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House of Wolves is largely better than Dark Below, except possibly for the end game.

The story missions are getting better all the time, but still have plenty of room to grow.

I find it amusing that the new go to end game activity is PvP related. From what I've played, Trials of Osiris is not only a blast, but easily the best and most fun way to earn good gear and etheric light. The elimination game type is tough and tense, but in a good way.

Here you actually have a cool boss mechanic, which can be defeated and bypassed not by cheese, but by 3 players with Gjallarhorns (or 4th Horsemans and Thunderlords with arc burn). When you can just shoot the boss with everything you've got and he dies in 45 seconds, you have failed. You have to deal with and figure out Atheon's mechanics. You have to deal with and figure out Crota's mechanics. But Skolas? Nope, just shoot him a lot. It's so massively disappointing that concentrating your fire in an intense burst is enough to take out the Arena's toughest boss.

Likewise, the treasure keys are a huge mess. Final bosses should drop treasure keys 100% of the time on 34 and 35. It's utterly baffling why this isn't the case. Finding keys in the wild should be a bonus. What did I get for beating Skolas the first week? Absolutely nothing because I didn't have a key. The gear is also bad. The Queen's gear is just legendary gear. I have awesome legendary gear already, and not only that, but the perks don't all have tradeoffs on them. Can you get elemental primaries from PoE? If not, it's a big waste of time since it sure isn't that fun for its own sake. That's the irony. What good is your end game, if the best part of it is PvP where elemental damage doesn't matter? The elemental primaries were good before because the rock in PvE. But do you think I'm going to want to play PoE 9 times a week? No thanks.

Huge miss for the PvP end game, huge hit for the PvP end game, and a steadily rising quality to the story missions.

The story stuff barely registered with me. I actually had to think hard about what HoW story even was. We've been marinating in the nonexistent for so long that the barely existent seems glorious. Yikes.

Gear, loot, drop, gear, loot, drop, RNG, RNG, loot, gear. This is all we talk about.

First, I hate ToO with every fiber of my being. I understand that the best of the best will enjoy this; after the top of the mountain, everyone needs to move to the next peak. However, Destiny's Crucible offering already catered to the hardcore. There is essentially nothing to do in Crucible except kill other players in the same 3 or 4 ways.

So, Bungie...doubled down? They distilled the kill/die experience into it's purest form; literally kill or die and the round is over in 20 seconds. It's slayer porn, basically. Don't have an uber-primary? Good fucking luck to you. Thorn, Mythoclast...Mythoclast, Thorn. Sniper. Holy balls, somebody please stab my eyes out.

It's a funny choice for Bungie - I was hoping that they might have invested some time into opening up Crucible in other ways, though I must admit, I have no ideas what those other ways might be. Maybe Crucible is just limited to what it is?

Regarding PoE...I appreciate the effort, but it just doesn't add anything new. The PoE designers hands are tied in some ways; Ghallerhorns and Horseman and whatever else are a given. They exist, and people pursue them with abandon. Why? Because they are simply better than anything else. Forget strategy, forget skill, forget perseverance. Just load your super weapon and pull the trigger.

I think this may be why I'm having a hard time enjoying PoE. I love killing bad guys, and I love to survive. But it's hard to feel good about my effort when I can watch people breeze through shit just because they have these few be-all-end-all weapons. Here is an opportunity missed - I would have loved a survival mode in which Guardians just survived as long as possible. But they couldn't do that because they had to have a specific end to the event. Why? So they could give loot. Because people will not play without the promise of loot? Why did I play ODST: Firefight for so long?

Weird. We're in a weird place with Destiny. Or, maybe just I am.

I guess I'd say that PoE is good in principle and in (general) execution, but is undercut (IMO) because of super weapons. In many ways, ToO is the same. I'm having a hard time trying to understand my motivation for playing. If super weapons are the key to success, and they are randomly given, what is my motivation again?

Despite the tone of the message.

