Because many people don't read the pops ups imo. They skim through or dismiss them. Same goes for the NPC text.
Yeah, garbage like that was a result of the core audience clamoring for more things to grind for. It's just awful game design.
Staten wasn't fired. I'm pretty sure he left after his "too campy" story was taken away from him and hastily retooled into whatever it was that shipped in Destiny 1.
It's still there. The only meaningful thing they ever did with it was include it in the beta. Sucks that they don't double up on the mission vendors there so that we don't have to waste so much time running around the Tower.
The whole thing sounds like a quip bomb went off sometime after The Taken King. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a bigger shift in tone between sequels.
Marvel mania was at an all time high, focused testing and Activision.
NONE of this stuff is explained, and this is where the game's real issues lie. Bansee-44 sells mods, but there is never any tutorial that tells you it can be done.
The onboarding of this game reminds of a Silicon Valley sales pitch. Nice, flashy, tons of money into the show, but you come out not knowing anything new other than they want your money
I'm not sure it's quite so dramatic... but I fully agree it needs an overhaul.
Like other MMO type games, you need to work towards your active quests and bounties.
Kills, activities, etc, will count towards triumphs automatically, without any bounties.
Thanks. I guess I am used to other MMOs where many of the quest givers are closer to the action in nearby "towns" and "going to the big city" is a relatively rare event. Here there's maybe one or two NPCs on a planet near the action that I can tell. The slow tower loading and transition is very game breaking to the flow considering that's where most of the quest turn/in pickup happens.
I think I just miss the feeling of adventure and a universe full of potential stories and techno-organic horror that Destiny 1 evoked. I forget the name of the bosses and sub bosses now, but I would legit get excited and anxious the first time I fought that REALLY giant eyeball servitor thing in Destiny 1, or even the giant spider. I enjoyed the feeling of reaching areas where the enemies were too powerful and required me to level up to do damage. I always felt that the mode of Destiny was "Space cops or Space Knights", and when I read Staten's orginL plans about how the game would progess with wizards and such, it was exciting.
Amazing post.I've written this out a few times, but this is what you should, imo, do as a brand new player:
1
Finish the tutorial mission.
2
Read the pop up that appears when you visit the tower. It will show you a Symbol (blue diamond with the Destiny logo), speak with EVERY NPC on the map in the tower that has this symbol before you do anything else. Read what they say carefully and look at what they offer.
-- The game does not explain its systems well, but you can extrapolate a lot of stuff if you really pay attention. Banshee-44, for instance, sells two mods per day: 1 weapon and 1 armour. Then if you check your weapons and armour you will see you can choose a mod for each. This is in no way making an excuse for the game's poor on-boarding, BUT it will help you a lot if you do this.
3
Play the old campaigns. An NPC called Amanda Holiday in the Hanger in the Tower has these. She is one of the NPCs mentioned above. If you play these campaigns, you will be caught up with current D2 story. It is not complex at all, standard light Vs Dark stuff, and you do not need to know D1 story to get where Destiny 2 is. It's very generic, but it will give context to all the story stuff you hear in strikes and end game activities.
4
Once you finish all the campaigns you own, you should move on to increasing your power level. You will do this by loot gained via play in ANY activity. Once you hit 900, you will notice yellow orb symbols appear next to some destinations in the main destination tab. These are called 'Challenges' and they will reward you with powerful gear that goes above 900.
--- See this image. This is what Gambit Prime, for exmaple, will show you when you hit PL900. The challenge will appear. This one requires you to complete 3 matches.
Challenges will reward items that are slightly above your power level, and each tier offers slightly more boost than the previous.
You need to complete these in order to level up further. You will also randomly find prime engrams which are legendary engrams that give powerful rewards that go above 900.
5
The activities you choose in step 4 depend on what content you own. With the base game and New Light (the F2P content) you will have access to a lot of quests. Some of these will reward an exotic weapon, some will further the story a little, It is up to you to choose which you want to work on. If you go to your Quests tab you will see two areas: Quests and Bounties.
Quests are your basic MMO style quest chains. Go to X area and kill Y, collect X amount of Y, play a harder variant of mission X, etc...
Bounties are daily or weekly single stage quests that reward you with materials and XP.
6
Learn which NPCs give what type of bounty, for example: Zavala in the tower hands out Strike bounties, Shaxx hands out Crucible bounties, Ada hands out Black Armory (forges) bounties, Drifter hands out Gambit bounties. You should always collect these, daily and weekly, before you engage in the activities they match. There are also NPCs on each planet who offer 3 dail bounties that reward that planet's resource and xp.
