While pretty, I don't really see anything unique nor compelling here.

So having had tons of time with alpha and now beta I think it's time to put my thoughts out there about the game. I'm not good at putting my thoughts to written word so hopefully this is easy to understand. If not then well I tried.

First let me start off by saying that this game is going to continue a long long tradition of Bungie games I absolutely love. I have no doubt there. The gameplay and the story have all the makings of an interesting tale. I find there is so much good to talk about that this post would be 10 times the length it is now. So I’m going to mainly concentrate on my nitpicks and complaints. Let this be known though. I love what I’ve played and can’t wait until September. I just can’t. It’s going to be insanely hard to wait that long.

Now onto my thoughts. First I love the campaign. I know there are many who want everything spelled out for them but I’m not one of those folks. I love them slowly unveiling everything. I have no doubt that as the game/franchise goes on we’ll learn more about who we are and everything else. I did like that each race had their own voices. That’s a nice touch. My one complaint about the start though is that it isn’t tailored to your race. I would like a bit of tailoring there. For example a robot can’t die. So why not have the ghost say something like you ceased to function, etc instead of died. It’s just a bit of a nitpick.

The pacing of the campaign seems to flow well. I do feel a mission or two are a tad on the short side. An example being the 3rd mission. It seems to be a quick mission to complete. Others though do make up for that by being longer. So maybe it will all balance out later. I understand the reason they did the campaign why they did but I won’t lie and I will say that I would have preferred campaign to be a bit more pieced together. Have the missions flow into each other without having to go back to the map and pick the next one. Course this is understandable due to you needing to be a proper level for the campaign missions and due to the loading times needing to be masked. But yea this does kind of take me out of it a bit. However if the campaign keeps me wanting to know more each step of the way like the beta’s missions have then I’ll forgive this.

This brings me to the strike. I really love it. I think a better job though needs to be done to help the players realize what they can do to make the fights go faster. I’ve run into a lot of players who don’t realize that you can focus on the walker’s legs and that turret on the left side of the cannon. They also fail to keep the trash dead. This can make this fight drag out forever. Same with Sepik’s Prime. People don’t realize that the real boss is the trash in this fight. If you let them build up the fight is going to drag on forever but if you burn them down he goes down quick. Relating to this I also would like to see more feedback and for the bosses to show more progression when you’re working them over. I’d like to see them deform and to really show the damage you’re doing to them as you progress. There is some of this on the Spider Walker but not enough. Sepik’s I don’t think has any of this. As a result you don’t really have any sense of progress when attacking them. Other than that I do hope that other strikes do have more variety to boss attacks. Course we do have to remember this is probably the first strike in the game hence it’s more of a tank and spank type boss.

Next up is the open world they have created. I love exploring this world. I can’t help though feel it’s very empty like others have mentioned. Chests are few and far between and they a lot of the time just don’t have anything interesting in them. I’d like I’d like things besides chests too. The ghosts are a start. I do like finding these also. It would be cool though to come across more things you can interact with. Say a control panel somewhere that would open a door or something as an example. Maybe some generators you can activate to bring some areas to life again. Anything. Fill the world with more to do. Like the alpha I’m not digging the missions you get in explore either. The variety is still a problem. In alpha it was a ton of kill mobs but now I’m finding most of them are go here and survey this. I dislike those a lot more because they involved a ton of traveling between areas and I tend to like to do the missions in an area before moving on to the next. I wouldn’t mind having some that are gathering missions. There is a lot of old abandoned stuff in the world. Why not a gather these parts that are scattered through the area. Some missions like that? Overall though it’s a good start they have here. Just needs some work.

Next the multiplayer. I do enjoy that but I do have a few gripes. I’m in the camp that agree a few of the vehicles do need a bit of work. Not a huge nerfing like most but small ones. Maybe longer firing rate, longer reload between firing, etc. At the same time I’m not a big fan of the Mars map. It suffers I feel from an issue Reach did. Map flow. Due to your jumps, hovers, etc there are a ton of levels to the map and as a result many different ways into an area. This makes it very hard to control a point at times or to just find your enemy to attack. Call me old fashioned but I prefer good old fashioned map flow. Rusted Lands, Venus, and the moon levels are prime examples of maps that have a good flow to themselves. I do also agree that you should be rewarded more in control for actually staying behind and guarding your zones. There is no incentive to hold as a result. As someone who likes to help hold down a zone I find I come in lower just because I’m actually playing some defense. That seems somewhat unfair. Course I’ll probably be team deathmatch in retail anyway but still this kind of sucks. I also agree with what someone mentioned about if you neutralize then capture a point you should get more points than you do. More so if you do it solo. Those are my only real huge complaints about the multiplayer myself. Overall it feels decently balanced otherwise I feel.

