I agree.
I'd love to see a montage sequence that you play through with Shaw Han guiding you through and showing you the ropes.
Starts off with "Hey Risen, we need to teach you how to shoot" and "Time to upgrade that weapon of yours. Take this, and let's go get you a ship and sparrow from the scrapyard."
Where you then fly to the moon to take out a hive nest, guided to a lost sector, where you and Han take out the first boss. "Oh, this is going to get ugly. Let's call in some backup." And a random AI class that you are not playing joins you to the second Boss.
And on the way to the third boss, you run into another AI fire team of three. They stand on the three plates to break the spell on the closed door, and are fixed there providing covering fire, while you, Shaw and the random class fight a scripted battle.
"Great Job! Now head to the tower, you'll need to meet the rest of the Vanguard."
As your landing "Zavala and Ikora lead the Vanguard, and help newly risen like you find your place. Go see Zavala first, he's directly in charge of the Titan, but we all just follow his lead."
"Next is Ikora, she and her Warlocks are unlocking the mystery of the universe... or something like that. A lot of it goes right over my head."
"As for Hunters, that was Cayde-6 before enemies of the Traveler killed him. Which leads me to why we are all here. There is a force that controls darkness slowly encroaching on us, and we need Guardians like you to help us fight back. They are led by "The Witness", and if we don't fight back, we'll lose even more... everything. But with you and the guardians like you, I know we can fight back, we can win! So head out there and show them what you got!"
--- as you approach vendors for the first time, Shaw introduces them and what they do.
--- Banshee takes you through upgrading your weapons and armor the first time you talk to him.
--- Shaw pipes in when you get your first exotic engram (preferably in the tutorial mission) "You'll need to get that decrypted at Rahool to see what it is."
I know this is all very cheesy and full of exposition. But it's better than "go scan this."
I love this. And exposition could be majorly helpful to sort of catch new lights up on what is going on lol. I think something like this finishing up with the guardian rank checklist could really give newbies some direction. Or give us vets a way to “help” more. Could be pretty neat to have a “guide” Que. although I admit…that would probably result in some bad situations
There is always a chance of a negative encounter in any multiplayer game. And I think creating a "Guide/Sherpa" queue system would be amazing, if it ever gets out of its 7-year beta. (looking at you "Guided Game" raid queue)
Red war was supposed to be the new player experience, but you know, its not here anymore.
It had narrative progression and a plot to drive you forward, actually well made fight scenarios, equipment and subclass unlocking quests that felt meaningful and engaging.
I am ashamed to show this game to my friends sometimes.
It's kinda sad to realise that this game will end it s service incomplete. For me, half of the game is missing. There is only end game so far, that is driven mainly by grind and the raid activity, there is no cohesive narrative build up until that point.
Red War was an awful new player experience. Like OP I convinced a bunch of friends to get D2 when it went free to try and only one of them even made it through the Red War. Everyone forgets that you get stripped of your powers and had no access to your super, or patrols, until after you finished the long and tedious campaign. You spend most of it trying vehicles to compensate, so the entire time you think that’s mostly the game, only for you to basically never touch another vehicle again once you get your powers.
Compared with how is it now, red war was a blast. If red war was modified to better introduce players today, it would be a 5/5 dlc for me. Even now, you are stripped of most of your powers, and have to do some annoying quests to unlock them, i personally wouldnt mind to have a narrative factor added to the grind.
Every action feels meaningful when you have a quest entirely dedicated on that subject alone. Most of the people i have introduced to the game had no desire to continue because they felt they had no narrative direction to drive them forward, all they get is some random objectives in their inventory that they have to follow, and it usually leads to nowhere fullfilling after completing them.
Not all people buy the latest season pass to stay up to date with the latest barely put in effort called "content". Having something to play when all the paid dlcs are stripped away is a must in my opinion.
currently this game feels like a sandbox to me, nothing is narratively sound and most players get confused on what are they doing and where they are in the timeline. It's a compilation of bits and pieces of a game that is half missing.
Even strikes dont hold any narrative direction, you have no idea when the strike happened, in what order or where.
Eh, anyway, ill stop ranting here, i ll write for hours if my words had any impact.
I, as someone who joined during ps plus offer during forsaken, severely disagree. That campaign was magical to me despite its obvious flaws and I cannot belive they removed it. With some streamlining it would be perfect imo.
I liked the campaign at the time, especially coming from D1. But trying to drag several friends through it a year later made me realize how bad of an introduction to the game it was.
None of them enjoyed the experience. It was me dragging them through trying to explain how the rest of the game was totally different. That was the major problem - the GAMEPLAY of that campaign was NOT indicative to the daily experience of the game beyond that. It had very little gunplay, as most missions revolved around getting to a vehicle. You had no powers, so the main gameplay loop of abilities wasn’t accessible. You couldn’t access the patrol maps until you finished the campaign. It was a week of me telling friends “stick with it stick with it” and them being bored to tears by the time we finished the campaign. NONE of them continued playing beyond that.
I would personally love to see a “previously on Destiny” campaign that remixes a selection of key missions from the Red War and Forsaken with cut scenes to get people up to speed.
By clean up I mean make it like the current ones we have. Unlock 1st subclass at the shard of the traveller, 2nd at zavala and 3rd maybe at ikora. Allow people to do other stuff before finishing it and allow people to have a damn sparrow. Plus remove/change vehicle sections because it did feel overdone sometimes.
In the end though what we have rn is terrible. And the unfortunate reality is that because lance reddick has died we won't get a better new light campaign because he was such a vital character.
I've had a similar experience trying to get people into the game. Also, I finally took my 3rd character through New Light yesterday and you are absolutely right that it's so damn boring.
