A pet peeve of mine (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 11:46 (2348 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

In a big fictional world there will always be more things that can happen fictionally than can be done in gameplay. You bring up Halo. In Halo’s world, massive battles involving space warships are routine. The Forerunner vs. the Flood. Humanity vs. The Covenant. Etc. Yet, we never have and almost certainly never will command a starship in Halo. Whatever Spartan we play will likely also not go to a strategy conference. We probably won’t get an in-game weight training sequence. We probably won’t stand before some UNSC board of officers while they discuss whether we should be awarded or court marshaled.

I personally think that being able to talk about or show characters doing things, sometimes really cool awesome things, even though they aren’t in the game helps build the world. To limit it to just things the player can mash a button to do puts too many limits on how cool a world can be. In a lot of ways, it’s the cutscenes or lore or books that are the best, most perfect, most real version of a game. Because they don’t have the limits of things like keeping the gameplay flowing or fitting in an infinite amount of actions into a 20-ish button controller.

By and large I appreciate cutscenes like this Warmind one or Zavala’s history of The City because they acknowledge that they is potential beyond the game. I think there must be some level of inconsistency that would annoy me, but not something so simple as these two examples which are merely and logically expanding on the way the world would work if budgets and gameplay considerations didn’t exist.

If something does annoy me in Destiny cutscenes, it’s when characters don’t act properly. For instance, when Zavala walks then runs straight up to that large Cabal and tries to take away its gun before getting smacked down onto his back. THAT, for me, was inconsistent. THAT was immersion breaking because there is no way the player would even want to play that badly. There were so many better ways to pin down a ton end Titan to achieve the story beat of him needing to be saved than have him engage in stupid melee combat vs a bunch of gun wielding enemies. (Plus, even his stealing away the gun was visually pretty clunky...)

Back to “false advertising.” I still am entirely against you labeling things that. Could maybe someone temporarily be confused about what’s possible? Sure. But there is plenty of demonstrations showing what the game actually is about. I think any accusations of false advertising has to consider intent. Did Bungie try and trick people? That’s clearly a no. And for me, that’s the end of it. It’s fine to say it could be a little confusing for a new player or something. But it is absolutely not ok to start throwing around terms like “false advertising.” It is bad terminology and it implies bad intent which I firmly believe is not there. These cutscenes are animators having fun with the world of Destiny in a consistent, realistic manner. Nobody is trying to deceive or be sneaky about any of it.

Finally, I simply cannot understand your thinking on the Zavala cutscene. That cutscene is legitimately great, all the way through. It establishes setting. It establishes motive. It has awesome combat. It touches on history and mystery in the universe. It shows parts of the lore we hadn’t seen before. If all of Destiny was as good as that cutscene we’d all have very few complaints. But instead of acknowledging that, you choose to view it as not worth the time because the rest is a “lost cause.” And genuinely upsets me.

I’d never ask you to say something bad is good. I do ask that you acknowledge when something is actually good. And on the Zavala cutscene you are failing at that.