Banifest Destiny – Part 2: Why The Dark Below didn’t help

You know what they say, “The more things change”

Image via PlanetDestiny

The Dark Below’s unambitious scale echoed Destiny’s original problem. You wind up in a box doing the same things over and over—in the same areas, no less. Really fun things, mind you, but the same. Not only did it retain the arbitrary bounty and mission design of the original game, just changing a few words here and there, it added new problems to the pile.

Light level proved to be the highest hurdle. Rather, the system behind it. Because gear determines player level in Destiny, The Dark Below had to introduce more powerful gear. Naturally, this means leaving your old gear behind. There’s nothing wrong with that; that’s par for the course in any MMO. But leaving gear behind is one thing. Obviating it is quite another. And what other word is there for raid gear outclassed by merchant gear?

Vault of Glass equipment was essentially deleted by The Dark Below, simply because Tower vendors sold empirically better stuff. You could take on the biggest and best PvE activity in the game just to get a chance at powerful gear, or you could take 75 marks down the street and outclass it in a heartbeat. Who needs Atheon when Lord Shaxx has Light level 31 in a drawer?

R.I.P.

Unlike the Xur debate, this isn’t a matter of consistent systems filling in for the gaps left by loot awarded via RNG. Nobody would have been irritated by Tower vendors selling Light level 30 gear in The Dark Below, because that would at least make Vault of Glass equipment relevant. It would still have its unique appearance and top-notch skill trees. In other words, it would still be reputable raid gear. But because of the Light system, buyable Light level 31 gear meant vanilla veterans, the people who originally supported and played Destiny, were decimated by power creep. It felt like dropping $300 on a fourth-generation phone, only for the person behind you in line to pay $100 for a fifth-generation model that you weren’t told about.

With The Dark Below’s equipment revolution, Destiny once again failed to adequately reward effort. This was only worsened by the introduction of a new crafting system. All those Ascendant materials you earned? Those are worthless. Chuck the Energy and turn the Shards into coasters; this is now a Radiant material-based economy.

And about that raid

True to The Dark Below’s love of dithering about, the Crota’s End raid was also a step backward relative to the Vault of Glass. It lacked the depth and pinnacling impact of its predecessor, never quite delivering the bang you’d expect from new end-game content. More importantly, it doesn’t foster a sense of group effort.

Still, it’s not all bad. The first half of it is quite good, actually—at least, if you play it legitimately. However, even in the first stage, the Thrall run, the overarching problem crops up: pinning too much on a single player. Raids are meant to be cooperative experiences, massive challenges only surmountable by working as a team. Yet every part of Crota’s End can be and has been completed by a single player. This reflects an inappropriately linear approach to design not present in the Vault of Glass.

In the Thrall run, Hunters can use the Bladedancer’s invisibility perks to bypass the entire arena. The run’s Weight of Darkness debuff, coupled with the rejuvenating lanterns which dot the bleak landscape, creates an interesting balancing act. But it’s just a backdrop. By having one player run the entire gauntlet alone, any team with a Hunter (or a Titan skilled with AoE grenades) can skip the stage outright.

Then there’s the bridge, which can be skipped with any number of exploits, most of which have yet to be patched despite the wealth of fixes that have come to the raid. Sunsinger’s self-resurrection ability, clever climbing, “sword gliding” across the arena—the list goes on. The fact of the matter is, any class can solo this portion of Crota’s End, which is a damning flaw for any raid. Here again, the proper method can just as easily be experienced, but at this point you’d have a hard time finding a raider that hasn’t used “cheese” methods more than the actual ones.

Next up, the Deathsinger, whose claim to fame is the infinitely innovative timer. A stop watch, a lit fuse. That’s it. Well, that and “shoot the dudes,” but we get enough of that elsewhere. The Deathsinger fight would be the weakest portion of the raid were it not for Crota himself, who relegates all but one fireteam member—the one with the sword—to monotonous support roles, which returns to the heart of the issue with Crota’s End. Worse still, there’s nothing new to him, nothing at all to distinguish Crota from such bullet sponges as Valus Ta’aurc. You just shoot him. If anything, he’s more annoying simply because you also have to wait to shoot him.

Compare all that to the Vault of Glass, in which players have to carefully delegate in order to succeed. Atheon himself is a more complex and engaging fight than Crota, not only because all participants are equally important, but because he is mechanically more diverse. In Crota’s End, one player hits Crota with a sword, and the rest kill two or three Swordbearers and break Crota’s shield two or three times. And that’s it; that’s the final boss. Against Atheon, you have Harpies to worry about, a Relic to juggle, a shield to maintain, teleportation to monitor, locations to call out—a far cry more than dudes to shoot. It feels more like a boss should, like a final exam Frankenstein-ed together from previous encounters.

The only area where Crota’s End surpasses the Vault of Glass is in a bug competition. As a January 2015 update shows, the raid launched with such issues as no-show Shriekers preventing Deathsinger completion, double-spawning Swordbearers at Crota, and utter disregard for the completion of the bridge. The writing is on the wall: These are very detectable problems that should not be included in anything a producer asks consumers to pay for. That said, it’s fair to pardon the granddaddy of all cheeses—bugging Crota by having the fireteam leader sever their Internet connection—because it’s not of the criteria likely to be scrutinized in play testing. But that does not excuse the clear absence of adequate quality assurance.

