First off, this is my opinion, so obviously everyone can disregard it.
Second, I hope that maybe I'll make some good points and that people
will consider them before they get very angry. For more reference, I am
not some 12 year old immature kid but rather I'm 29, married, a college
graduate, with a kid and a house. I am blessed with the opportunity to
work from home and take care of my infant son, who has slept so much it
has allowed me to play this game a lot.
Okay, a little background
when it comes to this game: I am a lvl 29 Hunter. I got to lvl 27
without "farming", and got to lvl 29 by getting through the
raid. I have played this game for over 3 days (check my profile if you
don't believe me. The only exotic I've ever gotten was when I bought one
from Xur or when I completed an exotic bounty. So if anyone has cause to be angry at
people who can quickly get through the game and use an exploit to get
high end gear it is I.
I am NOT, however, angry.
In any
game that exists, many people will do what is optimal over what is fun.
This has been found to be fact with any number of games ranging from
video games like WoW and Destiny, to even card games like Magic. People
like to win, even if it is against the computer, and will do anything to
do that. With that being said, it should be obvious that if there is an
optimal way to play the game and "win" at it, then people will take it.
So
is that a bad thing? Well it seems that Bungie has wanted people to
take it slow. That makes sense as the longer it takes to play their
game, the more people will stay interested. It's business, but that
makes sense. So what do we want them to do? We want them to remove
various exploits in the game that allow you to get stuff quickly? Now,
knowing what I said before about how people will do whatever is optimal,
do you really think it will be solved once the cave exploit is removed?
People will just find the next best thing, and the next best thing
after that.
Bungie could keep getting rid of these exploits
(side note: I do mean exploits rather than glitches. Glitches need to
get fixed, but an exploit is simply using the game's mechanics in order
to do something optimal), but doing so will create an ever lasting cycle
of patches. And to what end? When does that stop? Does it stop when the
only way to get an item means to complete 3 raids and kill 2,000
enemies? Obviously there has to be a line, but my point is that we would
forever be searching for that and be butting heads with the designers,
rather than playing the game.
Another point: We can agree that
farming for items is not the most fun thing ever. I know some people can
enjoy it, but honestly it would be more fun to get items by playing
missions and stuff. If that is the case, and we want Bungie to get rid
of the various exploits, we are asking Bungie to make the game less fun.
Keep in mind people will do the most optimal thing, no matter what.
Why
do we want Bungie to make the game less fun? I can hear people now
saying that farming isn't fun, but playing the game as it was meant to
be played is fun. How is the game meant to be played? There is obviously
farming that needs to be done. You cannot just go through and play
everything once and be at the top level. So obviously Bungie has created
a game that requires farming, so why are we hoping that they remove
farming, or make it harder?
I think a main crux of the issue is
between people who claim to have "legitimately" played the game and
gotten high end gear vs people who have "exploited" to get it. It comes
down to a time issue and that line is very blurred. Am I a better player
because it took me 3 days to get my stuff, vs someone who got it in a
couple of days? That actually sounds like the other player is smarter.
It's a better spenditure of time.
As I said I have
"legitimately" played the game and got my stuff, but I am not
complaining. Not everyone has as much time as I do. I want people to
have fun with this game, and if they have fun doing this, then why not
allow it? The only other stipulation is when it comes to Iron Banner,
where your gear actually matters in a PVP setting. I don't know how to
fix it, but then again it simply comes down to a definition of
"legitimacy" of playing, which hopefully we can agree is a very blurry
line and mostly comes down to personal preference.
If you made
it this far congratulations, I hope I made some good points and I hope
to see you guys (who farmed and who didn't), starside. Enjoy!
Okay, so the first week that the raid came out was an exciting one. I spent a lot of time on the forums seeing which clan would beat it first as I was sure someone could beat it day one despite what Bungie said about it being really hard. Although I was ready to go on Tuesday my clanmates would not be lvled up or have the time ready for the raid until Saturday so I was forced to sit back and watch. As it was we ended up having to grab 2 people from the forums to help out.
The fabled entrance
Saturday morning finally came around and we were ready to start playing. At approximately 11AM we started playing. During the week I had read up and watched some videos in preparation. I was going to keep my mouth shut for a while during the raid and only answer questions as I wanted it to be fresh and new for the other players. But if we had a question we didn't have to spend a ton of time trying to look it up because I had a good idea of what to do.