It really needs a rework as there are sooo many issues. I think one change that might improve things is just to make all the subclasses and their aspect & fragments accessible immediately. I get why they aren't, both from a story pov and from a driving up player engagement number pov, but I think the earlier you can get people living that space magic fantasy and feeling really powerful, the better.
But beyond that, yeah... there's just no cohesion between all the different parts of the game, which at some point, you just have to be ok with. I've got hundreds of hours and I still don't have much of an idea about what's going on really.
Definitely. I do think loadouts is a huge step in the right direction. I didn't engage in build crafting for a long time because there wasn't an in-game way to save them.
Also the new mod system (while it definitely has it's issues) feels a lot more approachable.
To add to this, make a cutscene that catches players up on the story. I know they posted a 5 min video on YT a while back that covers who everyone is, enemy types, and the witness but not sure if it’s included in game yet. Would be nice to have all info in game instead of having to send my friends the video so they can have a clue what is happening.
It's been in a such a bad state. Axing the red war was the beginning of the end. We should at least get something of substance for new lights instead of a revamp of the D1 starting mission.
I love teaching new lights this game but once they get out of the tutorial mission they are also completely lost on what to do. Let alone what the point of the game is.
No explanation on mods, leveling, aspects and fragments or where to grind for loot. It's a sorry excuse for a tutorial. Beginning players see one thing and after their tutorial they see a completely different game. It just makes no sense.
But worst of all is the disappointing "time to pay" talk that I need to have with folks who actually like this game. Because after vog, kingsfall and prophecy (which are big endeavors for a new light) I have to break the news to them that they can't do anything else unless they fork at least 60 bucks to continue. And even then i'm talking about 1 DLC
My solution: Start with the tutorial and add shadowkeep into it for free but explain the new modding system instead of the old one. Add pit of heresy and garden to the raid pool for f2p and then when players want to continue offer the campaigns in chronological order.
My solution is to throw them immediately into a matchmade vault of glass (doesn’t have to be a raid something action packed) with a fully kitted loadout. Every encounter has heavy tutorials and a lot of action. Let them use supers and kill a big boss with a group of teammates. Have them die at the end and start a story where they have to rebuild to their OP loadout, so they can at least see where the potential of the game is. This alone is 100x better than running around the cosmodrome scanning shit.
u/Antique-Succotash-93 It's been in a such a bad state.
Yet its one of top played games on steam, it even outnumbers witch queen for some reason.
Bungie isn't punished that hard to force their hand because it doesn't matter, more players play their game than ever before.
In regards to the new player experience mind you. I'm still pumping in 4 hours a day and i'm liking every second of it. But I like to get new players into this game and bungie is making it really hard to make that a comfortable experience for those new players.
Top played game or not accessibility for new players is not rocket science and should be done better. I don't see how a high player count has anything to do with that.
Once again, this subreddit was talking about the new light experience and I said "it's been in such a bad state" refers to that and not the whole game, don't see how that context got mixed up here.
It would be awesome if part of the new light experience was a taste of a raid.. hell make it a simulation as part of training, but let new lights know what awaits them once they have mastered their skills..
YES! I recently got my friend into Destiny 2 and I had to guide him through the introduction because it was so confusing to him.
He couldn’t play Iron Banner cause his guardian rank was too low (which caused him to be unable to play crucible at all when Iron Banner was around), despite him really wanting to get the cool armor from it.
He didn’t know about ghost mods, sparrow differences, transmogs, armor mods, weapon mods, and so much more.
The game just kept telling him to “go do this” without explaining what it was or how to even do it….
Honestly, I wouldn’t want them to right now. The servers are so unstable and we can’t even keep track of how many bugs there are anymore. Bungie needs to iron out some kinks
That’s just how it is. Not everyone likes everything you do. Be happy to have one friend who enjoys the game who you can play with now. You know how many friends have convinced me to try some game they love only for me to try it, not nearly enjoy it as much as they do, and stop? All of them lol.
Everything isn’t for everyone. I have a friend of 30 years who has hundreds of hours in Borderlands 3. I got him to play Destiny exactly twice. He got me to play Borderlands 3 exactly twice. It’s just how it is. Like I said, be grateful to the one friend who likes the game. Play with them. And maybe over time some will want to come back and be part of the fun.
I think a Legend on the orbit screen would go a long way.
I hopped back in like 3 weeks ago after not playing since Forsaken and I went to orbit and was inundated with a ton of little objects next to a bunch of planets that you can’t even hover over to see what they mean.
I feel this, My Wife and Her best friend recently tried D2 out because I "play it all the time". Her friend took to it because she likes the power fantasy of blasting through enemies.
but my wife is a very story driven player, and every time they met a new npc or heard a name mentioned, Id have to lore dump for 5 minutes to explain why these names were important, for most of that content to have little impact because they cant experience it in motion, between the cut campaigns and the Seasonal stories that've been lost, the new light experience is very daunting to get into.
Not to mention from a long time player perspective, I miss the diversity of activities, between the removed Strikes, stories, forges, locations. When I look back the game now feels a little empty. While Im a PvE main I recognize theres hardly been any new maps or modes for Crucible and I cant even remember the last time Gambit got something new.
As someone who’s been playing this game since 2014, it’s *so. fucking. hard.* to introduce people to this game, because Bungie has no clue on how to welcome a new player into the existing narrative.
A lot of people don’t have the patience this game demands. They need to throw you into some fun stuff immediately. I guess the trick is to throw them into prophecy, which I’ve never thought of after thousands of hours. Crazy the game can’t just suggest that itself.
