Destiny

The Vex are really frustrating; lore-wise they're probably one the more potentially interesting factions, but since they're effectively Starfish Aliens in killbot packages, theiy don't really get even the vague characterization of the other types. They're probably at their best when they're pitted against one of the other factions, where their Blue-and-Orange Morality can shine a bit, but against the Guardians, they're just another race of generic killbots.

Also, really wish The Infinite Forest could've been like, a full on Endless Survival Mode, where you and your fireteam can keep on going through harder and harder rooms and enemies for better rewards, at maybe the risk of losing it all if you wipe instead of extract at checkpoints, or something.

That is such an obvious use of the Forest that I don't know why no-one else here thought of it. Would it really be all that interesting though? Waves of enemies we've already killed hundreds of in rooms that are mostly going to be less interesting than anything from pre-designed areas, for yet more loot? Actually, what was the reward from that Fallen arena thing in Rise of Iron again? I remember actually making a point of doing that, but I don't remember why now.

That is a problem with the Vex as a whole, yes. They're probably the most dangerous faction in terms of galaxywide impact, but they're very easy to kill (that's what happens when your weak spot is your torso).

I think overall, I do LIKE Destiny, but I miss Halo and the shenanigans it had to offer. When it comes down to it, Destiny just doesn't feel as deep - and for once I actually feel like the 'go online to read the codex entry for this thing' approach might have been better than what we got with Destiny 2, which was very much a simple 'here are some bad guys, go kill them' plot. As silly as the Stranger was in execution, at least she and the Queen provided some hint of mystery to the story.

I think the main issue is making it MMO-lite style. It still would have been great if it was exclusively single-player, but having to do PVP vs PVE balance, plus the microtransactions, just makes it more difficult to make good.

It could have even been great as just an RPG-shooter.

I've seen a lot of ideas for the Vex that unfortunately have never been implemented. There's one I saw on twitter not too long back, about how they could put the time traveling aspect into gameplay. Have a Vex scout type enemy who mostly sits back and watches the fight, and they have the ability to "go back in time" and prevent the death of any yellow healthbar Vex you killed recently, so you have to fight them again. The way to stop that would be to kill the scouts before they can go back in time.

Yeah, I sorta feel like they're trying to get the COD-type audience in, but that's not really the audience the game is for. Then again, from what I understand (as someone who's never played COD and played Crucible precisely once in Destiny year one), the Crucible is very different to COD's competitive multiplayer, so maybe the audiences aren't the same.

I wouldn't miss the Crucible at all, if it was absent. If I ever want to play some FPS PVP, I'll boot up Titanfall 2 again.

How do you know that's not what's happening? Maybe they should have done that with Panoptes, actually, instead of the very lame boss battle he ended up with. Defeat him, but the Forest keeps reconfiguring, sending you further back in time to when Panoptes wasn't defeated, and eventually you defeat Panoptes forever immediately after he was created, in the shadow of a Golden Age Traveler, maybe even boosted by its power.

I finished the Destiny 2 campaign today and I watched all the cut scenes for Curse of Osiris because I'm both cheap and impatient.

Man, the more I play the more it feels like the world of Destiny is populated with really interesting characters with good dynamics....and Our Guardian is just getting in the way of it all. The silent protagonist thing doesn't help either because I just feel more like a brick wall or a force of nature than a natural part of the setting. I never felt this way before either, I guess it's because of how cinematic D2 is that it's so glaring.

The dumbest has to be the cutscene after the penultimate mission, where the Guardian is literally beating his head against the entrance to the Infinite Forest.

It was dumb behaviour maybe, but a cool effect. Bothers me that you don't get something like it when you're in free roam and try to go in. And I know they can do it, because it happens in the first mission.

Because it's today and it's the first thing I thought of when I saw Osiris unmasked◊

Noice

Wow, so Joker made a new video recapping how Destiny 2 was developed, with a complete ground-up rework halfway through, with work on Curse of Osiris significantly delayed. He pointed out several interesting conjectures, starting with the fact that the Pyramidion was originally planned to be on Mars and the work on it was outsourced to High Moon Studios... Which probably explains how it's the best part of the boring dump known as Io.

And then, a passage in a Kotaku article caught my attention. Supposedly, EDZ was in the works for the first Destiny, then it got cut, shifted to The Taken King, cut from there and finally used in D2. Which also explains why it's the most detailed area in the game, on par with Nessus.

"Destiny continues to be a hot mess. Film at eleven".

At least the Destiny 1 hot mess was engaging.

Making content is too hard apparently.

Why is it that no one in the gaming industry seems to be able to project plan? Or land on a firm direction BEFORE they start the project? yes you get different iterations and so on but this seems insane the amount of asset juggling and inability to keep to scale.

The infinite forest could've been amazing. It was fun as a transit place - but having different environments you shifted through (Hell the Divsion can do bloody randomised Dungeons; Warframe can!) would've added some spice in there.

It just feels like Bungie can't keep up with their dream of what Destiny could be - after TTK which was great (And the first run through of D2 which was also great fun) they seem to be faltering a bit on replayability and content.

I feel like it's going to follow the same pattern as D1 at the moment. DLC 2 will probably also be pretty weak, but then whatever follows, something that was even started at launch, will hopefully be like The Taken King again.

I really think part of the problem is the players though, or some of them at least. Bungie probably did something resembling a plan, but the players complain about aspects of the game, rightly or wrongly, and Bungie listen, which is a good thing in itself, but taking the time to fix the things people are complaining about takes time away from them following whatever plan they have and addressing the actual problems.

Yeah, hopefully Bungie pulls another Taken King and fixes a lot of what's wrong with the game.

I honestly believe that DLC 2 will be decent at least on the story and public area angle. Sure, they will limit raid activity to another lair and bait us with another three D1 exotics, but I think that the Mars public area will be fun, at least. Some people feel downright insulted by Mercury and Io.

I wouldn't go as far as 'insulted', but you can't really deny that Mercury is a pretty weak area.

I mean, I'm a little insulted by it, I guess. It's a cool area and all, but it feels like even D1 had more variety in terms of, say, multiplayer maps and objectives and so on at this point, and paying $20 for a new circular area with one public event and a few new strikes for people to bunny hop through and leave me behind is not great. Some of that is player problems, but...

Well, I encountered opinions that Io was a half-assed mess cooked up over the weekend to quickly patch plot holes caused by ditching D1 areas. And people strongly dislike Mercury as well.

I wasn't disagreeing, I was just saying that feeling actually insulted by it seems a bit over-the-top. No-one's denying that Io is a pretty dull place too.

Well, folks, DLC 2 is here!

Uh, well, ALMOST. It's out in two weeks, and here's a trailer.

Also, SOROS REGIME IS BACK! Alt-right is displeased!

edited 24th Apr '18 12:18:09 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

Hm...Why are Guardians not supposed to investigate their pasts?