Most of these vendors will have items you can buy from them. To access these you need to unlock a certain amount of packages. To gain packages from each vendor you need to hand in the materials they take in exchange. A package will contain a legendary piece of gear from their specific loot pool. They also contain bonus items like shaders and weapon/armour mods.
Example: Shaxx's crucible bounties award XP and crucible tokens. Every 20 tokens gets you a package which contains a single weapon or piece of armour from the crucible loot pool.
7
So, this will be your standard gameplay loop after beating the campaigns and reaching PL 900:
- Log in and collect your daily bounties.
- Complete activities that reward you with powerful gear.
- Work on any Quests you have that reward the weapons and gear you want.
- Try to overlap bounties, quests, and challenges so you can make efficient progress.
As you level up, more activities will become available to you like the harder levels of nightfalls and the raid. Your main goal in this game is to reach max PL (960) and chase gear to build load outs for end-game and general play.
8
That's the basic gameplay, but there is a lot of other stuff that you should understand that you will probably need to look up or ask about. The game does a poor job of explaining its systems overall, but f you have experience with RPGs and MMO type games it's not very complex. You will be able wo work it out fairly quickly once you stop feeling overwhelmed with the various systems.
Ok, that's a lot of stuff... why should I even bother to put all that effort in to learning?
Honestly? While Destiny's onboarding is frustrating and poorly explained, the game offers some of the absolute best co-op FPS gameplay available. To the point it absolutely stomps on the competition.
Not only is the minute to minute gameplay top tier, but there is a large variety of activities to choose from. End game in Destiny is amazing, and supports both solo and group play.
Nightfalls, dungeons, hard mode variants of strikes, unique exotic missions, raids. There is a lot to chew on if you're into gearing up for end game. Some of this has matchmaking, others require you to build a group yourself, but all of it is engaging and, imo, better than any other loot shooter/RPG type out there.
I play solo for the majority of my game time. I use matchmaking to play certain activities, and I solo some of the end-game content. I will group up via our community OT and discord for raids and some challenging missions. There is a lot for you whichever of these types of play you prefer.
The social aspects of this game are where it truly shines though. Playing end-game missions and dungeons with a group of 3, or Raiding with 5 other guardians is unlike any other type of raid type experience I've had. No other FPS/shooter game of this type does it quite as well.
Our community is friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. It supports people who play every day and people who only have an hour here and there. We have sherpas in our discord - guardians whose role it is to help new and old players alike, and if you ask for help we will try out best to accommodate you.
Destiny is a messy game. Destiny does a bad job of onboarding players. BUT Destiny also offers some of the most fun, memorable, and rewarding content available today.
Join us in the OT: https://www.resetera.com/threads/destiny-2-shadowkeep-ot-moons-haunted.143094/
PM Ruthless for an invite to the discord.
Yeah, the tower load times are kind-of awful and have somewhat reached meme status among the community, lol.
Cheers., I updated the last part with a basic overview of what the game offers in terms of gameplay too.
I've written this out a few times, but this is what you should, imo, do as a brand new player:
1
Finish the tutorial mission.
2
Read the pop up that appears when you visit the tower. It will show you a Symbol (blue diamond with the Destiny logo), speak with EVERY NPC on the map in the tower that has this symbol before you do anything else. Read what they say carefully and look at what they offer.
-- The game does not explain its systems well, but you can extrapolate a lot of stuff if you really pay attention. Banshee-44, for instance, sells two mods per day: 1 weapon and 1 armour. Then if you check your weapons and armour you will see you can choose a mod for each. This is in no way making an excuse for the game's poor on-boarding, BUT it will help you a lot if you do this.
3
Play the old campaigns. An NPC called Amanda Holiday in the Hanger in the Tower has these. She is one of the NPCs mentioned above. If you play these campaigns, you will be caught up with current D2 story. It is not complex at all, standard light Vs Dark stuff, and you do not need to know D1 story to get where Destiny 2 is. It's very generic, but it will give context to all the story stuff you hear in strikes and end game activities.
4
Once you finish all the campaigns you own, you should move on to increasing your power level. You will do this by loot gained via play in ANY activity. Once you hit 900, you will notice yellow orb symbols appear next to some destinations in the main destination tab. These are called 'Challenges' and they will reward you with powerful gear that goes above 900.
