Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

[RancidLunchmeat]

I have 360 beta too. Interestingly they wont let you play both at once (so, no back and forth comparison for me let alone side by side), I guess gamertag is tied to bungie account etc etc, and I think checkpoints and progress, characters etc transfers too. A bit odd. It's basically as if you are playing the EXACT SAME GAME on any platform. I could play a bit on One, then pick up at the same spot and progress a little more on 360, then back to One and my progress from 360 is saved on One, etc. At least that's how it works as far as I can tell.

That makes sense and is how all of the cross-generational games should be, IMO. Sure, it doesn't allow you to then do side by side comparisons, but the advantage is for everybody else that wants to buy Destiny in September and upgrade to an Xb0x after the holiday.

It sounds like what you are saying is they'll get to continue the same exact game from the same exact point and really just get the tech and visual boost.

I wish GTAV would work that way, although, maybe with their Rockstar Social Club tracking character stats, progress and achievements, they'll be able to do the same thing - if they want.

Makes all the talk of backwards compatibility mostly moot. (Except for whatever they decide to charge you for a new copy of the game, although I thought I read most of those are being sold at heavily discounted rates.)

That sounds extremely promising to me and makes me the most excited out of everything you said!

 

[AlNom]

From GAF http://xboxclips.com/video.php?uid=...y 80&vid=7f89bd14-1679-437c-b4a6-3ee1894b0d59

Hard to say if Commander Shepard has competition or not.

 

[Rangers]

I was saying how the enemies early in Destiny remind me of Halo 4 Prometheans . What I suddenly realized is that's weird, since 343 made Halo 4, where the Promethean's first appear, not Bungie!

Odd.

 

[Grall]

Anyone know how to cancel PSN pre-orders? I can't find anything about it in the confirmation email (predictable, lol), or in the PS4 PSN store (even more predictable!)


Played beta a little (recovered warp core, then quit.) Thoughts:

Pretty polished game. Not sure I'm all that sold on the graphics, it looks good for sure, don't get me wrong, but not like, super awesome jawsocked good. Geometry seems a little sparse, especially indoors, and texture rez maybe a bit bland? Hm. Do we get full-sized assets for the beta download?

Maybe my expectations are set too high. It's a console game after all. Also, the lens flares around light sources makes it hard to see what's going on in darker areas (I could cheat and adjust the gamma level I suppose, but that'd probably wash out bright areas instead, so damned if you do, damned if you don't, kinda.)

The menu system is poor and cumbersome. Mouse pointers controlled by joystick is just plain irritating, and menus that block out the action without actually pausing the game is bad UI design. I was fiddling around in the menus trying to enable inversed look option so I could look and move properly, much less aim (not that my aim is worth a damn anyway in a console shooting game), and that game of thrones guy was constantly urging me to get moving, stressing me out.

The menus feel like PC game menus crammed into a console game, this is particularly irritating during character creation, but basically anytime I have to do anything in the menus, direction button input would have been way faster and more efficient than driving around a damn mouse pointer on the screen (well, bullsight, but you know what I mean.)

Gameplay feels pretty good. I think this could be a really fun game on the whole, when you gain some abilities, gear and so on. The world feels epic (although cliché'd like hell), there are evil aliens that need a buttkicking, and so on. I might need to lower aiming sensitivity, or maybe more practice, but console FPSes and my thumbs are usually like oil and water. Still, I had fun.

Enemy designs and their sound effects are terribly unoriginal really, but heck, they go down in a satisfying way (even though the game cheats a lot with overly large hitboxes due to terrible analog stick input method )

Basically, I don't see any way this game would not be a monster hit, really. Bobby Kotick will be laughing all the way to the bank to cash another $10M bonus check for himself in short order.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

So, reading through some of the stuff about Destiny and trying to catch up because I haven't read very much about the game at all, it says that the different classes have different cloth to armor ratios.

What exactly does that mean? Is that just for appearance sake, or does that actually translate to damage resistance? If a Titan with 80:20 armor:cloth picks up a piece of armor, they get 80% of the stats but if a Warlock with 20:80 ratio picks it up they'll only get 20% of the benefit?

I see this referred to all over the place, but never explained. It must be some common MMORPG thing that I don't know about because I don't play MMO's.

