I have this thing about my characters in Destiny. In my mind, my 3 guardians are a team. Maybe its because they all share a common inventory, or because they're all lined up on the screen when I sign in to Destiny. Over the course of playing Destiny, they will never exist in the same place together. But in my mind they make up an elite unit together.

With all this going on in my imagination, something has always bothered my about knowing that my alternate characters are just sitting there, in stasis, waiting for me to take them out into the field. We put so much time and energy into creating these characters; it feels like a waste to have at least 2 of them on the bench at all times. So once again, my imagination steps in. I pretend my alternate characters are off on missions of their own, fighting their own battles until I take control of them again.

What if this was actually possible? What if there was a way for our alternate characters to be put to use, even when we're not controlling them?

If anyone here has played Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag, you probably already know where I'm going with this. If not, I'll fill you in. Over the course of the game, you acquired ships that were added to your fleet. This fleet was part of a minigame that could be accessed from within the main game, or via the Black Flag mobile app. You would send these ships out on missions to earn rewards. Each ship's statistics determine the likelihood of successfully completing any given mission. Once a ship is sent of a mission, it is unavailable for other activities until that mission is complete. The higher-difficulty missions offer higher rewards, but require better ships and more time to complete.

Ok, now that we're all caught up on Black Flag's "Fleet" mini game, let's think about how something similar could perhaps be included in Destiny. I'd love to see a mini game that allows us to send our guardians out on simulated missions for small-to-moderate rewards. Here's how I see it:

When you launch the mini game, you're presented with a map similar to the Director map in the main game. For the sake of this example, let's say the map is exactly the same. You use the map to select a mission and difficulty level. Once you've selected a mission, you choose which of your guardians to send to complete it. You equip your guardian(s) with actual weapons and armor from your in-game inventory. Then, based on your guardian's level, armor, weaponry, and the difficulty of the mission you've selected, you are given a "likelihood of successful completion" rating. For example, a success rating of 50% means your guardian stands a 50/50 chance of completing the selected mission with the gear he/she currently has equipped. If your guardian succeeds, you get the rewards for completion. If your guardian fails, you don't lose anything (perhaps there could be a cost involved for running the more challenging missions, like small amounts of glimmer or materials. That way there would be more potential risk).

The more difficult missions would yield better rewards, but take longer to complete. This is where things balance out: if I send my Titan off on a mini-game mission, he's unavailable for me to play with until the mission is done (or I could cancel the mission to have him return to the tower, forfeiting any rewards). So an easy mission might take 15 minutes, and award 100 glimmer on completion. The most challenging missions could reward engrams or strange coins, or lots of glimmer, but take 24 hours to complete.

This is where things start to get fun. Let's say you're allowed to send multiple guardians out on missions together at the same time (like virtual "co-op"). My hunter might have a 40% chance of completing a difficult mission solo, but if I send my Titan with her their odds of success could jump to 90%. You can also team up with other players. If I want to send my Warlock on a particularly difficult mission, I could invite Cyber and Cody to each send one of their guardians to complete the mission together. There could be success-rate bonuses for sending combinations of character classes out together. There could even be mini-game equivalents to the weekly heroic and nightfall strikes, with burn modifiers and everything. So if I send my Hunter on a mini-game mission with Fatebringer equipped, she'll stand a better chance of succeeding. But I'd have to live without my Fatebringer until she gets back.

Best of all, this minigame could be accessed from within Destiny, or via the mobile app. It would give us a way to engage with the game and universe while we're away from our consoles, and it would give us a way to make our alternate characters feel productive and useful even when we aren't controlling them.

What do you guys think? Am I totally nuts?

I imagine all three of my characters are really just a future version of myself. As a result they all have the same face. So that analogy doesn't work for me.

I am not sure I agree with a mini game however I do feel it does kind of feel lacking to have them on the bench. It would be nice to send them on missions for materials or something.

- No text -

- Can I have my alt AFK in the Strike playlist?

- Can we get an Easy XP Oven in the Tower to place our weapons into and have them automatically upgrade over time?

- Can we hijack some Fallen extractors to farm planetary mats?

The downside to your plan is I need other Guardians. It can take quite a while to get a new Guardian into the upper 20s. Do I want to spend that time building a new Guardian so he can be unavailable seeking minor rewards? For those of us who have been playing half a year and who have three decently outfitted Guardians it works pretty well... but what about a new player?

That said, I like the idea. First thing I'd do is send two of my Guardians away on a quest of find the Exotic weapon of my choice. What? The mission is expected to take three months? Excellent! That's a shorter amount of time than I've been after a few certain Exotics! :p

I'd like to see special strikes/missions where they would you & be controlled by AI, be able to die & need to be revived, etc.

I like it. My guardians are a family, and I can imagine the wife and daughter occupying themselves while the patriarch is off running raids.

My hunter, titan, and warlock are the same guy. He just loads out with different gear. Now he would be schizophrenic as well.

I dunno what kind of hand-holding AC4 provides, but in Brotherhood, the Assassins you send on missions have a chance to DIE, requiring you to go out and recruit a newbie, which must be trained from the bottom up.

Risk/reward. If you send a Guardian out and it fails the mission, it should cost you dearly. Missions should have a price of admission. Failure should cost you that price. Maybe two notes of light and 1000 glimmer for a mission that rewards you with 3000 glimmer and maybe a couple of engrams.

I dunno what kind of hand-holding AC4 provides, but in Brotherhood, the Assassins you send on missions have a chance to DIE, requiring you to go out and recruit a newbie, which must be trained from the bottom up.

Risk/reward. If you send a Guardian out and it fails the mission, it should cost you dearly. Missions should have a price of admission. Failure should cost you that price. Maybe two notes of light and 1000 glimmer for a mission that rewards you with 3000 glimmer and maybe a couple of engrams.

Yep, I think that'd be good as well (I mentioned it as a possibility). It'd make things more interesting, for sure.

I also think this dovetails nicely with the discussion further down in the forum regarding encouraging people to play 3 different classes as opposed to optimizing on one with triplets.

If you're optimizing one class with triplets, you won't have the required full-set of "good stuff" to send your other two Guardians off on missions. However, if you're 3-classin' it, you're more likely to have two Guardians ready to roll.

I REALLY like the tradeoff you'll have to play when equipping the characters you send off; since you won't have those weapons available to you on the character you're playing hands-on.

I could actually see this working very easily in the current Destiny mobile app, since you can easily access all your characters and gear, except what you have in the Vault; so Bungie would have to allow us to shuffle gear around entirely from the App. Or maybe it could be a specific Mini-game feature; you equip your Fireteam with any weapons you have, regardless of where they reside, and it just "steals" it from wherever it is. Eh, probably needs some more thought on that one. :P

Overall though, I LOVE this idea. Would definitely add some more depth to how one plays Destiny; which I would certainly welcome. :D

Idea involving the ability to use all characters- Cool.

Use that thing from Assassins Creed - SO Lame.

Use that AI Co-Op System from Republic Commando - Now we are talking.

Maybe use ships and sparrows instead of guardians. Loan ships/sparrows to any of the factions for their use. In return you get rep, materials, marks and/or glimmer.

It kinds of makes sense, the different factions want to explore and grow in knowledge, prestige, and power.

Sparrows already have a durability rating, give the same to ships. When sent on a mission the durability slowly gets chipped away with the chance that the ship is destroyed. The shipwright can repair your destroyed ships and sparrows.

These missions would unlock when you get your second sparrow as part of a story mission reward.