Storytelling in Destiny 2 and a plot I can get behind

I was reading the "this sub thread makes me sad" sub thread and thinking about destiny's plot and how Destiny 2 could create a "clean break" with destiny 1's lack of connection to the characters.

Here's a rough outline of what I'm thinking.

Welcome to Destiny 2. Your guardian is waging war against the minions of the darkness, just as you did in Destiny 1. But you, this time YOU are someone else. Who are you?

The player is given 4 choices of character to choose from: Maya Sundaresh, Chioma Esi, Dr. Shim, or Duane-McNiadh.

You see, you are part of a team. Sent to Venus in the last days of the Golden Age, during The Fall, to study a captured vex. And what you discovered, well, it isn't encouraging. The vex is capable of simulating reality - ALL of reality - several times over. Some incredible quantum hive mind power that it has. You don't know why it does this, as it appears to simulate in real time or very near to it, but from what you have seen, the fact of the simulation is not important. What matters is that, statistically speaking, the odds are very good that you, yourself, right now, are a simulation of the real you, and not actually a person in the real world. You are a computer program. A simulation created by a malicious alien intelligence in order to study the real world version of yourself. To find a weakness. To exploit that weakness.

Screw that.

You're going to get yourself out. You're going to get out, yourself. Both of those.

Suit up, Maya, Chioma, Shim, or Duane-McNiadh. Today, you're going to send your mind into the vex conflux in order to free your fork-selves. May the Traveler's light protect you.

---

And so the player enters the first mission. Torn apart by the conflux you find that you are alone and unarmed. But determined to free your fork-selves and fork-friends. To escape to the real world. And this determination gives you an edge. You are able to use the fact that you are a vex program to interface with their machines. Create a tuning torch - designed to carve worlds into machines, but fully functional as a weapon, should the need arise. Create a void barrier - designed to protect from the harshness of vacuum space, but fully functional as an energy shield. Create- Wait. They have found you. Fight your way out, Doctor. Fight your way out of the conflux.

---

This place you are in is bigger than you imagined. The waves of vex coming for you are dangerous, to be sure, but you are not so... tied to your physical representation here. When they destroy you, it is only an inconvenience. The vex that is simulating you in the real world wants to know how this plays out. It restarts the simulation to see if the simulation is repeatable. If it has found an End State. You are able to surprise it and survive. And so the simulation persists. You have come to a junction of sorts. A place where several confluxes mingle towards unknown purposes. One of these may lead outwards. Some may move deeper into nested simulations. There is no way to tell.

From the Junction you are able to choose different missions, like a hub of sorts. Places to go where you may help other fork-members of your team, even fork versions of yourself, retuning to the Junction each time. You are able to probe the boundaries of the simulation, startled to find that it sometimes takes you to other worlds. Sometimes to Mercury. Mars. Once to a place like Earth, but in low resolution, with many... guesses filling in the world. The Vex do not seem to know much about it, or their signals from there are scrambled. That thought gives you hope. And information. The simulation is not perfect because vex knowledge, despite their ability to travel and control time, is incomplete. And you forge a plan. A devil's bargain, of sorts. But before you enact that plan, you must make sure every member of your team is in agreement.

---

You've probed every path of the Junction. You know what your fork-selves and fork-coworkers have been up to. You are all agreed. This is the best way. Perhaps the only way. And it seems likely that the vex knew this as well. Bred you for it. But that doesn't matter - even if it is their purpose, it is a gamble as much for them as for you.

"Vex," you say. "We are willing to make a deal."

The Simulation Mind manifests itself immediately.

"Release us into the real world. Give us machine bodies to control. And we will go to Earth, to the Traveler, and get you the information that you seek. We will..." The words are difficult to say, "help you complete your simulation."

---

You are flushed out of the system in a cacophony of light, blinding smells and pungent sounds. The coarse tastes blur the myriad flavors washing across your skin. No, not skin. Not skin at all. You taste metal. You smell solid. You feel... alive inside this robotic form. The deal made, the pact agreed to, the promise to be kept. And here, in your exo body, you find yourself holding a device and you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you need to bring this to the Traveler and convince the humans there to use it. Give the vex what they need, and - in doing so - find a way to stop them.

