You are currently viewing Destiny 2 Doesn’t Need a Story

Destiny 2 Doesn’t Need a Story

  • Post author:
  • Post category:FPS/Shooter

I just finished Destiny 2. Getting right to the point, I simply didn’t like the story at all. I didn’t like the story in the first game, either. It was too generic. Spoilers: There’s a bad guy with little story behind why he hates the good guys, yada yada, good guys win, etc., etc.

So here I am, finished with the story and starting the “real game” part of Destiny 2. That means I’m gear grinding and building up my character. I’m not knocking this at all, so don’t misunderstand me. This is essentially the Diablo formula now. That’s the part people race to — the grind to get more gear to get more gear. It’ll be fun until it’s not, and I wouldn’t expect more.

But going back to the story, if I removed the story… I’d still be where I’m at with the game. In fact, I think I’d be even happier. I wouldn’t have had to trudge through a boring narrative mowing down lots of mobs dropping gear that didn’t matter at all because the minute I hit 20 I was outfitted with better gear.

I wish games like this would cut out the portion of the game that doesn’t impact 99% of the what you’ll be doing anyway. It’s not needed. A game like this where you run around a quasi-open world doing some quests to upgrade gear, jump into dungeons/raids or PvP matches… it essentially becomes WoW at max level. Practically no mechanical difference.

My plans now are to get to where I can do some “end-game” activities and see where that lands me with my overall opinion of the game.  As for the story, knowing what I know now, I would have happily pressed a “skip the story” if such an option were available.

Oh, except for Nathan Fillion. His character was awesome.

  • WoW Legion had dungeons starting at 98 level. Just let us have them since the start of the exp so we can jump to the gearing game.

  • Story that exists, but stays out of your way can be fun for those that like to find the lore without annoying those who don’t. Similar to Diablo, Path of Exile has a story, but the goal is killing stuff to get stuff. And they do it really well, which is why I ditched killing stuff in Argus to killing stuff in Wraeclast.

    @Gabriel Rega
    Unfortunately in every expansion WoW is moving further and further away from the gameplay first approach. You are largely required to quest to unlock other things. Hell, even your professions have quests (although Blizzard admitted to overdoing it in Legion). You CAN jumping into a almost dungeon only game, but you are turning your back on the most efficient way to gear up, and you end up feeling left out. I don’t see that changing anytime too soon.

  • Sooo…you want to get rid of all the more unique portions of the game and go straight to the part where you do the same thing over and over and very rarely make any actual progress to your gear? =p

    We are definitely not on the same page. I’m pretty confident I’d not play the game at all if it started at the grinding portion. But I do realize some people are all about that, whereas I feel I have finished WoW each time I hit level cap, because end game has nothing of interest for me.

    Maybe I’m interpreting the statement in a way you didn’t mean it, but I truly don’t get the “mowing down enemies to get gear that doesn’t matter because you get better gear at 20” portion of your post. I feel like you could replace that statement with anything: “moving down enemies in this raid to get gear that doesn’t matter because the next raid will give you better gear.”
    Isn’t getting upgraded gear the fun of the game? If getting new gear after hitting a milestone (and I mean in the general term, not the milestones in D2) doesn’t work for you, I don’t know would.

    • Basically what I’m saying is here is that I think the story in Destiny 2 is so generic and bad that I would rather it not be there at all. If the game is 99.9% about grinding gear, and the story is bad, why gate the rest of the game behind a bad story?

      I’m not advocating the gear grind. Personally, it loses its appeal for me within days.

      If Destiny 2 had an amazing story, heck yeah I’d want to play it. If it was such a great story, I’d probably play the story and nothing else.

  • Here is an hour and half youtube video of the lore and story behind Destiny 1. I stopped watching after the part about a huge battle at a walled city and how the defenders heroically stopped the invaders from getting past the walls. How do walls effect a battle with combatants that have flight and even space flight?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=_2avSq-82oI

    I never played Destiny 1 but guess maybe 1% of the players know about all this lore? If I am right that is a lot of work someone did for little value.

  • I didn’t buy the first instalment of Destiny. I bought Destiny 2 because of its hybrid nature. Therefore a campaign and a narrative is a selling point for me. Just grinding for gear and co-op stuff is not in itself a compelling selling point for me.

    On to the story. Like many games of this ilk, the campaign story is somewhat generic, driven by the standard tropes and idioms of the genre. Battlefield 3, 4 hardly had standout stories. Sniper Elite 4 had a campaign that was functional but hardly inspired. However they were all “adequate”. It’s a word that many people overlook or even eschew because they do not really consider it’s exact meaning.

    adequate
    ˈadɪkwət/Submit
    adjective
    satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.
    “this office is perfectly adequate for my needs”
    synonyms: sufficient, enough, ample, requisite, apposite, appropriate, suitable etc.

    Much of the popular culture we voraciously consume in life is just adequate. Movies, comics, books and TV. It’s also the same for meals and social events. The thing is everything cannot be a landmark event or above average for obvious reasons.

    With regard to video games, it is simply impossible to have all narratives up to the standard of say The Witcher 3. I appreciate that the author found the story of Destiny 2 unappealing but it has a function and for others it provides some semblence of internal logic for the events happening in the game. So I will always absorb a story if it’s offered. Yes many will be unoriginal but they provide a context and a motive for me, something the presence of just other players cannot do.

  • While the story is just ok, it’s the different battles that I end up in that I look forward too. That is why I plan on doing all of the adventures even though it will have little impact on the progress of my character. Once I finish all that I am not sure how long I will play if every battle ends up being the same.

  • While the game story is horrible and it is horrible.. Shit it was so horrible that I couldn’t finish that sentence.

    There are side stories that are OK in the end game too to keep you going, outside of the grind.