--- See this image. This is what Gambit Prime, for exmaple, will show you when you hit PL900. The challenge will appear. This one requires you to complete 3 matches.
Challenges will reward items that are slightly above your power level, and each tier offers slightly more boost than the previous.
You need to complete these in order to level up further. You will also randomly find prime engrams which are legendary engrams that give powerful rewards that go above 900.
5
The activities you choose in step 4 depend on what content you own. With the base game and New Light (the F2P content) you will have access to a lot of quests. Some of these will reward an exotic weapon, some will further the story a little, It is up to you to choose which you want to work on. If you go to your Quests tab you will see two areas: Quests and Bounties.
Quests are your basic MMO style quest chains. Go to X area and kill Y, collect X amount of Y, play a harder variant of mission X, etc...
Bounties are daily or weekly single stage quests that reward you with materials and XP.
6
Learn which NPCs give what type of bounty, for example: Zavala in the tower hands out Strike bounties, Shaxx hands out Crucible bounties, Ada hands out Black Armory (forges) bounties, Drifter hands out Gambit bounties. You should always collect these, daily and weekly, before you engage in the activities they match. There are also NPCs on each planet who offer 3 dail bounties that reward that planet's resource and xp.
Most of these vendors will have items you can buy from them. To access these you need to unlock a certain amount of packages. To gain packages from each vendor you need to hand in the materials they take in exchange. A package will contain a legendary piece of gear from their specific loot pool. They also contain bonus items like shaders and weapon/armour mods.
Example: Shaxx's crucible bounties award XP and crucible tokens. Every 20 tokens gets you a package which contains a single weapon or piece of armour from the crucible loot pool.
7
So, this will be your standard gameplay loop after beating the campaigns and reaching PL 900:
- Log in and collect your daily bounties.
- Complete activities that reward you with powerful gear.
- Work on any Quests you have that reward the weapons and gear you want.
- Try to overlap bounties, quests, and challenges so you can make efficient progress.
As you level up, more activities will become available to you like the harder levels of nightfalls and the raid. Your main goal in this game is to reach max PL (960) and chase gear to build load outs for end-game and general play.
8
That's the basic gameplay, but there is a lot of other stuff that you should understand that you will probably need to look up or ask about. The game does a poor job of explaining its systems overall, but f you have experience with RPGs and MMO type games it's not very complex. You will be able wo work it out fairly quickly once you stop feeling overwhelmed with the various systems.
Ok, that's a lot of stuff... why should I even bother to put all that effort in to learning?
Honestly? While Destiny's onboarding is frustrating and poorly explained, the game offers some of the absolute best co-op FPS gameplay available. To the point it absolutely stomps on the competition.
Not only is the minute to minute gameplay top tier, but there is a large variety of activities to choose from. End game in Destiny is amazing, and supports both solo and group play.
The game offers:
- Campaigns: single player curated FPS campaigns.
- Patrols: free-roam areas that have public events, lost sectors, hunts, chests and resources to farm, etc..
- Strikes: missions where you travel from A->B taking out enemies and making your way to a boss.
- Gambit/Bambit Prime: a PvEvP mode where two opposing teams battle out alongside each other to kill enemies, bank motes, and take down a boss.
- Reckoning: a 3 player activity tied to the Gambit modes that has 3 guardians crossing a bridge and entering another realm to kill a boss.
- Crucible: PvP with various modes. Clash, Control, Rumble. A competitive playlist with unique rewards attached, and now a solo comp queue!
- Nightfalls: hard mode variants of strikes with higher rewards.
- Menagerie: a 6 player activity with raid-lite mechanics that you set a "recipe" for a specific weapon you are rewarded with on completion.
- Forges: 3 player horde mode type that allows you to forge specific weapons.
- Pinnacle and Relic weapons: quest chains that reward you with a specific weapon
- Exotic quests: quest chains that reward you with an exotic weapon.
- Dreaming City is a more end-game focused patrol area that comes with Forsaken. It has unique activities like Blind Well (a public event style horde mode) and the Ascendant challenges (a weekly challenge that takes you to a unique area to complete a specific activity).
- Dungeons and unique exotic endgame missions: Shattered Throne, Zero Hour, Whisper of the Worm. Unique missions with unique loot. Zero Hour, for instance, gives yo u20 minutes to battle through encounters and find your way through a jump puzzle style challenge to take down the boss before you run out of time - this specific mission is the last stage of the Outbreak Perfected exotic pulse rifle.
