Bungie's Destiny

[Dumien]

Shepard Commander.

[mannon]

Jun 17, 2014 20:49:00 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

I thought his voice being kinda flat was a stylistic choice, him being an AI and all. Not all AIs have to be Cortana.

Yeah I figured that's what they were going for as well. A voice that was not robotic, yet not emotional. Sort of like HAL.

[GodMars]

The alpha for this game was more fun than Titanfall (well, Titanfall on PC). I'm sold.

[tooros]

Jun 17, 2014 22:37:39 GMT -5 GodMars said:

The alpha for this game was more fun than Titanfall (well, Titanfall on PC). I'm sold.

It's ridiculous but, this alpha is one of the best things on PS4. The real game will be something very special IMHO.

[tooros]

Regarding the voice: I seem to be in the minority (along with a couple of you...) : I thought it fitted well. It's supposed to be an impassionate 'bot not Krusty the Clown. :/

[wittyscorpion]

Looks like it is official, Destiny is going to be 1080P / 30 FPS on both PS4 and XONE:

gamingbolt.com/bungie-explains-why-destiny-is-not-60fps-on-the-ps4-and-xbox-one

[tooros]

640mb direct download of (arguably) updated build Here, Right Click, Save As...

[pharq]

figured id post my experience, see if you can get anything out of it.

I get the feeling that destiny Is a Halo MMORPG, which takes a lot of inspiration from Diablo. Definitely looks and plays a lot like Halo with this massive breathtaking world that you want to explore, whilst at the same time when you push into some these complexes, you feel the world shrink around you.

Gunplay

Gunplay feels very much like Halo with an injection of CoD. You move, jump run and sprint very much like Halo, and if you have played a lot of Halo the experience will be a very easy transition.
With the introduction of ADS brings changes the game a lot, instead of a more out dodge and out shoot each opponent, it does require a lot of ADS that comes from CoD and everything flows a lot faster, however with the longer TTK rather than the very quick insta-death of CoD, gun control and accuracy play a big part.
In terms of hip fire, people from Halo will need to incorporate ADS into their gameplay and learn the ropes on that, but hip fire is still fairly generous compared to CoD, so you can hipfire a fair ways out, if you’re the were kind of player that ran with an SMG, and steady aim to better that spread, you should find your range will have increased.
Weapons split into 3 categories: primary, special and heavy.

Primary is your standard rifles, auto, burst and semi, it also includes your revolvers, but does not include snipers.
Special is your charge beam rifles, snipers and shotguns
Heavy is for rocket launchers and LMGS.

This may seem odd, but how you use the weapons is limited by the ammo you can pick up as well as ammo limitations, generally speaking you’ll have several hundred rounds for primaries, shotguns are limited to about 20 shells, and heavy to a few rockets or a clip or 2 of LMGs (didn’t have a chance to play with lmgs so feel free to interject).
Generally everything feels fairly solid in terms of PvE, and due the increase of scarcity of ammo, special and heavy should be saved for bigger enemies.

As far as PvP is concerned, didn’t touch snipers, so can’t quite comment on that, however given how they upgrade they could be effective. Apart from that everything works as expected, and when you pick up heavy ammo bust out that LMG. Shotguns murder in close range and primaries work for mid.
Did notice however, its best to get some decent gear before you PvP, and make sure the level it up as well as the damage boosts (this means no whites explained below), and perks and very beneficial, to give you an idea it’s kind of like if CoD put stopping power as a significantly later unlock in the progression. It’s not going to stop you from winning gunfights, but it’s like turning up to a foot race without shoes.

RPG mechanics
Gear
Weapons

Weapons uncommon and above themselves come with additional perks which must be earned through use. For the most part the alpha was a lot of damage boosts, and different optics, but according to details of some of the exotic weapons these can include health regen or boosts to hipfire. Mind you these benefits follow a similar line to how abilities unlock, ie the damage boost was permanent but optics became additional choices as you unlocked them, so you will probably have competing abilities here.

Armour

Armour is split into 5 separate pieces, each adding to your defence as expected. Similar to weapons armour also has upgradable abilities such as throw grenades further etc., and probably to be expected will have abilities trees similar to weapons. One added benefit that armour gives is a + stat such as strength, discipline and intelligence all having different effects such as improving ability recharges, and how far stuff is thrown.

Abilities

Abilities are something interest and a lot more akin to diablo, than borderlands. But are actually rather simplistic in nature, each class has a grenade, a jump, a melee and special ability unlocks, along with a couple of stat buffs and skill buffs. As you progress you unlock from left to right, along the unlock path, and as you play you unlock alternative options for each spot along the progression, grenade for instant has 4 different options of which you can choose one, this works for every skill and buff along the chain and makes class crafting unique.

