It really comes down to one thing: Balance. A good FPS will have balanced weapon damage with enemy health to ensure that the player has a challenging but satisfying time, staying away from it being too easy or frustrating to the point where he's cheezing the AI to get through. But once you introduce weapon drops that dictate your primary weapon damage and armor that impacts your survivability, that balance goes out the window. And once that balance is gone, it means you no longer hit that sweet spot between too easy and too hard, resulting in a whole lot of non-ideal and (imo) unfun gameplay experiences.

This is where Destiny breaks for me. I've been playing the Alpha for a few hours and while the game is certainly neat and has a lot of cool ideas, that fundamental lack of balance has destroyed any hope of me wanting to play the game again.

In the Alpha there's a co-op mission called The Devil's Lair which is essentially a boss raid. You go in a dungeon and fight a couple of waves of enemies and it all culminates in a big boss fight. First time I ran that mission with a Fireteam (party) of 3, we literally spent 2.5 hours trying to complete a mission that shouldn't take more than 25 mins. Even though we were only half a level under the suggested level, the gap is strength was so large that it would take all 3 of us to focus fire the shielded enemies, dumping 3-4 clips each and maybe a grenade or two to bring down just one of them. Right before the boss you fight a spider tank thing and he probably had something like 5K HP and my shots were doing 7 damage each. This was so profoundly unfun and frustrating that when we were all one hit KO'd by the boss, we just gave up. Then after leveling once and buying stronger riffles we ran that mission again and cleaned house. I think we finished it in 15 mins with time to spare. I do want to mention that the game attempts to address this because the second time we ran the mission the enemies were actually 2 levels higher than before but it was still such a cakewalk it didn't matter.

In Bungie's previous game, Halo, this would have never been an issue since the weapon damage and player health were locked-in and the engagements were precisely tuned to take advantage of that fact. While weapon loot has it's appeal, I find that, particularly in FPS games like Destiny and Borderlands, it detracts more than it adds to the experience. Not to say that it doesn't have it's place, but it's not what I want out of my shooters.

git gud

Mmmmhmmm

Its because you were too low a level, had too weak gear. Its not because the game is unbalance. Maybe you don't get what type of game this is. And therefore the game just isn't for you, and you should skip buying it. A FPS-RPG is after all an RPG, not a FPS. So the people that are having a hard time grasping that should probably just not play the game.

The only issue I ever had in that mission was the Spider Tank because it takes an incredible amount of time to kill that thing. But it's not like the game doesn't warn you that you're going in unprepared, it shows a percentage of your weapons and how under levels they are compared to their reccomendations. If you meet those then you should never have an issue expect with that tank which in all honesty they should change because I agree, slowly picking away at a boss isn't much fun. But still I have enjoyed the alpha a lot and even preordered to grab the beta. Whether I keep that preorder after the beta is yet to be seen but so far I have enjoyed it a lot

You had difficulty clearing an area.
Weaponed and leveled up and it was easier?
Soooo the game is working exactly as intended?
; )

Why don't you try again later when you're upgraded more?...

doesn't sound like a problem to me. Just don't play it.

There's a very handy chart before you take on the Strike, where-in the game breaks down how well your gear, respectively your stats, stack up versus the content and difficulty you're attempting in various percentages.

If you are doing it wrong, like you clearly did, of course it's going to feel wrong. It's not like the game gives you a tool by which you can judge your prepardeness. Oh wait, it actually does. The take-away. Learn to zone. Like in every MMORPG - and in my experience, MMORPGs have some of the most tightly balanced and challenging group content around - and thus they require a certain level of competence you lacked at that point. If you decide to play Destiny, you'll play it for houndreds, if not thousands of hours. You will be competent enough at some point, to identify and tackle the appropriate content at any given time.

You can be certain the experience will not be loose at all. Tight as a virgin's butthole, is what I predict.

Cause thats how moon wizards do it.

You guys are missing the point completely. The OP got into a mission that was one level above him, it was impossible, he leveled and it became a cakewalk. That doesn't sound fun at all.

These comments...

Anyways, I get where you're coming from, however I think your problem is that you're expecting the game to be a different genre than it is. You're playing an RPG, with RPG hooks, and one of those main hooks is the enjoyment of developing a character. The fact that the combat is based around first-person shooting doesn't necessarily make it into a "first-person shooter". It's sorta like playing GTA and being disappointed that the driving isn't 100% realistic.

yeah, he's not saying it was simply too hard, he said it was too hard then it became too easy. Which, if he returned at the right level, might be a problem of balance

I don't think you really understand the mechanics of Destiny. First off, this game is RPG first and FPS second. You can have all the call of duty drop shot / quick scoping skills, but it won't mean anything if you don't have the gear and weapon stats to actually do damage. It's not everyone's cup of tea... but that is how the game and most mmos balance out the ability to complete areas and dungeons.