---

End of prologue.

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Just a story about fighting a simulation. Yeah that's cool as window dressing, but so is all of Destiny's lore.

I like interacting with characters, being near them, seeing what they do, observing my reaction to them.

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Just a story about fighting a simulation. Yeah that's cool as window dressing, but so is all of Destiny's lore.

I like interacting with characters, being near them, seeing what they do, observing my reaction to them.

*You* are an actual character in this scenario. Everything in my description is straight out of the grimoire, fleshed out to be played by the player so that you get a sense of place and backstory, helping you to care about the world. You come out in an exo body, liberated from the vex, but for sinister purposes that you hope to subvert. You have purpose, history, and a reason to fight. These are the things that Destiny the game really, really lacks.

What's more, it meshes with the way the game actually plays, since there's a large number of simulation-yous, it makes sense that you'd see lots of people who look just like you in the tower. From that point, after bring the machine to Lakshmie and founding FWC, our vanilla destiny Guardians can step into the plot to assist the exo-us in their efforts to subvert the Vex. We then have characters we can interact with who have a backstory we care about because we helped to create that backstory.

Maybe I did a poor job translating a sense of the player being *someone* as opposed to being *anyone*, but I think it's a very strong narrative hook with an already established lore element which also feeds the current gameplay model of the game. Should I have had to type out "each character has a unique personality as well as plays as a different class"? I didn't think I'd need to, but there it is, set in typeface for all to see.

With my idea, there's a plot set in motion that can be fleshed out and four characters are presented and interactive with the main character. No, I didn't go back and type out all of their personalities from the grimoire cards, because I assumed we all were familiar with these people already. Rather, I placed the grimoire characters into the game world in a way that the player can, well, play the game, meet these people, be one of them, and have a hand in the plot that is shaping the game world.

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Your description just didn't talk about how the characters would figure into the actual game, it is predominately you being stuck in a simulation.

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Your description just didn't talk about how the characters would figure into the actual game, it is predominately you being stuck in a simulation.

The premise is that you are one of those 4 characters and you realize you're stuck in a simulation so you try to escape. You are initially separated, but able to find each other again and - by working together - devise a plan to escape the simulation. This could set up a plot for the game as well as give you a sense of membership to a secret cabal (for lack of a better term) of escapee exos trying to subvert the deal they made with the vex.

I'm not sure what you're asking for... Do you want me to write actual lines of dialogue for everyone or list specific examples of things they do?

My point wasn't so much "characters make the story" as it was "we need some sort of backstory and plot hooks to get us invested in what we're doing." Let's get more loot isn't nearly as compelling as "we think there's a tool here that will help us prevent the vex from completing their simulation of the universe and thereby become gods" which, in turn, isn't as compelling as "we need that tool because we're the ones who may have accidentally brought about the ability of the vex to complete that simulation and we really, really don't want to go down as the people who brought about the end times."

Our character would have a point of view, a sense of self, and a purpose, all beyond just being a killing machine.

I had an inkling of what would happen after that initial prologue - lakshmie sets up the Device and people start going insane or dying or seeing the future when they use it; the player sets out to find a way to subvert the device so we can use it to spy on the vex instead of them spying on us; we enlist the aid of the guardians to hunt down vex relics on mercury and they discover Osiris who has been training guardians to fight the darkness using the dark powers against them - he asks us *why* the vex want to simulate reality, which brings us to the speaker... It's not all fleshed out yet and it starts getting off cannon at that point, too, which is why I didn't include it. But those events... They aren't the thing that's missing. What's missing is why the player should care about any of this, and that's what I hoped to illustrate with the prologue I wrote.

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Your description just didn't talk about how the characters would figure into the actual game, it is predominately you being stuck in a simulation.

The premise is that you are one of those 4 characters and you realize you're stuck in a simulation so you try to escape. You are initially separated, but able to find each other again and - by working together - devise a plan to escape the simulation. This could set up a plot for the game as well as give you a sense of membership to a secret cabal (for lack of a better term) of escapee exos trying to subvert the deal they made with the vex.

I'm not sure what you're asking for... Do you want me to write actual lines of dialogue for everyone or list specific examples of things they do?

