Bungie's Destiny

[GodMars]

Jul 26, 2014 13:14:11 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Fun stat stuff for us to chew on from reddit.

www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2brx1s/some_mechanics_behind_the_damage_calculations_in/

We need to hire this guy.

[wings]

Jul 26, 2014 11:07:57 GMT -5 -3055- said:

PvP doesn't seem to be the focus though. I'll save any overall opinions until the full game. The missions themselves seemed to be very underwhelming though. Go in, shoot that, kill that, done.

I think they could add more missions to the Cosmodrome because some of them require you to go from one end of the map to the other.

[mannon]

I think there are many more. There are several areas with much higher level enemies. Additionally there are places with doors that look very much like they might lead to other places similar to the way some of the early missions have some doors closed off that open up later and how the last part of Devil's Lair is closed off in the free roam. I think it's very likely we will have many more missions in the area, in addition to many more worlds to explore.

And we know there are two planned expansions coming within a year as well.

I'm hoping they do more with the vehicles in PvE at some point. Shrike races at least would be fun. ;3 I'd like some more dynamic content to the missions as well. Maybe multiple objectives you can tackle in any sequence, and each one impacts the others in some way like the enemy raises their alert status with each one and sends reinforcements so that the last one is always toughest or shutting down different ones determines what kind of enemies you have to fight, ect... I'd like something that adds a level of planning and coordination. Heck you could even split up your fire team and try to tackle three objectives simultaneously, but you'd be without backup doing it that way. Maybe we could get some randomized events as well, at least during the free roam missions. Story missions should probably be the same each time, but it could be cool if the open ended missions had a chance for some mission specific event to kick off. Just imagine doing the same mission for loot a few times then on the 4th go right in the middle of the mission a ship pops in and a different faction jumps in attacking the same objective and you have to fight them and the original enemies, or if you take too long they take over, but it's tougher without them being distracted by fighting the original faction. Or maybe something happens that changes the objective completely. Could be neat. Basically just less generic and more scripted versions of the events that already pop regardless of mission. Or maybe we just need more of those.

I'd like to see even bigger, more epic events. How great would it be if some ship popped in and you had to not only fight the enemies it dropped, but the ship it-self as it roamed around the map. Maybe it's shields are damaged and that's why you can hurt it, and it's dropping enemies to pick up spare parts to repair it so you also have objectives to defend and try to prevent the repairs long enough to take it down, then it explodes and everybody hunts down bits of wreckage for loot.

I'd also really like to see smaller random events as well. I really feel they help flesh out the world. Think of the random encounters in Red Dead Redemption. Sometimes they were nothing but a corpse, other times bandits, or a hanging, ect... There were lots of different random encounters that helped flesh out the world and make it feel much more alive.

We'll have to see what's available after release, but there are lots of possibilities.

[wittyscorpion]

Crucible impressions - part 1 (don't have time for text wall, will do that later)

I went through the following stages for Crucible:

1) Phase 1: I can only get kills on enemy who did not pay attention to me or already severely injured. My K/D was horrendous, typically games are < 0.8. When I saw red on radar, my first emotion is very nervous At this stage, my feeling about the MP experience is I would definitely prefer Titanfall over this, maybe even CoD;

2) Phase 2: I got better on 1v1, confidence started building. Typical K/D per game starts to get > 1.0;

3) Phase 3: I was playing with dumien together and we had a few moments of epiphany, and suddenly feels that we got a hang of this game in general, and how to play Control effectively. Suddenly this game becomes very fun for me, and I start having 1.5+ K/D games, and occasionally 2.0+

In short, I am loving the competitive MP of Destiny as well. It can be very fun once I get better.

I will share more specifics in my future posts.

[wings]

Only had the time to get the Minas Mogul mission done because I opted for my second class (Hunter I think, I have an incendiary pistol as a special move) and the level cap denied me doing the others and time ran out when I reached the level requirement anyway. Didn't fancy using my Titan for the first mission just to do the second. Still want a decent shotgun though.

[Dumien]

Radar AKA perfect CQC information is something I'm going to have to get used to. Definitely had some fun in Iron Banner and I'm actually looking forward to the full release's multiplayer.

The moon was a fun exploration time. Very creepy. Lots of skeletons. Lots of chests. We found one golden chest out of 5. Probably our best find was the obvious raid boss room. It featured a boss arena and a giant chain running up the center of it. There was a bottom floor as well with the same chain.

[n1gh7]

So on weapons what does "Attack" mean? And what about "Defense" on armor?

[exxtrooper]

Jul 26, 2014 21:25:24 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

So on weapons what does "Attack" mean? And what about "Defense" on armor?

