Something’s Missing: Defeats

This morning I was pondering why Destiny often doesn’t feel as good/involved/complete as the Halos often did. Or as games in other, somewhat similar series do. One of the first and biggest things that came to mind was Destiny and Destiny 2’s relative lack of setbacks and defeats.

In Halo

The Covenant capture Captain Keyes
The Flood is unleashed
343 Guilty Spark turns on Cortana and the Master Chief
343 Guilty Spark stops the Pillar of Autumn’s self destruct sequence
Foe Hammer is shot down before she is able to help you escape the Autumn’s detonation

In Mass Effect 3

Earth and Mars are lost to the Reapers
The Turians sent to disarm the bomb on Tuchanka are shot down then Victius sacrifices himself to save the day
The Quarians are locked in a deteriorating stalemate with the Geth around Rannoch
Cerberus attacks the Citadel and Thane Krios is killed
Thessia is overrun by the Reapers
The Citadel is moved to Earth very nearly preventing the Crucible plan from being successful

In Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua begins her assault on Hera only to be significantly outclassed and thrown off the bridge she worked so hard to reach.

In Gravity Rush 2, Kat is ripped away from Jirga Para Lhao and winds up in a significantly changed Hecksville where almost everyone has forgotten her.

In Tomb Raider 2013

The rescue plane that responds to Lara’s radio call is struck down by lightning / the island’s power
Sam is kidnapped
Grim dies protecting Lara from mercenaries
Roth is killed after he and Lara attempt to escape the island

So what about Destiny and Destiny 2? What real setbacks do our Guardians face over the course of the two games?

In the Cosmodrome we are entirely successful
On the Moon we are entirely successful
On Venus we are entirely successful
On Mars we are entirely successful
Against Crota we are entirely successful
Against Skolas we are entirely successful
The Awoken fleet is defeated by Oryx
Against Oryx we are entirely successful
Against the Devil Splicers we are entirely successful
Ghaul suppresses the Traveler and inflicts heavy damage and casualties on The City and its Guardians
Against the Fallen in the EDZ we are entirely successful
Against the Hive and Fallen on Titan we are almost entirely successful
Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology
Against the Vex and Fallen on Nessus we are entirely successful
Against the Cabal and Taken on Io we are entirely successful
Against the Cabal in The Last City we are entirely successful
Against Ghaul we are entirely successful
Against the Vex on Mercury and in their Infinite Forest we are almost entirely sucessful
Against the two challenges put before us by Calus we have been entirely successful

So much of the defeats that have happened in Destiny so far have been almost entirely offscreen and hundreds of years in the past. Once our Guardian comes on the scene it is almost entirely non-stop success. Even when there are setbacks, they pretty much only happen to other people and then we sweep in and clean up the mess.

Regardless of how good or bad Destiny’s combat is or how pretty it renders its worlds, the fact that our Guardian’s biggest, longest lasting setbacks in Destiny are the various times the Hive block our way forward with their Hive Runes... it leaves the stories we’ve played through somewhat flat and so far there hasn’t been much room for emotions like sorrow or guilt or really even worry.

Will we see any significant setbacks in Gods of Mars? Or future Destiny 2 expansions? Will Destiny 3 start with the Darkness arriving and blowing something up only to see us defeat them at every turn from then on out? Is Destiny, with its patrol zones that need to exist after players finish the campaign, even set up for significant defeats at all?

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I can think of only one defeat, when we lost our light, but that felt more like the setting for the story, not a setback we experienced in the story.

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Right. And even then, the actual in game effects were actually fairly limited. I would have liked to have seen an even larger drawback. Disabling our recharging health or having it only recharge to one tick above red or something... They could have also done something like turned on all the elemental burns to make fighting through the Cabal and Fallen much tougher.

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[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

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[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

I completely agree, but I also still find that story to be underwhelming. We "meet" Taeko-3 and "see" her die within the span of five minutes. These are the kind of stories I'd like to see more, and I'd like to see them done well. I feel like this story could have been interwoven more into what the Hive are doing on Titan, and could have spanned several adventures, culminating in the strike we see now.

That's the vision of Destiny I keep seeing in my head. I can see a game that is much more like TTK was structured. Adventures could be used to tell the story of what's currently happening on the planet, building an actual cohesive narrative that culminations in a strike to take out a big bad, which maybe opens up another set adventures.

