[Multiplatform] Dinklageforce: Interdinklage Dinklage

Is anyone else playing this? I've been playing the PS3 beta, and even though graphically this version looks like shit this beta is straight up the best game I've played all year, it's absolutely fucking phenomenal. The description of "it's like they made PSO into a FPS game with all of the best parts of Halo and Borderlands" is pretty much dead on. I was pretty down on the game (but had faith in Bungie) prior to this, but holy shit.

What did get me to actually play this though is everything is saved server-side (it requires online) and while you can't move between MS and Sony systems, you have full access to your character and stuff between PS3 and PS4, or 360 and Xbox One. In my case I'm still hoping to swing a PS4 for this game's launch, but if I can't now I can just scrub it out on the PS3 version until I can get a PS4, then everything full carries over with no time wasted.

Highly recommend folks check this out if you can. Apparently if you pre-ordered either Xbox version when you put in the pre-order code on bungie.net to get your console code they give you two extras.

How ya doing, buddy?

The extra codes were a thing they gave out for everyone. I have some extra PS4 codes still.

I'm not sure I'm as enthusiastic. I want to like it. Really, really do. But there are some pretty critical issues in this beta, and I can't tell if it's because it's not content complete and if it was held back for the beta, or if it's an honest to goodness pacing issue.

The strike bosses as presented are dumb as hell. The AI is awful for them, and they are bullet sponges of the highest order. It recommends level 6, but level 6 specced gear and abilities and such take way too long to accomplish anything. The spider boss is a slog. The sphere boss slightly less so.

The loot as presented has little variety and doesn't come often enough. I still pop too many identical guns. Chest rarity is annoying and the gear pacing is unfortunate.

I like the standard mission structure. I like the gunplay a lot. I like the standard story bits and the emergent community content is super neat. World exploration is nice. The zone they give you us is interesting and has a few neat out of the way places to look at, and I hope that all the planets and zones are a good size and have enough variety.

PVP is kind of a crapshoot.

It feels like, to me, that it should be amazing or fantastic, but all it's constituent parts are under-baked or under-deliver. It's on the cusp of something wonderful but, at the very least, the first bites of this game are bland and dull. I want to like it REALLY BAD but it's sure as fuck trying it's hardest to not let me.

That said, I think the final, with the multiple subclasses, the gun upgrade trees that are more interesting and the high end loot sound more fun, and with a co-op full sized fireteam it should be at the very least worth a play through. I'm not floored, though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Did you play the Alpha or the Beta? I know they significantly toned down the Spider Tank health from the Alpha. In the Beta if you're hitting it's weak points properly it should take a group of 3 players less than 5 minutes to kill it, no idea what to tell you there. For a tank that can't move out of the limited area it's in the AI is pretty good, at least on Hard. On Hard that thing one one shot you if you give it the slightest chance.

Gear pacing is kind of all over the place, and I'm almost positive they've said they're actively looking at beta feedback for tweaking it. For what it's worth I tend to get a lot of drops and usually not duplicates (although sometimes), but the gear and pacing either way is super hard to judge from such a limited beta so it's hard to say how that will pan out long term. On 360 me and two friends just hit the level cap in like 2 hours so yeah.

PvP is the only thing I'm not super hot on, but I also haven't given it much of a fair shake, largely because I goddamn hate the DS3 for FPS games. I noticed a huge immediate improvement with the 360 controller, so now that I'm at the cap I'll check that out tomorrow. In general people seem to be really hot or really cold on PvP. It's not really what I care about that much, but they seem to be tying useful gear behind it.

Even between the beta last week and what went up tonight we did notice some changes, and the framerate jankiness/jutter seems to be gone as well (which urk seemingly confirmed on GAF tonight) so that's an improvement as well, I know that was really bugging some people.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Skills handed me an extra code. Muchos gracias, señor.

The UI interface reminds me of Brink a whole lot. While graphically average, it seems like you can level up doing pretty much anything. It is enjoyable, so far. And I like the public events.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Have not had a chance to get in on the beta but from what I've seen of people playing it and the reports various people have had I'm down. I know Skills has some reservations but as he said I kind of trust Bungie to deliver a solid experience. It's certainly interesting reading your take on the beta Daravon.