A few things:

Once again, Bungie has used my ideas...

Uh huh. Who cares what you meant, it's what you say that counts. We get it, you can't help but be the center of attention. Good job.

They should blow Halo missions out of the water, but don't.

Halo has some of the best FPS levels in the history of ever so just saying that they should be topped as if its easy is a bit silly. That said, I too would like to see longer, more involved, more story heavy levels. I did like the increased narration in House of Wolves though.

Comet is do or die.

Because no previous Bungie series has had a massive leap in story quality from the first game to the second?? To me, Halo 1 has a great, solid, simple story, but Halo 2 brought the best depth and characterization and points of view that the Halo series have ever seen. How about we stop making these silly declarations that don't mean a darn thing. Destiny sold massively well. I'm not hearing of any massive player base drop off. So is it really do or die? No, probably not.

After all, you've complained about Destiny for longer than it has existed, yet you are still playing!

From what I've played, Trials of Osiris is not only a blast, but easily the best and most fun way to earn good gear and etheric light.

Not sayin' you're wrong for you here, but do keep it in perspective that for some of us ToO is the worst way to earn high level rewards and least fun part of the entire game.

Final bosses should drop treasure keys 100% of the time on 34 and 35.

Agreed. And I wouldn't mind seeing the new exotic bounty and treasure keys be a thing even on the 32. I found out last week it's not so easy to even organize three people to run a 32 so I would like to at least have a hope of getting something better than the standard legendaries out of it.

All in all, not a bad mini-review, except for you being you at the beginning. :)

Once again, Bungie has used my ideas by eliminating damage and defense upgrade nodes.

I suppose this is technically true, taken in a certain context.

This is a great decision, and everything is better now. No downsides. Slowly the tedium of upgrading gear is going away, and perhaps one day will be eliminated altogether (as well as RNG loot).

I have to agree. The upgrade system on the new gear is much less tedious. And aside from having less nodes to worry about, the perks seem to require much less planetary materials to purchase - which, combined with the huge amount of mats I now seem to get from everything, has made it very easy to always have the required stuff.

The story missions are getting better all the time, but still have plenty of room to grow. Especially with a more story heavy expansion, the missions should be even more involved, long, and complex. They should blow Halo missions out of the water, but don't. I understand why, yet given the terrible constraints Bungie has placed on themselves these missions were the best yet, at least in my opinion. Yet, there could have been even more creativity. The VoG platforms make an appearance in the final mission, but are not utilized at all except for a set piece. I was sure that leaping across them was a reminder of how they work, and following they'd play a role in the fight. Maybe cover appears and disappears. Maybe the ground vanishes occasionally and you have to rotate around the arena fighting. But no, that would have been too cool.

Again, I largely agree. The story missions in HoW were the best so far, at least to my eyes. I actually felt like I understood what I was doing and why, the whole way through. This was something I could see hinted at in TDB but didn't seem to really come together until HoW.

Why do the story missions top out at 32? Why can't I select them all at level 35 for more difficulty? Again Halo had it right: selectable difficulty. Story missions should have level 30 enemies but have 4 difficulty levels. Simple as that. Even though they were decently fun, they were also rather easy, and I selected 32. I'm not so keen on handicapping myself just to have a challenge.

Yeah, I don't really understand this either. It seems like it IS possible to have enemies in the story missions at higher levels than the normal difficulty selectors - after all, it happens on Daily Story missions. I don't get why we can't select any level right up to whatever the current maximum is.

I think it's safe to say that Peter Dinklage is either unwilling or unable to come back. Why else would a main character be essentially absent in the expansions? And why should he come back? He'd have been squandered here like he was in the base game. He can just do Game of Thrones and get paid more, make a better product, and win a few emmys.

There is a 3rd possibility - Bungie may not have asked him back. It seems like a possibility given the, shall we say, lukewarm community reception to Dinklebot.

