Destiny: FIN

[CarloOos]

All the bosses are like Wow dungeon raid bosses you absolutely need a firm grasp of the mechanics and a lot of teamwork and communication. It clicked for me big time yesterday.

Every boss I've done so far has followed the same basic pattern; the first half of their health bar is knocked off relatively painlessly as everyone unloads all their special weapons into the weak spots, whereas the second half descends into 10+ minutes of torturously scrabbling around for ammo and whittling away comically small amounts of health with what little you do find.

[tnman]

Ladies and gentlemen, I have now made it my LIFE'S MISSION to get this gun:

[mrverse aka thehatchet]

Took me 4 games out before I even knew how to use the heavy weapon. I have had a couple of excellent moments.

[df0]

Excellent work Agent Morrius.

[Uncle Nasty]

Amazing scenes dropping into Friends' games and having them join mine randomly today. Incredibly addictive and you just can't get FPS gunplay as fine as this anywhere else.

[CarloOos]

Fair enough I completely forgot about those, but good luck opening the menu to use one when you're surrounded by infinitely respawning mobs along with and a 25-foot ogre chasing you in circles firing never-ending instant death beams.

[hmm]

The worst thing about the ammo situation is the way that checkpoints (don't) work in restricted respawn areas. You return to the state of the level at that point, ie. all the enemies are back, but your ammo is as when you died. This is fucking infuriating when you narrowly fail with little ammo left and then have to try again with a handicap. Completely broken.

(Still loving it otherwise.)

[Takizawa]

Those purple guns seem a long way off, i've done about 5 strikes on matchmaking today (about 3-4 hours worth) and have accumulated about 15 vanguard marks, I need 150!

Can't say it hasn't been fun though, loving my new Angel of Light (hover in the air whilst aiming down the sights) perk

[Janski]

Bizarely, your normal ammo with auto-replenish after about 45 seconds if you're totally out

[JDubYes]

Sorry PS3 players (not that we ever played) , but apparently my girlfriend thought my knowing about my Christmas present months in advance was boring, so she sprung a surprise on me yesterday; now I have a PS4, and have duly upgraded to the PS4 version of Destiny too...

Incidentally though, while it absolutely is prettier on the PS4, any last-gen people who have been hesitating needn't worry about getting an (in any other way) inferior version of the game; in terms of anything but visual effects it's identical.

[Sabreman]

Clumsy post trying to put down my thoughts on the reception of this game:

Somewhere along the way it stopped being enough that a videogame is fun. I have one single consideration when I'm playing anything - am I enjoying myself? That's it. That's all I care about. If I'm not, I stop playing. I don't grind away at games I don't enjoy out of a sense of duty, or because I bought it (by gum!). Destiny slots right in next to PSO and Diablo III as far as I'm concerned. The moment-to moment combat, visuals and atmosphere hit dead centre... but while nothing else is really worth bothering about, there's a lot of critical brow-furrowing going on over peripheral aspects.

I'm seeing it everywhere with regard to Destiny. This idea that admitting the game is fun and addictive has to come with a caveat. There has to be a "but..." involved. It seems as though people think it's somehow too important a title to be satisfied with simple pleasure. I don't get it, and it really is that simple for me. I don't want to knock anyone that has different expectations of it, or hoped it would be something more groundbreaking, but regardless what anyone else thinks, or what scores it's getting, the part that matters begins and ends when you've said playing it is tons of fun.

Unless you actually don't like the gunplay, in which case fair enough. I'm seeing precious few people report the part that matters doesn't live up though.

[Graham S]

The worst thing about the ammo situation is the way that checkpoints (don't) work in restricted respawn areas. You return to the state of the level at that point, ie. all the enemies are back, but your ammo is as when you died. This is fucking infuriating when you narrowly fail with little ammo left and then have to try again with a handicap. Completely broken.

(Still loving it otherwise.)

Yeah, this is crazy.

[Mr Ben]

Got my first Legendary last night from the Crucible - The Swarm machine gun.

