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[RadicalVelocity]

Yeah, I can get behind what you're saying. I still think the 'your benefactor is the villain' thing can work, but it would need a super-robust narrative behind and beyond it to make it work... And I doubt Destiny would ever have received a super-robust narrative



Hey, Killzone 2 is a very flawed game, but it is frequently brought up in conversations about best-ever AI and gun combat. I've spoken with salaried developers who consider its AI on par with FEAR's, and if you play it on Elite, you see this first-hand. It's an incredible effort. Much worse game overall, though, of course.

Yeah, Destiny's Halo-like shoot/punch/grenade trifecta is fantastic, it's a genuine pleasure to play. And the AI is solid. But beyond that is barely any depth in terms of mechanics. In FEAR and MP2 you had the slow motion mechanic. In Killzone 2 you had the great cover mechanic and the unbelievable, unparalleled realistic sense of weight. Crysis gave you superpowers. Wolfenstein: TNO gave you a great narrative.

Destiny has nothing aside from it's (naturally brilliant) gunplay. The gunplay bleeds dry of all its fun-factor because there are literally no other mechanics in play (incredibly limited vehicles notwithstanding). There is nothing else to do. There is certainly no story to keep you pushing on (unlike Wolfenstein: TNO which is similarly just really good gunplay). And every mission's objective is the same. And you retread them over and over again.

Full disclosure: I only played vanilla Destiny for about 15-20 hours and never reached the Raid. I wasn't going to grind the same boring-as-shit cookie-cutter missions for one hour a night for two weeks to unlock the Raid – and promptly quit the game for good. There were literally tens of better games to play and hundreds of better ways to spend my time. (This is beside the point, though, I guess.)

Old territory now, but chaining through the conversation...

You were right to quit when you did, the grind was disgusting.

But what kinda weight should a person then give "destiny has nothing aside from its gunplay" in light of that disclaimer?

---

Halo and F.E.A.R are still the pillars of brilliant AI work, though I never cared that much for the latter's gunplay. KZ2 had a great feel to shooting that seems as much accident as intent, going by other games in the franchise.

Smorgasboard answering and all that.

 

[ShutterMunster]

Game writers may be even less respected than screenwriters. That's impressive! /s

The story and writing development process at dev houses needs to be radically reimagined for the most part. It's like Naughty Dog is the only company that can get this right. Oof.

 

[GlamFM]

Game writers may be even less respected than screenwriters. That's impressive! /s

The story and writing development process at dev houses needs to be radically reimagined for the most part. It's like Naughty Dog is the only company that can get this right. Oof.

What are you supposed to do when the writing is bad? Just go with it?

 

[DeepEnigma]

What are you supposed to do when the writing is bad? Just go with it?

Must have been the worst story of all time, if what we got was considered the "better" alternative.

 

[GlamFM]

Must have been the worst story of all time, if what we got was considered the "better" alternative.

Keep the story to a minimum vs. set up our new 10 year franchise with a horrible story.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Keep the story to a minimum vs. set up our new 10 year franchise with a horrible story.

Minimum is being too kind, but I get what you are saying, lol.

Looking forward to what Destiny 2 has to offer now that the bearings are re-oiled.

 

[Klyka]

Keep the story to a minimum vs. set up our new 10 year franchise with a horrible story.

That's a pretty good way of looking at it, yeah.

While the Vanilla story was extreeeeeeemely barebones, what it did do was set up certain lore beats like the Vex and the Awoken and the Hive and such without defining them in too much detail, so that Bungie could go back to them at any time and add content that would not clash with anything.

 

[IHaveIce]

Keep the story to a minimum vs. set up our new 10 year franchise with a horrible story.

I see no difference now. It is a horrible story right now. It is even worse to try to pretend there is a story when there isn't.

All of this stuff wouldn't be so bad if Bungie wouldn't come off as pretentious as they do.
Tooting their own horns a little bit too much.

It is now a fact they scrapped the story, scrapped music, have a terrible engine and cut dlc content that was intended to be the base story, delayed the game because they had to rebuild, though announced the game with a story trailer that wasn't even actual anymore.

In addition the game had no good loot/ rpg system for most of its time, has no well thought out border between crucible and pve. Weapon balancing should be seperated for both.

The game has no other features like a theater; forge or custom games like people were used too from Bungie games. The game didn't even have voice chat in the beginning.

They game survived mostly because people were almost addicted to hunting loot.


Zoba has many good points but you refuse to see them.. like you always do with Destiny criticism.


Oh also Fyrewulff remember how you said it is completely normal to change stuff in dev.? Yeah what now happened and we know of is not normal.. this is almost Halo 2 dev levels of stupid.

 

[GlamFM]

I see no difference now. It is a horrible story right now. It is even worse to try to pretend there is a story when there isn't.

All of this stuff wouldn't be so bad if Bungie wouldn't come off as pretentious as they do.
Tooting their own horns a little bit too much.

It is now a fact they scrapped the story, scrapped music, have a terrible engine and cut dlc content that was intended to be the base story, delayed the game because they had to rebuild, though announced the game with a story trailer that wasn't even actual anymore.

In addition the game had no good loot/ rpg system for most of its time, has no well thought out border between crucible and pve. Weapon balancing should be seperated for both.

The game has no other features like a theater; forge or custom games like people were used too from Bungie games. The game didn't even have voice chat in the beginning.

They game survived mostly because people were almost addicted to hunting loot.


Zoba has many good points but you refuse to see them.. like you always do with Destiny criticism.


Oh also Fyrewulff remember how you said it is completely normal to change stuff in dev.? Yeah what now happened and we know of is not normal.. this is almost Halo 2 dev levels of stupid.

It´s not unusual at all. Only we have more insight regarding Destiny.

Portal 2 was almost finished, scrapped and re-built from the start because Gabe felt like it wasn´t a Portal game.

Zemeckis shot Back to the Future twice because he decided that Eric Stolz didn´t carry the movie the way he wanted to.

There are tough calls to make, often times for the better.

I know there is a general mentality here that every cancelled game would have been the greatest game of all time, with people marveling at concept art and asking for peoples heads to roll because a game didn´t get made...

I choose to believe that the version of Destiny that we got was the best version possible given the circumstances.

 

[biteren]

i really would like to see that super cut at some point

 

[Napalm_Frank]

So ''Destiny 2'' is supposedly coming 2016??? Sounds at least year too soon to me. I wonder if it feels more like a huge expansion rather than a sequel.

 

[-ImaginaryInsider]

So ''Destiny 2'' is supposedly coming 2016??? Sounds at least year too soon to me. I wonder if it feels more like a huge expansion rather than a sequel.

There appears to be so much cut content and leftover assets from Destiny 1, a good chunk of Destiny 2 probably already exists from that alone.

 

[PrioritySe7en]

I quit on Destiny after House of Wolves, and after reading this I don't know if Bungie had what it takes to make me spend money on another Destiny product.