That is actually the primary reason I haven't run the strikes. Wanting a fireteam that's not going to talk over it while I experience them for the first time.

Edit: or speed run it.

Hit me up. I'll gladly play some strikes and not run through them.

• Infected with Vex technology to the point either reviving doesn't help or he can no longer revive.
  
• Deeply remorseful about the fate of his previous Fireteam, to the point where even when Ikora asks him about them he only gives a few details along with something like "we fought together... until we didn't..." and he then, respectfully, refuses to talk about them further.

Ultimately, like many of you, he's not so bad once you get to know him. :p

[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

Yeah. For me, for the feel of the Destiny environments to match their (stunning) visual realism, they need civilians or NPCs in game. I know that adding them would be a ton of work (each place where they were added in the first campaign mission was essentially a set piece), but I'd like NPCs in the wild. They were teased early on in D1 (e.g., the Queen's brother's introduction), and the existence of Hawthorne in D2 establishes that there are allies worth protecting outside the city walls. Just having more story missions where you see the effects of hostile forces on civilians would help. Imagine a settlement getting attacked as a public event!

I realize that the presence is other players while on patrol is the killer feature that should provide some of what I mean, but it doesn't raise the stakes. It lowers the odds you'll fail at what you're doing. Speaking of patrol, there really needs to be an easy seamless way to join players you meet on patrol. I'm sure this enhancement is or has been on a whiteboard somewhere in Bungie HQ.

Re: Osiris

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

Ha. I'm one of the few that really likes Asher. He's a lovable old crank IMHO. Fight me!

There is something seriously wrong with you. And that's like... my opinion man...

Re: Osiris

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

Ha. I'm one of the few that really likes Asher. He's a lovable old crank IMHO. Fight me!

I really appreciate how fallable they made him and that they toyed with his being built up high wnough that they knew nothing they could do would likely live up to fan expectations brought along by D1. They even explicitly state that not even Osiris lives up to his legend. I can see an argument that it is a cop out. But I think it worked for the story. And he’s still around. So we’ll see if we get more tangential threads later. Hopefully.

Also, I get the feeling that with Vance they just wanted someone for everyone to hate more than Asher.

That is actually the primary reason I haven't run the strikes. Wanting a fireteam that's not going to talk over it while I experience them for the first time.

Happens with raids, too.

Edit: or speed run it.

[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

I completely agree, but I also still find that story to be underwhelming. We "meet" Taeko-3 and "see" her die within the span of five minutes. These are the kind of stories I'd like to see more, and I'd like to see them done well. I feel like this story could have been interwoven more into what the Hive are doing on Titan, and could have spanned several adventures, culminating in the strike we see now.

That's the vision of Destiny I keep seeing in my head. I can see a game that is much more like TTK was structured. Adventures could be used to tell the story of what's currently happening on the planet, building an actual cohesive narrative that culminations in a strike to take out a big bad, which maybe opens up another set adventures.

I agree totally. Narrative tie in's that paid off with smaller arcs would be great.

Destiny 2 still feels like less than the sum of its parts, sometimes. They have all the elements there, but it seems like every activity is too partitioned and self-contained. They need to all work together as a single experience, rather than just being a checklist of activities to do, which is what I feel we have now. Some of the adventures are sort of related to others on the same destination, but not enough, and I think the game would benefit by making them more like story arcs rather than just opening them all up at once.

Yeah, they do that a little now, but it's not quite as deep as I'd like. The Savathûn's return thread is intriguing and the adventures forecast the strike (and DLC?) plot well. I also appreciated the Nessus hints at the Leviathan's entrance in the adventures. Those helped the world feel more integrated, but I want to care a bit more about my NPC's.

One CoO plot thread that was super-disappointing to me was the direction of Brother Vance. Perhaps we didn't really know him in D1, but his shift from D1 to D2 felt almost as jarring as Truth's change from H2 to H3. Oddly, I felt more affinity towards him when I knew less about him. This is kind of true for Osiris as well, but I'm not quite as disappointed as others. As Cruel has argued well, I just want more compelling writing.

[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

Man, it sounds like I need to run some strikes. I've only run two.

[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!

I completely agree, but I also still find that story to be underwhelming. We "meet" Taeko-3 and "see" her die within the span of five minutes. These are the kind of stories I'd like to see more, and I'd like to see them done well. I feel like this story could have been interwoven more into what the Hive are doing on Titan, and could have spanned several adventures, culminating in the strike we see now.

That's the vision of Destiny I keep seeing in my head. I can see a game that is much more like TTK was structured. Adventures could be used to tell the story of what's currently happening on the planet, building an actual cohesive narrative that culminations in a strike to take out a big bad, which maybe opens up another set adventures.

Destiny 2 still feels like less than the sum of its parts, sometimes. They have all the elements there, but it seems like every activity is too partitioned and self-contained. They need to all work together as a single experience, rather than just being a checklist of activities to do, which is what I feel we have now. Some of the adventures are sort of related to others on the same destination, but not enough, and I think the game would benefit by making them more like story arcs rather than just opening them all up at once.

[*]Taeko-3 sacrifices herself to stop the Hive deep beneath the Titan Archology

This is my favorite strike in destiny purely because I actually felt like I was helping someone and that there might actually be urgency. It is also the first time I actually felt loss.

They need more of this. It doesn't even have to be someone super important either!