But, and that’s a humongous but, at the very least the Crota’s End raid did introduce curated, or “smart,” loot systems. Designed to normalize Raid rewards, these loot tables decreased the odds of receiving duplicate items. However, the scale behind it proved insufficient, as hunting specific items in The Dark Below was still a throw of the die. Stranger still, this undeniably better system was never applied to the Vault of Glass, which spawned the infamous “Forever 29” hunt for a full raid set.

Back to square one

There’s a theme to The Dark Below, but it isn’t Hive and it isn’t expansion. Indeed, The Dark Below didn’t expand anything; it just recolored Destiny. Pre-Dark Below content and equipment became pointless, almost incompatible. To make matters worse, the expansion changed everything without actually changing anything. There were no new planets, to the dismay of many Guardians’ Christmas lists. There was no groundbreaking narrative structure. There were three story missions, one Strike and one very broken Raid. In the end, all The Dark Below did was charge $20 to rearrange some furniture and affirm flaws already demonstrated.

Thankfully, the House of Wolves did a bang-up job, which we’ll explore in the next installment of Banifest Destiny. If you want to read the previous parts, check out the links below.

Part 1: Pre-release and vanilla

Editor's Note: The following is a continuation of GameZone's "Banifest Destiny," an in-depth analysis of the year-long journey of Destiny, how it came to become the game it is today, and what to expect with the release of The Taken King as we move into Year Two. You can read Part 1 of the series, which analyzes Destiny's pre-release and launch woes, here. Part 3, which delves into the House of Wolves underdog success, can be found here.

What is an expansion, really? What does one do that requires a different label than garden-variety DLC? I’m no expert, but if I were to guess, I’d say expand, to extend a game’s reach by adding meaningful content to the base. Now, expansions are actually fairly rare, especially on consoles. Few games can be expanded in a way that doesn’t constitute DLC, a sort of vestigial, if enjoyable add-on. MMORPGs are a common exception to the rule, and so too is Destiny, which at least puts MMO somewhere on its resumé.

What’s strange is that Destiny’s expansions have been seen as reactionary. They were made not just because the game could be built on, but because it absolutely needed to be. The four-planet sandbox that is the base burns out quick and is riddled with problems. Together with its remarkably durable fun factor, this left players hungry for something new in addition to something more.

Enter The Dark Below, the first in an apparently long line of Destiny expansions. To be fair, it had a big shadow to fill. Caged by the initial Light level and leashed by the original activities, players wanted to strike out into new territory. They wanted new environments, something to put some pep in the game’s universe. New planets were at the top of most wish lists, just edging out new stuff. Gear, activities—goals, really, were what people wanted, something new to conquer and strive for. Unfortunately, The Dark Below’s printer was low on ink, so it only saw bits and pieces of the list of player expectations.

Promise? Promise.

At least its heart was in the right place on paper. The Dark Below was said to address much of the criticism levied against Destiny, including, most importantly, the uproar surrounding its story. In an October 2014 interview with Eurogamer, Bungie President Harold Ryan outlined The Dark Below’s allegedly new take on storytelling, and how it would fix past blunders.

“Looking at how the exotic quests work, like the Thorn quest, was the inspiration for how we’re attempting to tell the story in this expansion,” Ryan said. “And so it’s going to feel much more emergent and interactive in the world as you play through and unlock the story of Eris.”

Grounding The Dark Below’s narrative within a single character, Eris, was a solid idea. Part of the original story’s problem was its mixed and undetailed cast. Vendors were every bit as fleshed out as pivotal characters—which is to say, not at all. Putting all The Dark Below’s eggs in Eris’ basket would, in theory, prevent this, and let the expansion properly explore her.

Eris’ story would also address the way Destiny handles exposition. “It’s going to feel much more loot driven and story driven in that it’s going to feel faster-paced with more action as you go through it, and with exposition,” Ryan said. “The important thing about Eris is, this story is going to be her story, and she’s going to send you on a mission that’s a lot of fun.”

Much of Ryan’s answer is, somewhat unsurprisingly, PR gobbledygook. But the underlying point is there: Eris’ story would be blended with gameplay more artfully, and with the help of added cut scenes. It should feel more like a character arc and less like a to-do list. It should, but it didn’t.

This is partially due to the biggest flaw inherent to MMO (and MMO-lite) storytelling, which I’ll call the needle stack problem. Like many games, Destiny insists that you are the last defense against the Darkness, “the only one who can stop them” or something similar. In a single player game, that’s fine. It’s fun being the chosen one. Not so when you’re surrounded by literally millions of other chosen ones. As a result, much of Eris’ character—her struggle against the Hive and the urgency of her quest—falls flat, because you know in the back of your mind that any old jagoff would do. Suspending disbelief is a difficult task in many games, but for one as narratively starved as Destiny, it’s impossible.

The other problem was The Dark Below’s failure to up the ante enough. It isn’t hard to raise the bar when it’s on the floor, but you shouldn’t stop at a few inches because of it. The expansion features a mere three story missions, one new strike and the Crota’s End raid (along with some Crucible maps which aren’t really relevant here). That just isn’t enough space to tell a worthwhile story, especially when you’re in the needle stack, so Eris comes across as little more than your everyday quest-giver.

Read on for more on The Dark Below's crafting systems, and the merits of its Raid, Crota's End.