I find it amusing that the new go to end game activity is PvP related. From what I've played, Trials of Osiris is not only a blast, but easily the best and most fun way to earn good gear and etheric light. The elimination game type is tough and tense, but in a good way. I am eager to see how the metagame changes with each map rotation, and I have a feeling your team will have to change it up a bit every week. I also feel a little bit sad when you beat a team and you see that you knock them out of their ticket, but such is the game type! The lighthouse was a wonderful surprise, and the excitement and wonder I felt going there the first time was something Destiny hasn't given me in a while. And the gear is great.

I'm mostly just annoyed that Trials seems to be a better way to earn etheric light than anything available in the PvE game. Once I have a few characters leveled up PoE will be an option, but given my CURRENT lack of etheric light, I'm finding it a very slow process to actually do so.

I don't really have much to say about the rest.

Once again, Bungie has used my ideas

It's okay, Korny, don't get mad at him, he's just stupid. It's not his fault. It's the lack of Hawkmoon speaking.

The story missions are getting better all the time, but still have plenty of room to grow. Especially with a more story heavy expansion, the missions should be even more involved, long, and complex. They should blow Halo missions out of the water, but don't. I understand why, yet given the terrible constraints Bungie has placed on themselves these missions were the best yet, at least in my opinion. Yet, there could have been even more creativity. The VoG platforms make an appearance in the final mission, but are not utilized at all except for a set piece. I was sure that leaping across them was a reminder of how they work, and following they'd play a role in the fight. Maybe cover appears and disappears. Maybe the ground vanishes occasionally and you have to rotate around the arena fighting. But no, that would have been too cool.

Would have been very cool, but frustrating for the lesser-skilled folks, which are probably the majority of Destiny folks. Then again, if Cody can do it...

Why do the story missions top out at 32? Why can't I select them all at level 35 for more difficulty? Again Halo had it right: selectable difficulty. Story missions should have level 30 enemies but have 4 difficulty levels. Simple as that. Even though they were decently fun, they were also rather easy, and I selected 32. I'm not so keen on handicapping myself just to have a challenge.

"I'm not so keen on handicapping myself just to have a challenge." So... So what were the skulls in the Halo games?
I've played missions at a higher level than my own, and had to approach them differently. I've played missions with weapon types different to the ones I normally use, and had to approach them differently. Your problem is that you have this mentality that the game should cater to YOU and YOUR loadout by providing experiences tailored to YOUR playstyle. "Bungie, this is too easy! Make it harder, but not harder because that's not fun! Also, I want rewards, because otherwise what's the point of having fun?"

Bungie needs to up their storytelling yesterday. Here, we have a decent idea for a story, but it's not really given the proper care it deserves. It's baffling. Bungie has done it with Halo, and they should be able to do it with Destiny. Comet is do or die. If they don't get their act together and give us a decent story that is also told well, then they've lost.

They've lost what? Destiny's selling well and bringing people back. How can you give a DLC a thumbs up and then say "next time's your last chance"? Bizarro world.

I think it's safe to say that Peter Dinklage is either unwilling or unable to come back. Why else would a main character be essentially absent in the expansions? And why should he come back? He'd have been squandered here like he was in the base game. He can just do Game of Thrones and get paid more, make a better product, and win a few emmys.

So it goes for any celebrity voice actor in any game. Heck, Bungie is building a history of losing quality voice actors (Michael Wincott, anyone?).

I find it amusing that the new go to end game activity is PvP related. From what I've played, Trials of Osiris is not only a blast, but easily the best and most fun way to earn good gear and etheric light. The elimination game type is tough and tense, but in a good way. I am eager to see how the metagame changes with each map rotation, and I have a feeling your team will have to change it up a bit every week. I also feel a little bit sad when you beat a team and you see that you knock them out of their ticket, but such is the game type! The lighthouse was a wonderful surprise, and the excitement and wonder I felt going there the first time was something Destiny hasn't given me in a while. And the gear is great.