- Raids: the pinnacle end-game activity. 6 guardians group to take down a sequence of challenges that reward with unique loot. Communication and team work is key, this is what you've been gearing up for!
-- and more!
There is a lot to chew on whether you're causally playing or gearing up for end game. The end-game is challenging and fun, some of it has matchmaking, some if it requires you to build a group yourself, but all of it is engaging and, imo, better than any other loot shooter/RPG type out there.
I play solo for the majority of my game time. I use matchmaking to play certain activities, and I solo some of the end-game content. I will group up via our community OT and discord for raids and some challenging missions. There is a lot for you whichever of these types of play you prefer.
The social aspects of this game are where it truly shines though. Playing end-game missions and dungeons with a group of 3, or Raiding with 5 other guardians is unlike any other type of raid type experience I've had. No other FPS/shooter game of this type does it quite as well.
Our community is friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. It supports people who play every day and people who only have an hour here and there. We have sherpas in our discord - guardians whose role it is to help new and old players alike, and if you ask for help we will try our best to accommodate you.
Destiny is a messy game. Destiny does a bad job of onboarding players. BUT Destiny also offers some of the most fun, memorable, and rewarding content available today.
Join us in the OT: https://www.resetera.com/threads/destiny-2-shadowkeep-ot-moons-haunted.143094/
PM Ruthless for an invite to the discord.
Thank you. I screenshot these steps so I can apply them later when I play.I've written this out a few times, but this is what you should, imo, do as a brand new player:
1
Finish the tutorial mission.
2
Read the pop up that appears when you visit the tower. It will show you a Symbol (blue diamond with the Destiny logo), speak with EVERY NPC on the map in the tower that has this symbol before you do anything else. Read what they say carefully and look at what they offer.
-- The game does not explain its systems well, but you can extrapolate a lot of stuff if you really pay attention. Banshee-44, for instance, sells two mods per day: 1 weapon and 1 armour. Then if you check your weapons and armour you will see you can choose a mod for each. This is in no way making an excuse for the game's poor on-boarding, BUT it will help you a lot if you do this.
3
Play the old campaigns. An NPC called Amanda Holiday in the Hanger in the Tower has these. She is one of the NPCs mentioned above. If you play these campaigns, you will be caught up with current D2 story. It is not complex at all, standard light Vs Dark stuff, and you do not need to know D1 story to get where Destiny 2 is. It's very generic, but it will give context to all the story stuff you hear in strikes and end game activities.
4
Once you finish all the campaigns you own, you should move on to increasing your power level. You will do this by loot gained via play in ANY activity. Once you hit 900, you will notice yellow orb symbols appear next to some destinations in the main destination tab. These are called 'Challenges' and they will reward you with powerful gear that goes above 900.
--- See this image. This is what Gambit Prime, for exmaple, will show you when you hit PL900. The challenge will appear. This one requires you to complete 3 matches.
Challenges will reward items that are slightly above your power level, and each tier offers slightly more boost than the previous.
You need to complete these in order to level up further. You will also randomly find prime engrams which are legendary engrams that give powerful rewards that go above 900.
5
The activities you choose in step 4 depend on what content you own. With the base game and New Light (the F2P content) you will have access to a lot of quests. Some of these will reward an exotic weapon, some will further the story a little, It is up to you to choose which you want to work on. If you go to your Quests tab you will see two areas: Quests and Bounties.
Quests are your basic MMO style quest chains. Go to X area and kill Y, collect X amount of Y, play a harder variant of mission X, etc...
Bounties are daily or weekly single stage quests that reward you with materials and XP.
6
Learn which NPCs give what type of bounty, for example: Zavala in the tower hands out Strike bounties, Shaxx hands out Crucible bounties, Ada hands out Black Armory (forges) bounties, Drifter hands out Gambit bounties. You should always collect these, daily and weekly, before you engage in the activities they match. There are also NPCs on each planet who offer 3 dail bounties that reward that planet's resource and xp.
Most of these vendors will have items you can buy from them. To access these you need to unlock a certain amount of packages. To gain packages from each vendor you need to hand in the materials they take in exchange. A package will contain a legendary piece of gear from their specific loot pool. They also contain bonus items like shaders and weapon/armour mods.
Example: Shaxx's crucible bounties award XP and crucible tokens. Every 20 tokens gets you a package which contains a single weapon or piece of armour from the crucible loot pool.