We got through the first gate easily enough. We split into 3 teams of 2 and covered the 3 rings. It got a little hairy at times but we were never wiped and eventually got through. I believe I got some ascendant shards for my trouble.
We then got into the area where the Templar was. The first thing we had to do was to protect the 3 areas from the various spawns as they attempted to overwhelm us and sacrifice themselves. This part we lost several times as we were just having too much trouble doing enough damage to the Minotaurs that would charge into the sacrificial ring. We didn't have trouble with the green goo-spawning goblins though so that was nice. We eventually beat it and then moved onto the Oracles part, which was also beaten.
The Templar
Then we had to beat the Templar himself. This one took us the longest time. Someone had to pick up the relic shield and use it on the various harpies in the area, charge the super ability, and then shoot it at the Templar in order to take down its invulnerability shield so we could damage it. We went through several different relic carriers. I started out but after a few runs we decided we needed my DPS on the boss (I was the highest lvl character with the only legendary primary weapon). We learned a little more after every death and started getting very good at spreading ourselves out to cover incoming Oracles and prevent the Templar from teleporting so we could shoot at him longer. It took a ton of coordination but after a couple of hours of intense gameplay we finally managed to beat him. It was a huge relief. I got a legendary rifle that could be upgraded to do bonus damage to Oracles. Other more lucky players got the legendary raid armor pieces that are needed in order to reach lvl 30.
We managed to find one of the hidden chests in the raid and I got some more shards which allowed me to upgrade my armor and got me to lvl 28.
We then had to get through the Gorgon's Labyrinth. This part was highly entertaining and I'm glad they put this in as it was a fun break from the regular combat. You have to navigate through the Labyrinth without being seen by the Gorgon. If ANYONE is seen you all die. It was intense and the Gorgons have a nice creepy sound and look about them that really added to the tension. This took much longer to complete than normal as the servers for Bungie went down right in the middle of this and we had to wait for people to sign back on. But eventually came and we mapped out the path to get through unseen. It helped that most of us were Hunters and could cloak ourselves so we couldn't be seen. I kind of wish the path was more elaborate and long because it is pretty easily done and very easily done once you know how to do it.
Gorgon and their horrible gaze
The next part was the jumping puzzle which didn't take too long. It wasn't as difficult as I originally thought it would be. A part of me is disappointed but then again I would get very frustrated about losing at a jumping puzzle as they are not very much fun. I was entertaining myself by sitting on the other end and watching my clanmates fall to their doom over and over again though.
We finally made it to the last room. The first thing we had to do was kill the Gatekeeper which was easy. The next part, however, was very difficult. We had to activate a time gate one at a time, send 2 guys in to destroy a relic keeper and grab the relic, then come out and do it again. All the while everyone had to protect a conflux in the middle of the map from sacrificial Vex. We got wiped quite a lot of times trying to do this. It took us a while to find a good team of 2 to go in and get the relics (eventually was myself and another player), and then it took even longer to figure out a way of just surviving and killing the various minions. But eventually we finally got through it.
By this time we had been playing the raid for around 7 hours I think. We had the final boss to complete, but we were starting to get weary and tired. I, myself, was still recovering from a midnight Magic release tournament that I went to with a friend (I went 2-1 and got 6 packs of cards thank you very much), but I got home at 4AM and didn't get very much sleep.
This last part was the hardest thing we've ever had to do. I will spoil the ending and say that we did not complete it. We got close though and I am confident that given a week's time until Saturday will allow us to be ready to beat it then. We had to beat Atheon. Atheon spawns kamikaze harpies throughout the battle and he teleports the 3 furthest players into another dimension. Those 3 players need to grab the relic and constantly heal the debuff on all the players or else we all lose. Those same 3 then have to destroy 7 Oracles as they spawn very quickly or everyone loses, all the while being attacked by various Vex. Meanwhile, on the outside, the remaining 3 players have to keep the 2 gates open to allow the original 3 to get back, all the while dodging Atheon attacks and kamikaze harpies.
Once the original group is back everyone gets a damage buff and can start to unload on the boss. After the buff wears off the furthest 3 players are teleported and the process starts again.
Atheon in all his glory
It took many many deaths to figure out a good combination and strategy in order to get through even one rotation of events. Myself and 2 others went through the gate to destroy the Oracles, but several times we either got killed by a Vex sniper or Minotaur, didn't kill the Oracles quickly enough, got debuffed so bad we couldn't see, or the people on the outside died or failed to open the portal. It was crazy. Oh, and if you don't beat the boss in 8 minutes, you are pretty much guaranteed to lose as he gets enraged and crushes everyone. We managed to go through the rotation several times but we never could do enough damage before losing, or a little mistake by someone cost us a wipe.