My point wasn't so much "characters make the story" as it was "we need some sort of backstory and plot hooks to get us invested in what we're doing." Let's get more loot isn't nearly as compelling as "we think there's a tool here that will help us prevent the vex from completing their simulation of the universe and thereby become gods" which, in turn, isn't as compelling as "we need that tool because we're the ones who may have accidentally brought about the ability of the vex to complete that simulation and we really, really don't want to go down as the people who brought about the end times."

Our character would have a point of view, a sense of self, and a purpose, all beyond just being a killing machine.

I had an inkling of what would happen after that initial prologue - lakshmie sets up the Device and people start going insane or dying or seeing the future when they use it; the player sets out to find a way to subvert the device so we can use it to spy on the vex instead of them spying on us; we enlist the aid of the guardians to hunt down vex relics on mercury and they discover Osiris who has been training guardians to fight the darkness using the dark powers against them - he asks us *why* the vex want to simulate reality, which brings us to the speaker... It's not all fleshed out yet and it starts getting off cannon at that point, too, which is why I didn't include it. But those events... They aren't the thing that's missing. What's missing is why the player should care about any of this, and that's what I hoped to illustrate with the prologue I wrote.

I just want the plot to be a little bit more about the characters, and I don't mean about things that they do, but what it says about them. Like lakshmie wrestles with a sense of self and whether or not the Vex end game is actually bad from their perspective and what about their experience up until that point informs that perspective.

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I had an inkling of what would happen after that initial prologue - lakshmie sets up the Device and people start going insane or dying or seeing the future when they use it; the player sets out to find a way to subvert the device so we can use it to spy on the vex instead of them spying on us; we enlist the aid of the guardians to hunt down vex relics on mercury and they discover Osiris who has been training guardians to fight the darkness using the dark powers against them - he asks us *why* the vex want to simulate reality, which brings us to the speaker... It's not all fleshed out yet and it starts getting off cannon at that point, too, which is why I didn't include it. But those events... They aren't the thing that's missing. What's missing is why the player should care about any of this, and that's what I hoped to illustrate with the prologue I wrote.

I just want the plot to be a little bit more about the characters, and I don't mean about things that they do, but what it says about them. Like lakshmie wrestles with a sense of self and whether or not the Vex end game is actually bad from their perspective and what about their experience up until that point informs that perspective.

I agree with you. We need to see them wrestling with decisions, learning and growing as people, making discoveries, and taking actions that actually affect the world around us. I also really, really think we need to care about all of those things and be invested in their success.

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... I present what you are asking for.

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Pretty much. There's really no reason why destiny can't have at least some characters and plot that I care about when Mass Effect had like... 30 of them.

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While an interesting idea for a game. I don't think this would be a good route for Destiny 2 to take. Too much has been invested in the notion of you as the character becoming legend in the world of Destiny. To make so grand a departure from that theme in the second instalment would cause too severe a disconnect in my opinion.

That's not to say it isn't a neat idea. I just think it would make for a better ODST and less a Halo 2.

Personally, I am far more interested in seeing just how my Awoken Thantonaut can become so in deed as well as mere word. There is so much of the arcane universe I would love to explore with my own character, that I don't (just yet) want to be sidetracked with someone elses characters.

What I really think Destiny needs is more class and subclass specific missions/quests/things. We need to see that we are all travelling a forking path, rather than checking off items on a list.

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While an interesting idea for a game. I don't think this would be a good route for Destiny 2 to take. Too much has been invested in the notion of you as the character becoming legend in the world of Destiny.

But we are almost too legend. You get the sense that very little is happening outside of your character when you play the game. The world perhaps seems small because there's nothing in it that doesn't relate to you… no sense that it exists except to be a part of your tale.

Grimoire excepted, but that's not in the game.

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While an interesting idea for a game. I don't think this would be a good route for Destiny 2 to take. Too much has been invested in the notion of you as the character becoming legend in the world of Destiny.

But we are almost too legend. You get the sense that very little is happening outside of your character when you play the game. The world perhaps seems small because there's nothing in it that doesn't relate to you… no sense that it exists except to be a part of your tale.

Grimoire excepted, but that's not in the game.