7
So, this will be your standard gameplay loop after beating the campaigns and reaching PL 900:
- Log in and collect your daily bounties.
- Complete activities that reward you with powerful gear.
- Work on any Quests you have that reward the weapons and gear you want.
- Try to overlap bounties, quests, and challenges so you can make efficient progress.
As you level up, more activities will become available to you like the harder levels of nightfalls and the raid. Your main goal in this game is to reach max PL (960) and chase gear to build load outs for end-game and general play.
8
That's the basic gameplay, but there is a lot of other stuff that you should understand that you will probably need to look up or ask about. The game does a poor job of explaining its systems overall, but f you have experience with RPGs and MMO type games it's not very complex. You will be able wo work it out fairly quickly once you stop feeling overwhelmed with the various systems.
Ok, that's a lot of stuff... why should I even bother to put all that effort in to learning?
Honestly? While Destiny's onboarding is frustrating and poorly explained, the game offers some of the absolute best co-op FPS gameplay available. To the point it absolutely stomps on the competition.
Not only is the minute to minute gameplay top tier, but there is a large variety of activities to choose from. End game in Destiny is amazing, and supports both solo and group play.
The game offers:
- Campaigns: single player curated FPS campaigns.
- Patrols: free-roam areas that have public events, lost sectors, hunts, chests and resources to farm, etc..
- Strikes: missions where you travel from A->B taking out enemies and making your way to a boss.
- Gambit/Bambit Prime: a PvEvP mode where two opposing teams battle out alongside each other to kill enemies, bank motes, and take down a boss.
- Reckoning: a 3 player activity tied to the Gambit modes that has 3 guardians crossing a bridge and entering another realm to kill a boss.
- Crucible: PvP with various modes. Clash, Control, Rumble. A competitive playlist with unique rewards attached, and now a solo comp queue!
- Nightfalls: hard mode variants of strikes with higher rewards.
- Menagerie: a 6 player activity with raid-lite mechanics that you set a "recipe" for a specific weapon you are rewarded with on completion.
- Forges: 3 player horde mode type that allows you to forge specific weapons.
- Pinnacle and Relic weapons: quest chains that reward you with a specific weapon
- Exotic quests: quest chains that reward you with an exotic weapon.
- Dreaming City is a more end-game focused patrol area that comes with Forsaken. It has unique activities like Blind Well (a public event style horde mode) and the Ascendant challenges (a weekly challenge that takes you to a unique area to complete a specific activity).
- Dungeons and unique exotic endgame missions: Shattered Throne, Zero Hour, Whisper of the Worm. Unique missions with unique loot. Zero Hour, for instance, gives yo u20 minutes to battle through encounters and find your way through a jump puzzle style challenge to take down the boss before you run out of time - this specific mission is the last stage of the Outbreak Perfected exotic pulse rifle.
- Raids: the pinnacle end-game activity. 6 guardians group to take down a sequence of challenges that reward with unique loot. Communication and team work is key, this is what you've been gearing up for!
-- and more!
There is a lot to chew on whether you're causally playing or gearing up for end game. The end-game is challenging and fun, some of it has matchmaking, some if it requires you to build a group yourself, but all of it is engaging and, imo, better than any other loot shooter/RPG type out there.
I play solo for the majority of my game time. I use matchmaking to play certain activities, and I solo some of the end-game content. I will group up via our community OT and discord for raids and some challenging missions. There is a lot for you whichever of these types of play you prefer.
The social aspects of this game are where it truly shines though. Playing end-game missions and dungeons with a group of 3, or Raiding with 5 other guardians is unlike any other type of raid type experience I've had. No other FPS/shooter game of this type does it quite as well.
Our community is friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. It supports people who play every day and people who only have an hour here and there. We have sherpas in our discord - guardians whose role it is to help new and old players alike, and if you ask for help we will try our best to accommodate you.
Destiny is a messy game. Destiny does a bad job of onboarding players. BUT Destiny also offers some of the most fun, memorable, and rewarding content available today.
Join us in the OT: https://www.resetera.com/threads/destiny-2-shadowkeep-ot-moons-haunted.143094/
PM Ruthless for an invite to the discord.
Funny thing is the game doesn't tell you this ever. It's just expected since it was in Destiny 1.
It's quite beautiful.
New Light next with moon patrol and some other bits.
You do not need Forsaken to do Tangled Shore and Dreaming City patrol
