The Destiny Beta has come and gone. According to Bungie, over 4.6 million players tried out the beta version of the game across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. Overall, I enjoyed my play experience with Destiny Beta, and I definitely want to give the final version a look in September. However, Bungie needs to smooth over some issues with the Destiny Beta. This article covers some things I want to see polished up or carried over for the final game.
For one thing, I want the ability to carry over the character data I created for the Beta version. I discussed this matter with Activision reps at Comic-Con, and they seemed to understand this issue and are thinking it over. People have told me it will not happen and this is impossible. My simple question is, why? Why can’t the character I created and saved for the Beta be used for the final version of the game? The data and stats I achieved for the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta actually carried over to the final game for that particular installment. I get the sense from Activision that this idea is not impossible.
After the early work I did for the Beta, I am proud of the character I created and all the tinkering I did with my weapons, armor and abilities. I really do not want it to all be erased once I get the final version of the game. In speaking about the issue with Eurogamer, the comments made by Bungie community manager David Dague prove that this is not an impossible feat to accomplish. What is more, Bungie is mulling over this issue. If the concern is giving certain players too much of a head start in Crucible, what does that really matter? I do not think you ever truly solve the problem of some gamers being absolute hardcore savants at multiplayer, while some are not. Plain and simple, I want my characters back from Destiny Beta.
Another major issue Bungie will have to watch out for is the servers. Repeated server crashes were among the biggest problems I experienced during the Destiny Beta. Now granted, this was a Beta version, and Activision wanted players to “break the game.” Well, mission accomplished. Hopefully, the reception of the Beta version gets Bungie to make sure that server crashes will not constantly disrupt the gameplay experience.
In terms of writing, story and scenario, the game could use some improvements in those areas. The story story in Destiny Beta failed to really draw me in. The game had a great opening, but there are many vague concepts and ideas. The main character wakes up and has virtually no questions about what has been going on. Also, the main character is way too passive. The playable Guardian character has been dead for centuries. So, why are Ghosts going out into the ruined Earth to find dead Guardians? The questions the Guardian does ask seem to be the least pressing ones that I would be asking if I were in his place. I have no idea in what direction Bungie is taking the story, but it was one of the weaker aspects of the game. That aside, the atmosphere and play style generally made up for it.
Lastly, I find multiplayer to be unbalanced. Some players are incredibly cheap with overpowered weapons, while mine, which looked to be pretty maxed out, seem to have virtually no effect at all. I am not sure if this is an issue Bungie deems worth fixing, but multiplayer does not seem to provide evenly matched opponents.
Bungie’s Destiny is due out September 9 for the PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Couldn’t agree more about the Beta Progress and OP’d weapons. If only the Fusion Rifle had more impact/range/rate of fire!
First of all, this was a beta. You should go into it expecting to lose all of your data. If you get to keep it great. If you don’t, you can level back up to eight and beyond in less than a day. As far as server crashes go, I only experienced one. It was for a very short amount of time and I played every day of the beta. Over the entire course of my beta experience I would hardly call that “disrupting gameplay”. I imagine the crashes might have been on your end. As for the story, what do you expect? You want them to reveal the entire storyline in the first few missions? This is a beta – a teaser. Get real. You can hardly judge the storyline when we haven’t even heard it yet. Last but not least I would have to disagree about multiplayer. The classes are extremely well balanced and if you had a fully upgraded weapon it wouldn’t matter unless you were playing in the iron banner. Its a different kind of shooter. I expect you just missed your target. I for one had no issues with multiplayer besides the occasional vehicle hoarder. That’s to be expected in any game with vehicles. Your article was nothing but a whining misrepresentation of a fantastic preview of a glorious game. If you’re looking for something to complain about you’re grasping at
straws here. Compared to other betas this was a masterpiece. I never
fell through the map like I did in the battlefield betas and only on one
day did I ever experience lag. Bungie and Activision provided us with a beta that was extremely polished and gave us seamless gameplay. I made an account just so I could respond to this garbage.
The server crashes were not on my end. Whenever they occurred, I performed signal tests on my internet, and connectivity and signal strength were all listed as great and excellent. I was not having connection issues elsewhere. And the message onscreen said there was a problem with the Destiny servers. So it was on Bungie’s end and not mine.
This article was an opinion based on the beta version. I was not expecting it to be perfect. But I figure the aim for the Beta was for people to play it and to learn from the Beta version, get feedback and make some fixes.
I see no reason why I expect to lose my data, considering I have had beta experiences in the past where my data and progress carried over to the final version. And since this issue was brought up to Bungie and the community manager responded, I saw it as an issue worth addressing.
And no I don’t want the whole story to be revealed in the Beta. However, the way the story unfolded in the early parts was not brought about in a satisfying manner. Other beta players have addressed the weak story as well, and I am hardly alone in this opinion.
But to each their own.
I agree with both of you on different things. First I agree that this was a really well made beta. Everything as far as quality is very impressive to me. As far as server connection though I did experience a few crashes and it wasn’t from my end. Nevertheless it didn’t really disrupt my game play too much.
I too would love to transfer my character data to the full version when it comes out and had been wondering if it would happen. Hopefully it does because I really like my character, but I also agree that I started playing the beta knowing it was a possibility that I would have to start over in the full version. As much as I like my character and the hours I spent playing as him, I will be disappointed to let him go but knowing myself as a gamer I’ve always been able to become attached to a new character. With the story it did seem a little weak past the introduction, but I expected this. I believe the focus of the beta was game play. I do think it was a sort of a teaser at the beginning and then the rest it was testing the game play. So I wouldn’t worry about the story, I think they were trying not to reveal to much. Over all for me this is an amazing game. Loved it. Great game play, stunning visuals, great atmosphere, and what looks to be a peek into the start of an awesome story.
