Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

Played a strike mission with 2 others. The boss battles were intense!

I didn't have a mic connected and couldn't hear any voices. Is that normal? Maybe they just weren't talking either.

There seems like there will be a lot of things to do in this game. I'm kicking myself for not pre-ordering it during amazon canada's E3 promotion.
 
They are gatekeepers of some underground cave complex that can be reached if you run around them. FAST. There you can find brand new enemies that are also unkillable. Hopefully this area [and much more SP missions] will be unlocked during Beta test.

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Yeah, the question marks. But the ones I found were different. They had glowing green eyes, and it was a pitch black underground structure, not a cave. The game offers a lot to discover, wondering if there will be awesome loot down there !

Btw, I was doing my dance routine after defeating the Devil's Lair boss, as usual, when I noticed a chest under the platform we usually shoot it from. I thought it would be more glimmer (silly name) but checked it out , out of curiosity, and it was a sweet gun :) !
 
Wow, the alpha is still working ! Just explored a LOT of caves, mostly empty in the Alpha, save for some glimmer. Also, upgraded my scout rifle, got a new gun, got some ammo for my heavy weapon, etc. This game , like Warframe, can keep you hooked for a loooong time ! A Must buy, I must say considering it has all handcrafted levels unlike Warframe !
 
I really enjoyed the Alpha. The core shooting mechanics are very solid, as one would hope for this type of game (but that can't be taken for granted). Aim assist may be a bit too heavy, though. I really enjoy the mechanics built around character customization and progress as well. Mission and free roam structure is interesting. I didn't particularly enjoy the Crucibal, but only PvP was available. I suspect some of the other modes may be more my speed.

I only have 2 real complaints with the game, and 1 quibble. For the quibble, the jump looks way too floaty (and no, I'm not talking about the actual floating ability) when you see yourself (at the Tower) or someone else do it. That's a personal annoyance and I'm guessing its that way by design but it still bothers me.

On the complaint side of things the voice acting for the Ghost can be quite jarring at some points. Some of his lines are delivered terribly. Almost as if they're deliberately delivered that way. He sounds good until he tries to make a statement that is clearly meant to have some form of emotional delivery ("It's the Hive!!!") in a flat, dead pan tone that works well for what you might expect from an AI. I think they either need to allow the voice actor to give the proper range to those lines or change the dialogue to match the intended delivery. Whatever they do, something is really off about some of the lines.

My other complaint is that the world, while beautiful, feels largely static. First, there's a lack of interaction and impact on the environment. It feels like I'm walking over, the environment rather than actual being in it and walking through it. I think its the lack of audio and visual cues that's throwing me off. For example, outside of the dome, hopping from car to car, I get no sense of impact as to that being what I'm actually doing. It feels more like I'm just jumping from one piece of geometry to the next. Second, when at the Tower in particular, it feels like a static, non-interactive, cordoned off section of a much larger city. Player volume does not help fill this void. The non-vendor AI is largely static, unchanging and mostly quiet outside of a few lines of dialog as you approach or leave. The environment suffers from the same dead/static walking (gliding) over geometry feeling as the Old Russia environment on the surface. I can see that some steps were taken to try and counter this (birds, ships coming in and out) but they're not effective at countering the overall filling of being disconnected in my opinion.

My overall impression is that this is a very solid game, and definite buy for me, but one whose beautiful environments are hampered by disjointed feeling of not actually being there. I think it may actually be the level of polish on everything else with the world building that makes the small touches its missing stand out the most. Disconnected from the beautiful environment is a feeling I can't shake when I'm exploring, but one that is quickly forgotten as soon as the action starts. With absolutely no technical basis for my conclusion, I'm just going to go ahead and blame its cross-gen underpinnings. :yep2:
 
For the quibble, the jump looks way too floaty (and no, I'm not talking about the actual floating ability) when you see yourself (at the Tower) or someone else do it. That's a personal annoyance and I'm guessing its that way by design but it still bothers me.

Yeah, that sounds like classic Halo jumping.

On the complaint side of things the voice acting for the Ghost can be quite jarring at some points.
Pretty awful indeed, but I hope it's just a placeholder ("alpha").
 
Seems also like the perfect cash cow...they just can release an expansion every year and everyone is going to be happy :)

Microtransactions are more likely. Purchase of items from Vendors and crafting of upgrades for weapons later require dozens of ingredients and monetary values.

As for expansions, we have info from the time when Vince&Zampella sued Activision. During that case, Acti was forced to reveal the contents of their Bungie contract. Original plan for Destiny was 3 games with 3 big expansions between main game releases. All releases were spaced out by 1 year.
 
I'm slightly disappointed by this Alpha. It definitely still needs a lot of balancing.

The loot is probably the biggest problem. There isn't enough of it. Bosses often won't even drop any. And for what little you get is mostly still crap. I've bought half of the better stuff I have from the shops. The guns all seem to be very standard for shooters, and there's very little diversity in stats of the same kind of weapon.

The auto aim is ridiculous. The worst I've seem in a game in years. There needs to be an option to turn it of.

Enemies respawn way too fast. You can't even explore an area without them spawning back within a minute. Seeing a dropship arrive with the same enemies every minute destroys any illusion of a believe-able world. Some enemies, bosses in particular, have way too much health. It's going be a long run if you get stuck with a under equipped team on a Strike mission. Ammo is also a problem on long missions, and I don't feel going into the menus to replenish it is a good solution. Losing your ammo if you change weapons doesn't help either.

