In my experience with Destiny so far, leveling is a bit of an interesting process. Your character and your gear both have levels and upgrade tiers, that’s obvious, though I’m not sure that they really matter beyond serving as milestones for unlocking things. Even without leveling up, your skills will continue to advance and upgrade as you use them. Even once I had hit level 8 (the max level in the Alpha), my abilities were still ranking up and unlocking. It’s a wonderful feeling to know you’ve hit the level cap but you’ve still got somewhere to go and you’re not stuck without certain perks if you missed them.

Speaking of the upgrades, I love how they rank up. Systems that improve a skill as you use it are the best. It really feels like you’re customizing your character actively every moment. If you hover a lot with your Titan you get an upgrade that will give you more air time. If you glide with you Warlock consistently you get an upgrade giving you more control while in the air. If you like double jumping like Mario with your Hunter, you unlock the ability to triple jump! Those are just minor examples of the upgrades on your character.

Then again, I did say that gear levels up too. In Destiny, everything levels up, and that’s just wonderful. Your white weapons (common rarity) don’t have upgrades, though your green and rarer ones do. However, the only upgrades I’ve seen so far are damage upgrades and new scopes for your rifles. As for your armor, they normally come with upgrades that give you more ammo, faster grenade recharge, or faster reload times. I honestly can’t wait to see what other things they smack onto gear in the full release.

On top of upgrades making armor and weaponry unique in Destiny, you’ve also got all of the variations of said armor and weaponry. I noticed a lot of gear that was unique in appearance alone, for example: the Gatewatch and then the Gatewatch 3.1b. They’re both the same piece of armor, but they’ve got varying looks. Maybe one has a few more straps and clasps and is red and white, but the other is strapless and white and red. It’s just interesting how their mix and match system makes whole new pieces of armor with modular chunks which may have already been used!

The sheer amount of variety (when it comes to gear) is crazy. Considering the differences, from minor stat changes to complete different aesthetics of the gear, the game’s loot system has a very Borderlands-esque feel to it. On top of that, one amazing little system they’ve got is that missing loot drops doesn’t hurt you. The game makes sure you get it by sending it to you through the Postmaster on the Tower.

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Make sure to keep up with the whole “My Time With the Destiny Alpha” series over on the hub!

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Myles K Farrington is one of the newer writers on the MONG team and a classy fellow. Keep up with him over at IGN, Twitch, and Twitter as well!