Destiny

So...Just found something out. Apparently, Ghaul isn't just the commander of the Red Legion...

He's the EMPEROR OF THE ENTIRE CABAL EMPIRE.

Playing the beta with Immy. I'm having lots of fun.

All my loot has just been duplicates though.

So what is different?

The core gameplay is largely the same. Each class now has an ability that spans all subclasses that's activated by holding O or B or whatever button.

Titans have a barrier that they throw up. It can be either be big or waist high with buffs but people can't shoot through it and enemies that try to pass through it get slowed down and hurt. Including in the Crucible.

Warlocks put down healing circles, and Hunters have the dodge roll that used to only belong to Nightstalkers.

The way guns are arranged in your inventory are also different.

edited 19th Jul '17 5:49:45 PM by LeGarcon

Yeah, they're between Kinetic, Energy, and...something else, I think.

Kinetic (Primary), Energy (Secondary), and Heavy. Heavy and Energy always have an element.

Kinetic and Energy weapons pull from the same pool of classes, ie; Assault Rifles, handcannons, the new submachineguns, etc. So basically you can rock two scout rifles, one with kinetic damage as your primary and one with elemental damage as your secondary.

Heavy weapons are heavy weapons, largely unchanged. Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Fusion Rifles are now heavy weapons. We've also got a multi shot grenade launchers as a new weapon type, they're also Heavy.

Weapon mods are a thing although there are none in the beta so I can't report on them.

Elemental damage weapons can have their elements changed with a mod kit, there's a dedicated option for it. No idea how one acquires such a kit, doubt they're in the beta.

There are also gun and ship shaders and shading is done by armor piece than the entire set now.

Mobility, damage resilience, and health recovery is now also decided by your armor and not options in your subclass tree now.

edited 19th Jul '17 8:06:52 PM by LeGarcon

Are ships still just decorations and loading screen bling?

All of that sounds good to me.

I'm still bothered by the fact that non-preorderers can't preload this before the open beta tomorrow.

Bungie has said thats all they want them to be, so yes.

Seems like such a wasted opportunity. The space combat section in Reach was amazing, so with these designs, it just feels like a key Sci Fi element that's missing.

I'm okay with ships just being a cool thing to look at and not getting stats involved and shit. Might be cool if they did a Warframe thing and let you go inside your ship though, as a kind of personal social space.

Also, a friend has helpfully informed me that non-preorderers can download the beta from 6pm tonight in preparation for the start of the open beta tomorrow.

How about the worlds the player explores? Is it still designed in the same manner of the first Destiny of being merely an area to collect crafting goods and random events, or did they make any significant changes?

There's no social spaces or patrols to explore in the beta, it's honestly pretty tiny.

But apparently the locations we can explore will be much much bigger and will have proper dungeons with regenerating bosses and loot and so on. Apparently you can also start activities without going to orbit first so that might make patrols feel less like a mission you do and more like a place where you hang out in until you wanna do something specific.

That would be cool, if that's how Strikes and stuff were begun, you just drop into the overworld and make your way to dungeon.

I always thought that was weird, that you can go to the various Strike locations (and even the Vault of Glass!) but never go inside except from orbit.

Well, usually Strikes and Raids do begin in the overworld anyway, as far as I can recall, it's just that you have to begin the activity from orbit. It probably won't be this way, but I'd like it if now you just dropped into the zone at whatever point is nearest to the Strike area (they did say there were multiple drop points now) and then just go to the Strike area from there. Like, everything happens within the 'patrol/free-roam' structure. You could be on patrol and then decide you want to go on a Strike and you don't have to go to orbit (or whatever you do now there's no orbit, how does that work now? Is it even apparent in the beta, limited as it is?) and then come back down again.

Also, my friend was apparently mistaken about the 6pm open beta preload, because I still can't. Doing my head in now. It's becoming one of those things I want just because I can't have it.

edit - Okay, seems the open beta itself doesn't start until 6pm on the 21st, so maybe it'll be available to download during the day. I hope so, because if you can't even download it until 6pm then really no-one's going to get to play it that evening unless they disgustingly fast internet.

edited 20th Jul '17 6:07:41 PM by artfulscruff

The beta you're in orbit and there's a little button for opening the director and then you can pick what you wanna do. That's about it though.

There's really not a ton of content there to be honest.

Yeah, just the first story mission, one strike, and a PVP map, right? That's only two things as far as I'm concerned, I don't care for PVP :P

I still wanna try the beta though, get a little taste before I almost certainly buy it anyway :P

I want to try it too. It's not available to download on the Xbox store yet though.

There's two maps and two modes in PVP. One is Control with the new ruleset and the other is something called Countdown.

It's basically Search and Destroy from Call of Duty but with the option to revive teammates after a 15 second timer that starts after their death.

The high time to kill in Destiny makes it a hell of a lot more fun than it is in CoD.

Have there been any hints at the minimum requirements for it on PC?

None that I'm aware of. The beta for PC also isn't due until sometime in August and the full game in October.

Wait, Control with a new ruleset? O.o

• Matches are only 8 minutes.

• A and C start off captured when the match starts.

• Flags are captured in one go, no more neutralizing them first

• Multiple people on one point no longer capture it more quickly.

• Capturing all three points now starts a "Power Play" giving you a massive point boost per kill.

• Point limit to win is reduced but I can't remember to what off to top of my head.

Overall it makes the match move faster and more aggressively.

edited 20th Jul '17 7:38:00 PM by LeGarcon

That just makes it sound like there will be even more people on Control thinking they're playing Clash.

edited 20th Jul '17 7:50:57 PM by TheAirman