"It's the best co-op game we've played so far by a longshot" (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, December 19, 2016, 23:58 (3140 days ago) @ Robot Chickens

"It's the best co-op game we've played so far by a longshot."

Said by an acquaintance of mine who just picked up Destiny for the PS3 and is going through it with one of his cousins. They have only played campaign and strikes. No raids. No strike playlists. No PvP. No grinding.

I found this fascinating. He and his friend like to shoot things together. They don't have a lot of time, but they pick a game and go through it for fun. His experience of Destiny is that there is just a ton of content and it's really fun to get new gear. It seems that coming to it this late in the game really changes his perception of everything.

With all the burned-out folks in these parts, it made me think. Maybe Destiny isn't designed for the hard-core gamers and fans we are. Maybe it was made for casuals and the end-game is just poorly designed for those who are obsessive and want to go deep.

I don't really have a point with all this. I just thought it was interesting to hear such a different view of the game.

Some of my favorite times with Destiny have been when a new expansion comes out and I jump in with a couple DBOers and play through the new missions and strikes together. Even Patrol takes on a whole new appeal with friends. The problem I keep running into is that the closer you get to the end game, the more the quest lines spider-web outwards, the more difficult it gets for friends to all stay on the same page in terms of their progression. There's a lot of time spent going back and forth to the various social spaces, talking to vendors, managing gear... That can be a bit of a drag when 1 fireteam member needs to spend 15 minutes in the tower doing some housekeeping while the other 2 players are just waiting around.

Then, as you alluded to, there's the end game. At a certain point, if I want to seriously participate in Destiny's end game content, I need to dedicate a substantial amount of time to being "productive", and that doesn't always jive with just doing "whatever" with my friends. And that's a real shame to me, because those end game activities are SO GOOD. I have a few buddies who play Destiny "casually" (ie very much the way you described your acquaintance) and they have just resigned themselves to the fact that they'll never get to play the raids there's too much work involved. But the raid itself isn't the thing that turns them off or intimidates them; it's the grind.

I've finally hit that sweet spot with Rise of Iron where I can once again treat Destiny like a casual social experience. None of my characters are Max level, there's plenty of gear that I don't have, but I'm high enough level and have enough gear upgraded so that I can jump into any activity with any character at any time and have fun. And it feels great. I spent a couple hours doing WotM challenge mode on Sunday night and it was a blast. Chatting and laughing the whole way through. No worrying about light levels or having the right gear with the right perks or getting the right loot drops. I'm now passed all that stuff. When Destiny gets out of its own way, there's nothing that beats it.

TL;DR - I think the "casual" approach is by far the best way to have fun with Destiny, and I wish it was easier to extend that approach to the end-game activities as well.