Sooo you're problem with it being an fps rpg is that part where it's more an rpg?

sounds like the game isnt for you because thats how its saposed to be and the target audience of mmos or rpgs will enjoy it and wont have a problem with what you are saying.

I have actually been thinking about this in relation to Destiny and how Bungie is going to handle balance in general. I know it's not an FPS, but the only comparison I can draw is to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 is a loot crawl. You quickly hit the level cap, and then the rest of your time in the game is spent hunting for gear - at first any upgrade in general, then specific pieces, then eventually you are so well geared that you may even start looking for minutely better versions of items you already have just to improve your character a little. However, some rare items are so powerful that they can instantly make the difficulty level you were playing on trivial. This is where the benefit of Diablo's difficulty system comes in - if the game becomes too easy because you are all of sudden doing way more damage or have a lot more toughness, then you just increase the difficulty. You keep going until at the end game enemies have 9,000% more health and do 2,500% more damage than they do on Normal. Loot quality and drop chance is increased accordingly.

This also brings us to the question of item balance and class updates. People that play games mainly on consoles or who have never played an MMO-style game may not be used to balancing passes and hotfixes that are common with games like this. It can be pretty demoralizing to log in one day and find out that the item that you hunted for over dozens of hours of gameplay and made you super powerful has now been nerfed to oblivion in a patch. Or that your favorite skill that made you overpowered is now useless because the developer saw that it was imbalanced and needed fixing. Gamers that are accustomed to MMO games probably won't be too bothered with this, but if you're more used to the style of Halo or Call of Duty multiplayer, you may be in for a rude awakening with Destiny.

I'm not sure how Bungie is going to handle the situation Enigma777 discussed in this post. I think a lot of it has to do with locking items to the appropriate level and making sure people don't get too powerful too early on in character development, but this can only be taken so far. If items and quests are tuned too much, then eventually a lot of the allure of a loot crawler goes away because all characters become too similar to one another. Part of what makes these games fun is finding new and rare loot that other players may not have, that also makes you powerful. A consequence of this is that your character can become somewhat overpowered, and unfortunately I think that's just the way it is with these types of games. I don't own either a PS4 or Xbox One and probably won't by the time Destiny comes out, but maybe I'll get the PC version when one gets announced eventually. It will sure be interesting watching the development and balancing of this game as it goes along, though.

Add in PVP and all of the above issues are just compounded twofold.

@bugbarbecue: @pyrodactyl: The fight still took 15 minutes. So its not like it was super easy. Plus this is an alpha demo. The final game will not be like this. It will be tweaked. They also had way over leveled gear available to buy and as drops for the low levels. There is no way those guns will be available for level 5-8 players in the final game. You start with a gun that does what, 32 damage, and then the next one you get does 75. That is a huge jump. You would expect the next one to be 35. So it was much easier after finding the top end gear. Because they wanted to show the difference.

The fact the game was too hard when you were under-leveled and not geared up, and then became easier as you leveled up and bought better guns seems like the game is working as Bungie intended it to.

It sounds like an RPG, and that's what this game is.

@whitestripes09: I think this is a huge issue that Bungie will run into. I love Destiny, but I understand the mechanics and hooks, I like MMOs and RPGs. I, and many others, look at Destiny as an RPG. However, Destiny being a console only release there will be thousands of people buying it thinking it is just an FPS from the makers of Halo and going into it with the same mindset as the OP. They will probably hate it and stop before learning how the game is actually meant to be played. I have a bad feeling that a lot of people will play the beta coming up and not like the game due to them playing it like a Call of Duty or Battlefield and end up not buying it, hurting Bungie's sales. We'll see!

The first time we ran the mission, I actually didnt know what that chart was for so I just ignored it. The second time I was probably 15% over the recommended stats and it was so incredibly easy I thought the game was fucking with me for a second. And you're absolutely right that with time you'd get more accustomed and know what you can take on and so forth. But that's certainly not something I think I'd enjoy playing long enough to get to that point.