Yes, it's great that PvP gets some end-game goals. Bungie has been far more successful with ToO than many other games have ever been with their "top-tier" PvP experiences (Reach's Arena, CoD's Seasons, Whatever crap 343 tried with the MCC).

Unfortunately, Prison of Elders is a huge miss, just as I suspected. It's not even close to a raid substitute. You can toss all your ingredients in the pot and hope for the best, or you can carefully mix, measure, and purposely create a unique and wonderful combination of flavors. Who cares if it's different every time? None of the challenges even come close to what we'd face in a raid. It's not as challenging as a raid, nor as difficult. Not even close. Before the fifth round, it's all essentially the same regardless of the modifiers, and the round 5 boss and Skolas are just pushovers, as far as I've experienced.

Wrong. They have been "pushovers" because of Burn exploitation. And that depends on a very specific set of conditions that have to be coordinated (much like a raid boss). This won't be as true in the coming weeks, I imagine. But if you have a highly coordinated team that just so happens to have the exact weapons and classes that you need to make use of the exploits, I can see why you'd think that.

Here you actually have a cool boss mechanic, which can be defeated and bypassed not by cheese, but by 3 players with Gjallarhorns (or 4th Horsemans and Thunderlords with arc burn). When you can just shoot the boss with everything you've got and he dies in 45 seconds, you have failed. You have to deal with and figure out Atheon's mechanics. You have to deal with and figure out Crota's mechanics. But Skolas? Nope, just shoot him a lot. It's so massively disappointing that concentrating your fire in an intense burst is enough to take out the Arena's toughest boss.

It's funny that Cody "No cheese" Miller is crying about how easy it is to semi-cheese the last bosses. But let's look at actual Raid bosses. We killed the templar in <40 seconds with nothing but concentrated firepower. People have beaten Atheon in 20 seconds with nothing but concentrated firepower. People have killed Crota in one sword thanks to a well-timed supply of concentrated firepower. How is this any different?
In fact! I heard that YOU were having a very tough time with Skolas, and decided to do the "3 Gjallarhorn" method. So that makes you a wee bit disingenuous and hypocritical. And I don't think you realize how long it took us to coordinate and pull of the "4th Horseman" method. it was extremely difficult, even if it looks stupidly easy on video. You're flat-out wrong on this. Just because others can carry you to victory, it doesn't mean you can scoff at the challenge. The Qodron mechanics were great boss encounters that weren't the typical "just chip away at his health until he falls" shtick of Destiny's Vanilla bosses. Bungie gave you more of what you asked for in bosses with unique mechanics, and you're whining that the Burns have made a couple of them easier than normal. Good luck fighting Skolas with no burn, or with Small Arms.

Likewise, the treasure keys are a huge mess. Final bosses should drop treasure keys 100% of the time on 34 and 35. It's utterly baffling why this isn't the case. Finding keys in the wild should be a bonus. What did I get for beating Skolas the first week? Absolutely nothing because I didn't have a key.

I didn't have a key either, but I'm not running around crying like a spoiled child. Beating Skolas was reward enough. It was a cliff that my team scaled, and my reward is the view from the top. Entitled folks these days...

The gear is also bad. The Queen's gear is just legendary gear. I have awesome legendary gear already, and not only that, but the perks don't all have tradeoffs on them. Can you get elemental primaries from PoE? If not, it's a big waste of time since it sure isn't that fun for its own sake.

Subjective, but wrong anyway. If you have awesome legendary gear, then good for you! Other people might find lots to like about Queen gear and its perks. My Warlock's fallen-orb making gauntlets are neat, and because of their usefulness, I haven't ascended my VoG gauntlets yet. And remember that a lot of folks don't have tons of top-tier legendary stuff yet (very few Destiny players Raid, much less Raid regularly), so How gear is a great alternative path to the top. Don't whine because you were already AT the top when it came out.

That's the irony. What good is your end game, if the best part of it is PvP where elemental damage doesn't matter? The elemental primaries were good before because the rock in PvE. But do you think I'm going to want to play PoE 9 times a week? No thanks.