Attack determines how effective your weapons are against enemies, if the attack value for your gun matches that of your opponent/enemy, only the core stats of the weapon matters. The Defense stat works exactly the same but the other way around, if you have a really high defense then low-level enemies will have a hard time damaging you.

In the default PvP crucible arena, the defense stat and damage stat of the weapons are removed, leaving only core health and gun statistics left making it balanced between high and low level players and weapons.

[mannon]

What I want to know is where strength and discipline and the like come in? I keep getting equipment with bonuses but I can't even see those stats listed for my character, much less any description of their effects.

[Dumien]

I got a nifty level 20 legendary hand cannon from iron banner. Here's hoping you keep stuff when the full game comes out!

[rubthisway]

The armor attributes modifies recharge timers, hover over stats in inventory for info.

[rubthisway]

Jul 26, 2014 23:20:50 GMT -5 Dumien said:

I got a nifty level 20 legendary hand cannon from iron banner. Here's hoping you keep stuff when the full game comes out!

I don't think they would transfer over that stuff. Brings all kinds of trouble. The high-end weapons were just teasers I'm afraid

[Dumien]

Witty said the same and I would tend to agree. The only reason I'm still hoping is because Bungie keeps track of your entire inventory online. You can see pretty much everything your characters have equiped from the Destiny site.

[wings]

What trouble?

[exxtrooper]

Jul 26, 2014 22:02:36 GMT -5 mannon said:

What I want to know is where strength and discipline and the like come in? I keep getting equipment with bonuses but I can't even see those stats listed for my character, much less any description of their effects.

Hover over them in your character scree, it explains what they do.

They increase recharge speed of your abilities.

[rubthisway]

Yeah, I'm sure it's technically possible if they chose to do that. I just think they want a level playing field. Now I'm thinking about Destiny in terms of traditional MMOs though where gear tends to be meted out in a very controlled fashion, end-game pve have gearcheck bosses and so on. Destiny might not focus as much on this, so hard to say.

[wittyscorpion]

Crucible impressions - Part 2: random thoughts after playing 35 games of regular Crucible & Iron banner.

General impression: the game plays like a hybrid of Halo and CoD: Halo style tracker & headshot importance, CoD friendly (at least more CoD like than Halo) maps & auto weaponry.

1) Auto Rifle trumps Scout Rifle. Looks like only advanced Halo player can make Scout Rifle work;
2) Headshots are important, but do not seem as critical as in Halo. At least with Auto Rifle you can get away without headshots from time to time. In other words, aim at head is useful and recommended, but when situations got hectic, getting hits can be more important than taking time to land the headshots (IMHO this is why Scout Rifle feels UP vs. Auto Rifle);
3) Strafing is critical in a typical 1v1 Rifle fight, no surprise here. In CQC fight however, melee is very important. If you start the fight and have more health than the enemy, in general it is wise to stay out of melee distance and focus on finishing him with bullets. If you have less health on the other hand, you want to turn the tide with a well timed melee; (I like to refer this shoot-strafe-melee cat-and-mouse game between players as "Dance of Death")
4) Just like any FPS games, anticipate where enemies are coming from and choose the advantageous position for the fight is critical. If you have cover and the enemy does not, you should win (unless he has super );
5) Bait and crouch: although I have not done that myself, I noticed some players run until they see an enemy coming on the tracker around corner, then immediately crouch. This can often bait the enemy into you ambush. What makes this so effective is because you know where he comes from, but he is confused by the tracker (it went dark for a split second, then having a flashing center with no direction information, causing panic) Shotgun+melee seems to be the best combo to use for this strategy;
6) Control game mode is excellent for the classic cap-2-flag-and-trap/ambush strategy. If the enemy flag is trappable (e.g.: A on Shore of Time), you can spawn trap and rack kills. If that is not possible, you can just take good positioning around your flags and ambush incoming assault from the enemy team. The maps are designed with lots of medium & long range sight lines, giving the team with good map control a dominating advantage;
7)Unless your team is completely demolishing the enemy team, It is almost always a bad idea to go for the 3rd cap, because by just jumping on the flag will cause the spawn to become completely unpredictable.

[wings]

The Gozen-C apprars to be the first sniper rifle that isn't too similar to the Calcutta models. Three round mqgazine with more recoil but you can basically save a second headshot on Captains as the first headshot will do enough damage that other attack options are more viable so the extra reloads may not be an issue. I enjoy playing as the Hunter for some reason. That incendiary revolver!

[n1gh7]

Jul 26, 2014 21:52:55 GMT -5 exxtrooper said:

Jul 26, 2014 21:25:24 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

So on weapons what does "Attack" mean? And what about "Defense" on armor?

