Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

Do you think you can describe in what way way does Desitny's game play feel different compared to BL?
Is there more emphasis on the player's skills and less on stats?
 
Only in loot and levelling. Borderlands was the first to RPGify shooters. Kill critters to get loot including weapons and level up + gain skills. The gameplay's quite different.

I can't say I was enamoured with what I played last night. I didn't realise it was so MMO-y, with other players in your game instance. I also feel the game is very 'Apple'. By that, I refer to my recent experience of Apple, now owning a Mac and iPad. Apple think it's cool and trendy to name things with obscure references, so where I clicked 'Time Machine' expecting a game, I found it was 'backup'. 'Backup' is too prosaic for Apple... Destiny has a lot of similar renaming of things that, in my very personal opinion, is mixing things up for no great reason. A change is possibly nice, but they've clearly just renamed a whole load of RPG memes. I bought a Special Weapon expecting another shotgun and it turned out to be a sniper rifle; the airy fairy descriptions gave no real info (at least that explained why the range was so long!). Decoding Glyphs is taking blueprints to blacksmiths in every other game.

I know there'll be vociferous defenders of the lore of Destiny and how it needs to be dressed up accordingly, but it just feels a little...like a redressing the same old game ideas. Run around and shoot with a Guild Wars/MMO hub - job done. Everything was from existing games. Speeder-bikes? Look and sound like every speeder bike in a sci-fi game ever.

Without playing more than a couple of hours, I felt the game was pretty old and tired.
[/jaded]

My impressions of my first couple of hours were ok, but completing the Devil's Lair on hard is what made me see the promise and fun of the game.
 
My impressions of my first couple of hours were ok, but completing the Devil's Lair on hard is what made me see the promise and fun of the game.

Yep that was epic.. and the missions in the open, seems they make sure it won't get boring... :)
 
Do you think you can describe in what way way does Desitny's game play feel different compared to BL?
BL is frenetic (note I'm only comparing the first couple of hours up to level 4 in Destiny to multiple completions of BL1 and 2). It's often tight firefights in huddled masses of debris by and large, constantly banging into scenery. Often there'll be no enemies until they spawn right next to you, appearing out of doorways and holes in the ground, meaning frequent ambushes. Destiny so far has presented a more controlled situation where you know where enemies are before you encounter them (shown as red indicators on minimap). The skills in Borderlands are more diverse (again, only seen up to level 4). Dropping turrets or levitating enemies or turning invisible are quite disparate from Destiny's grenade or golden gun skill I've seen. BL also focusses on bullet sponges, with big guns and far bigger baddies with 20x+ your health. Where 100k damage could kill you in one shot, in BL it only makes a small dent in someone's shields. So it's all about emptying bullets into mobs. Mobs also move around a lot and are a pig to hit, especially with PS3's crappy framerate.

Elemental weakness also plays a significant role, with you wanting a number of guns on hand to switch between. The lack of fast loadouts on BL2 is kind of annoying because 4 guns just isn't enough (you want long range sniper, assault weapon, fire, acid, and lightning guns on hand, plus a high power shotgun of rocket launcher).
 
Do you think you can describe in what way way does Desitny's game play feel different compared to BL?
Is there more emphasis on the player's skills and less on stats?
I can try, LOL.

First, Destiny looks waaay better than BL. Very polished and shiny. Second, the whole mood is more serious. You really get the feeling that the shit has hit the fan, and more shit is incoming. BL seemed like just a silly romp fetch quest. Third, the weapons are more satisfying overall. BL had a lot of weapons, but 99.9% were completely useless filler. Destiny's weapons all look and feel very different, and each are pretty satisfying to use so far. Finally, the "second to second" combat experience (stringing together jumps+melee/special attacks+weapons fire) is tighter and more satisfying than BL.

I'm not ragging on BL either. It's a great and unique game that I love. Destiny is similar but at the same time different. I don't know if it will be as good as BL overall. We'll see.
 
Nah...PSO for Dreamcast did it long ago.
Hmmm. That's a TPS and much more like a dungeon romp than shooter. More like an RPG with guns rather than an RPGified shooter. Let's say Borderlands was the first to take the fashionable FPS genre and RPGify it where every other shooter flavour of the period was 2 or 4 guns equipped from a set of like 9 in-game varieties and no character skills. COD, Halo, Resistance, all followed this flat combat paradigm until BL threw in randomised loot drops and class skills. Now everyone's doing it. (Not claiming any brilliance on GearBox's part here either. It was going to happen sooner or later).
 
I can try, LOL.

First, Destiny looks waaay better than BL.
Is that on PS4? On PS3, Destiny looked meh, due to the limits of the platform (sub HD FTW!). Borderlands at least has a clear identity and novel artwork even if it suffer framerate collapse and similar IQ issues. Which of course aren't as pronounced because they aren't as upscaled as Destiny.
 
XBone.

