To me it’s like this: I didn’t just show up and say “shut up” or “you’re wrong.” I provided several paragraphs of explanation spread across multiple posts. If you have a problem with my reasoning, then let’s hear it. I’ll honestly consider what you have to say and give you a response. If you’re just annoyed that I’m disagreeing too much, or annoyed that I have expressed an opinion on what is or isn’t a reasonable criticism.... well... suck it up, buttercup.

One thing that for sure won’t get me to change my behavior is stringing together a few of my concluding statements, ignoring the majority of my arguments, and asking an insultingly cutesy question.

It's because your posts follow a formula of:

I disagree.

Reason.

Reason.

Reason.

Conclusion: You're a bad person.

It's infuriating. Just delete your last paragraph whenever you respond to posts and I'll be WAY happier to entertain discussions with you.

IMO the most recent one (may be premature) didn't actually bother me nearly as much as the "your behavior is not good" one, but it does adhere to the pattern.

People have been making this argument since Destiny launched back in 2014: give it time. The next things will make the story better, etc.

True. But I’d also say that people have been right. :)

That's a horrible argument. The story you get with each release should be satisfying on its own! Would you watch a TV show if episodes 1-9 were bad, and then be told that it's all worth it for 10? No. You'd watch a show that knows how to make each episode rewarding, yet the sum greater than the parts.

Well, plenty of people watched Breaking Bad, so that's definitely not true . . .

Back in Destiny terms, I’m not saying their couldn’t or shouldn’t have been more and better impact shown, I’m just saying that CoO is our first big chance for change. And that it isn’t right to completely overlook some of the smaller changes that we did see.

People have been making this argument since Destiny launched back in 2014: give it time. The next things will make the story better, etc.

That's a horrible argument. The story you get with each release should be satisfying on its own! Would you watch a TV show if episodes 1-9 were bad, and then be told that it's all worth it for 10? No. You'd watch a show that knows how to make each episode rewarding, yet the sum greater than the parts.

Nobody should have to look to the 'next' thing in order to get catharsis from the story. Des2ny's story was at least functional in a minimal way (enough to be 'canon'), but a far cry from being 'good'.

I'm sorry, what?

What stories do you know of that only demonstrate character change after the conflict is resolved? That's like saying Luke doesn't have enough time to change during A New Hope and we should only expect character development after he's blown up the Death Star. It just doesn't make sense.

Destiny 2 almost completely failed in that department. Zavala is the only argument I can see against that, and then only slightly. Zavala struggles to figure out what he is without Light, even going as far as to task if he's still a Guardian. He determines that yes, he is, and goes on to fight to take back the city, as much a Guardian as he ever was. But even that is the barest of character arcs. And even then, he doesn't change at all from how we knew him in Destiny 1--it's just a story about the return to the status quo.

I hope we see better with The Curse of Osiris, but I'm not all that optimistic. I don't think we'll ever see more than gestures at a real story within the Destiny universe.

I'm not sure Destiny needs more than that, at the end of the day, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect more from it.

Ikora makes the same kind of determination. I’d say she actually goes through an even greater understanding of what it means to be a Guardian. Where Zavala went to Titan to regroup and rearm, Ikora reveals that she basically fled to Io to hide. And that she did so because she was afraid of dying.

Sure, Zavala has his down moments on Titan as he wonders about his place without his Light, but he was still in the middle of things, still calling Guardians to him. It was only after encountering the Hive and not really having an idea of what could even be done next that he reached his low.

Ikora, in contrast hit her low almost immediately. She wasn’t planning to go back. She wasn’t planning to continue the fight. She didn’t even seem to be planning to oppose the Cabal as they harvested the Traveler’s energy from Io. She was just going to stand there on her cliff or hide in the ruins the Traveler left behind because she was paralyzed by her fear.

I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been more change or that there shouldn’t have been more impactful consequences. I agreed that there should have been. I’m saying that you shouldn’t dismiss it when characters admit their mistakes after a major event a lay out how they plan to do things differently. Really, I’d say there are three areas where the Vanguard showed learning and growth:

1. The realization that they can be Guardians without their super powers.
2. The realization that those who never had super powers can also be Guardians
3. The realizations that they had (basically) become lazy in their strength (Zavala in the strength of the City’s defenses, Ikora in her own power).