I think we just weren't lvled up enough. I was lvl 28 but I think everyone else was 26 and maybe one 27. That just isn't high enough. Also, nobody had any exotic weapons or even legendaries. We just couldn't do enough damage and couldn't stay alive easily enough. We gave up for the week but I am very confident we will beat him next week, and then I can finally say I've beaten everything Destiny has to offer. It was a ton of fun and I can't wait to do it again, and I hope they make many more raids. I just love the coordination and planning that is required as well as the new mechanics you don't run into while playing the regular game. I highly recommend finding 5 other people and giving it a try.
So I finally got an exotic bounty. These things are uber hard bounties that net you an exotic weapon. There are many different kinds so I recommend looking up up which quest gives you which weapon so you can make sure you get what you want.
If you get the chance at an exotic bounty (it is completely random), you will be able to choose 1 out of 3, chosen from a pool of 6 different exotic bounties. Mine was called "A light in the dark", and the reward was the Thorn.
It looks so beautiful! My first task was to complete the "Summoning Pits" Strike on the Moon. I hate this Strike but at least I can do it on any difficulty and passed it with flying colors. I now had the Depleted Hand Cannon but needed to harvest the energies of the Hive on the Moon in order to activate it. This meant 500 Hive kills. This wasn't too hard as I need to roam around the moon looking for Helium Coils anyway.
I then had to go to the Crucible, however, and get 500 points. I had to use a Void damage weapon to do this and every kill netted me 5 points, but every death gave me -2 points. I was not happy about this as I don't usually play PvP. I nonetheless gave it a try. I tried it on control and regular deathmatch but the games were too chaotic and random and I'd die in really stupid ways so I knew that wasn't going to work. I then did the 3v3 mode and that worked much better. I was able to stay with my team and knew where my opponents would be so I just had to be good enough to kill them. Enter the Fusion Rifle. With this amazing weapon I was able to get my required kills fairly easily. I also used a Void rocket launcher in case any heavy ammo dropped. But after a while of doing it I finally completed the objective.
I now infused the hand cannon with the horrible darkness of the kills I made and had to go to the Speaker and buy an Infusion of Light off him for 1 Mote of Light in order to cleanse myself. Then I took it to Ikora Ray (Warlock Vanguard) and she gave me my final task: Kill Xyor the Unwed. This great annoyance of Light is found in the Hive Moon Strike again (Curse the Destiny gods!). I had to get to Phogoth but not kill him, and after killing tons of knights and wizards and such Xyor would eventually show up. With some help from my clanmates were were able to accomplish this and I returned to the speaker and was rewarded with my Thorn!
I really enjoyed the bounty, mainly because it allows you to get an exotic weapon, but also because it really is a long journey and when you get to the end of it you have a big feeling of accomplishment. You had to work hard to get this. Now watch me find it on a random drop tomorrow!
I am self aware. I'm not sure when this happened, or even how. Maybe it was a gift from the Prime Servitor, or from what those Guardian people call "The Traveler", or maybe it was that Soul-Infused Oil Hydro Gyro I got from the "Winter is Coming Fallen Family Fine Dining" restaurant I visited the other day. Either way I guess you could say that I'm glad. One minute I was a simple automaton guarding a gate that leads to Sepik Prime, and the next I actually have a choice of what to do, rather than just stand there and get shot from a random passerby.
Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but it can get a little tiring. Although I wasn't exactly aware of myself, I have a distant memory of a feeling of sadness associated with being unable to do anything I wanted to do. I was simply a guard dog, or guard spider. Nothing else.
My first day on the job
But now that's all different! I am now able to make choices, and these choices will rock the foundation of planets! All shall rue the day they ever messed with Spider-Tank! I shall rule the galaxy with iron phalanges! Muahahaha!!!
In other news I am now aware of little beings that inhabit my body. They are Shanks; funny little hovering flies that go annoy people that try to take me out. I've been chatting with one in particular. His name is Kevin. He seems nice.
As I end my first diary entry, I can hear Kevin and the other shanks singing within me. As the chorus grows louder I can't help but think that I am meant for something great.
"Spider-Tank, Spider-Tank
Does whatever a Spider-Tank does
Can he swing from a web?