Next is the UI. Overall it has grown on me but I still dislike how seeing your friends in it and interacting with them is done. I’d like to see more friends per page. Also it would be nice to invite them to fireteams etc without having to go back out into Sony’s XMB. It’s slow and a bit cumbersome doing it this way. I don’t know if this is due to limits that Sony has imposed or what but I would like in the future to see it done more with in the game. That’s my only real complaint UI wise.

Last but not least is the vendors and glimmer, etc. The vendors need to be more useful. I find most of the gear you get from them isn’t very useful. Same with the weapons. I’m not asking for best in class but I’d like to see more variety then almost just all common weapons and gear. I did notice that as you level the cryptarch he did have some better gear but of course it was unusable due to level cap. I’d like to see that leveling the vendor feature improved upon also implemented with other vendors too like the gunsmith. Maybe level him up for better weapons. This brings me to glimmer and lack thereof. I felt that glimmer in the alpha was at a good level but the prices on things were a bit cheap. In beta here you’ve upped some of the prices while majorly nerfing the glimmer you get. This makes it very hard to afford consumables, etc. I feel that I’m having to grind a lot more just to be able to afford basic things. This isn’t fun. I do hope this is re-examined before retail and I have no doubt Bungie will. They’re the kind who tune up until they can’t anymore.

So those be my thoughts. I love the game already and can't wait. Even if they do not change anything I've mentioned I'd still love the game. Bungie should be proud of the game they're making without a doubt.

Just gonna plonk down my only really major complaints based on my playtime with the Alpha and Beta

Loot drops / allocation
The loot drops in this game feel really inconsistent and underwhelming. I remember Bungie saying in one of the vidocs that loot was the focus of Destiny and that other players would be able to see what you had been through or where you had gotten your loot, but I just ain't feeling it. Sometimes I go through the entire Strike and get only a single common drop from a Vandal, other times I go through and get an Uncommon and Common drop from a single Dreg and several other Uncommon drops throughout. The Devil Walker never drops anything, neither does Sepiks ( Really, a House Banner? Just give me the 200 Glimmer right away instead please... ). I actually seem to get more and better drops from Dregs and Vandals than I get from Captains. 'Loot' chests contain mostly just a little bit of Glimmer and I just don't feel any excitement when finding one. When I open a chest, I want there to be something in there. When I defeat a boss, I want it to explode into a shower of loot. Have Sepiks explode into 3 loot drops with one being 50/50 Uncommon instead of giving me something that I need to exchange for something else. Give the Devil Walker at least a single guaranteed loot drop with a slight chance for more, etc.

Also worth saying; the randomized loot allocation post-match in Crucible is stupid, annoying and ridiculous. It should either be tied to something tangible ( highest score / highest K/D / most captures / most kills ) or removed completely as this feature is just adding frustration to the Crucible by being completely 100% random. It makes playing Crucible feel like a gamble and it sucks when you do all the work for your team and get nothing to show for it.
Weapon / Crucible balance
Weapon balance feels non-existant, especially in Crucible. In PVE, there is still no reason to use a Hand Cannon over a Scout Rifle and Hand Cannons might as well just not exist. They need their damage increased and perhaps a faster reload. In Crucible, if you use anything other than an Auto Rifle as primary, you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage. Scout Rifles are just too slow in comparison and if you're running a Pulse Rifle you're better off switching to an AR due to the fairly short lines of sight. The shotgun feels really iffy in Crucible. At very close range, it kills in one hit, but outside of melee range it very rapidly drops off to worse than a peashooter, making it a very inconsistent weapon. Maybe all of this will change with the high level gear, but as for what we have available now, Bungie definitely needs to look at these weapons.
Side note; They should've definitely raised the cap to 10 for the Beta so we could experiment with some tougher guns.

Anothe side note; They should also definitely look at the vehicles on Last Light. The interceptor especially just has way too much armor and power. Pikes might need slight tweaking as well.