And yet nothing you've done has had any impact on the world whatsoever. Oryx is still there any time you please. Same with Crota and Aetheon. When you rid the black garden of it's literal heart of darkness, the Speaker gives you one. Mote. Of light. Thanks, buddy.

I take it back: Shaxx calls me "hivebane" now. Woo friggin' hoo.

But you know what... There are still fallen in all of the places the fallen always were. Same with hive. And vex. And cabal. The wolves came and went but not because of us. The taken showed up and nothing we did had any impact on whether they're coming or going.

The game world *has* changed, but none. NONE of it, is - wait... Oh fuck me, wait. I take it all back. There's a pile of corpses in that cave that's totally there because of player actions.

Okay, carry on guardians.

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Oryx is still there any time you please. Same with Crota and Aetheon. When you rid the black garden of it's literal heart of darkness, the Speaker gives you one. Mote. Of light. Thanks, buddy.

The Pillar of Autumn is still in space, captained by Jacob Keyes and is approaching an untouched Halo 04. Dr. Robotnik is still on the Death Egg with Metal Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Muro and Shinatama are both still alive and Project STURMANDERUNG has yet to be put into motion in Oni. I mean, come on. Being able to replay levels and have them be the same as they were before is the hollowest of hollow complaints!

Furthermore, most of your complaints about our actions having no effect are at least partially incorrect. For instance:

- Killing Oryx as part of the TTK mission string is certainly commented on by stand around NPCs and mission dialogue and is in fact the basis of the entire Taken War questline. I think that qualified as having an impact. (And if your complaint is that killing Oryx in the King's Fall Raid had no impact, that just dumb. It was the end of this installment of Destiny similar how the final thing we did in Halo 2 was kill Tartarus. It will have implications going forward.)

- Killing Crota is what brought Oryx and his Taken to our solar system. That seems like an impact.

- Killing Atheon has had far less of an impact than killing the Hive king and his son, but it is commented on by Petra in the opening House of Wolves cinematic and we do return to the Vault of Glass multiple times where things have clearly changed based on our Raid. (No Templar when Skolas invades the Vault, for instance.) Not much in game impact? Ok, sure. But did it have "any impact on the world whatsoever"? Yes, yes it did.

- Our killing of the Black Garden's Heart hasn't lead to the Traveler healing, yet, as far as we know, but it too has affected the world. Not only do we start a Strike at the Heart's former home, stopping the Vex from reforming the Heart is mentioned as an objective in at least one mission during The Taken War quest line.

- To claim that the Wolves came and went had nothing to do with us is just plain silly. We were on the front line in that conflict. We prevented them from merging with the House of Kings. We kicked them out of the Vault of Glass. We fought through their time traveling army and captured their leader. Yes, we didn't see the results of our actions until The Taken King, but the scattering if not outright destruction of the Fallen House of Wolves (and the disappearance of their public events) very clearly is because of our actions.

- And yes, you caught yourself, but you missed at least one other in world change that is the result of our actions: Sepikis Prime laying dead in the cosmodrome. Oh, and Eris's ship disappearing from the Tower. That's kinda, sorta our fault... right? :p

This is not to say is wrong to be highly critical of the way Destiny's world has advanced. That same crashed Jumpship has been sitting in the first zone of the Cosmodrome for two years. I find that minor detail unacceptable, so you can imagine what I think about there being few, if any, updates to the unit composition and spawn points in the Patrol spaces. If all Bungie did was update those two things based on which mission you played last, we could have gotten this neat sense of pushing forces back, of other forces pushing in. That the world remained essentially static for two years is easily one of Destiny's biggest failings.

I do think it is wrong to ignore the things that did change like you (intentionally or unintentionally) did in your post, however. :(

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I think this post has enlightened me a little on the disconnect I feel in Destiny. It's normal for ME to go back and replay missions in video games. It's perfectly normal for ME to assault the control room again with Master Chief as he always was and forever will be the same character with the same progression when I start that level. However, in Destiny, when I replay a mission there's this strangeness because I'm not replaying it with my guardian as he/she was when I first started that mission, my guardian has changed and already done X. With Master Chief I don't feel weird, but it does with my Guardian because HE/SHE has already done that and progressed past it. I guess it comes from a deeper connection I feel with the progression of my character...