Attack determines how effective your weapons are against enemies, if the attack value for your gun matches that of your opponent/enemy, only the core stats of the weapon matters. The Defense stat works exactly the same but the other way around, if you have a really high defense then low-level enemies will have a hard time damaging you.

In the default PvP crucible arena, the defense stat and damage stat of the weapons are removed, leaving only core health and gun statistics left making it balanced between high and low level players and weapons.

So in crucible all the guns of the same "type" do the same damage per bullet? And then in iron banner the amount of damage you do to an enemy is scaled with a multiplier based on the difference between your attack and their defense stats? I thought that the "impact" stat was the bullet damage stat.

[rubthisway]

Yes, in crucible a Shingen C with 43 AR is equal to a Shingen C with 62 AR, at least if they are otherwise identical with regards to attachments/upgrades.

[n1gh7]

Jul 27, 2014 10:57:51 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Crucible impressions - Part 2: random thoughts after playing 35 games of regular Crucible & Iron banner.

General impression: the game plays like a hybrid of Halo and CoD: Halo style tracker & headshot importance, CoD friendly (at least more CoD like than Halo) maps & auto weaponry.

1) Auto Rifle trumps Scout Rifle. Looks like only advanced Halo player can make Scout Rifle work;
2) Headshots are important, but do not seem as critical as in Halo. At least with Auto Rifle you can get away without headshots from time to time. In other words, aim at head is useful and recommended, but when situations got hectic, getting hits can be more important than taking time to land the headshots (IMHO this is why Scout Rifle feels UP vs. Auto Rifle);
3) Strafing is critical in a typical 1v1 Rifle fight, no surprise here. In CQC fight however, melee is very important. If you start the fight and have more health than the enemy, in general it is wise to stay out of melee distance and focus on finishing him with bullets. If you have less health on the other hand, you want to turn the tide with a well timed melee; (I like to refer this shoot-strafe-melee cat-and-mouse game between players as "Dance of Death")
4) Just like any FPS games, anticipate where enemies are coming from and choose the advantageous position for the fight is critical. If you have cover and the enemy does not, you should win (unless he has super );
5) Bait and crouch: although I have not done that myself, I noticed some players run until they see an enemy coming on the tracker around corner, then immediately crouch. This can often bait the enemy into you ambush. What makes this so effective is because you know where he comes from, but he is confused by the tracker (it went dark for a split second, then having a flashing center with no direction information, causing panic) Shotgun+melee seems to be the best combo to use for this strategy;
6) Control game mode is excellent for the classic cap-2-flag-and-trap/ambush strategy. If the enemy flag is trappable (e.g.: A on Shore of Time), you can spawn trap and rack kills. If that is not possible, you can just take good positioning around your flags and ambush incoming assault from the enemy team. The maps are designed with lots of medium & long range sight lines, giving the team with good map control a dominating advantage;
7)Unless your team is completely demolishing the enemy team, It is almost always a bad idea to go for the 3rd cap, because by just jumping on the flag will cause the spawn to become completely unpredictable.

I think that pulse rifles are pretty good too. Especially at long ranges. Scout rifles rely on too much precision for the relatively low ttks in this game.

Maneuvering in the gun fight in this game is very important, just like in halo, but it's augmented by the extra jump and sprint abilities. While low health I can often outmanuver enemies with full health by jumping around while and end up at least trading with them. Claw really helps with this.

Knowing where enemies are helps a lot with Fusion rifles. I can often one shot people right when they appear just by looking at the radar and charging at the right time.

And with fusion rifles, does anyone else think they're a bit OP? Or maybe I just have a really good one? They're like a medium range shotgun with a bit of a charge time. I can use one as a primary and do amazing without touching any of my other weapons.

And on that note what do people think of the ammo availability? My expectation was that there would be less green ammo and more purple ammo than there seems to be in PvP. I don't really mind having plentiful green ammo, but I sometimes wish the purple ammo was more plentiful.

Also, everyone should try clawing. I find that in raids being able to revive someone while aiming and shooting makes you extremely strong.

[GodMars]

Again, Scuf before claw.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

Fusion rifles require too much set up for me to consider OP and in a panic situation you're just holding a paperweight.
Fusion rifles are like a fusion, heh, of a sniper and a shotgun. It has much better OHK than a shotgun but requires placement and control like a sniper to land a kill shot. It's a decent midway between the short range shotgun and long range sniper.

[GodMars]

Jul 27, 2014 18:14:52 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Jul 27, 2014 18:05:38 GMT -5 GodMars said:

Again, Scuf before claw.

I just wish console games had mappable controls more often, really.

