Destiny 2 has been out for a few weeks now and after accumulating a good chunk of time in the game(even without completing the Raid) I figured now would be the time to give my thoughts on the game and how the game has improved since the original Destiny or if it has improved at all. To clarify, when I say original Destiny I also mean Vanilla Destiny. How the game was out of the box without any expansions or updates.
The Story that actually exists
So first, let's start out with what some of the criticisms of the original Destiny was and what Destiny 2 does differently.
In the original Destiny there was practically no story whatsoever. There was no motivation or context to what you were doing in the story in a majority of the missions you would partake in. Why were you going to the Moon? Why were you hunting the Fallen? Why were you going to Venus to find an old archive hidden away for centuries?
Your guess along with millions of other players and myself was just as good as everyone else's guess as to why we were doing these things. The original Destiny did not tell us anything about anything. Essentially the motivation for our actions was just "You're the good guy so you need to find the bad guys and shoot them."
In Destiny 2, however, we do get context to our actions and we do understand why we are doing the things we are doing. We know what is going on in the world and what we are doing in the world. From the main story to the side quest Adventures our actions are informed and we know why we are heading off to these Cabal outposts or why we are heading up into the mountains of the European Dead Zone and wiping out the Fallen.
We get what the original Destiny never gave us: CONTEXT.
We have a main villain and we know who or what the other baddies are that we need to take out in order to make it to said villain.
Is the story great? no, but just having those moments of dialogue as we meet an NPC for the first time telling us what's going on in the area and what has to be done in order for us to make progress is a breath of fresh air as opposed to the original where we didn't get any dialogue or any information as to what is going on or what we were doing and why it needed to be done.
Shoot, Loot and Matchmaking
Now the second biggest criticism was the loot and grind in order to get said loot. In the original Destiny you would pick up rare engrams; think loot boxes from games like Advanced Warfare or Overwatch. These things were your main source of picking up better gear and stronger weapons and what you would need to do in the original was pick them up and wait until you would go back to the social space in order to have the Cryptarch NPC decode them and you would discover what was hiding in that engram you picked up.
Problem: You would not always get better gear
Players were constantly rolling the dice with the Cryptarch in the hopes they would get better gear but sometimes the Cryptarch would end up "rewarding" you with lower level gear. This was especially a problem with players who would find Legendary Engrams which were EXTREMELY EXTREMELY rare to find out in the world would come back to the Cryptarch to only discover that their Legendary Engrams that they would bring back would not reward them with any new Legendary weapon or armor piece. The only way you could acquire legendary armor or gear without relying on engrams were factions you could join and work towards acquiring reputation tokens or completing daily bounties to gain reputation. The problem was that it would take hours upon hours, day after day to build up reputation to be able to acquire just one piece of legendary gear. Grinding in the original Destiny was exhausting and at times down right punishing just to see any piece of gear that was better than what you currently had.
Destiny 2 fixed that.
When it comes to getting loot and grinding in Destiny 2, you have a much easier and better time accumulating Legendary gear and even the super rare and coveted Exotics than in the original Destiny. Legendary Engrams and even Exotic Engrams are much easier to find. Completing public events, strikes or killing High-Value targets (enemies with yellow or orange health bars) spawn chests and these chests not only give you currency but also have a better chance to give you Legendary Engrams and Exotic Engrams. You could potentially spawn on a planet, spend no more than 10 minutes completing a public event or coming across a high value target and end up finding an Exotic or Legendary engram which you can then save to take back to a social space and get it decoded to find your new Exotic or Legendary weapon or piece of armor. Destiny 2 also introduces Bright Engrams which are able to acquire once you reach the maximum EXP level of 20.
On top of that, each planet you visit has a reputation vendor in which you can find that planet's themed gear. In order to gain reputation with these vendors you can complete public events, kill high value targets, open loot chests and complete Lost Sectors(mini-dungeons) throughout the world and acquire reputation tokens in order to turn into these vendors, reach a new level of reputation, turn in and walk away with better gear.
There will be moments in when acquiring gear you will find duplicates of weapons or pieces of armor that you don't want or don't need and in these moments, where unlike in the original Destiny you really wouldn't get anything useful, this time around you get Gunsmith Materials for dismantling Rare(blue) Legendary(purple) Exotic(yellow) gear. These materials can be then turned into the Gunsmith for another source of Legendary and sometimes Exotic weaponry.
The best way to sum it up is this : An hour in the original Destiny, you would barely have made any progress to acquiring a new piece of legendary gear and barely made a dent in the amount of faction reputation you needed to get legendary gear. An hour in Destiny 2, you have already spent enough time to get more than just one new piece of legendary gear.
