybe Crucible) needs more players.
I only played a few close games in Crucible. Yes, I lost my share of games, but only a few of those were close. It seems like either you're getting utterly destroyed, or you're doing the utter destroying. The arguments people were making about how Supers are balanced just don't add up. The potential for the person with the Super to die while using it or before they get the chance does not make it balanced. That argument can be said about any gun or anything in any shooter. The Golden Gun is absolutely the most unbalanced of the three, and I don't think that needs explanation.
Heavy ammo is awesome. It shows up from time to time, it's worth trying to get, and it absolutely feels great to use. It makes me wonder why the sniper rifle, in all its overpowered glory, has constant ammo available and is so simple to use. The same goes for the shotgun. Bungie treated each as power weapons in Halo, but for some reason they're fine and dandy for general unending use in Crucible. Go figure.
Conclusion
All in all, I am absolutely excited for this game. Sure, I have a bunch of complaints, and the Beta is definitely not perfect, but I can't wait to get my hands on the full version of Destiny. I still can't wait to get into Crucible more, if only because I know that my clan, my friends, and I are going to continue having a fun time. I'll also get to ride Pikes again in glorious battle! The Beta really was a lot of fun, even if it could get ridiculously angering at times (I saw/heard people/friends who rarely if ever raged at Halo or other games start raging out and wanting to quit playing the Beta). It's a work in progress though, right? I have some really, really high hopes.
The Destiny Beta is the first thing to truly get me excited for next generation gaming. I really can't wait to experience this further. Yet again, I would like to thank Bungie for the Beta, for opening up the Moon, for playing with us, and for stopping by DBO and reading/responding to our posts. Assuming Bungie (and any of you) have read this all the way through, I'd like to thank you all for that as well. Thanks for all of your time, and I can't wait to get this game fired up and going in September with all of you!
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
A very enjoyable well written post. I didn't agree with all of it but I never do. Don't worry I'm definitely with you on the pikes!
There was one part I strongly disagreed with though...
> I also would like it if the final game has the option to vote for maps instead of just randomly selecting one. Also, please include a "None of the Above" voting option as well.
Am I the only one who hates it when players veto a map or game type I never get to play in favour some perceived "classic" that people only love because they know it so damn well that it's all they ever vote for. I much rather have my map chosen by an algorithm than people.
A very enjoyable well written post. I didn't agree with all of it but I never do. Don't worry I'm definitely with you on the pikes!
There was one part I strongly disagreed with though...
> I also would like it if the final game has the option to vote for maps instead of just randomly selecting one. Also, please include a "None of the Above" voting option as well.
Am I the only one who hates it when players veto a map or game type I never get to play in favour some perceived "classic" that people only love because they know it so damn well that it's all they ever vote for. I much rather have my map chosen by an algorithm than people.
Not that I'm a big fan quitting and people joining in progress, but if one hates a map so much, one can always just leave the game.
Destiny will even bring the rest of the party along!
By Reach, it just got stupid with people second-guessing every little aspect of playlist design. If you want to play this playlist, actually play the playlist rather than just one map! The bloated loading times since the top pick was often skipped weren't fun either.
I like this streamlining.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Avateur , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 11:04 (3574 days ago) @ The Woaf
A very enjoyable well written post. I didn't agree with all of it but I never do. Don't worry I'm definitely with you on the pikes!
Thanks!
There was one part I strongly disagreed with though...
> I also would like it if the final game has the option to vote for maps instead of just randomly selecting one. Also, please include a "None of the Above" voting option as well.
Am I the only one who hates it when players veto a map or game type I never get to play in favour some perceived "classic" that people only love because they know it so damn well that it's all they ever vote for. I much rather have my map chosen by an algorithm than people.
You definitely have brought up a good point, especially for people who go into Crucible or wherever alone or with a smaller team. There'd be a low chance of winning a vote against a full time, especially if they can't try and get randoms to vote with them due to voice chat limitations. A lot of people don't have mics in Call of Duty for some reason, but if you start pleading for the lobby of randoms to vote to skip a map, they usually seem to listen.
I'm actually coming at it from a similar perspective to your own. Often times you get too many people voting for the same map over and over again, and it gets old. Or in the Beta, even though there were only two maps, at one point we played the Moon for an hour straight, then went to Venus, then the Moon multiple times again. 50/50 chance that felt like there was not enough Venus. That also can get old (or maybe Bungie had it set that way on purpose, who knows).
Then there's a thing I experienced all too often in Halo 4. What if the maps you're being offered really suck? That "None of the Above" option is a wonderful way to get to a new batch (hopefully). I was playing Reach the other night, and we were all sick of everyone voting for Spire and Boneyard, so we went to Wayont. It was a nice change of pace, and the randoms playing against us didn't seem to mind.
I don't know how varied Destiny's maps will be, or how many people might dislike them, or if the system itself will potentially place people on the same maps over and over, but I guess I feel like it's nice having some control over what I'm going to be playing.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by RC 
, UK, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 12:50 (3573 days ago) @ Avateur
I'm actually coming at it from a similar perspective to your own. Often times you get too many people voting for the same map over and over again, and it gets old. Or in the Beta, even though there were only two maps, at one point we played the Moon for an hour straight, then went to Venus, then the Moon multiple times again. 50/50 chance that felt like there was not enough Venus. That also can get old (or maybe Bungie had it set that way on purpose, who knows).
Shouldn't it be possible to do a quick look-up of players recent games during the matchmaking process and choose the map they haven't played much recently?
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Claude Errera , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 13:14 (3573 days ago) @ RC
I'm actually coming at it from a similar perspective to your own. Often times you get too many people voting for the same map over and over again, and it gets old. Or in the Beta, even though there were only two maps, at one point we played the Moon for an hour straight, then went to Venus, then the Moon multiple times again. 50/50 chance that felt like there was not enough Venus. That also can get old (or maybe Bungie had it set that way on purpose, who knows).