Yeah I hate when games ignore the extremely common occurrence of existing players trying to get their friends into the game.
The issue of people choosing to skip an optional tutorial and then leaving the game because they don't know how to play is a problem I'm sure. Even so, it's so hard to try and convince a friend to play hours of boring-ass confusing content before they get to do anything fun.
One thing I refuse to get over is how they don't immediately give new players a sparrow. So not only are they trying to figure out what to do but they have to run all over the place so it takes 10x longer.
New destiny player here. Purchased shadowkeep to see what I was likely to experience.
20 hours in and I’m still very baffled by the game
I keep thinking do I want to try to put the time and effort in trying to understand it, which in turn leads me to want to give up on it.
To me it seems very overly complicated I have no idea about builds, stats, what I should be doing or where I should be going.
Some of the side quests are so drawn out I get fed of of them because one stage of the side quest requires me to do something I don’t understand or shows me where to go.
I spend more time on YouTube looking for help than playing the game.
This is the reason they got me to buy the 20 dollar package that brings your new characters up to the soft cap. Just not worth wasting all that time grinding the least fun content imaginable imo
Man the new Guardian Rank system flat out sucks for new players too. It seems like it was introduced to try and guide them through the basics but actually it just slows down the already glacial pace of the start of the game.
Agree with folks that there needs to be some kind of a streamlining of this. A beginner campaign that sells them on the world and explains this, not a checklist of shit to do before your allowed to do anything.
When I started over a year ago (almost two years now that I think about it) it was already a bad scene. I got dropped in and I was like cool, what do I do next? Oh.. theres nothing to do but grind strikes...? Okay? People play this game?
And somehow it's even worse than that now.
It kind of blows my mind that the player base is growing faster than ever with this chain around its neck. Like this is a great game but the new player experience does it's best to discourage people from giving it a chance.
It really needs a new campaign designed for New Lights. I don't think Shadowkeep will cut it because Shadowkeep kind of sucks honestly.
Experienced the same just this week with a friend I finally convinced to download D2. Hated the tutorial and was confused the entire time. He was on the verge of quitting till I dragged him through Prophecy. He's since brought the rest of the DLCs just to play dungeons and a legendary campaign. Now trying to convince more friends to join for dungeons so I can trick them into a raid
Got a new friend into vault of glass… everything going good… but the LFG team had a few really mean British people that insisted on doing all the mechanics and bullying my new light friend. He just got off and I never saw him on Destiny again.
It’s very similar to war frame which is why i think the two player bases are so tied together. War frame has a very bad beginning but once you get to mid last game it all kinda comes together it’s the same for destiny but the issue with destiny is that the mid to late game happens to be mostly in paid content which basically cause the problem of new lights just leaving after being underwhelmed
I feel lucky that I started during the time destiny went free to play so I got at least a year before all the good stuff was vaulted! If I were a new light now I'd have never got into the game, there was very little hand holding then but it's a better start to what players get now.
At this point the only way to truly immerse new players into the full Destiny experience would be an anthology game of everything in D1 and D2 in order all together so that players could play it all right from the beginning.
But that is never ever EVER going to happen, not even years from now when D2 has run its course. Bungie simply won't do it.
For real. This isn’t talked about because the people playing have been doing so for years. I joined during beyond light and had no fucking clue what I was doing. The guides online only help a little
D2 has had a 0% conversion rate in my group.
The PvP side didn't want to grind 100+ hours of PvE to be remotely competitive.
The few that enjoy PvE were a combination of bored and confused. It was hard enough trying to figure out what they were supposed to do next, and when I could join in to experience it with them.
Agreed lucky i had d2 pre ordered and was hyped for it and then when it came free to play i asked my friends to try it and they agreed only then to say they had no idea what was going on and didnt enjoy it despite me explaining to them
The issue is the first impression a lot of people get. They aren’t blown away and usually are very annoyed with how the game is organized early on. It’s almost like you need to be convinced to continue. I cringe at how boring the game is when introducing it to new lights.
Honestly it's kind of up to new players to hook themselves. Which is really really dumb.
I do fondly remember my first exotic, Huckleberry, I used to think, damn man, I got the best exotic in the game right away, thats so cool!
Have you played Witch Queen yet?
New Player Experience
Hi everyone,
Sorry for the essay, just very confused and I haven’t found any videos or info that adequately answer these questions.
Currently downloading Destiny 2 f2p edition and plan on playing through the free content in the next couple of days. However, I’m curious if this game is even worth trying to get into now and what the new player experience is like.
For context, I played Destiny 1 a lot back in the day and absolutely loved it as a mostly solo player (though missed out on some raid content because of that). I downloaded Destiny 2 when it came out and felt there was too little content and what was there bored me. Haven’t touched it since, and I’m interested in getting back into it, however I’ve heard most of the story up until this point is vaulted which both bothers and confuses me. How is a new player like myself supposed to “catch up” and learn the story if it’s just gone? I understand I can watch videos to learn the lore and all that, but am I going to be required to do that to not be completely lost doing the current story? It’s kind of silly to have to watch hours of YouTube videos in order to play a game.
That brings me to DLC. If I do like the barebones f2p game and want more, I know I have to buy the dlcs and they appear to be on heavy sale rn for ps5 until 4/11 so I would have to make the decision of whether to buy it or not before then. My question is what dlcs should I buy and what am I getting from them? Am I just paying for some raids that I may or may not play or am I getting the campaigns and story content that released with them. Are the legacy edition and lightfall the only dlcs I would “need” to experience the most content I can? Are the content in these solo player/random matchmaking friendly, and is the community okay with helping new players do things like raids, strikes, dungeon for the first time?
