Feeling conflicted (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, May 23, 2015, 12:29 (3258 days ago) @ yakaman

House of Wolves has put me in a very strange place with regards to how I feel about Destiny.

The good:

I think the game we're playing right now is in the best state it's been in since launch, by far. The overhauls to the upgrade and materials systems are huge improvements. The new story missions are perhaps the best in the game. Prison of Elders and Trials of Osiris both seem to fill voids that needed filling. Patrol mode feels vibrant for the first time ever. And for the first time since launch, I feel like the playable spaces in Destiny are mostly being used to their potential. Missions and strikes take use to almost every corner of the various world maps, and use the spaces in fun and interesting ways.

The bad:

I'm appreciating most of these improvements in some sort of hindsight. In a strange way, I wish I hadn't begun playing Destiny until this past week. In a lot of ways, I'm past the point where these improvements really benefit me. I love how easy it is to upgrade gear now, but I don't have enough room in my vault/inventory for more than a handful of new pieces. The story missions are good, but not good enough for me to ever go replay them for fun (I'll do daily heroics most days, that's about it). I'm glad we finally have access to those few remaining locked locations, but they're just a drop in the bucket in terms of overall play space; not enough to feel like substantial new areas.

And then, there's the end-game content.

I'm glad Prison of Elders is in the game. It feels like something that should have been included since day 1. But I don't feel it works as the primary driving piece of end game PvE content. I STILL enjoy running VoG and CE multiple times per week, every week, for months now. PoE felt old to me after 2 days. There just isn't enough depth, teamwork, or variety. I know I'm in the minority within the overall player base, but for me the lack of a raid in HoW is a near-fatal blow to my interest in this expansion.

So I feel like now, almost 9 months later, Destiny as a complete package is in really fantastic shape. But as someone who's been logging tones of hours since day 1, I'm left feeling like I don't really have enough to do. I'm ready for substantial new content; new world(s), new subclasses, new weapon types, new forms of play (space combat?), and most of all, new Raids.