Shouldn't it be possible to do a quick look-up of players recent games during the matchmaking process and choose the map they haven't played much recently?
That is a really simple, and really smart, idea! I hope something like this can be incorporated into the map choice algorithm.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Avateur , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:24 (3573 days ago) @ Claude Errera
Agreed, that's a really awesome idea! I hope it's something they've looked into or can look into. :D
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
Shouldn't it be possible to do a quick look-up of players recent games during the matchmaking process and choose the map they haven't played much recently?
Of course, but it comes at the cost of greater queue times; inevitably the more criteria you use to select a group of players to put together in matchmaking, the longer it takes. Whether that time difference is insignificant or substantial is something only Bungie will know, but I'm sure they have some good test data from the beta though.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by RC , UK, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:49 (3573 days ago) @ kapowaz
edited by RC, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:56
Shouldn't it be possible to do a quick look-up of players recent games during the matchmaking process and choose the map they haven't played much recently?
Of course, but it comes at the cost of greater queue times; inevitably the more criteria you use to select a group of players to put together in matchmaking, the longer it takes. Whether that time difference is insignificant or substantial is something only Bungie will know, but I'm sure they have some good test data from the beta though.
I meant after you've found the right players for a game.
Find players -> choose map -> load map -> start game
Maybe it is pipelined, but from the UI it appeared as though maps only loaded once you'd found all the players for a game. Yes, doing anything more complex than 'ChooseRandom(Maps[])' would have a performance impact but I would think it'd be pretty insignificant compared to other stages of the process.
Such a system would never be able to give a perfect experience to every player all the time, but it'd be able fix a lot of cases.
The simplest case would be where all 12 players you've found just happened to have played First Light last time, so choose Shores of Time instead.
It'd probably be a mistake to make recent map history a criteria for choosing other players - more than enough variables there already.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
I meant after you've found the right players for a game.
Find players -> choose map -> load map -> start game
That could work, but you'd inevitably end up throwing some of that group of players onto a map they'd just played as well as making sure some were on a new one. It's tricky to avoid that unless you make it a selection criteria of matchmaking.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Claude Errera , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 17:39 (3573 days ago) @ kapowaz
I meant after you've found the right players for a game.
Find players -> choose map -> load map -> start game
That could work, but you'd inevitably end up throwing some of that group of players onto a map they'd just played as well as making sure some were on a new one. It's tricky to avoid that unless you make it a selection criteria of matchmaking.
Yes, there will be times when some people would play the same map twice in a row. That happens already, though - adding this quick loop to the map-choosing algorithm would DECREASE it. (I don't think RC was implying you could REMOVE it - but the cost of the search would be quite small compared to the benefit for the majority of players in most games.)
Worst case scenario, you get what you have now.
Best case scenario, you get a very spread-out choice of maps. This seems like an easy win.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
I'm actually coming at it from a similar perspective to your own. Often times you get too many people voting for the same map over and over again, and it gets old. Or in the Beta, even though there were only two maps, at one point we played the Moon for an hour straight, then went to Venus, then the Moon multiple times again. 50/50 chance that felt like there was not enough Venus. That also can get old (or maybe Bungie had it set that way on purpose, who knows).
I'm banking on this being a Beta issue (since most of the time only 2 maps were available), but my group seemed to spend match after match on the Moon, get one Venus, and then go back to the freaking Moon. Even when the Iron Banner opened, it felt like that damn Moon map was the most heavily weighted.
I liked the Moon OK, but I LOVED the other 3 maps. It was just frustrating getting stuck doing 4-5 matches in a row on the Moon multiple times. I just like variety.
Update: I just checked my stats. In my last 20 games, 10 of them were on First Light. (15 of the 20 games were Iron Banner). Only 4 on Shores of Time in that span.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by RC , UK, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 14:48 (3573 days ago) @ Avateur
Destiny itself should also copy Halo 2 and allow a Clan screen to show in-game so that you can see who from your clan is online and also to give you the option to invite people to join your clan right from within the game itself.
Seconded.
It's probably just a wish at this point, but it would be cool if the Crucible had a Clans Only playlist that matched clans up against each other somehow.
A permanent playlist would probably never work due to low population. But a timed experience like Iron Banner? That'd rock.
Well, another solution to some problems with vehicles would be the option to hijack.
A lot of Destiny's core design is focused on working well over a network. With all the syncing issues that hijacking has, I'm betting that's why they left it out. I'm sure you've seen people get hijacked from what seem like impossible distances? Assassinations for the same reason.
In one of their old developers presentations, they said something like this: if you've got the choice between two mechanics, and one of them networks better, go with the one that works better over the network.
Reach Co-op and Firefight compared to Destiny: Reach can reach 40-50 enemies in Campaign, easily 24 in Firefight, with rich simulation of physics. I don't think I've seen more than maybe 10-15 enemies at once in Destiny, but co-op is ubiquitous, performant and the game is still fun.
At the same time, this whole "hold Y" to get back to orbit gets really obnoxious very quickly. [...] Regardless, don't make us hold down the button for an hour to back out. Five seconds, tops, please.
I gets longer if you have people in the party with you. Obviously because your decision affects more people; I actually like that.
It also seems like the Beta didn't remember that the last time I was on, I had my party set to Invite Only. [...]I'm hoping that the final product of Destiny won't constantly revert to Friends Only.
That annoys me a little too.
I can't for the life of me figure out why Bungie removed the death-count from the post-game report.
I think it's a player psychology thing: keeping it positive and encouraging and all that.