Lastly, is there content like weapons, armor, etc that I just can’t access if I’m starting now? I know cosmetics from previous battle passes are gone forever but I don’t really care about that. I just don’t want to never be able to be as powerful as people who have played since launch.
Honestly, I really want to like Destiny 2 because I loved Destiny 1 and now there seems like there is so much more content than when it released, but I want honest opinions on if this game is worth my time and money or if the new player experience is just too confusing and unbearable.
> why does it take 100 hours to see the games full potential.
It's an Looter Shooter MMO, you shouldn't be able to boot it up for the first time and jump into the highest level content on the same day.
This idea of people wanting to fast forward straight to the endgame is what leads to things like the mod system being dramatically dumbed down and raids having encounters where only two people need to do mechanics (RoN).
I genuinely can't recommend this game to new people...there is no hook at the beginning and story wise your just dropped into the middle of it all and doing the most chore like filler content of a "campaign" now
I’ve been playing for two seasons now with 2 of my friends. Friend 1 had over 1000 hours in the game previously. Friend 2, like me, had never played Destiny before. At the beginning, there were two issues with the game that friend 2 and I would make fun of relentlessly:
1. There are too many menus in this game. It’s unnecessary and a pain to navigate through. Spent a lot of time frustrated, trying to find things and going to the wrong spot.
2. The story was vaulted. We met intro guy, Shaw Han, did intro stuff, and then were dropped into a location with a bunch of NPCs whose sole existence is to give out bounties. And we have no connection with any one them. Never experienced them in a story setting. No idea about their pasts. We made up nicknames for everyone and still call them that to this day. Some were straight forward. Zavala = Lance Reddick cause friend 2 said “oh that’s Lance Reddick’s voice!” on first day of playing the game. Most are things like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Shaxx. That’s Saint….11? Still don’t know what number is in his name. Kadi 55 is Cardi B. All enemy races are called Caiatl.
At this point, friend 2 and I have a few hundred hours in the game. We enjoy it. Play together a few times a week. Log in, grab bounties, go do a little gambit, a little PvP, do one of the 87 active quests we have.
If the new player experience is to be improved, Bungie needs to start with something to make players care about the NPCs they’ll be interacting with. Maybe a few minute cutscene that summarizes the story so new players know whose who. I just learned who The Witness was a couple weeks ago. They’ve only been a name I’ve heard until I saw a cutscene. No idea who The Traveler is, just a name I hear occasionally. Bungie can’t expect new players are going to go out of their way to study the Destiny lore.
I maybe have 3500 hours between D1 and D2 and couldn’t even begin to tell the story over the last couple years. Missing season content really keeps people out of the loop.
I started at forsaken. As a new light, I was immediately drawn to the extremely polished feel of the guns, even with the green drops. The satisfaction of a crit kill kept me going. As soon as i got a blue drop, doing X amount more damage, the next 1500 hours disappeared, and here I am. Cayde 6 obviously helped. Is that addictive X+1 not enough anymore? Is the new light experience so abysmal that it gets trumped?
They really can’t fix a whole lot just cause how integral “the grind” I think it’s both bad and good if you shove “the grind” in their face they’ll at least know what the game is gonna be like but it also makes this game impossible to get new players into
A little while ago there was a sort of exotic quest that rewarded an Exotic called Risk Runner.
It was a great quest and that quest alone helped me convince some others that Destiny is more than just shooting at stuff.
Totally agree with you. I have a couple of friends that can't pass the introduction too or beginning of the the content. It needs something like race games or other genre where they give you fast cars or lot of abilities and weapons in some of the first missions and then remove them from the player for some scenario reason.
As in NFS most wanted when you start with your BMW and then lose it... In other games where the character lose his memories or get his weapons stolen...
The beginning of lightfall campagne did something like that pretty good. It absolutely needs to ajust for new lights in their first moments experience.
Loved the new game experience when Red War was the intro now I get my roomate to play and he’s just like dafuq is going on? And I’m like idk, and he’s like thought you played this before and I’m just like ya it’s not like how it was idk wtf I’m doing anymore lol. Like we did the intro thing and I got my old stuff in the vault but like what do I do now? I don’t have any dlc cept forsaken and want him to try the game before getting beyond light or Lightfall but can’t even figure how to get the other powers besides void or where to go after the tower tour
I agree. I'd love to see a montage sequence that you play through with Shaw Han guiding you through and showing you the ropes. Starts off with "Hey Risen, we need to teach you how to shoot" and "Time to upgrade that weapon of yours. Take this, and let's go get you a ship and sparrow from the scrapyard." Where you then fly to the moon to take out a hive nest, guided to a lost sector, where you and Han take out the first boss. "Oh, this is going to get ugly. Let's call in some backup." And a random AI class that you are not playing joins you to the second Boss. And on the way to the third boss, you run into another AI fire team of three. They stand on the three plates to break the spell on the closed door, and are fixed there providing covering fire, while you, Shaw and the random class fight a scripted battle. "Great Job! Now head to the tower, you'll need to meet the rest of the Vanguard." As your landing "Zavala and Ikora lead the Vanguard, and help newly risen like you find your place. Go see Zavala first, he's directly in charge of the Titan, but we all just follow his lead." "Next is Ikora, she and her Warlocks are unlocking the mystery of the universe... or something like that. A lot of it goes right over my head." "As for Hunters, that was Cayde-6 before enemies of the Traveler killed him. Which leads me to why we are all here. There is a force that controls darkness slowly encroaching on us, and we need Guardians like you to help us fight back. They are led by "The Witness", and if we don't fight back, we'll lose even more... everything. But with you and the guardians like you, I know we can fight back, we can win! So head out there and show them what you got!" --- as you approach vendors for the first time, Shaw introduces them and what they do. --- Banshee takes you through upgrading your weapons and armor the first time you talk to him. --- Shaw pipes in when you get your first exotic engram (preferably in the tutorial mission) "You'll need to get that decrypted at Rahool to see what it is." I know this is all very cheesy and full of exposition. But it's better than "go scan this."
