Marmot's Mega Post (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, July 02, 2015, 20:31 (3231 days ago) @ marmot 1333
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Thursday, July 02, 2015, 20:45

Welcome back!

• HoW: I got a chance to binge on the content back in May when it came out. Overall I like it a lot, particularly the story missions and the Queen's Bounties. Has anyone flip-flopped on their opinion? Those who liked it now don't, or vice versa?

Mine have, to an extent. I'll try to keep this as brief as I can :)

When HoW first launched, I was very impressed by all the changes and updates Bungie made to the upgrade system, exchanging materials and currencies, re-rolling weapons, etc. Lots of nice "quality of life" improvements. I still think this stuff is fantastic, for the most part.

Playing through the new content during the first week was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I really enjoyed the new story missions, and I thought the Queen's bounties were a great addition to patrol mode. I was extremely disappointed with Prison of Elders, and still am. Although I do think the level 35 boss fight against Skolas is great... I just don't enjoy the rest of the game mode leading up to it. So that was a downer for me, since I have always primarily been a PvE player. But then I tried Trials of Osiris, and was blown away by how fun and intense it can be. It was the first time I felt like I really clicked with PvP in Destiny. Finally, while not part of House of Wolves, being able to run Crota hard mode as a level 34 drastically changes the raid. It is still challenging and exciting, but way less frustrating than it was as a 32. So there was some new life in that raid for me.

So overall, you could say my feelings about House of Wolves were very positive.
Since then, things have shifted a bit for me. There are some minor specific reasons, but I think bigger issue for me is that House of Wolves has drastically transformed the "loop" of Destiny's end game into something that just doesn't click with me.

For all of Destiny's faults at launch, I fell into an end-game loop that I found deeply compelling and loads of fun. It all centered around the Raid(s). I worked my way up to the point where I felt ready to tackle Vault of Glass. I ran the raid (which is still my favorite activity in Destiny in terms of the pure gameplay experience), and came out with a couple great new pieces of gear. When I went to do some bounties & strikes so I could level this gear up, I discovered that these weapons helped breath new life into the existing content. They allowed me to change the way I approached missions, made me feel powerful in new and exciting ways. Then, armed with my new toys and experience from my previous run, I'd go back into the raid and see if I could do a little better. I'd learn some new tricks, discover new strategies, have even more fun than the first time. At the end, I'd leave with a couple more new pieces of gear, which I'd then take back into the daily and weekly missions, etc. This cycle repeated beautifully for me, for months. Of course there were frustrating moments, problems for Bungie to address, but I loved the core loop. I wasn't just chasing new loot to say "I have it"... I was collecting new ways to experience the same old game. New tools to open up new strategic possibilities.

Then House of Wolves came along, and changed all of that.

The first major problem for me is Prison of Elders. I'm a huge fan or Arena/survival modes, but PoE doesn't deliver what I was hoping for. And that would be fine, except that everything in House of Wolves' end game hinges on it (with the exception of Trials of Osiris). To get the new gear, you need to play PoE. I don't particularly enjoy PoE, but I don't mind some mindless action with friends if it means I can get some cool new gear and hopefully continue breathing new life into the game that way. Except the majority of the new gear in House of Wolves is mediocre. The Queen's weapons are nothing special, and neither are the fallen-themed weapons. The new exotics seem pretty cool, but there is only 1 way to earn them: playing A LOT of PoE. Suddenly I'm left feeling like I don't have an end-game activity I enjoy, AND the drive to chase new gear (so that I can have new ways to play) is also largely diminished.

The other change that I'm starting to feel may have backfired a bit is the ability to re-roll any new vendor gear you acquire. It didn't take long for me to come across a couple new weapons with the base stats I wanted, and re-roll them until I got my ideal perk combos. The final little issue in this realm is that our vault space is still quite limited... with the new weapons being so lackluster, I'm hesitant do shard my old favorites. But I'm out of room, so that's what I would have to do if I wanted to collect anything new.

So now the desire to chase new gear is pretty much gone completely. Not the end of the world, but another big hit to what made Destiny so much fun to replay for me.

There is still lots of stuff in Destiny that I love doing... but its all the same stuff I've been doing for 9 months now, and it's feeling old to me. That is not a fault of House of Wolves, but it is a problem I had hoped HoW would address by adding new things I wanted to do. As I said before, I think Trials of Osiris is fantastic, so that's a big win in my books. I just wish there was something on the PvE side that I enjoyed as much as the raids and the gear that came with them.