I admit I haven't played Destiny on my 360, but I much prefer Destiny's art style/graphics over BL's funky cartoonish art style.

Regarding frame rate, I never really experienced frame rate issues in BL, and Destiny on the Bone feels smooth as silk so it's a wash there I guess.
 
Haha, it's not common that switching to Halo 3 is accompanied by the feeling that image quality just got a delicious boost.

Good work, seventh-gen Destiny. Keep up the FXAA.
 
Is that on PS4? On PS3, Destiny looked meh, due to the limits of the platform (sub HD FTW!). Borderlands at least has a clear identity and novel artwork even if it suffer framerate collapse and similar IQ issues. Which of course aren't as pronounced because they aren't as upscaled as Destiny.

Destiny is really beautiful on the PS4, the PS3 version is a blurry mess with nowhere the same visual impact.
I tried them both, the difference is really staggering.
 
@Shifty & NRP
Ok I probably should have said that I have played BL2, sorry.

Now what I am trying to understand is, for instance, if in Destiny your aim/skills will always matter more than stats.
In BL2 I could shoot somebody/something in the head using a lvl 10 sniper rifle and deal little or no damage to him/it BUT if I shot him/it with a lvl 30 sniper rifle in the foot it was instant kill.
Stats mattered more than my aim in the end and to me it was not "fun" at all.
 
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Destiny is the same as BL2 in that regard. There's no damage for where you hit them other than critical in the head. The standard hit takes damage based on weapon rating and enemy level or something (probably more detail in this thread. Lower level weapons can't even hit higher level enemies). Criticals deal much more. But a big gun shooting someone in the foot will do more damage than a weak gun hitting them in the head.

It's worth noting that BL2's level system was fairly steeply exponential, so a few levels difference in a weapon could provide far more damage. Destiny seems a lot closer to linear, with level 6 weapons doing, I dunno, double the damage of level 2, rather than 10x as much damage.
 
Yes, aiming skills seem to matter more in Destiny than they do in BL. If you can strip shields and headshot, you can drop enemies very quickly in Destiny. Enemies don't just seem to be bullet sponges in Destiny.
 
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Yes, aiming skills seem to matter more in Destiny than they do in BL. If you can strip shields and headshot, you can drop enemies very quickly in Destiny.
That's no different to BL though.Or do you mean criticals do more damage in Destiny? In both games you're after the crits.
 
Bonus mission on the Moon was awesome, and its a nice thing that we can freely explore entire surface, walk away far from the main mission and just see what's around. On Lvl9 setting, mission was very nicely balanced for a 3 person team.

Game looks great on the Moon, better than the Earth. I especially liked the skybox with the destroyed space station that drifts very close to the Moon.

 
Why is destiny being compared to border lands 2? So far lots of the elements remind me way more of basic rpg elements than anything else. Stats, reputation, mats, disenchantment, etc..

I like what I have seen and the co-op is really smooth implemented, did a few hours on some random missions and tried to 2 man the lair... Ouch
 
Skill means nothing in Destiny. Auto aim will make those headshot for you, and you aren't allowed to damage enemies 6 levels higher then you.

Destiny feels like all the worst parts of shooters and RPGs put together. We get the boring guns from modern shooters, and boring quests and lifeless world from RPGs.

Borderlands and Warframe are way better games IMO.
 
Bonus mission on the Moon was awesome, and its a nice thing that we can freely explore entire surface, walk away far from the main mission and just see what's around. On Lvl9 setting, mission was very nicely balanced for a 3 person team.

Game looks great on the Moon, better than the Earth. I especially liked the skybox with the destroyed space station that drifts very close to the Moon.

Bah, I totally forgot about this. I started playing the moon mission just a few minutes ago, then my TV lost signal for some reason and I had to reboot. Tried going to the moon mission again and now it's locked again. Can you only play it once, or did it just happen to expire?
 
Moon mission was only available during the 2 hour stress test starting at 2pm PDT(5pm EDT). I was able to last about 21 mins after they locked it back up. It was awesome. I literally only scratched the surface. A lot of folks were able to go further exploring below the surface. I enjoyed the Moon much more than Old Russia. It started to give me a Battle Zone feeling. I was up in the air deciding if I should buy it but the "designed from the start" co-op experience has me hooked. Only big issue I have with it is a little too much RPG for me. But then I said the same about Dead Island too. Wished it was actually a Halo game, then it would be a no-brainer. I haven't played any of the games it's being compared to(Borderlands, Mass Effect, ect), but it does have some Star Wars & maybe some Fable feeling to it. I think it will be a big hit.

Shifty, you really need to play some more. The last Old Russia mission was great. Rancid & I played together up until then & it was a blast, but the last mission or two really showed that you really need a 3rd team member. My son joined & it was a total blast! Too bad you missed the Moon mission. It was great too, though it could be completed easily solo.

Tommy McClain
 
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