Destiny 2 review?

I keep going on writing early reviews while playing games.
This time Destiny 2.

I got the game for free with my new graphic card so I finally gave it a try now.
It is by far too early to judge about the game but i can at least give a few impressions about the first hours in the game.

At this point I have to admit that I never played Destiny 1 and lack any knowledge about its story and gameplay.
Starting Destiny 2 you get thrown directly into a battle without having any idea whats going on.
Nobody explains the back story... aside some very vague stuff about a travel, light, darkness and alot of other nonsense that certainly got explained in Destiny 1.
It really would have been cool to get that explained a bit further so that players which never played Destiny 1 have chance to understand what happens.

[contentbox]I am not sure if I understook wiki correctly. The traveler seems to be a moon sized whatever thingy (ball) that nobody really knows that it is. It travels from planet to planet (for an unknown reason) and now has visited earth (for a unknown reason). Since its arrival mankind made huge progress in technology and started to colonize and terraform other planets of the solar system.
At some point the solar system got attacked by alien races (I am not sure if that is the darkness, because the darkness is not really explained aswell). The traveler sents out Ghosts (aka, intelligent flying bots) to find dead people that become guardians. These fight the darkness. Only one city on Earth remained after the darkness arrived and in Destiny 2 this city did fall during the first mission.[/contentbox]

The story is very thin.
I played the game for just one day and appear to be through half of the story missions already (eventhough I didnt focus on them).
Thats disappointing and I am wondering what I am supposed to do in this game if its over that soon.

Ok, the game is not only about the main story. You can play missions with others. But to be honest I dont know if that is motivating enough.

Visually the game looks absolutely great.
The general gameplay is excellent. The interface is really well done, and I dont say that often about a console game that was ported to PC.
Costomization, weapons, all that stuff fit so well into the game.
I have not much negative to say about the game except that it deserves a bigger focus on story.

There are only two issues I have with the technical aspect.
There is no way to reduce the volume of the music. The music is really good and I have no problem with it playing but I would like it to play less loud. Very often I cant really hear the voices of the NPCs because of the loud music.
Another thing I consider strange is the fact that the own character does not talk at all. There is no voice for the player character. That is very strange because NPCs ask questions and there simply never is a response.
Dunno, maybe the voice actor was ill during the entire time of the game production.

ok, it takes less than 10 hours to reach lvl20 aka the highest player level (and i assume that i was slow) and finish the singleplayer story stuff.
The story is as assumed, thin.
But it actually is well designed. The mission are fun to play.

After reaching lvl 20 you still can do level ups and gain bonuses this way. Main focus however now is the power level which still can increase from that point.
That power level is based on the quality of your equipment.
So, eventhough the character does not level up any more (beyond lvl20 or lvl 25 if you have the addon of the game) you are still have to improve your chars.
And that is something you should do because the endgame content is locked behind specific power levels.

Once done with the singleplayer you are not going to visit the farm anymore (where you got missions and were able to use npc services). Instead now you can visit the last city on earth, which is damn big... and has alot more to offer.
You also unlock many new features and new content to play.
You can do missions for specific factions now, replay story stuff for higher rewards, do raids, heroic groups missions, etc.
Most notably is that you get endgame gear more frequently and can unlock new equipment.
The game appears to have more to offer than original thought.

The problem here is that you simply dont expect that it has more to offer. You have to go through a bit of grind in order to unlock the interesting features and I assume a good amount of players give up before reaching that point simply because they dont expect more to come.
Oh, and PVP could start a bit faster.

Yeah, I meanwhile got the season pass for 35€ since the game is really fun to play.
It took me roughtly 10 hours to play the addon story including adventures and hidden stuff. Thats not much but it also adds new items which require more time to unlock.
Unfortunatly the new world is a bit small but at least the public event is well visited.
I havent tried it yet but I think mission replays at some point turn into heroic mission?

I havent played strikes or raids yet since I was mostly focused on exploring the planets, playing public events and adventures. I also did a bit PVP but require a bit more time to get into it. I lost 3/4 of the battles so far. Dunno how the balancing works in terms of power levels of the players and their equipment. Ill figure that out later. I guess the choice of weapons makes a big difference in PVP.