 

[Strange]

Predictably was a lot more impressed with the first outdoor area. Quite beautiful. 900P looks great, and very sharp (not just me saying it, lots of gaffers, and many want Bungie to leave it at 900P and make sure framerate is perfect instead, although dont get me wrong framerate on X1 is said to be very good, possibly better than PS4, personally I cant tell framerates much as long as we aren't talking 20). Wonder how much difference 1080P will make. Sadly in 1.5 months I'm sure I wont be able to tell from memory.

I'm not sure how you're getting better than locked 30fps with a locked 30fps game. (DF tested PS4 version to see a very locked 30 fps game)

So, reading through some of the stuff about Destiny and trying to catch up because I haven't read very much about the game at all, it says that the different classes have different cloth to armor ratios.

What exactly does that mean? Is that just for appearance sake, or does that actually translate to damage resistance? If a Titan with 80:20 armor:cloth picks up a piece of armor, they get 80% of the stats but if a Warlock with 20:80 ratio picks it up they'll only get 20% of the benefit?

I see this referred to all over the place, but never explained. It must be some common MMORPG thing that I don't know about because I don't play MMO's.

I've LV8 ed all three classes, only need to skill up my warlock to 15 to call it a day

There are four stats related to armor:

1. Defense - damage mitigation, obviously
2. Light (unavailable in beta) Super CD reduction
3. Discipline - Grenade CD reduction
4. Strength - Melee CD reduction

as for the cloth to armor ratio, it's appearance only. Warlocks wear tons of cloth but the defense rating is the same. You can't let a Titan wear Warlock armor and vice versa too.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Played all of the missions and did the final "dungeon" run with 3 people on hard.

my impressions:

Game feels a lot like Borderlands. I was surprised how little it felt like Halo while I was playing it, even though the enemies are very similar to Halo. There is sort of a 1:1 match for Destiny enemies to Halo enemies. Gunplay just doesn't feel the same as Halo. For me, that's a good thing. The weapons and combat are very satisfying.

Looting is very rare. Ammo drops are more like a typical fps, where Borderlands there are billions of crates and lockers to loot. Weapon drops don't fall often at all.

The hard setting is pretty fun in the beta. Fights can be pretty intense. I played as Warlock and it seemed to be ok. You don't get to use your special all that much, so I'm not sure how different the classes feel. Overall, the hard setting provides a pretty frantic and enjoyable time. Not sure if I'd want to repeat missions too often, but it really was a lot of fun to play through, which is the most important thing for me.

I have my worries about the enemies becoming repetitive. I hope there are a wide variety of enemies across the different worlds in the final game. The boss fights in the beta are good. They were fun boss battles, something Halo was desperately lacking.

The cinematics with ships flying around the tower are fantastic. Really high quality stuff.

The design of the characters, ships, vehicles and weapons sucks. Everything is ugly. The robot characters have awesome faces. Easily the best looking player characters. The humans and the other type are ugly. The clothing and armour is pretty ugly so far. Mass Effect has it beat in that regard. Humans in Mass Effect were pretty ugly, but the aliens and armour look better than the designs in Destiny. Some of the armour and weapons in Mass Effect didn't look all that great either, but the faces and body shapes were better. The first ship that you have is a joke. It's ugly as sin. I guess the bike thing is ok. Enemies are boring looking, but the bosses are all well done.

Surprisingly, I don't like the look of the world either. The view from the tower is pretty awesome, but the actual map is kind of boring. And Russia? Why the hell did they pick Russia as the first playable area. It's as boring as it sounds. It looks like Fallout 3. There's an aesthetic for Fallout 3 that works for that game, but in a space/fantasy hybrid, I want something more interesting than digging through rusted concrete buildings in a pretty non-descript landscape. Here's hoping the rest of the worlds are fitting of an epic fantasy story.

Overall, graphics are good but not amazing. The art maybe just ruins it for me a bit. I had thought that was the part they were going to get right.

Oh yah, the story. So far, so basic. Very typical stuff. The darkness is coming. Use the power of light to fight the darkness. Sure, whatever. There's some pretty bad voice acting and dialog.

What else ... The menus are kind of weird, but I got used to it very fast. It seems there is some crafting, but I don't know how it works. Weapon/item management seems pretty easy and straightforward. There weren't a huge variety of weapon types in the beta, but the ones that are there are good. It looks like there's a number of different type of vendors I didn't explore.