Since when did elemental damage play an important role in end-game? I'd say that given the Small Arms modifier, elemental primaries of all kinds will play a big role in PvE from now on. And nobody is forcing you to run PoE nine times a week. You cry at first because there's not much to do in Destiny, now you cry because there's too much to do in Destiny. Even though defeating Skolas looks easy, my group is NOT going to run it two more times this week (we made some jokes about it, even). Because the challenge was real, and draining...

Huge miss for the PvP end game, huge hit for the PvP end game, and a steadily rising quality to the story missions.

Cody declares this a 60% rise in quality for Destiny. Final rating: Cody approves of House of Wolves.

House of Wolves is largely better than Dark Below, except possibly for the end game.

Once again, Bungie has used my ideas by eliminating damage and defense upgrade nodes. This is a great decision, and everything is better now. No downsides. Slowly the tedium of upgrading gear is going away, and perhaps one day will be eliminated altogether (as well as RNG loot).

Have to disagree on both counts. Weapon leveling is now so effortless I don't notice it happening, so it feels like I'm not doing it at all. I've accumulated huge stacks of resources I'll now apparently never need, and yet the game is giving me more than ever for reasons I can't fathom. Not sure why the things spawn in the wild now at all.

Honestly I was afraid of something like this happening to weapon leveling because I couldn't imagine what Bungie meant when they said that the Dark Below mechanic where Xur replaces your exotic with a new one you need to re-level but with higher base stats was a "mistake". I didn't understand that because I couldn't imagine how they could both respect the input of time into upgrading the weapon and also up the base stats without either making the change so easy it would seem meaningless or causing repetition. So they've decided to make it perfunctory; weapon damage jumps straight from the base, which was the old max, to the new max after unlocking a couple perks.

It also means there's less variation in the amount of damage being done across the PvE portions of the game because Guardian weapons vary less, and I think that's a shame.

The story missions are getting better all the time, but still have plenty of room to grow. Especially with a more story heavy expansion, the missions should be even more involved, long, and complex. They should blow Halo missions out of the water, but don't. I understand why, yet given the terrible constraints Bungie has placed on themselves these missions were the best yet, at least in my opinion. Yet, there could have been even more creativity. The VoG platforms make an appearance in the final mission, but are not utilized at all except for a set piece. I was sure that leaping across them was a reminder of how they work, and following they'd play a role in the fight. Maybe cover appears and disappears. Maybe the ground vanishes occasionally and you have to rotate around the arena fighting. But no, that would have been too cool.

I'm guessing that Bungie knows that only a small portion of players raid, and perhaps this functions as a missing tutorial to get people to go into the Vault who haven't been; or, given the surprise involvement of the Vex in the HoW storyline, it's prep not for what comes at the end of that mission, but for what comes in the next expansion, which might be a surprise to people who have not played the Vault.

Why do the story missions top out at 32? Why can't I select them all at level 35 for more difficulty? Again Halo had it right: selectable difficulty. Story missions should have level 30 enemies but have 4 difficulty levels. Simple as that. Even though they were decently fun, they were also rather easy, and I selected 32. I'm not so keen on handicapping myself just to have a challenge.

If you can simulate that by delevelling yourself, why should Bungie put effort into creating the same scenario just to re-juggle the numbers "32" and "35" instead of "28" and "32"?

If Bungie already has variations on those for the daily heroic, why do you want to play them faster than Bungie wants to offer them up? Half the time you're complaining that there's not enough stuff to do, and the other half you're complaining about not having the options to burn through the content even faster.

Bungie needs to up their storytelling yesterday. Here, we have a decent idea for a story, but it's not really given the proper care it deserves. It's baffling. Bungie has done it with Halo, and they should be able to do it with Destiny. Comet is do or die. If they don't get their act together and give us a decent story that is also told well, then they've lost.

Lost... what, exactly?