Forsaken Spoiler Thread (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, September 05, 2018, 09:55 (2063 days ago)
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Wednesday, September 05, 2018, 10:39

Figured it might not be a bad idea to have a thread where we can talk more openly about Forsaken, while also keeping spoilers out of other threads for the time being :)

*** FORSAKEN SPOILERS BELOW ***

I had the day off yesterday, and was lucky enough to sink a good chunk of time into the game (staying up until 4am may have had something to do with that lol). I finished the campaign, did a bunch of patrol and post-campaign activities, ran the new strikes, did a bunch of the Wanted Bounties. I finished the night at max rank (50) and power level 500. I'm having loads of fun so far.

Here are some first impressions/random thoughts:

* I LOVE the new patrol space. Tangled Shore is probably my favorite destination in D2 so far. Fantastic visuals and atmosphere, great variety to the various regions. I love the crazy sci-fi look, feel, and concept. I also love that it isn't just a big circuit. Feels far more natural than most of the other patrol spaces in D2, IMO.

* The new bad guys are fun to fight. Cool mix of abilities, behaviors, shapes and sizes. Speaking more broadly D2's combat feels like it is in a particularly good place right now. All the tweaks they've made to the sandbox, weapon slots, the buff to in-air accuracy... it's all feeling great. I'm running a Kinetic Bow, the EP Shotgun, and Whisper as my primary loadout right now, and I feel just about as dangerous and effective as I ever did in D1. In some ways, perhaps even more effective.

* I enjoyed the Baron adventures. Each one was a fun and memorable setpiece. I'd really like to run through tougher versions of those missions again, co-op. I'd go as far as to say that it would be nice to see every one of those missions added to the Strike playlist. They seem particularly well made for multiple guardians to tackle together.

* I'm of two minds on the story/plot/lore side of things. In many ways, I agree with Raga's post from last week; there is stuff going on from a lore point of view that is fantastic, and its actually starting to trickle its way into the game and primary narrative. Not as much as I'd like, but I do think it is a step in the right direction. I also think Bungie has done a better job this time around when it comes to telling a story that tangles various different characters, groups, and factions together into a single plot.
However, when it comes to the real meat, the moment-to-moment writing and dialog, I think things fall apart. A lot of the dialog is terrible, IMO. Cayde's lines, particularly so. I haven't been a fan of the knee-slapping direction that they've taken with Cayde in D2 (I thought Taken King hit a good balance in terms of his personality), and they ramped up the cheese to a whole new level this time. I was relieved when Uldren finally killed him, because I was ready to do it myself by the end of that first mission. Personal taste and all, but I think its worth stressing because the whole narrative thrust of this campaign is supposed to be the fact that we're driven by rage to avenge our friend, and none of that works if I, the player, DESPISE the character than I'm supposed to be avenging. No big deal. I'm sure there are people out there who like Cayde. I just wish these pieces had clicked together for me, because I might have been far more invested in the narrative if I'd had any positive feelings about LameJokeyMcHorn Face.

* Another vague and undeveloped thought that's bouncing around in my head: It looks to me like the game is in a fantastic place in terms of the things to do on a regular basis moving forward. There seem to be loads and loads of activities that players can do on a daily or weekly basis that are fun, varied, and also help the player progress and earn gear. I'm super happy about that. But, at the moment, I think the general UX (the way in which all these activities are tracked and communicated to the player) is a mess. The bounty system feels overly chaotic and clumsy to me, especially with some quests thrown in there on the same screen, while a few pursuits are still tracked on the old Milestone blade, and other pursuits can only be tracked by highlighting their little emblems in the map screen... It's tough to know where to look for what, and even tougher to prioritize. There doesn't seem to be a way for me to look at bounties that are going to expire in 1 day, vs 1 week, vs ongoing quests that don't expire. They're just all jumbled together on 1 big sheet of little square tabs, except for the pursuits that aren't on that screen at all for whatever reason.

It goes beyond a mildly frustrating interface, though. I personally found it actually interfered with the STORY. For example, right after making contact with the Spider, he asks you to do some busy work for him before he agrees to help you out. In most games, this would be where we'd get one or two traditional "story" missions that involve us doing some dirty work for him. But instead, I end up lost in my menu for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what exactly I need to do in order to progress the story further, and the answer ends up being some simple patrol missions. Its this weird situation where the hyper-gamey elements of Destiny kind of bang into the attempt to tell a narrative arch. Bungie is trying to tell a story within a game system and structure that isn't really build or designed or optimized to tell stories. It's a fascinating little hiccup in the campaign for me, because it is such a perfect illustration of how these 2 important goals (tell a great story through a compelling campaign experience, and provide an expansive shared-world playground where people can play together indefinitely) are at strong odds with each other.

* Finally, it's obviously too early to say for sure, but my first impression is that the grind is too imposing at the moment. I was able to get up to power level 500 quite quickly (thanks in no small part to the 2000+ vanguard tokens I'd been saving), so that's nice. The game does seem to be the most generous it has ever been when it comes to getting drops that help increase your light level, and that's awesome. But when it comes to taking those drops and infusing them into the gear that you actually want to use, it is extremely expensive, and also a bit obtuse in a few ways. When i noticed that we can buy Masterwork Cores from the Spider, I was pumped. "They only cost a few Legendary shards, and I've got over 1500 of those!" i thought to myself. What I didn't notice until it was too late was that every time you buy Masterwork Cores, they get increasingly more expensive (apparently the price resets daily). So the first couple cores I bought were cheap, but after buying a few more, I was paying over 300 Legendary shards per core. So my 1500+ legendary shards was down to 600 in about 30 seconds, and all I had to show for it was a small handful of masterwork cores, which was just enough for me to infuse 2 or 3 weapons up to my current level.

We'll see how the grind plays out in the long run, but my first impression is that its gonna be a long time before I'm using some of the gear I really want to use in the activities that I'd like to use them in. And again, I'm having so much fun with all the activities available that the idea of a looooong grind, while not ideal, doesn't seem that bad to me.

How about everyone else?