No he can't, he's a tank
Look out! He is a Spider-Tank"
I saw this infographic courtesy of DestinyDB and thought it was pretty cool:
I find it very interested the nearly equal spread between all the classes. That is awesome. I love variety and after playing with people who were using the other classes I must say I'm even more excited to try them out. I can't seem to leave my Hunter though as there is so much more to do. Soon though.
Also, see that graphic with how many guardians there are at the various levels? I'm not sure when this was taken but there are only 177 people at lvl 25. I'm at lvl 26 and almost 27, they didn't even make a graphic for us. That's pretty cool. I must be in the small minority (although it will probably quickly become a majority). Nonetheless I find it cool to see stuff like this.
Wow last night was a long one. I set out to try and beat the Nightfall Strike as I heard that the rewards were really nice. I am lvl 26, almost 27. I have an exotic helmet and all legendary armor except for boots. However, I am stuck and can't level my equipment without various ascendant materials. You apparently can get more from raids but obviously it isn't out til today, and I will be very lucky to figure out how to beat the raid anytime soon. So, in the meantime we attempted the Nightfall Strike.
This week's was for the Devil Walker strike. Spider Tank!!!! I actually love this strike. I find it fairly easy to do and I just enjoy the steps more so than some of the other strikes. The Nightfall Strike, however, made it extremely difficult. I first attempted it solo like I did for the weekly Epic Strike but quickly found out that would have either been impossible or taken too long for my liking. So I replied to posts in the bungie.net forums and managed to find some people to play with.
So with a Nightfall Strike all the enemies are lvl 28 and a lot of them have the yellow health bars (indicating they are very powerful and are called majors or ultras), as well as some kind of shield. These shields are weak to a certain element and you take a 50% damage penalty if you try to hit them without using the element. The AI is much smarter than normal and constantly will dive around avoiding shots, as well as retreat to regain shields and work together. There are also various skulls that are active and are listed when you view the Strike. It is similar to Halo. Here is the chart:
Skull
Effect
Juggler
No ammo drops for your equipped weapon.
Anger Issues
Minions of the Darkness display heightened aggression.
Angry
Minions of the Darkness won’t flinch, even after massive damage.
Arc Burn
Arc damage from any source is greatly increased.
Solar Burn
Solar damage from any source is greatly increased.
Void Burn
Void damage from any source is greatly increased.
Lightswitch
Minions of the Darkness deal much more melee damage.
Nightfall
You will face a relentless army that has never known defeat. If all players die, you will be returned to orbit.
Heroic
Enemies appear in greater numbers and are more aggressive.
Mythic
Heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers.
The biggest issue with the Nightfall Strike, however, is that if your whole team gets downed, you have to start back at the beginning! No respawns ever. If you get downed, you are downed until someone can revive you. If you win you get some nice rewards, an xp bonus for a week, as well as a sweet blue flames animation around your head for the week as well.
So we set off on our adventure....and promptly died. The hardest part of that strike is the area where you have survive a couple of waves of enemies while your ghost tries to remove the barriers. It was really tough. We adopted the heroic strategy of hiding down in the tunnel on the one end of the map near the train gas car, poking our heads out to snipe before diving back into cover. We still got sniped in the head by vanguards and dropped all the time, but someone was standing behind to revive us if needed. We still got eliminated lots of times because of those stupid homing bullets the Fallen captain's guns have.
We had 2 hunters and a warlock in our party. I think it was a decent combination. Us hunters were blade dancers mainly for the various stealth abilities. We could crouch or use our ultimate and stealth, then go out to attack or gather ammo. The warlock was awesome but it would have been better if he was a sunsinger I think so that he could have the ability to revive himself if he died (he wasn't lvled up enough for that). The strategy was decent though, but still hard.
We finally managed to beat that first part, and promptly died against the Spider Tank due to stupidity. We finally made it back to the Spider Tank after about another hour. This time we crushed it pretty easily by just staying back and shooting. Sure I had to stealth and run around to revive people a couple of times, but it wasn't too scary. We were then ready to take on Sepik Prime.
Since we really didn't want to do it all again we decided that I would stand in a corner in the side room to the left and revive if needed. Everyone else stayed in the room but were constantly taking out the enemies. I of course couldn't just do that and would poke out a window to snipe and attack Sepik. It worked perfectly and after a long firefight we managed to kill him!
