Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers* (Destiny)

by petetheduck, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 07:35 (3523 days ago)
edited by petetheduck, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 08:05

I finished the campaign with Avateur last night and I can't defend the story. The Stranger's cutscene on Venus had me interested--very interested--but the game's conclusion failed to deliver.

- Getting into the Black Garden should have been the 2nd most challenging battle of the game. It was pathetic. Perhaps this is due to the gate being inside a public space, but there's really no excuse.

- Shockingly little resistance inside the Black Garden. Again, there should have been more resistance.

- The game should have ended with the most challenging battle of the game. Unfortunately, there was no final boss. Sure, they had the 3 warm-up mini-bosses, but then the big baddie just died of natural causes.

Up until the Black Garden, I was absolutely willing to overlook the Ghost, Speaker, and Stranger obnoxiously and awkwardly failing to explain anything. The final cutscene was the tipping point. It was a throwaway for me; the Speaker's bit was cringeworthy, the Stranger is apparently disappointed too because she gives you her gun and ragequits--again with no explaination.

"TAKE THIS"

Why? Isn't that your gun? Don't you need that to, like, shoot things?

Bungie is artificially holding back too much of the story. The Stranger doesn't have time to explain, doesn't even have time to explain why she doesn't have time to explain, but then lingers with all these dramatic pauses. Hey, maybe she can explain in the final cutscene? No? Okay.

--

I had a blast playing through Destiny's campaign, even if the cutscenes didn't deliver. There is so much good in Destiny, but there's some bad too. I'm looking forward to Bungie supporting and improving this experience over time. We went into Crucible after beating the campaign and again, had a blast. I've had so much fun over the past few days. Thanks Bungie. Seriously. It's just a bummer that the game has fallen short in some areas.

All of this.

by NotTheVacuum, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:36 (3523 days ago) @ petetheduck

- No text -

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:52 (3523 days ago) @ petetheduck

"the Stranger is apparently disappointed too because she gives you her gun and ragequits--again with no explaination."

LOL!

Very well said, Pete.

I adore this game, but the story really is pathetic. I've always been the kind of person who doesn't need a great story to enjoy the game. I love strong storytelling when its there, but it is by no means a requirement for me to have fun. So if I'm complaining about it you know its gotta be bad.

With Halo, I never thought the story was particularly good, but I always knew where I was, what my objectives were, and why they were important. In Destiny, this is not the case.

Again, I am loving this game despite the poor storytelling. It's just a bit jarring when the rest of the game is so polished and refined. Even the voice acting feels rushed and half-baked for the most part.

Part of me hates speculating about stuff like this, but I can't help wondering if/how Joe Staten's departure fits in to all of this. Was the story in an incomplete state when he left? Or, was the project not clicking with him? Did Bungie make a conscious decision to put little focus on Destiny's narrative?

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No credits have rolled yet...

by kornman00, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:57 (3523 days ago) @ petetheduck

so can you say you've actually finished the campaign ;p?

But in all seriousness, yeah, the in-game presentation of the story is rather lack-luster compared to the rest of the game. Hoping the Grimoire cards at least provide some more, but they shouldn't be the other "half" of the story. However, I already spend my loading times mucking with gear changes that I rarely ever check out what the new cards I unlock even relate to or say.

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No credits have rolled yet...

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:14 (3523 days ago) @ kornman00

But in all seriousness, yeah, the in-game presentation of the story is rather lack-luster compared to the rest of the game. Hoping the Grimoire cards at least provide some more, but they shouldn't be the other "half" of the story.

The problem with that though is that a lot of the cards are unlocked via finding ghosts. You shouldn't have to do a collect-a-thon to appreciate the story :-/

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No credits have rolled yet...

by Spec ops Grunt @, Broklahoma, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 11:20 (3523 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You haven't played Dark Souls eh?


I personally like piecing together the story like some sort of detective.

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:12 (3523 days ago) @ petetheduck

- Shockingly little resistance inside the Black Garden. Again, there should have been more resistance.

Oh, so it's absolutely vital we stop the Vex in the black garden? Then why on Earth didn't we go to the speaker, say "Hey, the traveler is doomed if we don't destroy the heart." To which the speaker would send a whole ARMY of guardians instead of just two?!

Really?

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by uberfoop @, Seattle-ish, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:26 (3523 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Oh, so it's absolutely vital we stop the Vex in the black garden? Then why on Earth didn't we go to the speaker, say "Hey, the traveler is doomed if we don't destroy the heart." To which the speaker would send a whole ARMY of guardians instead of just two?!

Really?

The Destiny universe operates on Halo 3 logic.

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 10:41 (3523 days ago) @ uberfoop

Oh, so it's absolutely vital we stop the Vex in the black garden? Then why on Earth didn't we go to the speaker, say "Hey, the traveler is doomed if we don't destroy the heart." To which the speaker would send a whole ARMY of guardians instead of just two?!

Really?


The Destiny universe operates on Halo 3 logic.

Your guardian never asks any questions. Being long dead and woken up in a strange world is a great framing device. That way, your character would need to ask questions about how the world operates, character relationships and motivations etc, and that's a good way to tell the audience things in a natural way.

More often than not, I was asking myself why I'm doing what I'm doing, how does it tie into the larger world, what purpose does it ultimately serve? Something my guardian should have been thinking too.

I think the biggest thing that killed the Destiny story was this and the lack of world building. The entire world felt dead and lifeless. I understand it's the collapse, but you need to CONTRAST that with the life of the last city. A city we never see. A city we are only TOLD about. Take us there in a cutscene so we can see it and care about it. Better yet, scrap the tower and have the CITY be the hub. The queen supposedly rules the reef, but all we see of it it the throne room. That should have been AT LEAST shown as a whole in the cutscene where we can see the awoken civilization and how they live.

I'd be like Dorothy stepping out of the house on OZ, and immediately walking into the wizards's chamber. Everything in between makes OZ come alive and makes it interesting, and Destiny lacked ANY of that. The pieces are just pieces instead of fitting together. There are just individual threads rather than a woven cloth. I'm not saying you have to show us everything, but we need enough to be immersed.

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by tadboz, Fort Collins, CO, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 13:17 (3523 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Feels like they could have really benefited from a Mass Effect-style dialogue thing. That would've been a great place to flesh out the world, plus we could've heard more lines from the many awesome voice actors in the game.

Who ended up voicing shopkeepers. SMH.

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Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by car15, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 13:48 (3523 days ago) @ tadboz

Hell no. Dialogue trees are pointless unless you actually get to impact the plot in a meaningful way with your decisions. Destiny is not that type of game.

Destiny campaign left me Vexed *spoilers*

by scarab @, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 17:35 (3523 days ago) @ car15

Hell no. Dialogue trees are pointless unless you actually get to impact the plot in a meaningful way with your decisions. Destiny is not that type of game.

You could at least ask the questions that interest you and say, "whatever, I'll do it." if you have no interest in answers. You can determine the level of exposition and it would feel natural to ask the questions that would come to mind given your circumstances.

Waking up on earth after dying, would only make sense to a Buddhist and even they might not expect to resurrect as themselves as a gun toting Guardian. Bungie should have investigated this. There must be some story gold there.

Do you think that Bungie wanted to avoid offending any religious conservatives? You are not in heaven and there are no virgins (none exclusively allocated to you).

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