Video Game Tuesday: Thoughts on the Bungie/Activision Split

Hey all I’m back with some thoughts on a subject that was often a topic I was asked about while I was taking a break for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s my Thoughts on the Bungie/Activision Split!

So did you see this coming?: Yes and no, honestly if I was some of the investors at Activision I’d have been pissed at Bungie for the absolute pathetic showing they gave us with the original Destiny. The Taken King was a big step in the right direction, but after that came the filler that was Rise of Iron and the absolutely atrocious Destiny 2. Forsaken was actually quite fun, but that was only for a few months and still was highly exploitative of Bungie when you consider how underwhelming Black Armory was. So while I was a bit shocked at the turn of events a few months back I wasn’t surprised that Activision wanted to wash their hands of the clusterf*ck that is the Destiny IP.

But it’s a good thing right?: Yeah I’m going to say it’s got the potential to be a good thing, but until Bungie steps up and makes a game that actually can take advantage of all that Destiny could be I’ll be only disappointed with them. The fact that the game still lacks good space flight gameplay after all this time and so many various ship models made by the artists is nothing short of a travesty. I’d like to go around the solar system using my Thousand Wings and go back to various places like the Cosmodrome from the original Destiny. The fact that they bothered to tease it and didn’t let us go back to old locations is a travesty, and insulting to many players.

Honestly the whole losing all your progress from Destiny 1 to Destiny 2 was just as insulting, and while some say making a clean break is only a good thing I would beg to differ. If they were forced to make guns that outdid older ones like Midnight Coup or the IKELOS shotgun just to give the gameplay variations it’d only better the game in the long run. The fact that they continually add old guns like Thorn or Thunderlord to the game was just as much an insult as not letting us keep them.

I’ll be honest, I don’t see Bungie recovering from this in any conceivable measure in the next year and possibly never. They just lost all their Marketing and additional studio support that they had received in the past and used in “expansions” like Curse of Osiris or Warmind. They’ll need to work five times as hard with just the people they have on hand, and that will take away from the development time that could make Destiny 3, or whatever the next installment will be, better.

When Bungie split off from Microsoft, in a move really similar to what happened with Activision, right down to the people in Bungie HQ cheering, they pretty much fell off the map and weren’t seen for years until Destiny was announced, and even then the game we got years after that announcement was so far from expectations that it was a huge let down. I’m expecting the exact same thing to happen again, and while I can hope I’m wrong it’s not a large hope.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

 

 

Video Game Tuesday: Destiny 2 Hopes

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering what my wishes for Destiny’s sequel. It’s my Destiny 2 Hopes!

Levels Mattering: I want to see levels actually make a difference, I want to fight against a level one enemy and be able to sneeze and instantly kill them at max level. The fact that Destiny actually punishes you for having a higher level then content is unacceptable. Back in Year 1 if you went into the Vault of Glass with Crota’s End gear you would be at a disadvantage compared to someone with full Vault of Glass gear. You’d do less damage to bosses even with the same weapons equipped. It made no sense whatsoever, and it still applies even now. Why even make a leveling system in the game if it doesn’t affect anything in a positive way?

Ships Doing More: I want to be able to use my ship to fight in space, or in the air above a planet. Hell I want to be able to fly it above an area and land where I choose for patrols. I want it to be more than a glorified loading screen tool. Back in pre-alpha footage that they showed at E3 in 2012 ships were actually shown in places other than the Tower and Orbit when a player landed and whatnot.

Lots of People: I want to see tens of guardians running around in a zone during patrols. I hate only seeing one or two people per area. Some of the best gameplay Destiny had was when people all flocked and worked together to farm the Loot Cave back in the first few weeks after launch. You could actually reliably see more than a couple people in a zone at a given time, and it was awesome. I know lots of people play Destiny, but when I’m just out on patrol I feel alone way too much.

Story: I want a coherent story! I live for stories, and the fact that Bungie keeps pushing this flimsy excuse of a story, if you can even call it that, is shameful. It doesn’t have to be JRPG worthy, but I want to feel like I’m paying for more than an glorified ticket to a virtual grindstone. Rise of Iron and Vanilla Destiny’s story was terrible, Vanilla had almost nothing story wise. The Taken King was a step in the right direction, but it lasted all of a few hours.

Lots of Loot: If Destiny 2 will be as RNG heavy as it is now, we need to be seeing lots more drops then we are seeing now. Again The Taken King had it right, but Bungie went backwards after that with Rise of Iron.

There are lots more things I’d like to see, but this article would drag on and on. That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll cover it more in the future, if I feel like it.

Video Game Tuesday: That Destiny 2 Rumor

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m going to talk about something I heard being discussed and argued over a few weeks back. It’s That Destiny 2 Rumor!

What Rumor?: The one where Destiny 2 is not only coming to the PC, a change that might be great or it might not, and that we will lose our characters in Destiny 2.

What does that mean?: Well for it to come to PC that means more players will get to play the game, frankly I could care less about this as I’m personally not a huge fan of FPS games on the PC, sorry I grew up playing Goldeneye not Doom and I enjoy having a level playing ground when it comes to FPS games. A PC can never offer that, someone else always has a better system than you and that split second advantage might change whether you win or lose.

What about that character loss part?: This is the real kicker and why I’m not even bothering with Destiny: Rise of Iron trying to get geared up for a raid I don’t really want to participate in if I’ll lose everything in the end. I understand why they would do this, and approve of doing so. But it’s a punch to the stomach for those players who have put as much time into Destiny as I have, or more.

