Making Destiny 2 Feel Brand New [11/14/22]

I think Destiny is approaching a breaking point in how it facilitates new content. Bungie seems to be aiming for this to happen around the conclusion of The Final Shape, but I'm not sure that everyone can wait. Even Paul Tassi has put out a new article talking about the lack of long term achievement in the game while Ginger Prime continues conversations on games that respect time vs investment.

I do think that to a certain aspect, Destiny is capable of respecting both time AND investment, but never both at the same time nor is it always rewarding. The grind of Destiny is a cold mistress, with the reward often being access to content that you may only run once or twice.

I could be knocking on the door of a bigger topic for another day, but I feel like Bungie can't decide if they are full bore with seasonal story or if they still intend on expansions' having healthy end points. In light of this indecision, I have taken up an odd play style that I'd like to explain here.

Let's start with my main, the Warlock. My main man since the beginning. I never got to play much of D1 post campaign but even when I booted up D2 in 2017 I knew that I was going to play an Exo Warlock. Fast forward as we approach 2023 and I've only just recently created a second character. This entire time, I’ve only been playing the subclasses available to the Warlock and I didn’t even really like Stasis until just before creating my titan!

I don’t think this is a bad thing, and I do still prefer Warlock; it’s my penultimate sci-fi fantasy as of this writing. That being said having different characters doesn't mean much to me if they're all doing the same content all the time. So now my Warlock is only allowed to use current Xpac and current seasonal weapons, while my alts are retained to previous Expansions and seasons.

I still have yet to create my hunter, but when I do next season, they will be restricted to Shadowkeep and Seasons of the Risen and Haunted.

My titan on the other hand has already completed both of the Prophecy and Grasp of Avarice dungeons as I prep him for some DSC farming next season. For whatever reason, I never really connected with Beyond Light on release and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to re experience it on a character that wasn't already geared to the teeth. Having this character relying on these other forms of content has really helped me appreciate the variety of mechanics that Bungie has introduced over time.

I'll also admit that having less urgency to the content has allowed me to appreciate all the ways Beyond Light did improve the game post Shadowkeep that I don't think most people were talking about when it was current. I've also realized that Warlock got the short end of the stick with Stasis abilities and that the story with the exo stranger is much easier to pay attention to when the abilities being rewarded are actually fun and worth farming.

Going back in time to experience content that I might not have really understood at the time has been awesome and I'm genuinely excited to run a Hunter through Shadowkeep. Knowing that it's just 1 subsect of the game and between Haunted/Risen gear and Nightmare hunts, I'll have plenty of fun content to churn through as I pass the time until Lightfall.