Destiny 2 – What Could / Should Have Been

I think the Aggronaut and I are the main discussors of all things Destiny in this corner of Blognation, (Adding Dragonchasers to this short list) so I won’t continue to link to him on each post but chances are you are already reading him anyway. We are on different paths of our initial enjoyment of Destiny 2 and it will be interesting to see how or if they converge at some point. Will his satisfaction start to wane while mine grows over time? Will he stay strong and I’ll hit some new part of the expansion that surprises and delights me ramping up my happiness with the game? Who knows – it definitely will be interesting to see and we’ll no doubt revisit that in the month(s) to come. Because, for all of my issues with it, I do expect to be playing Destiny 2 the way through. I am about half way through the campaign at this point.

I still can’t ignore the missed opportunities. There are several, low hanging fruit that I fully expect in a major expansion, worth of the “2” label. There are many examples of this – Diablo 3 is very different from 2 or 1. Look at the way major titles have changed and improved over the years. A true sequel should be a major step forward  where an expansion is often a small step. Here (in no particular order) are the easy and obvious things Destiny 2 missed out on.

New Class

There isn’t much that is more exciting than a new way to experience a game. A new class is probably the biggest. The Titan, Warlock, and Hunter classes are different enough to be worth playing them all in look and feel – but no reason why a fourth class couldn’t have been introduced. The game did introduce a new subclass to each of the main classes but took away one as well – in the end, you have more of the same. I do like the new subclasses but I also liked the old ones that they took away. Why not have 4? Why not add a whole new class to begin with, with another four subclasses? Why not actually invest some time and energy in moving the game forward?

New  Race

The Humans, Awoken and Exo have always been your options and I am not even that concerned that you needed to add a new player race – but at bare minimum they should have added a new enemy race! No, you are still fighting the fat-bastards from Mars, the sentient microwaves from Venus,  the Walking dead on the Moon not-Zombies and the four armed gang members from Earth all over again. Not a single new race. Each got a few minor tweaks (Fallen stealth classes now shoot from range instead of melee with swords, for example) but we are very much in the “you have seen this before. Nothing new. Move along” territory of it all. And that is extremely disappointing.  They literally mostly spent time recoloring skins on enemies.

New Narrative

Much has been made of the story being front and center in Destiny 2 and they have definitely upped the production value there. I will give them that. The problem is, the story is just bad.  Somehow our defenses that have stood for centuries were easily overcome by a Cabal member and his army and our immortality stolen by a fence put around a moon. For an hour. Then you lose all of your gear and everyone hides on three new planets. You can’t visit the old planets, or areas – they are no longer accessible – magically poofed away – but the new planets have the same enemies with minor changes and soft excuses to go explore them. They didn’t even add voice lines for the hero. They doubled down on the Mute Immortal  Zombie Savior story line. It’s weak. It’s bad. It was mailed in. This was their chance to reset this part of the game (and it has always been my biggest complaint) and they did it very poorly.

There is some Good

I don’t have that many great weapons yet but whoever designed the guns, scoping in/iron sights, feel of shooting should get a raise. The guns feel so very different and so very cool – I always enjoyed scout rifles and recently got one that has a scope on it – not as far as a sniper rifle but just enough zoom – and every time I get a new gun to play around with I marvel with how different it feels and how well they have done with that aspect. Each class now also has a third special ability and that does feel new and great (my Titan can make a half wall, and scoping in/out behind it auto reloads my gun – this makes taking out large groups of enemies from range smooth and extra fun. Bonus is that my teammates also get the advantage. Guilds/Clans looks to be an great new feature – hopefully as a solo player I can find one that will take me in.

Destiny 2 struggles because it isn’t a MMO per se, but a shared world RPG shooter.  The complaints people had about Destiny 1 were given some attention but not really solved, and in some ways it feels like  more was taken away then added. The shooting is still great but I feel like their attempt at a narrative took away from being forced to build your own in D1 – many players probably had a more coherent, believable story line in their own heads for what was going on. I know I did.

When the bosses to date are all re-skins of the old bosses with most of the same gameplay mechanics you can tell this “sequel” should have been called an expansion and they could have introduced these new mechanics on the new planets and left the old worlds around – giving more content for players to enjoy. Instead, we have all bought in on the new title purchase (and many, including myself, pre-bought two DLC packs). I have heard some praise it that this what Destiny 1 should have been and they have dealt with some of the inventory and loot issues (while adding blatant, money grabbing mechanic issues – google “Destiny 2 shaders”) and if you are a new player who doesn’t care about story depth this is an ok place to start in the Destiny IP. If you are a Destiny 1 player who just loves the gun play of D1 and the hunt for marginal, iterative loot improvements this will also make you pretty happy. If you were a Destiny 1 Crucible player you may want to read someone more on the PVP side of things – I know they made smaller fire teams and less control of maps, etc. – but I haven’t done PVP yet. If you were a Destiny 1 player who saw incredible bones of a game with much unrealized potential then Destiny 2 – so far – is the exact same feeling.

I am not giving up on it yet, I will finish the campaign and hope things turn around.

7 comments / Add your comment below

  1. I am slowly coming around somewhat, while still being in agreement with everything you’ve said here.

    I finished the campaign and felt like the game really opened up once that was done. Then I started enjoying the cascade of loot that would increase my power (light) level. But apparently as in D1 there’s a point where you don’t just casually get better loot but have to start really thinking about which activities to do. I will probably drift away when I get to that point. I’m too much of an instant gratification gamer. If I play all night and my power level doesn’t go up I kind of feel like I’ve wasted my time. LOL.

    1. Yeah that was the part in D1 and all of the expansions where I would drift away too – when the ability to move forward became a roadblock. It is funny how just the process of getting higher end gear (I got an exotic – it looks rediculous, but love the effect!) makes you feel better about a game (and yourself. somehow). 10 more levels to go!

  2. Pretend for a minute that this is a full price expansion, rather than the term sequel. There are quite a few games that follow that model. Most MMOs. D3. XCOM2.

    Under that context, this seems to be a somewhat average expansion. That’s not a terrible thing.

    1. I agree with that. Which is why I struggle with the whole Destiny 2 title versus what we actually got. But in fairness, it wouldn’t be a $60 expansion, it would be a $30 one. It’s still off the mark. I am being really kind and still giving it the benefit of the doubt until I hit level cap and get into the endgame activities.

  3. From the sounds of it, they really should have just continued to expand D1 rather than make D2. I thought it was a bad idea from the get-go, and it appears I was right. I suppose they probably had to make changes to the engine to get it running on PC and perhaps that was the reason?

    1. They did do some fun things with ‘adventures’ and what not, but yes, they could have done this as another expansion and push the level/light cap further, and save some of the big changes for a true sequel (with some of the items I listed done, really push the game forward in a meaningful manner).

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