For all my trouble I was awarded with this little gem
Our warlock got a legendary heavy machine gun and the other hunter got 7 strange coins. We of course got our xp bonus and awesome blue head flames, even though it would only last for one day (since the world reset today). It was an awesome experience though. We had a ton of fun and although it was really hard, it's nice to get some sweet gear. I love auto rifles but the legendary I had had no impact and it was very inaccurate. This one seems much more like my style.
I can't wait to see what this week's one will be. But hopefully I will be playing the raid this week at some point. Today I plan on at least getting my last legendary armor with Vanguard marks, and we'll see about the raid!
So yesterday/early this morning I finally gave Multiplayer a try. My primary reason for this was because I maxed out my Vanguard marks for the week and although I don't care that much about multiplayer, playing it can give me crucible marks. Crucible Marks can allow me to purchase some pretty sweet high end gear and since I am limited with Vanguard it might make sense to get something else so I can get as high of a lvl as possible in time for the raid or the weekly nightfall strike.
In Multiplayer you at first only have the Control mode unlocked, which is basically a capture and hold mission that lasts 10 minutes. It's a fun, simple, and familiar mode that anybody with multiplayer experience will be able to catch on. There are 3 points on the map and you have to capture them and kill the opposing team for points. At the end of 10 minutes the team with the most points wins. It is a 6v6 swirl of a game that occupied my time for 5 matches as I had a bounty giving me rewards for just that.
After that you can unlock the other modes. And, keep in mind, that you do not even unlock multiplayer until like lvl 4. You need to complete a couple of missions and lvl up to get your super ability as well as your special weapon. This isn't a bad thing really as trying to play multiplayer without your super ability or without at least the minimum of weapons would be dumb. As it is I would recommend starting it after you've unlocked several of your abilities, as they translate into multiplayer. I am not sure how exactly the game is scaled, but your skill build tree definitely translates into multiplayer, so me upgrading my Golden Gun to cause explosions when I kill an enemy is a beautiful thing, as is my cloak of invisibility while using my Blade Dancer:
But anyway I managed to start playing multiplayer, already looking quite awesome and decked out from all my time in PvE. And it didn't really help. Sure, I got over a 1.0 K/D ratio, but I consider myself a fairly decent video gamer with lots of experience playing the various Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Titanfall, etc games. I still did not do very well. I was usually low on the totem poll for my team (although in my defense I was defending and capturing points a lot). It was still decently fun. Right now the meta is all shotguns all the time with assault rifles mixed in. It's very much like Halo, which isn't a bad thing if you like that.
Right now I am lvl 26, and now am running into the issue of having decent armor and weapons, but no way of upgrading them. They all require various ascendant materials, which are very hard to come by. I have 3 armor upgrades for several of my armors and they all require 6 ascendant shards among other things. I have one shard and 4 energy. It's gonna take a while I'm guessing. I still have my leg armor to upgrade to a legendary status but I need more vanguard marks to do that. Soon, assuming that the limit on marks gets lifted after today.
I also managed to snag my first legendary the Mask of the Third Man (http://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/1/4611686018429606097/2305843009215180483#gear).
I got this gem from Xur Agent of Nine who is this really cool ringwraith/cthulu looking NPC that sells exotic and other legendary items. It cost me all my strange coins but it was totally worth it. I may suck at Multiplayer but I look dang impressive.
Tuesday marks the availability of the raid. I hope my clan has enough people to do it. I think I'm ready to at least give it a try. I can't wait.
Ok I finally got to lvl 23. In the first day I beat the single player campaign and did all the strikes and such and was at lvl 20. In day 2 I started to try and get high end equipment and made it to lvl 22 early on in the day. I did a ton of exploring which doesn't yield good stuff, but then spent a lot of time in the strike playlist, which was awesome.
I just couldn't find good loot however. I kept getting green engrams and the blue ones were nothing special. I sat with 8-9 light on all my equipment and just couldn't get forward. I played the heroic weekly strike solo (didn't know you could bring a fireteam), and although it took over an hour, I finally beat it. Then on my next strike I managed to get a decent piece of armor with light on it and it pushed me to lvl 23!
Now I just need to get some decent weapons. I'm hoping to be able to move up to the lvl 24 strike playlist soon as I'm sure I'll get better gear that way. Plus it's double the marks which I desperately need to make sure I hit the 100 cap before the week is done.
The biggest news of the day, however, was the announcement that Destiny Events are Inbound! I am referring to this released article: http://www.bungie.net/en/News/News?aid=12133
Just look at all that new stuff! Obviously I don't care that much about crucible stuff so probably half of this stuff I won't check out, but the Vault of Glass and Queen's Wrath have me very interested. The first Destiny raid is Vault of Glass and I need to somehow get to lvl 26 and have my clan be lvled up as well. That will be tough but I can't wait to give it a try.
