Well, it turns out I should have waited a little longer before typing anything up. After spending quite a bit of time playing the game this weekend - and having progressed up to level 25 overall - my feelings towards the game aren't quite so positive.
I still like the game. And there are a few things being patched soon - lower Strike boss health, engrams will no longer decrypt to lower rarity values - that will only make the game better. But there are a few things about the game that are starting to become issues, and I wanted to share those concerns to paint a full picture of Destiny and where it may be headed.
After spending way too much time playing the game over the weekend, I walked away with a few key concerns regarding Destiny's longevity, at least for me:
1) The multiplayer stuff can get borked very easily by way of powerful, hard to get guns. Some of these guns are very difficult to get (only obtainable in the hardest versions of the game's current only Raid) while others are much easier to obtain (anyone with a few fistfuls of Strange Coins can get a big leg up on anyone else in PvP.)
At lower levels, the disparity between gear was frustrating, but it wasn't too terrible. As players have had more time to figure the game out, I feel like that gap is getting worse and worse. PvP oriented players are zoning in on the best PvP guns (as they should) and upgrading them ASAP (also as they should.) That makes it much, much harder for someone like myself to alternate between PvP and PvE content. The matches I've played where the opposing team had badass PvP guns were some of the least fun multiplayer experiences I've had in a long time.
Some of the most egregious examples can (and possibly will) be patched, but the fact that some Exotic-quality weapons are causing me such grief highlights a big problem with the PvP content: it's not really accessible if you don't devote yourself to it. I can live with that, but it's damn unfortunate as it basically kills that whole section of the game for me.
2) I'm starting to get into what I call the "MMO existential death spiral" with this game already. Though in fairness to Destiny, that's only because I've played enough games that I feel confident in predicting where this is going to go.
One of, if the the thing that always kills the fun for me in an MMO is that they frequently exist in a recursive loop: you play the game to get better gear, which lets you do harder/different content, which lets you get better gear, which lets you do harder/different content, which lets you...
I have two issues with this approach to game design: a) it is often very time consuming, requiring many hours of investment to get the current top of the pile (just to have the goalposts move on you, but more on that later,) and b) very often the game itself isn't terribly fun or interesting for me to play, so the only real driver is to get better loot.
World of Warcraft had this issue for me, and it's ultimately why I stopped playing. The game wasn't terribly fun, interesting, or challenging; the main reason I played it was for the social aspect (lots of friends played it too,) with the loot as a side bonus. But I'll give WoW this much: at least it had lots of interesting places to go and check out, and it did a pretty good job of making you feel like there was a decent variety in the content.
Destiny doesn't really have that luxury. The game, right now, is super lean, with just a handful of Strike locations and one Raid (nevermind that actually doing that Raid is probably well outside of my means.) The Strikes are neat and all, but they're ultimately just re-using the same environments and enemies I've already fought by the truckload elsewhere, so they don't really feel fresh or interesting; and that's before I've run them half a dozen times apiece.
Then you have the reputation system, which is an offensively slow slog. Even under some of the most expedient methods it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere with the reputations you want to level up (either the Vanguard or one of the PvP factions,) with the added insult that you need to get the reputations to level 2 before they're of any use whatsoever, and it's very possible to want to take them all the way up to level 3 for a guaranteed source of Legendary-quality weapons. All of that takes, based on my chronometric expertise, an assload of time.
If you're fortunate enough to have a group of 6 players that can handle the Vault of Glass Raid, you can supposedly get good quality gear out of that. But! The raid is level 26, and from all I've heard you probably want to be level 27 or so before even attempting it (and nevermind that you need good weapons to do well, which are outside of trying to get your Light value high enough to be level 26+.) So just getting to that point is going to involve some kind of grinding somewhere, if not just to get the Legendary items then definitely to level them up.
All of this boils down to spending an assload of time (many assloads, even,) just to get yourself up to the point where you can....try and get more gear that you can level up more.
There is no end to something like Destiny. I get that. It's an MMO, and that's how MMOs work. But that's also always what burns me out: I don't feel like dumping a ton of hours into a game just to gear up if the only purpose of gearing up is to then be able to gear up slightly better.
Prior to Destiny coming out, I was loving the hell out of playing Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition, which you may recognize is also a loot grind style game. However there are several key differences that make me love D3:UEE: the game is fun to play, the different character classes have lots of variety and valid builds, and absolutely most importantly, it doesn't take that long to play. I can log into D3:UEE for an hour or so, clear out an Act's worth of bounties, pop open a rift, clear it, and cash out all my Blood Marks. All of that may or may not give me any cool new loot (I'm finding fewer upgrades as my character's equipment becomes better and better) but that's fine because it's quick, fun, and I'm earning Paragon levels all the while anyways.
Or, look at something like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode. That mode was an absolute blast to play, and it was still super grindy - the game revolved around getting enough credits to buy packs that might have things you want in them - but I didn't mind because there was so much variety to playing it (especially after they really started to get creative with their class designs.)
