I have decided, as of this writing, not to come back to Destiny. Period. This is tied up with a few things, which I won't go into here, but my biggest hang-up is the lore. Here is my central assertion re: Destiny lore. The lore books do not matter, except in edge cases. You will never meet characters like Shin Malphur, even when it makes sense for you to do so. What is the point of these reams upon reams of text if they have little to no bearing on in-game events? You don't get to meet these interesting, cool characters in the way the medium is designed for. Instead, you get lore books where they just talk at you. Wouldn't it be great and flavorful to have a close encounter with, say, Aunor Mahal? Something where she tells you, in person, to stop meddling with things you don't understand? Well, that's not what you get in game. This is the problem with Destiny. The vast majority of the lore might as well not exist outside these lore books, except for a few basic concepts.
Yeah I agree with what you said, its pointless to read the lore, unless you are just bored and want to read, which by all means. I personally enjoy lore that gets shown such as the lore with Rasputin, and it was amazing how well they brought him with Siva in Rise of Iron. I think they might be fixing this issue with the Witch Queen being the first chapter of their so called new larger story, but I am hoping they switch their season content to these characters we don't get to meet in the main campaign in Destiny 2.
Keep the following in mind. I've only played up to Shadowkeep and haven't done any of the following seasons. There is a definite separation between what is present in the lore books and what is present in-game. Some of this may be due to limitations of the game. I don't know if it is. Some of it strikes me as accidental, and some of it deliberate choices. Take the Darkness. What the Darkness is in lore seems to be an entirely different animal than what it is in the actual story of the game. Whereas in the lore it's a metaphysical and formless force, the Darkness in-game is a physical one, albeit one beyond the limits of our understanding. It has a physical form - the black pyramids - whereas Oryx had to summon it into a physical body in the lore books. Or the Hive. The Hive in lore have this intricate backstory, with motivations. They're awesomely powerful beings, capable of destroying solar systems and exterminating entire races. Yet we were able to shoot their god-king, HIS god, and two of his demigod sons in the face until they died. Something doesn't add up here.
About the lore, I am personally not really into it, but if the lore doesn't match the game, it definitely would ruin it for me if I were studying the lore myself personally like I have during Destiny 1. I agree, I would rather do a larger story that builds up over many DLC's to have been able to kill Oryx, cause sure you may think you are powerful, but if you can kill what is considered a god, what's stopping you from taking over the universe. The thing that really made this noticeable was Xol in Warmind where it took couple of spears and bullets to kill what is called a worm god. I personally don't like this myself, and would rather have a larger story building up to a climactic battle sort of like in Avengers.
Actually they walked that back and said that was a fake Xol - Tolland mocks you for thinking it was the real one. In fact, I think Xol either splits part of his power or straight up becomes the Whisper of the Worm exotic, because through Sword Logic he's decided you are better than the entirety of the Hive.
I came back to Destiny 2 this summer after a long break. I quit paying attention to lore before I quit as trying to figure out armor/weapon upgrades became so complicated and grinding power levels without doing raids/nightfall was lame. Still confused about Hammer and Gauntlet but the recent Solstice of Heroes was fun. I still haven't completed all of the Stasis subclass upgrades but I plan on doing it now. Will see if I stick around after Season 15.
According to my friends who stuck with the game for the past two seasons, the leveling problem has been rectified in that each season only increases the power level by ten, so no more having to grind stupid hard a whole season. The Hammer and Gauntlet I'm assuming you're talking about seasonal relics - I just got the hammer myself - and it looks like all you do is get 'seasonal currency' which you spend on those weapons to unlock bonuses for seasonal activities and more of that season's content. The biggest improvement I hear has been PVP. The game went crossplay and moreover they now use BattleEye which has had an immediate effect in preventing cheaters because it has a multi-game ban list. You may have never cheated at Destiny 2, but if you've cheated on ANY of the games on the BattleEye list, you are banned from ALL of them. It's fantastic.
Yes, leveling up is easier. I didn't make it to 1320 last season without artifact buff but got to 1311 for playing a relatively short time. Good to know about BattleEye! I like Crucible and Iron Banner. When I started back up, all my gear was at 1100, lol. I just did strikes last night so will check out Crucible this weekend.
Man, I wanted to try again, I really did. But the game is still so stupidly PVP centric to get any kind of progression and it's full of the exact same fucking asshole hunters who make it so I can't even play. Spawn in, die, repeat. Sure I might get a few kills but when it feels more like LUCK than actual skill in getting a kill, that's bad game design.
I genuinely don't understand how anyone can say Destiny is PVP centric. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. Now this week with Iron Banner, yes, it has a focus, but that's literally a one week event once a month.
Because in my experience, it is legitimately the only way you can actually get gear that reliably will improve your light level. Otherwise I can only describe my experience with Destiny 2's leveling system as 'RNG' because I can run the Nightfall all day long, platinum tier rewards, and ultimately have LITERALLY NOTHING to show for it besides some pocket change glimmer and a heap of junk that is lower light level than what I started with. Oh, and they still haven't fixed The Corrupted, genuinely some of the worst level design in any game to the point I don't think they even tested it properly. What game has a rather prominent way to softlock yourself if the BOSS kills you in the first phase? It's been in the game for years and Bungie has shown they don't care to make sure the bloody checkpoint flag spawns you anywhere NEAR the boss if you have to self-rez!
I haven’t played destiny 2 since warmind, thinking of getting an Xbox again so how much would it cost me in dlc to get up to date?
I obviously can’t speak for your personal experience but based on what you’re saying, you don’t seem to understand the Power Level levelling system at all. Running any one single activity isn’t going to help your power level much. There’s roughly 10 weekly activities that will drop pinnacle-ish gear to increase your light. This ranges from 3 Strikes, a 100K Nightfall, Presage, etc but running something like a Nightfall over and over will do nothing, same with crucible. You’ll get the highest gains from spreading out what you do. The Nightfall weapon drops don’t drop at “power level” so even if you were getting the unique drops, it wouldn’t help. Running the same activity can help you get a Prime Engram which will help you level up all your gear to maybe your highest level other gear. I really can’t get into the entire progression system but again based on what you have typed, you fundamentally are not understanding it. You want a high Power Level? Play more activities that offer higher level rewards not one activity over and over.
If you have game pass much of the dlc is in there, I think. This like might be useless but hopefully it’ll show what you need: Destiny 2: Beyond Light | Xbox