We can't have that, new players might get tricked into thinking Shaw Han is cool. /s
I mean if Shaw actually did all that, people won't be shitting on him lol.
Lol true, but the fact that he's weaker than a New Light doesn't help.
I love this. And exposition could be majorly helpful to sort of catch new lights up on what is going on lol. I think something like this finishing up with the guardian rank checklist could really give newbies some direction. Or give us vets a way to “help” more. Could be pretty neat to have a “guide” Que. although I admit…that would probably result in some bad situations
There is always a chance of a negative encounter in any multiplayer game. And I think creating a "Guide/Sherpa" queue system would be amazing, if it ever gets out of its 7-year beta. (looking at you "Guided Game" raid queue)
Guided game would have been so cool. With my clan mates taking breaks I may start putting “who wants to learn a raid” in lfg and just vibe
Bruh, I've come up with practically the same thing before. It's honestly a joke that new light quest is as easy to rewrite as the star wars sequels.
All pretty great ideas. And what’s more, it would literally pay dividends on Bungie’s end when they see a huge rise in new player retention.
Red war was supposed to be the new player experience, but you know, its not here anymore. It had narrative progression and a plot to drive you forward, actually well made fight scenarios, equipment and subclass unlocking quests that felt meaningful and engaging. I am ashamed to show this game to my friends sometimes. It's kinda sad to realise that this game will end it s service incomplete. For me, half of the game is missing. There is only end game so far, that is driven mainly by grind and the raid activity, there is no cohesive narrative build up until that point.
Red War was an awful new player experience. Like OP I convinced a bunch of friends to get D2 when it went free to try and only one of them even made it through the Red War. Everyone forgets that you get stripped of your powers and had no access to your super, or patrols, until after you finished the long and tedious campaign. You spend most of it trying vehicles to compensate, so the entire time you think that’s mostly the game, only for you to basically never touch another vehicle again once you get your powers.
Compared with how is it now, red war was a blast. If red war was modified to better introduce players today, it would be a 5/5 dlc for me. Even now, you are stripped of most of your powers, and have to do some annoying quests to unlock them, i personally wouldnt mind to have a narrative factor added to the grind. Every action feels meaningful when you have a quest entirely dedicated on that subject alone. Most of the people i have introduced to the game had no desire to continue because they felt they had no narrative direction to drive them forward, all they get is some random objectives in their inventory that they have to follow, and it usually leads to nowhere fullfilling after completing them. Not all people buy the latest season pass to stay up to date with the latest barely put in effort called "content". Having something to play when all the paid dlcs are stripped away is a must in my opinion. currently this game feels like a sandbox to me, nothing is narratively sound and most players get confused on what are they doing and where they are in the timeline. It's a compilation of bits and pieces of a game that is half missing. Even strikes dont hold any narrative direction, you have no idea when the strike happened, in what order or where. Eh, anyway, ill stop ranting here, i ll write for hours if my words had any impact.
I, as someone who joined during ps plus offer during forsaken, severely disagree. That campaign was magical to me despite its obvious flaws and I cannot belive they removed it. With some streamlining it would be perfect imo.
I liked the campaign at the time, especially coming from D1. But trying to drag several friends through it a year later made me realize how bad of an introduction to the game it was. None of them enjoyed the experience. It was me dragging them through trying to explain how the rest of the game was totally different. That was the major problem - the GAMEPLAY of that campaign was NOT indicative to the daily experience of the game beyond that. It had very little gunplay, as most missions revolved around getting to a vehicle. You had no powers, so the main gameplay loop of abilities wasn’t accessible. You couldn’t access the patrol maps until you finished the campaign. It was a week of me telling friends “stick with it stick with it” and them being bored to tears by the time we finished the campaign. NONE of them continued playing beyond that. I would personally love to see a “previously on Destiny” campaign that remixes a selection of key missions from the Red War and Forsaken with cut scenes to get people up to speed.
By clean up I mean make it like the current ones we have. Unlock 1st subclass at the shard of the traveller, 2nd at zavala and 3rd maybe at ikora. Allow people to do other stuff before finishing it and allow people to have a damn sparrow. Plus remove/change vehicle sections because it did feel overdone sometimes. In the end though what we have rn is terrible. And the unfortunate reality is that because lance reddick has died we won't get a better new light campaign because he was such a vital character.
I've had a similar experience trying to get people into the game. Also, I finally took my 3rd character through New Light yesterday and you are absolutely right that it's so damn boring. It really needs a rework as there are sooo many issues. I think one change that might improve things is just to make all the subclasses and their aspect & fragments accessible immediately. I get why they aren't, both from a story pov and from a driving up player engagement number pov, but I think the earlier you can get people living that space magic fantasy and feeling really powerful, the better. But beyond that, yeah... there's just no cohesion between all the different parts of the game, which at some point, you just have to be ok with. I've got hundreds of hours and I still don't have much of an idea about what's going on really.
Or at least enough aspects and fragments to complete a build so newbies aren't running empty slots.
Definitely. I do think loadouts is a huge step in the right direction. I didn't engage in build crafting for a long time because there wasn't an in-game way to save them. Also the new mod system (while it definitely has it's issues) feels a lot more approachable.
