I've been playing Destiny since the end of its launch week back in September. Over the past month, i've had some fun moments, a bit of frustration, and moments of being purely baffled by it. In that time, i've thought frequently about the game and why i continue to play. A month after launch, with a titan nearing level 28, and i still can't make up my mind if i should recommend this game to other people.

I'll go ahead and put out that i've never been into MMO's in any form. The closest i've ever come is barely scratching the surface of WoW by putting in roughly 5 hours and never going back to it. I know that's not much at all but that's the extent of the source of my MMO knowledge. I understand a lot of the systems or common themes between Destiny and MMO's from listening to friends who enjoy that genre. For me, it's something i've grown to understand slightly more because of Destiny, so for that i'm thankful. I still don't see myself signing up for an MMO and leveling a character to a cap to do raids with people, but i understand the appeal now.

For me, the most fun i've had with Destiny has been when the game actually binds groups of players together. The way players wisp in and out of existence while out in the world is a real bummer, they may as well not even be there. Nobody can talk to each other, they hit some invisible wall and "poof" they're gone forever. What's the point of this? I've tried a few times to party up with random people heading into zones and i've been unsuccessful enough times that i've given up. The tower that should be a social hub is bland area. Here is a location where people are streaming in and out of it all the time but most people only hit a vendor, and return to orbit. Launch week this was different. you'd see people at least attempt to communicate (even it was only by dancing). None of that happens any more. The game seems like "a social wasteland" which is a huge bummer for something ambitious like this. While I've never enjoyed the gameplay loop of an MMO, i've always respected them for their emphasis on social structure and attempting to bring players together. Destiny fails at that completely. The most social event in the world i've encountered was people shooting into the now infamous "loot cave". People stood on the firing line, fired their ammo stores dry, then raced to collect their goodies. a few times, dance parties even erupted from someone getting a good drop. I didn't feel cheated that it wasn't me, i was just happy for that person. Now, because of its exploitative nature, that has been patched out of existence.

Where the game does succeed for me is in the gameplay loop. I've always been a huge Halo fan and Destiny's core combat feels exactly like that. The Crucible, while being a huge departure from the structured mayhem of Halo multiplayer in terms of balance, mechanically feels the same to me. Bungie has excelled at making console competitive shooting work well and this is still on display in Destiny. Also, the PvE strongly resembles the small combat encounters of the Halo series ensuring that you always are wanting to fight more stuff. Sadly, that's all there is. Shooting endlessly respawning AI and a slim multiplayer suite.

Where it begins to really fall apart for me is the loot system and its effect on balance. While damage numbers and health are normalized in competitive play, the perks attached to weapons and armor are still in effect. For some pieces of gear, this can lead to an incredible advantage. Anyone who has continued to play the game past the soft level cap of 20 should have by this point been exposed to players wielding exotic weapons and gear. While some benefits of these can be equated to "Call of Duty perks", others can be devastating. The past 2 weekends, i've resorted to visiting Xur, the strange coin vendor, in the tower in order to buy exotics. These items simply do not drop for me during the normal course of the game. I've played missions/strikes on hard difficulties, completed daily and weekly challenges, played hours of crucible, and nothing. I rarely even see a legendary drop. As a matter of fact, all of my legendary items i have equipped save for 1 have been purchased from faction vendors. As of this writing, i've played 58 hours of destiny and in that time the only legendary drop i've seen that actually became a legendary item and not a rare or some form of crafting material has been my pulse rifle named "Fair and Square". Can you imagine if other loot based games had as little of content as Destiny and doled out high level loot as stringently?

So now, i live in a post legendary/exotic item world and i begin to see the weaving of Destiny's game balance fray with regard to PvP.

I now run a class with...

1. an exotic sniper rifle that regenerates ammo, can be used to quick scope and can emit AoE fire damage to nearby enemies of anyone i hit.
2. an exotic chest piece which allows me to carry additional heavy and special ammo, and provides me 2 grenades instead of the usual 1.
3. a primary pulse rifle that hits hard enough to win most gun fights at any medium and short range and has the perk of allowing me to keep my radar visible even when aiming down sights.

Now, having put in the almost 60 hours of grinding the game's needlessly complicated progression i do appreciate feeling more powerful than other low level players but i also think about how that's not fun for them. Before i got to this point with my main character, I started a second character intending to level them up too. Now that i see what an uphill battle that will become once i get to level 20, i'm not sure i actually want to do that.

So where does that leave a Destiny player after he or she has reached the top of the mountain? Do they stand at the top and throw rocks at people trying to climb up themselves. Do they start over? What about the DLC packs or the numerous areas that announce their presence but when you begin to transition to them but are inaccessible? I'm glad i got in on the ground floor of this game because i'm genuinely interested to see where it goes from here. Will i still be interested in the DLC when i comes out months from now? I don't know but I hope so. I'd love to see new stuff in this game. I've still yet to attempt the vault of glass raid as of this writing but intend to try it soon.

Yeah, it's fuckin' dumb. They didn't finish it and now we're going to buy the rest of it. It's dumb.

I've had a lot of fun with Destiny but it's simply isn't a finished game, I did some of the raid and that was a blast but finding 6 others without some type of in-game match making is a pain in the ass. I'd like to just throw it down for good but I'll have to wait and see what exactly they are offering with the DLC.

I'm going to wait 10 years to buy the DLC. :)

I already know, I can't recommend this game.

I'm a total Brad on this one. Yes, it is very disappointing, but it's still one of the best games I've played this year. I really don't want to buy the DLC, I think they should give it out for free to all full price purchasers; both packs. But they won't and I will still buy it. I just love playing the game too much.

