I had quit Destiny for a long time under the impression that the game was sucking me into a grind that never ended and was rarely rewarding. For whatever reason, I kept coming back with hopes of rewards that never came. Finally, I got wise and realized Destiny was built on near-rewardless grind, and quit.
With the release of the House of Wolves DLC (which I had already purchased before I knew the game was going to be what it was), I decided to give it another shot, but I’m still not convinced I was wrong.
House of wolves story, enemies, bounties and even the musical score, are all a vast improvement over what Destiny had been to date. But it’s end game content can look deceiving casual-friendly.
Prison of Elders
A 3 man arena that gets you to max level? Awesome! Less time getting a team together, and less time than a raid…right? Only under the right circumstances.
Less people needed to form a team doesn’t necessarily mean less time… Since the smaller team structure means players who already have their go-to team hop in the arena (called the prison of elders) quickly, anyone who doesn’t already have a regular team finds that most of the friends on their list are already on a team, and so yet again you have to use the forums to search for teammates, who for whatever reason feel even more sparse…
“But doesn’t it have matchmaking??” Only on the lowest difficulty, which is nearly pointless to play unless you want to farm reputation with the new prison of elders vendor, or farm special keys dropped by queen’s bounty bosses in patrol, which open a special chest at the end of the prison of elders… But even then that chest is far more rewarding on harder difficulties, which require a significant amount of time…
“Well can’t I just reach a checkpoint and come back to finish it another time?” Nope. While the prison of elders does let you respawn after each round (3 waves of enemies/objectives per round) it does not allow you to resume that checkpoint if you leave the match. It’s all or nothing, in one shot, making the prison of elders an equal or greater time commitment even over raids.
Additionally, there are 4 difficulty tiers each offering different, arguably increasing rewards…3 of which reset each week. If you want to do them all, you’re no longer a casual player, and if you want to do them all each week with each character you’re gonna have to buy an apartment in the reef, Destiny’s new social space.
The most frustrating moment for me came when I got to level 34, and I went after the level 35 boss. We made it past the first 5 rounds in about 2 hours (which didn’t seem unreasonable). We then proceeding to fail for 3 more hours against the final boss (who I’m still not sure anyone could beat legitimately without “cheesing” [a fancy word for overpowering or cheating the system] him). Eventually at around 4 am I had to give up… I had work the next morning… Idiot…
The issue was apparently my weapons weren’t high enough to pull off the “cheese”. I needed a totally maxed arc sniper to overpower the final fight, which means grinding out more prison of elders just so I can approach level 35 again… Boo that.
“Well didn’t you get rewards after each wave like in a raid?” Nope. Rewards only come at the end of the prison of elders. Bungie apparently likes biting causal players in the hind parts just for fun.
Trials of Osiris
The new PvP mode, Trials of Osiris, is not for the feint of heart either, though for casual players with higher skill might find this a better option. Rewards in the trials are based off of the number of wins in a series of 3v3 matches. You can receive every reward up to the tier you achieve, meaning if you get 8 wins, you can buy all the vendor’s rewards from tiers 1-8. Sounds pretty sweet huh? Keep listening.
A match is won by being the first team to get to 5 points in a single match. A point is won by winning the round. There are up to 9 rounds per match. Sounds like a lot but I won’t take much for you to understand it. Just buy the passage item from the new Osiris vendor and maybe some of his buffs, and you’re in. But be warned, like Iron Banner, stats matter. It’s on a curve so a 33 and a 34 won’t be too unevenly matched, but you won’t want to come in too much lower than that
Oh and also– THORN. Almost everyone is using one. There are some feasible alternatives, but as soon as you get in, you’re gonna fee left out and probably “pwnd” if you don’t have one.
The truth is, the trials require better if not the best gear to be a viable competitor, and even if you have great gear, you’ll need some specific prices to compete in any kind of reasonable way. However, the trials seems to me the causal’s closest thing to “rewarding” in Destiny.
Bounties
The new Queen’s Wrath bounties have been greatly improved. Mini-bosses have been added to earth and Venus patrol that either spawn on a timer or are waiting for you when you arrive. Coupled with public events and the blades of crota spawns and patrol suddenly feels alive.
Killing the timed-spawn bosses grants you access to a hidden chest that spawns in the zone, but you had better find it in 90 seconds or the rewards will be gone. Find it and you could find some coveted prison of elders keys (which open that chest I previously mentioned which can have legendaries and exotics), some currency for the new prison of elders vendor, or even blue and purple engrams. If you leave the zone and make it back to the chest in time, you can grab it again 🙂 (cheeeeese!!). Sky watch seems to be the best place for this though.
The bosses can be farmed even without a bounty, but doing the bounties nets you reputation for the queens wrath vendor, who offers a killer looking ship with some other items.
These bounties are basically optional, but they make patrols so much more fun than they were, and it makes me feel even more strongly that Bungie took parts of this game that should have been available at release and split them into DLC to make an extra buck. And still, having to grind those keys definitely bends the fun aspect of the bounties toward work again… Those keys…
The bottom line of this Fling:
The grind is real. While house of wolves does a better job of covering it up (because it has more moments of fun than any destiny moment before it), it is nonetheless still not built for a casual gamer. My advice, don’t dive too deep into destiny thinking House of Wolves has fixed things, it hasn’t… But if you desperately want to play Destiny but need to know how to use your time… Maybe I can help.
blipfling 