Taken King: Wot I think (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 14:47 (3446 days ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 14:56

It is cliche to say at this point but the Taken King is for the most part the Destiny people were expecting a year ago. If it came out in this form last year, it would have gotten unanimous praise, instead of pithy ridicule. It's not perfect (what is?), but it's addressed a lot of the concerning issues of Destiny. I have played and beat the raid, and didn't have to grind at all to get there. That right there should say something.

The first big thing is the story. Yes, it's way better than Destiny's, but that isn't hard to accomplish at all. It makes logical sense, one things leads to the next, and it does feel like we are going on a meaningful journey instead of doing random stuff for no reason. Having your characters actually do stuff is great. I think though, it functions in the bare minimum as a game story. It does its job and nothing more.

The two problems I had were that it is very front loaded, and it is very straightforward. The story is front loaded, as you have these interesting story scenes and motivations to begin with, but you get less and less of that as you progress, and then it goes back to being presented in typical Destiny way. When someone of reddit said "There's more story in the first 30 minutes of the Taken King than in all of Destiny" they were right, but there's also more story in the first 30 minutes than in the next 5 hours.

The other issue is that it is very straightforward. Oryx threatens us, so go kill him. And you kill him. There are no revelations, real changes other than his murder, no deepening or twisting of things (except for the grimoire). It is confusing that everybody seems to know immediately that he is coming, and that his ship is at Saturn. How do we know this? Starting the game with a huge battle scene that we don't care about is silly… that should have been the middle of the game! Hear me out. Imagine the Taken attack Phobos. Nobody knows what they are, then you discover the come from Oryx. So you have to go find Oryx, since the Taken start attacking key areas. Through your missions, you discover his location on Saturn. THEN the Queen launches her attack. Perhaps Cayde thinks it's suicide and wants to try a different plan, but Zavala pushed forward. It ends in failure and you are set back. THEN Cayde goes rougue and does his thing in secret, you kill Oryx, and Zavala and Cayde make up. Wouldn't that have been… better? You could build up the battle and the Queen's 'death', you get even more character development, and it offers something a little more deep.

Still, as I said, the story is definitely serviceable as a way to draw me in to the game. It's an improvement, but it can be even better next time. We are getting there.

As far as the game goes, the missions are generally better than anything we've seen yet. There's variety, creativity, and new stuff being thrown at us. The game is set up nicely, as doing all the story missions and post game quests leads to to being around the correct light level for the raid. You can play the game, just doing the new things offered to you, not grinding at all, and experience all the activities the game currently has to offer. No grinding to play the raid! How fucking cool is that! It's mega fucking cool!

This was made possible by the light system… which while it enables this constant progression it also introduces us to old problems, and I'm convinced it needs to be modified further. The biggest problem is that we are back to being penalized for equipping unleveled gear. This was solved in House of Wolves, since if you wanted to equip a piece of armor, it was either already 42 light, or you could use an etheric light to ascend it. Basically, you could equip anything immediately and not have your level suffer. This isn't so with the light system, and is in fact worse because now this applies to your guns too. It's less of a problem when you are high in light - I only go down a few points when equipping a 280 weapon, but as you are progressing through the game initially, you are often forced into a very specific load out because using other guns will decrease your light too far. The truth is, guns have a bigger effect than armor. It's completely stupid and unintuitive that merely equipping a weapon should cause my overall power to go down, even if I'm not using it at the time. The attack power of your weapon should mean only one thing: how much damage that weapon does.

The solution which still allows for incremental progression, is to split light into two stats: attack and defense. Attack is equal to whatever weapon you are currently shooting with. Your stowed weapons do not effect it, it's basically just your current weapons power and equal to it's attack value. Then, you have defense which is an average of your defensive gear. So when an activity recommends 280 light for example, that means your attack and defense should be around 280.

What's the benefit of this? Well, it's more intuitive, and your weapons determine how much damage you do, and your armor how much damage you take. Your stowed weapon won't bring down the damage of the one you are using, and so you won't be locked into loadouts to get your light level up. You also get wiggle room: if your armor is a bit below, you can still tough it out of you don't get hit, and if your attack is low you can still do well if you can stay alive. As it it now, the system is not the best, but it is better than before.

The infusion system is interesting, and ultimately a good alternative to etheric light. I just wish that instead of getting 80% of the value, you got 100%. It's going to be a pain in the ass to get the weapons you want up to max, because you'll need to find multiple maxed weapons, as the benefits are less and less with each infusion. I think when you are within five points of the weapon you get everything, but that still means to go from 280 to 310 you'll need three maxed weapons. I fear that 300 and beyond will be ridiculously grindy, as you have no guarantee your stuff that's dropping is going to even be a higher level. Maybe the raid hard mode drops guaranteed 310s. I don't know. I'm hoping that you are never 'required' to be the max, and it simply isn't intended to be hit.

The gunsmith tests are pure grind, and stupid. There are some quests which are pure grind and stupid. Get 50 Hadium flakes? Come on. With so much creativity elsewhere in the game, it's shameful that these exist in the game at all. Bungie has shown they can largely move beyond that, and have succeeded wonderfully.

All three of the new subclasses are very very good for PvE, largely outshining the other. Defender Titan will always be amazing, and the Gunslinger Hunter can be useful with a year 2 Celestial Nighthawk, But for most other content, the storm caller will be dishing out massive damage, the night stalker wrangling enemies, and the sunbreaker just hammering away. It would have been nice for Bungie to rework the older subclasses to make them more useful in PvE and PvP, wherever they are weak.

The raid is amazing, and perhaps the best yet. Definitely closer to Vault of Glass than Crota's end. I think the perfect raid would be if King's Fall and Vault of Glass had a baby.

The road to the raid was great, as was the completion of it. I could stop right here and will have had one of the best game experiences in a long time. But… there's still a bit more to do so I will be around for a little while. I am hoping that Bungie takes care in their next two DLCs before Destiny 2, to make them more similar to Taken King, and less similar to Dark Below. I'm not expecting magic because of their smaller size, but if Taken King was as good as it was, Destiny 2 is going to be pretty damn sweet.