I even leveled a second character to 23 already. I'm going to do a third at some point as well. I bet I'll have all classes at 30 before the expansion comes out.

I still think their 10-year plan is confusing. They are not going to support this game for 10 years, they are just going to release a sequel and another game after that. When they say 10-year plan, I think of something like WoW that they'll keep supporting through expansions and updates. Not a trilogy. Why didn't they just say the Destiny trilogy? That would have been more accurate.

I got to level 20 and saw what the grind for gear look liked and said nope. Traded it back to Gamestop for credit towards Dragon Age and haven't missed it once. I love Diablo and MMO's but I really didn't enjoy doing anything at level 20. Very strange turn around for me since I played every class in the Alpha to level 8 and wanted nothing more to continue playing.

They didn't have to say it. The 4 games + DLCs plan came out years ago during the infinity ward lawsuit. But yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize the lack of content in this game.

They talked a big game about modifiers but how many skulls are in this thing? 6? 8?

I gave up on the bounties too. How hard is it to design a more varied set of bounties? Now I just see the same grindy bounties over and over again every single day.

I'm probably going to pick up the DLC because I really want a new raid but I'm afraid they won't fix any of the major problems with the main game until Destiny 2 in 2016.

I reached a point over the weekend where I think my time in Destiny is going to start tapering off. I'd still like to get the one piece of raid armor I'm missing and get to level 30, but other than that I'm good to go. I've done all there is to do (except the raid on hard, which we may attempt this week) and I'm ready for the DLC.

Sure, the game has a multitude of issues, but I've had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. In the end that's what it's all about really. Destiny has been money well spent in my opinion.

@oldmanlight: beyond the obvious PR cloaked answers, this podcast with the Bungie community manager(or whatever his title is) DeeJ, helped put some things in perspective for me.

http://youtu.be/OMrfYYPr-SU

http://www.twitch.tv/guardianradio

*Im writing this over my phone so if links don't work, it's episode 82 of the Guardian Radio podcast.

I might fire it up again in the future to play with friends again, but for now I'm playing other stuff. It's like I had expected; Destiny will keep me busy until the release of Alien & The Evil Within. It wasn't a bad game, had my fun with it, but that's it.

Still pretty curious about the future content though. :)

I'm at a crossroads now, as well.

I'm light level 24, sludging through and doing daily bounties and the daily mission, but this game isn't fun without my friends... who have all stopped playing because I'm a masochist who grinds too much.

I want to get up to 30, I want to do the raid, I want to get exotic and legendary gear... but goddamn this is taking awhile. [This is with 26:32:06 played]

If any duders from the community wanted to add me on PSN and play now and then, that'd be cool.

You can easily get Legendary and Exotic gear by doing the Vanguard strikes over and over again. Getting Strange Coins and Marks that way to buy it from vendors.

I think getting to 28 without raiding is pretty hard though, because you need the shards to level up your gear and they are hard to come by if you are not doing the raid.

I've sunk over 120 hours into this game, by the game's counter (so not counting the Tower or loading screens). I really love this game, but I can't seem to get a group of people together to do the raid with, and it's really bothering me that I'm stuck at level 29.

Well, my time with Destiny has officially come to an end. It was fun, but unfortunately, especially with the arrival of THE EVIL WITHIN! the content it had was simply not enough to keep me going. Don't get me wrong, despite it's dumb choices I still like Destiny for it's sheer fun, but like I said, it's not something that keeps me captivated. I'll probably occasionally some raids here and there, but for right now I'm burnt out.

I've been behind as I was out of town for release week then put it down to play Mordor. Brad got me excited to play it again listening to him talk about it. Its still frustrating to play sometimes. I'm 24 but didn't grind out much rep at first now I still have 1500 points left to get to Vanguard level 2 and it seems to take forever. Also I have only gotten one legendary engram that turned into acendent energy. I did get a legendary helmelt out of a blue but it was for a Titan and I'm a Hunter. Outside of that frustration I still like the game and play it for a few hours every night.

@joey2683 Thanks! i'm at work now and gonna give it a listen.

it's interesting that you said that because i was playing a starbound on steam and i was thinking of destiny while i played it.

I've put in roughly the same amount of hours and joining Lincoln Force clan helped a bit and the random invites at the Tower as helped as well. For now I almost have 3 groups to roll the raid with.

All in all, it sounds like this abusive spouse simulator is a success!

The game is .. insanely flawed, but Bungie made some really fun combat and it is a shame but the end game combat is way more interesting than anything else. But it doesn't excuse the complete lack of story and essentially taking a 6 hour game and stringing it along like it is something different, if those 4 planets had even had 1-2 extra areas it could have been "okay" as it is with No big moments or actual story it is pretty sad.

I don't know? Yeah the game has flaws but I love it all the same. Really I don't see the huge difference between this and Diablo? Both games have forgettable stories and both games have you pretty much doing the same thing with different window dressing's. But that's not the debate here. As of right now il hit 30 tomorrow, and there is still plenty of guns for me to find and alts to level up. I'm on board with the game as it stands today, and done arguing the could of and should of beens of destiny. Maybe I'm a sucker? But I don't really give a shit. I faith that Bungie will add better content as Time goes on. Bring on the next raid!

@mooseymcman: I'd love to have more people to raid (or do anything) with. I don't what console you have though (PS for me).

PSN: GTCknight, I'm a level 30 Warlock.

Finding exotic weapons and raid primary weapons (other than atheon's epilogue) is an unholy nightmare for me.