I am currently away from my PS4, meaning I am making zero progress in grinding out my last two Solstice of Heroes armor sets. But given that it’s not even a week into the event yet, I’m not worried about finishing by September.
But the event has made me reflect a bit on Destiny 2, and allowed me to see some good and bad things with the current state of the game ahead of Forsaken. Solstice essentially makes you play every aspect of the game, different activities with different classes and weapons, and I’ve come to a few realizations as a result.
1. Sometimes, Silence is Golden
One of the most interesting things about the redux missions is not their difficulty, but the fact that all mission dialogue has been completely stripped out of them. Part of that is probably due to the fact that some of the objectives have changed (the end of Homecoming for instance, is not about disabling the ship, but instead fighting a boss battle, so the dialogue prompts wouldn’t make sense), but it also helps with the general mood of the event.
Most noticeably, these missions are much improved without constant Ghost quips in your ear, which are impossible to avoid in almost any other story content. I’m not saying Ghost should never speak again (wellllll), but I do think sometimes less is more when it comes to presentation, and these redux missions prove that.
2. There are Fun Builds You’ve Probably Never Tried Before
Some of the objectives for Solstice force you to think outside of the box. Hunter solar melee kills, for instance, could have you running around with a sword, sure, but I actually built something which used the refill-on-headshot throwing knife, the double knife exotic chest (Ophelia Spite? That doesn’t sound right), and then the dodge-near-enemies-to-reset-melee node, which gives you two knives per refill for a chance at continued headshots.
That was….actually a lot of fun to use. No, it didn’t convince me that throwing knives don’t still need a buff (they definitely do), but I do think it shows that there are a lot of builds out there that are a lot of fun we’ve just never really tried before, and with a bit of buffing on Bungie’s end, could really help with build diversity overall.
3. Some Things Are In Painful Need Of Buffing
I’m speaking mainly about two subclasses you’ll be forced to use as you play, Warlock’s Stormcaller and Hunter’s Golden Gun, which are just dramatically lagging behind their rival classes.
I’m not sure what exactly Forsaken will bring in terms of changes to these existing subclasses while adding all its new supers, but there’s work to be done to make these two remotely viable. Stormcaller is probably 10% as effective as Arcstrider, and Hunter’s Golden Gun is out-damaged by pretty much every single power weapon many times over. It’s ridiculous.
4. We Need More Reasons to Run Alternate Content More Often
Because of these objectives for the armor sets, this is the first time I’ve done an adventure since Warmind launched (and I got my Huckleberry catalyst), and the first time I’ve consciously completed area/activity challenges and patrols in eons.
I get that these are “easy” activities, so I’m not asking them to be linked to endgame gear, but I do think the game needs to give us a reason to do these kinds of activities at least sometimes to mix things up, because a handful of tokens really isn’t cutting it. Solstice has gotten me to re-explore almost every inch of the map, and I’d like to be able to do that more often rather than just running strikes and Crucible until my eyes bleed.
5. We Need Armor Sets with True Bonuses
The Solstice armor set is one of the first armor sets in the game where equipping all the pieces actually provides a useful bonus, the spawning and collection of elemental orbs. It’s an interesting alternative to the usual “four random pieces and an exotic” set, and I really think that more could be done with set bonuses in the future like we see in games like Diablo and The Division. You would have to choose between one powerful exotic, or one useful set bonus, and I think there’s a lot of potential for interesting gear here. And lord knows non-exotic armor is painfully uninteresting right now. I hope this is the start of a larger trend.
Those are my thoughts, what about yours?
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
