I grew up as a child of the video game era. I’ve always played them, always enjoyed them.
I remember when I started to hear about Bungie’s new project called Destiny, the screenshots reminded me an awful lot of Halo, but the concept of an RPG style FPS was intriguing.
The previews looked interesting, and I liked the story the game seemed to be about, so I bought Destiny as a digital download on day one….and I never looked back!
Destiny was a great stand alone FPS. While the story was pretty confusing at first, and over time has gone in so many directions and left behind so many elements you wonder where things are going, when it comes to just running around and shooting shit, Destiny is a great way to pass the time.
Early on I was a solo player. I liked throwing on a podcast or music and just running around, finishing missions. Clearing out bounties for the day and trying to get decent drops.
My Guardian
I chose to be a male exo when I made my guardian. Little did I know that you could not edit your character, which isn’t too bad for me as I luckily chose well!
I ran just a solo Titan for the first year or so, and I made a second Titan just so I could run raids twice a week and double up with the gear I would gather.
I later added a Hunter, but I rarely played with it. Even now, I will very rarely run the Hunter, or even my second Titan. I like running my original character, which I would have sank at least 95% of my Destiny time into.
The Gear
It was fairly early in the game that I found that one place Day One players know, love, and probably miss. The loot cave.
You’d load in, get yourself to Skywatch, and sit for hours just shooting into one cave while enemies spawned over and over again. You’d have half a dozen other guardians with you doing the same thing. The engrams would be everywhere, and early on, it was how I leveled up my gear and ended up having pretty much every good weapon and piece of armour I needed.
I was pretty lucky with my earliest drops. The Mida Multitool was one of my first exotic weapons, and still one of my favourites. The Ice Breaker was another of my earliest drops. I also had a Gjallarhorn very early on in the piece, nit realising how good it really was as I use to run the Multitool all the time and couldn’t equip it!
The loot cave, I had a huge advantage as a solo player. It did however set me up for the Raids…
My First Raid
I was dragged into my first assault on The Vault Of Glass with a bunch of randoms. I knew none of them. we were still working out the mechanics of the raid, and spent hours just getting to the midway checkpoint. It got late, everyone decided to come back the next day and give it another shot.
The next day rolls around, there are one too many people in the party, and I get kicked. My first lesson Raiding in Destiny. It was disapointing, but these things happen.
I eventually found other raiding parties who were committed to the cause and would push hard to get everyone through the raid. Finally beating The Vault Of Glass took a long time, and it was super satisfying. I lost touch with a lot of those early teams I was a part of, and we would all go one to help others beat the raid. Still, it was so much fun.
Eventually the cheese for the final boss in the Vault Of Glass become common knowledge, and I use to drag as many other guardians as I could through raids. It was great to hear everyone’s response when they finally got good gear they could use. Soon a new raid would come along, with new challenges.
Crota
By the time the Crota’s End raid was released, I was already a veteran of Destiny. I’d acted as a Sherpa in the VoG so many times and had run everything in PvE many times over. I was all kitted out and ready to take on Crota.
In Crota’s End I found a lot of the people I still play with to this day. people from all over the world. As one of the few people with a Gjallarhorn at this stage, I was always a welcome addition to a raiding team. This was the first raid I felt like I had real, complete command of.
I would once again bring as many people as I could through the raid. Help them get better gear. teach them all the tips and tricks, while having a few laughs and just generally having fun.
I have run Crota so many times, and I still to this day find it a fun raid. Not too complicated, fair to your team, forgiving of mistakes. It also has enough room for the big moments, where someone can step up and save their entire team or get that last crucial hit and be a hero. That is something I think the game lacked a little in its later raids.
Skolas
When Skolas in the Prison Of Elders needed to be beaten for a moment of triumph, I had to beat him. It was a really difficult feat. Not too many people managed it. I did it was some close raiding buddies on the second last day of the deadline to beat him.
