What happens if we think of TTK as an entirely new game?

A common theme of year two is the following two sentiments:

1. Year one strikes/raids aren't hard any more, Bungie should update them to be hard.
2. Year one weapons/armor aren't good anymore, Bungie should update them to be good.

So what are the pros and cons of thinking of TTK and year two as a completely new/separate game?

In a traditional release, all year one content, maps, weapons, armor, would have been left to die on a separate disc. If you wanted to play or look at any of it, you'd have to pop out your TTK disc and pop in your Destiny Y1 disc. Want to know what it's like to use some of your new perks and weapons on old maps? You can't do that. Want a smooth transition from Destiny Y1 to TTK where you can flip content back and forth seamlessly while you progress? You can't do that either, you (maybe) get a one time import of equipment from Destiny to TTK. You know how in Destiny Y1 you never quite spent the time to make the hard raids easy enough that you could manage them, or any of the raids? It's a shame you can't take your TTK gear back and do those raids now, aye?

Instead, all of those things are possible. How awesome is that? When we complain about easy Y1 content and useless weapons it really lamenting the fact that "Man, Bungie didn't spend time making all Destiny Y1 content compatible with TTK". Sort of the way I lament the fact that Blood Gulch never really came back, and how I can't use a Halo 1 pistol in subsequent Halo games.

The only two cons I can think of for viewing TTK as an entirely different game are:
1. It makes Destiny Y1 short lived.
2. TTK content (in many minds) doesn't stand up to Destiny Y1 content.

But, just like loading up Halo 1 and playing through things like the good old days, we can basically do that at the drop of a hat, using the same interface and game that we use to play "modern" Destiny.

Can anyone convince me that I shouldn't live in this little illusion I've built for myself?

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Can anyone convince me that I shouldn't live in this little illusion I've built for myself?

Think about it this way: I've already played the Vault of Glass a bazillion times. So Bungie could update it so the enemies are level 41, but that wouldn't really change anything really and it'd basically be the same. And if they ARE going to change it up, either by adding Taken or revamping encounters, then why not just make something completely new instead?

Move forward, but leave the past behind intact.

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Can anyone convince me that I shouldn't live in this little illusion I've built for myself?

Think about it this way: I've already played the Vault of Glass a bazillion times. So Bungie could update it so the enemies are level 41, but that wouldn't really change anything really and it'd basically be the same. And if they ARE going to change it up, either by adding Taken or revamping encounters, then why not just make something completely new instead?

Move forward, but leave the past behind intact.

I'm feeling a little weirded out, because I think you just agreed with me :)

I agree, leave the past the same. Even if you added Taken encounters to some of them (e.g. strikes) you'd have to provide a way to play the vanilla raid if you ever wanted to suit up old school and take it on. Currently there isn't a mechanism for that, though maybe ones selectable skulls and modifiers are added, it wouldn't be all that difficult.

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I've thought of TTK as a new game since the week it launched. There's more than enough there for me to consider it so. We've got the solid 8+ hours campaign (I'm including the post-Regicide quest lines), Raid, Strikes, and a robust PvP game. That's way more content than you get in Battlefront or Rainbow 6 Seige or half the CoD games ever made.

But in a lot of ways, I think the way people lean on this issue will be largely based on the activities in Destiny they spend their time with. I do Raids, heroic strikes, Trials & Iron Banner, and that's about it. So for me, almost everything I do is new for TTK. But for players who spend more time doing patrols and story missions, I could see them feeling very differently.

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I've thought of TTK as a new game since the week it launched. There's more than enough there for me to consider it so.

I think I did as well, but only in a micro way, not a macro. For example, I never blamed Bungie for not updating ALL content to be seamlessly TTK compatible. But I also took Bungie's ad campaign at face value and thought of TTK as an "Expansion".

Even though it works better for me, I'm not sure if I think Bungie should have billed TTK as a brand new game with huge backwards compatibility, even if, to me, that explains the outcome a whole lot better.

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Even though it works better for me, I'm not sure if I think Bungie should have billed TTK as a brand new game with huge backwards compatibility, even if, to me, that explains the outcome a whole lot better.

Yeah I think that would have been a dangerous route to go. Although I do think that gamers (and press) are generally way to caught up in this argument of "what constitutes a 'full game' ". If you can jump in and get 4-10 hours of all-new gameplay, without needing to play anything that came before it, it's a game IMO :)

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Simply because it isn't different enough to not be called new CoD

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Yesterday, I raided with a group that was bringing a brand-new person through VoG.