Destiny has none of those things going for it. It's alright to play, but it's not so good that I'm going to play it for 100+ hours. Having friends around makes it a lot more fun/better, so that's something. But I'm already starting to become a little disillusioned with Destiny's loot treadmill, and that's not a good thing. Especially since....
3) All signs are pointing to the grim reality that the next set of Destiny content will come in the form of paid DLC packs.
I'm far from a DLC hater. Hell, I'm kind of a sucker for the stuff; if you made a fun game, I'll happily throw some money your way to enjoy it in a slightly different way. It allows me to squeeze just a little more enjoyment out of the game, and I see it as a way to give the developers a little more money for a product that I enjoyed. It's like tipping, but for video games.
Where I take issue with DLC is when a game necessitates it. One of the reasons I've soured to the idea of playing FPS games over the years is that most of the games (at least in the Call of Duty vein) follow a pattern: buy the game initially for $60, then inevitably have to shell out for 2-4 expansion map packs at around $15 per (so another $45-60.) You technically don't have to buy these maps, but if you do you slowly find your way into a matchmaking ghetto where only the people who don't have the map packs hang out. The whole mode is there, and you're almost expected to have access to it, but the publisher is gonna need some more money before they'll allow you to do that.
Destiny is going to have a similar problem - once these DLC packs come out, they'll be the new assumed standard - and it's even worse with Destiny because the damn game just doesn't feel finished. At least for me, Destiny desperately, desperately needs valuable, content driven additions in order to feel like a game I'm going to stick with, but I damn sure don't want to pay another $35 for that. I already feel shortchanged with the game I bought - it feels like a $40 game, so if they want to sell me these expansions for -$20 maybe then we talk business - and I'd frankly rather trade it back in towards a potentially more fun game than try to wring any more fun out of it by throwing even more money into the hole.
To cycle back to Mass Effect 3's multiplayer: that multiplayer was a lot of fun, but most important of all it was absolutely, 100% free. Every single expansion they put out for that multiplayer cost the players a grand total of $0 (and they put out quite a few expansions that added a lot to that mode,) so a player just picking up Mass Effect 3 could dive right into the full multiplayer experience for just the cost of the game (crazy notion, right?)
What this did for Mass Effect 3 and Bioware was build a ton of goodwill (at least in our group,) which was huge for them after the significant letdown of the single player content. They could have charged for the multiplayer add-ons - not a lot, but I'd have happily paid $5 per add-on especially after really getting into it - but they didn't. I'm sure they re-couped money by selling item packs via microtransactions, but the most important thing is that they never gated the gameplay. They never held up their hand and said, "If you want to continue having fun, please put your money in the box."
I absolutely understand and respect that Destiny is a massive project with lots of work going into it, and those fine folks need to get paid. But the cold hard fact is that I'm only going to pay out what I think is due compensation. Destiny is in a state right now that, while functional, still feels early and unfinished, and I'll be double damned if I'm going to give anyone at Activision (*shudder*) a dime before they start doing things to make me feel like my initial $60 was worth it.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Diablo III is this generation's greatest redemption story; maybe the greatest redemption story in modern gaming. Diablo III was in a horribly sad state when it shipped - it was mechanically similar to the game we have now, but the fun of the game was almost completely ruined by an atrocious loot drop system and a garbage auction house scam. That version of the game is one of the most disappointing releases I've experienced, especially since the core game itself showed potential.
Cut to present day, and the developers have managed to right the ship. They made the key changes, revisions, additions, and improvements necessary to make the game more fun to play, and the most important part is that they made all of those changes as patches. For free. Not until the Reaper of Souls expansion did they ask for any kind of money, and by then players were excited enough about the core game to happily agree to buy more content (especially since it introduced even more fun features and a whole new character class to play.)
If you're going to do DLC expansions, that's how you have to do it. There needs to be some momentum, some excitement already present. Otherwise, you're just squeezing the hell out of the turnip, hoping $20s start popping out of it.
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So that's kind of where I am with Destiny right now. It's a fun game that I still enjoy playing (especially with friends,) and I think it still has a lot of potential. But horrible unbalances in equipment have murdered my interest in any PvP play, the MMO doom spiral is starting to creep in, and the disgusting money grab of premature DLC is threatening to make me walk away from the game entirely.
I'll still be hopping on to shoot moon wizards with my friends, but I'm keeping Destiny on notice. There are plenty of fun games out - D3:UEE, Hyrule Warriors, Killer Instinct - and coming out - Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax, Bayonetta 2, Smash Bros 4, Guilty Gear Xrd - that I'm not going to grind away or throw more money at a game in the hopes that it'll become more fun at some point.
Most importantly: Dragon Age: Inquisition is on the horizon, and by all accounts it sounds like it may have a multiplayer mode comparable to Mass Effect 3. They've already stated that all of the content they'll be providing for it will be free for players, in the same way that it was with Mass Effect 3. Considering the many, many hours my friends and I spent playing that game, I could definitely see Dragon Age: Inquisition's multiplayer being a thing. Bonus points if the single player is good as well.
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