So yeah, I've plonked down for the PS4 version, which I think Skills is also doing. So there'll be a couple of us playing this come launch time.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I played both Alpha and Beta, and you're right, it is better in Beta than Alpha, but it's still a ridiculously long fight for something that's otherwise so limited. I wouldn't call it's AI any good, the tank just has nothing to do. It can drop you in one cannon shell if you're level 6 during the normal run anyway. In my experience, each go at the thing is taking 10 minutes, even if you know the leg-->neck routine. It's just ridiculously boring and way longer than it needs to be considering it's limited nature.

I agree on the pacing issues. It's impossible to tell how it'll be, moving forward. I legit can't tell if it's because of conscious choices during the beta, if it'll improve in the final, or if this is a design concept they'll run with to the end. It's not really that clear.

And yeah, leveling itself is really, really quick. Getting any sort of gear to go with of any value really, really isn't. It's a strange dichotomy.

PVP is hit or miss, yeah. I'm not particularly keen on it. It's not...bad, or anything. It just is there. It's kind of pedestrian. I don't really care, though. The PVE co-op is why I care about the game.

And all these little, niggling complaints aside, I'm still enjoying myself, I'm just not super pumped about it. The co-op will scratch an itch we haven't had a chance to scratch for a while, and I do trust Bungie to fill in the content gaps. If anyone does anything to make a package feel 'complete', it's these guys.

I will be getting the quadruple version, and it'll provide a solid and fun distraction. I'm just not sure it'll be much beyond that.

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The spider tank still shouldn't be taking you 10 minutes if you're doing it right. That aside, I think it's at least partially intentional as it's treating things more like an MMO. I think the orb/sphere boss thing after the tank does a much better job of it since it's still a bullet sponge but it's moving around a lot and spawning other mobs and whanot the whole time. Urk said on GAF that they had some sort of hardcore FPS clan come in during internal testing, and the final in-game Raid (which is apparently called that and is a different mission-type altogether) is super nuts, and the clan gave up on trying to clear it after 16 hours or something crazy.

I think some sort deep appreciation of Borderlands, Halo, or PSO is helpful here as well. It's been a long time since I have seen the internet go this collectively apeshit over a game, but it seems like most folks that due really love at least one of those three things. I have co-workers who barely play games who are pulling all-nighters playing this, it's crazy. Like, I get why I love the game since it's well made for grinding (see me and Diablo 3, Borderlands, etc) but I'm shocked at how well received it has been generally.

PvP I think will potentially be way more interesting once we unlock other subclasses and stuff. I've seen footage from IGN and other places of later subclass abilities and it starts getting bonkers (Warlocks can freeze themselves in mid-air and aim, Hunters get crazy fast AOE blade attacks, etc).

FELIPE NO

Keep in mind every fire group I've had at spider tank has been me, one person I know, and one random knob goblin idiot instead of a full team of three people on comms. That said, the knob goblins have always been halfway competent and know to aim at the legs/neck.

Generally the plan between two of us is to each take a set of legs and focus on those ourselves from opposite sides of the engagement area to minimize splash damage catches and to alternate between safe zone stuff. Even still, this takes forever.

And yes, the Orb boss is much improved. The orb boss also has fucking music so it's less boring. The mob dynamic for it is much better too.

The final raid thing I heard has checkpoints and you can basically go into and out of it as required, and you have something like a week to complete it before it resets? I don't know if that info is entirely accurate or what, but it sounds like a neat mechanic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm keen on Borderlands a lot, and I adore this game's Halo gunplay, it's just a few weird design decisions that hold it back from my sporting a 40 foot boner.

PVP I think needs a bit of tuning re: how it works with weapons you carry into it. Impact and fire rate are ridiculously important, and some specials are kind of ridiculous in their one-shotty-ness. I think it will even out with more content and more gun variety though.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't know that we know much about how the Raid structure works, so no idea about any of the checkpoint stuff. Also on the spider tank there's actually an angle where you can hit it's weak point at any time, and Warlocks also can fuck it up with their gravity grenade things. I did two runs of that Strike today with two friends and I think we can do it in like 3-4 minutes tops now on Hard. It's still not a great encounter though no.

