VGU Talks – The Disappointment Of Destiny
I have been reading your comments on the three part video series going over my thoughts on Destiny vs Warframe and I have really enjoyed seeing the debate unfold. Many people have voiced their opinions from hating Destiny to defending it and even balancing out why they love both titles the same. But I did see a trend where people wanted to see a more in depth reason as to why I fell out of love with this triple A title. Today I hope to answer these questions.
I loved Destiny, I truly did. Since playing it in Alpha phase all the way up to The Taken King release, the game has been enjoyable. At least to an extent. Warframe proved to me how Destiny as a high budget, very hyped title can be inferior to something that is completely free. If a game like Warframe can give you value, play time, variation and re-playability with only gaining profit through optional micro-transactions, then what does that say about Destiny? The game promised a lot and delivered very little in return. The biggest blow in my eyes being the removal of the story, which looked to be very interesting and in depth. Where did this go? To the back of cards that you have to actively un-immerse yourself from the game to re-immerse yourself. It’s a back handed way of presenting a narrative that only did the game an injustice.
Grinding has also been a problem for me as I normally don’t mind the experience. Growing up with the Final Fantasy games and playing titles such as Hyperdimension Neptunia has allowed me to see the good and bad of grinding whilst also still enjoying the gameplay. Destiny on the other hand with its painful RNG and levelling methods in the end game turned the grind into its own tedious task. It was no longer fun to do the dailies or go for these legendary weapons, it became a task. That reduced my level of fun and made me realise that there are other games with this level of grind that are more engaging and allow you to claim better rewards at better rates.
The final nail in the coffin for me however was with the release of The Taken King. Disappointed with the quality of the DLC content, my season pass was already wasted, but now I had to pay for the full game again just to receive this new content. But I did cave in, simply because I wanted to see if it improved the experience. Overall, not really. But the content The Taken King brought in was what the game needed from the start. A narrative with characters you can get behind and an engaging reason to go on these missions. An ominous boss with a great reason to enact revenge against you and your squads. New weaponry and armour which looked great against the little variation from the vanilla game. Everything was good, but it was too good to late. This whilst also adding in micro-transactions that add nothing to the game as well as time based content which comes and goes too fast when it should stay, has officially made the entire experience disappointing.
Destiny 2 has been delayed and my love for this Triple A title has been flushed down the toilet. It will take a lot to convince me to go back to this franchise after this experience. But these are just my thoughts, what are yours? Let us know your opinions on Destiny in the comments below.