For example the warlock can choose skills and buff to be more aggressive and deal more damage with their grenade/ability, or select options that reduce cool downs, provide health drains, increase projectile counts.

Another aspect of abilities, is how you design your character to mitigate damage, here there is 3 different aspects, toughness, recovery and agility, toughness is essentially your health bar, recovery is the speed in which your character recovers their health, and agility how fast they move, and of course each class specially starts with a boost in one of these criteria, titan has toughness, warlock has recovery and hunter has agility. Also along you unlock chain you get 2 buffs to any of these categories of which there are 3 options for each. At the first stage you get to choose a buff to any 2 categories at once, at the second point to get the offer of a buff to all 3 stats or a major buff to 1.

PvE to PvP

To be honest im unsure how they balance all these aspects work together and translate the switch between the 2, considering however your defence is made up your armour component, and weapons translate over. My prediction is that PvP is balance by level scale, ie a lv 6 and lv 8 can go toe to toe, but you will need to make sure you are properly equipped. I went into a couple of games with armour roughly 20-30 below that of the average, and I felt it in my engagements where I’d die while my opponent had a slither of health left, same applies to weapons, you really want that damage boost as a minimum.

I did have limited PvP experience mostly playing from Australia where there seemed to be fewer people.

[wittyscorpion]

pharq: great write up, thanks for sharing.

Regarding balance in PvP: I don't know the details but I was told a lot of things available in PvE are taken away to create a relatively leveled playing field. Also, the grind to max level is fairly quick, and most PvP oriented players should be able to hit it within a couple of weeks tops. I speculate that it is no more challenging than reaching the first prestige in CoD (before which the MP also favors the higher level players).

I believe that for the first a couple of months after the game is released the player community will be bipolar: the PvE community who will spend their time 1) exploring the world, 2) going after exotic loot, and 3) fighting for who has the fastest time of completing raid, while the PvP community will spend 90%+ of their time fragging other players. Over time people will start mixing things up and enjoy the other aspects of the game.

[n1gh7]

In PvP they "balanced" it by making the damage leveled (e.g. all ARs do the same damage), but other stats are kept (some guns reload faster, are more accurate, etc.).

[Dumien]

See, I don't mind things being 30 FPS. lower FPS sometimes = more cinematic. Sure it might not be as good for competitive games, but if this is a mainly PVE experience... I don't mind.

[n1gh7]

Halo 3 was 30FPS... arguably the most competitive console shooter of all time... As long as the playing field is level, it doesn't matter what the FPS lock is.

[-3055-]

Jun 17, 2014 20:49:00 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

I thought his voice being kinda flat was a stylistic choice, him being an AI and all. Not all AIs have to be Cortana.

There's a difference between a voice being flat and being a bad voice actor. Kevin Spacey in Moon was flat but good. Peter Dinklage in Destiny is less flat than Kevin Spacey but is bad. Like you know how when someone can't act tries to hard and their emotions are like through the roof and completely disingenuous? When the Nav (Dinklage) acts surprised it's like that.

[wittyscorpion]

Jun 18, 2014 13:40:12 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Halo 3 was 30FPS... arguably the most competitive console shooter of all time... As long as the playing field is level, it doesn't matter what the FPS lock is.

Halo has longer ttk so FPS is not critical. Still nice to have so that's why Halo MC is so exciting.

CoD could benefit greatly from 60 fps but the headlines are taken by lag. Unless you are pros mainly playing on LAN.

With dedicated servers, Titanfall on 60 FPS is critical. Every time the frame rate drops it affects game play greatly.

For Destiny, 30 FPS for PvE is perfect, but PvP can use 60 FPS. Not critical though.

[mannon]

If it's bad I'd probably put more of that on the director than Peter Dinklage himself. We all know he's capable of great acting and even if he wasn't motivated it's the director's responsibility to get a performance out of an actor. I've only heard some of it so far so I'll reserve judgement, but I think this probably is the performance the director wanted... for better or worse.

[n1gh7]

Jun 18, 2014 14:00:25 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Jun 18, 2014 13:40:12 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Halo 3 was 30FPS... arguably the most competitive console shooter of all time... As long as the playing field is level, it doesn't matter what the FPS lock is.

Halo has longer ttk so FPS is not critical. Still nice to have so that's why Halo MC is so exciting.

CoD could benefit greatly from 60 fps but the headlines are taken by lag. Unless you are pros mainly playing on LAN.

With dedicated servers, Titanfall on 60 FPS is critical. Every time the frame rate drops it affects game play greatly.

For Destiny, 30 FPS for PvE is perfect, but PvP can use 60 FPS. Not critical though.

The difference in "responsiveness" from 30 to 60 seems like an insignificant piece of the lag pie when there is input lag and internet lag to consider.