I don’t mind losing access to my character, she’s ugly as hell anyways, but those guns I spent days searching for are going to be missed. Like Gjallarhorn, Hawkmoon, Vex Mythoclast and Touch of Malice. That’s not even mentioning the cosmetic items like Ghost Shells, Emblems, Shaders and Ships (I really don’t want to lose my ships and emblems Bungie.) Why would they do this? Because it’s better to completely remake something than have old, broken aspects screw up new content. I’m looking at you “Jump and Die Randomly for No Reason” bug….

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

Video Game Tuesday: What Rise of Iron Did Well

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’ll talk about Rise of Iron again. It’s What Rise of Iron Did Well!

Wait you’re praising Destiny?: Yes, I’ve never said that some parts of the game aren’t fun, because some of it really is quite a lot of fun. But that’s a story for another time.

What did Rise of Iron do well?: The Exotic Weapon Quests were incredibly well done, except maybe for Thorn.

Gjallarhorn: The quest for this was really easy to acquire and will allow everyone to get Gjallarhorn this time around. No more regretting not buying the rocket launcher the first week of the game like 98% of the players in Year 1 did. Plus that last mission where you get infinite ammo was quite a bit of fun.

Khvostov: This is a callback to the very first mission in Destiny and is quite a bit of fun to complete. The best part however is the fact that the gun while being catergorized as an Auto Rifle is actually able to be an Auto Rifle, Pulse Rifle or Scout Rifle depending on what perks you use. It’s lots of fun and still very accurate even in Auto Rifle mode.

Thorn: This is probably the worst of the bunch, but at least it’s easy as hell to get Atheon’s Epilogue now for use in the Crucible portion of the quest.

Outbreak Prime: I have to hand it to Bungie what they did with this quest. It is amazing and took literal Math geniuses to figure out how to unlock it. Getting this gun is a really hard thing to do, but well worth it in the end.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

 

Video Game Tuesday: Why Rise of Iron is a Failure

This week for Destiny Bashing Video Game Tuesday I’m talking about the reasons the latest Destiny Expansion is a bust. It’s all about Why Rise of Iron is a Failure!

It just came out how can you be disappointed already?: Well it’s simple I was disappointed the day after the game was released because after finishing the meagre offering of “Story” missions that Rise of Iron came with, and doing both the Gjallarhorn and Khvostov Exotic quests on Day 1, I realized that the Light Level Grind from Year 1 was back. That is completely unacceptable, and Bungie knows better than to do stupid crap like that. By Day 2 there was already a farming method to get high Light Level engrams to drop quickly and it was incredibly tedious, but much less tedious than actually doing full Strikes for them.

How?: It involved Omnigul and required players to quickly kill her the first time you see her in her Strike. Doing so and than dying to the upcoming horde of Hive enemies that spawn behind her let you quickly and repeatedly farm her for 365 Light Level engrams. I and 90% of gamers, don’t want to cheat to be able to participate in what is undoubtedly the best part of Destiny, the Raids. However it would take most players with a very good string of luck, which let’s be honest never happens, a minimum of 30 hours to get from 335 to 365. That’s unacceptable considering most players have full time jobs and don’t want to waste 30+ hours doing the same 8 strikes over and over again repeatedly. Oh and most players would have to use matchmaking to get it done because their friends aren’t on at the same times all the time. If you’ve never used matchmaking in PvE content in any MMO let me tell you why it’s always a hassle. You get the worst players 95% of the time, players you have to carry from the first encounter to the very end. What should take 20 minutes takes 45 or more and than you have to repeat it all again, and again and again. Even the most patient player will quickly tire of that crap.

You mentioned Year 1, what about Year 2?: Year 2, or The Taken King, was great for raising the Light Level of players quickly and easily and required no strike grinding whatsoever. Bungie made a great feature called Court of Oryx and for the first few weeks you could reliably walk into the Patrol area and find a few players doing Court of Oryx over and over. Than you’d hop over and do some as well and even more people would come because it’s in a central area of the Patrol Zone. Doing this allowed players to easily get ready for the raid when it launched a few days after Taken King launched. Year 3 was supposed to be the same except the developers screwed up, again.

How?: Simple and it’s so incredibly obvious that it makes you wonder what they were ingesting when they designed the new patrol. Instead of having the new Court of Orxy, Archon’s Forge, in a central area where players would go often in the course of exploring in Patrol, they put in one of the furthest areas away from the spawn point. In addition they removed the ability to carry multiple tiers of activation “keys”. Oh and they don’t let you carry multiple of the one you do have. It also gets used up and is wasted when you die and screw up because no one is there to help you. In addition it drops almost no Engrams at all, Court of Oryx always had a chest and players could get items from it regardless of whether they were the ones to start the event or not. Archon’s Forge doesn’t have any of those things that made Court of Oryx so good.

What else?: Well the raid was cleared by 3 people, when the normal group of players would take 6, less than 24 hours after it launched. Even worse you can completely skip 1/3rd of the entire raid by just running past it and you still get half of the reward by doing so. Finally just this past week they removed the Omnigul farming method, but did nothing to help players raise their Light Level quickly. This is less than 14 days after launch, and it becomes quickly obvious that Destiny: Rise of Iron has serious issues that point to the Developers having no clue what to do. Plus the story is boring and almost as bad as Year 1.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday, I might cover the positives of Rise of Iron next week, but no promises.