Maybe 'points per life' would be better than K/D, anyway. Especially in these hybrid slayer/objective gametypes, it'll always be a big positive number and you'll get the bonuses from capturing zones as well.
PointsPerLife = PointsEarned/(Deaths+1)
I really wish I could hover over my friend's ships when we're all just sitting in Orbit so that it can highlight and tell me who they are.
Yeah that'd be cool. Could tell you what ship it is too.
Speaking of Orbit, it can really be a huge time waster. [...] I shouldn't have to bump us into Orbit, and then bump us elsewhere.
Come September, I want you to go compare the loading time of Old Russia-Orbit and Orbit-Tower. Then you'll have a pretty good idea why.
Though, I would like to access the Director from the Tower and just make it one step.
Or take the Tower itself as an example. I have to go back there for every single little thing? [...] Everyone's time just got wasted.
I think people are making too much of this. Would it really be preferable to have your party-mates (or MM randoms) stopping every five minutes to stare at their menu?
Player 1: "Hmm, is this gun better than this one? Let me check out the upgrades. hmm, shiny. Would that really be better in the long run? Should I keep and upgrade it or just get rid of it? Hmm, I completed a challenge, which should I do next? Where should we go to do that one?"
Player 2: "C'mon, let's GO already!!! Look at it later!"
Destiny already makes that 'look at it later' part, a part of the mechanics.
Personally, I leave all the Tower stuff as a batch exercise. Chat to crpytarch, melt down some weapons, check the bounties, have a quick eye over the weapons the gunsmith has. Done.
Your party-dragging point is silly too:
1. You can split your party temporarily.
2. You can have chat be system-level if you still want to talk while some people go there.
3. Fact of life. People get dragged to places they don't want to go all the time because people they want to be with are there.
People NEED downtime, anyway. You can't fire on all cylinders all the time. No one can.
[...] this whole squad party of three thing is extremely and unbelievably limiting for a "shared world" game. [...]
I do wonder if more work could be done to automatically drop you into the same servers as your friends and clanmates. So if you were heading to the Mothyards, it'd put the server your friends were on as the first one to check if it could join.
I occasionally saw that little message in the director saying '2 friends here' or whatever. But, I never actually ran into anyone I recognised.
We also can't communicate with anyone in Explore. [...] It's so frustrating not being able to tell the randoms to stay inside the circle so that we have as many Guardians inside linked up!
Maybe they WANT to be outside the circle? I played a few new characters over the course of the Beta, and I felt incredibly weak in some of the Public events.
I'm opposed to default open voice chat and proximity voice. Opt-in is much better. I'm not sure a menu option for 'I'd like to hear proximity voice/my teammates' would even work since the default is off. I heard there were some issues about non-friend fireteam voice?
Speaking of going into Crucible with teams of six, I'm not sure if this is just a Beta thing, but the party system split my party multiple times.
Happened to me once, too. Incredibly weird to start shooting the people I was fighting with the game before - all while I could hear what they were saying.
Questions on Raids that I hope get answered some time before Destiny launches [...]
Why is the time scale so important? It'll be obvious once you get to the Vault of Glass. It's not really going to swing your purchase, is it?
It's not fun wandering the world, killing a group of enemies, walking ten feet away, and having them respawn. They all just hang around in the same place. At least in ODST's largely empty and increasingly boring hub world, the enemies wander around, patrol, and come after you if they see you.
Agreed. The spaces become maybe a little too safe because I always knew exactly where enemies would be or where they wouldn't be. I'm hoping that either:
A: it was a Beta thing to allow people to smash predictable mobs
B: they use that Always Online magic to mix things up more.
That Ogre really impressed me, by the way. [...]That guy walked his ass up the ramp and came right after me. I got killed, and they're much more difficult when they're coming at you.
That's funny. I just machine-gunned the Ogre as soon as I saw him. The floating Hive thingie (I forget the name) got me: I freaked out that it's shots kept bouncing everywhere, even after it died! I was hopping around like a madman trying to avoid them.
I feel like Bungie should add a compass to the game somewhere.
Yes plox. Even just an 'N' on the motion sensor would help.
= Crucible =
Here I was going to then put in a whole bunch of sarcy responses to your bits on Crucible but it wouldn't be productive. I disagree with most of what you said on it. I think Crucible fun, I want to play it more - and those are the most important things to me.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 15:47 (3573 days ago) @ RC
= Crucible =
Here I was going to then put in a whole bunch of sarcy responses to your bits on Crucible but it wouldn't be productive. I disagree with most of what you said on it. I think Crucible fun, I want to play it more - and those are the most important things to me.
Agreed.
All the talk of skill, with almost everything that makes up a FPS being listed as requiring no skill made me wonder just what "skill" is supposed to be... In my experience, once "skill" gets involved in a conversation it becomes defined as "that thing the people who beat me don't have." That's what I felt here, at least in part. Maybe it's because Avateur's experience was so opposite to mine. I loved the slow pacing and firing rates Reach forced players to play by and was convinced that I'd dislike Destiny. By the end of the beta I was in love with the Crucible despite its faster pace.
One minor correction: In my experience the motion tracker didn't light up a different color for people above or below you. Rather the central circle would either light up fully if they were close and on your level, or it would only gain a thin red outer ring if they were above or below you.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Avateur , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:38 (3573 days ago) @ Ragashingo
All the talk of skill, with almost everything that makes up a FPS being listed as requiring no skill made me wonder just what "skill" is supposed to be... In my experience, once "skill" gets involved in a conversation it becomes defined as "that thing the people who beat me don't have." That's what I felt here, at least in part. Maybe it's because Avateur's experience was so opposite to mine. I loved the slow pacing and firing rates Reach forced players to play by and was convinced that I'd dislike Destiny. By the end of the beta I was in love with the Crucible despite its faster pace.