What still remains a problem in Destiny is getting players together to take on challenges like the Nightfall Strike and the Raid. Sure there are still the usual means of using Destiny LFG and the Destiny app to get together with players but for those of us out there who are shy and have a problem playing with random people there is still a problem. Bungie has attempted to fix it through Destiny 2's Guided Games. Guided Games is a matchmaking like system for players who need two other players to complete the Nightfall or join a Raid team in order to complete the Raid, the players you will match with are usually people who are part of clans, the idea being that you will end up meeting a group of people that like you enough and invite you to their Destiny clan which then translates into you having a group of players to regularly play with and be able to participate in the Nightfall strikes and Raid.
Problem is though that the Guided Games system doesn't seem to work. I've tried a few times to get a Guided Nightfall Game to start only to be timed out and unable to participate in that week's Nightfall.
I was able to complete the Nightfall for one week with a group of players I found and all I can is that the Nightfall strikes this around is not as impossible as it was back in the original Destiny. Instead of an insane amount of modifiers that give enemies either invulnerability to staggering critical hits or shields that need the same elemental damage you get smaller but still a challenge modifiers like having to kill enemies to increase time or finding Vex anomalies to increase mission time.
As for the Raid, I cannot say how it is because I have not been able to play it.
End Game Content
The End Game activities in Destiny 2 this time are more practical and laid out; although lacking. When you complete the story you can revisit planets to loot Lost Sectors or complete Adventures previously uncompleted because you did other things or go to Ikora to do Mediations. Meditations are story missions you replay again for reputation tokens much like on the planets. Every week a new milestone is added for players in order to complete. Once you complete a Milestone then any and all pieces of gear has increased power levels and Exotics also drop at even HIGHER power levels. These Milestones range from doing public events, participating in Crucible matches, completing the Nightfall and Raid.
However, there really isn't much else.
Although loot is a constant and you can end up having a lot more options for your guardian's load out of guns and armor, there isn't really anything else to explore or discover afterwords.
Once you beat the Nightfall, Raid or reach max light level and get all the things you can possibly get there isn't much else.
In Conclusion
Destiny 2 overall does fix a lot of problems that the original Destiny had but still has problems with the amount of end game content and there still being an inability for many players to not be able to participate in Nightfalls or Raids.
At some point what will happen this time versus the original Destiny instead of the end game content being super repetitive and unable to participate in (Raid and Nightfall strike). This time around the problem is that there isn't anything else.
There is a good amount of loot to be found and the grind this time around is nowhere near as painful as it was in the original Destiny.
Destiny 2 I do find better than the original Destiny and for those who were burned by the original Destiny can find something more enjoyable with the experience Destiny 2 lays out for you.
Of course, the best way to experience this game is with friends and if you and your friends enjoy Destiny then you will enjoy Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 gets a 7 out of 10
The Story that actually exists
So first, let's start out with what some of the criticisms of the original Destiny was and what Destiny 2 does differently.
In the original Destiny there was practically no story whatsoever. There was no motivation or context to what you were doing in the story in a majority of the missions you would partake in. Why were you going to the Moon? Why were you hunting the Fallen? Why were you going to Venus to find an old archive hidden away for centuries?
Your guess along with millions of other players and myself was just as good as everyone else's guess as to why we were doing these things. The original Destiny did not tell us anything about anything. Essentially the motivation for our actions was just "You're the good guy so you need to find the bad guys and shoot them."
In Destiny 2, however, we do get context to our actions and we do understand why we are doing the things we are doing. We know what is going on in the world and what we are doing in the world. From the main story to the side quest Adventures our actions are informed and we know why we are heading off to these Cabal outposts or why we are heading up into the mountains of the European Dead Zone and wiping out the Fallen.
We get what the original Destiny never gave us: CONTEXT.
We have a main villain and we know who or what the other baddies are that we need to take out in order to make it to said villain.
Is the story great? no, but just having those moments of dialogue as we meet an NPC for the first time telling us what's going on in the area and what has to be done in order for us to make progress is a breath of fresh air as opposed to the original where we didn't get any dialogue or any information as to what is going on or what we were doing and why it needed to be done.
Shoot, Loot and Matchmaking
Now the second biggest criticism was the loot and grind in order to get said loot. In the original Destiny you would pick up rare engrams; think loot boxes from games like Advanced Warfare or Overwatch. These things were your main source of picking up better gear and stronger weapons and what you would need to do in the original was pick them up and wait until you would go back to the social space in order to have the Cryptarch NPC decode them and you would discover what was hiding in that engram you picked up.
Problem: You would not always get better gear
Players were constantly rolling the dice with the Cryptarch in the hopes they would get better gear but sometimes the Cryptarch would end up "rewarding" you with lower level gear. This was especially a problem with players who would find Legendary Engrams which were EXTREMELY EXTREMELY rare to find out in the world would come back to the Cryptarch to only discover that their Legendary Engrams that they would bring back would not reward them with any new Legendary weapon or armor piece. The only way you could acquire legendary armor or gear without relying on engrams were factions you could join and work towards acquiring reputation tokens or completing daily bounties to gain reputation. The problem was that it would take hours upon hours, day after day to build up reputation to be able to acquire just one piece of legendary gear. Grinding in the original Destiny was exhausting and at times down right punishing just to see any piece of gear that was better than what you currently had.
