THE MINI POST::The Harmony of Fun (Fan Creations)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Monday, October 23, 2017, 09:00 (2374 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

(A.k.A – Prepare to get really sick of me saying "Synergy".)

It’s a week or so before the Destiny 2 launch, and by whatever event of happenstance, data about some of the exotics and perks leak out, and I simply can't help but to take a peak at what impending powerhouse perks we have in store. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement. “Well it’s not all of them”, I quipped. Yet even when I got my hands on almost all the exotics for my Warlock in the first week (...Yea, I know!...), all in all I found my self really underwhelmed. Even now, like say with my Titan, I’ll occasionally find myself making this mistake. A mistake of, Eh – Actium War Rig seems pretty lame. “Steadily reloads a portion of your equipped Auto Rifle’s magazine from reserves? That’s it? Meh”. A mistake of… where I only considered the face value of a perk and miss these subtle synergies for which I shall speak of below.

For starters, here are some examples from the Warlock Class of exotics and their main gold perk In Destiny 2.

• Eye of Another World | Cerebral Uplink
  Highlights priority targets and improves the regeneration speed of your grenade, melee, and rift abilities.
  
• Winter’s Guile | Warlord’s Sigil
  Eliminating enemies with melee attacks increases your melee damage
  
• Lunafaction Boots | Alchemical Etchings
  Your Rifts gain the additional ability to automatically reload allies’ weapons.

Now lets compare that with some Destiny 1 Exotic perks for the Warlock.

• Light Beyond Nemesis | Keeper of the Pack
  Revive fallen teammates and be revived faster. Supers generate an extra Orb.
  
• The Impossible Machines | Lightning Rod
  Unlocks the Stormcaller subclass node Landfall for free.
  On casting Stormtrance, fire a bolt of lightning into the ground, creating a devastating shockwave under you.
  
• Transversive Steps | Strange Angles
  Gain faster movement speed while crouching. Picking up ammo automatically reloads the weapon matching that ammo's type.

Each one of these is a Helm, Gloves, and Boots respectively. Can you see the difference? It should be noted that while this is obviously a small selected sample from a much larger whole, I feel that what I have selected here presents a truth in whole. You see, while the Destiny 1 perks are vast and extremely varied, and even abit more direct, in Destiny 2, perks are far far more subtle. In fact, the most direct of the Destiny 2 examples here, the Winter’s Guile perk of increasing damage of melee, at first glance was for me not all that exciting. I’ll take an extra perk from my subclass tree any day, over a simple melee damage increase – or so I thought. Sheesh. Can you believe that I actually sharded Winter’s Guile when I first got them! *Sigh* Forgive me! I was young and naive! So what this perk fails to mention in detail, is that with in a 4 second count down per melee hit, At X5, these gloves make the Warlock melee do about 2000 damage. That’s a 2000 hp warlock melee. Yea! Once I found this out, I went – OH!? I’ll give them another shot. At that time I was holding firm to Stormcaller, and the gloves were... ok, in very particular situations. But I kept having an issue with running into fire, dieing and losing my stack. 4 Seconds or you lose it all is a very tight timing, and at first I was saying to my self – “the timer needs to be longer on this perk”. I am barely surviving long enough to really get into a groove and keep the stack, as the perk in practice can become an odd sort of hot potato where you fight to keep the stack alive and not die in the process. Keep all that in mind. We’ll be coming back to that.

While on the topic of exotics, I also found that some exotic weapons also had perks where I went; What is this? Why is this considered an exotic? Who would waste their slot with this weapon?

One of the weapons that had me perplexed at first, was “Sterm”. It has a perk where kills would fill Energy Weapon mags. Again, I’m coming from Destiny 1, so in my mind I’m expecting “Rounds pierce targets and cause lingering damage over time”, not ammo reloads, though in retrospect Destiny did have those sorts of exotics as well. In the end it certainly wasn’t anything that excited me. I wasn’t looking forward to this weapon, but I was still intrigued. After all, I can’t talk about the Exotic “Sterm”, without mentioning its Legendary partner, the sidearm called “Drang”. I mentioned in my Not-A-Review that I was not a big fan of sidearms. I still overall am not. Yet the connection, the “Bond”, between these two weapons I found interesting enough to try. To the quick; words alone can not do justice to the fun I had with these two weapons synergy, much like perhaps, the love between Singrun & Victor. Once I got into a battle zen, get into a groove, I simply find my self having a blast with both the Punch of “Sterm” and the frantic tat-tat-tat of “Drang”.