Handed in 2 bounties and it didn't level up anything, unlike all my blues and greens in the past. I guess Legendaries take longer to level up or something. It kicks arse at the moment, although its quite slow firing compared to others I've seen. Hoping that changes as it levels.

As a titan I find I never get good opportunities to use my smashy move, and I always seem to die to warlock's overpowered purple fireball thing. Horses for courses!

That's nothing. Try doing that super on a Blade Dancer Hunter. They'll kill you and not die. A shotgun blast to the face and a melee wont even kill them. They seem to have some form of shield while dashing about faster than normal anyway, which makes it hard to hit them regardless, but the shield absorbs too much damage really if a super wont kill them, and my super has the little area of effect aftershock thing to boot

[Yoshimax]

Going 3.5K/D this afternoon and ruining teams at control. When it's boss it's glorious.

[God Is A Girl]

I've just hit Level 14 on my tod whilst awaiting my co-op partner (the other half has been busy and her Limited Edition is yet to be christened). Never been the social butterfly, but I'm getting all warm and fuzzy whenever I visit the Tower after each story mission. It's a hive of activity on 360 and elicits fond memories of PSO back in the day... notwithstanding all the mute gestures, it's nice to see folks doing their happy dances amid much symbolic shouting and pointing.

Reflecting on time spent with Bungie's greatest hits, it's absolutely fitting that Destiny Ver. 1.0 will see off the last-generation in style. And even though I doubled up with the Xbox One version at launch, it's hard not to be impressed with the uniformity of a 'complete' 360 library - whether it's the sublime Halo Anniversary or 343's evolutionary baby step forward. After all the waiting and all the hyperbole, I'm tickled pink that Destiny has lived up to my expectations, but it does make you wonder how anybody could take issue with its art direction, its accessibility or its general fitness for purpose (an early review has marked it 6/10 - seriously?!).

In fact, I'm still reeling from the feelgood vibe after touching down on Venus; this is vintage Bungie. It's picture-perfect and a distillation or addendum of everything that has come before and all that remains (for this completionist) is Edge's verdict. Ain't no way it's gonna be marked down. Let's have some order in the house, eh?

[Janski]

What's the deal with a subclass? I'm a level 17 hunter and have just realised that I can switch between the two classes freely.

Being this close to 20 I assume you can still get access to new skills and further unlocks after I've reached the cap? How does that work?

[And]

Me neither tbh, just been jumping on after the little one goes to bed.

well if you see me then jump in, but I'll probably not have headset on

[Mr Ben]

You should be able to swap sub-classes from 15 onwards. Press X on the sub-class icon in your character screen and it'll swap.

I maxed the Striker sub-class, and want to level up the Defender one but I cant bare to be without my shoulder charge

[K]

OK, if I was wavering before, then playing through the first Venus mission has pretty much sold the whole bloody thing to me. That was fucking amazing! Creeping through the ruined frontage of abandoned hotels sat on the boiling shores of Venus - it was like something from one of JG Ballard's most fevered new-wave scientifical imaginings. The battle at the end was preposterously intense, too.

[Uncle Mike]

Highlight of today was definitely joining K just as he got to the boss part of a story mission I was unprepared and slightly under-levelled for. I joined, we waved, and then the enemy threw wave after wave of his own men straight at us until K dragged us through it.

Sorry for being lame.

On the plus side: level 15 now! I've done all the story missions solo on Earth and the Moon, plus the Strike on Earth with ransoms. That Strike, if it's representative, strikes me (lol) as too repetitive and dull.

Salvage and Control are still fun. I'm actually reasonably capable of competing now.

[Moz]

Every boss I've done so far has followed the same basic pattern; the first half of their health bar is knocked off relatively painlessly as everyone unloads all their special weapons into the weak spots, whereas the second half descends into 10+ minutes of torturously scrabbling around for ammo and whittling away comically small amounts of health with what little you do find.

