tl;dr: Cody thinks HoW is good. Thinks 2/3 of it is success. (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Sunday, May 31, 2015, 18:16 (3466 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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.