This may sound fairly negative, but really the gameplay is what's important, and in that regard they seemed to nail it. I had a lot of fun, and was interested in finding out what my item drops were. They have the hook in there, where you want to see the next boss and get your next item. All of the most important elements for this type of game are in there. They just need to ensure there's enough variety to extend it through what I'm going to assume will be tens of hours of content. Before jumping in, I'd thought the gameplay looked boring, and I was wrong. My final impression was basically the opposite of what I thought it would be. I thought I'd be interested in the world and the artwork, but not enjoy the gameplay. Gameplay is definitely the strong point.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm not sure how you're getting better than locked 30fps with a locked 30fps game.

Some people are worried the jump to 1080p is going to come at the expense of a stable framerate. I guess we'll find out. I'd be surprised if that was the case, but who knows.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Never mind my question about the armor, I still don't understand how it compares across classes but I read that armor is class specific so it really doesn't matter.

As far as the mouse pointer goes, OMG!!! That is so completely annoying. I had to struggle so much to start with trying to figure out how to use the UI in order to select different things because it seems like there's console controller keys to use half of the time and the other half, you need to move the analog sticks around like it is a mouse.

Which is really weird, did Bungie make this as a PC game and then port it to consoles? Because I find that hard to believe.

But yes, I agree, that UI is damn annoying with the obvious mouse interface that you have to move around in order to get anything done.

On another note, after playing the game for a bit tonight, I'll say that it definitely seems like a cross between Halo/Borderlands/Mass Effect.

So far, it certainly isn't revolutionary or anything. But it does seem like fun to play, and the Beta to this point gives an OK understanding of the game. My only problem is that these are all still the "introductory" levels, and I feel after the story and game mechanics are established the game might turn into a rather redundant experience.

The best parts of most games that aren't "awesome" are usually the first couple of levels where you learn the story, learn how to use your characters and abilities, and then the rest of the game is pretty much just smash and grab or grind.

We'll have to see if Destiny can keep moving things forward like Mass Effect did, or if it will just essentially be combat in different areas with one over-arching story without much story telling as you advance (like Halo).

 

[Strange]

Some people are worried the jump to 1080p is going to come at the expense of a stable framerate. I guess we'll find out. I'd be surprised if that was the case, but who knows.

I was responding to

although dont get me wrong framerate on X1 is said to be very good, possibly better than PS4

where he's suggesting that PS4 has dips, where, from DF, we know that there are no dips, apart from a game engine bug that causes frame judder issues which Bungie obviously is aware of.

Never mind my question about the armor, I still don't understand how it compares across classes but I read that armor is class specific so it really doesn't matter.

From my experience across all three classes, the stats/abilities they roll are identical for the same level. They just look different.


There's no absolute "hard" difficulty level. Difficulty is based on your level and the level of the particular flavor of the mission you select

Strike LV8 is normal for LV8 guardians, and hard for LV6 guardians, so.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Played all of the missions and did the final "dungeon" run with 3 people on hard.

my impressions:

Game feels a lot like Borderlands. I was surprised how little it felt like Halo while I was playing it, even though the enemies are very similar to Halo. There is sort of a 1:1 match for Destiny enemies to Halo enemies. Gunplay just doesn't feel the same as Halo. For me, that's a good thing. The weapons and combat are very satisfying.

I was happy that the button mappings are very similar to Borderlands, except for crouch, which I think Borderlands had the advantage with pressing down on the right analog stick rather than mapping that to the B button. But I agree, the game does feel and play a lot like Borderlands and it made the transition into the game rather easy.

I've only played up to level 3 so far, so I don't know anything about 'loot drops' or weapon drops because I haven't seen any. The Tower seems exactly like the Citadel in Mass Effect, only without the missions and interactions. Although those didn't come in Mass Effect until you leveled up to a certain point, so I imagine that would be the same here.

The hard setting is pretty fun in the beta.

I didn't see any place in the settings to change difficulty, I started the game after download and it just asked me to select a class and then do the training/intro and away I went.

Fights can be pretty intense. I played as Warlock and it seemed to be ok. You don't get to use your special all that much, so I'm not sure how different the classes feel.

