Worse than I thought! (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Friday, December 21, 2018, 09:25 (2233 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

[snip]

At this point, we know the significance of attempting to communicate with Mara, having just completed a mission that leads us to the Oracle. So when I see that one of Petra’s weekly bounties offers a reward that lets me activate the oracle, I jump straight towards completing that. And all I need to do to complete that bounty is spend some time in the Blind Well. This is also reinforced by the fact that the Blind Well is one of the only activities I’m able to complete in the DC at this time, because I’m still too underlevelled to do the other things I’ve come across. So I spend an hour or so doing some Blind Well, complete the bounty, then go to the Oracle and communicate with Mara.

I didn't like Blind Well. So little to no reason to do it. My experience doesn't match yours with regard to levelling, because while wandering into the Blind Well, the activities I saw operating there weren't below my level, but far above it. Mechanically it seemed sort of similar to Archon's Forge or Court of Oryx except easier to matchmake than either but less interesting than the Court. Meanwhile, patrols, story missions, and non-heroic public events were accessible, and those contributed towards the completion of the other bounty.

From that point onwards, I know that speaking to Mara is something that is available on a weekly basis, and it only requires a few runs through the Blind Well each week to access it. Which is why I don’t buy this argument that it’s all convoluted and hidden from the player and that the only way to figure it out is by reading reddit. It’s all laid out within the progression, and within the bounty system. Some players miss it. Fair enough. But it isn’t an impenetrable puzzle. If you’re paying attention when you pick up your bounties that first time in the DC, you’ll catch all the info you need.

It is not an impenetrable puzzle. It presumes a greater level of interest in just playing what the game puts before you without clear signposting of the result. Of the available weekly bounties, I always avoided the Blind Well one because I had no interest in playing it. I did the other weekly bounty instead because it was activities I did find fun to do -- resources, patrols, public events, etc.

None of this is overtly broadcast to the player via top-menu prompts or anything like that, but for players who are invested enough to still be playing after completing the campaign, it really takes very little time and a general understanding of how leveling in Destiny works to come across the communications with Mara.

You have made my point for me.

I was not invested post-campaign as I saw no reason to be. I was not attempting to level up for the raid, and historically there has been little or no content of interest, story-wise, between the end of the campaign and the start of the raid.

From that point, it’s easy to see how things could go in countless directions for different players. But the thing about the DC is that it is setup in a way that rewards investment, without directly requiring it.

There is nothing in Destiny 2 that does not require it, except the campaign.

If you’re interested in uncovering the mystery of what’s going on there, you will continuously find little bits and pieces of the story as you go back and do more activities there each week. And that’s really all they are: little bits and pieces. You’re not missing anything of major consequence if you miss out on these interactions. But if you are invested in the plot surrounding the DC, you can catch all of the interactions with Mara by playing for an hour or so each week (more if you are also doing the story missions, obviously). And if you miss a week here or there, it really isn’t a big deal.

I guess I'm still not getting it. So is there a story there or not? Should I be working to catch up? Is it even possible? If I start doing these activities now, will I get dialogues that other players previously saw, or are the ones available in each particular week available to everyone, meaning the past ones are just gone into the ether?

For me it's not possible for these items to be the bits and pieces that hint at what is going on in the game world AND so meaningless that it doesn't matter if I miss them? So it's worth playing Blind Well for an hour to get, but no big deal if I don't, and haven't since the campaign dropped?

I am not trying to make things out to be more complicated than they are, and I don't think there's any real obfuscation going on here. My past experience with Destiny is that there is new content to be consumed at various times, and not at others, but now it seems that new content that would have been of interest to me had I either known it was available, or had availed myself of sources outside of the game in order to access it, during a period where normally there is only mechanical repetition, and access to this content is tied deeply into the same activities that drive the progression (not the progression itself because I know they are not gated, but tied into the compulsive model that says you have to check in with the game on regular intervals and complete activities within certain time frames or lose access to that content.

If these were quests towards loot or achievements or triumphs I wouldn't be that bothered-- Destiny has worked that way from the start, and I understand it. I suppose it's sort of like the in-game Grimoire, except that you can always earn a card by doing a thing, and once having done it, you can always look at the card.

So these bits of character development for Mara are only accessible at certain times, for a limited time, and tied to a very specific activity. That just doesn't make me particularly happy-- less so because I wasn't interested in that particular activity, because that's not such a big deal-- more so because it seems like you have to go outside of the game if you want to see what I would have missed, and once I'm doing that I might as well just watch all of them that way and go back to not playing.