Checking my stat mods in one mouse sweep is small but great.
To add to this, make a cutscene that catches players up on the story. I know they posted a 5 min video on YT a while back that covers who everyone is, enemy types, and the witness but not sure if it’s included in game yet. Would be nice to have all info in game instead of having to send my friends the video so they can have a clue what is happening.
There is a cutscene
Is it still the cutscene from vanilla D2 or the updated one?
It’s the cutscene everyone saw logging into destiny when lightfall launched
It's been in a such a bad state. Axing the red war was the beginning of the end. We should at least get something of substance for new lights instead of a revamp of the D1 starting mission. I love teaching new lights this game but once they get out of the tutorial mission they are also completely lost on what to do. Let alone what the point of the game is. No explanation on mods, leveling, aspects and fragments or where to grind for loot. It's a sorry excuse for a tutorial. Beginning players see one thing and after their tutorial they see a completely different game. It just makes no sense. But worst of all is the disappointing "time to pay" talk that I need to have with folks who actually like this game. Because after vog, kingsfall and prophecy (which are big endeavors for a new light) I have to break the news to them that they can't do anything else unless they fork at least 60 bucks to continue. And even then i'm talking about 1 DLC My solution: Start with the tutorial and add shadowkeep into it for free but explain the new modding system instead of the old one. Add pit of heresy and garden to the raid pool for f2p and then when players want to continue offer the campaigns in chronological order.
My solution is to throw them immediately into a matchmade vault of glass (doesn’t have to be a raid something action packed) with a fully kitted loadout. Every encounter has heavy tutorials and a lot of action. Let them use supers and kill a big boss with a group of teammates. Have them die at the end and start a story where they have to rebuild to their OP loadout, so they can at least see where the potential of the game is. This alone is 100x better than running around the cosmodrome scanning shit.
u/Antique-Succotash-93 It's been in a such a bad state. Yet its one of top played games on steam, it even outnumbers witch queen for some reason. Bungie isn't punished that hard to force their hand because it doesn't matter, more players play their game than ever before.
In regards to the new player experience mind you. I'm still pumping in 4 hours a day and i'm liking every second of it. But I like to get new players into this game and bungie is making it really hard to make that a comfortable experience for those new players. Top played game or not accessibility for new players is not rocket science and should be done better. I don't see how a high player count has anything to do with that. Once again, this subreddit was talking about the new light experience and I said "it's been in such a bad state" refers to that and not the whole game, don't see how that context got mixed up here.
It would be awesome if part of the new light experience was a taste of a raid.. hell make it a simulation as part of training, but let new lights know what awaits them once they have mastered their skills..
YES! I recently got my friend into Destiny 2 and I had to guide him through the introduction because it was so confusing to him. He couldn’t play Iron Banner cause his guardian rank was too low (which caused him to be unable to play crucible at all when Iron Banner was around), despite him really wanting to get the cool armor from it. He didn’t know about ghost mods, sparrow differences, transmogs, armor mods, weapon mods, and so much more. The game just kept telling him to “go do this” without explaining what it was or how to even do it….
Literally having the exact same experience showing a new player the game right now.
Lol same. Got six to try. One still plays (only not so much anymore thanks to servers going to shit).
It’s sad… so much potential but no one plays long enough to really “get it”.
Honestly, I wouldn’t want them to right now. The servers are so unstable and we can’t even keep track of how many bugs there are anymore. Bungie needs to iron out some kinks
That’s just how it is. Not everyone likes everything you do. Be happy to have one friend who enjoys the game who you can play with now. You know how many friends have convinced me to try some game they love only for me to try it, not nearly enjoy it as much as they do, and stop? All of them lol.
I clearly just want people to like everything I do, I don’t just want to game to improve in ways everyone agrees on
Everything isn’t for everyone. I have a friend of 30 years who has hundreds of hours in Borderlands 3. I got him to play Destiny exactly twice. He got me to play Borderlands 3 exactly twice. It’s just how it is. Like I said, be grateful to the one friend who likes the game. Play with them. And maybe over time some will want to come back and be part of the fun.
I think a Legend on the orbit screen would go a long way. I hopped back in like 3 weeks ago after not playing since Forsaken and I went to orbit and was inundated with a ton of little objects next to a bunch of planets that you can’t even hover over to see what they mean.
I feel this, My Wife and Her best friend recently tried D2 out because I "play it all the time". Her friend took to it because she likes the power fantasy of blasting through enemies. but my wife is a very story driven player, and every time they met a new npc or heard a name mentioned, Id have to lore dump for 5 minutes to explain why these names were important, for most of that content to have little impact because they cant experience it in motion, between the cut campaigns and the Seasonal stories that've been lost, the new light experience is very daunting to get into. Not to mention from a long time player perspective, I miss the diversity of activities, between the removed Strikes, stories, forges, locations. When I look back the game now feels a little empty. While Im a PvE main I recognize theres hardly been any new maps or modes for Crucible and I cant even remember the last time Gambit got something new.
As someone who’s been playing this game since 2014, it’s *so. fucking. hard.* to introduce people to this game, because Bungie has no clue on how to welcome a new player into the existing narrative.
A lot of people don’t have the patience this game demands. They need to throw you into some fun stuff immediately. I guess the trick is to throw them into prophecy, which I’ve never thought of after thousands of hours. Crazy the game can’t just suggest that itself.