We all put on as much VoG armor as we had - weapons, too, if we had 'em. We still kicked ass. ;)

(We weren't stupid - we went after Atheon with Sleeper Simulants. He died really, really fast.)

It was a blast.

(I'd forgotten how good I looked as a VoG Titan.)

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For me, it means I got suckered on Y1 and paid $80 for $40 worth of game. But then I got a sweet, sweet Y2 game, and paid $40 for $60 worth of game! All in all I still think I'm a net loser, but the trend is positive as far as I'm concerned. If I could go back and do it all over again, I definitely would not have purchased HoW, and probably not even CE, but I definitely would have bought TTK again. TTK was totally awesome, right up until you encountered Oryx. That fight was dumb. But then you beat him, and how he died was awesome again! And then more endgame quests were awesome! Swords! ToM! So Awesome!

And then the end game leveling curve and hard mode nonsense kicked in. Forever 299 is real. Forever 309 is real. Leveling gear was great until 290, and then the entire paradigm changed to "Poopy Town" by These Mechanics are Crap and the Microtransholes.

And now we're seeing the endgame for what it is: A sham developed to lure out the foolish with microtransactions and no real substance. Or at least we were, until SRL, which is totally awesome again! YES!

So yeah, TTK is great. There's some shitty design in there (very shitty, actually), and it's all nestled right around microtransactions and the level cap, but if you don't care about being 320 light (it really doesn't matter, gang), you can have some serious fun with this game.

I will add that the new matchmaking focus on similar skill players vs. quality connections has made MP basically not fun for me. But that's okay, I had my laughs and now there are real PvP MP games to play.

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Very interesting. Sorry if you've covered this before, but what is it about TTK that makes you enjoy the game so much less than year 1? When you say "Destiny becomes the most fun game I've played" are you including TDB and HoW, or are you speaking strictly of vanilla? Just curious :)

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Now, ProbablyLast and I haven't talked about this in a while, I've been out of contact with my Google Talk/Hangouts thing where we normally bitch at each other, to be rectumfied in a couple days, but I think we share some opinions on this, so I can tell you mine, and I think he will agree, then add something about how solar warlocks suck. That was a long sentence with a lot of commas, most of which I'm sure weren't needed. Anyway

The guns aren't fun.
The raid isn't fun.
There's more grind.
The balancing is nuts. (As in I don't understand why they do most of what they do).
Small changes made to pacify complainers, such as level being XP based, heroic strike playlists, matchmaking in heroic strikes, et cetera, add up to net negative in the experience of the game as a whole.

I liked TDB. I liked the raid. I liked the wolves thing too. I even liked the arena. The guns were generally worse, but they were still fun.

I posit that ProbablyLast liked the game the most with expansion 1. I liked it the most completely release date vanilla, no pesky patches ruining Suros or increasing purple drop rates, liked it subsequently less and less with each progressive patch until HoW, then liked it the most with expansion 2, and then again liked it less and less with each patch, where now I like it least I ever have.

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I liked TDB. I liked the raid. I liked the wolves thing too. I even liked the arena. The guns were generally worse, but they were still fun.

Yeah, I think it was a week after HoW came out when I told you "I wonder how long until people realize TDB was better?"

I posit that ProbablyLast liked the game the most with expansion 1.

Primarily because I got the Gyllenhaal two weeks after TDB dropped from the Abyss chest.

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I liked TDB. I liked the raid. I liked the wolves thing too. I even liked the arena. The guns were generally worse, but they were still fun.

Yeah, I think it was a week after HoW came out when I told you "I wonder how long until people realize TDB was better?"

I'm totally with you on that one. I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about how disappointed I was with Prison of Elders, plus a good chunk of the new gear added in HoW was awful. However, I do think the HoW progression system was the best that's been in the game. I think removing the damage upgrade nodes on legendary weapons was a great move, and Etheric Light was exactly what Destiny needed to allow us all to customize our character however we liked while still maintaining end-game level (something TTK completely screwed up). Plus HoW introduced Trials, which I adore :)

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Very interesting. Sorry if you've covered this before, but what is it about TTK that makes you enjoy the game so much less than year 1? When you say "Destiny becomes the most fun game I've played" are you including TDB and HoW, or are you speaking strictly of vanilla? Just curious :)

I'm including the original two DLCs (although, HoW started a decline for me). I'm strictly a PvE player, so I should say that upfront. But basically what Funk said except that I do enjoy the raid. The double RNG drops in the raid really, really irritated me as well as now needing twice as many drops in order to be max level. Also, nightfalls and weekly heroics went from something I look forward to every week to practically irrelevant.