Speaking of, I joined a clan of like-minded fellows and we're called D3stinysChild. I'm proud of the clever name, feel free to apply! We could use more people.
But Queen's wrath also really has me interested. For one it seems like a free update, which is always great, but it looks like it will be something with single player and maybe a strike? I hope so. I would love to see more single player and I'm already bummed that we won't get some content as it is a Playstation exclusive for one year. That's a long time.
But yeah free updates, not a lot of games do that. Titanfall makes you pay $15 in order to get 3 maps, but this looks like it will be more. That's really cool. I just hope Bungie can keep getting out the news and hyping out the crowds because I'm gonna guess that a lot of the reviews for the game aren't too great. I have a feeling people either didn't play enough of it to see how much stuff gets unlocked later on, and/or don't know that this really is a first chapter to a larger game. People may want to hold off until the Game of the Year edition, but this game will probably keep getting bigger and better.
Can't wait to get home and play some more. See you starside!
Here is an ongoing helpful hints post with stuff I've found around the interwebs that have helped me so far. *This is probably more for the hardcore types that are playing end game content (Warning: Possible Spoilers):
- Pay attention to the shield type of your enemies. Although all enemies with a shield have a white bar that represents the shield, it's the color of the shield aura that you should pay attention to. The various colors correspond to a vulnerability to a weapon element type. Blue = Arc (spiky blue throwing star symbol). Orange = Solar (flame symbol). Purple - Void (purple swirl). Kinetic damage is the default that a weapon can have. If you try to attack someone with a damage type of anything other than the one they are vulnerable to, you take a 50% penalty!
- Every level you WOULD go past lvl 20 gives you a mote of light
- Save your blue engrams (and above) and don't cash them in until you are lvl 20 because they scale up to your lvl when you cash them in. Might has well have more chances to get that "light" gear. - There is a cap on the amount of marks you can get from a faction, at 100 a week. You can still get rep but be wary. You can view how much you've gained by looking at your Bungie.net profile or in the game where the Vanguard and Crucible icons on the map are. You will see a ring start to surround the icons and when they are full you are done for the week.
- Although I love my single player, in multiplayer you can probably get Crucible marks a lot faster than Vanguard marks since you get the same amount from playing a Crucible control match as you do for a single player Strike, and since a control match is only 10 minutes, it will go a lot more quickly.
- If you love the stuff from the other Factions in Destiny make sure you buy the Faction piece, equip it, and then whenever you'd normally get Vanguard or Crucible marks and rep, you will instead get that Faction. Also, make sure you aren't accidentally wearing a faction item and thus getting rep and marks from a Faction you don't want.
- If you completely run out of ammo for your primary and secondary weapons, if you just stand still for like 30 seconds, it will automatically replenish. It's awesome! I'm not sure if this is supposed to happen because I don't know why anyone would bother to buy those ammo refills with this being around. It was invaluable during the Nightfall Strike. It also replenished some heavy ammo as well!
- Level up the Cryptarch. Every time you cash in an engram he gets some experience. Soon, after every level he gains, he will send you a package which will frequently be a legendary engram and you can get some really decent things. I'm even started to spend some glimmer and just bought some engrams from him, then cashed them back in in order to give him more xp. If you keep buying the same type of item the amount of xp he gets keeps increasing as well!
- Pick up any crafting materials you see. You don't want to be spending tons of time trying to farm them, and you will definitely need them all.
- Make sure you do at least one public event a day if at possible. You can get Ascendant Shards from it which are really hard to find and are needed to upgrade your higher lvl armor. Plus, if you have multiple characters that means multiple shards, and you can put them in your storage bank for anyone to use.
- Keep in mind that although it might be fun to do your Daily Heroic Story at a lesser Heroic level, if you do the top tier difficulty you can also get Ascendant Shards.
- Legendary and Exotic items can give you Ascendant Materials if they are dismantled. Have a legendary weapon you probably will never use? Break it down!
Here's what will be an ongoing list of things I think should be added to Destiny to make it a better experience:
- A better chat system. Chat should automatically be enabled for fireteams. I shouldn't have to exit out of Destiny to start a snapchat or something in order to talk. This is especially the case for my friends! Why is it so hard to talk in this game?!
