Forsaken couldn’t save the PS4 clan (Destiny)

by slycrel , Saturday, October 27, 2018, 23:43 (2015 days ago) @ TheeChaos

I agree, it's a bit dead. I mean, nobody has even done the nightfall yet this week as a clan, according to the engrams.

Quite the ramble ahead, apparently I needed a brain dump. =)

I'm in an odd place with Forsaken. I really like it, but I can tell I'm being worn down even as I wear down the light level curve.

All of my destiny friends have moved on (or moved platforms) since before forsaken. My RL group of friends opted out, so I've mostly found myself devoid of a fireteam, let alone a raid team. And I'm a later evening MDT/MST player, meaning that mostly when I can actually do group things few are available. (I should note there is one friend who may read this that still plays sometimes. But not often. We should keep playing together here and there! :D )

So, solo it has been, for the most part.

It's been an interesting experience. Watching other groups obviously using voice in things like Gambit, Iron Banner, the Blind Well, Escalation protocol, and other places. And being the random blueberry that sometimes is very helpful and sometimes is the clueless wanderer. =)

Being solo doesn't lock you out of progression, but it's not really how the game has been designed around. Everything takes a little longer. PvP is hot and miss solo. PvE is streaky with many events being 540, 560 and 580. Activities like the nightfall are for a regular, consistent fireteam, and aren't really the same as a heroic strike.

Other than a week on vacation, I've played pretty much daily, despite being a functioning adult. I didn't look for leveling guides on the internet because IMO the game should tell me what I need to do... but it doesn't always do a very good job. Due to tips on this board I realized that there were tiers of powerful gear drops only a few weeks ago. I was struggling to get to 560 last week. side note: Horror Story was an amazing boon. I've jumped 20+ light levels this week because of it (and some extra play time I've found myself with).

https://chrisfried.github.io/secret-scrublandeux/guardian/2/4611686018434081936

I'm just now getting to a place where I can really do some of the "end game" content, and even some of that 580 stuff is hard to do solo. (Hello gambit exotic quest)

I like Gambit a lot, I've always thought that mixing PvP and PvE would be a good thing for Destiny, and it is.

I like that I'm still finding new things -- just today in the dreaming city I found a cat while ascendant and gave it an offering, no idea that was a thing. And no idea how I would know.

I like that some creepy skulls give me things in the dreaming city, though I wish I knew why and how that fit in more than just stumbling into it.

I wish I could use my ghost to open doors. The dreaming city reminds me a little of the moon in D1, with its twists and turns, and general layout. I do sometimes get frustrated with the many many doors that do not open, but add to the (sometimes obvious) illusion of space.

Until last week I never knew what to do with the oracle offering. Last week I also finally broke down and looked up how to do the ascendant challenge because I never found that on my own. It's super cool, and I've done that twice now -- last week I knew where to go and what to do because I looked it up, this week I found it on my own and competed it with no guide. I really like exploring and doing the new things organically. I don't love that the expectation is the internet at large is an addition to the game (you miss out on all sorts of helpful things via word of mouth on the net, rather than being guided in-game)

Today I stumbled into the Io taken event and went through the (now old) portal that I was never high enough light level to go in. Pretty amazing area, I made it through blind to just past the open/shut door in the cliffside before I ran out of time. (And thought of the vault, and how I hate heights, and cruel laughing at me in my head because of it. Good times) I am sad that stumbling into this doesn't open up a story mission or something so that I could try it again. I probably could, but it would have to be some luck and a dedicated evening or two.

And, now that I am nearing the 600 mark... I'm finding that destiny has become a game of inventory/bounty management, loading screens, and ticking off "daily" quests in ways that shape my playstyle away from how I'd prefer to play and instead how Bungie imagines I should play. I may or may not do the raid. I don't expect my friends to ever put in the time to get to raid light levels, even if they put in a considerable amount of time. So Forsaken has become my "alone in the crowd" game.

A little depressing when I write it all up like this. I really have enjoyed this expansion. That is tempered some by my playstyle being stretched thin in many ways. It reminds me of WoW's progression a little -- the more refined it gets, the more mathematical and predictable it becomes, with the occasional "WTF this is awesome!" moments. But you have to play the progression system, always, or you're often"wasting" your time.

I've really liked Forsaken in many ways. The end-game progression is almost a very stretched out version of TTK's progression, though much more spaced out with repeated events. It's interesting to me to look at the % of the playerbase who have hit some of the trophies, and what that might mean for content developed. It's obvious to me that forsaken is catering to the hardcore playerbase. I suspect this will continue until D3, where it will be much more casual friendly until it's own expansions.

In a nutshell, and back to the real topic, I think the hardcore component has spread out progression enough for few enough active players that it fizzled out before it could really get started. Which is a shame, because there is an awful lot of good gameplay here, mixed with the repeated events.