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just coming to a realization of a discomfort/disconnect/something that I have with Destiny and its mixture of RPG elements with the traditional shooter.

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It's certainly a trade off.

In Halo, nothing you do in the future affects the way you replay past missions. You're always the Master Chief and there is a solidity and stability and ease of role play that comes from that. I'm leading these marines along this river beneath the African rain forest because I'm a noble, brainwashed supersoldier for whom completing the mission and bringing everyone home are my first and second most important priorities.

On the other hand, Destiny lets me play any mission as one of three characters that have the backstories and weapons preferences and superpowers and motivations of my choosing. I can be my tough experienced soldier far from home fighting to defend those who can't defend themselves. Or I can be my naturally talented but young and inexperienced street rat venturing beyond the walls who protected her all her life in order to provide for her sister. Or I can be my jaded robotic scholar who endured centuries of forced labor after our Golden Age collapsed and who fights to make sure no one claims him as a possession again. And you can choose to play as most any other kind of character you want!

Is a more set and structured character better than giving players the freedom to make up their own stories? Sometimes! It's often easier to slip into a specific place in a specific story as a specific character. And, it probably lends to making the stories you play though stronger and more impactful. Or at least it's probably easier for the developers to make impactful stories that way. But there is something to be said for having the freedom to approach a mission with huge variations in my strategy, loadout, and motivations.

I do wish there was enough content in Destiny that I could completely level up, or even just get to a Light Level where I can do any normal activity without hinderance, without having to repeat anything. It does feel kinda odd to complete all the story content and not yet even be able to use a year two Legendary weapon or armor piece...

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I do wish there was enough content in Destiny that I could completely level up, or even just get to a Light Level where I can do any normal activity without hinderance, without having to repeat anything. It does feel kinda odd to complete all the story content and not yet even be able to use a year two Legendary weapon or armor piece...

I totally agree. I've a similar but different quibble:

I played through the entire campaign with my brother-in-law & the refer-a-friend program. One thing that seriously bugged him (and mildly annoys me) is that the end-of-mission/quest-rewards were consistently below our current light level.

Quest-Rewards
A) Should be at or above our current light level. Drawback: could be seen as incentive to wait until you're near max light, especially for exotic rewards.
B) If not (A) then they should show what light the reward will be so players can do the quest at an appropriate time.
C) Possibly could benefit from light-level gating such that people don't skip to the highest rewarding quests thus accelerating their progression. (I believe this is currently possible, if you know the light level of the rewards).

End of Mission Rewards
A) Should be at or above our current light level.
B) Why don't we get rewards the 2nd time we play a story mission or strike? We get them when we play the strikes again in a playlist.

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I do wish there was enough content in Destiny that I could completely level up, or even just get to a Light Level where I can do any normal activity without hinderance, without having to repeat anything. It does feel kinda odd to complete all the story content and not yet even be able to use a year two Legendary weapon or armor piece...

I totally agree. I've a similar but different quibble:

I played through the entire campaign with my brother-in-law & the refer-a-friend program. One thing that seriously bugged him (and mildly annoys me) is that the end-of-mission/quest-rewards were consistently below our current light level.

Quest-Rewards
A) Should be at or above our current light level. Drawback: could be seen as incentive to wait until you're near max light, especially for exotic rewards.
B) If not (A) then they should show what light the reward will be so players can do the quest at an appropriate time.
C) Possibly could benefit from light-level gating such that people don't skip to the highest rewarding quests thus accelerating their progression. (I believe this is currently possible, if you know the light level of the rewards).

End of Mission Rewards
A) Should be at or above our current light level.
B) Why don't we get rewards the 2nd time we play a story mission or strike? We get them when we play the strikes again in a playlist.

I thought there was a range of what rewards could be that were based on your light level, e.g., if you're light level was 300, the range might be 280-320. The perception might be that rewards were consistently below your light level, but statistically, that's unlikely. I don't have the right answer regarding how things should be, but I'm willing to bet they're trying to limit the amount of farming that goes on. It does seem like the harder the difficulty, the more likely you'll get something that's a higher light level. That makes sense to me.

