In defense of secrecy (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, November 14, 2022, 20:13 (522 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I don't think things need to be secret to capture that feeling. Deep Stone Crypt and Vow of the Disciple both captured that feeling of entering the archives on Venus extremely well, I think. Even the story missions from last season with the revelations about Zavala's and Caitl's pasts captured that feeling through the story presentation. Every Dungeon to date has done it. As I mentioned, the Xenophage mission did that, too. It just had quest steps pointing you in the right direction instead of relying on reddit to spread the word around.

For me, it does come down to the way seasons are structured. I appreciate what they're trying to do, but it's become stale. And it breaks the "lived in" feel I want out of Destiny (and that it used to have, at least marginally). Now, every three months, we get a different flavor of the same matchmade playlist. It's a bespoke playlist I need to select from a menu. I hate it, just from a design philosophy standpoint. It's sucks for the game structure. Instead of making use of the amazing, expansive patrol destinations, we get a playlist that we basically have to do multiple times per week. It makes me miss the old public event style seasons. I realize Arrivals was sort of the breaking point of that for lots of folks, but that's the season I played the most until last season hit (which was a return of Public Event based seasonal activities).

Hell, remember Escalation Protocol? That event fucking ruled. Yeah, it had it's annoyances with the weekly loot pools, sure. But I will always prefer activities that make good use of the public spaces instead of shuffling me into a bespoke playlist for a single activity. I loved zooming around on my sparrow looking for those stupid music boxes and then stopping because a large group of people were doing an Escalation Protocol. That's the sort of lived in moments that made Destiny good and special. Hopping into a playlist with a single activity because Bungie wants to me to kill 300 champions or whatever the fuck just ain't it.

None of this is to say I would be upset about secret missions or puzzles or even just little things like this Telesto stuff existed in the future. Just that I don't actually care. I just want it to be fun.

Yes, I want fun, too. I wasn't covering that in my post, and I wasn't speaking to the over all value proposition of Destiny. I wanted only to add that I liked what finding secrets in the game. It's a spice in the spice rack that helped to make a compelling dish. For me it made Destiny feel a little less like a big chunk of code, and more like a real place with real mystery. I'm sad that data farming makes that trick harder to pull off.