Destiny Diary #2: Bang, zoom! Straight to the moon!

Attention passengers: we have broken atmosphere and are now moon-bound. There you'll find gray rocks and gray dust and lots of things trying to kill you.

The more I play Destiny, the more I'm finding that the beta provided a pretty accurate impression of the full game--warts and all.

Many players wondered if the environments wouldn't be varied enough. Bungie even responded to this concern directly. I mentioned in yesterday's diary that Old Russia was already wearing thin, but this isn't a problem restricted to Earth. I arrived at the moon excited to see a new environment, but then got tired of it too after five or so missions. Venus is open, and I expect the pattern will begin anew.

I suspect this isn't an issue of variety as much as it is about the pace of play. A lot of MMOs have you retrace some steps over large environments, but most don't have you do it several times in a row. Destiny was designed in such a way that you exhaust almost all of the content in one area before another opens up, and that means replaying the same map back-to-back-to-back.

It would be a simple enough problem to avoid with a little planet-hopping. We only have four areas to explore in the campaign, but spreading more of the gameplay between Venus, Mars and Earth could downplay the repitition. As it is, those other planets are roped behind story progression, so revisiting the same area is the only way to stay on-level. The game tells me Venus is best-suited for level 10-12 characters, which means I'll be there for a while until Mars opens up.

That's not to say I'm not enjoying the moment-to-moment combat. While the random encounters are less expertly authored than Halo, whatever dictates enemy groups is smart enough to offer a good mix of variety to stay fresh. As my Warlock gets stronger, I'm learning the tools and strategies that work best for me. 

I'm not sure that playing Warlock as a primarily melee class is, strictly speaking, correct. But the spread is so wide it's like having a shotgun that never runs out of ammo. I'll rely on one of my guns to soften them up, but more often I'm running straight into enemy groups and smacking them in the face, repeatedly and with reckless abandon. This method works most of the time, and when it backfires, the glide ability is usually enough to get me out of trouble.

Progressing up in rank has also led to my newest obsession, and the one true indicator that this is an RPG at heart: fashion. My poor Warlock suffered through some truly hideous mismatched clothing options in her lower levels, and even once I started to find matching gear I was inclined by the gods of min-maxing to keep my powerful (but ugly) orange helmet equipped. Now I have matching duds to look more like a true and proud Guardian, instead of a rookie with wardrobe provided by an alcoholic Mr. Magoo. And isn't that more important than stage variety?

Read Part 1 of the Destiny Diaries