Yes, but the Scufs are fantastic because their bottom paddles allow you to make use of fingers not being used for anything else while keeping your thumbs on the sticks.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

Jul 27, 2014 18:14:52 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Jul 27, 2014 18:05:38 GMT -5 GodMars said:

Again, Scuf before claw.

I just wish console games had mappable controls more often, really.

Me too. The worst is when a game just has a ridiculous layout and flatout refuses any other layout.
Not only would having the option be nice but would help disabled players too. I think Drift0r made a video about that once. He was at some Con talking to a disabled gamer advocating Devs to allow remapping and he was saying how most devs have just never thought about it.

[wittyscorpion]

Fusion Rifle vs. Shotty: IMHO they are well balanced. Some players prefer one, some prefer the other, both fun to use.

At the end of the beta I am addicted to Sniper Rifle though. The thrill of connecting a headshot is incredible. It's difficult for me to give it up even when I was doing badly

SR operates almost the same as Halo, but in Halo you have to fight hard to get it. As a result, only prestiged few players can get hold of it long enough to enjoy it. Destiny made it available to everybody, and the ammo are more than plenty. A lot more fun to be had ahead

[wings]

The shotguns take longer to reload than the sniper rifles lol

[mannon]

Dammot they took the beta down earlier than I thought. ARG! I was only two missions and one golden chest from having done all the beta missions and getting all the chests on all three classes. (Plus one moon mission, got to it late and was mid mission when the time ended, but luckily they let me finish the mission. I shoulda stuck around and explored.) At least I did get them all to level 8.

Okay so no surprise, hunter is my favorite, though I think the double jump is the weakest vertical movement feature in terms of actual height... for the level of upgrades I got anyway. There were definitely places my titan and warlock could get that my hunter could not. It's also the easiest, though since it's a single burst, but then the others both have the option of turning theirs off and back on mid jump. *shrug* Hunter definitely has coolest melee IMO, and I just generally enjoyed the nimbleness.

The titan and warlock classes surprised me. I was a bit underwhelmed with titan, though not surprised. The class is very soldiery, all brute force and guns blazing. I dunno, just doesn't appeal to me. The warlock I thought would be really dull, but I actually really liked it. I think the warlock grenades are my favorite, and I quite like the super as well. I really love using the AOE of the grenade for zoning mobs. Of course somea re stupid enough to walk into it, and I'm cool with that too. I do slightly wish they'd tone down the visual effect. At times I have a hard time seeing enemies behind it that are still shoting at me. I also preferred gliding to the jetpack, and probably to the double jump as well. I'm actually a bit split on whether I prefer hunter or warlock to be totally honest.


When the game releases I'll probably level at least two characters, though I may try to get one to a fairly high level first.


As for weapons. I'm all about scout rifle. I love it so, so much. Auto rifles I haven't gotten too heavily into. I've given them a little bit of a go, but I never got a green one, so maybe that's part of it. The constant up recoil is hard to get used to and I shoot over enemies heads a lot, but I'm sure I could do better with practice, and some better guns. I hated hand cannons at first too, but when I started playing with a green one it got pretty fun. I'd say scout rifle is still better, though. Too little ammo with that huge reload animation for the amount of damage produced, though it is just fun. Pulse rifles... kinda suck. Most of them kick so hard during the burst that they're basically just a vertical shotgun, but a pretty weak one. Upgraded greens definitely got better, but any sort of range requires quite a bit of skill to recoil compensate during the burst to keep it tighter. It is possible to do. The catch is I just don't see it being worth doing. I still wind up firing many more bursts than I do scout rifle shots and I work an awful lot harder for them.


So far not really having great success with the special weapons. I like the green shotgun I have now. It's not very effective except at very close range, but it's fun and a decent counter to the scout. Fusion rifles not really my cuppa. Having to charge them and the burst being fairly inacurrate kinda sucks. I just don't like using them. I like for my special to feel like I'm getting a cool advantage by using it and the fusion rifles just don't. Unless my scout rifle ammo is low I'm usually better off just using that. Sniper's are cool, but the zoom is so strong I have trouble aiming them.

I really wish we could use two primaries instead. That could make for interesting loadouts. I think I would actually use the hand cannon more if I could replace my special with it. That would give me the chance to have basically a primary and a secondary just like CoD.

[wings]

Green shotgun? The Deadlander Mk24? If so I couldn't get along with it but it appeared to be better than the Preacher models, although that is not saying much.

I was hoping they would allow two primaries. This feature appears to be uncommon in shooters. I think even in Gears if War with Judgment they did away with that, although I don't have the game so I can't comment.

[rubthisway]

There were some close to laser-beam accurate fusion rifles. Didn't mess with them in PvP but very useful on missions.