I feel like I rarely lost, actually, and my K/D ratio was maybe negative once or twice. It's more that it felt too easy even for me to just romp all over people. I guess I was expecting more of a challenge in Crucible, and generally more challenge means more skill from my perspective. I also really enjoy Reach (it has its problems, too), and I'm very good at it, also.
Don't get me wrong, though. I really did enjoy the Crucible, and I look forward to going back into it. I absolutely loved that Venus map, and coordinating with my team is really fun.
One minor correction: In my experience the motion tracker didn't light up a different color for people above or below you. Rather the central circle would either light up fully if they were close and on your level, or it would only gain a thin red outer ring if they were above or below you.
Hm. Cody mentioned that before, and I just never noticed a difference regardless. I wasn't sure if it was just the center, or if it was the radar as a whole. I think it needs to be more apparent.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 18:26 (3573 days ago) @ Avateur
All the talk of skill, with almost everything that makes up a FPS being listed as requiring no skill made me wonder just what "skill" is supposed to be... In my experience, once "skill" gets involved in a conversation it becomes defined as "that thing the people who beat me don't have." That's what I felt here, at least in part. Maybe it's because Avateur's experience was so opposite to mine. I loved the slow pacing and firing rates Reach forced players to play by and was convinced that I'd dislike Destiny. By the end of the beta I was in love with the Crucible despite its faster pace.
I feel like I rarely lost, actually, and my K/D ratio was maybe negative once or twice. It's more that it felt too easy even for me to just romp all over people. I guess I was expecting more of a challenge in Crucible, and generally more challenge means more skill from my perspective. I also really enjoy Reach (it has its problems, too), and I'm very good at it, also.
Being in a groove is probably magnified by Destiny's faster kill times. It's funny, having said that, I'm not really sure Destiny plays all that much faster than Halo. In Halo 4, for instance, it's three or four quick bursts with the Battle Rifle. In Destiny I was getting kills with four (somewhat slower) shots from my Scout Rifle. Shotgun and Fusion Rifle combat felt almost exactly the same as Halo, with the Fusion Rifle taking the place of everyone's favorite gun the Bolt Shot. And sniping is still sniping. Two shots to the body or one to the head, though I probably agree it's slightly easier in Destiny. Why? Because I was getting sniper kills! (I very rarely snipe in Halo...)
Really then I think most of Destiny's speed up comes from more movement options (imagine if every Spartan could jump to the glass balcony in Sword Base!) and quicker Auto Rifle kills. It'll get even more interesting as more Supers and passive abilities are unlocked. I wonder if a team might dominate with Void Titans (with Ward of Dawn set up to provide everyone personal shields) by saving their Supers then activating them in turn to provide a group with shield buffs running a solid minute or more... kinda similar to how hard it could be to take down a team who were all smart with Armor Lock...
Hm. Cody mentioned that before, and I just never noticed a difference regardless. I wasn't sure if it was just the center, or if it was the radar as a whole. I think it needs to be more apparent.
One of my favorite moments in the Crucible was on the earth map. I'd lost somebody above me as they jumped over me as I was going (roughly) from A to C and I was prepared to lose the spin in circles game but I caught their long shadow projected onto the ground and wall (something no Halo would have done) and was able to turn the correct direction and finish them off. It doesn't have much to do with complaints about the Destiny motion tracker... but it was a bit of unique, Destiny-only, fun. :)
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Avateur , Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:45 (3573 days ago) @ RC
Speaking of Orbit, it can really be a huge time waster. [...] I shouldn't have to bump us into Orbit, and then bump us elsewhere.
Come September, I want you to go compare the loading time of Old Russia-Orbit and Orbit-Tower. Then you'll have a pretty good idea why.
I'll make a note to do this. I didn't think to do something like this, and maybe that'll clear things up and change my mind. Thanks!
Questions on Raids that I hope get answered some time before Destiny launches [...]
Why is the time scale so important? It'll be obvious once you get to the Vault of Glass. It's not really going to swing your purchase, is it?
Oh definitely not. This game is an absolute purchase. The Raid stuff had a lot answered in that recent article, and I haven't really cared much about the fine details until I got that taste. It's more of a personal thing hoping that I'll have some of these concerns addressed pre-launch so that I can get to planning certain aspects. It's a Raid, right? It's just something about my play style where I like to plan something like this ahead of time, get an idea of what I'm going into and who I should take with me, etc. I guess you could call it a sort of wish list of things I would like to know ahead of time because they're just the biggest burning questions I have about how something is going to work in-game. :P
= Crucible =
Here I was going to then put in a whole bunch of sarcy responses to your bits on Crucible but it wouldn't be productive. I disagree with most of what you said on it. I think Crucible fun, I want to play it more - and those are the most important things to me.
It definitely is fun, and I played a ton of it! I can't wait for more, and I just see a lot of room for improvement. There are so many different ways to play that I think it's good that you disagree with me. Who knows what multiple playlists will bring with different variations of play and ability. Maybe they'll even throw a Race playlist in for Sparrows or Pikes or something. :D
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Xenos , Shores of Time, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:57 (3573 days ago) @ Avateur
It definitely is fun, and I played a ton of it! I can't wait for more, and I just see a lot of room for improvement. There are so many different ways to play that I think it's good that you disagree with me. Who knows what multiple playlists will bring with different variations of play and ability. Maybe they'll even throw a Race playlist in for Sparrows or Pikes or something. :D
I was actually thinking, if they are worried about population of a Race playlist they could make it a timed event similar to Iron Banner. Could make it pretty awesome since I think people would jump at the chance to play some special event, especially if you could earn a sweet race event Sparrow.