Destiny 2 fixed that.
When it comes to getting loot and grinding in Destiny 2, you have a much easier and better time accumulating Legendary gear and even the super rare and coveted Exotics than in the original Destiny. Legendary Engrams and even Exotic Engrams are much easier to find. Completing public events, strikes or killing High-Value targets (enemies with yellow or orange health bars) spawn chests and these chests not only give you currency but also have a better chance to give you Legendary Engrams and Exotic Engrams. You could potentially spawn on a planet, spend no more than 10 minutes completing a public event or coming across a high value target and end up finding an Exotic or Legendary engram which you can then save to take back to a social space and get it decoded to find your new Exotic or Legendary weapon or piece of armor. Destiny 2 also introduces Bright Engrams which are able to acquire once you reach the maximum EXP level of 20.
On top of that, each planet you visit has a reputation vendor in which you can find that planet's themed gear. In order to gain reputation with these vendors you can complete public events, kill high value targets, open loot chests and complete Lost Sectors(mini-dungeons) throughout the world and acquire reputation tokens in order to turn into these vendors, reach a new level of reputation, turn in and walk away with better gear.
There will be moments in when acquiring gear you will find duplicates of weapons or pieces of armor that you don't want or don't need and in these moments, where unlike in the original Destiny you really wouldn't get anything useful, this time around you get Gunsmith Materials for dismantling Rare(blue) Legendary(purple) Exotic(yellow) gear. These materials can be then turned into the Gunsmith for another source of Legendary and sometimes Exotic weaponry.
The best way to sum it up is this : An hour in the original Destiny, you would barely have made any progress to acquiring a new piece of legendary gear and barely made a dent in the amount of faction reputation you needed to get legendary gear. An hour in Destiny 2, you have already spent enough time to get more than just one new piece of legendary gear.
What still remains a problem in Destiny is getting players together to take on challenges like the Nightfall Strike and the Raid. Sure there are still the usual means of using Destiny LFG and the Destiny app to get together with players but for those of us out there who are shy and have a problem playing with random people there is still a problem. Bungie has attempted to fix it through Destiny 2's Guided Games. Guided Games is a matchmaking like system for players who need two other players to complete the Nightfall or join a Raid team in order to complete the Raid, the players you will match with are usually people who are part of clans, the idea being that you will end up meeting a group of people that like you enough and invite you to their Destiny clan which then translates into you having a group of players to regularly play with and be able to participate in the Nightfall strikes and Raid.
Problem is though that the Guided Games system doesn't seem to work. I've tried a few times to get a Guided Nightfall Game to start only to be timed out and unable to participate in that week's Nightfall.
I was able to complete the Nightfall for one week with a group of players I found and all I can is that the Nightfall strikes this around is not as impossible as it was back in the original Destiny. Instead of an insane amount of modifiers that give enemies either invulnerability to staggering critical hits or shields that need the same elemental damage you get smaller but still a challenge modifiers like having to kill enemies to increase time or finding Vex anomalies to increase mission time.
As for the Raid, I cannot say how it is because I have not been able to play it.
End Game Content
The End Game activities in Destiny 2 this time are more practical and laid out; although lacking. When you complete the story you can revisit planets to loot Lost Sectors or complete Adventures previously uncompleted because you did other things or go to Ikora to do Mediations. Meditations are story missions you replay again for reputation tokens much like on the planets. Every week a new milestone is added for players in order to complete. Once you complete a Milestone then any and all pieces of gear has increased power levels and Exotics also drop at even HIGHER power levels. These Milestones range from doing public events, participating in Crucible matches, completing the Nightfall and Raid.
However, there really isn't much else.
Although loot is a constant and you can end up having a lot more options for your guardian's load out of guns and armor, there isn't really anything else to explore or discover afterwords.
Once you beat the Nightfall, Raid or reach max light level and get all the things you can possibly get there isn't much else.
In Conclusion
Destiny 2 overall does fix a lot of problems that the original Destiny had but still has problems with the amount of end game content and there still being an inability for many players to not be able to participate in Nightfalls or Raids.
At some point what will happen this time versus the original Destiny instead of the end game content being super repetitive and unable to participate in (Raid and Nightfall strike). This time around the problem is that there isn't anything else.
There is a good amount of loot to be found and the grind this time around is nowhere near as painful as it was in the original Destiny.
Destiny 2 I do find better than the original Destiny and for those who were burned by the original Destiny can find something more enjoyable with the experience Destiny 2 lays out for you.
Of course, the best way to experience this game is with friends and if you and your friends enjoy Destiny then you will enjoy Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 gets a 7 out of 10
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