In my Destiny 2 Beta Not a Review, I also was not kind to the new “load-outs method” for our abilities, and in a way I still think what they have done is far TOO restricting. It is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY frustrating that I can’t change my supers style that would be better in a scenario, because I like the other perks in a load out. Since I use those perks more then the super, it just makes more sense to just deal with it and hope for the best. So now my super is kind of a side note in my calculations in what I should use. Perhaps that is what Bungie wants? Perhaps that is a good thing? I don’t know. I can understand why that would be, but it’s nostalgically sad too. Again, to me it still feels like they went too far, but I can’t help but feel that this was the cost that needed to be made.

In Destiny 1, everything was the Super, or at least it seemed strongly weighted that way. In Destiny 2, as far as I can tell only a few months in, everything is about synergy. The power fantasy aspect in the game play of Destiny 1, has been replaced with a far more measured calculation of fun. Raw Power is limiting, as you could only go up.

A Power-Creep of more and more and more, if you will, was the only way to go. I presume that is something Bungie wishes to avoid in Destiny 2. Yet... I, again, kind of lament this loss too. After all, it was fun. Is this the cost of balance? Of true synergy?

So now that everything is set up, lets get to the punchline. You see, between the “loadouts” and the exotics is where the true subtle ingenious game play comes in. This is where the options truly live, not just in one exotic, or ability, but in the combining of said exotic houses and it’s unfortunately not immediately obvious. This is where I hope the future of Destiny is going to go. Period. If it does not, then Bungie will have once again squandered what they have right in front of them. Unless, they somehow have something better in store for us.

In Destiny 2, we are now far better chefs of our game play, as now there are more ways in place to alter it. We have our meat(y guns), potatoes (so armor… some how?), and seasoning emotes, and now we get to combine it all!

I really should have more examples here. :/

• Actium War Rig seems pretty lame? Add Sweet Business (the Gatling Gun exotic weapon). Boom. Amazing.
  
  
• Going against an extreme amount of adds of all ranks as a Warlock? Devouring Voidwalker + Winter’s Guile and you will rarely need to fire a shot. You will feast, and it will be glorious.
  
  
• I don’t currently have any examples for the Hunter right now. Because Arc Strider. And Raiden Flux. I FUCKING LOVE THIS SUPER! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! … but I digress.

Did I mention how much I love Arc Strider? I did. You sure? ...

Seriously though. I haven’t played around with many of the new Hunter Exotics, short of ones that were also in Destiny 1. When I got “The Dragon’s Shadow”, guess what I did? Sharded it. “This Exotic Sucks!” I said.  Well, now I’m putting it to it’s paces. In Destiny 2, the only way to really figure out if something sucks is to TRY IT! In every which way you can.”

Don’t get me wrong, some of the exotics are still pretty lame as is, as far as I can tell. I mean... I know NOW how very wrong I may be. I’ve seen myself do it. So maybe... I just have not found the combination or scenario to make whatever exotic truly shine yet? Meh. Or it just sucks. Just can’t let go of that option.

In whole, this “Synergy” is why we will come back to keep on playing. GAMEPLAY! Oh… and that is not discount the other reasons to play, like the urge to solve the mysteries of Destiny and peel back the layers of this world. What we have before us is a mini game (weapon synergy), in a game (+ ability/armor synergy), in a game (Destiny #). THAT, in my preview, is the future of Destiny 2 gameplay. Not Shaders. Not Emblems. . . .

Q: You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.

Q: ...For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. *That* is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

THAT. IS. DESTINY. GAMEPLAY. (...and perhaps Destiny in whole as well.)

Yet because of how amazingly subtle this sort of thing is, the many hardcore of us have missed out. Without the cruel and hateful RNG aspect of the Destiny 1 gun system, the community doesn’t know where to put their efforts into in the mean time. It sure as shit ain’t going to be for just Shaders and Emblems. Idiotic!

Now I can already hear some of ya.

So… that’s it? The Future of Destiny gameplay is builds? Uh – Newsflash! WE HAD THIS IN DESTINY 1 TOO!

TO which, yes. In a way, this is true. Yet the GOAL of those Builds HAD to be – POWER. Why? Because if you didn’t you wouldn't be effective in the game for any end game play. There were growth problems. It made larger portions of the games kit moot, which in some ways I think will always be an issue due to the nature of the beast. I see the ability for a larger complexity that can be created in Destiny 2, and this is because it is no longer just about power. It’s about game-play synergy. Gameplay must be king, and nothing else. Power is an ELEMENT of the gameplay. I hope you get the jest of my observation here. You can make something you find fun, AND BE EFFECTIVE. Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but YOUR GOAL should be FUN. I think that is why we waste away our time in front of whatever screen we choose. Video games are fun. If you are not having fun. Why are you “playing”? (Does it even count as play?)