The missions in free roam get old fast. Go there, or kill that, or collect this, it's not very imaginative. Doing Strikes or story missions seems far more interesting. And why would I want be sent to the other side of the map if I just want explore the area I'm in?

I hope things improve before the Beta because right now it isn't a step up from Borderlands, and doesn't even come close to approaching Warframe.
 
My only complaint: the world feels empty and lifeless with respect to loot. Everything else is already great for me.

Maybe they change the loot. I can't wait to see other worlds and I am curious if those feature much more animals (maybe even dangerous ones).

Tried out the Titan class. Doesn't seem to be a real difference between classes so far?!?
 
The Titan is the tank class. He has the most armor and is the slowest. The Supers, the grenade, melee and the follow up to the jump are different between classes. But I agree that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot practical difference between right now.

There are still 2 slots for sub classes next to your main class, maybe those will have some more diverse abilities for each class.
 
Free roam missions are varied, but their appearance seems random, so u r not sure whether u will get a similar mission or a new one. For example, yesterday I spent around 1.5hours just free roaming and got pretty varied missions. One had me go sneaky and scout out enemies without them discovering me. Another very interesting one was 'Assasination' which had me go after a target in a limited time while the game spawned really tough enemies along my way. The only way seemed to be to avoid getting detected by enemies on the way and engage only once u reach the target. The enemies were challenging and hence it was a lot of fun.

Also, Rocketyard has level 9 Hive as well as Fallen enemies battling each other out. That area is a lot of fun in free roam.

I think its more a matter of discovering each area completely, there is a lot of content. Also, its an Alpha, and its pretty clear a lot of stuff is unfinished as u enter caves and secret areas which are still empty.

As for loot, well, initially I too thought loot is underwhelming and all I get is Glimmer but it improved soon and now. I have more weapons than. I can hold and some very good gear to wear. Also, use your jump+glide to reach as many areas as possible. Hidden areas always have loot.

My only gripe is that I want the best loot to drop from Bosses and none have dropped anything in my game till now. And the. MP seems to be weird/terrible. And the fact that I want more and Alpha doesn't have more ! Other than that, I am enjoying each minute I spend in it ! I think this is going to be my 'default ' game on the ps4 soon :cool: !
 
It was extended, but you're late; the extension didn't even last a day.

//===================

On an unrelated note, FoV. I've seen a lot of complaints, and I'd generally agree that they should boost it. I measured ~72 degrees, which isn't all that stellar for a 16:9 view. Barely higher than Halo 3. :???:
The game also doesn't seem to have great directionality with audio at the moment, the damage indicator doesn't read very cleanly, and the motion tracker is made to be deliberately imprecise.

Directional feedback needs halp.
 
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I'm slightly disappointed by this Alpha. It definitely still needs a lot of balancing
Allow a longtime MMO'er some perspective.

The alpha caps your level at level 8 and without knowing exactly what the level cap is for the initial game (I'm guessing lv 50 or 60), level 8 is really low level. For most successful MMOs (EverQuest, World of Warcraft etc) the average player will typically whiz through the early levels where it's really a tutorial for learning the game mechanics - you don't even need to understand, adopt and employ tactics in most cases, it's a learning experience designed to be progressed quickly by experienced gamers and be a training experience for those new to MMO mechanics. Good loot drops at low level will be very rare because a) the vast majority of players will progress quickly where a 'good' weapon at level 8 will be discarded by an average weapon drop at level 10.

This is the risk/loot/reward curve of MMOs. I wouldn't expect to see more interesting loot until at least the half-way point through the levels (i.e. level 25 if the level cap is 50, level 30 if the level cap is 60). And being half way through the levels really means you are probably less than 10% in terms of real progress because the levels will draw out as your progress.

You may have noticed that a lot of gear had abilities that you needed to unlock with experience (kills) as you used it. This will make more sense in latter levels where you'll be working through one level for several hours - whatever their progression curve is. I found a few items with I got at level 6 with abilities that I never unlocked because I found something better at level 7 or level 8.

Expending a lot of effort on loot that many will have for an hour (or less) probably isn't where Bungie have expended their effort and it's like every MMO I've played.

The auto aim is ridiculous. The worst I've seem in a game in years. There needs to be an option to turn it of.
I didn't notice auto-aim at all. Is there a setting?

Enemies respawn way too fast. You can't even explore an area without them spawning back within a minute.
I think the spawn rate in the alpha is already balanced for a fully populated server, not a sparsely populated alpha. That said, I didn't have any problems. Even when I was the only player, I was never overwhelmed by respawns.

You need to up your game, man ;)

The missions in free roam get old fast. Go there, or kill that, or collect this, it's not very imaginative. Doing Strikes or story missions seems far more interesting.
I think the free roam (beacon) missions are to assist in grinding through levels. I think this will be more of an interesting diversion at higher levels. I never felt I had to grind through the alpha because there was enemies everywhere and killing them was a) fun and b) made you level crazy fast anyway. But to iterate my first point, the alpha covers the low levels. You can't even really get a feel for the diversity of the classes because so few skills are unlocked by level 8.

And why would I want be sent to the other side of the map if I just want explore the area I'm in?
I think it's utterly random. If you want to explore, you can. For people who need a direction/goal, the beacon missions give that plus a bonus bit of experience in addition to what you net killing baddies.

Like others, as soon as I realised the beacon missions were just a limited randomised set of missions, I stopped doing them and just explored. There was a ton of environment that none of the missions steered you towards and eventually led to high level (level ??) enemies that it was difficult to skirt around.
 
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