In most betas i have been a part of i didn’t get to keep my data, so if i don’t for Destiny i won’t mind, cause again, it’s a beta.
Server side i only had been disconnected once during an Iron banner match (only a minute left but it was last day so ididn’t care). So so far the servers are doing great (thoughti wouldn’t get in once it went public).
The story does leave a lot of questions and i hope when the full games out they actually reveal a lot more, cause so far it’s like im just following orders, I’d also like the character saying more than “Can it fly”. It’s beta but this literally is my biggest thing.
I only played a few multiplayer matches and so far im so so about it. I’ve always only been into Tdm so controls not for me, which was also the only gametype.
I disagree with this article I didnt think it was unbalanced and I thought the story was good
Thanks for your feedback.
loved the beta i also really hope the characters trade over, with all my loot, because im ready for destiny! this is going to be a tough month for me.
this is just my opinion but one thing i felt about this game is that we havent heard the story of the game it hasnt really started and once we really leave earths orbit the story is going to get exciting and compelling. i feel the guardians are stoic, not necessarily asking weird questions, living for the moment.
as for the crucible, i did some studying and i found out what the consensus on what the best primary weapon was for the beta, most people seemed to agree that it was the shingen-c, i made sure to have this weapon before really attempting the crucible and i found that it didnt make a difference what really matters for pvp in this game is, can you strafe, that was the deciding factor for me and it made the difference between being number one and being the very worst in a match. but even more so if your playing a match with people who are connected, communicating, you are probably going to lose and this is common for almost all FPS games.
alot of people want this weapon buffed but my favorite special weapon was the fusion rifle sure it doesnt crit even at point blank, headshot, but seven direct hits for at least 75 damage is still brutal, also this weapon meant for very close range people trying to use it at mid to long range make me laugh. as far as i can tell fusion rifle is op already even if most people dont realize it.
The balance of weapons is pretty polished, the problem is your acurracy and stability that determins how effective a weapon is. I noticed when Die Harding for headshots, weapons I thought useless were quite powerful (Remeber this is beta the weapons available lacked many skills its hard to judge true potential). The only weapon I felt was over powered was the auto riffle because of its clip and rate of fire it made fusion and pulse riffles feel sub par in pvp because those weapons had pause (I did run across higher level variations which based on stats and description eliminate the weaknesses of said weapons). I feel if Im using a burst fire weapon (pulse riffle) it should carry more damage overall, the fusion riffles were very powerful (1 charged shot was instant kill in most cases close to mid) but lacked in ranged kills if you didnt have one with high stability. So all in all level 8 in my opinion just wasnt high enough to judge pvp weapon balance. One think I really felt needed work was the time in between deaths, more often then not I would headshot someone with a hand cannon or 1 charge shot with a fusion riffle yet my enemy still had time to through a grenade or move about
Let people explore planets with more than 2 other friends! (The maximum number of people you can explore with are 3).
I am all for keeping the characters, except maybe reset all guardians to lvl 1 and swap all equiped armor and weapons to the player vault for the starter stuff. if there’s no room for it in the vault,delete it
I think a big problem was the inability to see on the map of that was a drop or not, I would find random drops while playing, we need something on the map showing its where our drops our!
I would like to keep my character, but I managed to create a level 8 character on the last day of the beta anyway. So it’s a breeze. Even managed to get all the gold chests and beat the story with him as well…and on each mode…though, I couldn’t go to the moon with said character, as I started him on the last day. I’m not fussed. That hat I would like to see:
*Character scaling upon creation and/ or make the Titan class taller…you know, “Titan-like.” As of right now, the men and women are all the same size…no matter the race, class etc.
*Map – add a map. Before I really started to memorize my way around Russia, I spent so much time going half way through section of baddies, while following sections that either, met with a dead end or lead to opened areas that had no other outlet, requiring me to backtrack through it all. So, then I would go to the other side of the zone and do the same thing; follow the route through a building, fight baddies in the middle-most choke point and then end up in another area that also wasn’t what I was looking for, thus, requiring me to backtrack through it all again. Finally, I would end up scaling walls/ cliffs in the main zone area, where would inevitably find that stupid side path that followed the river that I was looking for. Add a map! Hellsmouth was confusing for this reason, too. I couldn’t figure out where I had already been because so many sections look the same. I could only tell I had been there if I was fortunate enough to cross my own tracks shortly after having killed all the enemy there. Otherwise, they would re-spawn and I couldn’t tell.
*Flashlight – nothing pissed me off more than having to keep my monitor bright and washed out in order to not hump obstacles and corners when I thought I was going through a path. The flashlight doesn’t turn on, unless you are in pitch black. My monitors was calibrated, too. Just don’t allow flashlights in zones…it would be annoying. If no control over the flashlight, then make it kick on automatically in dark corners/ corridors etc. and not just pitch black rooms.
*Server control – If you’ve ever felt lonely at random points throughout the beta. It’s not that nobody was playing. Trust me, I’m an MMO’r. Too many times, had I ended up on a different server than my wife and/ or a server where there was absolutely nobody else in the tower, and/ or battle areas…and when a challenge event would present itself, nobody ever came because nobody was there. The reason for this, is because the game decides to throw you on any ol’ open server, when it’s first choice/s are full. However, people are constantly coming and going and I would like to be able queue for a more populated one.