As a huge Halo fan, I kept trying to pit my finger on why Destiny just wasn't grabbing me because there's nothing that really stand out as being bad (aside maybe from the wizards from the moon bit) and after some thought, I figured it was because of this ergo this blog. It's the same reason why I disliked Borderlands. Nothing wrong if you're into that sort of gameplay and I can see how it might be fun, but I just dont think it's for me.

Op. You and I seem to approach this game from differing viewpoints. You seem to view the game as a shooter with RPG mechanics, and feel that the RPG hurts the shooter.

I have always seen this game as an RPG first, only with FPS combat instead of a turn-based system. I do not have the large blocks of time to invest in a game where player skill is the only reward anymore. Its because of this lack of time that I really enjoy having a clear progression system with specific goals to achieve. Because of this I find an enjoyment from feeling underpowered, then levelling up / getting that new badass weapon and laying waste to everything that was so difficult before.

I am happy you are in the alpha than, this is definitely not a game for you! Like I said in my previous post, I have a bad feeling there will be a lot of people like you. Fans of Halo who think this is an FPS with some occasional RPG elements instead of an RPG with FPS elements. I feel like Alpha/Beta is going to hurt sales of this game, not because the game is bad or even decent, but because if someone goes in uninformed, they will be expecting something completely different.

It never becomes a cakewalk. Don't believe everything you read.

Also, there's difficulty settings. I've better gear than required for the legendary setting of that strike, and you got to be on your toes to beat those events and bosses. Especially if you want to beat them in style. Destiny is a pitch-perfect action game. It's still a FPS. You have to aim fast and true. You have to play smart angles. You have to have a good kill order. You have to evade incoming fire. Like that onehit-kill attack of the spider tank. It will always be a onehit-kill attack. And so forth.

Sure, if you are lvl 20, playing The Devil's Lair on Brave will likely be a joke. There will likely also be a difficulty setting that'll scale the dungeon and its rewards to lvl 20, and it won't be a joke.

It's Diablo, Diablo is 5% skill and 95% loot. Just because its an FPS doesn't make it not Diablo.

I ran the Devils Lair with 2 other 8's , we all had reasonable gear and knew pretty much how to play (revive revive revive), it took us about 45 minutes I think. It was not too hard, but still a good challenge. The spider tank was too much indeed (and alot stronger then the final boss, which is weird), but I really liked the overall 'dungeon'. My concern is more that I reached level 8 within 5 hours playtime and there are just 20 levels. How big is this game really? Sure I can get better gear still, but to what end?

How do you know, though? Maybe you should try and be a bit more objective about Destiny - I know you're into it and excited for it, but come on. The details of how the retail release of Destiny will work aren't even known yet and certainly haven't been finalized. I'm sure that is how you hope the game will be, but its far from guaranteed.

It is still an Alpha, so I assume things like this are still up for some level of change. Probably.

If the level 20 cap is actually true, the game will be way more about horizontal progression than vertical progression. It'll be about getting better gear through harder content. Also, can't forget about the Crucible and Vanguard ranks. If I am not mistaken, there is no end to better gear. There will always be something better in someway, at some point, somewhere! That is the beauty of a game like Destiny, it technically doesn't end.

Balancing content is usually one of the last things they do. This is only the alpha. I wouldn't consider the current difficulty to be representative of the final product.

I honestly thought the second time I played through the mission that it was incredibly easy. Maybe it's because I spent 2.5 hours hours banging my head against the wall the first time but me and my teammates got really efficient at dispatching enemies because of it.

One specific example I can remember is the named guy you fight on the 3rd phase of the hacking bit and the first time we fought him we literally dumped all of our ammo then died so we can re-spawn and get more primary ammo and dump all the ammo again till he died. Took us a solid 25 mins till he died. Second time we fought him it took 3 clips and 2 supers.

Then this game wont be for me ... I thought it was going to be an rpg as Stalker was , not a mmo loot grind , I mean I have licked Borderlands but I tought Bungie wouldnt go the loot/grind route they have taken. But well better to know now than later.

2014 year of the spider tank!

Yeah balance is not what I come to games like this and borderlands for. its actually unbalance that attracts me. Being an uber powerful killing machine is freaking great.

Uh, it's an Alpha. I'm willing to bet 5000 curry that a lot of these raids will be re balanced. It's clear as day that they just threw the game out for testing and are trying to get as much play testing feedback as possible. That raid you're talking about is too hard but again this game isn't out until September. Also the game features enemies in a tunnel section at the begging of the map that are literally impossible to beat. I'm doing 1 damage per strike.