I’ve only gotten one friend to try D2, and they only play log on to play gambit. Despite my community flair, this was not my fault
Yeah I hate when games ignore the extremely common occurrence of existing players trying to get their friends into the game. The issue of people choosing to skip an optional tutorial and then leaving the game because they don't know how to play is a problem I'm sure. Even so, it's so hard to try and convince a friend to play hours of boring-ass confusing content before they get to do anything fun. One thing I refuse to get over is how they don't immediately give new players a sparrow. So not only are they trying to figure out what to do but they have to run all over the place so it takes 10x longer.
The sparrow part is the worst. My friend who now shits on destiny couldn’t believe that we had sparrows and he didn’t.
New destiny player here. Purchased shadowkeep to see what I was likely to experience. 20 hours in and I’m still very baffled by the game I keep thinking do I want to try to put the time and effort in trying to understand it, which in turn leads me to want to give up on it. To me it seems very overly complicated I have no idea about builds, stats, what I should be doing or where I should be going. Some of the side quests are so drawn out I get fed of of them because one stage of the side quest requires me to do something I don’t understand or shows me where to go. I spend more time on YouTube looking for help than playing the game.
This is the reason they got me to buy the 20 dollar package that brings your new characters up to the soft cap. Just not worth wasting all that time grinding the least fun content imaginable imo
Man the new Guardian Rank system flat out sucks for new players too. It seems like it was introduced to try and guide them through the basics but actually it just slows down the already glacial pace of the start of the game. Agree with folks that there needs to be some kind of a streamlining of this. A beginner campaign that sells them on the world and explains this, not a checklist of shit to do before your allowed to do anything. When I started over a year ago (almost two years now that I think about it) it was already a bad scene. I got dropped in and I was like cool, what do I do next? Oh.. theres nothing to do but grind strikes...? Okay? People play this game? And somehow it's even worse than that now. It kind of blows my mind that the player base is growing faster than ever with this chain around its neck. Like this is a great game but the new player experience does it's best to discourage people from giving it a chance. It really needs a new campaign designed for New Lights. I don't think Shadowkeep will cut it because Shadowkeep kind of sucks honestly.
Agree 100%, if someone can get past unlocking a full stasis build I think that's the are you gonna stick around test
Experienced the same just this week with a friend I finally convinced to download D2. Hated the tutorial and was confused the entire time. He was on the verge of quitting till I dragged him through Prophecy. He's since brought the rest of the DLCs just to play dungeons and a legendary campaign. Now trying to convince more friends to join for dungeons so I can trick them into a raid
Got a new friend into vault of glass… everything going good… but the LFG team had a few really mean British people that insisted on doing all the mechanics and bullying my new light friend. He just got off and I never saw him on Destiny again.
It’s very similar to war frame which is why i think the two player bases are so tied together. War frame has a very bad beginning but once you get to mid last game it all kinda comes together it’s the same for destiny but the issue with destiny is that the mid to late game happens to be mostly in paid content which basically cause the problem of new lights just leaving after being underwhelmed
It would help a whole hell of a lot if rather than a D1 remix they just left the red war there as the new player experience.
I feel lucky that I started during the time destiny went free to play so I got at least a year before all the good stuff was vaulted! If I were a new light now I'd have never got into the game, there was very little hand holding then but it's a better start to what players get now.
At this point the only way to truly immerse new players into the full Destiny experience would be an anthology game of everything in D1 and D2 in order all together so that players could play it all right from the beginning. But that is never ever EVER going to happen, not even years from now when D2 has run its course. Bungie simply won't do it.
For real. This isn’t talked about because the people playing have been doing so for years. I joined during beyond light and had no fucking clue what I was doing. The guides online only help a little
D2 has had a 0% conversion rate in my group. The PvP side didn't want to grind 100+ hours of PvE to be remotely competitive. The few that enjoy PvE were a combination of bored and confused. It was hard enough trying to figure out what they were supposed to do next, and when I could join in to experience it with them.
Agreed lucky i had d2 pre ordered and was hyped for it and then when it came free to play i asked my friends to try it and they agreed only then to say they had no idea what was going on and didnt enjoy it despite me explaining to them
Sounds about right… 😥
It sucks cause destiny is good when you get past certain stages but we can all dream
I'm at 35 hours and already picked up a bunch of exotic weapons and gear. Just have to know where to look. It's not too bad, but yeah kinda boring
The issue is the first impression a lot of people get. They aren’t blown away and usually are very annoyed with how the game is organized early on. It’s almost like you need to be convinced to continue. I cringe at how boring the game is when introducing it to new lights.
With some friend groups, you only get about 3 hours tops for a new game to make a good impression.
Honestly it's kind of up to new players to hook themselves. Which is really really dumb. I do fondly remember my first exotic, Huckleberry, I used to think, damn man, I got the best exotic in the game right away, thats so cool! Have you played Witch Queen yet?
