Since it has been discussed at length that Destiny 2 will be a complete character reboot and while very few people posting on the forums seem to think this is a fair or justified course of action, I believe it could be under the right circumstances. If our progress is going to be totally wiped, I believe an acceptable method would be if something catastrophic occurs at the beginning of Destiny 2 that we can somehow reverse slowly over time of a long campaign. It is no small fact that Destiny’s story was severely lacking until the Taken King expansion and then again it fell short in its possibilities with the Rise of Iron. One idea I recently read about involving Destiny, and really popular video games as a whole, is the concept of failure. Destiny pitches multiple apocalyptically bad scenarios and enemies at us over the course of its 3 year run time, but all these villains (ie Black Garden, Crota’s generals, Skolas’s capture after summoning House of Wolves through time, Oryx, and Siva Devils and Iron Lord Mutants) fall to us in single player campaign extremely quickly and easily. And while for the sake of using all these events as stepping stones to get players to “Endgame level” PvE content involving the raids or Prison of Elders was a good idea, we need a formula change. Why, if each of these threats are truly the worst the thing the City has ever seen, are we able to stroll through in a 30 mins or less and maybe a few deaths, with very few follow up consequences. Sure some of the strikes we did like facing the Undying Mind, Restorative Mind, and Kovik help to do clean up to these threats but in no way are these truly challenging enough to force us Guardians to retreat, regroup and adapt. The closest we come to this idea, and this is why its successful story was a hit, was the Taken King come to seek revenge. With this evil introduced, we saw the destruction of the Awoken armada, a true setback for the Guardian’s allies established in our small universe. And what did we do as Guardians? We learned a new set of skills in the new subclasses, and those missions stylized with lore and cinematics are perfect. We need more of this in Destiny 2. We need threats that result from our actions throughout all of Destiny and we need to find ways to adapt to these threats, may it be new subclass ideas, new destinations to discover new teachers and equipment, or new paths to teach us how to use the Traveler’s Light. So here are my thoughts on how Destiny’s sequel could be an improvement and continuation of our story while tying up some loose ends. Many of these ideas are not my own in original concept and the path of execution, I will base off of experiences in other games; I’m not taking credit for these ideas, I’m just putting my thoughts out there for the continuation of the discussion on the game that we all play and enjoy, even if we don’t always admit it. [spoiler]Addressing the past as the first thing in Destiny 2 a. Assuming we can choose one of the three current Guardian classes, we open into Destiny 2 by picking a class. And this is simply picking, Titan, Warlock, Hunter. For returning players, I’ll discuss how I think we can carry our characters over into the sequel a little later. Upon picking a class we are drawn into a voiceover cinematic, describing the characteristics of our chosen class, and dropped into our first mission. A mission focusing on our Vanguard leader counterparts. b. For each Vanguard leader, (Zavala, Ikora, Cayade-6) a story mission involving their past accomplishments, demonstrating how they became selected for their leadership positions at the start of Destiny. c. A mission involving Zavala and the Battle of Twilight Gap would be an awesome experience. A battle that truly defined the future of the city would be incredible to see from the front lines. Even if this battle could be seen through the eyes of a random titan on the battlefield, but one that fights along Lord Shaxx and Commander Zavala, this is an event I would bet every Guardian would love. But even if this was just a cinematic, it would still be spectacular. Given the 3 Titan subclasses we can use now, imagine the tactics of Titans standing before a sea of advancing Fallen. Defenders laying down a solid wall of bubbles, with Armor bubbles on the front and a second line of bubbles with Blessings and Weapons of Lights. Strikers advance through the layers of bubbles, slamming the first waves of Fallen in craters of Havoc Arc light. With the front lines decimated and disorganized, Sunbreakers leap through the buffing Defender bubbles and rain exploding Hammers across the battlefield to obliterate the milling masses of Eliksni…. d. For the start of a hunter campaign, Cayde-6 embarking on a daring hunt/assassination in the wilds of Venus, cracking wise with his enemies as he cuts them down swiftly, smoothly as the rogue we’ve all envisioned him to be. But while he seems in perfect control of his surroundings, we get flashes of his past memories, the reasons behind all his playing cards, of his life’s choices that forced him to become an Exo. Cayde’s story is laid out before us, how this great hunter accepted his position of leadership through a dare, while being able to play through one of his last truly free moments as the independent legend we know him to be. e. Ikora Rey…. I admit this one I haven’t been able to give much thought to. Her mystery would be wonderful to explore, from her rebellious ways as one of the strongest competitors in the Crucible, to the wanderer that gained unknown wisdom throughout the solar system. Perhaps a mission where she communes with powers still unknown to us, or how she learned the value of teamwork by gathering her Hidden and strategically placing them throughout our solar system, especially in places we have not traveled to yet in this current Destiny universe. f. While none of these ideas are fully flushed out, mostly because I’m not the greatest lore scholar, all three stylized missions would be lengthy, hopefully with multiple short cut scenes and at least one longer shot with sustained dialogue. And the purpose of these story missions…to give us a stronger emotional connection to the roots of these characters and to improve the lore from the first Destiny. Now I realize that this approach would be mostly for the benefit of returning players of the Destiny universe and probably won’t have the same level of impact on brand new players to a sequel. But while I believe Bungie should include many elements to draw new players to their product, the need to appease the returning masses first, after all we are the ones who have funded their first 3 years through Vanilla, DLC’s and now micro-transactions. I say we deserve this nostalgic Vanguard/City send-off to lift us up…because the idea that I saw in the forums a few months back is what I believe absolutely must happen immediately after these opening missions.[/spoiler] I realize this is quite long and I will have follow up posts to add to this but they are broken up due to there length. I know i couldnt fit the reat here, so look for my contd post with the same title. Thoughts? [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/218324006?sort=0&page=0[/url]