Destiny 2 still feels like less than the sum of its parts, sometimes. They have all the elements there, but it seems like every activity is too partitioned and self-contained. They need to all work together as a single experience, rather than just being a checklist of activities to do, which is what I feel we have now. Some of the adventures are sort of related to others on the same destination, but not enough, and I think the game would benefit by making them more like story arcs rather than just opening them all up at once.

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I agree. I think it would have helped a lot more if we'd SEEN Taeko-3. Even if it was through a pane of glass or on a monitor. Of course I'd prefer to have a section where she fights along side us for a few minutes, but given the limited number of AI allies in fights I'm not sure how feasible that is with the Destiny engine.

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[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

I completely agree, but I also still find that story to be underwhelming. We "meet" Taeko-3 and "see" her die within the span of five minutes. These are the kind of stories I'd like to see more, and I'd like to see them done well. I feel like this story could have been interwoven more into what the Hive are doing on Titan, and could have spanned several adventures, culminating in the strike we see now.

That's the vision of Destiny I keep seeing in my head. I can see a game that is much more like TTK was structured. Adventures could be used to tell the story of what's currently happening on the planet, building an actual cohesive narrative that culminations in a strike to take out a big bad, which maybe opens up another set adventures.

I agree totally. Narrative tie in's that paid off with smaller arcs would be great.

Destiny 2 still feels like less than the sum of its parts, sometimes. They have all the elements there, but it seems like every activity is too partitioned and self-contained. They need to all work together as a single experience, rather than just being a checklist of activities to do, which is what I feel we have now. Some of the adventures are sort of related to others on the same destination, but not enough, and I think the game would benefit by making them more like story arcs rather than just opening them all up at once.

Yeah, they do that a little now, but it's not quite as deep as I'd like. The Savathûn's return thread is intriguing and the adventures forecast the strike (and DLC?) plot well. I also appreciated the Nessus hints at the Leviathan's entrance in the adventures. Those helped the world feel more integrated, but I want to care a bit more about my NPC's.

One CoO plot thread that was super-disappointing to me was the direction of Brother Vance. Perhaps we didn't really know him in D1, but his shift from D1 to D2 felt almost as jarring as Truth's change from H2 to H3. Oddly, I felt more affinity towards him when I knew less about him. This is kind of true for Osiris as well, but I'm not quite as disappointed as others. As Cruel has argued well, I just want more compelling writing.

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Re: Osiris

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

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Re: Osiris

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

Ha. I'm one of the few that really likes Asher. He's a lovable old crank IMHO. Fight me!

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Re: Osiris

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

Ha. I'm one of the few that really likes Asher. He's a lovable old crank IMHO. Fight me!

There is something seriously wrong with you. And that's like... my opinion man...

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I am indifferent to Asher. However, I am aware that most of the community is not.

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I like him too. Yes, he's over the top and cranky. But he is also:

Infected with Vex technology to the point either reviving doesn't help or he can no longer revive.
Deeply remorseful about the fate of his previous Fireteam, to the point where even when Ikora asks him about them he only gives a few details along with something like "we fought together... until we didn't..." and he then, respectfully, refuses to talk about them further.

Ultimately, like many of you, he's not so bad once you get to know him. :p

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[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

Man, it sounds like I need to run some strikes. I've only run two.

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That is actually the primary reason I haven't run the strikes. Wanting a fireteam that's not going to talk over it while I experience them for the first time.

Edit: or speed run it.

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That is actually the primary reason I haven't run the strikes. Wanting a fireteam that's not going to talk over it while I experience them for the first time.

Happens with raids, too.

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That is actually the primary reason I haven't run the strikes. Wanting a fireteam that's not going to talk over it while I experience them for the first time.

Edit: or speed run it.

Hit me up. I'll gladly play some strikes and not run through them.

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[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

Yeah. For me, for the feel of the Destiny environments to match their (stunning) visual realism, they need civilians or NPCs in game. I know that adding them would be a ton of work (each place where they were added in the first campaign mission was essentially a set piece), but I'd like NPCs in the wild. They were teased early on in D1 (e.g., the Queen's brother's introduction), and the existence of Hawthorne in D2 establishes that there are allies worth protecting outside the city walls. Just having more story missions where you see the effects of hostile forces on civilians would help. Imagine a settlement getting attacked as a public event!

I realize that the presence is other players while on patrol is the killer feature that should provide some of what I mean, but it doesn't raise the stakes. It lowers the odds you'll fail at what you're doing. Speaking of patrol, there really needs to be an easy seamless way to join players you meet on patrol. I'm sure this enhancement is or has been on a whiteboard somewhere in Bungie HQ.

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Something’s Missing: Defeats (Criticism)