I will say though I just played PvP for the first time using a 360 controller AND with 2 friends and it is a significantly better experience. The DS3 is a piece of shit for FPS games, I immediately had a way better time aiming, and playing with friends hugely mitigates the random shitty asshole factor. Literally went from a .5 K/D on PS3 to rocking 2.5-3.0 K/D and dominating every match. The PvP is kinda weird, it reminds me of Mass Effect multiplayer in a way. It's hard to say how it works out balance-wise though; like right now the Hunter Super we have access to kinda sucks for PvP (takes too long to activate, etc) but the subclass Super that you don't have access to in the Beta seems baller as hell. Once you can the hang of things I'm having an alright time of it though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

How's performance between circle and triple? I'm hearing a surprising amount of variance there.

Also, would you be going triple --> quadruple, thinking you'd be focusing on that ecosystem and upgrade or would you nab on circle and not revisit on quad? I don't know what your plans are.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The 360 version looks way better than the PS3 version graphically. I can't personally speak on X1 to PS4, apparently PS4 looks better but it's not a significant amount. The X1 beta also isn't running at 1080p which they're saying the final release will, so who knows.

I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing system wise. I have one friend who is going all in on PS4, then pretty much everyone else is is going 360. Which is fine, the problem there is long-term; somewhere down the line we're going to have a split because some people are going PS4, but we have a couple that will go X1. Right now I'm going to wait to see if I can swing a PS4 by the game's launch (I should know beforehand either way). If I can I'm going PS4 and that's pretty much that. If I can't then at that point I'll have to decide if I want to deal with the shitty PS3 version for a while then when I can get a PS4 I'll move over to that and keep all my progress, or if I want to go 360 to play with more people but will then have to start completely over on PS4. There's no scenario where I get an Xbox One over a PS4 so starting on 360 wouldn't be a long-term plan.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The live fixes they are making as this thing is going on are really, really impressive.

It's an infinitely better game than it was 6 weeks ago in Alpha and it's even miles better than it was 3 days ago.

Strike boss health has been mega nerfed, but their attack seems higher. A fair and appreciable trade off. Spongyness in general is down, and I found more loot today than I have pretty much in the last week combined.

And I found a blue I can't use because level 10. It's a pulse rifle.

MP is stillllllllllll really flaky and I'm not that much of a fan, but the PVE balance concerns have been improved greatly.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, I've played a lot more of PvP and I like it, but it's nearly impossible to say how it will wind up in the final product because we'll need access to all of the subclasses and new weapons and whatnot. It's potentially interesting at least and isn't outright busted if nothing else. But yeah, still really enjoying it a ton.

Also if you play tomorrow between 5-7pm Pacific they're unlocking the Moon story mission for those 2 hours only. They also finally showed the emblem you'll get in the final release if you play during those 2 hours as a beta exclusive emblem, details on all that here: Bungie : News

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'll definitely give the Moon a shot, and the beta emblem is nice.

And yes, while we can't be sure what MP will be like on the whole, I hope it's a bit less...exploitable than it is right now. I hope that there isn't much interesting content locked behind Crucible progress.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I had a feeling that Saturday unlockable would be an emblem of the sorts. Still level 7 on my end. Just having a blast on either the Crucible or Old Earth.

FELIPE NO

I tried out the beta tonight with Nutty and played up to level 4. It's pretty fun so far, but I wouldn't be heartbroken about skipping it if everyone else decides to go PS4 instead of XBOne. The whole thing feels like Borderlands without very frequent drops or enemy encounters. It also takes itself super seriously, which just makes some of Dinklage's weirdly written lines even more hilarious. They can't seem to make up their mind whether they want him to be an emotionless narrator or your jovial chum.

On the plus side, I really like faceblasting enemies as a Warlock. The skill unlocking is pretty good too. It isn't showing anything unique yet, but at least it's fun in multiplayer.

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Originally Posted by Team Shave AND Team End Piece

MP is stillllllllllll really flaky and I'm not that much of a fan, but the PVE balance concerns have been improved greatly.