My first char (warlock) just went a bit over powerlevel 300... so I still have to improve. The amount of special items I have collected so far is relative thin but I actually dont want the grind to take over.
Yesterday I started a titan char and hit lvl17. At this point I reached the payback story mission after just 7 hours of gameplay. So it is save to say that within another 2-3 hours it is easily possible to reach the end of the game story and lvl20.

Got my hands on this one and really love how it works.

I somehow have the feeling that the titan class against every expectation is pretty weak, especially on melee attacks. It usually took 2 punches to kill enemies while as warlock one punch was enough.
Nice is that the inventory and the vault are shared on the account. That really helps managing equipment and resources on the chars.

Destiny 2 is subject of lots of critics on the net.
There are complaints about preorder stuff that wasnt available to other players (I think its available meanwhile). There is the thin and short story. There is the grind. The stupid AI. There are complaints about lootboxes etc.
However, the game does a few things very good. It never feels unrewarding.
Even if you screw up and lose you wont leave an event or match without reward.

The only real thing I would complain about is the lack of story. When I take a look around at the planets I see that many interesting things, such a rich environment that it makes me believe that there could be a very rich backstory.
I mean... just take a trip to Titan... is that water? Ok Terraforming is a thing in destiny but how and why?
Or is that a methane lake? Probably not... because then also the platforms would be frozen.
And what is that sea monster?
And why are giant skeletons and other fossils on IO?
Whats the back story of the other races?
Whats the back story of the Exos?
Whats the back story of the blueish humans? All it was said that they once were humans which traveled to the edge of the solar system and turned blue. right?
I assume the Traveler got damaged during Destiny 1 right... the lower part was damaged and the fragment fell off. Now the Traveler got damaged even further. If that happens with every Destiny game how much damage will it take for it to be destroyed completely?
Why did the last humans hide behind a giant wall? I mean... it has cut them off from resources and no matter how high such a wall is... it never would protect from an orbital strike (dont tell me that these aliens with these large space ships never considered doing orbital strikes?). From inside the wall mankind would never win the war.
In my eyes as long as the guardians have the light they should use it to systematically recapture what was lost and establish a secure zone for the traveler where the source of the light is protected.

What this game really needs is story. There is potentially so much that could be covered. Its a wasted opportunity not to do that.

you can only wear one exotic armor / weapon at a time?
I hoped to get at least wearing a set.

a wasted opportunity

That ishtar commander tool is pretty nice.
Alot less micro-management

Something that really starts to bother me is the small inventory and the small vault size.
The game is all about collecting stuff but there is only very little storage you can put it in.

The 200 slots of the vault initially looked fine to me when I had only one char.
But now I have 3 chars at a powerlevel of 315-320 and while 200 item slots might seem to be ok for 1 char it is not nearly enough for 3 chars.
Just assume you play the current faction rally even three times (obviously over serveral months) and want to get all the special weapons and armors for all your 3 chars.
You would need just alone for this specific even and just alone for the armors 45 item slots. Now lets assume that you want to keep every special weapon just once per account (since you can move weapons between chars if needed).
That are 4 regular faction weapons which can drop out of engrams (per faction) plus one end reward weapon per faction. Thats another 15 item slots gone.

And this isnt the only event where you can get special items and sets. There are at least twice as many legendary item sets on the different planets.
There are 24 exotic weapons to obtain and about 45 exotic armors.

200 vault slots are not nearly enough to store all of that stuff.
Expecially when you consider that you also might want to store mounts, mods, special effects and shaders for later use. It is no joy to compare and dismantle items everyday because your inventory is full.

the thing is... I have no type of item that I wouldnt use
even hand guns have interesting benefits
ok i dont use impulse rifles much but i dont think that I have many

next to that am not really able to tell which item performs best
e.g. some autorifles are really cool but others simply dont work well.
testing them all will take alot of time

but then the problem still remains since I also want to collect specific sets and the vault is not big enough for that.

well
thats leads to a vault management of my account (similar to the ishtar app)
such tools might help with the management of inventory and vault but the initial problem remains.