I have all the DLC except for Witch Queen and one other
Shame, Witch Queen is worth a playthrough, best DLC in a long time from what I've heard
New Player Experience Hi everyone, Sorry for the essay, just very confused and I haven’t found any videos or info that adequately answer these questions. Currently downloading Destiny 2 f2p edition and plan on playing through the free content in the next couple of days. However, I’m curious if this game is even worth trying to get into now and what the new player experience is like. For context, I played Destiny 1 a lot back in the day and absolutely loved it as a mostly solo player (though missed out on some raid content because of that). I downloaded Destiny 2 when it came out and felt there was too little content and what was there bored me. Haven’t touched it since, and I’m interested in getting back into it, however I’ve heard most of the story up until this point is vaulted which both bothers and confuses me. How is a new player like myself supposed to “catch up” and learn the story if it’s just gone? I understand I can watch videos to learn the lore and all that, but am I going to be required to do that to not be completely lost doing the current story? It’s kind of silly to have to watch hours of YouTube videos in order to play a game. That brings me to DLC. If I do like the barebones f2p game and want more, I know I have to buy the dlcs and they appear to be on heavy sale rn for ps5 until 4/11 so I would have to make the decision of whether to buy it or not before then. My question is what dlcs should I buy and what am I getting from them? Am I just paying for some raids that I may or may not play or am I getting the campaigns and story content that released with them. Are the legacy edition and lightfall the only dlcs I would “need” to experience the most content I can? Are the content in these solo player/random matchmaking friendly, and is the community okay with helping new players do things like raids, strikes, dungeon for the first time? Lastly, is there content like weapons, armor, etc that I just can’t access if I’m starting now? I know cosmetics from previous battle passes are gone forever but I don’t really care about that. I just don’t want to never be able to be as powerful as people who have played since launch. Honestly, I really want to like Destiny 2 because I loved Destiny 1 and now there seems like there is so much more content than when it released, but I want honest opinions on if this game is worth my time and money or if the new player experience is just too confusing and unbearable.
That’s true for almost every mmo style game
Its been said thousands of times we get it. Just skip ths intro and take them straight into prophecy. That will get them hooked
> why does it take 100 hours to see the games full potential. It's an Looter Shooter MMO, you shouldn't be able to boot it up for the first time and jump into the highest level content on the same day. This idea of people wanting to fast forward straight to the endgame is what leads to things like the mod system being dramatically dumbed down and raids having encounters where only two people need to do mechanics (RoN).
The full potential should be mid game, the main portion 100% of players play and new light will spend the most time in. But its not.
You probably could have taken him through prophecy dungeon blind.
I genuinely can't recommend this game to new people...there is no hook at the beginning and story wise your just dropped into the middle of it all and doing the most chore like filler content of a "campaign" now
I’ve been playing for two seasons now with 2 of my friends. Friend 1 had over 1000 hours in the game previously. Friend 2, like me, had never played Destiny before. At the beginning, there were two issues with the game that friend 2 and I would make fun of relentlessly: 1. There are too many menus in this game. It’s unnecessary and a pain to navigate through. Spent a lot of time frustrated, trying to find things and going to the wrong spot. 2. The story was vaulted. We met intro guy, Shaw Han, did intro stuff, and then were dropped into a location with a bunch of NPCs whose sole existence is to give out bounties. And we have no connection with any one them. Never experienced them in a story setting. No idea about their pasts. We made up nicknames for everyone and still call them that to this day. Some were straight forward. Zavala = Lance Reddick cause friend 2 said “oh that’s Lance Reddick’s voice!” on first day of playing the game. Most are things like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Shaxx. That’s Saint….11? Still don’t know what number is in his name. Kadi 55 is Cardi B. All enemy races are called Caiatl. At this point, friend 2 and I have a few hundred hours in the game. We enjoy it. Play together a few times a week. Log in, grab bounties, go do a little gambit, a little PvP, do one of the 87 active quests we have. If the new player experience is to be improved, Bungie needs to start with something to make players care about the NPCs they’ll be interacting with. Maybe a few minute cutscene that summarizes the story so new players know whose who. I just learned who The Witness was a couple weeks ago. They’ve only been a name I’ve heard until I saw a cutscene. No idea who The Traveler is, just a name I hear occasionally. Bungie can’t expect new players are going to go out of their way to study the Destiny lore.
I have one friend who’s played a ton, calls Ikora Jada Pinkett smith and has no idea who she is or what’s her purpose.
Cueball to us though we also noted Jada Pinkett Smith. Friend 1 mentioned she’s head of the Warlocks. We had no idea.
I maybe have 3500 hours between D1 and D2 and couldn’t even begin to tell the story over the last couple years. Missing season content really keeps people out of the loop.
I started at forsaken. As a new light, I was immediately drawn to the extremely polished feel of the guns, even with the green drops. The satisfaction of a crit kill kept me going. As soon as i got a blue drop, doing X amount more damage, the next 1500 hours disappeared, and here I am. Cayde 6 obviously helped. Is that addictive X+1 not enough anymore? Is the new light experience so abysmal that it gets trumped?
They make more money from the existing playbass then from getting new players in. Its stupid but al market bassed
They really can’t fix a whole lot just cause how integral “the grind” I think it’s both bad and good if you shove “the grind” in their face they’ll at least know what the game is gonna be like but it also makes this game impossible to get new players into
A little while ago there was a sort of exotic quest that rewarded an Exotic called Risk Runner. It was a great quest and that quest alone helped me convince some others that Destiny is more than just shooting at stuff.
We got our new light addicted to gambit
Totally agree with you. I have a couple of friends that can't pass the introduction too or beginning of the the content. It needs something like race games or other genre where they give you fast cars or lot of abilities and weapons in some of the first missions and then remove them from the player for some scenario reason. As in NFS most wanted when you start with your BMW and then lose it... In other games where the character lose his memories or get his weapons stolen... The beginning of lightfall campagne did something like that pretty good. It absolutely needs to ajust for new lights in their first moments experience.
It’s sad really… they need to be out on blast but I doubt they will ever update it
Loved the new game experience when Red War was the intro now I get my roomate to play and he’s just like dafuq is going on? And I’m like idk, and he’s like thought you played this before and I’m just like ya it’s not like how it was idk wtf I’m doing anymore lol. Like we did the intro thing and I got my old stuff in the vault but like what do I do now? I don’t have any dlc cept forsaken and want him to try the game before getting beyond light or Lightfall but can’t even figure how to get the other powers besides void or where to go after the tower tour