I, too, picked the Warlock to play as my first choice character and I used the melee quite a bit. I don't know what "special" it is you are referring to? I tried to use melee whenever I had the chance and grenades that are tied to character class as frequently as possible as well.

On that point - Azbat (playing a Titan) said he never got grenades? I forget when I got them as a Warlock, but I'm wondering why he didn't get them? I also don't know how to determine when my grenades "regenerate" or how often I can use my melee force-push/energy blast thingy. I don't see anything on my HUD to indicate when I can or can't use either?

The design of the characters, ships, vehicles and weapons sucks. Everything is ugly. The robot characters have awesome faces. Easily the best looking player characters. The humans and the other type are ugly. The clothing and armour is pretty ugly so far. Mass Effect has it beat in that regard. Humans in Mass Effect were pretty ugly, but the aliens and armour look better than the designs in Destiny. Some of the armour and weapons in Mass Effect didn't look all that great either, but the faces and body shapes were better. The first ship that you have is a joke. It's ugly as sin. I guess the bike thing is ok. Enemies are boring looking, but the bosses are all well done.

Playing on the 360, everything was red and grey and reminded me of the original Borderlands before they actually added in colors and humor and everything else that ultimately made Borderlands so great. Let's face it, the original Borderlands had some great gameplay but it wasn't funny and it wasn't very pleasing visually. This game looks a lot like Borderlands did before it found it's "soul".

Overall, graphics are good but not amazing. The art maybe just ruins it for me a bit. I had thought that was the part they were going to get right.

Graphics on the 360, IMO, are below Borderlands 2 standards and below GTAV but are passable. They aren't terrible in terms of tearing, blockiness, etc. They don't take away from the game but they certainly don't add to it. I will say there are a number of places in the early game that are apparently supposed to be puddles on the ground (water) and I couldn't tell if they were puddles I could walk through or holes that I would fall through if I tried to go that way. So... not very good.

I'm not sure how the graphics are on the PS4 or Xb0x, but on the 360.. there are more impressive games that are more open world than this.

This may sound fairly negative, but really the gameplay is what's important, and in that regard they seemed to nail it.

I don't know if they "nailed it", but in terms of a co-op FPS, if you've already played Borderlands, I'd say this is a good choice. I'll probably break my mantra of not buying another 360 game (other than Borderlands-The-Pre-Sequel) to get this, but it isn't amazing. It's just a cross between a multi-player Mass Effect and Halo. Which is just fine for me, because that's the sort of game I'm looking for, but there's nothing earth shattering or spectacular here.

As I told Azbat - Really? Bungie's main gripe was that they didn't want to be pigeon-holed into making Halo games and so they got their freedom and just made Halo with elements of Mass Effect and Borderlands? Not exactly an "artistic stretch", IMO.

 

[djskribbles]

I, too, picked the Warlock to play as my first choice character and I used the melee quite a bit. I don't know what "special" it is you are referring to? I tried to use melee whenever I had the chance and grenades that are tied to character class as frequently as possible as well.

Each class has a different grenade, melee and special attack. You unlock the special attack at level 3 or 4 and you use it by pressing the two bumpers at the same time (default controls) when your special meter is full. I don't know the names of them. But for the Warlock class, you do a jump then fire a blast that does huge splash damage. For the Hunter class, you bring out a flaming gun that does huge damage and can be used until your special meter winds down (throwing knives, which is the melee attack, extends the time you can use the special attack once leveled up). For the Titan class, you jump and smash the ground with your fists (I think... Titan is the first class I leveled up so I don't remember clearly).

 

[zed]

Played all of the missions and did the final "dungeon" run with 3 people on hard.

good impressions, nice to read

 

[Strange]

Each class has a different grenade, melee and special attack. You unlock the special attack at level 3 or 4 and you use it by pressing the two bumpers at the same time (default controls) when your special meter is full. I don't know the names of them. But for the Warlock class, you do a jump then fire a blast that does huge splash damage. For the Hunter class, you bring out a flaming gun that does huge damage and can be used until your special meter winds down (throwing knives, which is the melee attack, extends the time you can use the special attack once leveled up). For the Titan class, you jump and smash the ground with your fists (I think... Titan is the first class I leveled up so I don't remember clearly).