My Beta Thoughts and Feedback (Lots of Text)
by Joe Duplessie (SNIPE 316) , Detroit, Friday, August 08, 2014, 06:34 (3569 days ago) @ Avateur
Welp, we're just over a month out from Destiny's launch! Exciting, I know. I hope some of this feedback has a chance to be looked at and considered for launch. I may be forgetting some things, but I think this should cover most all of my thoughts.
Lots of General Thoughts Covering All The Things
I don't think I can say enough about just how much I love the Pike. Seriously, Bungie. That Pike is one of the best things that you've ever created for a video game. I didn't think I could care as much about a vehicle as I do for the Warthog, and yet here I am completely amazed with the Pike. I even started a clan based primarily on the use and love of the vehicle. If there's one thing I'd like to request, it would be to keep the Pikes completely untouched. They play perfectly. Please leave them be, and thank you so much for creating them!
I liked its feel. I wouldn't say it's the best thing ever, but it was cool.
I get that this was a Beta, but what clan support are we going to be seeing? At the moment on Bungie.net, there are errors for people trying to create clans, and it seems that joining Alliances doesn't work. No errors at all. There's just no reaction to trying to invite to an Alliance or to send a request to join one.
I never even tried to join a clan. Never selected one, or anything. Somehow, I was magically added to the DBO clan about two days before the beta ended.
Destiny itself should also copy Halo 2 and allow a Clan screen to show in-game so that you can see who from your clan is online and also to give you the option to invite people to join your clan right from within the game itself. It's probably just a wish at this point, but it would be cool if the Crucible had a Clans Only playlist that matched clans up against each other somehow.
Would be a good idea. Nothing really to add here.
So, there was plenty of talk about the Interceptor being overpowered and whatnot, right? And I've already said how much I love the Pike! Well, another solution to some problems with vehicles would be the option to hijack. It's really gross that you can't, especially with how well it works in Halo. If this could somehow be implemented, I think it would make things a lot better.
I think the hijack mechanic would help a lot here, but I think they're trying to distance themselves from Halo.
The UI in this game is a big love-hate relationship with me (mostly love). I absolutely love the whole "hover" selection with the thumbstick to select what screens or icons I want to go to. I like how seamless everything feels. At the same time, this whole "hold Y" to get back to orbit gets really obnoxious very quickly. I get it, Bungie doesn't want people touching the wrong button and instantly flying back to Orbit or leaving the Crucible. Regardless, don't make us hold down the button for an hour to back out. Five seconds, tops, please.
Wasn't in love with the UI, but it wasn't a deal breaker. I get that the want to be different, but it just seems so slow compared to the norm.
Was also annoyed with the "hold Y" bits. Not that they make you hold Y (that's good. Any accidental returns to orbit are avoided), but that they make you hold it for about 10 seconds. I'd say 3 seconds is good. There's no way you're accidentally holding Y for 3 seconds.
It also seems like the Beta didn't remember that the last time I was on, I had my party set to Invite Only. Halo does a good job of remembering what I last had my party security set at, and I'm hoping that the final product of Destiny won't constantly revert to Friends Only.
Seems like a simple fix.
I can't for the life of me figure out why Bungie removed the death-count from the post-game report. God forbid people feel like they did poorly or see that they did. Just show me how many times I died, throw the K/D ratio beside it, and there you go.
It was definitely so that people didn't feel bad about themselves. I think I remember hearing that they're changing that, though.
I'm extremely impressed with the way stats display at Bungie.net. Granted, it's not that easy to locate peoples' stats (and I hope that improves or is made more obvious so players can check themselves out and compare with other friends, sort of like with H3 or Reach). I think my favorite part is the medals and how they're displayed in-game and on Bungie.net. They were really easy to hover over and read, the medals themselves are pretty clever and fun, and I think they're absolutely worth trying to obtain.
Seemed pretty bare-bones to me. At least compared to what we're used to with Halo. I'm willing to bet that that'll be greatly expanded upon in the full release.
That "Never Speak of This Again" medal was by far my favorite. I got two splatters with a Sparrow in the Beta, and both times I was joking about how I just cost Bungie some customers because those people probably will be too mad to buy Destiny. Sorry Bungie! But yeah, it's named perfectly. I also absolutely want that Seventh Column medal, and it seems like it's going to pose a real challenge to get. During the Beta I only managed to get four people killed quickly because it seemed like no more than that were ever around. I guess I have a goal for the actual game.
I think the Strength of the Wolf medal was a good one.
On Bungie.net, I really like the bit on the right side of your stats where you can click "Gear Vault" or "Recent" to view games and things, but it took me days to even notice these options. I think they need to be made more obvious and apparent so that they're easier to find online once the game launches.
Can see that changing. If not, blame Stosh!
I really wish I could hover over my friend's ships when we're all just sitting in Orbit so that it can highlight and tell me who they are. It's fun being able to connect the gamertag of your buddy with their ship.
That's a good idea. I used to be able to quickly identify every HBOer's spartans from their helmet and color.
Speaking of Orbit, it can really be a huge time waster. Say I'm in the Crucible with my full team and we're done playing that. I should have the option to send us back to the Tower if that's where we want to go. Or to a Raid once we're at that level. I shouldn't have to bump us into Orbit, and then bump us elsewhere. I feel like a lot of what I experienced in the Beta made it clear that our time is not necessarily being considered valuable (see above for how long I have to hold a button just to leave the Tower or take my party back to Orbit after Crucible).
Yep. All of the UI feels slow for the sake of immersion. The warping/planet circling screens could still be the loading screens, just let me decide where I want to go next from the Tower, without having to load orbit first.