But the guns being noticeably less fun to use is the biggest reason. I really enjoyed Destiny (and still do enjoy it in moderation) because murdering a bunch of weirdly shaped things with awesome weapons was a ton of fun. I could go back and do year 1 activities with year 1 weapons, but then the game loses it's sense of progression, which is obviously a huge draw.

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Very interesting. Sorry if you've covered this before, but what is it about TTK that makes you enjoy the game so much less than year 1? When you say "Destiny becomes the most fun game I've played" are you including TDB and HoW, or are you speaking strictly of vanilla? Just curious :)

I'm including the original two DLCs (although, HoW started a decline for me). I'm strictly a PvE player, so I should say that upfront. But basically what Funk said except that I do enjoy the raid. The double RNG drops in the raid really, really irritated me as well as now needing twice as many drops in order to be max level. Also, nightfalls and weekly heroics went from something I look forward to every week to practically irrelevant.

But the guns being noticeably less fun to use is the biggest reason. I really enjoyed Destiny (and still do enjoy it in moderation) because murdering a bunch of weirdly shaped things with awesome weapons was a ton of fun. I could go back and do year 1 activities with year 1 weapons, but then the game loses it's sense of progression, which is obviously a huge draw.

Thanks for the response. I find stuff like this fascinating, specifically because I agree with almost everything you're saying, yet it all adds up to a different overall total for me.

When I think of "Vanilla Destiny" vs "The Taken King", I think TTK blows vanilla out of the water. I think the story missions and strikes are leagues better, the overall progression through the missions and quests is handled far better, the storytelling and character presence is a leap forward, etc. I think 95% of Vanilla Destiny is actually fairly poor game by today's standards. But the end game... it's a whole different story.

I still think Vault of Glass is the best PvE experience in the game, with Year 1 Trials of Osiris being my favorite PvP game since... maybe ever? I also thought the year 1 weapons were far more fun and inventive, which makes a huge difference when it comes to the end game loop. Year 1 nightfalls were way more fun for me (partially because of the year 1 elemental primaries), and I even enjoyed year 1 patrol more, thanks to the lack of Taken showing up every 10 minutes.

So while I think the overall package of TTK is a much better game than Destiny year 1, the 5% of TTK that I play is a little less enjoyable for me than the 5% of year 1 that I continued to play for months and months.

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Yeah, TTK is a better game in terms of story/missions for sure. The progression from 40 to light 280 is noticeably better than 20 to ~26 was in vanilla. However, that only took a week to blow through and the endgames aren't comparable to me in terms of fun. Even bounties have been changed to give less progression, so I have no real reason to log in and do them using weapons that aren't fun in my opinion.

That said, my two favorite subclasses to play as were introduced with TTK (Nightstalker and Sunbreaker). I just don't have the desire to play as them right now. I am looking forward to the next raid, even though I'll likely be way too far behind to contribute.

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20-26 was totally awesome with the loot cave.

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And it would be entertaining!

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Very interesting. Sorry if you've covered this before, but what is it about TTK that makes you enjoy the game so much less than year 1? When you say "Destiny becomes the most fun game I've played" are you including TDB and HoW, or are you speaking strictly of vanilla? Just curious :)

I'm including the original two DLCs (although, HoW started a decline for me). I'm strictly a PvE player, so I should say that upfront. But basically what Funk said except that I do enjoy the raid. The double RNG drops in the raid really, really irritated me as well as now needing twice as many drops in order to be max level. Also, nightfalls and weekly heroics went from something I look forward to every week to practically irrelevant.

But the guns being noticeably less fun to use is the biggest reason. I really enjoyed Destiny (and still do enjoy it in moderation) because murdering a bunch of weirdly shaped things with awesome weapons was a ton of fun. I could go back and do year 1 activities with year 1 weapons, but then the game loses it's sense of progression, which is obviously a huge draw.

I can totally understand where you are coming from. I personally don't think it's that much of a grind, but then again I'm playing Destiny super relaxed. As for the raid, I agree. I like the mechanics, but it's a bit heavy for me in terms of time/work. I understand for more hardcore players it's great.

As for the weapons in Vanilla vs. TTK, I think you are right in that vanilla was better. And I'm mostly talking exotics here. However, I think that TTK exotic armor is better than vanilla. So there is that.

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