Weird, because ammo regenerates automatically after 30 seconds.

[Wickedkitten]

i absolutely love Venus, its like a mix between The Last of Us and a big budget No Mans Sky in places

[K]

Highlight of today was definitely joining K just as he got to the boss part of a story mission I was unprepared and slightly under-levelled for. I joined, we waved, and then the enemy threw wave after wave of his own men straight at us until K dragged us through it.

Sorry for being lame.

On the plus side: level 15 now! I've done all the story missions solo on Earth and the Moon, plus the Strike on Earth with ransoms. That Strike, if it's representative, strikes me (lol) as too repetitive and dull.

Salvage and Control are still fun. I'm actually reasonably capable of competing now.

Yeah, that battle at the end was amazing. I dunno if it scales battles for more than one player, but it was pitched absolutely right I thought - I felt fairly over-levelled for the rest of the mission, but the end was perfect. Bastard hard, but do-able.

[Mogster]

I was thinking the same thing regarding checkpoints earlier today. The boss of one of the Venus side missions is an absolute bastard on hard, and respawning made things a lot harder without any heavy ammo. It basically meant my success depended on how what random drops I happened to get in the fight. By contrast, respawning outside of darkness zones feels a little cheap, as there's basically no consequence to it that I'm aware of.

It felt awesome when that bastard finally went down mind,

[wretcherd]

McCartney's Everybody's Gonna Dance Around Tonight would be more appropriate over the credits.

Spanx, did you used to play Phantasy Star Online back in the day?

[Banjaxed]

Thanks to Morrius, jimtendo-san, Ferine and Epcotman (you drew the short straw coming in at the end when we had pretty much given up!!) who joined me in tackling the weekly Strike. It ended in failure but it was a glorious failure!!

It was a pleasure chatting with you all and demonstrated that high level play on this amazing game requires not just communication but good planning. Hopefully when we attempt it again we will have our weapons set to Arc damage. That simple tweak of Bungie to take away the 30 second respawn timer changed the whole nature of the strike. (Well that and those pesky Level 22 enemies!!)

After yesterday's glorious failure Morrius, jimtendo-San and myself retackled the weekly strike.

We absolutely breezed through it!! Was really surprised how quickly we finished it, bringing the right equipment and being a few levels higher made all the difference.

Level 24 Warlock, still completely besotted with Destiny. Scary how much I've played since Tuesday morning - 1 day 3 hours according to the App.

[Sng]

Oh dear, wish you never said you could find that out. Approaching 19 hours now.

[Dave White]

had some great games with Soong, Droo that weekly strike was tough but proper fun.

Highlight was our comeback in a control match PVP with Ricky Dvt and Boodles, sticking together it all clicked and we took the match from 3000 down.

The Brady guide has a really good section on PVP and has a few things not explained but helpful. Always roll in 2's. The motion tracker radar if full red the enemy is on your level, if just outlined they are above or below you. If the bar is the inner circle the enemy is within 8 metres the outer, 25 metres away.

If a players name is in yellow they are supercharged so avoid the enemy and stick with a yellow teammate, crouching conceals your motion tracker appearance, moving slowly you appear as a red blip.

Ive found cranking my look sensitivity right up to 7 has really helped and keeping my crosshairs at head level around corners gets the jump. Rather than screaming at the tv the guide gets you to question why you were killed, were you in a 2-v1 battle?, were you already injured whilst engaging? Etc. All obvious stuff but it does make you a better player when you question it all.

[Graham S]

I'm only 12.5 hours in. Rare I play something as much as this in 1 week. An actual, God-given flu for the first few days really helped.

[Nathan Wind]

I'm only 12.5 hours in. Rare I play something as much as this in 1 week. An actual, God-given flu for the first few days really helped.

Yes, conveniently I've come down with quite a heavy cold over the course of today, so I shall be taking tomorrow off work and skiving my usual Monday evening trip to the gym. Whatever will I do for the entire day? (Play Destiny). My wife will be irate