Or take the Tower itself as an example. I have to go back there for every single little thing? I can't access bounties anywhere, I can't deal with Engrams anywhere, I can't do anything anywhere at all ever except at the Tower. I shouldn't have to leave the planet, go to Orbit, go to the Tower, run all over the place for what might amount to five minutes tops, go back to Orbit, and then go back to the place I want to play. It's extremely frustrating, especially when you have a party with only one or two people who have a need to go to the Tower. Everyone is getting dragged along for what one or two people need to do when they should be able to just take care of it using their Ghost right there in Old Russia or in Orbit. Everyone's time just got wasted.
Totally agree.
Although I personally feel like the Tower as a whole is a waste of time, it's a really nice place to go when there's idle time or when the group is coordinating together. It definitely beats just sitting in Orbit with no one doing anything. There were plenty of fun shenanigans afoot with soccer balls, balloons, trees, and climbing things. Part of me wonders how much of that will go away as certain bugs get polished, as the novelty wears off, or as more maddening invisible barriers and kill barriers go up.
Goofing off at the Tower was far and away the most fun I had with Destiny.
Speaking of which, Old Russia has so many invisible walls and kill zones that it's not even funny. I thoroughly can't wait for people to keep finding ways to break out of some of these places so that people can continue exploring. I definitely loved lots of those Beta break-out videos. Some of the most fun I ever had in Halo 2 and Halo 3 came from breaking out of maps and exploring in campaign. The egg in New Alexandria in Reach where you can get the Pelican and have full access to fly out to wherever you want on that map is similar. I love fully realized exploration and ability to go places.
I covered this one too, but yeah. There's only so many times you can replay a level and have it still be fun (with significantly less replayability in Destiny, to boot). The meta-game of breaking out of maps and exploring adds a lot of replayability. Bungie's been strangling this flavor of fun since H3. Although, Reach had some amazing exploration stuff. We played that for hours.
I get that the game has multiple servers that allow something like twenty people into a place at any given time. At the same time, this whole squad party of three thing is extremely and unbelievably limiting for a "shared world" game. I'm talking clans or just a place like DBO having a game night. I had a group of twelve friends on, and we all split up into our teams of three. We tried going down to the Explore mode at the exact same time so that we could try to tackle things together. Nope. We landed in largely empty servers with only a few randoms scattered about. Yay. So we're going at it with just the three of us in a largely empty server with plenty of space for the rest of our buddies who can never get to us. Not fun, Bungie.
Not very social...
We also can't communicate with anyone in Explore. Let's say we do run into some randoms who want to help out in a public event. It's so frustrating not being able to tell the randoms to stay inside the circle so that we have as many Guardians inside linked up! It's really fun having randoms join in, or for us to be those randoms joining in with someone else, but when it's a giant mess of non-coordination and failure, it really puts a damper on things. This also applies to Crucible, especially for people who are going in without a full team of six. We could also use proximity voice to know if our enemies are nearby.
... for a social game.
Speaking of going into Crucible with teams of six, I'm not sure if this is just a Beta thing, but the party system split my party multiple times. It's extremely weird going into games with six people, either for the first time or after playing for hours, and occasionally it just throws one or two of us onto the other team with randoms. Now, this only happened a few times, but I figure it's worth pointing out.
Didn't experience it, but I'll take your word for it.
I would really love it if the Crucible would allow for larger parties to go in. That example of twelve people I named up above could have really used the option to head into Crucible together and let the system assign teams so that we could just battle each other. It's nice having options when you have a bunch of friends on.
Dat dwindling feature set.
I also would like it if the final game has the option to vote for maps instead of just randomly selecting one. Also, please include a "None of the Above" voting option as well.
That's tricky. The argument against voting is that some people want to play all of the maps they paid for. But my counter to that would be that the people voting against these maps you want to play will probably just quit any way, meaning you won't get to play at all. The lesser of two evils is probably a voting system.
Questions on Raids that I hope get answered some time before Destiny launches: Do you have to have six in your party to actually start the thing? And what if someone has to go or gets disconnected while you're in the middle of playing? Does everyone lose their progress? Does the Raid just stop? Does everyone restart where they last were or at a checkpoint? Are they screwed if the dropped individual can't come back until tomorrow, or for more than 24 hours? If you replace the person with someone new, do you still restart at the last checkpoint, or is it time to start all over again? Answers to these somewhere before launch would be really, really great.
The strike didn't end if someone dropped. I find it hard to imagine that the Raids will.
Why am I so concerned about disconnecting or losing someone? I know Bungie was testing the servers in the Beta, but the problem with Always Online is that if the servers go down or my personal internet goes down, the fun goes bye bye. The game itself becomes a total brick. I can't even log in or mess around with my character or do anything. Until I can get back on, Destiny becomes worthless. That really sucks.
Yeah, and to be honest, nothing in the beta really seemed like it absolutely couldn't exist without online.
I find it amusing that people who want the Ghost Edition of Destiny or some of the limited editions are screwed because of how "limited" they are. The Beta just happened, and many people were waiting to see if it was worth spending that kind of money. Too bad it was announced and they were all gone prior to the Beta, right? I'm not pre-ordering the game, so this doesn't affect me, but damn. It's disappointing to see this happen to a bunch of friends and strangers who really want this thing now.
Heh, not me. :)
Story/Explore/Strike
I know a lot of people are upset that Destiny's Beta lacked story. I know a lot of people think the story sucks. I disagree with these two thoughts because I feel like we weren't shown really any story at all by design, and thus there's no way to know. What I do know is that the gameplay was really nice, and I had fun. Explore is boring as hell, and the missions that you can accept are also boring. Exploring for loot gets old really quickly. Public Events are really awesome. Bullet sponges absolutely freaking suck.
Really why I haven't commented on the story. I don't know enough to do so. Disagree on game play, agree on the rest. At least the idea of public events. The implementation was a bit lacking.