I had to throw away many shaders and mods yesterday because of the limited storage.
And now I still only have 14 vault slots left while my inventory in some areas is full.
The amount of time that goes into inventory management because of that is ridiculous. Ive spent easily 2 hours yesterday just trying to sort out the mess.

Ok, adding to the review as I got somewhat deeper into the game.
Ive spent 3 weeks in the game now and during the first two week I mainly focused on creating 3 chars (one for each class), playing through the main story, the osiris story, the planetary quests and adventures aswell as looting all golden chests and the chests in lost sectors. Oh and I did some PVP without overwhelming success.

About one week ago the faction rally event started so thats what I focused on.
I got the 3 item sets as reward and lots of other items (mostly duplicates). However, my chars are now at power level 220-222. So probably not all that bad after such a short time.
During the event I tried to also unlock the set ornaments and with "tried" I mean "didnt succeed". I got 4 of the 5 ornaments per faction.
The fifth for the helmet unfortunatly requires to finish a nightfall strike.
Until yesterday I didnt even play a single strike... so my experience was minimal.
Now I would say normal strikes are no big deal but nightfall strikes are problematic for various reasons.
Nightfalls are more difficult versions of the normal strikes. Nightfalls have to be completed with a timer running so there is no "even slow progress is good progress".
I watched a few vids on youtube showing people doing these strikes solo.
As I had to find out it looks easier than it actually is. Maybe I am just a bad player. I somehow have the feeling that I do nearly no damage while the NPCs kill me with 2 shots.
But maybe a solo run wasnt the best idea.
So lets team up with others, right?
Nightfalls do not offer the same matchmaking as normal strikes... so either you have clan mates which play with you (the clan I am in is pretty much dead) or you start a guided match where you hope that other clans might help you through the strike. The average queue time was 43 minutes.
Thats the point where I decided that "fuck it, the items look good enough even without the fifth ornament".
Maybe when this event returns in future I will give it another try but for now I just take my current rewards and do something that is less frustrating.
Maybe with higher powerlevels the nightfalls will be easier... dunno.

Yesterday I did a few more normal strikes and yes... they are easy.
The good thing is that its not so hard to figure out what to do even if you are new.
So its something for casual players which is good.
Nightfalls clearly require a better matchmaking.

PVP isnt all that bad... so far I won 50% of the matches now that I have better weapons. I mostly rely on kinetic scout rifles here... dunno... I can play very well with them.
Ive my problems finding kinetic +5 mods. I need at least two more for upgrades but cant seem to get any.

What I dont understand is that when I was powerlevel 315 (on all equip) then i all of a sudden got loot with powerlevel 316. At least a small increase.
But not that I all on 316 and higher I still just get loot at power level 316. There is no longer an increase.
I guess now the only chances to lvl up is via luminous or exotic engrams. The gameplay mechanic behind this is clear to me but the math behind it does not match.
When my current powerlevel is 322 and I generously take away the +5 from item mods, I would assume that I qualify at least for equipment with powerlevel 317 (instead of 316).

I am not sure about the events... yes the faction rally was fun to play but the rewards... meh
Only new monarchy really offered something unique. Lets face it... the KDZ armors were just recycled versions of the armors on nessus and the NO armors also were recycled stuff which reminds me on the EDZ armor style.
It is no surprise that new monarchy won (or will win in a few hours) by a large margin. It just looks best and also the shaders are outstanding.
Hopefully other events and future seasons will offer more unique items.

Edit by

As I have just read, there are no +5 kinetic mods unless they are already part of an item -> what a bulls...

I just realized how much I satisfy cliches with my character choice.

The lady in red:
[xattach=9474][/xattach]

The white knight
[xattach=9475][/xattach]

And the nightstalker
[xattach=9476][/xattach]

Ok today I for the first time tried heroic strikes.
I always have a bad feeling when trying something new where I could mess up the game for other players.
But it was surprisingly easy. Not much harder than normal strikes.
All 9 heroic strikes for the weekly goal were relative easy.

I dont know how nightfalls compare to them.
I guess the biggest problem which hold me back from trying nightfalls is the match making there.