If you bring negativity to it you get it out of it. (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Friday, January 05, 2018, 18:40 (2595 days ago) @ Harmanimus

I understand the backlash that overlapping content brings. Everyone remembers all the hubbub with Reach having MP maps "pulled from Campaign" even those they pretty much all felt like MP maps. The core designs of the two Strikes are very obviously Strikes. Given their structure related to standard story missions and their length and pacing to the same.

Destiny 1 did this, too, they just didn't call them strikes. The Eye of the Gate Lord mission is basically a Strike. So was the Scourge of Winter mission (the one with Draksis at the end). Granted, maybe both are a little on the short side for a Strike, but not drastically so.

The MP maps thing was dumb. I don't know what people expected, because they delivered exactly what they said, which was maps that were designed first and foremost as MP maps, then placed in the campaign where they made since. And I still loved it, because it gave context to a lot of the multiplayer maps.

Say whatever you will about advertising numbers of activities. I don't personally care about that. But I do consider it disingenuous to act like the Strikes weren't built as Strikes first.

And I feel it's disingenuous to advertise a set number of features, but then have those things be counted twice. For what it's worth, I think it's a neat implementation, and I don't mind it. I don't think you get to say they're two distinct activities, though, especially when they're almost literally the only new content in the game. Excluded those two missions from the story, and you're left with a few shorter runs through the Infinite Forest, and a mission that is basically just an old strike thrown into this campaign for some reason, and a mission that randomly takes place on Nessus which doesn't really have any new content either.

I enjoyed Curse of Osiris for what it is, but it's almost shamelessly stretching almost no content for as far as possible. I honestly have to wonder if all the time it took to design the new Mercury destination was worth it. Seems like those resources could have been better spent designing an actually good campaign with unique play spaces and missions on the existing Destinations. As it is, we got a bunch of missions that are repeated areas we've seen before, and what feels like a half baked Destination.

It's the story of the development of Destiny in one tiny package. It lacks focused, so instead of delivering anything really, really good, it delivers a bunch of mediocre content. Quantity over quality.

The only caveat to that is the Raid Lair, which is excellent, but it is also much shorter than any other raid, so even that feels a little half-baked compared to previous outings.