After leaving the laser-grid part you're intended to be put in a 6-person bit with another team of three players. They never quite mentioned that it was disabled for this old version we're testing. Nor that the Dinklage Ghost voice is completely raw and unfinished here but wrapped up and ready for real over at Bungie.

This sounds like this applies to RPGs in general. If you aren't properly geared / under leveled it is going to be difficult & the possibility is there to be completely overpowered as well. Sounds like the RPG elements are working like every other RPG ever...

Pretty much this. It's an alpha, it's definitely not in shipping state and to judge it as if it were is lame-o.

I was level 6 on the strike with 2 level 5s. I was 7 by the time we got to the tank. I just used a scout rifle and snuck to the tunnel to the tank's left and shot from there. The rifle was crit hitting the legs for 157 and still took like 20 minutes.

I hope the level cap isn't 20 because according to the Outfitter's inventory on the Tower, you can't recolor your armor until 20.

How I know that I won't turn into a cakewalk even with the best gear available? Because the best gear available is a known quantity, unique epics and legendaries. And it is known when what kind of gear is available. What has been beaten, and what has to be beaten by a player is clear to the developers. Let's say you are one of the elite few who have cleared the final raid dungeon. You've farmed it and your character has obtained the perfect gear - maximum itemlevel.

All lvl 20 content will still be balanced enough to be challenging. Let's not forget that FPS games are a split-second business - for example, it's much easier to die to a random grenade than you think, and yes, those grenades will likely always be onehit-kill - because that is what grenades do. MMORPGs are notorious for demanding the utmost from its playerbase, since it's expecting them to stick around indefinitely.

That, and the simple fact that even the very first Strike mission is plenty demanding on Legendary. How challenging will later strikes be? Will there be subclasses with a greater emphasis on teamwork, like with AoE heals, and shields and whatnot, and to what degree does Bungie expect high end content players to synergize?

What I'm saying is, the educated guess here is, that what's available in the pre-Alpha is the most basic group content Destiny has to offer, and that things will get more demanding with higher levels. It just depends on what Bungie is shooting for. If their latest trailer is to be believed, their endgame raid dungeon for 6 players is the most demanding content they've ever built. So yeah, I do not expect the game to be a cakewalk, nor is it reasonable to think otherwise. Halo was never a pushover, Destiny won't be either.

If anything the game will be too hard for casual players at first, because that's how these things always go. What remains to be seen is if it will stay that way, or not. No better way to turn a casual into a hardcore, than turning the casual into a competent player of a hardcore game.

@somejerk Interesting, especially considering it's (presumably) the first Strike in the game. Makes me wonder how complex the late game ones might be.

How did it taste? :)

@enigma777: well judging from these comments it's obvious that you're just playing it wrong.

Wait, I'm seeing level 20s and 11s in your screenshots. Isn't the level cap for the alpha 8? What is happening?!

Those are official Bungie screenshots, not taken by a player in the alpha.

This doesn't sound an unfixable problem, just sounds a like a balance issue which will be tweaked throughout the Alpha. That sort of swing is a little extreme.

but in general I don't think this is a "problem with FPS shooters" as much as it is a reason you personally don't like them. Which is ok, but that's a matter of taste not something that is actually broken within the game itself.

It was yummy ... with a tinge of sandy taste ;D

I was way into Borderlands for a while, but then I grew tired of enemies sponging up so much damage all the time and the set pieces that required you to stay in an area for a while until waves of enemies were finished off. I was liking Destiny because it felt like a much better version of Borderlands, but then the bullet sponge boss fight you mentioned came up. My team was all 6+, we killed the boss in around 15 minutes (too long a fight in my opinion) and then preceded to the next room.... where a bullet sponge boss awaited us. Haven't touched it since. I like the explore section, and the wizard from the first mission is more my style of a boss fight (no more than 5 minutes tops) so getting a double whammy of too long boss fights was enough to put me off the game completely. I'm still going to give the Beta a whirl and hopefully theres a lot more variety to the missions and the boss fights are rare.

Was the crab walker really that difficult for you guys? Even after taking out his legs and shooting his weak spot?

@pyrodactyl: no the OP is missing the point. Before you go into a mission it tells you if you are under leveled or not. If you are under leveled and don't want to get owned, then come back once you are a higher level or have better gear. That's how RPGs work.

Please make detailed records of this type of stuff if you want to compare it to any changes that might be made when the beta rolls around next month.