(Titanfall's FPS matters because with a lower FPS, your in game actions are slower. Unless they finally patched that with the >60FPS patch, can't remember.)

[mannon]

Really wish they would go with Totalbiscuit's suggestion and just give us a choice between 1080p @ 30FPS or 720p @ 60FPS. Most people would still go for the 1080p I'm sure, but it would be nice to have the choice.

It does bother me just a bit that the next gen consoles aren't quite as powerful as I had really hoped for. I was honestly hoping for 1080p and 60FPS to be standard, but maybe it will get better as the consoles age and they learn how to optimize better.

Being a largely PC gamer I've gotten spoiled on 60 FPS lately. Or at least 40+. 30 is playable, but really doesn't look smooth to me, not for an action title anyway. Then again this is console only where your turn rate will be capped and most cam moves are smoothed anyway by the thumbstick interface. I guess 30 will be okay... *grumblegrumble* ;3

[wittyscorpion]

mannon: Halo MC is boasting 1080P / 60 FPS for everything, on dedicated servers

[n1gh7]

On old games through.

[TheHawkNY]

Companion app screenshots: imgur.com/a/r3YCT

Does anyone know, will there be a website as well, or just a companion app?

[wittyscorpion]

Jun 19, 2014 13:24:15 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

Companion app screenshots: imgur.com/a/r3YCT

Does anyone know, will there be a website as well, or just a companion app?

No official info yet (that I am aware of), but I am confident that www.bungie.net will provide the stats just like how they did it with Halo series. It is one of the things that fans really like, would be ridiculous if they stop doing it.

[n1gh7]

During the alpha they had one, alpha.bungie.net. The app is just a mobile version of the website.

[wittyscorpion]

Ninja, one of my most favorite Twitch streamer and a great Halo player, gave his take on Destiny alpha in Bungie's latest community spotlight article: www.bungie.net/en/News/News?aid=11586

His Alpha live streaming is the #1 watched on Twitch, partly because he has insanely high KDs in PvP. What does he have to say about his experience? This:

Summarize the entire experience in one word.

Ninja: "Rewarding." Every single kill you get in this game; no matter with what weapon, super, grenade, or vehicle feels EXTREMELY satisfying. I think this is why I was able to play the game for 16 hours a day.

[n1gh7]

I watched Ninja for hours on the first day that the press embargo dropped. His stream was pretty fun.

[wittyscorpion]

Jun 16, 2014 15:16:29 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

PS exclusives are detailed: blog.us.playstation.com/2014/06/16/destinys-playstation-exclusive-content-detailed/

At launch, PS4 and PS3 owners will get exclusive access to a unique co-op Strike located on Mars, an exclusive competitive map, and a slew of exclusive guns, gear, and ships.

Note the word "at launch", so it is possible (and IMHO likely) that these are timed exclusives, and some time later they will become available on XBL. If not, then from my point of view the significant pieces are the strike mission, the MP map, and the two exotic weapons (one AR and one hand cannon). Nice bonus for PS players, but not a big factor in terms of choosing which console to buy.

Looks like these exclusives are indeed timed exclusive, but won't be available outside PSN until "at least Fall 2015": thedestinyblog.com/2014/06/20/destinys-playstation-exclusive-content-will-be-only-on-playstation-until-at-least-fall-2015/

Since Bungie promised that there will be "something new every day" (which I remain very skeptical, guessing most of the time probably things like new challenges), not having these content on XBL until 1 year later should not be a big deal. PSN players do get to enjoy them as pretty nice bonus.

[pharq]

the exclusive content isn't quite game breaking though, it'll be nice yes, but if its not max level, its really only going to be a nice tool to help in the early game, and i've only known Guild wars to offer such items at max level.

did find this link, shows all skills but doesn't show exactly how the tree works just the skills, disappointed that it doesn't show the increase in stats on the 2 training tiers.

** correction does show the boosts for titan, guess you can use the size buffs to reflect how it would work on other classes.

[n1gh7]

The tree works downwards, as you gain XP you unlock skills lower in the columns. However I'm pretty sure you can only select one per column.

[pharq]

Jun 19, 2014 21:03:10 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

The tree works downwards, as you gain XP you unlock skills lower in the columns. However I'm pretty sure you can only select one per column.

that is correct, must be work in progress.

[-3055-]

I've been watching multiplayer footage a lot lately... Am I the only one going for headshots? I mean I thought that was a natural course of action

[wittyscorpion]

Jun 20, 2014 12:29:14 GMT -5 -3055- said:

I've been watching multiplayer footage a lot lately... Am I the only one going for headshots? I mean I thought that was a natural course of action

Which game are you talking about?

CoD = Don't bother
Titanfall = thrilling OSK when using G2A4 / Wingman, but in general not super useful
Halo = must
Destiny = ? (looks like headshot is just as important as Halo)