In Star Wars terms, Luke is basically a whiny kid up until the fighter run on the Death Star. Sure, he shows moments of heroism, but it’s not until Empire that he’s taken his place as a leader in the Rebellion. It’s not until Jedi that he truly sheds the whiny kid and becomes a calm, collected Jedi, something he had very much not been in the previous two movies. There are some minor demonstrations of change in each movie, but we see the big demonstrations come along with each new work.

Back in Destiny terms, I’m not saying their couldn’t or shouldn’t have been more and better impact shown, I’m just saying that CoO is our first big chance for change. And that it isn’t right to completely overlook some of the smaller changes that we did see.

What stories do you know of that only demonstrate character change after the conflict is resolved? That's like saying Luke doesn't have enough time to change during A New Hope and we should only expect character development after he's blown up the Death Star. It just doesn't make sense.

Destiny 2 almost completely failed in that department. Zavala is the only argument I can see against that, and then only slightly. Zavala struggles to figure out what he is without Light, even going as far as to task if he's still a Guardian. He determines that yes, he is, and goes on to fight to take back the city, as much a Guardian as he ever was. But even that is the barest of character arcs. And even then, he doesn't change at all from how we knew him in Destiny 1--it's just a story about the return to the status quo.

I hope we see better with The Curse of Osiris, but I'm not all that optimistic. I don't think we'll ever see more than gestures at a real story within the Destiny universe.

I'm not sure Destiny needs more than that, at the end of the day, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect more from it.

Growth and learning in characters is about what they DO, not what they say. And everybody acts the same as before. There are no consequences. No learning. No real change.

Unless I’m mistaken, most or all of the content in Destiny 2, so far, occurs during the Red War, and little to none of it besides us landing at the new Tower occurs after Gary’s defeat. You can’t rightly claim there has been no learning or growth when approximately zero time has passed. Nobody has yet had a real chance to demonstrate any change in attitude or behavior. Curse of Osiris will be the first actual opportunity for us to see any changes in the strategy or actions of the Vanguard or The City.

Again, the change should take place during the story. The changes are what can bring about the end. For instance, Ikora sacrificing herself or something. It’s not a change if it hasn’t happened yet.

Because of how long it takes to produce new content for games, we are, in a way, frozen in time until Curse of Osiris comes out, so how can we see any changes that results from the Red War until then? I totally agree that with you that a dramatic event like an Ikora sacrifice would have been good, but you can’t just discount it when we hear from the characters that they plan to do things differently. That’s them learning.

Growth and learning in characters is about what they DO, not what they say. And everybody acts the same as before. There are no consequences. No learning. No real change.

Unless I’m mistaken, most or all of the content in Destiny 2, so far, occurs during the Red War, and little to none of it besides us landing at the new Tower occurs after Gary’s defeat. You can’t rightly claim there has been no learning or growth when approximately zero time has passed. Nobody has yet had a real chance to demonstrate any change in attitude or behavior. Curse of Osiris will be the first actual opportunity for us to see any changes in the strategy or actions of the Vanguard or The City.

Again, the change should take place during the story. The changes are what can bring about the end. For instance, Ikora sacrificing herself or something. It’s not a change if it hasn’t happened yet. As far as emotional impact these ‘changes’ have none.

Compare this to something even as simple as the MC going against guilty spark.

Growth and learning in characters is about what they DO, not what they say. And everybody acts the same as before. There are no consequences. No learning. No real change.

Unless I’m mistaken, most or all of the content in Destiny 2, so far, occurs during the Red War, and little to none of it besides us landing at the new Tower occurs after Gary’s defeat. You can’t rightly claim there has been no learning or growth when approximately zero time has passed. Nobody has yet had a real chance to demonstrate any change in attitude or behavior. Curse of Osiris will be the first actual opportunity for us to see any changes in the strategy or actions of the Vanguard or The City.

And this change should happen during the story, not after it!

One thing that for sure won’t get me to change my behavior is stringing together a few of my concluding statements, ignoring the majority of my arguments, and asking an insultingly cutesy question.

...
Honestly, your behavior here is... not good. At the very least you could have asked if there was any context instead of posting whatever that was.

Yeah... I think you’ve taken things too far
...
At the end of the day, you’re being nitpicky in the extreme about something you have no real justification to be nitpicky about.

... your frustration at a lack of change will be a lot more justified. Right now, it’s a bit premature ...

I'm really not sure why the choice has been made, repeatedly, to not have the characters in the game actually learn anything or figure anything out from the bits of information we've collected along the way, but their inability to grow, change, learn, and adapt is incredibly frustrating for me, especially given how absolutely perfect the premise of D2 was for all of those things to take place. Instead it was a story about re-establishing the status quo. Only Hawthorne changed at all, and that was a long wait for her perspective to move an inch.

