Destiny (Game)

Alright, so with the game being so divisive, I figured I should write a post on the game, covering it’s pros and cons (and trying to see if I could counter the cons based on what I’ve played from the game).

 

First Off: I am going to assume everyone has read the base summary for Destiny because I am going to skim over it and give you an added set of information based on the grimoire cards I have amassed in the time I have been playing the game (about 1345 cards and counting)

 

Okay, Now…

Destiny’s story is…Shoddy. Not because it is necessarily a bad story, but Bungie did not fully explain how the story will play like, nor were the scripting for the conversations done properly enough to convey that there was a story to be following or to even be interested in. So yeah, shoddy. That said, The barebones of the story is basically a fight between Light and Darkness for the sake of humanity and all that we have left.

The story (and summary of the game) more or less left it as that, but by travelling around (and I think the speaker mentioned it, I’m not sure), the monsters we have been fighting are not the darkness.

Quite contrary.

The monsters (Vex, Fallen, Hive and Cabal) are actually just a race of aliens who have managed to capitalise on the attack of the Darkness and our subsequent loss. That’s why when our Ghosts talk about these races, he talks with a certain familiarity that implies we have met them before but with such familiarity that implies we lost against them. Ergo, I’m assuming that they are races that we most likely fought against to a stalemate and maintained certain borders against their races. Till the darkness attacked and screwed that up.

There is a Grimoire Card on the Darkness, and it doesn’t mentioned any of the monsters.

So far, we have only seen the beginning of the story. The darkness is coming, and we, Guardians, are getting ready to face it, firstly by driving out the monsters from our colonies, and getting better gear (and levels). And this makes me believe that the expansions coming might address the Darkness as an enemy properly.

 

Secondly, The loot system, I believe was built to be random by nature and by levels. Now, in this, I am totally assuming but based on the kind of loot I have received and their regularity, I can say that the higher the person’s level and the higher the mission level, the more likely that they never get a shoddy loot. Unless they are doing level 4 missions. And even then, it is still very random. And I think this was so that we would have to continuously grind.

Now, a lot of people have complained tirelessly about the grinding system of this game and I agree, sometimes it might feel tedious. But I have to admit, after a set of tedious matches/missions, and I’m knee deep in dregs and fallen, teleporting over the place and I see a blue engram or purple engram, the joy I feel motivates me to play better because suddenly, I have something more to fight for. It’s cheap, cheesy and cliched, but seriously, I love that feeling. If for every high mission, we got legendary / exotic gear, then this game would tank faster than we actually have speculated. I mean, if people can hit level 20 in one day, how much longer will it take them to get bored when they can get legendary gear easily.By level 25, they’d be OP and the game begins to take a nose-dive.

The loot system can be tweaked (you can comment below on how so) but as it is, I don’t think it’s bad. Personally, I’d say it’s reasonably balanced.

Thirdly, Combat and gameplay. Destiny has given me the most enjoyable FPS/MMO experience this year, and this is me including Battlefield and Warframe and the rest. The combat feels well handled, and no matter how much beasty i can be at crucible or on strike missions, the gameplay is such as to keep you on edge because I know how easily it can be for me to get taken out by my enemies. The monsters feel overpowered (especially PvE and those yellow-life bastard renditions of each enemy) but it made me start thinking about what to do, how to fight, when to hide, how to flank, when to use grenades or specials, or best yet, what weapon works best against what enemies.

It took me a full ammo set of auto rifles before I figured out how useless they are against a Level 22 Septik Prime and the damage was miniscule. It took me a full clip of Fusion rifles to bring it’s life to the edge before a teammate finished it off. Took a sniper in the Black Garden against the revived statues for me to accept that my auto-rifle is nothing more than a weapon against foot soldiers because Bosses will shrug it off easily. I learnt, I adapted, I got better.

This is why I think the combat is good. The enemies are hard for a reason. So that we stop playing like it’s a basic fps ‘run and gun’ strategy but more tactical. And I BELIEVE this is why the fireteam was meant to play in 3s. It didn’t make sense at first, but the number fits the type of Guardians; a titan, a hunter, a warlock. I have played in a fireteam with each person being one of each and I have to say we were efficient. Our move sets worked together as that small unit (This is my personal opinion btw)

 

To conclude, I am not saying that Destiny is not without faults, I mean, off the top of my head;

– Better matchmaking will be nice.
– More missions would have been appreciated (or better yet, less missions but longer objectives/ playthroughs with checkpoints to save our progress)
– Guardian hubs on the planet, hidden by mission completion (especially after end-game. I mean we have driven back some of our foes… I feel it is only right that the planet show some changes to it.)
– More crucible modes
– Survival type crucible mode with 6+ strike team, holding off waves and waves of vex/cabal/hive/fallen
– A more coherent story as opposed to surfing grimoire cards (fun, but only when done at one’s downtime)
– More freedom, space wise. It would be cool if we could fly our spaceships to planets.
–  –  – Or better yet, ability to have races with the Sparrow on planets.

And a few more that you guys have.

But right out of the package, I believe the game is immensely fun and addictive, and while it is infinitely better with people to play with, it offers a real sense of awe to sometimes tackle the planets solo.

This is just my take on Destiny guys.

PS: If you don’t want to buy it. Find a friend who can lend it to you for a day or so… then play it with an open mind. You can make your own judgement after that.

PPS: Don’t judge the game by Halo or Borderlands. While those two games are great, it’s a tad unfair to compare them with a new IP that is trying to combine a lot of good stuff into one and make it better.