I really enjoy collecting the dead sleeping Ghosts, as I like to call them. I don't know why. My play style has never been about collecting things, grinding stuff out for better wares, or being a 100% completionist. Things like the feathers in Assassin's Creed or any number of items that the creators want me to go out and find have never amused me or captured my attention. Bungie definitely did something right with these dead sleeping Ghosts, because I really want to find them. I'm fascinated by them and their locations. Still, no clue why.
Opposite here. I absolutely got all of the feathers in all of the AC games. I felt no desire to go get the ghosts. Maybe because I didn't have any progress bar telling me I had 13/50 ghosts found. Or that colecting them does literally nothing in game.
It's not fun wandering the world, killing a group of enemies, walking ten feet away, and having them respawn. They all just hang around in the same place. At least in ODST's largely empty and increasingly boring hub world, the enemies wander around, patrol, and come after you if they see you. The world is so huge, yet it's so empty. This place is taken over by all sorts of enemies, and the Public Events have huge ships warping in left and right. We need more enemies outside instead of mostly confined spaces in buildings where they keep spawning endlessly while the Ghost does everything it can to complete its task for three goes.
Agree here. I covered it as well.
I really enjoyed using the Sparrow. It's fun zipping around and being able to call it up whenever I want for the most part (even on the Moon in Crucible).
I can agree with this in campaign. It's a lot faster, and will help with keeping players engaged. In multi, though, it could break map flow. I suppose maps could be designed around it, but that seems like a lot of effort to go through for it. Winning an encounter isn't going to mean a whole lot if your fallen foe can just zip right back on their sparrow.
I really enjoyed the Story missions. I played through them plenty of times. Granted, I was getting sick of Old Russia pretty quickly. The Strike is plenty of fun until you get to the bullet sponges that don't do anything. Oh no, it's a Devil Walker! Good thing all it can do is turn around in circles. How terrifying. How long have we been shooting it now? Waste of time, no real challenge. Oh no, a giant version of the smaller purple floaty orbs. It just stares at me and takes my shots right in its "eye" and shoots laughable doom blasts at me while occasionally warping in and out of places. How terrifying. How long have we been shooting it now? Waste of time, no real challenge.
I hope the game has plenty of play-spaces, because if not, people are gonna get tired of it fast. If six missions in the beta weren't fun for me to play after what amounts to a few hours playtime, then how long will the full game last me?
So this is where I'm supposed to say that Bungie can do better, right? Well, they beat me to it! They DID do better! The Moon was by far my most favorite part of everything (well, second favorite after the Pike). I went there, I completed the mission, I had a "wait, that's it?" moment, and then I found out that I could explore this insanely vast area that takes me deep within the catacombs of the Hive Kingdom of Doom. It was absolutely awesome, the AI seemed smarter, was more difficult, and acted like it really wanted to come after me and kill me (and some seemed to be patrolling). The Ogre thing was way more fun to fight and more of a challenge than the Old Russia bosses, and there were some enemies who just didn't care what you did to them because they were just going to destroy you regardless.
The moon had a cool feel. I like the Hive architecture. Very Gears 2 locust-y. Come to think of it, Old Russia reminded me a lot of Jacinto in Gears 2...
That Ogre really impressed me, by the way. My two buddies were off on their own (aka I ditched them to explore a different area and ran into an Ogre on my own), and I thought for a second that he was just going to laserface at me until I killed him down in his pit. Nope. That guy walked his ass up the ramp and came right after me. I got killed, and they're much more difficult when they're coming at you (especially if you got cocky and let your guard down). I was very impressed with the Moon, and I can't wait to go back and get digging into those tunnels. I also can't wait to see what Bungie has in store on other planets.
Both Ogres for me were just sit back, shoot head.
I feel like Bungie should add a compass to the game somewhere. It'd be nice to have a sense of direction, or if you're separated from your group in big tunnels on the Moon, you can let them know what direction you went in.
Compass is a big help with situational awareness. Don't see why it isn't there.
Now for a technical issue. My Xbox 360 froze multiple times when I would hit certain loading points or even sometimes switching out weapons while on the Moon or in Old Russia. Full on console freezing to the point that everyone in my party says I've left the game, but they can still chat with me in our Party Chat. All the while, no button presses work, and I have to hold the power button on the 360 to make it turn off. Really weird and frustrating. I'm wondering if Xbox One, PS3, or PS4 had any similar issues.
I'd bet PS3 did. That's likely just an issue with older hardware. Kinda expect it. I'm hosestly amazed at how good they got it to look and run on such old consoles. To hear that there were hiccups doesn't surprise me at all.
Crucible
I absolutely love Shores of Time. That map, especially when the sun is somewhat down, is gorgeous. It also plays extremely well. For real, that map would work out really well in Halo. It works out just fine in Destiny, and there are some pretty clever and creative ways to play on that map. I love the little jetpack booster thing that my Titan has.
For being a close quarters map, it sure was easy to camp with sniper on it.
But holy cow is Crucible unbalanced. Using Pikes takes skill, getting headshots takes skill, and creeping about takes skill (sort of). Everything else feels to be primarily dumb luck. You have no way to tell if someone has their Super ready to use until they use it on you. The game provides near-constant ammo for sniper rifles and shotguns. If someone shoots at you first, you're just about guaranteed to be dead. Truly, it's baffling.
Pretty bad...
I mean don't get me wrong. Not to brag, but I feel I'm pretty damn good at Destiny. I played as a Titan exclusively, and I found myself forgetting that I even had a Super the majority of the time because I felt like I never had to use it. I primarily used an Auto Rifle, and I chose to use one of the weaker ones with less rapid-fire because it had a higher impact and a slow enough rate of fire that it allowed me to really take off someone's head. That's the real key to using a gun like that in Destiny. So I guess that sort of takes skill, right?
Not really, no. I often forgot my super existed, too. Never really needed it, made me feel dirty to use it.