I think we’ve talked about this part before. Each of the Vanguard have dialogue showing that they have learned. Specifically:

• Zavala says he had grown too reliant on the safety of The City’s defenses and that he intends to reestablish a more outgoing, offensive posture to try and prevent our enemies from being able to attack us like the Red Legion did.
  
• Ikora tells us she had grown too comfortable with her light and her immortality. She says that when the Traveler tested her (as in, when her power was taken away) she failed that test by basically running away and hiding instead of acting to protect The City. She pledges to do better, and they even mentioned this in the stream a bit.
  
• Cayde-6... eh... I actually don’t remember any dialogue from him about learning. Someone else a while back mentioned that of the Vanguard he was the one who was the most heroic and who accomplished the most. He took a big risk traveling alone to Nessus, but it paid off in the end. Is there even anything he should have or could have done differently?

With at least two of the three Vanguard expressing a desire to not repeat their mistakes, you can’t really claim there is no growth or learning. It’s right there in their dialogue, in game, not locked away in lore or whatever. Furthermore:

• Unless I’m mistaken, most or all of the content in Destiny 2, so far, occurs during the Red War, and little to none of it besides us landing at the new Tower occurs after Gary’s defeat. You can’t rightly claim there has been no learning or growth when approximately zero time has passed. Nobody has yet had a real chance to demonstrate any change in attitude or behavior. Curse of Osiris will be the first actual opportunity for us to see any changes in the strategy or actions of the Vanguard or The City.
  
• As “the Guardian”, we tend to get called in when a big bad shows up or when things have already gone sufficiently wrong. We don’t, however, seem to be a part of planning meetings or regularly scheduled patrols. In our early days, we were basically just lucky to stumble upon Rasputin, and the Hive, and the Vex. By the time Crota and the House of Wolves and Oryx became a threat we were being called in as “the Guardian” and were again not really part of The City’s regular defenses. So if Zavala really does start to look beyond The City’s walls, would we as the elite god slaying “the Guardian” really notice or necessarily be a part of those changes?
  
• All that to say, even if there are changes, they may be more subtle than you are after. I’ll personally be looking for signs of renewed expansion of The City and of human colonies in other places on Earth and beyond. Ikora’s behavior in this upcoming expansion will also be something I observe very closely. Certainly, if she gets out of The City and actually does something, that’ll be a change. But so would something smaller like a more proactive attitude.

We’re two weeks out from our first chance to see how much Bungie is willing to do with D2’s story post launch. After that, your frustration at a lack of change will be a lot more justified. Right now, it’s a bit premature, in my opinion.

Well, the Mercury thing was understandable. Humanity’s military power was first smashed by Oryx and its SSFs were disabled by Gary. Everyone shrugged ‘cause there was nothing anyone could really do.

A better example would be Calus and his planet eating Leviathan. Sure, the Raid is pretty good, but sheesh the buildup and plot integration is... woefully lacking. :(

About Calus: There's an adventure on Nessus that is literally nothing but prologue to his ship arriving. There's a heavy weapon quest item drop that begins a chain that "permanently" occupies a heavy weapon slot that eventually arrives at "await the world eater." And there's some dialogue in D1 about an outbound signal being sent straight to the emperor. And all of that is 100% missable and it's very possible for players to simply log in and have this raid show up and think "where the hell did this come from and why is it here?"

Frankly, that adventure was pretty fun, but it would have been more effective storytelling to make it a prerequisite to raiding. It's not even totally clear that the adventure has anything to do with the Leviathan. At no point in the game does anyone on our team put together the pieces and explain what that ship is and why it's here. Sure, the players have done that, but it makes the characters in the game seem even less intelligent by comparison that they can't put two and two together.

I'm really not sure why the choice has been made, repeatedly, to not have the characters in the game actually learn anything or figure anything out from the bits of information we've collected along the way, but their inability to grow, change, learn, and adapt is incredibly frustrating for me, especially given how absolutely perfect the premise of D2 was for all of those things to take place. Instead it was a story about re-establishing the status quo. Only Hawthorne changed at all, and that was a long wait for her perspective to move an inch.

What I'm saying is, and I'm shocked to be typing this, I completely agree with you.

A better example would be Calus and his planet eating Leviathan. Sure, the Raid is pretty good, but sheesh the buildup and plot integration is... woefully lacking. :(