What happened to strikes? (Destiny)

by Harmanimus , Tuesday, December 18, 2018, 09:28 (1958 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Strikes were always in a somewhat weird place in D1 in the sphere of importance. They were always a great fall back. And in general I did focus on them as my primary PvE activity. Patrol was a good idle activity and Raids weren’t chill enough. Nightfalls were much easier to solo because the boss encounter spaces allowed for it more easily. And the Nightfal Experience Buff meant it was part of almost everyone’s reset ritual. Since D2 launched I have probably run less than 30 Nightfalls. Over time Strikes also evolved as an activity, with alternate versions of bosses and more possible encounters. Strike exclusive gear (not just NF) was also a thing.

I think some of this plays into Strikes in D2 not being as engaging. The changes to make the encounters more varied is great overall, but there aren’t enough possible encounters in a strike to be okay with running the same one 4-5 times in a night of play. As has been discussed the reward dynamic of D2 also means that you play 3-4 in a week outside of Nightfalls. The Year 2 Vanguard Gear is really disappointing, too. So from a rewards perspective, that’s about an hour of your week (30 minutes if you get stuck with speed runners) spent in Strikes and then no further motivation unless you are after a NF reward.

Add in that D1 let you grind out Faction Rep at the same time as any activity and Strikes were generally pretty reliable for Engrams (gotta rank up our Cryptarchs) you had additional motivating factors. Even in D2Y1 we had ornaments. But now we a spread of core activities for progress (I play more strikes myself when I am basically at the power cap) so you have your Flashpoint, Clan Engrams, Strikes, Daily Story Missions, Nightfall, Gambit, Crucible (both of which have a linear ranking progress which strikes do not have), multiple Raids, Dreaming City content, and now Forges. Sadly I think that puts Strikes just above Daily Story in the overall scop because of the valuations people make for how rewarded they feel doing it.

It is kinda sad. I miss Strikes as a core activity.