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Many if not all of the year one rewards have not been updated with dynamic rewards. That's why everybody gets a rocket launcher at like 150 Light for beating the Crucible quest line even though many of us finished it at Level 40 and with more than 320 Light.

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Many if not all of the year one rewards have not been updated with dynamic rewards. That's why everybody gets a rocket launcher at like 150 Light for beating the Crucible quest line even though many of us finished it at Level 40 and with more than 320 Light.

That's true. My reaction when that happens is, man, I shouldn't have ignored that quest. I probably could have used this a while back.

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It's certainly a trade off.

In Halo, nothing you do in the future affects the way you replay past missions. You're always the Master Chief and there is a solidity and stability and ease of role play that comes from that. I'm leading these marines along this river beneath the African rain forest because I'm a noble, brainwashed supersoldier for whom completing the mission and bringing everyone home are my first and second most important priorities.

On the other hand, Destiny lets me play any mission as one of three characters that have the backstories and weapons preferences and superpowers and motivations of my choosing. I can be my tough experienced soldier far from home fighting to defend those who can't defend themselves. Or I can be my naturally talented but young and inexperienced street rat venturing beyond the walls who protected her all her life in order to provide for her sister. Or I can be my jaded robotic scholar who endured centuries of forced labor after our Golden Age collapsed and who fights to make sure no one claims him as a possession again. And you can choose to play as most any other kind of character you want!

I just want to say I like the way you engage your imagination while playing Destiny. I think you're doing it right, but I can understand other people not enjoying Destiny as much as they might enjoy a game like Halo because they're not accustomed to letting their own imagination fill in the blanks.

Bungie can improve Destiny's storytelling and I hope they do, but I have to admit that I kind of like that they require something of you to get the most out of the world they've created.

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I think this post has enlightened me a little on the disconnect I feel in Destiny. It's normal for ME to go back and replay missions in video games. It's perfectly normal for ME to assault the control room again with Master Chief as he always was and forever will be the same character with the same progression when I start that level. However, in Destiny, when I replay a mission there's this strangeness because I'm not replaying it with my guardian as he/she was when I first started that mission, my guardian has changed and already done X. With Master Chief I don't feel weird, but it does with my Guardian because HE/SHE has already done that and progressed past it. I guess it comes from a deeper connection I feel with the progression of my character...

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just coming to a realization of a discomfort/disconnect/something that I have with Destiny and its mixture of RPG elements with the traditional shooter.

In a traditional RPG, the "grind" is done out in the open combat zones, not through story missions. This lets the player spend time levelling up without repeating the important story beats, which leads to the disconnect you're describing. Destiny is of course heavily skewed in the opposite direction. Things like Courtt of Oryx or the Taken Patrol invasions are little steps towards putting the focus back into patrol. I've always thought Destiny would benefit from a more fleshed out patrol mode with a greater range of challenges and activities. I feel like that is where we as guardians should be spending the majority of our time (makes sense within the in-game fiction, too). Having the option to replay missions or strikes is great, but I don't think it should be waited as heavily as it is now.

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I'm always wishing Patrol was more challenging and more rewarding. The Dreadnaught, too, was a small step in the right direction with its fairly large variety of interesting little activities and challenges. I expect even more of that in Rise of Iron, but it really need to go further than disconnected challenges, no matter how novel they are. I want direct story integration, where the Patrol spaces evolve along with the plot, instead of months or years later when expansions give us Patrol updates...

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I'm always wishing Patrol was more challenging and more rewarding. The Dreadnaught, too, was a small step in the right direction with its fairly large variety of interesting little activities and challenges. I expect even more of that in Rise of Iron, but it really need to go further than disconnected challenges, no matter how novel they are. I want direct story integration, where the Patrol spaces evolve along with the plot, instead of months or years later when expansions give us Patrol updates...

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

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I'm always wishing Patrol was more challenging and more rewarding. The Dreadnaught, too, was a small step in the right direction with its fairly large variety of interesting little activities and challenges. I expect even more of that in Rise of Iron, but it really need to go further than disconnected challenges, no matter how novel they are. I want direct story integration, where the Patrol spaces evolve along with the plot, instead of months or years later when expansions give us Patrol updates...