It wasn’t a raid, but it was difficult and required a lot of coordination. It was probably the forerunner to a lot of the mechanics we saw in the later raids to come.
Kings Fall Raid
When the Taken King DLC came out, I was on a mini break from Destiny. That is, I got the DLC the day it came out, ran through the story missions, and waited for the raid.
By the time I did get to raid, my gear just wasn’t up to the level it should have been. I was carried through in parts. In some raids, I just wasn’t doing enough damage to be worth having in a team. It wasn’t fun, and to this day I still feel like I haven’t dominated this raid as I have the others. I still need to beat this raid on hard level, but it is so fiddly and complicated. You never hear people wanting to run this raid for fun. I personally find it a real chore of a raid, and thats unfortunate.
Wrath Of The Machine
Having been under-strength for the previous raid, when Wrath Of The Machine came along, I wasn’t going to allow that to happen again. My light level was high, and by the time I got a chance to do this raid, I had no problems. It was fun, not my favourite raid, but not overly complicated. The last boss needed a lot of communication but by this stage I was right once I was told how to beat it. It was great to get the raid polished off, but once again, I’ve not beaten this raid on hard level just because few people seem too interested in running the raid again.
PvP
Early on with Destiny I only played PvE. That changed when Iron Banner came out with some very cool gear!
I started playing more and more PvP, and early on I was so bad that to this day my kill ratio is still affected by it! Like everything, with more reps under my belt I got better, and worked out my favorite set up (Scout rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, playing as a Striker) and leaned a few tricks on different maps.
I’d say that these days I’m a slightly above average player that breaks out and has huge moments every so often. I’ll take that!
The Story
At the end of Destiny’s life-cycle, the story is confusing.
The Traveler is there, but has not been part of the story for a while. What it is, what it does, what it wants, who knows. The Exo Stranger came and went, without a trace. The Speaker spoke early, and then was brushed from the story. So many elements that were added to Destiny were great, but overall, the main story got very lost some where. Hopefully that main story comes back a little with Destiny 2.
Destiny 2
Yes, I will be buying it.
I really hope they do allow you to carry forward your character. I would hate to leave my exo Titan behind forever. That was part of the original concept they sold, and I hope they stick to it in some way.
In Destiny 2 I hope there are more options, more pathways you can allow your character to go. I don’t want to be a master of all trades in Destiny 2, I want there to be so much variety that my character can have a certain skill set that not too many other players have managed to also build.
I would like to see more story lines in PvE, and be able to do things that not every single other player gets to do as well.
Solo missions, even solo raids. make guardians feel like they have done something special, not have crowds of people just lining up to do the same things over and over again.
I’d like to be able to actually go into my ship. Maybe even control it to a certain extent. Build upon the ship, add to it, make it your ship and not just something to look at in a loading screen.
I’d like exotic weapons to be overpowered and really special. make them rare, hard to get. make them stand out as something unique when someone manages to get them.
I’d like there to be a civil war between factions. Right now, factions don’t do much in the game. There should be strengths and weaknesses between factions. Some players might choose not to have one because of this. They shouldn’t all just be there, they should have reasons for existing, and be against every other faction.
I’d like to see guns and gear not just be upgraded on a linear scale, I’d like to see players being able to find different upgrades, being able to build their guns and gear themselves. Make them unique from everyone else.
I’d like to see more than just humans, exos and awoken. Bring in other races. Have way more options to customize a character. allow players the freedom to build their own, unique guardian.
Last but not least, I hope it stays fun. At times Destiny can be too grindy, and only a completely committed player can get the most out of the game. There needs to be scope for causal players to be able to jump in and do as much as possible. They don’t need all the best gear, guns and everything else, but they should still be able to sack up and take on the games big challenges without feeling like they are useless in the process.
The End Of Destiny
Destiny Two will be announced shorty, which means the original hasn’t got too long to go. If they won’t let us take our guardians forward, I hope they let us going out in a blaze of glory.
It has been a game I’ve probably played more than any other. My guilty pleasure.