Beards, and in general more customization options in the beginning of the game.
The pointing emote should have a greater purpose. Let players point to weak points on the bosses so players know what to shoot at.
Auto Rifles need a nerf. They're ridiculously accurate and powerful.
More in-depth post-game carnage. Want to be able to see medals, MVP and tools of destruction.
More predictable and rewarding loot droops across the board
Pulse Rifles and Hand Cannons are a bit underpowered, at least relative to the Scout and Auto rifles.
Titan and Warlock supers are basically unavoidable and undetectable insta-kills. Either increase the window where they can be killed, or make it more obvious when they have a super. Also, not sure if it's an upgrade or latency, but they should not be able to survive point blank rockets just because they activated their super: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSyGK3fcVRw.
Interceptor could use some rebalancing. Maybe a charge time on the rockets or a red light to let the pilot and opponent know which rocket is about to fire.
Shores of Time has really predictable spawns. I've gotten several spawn kills at A just by looking down the door with a Sniper.
Orbs of Light could also be scaled down, or even removed to make Supers less frequent. A team of Warlocks Nova Bomb what seems like twice a minute.
Hit detection is wonky. People will die a full second after you've melee'd or sniped them in the face: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIkzXlB6Gbo
Sometimes the audio will cut out and I wont hear half of the sound effects, including fire from the enemies. This happens on Shores of Time more than the other maps.
Moon needs less weighting, especially in the Iron Banner Tournament. Feels like it shows up every other game and sticks around for several matches. I like the map, but I don't want to play on it every single time. I think Crucible needs a menu where players select their preferred maps, and that increases their weighting for the person or fireteam.
Quicker load times.
It sucks that you can't invite a person to your fireteam if you're at the tower and there are already too many people there. Probably unlikely to change for network reasons, so it should be made more apparent that you can't join a full Tower.
Open the options menu while the match is loading. Don't know why this was removed from the alpha.
If you're in the tower, it seems weird that you have to go back into orbit to join another player who is also in the tower.
Aim assist could be toned down.
Blind Watch needs serious rebalancing. Either switch the positions of B or C, or remove it from the Control gametype. The team that has A spawn usually loses.
Would like an in-game clock to notify me when events are about to start and when they end.
Character rotation in all character menus.
Would have liked to see an emblem creator instead of preset ones. Feel like there is some good real estate on Ships and Sparrows for players to place decals on.
An option to skip the opening tutorial after you've made one character (or at least the cutscenes).
A vendor in the tower who offers different emotes like dancing and changes your hair style.
Touchpad support for the menus.
In-game clan list.

Have any of you actually played it? I'm not saying it's going to be a great game or anything, but the combat is spot on.

There were stories going around about Activision's budget for this, marketing and all, being $500 million.

Let's say the budget is a "mere" $100 million. I have no idea WHY it would take so much money to produce a video game? Of course, I'm not in the industry, but then again the highly-acclaimed Shovel Knight had a budget of $75,000. OK, it may not be a fair comparison. How about The Witcher 2 then? A beautiful, cinematic, epic game that is highly and rightfully universally acclaimed. Budget: $10 million

Melee from behind is not a one shot kill.

I haven't. Why is the combat spot on?

DeeJ just confirmed that there's only one area per planet.

The pros are really good. Almost too good. The polish with great graphics, creative scifi/space environments make the game highly appealing to play and explore with friends, I too thought I was going to love this game and was looking at limited editions then I began to learn what the game finally is, and Destiny suffers from what I will call MMO syndrome. It's Destiny meets World of Warcraft. First perhaps not a minus as it is what the game intends is that this is not meant to play by yourself. In fact, the game is really boring to play by yourself like any MMO made e.g., WoW, Borderlands, etc. But okay, no problem to those who know this but I wouldn't suggest it to those who are expecting a rich single player experience and story.

Every mission is similar, so similar that I think the full retail game will follow the same concept. You will say: Dude, it's only a beta, there leaving out much of the story. Yes, I know but reading much of Destiny and what games it is similar to, I think I can draw conclusions from other MMOs. The game feels MMOlike, again to nearly almost every MMO made, SwG, Everquest, etc. Missions go like this: Get mission, go to location, kill enemies, have Ghost scan, meet a different mob/boss than ever before, get loot. The end and recycle. You can repeat the missions at any time. Even the Explore missions, which I hoped to be different is this and all of these missions are never ending like a MMO, so it feels like a chore rather than following a good story.

How is the PvP? It's Bungie, it's going to be awesome! Unfortunately, the PvP imo is very uninspiring. It is so disappointing coming from Bungie. Rather than being highly strategic relying on map control, control of power weapons, high level of teamwork, and skill like Halo, and mirroring classic PC shooters like Quake, Tribes, but also offering game types fun for everyone (Halo), it is more of just an arena of people running around shooting and using abilities. It seems uninspiring, bland, and tacked on. Nades can kill you in one hit. Abilities can kill you with one hit (say goodbye to a Warlock overcharged ability). A weapon can kill you in one hit in the Iron Banner. I guess it is no surprise when I've heard Destiny saying the game is meant for everyone and they felt they catered to the hardcore too much in Halo (completely wrong btw).

I just got back from my friend's place where I saw the game in action on the XB1 and PS4.

I'm sorry, but I have to reiterate what I said before: I don't see how this game is unique snowflake. I'm not saying it's bad... but I can't see it living up to the hype which I think is going to kill it in the long run.

I've mostly heard "it's basically Borderlands" from everyone I've talked to.

But what do you expect from the people who made Halo!?

Getting panned on metacritic by players

On the other hand, Diablo II did not unlock it's full potential until the expansion came out.

I thought the Gamespot review was really good.