- More public events. I have loved every public event I've participated in. There are so much fun and really bring the game in as a community. Why, oh why, after almost an entire day's worth of gameplay entirely as single player have I only been in 4?! Crank the event knob to 11 already!
- More of everything. I want more missions, more strikes, more raids, everything. I'm sure this will come true but the bigger the game, the more likely more people will want to join.
- I would also like what I call World Events. These would be like a public event, but it would be a planned thing on a much larger scale. It would run for like a week and you could participate in it. You would get put into a map similar to a story mission where you would have to coordinate with the 15 other people in the world to achieve something awesome. Off the top of my head I am thinking of events where a city is being invaded and you are trying to defend it with everyone. On Mars maybe you can use the trenches and fortifications in front of their base. You could man turrets and vehicles and the enemy would have the same. It would allow for some truly epic battles that could really make this game something special.
- I need a mini map. Seriously, I should be able to bring one up. It's easy to get lost.
- I want the Fallen to actually climb around the map like they are supposed to. Not run around like Covenant enemies but crawl around like how we were introduced in the first Russia mission.
- I want weapons and armor to list exactly what you will get if you salvage them. It is nice to see that I will get some ascendant shards or whatever if I destroy something, but I'd like to know how many because it definitely varies.
- Strike Boss Loot table or actual decent loot. People complain about the loot cave but if there were actual good rewards for doing other stuff they would get done. Nightfalls can give you great stuff, why not a strike? You stand a much better chance at getting stuff from the loot cave than a strike. I would love it if there was a unique armor set or weapon set for every strike boss. That would add a lot of replayability.
- The ability to skip cutscenes
- An easier way of using ammo synthesis. I don't have the time to open up a menu, scroll over, and then hold a button to use it.
- Raid matchmaking. Everyone knows how to beat the raid already, make it easier to find people to play with.
- Some more story or cutscenes in the raid. I want there to be a story as well!
Ok, so there's this new game called Destiny, ever hear of it?
Well I have and I've been looking forward to playing it ever since it was first announced a couple of years ago. I managed to play as a beta tester (who didn't?), and I had a ton of fun and couldn't wait until the final product was out. Well finally, on September 9th, it became available to the world. I managed to be off the day of the release as well as the day after (thanks son!), so I got a decent amount of hours clocked in. Bungie claims it didn't want any reviews unless the people who review it made it to the end game content. Well I am about as far as I can go (Bungie has yet to release the raid). Although there is still a lot for me to do in the game, I feel as though I am prepared to give a *brief review so far. *longest review ever
I decided to play as a Hunter as the class looks the coolest out of the 3 available, sporting that sweet cloak and brandishing a BA hand cannon for a special ability. Also, there's the double jump which I like far more than the gradual rocket pack-like jump of the other classes. And to top it all off, Nathan Fillion voices your class vendor, which is awesome (Firefly and Castle all the way!). I am currently level 22 and working on grinding to get the higher gear to keep going. The game's max level is actually only 20, but you can "gain" levels by equipping stuff that gives you "light", which can raise your level above the max. Why would you want to do this, well because Bungie has claimed that the game doesn't really even start until you hit lvl 20.
Destiny is a FPS (first person shooter) with some RPG (role playing game) elements. It is not really a MMORPG like what a lot of people originally thought. The reason I want to highlight this is because if you go into it thinking it is one thing over another, you may be disappointed. Although there are RPG elements, and although you can play online with various folks, if you are no good or don't like the FPS portion of the game, this is not for you. The various RPG elements just make it easier to play the game or make you look cooler. The vast majority of the game is running around and gunning enemies down, attempting to jump around, and not get shot. There's no just standing there waiting for your spells to cool down as you attempt to monitor your DPS (damage per second). It's fast, it's frantic, and it's a lot of fun.
When I say there is lots to do I really do mean there's lots to do, but it may not be what you're looking for. I have only played the single player portion of the game (if you were looking for a multiplayer review then I'm sorry, but stick around, you've made it this far!). I beat the single player campaign in around 8-10 hours. I had a lot of fun with it but it was nothing amazing. The story wasn't particularly gripping, there were no twists or turns, there weren't epic battles like those in the Halo series, and one could say the gameplay is fairly repetitive. In basically every mission you run around shooting things, as your AI ghost (voiced by Peter Dinklage!), tells you where to go.