Yeah I can't say I enjoyed that PvP stuff as the Titan at all. The Hunter and Warlock powers are much better, particularly the Hunter's from how it played out. Also seemed like my guns just weren't good enough to do much damage. I imagine with a crew of us it could be decent-enough, and I suspect I'll have multiple characters in the final thing so if one class is better suited to things I can switch to that. But yeah, it's the rest of it that I really enjoyed and the PvP stuff is the least interesting right now.

Originally Posted by Team Shave AND Team End Piece

I'll definitely give the Moon a shot, and the beta emblem is nice.

Yeah I'm down, but the only thing is that means no Mario Kart today. That's not a massive issue, but just saying the times clash.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Went to the moon.

Moon was neat.

There was bad guys on the moon.

I got a pair of pants out of it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

Yeah I can't say I enjoyed that PvP stuff as the Titan at all. The Hunter and Warlock powers are much better, particularly the Hunter's from how it played out. Also seemed like my guns just weren't good enough to do much damage. I imagine with a crew of us it could be decent-enough, and I suspect I'll have multiple characters in the final thing so if one class is better suited to things I can switch to that. But yeah, it's the rest of it that I really enjoyed and the PvP stuff is the least interesting right now.

Hunter has by far the worst Super currently in PvP; the startup to activate it takes too long unless you can pre-emptively do it, and it's easy as hell to avoid other players who have it. I win encounters versus Hunters trying to Golden Gun me 9 times out of 10. The Titan totally has the best Super right now, you crazy. You're close to invulnerable when you're doing it, and it's virtually a guaranteed one-shot kill on anything within it's generous radius when you do it.

Also with the gun damage thing were you playing regular PvP or Iron Banner? In Iron Banner your full weapon/damage/armor stats come in. In regular PvP all damage and armor stats are normalized across the board; individual stats on guns like rate of fire, sights, etc carry over but the damage stat doesn't, so guns can make a slight difference there but not hugely.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm very excited for this game. Usually I hardly jump on the hype train, but I have to admit that opening the beta to the public for the weekend was a clever thing to do. In fact, never cared to watch the trailers or read about the game until the beta was open.

I tried it and had a blast, I didn't go to the Moon but the maps I played were nice, It was fun teaming up to fight bosses and the capture the flag mode was cool when you were in a competitive team. I'm on PS3 so I also feel the graphics are weak, but in the long run, it's something I can live with.

When I downloaded it I didn't expect to have so much fun but it really got me. Can't wait for September.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I jumped on the beta as soon as it went public, and I gotta say that this past weekend was probably the most fun I've had in a game in a good while. Hell, even though I reach the level 8 cap quickly, I still had fun playing the game even if there wasn't really any progress left to be made.
I was discouraged from exploring pretty quickly, though. Running into enemies with levels marked as ?? will do that. I was really not expecting that from Bungie, but I've adjusted my play-style accordingly to be more MMORPG-esque. That said, I'm looking forward to leveling up in the full game and then doing an exploration run.
As far as that Devil Walker boss goes, it really did feel like a sponge, at least until I figured out the whole legs-neck thing. Then it felt much more appropriate.

As a side note, it looks like Commander Shepard has been giving the human males in Destiny dance lessons. :P

Pre-ordered my copy today, September 09th can't arrive fast enough. The only problem will be dividing my gaming time up between Destiny and The Sims 4, which I pre-ordered last week.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Speaking of dance lessons.

YouTube Video

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The preload has already begun for Playstation users. Also, it was annonced that the digital versions of the last generation (PS3, Xbox 360) can be upgraded for free until January 15th.

This is some great news:
Destiny Digital-Upgrade | Official Site of Destiny the Game

FELIPE NO

I am anxiously awaiting my pre-order from Amazon. Anxious because I purchased the fastest shipping option that guaranteed delivery on launch day, yet the order status doesn't have it listed as shipped yet.
Heh, I haven't been this excited for a game in a long time.

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Originally Posted by Tawnee Van Pelt

I have to admit that opening the beta to the public for the weekend was a clever thing to do.

Or as it was known in the old days, "Releasing a demo". Calling a demo a beta and limiting access to a select few people that is actually anyone in the world who is interested is one of the greatest marketing inventions of the last five years or so.

Jam it back in, in the dark.