If Destiny 2 had episodic content (ramblings) (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 21:03 (2529 days ago) @ Revenant1988

Does anyone recall Spartan Ops from Halo 4?

Content wise it wasn't very good or memorable, but the concept was interesting. What it was, is a new story mission to download once a week for about 8 weeks (I think). After that, you could play the content as you saw fit.

I think Destiny 2 could benefit from something like that for DLC missions and\strikes.

I thin that is a potentially interesting idea... I'll get back to this in a minute.

(For the record, I don't count "events" like SRL or Festival of the lost in the same vein, and I'm not saying they should do away with that kind of thing by any means)

Agreed.

Hear me out-

Whenever a new expansion launched for Destiny, there is a mad scramble by some of you lunatics to rush-rush-rush to level up and do the Raid or whatever the end thing is. Frankly, I think that's boring and short sighted. You don't savor the content. Then you feel empty.

I feel like you're missing the mark here... or perhaps I should say, as someone who has tried to get to the endgame content as fast as possible, this doesn't describe my reasoning or my reactions.

The reason I prioritize Destiny's end game content is that I don't think the rest of the game is particularly good. You say we don't "savor the content"... I say the content isn't worth savoring. (I don't say this as a knock against anyone who does enjoy the story missions or strikes... just describing my own thoughts here).

I see it this way: Once you've played through the campaign, Destiny is a game about replaying the same content over and over again. And IMO, the only content in all of Destiny 1 that actually has strong replay value is the raids.

Plus, reaching the Raids doesn't actually remove the core loop of constantly replaying strikes or PoE. The difference for me is that those activities work just fine as pallet cleansers, with the raids acting as the core of the game.

The reason I, and many other players who play similarly to the way I do, often seem less than thrilled about our overall experience with Destiny is because some players feel like they need to replay hours and hours and hours of the same mediocre content just to get to the part of the game they actually enjoy.

If I actually enjoyed the story missions or patrol or the strike playlists for extended periods of time, I would be far more inclined to adopt your "stop and smell the roses" approach to the game. Perhaps my single biggest hope for Des2ny is that I'll enjoy the whole game, not just the end game.

Which brings me back to your initial idea.

If Destiny 2 had content or DLC that was like that, I think it would be better overall for the life of the game.

I think you are potentially correct, but it would depend entirely on the quality of the content (which you already mention would be important) as well as how well Bungie gets players invested in their story and world.

As of right now, I don't care at all about Destiny's fiction or narrative. It doesn't even enter my mind when I play the game. I enjoy the mechanics, the visual art style, and the co-op experience. I initially wanted more from Destiny, but I've adjusted my expectations based on what Bungie has created over the past 3 years. So when I think about the idea of episodic story based content, I look at the story missions we've had so far, and the quality of the storytelling so far, and I decide that more of that wouldn't increase my enjoyment of the game at all. We already sort of had that (although without the episodic release schedule). Even after The Dark Below and House of Wolves, people continued to complain about "lack of content" in Destiny. Which is an insane thing to say... Destiny had LOADS of content, even back then. But where those complaints actually stemmed from, I think, is the fact that so much of the content in Destiny was both homogeneous and forgettable... so when a new expansion came along and added a few more story missions of the same caliber, it didn't really move the needle at all. Many players were still left grinding activities they didn't enjoy just to reach the 1 activity they did enjoy.

But if Destiny 2 turns things around on the narrative front and makes me feel invested in the characters and story for the first time, then a stream of episodic content could be lots of fun in its own right, as well as an interesting way to break up the "race to a single activity" dynamic that the game relied on through most of its lifespan.