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Edited by Solidus:
7/25/2014 11:53:13 PM
15
My feedback after 22 hours of Destiny
After spending a good while experiencing the content available within the beta, I believe I'm prepared to give proper feedback and thoughts on what I experienced.
[b]Player vs Environment [/b]
I. Story Missions
I've found the missions available in the beta to be slightly lacking in terms of their objectives and execution but the tight, well focused game play and worthy AI managed to ward off any possible boredom. From what I've experienced, the missions themselves seem to pretty much revolve around "go here", "go here, scan this", or "go here, scan this, oh look waves of enemies". Now I know this interpretation may seem a overly flippant but while the experience was enjoyable I just didn't get the sense of a properly choreographed encounter as I hopped on my Sparrow, occasionally stopping to deal with a clump of enemies I could have just as easily passed, eventually reaching the immediate area of my objective and then preforming said objective with little variance or fanfare unless a Public Event occurred. It almost felt like the first person, sci-fi equivalent of going into the forest to kill five boars. It just felt so...simple.
I believe the fact that the story missions are set within the open world as opposed to uniquely designed levels is the reason for the lack of creativity in their execution, the missions and how they unfold must bend to fit within the predefined play space of the open world rather than have a play space built around their concepts and scenarios for maximum effect. With whats been presented I wouldn't call this an ideal scenario but later environments might allow for more creative lee way and thus more elaborate missions.
II. Strike
While one Strike isn't much to go on I feel the Devil's Lair at least is also hampered by being set in the open world rather being it own separate space other than the area beyond the Devil Walker. It feels unduly simplistic for what amounts to an assassination as you work your way into the refinery, "go here, scan this, oh look waves of enemies", face the Devil Walker, then make it to Sepiks Prime, a supposed machine god with TWO attacks and a lot of health, effectively a Servitor on steroids. While Strikes are designed to be more succinct than raids I have to hope that further strikes, much like missions, offer a less straight forward experience and the bosses involved are also more distinct in both design and action.
III. Exploration
Exploration seemed like kind of a mixed bag to me. Coming to terms with this new environment, looking off into the skyboxes, exploring for chests and ghosts or simply new areas, and bumping into powerful enemies signaling you will one day return and not forsake the area forever like many other games, it's all just great but it's the missions that are a sticking point. They just don't offer enough Vanguard reputation to make them really worth concentrating on beyond the "high value target" missions that provide both Glimmer and a large sum of materials that can be eventually traded in for reputation with the Vanguard or Crucible as well as experience and Glimmer. Really, you might as well get by on the bounties since you can effectively multitask and gain Vanguard reputation while in other modes of play. With this in mind though, the design of missions that actually have you explore cave systems and become acquainted with your movement ability through platforming are ingenious.
IV. Public Event
I enjoyed the much touted Public Events the few times they occurred with a Warsat event involving both high level Fallen and Hive being particularly memorable. I can think of nothing truly negative about temporary events that serve as a focal point for all in the area to engage in large confrontation for unique currency and teh phat meaningful lootz beyond the number of people in the world, and thus participants in said events, can be a tad iffy which was brought to the forefront of my experience why I successfully soloed a Devil Walker. In fact, I don't know what's up with my instances during Exploration but the world seems to be pretty empty most of the time.
While the Player vs Environment content is a tad samey the sheer polish found within the combat and RPG elements overshadows the flaws to the point where you don't really mind. It's still fun to shoot things and get useful items even if the activity isn't as fleshed out as it could be.
[b]Competitive Multiplayer[/b]
I am nowhere near MLGEEEE L33T enough to properly discuss the finer points of multiplayer but I do know enough to say vehicles, particularly the Interceptor, are a little ridiculous right now with my best scores of the entire beta coming from riding in that [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/PGCR/2/4611686018428786358/2305843009215026785/8588665?_t]chariot of fire[/url].
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4 RepliesEdited by Solidus: 7/24/2014 12:29:56 AMI'm concerned with Destiny's approach to narrative and characterization. This fits under the Presentation section. [b]Characterization[/b] It doesn't really exist, both antagonists and supporting characters are equally lacking in much needed definition. Other than the Speaker who will obviously be getting more screen time, character interaction between yourself and the inhabitants of the Tower, the few NPCs you'll interact with in the game space is nonexistent beyond buying stuff. The Vanguard are seasoned veterans and also guides to your rebirth as a Guardian but even as you meet them for the VERY FIRST TIME no scene or dialogue surrounding what it means to be your chosen class or what your role in the coming conflict is occurs even though you're a [i]a freshly reanimated corpse[/i] and things of this nature would be of interest to character and player as well as the previous exploits of your handlers. Instead, you get a care package and are then told to get more care packages with the exact same flaw repeating itself over and over. You go about the Tower, meeting the factional leaders, a source of disharmony while humanity breathes it's last breath, yet learn nothing about them beyond the vaguest of ideas of their stances from the gear they sell, You go to the Shipwright, Outfitter, and Cryptarch, non-guardians who can put a vulnerable, human face to the conflict to contrast your space-time altering demi godhood and again, no attempt is made to connect the player to these characters and thus strengthen their knowledge and connection to the world. It's a very odd omission for a game that takes it's story so seriously for there to be so few avenues for it. I'm not asking for extensive dialog trees or even dialog trees but there really should have been introductory cutscenes and short scenes that occur as you reach story milestones. When it comes to enemies, they too are sorely in need of more definition. As soon you are reborn you encounter the Fallen, a race of nobility and serfs fallen from grace and cursed to pillage the stars in shame, but Tyrion feels no need to give you even the briefest introduction to them even though you are, again, [i]a freshly reanimated corpse[/i]. In fact, no one ever bothers to tell you who the Fallen are or what they want, this massive gap in background knowledge would remain if not for pre release material and blurbs from Grimoire cards gained hours if not days later with both being sources of information outside the game. This issue is further compounded when you consider there doesn't seem to be any clear antagonists at this point. Sure we've seen bosses so far but they have no dialogue or narrative significance. Who are the leaders of the respective armies against us? What do they gain from this? What is their take on each other given Hive troops attack Fallen troops? Do they serve the Darkness willingly or out of fear? As they stand now the Fallen are just "the Fallen" and the Hive are just "the Hive", mere obstacles with seemingly no greater purpose or machinations as well as a distinct lack of notable leadership for the player to use as a reference for the whole. [b]Narrative[/b] Destiny does a lot of setting up with references to battles and calamities, heroes and secret orders, but never follows through and tells you what happened or what they are. At a glance, I would suppose this is endemic of the same issues facing characters which is Bungie seems to believe off loading lore and background information from it actual source and into the Grimoire is somehow a good idea. When it comes to the actual story of the game I don't have enough to properly assess it but from what little there is It might have been better to have your character go through a proper dialogue, asking questions and giving statements, on what your doing and your current objective rather than have Tyrion talk [i]at[/i] you in order to more organically relay to the player how his actions work into the greater conflict. As it stands now I differently get it but it just seems so curt and to the point. I don't really understand why such vagueness exists within the game when your character is a person revived after dying a number of years prior to current events. It pretty much the equivalent of Amnesia in the sense it gives you a easy out for explaining all the things in the world around the character for the sake of the viewer without it being clunky or inorganic but the fact that your character was dead seems to be just an ancillary detail and not a tool to introduce you into the world. It's an odd choice to make.