You inevitably will have to try and survive waves of enemies as your AI scans something, and then at the end of the mission you will have to fight some named bad guy. At the end of it all you are rewarded with experience (experience for you and your equipped gear), reputation for various groups in the world, glimmer (currency), and the chance for various cool loot.
That's basically it. The grab is the feeling of leveling up, grabbing new gear, and making yourself just that much better against the forces of darkness. You can also unlock cool things to make yourself look BA and brag to your friends. It's a pretty simple mechanic but one that I've had a lot of fun with.
There's still a lot more to do though even though it seems kind of bland. Each planet has an explore mode where you can do just that: Explore. You can run around and look at every nook and cranny, find golden chests that unlock special rewards, find various items that can be used to craft weapons and armor, do little side missions, and just admire the beautiful landscape that Bungie has created. There are also public events that pop up from time to time that you and the people in the area can join up and combat. They are usually a target that needs to be taken down, or a site that needs to be defended. You can get some decent rewards doing these but I really like the sense of camaraderie that accompanies winning them with complete strangers, forever creating a bond and a story with them.
There are also Strikes. These have been my favorite part of the game so far. You team up with 2 other guardians and go on a dungeon-like journey, where you fight a very hard boss at the end. They are extremely challenging, you really have to coordinate with your teammates, you get to fight some really fun huge bosses, and you get awesome loot for your inevitable troubles. Think of them like tiny raids. There are a total of 5 different Strikes currently, with more on the way. These really create a fun story with random people (or friends).
There will also be a raid but Bungie hasn't released it yet. Those will be done with 6 people that have to be on your friends list, and will most likely be the hardest thing ever done and I can't wait to give it a try. Until then here is the best we got:
There is also the whole aspect of PVP (player vs player), or multiplayer, that I haven't even tried. I played a little of it during the beta and it reminded me a lot of Halo multiplayer. It's a lot of fun, but just not my cup of tea at the moment. You can unlock tons of cool armor and weapons and looks for you same as the PVE (player vs environment).
There is a social hub of a city where you can buy various items, upgrade and unlock others, and basically show off with other people in the game. Although in my opinion this is a waste of good button use, the D-pad on the controller acts as your social interaction tool, allowing you to point, wave, sit, and dance with other players in the area. It's a cute little mechanic, but there could have been other probably better uses of the D-pad.
The game looks beautiful with actual days for the various planets. You can start during the day and pretty soon the sun has set and you are playing at dusk. The colors are very vivid and again remind me of Halo. The soundtrack is decent but hasn't struck me like the Halo series did.
The graphics have been very smooth so far and only occasionally will you stall for a second as the game loads the next section (there's no waiting screen or anything, you just sometimes pause if you are going fast on your speeder bike for a second).
I would say this game has the look and gameplay of the Halo games, with the model of Borderlands. What I mean is that you have a character and you can unlock various pieces of gear like you can in Borderlands, which also includes raid bosses and an open world. There are not nearly as many guns in this game as there are in Borderlands but that's mainly because there aren't as many different combinations. Borderlands could have many combinations because of the various types of guns and the various modifiers to all the stats as well as different elemental types. In Destiny I think it is very comparable, just not quite with the weapons yet. There are hand cannons, assault rifles, and scout rifles for your main weapons. There are shotguns, fusion guns, and sniper rifles for your secondary weapons. And then there are heavy machine guns and rocket launchers as your heavy weapons. In Borderlands, the various guns could be of the same type, but behave very differently with various mechanics contributing. In Destiny, the guns all basically feel the same. Sure, you can have different stats, but they all shoot the same way and look very similar.
What Destiny does have that Borderlands didn't are various armor types that you can upgrade. They are all modifiers of basic stats, although some will give you some abilities. But they also can look different and you can get armor dyes to make yourself look as cool as you can imagine.
Is Destiny the best game to ever come out? Sadly, no. Does it live up to the ridiculous hype? Again, sadly no.... not yet. This game could have been so much bigger and have so many more things in it. Perhaps it will but we will have to wait until they add more content with free updates and DLCs. I am still having a lot of fun though and it has already been worth the $60 price tag. It is worth noting that Bungie always talked about their 10 year timeline. So if you think about this as the first chapter it's quite a lot. I'm sure with future content we'll flesh out the world more and see more stuff. I am looking forward to seeing what they can come up with. I have really enjoyed my time and can't wait to go back in. Thanks for reading this and I hope it was helpful (nobody is ever going to read this Brad, look how ridiculously long it was). Maybe the pictures helped. I know the dancing video of Peter Dinklage helped.
