As I mentioned in the previous post I dont play too many MMO's longer than a week or so. The primary reason is that I hate the concept of buying a game and then being forced to pay a monthly fee. I have always hated this business model, but I guess I can say I am very lucky since this game gave me a taste of what true game addiction feels like. I say this with true respect for this game. There were nights when I would tell myself just play for an hour and before I knew it I was still awake at 3 am. I will say one of the greatest decisions I have ever made was pulling that game out of my system for the last time, not because it was bad, but because of what the game was doing to me. I loved and felt truly addicted to Destiny. I say this with utter reverence for what the game was.
Borderlands with Halo mechanics...
If I were to sum up this game in one sentence it would be borderlands with Halo mechanics. I have played both halo and borderlands and love them both for different reasons. This game was a perfect combination of the two. Take all the RPG elements of Borderlands minus the lightheartedness (and story) and add the clean shooting mechanics and aesthetic of Halo. I love some of the goofy things about Borderlands, but overall some of that stuff really turns me off (claptrap). I think Destiny perfectly grabbed the leveling and gun systems of borderlands and cleanly combined it with Halo style and shooting mechanics. This combination was part of the reason why i think it was so successful.
A game for all styles...
I think one of the greatest strengths of Destiny was purely the time of its release and the variety of game play styles that it touched. I think if you look at the calendar this game landed at the perfect time. The current gen felt a little like a an empty wasteland and there had not been a game that was really justifying the purchase of my Xbox one. This game justified the purchase for sure.
The other plus of this game was that I feel it had the ability to fill plenty of genre gaps. The Call of Duty crowd had the crucible. The RPG crowd had the main story (limiting as it was). Open world fans had the patrol missions. MMO fans had a good light MMO. And people who just wanted a good multiplayer experience had a great game to jump into with their friends. If this game was pushed back by as little as three months I think it would have struggled either out of the gate or would have fallen to the wayside much quicker. Look at the calendar after its release date. Call of duty, Dragon age, Assassins creed, Far Cry 4, Halo: MCC, etc. If it waited until the beginning of the year it would have been going up against Evolve and Battlefield. This game picked the exact perfect time to release and hit just enough genres to make it a success.
Best and worst aspect...
In my opinion one of the best and worst aspects of this game was the fire team size. In the early days of the release my friend and coworker Cam and my buddy Mike were really the only ones who were playing the game. Well not completely but we made a perfect fire team to help power our characters to the next level. This was awesome. Basically any night I jumped onto Destiny I had 2 people to jam through some bounties and challenges with. This became a problem with we started having 4-6 people playing the game. At first it wasn't too much of a problem, we basically split into 2 fire teams. Plus there was enough time and people combination that we were all able to jam through our missions and bounties. And there were even a few nights of crucible which made it easier. Then came the nightfall mission that only one of us (Cam) were able to complete. This night there happened to be four of us playing and Cam had to go through the mission 3 different times so we could all beat it. From that point on there was a weird issue of either too many people (strikes) or not enough (raids). This led to missed opportunities for both me and our other players. There is more to be said on this, but I want to talk about it more on the hope post.
Oh the crucible... you cruel bitch...
When I first played the crucible during the beta I could not stand it. I played maybe 2 rounds and hated every minute of it. I remember the point during the game when I was forced to play and get good at the crucible. I got the exotic bounty... "A dubious task". The crucible aspect of this was to, "earn a kills/death spread of 25 in crucible". The first time I got this bounty I tried to finish it up before Xur left, because somewhere in my mind I was convinced I needed to see him before I could finish this bounty. I sat down on a Saturday afternoon and started in on the bounty. I believe i played 4 rounds and got to 12 but ended the session at 5. I had to take a break for some reason. At this point I was utterly convinced I would never finish this, but that night I jumped on again and gave it a shot. I dont know what changed in those few hours, but I figured out the PVP game and brought down the hurt. I think it took me 6-8 rounds to complete it. That was the turning point for me and crucible. I remember later getting the bounty again and finishing it up in 3 to 5 rounds. I was quite proud of myself. This became a lot of fun for me. Sadly I was the only one in my group that enjoyed the crucible, so I often found myself playing it alone.
The crucible actually leads to an interesting complaint about the game. And I think the crucible kind of encompasses it perfectly. I dont know the exact amount of hours I put into the crucible, but I could imagine close to 30-40 rounds of the crucible and multiple bounties cashed in and when I walked away I was only at level 2 (Aprox.1200 XP from 3) of the crucible shop guy. I dont know if the leveling system was broken or the bounty system was broken, but either way I felt I was putting in some serious work and getting nothing out of it. Actually another complaint comes from this. I got good enough to be at the top of the board multiple times. And most of the time this meant dick when it came to the rewards for the round. Like any multiplayer game there were rounds at the bottom of the pack and some at the top, but a majority of the time was spent in the middle. The drops at the end of the rounds were crazy random and mostly blues. Dont get me wrong I got some purples, but I sure as hell never received any exotics. Plus like I said it was completely random. I mean if I hit the top I should definitely get a bonus reward for that alone. Plus why isn't ( I say isn't but I think wasn't might be somewhat accurate) there purple level weapons and armor like you get in the raid. I know there were some people who only played the crucible and they were basically stuck at level 26-28. They should have had special weapons and armor similar to the raid, even if it was only sprinkled in from time to time. This would have made me spend a lot more time in there for sure.... Shoot I just realized I ventured into the hope blog again. Well I guess a taste of what is to come.
Conclusion...
Dammit look at the length of this post again. Man I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around my head. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. I really enjoyed the game. There are some flaws, but the game is great.
Slobbery moment... A list of positives...
- Shooting - The shooting mechanic was clean as hell. I don't know if I could have asked for better when it came to that
- Pavlovian reaction - The first 26 levels create pure Pavlovian reactions. Every time you get a purple or exotic it was like a magic moment. Even the sight of shiny plants lead to drooling
- Playing with friends - This was one of my favorite multiplayer experiences ever. I had so much damn fun playing with my friends day and night.
- Strikes and missions - Playing the strikes and missions were actually a lot of fun the first time around (and maybe a couple other times after that). I didnt care for nightfall or weekly (or raid), but daily strikes, regular strikes, and missions were a lot of fun the first time you played them.
- Crucible - Once you figure out how the crucible works it was actually a lot of fun. I dont know how much time I put into it, but I had a blast most of the time I did.
- Baddies - The bad guys were fun. There was some great variance and challenges based on worlds. I would love to see them this fleshed out a bit more but they were cool for sure.
- Worlds - Though lacking story the worlds were beautiful.
- Addiction - I was literally dreaming about this game... I fell victim to a game that literally had no end point and no reason to keep playing to level 30. Damn what a ride though.
That was pretty poor writing for sure, but who doesnt want a list. Fact is I put a ton of hours into this game and I definitely got my moneys worth. I am at the point where I am going to now officially sell my game to best buy. For some reason at the time of writing this they are giving $30.00 if you trade it in store. My buddy Matt was talking about the game and I could tell he was throwing elbows into my side and trying to get me back on the destiny train, but honestly I got what i needed and walking away was definitely good for me. I am still gaming, but now that I have walked away a couple things have happened.
- I am getting good sleep
- I am working out every day (most days)
- I am reading some comics again
- I am actually finishing games with stories
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