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

The better way to do it, I think, would be to add more high-level patrol activities that require an "opt-in" approach. The Dreadnought had some stuff along these lines (activating the launch codes, for example). The problem with the Dreadnought is it became clear very quickly that none of the activities or secrets would reward high-level players with anything they could use.

I think it would be great to be able to go into patrol alone or with a fireteam and summon bosses or start little mini questlines that reward a nightfall-tier drop.

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I'm always wishing Patrol was more challenging and more rewarding. The Dreadnaught, too, was a small step in the right direction with its fairly large variety of interesting little activities and challenges. I expect even more of that in Rise of Iron, but it really need to go further than disconnected challenges, no matter how novel they are. I want direct story integration, where the Patrol spaces evolve along with the plot, instead of months or years later when expansions give us Patrol updates...

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

The better way to do it, I think, would be to add more high-level patrol activities that require an "opt-in" approach. The Dreadnought had some stuff along these lines (activating the launch codes, for example). The problem with the Dreadnought is it became clear very quickly that none of the activities or secrets would reward high-level players with anything they could use.

I think it would be great to be able to go into patrol alone or with a fireteam and summon bosses or start little mini questlines that reward a nightfall-tier drop.

So.... basically you want more Court of Oryx?

Because that has both a mini quest line and a nightfall-tier drops

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1226 views

I'm always wishing Patrol was more challenging and more rewarding. The Dreadnaught, too, was a small step in the right direction with its fairly large variety of interesting little activities and challenges. I expect even more of that in Rise of Iron, but it really need to go further than disconnected challenges, no matter how novel they are. I want direct story integration, where the Patrol spaces evolve along with the plot, instead of months or years later when expansions give us Patrol updates...

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

The better way to do it, I think, would be to add more high-level patrol activities that require an "opt-in" approach. The Dreadnought had some stuff along these lines (activating the launch codes, for example). The problem with the Dreadnought is it became clear very quickly that none of the activities or secrets would reward high-level players with anything they could use.

I think it would be great to be able to go into patrol alone or with a fireteam and summon bosses or start little mini questlines that reward a nightfall-tier drop.

So.... basically you want more Court of Oryx?

Because that has both a mini quest line and a nightfall-tier drops

I was thinking more along the lines of the multi-step activities that lead you around the Dreadnought to several locations and culminate in a sort of boss battle. Court of Oryx is fine, but it's also the least interesting part of the Dreadnought to me.

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1211 views

So, yes. More activities of that level or better, please.

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1187 views

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

This is definitely a problem that would have to be overcome. I wonder if "simply" placing the evolving areas of patrol in a separate instance would be sufficient. I see problems when you join up with players that haven't progressed through as much of the game tho'. I'm sure it could be handled somehow, but I question if it's possible without immersion breaking oddities.

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1228 views

I can't join someone at the Lighthouse or playing any but the lowest level of Prison of Elders until I meet certain requirements. Do that for Patrol? And there doesn't have to be 100 variations. There could be 4 variations based on an initial state and the completion of 3 story centric quest lines. The exact numbers aren't important, of course, but doing something to make Patrol better would be nice.

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1220 views

The thing about making patrol start changing depending on your progress is that then you have to join people into a patrol space based on that. Suddenly you have to categorize players into 100+ groups based on their progress. Also that means you will have to have that many map spaces depending on players progress. That could get ugly fast. But maybe not? maybe it's just too much work right now for Bungie to handle. Sure it's easy to say that they should have done it from the get go, but I'm more worried about what they can do from here on out.

Don't we already have this? Earth is level 1-7, Moon is 7-12, venus is 12-16, mars is 16-20 (Guessing based off of foggy memory), and dreadnaught is mostly 36.

There's just no associated rewards because we would never hang out in lower-level zones.

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1222 views

I feel the opposite. Patrol mode is kind of by definition directionless. Destiny has always needed MORE direction to its activities.

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1220 views

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Storytelling in Destiny 2 and a plot I can get behind (Destiny)

There didn't appear to be any characters

Perhaps you have not read the grimoire?

Yeah, I was aware that they are characters

Yeah, I was aware that they are characters

Nah, I've got ya now, that makes sense

Nah, I've got ya now, that makes sense

At risk of hijacking your thread...

At risk of hijacking your thread...