Luckily there’s no real point to getting max power this season. Sure, if you want to do Reckoning. But the rewards for that activity really aren’t worth stressing over, so I’m content to wait and just jump in a few weeks from now.

I wish they let us grind the hell out of power in a ladder with the Reckoning and Gambit Prime, I don't like how long it takes to cap out every season, it's unfun. Actually wish they just brought us a ton of gear without increasing light so much.

Anyone notice how much fun increases exponentially when you get ahold of a weapon like Horror Story or The Vow, when the grind gets cut down severely and you start seeing real progress on your Light Level with almost every drop?

I don't mind grind, but when it exists simply to replace content, as opposed to making you work for it, that's just too much.
Even worse when they increase the grind by giving you powerful engrams weaker than what you already have.

You can experience most of the content without any real grind. I haven't had any time for grinding lately and have still been enjoying progress (sometimes to greater degree than others) but after the lull before SotDrifter I have had something interesting to experience on most days I have time to play. You don't have to streamer-grind to enjoy most of the content.

And in the context of "why isn't this the narrative of the game" I think that falls to the goals of the core gameplay and the experience there doesn't align with a lot of stories that can be told otherwise. The suggestion of branching into other genres with spinoffs would support a lot of Lore stories pretty well.

I mean, they could have told all these stories well in the first place if Destiny had been an RPG and not an MMO :-p

And in the context of "why isn't this the narrative of the game" I think that falls to the goals of the core gameplay and the experience there doesn't align with a lot of stories that can be told otherwise. The suggestion of branching into other genres with spinoffs would support a lot of Lore stories pretty well.

The way they’ve handled the new season so far is a pretty strong case that they are the narrative of the game. Destiny isn’t a singular story of our Guardian anymore, and I love that.

I am glad to hear this but… grind. Or else I'd give it a try.

I’m totally down for Destiny expanding into other genres of games though! Or even just other styles of FPS. Give me the ODST style game about exploring the Dreaming City.

(Though, humorously enough, there are many cases of real world lore composed almost entirely of stories as far as that information exists today, so the suggestion they are separate and thay lore cannot be storytelling razzes my berries)

But those exist for their own sake, not to support a video game universe. If the stories of the lore are so compelling, why aren't those the narratives of the games?

Bungie could spin off an adventure game based on all this.

(Though, humorously enough, there are many cases of real world lore composed almost entirely of stories as far as that information exists today, so the suggestion they are separate and thay lore cannot be storytelling razzes my berries)

I'm even more sold on this season, now. I liked Black Armory well enough for what it was, but this is the stuff that makes Destiny compelling.

continues to highlight the skewed priorities of the 700-person team they have working on the game

This is a disingenuous interpretation of a company structure. Unless you have a valid source identifying actual numbers of team memebers and what projects they are working at the company, you are seeking to falsely represent their developers.

I would disagree with the suggestion Lore isn’t story but I think this point is splitting hairs. Bungie is providing events and occurances in universe, some historical and some contemporary. They are telling more stories. It is not a cinematic story focused on our Guardian, but that is also an answer to some complaints that everything is always about our Guardian. It is definitely movement in the right direction. And honestly even if it isn’t “story” as you want to consider it, it is better storytelling than a lot of things on market. We should encourage more good things when we get them.

Lore is not storytelling. Lore is world building. But you ostensibly build a world in order to tell a story…

I played through the start of the Vanguard side of The Allegiance quest yesterday, and, even as rudimentary as it as, exploring the Hangar to find the console, making a drop to an agent, and setting up bugs in the Drifter's space in the Annex was super compelling--it felt like I was doing something real, rather than shooting the same Fallen Captain for the thousandth time.

On one hand, me being so thoroughly blown away by The Allegiance quest is surely some sort of commentary on my generally low expectations of how this shit normally goes. I won't pretend this is some amazing new pinnacle of good quest design. But I do think it's a compelling way to reuse old content and still make it feel at least sort of fresh and worth doing. And while I want new cutscenes as much the next person, I genuinely like the lore pages, and I think the way the framed getting the messages from Aunor makes it feel pretty natural as a way to tell that story. With the addition of the new (and good) mission dialogue from The Drifter, and I'm honestly pretty happy with this method of telling Destiny's story on an ongoing basis between major content releases.

I’m with you. I’d prefer more cutscenes and dialogue in the game, but I think The Allegiance quest is undoubtedly a story (or the beginning of one) more than it is just lore. Yes, the lore is important context, but big things happen in that quest. We don’t see him on screen, but we now know that Shin Malphur is active, and close. We know that the Praxic order is hunting Dredgens, and specifically the Drifter. Those are active, current, important things happening, not nebulous fairytales from the distant past.

If we could see a version of Destiny that keeps this up, gets one of these mission chains a month or even two, Destiny would be in a really great spot, I think.

I genuinely think that this current season is one of the better examples of Destiny feeling like a real place with important actions taking place. This all seems somehow more real, and more important, than just about anything we’ve seen so far. And it’s much more interesting than just another big bad showing up.

The key thing that is still missing at this point, for me, is any level of investment in the characters. As far as the in-game experience goes, Destiny barely has “characters”. Our Guardians, the vanguard, Ghost, the vendors... they’re more “memes” than they are characters. Even when they’re entertaining as heck (shax <3), they very rarely take on any level of personhood that might elevate them above the level of caricature. And without that human, emotional thread thing all the current events and lore and backstory together, I find it tough to care about any of it. It’s cool, and it can be fun to talk about where things are currently going, but the only reason I really CARE about this whole drifter/vanguard situation (to the extent that I care) is because I want to see how it affects me, the PLAYER. How will it alter my play experience? I don’t give a crap about what it means for my Guardian or the vanguard or the drifter.

There is the beginning of something resembling character development happening with Mara, Petra, and the whole situation surrounding the Dreaming City. I think that’s the first Tim Bungie has really begun to tap into the true narrative potential of Destiny. I think they need to go much further along those lines for any of Destiny’s lore or story to rise above “cool/interesting” and become “meaningful”.

If we could see a version of Destiny that keeps this up, gets one of these mission chains a month or even two, Destiny would be in a really great spot, I think.

I genuinely think that this current season is one of the better examples of Destiny feeling like a real place with important actions taking place. This all seems somehow more real, and more important, than just about anything we’ve seen so far. And it’s much more interesting than just another big bad showing up.

I always want more new in-game cutscenes and missions and strikes and raids, and I get the feeling we won’t see much of that until at least next season or maybe the fall or maybe all the way until Destiny 3. But until then, I think bringing in new characters and game types and linking them with in-game quests and behind the scenes lore (which is viewable in-game!) is a pretty good way to move forward. Bungie will eventually need to give us a Destiny 3 or at least another The Taken King/Forsaken, but for now, I’m pretty happy with where things are at.

continues to highlight the skewed priorities of the 700-person team they have working on the game

This is a disingenuous interpretation of a company structure. Unless you have a valid source identifying actual numbers of team memebers and what projects they are working at the company, you are seeking to falsely represent their developers.

I would disagree with the suggestion Lore isn’t story but I think this point is splitting hairs. Bungie is providing events and occurances in universe, some historical and some contemporary. They are telling more stories. It is not a cinematic story focused on our Guardian, but that is also an answer to some complaints that everything is always about our Guardian. It is definitely movement in the right direction. And honestly even if it isn’t “story” as you want to consider it, it is better storytelling than a lot of things on market. We should encourage more good things when we get them.