Well, to be specific, Each class has a grenade attack (2 to choose from in beta if you rank up enough), a charged melee (titan- storm fist [increased damage], hunter- thrown knife [long range melee], warlock- energy drain [reduces your grenade CD]), and a special attack (titan- fist of havoc , hunter- solar gun, warlock- nova bomb).

The basic versions of the grenade, melee, and special attack should be unlocked by
lv2- grenade
lv3- some sort of double jump
lv4- special attack
lv5- charged melee

 

[Rangers]

where he's suggesting that PS4 has dips, where, from DF, we know that there are no dips, apart from a game engine bug that causes frame judder issues which Bungie obviously is aware of.

I had thought there was some GAF comments that there are some dips in PS4 version they noticed, maybe in areas/battles that DF didn't test. This is the only way obviously the comment can make sense.

I have never played PS4 version.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The difficulty of the mission is selectable from orbit. Hard raises the enemy level and gives bonus exp.

 

[Globalisateur]

I had thought there was some GAF comments that there are some dips in PS4 version they noticed, maybe in areas/battles that DF didn't test. This is the only way obviously the comment can make sense.

I have never played PS4 version.

Some people on Neogaf thought the judder was some kind of dip, and technically the judder from a framerate drop and several micro-stutters because of uneven order of frames is the same perceivable stuff. Anyway apparently the judder problem on PS4 is now gone at roughly the same time the XB1 beta appeared. One dev did say on Neogaf that the PS4 judder problem would be probably solved during mid-beta.

You may trust DF that if they had found framerate dips on PS4, they would have shown them. On PS4 specifically (and only on PS4) they often did in the past some stress test performance videos (Infamous SS, Watch Dogs PS4) where they were only showing us the moments where the game dipped the worst.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I don't know if they "nailed it", but in terms of a co-op FPS, if you've already played Borderlands, I'd say this is a good choice. I'll probably break my mantra of not buying another 360 game (other than Borderlands-The-Pre-Sequel) to get this, but it isn't amazing. It's just a cross between a multi-player Mass Effect and Halo. Which is just fine for me, because that's the sort of game I'm looking for, but there's nothing earth shattering or spectacular here.

As I told Azbat - Really? Bungie's main gripe was that they didn't want to be pigeon-holed into making Halo games and so they got their freedom and just made Halo with elements of Mass Effect and Borderlands? Not exactly an "artistic stretch", IMO.

They did a very good job with the gun combat. On the hard settings for the missions(selectable from orbit after you choose your destination) the enemies have a good mix of aggression and numbers. One area that Destiny seems to be better than Borderlands is boss fights. There are a couple of fights in the final "dungeon" that had the perfect difficulty for our group of three. We just barely made it through, but we felt like we were going to lose.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I've only played up to level 3 so far, so I don't know anything about 'loot drops' or weapon drops because I haven't seen any. The Tower seems exactly like the Citadel in Mass Effect, only without the missions and interactions. Although those didn't come in Mass Effect until you leveled up to a certain point, so I imagine that would be the same here.

You just haven't played much of the game. You get loot from chests which are very rare to find. Enemies will sometimes drop "blueprints" which you have to take to the tower where one of the vendors will turn them into an item for you. Green or blue items can be upgraded, and sometimes have an upgrade tree. Finishing a mission will usually award you one or two items. So in all, you might get 3 items during a mission.

On that point - Azbat (playing a Titan) said he never got grenades? I forget when I got them as a Warlock, but I'm wondering why he didn't get them? I also don't know how to determine when my grenades "regenerate" or how often I can use my melee force-push/energy blast thingy. I don't see anything on my HUD to indicate when I can or can't use either?

Pretty sure the very first ability you get from leveling up is your LB attack, which for the Warlock is grenades. I don't know what the Titan gets. There is an icon in the bottom left of the screen that shows you the timer for recharge. Same goes for your RB attack. You have a meter that charges for your special, and you get a very large and obvious text prompt when you can use it.

 

[Nesh]

The game is very very halo-ish though.

Indeed. I suspect that this was going to be a game set in the Halo universe at some point. Bungie must have thought of that prospect. This could have very well been named Halo MMO and sell like crazy on XBOX.
The art and soundtrack easily fit. I wouldnt be surprised if Destiny is an amalgamation of work originally planned for a Halo title but then decided to make it a multiplatform MMO. It is uncannily similar in so many ways