But is that really skill? Whatever guns you happened to find, purchase, or unlock with their arbitrary stats are what can truly decide the battle? Or the fact that someone else's gun takes a few seconds to charge before one-hit-killing you? You're fighting numbers, luck, and random chance at this point. Go into Iron Banner, and it's even more so since you don't know what their armor is, what their defenses are, or what their own weapons are going to bring in relation to your own armor. It feels like your actual destiny in Crucible is really out of your own hands beyond seeing them first, shooting first, and managing to hit your target. Aiming for the head is about the only real skill you can get, along with managing to get the jump on people.
Pretty much, although you really don't have enough control over positioning to say skill has much part in it.
I got the hang of Iron Banner once I realized what I should be doing with it. Again, an Auto Rifle with higher impact beats an Auto Rifle with higher overall attack points and rate of fire. I don't see how the more "casual" gamer can enjoy this experience, let alone the Crucible in general. I'm really good at it, and even I found myself raging plenty.
A casual probably won't understand it, but they probably won't care either way.
Going in with a full team is also key. We lost on very rare occasions when going into Crucible fully loaded. How is anyone supposed to survive when you have good friends who communicate and know each other and play together all the time? I feel bad for people who came up against TTL groups and probably got completely dominated. It definitely doesn't help that there's no voice chat with randoms if you don't have a full group.
Communication is key.
Sniper rifles appear to have an extreme aim assist, and a potential severe host advantage. It even has a Halo 2-esque swipe scope ability. I could be zooming, strafing, sprinting, shooting back, anything. I could be clear across the map in constant motion. Snipers be raining headshots. What in the world is the matter with those rifles? They just feel way overpowered and cheap. They definitely take an amount of skill, but their ease of use and potential balance problems are troubling to me. I asked our very own Snipe 316 why he hates the sniper rifle and playing so much when he's so good at it and basically goes on endless kill streaks. His reply was that it's too easy. He shouldn't be able to just go on destroying people with that sniper rifle with basically unlimited ammo. I agree with his assessment.
Well, I like the way it feels. It's very smooth, and my shots go where I feel they should. The problem is that I spawn with it. I don't have to earn the tools I need to dominate. I should have to.
I enjoy the radar, I really do. I still contend that it becomes impossible when someone is above you, below you, or directly beside you. It's been pointed out that apparently it changes to a different shade of red. It's barely noticeable, and it's not helpful. All of a sudden I'm spinning in circles trying to see where the person is to get a melee in, or to see if they're actually in the room with me at all. It works great when it comes to general direction and knowing someone's coming, but not when they may be camping corners and you just ran into them or they're above/below you. Yet another thing that adds luck into the mix and detracts from skill.
I don't like it. I think they should have just gone with no radar at all. It can make camping harder in some ways, easier in others. Harder to tell if an enemy is coming, but easier because they can't tell that you're there.
Control is a joke of a game type. Holding those points makes zero difference in the game beyond map control. Hold B and C, let them have A. Don't touch A. They'll keep spawning in its general area. Even if you don't spawn camp them, they're stuck. They're surrounded. Yes, even on the Moon. Crushing your enemy becomes way too easy. Control seriously should act as a more traditional Domination or Territories gametype that constantly impacts score, because otherwise all it does is act as another Team Slayer game with generally no chance for escape for the unfortunate team that got stuck with A.
Pretty much covers it. DON'T TAKE A!
The Moon seems to be disliked by a lot of people. I absolutely love how it handles with the Pike, and I'm thankful that I can use the Sparrow on it, but on foot it's just too open with too little players. This is another issue with the cap being set at six players per team. The map (and maybe Crucible) needs more players.
12 max is pretty low for today's standards. May have something to do with releasing on 360/PS3. Destiny 2 should target 32 players at least. Might be cool.
I only played a few close games in Crucible. Yes, I lost my share of games, but only a few of those were close. It seems like either you're getting utterly destroyed, or you're doing the utter destroying. The arguments people were making about how Supers are balanced just don't add up. The potential for the person with the Super to die while using it or before they get the chance does not make it balanced. That argument can be said about any gun or anything in any shooter. The Golden Gun is absolutely the most unbalanced of the three, and I don't think that needs explanation.
Cross-map instakills? What's wrong with that?
Heavy ammo is awesome. It shows up from time to time, it's worth trying to get, and it absolutely feels great to use. It makes me wonder why the sniper rifle, in all its overpowered glory, has constant ammo available and is so simple to use. The same goes for the shotgun. Bungie treated each as power weapons in Halo, but for some reason they're fine and dandy for general unending use in Crucible. Go figure.
Rockets are still power weapons, though. Hmm. I dunno about you, but I'll do a lot more killing with a sniper than with rockets, or an LMG.
Conclusion
All in all, I am absolutely excited for this game. Sure, I have a bunch of complaints, and the Beta is definitely not perfect, but I can't wait to get my hands on the full version of Destiny. I still can't wait to get into Crucible more, if only because I know that my clan, my friends, and I are going to continue having a fun time. I'll also get to ride Pikes again in glorious battle! The Beta really was a lot of fun, even if it could get ridiculously angering at times (I saw/heard people/friends who rarely if ever raged at Halo or other games start raging out and wanting to quit playing the Beta). It's a work in progress though, right? I have some really, really high hopes.
Really excited for November.
The Destiny Beta is the first thing to truly get me excited for next generation gaming. I really can't wait to experience this further. Yet again, I would like to thank Bungie for the Beta, for opening up the Moon, for playing with us, and for stopping by DBO and reading/responding to our posts. Assuming Bungie (and any of you) have read this all the way through, I'd like to thank you all for that as well. Thanks for all of your time, and I can't wait to get this game fired up and going in September with all of you!