So I’ll try to keep this spoiler-free as much as I can.
As the title goes, this is my thoughts on completing Chapters 1 to 3 of the new DLC for Destiny 2. I gotta say, it’s worth the $40. It has quite surprised me. Though I’m talking about the story itself, not the rest of what was added (which is why I’m writing this instead of grinding to 1520+ in my Light level).
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So here’s what I liked;
1. The story is soloable. It’s awesome. It truly makes you feel “this is your story, fighting back against Savathûn and the Hive, to take back the Light”.
The middle of the story has a curve ball that really makes you re-think the game (and yourself as a ‘Guardian’) as a whole. It really fucks with you.
Finally the ending… holy fuck that ending. Even a true endgame boss battle (that
actually FELT like a boss battle). Died 12 times, most due to being overwhelmed or from my own stupidity.
2. The ‘Hive Guardians’ don’t fuck around. They will own you. You gotta be ready to take them down, as they can do a Super just like you can. Then you gotta destroy their Ghost. And if you don’t do it in time, they will respawn just like a normal player. It is wild fighting these guys.
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And here is what I didn’t like/don’t understand.
1. The new weapon crafting feature is one of the main reasons why I came back to
Destiny 2, because Kovo said I can have a Scout Rifle “like your Night Watch”. Now having to use the weapon in order to acquire materials after you level it up is alright.
…But then, this is where things start to suck. The gun is pretty much useless to you (if it doesn’t have the perks you want). And if you don’t have the blueprint, you have to acquire another gun of that type with that specific thing to level it up (again). And depending on the gun, you gotta do this again, and again, and AGAIN until you finally get the
blueprint.
I hope you enjoy unnecessarily long (“keep the playerbase engaged in our
game”) grinding experiences. I do not. And that’s not even the worst offender. It’s acquiring the materials you need to craft your desired weapon. It’s very, very limited right now. Thankfully I hear they are planning to fix this possibly within the next 2-4 months with more weapons to craft. Hopefully it doesn’t take longer than that (to the point we got another expansion coming).
But I’m not going to touch this mechanic anymore until I see the first issue solved in some way I see an improvement.
2. I know how they tried so hard to suit every playstyle with the Glaive that you make early in the campaign, but it.. I dunno. It feels similar to what Blizzard did with Legion, but I just don’t like it. Tried it, don’t like it. It can’t handle long to extreme long range environments (how I build my Guardians). But I gotta keep it as it’s a quest weapon.
3. Having to do public events just so I’m at specific required Light levels to continue the campaign. Didn’t have to do that with Beyond Light.
4. The season pass (‘Season of the Risen’), didn’t come with new gear. Beyond Light‘s first season pass did. I’m not sure why they didn’t. Instead they give you a bunch of blue armor and weapons to upgrade your current gear. I mean yeah, I get the ‘Become
Legend’ difficulty comes with a set of 1520 gear upon completion of the campaign. But again.. why not more gear from the season pass? Maybe they wanted to ‘spice things up a little’. Dunno.
And this is all I can say without revealing spoilers. However if you don’t care, I’ll be sharing my true thoughts of the expansion in the spoiler below.
So…, you’ve come here to hear my true opinions of this expansion, have you? I hope your curiosity didn’t doom you. Well then, let me start with the end of Chapter 2, which can be shown here by clicking this.
Thinking you, the Guardian, were doing good by getting these three Relics to find out why Savathûn somehow stole our Light from us to make these ‘Hive Guardians’, you were actually helping her to remember that at the end of ‘Season of the Lost’, Savathûn died from the extraction of her worm she ingested millions of years ago to only get revenge on the betrayal in the Osmium Court back on the gas giant of Fundament.
The Traveler, brought her back to life. She tricked you, and now Zavala is mad. However Ikora tells them “it doesn’t matter if the Traveler helped Savathûn. It doesn’t matter if it seems we were wrong assuming the Traveler chose humanity. What does, is we got to finish what we started!”
You are then warned of a ‘ritual’ that Savathûn is trying to bring the Traveler to her Throne World and steal the Light, rendering Guardians powerless. There is also ‘the Witness’ who sees the destruction of a species— and that species would’ve been the human race.
Arrival back in the Throne World, it seems you have failed somehow. The Traveler seems to have willingly arrived here.
But one thing Savathûn soon learned she couldn’t deceive, is dragon determination to finally bring her down. Yet I don’t feel she’s dead. Even though I died 12 times in that intense boss battle, there’s just no way. There’s no way such a well-respected lore character would go down in the first WEEK of the expansion’s launch. No. She’s alive somewhere else (and her Ghost who’s still there knows exactly where). I likely fought a decoy.
But what was interesting to me is the Traveler ‘allowed’ Savathûn’s ghost to leave by blinding you. It’s like “no Guardian, I will deal with the Ghost myself”. Almost makes me suspicious of the Traveler now. It could literally put the Ghost where Savathûn is being kept, and resurrect her. Even though this isn’t canon, it might be in the future season passes (or even in the weeks to come).
And at the very end, there’s safe assumptions the Traveler is nearly the same as the one that spoke to you (took your form) of the Darkness, and said “I am not your friend, nor your enemy”. But the reason why the Traveler is still with humanity, is we have saved it time and time again from the forces of evil. We have been doing the Traveler’s bidding in exchange for being the ones that can never die; the Guardians. However it’s not just
that, but the sacrifices that were made.
However, was the Traveler right in resurrecting you? There’s been a big handful of people who believe we’re “the bad guys”, and Savathûn was doing good by protecting the Traveler in her Throne World from the impending Darkness heading for it. But they forget, she is the queen of lies and deceit. So it’s hard to believe that. But maybe the Traveler finally saw your true nature and kept you from destroying her Ghost.
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Anyway, it’s really too early to tell. I could be completely wrong and we truly are the bad guys, or I could be right. We’ll find out in the season passes to come. But one thing’s for certain; the Witness is coming (who likely won’t be soloable like Savathûn was, but be the end of a raid instead). And we gotta be ready to handle any threat.